Leaving town

Magnolia st. Boston Massachusetts 2014

Buffy rushed towards the balcony door, bag over her shoulder with Dawn following slowly. The brunette had her arms folded safely over her chest in an attempt to keep out the chill of night, but it was no use. It really wasn't that cold, Boston was warm this time in the fall but Dawn was nervous. She didn't want to be left, for her sister to abandon her here so when her time came for her love to die she wouldn't be alone. Unlike Buffy Dawn was sure the curse would take her and she'd accepted it, she would love a man and he in turn would die. She often wondered how long she'd have with him, her parents got twenty years maybe she would be as lucky.

But now Buffy was leaving, her man waiting below the balcony for her to jump down and flee with him. He was a twenty-something guy she'd met in college, but now she was running away with him. She didn't love him, Dawn knew that much, knew Buffy would always play it safe. Keep her heart intact. She'd wanted to flee for years, but it was the aunts reluctance to let her and her lack of a reason that kept her this long. Dawn mostly acted like the sensible one despite being younger, though to Buffy it appeared as jealousy or petty whingeing. That she was whiny little girl. She was eighteen, hardly little.

"Don't go." Dawn called slowly, Buffy's leg was halfway over the wood before she paused, calling down for her boyfriend's pocket knife. He gladly threw it back, another thing that annoyed Dawn, her rebelliousness, and incapability of being careful. She was reckless. Dawn still clad in her pyjamas gave an eyebrow quirk at the instrument before Buffy took to slicing open the centre of her palm. Taking Dawn's hand in her own she repeated the action, drawing a thin line of crimson. She stared at it for a slight second before dropping the knife to her pocket and taking her sister's bloody hand.

"This Dawnie is Summers' blood, that means it's both of us. That I'll always be with you, as aunt Willow says." Dawn smiled a little and looked up at her sister, ignoring the heavy squish of fluid between their hands. She chuckled at the last part, that was one of the more sensible things their redheaded aunt would say, there were many fluctuations of old wives' tales and random new sayings she seemed to invent. All would come to pass though, the fruition of her seeing was marvellously effective.

"Will I see you again?" Dawn said cautiously, she wasn't sure what she expected the reply to be. She wished Buffy wasn't going, wasn't leaving her to run off with this man she didn't even love. What is life? Without love. She pondered, it was a mystery to her why anyone would want to leave so much, the house was big enough for all of them, ok a little draughty but it was an old house. And the aunts were kind and funny and they let her stay up late and eat brownies for breakfast.

"I'll be back some day Dawnie, when I'm alone and you're love has died and we'll live in this big old house with all the cats ok?" Dawn smiled at the protective nature Buffy had over her at times, brushing her hair behind her ear and holding her chin up. Then the blonde nodded her approval and dropped down off the balcony and landed squarely on the path towards the house, her feet cracking on the concrete and she climbed the man-boyfriend and piggy backed him out of the yard. Dawn watched with a pain in her chest as her sister ran away from their life. Abandoning her looming destiny and running because she felt she had no other choice. This would all change...

Months later Dawn would be laying in bed alone, the draught rushing through the rafters waking the owl nesting there. She couldn't sleep for lonesome, she was bored now, no sister to annoy or talk to. She'd been speaking with Tara just about general things but she missed having someone there who understood everything. She had friends of course, and they were great most of the time, but they weren't there in the middle of the night to hold her when she cried. Crying because sometimes she was so scared of losing her future that she couldn't hold it in, that her heart was leaking. Leaking love for a man she hadn't even met yet. But when she would she knew it would take her out like a flood.

The tears felt like a flood, her emotions running away from her like Buffy had, everybody left her, they always did. Her parents were gone by the time she was three, Buffy'd left her for the world, the man she'll love will leave one day. She cried big sloppy tears into the night, the water lighting her cheeks in moonlight, she thought no one knew, no one heard her tears. But Tara could hear tears in her sleep, she felt the energy radiating from Dawn in the day, a sadness ever since Buffy left, a sadness only governed by loneliness.

The blonde hair poked around the door of the attic, not letting herself in just yet she watched Dawn stare upwards. The scar left on her hand had faded from fresh wound into deep gashing line. It drew deep on the shared blood, the shared power in their magical veins, it was a sign of undying love between family. Tara heard the whispers, the calling for her sister Dawn did in those sweet witching hours. Where are you Buffy? Are you happy? Have you found love? So many questions for a young girl to wonder.