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When the Slayer drags her Watcher out of the flaming factory, he is numb. The girl, to her credit, isn't stupid. She knows what his revenge stunt was: a suicide attempt. He couldn't protect the love of his life from a monster. He couldn't be brave for his Slayer. He couldn't even die properly. Rupert Giles, failure all around.
When he finally wrestles himself free of the teen's grip and yells at her—this wasn't her fight!—the fist Giles gets to his cheek in reply hurts. A lot. The pain is welcome, almost. Better than the void that's taken residence in his chest since he saw Jenny's—
"—You bastard!"
Rupert looks at the girl, his thoughts cut off before a mantra repeats in his mind, one he's been told since 10 years old. The Slayer is a necessary sacrifice, whom you must guide in the fight against evil. She will die. Her blood will be on your hands.
But… She outlived Merrick. Died once, came back. A sacrificial lamb who doesn't take fate lying down. She dodges the slaughter into which Giles is destined to lead her each night. He fights by her side, attempting to atone for his existence. His Slayer is different. She has to be.
She must be; otherwise, he couldn't bear it.
His gaze meets the rage burning in her green eyes, the facts laid bare between them. And… Christ. She's crying. Because of him. Rupert figures out: in his rash, foolish fury, he'd almost robbed his Slayer of her second Watcher. That epiphany, in tandem with the rest of the night's tragedies, barrels him over.
Giles feels himself fall to his knees, where he's caught by Buffy, who braces him by the shoulders. Her guard is down, the lost girl beneath the legend on full display. Her voice trembles. The anger melts into fear, into sadness, leaving the truth at its core: "I can't do this without you."
Before he, shell-shocked, can respond, Rupert feels a light, gentle peck on his forehead, lasting only a moment. He disbelieves, at first, but remembers—he saw Joyce do the same to Buffy, and vice versa, when she'd visited her mother in the hospital, after Darla's attack.
She pulls him into a desperate hug. Even he, dense as he is, gets the message—Giles has been marked Buffy's family.
His heart aches more at this revelation than he can stand.
Rupert isn't sure what he's done to deserve the privilege, but he sure as hell doesn't feel worthy. Especially not after a cowardly display like this. Buffy isn't one to get all, as she puts it, "touchy-with-the-feely." He barely understands the kid on a good day. But…
Whatever control he's been clinging to shatters. Giles hears sobbing. He doesn't have the presence of mind to comprehend that it's his. He finally hugs his surrogate daughter back, as much as he can muster.
The blaze grows. The sorrow sinks in.
Even so, he is needed. He is loved.