Xander and Cordelia watched, amazed. 'Is it just me that sees the danger in this, or is hanging around a guy about to turn into a werewolf a common occurrence,' Xander asked.
'I hope she knows what she’s doing,' Cordelia whispered. 'Because if she doesn’t and he kills her, the next meal he’ll smell will be us.'
'Terrifically reassuring, Cordy,' a voice said from behind them.
'Willow?'
She smiled at them sadly. 'I think they’re trying to cure him,' she said. 'And I hate myself for it, but for a minute I thought... I thought maybe Oz was cheating on me.'
Cordelia gave Willow an understanding look. 'It’s a perfectly reasonable mistake to make,' she said, glancing knowingly at Xander.
'Uh, this may be the dumb question, but does getting bitten by a werewolf always turn you into one?' Xander said, from his position watching Buffy and Oz.
The girls, who couldn’t see with their backs turned, spoke in unison. 'Always,' they said.
'Oh. Well, in that case... WHY THE HELL IS BUFFY LETTING OZ BITE HER?' Xander yelled, leaping up from his place behind the gravestone. The girls stood up as well, and sure enough they saw Buffy offering Oz her wrist.
The werewolf sniffed at it, then carefully caught it between his jaws. Willow thought, bemused. This thought was quickly followed by another.
The three teens had already taken a few steps towards the unlikely duo when another figure interrupted the scene.
'Buffy, don’t!' Giles yelled, dropping the heavy bag and crossbow in a desperate attempt to get to his Slayer on time. 'It won’t work, Buffy, don’t do it!'
Realising there was something wrong, the werewolf was distracted. It swung its head around to look at Giles, and growled. Then it turned back to Buffy, and seemed to be listening to her. With a final growl, it swept her up in its paws, and ran for the forest. All four observers took after it, but it was soon obvious they were no match for it’s preternatural speed.
'Giles, what’s happening?' Willow asked, frantic at the knowledge that her best friend had just been carried off by her boyfriend, and she had no way of knowing if she’d ever see either again.
'I believe Buffy and Oz found a journal of mine, detailing the one recorded successful cure - semi-cure - for lycanthropy.'
'There’s a cure?'
'I-in a way. It seems the blood of a Slayer, Cassandra, restored clarity and conscious thought to a werewolf when he was in his animalistic state. Unfortunately, there were several details that were not included in the account Buffy read. For example, she believes, as Cassandra’s Watcher did, that the Slayer giving her blood will not become a werewolf, but in this they are mistaken. Cassandra, the night her Watcher died, transformed into a werewolf, but one with control over its bestial nature. Horrified at what she had become, she fled all human contact, and was never heard of again. I have no doubt that should Oz bite Buffy, she too will become a werewolf, but one with emotions, feelings, and an ability to dominate the wolf’s instincts, as Oz shall become.'
Willow gasped, and her face became pale. 'You mean Buffy thinks that she’s safe, but she’s not? She’s going to become a werewolf, but one with control?'
'No,' Giles stated, sadly.
'No?'
Giles sighed wearily. 'Another fact they were not aware of is a rather vital one. The werewolf and the Slayer must love each other if this is to work. This is why Cassandra’s blood did nothing for her Watcher, only for her werewolf lover.'
'But Buffy and Oz aren’t in love,' Xander stated. 'So that means...'
'Oz won’t change for the better, and Buffy will become a really mean werewolf three nights out of the month,' Cordelia summed up.
'Precisely.'
'We have to stop them,' Willow asserted.
'How? In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a couple of humans up against a Slayer and a werewolf. How the hell are we supposed to stop that?' Xander asked.
'I don’t know, but we’d better think of something, and fast.'
* * *
The werewolf stopped running when he was certain the humans couldn't find him, and set the girl down beside him. Buffy. He knew without a doubt that he could not harm this girl; she was his destiny, and he could not live without her. She was meant to join him, forever. And she saw it too. She was not afraid. She smiled at him, and slowly offered her neck.
As Oz bent towards her neck, Buffy knew why Giles had tried to stop them, why he believed it wouldn’t work this time. She’d figured it out when she wondered why Cassandra’s blood had only worked on Jeremiah, not her Watcher; the Slayer had to love the werewolf for it to work. And she loved Oz, enough that she was willing to risk her life to help him.
As his fangs brushed her neck, she reflected on how different they felt from Angel’s. Angel had bitten her during their night together, something vampires did occasionally during sex, to create a link between the partners. The sharing of blood was a powerful thing.
