You got the disproportionately grateful thing over the hyena incident from this part. However, at that point, Xander had just been subjected to Rupert's cruel side, which is not something he'd been subjected to before. In addition, at this point in time, Xander is "secure" in his relationship with Giles, partly as a result of growing up and Giles start treating him fairly consistently from the end of S4 as an adult, to the point that he'd turn the tables on Xander and start with the inappropriate jokes.

Giles's shock about realizing that Xander may have looked to him as something of a father figure happens here when he realizes that there is only one reality where Xander has every turned him down when he'd asked for help.

So the two aren't actually connected, except tangentally.

Looking back, our Xander pegs the hyena possession as the point where Giles began to actually mean something to him and because Giles had always "forgiven him" no matter how stupid he was, he didn't ever have the experience of Giles seemingly turning on him. AlternaXander had the same experience with they hyena, but when tragedy struck and Giles seemingly turned against him ("didn't forgive him") it wiped out that earlier experience.

Heh. I'm getting very knotty in my timeline.