Buffy knew Dawn was hanging around with the wrong kind of people, none of her usual friends were skipping school so she wasn’t with them, and they were as concerned about her behaviour as Buffy was, which was unsettling. She’d tried to get Dawn to stay home a million times, she’d shouted, and begged and cried, but nothing so far had worked. She was out of control.
She was still covering for her in the day, ringing the school and telling them she needed more time because of their mother. She could have told them the truth and asked for their help with Dawn’s truancy, but she was embarrassed she couldn’t deal with it herself.
Now as she sat at the dinning room table waiting for her to come home Buffy could hardly remember when she had wished Dawn would leave the house. It wasn’t just in the day that she was unaccounted for, they were now lucky is she came home before it got dark. This was the latest she’d been though and Buffy had to admit she was anxious, even though part of her knew Dawn was fine and was probably just pushing them. For a while she hadn’t even been answering her cell, but for once she was out with someone they knew and they’d finally got through to her friend Janice.
They trusted Janice, and now knew who she was with and where she was going, but even though that was more than they knew most of the time it still held no comfort for Buffy, because she was at the Bronze, and it was just as bad as its New York equivalent. Both Buffy and Spike knew all too well what went on at that club, being the only club in a small town it attracted the likes of everyone, good and bad. At first Buffy had wanted Spike to march down there and drag her out, but he’d convinced her to let her come home on her own and they’d told Janice to pass on a message.
That was hours ago, Spike was hovering somewhere downstairs as well, equally as on edge. Suddenly the front door opened almost silently, but Buffy heard it.
“This has gone on long enough, Dawn.” Buffy said coming into the hallway
Dawn’s face hardened, ready for whatever Buffy was going to say, bracing herself to give one better. She turned on the stairs and came down a few. “What?” she asked.
“Whatever reason you have for testing me, it stops now.” Buffy said firmly.
Dawn turned, but Buffy grabbed her arm and spun her back around.
“I mean it, Dawn.” she stressed.
“You can’t tell me…”
“What to do?” Buffy finished, “I can, and I will. Everyone is fed up of your behaviour.”
As if on cue Spike circled round to stand behind her.
“Of course, everyone gang up on me!” Dawn cried, “I should have known.”
Spike went to defend them reasonably, but Buffy snapped first, “Cut it out, Dawn. That’s not what we’re doing and you know it. You’re a mess and I’m trying to sort you out. You have to stop looking for trouble, you have to stop staying out late, and for gods sake just go back to school.”
“Oh my God!” Dawn shrieked, “This is going to help bring mom back? You walking around the house telling everyone what to do?!”
Buffy huffed that’s not what she was trying to do, in fact she was doing this to help them move on and cope without their mother. “At least I care about someone other than myself!” Buffy said in frustration.
“No you don’t, you’re just mad we can’t all be perfect, like you! Maybe instead of me being the same as you, you could just stop trying for one day!”
“I’m not trying to be perfect.” Buffy said, “This is what it looks like when you don’t act like a spoiled selfish little brat!”
Dawn’s chest was rising with every harsh breath she took, “I. Am. Not. Selfish.” she said through gritted teeth.
“Yes you are!” Buffy yelled, “You always have been. Mom was always looking after you, you never cared about her, you let her run around cleaning up your mess, doing everything for you, busting her gut to look after you, acting like a little princess while she worked so hard to give everything you wanted.”
“Buffy!” Spike snapped harshly, but Buffy couldn’t hear him, she couldn’t stop herself.
“You are an ungrateful little child, you drove mom into an early grave and now you’re trying to do the same to me! Well I won’t let you!”
“What?!” Tears burst out of Dawn’s sore eyes, angry tears running down her face, breaking free against her will.
Buffy could retreat, she could have taken it back, but she was blinded by rage, blinded by grief, “Maybe if you hadn’t been so selfish, maybe if you hadn’t stressed mom out every single day of her life she would have never gotten sick!”
The crack came before anyone saw Dawn’s hand move. Buffy’s head swung back and by the time she faced forwards again Dawn had run away, up the stairs to her room.
She looked over at Spike, his eyes held no comfort for her, how could they? She was becoming a monster, and she didn’t know how to stop before this disease inside her heart ate her and her family alive.
She was getting nowhere. She’d been here for nearly 20 minutes, pacing back and forth in Spike’s room, holding a bag of frozen peas to her cheek to stop the swelling. He was laid in bed staring up at her.
