Chapter 3

Silence. A long-tense silence, broken suddenly when Buffy laughed outright. Giles, the potentials, the strange witch and her friends all stared at her as she indulged in a long, hearty belly laugh.

"Look, lady, I'm guessing you're from Giles' favorite Coven," she finally managed, tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away. The woman nodded, looking a bit perturbed that her dramatic announcement had garnered such a reaction. "Then you don't know the drill. I'm the Slayer. Every day I've lived past 16 is borrowed. I'm always dying."

She came all the way down the stairs, reaching out to stroke Xander's arm as she passed, then to take one of Willow's hand in both of hers. Buffy shook her head at the white streaks running through Willow's hair. The witch was distraught, crying silently.

"Will, it's okay. We're gonna fix what needs to be fixed and move on," Buffy told her quietly. "I need you strong. You are a fantastic witch, instant middle-aged Buffy not included. You need to pull it together, for me."

Giles was watching his Slayer talk to Willow with a smile on his face. This was Buffy. The Buffy he had known, loved and trained for so many years. Perhaps they could solve the aging problem but keep this Buffy. It almost made everything he had been through in the last few days worth it.

He glanced at Giselda. The hard expression on her face made his smile falter. Slowly, the older witch shook her head, and the smile disappeared completely.

Xander, Willow and Dawn had gathered around Buffy, hugging her and checking out "grown-up Buffy" as Xander insisted on calling her. The potentials were huddled in the corner, watching the scene in confusion. Giles took Giselda's arm and steered her outside. He closed the door softly behind them.

"Tell me," he said, leaning against the post of the porch and looking out at the sunlit street. He crossed his arms across his gray sweater defensively.

"Willow brought Buffy's body forward in time, as we assumed," Giselda began. "We believe she brought her forward to the day of her death."

"How did you determine that?"

"Amber."

Giles drew a breath. Amber was the Coven's seer. She was incredibly powerful.

"She followed the line of Buffy's life. She saw…much. In 20 years, Buffy's line ends."

"And since she appears to have aged 20 years…"

"We believe that this is the end of Buffy's life. If not today, very, very soon."

"What about reversing the spell?" Giles asked without much hope.

As he had expected, Giselda shook her head. "To return her to how she was yesterday might kill her outright, Rupert. As you know, the line assumes that all things continue on the fated path. As she said, she is living on borrowed time, and has been since Willow brought her back from the dead."

"But, if she is fated to live another 20 years, couldn't she live another 20 years in the body she has now? Live into her 60s?"

Giselda looked at him, lips pursed, but made no response. Then she hummed and twirled more hair. Giles was about ready to jump out of his skin. "That is an interesting theory, Rupert," she said. "I must take this thought back to the Coven."

She vanished.

Giles turned around to face Buffy, who was leaning in the doorway watching. She smiled at him.

"How goes it, Watcher-mine?" she asked.

"You haven't called me that in years," Giles said, feeling helpless. He couldn't protect her, he never had been able to.

She came over and wrapped her arms around his waist, surprising him. He hugged her back. She looked up at him, her strangely aged face both achingly familiar and alien at the same time. Her chin rested on his chest and her hair fell back from her face in a golden sheet. One of his hands disengaged from the hug to stroke it. Her hair was so soft, like silk. Giles had the strangest urge to thread his hands through it, to lower his face to hers….

"Giselda be damned," she told him, disrupting his wandering thoughts. "Coven be damned. I'm not planning on dying this time. No offense."

"None taken," Giles said, smiling.

Buffy released him with one last, rib-creaking squeeze.

"I have way too much living left to do," Buffy said fiercely. Her hazel eyes flashed at him. "There are too many things I haven't done. You've never even taken me to England. Willow got to see where you live, all she had to do was try to destroy the world. Why should I miss out?"

Giles grinned at her tone, imagining this new Buffy sitting in front of the fireplace in his family home, hair picking up the color of the flames. He shook his head to clear the image.

His reaction was to be expected, he mused. The Council had drummed into his head for years that Buffy was a child, a child to be protected and overseen, but certainly not a woman. Not that years of training had stopped some of the previous Watchers from forming relationships with their young, attractive female charges, both potential and active.

Giles admitted to himself that he would have had to be blind not to notice Buffy was very attractive, especially in the mini-outfits she insisted on wearing, but she was still a child.

Except now she wasn't.

"Did you hear what Giselda said, about the seer?" he asked her, trying to both change the subject and marshal his roaming thoughts.

"Nope."

He told her what Amber had seen, that she should live at least another 20 years.

"I'm guessing there's a catch," Buffy said.

"That's if nothing throws the line off kilter," Giles admitted.

"Like overzealous red-headed witches with mega-sized guilt?" asked Willow from behind her friend. Xander wrapped his arms around both girls from behind, resting his chin on Willow's shoulder, his work-tanned face a strange contrast to the white in her vividly red hair.

"Hey, if you can't supersize the guilt, what's the point?" he asked. The two women and Giles looked at each other. "It sounded funny in my head," Xander whined.

"Sure it did," Willow said. Dawn appeared from behind Xander and pushed her way into the embrace. She and Buffy smiled at Giles and opened their arms. The Watcher sighed and stepped into the group hug.

"Uh, you do know you guys are blocking the doorway, right?" one of the Potentials said.

"There's another one in the kitchen," Buffy said in a muffled voice.

"Geez," the Potential huffed, thumping away.

"Hey, come back here," Willow demanded. "You guys need hugs too!"

Giles watched bewildered as the Scoobies untangled themselves and set about hugging the Potentials, who squealed and giggled and tried to escape. Finally, each and every one of the newbies had been hugged, except Eve, who was backed against a wall. Shrugging, Giles himself reached out to her. And his hand passed through her.