Normal Again Ficathon Entry
It's Feb 13th, which means it's Normal Again Ficathon Day! Yay!
Title: No Answer
Author: flurblewig
Pairing: Buffy & Dawn
Spoilers: Normal Again (duh)
Rating: PG13
Length: 2,764 words
Disclaimer: Not mine, nuff said.
Written for: debxena who wanted 'the focus to be on Buffy/Dawn (sisterly, not icky), and the pain they are both going through in both -verses regarding their sisters.'
Thanks to: Trkkr47 for the so-kind beta :-) and willshenillshe for organising the event!
No Answer
Buffy cried until her eyes felt hot and swollen, until her chest began to burn because she could hardly find space between sobs to breathe. The pain was good; the pain grounded her, made her - it, the world, all of this - real. And oh, she needed it to be real.
It felt so good to let go; to cry all the fear and the pain out of her system. To not have to be the strong one any more. She collapsed into Hank Summers' arms and screamed out all the agonies of the last six years against his chest. He stroked her hair and rocked her gently, murmuring a string of nonsense words that actually told her everything she needed to know: she was safe, she was loved, she was home.
Eventually she was prised out of his arms so that he could drive the car, and her mom sat with her on the back seat. She felt sick and weak, but her mom was there, alive and whole and smiling, and that was worth a little sickness. That was worth more than anything in the whole world.
They took her home; home to LA, not Sunnydale. Her room was just as she remembered it, untouched and timeless. She dressed in teddy bear pyjamas and Joyce made her hot chocolate, and she felt like a child again. Eventually she slept, and there were no dreams.
**
When the demon was finally dead, smashed into slimy, harmless pieces, Dawn began to cry. Xander went to her, tried to pull her to him, but she brushed him away as angrily as she did the tears. She didn't have time for comfort. She had things to do.
They pulled themselves painfully up and out of the basement, battered but still alive, and she took an inventory. Willow had a black eye and a cut lip, courtesy of one of the demon's sweeping backhands; the eye was gradually swelling shut and gave her face a strange lop-sided kind of look. Tara had a sprained wrist and a three-inch-long gash on her left thigh from her fall down the stairs, and was limping badly. Xander had raw, rope-burned wrists from the frantic fight against his bonds, and what looked like it might be a dislocated shoulder from being sent crashing into a wall.
Dawn had got off lightly; just a pretty green/purple bruise flowering along her left cheekbone. That was all she'd earned from the fight, anyway; the deep, hot ache in the muscles of her back came from carrying Buffy up the stairs. Actually, she should add one more to Xander's list of injuries; she'd elbowed him, hard, when he wouldn't stop trying to take Buffy out of her arms.
Buffy herself had no injuries, or none that they could see, anyway. Her eyes were closed and her breathing regular, if a little shallow. Dawn washed Buffy's face and brushed her hair, then sat beside her on the couch and held her hand. The others bustled around them, straightening things up, making coffee that nobody drank and talking in low, hushed tones. At some point Xander tried to make her go to bed, but she shook her head.
"No," she said. "I want to be here when Buffy wakes up. She'll need me."
He tried to argue with her, telling her she needed sleep, but she refused to respond and eventually someone - Tara, she thought - took him away. Dawn settled into place by Buffy's side, and waited.
**
She was glad to be home, although LA wasn't proving easy to get used to. It was too big, too noisy, too loud. She was twenty-one, with the life experience - the normal life experience - of a fifteen-year-old. They didn't talk about any of the other kind of experiences she'd had.
It was okay, she decided. She could learn, catch up, make something of her life. Her future. Now that she had one.
It was a good time. The little things thrilled her - Joyce waking her up with waffles, arguing with Hank over what to watch on tv. Normal things, family things. She hugged those things to her heart and was certain that they were filling the hole she could still feel there. It would take time, that was all. She'd been through a lot. She needed to adjust, to get used to being in her own head again after all those years of being lost. They were loving and supportive, and patient. If she forgot herself sometimes, and spoke of people who didn't exist, it didn't matter. Her mom just smiled, and hugged her, and it was all okay.
