"By The Light Of The Silvery Moon"
Title: By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
Wordcount: 6,059
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Buffy
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Willow/Oz (Future!fic)
Rating/Warning: Adult Themes
Summary: Do they get a happily ever after?
She’s in Alexandria.
She wanted to see the library and the pictures on the internet weren’t enough. The heat is unlike anything she’s ever experienced before and she is pulling a shirt over her head while coming out of a tourist-gawdy gift shop when she runs right into him. Before her eyes see him, her mouth says, “Oz.”
“Willow,” he responds, sounding as surprised as she is, which is not at all.
000
They’re in a cafe, the kind that sells the coffee you could stand your spoon up in and she’s looking over him carefully. His hair is dark brown and while still spiky, less so than it used to be. There is a spareness to his features and beads still on his wrist but there is also the tail-end of a tattoo curling out of his shirt collar and she longs to tug his shirt down and away so she can see what it is.
She can feel the power coming off it from where she’s sitting.
Where have you been, what have you been doing? Somehow she can’t make her mouth say the words but is comforted to notice that he also looks at a loss. He rarely talked at length but he always chose silence rather than being without words. He makes her feel like the klutzy sixteen year old all over again and realises that she never stopped loving him. She has loved people other than him but there it was.
“You look good,” she says and then grimaces and he snorts a laugh. The sound is so familiar that she almost gets lost in it. She always loved making him laugh.
“I heard what happened to…” He makes a helpless gesture with his hands. She knows it isn’t because he’s forgotten Tara’s name but is, rather, skirting a painful subject. With a sudden clench to the heart, she wonders if he heard the end of that particular story, what she did and what she almost did. “I’m sorry,” he offers and she can tell he means it.
Distance and time means she can think about Tara without wanting to curl up and shut down. Ten years doesn’t seem like a long time but she has seen others along the way, Kennedy at first and then a mixture of men and women, all of whom never measured up to those first two that she would always have as a template of perfection, skewed as her version of perfection is.
“I told you this would happen,” she says and then bites her lip, but his eyes flood with mirth and she knows he gets it.
“You did at that,” he agrees, nodding.
She lets herself smile for what feels like the first time in a long time.
000
“He’s going back to the States tomorrow and we’re going to…see,” Willow says. She stares at the ceiling, tracing a water stain with her eyes and pressing the phone to her ear so hard it gets warm.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kennedy asks but there is no judgement in her voice, just careful concern. She had stayed with Kennedy for three months after the final battle in Sunnydale but both knew somewhere along the line they had fallen into friendship and out of love. It happened sometimes. Willow is happy to still have Kennedy in her life, to watch a slayer turn twenty-nine.
Willow smiles to herself, remembering how much of a fuss Faith had kicked up about turning thirty until she was gently reminded that not many slayers, none in fact, had survived to see the big three-oh if the Watcher’s diaries could be believed. Buffy had asked if she were chopped liver and Willow had said that she didn’t count because she had died twice before getting there.
Faith had loved that.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be anything,” Willow says, dismissive, and hears Kennedy let out a grunt of pure amusement. “What?” she demands, rolling over onto her stomach.
“I’ve never heard you be… moony before,” Kennedy says and Willow rolls her eyes.
“I’m not being moony.”
“You are too. Just… don’t get your hopes pinned on this guy because if he breaks your heart, I have to hunt him down and kill him.”
It’s Willow’s turn to laugh and before they hang up she reminds Kennedy about her flight number and what time she’s expecting to be picked up, knowing that despite her best efforts, Kennedy will be exactly forty-five minutes late because that’s who she is.
Willow wouldn’t have it any other way.
000
“Now fate is just showing off,” Oz remarks from behind her shoulder and Willow turns to see him, plane ticket in hand and bag slung over his shoulder, looking bemused.
“You’re kidding,” Willow breathes and Oz flips his ticket around so she can see that he’s on the same flight. Actually, he’s on the same flight and the seat number he’s been assigned is the one right next to hers.
000
They talked about everything.
Everything except the giant elephant in the room. Willow wants to ask if he’s seeing anyone, has seen anyone and knows he wants to ask her too. Or at least, she assumes he does. She desperately needs to know if there has been a Mrs. Osbourne in the intervening years or perhaps even a pup or two but doesn’t think so. Oz hadn’t had a handle on his wolfness the last time she saw him and she knows that he wouldn’t let anyone get close until he did.
There was the tattoo though.
She thinks maybe that’s a safe topic and can lead into more difficult ones but unfortunately this revelation comes when they’re touching down and between getting off the plane, picking up luggage and finding Kennedy has decided to be on time for the first time in their whole acquaintance, she loses him.
She fingers the piece of paper he’d scribbled an address and a number on and sighs.
000
It’s an apartment above a flower shop and Willow hesitates at the blue door at the top of the stairs, fist cocked back and ready to knock. Before she can commit, the door swings open and a boy of maybe ten or eleven with a smudge of flour across one cheek and a dab of chocolate on the other eyes her speculatively.
“Who’re you?” he demands, before reaching out a sticky hand and grabbing hers, yanking her inside.
“Oh, uh, hi. I might have the wrong place,” Willow babbles but then catches sight of Oz, coming out of the apartment’s small kitchen, a dish towel slung over his shoulder.
“Jordy, let go of the nice lady,” Oz says and Jordy immediately disengages and goes running on socked feet into the cosy-looking living room. He flops dramatically on the couch and flicks the television on.
“Wait, Jordy?” Willow says, darting her glance between Oz and the child, remembering Oz with a bandaged fingertip right before the first full moon.
“Uh, yeah,” Oz says, rubbing the back of his head. “My Aunt and Uncle leave him here around the full moon because he gets a little precocious. I’m all set up to handle him until he’s old enough for the tattoo.” Oz saunters back towards the kitchen and says over his shoulder, “We made chocolate chip cookies if you want one. Still warm.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Willow starts as she watches Oz lean into his fridge and emerge with a carton of milk. “That tattoo I mean. I can sense… power.”
Oz pours three glasses of milk before answering her. “You still use magic?” His voice is a little strained and Willow smacks a hand to her forehead because of course he’d heard about her big blow-out if he’d heard about Tara and really, she should’ve volunteered that information first. She watches him put three cookies on a plate and take them and a glass of milk back out into the living room. Jordy doesn’t even look away from the television as Oz sets them down on a small side table.
Willow waits for Oz to come back into the kitchen and blurts, “I don’t exactly use magic, not like that… anymore. It’s controlled now and I have… I mean, I have it under control because I stayed with this coven of witches and they taught me… control,” Willow finishes, feeling color heat her cheeks.
“Okay,” Oz says and Willow blinks at him.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. If you say it’s safe then I believe you. I mean, I would expect you to believe me when I tell you I’m safe.”
“You’re safe?” Willow asks and then bites her lip. “I mean, you were never dangerous.”
“Yes, I was. I thought I had it all figured out but I discovered, not so much.”
