walkswithheroes | (no subject)

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spike

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A portal on the island almost traps three people on the other side.

When Fred thinks about it, it's something she should have been terrified of. A portal's what sent her to Pylea, what tried to drag her through another time back home, what sent her here. She should have been terrified of it, but she wasn't. Mostly, Fred had been too excited at the possibility of getting somewhere else.

And maybe the portal's fried now, but it's something. It's a start. And it's further than she's gotten in her year on the island.

The excitement hasn't worn off when she goes to find Spike, and there's probably a spring in her step too.

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"Somewhere where, exactly?" he said, a bit of a frown tugging at his features, thinking of that bit of hell they'd glimpsed at on the day that Buffy sacrificed herself. Thinking of the stories he'd heard about Fred's time in Pylea.

"Not that I'm not excited for you, love, and whatever spark of scientific genius was just unleashed, but in my experience, that sort of thing always ends messy."

"Yeah... there was creature splatter. This didn't exactly end cleanly either," Fred replies, frowning at the memory. Strangely enough, Los Angeles had prepared her for her share of being splattered with various creature goos.

"I don't think anyone knows for sure. It wasn't any of our home dimensions, at least." Of course, that doesn't meant that it can't ever be someone's home dimension.

"In that case, 's a shame I missed it," Spike admitted with a bit of a frown, though it was a playful one.

"That's what you want? To send us all back where we came from?"

"Don't you?" Fred asks him, "We all got brought here against our will. People who want to go home should be able to make that choice."

Nobody liked to be trapped, least of all Fred.

"'Course I do. But the world was set to end bloody, when I left. Buffy'd run off with that pounce, The Immortal, and you... Well, let's put it this way, as caged as we all are, here, I can't say that I'm geared up to let the demon back in. Gotten used to it just bein' me, in 'ere," he said, tapping a fingertip against his chest.

"But I suppose we've all got work to do. The island's keeping us from all that."

"There was an apocalypse on the way when I left," Fred replies, remembering the prophecy she'd helped figure out. Maybe having an article published in a scientific journal had been a nice distraction, but there hadn't been any doubt that there was something big and scary on the way.

"I'm just saying, people who want to leave should be able to."

"Have a feeling you averted that one, love. I came from a good year or so after you, and the world had found itself rattling through a shiny new throes of death," Spike, though to be fair, he was convinced it was all one long slide into fiery hell, broken up by rare moments of calm.

"No argument there. Given the choice, I'd go back. I'd go back in a heartbeat. My very last heartbeat, since we all know this lapse into humanity's only going to stick while I'm here."

"Maybe," she says, humoring him more than anything else, "Or maybe things don't go the way they're supposed to on account of me not being there."

They come from different dimensions. There's a very good chance that what happens in his dimension doesn't necessarily happen in hers, so whether or not the crisis is actually averted back home is up for debate.

"So, you go back, and you save the world. Hopefully sooner, rather than later."

They all went back, eventually, but he did believe that if anyone could think their way out of an apocalypse, it'd be her.

"That's the plan," Fred replies. Well, hopefully, anyway. It's all incredibly theoretical, even down to the going back part. As promising as a working portal on the island may be, there's still an inordinate amount of work to be done.

Of course, the idea of going home comes with a lot more baggage than did a year ago. Going home means leaving a lot more behind than she wants to admit.

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