voice + action ✪ there must be some way to bring the hero home

[herotypical]

[ after a week of agonizing combat, buffy summers returns home with only exhaustion on her mind. despite all the excitement and crisis, there's little left to do other than collapse onto her bed and fall into a sleep fit for a weary, worn-out soul. morning sees her feeling no less -- shudder -- zombieish. the horror of the last week is bone-and-marrow deep and has yet to fully make itself known in her system. the slayer is running on auxillery humanity, stringing herself along from second to second until she can find a friendly face. find willow and...

and all she finds is an empty room. an empty closet. empty drawers. her best friend is gone. deported while she wasn't even looking. come the afternoon, after she's gotten the first onslaught of emotions out of her system, buffy sits alone on the empty bed. she addresses her journal: ]

Willow and I have this game we like to play. Willow Rosenberg. She was in town...but now she's not. [ a pause allows buffy to catch her breath. to stay strong. ] We call it 'Anywhere But Here' -- self-explanatory, really. Pick a fantasty-elsewhere to be and a fantasy-someone to share it with. I'm not talking about the obvious ones: home or family or anything even remotely whiffing of responsibility. I'm talking about fun. I'm talking about pure escapism. I'm talking Daniel Craig on the beach or Amy Yip at the waterpark.

I'll go first. Show you how it's done. [ but which escape route from reality should she take? ] The '88 Winter Olympics. The Saddledome. Calgary, of all places. Brian Boitano is taking the time to personally skate me through his gold medal routine. Perhaps there's hot chocolate involved. I, being made entirely of my own imagination, copy each move perfectly.

Got it? Good. Because now it's your turn.

[ when her broken little tribute to an absent friend is finished, she'll be searching out her injured pirate (wherever he may be convalescing) and it's off to good spirits, where she can be found working a shift behind the bar. ]

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[all7seas]

"I dreamed her," Jack went on. He was surprised at how much this sounded as though he were speaking of Joyce. "I saw her, with her parents. She was happy with them. I forgave her.



She'll come back one day. I wonder if she'll know..."

That I forgive her.

[herotypical]

Buffy didn't want the girl humanized. It undermined her plan to twist her into the villain: an example of what Buffy'd nearly become and could never allow herself to be. She'd done the same with Elizabeth when Elizabeth had moved in. Coming to terms with what the Pirate King had done to Jack would have required her to forgive herself for killing Angel. Buffy led others by example and led herself by others' examples. Cautionary tales created and enforced only in her own mind.

"She'll know," she said. Hollowly. Almost dispassionately. "How could she not?...After all you did."

Now who was the merciful one? Not her. Not her at all.

[all7seas]

"Dunno." A sigh. "Dunno, dunno. What we need's a bit of peace. Peace and me getting better and teaching you on your new boat."

[herotypical]

It was impossible to avoid forever -- all this whirling, massing emotion. Her words shook: "What are you gonna teach me first?"

[all7seas]

".......Annie?"

And it was impossible to miss all of that emotion cracking through.

[herotypical]

"I think...how the sails work. Where to put them to make the boat go this way and that. I can't believe I'm saying this but steering just seems a whole lot easier. Sails are...they're confusing. You have to admit it. Confusing in the same way playing pool's confusing. All those balls and all that physics and manoeuvres and none of it gets solved the way you expect it to.

You can't just hit the ball hard enough and know it'll go in. Likewise, you can't just blow a lot of air on a sail. It'd be so much simpler if you could."

Every word was just a race her tongue ran to get to the next.

[all7seas]

Jack tried to sit up. "Annie?






Right. How the sails work. I can show you."

[herotypical]

An unexpected perk of being super-strong was that solid, loving way you could keep someone in your arms. And not -- as he was doing -- trying to sit up.

"And how to work the charts. Because I'd really like to know where I'm going."

[all7seas]

"Nnnnf. Erm. Annie? You're caging me, and I want to see you, sweetlove."

