She had a point. Things had change. God, they'd changed so many times, he wasn't sure if he was even the same person any more. Hell, he knew he wasn't. And it was because of her. She made him different. Made him want to be different. Made him try to be a man he never really thought he could be before her.
"Yeah, I did," he nodded, "and I'd do it again. And again. And I'd do it a thousand times over if I had to. And you're right, it was, it was the only thing that I could give you. The only..real...pure thing I could do for you. I wouldn't change one bit of it, even if I could."
He couldn't stand being idle, so he pulled out a cigarette and lit it before he spoke again. "Do you? Enlighten me, then. Why are you here, Slayer? I'm here because it doesn't matter what's happened, doesn't matter what you've done, what I've done, at the end of the day, you make me better. You make me want to be better than I was. You keep that going in me and honestly..." He couldn't look at her with those final words. "I don't know if I'd have that much of that drive without you around." Without Buffy, what was he, these days? Not much. A shell of a man. He couldn't be who he used to be, but without her? He couldn't be who he was now, either.