She was getting better, that was the important thing. And if she cried herself to sleep at night, lonely and sad and missing those non-existent people that she'd loved so much, then that was only to be expected. The pain was just a sign that she was healing. If she dreamed, night after night, of a shared childhood that had never happened, then that was just her subconscious working its way through the layers of outgrown clutter.
"It wasn't real," she said, when she woke up in the mornings. "It wasn't real." Sometimes she said "Oh, Dawnie," and then she would cry until her mom got worried and called the doctors again. That scared her, so she learned to hide the tears behind a bright, sunny smile. A cheerleader's smile. Normal Buffy. Happy Buffy. It was her armour.
**
After a while, she allowed Tara to help her with Buffy. Tara was physically strong, and Dawn's back still gave her pain sometimes. At first, Buffy had been pliant and easy to manoeuvre; responding to requests that she stand up, sit down, climb stairs, or whatever they needed her to do. She hadn't said a word and hadn't looked anyone in the eye, but she'd done what Dawn asked her to. These days, that compliance couldn't be taken for granted. Sometimes, Buffy still moved easily and on command. Sometimes, she didn't.
It became easier to let Tara help support Buffy's weight when they needed to move her, while Dawn took care of the smaller, more intimate chores. She styled Buffy's hair, applied carefully colour co-ordinated makeup, and kept her up to date with all the latest news: how many vamps they'd dusted, how well Xander was fixing up the basement, her own excellent progress at school. Well, maybe that one was a little exaggerated, but hey, good news was what Buffy needed, right?
It became a kind of quiet routine; meeting up with Tara every day before school, the two of them taking care of Buffy's needs and then settling down on the sofa with plates piled high with pancakes, and filling Buffy in on the previous day's gossip. Eventually Tara began to stay over, just because it was that much more convenient, and she and Willow began to share soft, happy smiles. Dawn hugged both of them. The house, which had seemed so quiet and dark, began slowly to bloom again with flowers and love. Dawn couldn't be sure if it was helping Buffy, but she did know it was helping her.
**
Once, finding herself unexpectedly alone in the house, she pulled her dad's road map out of the cupboard on sudden impulse. Stared at it for a long time. It wasn't that she wanted to go there, obviously. What was there to see? There was nothing, and no-one, for her there. She wasn't going to go crawling round cemeteries, or hanging out at high schools, obviously. That would be a crazy idea, and she wasn't crazy. Not any more.
She opened the map up, and traced down it with a slightly trembling finger.
It wasn't there. Where a small town had been, there was nothing. No mark on the map, no name in the index. It didn't exist. There was no such place as Sunnydale.
She let out a shaky breath, and put the map away. Well, there you had it. No such place. Never had been. That was the end of that, then, wasn't it?
She checked it on the internet, just in case the map was out of date, or a misprint or something. Just for reassurance, obviously. She would feel better once she was certain that Sunnydale, the Hellmouth, all that crazy stuff, was no more.
The internet maps agreed with the paper one. No such place. She nodded. That was good, then. No going back. Excellent.
She carried out a few searches, just for backup. There were quite a few entries that matched the names Dawn Summers and Alexander Harris, but there was nothing about any of them that she recognised. There was only one for Rupert Giles - an Alaskan pilot - but none at all for Willow Rosenberg. That was probably right; Willow was a crazy name anyway. She smiled slightly, remembering that she'd actually said that to Willow once. She'd got a look that was one part hurt to three parts righteous indignation. "Right, because Buffy is so ordinary. All those other Buffys running around, don't you get yourselves all mixed up?"
Her lip began to tremble before she could put on the Happy Buffy armour, and it got away from her. "Willow," she said, and her voice sounded raw.