His fangs had been ice-cold and sharp as needles. The bite had felt like a gentle pinprick, and she hadn’t even flinched. He’d been gentle and as she felt the blood flowing out of her wound she’d felt absolute trust in the peaceful vampire lapping at her neck.
Oz was different. He was hot and hairy, and he breathed warm air onto her neck that tickled almost as much as his wet nose did when it sniffed her hair. He remended her of a dog she’d met once, a great big hairy mongrel, so covered in hair she could barely find his eyes.
Oz licked her neck with a heavy wet tongue, and she shivered. Then he bit, carefully, but it hurt. Werewolf teeth were for tearing and ripping, not piercing like vampire fangs.
Oz resisted the urge to rip her throat out, but then the blood came and he let out a rumble of delight. Werewolves usually ate flesh, ignoring the blood except for what they swallowed by accident. Blood didn’t taste very nice, but Buffy’s blood tasted amazing to the werewolf. It was thick and warm and sweet, and it flowed easily into his mouth, filling him with joy. It tasted like she smelled to him, and his tail began to wag in delight, something that rarely happened to werewolves.
Then he felt her go limp in his arms, and he pulled back, releasing her. Her eyes were open, but glazed, and he laid her gently on the ground, sniffing at her face.
'I’m... okay,' she whispered, hitching in a breath.
Then her eyes closed, but Oz knew she was safe. He lay down beside her and continued sniffing her face until he too fell asleep, the large werewolf curled protectively around the tiny girl.
They were still like that when Giles and the gang found them, hours later, although the moon was beginning to set and already Oz’s body was shrinking and losing hair. Giles, thinking quickly, took off his jacket and threw it over the boy, but neither woke up. Giles stepped back and waited.
The shifting of her companion woke Buffy, and she blinked lazily, stretching out, before sitting up to investigate. The first thing she noticed was that she’d slept in a forest, and that it was daybreak. The second was that Oz was lying beside her, peacefully asleep, and utterly naked except for Giles’ tweed jacket slung over his waist. The third was the surprised and tired faces of Giles, Cordelia, Xander and Willow, who had obviously spent all night tracking them. And the fourth was the throbbing in her neck.
No one spoke for what seemed like hours, until finally Buffy broke the silence. 'Does anybody have a mirror?'
Unexpectedly, Willow found this extremely funny, and she began to giggle uncontrollably.
'You... you wake up in the middle of a forest, next to your best friend’s boyfriend... *naked*! a-and you want a mir-irror?' she giggled.
'Uh, yeah,' Buffy said, standing up. 'What’s wrong with that?'
Sighing, Cordelia marched up to the bewildered Slayer, and ran her hands through Buffy’s shoulder-length blonde hair, tugging out the leaves. She brushed Buffy’s clothes off, and offered her a tube of lipstick and a small bottle of deodorant.
'I don’t have a toothbrush, sorry,' she said. 'You’ll have to wait till we get back.' Noticing the surprised and amused stares she was getting, she snapped defensively, 'What?! You didn’t think I’d go anywhere with her looking like that, did you?' in an attempt to convince them that Buffy’s appearance was her only reason for being so generous.
Buffy freshened up quickly, applied the lipstick, and then turned her attention to Oz.
'Oz?' she said, tapping his shoulder lightly.
He groaned. 'Mom, I swear I didn’t know my drink was spiked,' he moaned, shielding his eyes from the sun.
'You didn’t take any drugs,' Buffy told him, giving him a shake. 'You are, however, naked as a new-born baby, lying in a forest, wearing only a tweed jacket.'
Oz sat up so quickly it was as if he’d been drenched in water. 'Tweed?' he asked, seconds before a horrified 'Naked?' caused him to look down. 'Oh,' he said.
Buffy offered him a hand, and he got to his feet with some difficulty, having only a tweed jacket to cover his modesty.
'Uh, does anybody have some pants?' he asked hopefully.
'You should have thought about that before you went for a jaunt into the middle of nowhere as a werewolf,' Giles admonished him. 'Buffy, I need to know, did he bite you?'
'Bite her?' Oz asked, before the memory hit him, and he staggered back. 'Oh, God, Buffy! You were supposed to avoid getting bitten,' he said, still woozy.
This was quickly followed by, 'So that’s what Slayer-blood tastes like. I’m gonna be high for a week.' He smiled at her. 'If you could bottle that stuff and sell it around the world, we could end all the world problems. Everyone would just sit around drinking it and chilling out. It tasted amazing. Wow!'
