Title: Wake

Summary: In the chaos of the escape, he hadn't noticed she wasn't there.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Riiight.

*****

Only when the first euphoria of their survival and escape had passed did they realize who was not among them. Giles saw it first in the way Andrew laid a hand on Xander's shoulder and led him away from the pit that had once been Sunnydale. Xander bowed his head a little, silently turning to follow Andrew back to the bus.

Giles looked around, absently counting the girls as he sought the one face he suddenly knew would not be there.

"Where's Anya?" he called after Xander.

The boys turned, and Andrew, his face and clothes smeared with blood, just shook his head. "She—"

"She didn't make it," Xander said.

Xander's voice was unnaturally soft, a reaction Giles remembered too well—Xander trying so desperately to be a man, to be strong. Tears shimmered in his good eye, and Giles reached out, pulling Xander into his embrace.

"I'm so sorry, Xander," he said, his own voice choked.

Xander clung to him for a moment, and Giles struggled to quash the compulsion to clutch at him, to reassure himself that this child, at least, had survived the battle. Over Xander's shoulder, he saw Willow, Buffy, and Dawn moving amongst the newly-Chosen Slayers, examining their injuries, and sighed with relief.

His children had survived. All except one.

And he had had such hopes for Anya.

Xander drew back and dried his face of tears. "Thanks," he mumbled. "Look, I can't just stand here. We need to get the wounded to a hospital, and I need to tell the others…"

Giles nodded and watched him walk back to the bus with Andrew. Then he staggered a little and sat down on the bumper of the bus.

Anya.

She had driven everyone insane, perhaps Giles more than anyone. But somehow, her bluntness and social ineptness—so like Cordelia, and yet so less guarded—had wormed its way right past his own standoffishness. He had been—was—absurdly fond of Anya, had loved her as much as he had loved the others. He sometimes thought, remembering an amnesiac kiss in the Magic Box, that they might have even had more, given the opportunity. Given a world where she hadn't been the love of a good friend's life. A world where Buffy hadn't died, the First hadn't risen, the Watcher's Council hadn't been destroyed. And where Anya hadn't died preventing the end of the world.

He smiled a little. Maybe in that world without shrimp, their alternate selves could have that chance.

He heard sobs behind him, and turned to see Dawn clinging to Buffy, as Willow embraced Xander. Andrew stood by awkwardly, looking more confused than totally grief-stricken. Obviously, Xander had broken the news.

"Giles?" Willow turned to him, her eyes red and watery. "Did they—"

"They told me." He walked over to them and laid his hand on Willow's shoulder. "There's really nothing we can do for her, and several of the girls need medical attention."

"And Robin," Faith said from behind them.

"How is he?" Buffy asked, still holding her sister as she turned to face Faith.

Faith shrugged. "He'll live, I think," she said. "Listen…I, uh, I overheard you. I'm sorry."

Xander nodded, and Dawn leaned a little harder against Buffy. Giles stood up straighter and put his glasses on.

"Let's get the girls together," he said. "We'll head for the city."

*

It was after midnight before they got everyone settled, Buffy, Robin, and the most seriously injured of the younger Slayers at the hospital, and the rest at a nearby hotel. Dawn and Faith had insisted upon staying at the hospital, and Giles, with Willow's help, bullied the staff into accepting it. He had wanted to stay, too, but Dawn convinced him to go help Xander and Willow calm the girls and begin sorting out their plans.

When he was finally alone in his hotel room, the emotions he had had to bury for so long came rushing up to drown him. The Council. Sunnydale. Amanda. Molly. Anya. All gone, devoured by the Hellmouth or destroyed by its spawn. He wondered how many lives had gone into hell with the town; he knew there were graves uncounted now lost. Sunnydale had taken so many into the earth, and now even their memorials were gone. Jenny. Joyce. Even Spike.

He realized that, despite his frustration with him and his intense loathing for Buffy's relationship with him, he would rather miss Spike. He blinded Buffy, that was clear, but he had also died to save them all. His redemption, like Anya's, could have been a worthy cause. Perhaps that is what blinded Buffy; he could see that now.

His thoughts kept spinning back to Anya. Her cheerful greed, her absurd fear of rabbits, her utter inability to keep private conversations private…he suddenly wondered how they would get through the days without Anya's courageous lack of tact.

As if on cue, there was a hesitant knock at the door, and Xander's voice saying, "Giles? You awake?"

Giles got up and opened the door, standing aside to let Xander enter. The boy looked terrible, Giles thought. His good eye was red with grief, and he looked alarmingly unkempt. He stared at Giles for a moment, looking entirely lost.

"What have we done, Giles?" Xander asked, throwing himself into one of room's two chairs. "How many people didn't make it out of Sunnydale before we fed it to the Hellmouth? And how am I going to make it without her?"

Xander looked up at Giles as though he could provide all the answers, and Giles, terrified of that trusting gaze, turned away. He opened the mini-bar and pulled out the strongest drinks it had to offer. He emptied a bottle of scotch into two glasses and turned back to the table.

"I don't know," he admitted, placing one glass in front of Xander. "I've been wondering the same thing myself."

"Which?"

"Both," Giles admitted. He took a long drink, coughing at the taste of cheap American alcohol, and said, "I did not realize how much I would miss her."

Xander looked at him oddly, his head cocked to one side.

"When that Caleb guy put out my eye," he said slowly, toying with his glass, "he said that I was the one who saw things. But I wasn't, you know. I didn't really see things until he tried to take my vision away."

"What do you mean?"

Xander took a drink, carefully not looking at Giles. "I know," he said, "that you love us. You've been a friend, a teacher, and a father to all of us, and you were the only one besides me—and maybe Tara—who seemed to really like Anya. I just…I didn't see how much she really meant to you before."

Xander cleared his throat and added, "I think you two were…good for each other."

"Anya was…special," Giles said, his voice grown hoarse. "She will be missed."

Xander attempted a smile, and raised his glass in a toast. "To Anya," he said. "May there be no bunnies in her afterlife."

Giles raised his own glass, and added, "Anya's heaven will have no bunnies, but it will have many, many cash boxes. I hope she made it there."

Xander chuckled, and clinked his glass against Giles's. They sat there throughout the night, sometimes talking, but mostly lost in their own thoughts, knowing that their impromptu vigil would probably be the only memorial service Anya would ever have.

***

Author's Notes: Even though I saw it coming from a mile away, Anya's death in "Chosen" broke my heart. But what really got to me was the utter lack of resolution for that death—only Xander gets to mourn. Well, as a once-closeted Ganya fan, I wanted to see both of these men get the chance to mourn this woman who had loved them both.

Thanks to Kyl for the inspiration and the Affirmation!Beta.