Author's Note: So, at first, it was just a nice ficlet about Dawn dying instead of Buffy. All done and everything. And then I got an idea…and there you have a full blown series. All ficlets can be read as stand alones. Big thanks to Arlene (Angel Moon Princess) for a-helping me come up with titles and b-reading all of them and telling me it was really sad (of course, that's what I wanted to hear). Anyway…

Daisies: Dawn

She likes daisies. There's no real reason behind it. They're just nice and yellow, and so, she likes them.

Spike told her Drusilla tried to plant some once. Not that she wants to think about Drusilla, but just because she told him she likes daisies.

Are the daisies real? Did she even really plant them in the backyard? She thought she had, but then again...she isn't real, is she? She's the key. Something given memories that didn't really happen.

According to Buffy, she's real. Because they have the same blood. Well, she still remembers what her sister said, and she knows, without any doubt, Buffy would jump in her place. Same blood, remember?

Spike reaches the top of the tower and faces that crazy old man, Doc, off. Meanwhile, she works at loosening the ropes and pulls a wrist free. She works harder on the other as the guy shoves Spike onto the tower floor.

"Please don't..." She pleads and she wishes the knights had killed her because then she wouldn't have to worry about being the reason the world ends.

He raises his knife to cut her and she's surprised as Spike growls and tackles Doc off the tower. She then screams in horror as they plunge down, yanking her wrist out of the loose rope.

"No!"

She quickly loosens her feet and runs toward the stairs, horrified by what Spike had just done for her.

She's counting the blobs a hundred feet below and sees her sister fighting Glory. And she's moving towards the stairs when a sharp pain shoots from her foot and up her leg. She doesn't understand how it happened, but it did. Then she sees it. The knife. The one Doc was holding. The one that flew out his hand and landed with a clang on the tower.

Everything seems to slow for her as she watches the blood before it stills in the air. The air around it crackles and the portal appears, blue and purple energy swirling fifty feet above ground as electricity crackles around it.

She doesn't even stop to think about it. She doesn't question if this is right. If it should be this way. How everyone will take what she's about to do. What she's supposed to do; what she was made for. And she runs...and leaps.

Her hair flies up and the dress clings to her front as she plunges down into the portal. Electricity shoots through her body and she feels like she's dying and going somewhere better.

She's losing consciousness and the last of the portal's energy runs through her. Her body seems to still for a moment before dropping through the sky, landing on a pile of rubble.

But she's already gone then. Watching as things fall apart. Watching as Buffy continues to beat Glory, even if she isn't Glory anymore and she's Ben. Watching as Doc slams Spike into the tower, embedding a piece of wood in his chest and he falls away to dust. Watching as Willow won't wake up and Anya isn't breathing. Watching.

The sun rises. Yellow. Very yellow. Like daisies. And maybe that's why she likes daisies. They remind her of the sun. The light. Herself. Dawn.

She kind of hopes they plant some on her grave.