'It’s okay,' she said. 'I’m fine.'
'No, you aren’t,' Giles told her. 'You should have spoken to me Buffy, then I would have told you why that could never work for you two.'
'Giles, I know. And it will work,' she said, quietly.
'You know? And you still did it?'
'Well, it’s what you do when...' she glanced at Oz, a look only Giles and Willow understood. 'But Buffy, you should never have allowed him to bite you. How are you going to cope being a Slayer *and* a werewolf?'
'What?' both Buffy and Oz asked at the same time.
'You don’t know? But you said you... Buffy, Cassandra did turn into a werewolf. She was in control, but, but-'
'She still suffered from an overdose of bodily hair and a need for walkies every month,' Xander put in.
Buffy swayed slightly as the full truth hit her. 'Oh,' she whispered. Without thinking, Oz moved closer to her and slid his arms around her shoulders.
'It’s okay,' he whispered reassuringly. 'We’ll deal.'
This gesture did not go unnoticed by anyone (with the possible exception of Xander, who probably wouldn’t have understood if Oz and Buffy had kissed in front of them).
Willow knew suddenly that it had worked, just as she knew that she’d lost another guy to Buffy. she thought sadly. < I guess I’m meant to be single the rest of my life, while I watch guys falling over me to get to Buffy > Willow wasn’t bitter, she knew better than anyone that you couldn’t help who you were attracted to. But it still hurt.
She turned and slowly started to walk back, not wanting to see anymore now that she understood.
Buffy saw Willow leaving, and realised why. 'You guys explain to Oz, and...' she untangled herself from his arms and started to follow Willow. 'Try to get him into something a bit more acceptable than a tweed skirt,' she said, as she was swallowed up by the forest.
She caught up to Willow a few minutes later.
'Will, I-'
'Don’t say it!' Willow interrupted fiercely. 'I can accept that he’s yours now, but please don’t try to apologise, or explain. I don’t want your excuses.'
Buffy stopped and stared at her friend in amazement. 'What? Willow, Oz is yours, he was and he always will be. I won’t deny that I love him, and I’m truly sorry for that, but I can’t help it. I promise I will never try to take him away from you, Will, you two belong together, and I did this for you.'
Willow studied Buffy, astonished. 'You mean you don’t know?'
'Know what?'
Willow sighed, and began to walk again. 'Oz loves you too,' she said quietly.
'No, Willow, you don’t understand...'
'Yes I do. I saw the look in his eyes, and I understand that you two love each other, and even if he does love me, he loves you more. You two are perfect for each other, and I can’t stand in your way. Buffy, because I love both of you so much, I know that I have to do what’s best for you, and that means giving you two my blessing.'
'Willow, no! I won’t take Oz, even if you hand him to me on a silver platter! How could you think I’d do that to you?'
'Buffy, please, for my sake. I just want you to be happy. And I know Oz can make you happy. He’s really nice, and so easy to fall in love with.' Willow wiped a tear away quickly, but not so quickly that the eagle-eyed Slayer didn’t see it.
'Will,' she said, gently placing a hand on Willow’s shoulder. Willow resisted at first, but she soon allowed Buffy to draw her into a hug.
'Look after him,' Willow said, and Buffy realised Willow wouldn’t give up until she had her way.
'It won’t work, you know. You can’t just give us to each other and expect us to forget about you. How can we be together when we know how much it’ll hurt you. Besides,' she said, changing tack. 'How do you know Oz really loves me?'
'The ritual only works of the werewolf and the Slayer love each other, Buffy. Oz has to love you back.'
'Oh.' Buffy released Willow, and smiled sadly. 'You are an amazing friend, Willow. I’m lucky to have you.'
'Buffy, I’m the one who’s lucky. You’ve helped me so much, you've helped me to move on from Xander, and realise I don’t need other people’s approval. You’ve made me braver, and helped me to understand what true courage is about. It’s about doing the right thing for other people, no matter what you really want to do. You’ve shown me how to be brave and courageous every single day I’ve know you, whether you’re taking on vampires, or demons, or giant robots, or even snobby bitches like Cordelia used to be. And do you really think that after you’ve shown me all that, I could pretend not to notice? That I could choose not to be like you are every night, willing to give everything to help others? You don’t know me as well as you thought, if that’s what you think.'
'Willow, you are the bravest person I have ever met, no matter what anybody else says,' Buffy told her, smiling.
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