~*~

Dear Buffy, Xander, Dawnie,
Tara came to me. She came, finally, to get me, like I always knew she would. She touched my cheek and she was so cold but I knew.. I knew, that if I could join her I would make her warm again. So warm. Warm like the blood that's running down my arms right now. Sorry, head's a little crowded. So many voices all at once and then there are the pills.. I'm sorry Buffy, but I guess it's okay because Joyce didn't need them anymore anyway. I don't want to be mean. Something's pulling. It's alright, though, because I'm going to be with Tara now. Everything will be like it's supposed to. I love you all. I hope you all live long and happy and fall in love so hard it hurts. That's the only way. The only way.
Love always,
Willow

The beat. The beat is soft and low and loud all at once, pounding bass in my ears from Kit's boombox in Kit's basement room Kit's house Kit's dark dark world. She lives underground like the vampires do and sometimes I think she'll bite if I don't play nice. Or maybe that's if I do play nice. Maybe I want her to bite. Maybe I like the rush. Why am I here again? Everything's so blurry.. but no, that's the wrong song. This is a tape playing now, Shy, that band Oz's she-wolf was in.

See, I might be a kid to them but I still know things.

Like this town. It makes you crazy. It makes you die, even slower when it's not a vamp or demon. Such a slow death suffocation is. The way a small town wraps itself around your throat and closes in on you until you can't breathe anymore. And then you're trapped. Can't get out.

Kit gets that. She grew up here her whole life and she was always the sore thumb. Not the geek like me, no, not my baby urban bomb Kit. She's the rebel, the bad girl, the one on the wrong side of the tracks I laid down to die on that one time last year.

Fuck you, she says. I won't be tied down. You can't hold me, you can't imagine what's beneath this pale pale skin. A firebomb waiting to break free and I'll take anyone I can down with me.

I'm going down now. Take me with you baby, cause I'm feeling things I shouldn't be. Not for a girl, not for this girl.

She puts the lit end of the blunt in her mouth and kisses me, blowing the smoke into my mouth. I inhale deeply, the harsh pot smoke burning my lungs in the best way possible. I hold it in until I feel like I might be sick and Kit kisses me so long that she burns herself.

"Fuck. Shotgun blister," she says, touching her lip.

"Hmm?" Head is light. Everything's slow and a little far. I've had how many hits now? Lost track.

"Shotties. Shotgun. What I did. Blister. Burned my damn self." The higher Kit gets, the less coherent she gets. I just get quiet.

"If I slit my wrists, would you miss me?" I ask thoughtfully, laying back in her beanbag chair.

She leans back against the couch and takes a long drag before passing the blunt to me. "Yeah."

"Ever think about that?"

"Did it."

"Did not."

"Did so."

"Show me."

She always wears long sleeves. She rolls them up and puts her arms out. Thick purple scars, running longways up both arms.

"Fuck," I breathe out smoke. The forbidden word, the word that would make Buffy shove a bar of Ivory down my throat quicker than anything, tastes good. "What'd you do that for?" I glare at her. I didn't even know her then and I feel betrayed.

She shrugs and rolls her sleeves down. "Depends who you ask."

"I'm asking you."

"I wanted to get outta this place."

"Sunnydale?"

"Earth."

For some reason, I find that incredibly funny and I start giggling a little. She does too. We laugh for a long time and I think how it's been weeks since I've laughed, longer since I've seen Buffy smile.

Willow killed herself two months ago.

We calm down and she leans over to kiss me again, and I let her. I kiss her back. Our tongues are tangled together, her fingers are playing in my hair, and she feels so good. Everything is cloudy. Soft. Her hands are fumbling against my baby tee and I don't stop her. I'm so ready. I'm so high.

She slides into me like a warm knife through butter.

The basement flashes. Disco balls, strobes, Christmas lights. Technicolor wonderful like I'm on acid.

That was last week. We tripped the pills fantastic and made out on her floor underneath the beanbag chair, hiding from the eyes that watched us from the walls. We thought they would get us.

But here now there's no eyes but hers and they're closed but mine are open and not watching her anymore. I can't see it.

She's not even my girlfriend.

It's strange to think of Buffy in a time like this, but I do, and I wonder if she felt this way with Spike.. or Faith. I always thought there was more to those two. Would she lie down on Faith's skeezy bed and..

God. I'm so high right now. Can you get so high that you crash? What's in this anyway? The mellow feeling is gone and everything's speeding up including Kit and I cry out but not her name and then my breathing takes a long time to return to normal.

But my heart still keeps going. So fast. "Kit.. Kit.." I breathe hard again.

She rolls lazily onto her back, lighting up a cigarette. "Yeah?"

"What was it?"

