*Okay, time to get things started here.*

As he sat in the back of the car racing through the desert country, Xander Harris wasn't really looking forward to the moment when he'd have to phase out of his currently intangible form to rejoin the material world. Judging from the way the heads and upper bodies of the two women in the front seats of the '66 Thunderbird convertible were bouncing and jerking, both up and down and from side to side, as their vehicle drove at its top speed over the rough terrain, it was clearly a hell of a ride.

Glancing over his shoulder, the one-eyed man resignedly noted that virtually every cop car in the entire state was indeed in hot pursuit, spread out in a line at least a mile wide, and sending up a massive dust cloud behind themselves as they also hurtled after their quarry. All of the chasing automobiles had their light bars on, sending flashing bursts of illumination in all directions. He couldn't hear anything in his present state of being insubstantial and invisible, but from what he remembered at this point in the movie, the sirens of every single police vehicle back there were loudly blaring, which seemed to be a bit excessive at this moment to Xander. What did they think, that the local jackrabbit population actually needed to be warned to pull over to the side of the road and let them pass?

A large shadow swept over the careering automobile, and the pair of fugitives in their front seats instinctively ducked. Xander looked up to witness a police helicopter slow down to fly over and alongside the car below racing in its hopeless escape attempt. Bringing down his gaze to study how the shoulders of the women unknowingly sharing their classic Ford with him then simultaneously slumped in despair, Xander nodded to himself. It had to be absolutely clear to them now, those women whose lives had turned completely upside down over the past few days, that there was no longer any possible means for Thelma Dickinson and Louise Sawyer to make a successful getaway.

Which was at the point where a dashingly-handsome New Council recruiter came in, natch.

Making sure his mouth was firmly closed so that he wouldn't bite through his tongue during the first few seconds, Xander tapped his belt buckle in the proper fashion that Willow had shown him, just after she'd placed the necessary spell upon this object of clothing, and the young man then materialized onto the back seat of the open-top convertible.

Instantly, Xander was hit with a combined blast of noise, wind, and bodily shocks, as he frantically held on for dear life. The heaving and lurching of the Thunderbird as it drove over the rough desert ground was bad enough, but the rest wasn't all that much fun, either. Xander hastily closed his remaining eye nearly shut, but he was still blinded anyway by the sudden tears produced by the rushing air passing by at freeway speeds and hitting the man right in his face. Wincing at the screaming howl of a car engine pushed well past any sane motoring limits, Xander estimated how loudly he'd have to shout over that sound, and then the former Sunnydale resident opened his mouth.

Grimly staring straight ahead, both Thelma and Louise heard from directly behind themselves, totally out of the blue, a very cheerful yell:

"HELLO, LADIES!"

An astonished Thelma in her passenger seat promptly twisted her head and entire body halfway around, to see sprawled out in the back seat of their car, a complete stranger who shouldn't have possibly been there, much less grinning at both of the flabbergasted women staring at this man with a black eyepatch. Yes, Louise was also gawking over her shoulder at their totally unexpected visitor, but then that waitress suddenly remembered something that should have also occurred a fraction of a second ago, and she hastily spun her head back to disbelievingly regard not only the steering wheel gripped in her hands, but also the brake pedal down on the car's floor.

Repeating her automatic actions just a moment before when she'd heard that unforeseen voice coming from behind, Louise again stomped on the brake and tried to turn the steering wheel. All to absolutely no avail. There seemed to be some kind of unseen force holding those automobile parts utterly immobile, leaving Louise unable to exert any form of control over her car. Instantly linking this bizarre event to the equally weird appearance of that guy in the back seat, the curly-haired woman again hastily looked over her shoulder, to see this man calmly watching her.

In his head, Xander was mentally congratulating himself for getting Willow to whip up a spell that'd keep the Thunderbird from being wrecked if the driver had been naturally startled by Xander's incredible appearance from thin air, so that she would've unthinkingly done something that would have surely caused an accident. Now, for the next couple of minutes, the car would automatically drive itself, straight ahead at its present rate of speed, giving Xander enough time to tell his story and allow the women incredulously listening to this a chance to make an entirely different choice from what was coming up fast a few miles ahead.