Eventually Buffy found her voice, “Can you believe she hit me?” she asked him.
“No.” he said bluntly, he couldn’t.
The slap had shocked him, but although he sensed Buffy wanted to take from that that he thought it was also out of order it wasn’t implied in his answer. She stopped pacing for a moment and stared at him when she realised that.
“You think I deserved it?”
Spike sat up and slid down to sit at the end of the bed, “Buffy, I don’t want to upset you, so I’m going to say this very carefully.” Now was the time he thought, now was the time to challenge her. She may not be ready, but this had to be fixed, and it had to be done right. “I know you didn’t mean what you did.”
“I didn’t.” she agreed, pulling the bag away from her mouth, but she wasn’t backing down just yet.
“Well neither did, Dawn.”
Buffy tensed, “What she did was just as ba…”
“I know.” he said, “She shouldn’t have hit you, but you shouldn’t have said what you did. You’re both 1 all here, but you’re the adult.”
Shit, Buffy thought, that stopped her defence dead.
“Look it sucks, Buffy.” he admitted, “Your mother argued all the time with Dawn, and she knew it sucked, you could see it sucked for her.”
He got up off the bed and walked towards where she stood. He took her hands in his hands and made her listen to him for once, “Sometimes only one of you will be wrong, but this time both of you are, and that sucks because it means you’re going to have to give in.”
She looked up at him guiltily.
“Neither of you are to blame, what’s happened brought it about, but both of you did something horrible. And sometimes when that happens she won’t see it, and until she grows up a bit more it has to be you that fixes it, because at the end of the day you’re family and if no one fixes it it never goes away. And I know more than anyone that you can’t just expect to abandon your family and find things the same when you come back.” He twirled a piece of stray hair and tucked it behind her ear, dwelling on how they used to be before he took their relationship for granted all those years ago.
She couldn’t argue with that part, she realised he wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, he was just trying to teach her from his own mistakes.
Feeling he was getting through to her as he saw her scowl disappear he focused back on Dawn, “She’s a teenager who’s lost her mom, and you expect her to be emotionally stable enough to see you didn’t mean what you said?”
“You expect me to.” she said as if it was a valid point. Why did he think she was any more together than Dawn?
“Yeah I do.” he said answering her bluntly.
And then she got it. He thought it, because it had to be that way; because she had to be more together; because although she’d like to think she was still a little girl who had lost her mommy, thinking it and feeling it didn’t make it so. She was a grown woman, and her little sister was in pain, and it did suck, it sucked big time, but she had to sacrifice her own feelings.
There it was, she didn’t have to like it, but it was true, and that’s what her mother would have done.
Buffy entered the room quietly. Usually after they had had a fight Dawn locked her door, the fact it was still open and that she was lying in bed, fully dressed, under the sheets still sobbing told her how much she’d messed things up. Dawn never wanted to talk to Buffy after they had fought, and this time she hadn’t even come up from her tears long enough to get up and lock her door behind her, she had dived straight into her bed, pulled the cover over herself and just cried there.
Buffy’s stomach churned, but when she came in Dawn stirred and so she stood still and waited for her to sit up in her own time.
“Here to yell at me some more?” Dawn asked when she finally noticed her there.
“No.” Buffy replied, still unsure of what she was actually going to say.
“Good, then you can leave.”
“Dawnie.” Buffy begged.
“Please,” Dawn almost grunted, “Please just go!”
“I have to apologise.” Buffy said shaking her head.
“No you don’t,” Dawn said, “Just go. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to speak to you!”
“Dawn, I can’t just let that be the last thing I say to you.” Buffy said stepping further in.
That made Dawn sit up and take notice for the first time, she couldn’t help the regret that washed through her voice even though she was still mad at her, “You’re leaving?”
“No…I mean, well eventually I’ll have to…” Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose, much like Giles used to do, some things were obviously passed on vicariously not genetically, “I’m doing this all wrong already.” she sighed.
“I get it; you never wanted to be here with me.” Dawn said having time to gather her thoughts and realising it was pointless to get upset. If Buffy was leaving that was her fault too, nothing she could do about it so she might as well just go now and save the talk. “So why don’t you just go?” she continued, “You’re off the hook anyway, I’m the bad daughter, and now everyone knows it. Your conscience is clear.”