"Hmm?" Her eyes are so dilated. Like that time we went dancing and she was popping e-tabs like they were candy and I was afraid she'd die like that girl on the commercial. She popped the ring off my water bottle and stuck it between her teeth as they chattered. Her eyes were so big then. Like now.

"What did we smoke, Kit? What was in that?"

She laughs a little. "Baby Blue," she says. Like the song, that's why she calls me that. "Baby, Baby Blue. Carlos, he said it was awesome. He said it would fuck us up real good."

I grit my teeth. "What. Is. It?"

"It's called wet, Baby Blue. Isn't it nice?"

She brushes her fingers across my face and I can smell myself on her. "Wet?"

"Something.. they dip it. Embalming fluid. Pretty fucked up, huh? I bet you can get high off dead people."

I feel like I might throw up. "Kit.. Kit, I feel sick."

She just leans her head back and closes her eyes. "Can't help. Gotta wait til you come down. Til you come all the way down."

I roll onto my stomach and shut my eyes tight. Wait it out. I try to sleep, maybe I can sleep it off. I wait and I wait and the tape shuts off and Kit is passed out and finally I sink into a deep deep sleep.

I wake up and Buffy is standing over me and boy, does she look pissed. "Get up." I stand up and the world spins. Kit is still passed out. "What did you do? Are you high? Are you on ecstacy?" I don't answer and she gets more angry. She takes me by the shoulders and shakes me. "What the hell are you on, Dawn? It's 12:30 in the morning and you were supposed to be home two hours ago. Two! Hours! I've been out looking everywhere for you! What. The hell. Are you on!"

Dawnie little Dawnie would break down in tears now. I'm sorry I'm sorry Buffy I tried to be good for you but I couldn't and then everything was wonderful for a little while.

Instead I grab one of Kit's cigarettes and light it up. I don't even smoke. Nasty habit. I blow the smoke in Buffy's face slowly. Pointedly.

"Why? Do you want some?"

She looks like she might slap me. Like she might cry. She sinks down on the couch and puts her head in her hands. "What did I do, Dawnie? What did I do to you?"

"Don't call me that."

"That's your name."

Kit rolled weed, real weed, doesn't taste funny, in this cigarette. She has too much time. Way too much. I'm getting high again. "My name's Baby Blue."

"What, is that like a drug code or something? Your white girl gang name?" she bites off, glaring at me.

"It's not convincing." The thing about being high. You say everything you think. You don't mean to, but it happens.

"What isn't?"

"That look. Your voice. You are weak and I am strong. Willow, she was weak too. She cut her wrists open and she fucking died and now she's gone. She's dead. And you walk around here like some kind of god damned zombie and expect me to take you seriously?" I spit the words out as the first cloud of smoke wisps around her head. She inhales.

"You're smoking weed," she says plainly. Like I didn't know that. Like I care. Like you care.

"So what? You do it too."

That was it. She let a tear loose because she didn't know I knew. Didn't realize I'd been snitching from her bags. How her and Willow used to smoke up on the weekends. Oh, she thought she was so cute with her little vague references, those pitiful cries for help and attention.

'It's not what you think. It's magic weed.'

'To witches, candles are like bongs.'

Yeah, Buffy. And you kept one in the back of your closet just for decoration, right? Hypocrite.

I keep smoking, daring her to say something. Eventually she takes it out of my hand and takes a long drag off of it.

"Mom would be so disappointed. In both of us," she says sadly.

"Mom's gone. And Willow's gone. And Tara and Anya are gone. They're all fucking gone. I don't give a damn what they'd think."

Except Tara. A little. It hurts to think about Mom. I like to smoke her away.

Kit stirs and opens her eyes. "You nicked my ciggie, bitch."

"Good morning to you too," I snap.

"Fuck you," she yawns. We've been sleeping since just after school.

"Already did."

Buffy looks at us carefully and takes it all in, analyzing what it means. Little sister. Name: Dawn. Alias: Baby Blue. Age: 17. Status: Apparently at least a little gay. Hobbies: Weed, slutty clothes, clubs.

"Dawn.. can we go home? Please. Come home with me. I don't care if you smoke. Just come home."

I look her over. I'm pretty high now. Pretty tired. Kit's popping pills, and I'm not into that. Tripped just that one time. Kit flips the tape over and a new song starts. I smile when I hear it. She smiles back at me, our earlier snipping forgotten already.

I shrug. "Yeah. It's cool."

I get up. Buffy gets up. Her eyes are a little red. Glassy. I wonder if mine look like shattered glass. Broken, like me on the inside. I put my jacket on.

"See ya tomorrow, Kit."

She smirks. "Ciao, Baby Blue."

And we go home.