Beautifully Broken
By Pixie Child

It's like when she died, a part of Dawn died with her. Something she didn't even know she needed, and now it hurts without it. Sometimes, she tries to pretend it never happened. That she never met the unbelievably strong girl who managed hold her head high even though she knew she'd die that month. That week. That day... but it hurts just as bad when she tries to forget because it's pretending that Cassie never existed. And that's the worse thing anyone could ever do.

So she closes her eyes, and imagines that she had showed up just in time with a doctor who was able to fix her, make it so she didn't die. She pretends that they had their first kiss at a dance they didn't want to go to, but Buffy made them. When she does that, she always imagines that Cassie would taste like the bubblegum lip stuff Dawn saw in her bag the one time and that whenever one of them was sad, all the other had to do was hold her tightly until all the tears went away.

But it's just a story and Dawn knows this because instead of beside her in the caf, Cassie is in a wooden box, being lowered into the ground.