“You do now?” Willow prompts, accepting the cookie Oz is holding out to her and bites into it. She catches one of the chocolate chips and it oozes onto her tongue, still warm and liquid. She closes her eyes and lets the taste take her for a second.
“I was hoping you’d come today,” Oz says and Willow opens her eyes and raises a brow at him. “You have the best cookie-face I’ve ever seen.”
She remembers Oz’s little offhand compliments, how he just threw them out without any forethought and how they always made her feel warm to the toes. Willow realises though that Oz is deflecting. “The tattoo-?”
“So, what’s with all the slayers?” Oz cuts in and now Willow can see that he is tense, turned away from her and tipping the rest of the cookies from the sheet into a container. “I mean, you can’t turn around without running into one.”
“It was something we, I mean I did,” Willow says and she sees Oz still, container lid gripped in hands whose knuckles are turning white. “The First’s army was coming up through-”
“Look, I really need to get Jordy settled for tonight,” Oz interrupts. Willow knows she’s done something wrong, stepped past a line or into no-go territory and she’s not sure how to take it back. Not again, she thinks, feeling a strong sense of de ja vu. They’ve been here before, a casual reunion ruined by an outside presence but this time Willow’s not sure what. “You can see yourself out, right?”
“Uh… sure,” Willow says, moving towards the door. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from the day, perhaps a promise to see each other again and a careful step towards something and now she sees it slipping through her fingers. She tries to tell herself that she is stronger, worldlier than before and she should just stand in front of Oz and demand to know just what the hell his problem is.
She tells herself this as she moves out his front door and closes it behind her.
000
“You ask me, the guy was always twitchy.”
Probably the thing that took her most by surprise out of the last ten years was the friendship she’d built with Faith. Of everyone, Faith is who she talks to the most, if only to marvel at the woman being married and with kids. She’d hung up her spurs, leaving the slaying to the younger girls but always on the verge of telling the mother’s group she’d joined that she could bench-press a cow. Or so she claimed.
“Andy, put your brother down. Don’t make me come out there!” Faith bawls almost into Willow’s ear and she winces and pulls the handset away from her head. “Anyway hon, he’s a wolf. Ain’t no changin’ that.”
“He got it under control before and he’s got some serious magic working now. I think he might have found a cure or at least a way to suppress it.”
“Really? Well, that’s just nifty and would be great if it were true but I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t likely.”
“Can’t you be optimistic for once?” Willow grumbles.
“You know I ain’t got it in me, and that’s not why you called. If you wanted sunshine and bunnies you would have called Dawn, right?”
“Right,” Willow allows. Dawn never moved past the propensity for girlish squealing even though she was now an EMT in Chicago. She’d started training under Giles to become one of the new Watchers since there was now a truckload of slayers that needed guidance but she’d wanted something more immediate.
“You called because you want a realist. You want someone to say hey; don’t get involved, it can only end badly. I’m your gal.”
“Thanks,” Willow says, feeling both grateful and depressed. It can only end badly she tells herself firmly.
“Now, it’s your turn to completely disregard what I’ve said and get involved,” Faith adds and Willow wonders just at what point Faith ended up knowing her so well. “Just… call me if it starts going south, okay? I can be there in two shakes. Hell, Robin deserves to have the monsters all to himself for a few days.”
“Give him my love,” Willow says, hearing Faith yell, “Just because you can fit the whole thing in your mouth doesn’t mean you should”, as she hangs up.
000
“So, something weird happened the other day and I’d like to know what,” Willow says as Oz opens the door and then steps out of the way in surprise as she barrels forward. Willow plants herself in his hallway and crosses her arms. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers, buster.”
“Uh, hi?” Oz greets, looking amused. “Look, I’m not sure what you think happened but -”
“Oooh no, none of that making like it was all my head either. There was fate and meeting in Egypt and you said something nice about my cookie face and then badness. The badness was not one-sided, or at least not on my side.”
“Willow, really. Everything’s fine. I just started thinking that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”
“What wasn’t?” Willow demands, frustrated. “We didn’t get far enough to have a this to mess up.”
“I’m sorry, I just got caught up. I saw you and you’re still cute as hell and I just… feelings. Old, best forgotten feelings came to the surface but I’ve had a chance to think rationally.”
“Uhuh,” Willow says slowly. “Look, you’d better come here.”
“What? Why?” Oz asks, backing up and looking hunted.
“Because I need to put your pants out because they are on fire!” Willow snaps, throwing her arms up. “Maybe you did have second thoughts but they have nothing to do with me. You went funny when we were talking about your tattoo and slayers and…” Willow trails off and swallows hard. “Oh god, did something happen? Something happened didn’t it? Something you don’t want me to know.”
“I haven’t seen you for ten years, Willow. A lot has happened.”
“The tattoo does something, you don’t want me to find out or sense it. You basically kicked me out when I told you I could feel its power.”
“It’s really none of your business,” Oz says, voice a low growl and then frowns because Willow flinches. He puts his own hands up, palms out and waggles his fingers. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to change.”
“I didn’t think -”
“Yes, you did. How can I be with someone who is afraid of me?”
“I was never afraid of you,” Willow says. “Ever.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t deal with this right now,” Oz says and he’s herding Willow towards the door. Willow grabs for him and catches under his shirt, fingers skating along his side and Oz twists and jerks away. Willow stumbles back a few steps and stops only when her back hits the door.
“What-?”
“Just get out. Please,” Oz says, moving into the bathroom off the living room and slamming the door. Willow rubs her fingertips with a thumb, back still pressed to the door.
000
“What exactly are we looking for?” Kennedy has her head propped on her fist and is blinking red-rimmed eyes. She has a laptop in front of her and stretches until her back pops before hunching forward again.
“References to any werewolf encounters in the last ten years,” Willow says, tapping at keys. “I mean any. Doesn’t matter what country or how vague. Look for related stuff, any canine or wolf-sounding demon. Sometimes they don’t know what they’re fighting.”
The Watcher’s diaries are catalogued online which is a godsend considering there are so many, but Willow is silently cursing whoever set up the website and search engine because the going is tedious and keeps throwing unrelated links at her. She is having to plough through entries from Giles and tries not to read them but even his written word sounds like him and she fights hard to stay focused.
She misses Giles.
She misses Xander and Buffy too, almost so much it hurts.
“Here’s a demon-dog in India. Doesn’t sound like your guy, though.” Willow leans sideways to see what Kennedy has brought up but shakes her head. She notices a related link on the bottom of the page and points it out.
“Click that,” she says and watches as Kennedy does. It’s an entry by a man named Mortimer Stalling, Watcher for a Russian girl called Alexis. The entry dates back six years and tells of three slayers having tracked and pinned down a werewolf in Moscow. There were grievous injuries on both sides but the girls recovered and it was the last night of the full moon. They lost the trail because the werewolf, in human form, would have a whole month to get medical attention and leave the country.
“They found him caged but still attacked him,” Kennedy reads, voice hard. “The slayers let him out.”