She typed 'vampire' into the computer and got a huge list of sites, mostly about movies. 'Slayer' gave her an old heavy rock band. "This is stupid," she said aloud, and her fingers hesitated. She slammed the lid of the laptop down before it could tell her that 'William the Bloody' had generated no results.
She wandered listlessly through the house, pausing to watch herself in mirrors. "I'm Buffy," she said to one. "The Vampire Slayer. And you are?"
**
Spike lowered Buffy to the couch, gently placing her by Dawn's side. He'd gradually become part of the Buffy Cleanup Crew, as more and more often now they simply couldn't get Buffy to move at all. Tara was strong, but not that strong; not enough to actually lift and carry her on a regular basis. None of them were, although it had taken some serious shoulder problems to convince Xander of that. He hadn't wanted Spike in the party and had made that very clear, but Dawn had over-ruled him. Spike had the strength they needed, and would happily sit beside Buffy all night, watching for change and regaling her with lurid tales of demons beaten and kittens rescued. Dawn had even thought, for a while, that he might be the one to reach her. Of course it didn't happen, but his daft stories made Tara smile and that, at least, was something. So she'd kept the fridge stocked with blood and kept a rabid Xander away from the stakes. "This isn't about how you feel about Spike," she'd told him. "It's about how we all feel about Buffy."
Spike laid a hand briefly on her shoulder, and slipped away before the sun rose. She took a sip of her coffee, then leaned forward and squeezed her sister's hand. "Buffy," she said quietly. "Buffy? Time to wake up now."
There was no response, and that was normal. What wasn't normal was the realisation that she wasn't expecting one any more. Buffy wasn't going to be waking up. She wasn't coming back. Not now, probably not ever. She'd made the choice she had to make, and it didn't include them. Didn't include monsters and vampires and death. Didn't include a sister.
She picked up Buffy's hand, and pressed it to her cheek. "Where are you, Buffy?" she asked softly, her voice breaking. "Is it nice, there? Does Mom still make waffles for breakfast, the ones that don't have calories in if she makes them for you? Are you happy, Buffy? Are you happy, now?"
No answer. Well, as Giles always used to say when she was sulking over something: silence gives assent.
**
Real. What did that mean, honestly? She looked down at her body, at the play of muscles under the skin. Was it real? She could touch it, feel it, hurt it, but did that make it real? She'd touched Dawn, too, but that didn't mean anything, did it? Her sister hadn't even been real in the not-real world.
She laughed out loud, a harsh bark of sound. How the hell was she supposed to make sense of any of this? Real, not real, what was the difference? It was all about blood, wasn't it? Hadn't someone said that, once? All about the blood. Perhaps blood was real. Perhaps blood could make Dawn real?
"Honey?" called Joyce, pushing open the door. "Do you want some breakfast? I can - Buffy? What is it, sweetheart? Are you all right?"
"I want - I want - "
"What, honey? What do you - oh, Christ. Oh, Buffy, what have you done? Oh my god, oh my god, Buffy, oh my god -"
"I want my sister. I want my sister, I want my sister, I want my sister, I want-"
"Stay there, honey, don't move, it's okay, I'm going to get help, you're going to be okay, just stay still."
There was blood, now. So much blood. Where was Dawn? Where?
She cried out her sister's name, but there was no answer.
**
The house gradually came to life around her, as first Tara padded downstairs and mussed her hair, and then Willow appeared with coffee, muffins and an air of grimly determined optimism that filled Dawn with sudden terror. She'd seen this face on Willow before, and it hadn't led to anything good.
"Dawn, " Willow said, kneeling by her side. "We're going to fix this. I've been talking to some, well, people, that Anya knows, and I know what to do. I have to get a few things, but I know I can - "
"No," said Dawn.
Willow blinked. "Huh?"
"I said no."
"No what, Dawnie? I don't understand."
"No fixing."
"But, Dawnie - "
"I said no."
