Beautiful and motionless, frozen in time like a flower in winter. If one looked closely on the surface, bones that had snapped at odd angles were vaguely visible. Little pointed hills peaking under bruises camouflaged with makeup. The neck, arms, legs, ribs-all broken into tiny shards, too numerous to count. Somewhere under golden wheatfields of hair were pieces of skull, cracked and shifted out of place like teutonic plates. Dark lashes lay against rouged cheeks, masking both the natural beauty she had been in life and the horrible disfigurations of her now-shattered face.

A smaller, darker, physically undamaged version of her stood just outside the coffin, thin as a rail and nearly as white as the corpse in question. Deep purple colored the valleys under her eyes, which were wide with something that could only be described as madness. She clutched a yellow sweetheart rose in her hand, thorns pricking her bony fingers. Little drops of blood beaded on the wood beneath her. Worthless blood, she would have said bitterly, had she been able to form coherent thoughts.

Nothing made sense anymore, the flowers would all die, the body was cold now. Such a strange day to be dead, when birds sang and the ocean waves still crashed. The jacaranda blossoms were in full bloom, exploding with the color of royalty. Really, how rude it was to be dead on such a day, when one should be playing on the swings and rolling in the grass and thanking whomever was in charge of creating days like this one.

The rose dropped onto the body of the world's last martyr, and the girl outside the brass-hinged box sat on the carpeted step like a guard dog. She stared wide-eyed at everyone else, apparently intending to keep the body to herself and prove her insanity to them at the same time. The redhead came close once, but backed off quickly when the girl growled, baring her blunt teeth and digging her nails into the carpet.

"...post-traumatic shock..."

"...actually quite mad..."

"...in shock. Doesn't know what she's..."

She heard none of it. All she heard was the sharp gasps for breath and the helplessness of her not-sister's last screams. The ones no one else could hear, the ones that haunted her and echoed inside her head day after day, night after night. They all said she never screamed, they never heard it. But they were not a part of her the way she was. They didn't have her blood pumping through their veins, a tiny piece of her heart beating in their chests (the doctors, all stunned. modern medicinal miracle, far too small, beats too fast, works just fine...), every single thought of hers emulated inside their own heads.

Oh god, the pain madness bright bright light, swirling around inside that white hole, how she was blinded from the first and felt each one of her bones snap. Not a drop of blood was spilled, not a single solitary drop, but she died just the same and her not-sister felt every second of it. It took forty-four of them, total, for her muscles to stretch abnormally and rip away from the bones, for her tendons and organs to twist and knot themselves into horrific formations, visions of which permanently etched themselves on the insides of her eyelids. For her flesh to rise and fall with each bone that cracked and tried to push it's way through-but failed because her skin was simply too fast to catch. Too fast, like she was up on that platform, running with blinding speed to the very end.

When you run they can't catch you...

~*~

Dawn sat hunched over in front of the casket, skinny arms around knobby knees and a curtain of damp brown hair surrounding her curled body. Xander and Tara held Willow, Willow and Anya held Xander, Cordelia and Angel held each other, and Giles held a stuffed pig. Spike sat in a back pew looking gaunt and angular, pale and hollow, as if he hadn't fed for a long time. Tara stood, kissing Willow's forehead, and took Anya's hand. They left their loves in each others' arms and walked to the back, sitting on either side of Spike.

Tara touched his shoulder, Anya nodded her approval, and the three stood up, making their way back to the front. Apparently, they felt merciful in their mourning, which boded well for me. Hell of a time to return, but this was the death of my friend as surely as it was the death of theirs. Maybe more so.

I stepped from the shadows and walked towards the fornt carefully, taking great pains to control my usual swagger. There was nothing to prove here. I walked past Giles, seated a few rows behind everyone else, and he didn't move. I slid into the front row, alongside Spike. He looked at me, his eyes empty, and nodded slightly.

I nodded back. Angel glanced to me and smiled sadly. Words weren't necessary now. Every person and non-person (don't ask which group I fit into. I'm not sure I know.) in the room had one thing in common. The girl in the casket. We all loved her. Giles as a father. Anya, Tara, and Cordelia as friends. Willow loved her as a hero. Angel, Spike and I, as lovers, as soul mates.