“For training,” Willow says, remembering something vaguely about it now that she’s reading the details. Mortimer had been fired and the three slayers reprimanded. Willow stands and reaches for the phone, Kennedy watching her with a careful expression.
“Will?” she says, sounding worried.
Willow dials from memory, not even waiting for Giles to say hello when she blurts, “Did you know it was Oz?”
Rupert Giles has never played dumb in his life. “Yes, Willow, I did,” he says and Willow lets the phone slip from her fingers.
000
Kennedy hands her a glass of water and waits until she finishes it before handing back the phone. “Just listen to what he has to say,” she urges, having talked to Giles after Willow had abandoned the phone on the floor and walked unsteadily over to her couch.
Willow hesitates but then accepts the handset, bringing it to her ear and taking a breath. “You have to tell me the truth or I will never forgive you. Did you send those slayers after Oz?”
“Of course not,” Giles clucks and Willow feels a great weight lift from her shoulders. She needs to know the details though and slumps down further into the couch cushions, watching Kennedy tidy their little research area and then leave the room.
“Tell me what happened,” Willow says.
“I’d been keeping tabs on Oz from when he left to the time of the incident,” Giles explains and Willow catches the wince in his voice at the word incident. “As for Mortimer, I’d already had some concerns about his training methods for a while and was talking to the rest of the council about dismissal when he pulled his little stunt. We found out he’d take untested slayers into the field, trial by fire as he called it. He almost got three slayers killed that night and I’m sure poor Oz would never have forgiven himself.” Giles’ voice is filled with such loathing that Willow feels a wash of affection surge through her.
“He ignored the very obvious fact that Oz was restrained and had been living in that same area for six months with absolutely no deaths, not even a household pet. I suspect as a young lad, Mortimer was the type to pull wings off flies.”
“What happened to Oz after that?”
“No one knew. He dropped off the map. I often wondered if perhaps Oz let me keep track of him and knew it for a fact when Oz disappeared. He didn’t want to be found so I couldn’t find him. I was mostly concerned because Mortimer had furnished the girls with silver bullets and an experimental nitrate weapon. Werewolves can naturally heal anything but damage from silver.”
Willow remembers the feel of Oz’s skin against her fingertips and it slams home that what she was feeling was scar tissue. Willow shudders, taking the phone away from her ear to breathe for a moment. Giles is talking when she puts it back.
“-and Faith called because she was concerned. I didn’t want to interfere but maybe I should have?”
“No it’s… nothing’s actually happened. I just wanted to know why Oz would pull away from me.”
“Ah, well, yes. I can imagine he would be a little shy of making our acquaintance again. We didn’t exactly get to explain to him that it was not a condoned Watcher’s council act that nearly killed him.”
Willow looks up and sees Kennedy enter the room again, Oz following at her shoulder. “Um, I have to go,” Willow says, hanging up and seeing Kennedy make a go in gesture at Oz before removing herself again. Willow doesn’t hear the front door though and knows that Kennedy has probably just sequestered herself in Willow’s spare room.
“So, I’ve kinda been an asshole to you,” Oz says without preamble and Willow stands, not crowding into his space but wanting him to be comfortable. She points at a chair opposite the couch and he nods and takes it before she sits again. Oz leans forward, fingers steepled under his chin.
“You asked me to leave. I should’ve respected that,” Willow says and sees Oz’s mouth firm down into a thin line, eyebrows knitted. He isn’t looking at her and she’s wondering if that is a good or a bad thing. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m the asshole, me,” Willow adds and is reassured when Oz chuckles.
“It scared me how much… scares me how much I still feel for you. I didn’t react well.”
“That’s not all there is to it,” Willow says before she can stop herself but Oz doesn’t look annoyed, just patient.
“True, but I want you to understand. I’ve put myself on the line for you before and have gotten shot down. I just… saw that happening again, played it over and over in my head. I didn’t really like the way it felt the last time.”
“Why did you think that I wouldn’t…” Willow made a gesture between them.
“I don’t know. Maybe you weren’t in the same place as me? You lost someone special and maybe you’re seeing someone now. I never really asked. I mean, Kennedy’s nice,” Oz notes, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Willow’s spare room.
“Oh we’re not… I mean, we were but we aren’t now,” Willow says.
“Still, it’s been a long time. Stuff has happened since then. I’m not really the same.” Oz moves his hands up and presses his fingers to his temples. “But it’s not fair to just assume that….I’m going to show you something and then you can decide.” He stands and Willow is about to protest but Oz puts his hands out, a silent plea. He grabs the bottom hem of his shirt and rolls it upwards, over his flat belly and chest.
The tattoo is the first thing Willow notices, curling script that wraps his torso and dips under the waist of his jeans. It’s powerful and Willow takes a moment to see past it and to the flesh beneath. Oz is basically a mass of scar tissue from the hollow of his hip to just under his armpit on the left side. The right is smooth and blameless. Oz turns slowly and Willow can see that there are two crooked scars, about five inches each, just under his right shoulder-blade.
“I got hit with silver nitrate in the side and shot twice in the back with silver bullets. I couldn’t go to a normal hospital so I paid a black market surgeon to dig them out for me and the guy was as much butcher as doctor, used to working on demons. I thought maybe I’d heal over time but I don’t think I’m ever going to.”
“Oh Oz,” Willow breathes, devastated for the pain he must have endured and how alone he was. “You know Giles had nothing to do with it, right?”
Oz drops his shirt, sitting back on the chair. “I was angry for a long time but yeah, at the back of my mind I knew that. It was partly my fault. The guy that brought the slayers wasn’t exactly subtle about tracking me but I just assumed it was someone keeping tabs like Giles did. I never thought… I never expected this,” Oz says, hand hovering over his side. “I mean, I woke up with blood all over me and in agony and I had no idea what had happened.”
“The tattoo?” Willow prods gently.
“Suppresses the wolf, but better than the charms and chants ever did. I have to get it retouched every six cycles for it to hold its power and it hurts like a son of a bitch, I’m sick for days afterwards but it’s worth it. We’re waiting until Jordy is maybe fifteen or sixteen before having him get it done. We all want him to really understand what it’s for and why he has to go through something like that.”
“Makes sense, but why would it worry you if I knew what it did?”
“It has another purpose. It shields me, keeps me off the slayer radar. I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”
Willow nods, understanding perfectly how her innocent questions could have sounded like a subtle interrogation. Slayers at every corner, in every country has more than the darker elements running scared and Willow can’t believe she was stupid enough not to think of people like Oz and how mistakes might be made. She’s not sure how to apologise for what has happened to him because she feels responsible, no matter how indirectly.
“It’s important,” Oz says, eyes catching and holding hers. “That no one find out about this, I mean no one. If any slayers or the Watcher’s Council find Delia then I’m sure they wouldn’t feel comfortable letting her still operate.”
“Delia?”
“The woman who refreshes the tattoo for me.”
