SUMMARY: Buffy's thoughts on Dawn.
RATING: G
TIMELINE: Sometime after "There's No Place Like Home." Some spoilers for season 5, that episode in particular.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Joss, UPN, Fox.
Love/Hate
by: Rebecca Carefoot
I hate her.
Of course, I love her. She's my sister. I can't NOT love her.
And that's partly why I hate her.
Because it wasn't my choice. She was forced on me. Yeah, you say, that's what all older siblings think. They hate having their parents' attentions taken away, yadda, yadda. Only she wasn't forced on me by my parents when I was 6. She was born out of my old life. The monks who made her took my memories and tore them and ripped them and put them back together, formed my mind, my life, around her.
Because of her, I don't know who I am. Because of her, my life disappeared. And my new life is about her, protecting her, helping her, saving her, loving her. My life isn't mine. Not anymore.
I guess I should hate the monks. I know it's not her fault. It wasn't her choice either. But they're gone, and she's not. She's right here. Everyday. And she's on my mind all the time. And my mind isn't mine anymore, because of her.
My entire life, from the age of 6 on, is a lie. Everything I remember, it never happened. And I'll never know the truth, what really happened in my own life. That day I baby-sat her when I was twelve, and she fell out of the swing when I wasn't looking. I spent the whole day with her and mom in the emergency room waiting for her to get the cut on her chin stitched up. What did I really do that day?
That time she caught me sneaking in the window when I was 15, just weeks after I found out I was the Slayer, and she woke mom and dad up and ratted me out. I got grounded for two weeks. Did I really get caught? What was my mom doing in my room if she was the one who caught me? What did she say to me?
That long, giggly conversation we had when I first started dating Angel. Before we started fighting over the fact that she took my white tank top without asking. What really happened that night? Did I tell anyone? Did I ever have that conversation?
How did my mom find out I was the Slayer if Dawn didn't follow me on patrol and see me stake a vampire?
Most of the time I try not to think about it, that other life, because what's the point? I have no way of finding the answer to any question I ask myself about it. I will never know what was, or what I had. And it's easy to pretend. This life feels real. My memories feel real. And it's not that the new memories are bad ones.
It's just that I wonder who I was. Before her. I was an only child. I don't- I can't even imagine what it was like.
They say experiences are what shape a person, makes them who they are. What kinds of memories did I have before? What kind of person was I?
She took that away from me. Whoever I was. And I was someone, a real person, a person not based on lies. She took it.
I love her.
But I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her. Because I can't quite ever manage to forget that it isn't real. That my whole life never happened, not the way I remember it.
I don't even know who I am. Because of her.
Sometimes I wish I could hate her more.
end
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