But the girl doubled over on the steps, she loved Buffy as herself. It was she who had delivered the nearly unintelligible phone call, saying she was Buffy, and she was dead, and she wanted me to come. She always wanted me to be there, and now I just had to be there... Giles pulled some council strings and had me released. I stood again, patting Spike's shoulder, and turned towards Dawn.

"She won't let anyone near," Willow whispered hoarsely. I glanced at her, and stepped closer to Dawn.

Dawn looked up, her eyes wild and teeth bared, looking small and deadly like a baby panther. Like Buffy. She broke when she saw me, reaching her arms out and mewling. I sat next to her, and she scrambled into my lap, releasing inhuman sobs. I cradled her like a baby, holding her to my chest. I sat there holding a fourteen year old like a four month old, rocking her.

She bit at the ends of her hair and for the faintest moment I got a glimpse of the girl I remembered. The unbroken one who was addicted to chocolate, loved her sister more than anything but claimed otherwise, and believed that her mother would protect her from everything a stake couldn't.

Then she was pulling the strands out of her head, defying the deaths of her mother and sister, drawing blood and refusing to cry out with pain. She mewled like an injured kitten, and I grabbed her wrists, pressing them to her chest and restraining her.

"Dawn." She looked me in the eye for the first time, and for one solitary second, I saw what she saw.

Buffy was running, too fast to catch, escaping from it all, now she was falling falling into the light and screaming, oh god the screaming was so loud it echoed and echoed over and over and over again, bouncing around my skull and heart and chilling every part of my body. It felt like my blood was frozen, my heart stopped mid-pump but god I was still alive, I was still alive, Buffy was still alive, her heart didn't beat but she felt pain-endless, endless pain throbbing inside Dawn's body... Oh god...

"Buffy?" I whispered. She cried out again at the sensation of her neck breaking. Forty four seconds, I thought. Not even a full minute, looped over and over again. Her ribs were cracking now.

She couldn't speak. The others couldn't know. Their Buffy was dead in that casket. The story was over for them. Her muscles twisted, ripping apart. Dawn shuddered and went stiff. She looked at me and her eyes went wide. "Be brave. Live. For me," she said softly. She shuddered again, and I felt her moving in my arms, reacting to her body breaking again. Forty four seconds. How many sets of forty four seconds were there in a week? How many times had she died inside this body?

I stood, lifting her. "Tara." The blonde looked up at me. "Please." She looked to Willow, who nodded and shifted closer to Xander. Tara stood and walked out of the church with me.

~*~

We go to Buffy's house. I'm still not sure what's going on. Dawn is shaking and shuddering, and Faith is struggling to hold her wrists down in the backseat. I'm too scared to ask any questions.

We get to the house and Faith cradles Dawn to her chest, holding her impossibly tight, and I wince as I hear a bone somewhere snap. Dawn doesn't react. Her back arches and she thrusts out of Faith's arms, her mouth opened in a silent scream.

I look at Faith questioningly.

"She's Buffy."

What? "No. She's Dawn." "She's not insane. Tara, you have to feel it." I shake my head. I don't feel anything. "Look into her eyes."

I do. "Oh, god... Oh, god..." I fall to my knees, and hold Dawn's body close to my own. "Oh, god."

"A spell."

"What?"

"A spell. To undo it. Fix it, Tara."

My eyes go wide. Me? "Me?"

"Yes. You. Do a spell. Look at her! You have to do something!"

I shake my head. "No, not me. I'm not that powerful. Willow has more power." Faith bristles and suddenly puts her fist through a glass hutch. She takes a few deep breaths and looks back at me, eerily calm, her fist bloodied. "Willow wouldn't believe this. She wouldn't feel what we can feel, Tara."

She's right. Willow's more powerful, but it's all borrowed power. She wasn't born with it the way I was. She can't sense people the way I can. It has to be me.

"I need time."

"No. You don't have time. Forty-four seconds, Tara. It took forty-four seconds for her to die the first time, and that's how long it takes every single time she dies now."

"I know," I snap uncharacteristically, surprising even myself. I take my keys out of my pocket. "Take her upstairs. Tie her down. Don't let her hurt herself. I'll be back."

Faith looks at me pleadingly, and I see the love in her eyes, for both Buffy and Dawn. Eventually she's going to have to choose between them, but I keep that bit to myself for now. It's better for her to have a clear head until I ask her...