[herotypical]

"No. Stay put. You? Shouldn't be moving. Slayer's orders. Just relax. Close your eyes."

And don't look at hers.

[all7seas]

"They've been closed, and I need more pills, me, and I want to see you." He tried to sit up once more. Pirate captains only SOMETIMES take orders from slayers.

[herotypical]

Although she released him from just one of her arms, it was mostly to free her hand up. She pinched the bridge of her nose. And then she threw Spike under the conversational bus -- almost counting on the vampire getting Jack's blood pressure up and shifting attention off of herself.

"Did you know Spike apparently dated Amelia Earhart?" A beat. "O-of course, you probably don't even know who she is...still -- talk about obnoxious name-dropping."

If it wasn't so damned sad, it would have been funny. Buffy was trying to distract Jack with an anecdote Spike had earlier used to distract her.

[all7seas]

The pirate ignored her; he was an expert at sidetracking conversational threads. He wasn't falling for it. "Please?" he asked, very quiet and rusty. He needed the pills, it was true; but Jack tried with a very undistracted hand to tilt her face toward his.

"Annie...?"

[herotypical]

"He said..." He saved me in that empty house he saved me again but I still can't feel safe around him. "He said she talked him into changing his look. Convinced him. Took pictures. A-after all, he can't just..."

That electric, yellowy light hit her very wet eyes. Buffy glanced anywhere but at his. "He can't just look at himself. Impossible."

[all7seas]

Oh God, had he...done something to her? Had Spike somehow -- on that draft?! She had been acting strangely after he'd discovered her with the vampire -- powerless -- in the ravaged town.

Rage bubbled up at the possibility, but Jack Sparrow adeptly kept it hidden.

"I love you. And I'm going to show you all the things about the boat. Your little boat. Savvy?"

[herotypical]

"...She doesn't even have a name. I can't settle on anything. I just can't settle."

Oh. His discretion surprised (and, in its own way, thrilled) her. An I love you and back to the subject at hand. It gave her just long enough to wrestle back control. Reclaim her face.

[all7seas]

"She'll name herself, then." He reached for the bottle of pills on the bedside table. "They do, sometimes."

[herotypical]

"...I wish I had your faith."

In boats. And -- for one night only, perhaps -- in people. Buffy shifted backwards just far enough to leave him the space needed. All the space he might require to scoop up his pills. And she made certain they were his pills he was after, and not the rest of the rum.

Her own mouthfuls were still burning in her belly.

"Because -- in my experience -- naming yourself takes a bit more self-awareness than what your average water-bound vessel possesses."

[all7seas]

"You've got to have faith in her, love," Jack insisted. He swallowed two of the pills, dry. There wasn't any water left. "I built her to be faithful to you. WE. We built her! She's true. And the name'll come."

[herotypical]

She winced -- in sympathy, perhaps, as she watched him swallow. Her cheeks were dry, now. Her eyes only a very slight reddish colour. The threat of crying, not the end result.

"You know," Buffy took the pill bottle away once he was done. She closed it for him. "I don't know what I would've done if..."

The girl's bullet hadn't have missed.

"If you didn't deign to teach me the sea-faring ways. I'd feel so left out."

[all7seas]

"I think I know, eh? I think you would've gone on bright and brave and wonderful anyhow."

[herotypical]

I wish I had your faith.

Buffy plumped up a pillow and settled back on her wings -- opening up the magazine she'd gotten for him and started reading it herself instead. "...God, we need a less depressing topic. Tell me -- what's the second thing on the to-do list? If the first is our little boat."

Our. Not her little boat. Our.

[all7seas]

"You get to choose the second thing."

[herotypical]

She flipped pages. Busy.

"...Ice-skating, of course. It's about that time."

[all7seas]

"Of course." Jack couldn't turn on his side; it put too much pressure on his chest, and that ached like mad, in spite of the pills. Instead he snugged as close to her as he could. Oh, the skating. What an angel she was on the ice. And she was happy. Happy when she skated. It was beautiful.

"Skating."