Buffy checked to make sure that her Mom was out of earshot before she turned their conversation back to the problem at hand. She broke two eggs in a bowl and handed them to Xander to stir, to make a noise to muffle their voices in case her Mom got closer to the kitchen. "So, you guys may have to spend the night switched, and if that's the case, I think we should tell my Mom we're pulling an all-night study session and you guys should stay here."

Willow shook her head adamantly. "No! Giles is going to fix it before that ever happens. He will. He has to."

Xander and Buffy exchanged a look. "Can we say, 'Denial'?" Xander said.

Willow shook her head and stood to confront them. "Look! We've got a few options, here."

Buffy threw a warning glance at the kitchen door and murmured, "Will? Quietly please?"

Willow followed her line of sight to the door. Buffy's Mom. Right. "Oh. Yeah. Okay," she said quieter. "Here're my ideas. One, the stone is lost, and we need to find it to fix things. Two, we need a new enchanted bracelet. Or three, we need a spell of some kind to enchant a new object."

Buffy and Xander stared at her blankly. Willow returned their gazes before collapsing on a stool at the counter. "Oh, God. We *are* doomed, aren't we?"

Giles rubbed his eyes tiredly. He was going to be blind by the time he was seventy, he decided. He sat back and thought about what he'd read in the books he'd dug out most recently. It seemed that each enchanted object he found had different properties.

He held the bracelet in his hand and stared at it, willing it to reveal its secrets to him. He thought momentarily of Jenny, and how she would no doubt take one look at the bracelet and be able to tell him what was wrong.

"I wish you were here, Jenny, to tell me what to do with this thing," he murmured to the book in front of him. He sighed and leaned forward, pulling another book from the stack and opening it.

Willow stuffed two brownies in her mouth and proceeded to chew around them. The fact that food tasted so much better as Xander still mystified her.

They had finished baking the brownies, and , after bestowing a few upon Buffy's mother, had gone upstairs to Buffy's room. Now, Willow and Buffy had assumed positions on Buffy's bed, and were braiding Xander's hair absently as they watched reruns of the Brady Bunch.

Willow, still chewing, turned to Buffy. "Mnik?"

Buffy looked at her. "What?"

"Mnik?"

"Milk," Xander translated from his vantage point on the floor. "She wants milk."

Willow nodded happily and accepted the glass Buffy handed her. "Tnk yo."

"You're welcome," Buffy chirped.

Without warning, Giles felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something was wrong. He glanced at the bracelet, but it seemed to be normal. It wasn't morphing into a snake or anything. He cautiously took off his glasses and closed the book in front of him as quietly as he could. He reached for a heavy glass paperweight in front of him slowly, and curled his hand around it.

He stood, turning to face the doorway. He glanced out into the library carefully and scanned the room and the book stacks for movement. Not seeing anything amiss, he turned back into his office, and dropped the paperweight to the floor, where it smashed into dozens of pieces.

"Hi, Rupert."

Giles stepped back, clutching at his chest in surprise.

"Oh! I didn't give you a heart attack, did I?"

Jenny rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, preparing to lower him to the floor and cushion him if necessary.

"J-Jenny," he stammered.

She smiled at him gently. "Hi."

He removed his hand from his chest and crushed her to him. "Jenny."

She giggled into his chest and returned his hug. "You said that already."

"What--? How--?" he began.

"You wished me here," she said, gesturing to the bracelet. "Remember? 'I wish you were here, Jenny, to tell me what to do with this thing'." She stepped back from his embrace. "So, here I am."

Giles stared at her, terrified she was going to vanish at any second. Her eyes were just the shade of brown he remembered. He'd been afraid he was forgetting the details. "You? I? Oh, my."

She reached for the bracelet and plucked it off of his desk. "It's too musty and dark in here. How do you stand it?" She grasped his hand and led him to the table in the main section of the library. "Let's talk out here."

She sat at the table and Giles lowered himself into the seat beside her, never taking his eyes from her. "I've missed you. Terribly. More than you could possibly imagine," he whispered, his voice lilting and breaking with the emotions behind the words. He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair.

She noted that he looked like a kid on Christmas morning who had been given the present he asked for every day all year. She lay her hand on his and smiled sadly. "Don't be so sure about that. I think I've cornered the market on after-death moping and pining."

She gently reached up and removed his hand from her hair. Grasping both of his hands in hers, she stared into his eyes. "But you know what really hurts, Rupert? Watching you. I watch you all the time. I know you're hurting, and I just want to … to take it all away. I want you to be happy again."

