The Girl Without Hands
Losing Joyce was bad.
Losing Buffy, and having it be her fault, was worse.
Dealing with Spike's former sex toy, a perky silicon-and-wire ghost of a sister, was unbearable.
It was Willow's idea, of course; use the Buffybot to convince demons and social workers that Buffy Summers was still alive. Dawn could have understood that, somewhat, if Willow hadn't insisted on their sharing a house with the thing. Or if the thing had been less abrasively cheerful, less of a mockery of her own, frequently tense and worried sister. But no. The Buffybot was as mindlessly merry as a valley girl on helium.
And everyone expected her to respond to the robot with delight, as if they had brought Buffy back from the dead. None of them understood. She was too old to be playing with walking, talking dolls. Too old to pretend that her sister was back into existence. Too old to prefer living with half-familiar ghost. Too old not to hate the synthetic reminder of her own failure.
Even the robot had fought in the final battle against Glory. Dawn hadn't raised one hand in her own defense.
Every night after she finally collapsed from exhaustion, Dawn found herself back on the tower, the blood dripping from her wounds beginning to open the portal to Glory's hell dimension. And somehow the Buffybot was always there, telling her that dying wasn't so bad. Dawn's mind could live in the body of a robot after she died; look, it worked for Buffy…
Every night, Dawn shoved the lying, filthy thing off the tower, rejecting the lies, knowing that Buffy would never say anything like that.
Every night, the robot fell and shattered.
And as it fell, Dawn always saw Buffy, the real Buffy, turning from her, running towards the portal. Towards hell. Towards death.
That night, Dawn had stood frozen in grief and horror. In her dream, she raced toward Buffy, recklessly leaping to the edge of the tower, stretching forth her arms to pull Buffy back to safety and to life.
And every night, as she stretched out her arms in her dream, Dawn discovered that she no longer had any hands.
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