Dawn sat on the floor, arranging herself so that they were face to face, their knees touching. She occupied herself with counting Tara's eyelashes, until her girlfriend broke into a smile and opened her eyes.

"Hi," Dawn said softly, leaning forward to kiss her.

And maybe the Wicca stuff she was into really was magic, because Tara got prettier every single day.

**

She could sleep like that, flat out on the floor cushions, her head pillowed in Tara's lap. Her eyes were closed - in one way bad, because then she couldn't look at the gorgeous woman she was half lying on, but good because she could focus all her attention on how nice the hand stroking through her hair felt.

"Tara?" she asked. "How old do you think I look?"

Tara sounded amused. "Oh, sweetie, again?"

She pouted, knowing Tara would be able to tell it was only playing. "But you'd tell me if I looked fifteen, right?" She poked her in the leg. "Evil cradlesnatching witch." It was a running joke; Tara was a positively ancient twenty-two, compared to Dawn's fresh and youthful nineteen and a half.

Her hand was so soft across Dawn's forehead. "Were you talking to that girl again? The one who thinks you're her sister?"

She sighed. "Buffy, yeah."

"How is she?"

She loved that, that Tara could be so compassionate for someone she'd never laid eyes on. Most people didn't get it. Her mom hated that she volunteered at the hospital, and her friends were no better. Connor and Andrew couldn't understand why she'd want to do anything with her spare time other than watch Star Wars with them for the kajillionth time. Telling them she wanted to do something worthwhile had gotten her blank stares.

She'd never had to explain to Tara.

"She's okay," she said. "I mean, okay as she ever is. She's been really quiet ever since the summer. But she remembers my name and stuff and lets me sit and talk to her, so I guess that'd good."

"What do you talk to her about?" Tara's voice was peaceful, and Dawn knew she could change the subject and there'd be no pushing for answers.

"You," she said, her lips curling into a smile all by themselves. "How you're all into the crazy magic stuff, and how smart and kind you are, and about how you make pancakes in animal shapes." She'd been talking to Buffy for hours at a time, these past months, and she hadn't caught herself repeating anything yet. There was too much to say about Tara to ever run out. "And some of the stupid things that Andrew and Connor do. Oh, and I told her last month about that asshole you dated before me."

"Warren's just different," Tara reproached her gently.

She made a face. "Different schmifferent, he's a big freak."

Neither of them spoke for a while. Tara kept carding her fingers through Dawn's hair, and started to quietly hum as she did it. Dawn listened to the sound of her own breathing, of Tara's, and how often the two coincided.

She thought back to the hollow-eyed girl staring out of the rec room window, and bit her lip. All this time visiting Buffy and it still got to her, how somebody just a couple of years older than she was could be so… broken. Last summer, right before the awakening that everyone prayed would take, Buffy had looked at her with tears in her eyes and said, "Dawn, listen to me. I love you. I will always love you."

And Dawn had opened her mouth to say… what? I'm not who you think? I'm nice to you and you think I look younger than I really am so in your head I'm your little sister?

Buffy had looked her right in the eye, and just for a moment Dawn was there with her in Sunnydale, and she said, "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."

The doctors said it wasn't likely she would ever wake up.

Dawn reached up for Tara's hands, now, and said, "Tara? I love you."

She opened her eyes as the kiss grazed her forehead.

"I love you too, sweetie."

"You make the world easier to live in," she said, and with anyone else on the planet - except, she thought, Buffy Summers - she would have had to explain. But Tara just stared down at her, and smiled.