Title: Walk Away
Author: Shona
Rating: U/G whatever the current favourite ratign is for fics without any gore, sex or swearing.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. Just playin' in this sandbox.
Dedication: To Susan

You're looking at me like you expect to see
Something there that I can't be
And I'm asking you to let me walk away this time
Cause I can't be her anymore


She stared at the phone in her hand in disbelief. The dial tone seemed to echo around the apartment but her brain wouldn’t coordinate with her hand enough for her to hit the ‘end call’ button. Finally the buzzing gave way to a strident beeping noise and she quickly shut the phone off before dropping it onto the chair.

“Oh, there’s that show I wanted to see. Gotta go, we’ll talk soon!”

Her sister’s words echoed in her head, the carelessness in her tone, the abandonment inherent in her words. Was Buffy really so heartless that she couldn’t hear the tears hidden behind Dawn’s brittle laughter?

She knew her sister was busy – she was the sole contact for the new council in southern Europe, her patch included fifty Slayers and three times that number of support personnel – but she was still her sister after all. Dawn wasn’t expecting Buffy to solve her problems, all she wanted was for someone to listen to her. Someone to care.

Buffy had always been that person, but now? Dawn wasn’t so sure.

She remembered the promise Buffy had made, that she would show her the world, and she remembered how quickly that had been forgotten when something more interesting came along. The world needed saving, Dawn knew that, but sometimes she thought that maybe it was always just another excuse for Buffy to isolate herself.

When they had first come to Europe they had clung together, even when they were in different cities they would call each other every day. Then one day the calls started to drop off, soon it became once a week, then once every two weeks, then once a month. The tone of the calls had changed too, they still asked each other how things were, went through the motions of caring, but there was a tenseness there that reminded Dawn of the bad old days back in Sunnydale. The days when there always seemed to be something more important for Buffy to do and Dawn had always been kept out of things, out of harms way.

Now that she was a little older and a lot wiser Dawn considered the thought that maybe Buffy had never been the girl she had thought she was. The pedestal she had placed her older sister on was a high one. Too high. Had she ever been anything less than selfish? Had she ever been the idyllic figure Dawn held in her memories?

She sank to the floor, silent tears flowing freely. Maybe it was better to cherish those memories for what they were – rose-colored memories of a time long gone. Maybe it was time to move on, and to let Buffy do the same.

Dawn knew she could do this. On her own.