EIGHT: DAWN

Dawn,

Be brave.  Live.  Love.

Buffy

Dawn had read and re-read her sister's parting words over and over again.  When she'd told the others that it should be she who deliver the notes to Faith and Angel, she'd clutched onto Buffy's note tightly all the way over on the bus.  She'd sobbed softly for the two hour ride, gaining odd looks from everyone around her, but she didn't care.  They didn't know what had happened to her.  They didn't know that she'd just lost the most important person in her world.

Dawn watched as Faith and Angel read their letters and couldn't help but re-read her own letter again. Written on it were words that Buffy had told her the last time she had died.

Be brave.  Live.

Dawn had tried so hard the first time to do as Buffy had asked, but it had been so hard.  It had been excruciating to live in a world that didn't house her family.  She wasn't looking forward to trying it again, but this tie, she knew that she would have to do it.

She'd matured incredibly since Tara's death and had learned to stand on her own two feet since then.  She'd obviously inherited the strength that the other Summers' women had in leaps and bounds.  Independence and a stubborn streak a mile wide were the other traits that she knew she had.  And Dawn now knew the truth of her sisters second death when Buffy had plunged off the tower to save Dawn's life.

Dawn understood that her sister didn't love gently.  She loved fiercely and protectively, and Dawn understood that the others had taken Buffy's gift for granted.  They hadn't understood that Buffy's sacrifice had been the final thing that she'd needed to do to seal the love she felt for her sister.

Dawn smiled a little as she recalled the one and only time that she had worked up the guts to ask Buffy what the afterlife had been life.  Buffy had smiled a little wistfully and explained that everything was peaceful, complete, loving.  She'd spoken about being protected and cared for.  And Dawn knew that even though she would miss her sister terribly, she would see Buffy again, and feel the thing that Buffy had told her to feel in her final words.

Love.

END

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K.