Willow nods. She can understand that from the outside, a woman who is able to create a tattoo that can hide a demon from a slayer would not be something that they would tolerate. Buffy still has a lot of sway in the Watcher’s Council, but Willow knows that as more people are employed, more Slayers coming of age, that it runs further towards bureaucracy and away from the idealistic new beginning. A guy like Mortimer being able to function within the ranks for as long as he did speaks to that.
“Anyway, I just started to panic the other day. You’re still in contact with that whole world and… it’s too much of a risk, not just for me. Do you understand?”
Willow blinks for a moment at Oz and then opens her mouth. She closes it again, at a loss. “Wait, you mean if we do… anything, that I have to break off all contact?”
“I’ve been helped by a lot of people like Delia. Some of them deal with the shadier elements of the demon world and don’t really take sides. I don’t want you to have to lie to anyone but you would end up having to eventually,” Oz says, spreading his hands.
“I’m sure if we explained-”
“Willow, c’mon. You know as well as I do how much good explaining does us. I have to hide what I am, there’s no other way. There’re too many people who don’t see the shades of grey that I would need.”
Willow watches Oz stand and offer her a small smile. “Kennedy’s a slayer, right?”
“Yes, but-”
“She’s still in the house because she knows what I am. It’s going to eat at her, watching you with me. She’s going to worry every full moon. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand completely. In her shoes I would do exactly the same thing.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Willow says, voice low. Oz kneels down in front of her, taking her hands in his own. He presses her fingers to his lips and she realises that apart from the brief contact when he was throwing her out of his apartment, this is the first time she has touched him in ten years.
“I really do,” he says. “I had to give you up twice.”
Kennedy comes back out into the living room when she hears the front door close and finds Willow still sitting on the couch, looking ashen.
000
Hours later, Willow calls Giles back, mostly to apologise for hanging up on him but after so many years, it’s just natural to seek his council when she is truly lost.
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” he says when she explains her problem. “I know you care for him but his would not be a glamorous life.”
“Because my life currently is all parties and streamers,” Willow snorts and is reassured to hear Giles chuckle.
“Honestly, I have but one thing to say. Do what will make you happy.”
“That easy huh?”
“It really is. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished a different life for you and Xander.”
“And Buffy?” Willow prompts but Giles is strangely silent for a few precious moments that gives Willow pause.
“Believe me, would I to have the power to turn back time and give Buffy a normal childhood, I would. But this life was what she was destined for. You and Xander chose it, rather than it being chosen for you.”
“We didn’t exactly-”
“Please don’t do that. Don’t try telling me that you had no choice given what you knew.” Giles’ voice is rough and Willow realises he is dangerously close to being choked up. “You and Xander put yourselves in harms way and you didn’t need to. You sacrificed a normal life so that others would be safe, Buffy included.”
“So did you,” Willow points out and hears Giles let out a gentle laugh.
“Willow, if there is something you want, then you deserve to have it.”
Willow digests that for a moment, cradling the phone between her chin and her shoulder. She lets out a long breath and asks, “Have you heard from him?”
“Xander? He checked in a few weeks ago from Mexico. He’s found twin girls who fought off a Gnarish demon by themselves. I’ve never seen the Slayer line run through a family but I guess we’re playing by different rules these days.”
Willow pictures Xander in her mind’s eye and still sees the goofy boy who does the Snoopy dance and watches girly movies with her. She has to revise her mental picture to include the hard lines of his face, the eye patch and the fact the he rarely smiles. The two pictures don’t seem like the same person. After losing an eye and Anya, Xander was never the same.
Willow misses her friend.
000
“This is the bad kind of de ja vu,” Willow says when Oz leads her into his apartment and she sees it is devoid of furniture.
“I was about due to move on. I was just house-sitting for a friend while he was waiting for a storage space to open up nearby.”
“Oh, I thought you… lived here.”
“No,” Oz says, shrugging. “I travel here to have my work done,” he explains, fingers touching the part of his tattoo showing outside his shirt collar. “Delia doesn’t make house calls.”
“But… Jordy?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it was good to see the family but I always worry about drawing attention to them. Jordy is going to have to embrace the nomad lifestyle when he’s old enough.” Oz points at his duffel which is tossed in an empty corner. “Delia lets me stay with her when I get the tattoo re-inked. I’m in no condition to travel for about three days.”
“Oh, that’s nice of her,” Willow says, frowning when her voice comes out a little high-pitched. She’s trying to sound normal but she can feel the tears threatening. Oz seems to sense that she’s tottering on the edge of panic and he steps forward, dropping hands on her shoulders and kneading gently.
“Hey there, still with me?”
“It’s just… I’m sorry. I’m not good with pressure… with decisions. With big, momentous, life-changing decisions.”
“I don’t buy that,” Oz dismisses with a wave of his hand, settling it back on Willow’s shoulder and dragging it down until he can circle a wrist with his fingers. “You always said that and then you saved the world.”
“Buffy saved the word. I just cheer led.”
“Now that, is crap,” Oz snorts. “You were a front-line girl all the way.”
“I want… I do want, but I’m not sure,” Willow says, looking down at Oz’s hands where they are travelling back up to cup her elbows and tug her forward. She goes, letting him fold her into the Willow-shaped hole his body always seemed to have. She breathes deep, unashamedly tucking her face into the hollow of his neck and smelling boy and spice and earth, powerful and seductive.
“I get so sick I can’t function just after the tattoo, I have my good days and my bad days and I’m constantly on the move.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of going with you?” Willow asks, smiling against the skin of Oz’s throat and feeling his pulse stutter beneath her lips.
“Are you saying it’s a possibility? Can you really leave your life behind?”
Now Oz actually asks the question, Willow has to admit to herself that her life left her, quite a while ago. She was just hanging on, trying to keep the threads together. There is no one to leave because they all left already. Faith and Robin are in another state with kids, a mortgage and date night, Buffy is jet-setting, Giles is in England and Xander has been gone a long time, both mentally and physically. She will miss Kennedy but even Kennedy has moved on, if not actually moved.
And really, is she leaving her life behind, or moving towards it?
Willow moves her hands under Oz’s shirt and feels him flinch and then relax into her first tentative touches. The skin is rough but warm and Willow digs her thumbs into Oz’s spine when she feels him stiffen up again when she hits a particularly bad place. She parts her mouth and licks a line from his collar bone to just behind his ear and hears Oz growl low in his throat.
“Do you know what you’re getting into? I mean… do you really understand?” Oz asks, pulling back a little so he can look into Willow’s face.
“Absolutely no idea,” Willow says, grinning. “Did we ever?”
000
Buffy Summers is sitting in a café in Prague when she looks up and sees a couple running across the cobbles to escape the rain. The red hair of the girl makes her think of Willow and she pulls out her cell phone because it’s been too long.
She sees the girl across the street turn slightly, twining arms around the boy and the profile of both is startlingly familiar. Buffy opens her mouth to call out but something stops her. She sees the couple embrace, a brief clinch and then they disappear around a corner.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dawn remarks from the opposite side of the table and squeaks in protest when a piece of tomato beans her in the middle of the forehead.
Buffy sits back and smiles.
