Summary: Six months into the future, Giles thinks about his Slayer.
Spoilers: Through The Gift.
Disclaimer: Joss made the characters. He killed off the main one, too. Evil
man.
Rating: PG
Thanks to Tracy, for beta-ing. She betas so well. :)

The Last Entry
By Amy
-----

This is my last entry.

I've continued this diary for the past six months as more of a personal
journal, spilling out my thoughts and emotions as they come to me, not hiding
anything, in hopes that future Slayers and Watchers will gain some
perspective, some comfort from the pain I've felt. Buffy often wondered
about past Slayers, I'm sure, but only once asked me for information about
them and I couldn't tell her as much as she needed to know. Couldn't help
her in any of the ways I was supposed to. And so I pray that my words will
bring help to other Slayers as they need it.

I'm haunted by ghosts. They surround me this moment, as I sit in the newly
rebuilt, brightly lit library of Sunnydale High School. I thought it only
fitting that I write this here. It is the place that I first met her, met my
Slayer. The place where so many of our plans and research and time together
took place. Even though these walls are new, I see her around every corner.

I never used to think of our researching as time together. Now I can think
of it as nothing but. I got to know her in those hours upon hours that we
planned for coming apocalypses. I learned about the girl who became a woman
in front of my eyes, the girl who at first was nothing but a Slayer to me and
then became my friend. My daughter.

Her laugh echoes through this room. Her wry remarks, her complaints, her
tears. So many tears. I've cried a hundred tears for each one that she's
shed, regretting every moment of pain that this horrid calling has given her.
That I'd given her, in not letting her ignore her destiny. In making her be
the person that no sixteen year old should have to be.

I dream of her.

Nothing comforts me. I've barely gotten to the place where I can smile
again; smiling seemed painful and wrong for so long. I try to talk to Xander
and Willow, her closest friends... I try to talk to Dawn, the sister she
loved and died for... I try to talk to Angel. But I fear my own sadness
hurts them, something I loathe to do. They've already been through so much.

And so I'm leaving this place. This room with too many memories, memories
that sting even as I try to hold onto them. My home, where I've lived for
over five years, waking up in the middle of the night too many times, to let
Buffy in and listen to her talk about something important to the world or
something important to her. This town, with so many demons that they
eventually killed her.

I'm leaving this country.

I'm going back to England. I'll turn in this diary to the Council and go
where no one has heard of Buffy. Where no one can remind me of her smile or
her eyes or her heart or bravery. Where no one will remind me of something
that she did that made them laugh.

I'll be reminded of those things enough, when I'm alone.

Watchers, know this: Your Slayer will never be just an instrument with which
to fight evil. Perhaps to the Council she will remain that way but if you
are ever blessed and cursed enough to be assigned a Slayer to watch, she will
become your child. Let yourself fall in love with her. Don't guard yourself
against your heart where she's concerned. Guarding yourself will only cause
you more pain when she's gone. The question of "Did she know I loved her?"
will run through your mind a thousand times a day, torturing you, haunting
you.

That question doesn't haunt me. It is my only comfort, albeit a small one,
that Buffy knew I loved her. Without reservation, without restriction. I
loved her fully. And she loved me.

This caring is a wonderful and terrifying thing, and I highly recommend it.

So ends the Diary of Rupert Giles, Watcher of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


The End

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