Author's Notes: Dawn's Early Night takes place just after the finale of Season five. It's Dawn's POV (point of view) about how she feels about the death of her sister. Lot's of angst.

It is rated PG-13 and none of the characters are mine.

Enjoy!

*~*~*

More than once they've checked to make sure I haven't slipped into some coma like her. No coma. They are concerned, with Willow gone, that they wont be able to bring me back. Even Willow couldn't undo this. This is pure grief.

How am I going to go on without her? Who is going to take care of me? I lose my mother and my. I lose them both in nearly the same breath. It feels like the same breath. It feels worse though. My mother died because of nature. It was meant to be this way, no matter how much it hurts. But not her. No. She died to save me. Me. I'm not even real.

I didn't really have a mother. I didn't really even have her. I am the key. Was the key. Am the key. I was supposed to bring about the end of the world. Instead I only brought about the end of my own. But not just mine. I look at the grief in the dark blue eyes of the man across from me, and I know I've destroyed his life too. I watch him look at me in surprise to be looking at him. But I see right through him. Soon he'll see through me. Won't I cease to exist soon? I wish that were the case. But it wont be.

Oh sure. I could end it. But what a bitch I'd be then. I cause the end of my world, his world, and their world for what? To end it all? I'd just be starting it over. More pain. I'll never cry enough tears for what she did for me tonight. I'll never love enough to match her sacrifice. To match theirs. Only she got to choose, and they are left here to wonder why. I wonder why too. I wonder what possible good I could do to justify what she's done.

She made sure I'd live another day. Die another way. But one day I will die. Just like everyone here. Well, maybe not everyone. Looking at him again, I see he's gone back to staring at nothing. It makes me cry more that he doesn't even try to hide his tears. He's done hiding from the pain. We all embrace pain sooner or later. Otherwise we are cut off from everything. It's like a wall between the world and us. We have to face it to see the rest of the world again. A world without her.

She told me to tell them. How could I tell them? How could I say anything now? They wander in and out to check on me, but only he has the courage enough to stay. Misery loves company. In a way I do love him. He is part of all I have left of her. She wasn't an easy person to love, but try as you might you had to love her. Hate her, yell at her, scream and rant at her and she would just give you a look with those big eyes and you knew, you were hooked. It wasn't just me. I've seen it happen with others. It happened with him.

How much sense in this world did it make for a vampire to love her. Yet two did. And I've stolen that from them.

I just want to scream. I want to throw things. I want to hurt other. I want them to feel what I feel, but I wish I had never brought this pain to them; I wish I didn't feel it too. I just want to explode into a billion pieces. I just want to pour all the fucking energy that is supposed to be me into her and breath life into that wonderful, beautiful, woman. But I don't. Any of it. I can't. Helpless. Hopeless.

What will happen to me now? They were going to take me from her. They wont let me just live now. They will want someone to watch me. Will I kill them too?

My eyes strain to focus on him again. I know I've been crying on and off. So has he. My vision blurs because I think he's nearing me, but I'm not sure. Not until I feel the chill of his hands on mine. Not until I fall into his arms and let out every feeling I've ever felt my whole non- existent life all at once; not until he holds me like he wishes he were holding her, comforting me like he would have her. Not until then can we say goodbye.

I know he wishes that he were helping her through the death of her sister, rather than helping me through the death of mine. But how can I blame him? I wish he were too.

I wish Buffy were back.