Title: Walkabout - Voyage of Rediscovery 10?
Author: Mike McD Rating: R Summary: Two bitter and lost souls on rock bottom decide to go Walkabout. Two years after 'Chosen.
Distribution: Anywhere, just let me know.
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor do I own any other characters. This is a work of fiction written for fun and enjoyment.
WARNING!!!
If you don't like fics with some Buffy bashing then move along now. Everyone else, enjoy.
Once Willow had got her licence the next day, she and Xander headed to the car dealerships for a new set of wheels. They had contemplated renting a vehicle for their journey but in the end decided that they would buy one instead. It gave them the satisfaction of knowing it was theirs.
They ended up buying a Land Cruiser Sahara and Willow joked that they would have to buy a stepladder for her to get in and out of the beast. With the extras that Xander had insisted on, they had to wait a week before they could take delivery of the Cruiser. This suited Xander just fine as the week would give them time to plan their trip.
The week also gave Willow a chance to engage in some serious power shopping in anticipation of their trip.
It was funny; ten years ago Willow never showed much enthusiasm for shopping. Not that Xander blamed her for it, Willow's mom would insist on going with her and that was a drag at the best of times. Willow loved her mom but Shelia and Willow Rosenberg were no Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
But exposure to hardcore shop-a-holics such as Buffy and Cordelia had awakened Willow's hither to dormant shopping gene. Having been dragged into countless stores by every female Scooby at one stage or another, Xander had to admit that shopping with Willow wasn't too bad. She wasn't the most enjoyable Scooby female to shop with (Tara would forever hold that honour) but he loved to see her smile.
Her smiles used to come so easy and so readily. These days, her smiles were fewer and hard won.
So were his.
Seeing a big, genuine smile on her face made Xander feel warm inside in a way he hadn't felt for years and he silently vowed to try to get her smile like that at least once a day.
But not if it meant taking her shopping everyday.
"Are you sure we've got enough gear? I'm pretty sure that I could find some room for more emergency water if I ditch my suitcase and all the clothes therein."
"Very funny, Xander."
"I'm dead serious, Wills. You've got more camping and survival gear here than a troop of boy scouts and enough food and water to see us into the next century."
Willow had packed the Cruiser solid with gear and food in anticipation of their trip.
"It's just in case we run into trouble out in the middle of nowhere."
Xander opened his mouth to enquire just what kind of trouble she was expecting, but shut it quickly in an effort to avoid an argument. They had everything they needed (and them some) and Xander was anxious to get started on the trip.
"Fine. Are you sure you've got everything?" he asked her. Willow nodded.
"I triple checked. What about you?"
"I'm good to go." Xander assured.
"Then let's do it."
Xander smirked and Willow whacked him on the arm.
"What was that for?" he protested, fanning his innocence as he rubbed the sore spot.
"You know exactly what that was for, gutter brain. Get in the car and drive." Willow ordered, suppressing her own smirk. Xander saluted and got behind the wheel.
"Aye, aye, Captain Willow!"
Willow rolled her eyes.
"This is gonna be a long, LONG trip."
They headed north to their first destination, the coastal town of Geraldton, which was about 300 miles north of Perth. A little smaller than the now departed Sunnydale, it never the less had the same relaxed atmosphere that Willow and Xander remembered growing up in their pre Buffy days.
"You're not getting any hellmouthy vibes here, are you?" a slightly worried Xander asked. The last thing he wanted was to end up fighting for his life on the antipodal version of the hellmouth.
"Nothing. Not even the quiver of a healing crystal. Plus, if you look at the map, you'll notice only one cemetery and the high school is in one piece. I'm pretty sure we're safe here."
That pronouncement started to look shaky when they discovered St Francis Xavier Cathedral. A grandiose Byzantine style building, designed by a priest who ended up becoming a hermit on a Caribbean island, it was totally out of place in a small town like Geraldton.
It gave the two ex Scoobies a major case of the wiggins.
Geraldton's other (and slightly less wigging) claim to fame was the Bratavia. The Bratavia was a Dutch sailing ship that ran around just off the coast of what is now Geraldton. The survivors set up camp on some islands off the coast and sent the surviving ships boat to head to what is now Jakarta and bring a rescue party. It took three months for a rescue party to arrive and in the mean time a mutiny of the survivors on the islands saw 120 of their number murdered. The ringleaders were hung and two of the mutineers were dumped on the coast, never to be seen again.
By unspoken agreement, Willow and Xander decided to cross sailing off their list of things to do.
Lunchtime the next day saw Willow drive them to the HMAS SYDNEY memorial on Mount Scott. The memorial, overlooking the ocean where the SYDNEY had been lost with all 645 men during WWII, was a tranquil spot for the two to have their lunch.
"What happened between you and Buffy? When we left Sunnydale you two were best buddies. These days you haven't got a kind word to say about her." Xander enquired, taking a bite out of his sandwich.
"I was wondering when you'd get around to asking that."
"I thought you'd tell me when you were ready." He explained with a mouth full of food.
"So why are you asking now?"
"Got impatent. So spill, why the lack of kind words for the Buff?"
"I seem to recall a big inspirational 'I've seen her heart' speech somebody made once." Willow reminded.
"Yeah, but I've had two years to think, and besides, God knows the potentials needed some inspiration after weeks of Field Marshal Von Buffy's 'everybody sucks but me' rants."
Willow sighed and put her sandwich down on the bench.
"I was in Mexico City sending a couple of new Slayers off to the Slayer School that Buffy and The Immortal had set up in Rome, when I ran into Oz."
"Oz? How is he?"
"Dead."
Xander did a double take at the news.
"Oz is dead? When? How?"
