"Buffy?"
Dawn walked through into the living room, looking almost drunken in her attempt to reach a safe place – her sister. The slayer was sitting on a sofa with her head in her hands, not crying or making a sound, just – sitting.
"She's not coming back, is she." She was twelve, and understood about death, that didn't make it any easier to accept.
"No, Dawnie, she isn't. Not this time. Not anymore."
"Buffy?"
The slayer's sister looked so lost and alone in this instant, that Buffy forgot anything and everything else, and went to her. Folding her arms around the (only just) smaller girl, Buffy lowered herself back onto the settee, stroking her baby sister's hair, and doing whatever she could.
For now, she wanted to forget everything but 'Buffy-big-sister'. She wasn't 'Buffy the slayer' or 'Buffy the girl friend' or 'Buffy the student' – she was no one but family to her kid sister.
For nine or ten years, that's who she had been, and then, everything went wrong. She became the slayer, and Buffy could not manage her friends, her duties and her sister all at once. Their parents' marriage had been breaking, and they were all that each other had, convincing themselves that everything would work out fine, in the comforts of the eldest' bed. Then, Buffy had been missing most nights, training or patrolling, or out with friends, and quite often, she would return to find her nine-year-old sister curled up in her sister's bed, instead of her own. Buffy would gently move dawn into her room, and sit there (just as she was now), smoothing her hair, and just being there for a poor baby girl who needed comfort. Maybe if faith had received some such love, she wouldn't have ended up as she had.