Wordcount: 6,059
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Buffy
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Willow/Oz (Future!fic)
Rating/Warning: Adult Themes
Summary: Do they get a happily ever after?
She’s in Alexandria.
She wanted to see the library and the pictures on the internet weren’t enough. The heat is unlike anything she’s ever experienced before and she is pulling a shirt over her head while coming out of a tourist-gawdy gift shop when she runs right into him. Before her eyes see him, her mouth says, “Oz.”
“Willow,” he responds, sounding as surprised as she is, which is not at all.
000
They’re in a cafe, the kind that sells the coffee you could stand your spoon up in and she’s looking over him carefully. His hair is dark brown and while still spiky, less so than it used to be. There is a spareness to his features and beads still on his wrist but there is also the tail-end of a tattoo curling out of his shirt collar and she longs to tug his shirt down and away so she can see what it is.
She can feel the power coming off it from where she’s sitting.
Where have you been, what have you been doing? Somehow she can’t make her mouth say the words but is comforted to notice that he also looks at a loss. He rarely talked at length but he always chose silence rather than being without words. He makes her feel like the klutzy sixteen year old all over again and realises that she never stopped loving him. She has loved people other than him but there it was.
“You look good,” she says and then grimaces and he snorts a laugh. The sound is so familiar that she almost gets lost in it. She always loved making him laugh.
“I heard what happened to…” He makes a helpless gesture with his hands. She knows it isn’t because he’s forgotten Tara’s name but is, rather, skirting a painful subject. With a sudden clench to the heart, she wonders if he heard the end of that particular story, what she did and what she almost did. “I’m sorry,” he offers and she can tell he means it.
Distance and time means she can think about Tara without wanting to curl up and shut down. Ten years doesn’t seem like a long time but she has seen others along the way, Kennedy at first and then a mixture of men and women, all of whom never measured up to those first two that she would always have as a template of perfection, skewed as her version of perfection is.
“I told you this would happen,” she says and then bites her lip, but his eyes flood with mirth and she knows he gets it.
“You did at that,” he agrees, nodding.
She lets herself smile for what feels like the first time in a long time.
000
“He’s going back to the States tomorrow and we’re going to…see,” Willow says. She stares at the ceiling, tracing a water stain with her eyes and pressing the phone to her ear so hard it gets warm.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kennedy asks but there is no judgement in her voice, just careful concern. She had stayed with Kennedy for three months after the final battle in Sunnydale but both knew somewhere along the line they had fallen into friendship and out of love. It happened sometimes. Willow is happy to still have Kennedy in her life, to watch a slayer turn twenty-nine.
Willow smiles to herself, remembering how much of a fuss Faith had kicked up about turning thirty until she was gently reminded that not many slayers, none in fact, had survived to see the big three-oh if the Watcher’s diaries could be believed. Buffy had asked if she were chopped liver and Willow had said that she didn’t count because she had died twice before getting there.
Faith had loved that.
“I’m not sure it’s going to be anything,” Willow says, dismissive, and hears Kennedy let out a grunt of pure amusement. “What?” she demands, rolling over onto her stomach.
“I’ve never heard you be… moony before,” Kennedy says and Willow rolls her eyes.
“I’m not being moony.”
“You are too. Just… don’t get your hopes pinned on this guy because if he breaks your heart, I have to hunt him down and kill him.”
It’s Willow’s turn to laugh and before they hang up she reminds Kennedy about her flight number and what time she’s expecting to be picked up, knowing that despite her best efforts, Kennedy will be exactly forty-five minutes late because that’s who she is.
Willow wouldn’t have it any other way.
000
“Now fate is just showing off,” Oz remarks from behind her shoulder and Willow turns to see him, plane ticket in hand and bag slung over his shoulder, looking bemused.
“You’re kidding,” Willow breathes and Oz flips his ticket around so she can see that he’s on the same flight. Actually, he’s on the same flight and the seat number he’s been assigned is the one right next to hers.
000
They talked about everything.
Everything except the giant elephant in the room. Willow wants to ask if he’s seeing anyone, has seen anyone and knows he wants to ask her too. Or at least, she assumes he does. She desperately needs to know if there has been a Mrs. Osbourne in the intervening years or perhaps even a pup or two but doesn’t think so. Oz hadn’t had a handle on his wolfness the last time she saw him and she knows that he wouldn’t let anyone get close until he did.
There was the tattoo though.
She thinks maybe that’s a safe topic and can lead into more difficult ones but unfortunately this revelation comes when they’re touching down and between getting off the plane, picking up luggage and finding Kennedy has decided to be on time for the first time in their whole acquaintance, she loses him.
She fingers the piece of paper he’d scribbled an address and a number on and sighs.
000
It’s an apartment above a flower shop and Willow hesitates at the blue door at the top of the stairs, fist cocked back and ready to knock. Before she can commit, the door swings open and a boy of maybe ten or eleven with a smudge of flour across one cheek and a dab of chocolate on the other eyes her speculatively.
“Who’re you?” he demands, before reaching out a sticky hand and grabbing hers, yanking her inside.
“Oh, uh, hi. I might have the wrong place,” Willow babbles but then catches sight of Oz, coming out of the apartment’s small kitchen, a dish towel slung over his shoulder.
“Jordy, let go of the nice lady,” Oz says and Jordy immediately disengages and goes running on socked feet into the cosy-looking living room. He flops dramatically on the couch and flicks the television on.
“Wait, Jordy?” Willow says, darting her glance between Oz and the child, remembering Oz with a bandaged fingertip right before the first full moon.
“Uh, yeah,” Oz says, rubbing the back of his head. “My Aunt and Uncle leave him here around the full moon because he gets a little precocious. I’m all set up to handle him until he’s old enough for the tattoo.” Oz saunters back towards the kitchen and says over his shoulder, “We made chocolate chip cookies if you want one. Still warm.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Willow starts as she watches Oz lean into his fridge and emerge with a carton of milk. “That tattoo I mean. I can sense… power.”
Oz pours three glasses of milk before answering her. “You still use magic?” His voice is a little strained and Willow smacks a hand to her forehead because of course he’d heard about her big blow-out if he’d heard about Tara and really, she should’ve volunteered that information first. She watches him put three cookies on a plate and take them and a glass of milk back out into the living room. Jordy doesn’t even look away from the television as Oz sets them down on a small side table.
Willow waits for Oz to come back into the kitchen and blurts, “I don’t exactly use magic, not like that… anymore. It’s controlled now and I have… I mean, I have it under control because I stayed with this coven of witches and they taught me… control,” Willow finishes, feeling color heat her cheeks.
“Okay,” Oz says and Willow blinks at him.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. If you say it’s safe then I believe you. I mean, I would expect you to believe me when I tell you I’m safe.”
“You’re safe?” Willow asks and then bites her lip. “I mean, you were never dangerous.”
“Yes, I was. I thought I had it all figured out but I discovered, not so much.”
