This takes place after "Killed By Death".

Buffy stared out at the crowd of people. ‘What are they thinking?’ she wondered. Here she was, a 17 year old girl giving the eulogy at the funeral of an old man. But this wasn’t any old man. This was Giles, her watcher, and one of the most important people in her life.

Not that he was really old anyway. He wasn’t. He was definitely too young to die though. Especially by vampires. But then was there ever a right age to die by vampires? Now Buffy was just confusing herself and she decided that she better stop thinking and just get on with it.

She cleared her throat. " A lot of you are probably wondering what I am doing up here. My name is Buffy Summers and Giles was the librarian at my high school. But he was a lot more than that. Giles was my Wat.. whoa wait a second she couldn’t say that. How late was it when she was writing this? She continued to skim the page. ‘Really late’ she sighed. ‘Well,’ she thought, pushing the paper aside, ‘here goes nothing.’

"Rupert Giles was my advisor of sorts. He was always there for me when I had a problem and helped me to solve it. But that is what everyone says isn’t it. They were my best friend, advisor, blah, blah, blah. Giles was special. He never pretended for one moment that he was better, or stronger than me and he made me feel special. Giles was always there for me and I miss him so much."

Buffy sat on her bed looking down on at the envelope. It was a letter from Giles. Ms. Calendar had given to her after the funeral and had simply said, "He wanted you to have this after he was gone." Then she started to cry and had to leave. Buffy had noticed a lot of people crying, especially Ms. Calendar and Willow. Since it happened Buffy hadn’t been able to cry. She never even felt the need to. Sure she felt sad, and angry, and a whole lot of other emotions, but she never felt the need to cry. She had this feeling though. It was a deep feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had taken her awhile to place it but as close as she could figure, it was her conscience not forgiving her for the loss of Giles and not letting him go either. Now here she was about to read a letter from her late Watcher. ‘Well, here goes nothing.’ She opened the letter and began to read.

Dear Buffy,

Well if you are reading this letter something must have happened to me. The first thing I have to say is that it is not your fault. Let me repeat, it is not your fault, really. No matter what has happened to me you gave me more in life than anyone else could. You gave me a purpose. Before I met you I was some stuffy, repressed Brit and now I am … well still some of those things, but a much better man because of you. Even all those times when I was so angry at you, for whatever reason, I knew that without you my life would be empty.

I love you Buffy. Now don’t freak out, or roll your eyes or anything like that. I don’t mean in a sexual way. To me you were a daughter, a pupil, a mentor (in your own special ways), and most importantly, a friend. It didn’t matter that you were a 17 year old girl, you were my best friend. I had complete faith in you at all times and I still do.

You are a strong girl Buffy, stronger than anyone I have ever known, and I don’t mean physically. You will get through this. You will go on. You will get a new watcher and you have to promise me to be as good to him (or her) as you were to me. But, most importantly Buffy, you have to let go. I know that right now you are in pain, but that will pass. You have to let of me and move on, or even at your strongest, you won’t survive. So let go Buffy, and be strong.

Love Always,
Giles

It was a few minutes before Buffy realized that she was crying. She leaned back on her bed and let it all out. All the anger, and frustration, the sadness, and the pain just came out. She cried for a long time and then, simply because of exhaustion, she fell asleep.

Buffy looked over at the clock. It was 6:00. She had been asleep for nearly three hours. She looked over at the letter and read it once again. The tears formed but she held them back. She took a deep breath and said, "Goodbye Giles, I am letting you go now , and … I love you, too." Suddenly, she felt a cool breeze pass over her and then leave. There were no open windows but she didn’t wonder about where it had come from. It was Giles saying goodbye one last time. Through her tears she said, "Goodbye Giles." Then fell back to sleep.

THE END