Something in her voice must have carried a little more conviction that time, because Willow actually recoiled. Dawn leaned forward, pressing the point. "We're going to leave her alone. You're going to leave her alone."
"Dawn, I - I just want to help. We can't just-"
"Leave her like this? Yes, we can. Willow, don't you understand? She chose this. Wherever she is, it's where she wants to be. Where she needs to be." Dawn leaned over and brushed her hand lightly over Buffy's cheek. "She's happy, Willow. She's got Mom back, and Dad's still there, and she's got a whole life, now. A real one. No monsters, no death and suffering. She's just a normal girl. It's all she ever wanted, you know that."
Willow was looking at Dawn but her eyes were shiny and unfocused. She shook her head slowly back and forth. "No, Dawnie. No. We've got to - we can't - I can't - she's my best friend, I -"
Dawn could hear her own voice start to break, but she carried on. "And she's my sister. She's my sister and she's all I had left and I don't know just what the hell I'm supposed to do without her. But I have to let her go. Don't you see that? Don't you see?"
"But I - I could - "
"What? What could you do, Willow? Force her back into a life she just can't stand anymore? Take her out of heaven again?"
There was silence, after that. Willow got up slowly, groping blindly for the door. Tara followed, and for a long time Dawn was left alone again. Alone with the sleeping corpse of her sister.
She didn't cry, this time; just squeezed Buffy's hand. "Goodbye, Buffy," she whispered. "Be happy, huh?"
**
She struggled, but she had no slayer strength any more. Couldn't fight them. Couldn't get free.
"Get off me," she screamed, but it was no good. She was held down fast, pinned with straps and buckles that she couldn't shake loose.
She tried to scream, but the sharp jab of a needle into her arm soon robbed her of even that.
"Dawn," she said, as the darkness came rushing back up to engulf her. "Help me. Dawn, please."
Nothing left but a whisper, now.
"Dawn…?"
She knew she'd carry on calling as long as she had any strength left in her at all, but she also knew that there would be no answer.
Title: No Answer
Author: flurblewig
Pairing: Buffy & Dawn
Spoilers: Normal Again (duh)
Rating: PG13
Length: 2,764 words
Disclaimer: Not mine, nuff said.
Written for: debxena who wanted 'the focus to be on Buffy/Dawn (sisterly, not icky), and the pain they are both going through in both -verses regarding their sisters.'
Thanks to: Trkkr47 for the so-kind beta :-) and willshenillshe for organising the event!
No Answer
Buffy cried until her eyes felt hot and swollen, until her chest began to burn because she could hardly find space between sobs to breathe. The pain was good; the pain grounded her, made her - it, the world, all of this - real. And oh, she needed it to be real.
It felt so good to let go; to cry all the fear and the pain out of her system. To not have to be the strong one any more. She collapsed into Hank Summers' arms and screamed out all the agonies of the last six years against his chest. He stroked her hair and rocked her gently, murmuring a string of nonsense words that actually told her everything she needed to know: she was safe, she was loved, she was home.
Eventually she was prised out of his arms so that he could drive the car, and her mom sat with her on the back seat. She felt sick and weak, but her mom was there, alive and whole and smiling, and that was worth a little sickness. That was worth more than anything in the whole world.
They took her home; home to LA, not Sunnydale. Her room was just as she remembered it, untouched and timeless. She dressed in teddy bear pyjamas and Joyce made her hot chocolate, and she felt like a child again. Eventually she slept, and there were no dreams.
**
When the demon was finally dead, smashed into slimy, harmless pieces, Dawn began to cry. Xander went to her, tried to pull her to him, but she brushed him away as angrily as she did the tears. She didn't have time for comfort. She had things to do.