"I want you," he said solemnly.

She sighed. "I'm only here to tell you about the bracelet. Then I have to go."

Giles felt the tears well up in his eyes. Selfishly he murmured, "Then don't tell me. Just stay."

"It doesn't work that way, Rupert." She glanced at the bracelet, fumbling with it in her hands for a moment. "I'm bending the rules already by talking to you about other stuff."

"Please?" he pleaded, his voice barely a whisper.

Jenny raised her eyes to his, letting the tears fill them. "I can't. I would if I could, but I really can't." They stared at each other for several moments, each mourning yet another lost opportunity.

Jenny sighed and held the bracelet up for him. "This is a bracelet of Chima. It was made in the late eighteenth century by a latent druid cult in Northern England. They enchanted each stone to contain one wish. As the wishes are granted, the stones disappear." She pointed to the two spots where the stones were now missing.

"But, there was only one missing-"

"Until you wished me here," she continued. "The second one disappeared as I became visible." She showed him where the other stone had disappeared.

"Became visible? So, you were here before that?"

She smiled sadly. "I'm always where you are. You're where my heart is. Still. I watch the Watcher." She smiled as she spoke the last sentence, as if she found it to be a wonderful joke on the cosmos.

Giles lowered his eyes to the bracelet so she wouldn't see the tears in them. She saw anyway. "I'm never far away. I watch you sleep. I watch you research. I watch you make tea and I watch you worry about Buffy and the kids." She lowered her voice. "I watch you miss me. I watch you cry. I watch you hate Angel and I watch you when you visit me. Every Sunday, in the cemetery. I like those flowers you bring. Azaleas."

Giles looked at her, shock evident on his face. "Did you really think I would leave you, Rupert?" she asked, leaning forward to kiss him.

Giles felt months of pent-up emotion ease from his heart as he felt her lips settle on his. The kiss was brief, heart-warming and perfect. Jenny broke away slowly and Giles suddenly feared that they hadn't much time. He still had to find out about the bracelet. He cleared his throat. "So, then, why did it not work this afternoon, when Willow made her wish?"

"Because she wasn't touching the stone. Wearing the bracelet isn't enough. You were touching one of the stones when you wished me here. She has to touch this stone," she pointed one out on the chain, between the two missing ones. "It's the only one left. She had them dangling from her wrist, she wasn't actually touching either of the two wishing stones left earlier," she explained. "I think that all the other spots on the chain must've had dormant stones replaced as the stones granted wishes and vanished."

Jenny handed the bracelet to him, and he ran his fingers over the stone lightly. She stilled his hand, making him look up at her. "Don't."

"How did you--?"

"You can't wish me back permanently, Rupert. The kids need this last wish. It's the only one left now. It's theirs, not ours." Her eyes unexpectedly spilled over as she saw his face fall with disappointment. "I do have something to ask of you, though."

He watched the tears fall down her cheeks. He reached out to touch them, surprised that they were warm. "What is it?"

"You have to get over me. Because until you do, we're both going to be miserable."

"I've tried," he murmured. "I can't. I think about you everyday."

"Thinking about me is fine. Not letting anyone else in is not fine." She reached forward and cupped his cheek. "I'm not asking you to change overnight. I'm not asking you to run out and start dating. All I'm asking is that you try. Be open to the idea. There's still someone out there for you, Rupert. She's really wonderful and she'll be good for you. I don't want you to miss her."

"Jenny-"

"Rupert. Promise me you'll try."

The two of them sat there, teary-eyed and sad, staring at each other as they silently said goodbye to what they could have had. "I'll try," Giles promised quietly.

"Good." She stood up. "I have to go." Before his eyes, she began to fade.

He held his hand out to her desperately. "Jenny! Please."

She reached out and touched his face. She shook her head sadly, indicating that she couldn't stay. Her touch was feather light, getting lighter by the second.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I know," she answered softly. "I love you too, Rupert."

"Will you be waiting, when I get there?" he asked, his voice choking slightly.

"Yes. I'll be there."

"Will you still be with me? Watching?" he pressed on. "As long as I love you?" he asked, memorizing the look of her face as she faded a bit more.

"No. I'll be with you as long as *I* love *you*." She faded into nothingness and Giles let the tears fall to his cheeks. Her touch was gone, leaving him cold and empty. He turned to get the bracelet from the table, when he felt a warmth envelop him and he heard her voice, "Which will be forever."