Carefully surveying Dawn, she noticed the tinge of pain in her eyes, and the way her lips slightly twisted to the side. She hadn't expected her response to be full of loneliness and anguish. How could she have been so blind? She thought by now she Dawn well, but she hadn't a clue her bitterness towards the spell was because she felt excluded and unwanted. That wasn't the case at all. She narrowed her eyes, watching her ice cream melt by the second that it began to resemble soup.
"Like you'd rather I had been the one to jump, instead of her." Her eyes instantly raised, stared the brunette down with astonishment and regret.
"Dawn. No. That's n-not..No. We didn't tell you cause we thought you wouldn't understand. And the spell..It was dangerous, and we just didn't want you to be a part of that. We woulldn't even have told Xander and Anya if we didn't need them to complete the circle." She felt so utterly guilty, and it took every ounce of strength in her not to break down in tear. She hated hurting Dawn.
"And we needed Buffy. Not just for the slaying, but for you," she paused. "If we thought for a single second the spell would of made her like..." She couldn't bare the world 'animalistic', cause it was still hard for the gang to remember the way Buffy acted. "Like that..We would of never done it."
Another pause. "Willow just wanted to make things better...for all of us."