They pulled themselves painfully up and out of the basement, battered but still alive, and she took an inventory. Willow had a black eye and a cut lip, courtesy of one of the demon's sweeping backhands; the eye was gradually swelling shut and gave her face a strange lop-sided kind of look. Tara had a sprained wrist and a three-inch-long gash on her left thigh from her fall down the stairs, and was limping badly. Xander had raw, rope-burned wrists from the frantic fight against his bonds, and what looked like it might be a dislocated shoulder from being sent crashing into a wall.
Dawn had got off lightly; just a pretty green/purple bruise flowering along her left cheekbone. That was all she'd earned from the fight, anyway; the deep, hot ache in the muscles of her back came from carrying Buffy up the stairs. Actually, she should add one more to Xander's list of injuries; she'd elbowed him, hard, when he wouldn't stop trying to take Buffy out of her arms.
Buffy herself had no injuries, or none that they could see, anyway. Her eyes were closed and her breathing regular, if a little shallow. Dawn washed Buffy's face and brushed her hair, then sat beside her on the couch and held her hand. The others bustled around them, straightening things up, making coffee that nobody drank and talking in low, hushed tones. At some point Xander tried to make her go to bed, but she shook her head.
"No," she said. "I want to be here when Buffy wakes up. She'll need me."
He tried to argue with her, telling her she needed sleep, but she refused to respond and eventually someone - Tara, she thought - took him away. Dawn settled into place by Buffy's side, and waited.
**
She was glad to be home, although LA wasn't proving easy to get used to. It was too big, too noisy, too loud. She was twenty-one, with the life experience - the normal life experience - of a fifteen-year-old. They didn't talk about any of the other kind of experiences she'd had.
It was okay, she decided. She could learn, catch up, make something of her life. Her future. Now that she had one.
It was a good time. The little things thrilled her - Joyce waking her up with waffles, arguing with Hank over what to watch on tv. Normal things, family things. She hugged those things to her heart and was certain that they were filling the hole she could still feel there. It would take time, that was all. She'd been through a lot. She needed to adjust, to get used to being in her own head again after all those years of being lost. They were loving and supportive, and patient. If she forgot herself sometimes, and spoke of people who didn't exist, it didn't matter. Her mom just smiled, and hugged her, and it was all okay.
She was getting better, that was the important thing. And if she cried herself to sleep at night, lonely and sad and missing those non-existent people that she'd loved so much, then that was only to be expected. The pain was just a sign that she was healing. If she dreamed, night after night, of a shared childhood that had never happened, then that was just her subconscious working its way through the layers of outgrown clutter.
"It wasn't real," she said, when she woke up in the mornings. "It wasn't real." Sometimes she said "Oh, Dawnie," and then she would cry until her mom got worried and called the doctors again. That scared her, so she learned to hide the tears behind a bright, sunny smile. A cheerleader's smile. Normal Buffy. Happy Buffy. It was her armour.
**
After a while, she allowed Tara to help her with Buffy. Tara was physically strong, and Dawn's back still gave her pain sometimes. At first, Buffy had been pliant and easy to manoeuvre; responding to requests that she stand up, sit down, climb stairs, or whatever they needed her to do. She hadn't said a word and hadn't looked anyone in the eye, but she'd done what Dawn asked her to. These days, that compliance couldn't be taken for granted. Sometimes, Buffy still moved easily and on command. Sometimes, she didn't.
It became easier to let Tara help support Buffy's weight when they needed to move her, while Dawn took care of the smaller, more intimate chores. She styled Buffy's hair, applied carefully colour co-ordinated makeup, and kept her up to date with all the latest news: how many vamps they'd dusted, how well Xander was fixing up the basement, her own excellent progress at school. Well, maybe that one was a little exaggerated, but hey, good news was what Buffy needed, right?
It became a kind of quiet routine; meeting up with Tara every day before school, the two of them taking care of Buffy's needs and then settling down on the sofa with plates piled high with pancakes, and filling Buffy in on the previous day's gossip. Eventually Tara began to stay over, just because it was that much more convenient, and she and Willow began to share soft, happy smiles. Dawn hugged both of them. The house, which had seemed so quiet and dark, began slowly to bloom again with flowers and love. Dawn couldn't be sure if it was helping Buffy, but she did know it was helping her.