“You do now?” Willow prompts, accepting the cookie Oz is holding out to her and bites into it. She catches one of the chocolate chips and it oozes onto her tongue, still warm and liquid. She closes her eyes and lets the taste take her for a second.
“I was hoping you’d come today,” Oz says and Willow opens her eyes and raises a brow at him. “You have the best cookie-face I’ve ever seen.”
She remembers Oz’s little offhand compliments, how he just threw them out without any forethought and how they always made her feel warm to the toes. Willow realises though that Oz is deflecting. “The tattoo-?”
“So, what’s with all the slayers?” Oz cuts in and now Willow can see that he is tense, turned away from her and tipping the rest of the cookies from the sheet into a container. “I mean, you can’t turn around without running into one.”
“It was something we, I mean I did,” Willow says and she sees Oz still, container lid gripped in hands whose knuckles are turning white. “The First’s army was coming up through-”
“Look, I really need to get Jordy settled for tonight,” Oz interrupts. Willow knows she’s done something wrong, stepped past a line or into no-go territory and she’s not sure how to take it back. Not again, she thinks, feeling a strong sense of de ja vu. They’ve been here before, a casual reunion ruined by an outside presence but this time Willow’s not sure what. “You can see yourself out, right?”
“Uh… sure,” Willow says, moving towards the door. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from the day, perhaps a promise to see each other again and a careful step towards something and now she sees it slipping through her fingers. She tries to tell herself that she is stronger, worldlier than before and she should just stand in front of Oz and demand to know just what the hell his problem is.
She tells herself this as she moves out his front door and closes it behind her.
000
“You ask me, the guy was always twitchy.”
Probably the thing that took her most by surprise out of the last ten years was the friendship she’d built with Faith. Of everyone, Faith is who she talks to the most, if only to marvel at the woman being married and with kids. She’d hung up her spurs, leaving the slaying to the younger girls but always on the verge of telling the mother’s group she’d joined that she could bench-press a cow. Or so she claimed.
“Andy, put your brother down. Don’t make me come out there!” Faith bawls almost into Willow’s ear and she winces and pulls the handset away from her head. “Anyway hon, he’s a wolf. Ain’t no changin’ that.”
“He got it under control before and he’s got some serious magic working now. I think he might have found a cure or at least a way to suppress it.”
“Really? Well, that’s just nifty and would be great if it were true but I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t likely.”
“Can’t you be optimistic for once?” Willow grumbles.
“You know I ain’t got it in me, and that’s not why you called. If you wanted sunshine and bunnies you would have called Dawn, right?”
“Right,” Willow allows. Dawn never moved past the propensity for girlish squealing even though she was now an EMT in Chicago. She’d started training under Giles to become one of the new Watchers since there was now a truckload of slayers that needed guidance but she’d wanted something more immediate.
“You called because you want a realist. You want someone to say hey; don’t get involved, it can only end badly. I’m your gal.”
“Thanks,” Willow says, feeling both grateful and depressed. It can only end badly she tells herself firmly.
“Now, it’s your turn to completely disregard what I’ve said and get involved,” Faith adds and Willow wonders just at what point Faith ended up knowing her so well. “Just… call me if it starts going south, okay? I can be there in two shakes. Hell, Robin deserves to have the monsters all to himself for a few days.”
“Give him my love,” Willow says, hearing Faith yell, “Just because you can fit the whole thing in your mouth doesn’t mean you should”, as she hangs up.
000
“So, something weird happened the other day and I’d like to know what,” Willow says as Oz opens the door and then steps out of the way in surprise as she barrels forward. Willow plants herself in his hallway and crosses her arms. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers, buster.”
“Uh, hi?” Oz greets, looking amused. “Look, I’m not sure what you think happened but -”
“Oooh no, none of that making like it was all my head either. There was fate and meeting in Egypt and you said something nice about my cookie face and then badness. The badness was not one-sided, or at least not on my side.”
“Willow, really. Everything’s fine. I just started thinking that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”
“What wasn’t?” Willow demands, frustrated. “We didn’t get far enough to have a this to mess up.”
“I’m sorry, I just got caught up. I saw you and you’re still cute as hell and I just… feelings. Old, best forgotten feelings came to the surface but I’ve had a chance to think rationally.”
“Uhuh,” Willow says slowly. “Look, you’d better come here.”
“What? Why?” Oz asks, backing up and looking hunted.
“Because I need to put your pants out because they are on fire!” Willow snaps, throwing her arms up. “Maybe you did have second thoughts but they have nothing to do with me. You went funny when we were talking about your tattoo and slayers and…” Willow trails off and swallows hard. “Oh god, did something happen? Something happened didn’t it? Something you don’t want me to know.”
“I haven’t seen you for ten years, Willow. A lot has happened.”
“The tattoo does something, you don’t want me to find out or sense it. You basically kicked me out when I told you I could feel its power.”
“It’s really none of your business,” Oz says, voice a low growl and then frowns because Willow flinches. He puts his own hands up, palms out and waggles his fingers. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to change.”
“I didn’t think -”
“Yes, you did. How can I be with someone who is afraid of me?”
“I was never afraid of you,” Willow says. “Ever.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t deal with this right now,” Oz says and he’s herding Willow towards the door. Willow grabs for him and catches under his shirt, fingers skating along his side and Oz twists and jerks away. Willow stumbles back a few steps and stops only when her back hits the door.
“What-?”
“Just get out. Please,” Oz says, moving into the bathroom off the living room and slamming the door. Willow rubs her fingertips with a thumb, back still pressed to the door.
000
“What exactly are we looking for?” Kennedy has her head propped on her fist and is blinking red-rimmed eyes. She has a laptop in front of her and stretches until her back pops before hunching forward again.
“References to any werewolf encounters in the last ten years,” Willow says, tapping at keys. “I mean any. Doesn’t matter what country or how vague. Look for related stuff, any canine or wolf-sounding demon. Sometimes they don’t know what they’re fighting.”
The Watcher’s diaries are catalogued online which is a godsend considering there are so many, but Willow is silently cursing whoever set up the website and search engine because the going is tedious and keeps throwing unrelated links at her. She is having to plough through entries from Giles and tries not to read them but even his written word sounds like him and she fights hard to stay focused.
She misses Giles.
She misses Xander and Buffy too, almost so much it hurts.
“Here’s a demon-dog in India. Doesn’t sound like your guy, though.” Willow leans sideways to see what Kennedy has brought up but shakes her head. She notices a related link on the bottom of the page and points it out.
“Click that,” she says and watches as Kennedy does. It’s an entry by a man named Mortimer Stalling, Watcher for a Russian girl called Alexis. The entry dates back six years and tells of three slayers having tracked and pinned down a werewolf in Moscow. There were grievous injuries on both sides but the girls recovered and it was the last night of the full moon. They lost the trail because the werewolf, in human form, would have a whole month to get medical attention and leave the country.
“They found him caged but still attacked him,” Kennedy reads, voice hard. “The slayers let him out.”
