open ✘ the bird you'd sworn you'd given up.

[thehighestwing]

Here's a face you haven't seen in a while, Chicago.

It may have only been months, but for Phoebe Donovan it's been a full year

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[thehighestwing]

Phoebe has not seen Xander yet. She's still wondering herself whether this is real or not, as it's been a whole year. A whole year and why would she suddenly be brought back here and now? None of it makes sense, not that it made sense to start with--not that Phoebe's a great friend of sense-making things, but she's still trying to be reasonable.

As reasonable as Phoebe Donovan ever gets.

"Get out of the way, you idiot!"

Headlights flash before her and that gets her moving. She narrowly misses being hit by the hood of the car, and she backpedals further until she's in the sidewalk, nearly colliding with one Xander Harris in the process.

"For fluck's sake," she says under her breath, and she wipes at her tattered jeans, glancing back at the car that nearly ran her over. Some people don't have manners. Sure, she was in the middle of the street, but she was evidently very distressed.

Phoebe finally looks up to see what she nearly collided with again--better another person than a car--and her eyes widen once she sees him. A nearby lamppost illuminates his face and it's unmistakeable.

"Xander?" she asks, her voice hopeful and disbelieving at once. It's been a year, a little bit longer than that even, and the faces she'd been used to seeing every day are the faces she hasn't seen in a very long time. What are the odds she finally ends back up here and he's around to see it?

[xandtheman3]

Xander winces when the-- and the car. The car saw her. Well, the driver of the car saw her too. She has to be real unless he is hallucinating the car too. In which case, his hallucinations are getting way, way too elaborate, and he should probably just throw the towel in completely and let his mind make him believe whatever it wants.

He moves forward a the realization that it was her, that someone saw her and she's nearly getting hit. Xander reaches out her hands to keep her steady on her feet if he has to.

For fluck's sake.

Very Phoebe.

His brain could come up with those words too that she'd always say, but... but this is different. It's different because there was a car that saw her. It isn't just Xander seeing her, talking to her, interacting with her. There's another person involved so she can't be a hallucination.

"The... one and only. Hey, Pheebs," Xander breathes out for a half second while his brain catches up with the rest of himself and then he reaches out, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in to a tight hug without another thought. This is not like a hallucination at all. The hug, it's too tight, too real. This along with the car is all the evidence that he needs.

His throat tightens. He thought she was gone for good. He said goodbye to her, tried to. "You're real."

[thehighestwing]

She's thought about coming back before. She's thought of it dozens of times, though that'd mostly been during the first few months. Then the months kept ticking on by and Phoebe stopped wondering because she knew. It's not up to you once the Rifts are involved. For Wanderers it's permanent. They never go back to their universe. Once you're in Chicago there are other kinds of Rifts, and they can be permanent, too.

Some people are never seen again once they step through Rifts.

The place Phoebe ended up was strangely similar to Chicago, only it was far more apocalyptic, and it didn't have her friends. It didn't have Xander. It had other people, people she lost along the way, and she's not exactly the Phoebe that she was before. It's just not immediately visible.

Phoebe wraps her arms tightly around his waist, her face crumpling.

"... Yah, I'm real. What did you expect, an inflatable doll?" she asks, and it's meant to be in her usual tone but it's not, because she's missed him, and because she never thought she'd see him again, and because she's holding on possibly too tight. "For the love of bacon strips and donkeys in the red wagons, never do that to me again."

Phoebe's looking up at the sky now and talking to the Rift, yes.

[xandtheman3]

Xander only recently accepted that she is gone and now she is back. The pain of realizing that she was gone-- it was terrible, and he didn't walk around eating food for a week, didn't walk around feeling like Xander at all. She's always been his best friend in this universe, and she stayed when everyone else fell through Rifts or died.

He doesn't know where she's been or what she's been through or how long she's been gone for her.

Xander only knows that he's incredibly happy and grateful to have her back. He tightens his hold on her, burying his face against her hair. It is Phoebe. There is no way that he could come up with that response or make this as realistic as it is.

