Oh I sooooooooo should not be doing this right now, but I am incredibly, unbelievably stressed at this point and writing fic is the one thing I seem to be able to do that unstresses me right now so...here ya go. Enjoy!
Oh, and a note of warning...it's kinda angsty. Actually, given recent events (though this is set between third and fourth seasons) pretty darn angsty. Sorry.
Rating: PG
Summary: Buffy and Giles talk about love and loss, after "Graduation Part II"...Father/daughter bonding stuff. With ice cream.
Disclaimer: None of these characters/settings are mine.
Author's Notes: This is another of my syndication-inspired fics, this one dealing with the aftermath of the Prom and Graduation.

She woke up one morning and it finally hit her. She was laying in a pool of sunlight, and for a moment she reveled in the feeling, smiling softly, happy to be waking up, to be alive, to have a day, a life ahead of her.After a moment she blinked her eyes open, thinking that she should go and close the blinds, because as nice as the sunlight was, if it fell on Angel it would hurt him.

Which was when she knew. She never needed to worry about the sunlight again. She never needed to hide from it, or keep the curtains closed. Because she would never, as long as she lived, wake up in Angel's arms again.

She turned her face away from the light and cried until all the tears were gone, and all she could do was shake, as if that could somehow fill the emptiness inside her, as if anything could. Not even sunlight-sunlight least of all.

Willow found her that way when she came by for lunch. Just lying in bed, staring at the blue sky that was somehow supposed to replace him. Replace the way her insides melted when he gave her that little half-smile, or when she caught him watching her with that look in his eye, as if he couldn't quite comprehend how he could be so lucky. Replace the companionship on those long nights of patrol, the strong arms that were always there to help her up, to guard her back. Replace the feeling of completeness she had only ever found with him, a man for her heart and soul and body, a man that knew every part of her and loved them all. Replace the helpless laugh that bubbled up in her throat when he made a joke, or acted like a little boy. Replace the acceptance, the adoration, the complete, unwavering, eternal love that she knew was hers whenever she looked into his face.

Who would love her now? The sunlight? Who would make her whole?

"Oh Buffy." Willow whispered, knowing immediately what had happened in the way best friends always do. Knowing without fully comprehending; Willow had thought the worst was over, that Buffy was ready to get on with her life finally.

In truth, Buffy had thought so too.

She found, amazingly, that there were still tears left, enough for that night. By the next day she'd been upgraded to bouts of nose-blowing and was recovered enough to remember that it was Willow and Oz's anniversary. Willow protested that she didn't want to go, they didn't have any special plans, but Buffy knew better. Willow had never come out and said, in so many words, that she and Oz made love before graduation, but Buffy knew it anyway, in the way best friends do. It was a measure of her denial and her pain that she couldn't seem to find the strength to be sad Willow hadn't told her. She shooed her off, and sat by her window and stared out at the night sky, as if it would give more answers than the day one had.

The knock on the door startled her-her mother was at an art show in San Francisco-but she called for whoever it was to come in. The door opened to reveal Giles, holding a carton of Ben and Jerry's.

"I was told this was the best kind," he offered, handing over the chocolate fudge brownie and a spoon. Buffy accepted it silently, and felt her throat tighten as if she would cry again. She didn't.

"Thank you," she whispered after a moment, motioning for Giles to pull a chair over and join her. The moonlight fell onto his face as he sat opposite her and Buffy looked away, because moonlight and faces hit too close to home still. The ice cream was the perfect texture-not melted but just creamy enough to scoopy out easily-and after a moment she was able to look back at her not-Watcher.

"I meant to do this earlier," he apologized. She shook her head.

"I didn't really need it earlier. I mean.I did, but I was kinda not dealing. And now I'm.I have to deal. Because he's really gone." She stumbled over the words but forced them out, and took another bite of ice cream as if it could soothe away the burning in her lungs.

"I know there's nothing I can say that will make this any easier for you Buffy."

"No, there.isn't. But thanks for wanting to."

They sat in silence for a moment, until Buffy handed the carton over. He gave a small, startled smile and took it, taking a bite. "Mmm. It is good."

"Nothing else like it," Buffy managed, sounding almost cheerful for a moment.

He offered it back, with words, "I'm very proud of you. For everything."

It was a nice thing to hear, and it sparked a slight glow in the self-doubt part of her stomach, but not enough to banish the gaping hole left there. Because after all, Angel had left her. The one man who had promised to be with her always. To love her forever. And he was gone.

Who would always be with her now? Who would love her?

"Thank you," she murmured, eyes cast down. He found them anyway, or else he just knew everything she was feeling already.

"You're not alone you know Buffy," Giles promised, "you'll never be alone."

"No," she disagreed softly, "I will always be alone. Always have been. I was just stupid enough to think." that this emptiness inside might be filled. That there might be joy for her one day. That maybe, just maybe, she would have someone to share her life with, every miserable bit of it.

That wasn't the Slayer's fate. Obviously.

"You love him," Giles said softly, "you saw him as your lifemate. And his absence leaves an absence in you-a hole, that you think you'll never fill."

"How do y-" Buffy stopped, abruptly, because she knew how he knew. After all, hadn't he lost someone too? There were, she decided, layers and layers of pain here. She took another bite of ice cream.

"But you will fill it," Giles promised, ignoring her words as if no sound had come out of her mouth. "Not all of it-never all of it. But life goes on, and you will love again, and it will never be the same, but it will.be. No one will ever be Angel, no one can possible fill the part of you he filled. But other people love you Buffy. And his absence does not mean you are alone." He paused and then said very deliberately, "And I will never leave you."

She forced herself to look at him, into his eyes, and see the emptiness inside him that met and echoed her own. "Ditto," she said gently, and offered him the ice cream.

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