“For training,” Willow says, remembering something vaguely about it now that she’s reading the details. Mortimer had been fired and the three slayers reprimanded. Willow stands and reaches for the phone, Kennedy watching her with a careful expression.
“Will?” she says, sounding worried.
Willow dials from memory, not even waiting for Giles to say hello when she blurts, “Did you know it was Oz?”
Rupert Giles has never played dumb in his life. “Yes, Willow, I did,” he says and Willow lets the phone slip from her fingers.
000
Kennedy hands her a glass of water and waits until she finishes it before handing back the phone. “Just listen to what he has to say,” she urges, having talked to Giles after Willow had abandoned the phone on the floor and walked unsteadily over to her couch.
Willow hesitates but then accepts the handset, bringing it to her ear and taking a breath. “You have to tell me the truth or I will never forgive you. Did you send those slayers after Oz?”
“Of course not,” Giles clucks and Willow feels a great weight lift from her shoulders. She needs to know the details though and slumps down further into the couch cushions, watching Kennedy tidy their little research area and then leave the room.
“Tell me what happened,” Willow says.
“I’d been keeping tabs on Oz from when he left to the time of the incident,” Giles explains and Willow catches the wince in his voice at the word incident. “As for Mortimer, I’d already had some concerns about his training methods for a while and was talking to the rest of the council about dismissal when he pulled his little stunt. We found out he’d take untested slayers into the field, trial by fire as he called it. He almost got three slayers killed that night and I’m sure poor Oz would never have forgiven himself.” Giles’ voice is filled with such loathing that Willow feels a wash of affection surge through her.
“He ignored the very obvious fact that Oz was restrained and had been living in that same area for six months with absolutely no deaths, not even a household pet. I suspect as a young lad, Mortimer was the type to pull wings off flies.”
“What happened to Oz after that?”
“No one knew. He dropped off the map. I often wondered if perhaps Oz let me keep track of him and knew it for a fact when Oz disappeared. He didn’t want to be found so I couldn’t find him. I was mostly concerned because Mortimer had furnished the girls with silver bullets and an experimental nitrate weapon. Werewolves can naturally heal anything but damage from silver.”
Willow remembers the feel of Oz’s skin against her fingertips and it slams home that what she was feeling was scar tissue. Willow shudders, taking the phone away from her ear to breathe for a moment. Giles is talking when she puts it back.
“-and Faith called because she was concerned. I didn’t want to interfere but maybe I should have?”
“No it’s… nothing’s actually happened. I just wanted to know why Oz would pull away from me.”
“Ah, well, yes. I can imagine he would be a little shy of making our acquaintance again. We didn’t exactly get to explain to him that it was not a condoned Watcher’s council act that nearly killed him.”
Willow looks up and sees Kennedy enter the room again, Oz following at her shoulder. “Um, I have to go,” Willow says, hanging up and seeing Kennedy make a go in gesture at Oz before removing herself again. Willow doesn’t hear the front door though and knows that Kennedy has probably just sequestered herself in Willow’s spare room.
“So, I’ve kinda been an asshole to you,” Oz says without preamble and Willow stands, not crowding into his space but wanting him to be comfortable. She points at a chair opposite the couch and he nods and takes it before she sits again. Oz leans forward, fingers steepled under his chin.
“You asked me to leave. I should’ve respected that,” Willow says and sees Oz’s mouth firm down into a thin line, eyebrows knitted. He isn’t looking at her and she’s wondering if that is a good or a bad thing. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m the asshole, me,” Willow adds and is reassured when Oz chuckles.
“It scared me how much… scares me how much I still feel for you. I didn’t react well.”
“That’s not all there is to it,” Willow says before she can stop herself but Oz doesn’t look annoyed, just patient.
“True, but I want you to understand. I’ve put myself on the line for you before and have gotten shot down. I just… saw that happening again, played it over and over in my head. I didn’t really like the way it felt the last time.”
“Why did you think that I wouldn’t…” Willow made a gesture between them.
“I don’t know. Maybe you weren’t in the same place as me? You lost someone special and maybe you’re seeing someone now. I never really asked. I mean, Kennedy’s nice,” Oz notes, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Willow’s spare room.
“Oh we’re not… I mean, we were but we aren’t now,” Willow says.
“Still, it’s been a long time. Stuff has happened since then. I’m not really the same.” Oz moves his hands up and presses his fingers to his temples. “But it’s not fair to just assume that….I’m going to show you something and then you can decide.” He stands and Willow is about to protest but Oz puts his hands out, a silent plea. He grabs the bottom hem of his shirt and rolls it upwards, over his flat belly and chest.
The tattoo is the first thing Willow notices, curling script that wraps his torso and dips under the waist of his jeans. It’s powerful and Willow takes a moment to see past it and to the flesh beneath. Oz is basically a mass of scar tissue from the hollow of his hip to just under his armpit on the left side. The right is smooth and blameless. Oz turns slowly and Willow can see that there are two crooked scars, about five inches each, just under his right shoulder-blade.
“I got hit with silver nitrate in the side and shot twice in the back with silver bullets. I couldn’t go to a normal hospital so I paid a black market surgeon to dig them out for me and the guy was as much butcher as doctor, used to working on demons. I thought maybe I’d heal over time but I don’t think I’m ever going to.”
“Oh Oz,” Willow breathes, devastated for the pain he must have endured and how alone he was. “You know Giles had nothing to do with it, right?”
Oz drops his shirt, sitting back on the chair. “I was angry for a long time but yeah, at the back of my mind I knew that. It was partly my fault. The guy that brought the slayers wasn’t exactly subtle about tracking me but I just assumed it was someone keeping tabs like Giles did. I never thought… I never expected this,” Oz says, hand hovering over his side. “I mean, I woke up with blood all over me and in agony and I had no idea what had happened.”
“The tattoo?” Willow prods gently.
“Suppresses the wolf, but better than the charms and chants ever did. I have to get it retouched every six cycles for it to hold its power and it hurts like a son of a bitch, I’m sick for days afterwards but it’s worth it. We’re waiting until Jordy is maybe fifteen or sixteen before having him get it done. We all want him to really understand what it’s for and why he has to go through something like that.”
“Makes sense, but why would it worry you if I knew what it did?”
“It has another purpose. It shields me, keeps me off the slayer radar. I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”
Willow nods, understanding perfectly how her innocent questions could have sounded like a subtle interrogation. Slayers at every corner, in every country has more than the darker elements running scared and Willow can’t believe she was stupid enough not to think of people like Oz and how mistakes might be made. She’s not sure how to apologise for what has happened to him because she feels responsible, no matter how indirectly.
“It’s important,” Oz says, eyes catching and holding hers. “That no one find out about this, I mean no one. If any slayers or the Watcher’s Council find Delia then I’m sure they wouldn’t feel comfortable letting her still operate.”
“Delia?”
“The woman who refreshes the tattoo for me.”
