It's not right, what you did to me.
You sent me here, and you assigned me not just any Slayer, but this Slayer, this girl who somehow managed to crack jokes in the face of the apocalypse, this girl who made friends and held hands with the boy she fancies and chose horrendous music to listen to while training. You told me to not become emotionally attached to her.
You're all pillocks.
What did you expect me to do? I would have had to have no heart to not be even slightly touched by Buffy. She's a ray of sunshine, and when one looks at the odds she faces and the horrors she's seen—some of which I've had to see with her—it's amazing that she still manages to smile, let alone laugh.
Yes, I have a father's love for her. I only wish you could understand the joy of loving a daughter. Thinking of your ignorance, I'm reminded of Buffy, years ago, shouting at me that I was so useful with my "musty old books." I'm tempted to pass on her words of wisdom to you, because they reminded me of what a Watcher is.
A Watcher does not wield his Slayer as a weapon, although that is what you would have liked me to believe. A Watcher trains his Slayer not to fight and win, but to fight and live. I find myself caring less about the world you want, the one where we all live in peace thanks to the tireless work of the Slayer, and selfishly desiring a world for Buffy to be happy and carefree.
I want a world for Buffy to live like an eighteen-year-old girl instead of a soldier in countless battles against the vampires. I want a world where Buffy can go out at night, or perhaps go to bed early without having to lurk around graveyards waiting for the undead to rise. I want a world where Buffy gets to wear a white sweater and not have to worry about getting bloodstains on it. I want a world where Buffy laughs easily and smiles without the burden one her age shouldn't have to bear.
Now, realizing the depth of my love for her (I hadn't truly known until you told me to send her to her death), I'd gladly take her burden, if she'd let me. But she's convinced that I am the one that needs protecting, which is yet another reason why I love her so much—her determination to protect both the innocent and the guilty.
I have a father's love for her. How could I not? Love is never a conscious choice; I didn't decide to love Buffy. In fact, before meeting her, I would have shuddered at the thought of loving a blonde California girl with stereotypical (at least at first glance) interests and aspirations and superpowers enough to destroy me in a fight if she so chose. But Buffy is not a list of attributes and strengths. Buffy is not data and Buffy is not the journals I so diligently kept on her progress.
Buffy is more than you will ever fathom, and you will never know this. I pity you, and I despise you, for putting my Slayer through meaningless tests to prove that she is strong enough to fight.
If you had been her Watcher, you would have done what I did, possibly even sooner than I. I may have failed Buffy here, but I never will again. You meant to prove to me that I am an unsuitable Watcher, but all you taught me is that you are unsuitable guides.
My loyalty to Buffy will never again waver. Perhaps you fired me before I could tell you, but I don't intend to take orders from you again. Nor from the fool who shows up thinking that he can use Buffy as a tool to fight the vampires. I was once that man. I pity him now.