No, there weren't any other directions the fic could have gone in. I got the prompts "there was only one bed" and "snow" and "fluff" which locked the story into a fairly narrow set of perimeters to begin with. After I figured out how I'd take on the only one bed trope, the only question was which POV it'd be in. Then I thought about how I'd never written Giles, and how that'd be fun - and it became a venue to explore several characters, so a lot of fun was had.

In one sentence, I think the summary I used - "Giles fights one last battle before finally laying down to rest - and achieves another victory in the process." - still does a pretty good job.