Willow nods. She can understand that from the outside, a woman who is able to create a tattoo that can hide a demon from a slayer would not be something that they would tolerate. Buffy still has a lot of sway in the Watcher’s Council, but Willow knows that as more people are employed, more Slayers coming of age, that it runs further towards bureaucracy and away from the idealistic new beginning. A guy like Mortimer being able to function within the ranks for as long as he did speaks to that.
“Anyway, I just started to panic the other day. You’re still in contact with that whole world and… it’s too much of a risk, not just for me. Do you understand?”
Willow blinks for a moment at Oz and then opens her mouth. She closes it again, at a loss. “Wait, you mean if we do… anything, that I have to break off all contact?”
“I’ve been helped by a lot of people like Delia. Some of them deal with the shadier elements of the demon world and don’t really take sides. I don’t want you to have to lie to anyone but you would end up having to eventually,” Oz says, spreading his hands.
“I’m sure if we explained-”
“Willow, c’mon. You know as well as I do how much good explaining does us. I have to hide what I am, there’s no other way. There’re too many people who don’t see the shades of grey that I would need.”
Willow watches Oz stand and offer her a small smile. “Kennedy’s a slayer, right?”
“Yes, but-”
“She’s still in the house because she knows what I am. It’s going to eat at her, watching you with me. She’s going to worry every full moon. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand completely. In her shoes I would do exactly the same thing.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Willow says, voice low. Oz kneels down in front of her, taking her hands in his own. He presses her fingers to his lips and she realises that apart from the brief contact when he was throwing her out of his apartment, this is the first time she has touched him in ten years.
“I really do,” he says. “I had to give you up twice.”
Kennedy comes back out into the living room when she hears the front door close and finds Willow still sitting on the couch, looking ashen.
000
Hours later, Willow calls Giles back, mostly to apologise for hanging up on him but after so many years, it’s just natural to seek his council when she is truly lost.
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” he says when she explains her problem. “I know you care for him but his would not be a glamorous life.”
“Because my life currently is all parties and streamers,” Willow snorts and is reassured to hear Giles chuckle.
“Honestly, I have but one thing to say. Do what will make you happy.”
“That easy huh?”
“It really is. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished a different life for you and Xander.”
“And Buffy?” Willow prompts but Giles is strangely silent for a few precious moments that gives Willow pause.
“Believe me, would I to have the power to turn back time and give Buffy a normal childhood, I would. But this life was what she was destined for. You and Xander chose it, rather than it being chosen for you.”
“We didn’t exactly-”
“Please don’t do that. Don’t try telling me that you had no choice given what you knew.” Giles’ voice is rough and Willow realises he is dangerously close to being choked up. “You and Xander put yourselves in harms way and you didn’t need to. You sacrificed a normal life so that others would be safe, Buffy included.”
“So did you,” Willow points out and hears Giles let out a gentle laugh.
“Willow, if there is something you want, then you deserve to have it.”
Willow digests that for a moment, cradling the phone between her chin and her shoulder. She lets out a long breath and asks, “Have you heard from him?”
“Xander? He checked in a few weeks ago from Mexico. He’s found twin girls who fought off a Gnarish demon by themselves. I’ve never seen the Slayer line run through a family but I guess we’re playing by different rules these days.”
Willow pictures Xander in her mind’s eye and still sees the goofy boy who does the Snoopy dance and watches girly movies with her. She has to revise her mental picture to include the hard lines of his face, the eye patch and the fact the he rarely smiles. The two pictures don’t seem like the same person. After losing an eye and Anya, Xander was never the same.
Willow misses her friend.
000
“This is the bad kind of de ja vu,” Willow says when Oz leads her into his apartment and she sees it is devoid of furniture.
“I was about due to move on. I was just house-sitting for a friend while he was waiting for a storage space to open up nearby.”
“Oh, I thought you… lived here.”
“No,” Oz says, shrugging. “I travel here to have my work done,” he explains, fingers touching the part of his tattoo showing outside his shirt collar. “Delia doesn’t make house calls.”
“But… Jordy?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it was good to see the family but I always worry about drawing attention to them. Jordy is going to have to embrace the nomad lifestyle when he’s old enough.” Oz points at his duffel which is tossed in an empty corner. “Delia lets me stay with her when I get the tattoo re-inked. I’m in no condition to travel for about three days.”
“Oh, that’s nice of her,” Willow says, frowning when her voice comes out a little high-pitched. She’s trying to sound normal but she can feel the tears threatening. Oz seems to sense that she’s tottering on the edge of panic and he steps forward, dropping hands on her shoulders and kneading gently.
“Hey there, still with me?”
“It’s just… I’m sorry. I’m not good with pressure… with decisions. With big, momentous, life-changing decisions.”
“I don’t buy that,” Oz dismisses with a wave of his hand, settling it back on Willow’s shoulder and dragging it down until he can circle a wrist with his fingers. “You always said that and then you saved the world.”
“Buffy saved the word. I just cheer led.”
“Now that, is crap,” Oz snorts. “You were a front-line girl all the way.”
“I want… I do want, but I’m not sure,” Willow says, looking down at Oz’s hands where they are travelling back up to cup her elbows and tug her forward. She goes, letting him fold her into the Willow-shaped hole his body always seemed to have. She breathes deep, unashamedly tucking her face into the hollow of his neck and smelling boy and spice and earth, powerful and seductive.
“I get so sick I can’t function just after the tattoo, I have my good days and my bad days and I’m constantly on the move.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of going with you?” Willow asks, smiling against the skin of Oz’s throat and feeling his pulse stutter beneath her lips.
“Are you saying it’s a possibility? Can you really leave your life behind?”
Now Oz actually asks the question, Willow has to admit to herself that her life left her, quite a while ago. She was just hanging on, trying to keep the threads together. There is no one to leave because they all left already. Faith and Robin are in another state with kids, a mortgage and date night, Buffy is jet-setting, Giles is in England and Xander has been gone a long time, both mentally and physically. She will miss Kennedy but even Kennedy has moved on, if not actually moved.
And really, is she leaving her life behind, or moving towards it?
Willow moves her hands under Oz’s shirt and feels him flinch and then relax into her first tentative touches. The skin is rough but warm and Willow digs her thumbs into Oz’s spine when she feels him stiffen up again when she hits a particularly bad place. She parts her mouth and licks a line from his collar bone to just behind his ear and hears Oz growl low in his throat.
“Do you know what you’re getting into? I mean… do you really understand?” Oz asks, pulling back a little so he can look into Willow’s face.
“Absolutely no idea,” Willow says, grinning. “Did we ever?”
000
Buffy Summers is sitting in a café in Prague when she looks up and sees a couple running across the cobbles to escape the rain. The red hair of the girl makes her think of Willow and she pulls out her cell phone because it’s been too long.
She sees the girl across the street turn slightly, twining arms around the boy and the profile of both is startlingly familiar. Buffy opens her mouth to call out but something stops her. She sees the couple embrace, a brief clinch and then they disappear around a corner.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dawn remarks from the opposite side of the table and squeaks in protest when a piece of tomato beans her in the middle of the forehead.
Buffy sits back and smiles.