I Sit Alone, a Snake by Gwynnega

Dawn already knew about the First and its tricks. But for a brief moment, when Cassie appeared in the kitchen late one night, she almost let herself believe. She'd been eating a bowl of cereal and studying Turkish, enjoying her all-too-rare alone time, while the Potentials slept.

At first Dawn said nothing, just watched her glide closer. Taking in the goofy, rueful look on Cassie's/not Cassie's face. That steady gaze, that gravity. She'd had that gravity about her, and Dawn never knew if it was because she'd known she was going to die.

"I wish it was you," Dawn said at last, in a choked little voice. "I missed you. I wish..."

"Why can't you believe it's me?" she asked, sidling up to her - but not, of course, touching her. "Your sister came back to life. Why not me? Don't I deserve to live?"

"You do. But you're not her."

*

Cassie wrote poetry. That was so cool. Cassie was so cool. She read books because she wanted to read them, not for class. After she died, Dawn checked Slaughterhouse Five out of the library and read it. It made her feel closer to her. She read her poems on her website, too. She even memorized a couple of them. They were all about death, about how she didn't want to die. Dawn remembered how she hadn't wanted to die, high above the city, the knife going in, shallow cuts that hurt so badly. She wondered if Cassie suffered much pain when she died. Buffy said she didn't think she did, but how could she know?

*

Not Cassie, in the kitchen. But so like, with those tendrils of purple in her blonde hair, tendrils Dawn always had the urge to touch, play with, but never did, not even that one time. Her funny, pretty face. That cool black T-shirt with the cartoon kids on it. "Forgot about me so soon," she said in a flat, surprised tone. "For that boy with the jacket."

"That was a spell." Dawn shook her head. "Why should I be apologizing, when it's not even you?" She put her head in her hands and started to cry. But no, she couldn't cry properly, not with the First watching. She looked up, brushed the tears from her face. Cassie was watching sorrowfully.

"Don't cry, Dawn," she said huskily. "It wasn't your fault you couldn't help."

*

They knew each other for such a short time. After school one day, they talked about everything. Well, not everything - Dawn left out all the Slayer stuff and the apocalypses, but they both had divorced parents. Cassie's dad was an alcoholic, Dawn's just a deadbeat. She thought about telling Cassie she was the Key, that she had all these memories that weren't even real. She thought it might make her feel better somehow, about how she thought she might die - but she wasn't supposed to know about that. Besides, it wasn't the same thing at all. Dawn's past wasn't real, but barring apocalypses and monster attacks, she probably had a future.

*

"You couldn't help me. None of you could. What makes you think this is going to be any different?"

She was so close they were almost touching. Dawn put her fingertips to Cassie's face, and they went right through.

"Cool, huh?"

Dawn gave a snort. "Yeah, real cool." She knew she should get Buffy or somebody, but she still wanted to be alone. She was never alone in this house anymore. How funny that she used to feel lonely here, and wanted everyone to hang out with her. Now she was never alone. Yet she still felt lonely - now, most of all, with this fake Cassie trying to work her.


*

After school, walking together. Talking about Cassie's friend Mike, and Dawn's first kiss (leaving out the part where she had to stake him). "I like this tree," Cassie said, not in a New Age, in-touch-with-nature kind of way. She said it like you might say: I like your shirt.

"It's nice," Dawn said lamely, not knowing what else to say, and they stared up at the gingko's fan-shaped leaves.

Everything felt so fraught to Dawn, knowing what she knew about Cassie. When they quit looking up at the tree, they stared into each other's eyes. Cassie's were changeable, blue-green, gray-blue. Dawn couldn't decide what color they were. While she was trying to figure it out, Cassie put her fingers over Dawn's mouth, lightly. Dawn was very aware just then of how seldom anyone touched her. Sure, Buffy hugged her, or Xander did. But nobody else, until now. It made the loneliness lift high up above her, up among the gingko branches. It was such a relief.

Then her hand moved away, and Dawn wished it hadn't, until Cassie leaned forward and kissed her, lightly. Her lips were dry and soft. Her hair tickled Dawn's face.

Cassie pulled back and smiled a little, sadly. "I should be getting home," she said.

*

"You might as well give up," the First said. "Besides, don't you feel guilty that you get to live when I can't?"

"Cassie would never talk like that to me," Dawn wrenched out in a low, guttural tone.

Dawn had kissed two people on the lips, a boy and a girl. Both died. Though technically the boy was already dead.

As if the First knew what she was thinking, she drew closer until her lips were almost touching Dawn's, though there could be no touching here. If Dawn could kiss this Cassie, even though it was the First, Dawn thought she would have. After all, she'd kissed an evil vampire boy, and it had felt good.

"If you gave up, if you gave them up, we could be together. We could kiss, and do other things. It would be nice. I'm all alone."

"Don't," Dawn said.

Cassie started to recite one of her poems. "I sit alone and try to love them, I sit alone, a snake..."

Dawn didn't think Cassie would have her own poems memorized.

"Buffy couldn't save me. What makes you think she can save you?" Her smile twisted into open scorn. Cassie had never looked that way.

"Get out of here," Dawn said, and turned back to her Turkish. When she looked up again, she was gone.

*

It felt complete, that one kiss. Dawn didn't need another, didn't need more, that day. But after Cassie died, she wished there had been more. Wished she could have loved Cassie better, more extensively, given her something she could keep - though dead people, the non-vamp kind, didn't get to keep anything, did they? So she must have wanted it for herself.

.End