The Key Dawn Summers

"Does anybody even notice…"

She closes the door quietly and crosses to the other side of the room. Dawn Summers purses her lips together as she opens up her trinket box then lifts up the tray to reveal all her little treasures. She takes out a bracelet and examines it carefully. It is blue and silver with the price tag still attached to the item. She slips it on for a moment and admires her most recent acquisition next to the talisman she is still wearing, which got her into a lot of trouble with a Demon called Sweet. The talisman has been taken back to the magic shop where it belongs but she knows that will not deter her from taking more.

Dawn steals because she can…because no one watches her…because no one cares. Not even her own sister, Buffy. Carefully, she takes the bracelet off and places it back into the box to conceal her secrets once more before walking over to her bed. She sits down heavily upon it and stares vacantly into space.

It has been a long night and she is tired. She knows she will not be able to sleep after finding out the price that was paid to have her sister returned to her. They all thought that she had been suffering in pain when she died but she wasn't. They were wrong and Dawn now knows why Buffy asked her if this was Hell when she first saw her. Knowing this information cuts Dawn deeper than any knife.

She is aware that she should be more sympathetic but she cannot help but think about one thing. She cannot help but think that her sister is back and she is alone no more.

/ The ill fated Buffy Bot had stood in as the Slayer while her sister was dead but she didn't do as well standing in for a sadly missed sister. Dawn had spent most nights going into Buffy's bedroom and lying next to the bot as it recharged. It hasn't been aware of her presence and it certainly wasn't a substitute for the real thing but it had made Dawn feel a little better. /

Now she has the real Buffy back but Buffy still feels isolated from everyone, including Dawn. Her sister doesn't want to be here, in this world and it makes Dawn miserable. It makes her cry. She lies down and sobs silently into her pillow. Her mother has been gone a while now and she has never felt so unwanted, has never seemed so alone.

"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."