**
Once, finding herself unexpectedly alone in the house, she pulled her dad's road map out of the cupboard on sudden impulse. Stared at it for a long time. It wasn't that she wanted to go there, obviously. What was there to see? There was nothing, and no-one, for her there. She wasn't going to go crawling round cemeteries, or hanging out at high schools, obviously. That would be a crazy idea, and she wasn't crazy. Not any more.
She opened the map up, and traced down it with a slightly trembling finger.
It wasn't there. Where a small town had been, there was nothing. No mark on the map, no name in the index. It didn't exist. There was no such place as Sunnydale.
She let out a shaky breath, and put the map away. Well, there you had it. No such place. Never had been. That was the end of that, then, wasn't it?
She checked it on the internet, just in case the map was out of date, or a misprint or something. Just for reassurance, obviously. She would feel better once she was certain that Sunnydale, the Hellmouth, all that crazy stuff, was no more.
The internet maps agreed with the paper one. No such place. She nodded. That was good, then. No going back. Excellent.
She carried out a few searches, just for backup. There were quite a few entries that matched the names Dawn Summers and Alexander Harris, but there was nothing about any of them that she recognised. There was only one for Rupert Giles - an Alaskan pilot - but none at all for Willow Rosenberg. That was probably right; Willow was a crazy name anyway. She smiled slightly, remembering that she'd actually said that to Willow once. She'd got a look that was one part hurt to three parts righteous indignation. "Right, because Buffy is so ordinary. All those other Buffys running around, don't you get yourselves all mixed up?"
Her lip began to tremble before she could put on the Happy Buffy armour, and it got away from her. "Willow," she said, and her voice sounded raw.
She typed 'vampire' into the computer and got a huge list of sites, mostly about movies. 'Slayer' gave her an old heavy rock band. "This is stupid," she said aloud, and her fingers hesitated. She slammed the lid of the laptop down before it could tell her that 'William the Bloody' had generated no results.
She wandered listlessly through the house, pausing to watch herself in mirrors. "I'm Buffy," she said to one. "The Vampire Slayer. And you are?"
**
Spike lowered Buffy to the couch, gently placing her by Dawn's side. He'd gradually become part of the Buffy Cleanup Crew, as more and more often now they simply couldn't get Buffy to move at all. Tara was strong, but not that strong; not enough to actually lift and carry her on a regular basis. None of them were, although it had taken some serious shoulder problems to convince Xander of that. He hadn't wanted Spike in the party and had made that very clear, but Dawn had over-ruled him. Spike had the strength they needed, and would happily sit beside Buffy all night, watching for change and regaling her with lurid tales of demons beaten and kittens rescued. Dawn had even thought, for a while, that he might be the one to reach her. Of course it didn't happen, but his daft stories made Tara smile and that, at least, was something. So she'd kept the fridge stocked with blood and kept a rabid Xander away from the stakes. "This isn't about how you feel about Spike," she'd told him. "It's about how we all feel about Buffy."
Spike laid a hand briefly on her shoulder, and slipped away before the sun rose. She took a sip of her coffee, then leaned forward and squeezed her sister's hand. "Buffy," she said quietly. "Buffy? Time to wake up now."
There was no response, and that was normal. What wasn't normal was the realisation that she wasn't expecting one any more. Buffy wasn't going to be waking up. She wasn't coming back. Not now, probably not ever. She'd made the choice she had to make, and it didn't include them. Didn't include monsters and vampires and death. Didn't include a sister.
She picked up Buffy's hand, and pressed it to her cheek. "Where are you, Buffy?" she asked softly, her voice breaking. "Is it nice, there? Does Mom still make waffles for breakfast, the ones that don't have calories in if she makes them for you? Are you happy, Buffy? Are you happy, now?"
