I've secretly wondered, what it's like for a female. I've been male for many lifetimes...many human lifetimes, I should say.

It's not to say that I want to wear a dress and make-up and heels and walk around like Tony Curtis did in "Some Like It Hot," but I wonder what it is that make girls tick, that make them so sensitive and so much the better, fairer sex.

And I wonder what it was like for Buffy, to be female and the Slayer. Or what it's like for Red and Tara, witches and females. Or even the blathering git Anya, to be a demon and female.

But right now, I wonder about Dawn. She was the Key, and now she isn't, and she's just female. And she's a kid, a scared kid who lost her Mom and her sister in so short a time. That must be hard, to be a girl and lose the other very strong women in your life in what must seem to one cruel joke played by some God somewhere.

She's asleep, now. The funeral's over, the second she's had to endure in such a short time. It's more than a mild shock, a mild adjustment. It's the biggest change she'll have to endure. I wish she didn't have to.

And I won't leave her, not if I can help it. For the simple fact that she looks up to me as someone who can teach her, someone who can help her. Someone who will make a difference in her life just by my very existence.

The objections to my staying at her home has fallen squarely on my deaf ears. The only one who even understood was Giles. He encouraged me to stay, to be the disciplinarian and the friend, the parent and...the friend. I'm to play all the familial roles in her life now: confidant, role model...and when it comes to it, the focus of teenage rebellion.

Right now, though, I'd rather deal with the good side of her personality, or even it's twin evil, then this deep dark void of emotion. Dawn's just so empty. The very thing that is at the core of all females, the sense of being...it's gone. Or it's faded, to the point where she can't be loved, can't be alive, can't...be.

What a poor thing to happen to a female. Especially this one.