Buffy was confused, “Dawn, what are you talking about?”
“I know you’re leaving because you can’t stand to look at me. After what I’ve done…”
“What you’ve done…” she trailed off, “Dawn I’m not leaving. I meant if I’m staying and you refuse to talk to me while I’m here I don’t want that,” she pointed out to the staircase as if it represented their earlier fight, “to be the last thing we say to each other.”
“Oh…” Dawn said, shifting, bringing her knees up to her chest, still under the covers.
“Look, Dawn. I came here to apologise. What I said was out of line, not only that it was wrong…completely wrong…”
Dawn started shaking her head; it increased until it started to worry Buffy.
“Dawn, please just listen!”
“No.” she whispered back.
“Dawn, I didn’t mean…”
“You don’t get it!” Dawn finally shouted, “You were right, about everything! It is my fault!”
“Oh, Dawnie.” Buffy cringed realising there was more to this than her words, “You’re not...”
“I killed mom,” she gasped, “I never gave her time for herself. She had to look after me and I let her, and I never thanked her. She ran around after me her whole life and it killed her, just like you said!”
“Dawn?” Buffy asked as she sat down on the bed, “How long have you thought this?”
“Ever since we came home from the hospital,” she gasped again in a sobbed breath, it sounded ragged and painful, “Well?” she cried, “Its true right? You think it too?”
“No!” Buffy yelled climbing further up the bed to sit beside her. “I was just angry, I wouldn’t ever think that.”
“You said it.” she accused, still not turning to her fully.
“I didn’t mean it, I…”
“It doesn’t matter.” Dawn snapped petulantly, “I’m saying it doesn’t matter, because it’s true.”
“Dawn…” Buffy was lost for words, how had this got so messed up? This explained everything, her behaviour, her anger, her hiding in her room; it was guilt. Then Buffy had echoed her greatest fear, that she had killed their own mother. How could she take that back?
Buffy searched her heart for something, but the only way she could see this being fixed was to lay it all out. She didn’t know how to right this wrong, so that’s what she would tell her sister. Buffy might be the adult, but Dawn had been right, she wasn’t their mother. It was time to admit that.
“Dawn,” she began, “I’m so absolutely terrible at this. I’m the worst big sister ever. I’m trying to be mom, and I don’t know how to be mom. I don’t know how to fix this, but I need to, because what I said, I honestly didn’t mean it. I don’t think you’re to blame, I never have. You didn’t do anything, and I should have realised you thought this way and told you all this a long time ago…but it’s not your fault.”
Dawn sat up and turned to her for the first time. “Really?”
“Oh god,” Buffy said squeezing her eyes shut, “I can’t even believe you think that; I can’t believe I said that all to you. It was…”
“You really didn’t mean it?” Dawn asked quietly, ignoring everything else but that for now.
“I didn’t Dawn, because you’re not to blame.” She hugged her close, pulling her sister’s fragile body and cradling it into hers. “You couldn’t have done anything differently to stop what happened. It was an accident; no one could have stopped it.”
Dawn pulled away, “But I…”
“But nothing,” Buffy said cutting her off, “You don’t think we could all blame ourselves?” she said lifting Dawn’s face, wiping one side free of tears, “Mom decided not to do anything about her aneurysm, that was her call. Giles let her decide not to have the surgery.” She paused, swallowing the lump in her throat, “And me and Spike…well we didn’t even come around enough to know about any of it.”
“That’s not your fault,” she sniffled, “I was here and I didn’t know. They didn’t want us to know.”
“Exactly.” Buffy said firmly, “Everyone played a part, and we could all be to blame if we decided to make up the reasons in our head, but none of it matters…do you know the real reason mom’s gone?”
Dawn shook her head.
“Neither do I.” Buffy said firmly, “We’ll never know…” Buffy knew it wasn’t the most comforting thing she could have said, but it’s what she believed. She could never give Dawn proof of anything, she could only do one thing for her, and that was be honest, “The one thing I do know is that it isn’t your fault, Dawn. So you have to stop blaming yourself.”
Dawn shifted and hugged Buffy this time, almost knocking her over, she buried her head as far into her stomach as she could, and she cried even more, but Buffy didn’t mind these tears so much, because she knew that they were laced with relief.
“I’m so sorry, Dawnie. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” she stroked her hair, and rocked her little sister as she cried, “It just happened.”