I'm sure that I went down in the line of duty. You know the routine, Slayer sacrifices herself to save the world. Well, in this case, Slayer-clone with Slayer-powers sacrifices herself to save the world. But same diff.

Seems like I've known you forever. I mean, yeah, it's been eleven years since we first came to Sunnydale and you were Buffy's Watcher. But somehow, it seems years and years more than that one decade. Maybe it's just 'cos divorced girls who live with their maternal units tend to seek male attention anywhere they can find it. Well, anyway.

Giles, there's something I want you to know.

I'm sorry.

I guess now would be the time to tell you what I'm sorry for, right? To invent some half-assed story about how I'm sorry I never told you how much I loved you, how much I respected you, all from the start. That would be a damn lie, of course. I didn't like you for a long time--I thought you were going to take Mom away, I thought you were doing illegal things with Buffy, I thought you thought I was a dumb kid when Buffy was no better. I might have respected you a bit, but I never really liked you.

But that's not what I'm sorry for, Giles.

I'm gonna be with Buffy now. I just realized that. See her again. Maybe now would be the time to talk about how much I miss her, how wonderful and sweet and beautiful she was--to go on about her clear blue-green eyes, like the Caribbean in a travel brochure, to go on about how her hair was like spun gold and it cascaded down her back as though it were a waterfall. To talk about sweet wonderful Buffy who gave her life to save mine, to save all of our lives.

I guess that's part of what I'm sorry for--I don't love her any more because of what she did.

But that's not all of it.

Part of it, Giles, part of it is this:

Do you remember that before she died, Buffy was afraid that she was losing her ability to love?

I swore to myself that I would never stop loving, Giles. And I haven't.

It was something bigger than that. It wasn't love that she was losing. I don't know what it was.

But I began to lose it too.

I realized it a few weeks ago. I was on the sidewalk just outside the cemetary--it was during the day; I had nothing to worry about.

There was this little bird on the sidewalk. I think it had been learning to fly. I don't know what kind it was. But it was small, probably only a little bigger than a baby. It ran from me when I got close.

It didn't run, really, but it hopped away. I tried to just walk past it, but it hopped into the road. So I tried to kind of herd it back onto the sidewalk, but it just hopped further and further away from me, further out into the road. Finally I decided to try and herd it across the road, then maybe pick it up and take it back across. So I tried to kind of hurry it across. And a little over halfway across, this car came around the bend.

I froze.

And then I ran across the road, to the sidewalk.

The car hit the bird, of course. I can still see it--it fluttered its wings once, almost panicking, just before it was crushed.

I could only stare at it for a few moments from the sidewalk, watch its tiny little carcass as my breath came in ragged gasps.

After those moments, I cautiously walked over to it, thinking that maybe it was still alive, maybe I could take it to a wild bird clinic or something.

But its neck was twisted at this unnatural angle, and its beak was open, like it was about to scream. Its little wings had been spread, you could tell. And there were these tiny drops of blood on them, these little red beads on its feathers.

I began to cry--these heaving, gasping sobs. I haven't cried like that since Buffy told me about Mom. I just...collapsed on the ground.

I killed it. I had killed an innocent little baby animal, probably just learning to go out on its own, to fly, to be itself. I had killed it, as surely as if I had run it over myself.

But you know what I was really crying about?

I was afraid.

I was afraid because although I knew what an awful thing I had done, this huge gaping part of me was--indifferent. Not numb. It just didn't care.

So now you know why I want to say I'm sorry, Giles. Because if I went down in the line of duty, it's for the same reason that Buffy did.

Because I wanted it.

Dawn.