"No, kinda expecting a hallucination. You're very lifelike for an inflatable doll," he says, with a small smile that falls slightly because he hears that tone of hers, and he missed her too. He missed her so much, and he tried to say goodbye to her when he realized the truth. But he couldn't and now he doesn't have to.

Xander laughs a little but it's a hoarse sound. "Yeah, it's you alright. My brain could not be... that Phoebe-ish. What happened? Are you okay? We need- I will take you home, Pheebs."

Home being the Tower, and they can talk there after she has had food.

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe frowns a little at his comment. She doesn't know why his brain would be saying something Phoebe-ish, and she files that away for later. She holds on a bit tighter, and she does eventually take a step back, but she lingers as much as she can. It's just not in her right now to be carefree and happy-go-lucky. It was a tough year, even for someone like Phoebe Donovan, and just as he'd accepted she wouldn't come back--

She'd started to accept that she wouldn't return, either.

And that's exactly when she does. Rift, why do you gotta be like that.

Which almost sounds like a complaint, but it's not. Once the shock wears off, there will only be elated joy. She had wanted nothing more than to return back to Xander and the rest. There was only one person she connected to back in that other world, and he was gone by the time Phoebe fell back through. "I don't even know," she says honestly. Her hand remains linked with his and she nods in response to his suggestion. The Kashtta--the Kashtta would be great now.

"I was walking back to the Tower one day and then... I was somewhere else. Blinked and fell through a Rift. Not the kind of Rift wanderers fall through, I think. Just... some kind of Rift. It was so weird."

[xandtheman3]

Xander is okay with this hug lasting as long as it possibly can. Phoebe is alive. She is alive, and she is hugging him back, and there is no hallucination here. He missed her so much. She was like his best friend, and he is happy that she's back, away from wherever she was.

Sometimes the Rift likes to grant someone a gift but the fact that it took her away at all, what was the point?

He doesn't know. Xander gets the feeling that those questions are ones that don't really... have answers at all. If they did, he wouldn't want to know them because they wouldn't help. It wouldn't be a comfort at all, but he's glad that she's back.

Xander takes her hand in his own, squeezing it gently as they walk back to the Kashtta. It's not far from here. Xander doesn't wander too far away from home at this time of the night.

"That is... very weird. I've heard of it happening before so totally within the possible but... it's weird," he says, and he hopes it never happens to him, never happens to her again. This place is difficult enough without being shoved in and out of it all the time. "Where were you?"

[thehighestwing]

Phoebe squeezes his hand in reassurance as they walk, and she forces the knotted feeling in her stomach to easen. She agrees it's really weird, and completely stupid, not to mention really pointless. All it does is freak out the people left behind, and she thought of them constantly.

She thought of them every day.

"I was in an alternate Chicago. Only it was a year later and it was kind of--like, you'd think the Apocalypse had come. It was just mostly a wasteland, and people were moving away but obviously those that... wanted to stay for the treaty did."

It was so bizarre, and it heightened to her just how important Chicago is. With all its mayhem and with all of its disasters and monsters and loss, it's a place where angels and demons can co-exist without being told war is the only answer.

It can't disappear or everyone in it would be lost.

[xandtheman3]

Xander could rail and rant at the Rift for a long time, but it doesn't do any good. He's so mad that it took her but he's too relieved to have her back to feel that anger right now. So many people have been taken, and they never come back.

So many people die, and she could have died. He didn't know, but she's alive and she was alive, she was just... gone. She was gone somewhere worse than here from the sound of it, and Xander glances sideways at her, concern darkening his gaze.

"Geeze, Pheebs, I was going to make a joke about how I'm sure you're glad to be back here with the monsters and the mayhem and- but it sounds like you came from somewhere worse."

Where there's still the monsters and the mayhem but in a wasteland with people struggling to survive.

Xander tugs on her hand, and the Tower is thankfully right there. He would like to just hang with her for the night and give her chocolate and alcohol and whatever else she might want, but pretty much never leaving her side again.

"Think we can skip the room-intro process. Yours is still there and-- no one gave it away. Unless you want a new one."