Seeing the open mouths of Louise and Thelma, who were clearly about to demand some kind of explanation, the man quickly introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Xander Harris, and I've got an offer for you both! Now, here's the thing: I'm from another dimension-"

A minute or two later, Thelma was dazedly watching how this Xander guy was waving his right hand in front of himself, to produce an effect of various parts of his body turning transparent, which was a result of what that one-eyed man called a 'glamour' spell. Apparently, this piece of real, honest-to-goodness magic was also making sure that nobody in the police vehicles hot on their tail would see that the two women had somehow picked up a passenger. This same person had presently just upended his listeners' entire existence with his short speech about the New Council in another reality, and an equally hurried offer for the fugitives to leave behind their current predicament. Otherwise, things were without a doubt not going to end happily for Thelma and Louise.

About that… Thelma now glanced over at where Louise was, and the younger woman's attention abruptly became caught in her sheer horror at what she was seeing there.

Tensely holding the steering wheel despite there being no actual point in this, Louise was staring straight ahead, hopelessly weeping, while also moaning to herself, "I c-can't go through with it, not getting away scot-free. I've done too much, had too much done to me. I'm so, so tired of it all-"

Knowing this was a pivotal moment, Xander promptly leaned forward from his position in the back seat, putting his mouth just a few inches from Louise's right ear, as he then spoke directly from the heart:

"Louise, believe me, lots of people in the New Council know all about having shitty lives and the resulting bad decisions that wind up in events spiraling out of control, ending up with being locked into the kind of mindset that insists there's no good way out, except for every possible type of running away. But…we also know about atonement and redemption, even when it's the hardest thing in the world, asking too much of yourself, or even worse, too little or being unable to see how this makes any kind of difference. Right now, I'm not offering you a card that says 'Get Out Of Jail Free'. Sooner or later, everybody pays for their actions, and it might not be in a court of law, but you'll one day have to confront what you've done, in front of the harshest judge ever: yourself."

Xander took a moment to gulp a quick breath, while he stared at the unmoving head of the woman in the driver's seat, who hadn't seemed to be paying attention. Praying this was untrue, the man determinedly continued speaking, "What helps the most then are your friends. Those people who've seen you at your absolute worse and still like and trust you enough to stay on your side and keep supporting you when you really need this. You rely on them, and they rely on you, because someday they'll screw up too, and at that time, you'll back them up to the gallow's foot, if necessary."

Just after Xander finished his last words, Louise abruptly turned her head, but she didn't look at him. Instead, the older woman with her tear-stained face stared across the front seat at Thelma smiling and nodding back at Louise, as that brunette allowed her own tears to trickle down her cheeks.

There was a single frozen moment, until Louise finally understood what she had in her life, and that woman instantly let go of her right hand from the steering wheel, holding out this hand towards Thelma, who immediately grasped this firmly in both of her hands, as the women rekindled between themselves an implicit vow of eternal friendship.

Sagging back in his seat, Xander blew out an immense sigh of relief. Not merely over the positive decision having been resolutely made in the front seat a moment ago, but from what would surely come of it all. For one, it appeared that he'd soon be heading back to another dimension's Cleveland with two more recruits for the New Council, which would make a lot of people there very, very happy. From what he'd heard in his last message from Willow a few days ago, enough catfights had resulted among the older Slayers worldwide that Giles had eventually been forced to set up a lottery for every one of those superhuman young women. The lucky winners, enough to fill up the entire auditorium at the Joyce Summers House For Exceptional Women, would be the first to hear directly from Thelma Dickinson just what it had been like to sleep with Brad Pitt.

Xander's mischievous smirking over that soon-to-be-scheduled supremely absurd event abruptly changed into an expression of appalled dread, as he now stared past the heads of the two women gazing into each others' eyes. A frantic coughing spell by Xander finally captured the attention of Louise and Thelma, as they turned in their seats to look in bewilderment at the man in the back of the car now having a very sickly smile upon his features.

As he apprehensively watched the oncoming horizon and the empty space beyond this approach at their vehicle's fastest speed, a remorseful Xander hastily explained to his aghast companions, "Uh, ladies, we're about to begin the really tricky part of our trip back to my home. See, it's not like we can just stop the car here in broad daylight and then you disappear into thin air right in front of a few zillion cops. We need a good reason why nobody ever finds any bodies, so, um, you better hang on…"

Twenty seconds later, Thelma and Louise were both screaming in absolute terror at the tops of their lungs, as the '66 Thunderbird reached the apex of its leap into an immense canyon, with their car about to plunge hundreds of feet to the hard ground below, and while he desperately clutched his magical charm that would definitely transport them all through the dimensions in time to avoid certain death (but not damp underwear), Xander Harris added his own manly shriek:

"WILLOW, NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIIIII-!"