No answer. Well, as Giles always used to say when she was sulking over something: silence gives assent.
**
Real. What did that mean, honestly? She looked down at her body, at the play of muscles under the skin. Was it real? She could touch it, feel it, hurt it, but did that make it real? She'd touched Dawn, too, but that didn't mean anything, did it? Her sister hadn't even been real in the not-real world.
She laughed out loud, a harsh bark of sound. How the hell was she supposed to make sense of any of this? Real, not real, what was the difference? It was all about blood, wasn't it? Hadn't someone said that, once? All about the blood. Perhaps blood was real. Perhaps blood could make Dawn real?
"Honey?" called Joyce, pushing open the door. "Do you want some breakfast? I can - Buffy? What is it, sweetheart? Are you all right?"
"I want - I want - "
"What, honey? What do you - oh, Christ. Oh, Buffy, what have you done? Oh my god, oh my god, Buffy, oh my god -"
"I want my sister. I want my sister, I want my sister, I want my sister, I want-"
"Stay there, honey, don't move, it's okay, I'm going to get help, you're going to be okay, just stay still."
There was blood, now. So much blood. Where was Dawn? Where?
She cried out her sister's name, but there was no answer.
**
The house gradually came to life around her, as first Tara padded downstairs and mussed her hair, and then Willow appeared with coffee, muffins and an air of grimly determined optimism that filled Dawn with sudden terror. She'd seen this face on Willow before, and it hadn't led to anything good.
"Dawn, " Willow said, kneeling by her side. "We're going to fix this. I've been talking to some, well, people, that Anya knows, and I know what to do. I have to get a few things, but I know I can - "
"No," said Dawn.
Willow blinked. "Huh?"
"I said no."
"No what, Dawnie? I don't understand."
"No fixing."
"But, Dawnie - "
"I said no."
Something in her voice must have carried a little more conviction that time, because Willow actually recoiled. Dawn leaned forward, pressing the point. "We're going to leave her alone. You're going to leave her alone."
"Dawn, I - I just want to help. We can't just-"
"Leave her like this? Yes, we can. Willow, don't you understand? She chose this. Wherever she is, it's where she wants to be. Where she needs to be." Dawn leaned over and brushed her hand lightly over Buffy's cheek. "She's happy, Willow. She's got Mom back, and Dad's still there, and she's got a whole life, now. A real one. No monsters, no death and suffering. She's just a normal girl. It's all she ever wanted, you know that."
Willow was looking at Dawn but her eyes were shiny and unfocused. She shook her head slowly back and forth. "No, Dawnie. No. We've got to - we can't - I can't - she's my best friend, I -"
Dawn could hear her own voice start to break, but she carried on. "And she's my sister. She's my sister and she's all I had left and I don't know just what the hell I'm supposed to do without her. But I have to let her go. Don't you see that? Don't you see?"
"But I - I could - "
"What? What could you do, Willow? Force her back into a life she just can't stand anymore? Take her out of heaven again?"
There was silence, after that. Willow got up slowly, groping blindly for the door. Tara followed, and for a long time Dawn was left alone again. Alone with the sleeping corpse of her sister.
She didn't cry, this time; just squeezed Buffy's hand. "Goodbye, Buffy," she whispered. "Be happy, huh?"
**
She struggled, but she had no slayer strength any more. Couldn't fight them. Couldn't get free.
"Get off me," she screamed, but it was no good. She was held down fast, pinned with straps and buckles that she couldn't shake loose.
She tried to scream, but the sharp jab of a needle into her arm soon robbed her of even that.
"Dawn," she said, as the darkness came rushing back up to engulf her. "Help me. Dawn, please."
Nothing left but a whisper, now.
"Dawn…?"
She knew she'd carry on calling as long as she had any strength left in her at all, but she also knew that there would be no answer.