I know how this spell goes already. I enter the Magic Box and take what I need. If I'm right-and for everyone's sake, I'd better be-because the monks made Dawn from Buffy, there was a little piece of Buffy's essence in Dawn, which bound them together. Dawn's blood opened the portal, which Buffy then jumped into. So Dawn still lives, with part of herself and part of Buffy inside of her. Had Dawn jumped, Buffy would be exactly as she'd been since Dawn was 'born'... Herself. With a small piece missing. Without the rest of Buffy, what's left of Dawn is just... fragments.

I go back to the house. Dawn is bound to Buffy's bed, arching against the ropes the hold her, rubbing her skin raw and crying out. Faith is sitting in the chair in the corner, looking pale and very young. She wipes her eyes, whose redness betray her denial of tears.

"Did you get what you needed?" she asks softly. Watching Dawn's endlessly repetetive futile struggles has obviously taken a lot out of her. I nod and begin to set things up. "Do you know what you're doing?"

I nod again. "I need you for this. I'm going to ask you something, and you have to answer immediately. You can't think about it. The faster you speak, the more honest your answer will be. Can you do that?"

She looks at me with sad eyes, and I feel a very definitive pang of sympathy for her. I can sense people, and her intentions have always been good.

Everything was done in light of the rejection of her love. "Maybe you should get someone else..."

"Do you love Dawn?" I ask.

Her eyes fill with resolve. "Yes."

"And Buffy? Do you love Buffy?"

Now they fill with tears, hinting towards her future decision. "With all my heart."

"Then it has to be you."

She nods, accepting my judgement, and fidgets. "Where should I be?"

"Sit on the bed," I say. "And take her hand." She does so.

"Here we go." I take a deep breath.

~*~

The bones in Dawn's hand were breaking and shifting again, fifteen out of forty four seconds had elapsed for what was the ten millionth time if it was the first. Dawn writhed and threw herself around. I held tightly onto her hand, so tightly that I was afraid the bones might really crack with the force of my grip.

Tara recited words in a language I didn't understand. I didn't even recognize it. I felt jolts of electricity passing from Dawn's body to mine, and soon felt a burning sensation. Then I smelled it; the stench of human flesh burning. I wanted to throw up, I wanted to let go, I wanted to be the one to jump off the platform to my death.

Tara was asking me something. "What?"

"Buffy or Dawn?"

I stared at her, shell-shocked. "Buffy or Dawn, you have to pick one."

Buffy or Dawn. The words took so long to register-more than forty four seconds? Buffy or Dawn. Choose one. Choose one for what? There was no choosing.

Buffy, with her summertime looks and springtime personality. She carried the world in one hand and saving it in the other. Ever the Slayer, ever the light-hearted girl broken by her responsibilities. What made her any different from the average teenager? Love, life, death, the weight of the world... The same story told over and over again, glorified and defined by one girl in each generation. But hers was so different, because hers was a love story from start to finish.

And Dawn, little Dawn with her journals of hope and scars of hopelessness. How she loved with all her heart, and wrote with twice that passion. She was meant to grow up and write books that would change the world. She had a future, a future that I could see so clearly while holding her hand in those moments. Hers would one day be a love story, too.

"Buffy. Or Dawn. Faith, you need to choose."

I couldn't, I can't, I won't. How can you choose between the woman you love and the girl she loves? It was such a twisted cycle, how I wanted her to be alive for me, but she'd die again without Dawn.

Dawn's body went limp.

"Faith, god damn it, Buffy or Dawn?"

Buffy, Dawn, Dawn, Buffy... Tara never cursed...

Seizures began then, wracking her ematiated body as she choked on her saliva. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. I got scared.

"Buffy, Dawn, Dawn, Buffy!" I screamed, grabbing her hands. I shook her hard, thinking irrationally that I could stop the seizures that way. I cried out their names helplessly, falling into my own vortex, unable to do anything but cry and call for them both. I needed them to come back, to save me, to save themselves. How can I choose? How can you make a choice like that?

I felt the electricity crackling again, and my body enveloped Dawn's, clutching her to me. If I could just feel her heart beat, just once, then everything would be okay. But nothing was going to be okay.

Her heart was still.

My body shook hysterically and I shook the tiny body in front of me, screaming over and over again, calling for them both to come back.