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Dawn heard the door open and shut her eyes as tightly as she could. She knew that part of her should feel at least a small amount of guilt at knocking Buffy off the bed, but no feeling seemed to be getting past the engulfing pain. She didn't want Buffy. Didn't want the platitudes or the group therapy or any of the crap that Buffy seemed to think made things better. Maybe in a couple days she could handle Willows chocolate chip cookies of emotional stabilizers, but Buffy would probably burn the cookies anyway. The bed behind her sunk a little with the weight of a person, too much weight for her midget of a sister. No one else had dared join her on the bed though. It was sacrosanct, this was Fred's bed, how dare they? How dare anyone? Even her? Dawn pulled into herself, curling into a tiny ball of agony.
Xander sat on the bed and just watched the younger girl for a little while. She was radiating pain, looping it around herself like a mantle. Xander knew how she felt. He too had felt as though the world had taken the only light worth having, the only thing holding the darkness inside at bay. Willow knew too. He had hoped that none of his girls would ever have to go through it again. He doubted that she would go down the same path that Willow had or even the one that he had, but he wouldn't let the same mistakes happen while taking care of her.
"Dawnie?" He asked gently. He didn't touch her. He knew better. She didn't say anything, but she the muscles in her back unclenched just a tiny bit. "I hear the world almost ended," He said companionably, "I'd of joined you if I'd known, but we all seem to be big on the avoidance since the big Sinkhole formerly known as Sunnydale," Though the words were almost a jest, the tone was all to serious and tired to the marrow. The years hadn't been easy on any of them.
Dawn listened to the voice of her first crush. She had once thought that he was the only man worth falling in love with.
"We went through a lot together. Apocalypse and death and another apocalypse and more death. Too many endings, not nearly enough beginnings. I was really hoping that you would make it though. That you would get away and everything would turn out right for you away from the rest of us. I guess I was hoping that the Sunnydale curse had skipped you," Xander paused to take a deep shuddering breath, "I guess I hoped that one of us could be normal," Xander rubbed both hands up and down his face, the emotions in his chest a roiling mess that he didn't have the heart to dissect.
Dawn uncurled and turned over to look at Xander. She knew why Buffy had called him. The One Who Sees. Xander could see through all of them, through their bravado and bullshit. Even with one eye he saw more than anyone else she had ever known.
"It hurts," She tried to be blank, to focus on the pain, but the emptiness in her heart, the black hole that seemed to be sucking her will to live, opened wide. Her breathing came faster, and she couldn't quite catch her breath. It felt like she had been running a marathon. Xander just gazed at her understandingly.
"It's going to. I wish I could tell you it will stop, but I wont lie to you Dawnie, you'll always feel his loss. The ache will ease and the pain wont be quite as sharp, but you'll feel it, and it will hurt," Xander told her. Dawn felt the tear fill her eyes and fall down her cheeks as she continued to try to catch her breath. She didn't fight him as he reached forward to tuck her against his side, pulling her into a sitting position. Sitting helped her breathing a little.
"He wasn't supposed to die," Dawn cried, trying to bury her face in his chest. Xander pulled her close shutting his eyes to stop the memories that haunted him.
"They never are," He told her in a strangled whisper. Dawn clutched at him, not realizing how much she had needed the tactile comfort, or maybe just needing Xander, she wasn't sure and didn't care which was true.
Inside the other bedroom in the house, the person in bed was silent as death and almost as still. Lee had opened his eyes and George had been sleeping so silently he had feared the worst. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, he had meant to keep an eye on George, just like the little red haired Yank had suggested. And he'd fallen asleep. He'd had to check for a pulse and then had been to shaken to even stay sitting. He'd started stalking around the room, picking up and discarding nick knacks with abandon. Unable to escape his thoughts and unwilling to leave to find something to occupy his mind.
Fred and George. They were a pair, a unit. How could you have one and not the other. It was unfair. His two best mates. The two funnest, most devious and enterprising pair of red-heads you could ever hope to meet. They had been inseparable since the train to Hogwarts in their first year when he had been able to impress the two with his knowledge of swear words and the 12 different uses for shoelaces against officious elder brothers. If he couldn't wrap his mind around it, how could George be doing as well as he was. It was like he'd told the small blonde one, the world had gone mad. It was the only explanation. He glanced at his sleeping friend and felt the tears well up again. He'd done more crying since ... well since after the last battle, than he had in all his previous years combined.
Lee rubbed his eyes and went back out to the kitchen, glancing briefly at the tiny blonde woman on the couch that was Buffy Summer, The Slayer. Dawn had told them all stories about her family, admitting how much she loved and missed them, even if she believed that they needed to figure out things for themselves and was angry at them for things that she hadn't shared with anyone except the twins. Because Fred and George told each other everything. Fred had told Lee and George that even if he had to deal with a very angry Dawn on their wedding day, he was going to make sure that all of her family was there. He wanted her to be happy despite herself.
Dawn. She'd intrigued Fred since the first day. She'd always been able to tell Fred and George apart too, as though they didn't look anything alike. She hadn't even noticed the moles that the few who knew about them, used to tell the two apart. At least not right away. She said it was the way Fred quirked his lips and the way Georges eyes smiled. She didn't understand how anyone could get them confused, though she never bothered correcting anyone the two tried to confuse. Before anyone had realized it, the two were a couple, finished while together. Fred called her his morning sun and Dawn had told him that was his hair shining in the mirror. They were more in love than anyone that Lee had ever seen before, including the Parental Weasleys. He and George would bring in dates, but they always seemed pale compared to Dawn, and it was because she was with Fred. He completed her.
And now neither she nor George would ever be complete.
"Are you hungry?" Willow, the Good Witch of the West Coast as long as you kept her happy. At least, that's how Dawn referred to her. He had been too tired to attach a face to the name and description that he was familiar with.
"I could eat," Lee admitted in surprise as his stomach growled at the smell of the food that she had been preparing.
"Fill the plate. You'd been amazed how hungry people get after fasting from emotional pain," Willow said calmly, handing him a plate. Lee did as instructed and Willow gestured to the table where the younger man obligingly sat.
"Thank you," Lee told her after a few bites. It was the first time since the battle that food hadn't fallen to ash in his mouth.
"Finish that, I'll be back," Willow moved to Georges room and entered. Lee paused, waiting for any sounds that said he shouldn't have left George alone, but didn't hear anything.
"He's fine," Another voice said. Lee didn't bother looking at Buffy or wondering how she knew what he was thinking.
"No he's not," Lee denied, pain coloring his voice as he set down the fork in his hand. The woman was pulling out the chair beside him and sitting.
"You're right, he's not," Buffy nodded in acknowledgment, "But he's breathing and he has people to live for, so he will be fine. Eventually,"
"How? How can any of us be?" Lee asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands. Buffy hugged herself to lock in warmth that she didn't have. How could she answer that? She knew what she should say, but could she say it?
"Because pain fades. Memories grow sainted and laughter becomes bitter. The tears eventually dry and the world continues to revolve. You're friends become your bulwark and being with each other helps you get through the pain. The healing process goes better when the pain is shared, as hard as that sounds," Buffy told him, wondering again, as she did every day, why she didn't follow her own advice. Why all of the Scoobies had to be so damn stubborn and self righteous.
"And you know this from experience?" Lee asked with a touch of sarcasm. Buffy sent a bitter smile to the ceiling while he looked over at her. Dawn had talked about them to her knew family.
"I did a long time ago," She told him. Lee nodded and picked his fork up. His belly felt rather hollow.