Author Marie a.k.a. Loves Bitch
Email Lovesbitch84@yahoo.com
Feedback Please please please send me feedback
Distribution You can post this fanfic on your webpage as long as you email me with a link and give me credit :)
Spoilers End of Season Five
Content mention of W/T, X/A, B/S
Rating PG-13 (for graphic mention of sucide)
Disclaimer I do not own or have any rights to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am only a fan
Summary Dawn's final diary entry
Dear Diary -
It's been six months since I wrote in you, almost as long since Buffy passed away.
I'm not quite sure why I'm writing this entry. Writing in you lost all value when I found out what I truly was. But I guess everything needs closure, so, before I leave you behind, I'll try and give you that.
A few days after Buffy passed away we discovered that she had a will drawn up a week after mom passed away. In it, she had left custody of me to Anya and Xander. I had packed up my things and was ready to move in with them when dad showed up. He had decided now was the right time to come back into my life and be "the father that I never had." He informed Xander and Anya that he wanted full custody of me. When Xander refused, dad decided to take them to court. Like I was some prize to be won. I told the judge, the lawyers, my father, everyone that I wanted to stay with Xander and Anya but my dad still wouldn't listen. He said that I was "hurt and confused after the tragic loss of my mother and sister, who had loved me so dearly and I was clinging to anything that was familiar, whether or not it was in my best interest." The court case is still going on.
About three months into the case things seemed to be looking up. Xander and Anya had gotten married and the judge had finally granted them permission to let me stay with them until the trial was over. Xander's lawyer said the trial would only take a few more days and that the judge would most likely rule in his favor because it was what I wanted. He said the only thing that had even allowed the case to go so long was the fact that Anya and Xander hadn't been married and my father had repeatedly said that "he didn't want his daughter living with a couple that would damage my sense of morals and what a healthily relationship was." Like his divorce to mom had had done enough harm.
Things seemed better. I mean, we still missed Buffy but we were moving on the best we could. We were laughing and smiling. I went back to school and even attend a dance. Our lives we're back on track. But good things never last. It's amazing how one night can change everything.
Tara had started going to night classes, to make up for the ones she missed well she wasn't mentally stable. She was driving home from one of her nightly classes when a drunk driver hit her. The accident was pretty bad, you couldn't even tell the two cars apart. It was just metal and blood. Tara had died instantly. Willow had lost Tara again, and this time there was no way for her to get her back. She got really depressed and dropped out of college. Anya and I visited her everyday for the next two weeks and tried our best to cheer her up but nothing seemed to help. We noticed the magic books that were scattered around her house, the ones that Giles had forbidden her to look though but we didn't say anything. We should have.
Exactly two weeks after Tara's death Willow attempted a very powerful spell to bring Tara back to life. It was different then the one I had attempted only months earlier. This one was darker and easier to screw up but it was more effective if you did it correctly. Giles said Willow should have known better, she was to weak from her depression to attempt that spell. When Anya and I had shown up for our daily visit the next morning we found her dead in bed, surrounded with herbs, books and burned out candles. We buried her next to Tara's grave.
After Willow's funeral, I ran away. I wanted away from everything, the custody battle, the death, the pain. I just wanted to disappear. For some insane reason I blamed myself for Willow and Tara's deaths. It seemed everyone around me was dying. I just wanted to get away before I hurt anyone else.
Spike ran after me. He had kept his promise to Buffy, ever since her death he had taken care of me, made sure I was safe. He had stayed with me at Buffy's grave the night we buried her, he had helped me through the toughest parts of the custody battle and he had been there for me whenever I started blaming myself for Buffy's death. If Buffy could have left custody of me to Spike, I think she would of. She knew that Spike would take care of me, that he would love me like a sister.
He had taken Buffy's death as hard I did. He really had loved her. And I think, in the very bottom of her heart, she loved him to. Even if she never admitted it.
I blame myself for his death. If I hadn't run away then those vampires would have never attacked me. And Spike would have never charged into battle. After that everything was a blur, Spike yelled at me to run and I did. I remember looking back and seeing the vampire ramming the stake through his heart. I heard someone screaming in horror and it took me several minutes to realize it was me. After that I ran blindly into the night, not sure were to go or what to do. Spike was another death on my shoulder and I collapsed before sun rise outside Xander's apartment.
He found me there on his way to work and helped me into the apartment. I didn't speak for the next week, I just laid around, eating and sleeping between tears. Xander and Anya did there best to get me to talk but nothing seemed to work. I had cut myself off from the world. Finally, one night I couldn't take it anymore. After they went to sleep, I sunk into the bathroom and slit my wrist. It was a strange inpowerment, watching my blood drip onto the bathroom floor. I had made the cut thin and shallow, like the one's doc gave me the night of Buffy's death. It was as if I was trans as I watched the drops fall, blood that could save or destroy this world. I would have died if Anya hadn't gotten up to get a drink of water.
I still remember waking up to find the three of them around me, Anya, Xander and Giles. The only three remaining members of the scooby gang. Giles went back to England a few days later and the court case went into a tail spin. My father said that my attempted suicide proved that Anya and Xander "couldn't provide a heathly environment for me to be raised in and that I should be removed immediately."
In the end, Xander and Anya gained full custody of me. I'm not sure why the judge ruled that way, I heard later it had something to do with my the doctors telling him changing my environment again would hurt any attempt at preventing a any future attempts at sucide.
And that's how it ends. Xander got transferred and we're moving away from Sunnydale. It's probably for the best, my therapist says it's not healthy for me to be here, there's to much pain in the air here, to many memories. I'm leaving my diaries here to. This part of my life has ended and I'm not sure I want to cling onto it. So I'm going to end this as simply as I can.
Good-bye.
Your's truly,
Dawn Summers