Oz sat in his van, staring out the windshield. It had been nearly half an hour since his talk with Willow and he was still just sitting there. He had expected to feel numb, just as he had when he caught her with Xander. He thought that he would just feel lost and emotionless when she let him go. But what he felt was so much worse. He had put on a brave face, pretended he was happy for her, when all the time the wolf had been howling inside of him, screaming for him to let it free. He could practically feel it clawing away at his insides.
He saw that it had been a mistake to leave Brother Lann and the other monks so soon. There was so much he didn't know about the wolf; so much he still could not control. He reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a flask filled with vile smelling liquid, and took a gulp. He took a charm from his pocket, held it to his eyes, and began chanting as the monks had taught him. Soon, he felt the wolf calming. He waited a few minutes until it subsided entirely and then put the keys in the ignition.
He paused. He realized that he was now at the point he had been dreading. He had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to. He decided there was only one place he could go. And he had to go there, so they had to take him in.
"Mom," he called, as he entered the house. It was quiet there. But, as always, it was warm and smelled like baking bread. It smelled like home. "Dad, I'm here. I'm home…"
He heard the sound of heeled shoes from upstairs. A middle aged, matronly woman with blonde hair and an expression of disbelief appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked down at him.
"Oz?" she asked, hardly believing her own eyes. "Oh my goodness Oz!" she ran down the stairs as fast as her shoes would allow her. When she reached the bottom she ran toward the boy and swept him into an enormous hug. "Oz, dear we've missed you so much."
"I know Mom," he said, almost crying as he did. As stoic as he was in public, he was always able to be himself with his parents. "But I'm here now. I'm home."
"You are," she confirmed, drawing away from him but still keeping her hands firmly on his shoulders. With the shoes she had on, she able to look down at him ensuring that he would be too intimidated to answer her questions falsely. "But for how long this time? I can't imagine this is a permanent visit…"
Oz let out a sigh. Nobody else on the planet could read him this easily. "No, it's not," he admitted. "I only came to see if Willow would take me back and she..." he paused, drawing a deep breath but it was no use. He began to sob openly.
"Shh, shh, it's okay dear, it's okay," she said, drawing him back into an embrace and rubbing her hand comfortingly on his back. After a few moments he was alright. When he did succumb to a need for a strong expression of emotion, it rarely lasted long. Especially with his mother by his side.
He looked up, wanting to change the subject. "Is Dad here?" he asked. "And Devon? I want to see them before I leave."
His mother shook her head. "Allan is on a business trip in Phoenix, he only left this morning," she said apologetically. His heart dropped. "And Devon is living in L.A. now. He's dating a model." Her voice was laced with venom as she pronounced the last word.
"What about the other Dingoes?" Oz asked, still hopeful that something in his life was just as he had left it.
"Honey," she said putting a hand on his shoulder, "the band split around the same time you did. They couldn't really keep it up without you."
His heart sank further. Nothing was the same anymore. In the span of a few months it seemed that the whole of Sunnydale had undergone a total transformation. The town wasn't his home anymore. He felt as though nothing but the house he was standing in and the woman he was standing next to had remained the same. He sat down on the steps; elbows resting on his knees with his fingers running through his hair.
His mother sat down next to him. "I'm sorry Oz,' she said, sensing the source of his trouble. "But I don't think you really expected it to be the same here. Deep down I think you knew that this town must have gone through a lot since you left. You did too after all."
He looked up at her questioningly. He hadn't yet told her anything about his trip. She smiled and pointed out the window up to the sky. "Night after the full moon, dear. I guess even you haven't been tracking them that closely." She winked. Every month on the three wolf moons since Oz left she sat looking out of the window, wondering how he was coping.
He laughed. He had been keeping track of course but, with all the excitement of the last few days, it had slipped his mind somewhat. He sighed and stood up, not sure what the purpose of this gesture had been.
