Author's Notes: OK so just a little one shot to get warmed up. Buffy and Giles reconnect after the events of Bad Girls in season 7. Please note that this is a repost, I am moving these stories from my other account to this one not stealing them.
Disclaimers: I don't own it and make no money from it!
"Go help the girls, the ones that still need a teacher." she said blankly closing the door on him. He slid his fingers in the gap quickly and pushed the door back open with his foot. He was in the room and shutting the door behind him in a heartbeat. "Get out."
"Am I your teacher Buffy? Is that really all you think of me?" he demanded advancing on her.
"Wasn't that why you left? To teach me to stand on my own?" she asked.
"I was but a phone call away if you needed me Buffy but you never called." he replied. "I wanted you to stand on your own but I didn't bloody well expect you to carry everyone else with you! Good Lord Buffy not one of you called me when you got shot and Tara died! I had to find out through a coven of witches that after Willow had already lost it. You could've died all over again and no one even told me."
"Giles you left us. We felt like you had left to get on with your own life and didn't want to stop you. You turned away from us and it hurt!" she shouted back.
"So you thought you'd cut me out as payback?! You thought even now you would ignore my opinion as if I weren't here?" he asked.
"Giles you're here because I'm the slayer and the world is ending." she told him coldly.
"I'm here because I love you and if the world is ending then it can fucking end with me right here doing whatever I can to help you!" he shouted grabbing her arms.
"Plotting behind my back was to help me?" she asked.
"No, I'll admit I allowed myself to be swayed a little into that I did protest to start with and admittedly helping Principle Wood was wrong but the reasons were valid. Spike is so dangerous Buffy and yet your only reason to spare him is because he's a body in a battle." he explained. "You tell me that you don't love him, so why is it that you feel so strongly that you need to risk everyone in this house?"
"I don't love him." she said firmly. Then she froze and he losened his grip on her upon seeing her suddenly look so forlorn. "I thought you stopped loving me when you left."
"I will never stop loving you Buffy. You mean more to me than anyone in this world. If you make me promise to keep Spike alive then I will but only if you can give me a good reason Buffy, an honest one." he told her softer now.
"I love you Giles." she whispered wrapping her arms around him tightly. For a time they stood holding each other tightly in silence. He almost wanted to cry, this girl in his arms, his slayer, his Buffy...when he first arrived here waiting for her he could have never known how much she would mean to him. "Kinda makes me wish you'd had a thing for my mum after all so that Dawn and I could've just stayed with you."
"Buffy..." he said softly, acknowledging the comment for what it was; she saw him as a father as much as he saw her as a daughter. How her own father never realised what precious girls he had in his life he would never understand. "I'm here with you now. Until the end, whatever happens."
"Thank you." she breathed.