"It's okay, Buffy. I'll be right here in the kitchen – you go up and talk to her."

"Giles. I – I cant do this. I-I don't know what to do – I've never done this before – any of it. I don't know how. I-I need …" Angel. She needed Angel. But even if he got her message, he couldn't be here for a while yet. They got home at three, and she left the message three hours later – an hour after he was likely to be waking up. Most likely, he was in the office, and then had gone patrolling straight afterwards. By the he'd heard it and got to Sunnydale, it could be two or three in the morning – seven or eight hours from now. She wasn't sure what to do or how to handle it.

Not knowing how to really proceed, Buffy started to walk very slowly up the stairs towards dawn. She couldn't really soften the blow at all – how can you do that to anyone who isn't a very small child. She couldn't just say to dawn that mummy's gone away for a while, so Buffy would look after you, and mummy would watch you while you sleep to make sure you're okay. Dawn was a teenager, and therefore more logical than a child and less logical than an adult. How do you tell a teen that her mother has died?

"Dawnie?"

"Hmm?" For once, she wasn't actually trying to listen to everything going on downstairs. She must have been just as scared by the look on Giles' face as Buffy was!

Buffy sat down on her sister's bed next to the younger girl, briefly smiling, when her sister immediately moved to put her brown hair into the slayer's lap. As she had done so many times before, Buffy stroked her baby sister's hair, lovingly, wondering how long it would last.

"That trip that mum went on this weekend? She flew there. Dawnie, there – there was an accident; on the plane." She continued to stroke her head, even as Dawn stiffened at the words. Now came the even harder part. "Nobody survived, Dawnie."

"Mum?"

"She – she died." Buffy felt her eyes begin to water again, and stopped herself sharply. She could cry later, now she had to be in the here and now, with Dawnie.

"I don't believe you"

"I know." The calm words were spoken in such even tones, one would have thought they were just practising lines for a play, not conversing about their mother's recent demise.

"I don't believe you. You're lying. Get out. Get out get out GET OUT!!!"

Dawn yanked her head away from Buffy and lay down face first into her mattress, screaming for Buffy to get out of her room. Buffy did as she was told, and, with her head bowed, returned to Giles downstairs, where she was greeted with a cup of tea, and more news about the death, and what she had to do as the next on kin. Her dad was unreachable, but messages had been left. Messages! How could anyone do that?

'We're very sorry to bother you Mr Summers, but your ex-wife has just died, and we need you to take care of some things for us.' Yeah, that would go down like a lead balloon. At least Giles was down next on the list if they couldn't get hold of Buffy – her mum did do some things right as she began to understand more about being the slayer.


Extract from Dawn's Diary – twenty minutes later.

At the moment, I feel really numb. Buffy came in twenty minutes ago. She said that mum died in an accident – there isn't a body, but no one survived. I don't know what to think or what to believe. Shouldn't I feel upset, or angry or something? I just don't feel anything.

Once, I read this book, where a girl knew her mother was going to die, and when she was told that she had died, it seemed like she didn't care, because she had already cried herself out, and knew it was going to happen, unlike her younger sister (at least o think it was her sister) who didn't know. Everyone thought that she didn't care, because she didn't say anything, save for 'oh, I'll go have my bath now'. That's how I feel.

I didn't know about this, but I … I'm not really sure.

Mum's dead.
Mummy's gone.

I need to lie down.
I am.
I need my sister.


"Buffy?"