"I'm getting to that. So, here I am at the airport, my girlfriend's back in Rio, and I run into my ex boyfriend. A little awkward to start with but pretty soon we're catching up and it's all happy. I asked him what he was doing here.
"Turns out that some crime gang has started expanding in the demon world and lots of demons are being taken out, especially the peaceful, non violent types. Oz lost a couple of friends and he was tracking down who was taking them out."
"I'm not liking where this is heading." Xander mumbled.
"What do you know about The Immortal?" Willow asked him. Xander shrugged.
"Not much. He's rich, immortal, not exactly human, boning Buffy. Not much more than that."
"Well, he's rich alright. Huge house in the middle of Rome, biggest private collection of Leonardo de Vinci artefacts in the world. He's also the Godfather of an underworld demonic crime gang. Oz found out that the Slayers we've been sending to Buffy in Rome are being used to take out the competition and put fear into the rest of the underworld."
Xander's shoulders slumped and he buried his face in his hands.
"I've been helping recruit an army of Slayers to work for a demonic Mafia."
Willow put her arm around her friend and consoled him.
"You weren't to know. None of us knew."
After a while, Xander looked up.
"So what happened next?" asked Xander.
"Oz needed to get more proof and he headed for Poland. I flew to Rome to see Buffy and tried to tell her what her boyfriend was up to. You know what she said?"
"Somehow I doubt the words 'I believe you' are on the cards."
"She asked me if I had been talking to you."
"Me?"
"Yeah, because apparently that's the sort of thing you'd say out of jealousy, according to her."
"SHE SAID FUCKING WHAT?" Xander exploded.
"It gets better. When I told her I hadn't spoken to you since we left the states, she accused ME of jealousy and told me to forget it as she didn't swing that way. We got into a massive argument which ended with me getting kicked out of the house and told never to come back again."
Xander's hands were balled into fists as he raged at his one time friend.
"I'll fucking kill her."
Willow tried to calm him down.
"I don't think Buffy's in her right mind. I think The Immortal is controlling her or messing with her mind or something. I went to Giles to tell him what was going on and he ummed and ahhed and said he'd look into the matter. I was getting nowhere so I headed back to Rio. A week later, a friend of Oz calls and tells me that Oz had been found dead in St Petersburg. Apparent suicide."
It was clear by the tone of her voice what she thought of the 'apparent suicide'.
"So why didn't you go charging in and make with the witch-fu on her ass?"
Willow waved the question of.
"What's the point? I'd already duked it out with Buffy once before. Giles wasn't any help, you were AWOL in Africa, and I couldn't take on a demonic Mafia by myself without going all vein-y and destroying the world.
"So I gave up. I went back to Kennedy and started sending all the Slayers I could find to Faith and Wood in Cleveland. After Kennedy died, I headed to New York to see Mom and Dad."
"How are they?" Xander liked Willow's parents far more than he ever liked his own. Both families made it out of Sunnydale in the final days. Willow's headed to New York to start again, while Xander's got as far as Vegas.
"Good. Dad's taken up a partnership with Uncle Benny and Mom's working at NYU. They knew that I'd lost everything in Sunnydale and so they gave me a couple of photo albums that they'd brought with them. In one of them was that picture of us. You know the rest of the story."
Xander felt old and worn out. He was tired; tired of fighting, tired of the constant struggle. Watching the waves rolling across the Indian Ocean and the vista of the town below them, a thought came to his mind.
"Donkey Kong."
Willow stared at him, wondering what the hell he was taking about.
"You remember back when we were little and your parents brought you that Donkey Kong game?"
Willow snorted.
"Ugh! Stupid game. Between you and me, it's a wonder that our little thumbs didn't fall off." Grumbled the redhead. The two of them had been obsessed with the game.
"This... us... the whole Scooby lifestyle. It's like Donkey Kong."
Willow couldn't follow Xander's logic.
"You wanna fill in some blanks here, because right now we're entering Crazy Town, population: you."
"It's like Donkey Kong. You've got this big bad hurling these barrels at you. Two steps forward, three steps back, jump and dodge the barrels and make your way to the top to take out the big bad. If you're lucky and you survive long enough, you'll end defeating the big ape.
"But here's the thing. You might have taken out the big guy and got the girl, but then you end up back at square one again, only this time it gets harder. The barrels come down faster and harder. Jessie's death, Buffy's death, Jenny's death, Joyce, Buffy, Tara, Anya, Cordelia, Kennedy, Oz... faster and harder. And each victory brings a new face to that mad monkey. The Master, The Anointed One, Angelus, the Mayor, Adam, Glory, Spike, the Nerds..."
"Me." Willow added softly.
"Yeah, you too." He had to admit. "And now it's Buffy and her new man. Each time it gets harder and harder, faster and faster. No matter how good you are, no matter how many times you clock the score, it never ends. And you remember what happened? We walked away from it. Gave the game to someone else to play it and found something else to do.
"We could fight Buffy; we could fight The Immortal and his demon Mafia. But even if we won then there'll always be a never ending line big bad evil to fight. You might be a kick ass witch but you're human, just like me.
"I'm tired, Willow. Tired of the fight and I can see you're tired of it too. It's time we walk away from the game. Let somebody else fight the good fight. We're finding something else to do with our lives."
The pair sat in silence, watching the never-ending procession of wave crash upon the shore as they had done for untold years before and would do for untold years after.
"So, you've come up with any ideas what we should do with our lives?" Xander asked.
"Not really. But I'm kinda hoping that whatever it is, it'll include my best friend."
Xander sniffed theatrically and wiped away a non-existent tear from his non-existent eye.
"That's just so sweet of you! Awww!"
"You big dufus!" Willow squealed and shoved him. The shove was returned and a playful wresting match broke out.
Xander had got his Willow smile for the day.