"Where will you go?" she asked. "Will you leave us an address this time?" He smiled at her and took out a piece of paper with a cellphone number written on it and handed it to her. She nodded and took it from him and then rose to hug him once more. "My boy. My sweet, sweet boy. You've grown so much." She looked at him and placed a hand on his cheek. "Your parents would be so proud."
He took the hand that was on his cheek and held it in his own. "You raised me since before I can remember," he started, once again holding back tears. "You took me in when I was eight years old and gave me everything that I have today. You and Dad made me who I am. You are my parents."
Barbara MacLeish embraced her foster son for a final time and began to cry. The two stood, hugging and crying for a while until Oz pulled away. "I have to go Mom," he said, and began to move toward the door. "I don't know where but I have to go."
"I know," she said nodding. "Go. But Oz…" he turned from the door to look at the woman who raised him one last time. "Be safe," she said tears still in her eyes. He nodded and left the house. As far as he knew, he would never see his mother, this house, or even this town ever again.
He didn't know exactly where to go, so his first instinct was to return to the campus. He had left a few things on the grounds that he needed to pick up before going…wherever it was he was going to go. Given the wolf moon, his senses were heightened so he was upset when a familiar figure somehow managed to sneak up on him in the dark.
"So how'd it go?" asked Whistler. His neon green shirt and leopard print tie made him stand out even in the darkness.
Oz regarded him for a moment. "Somehow, I think you already know the answer to that question," he said coldly.
"Whoah now, Danny boy," he said, taking a step back and throwing his hands up dramatically. "What's with the hostility? I didn't do nothin' to hurt ya. Matter of fact, nobody did. But the world went and changed on you while you were out, didn't it? Kinda hard to take in, huh?"
Oz's face remained blank. He knew what was coming, and he knew what his answer would be, but he wasn't going to make the first move. Whistler sensed his hesitation and smirked.
"You given any thought to my offer yet?" he asked feigning genuine curiosity. Oz just stared at him. "Of course you know I know the answer to that too. But I wanna hear it from you Danny boy. I want you to say it."
Oz didn't move a muscle.
"Look in there," Whistler said, pointing to the window directly behind Oz. He obliged and was immediately met with an arrow through the heart. Without realizing it, he had stopped outside of Tara's dorm. The girl his ex had turned him down for was lying in bed with her arms wrapped around his former lover. He fell to the ground clutching his chest. The wolf wanted desperately to be freed. "You need my help if you don't want that beastie tearin' at your innards every time you think of red in there. You need me Osbourne."
Oz looked up at him, the wolf quieting somewhat, apparently intrigued by his point. "I could go back to the monks," he said. "Who says you're the guy I need?"
Whistler shook his head. "You go back to the monks to do what? Study the way of the wolf for another few years? In the meantime, the world keeps on turning but you're not really a part of it. Nothing you're doing is making a difference in anybody's life but your own." Oz was staring at the ground now. Was he really being selfish just by trying to control his wolf? By isolating himself from society, he was saving people, but he wasn't really helping anyone. Whistler knelt down and looked him in the eye. "You gotta understand what I'm offering you here. I'm offering you a reason to exist. Something to fight for. You can make a real difference in everybody's lives now. Buddy you can save the fuckin' world!" Whistler frowned and stood up again. "Or, you could go on back to Tibet, and spend who knows how long learning to become more useless than you already are."
Oz stood as well. "Your sales pitch could use some work," he said. Whistler remained silent. "I'll do it," he said finally. "I'll join you."
Whistler grinned. "There, now was that so hard," he said and then snapped his fingers. At once, Oz felt a surge of energy rushing through him. First, it flowed through him, hitting his chest and exiting his back. Then, he felt it coursing through his veins. He was lifted a foot off the ground as a soft, white light emanated from every pore of his body. As quickly as it had started, however, it ended and Oz fell to the ground. He stood up quickly, feeling very energized and all he could think to say was: "Wow."
"Yeah don't worry, the feeling wears off," said Whistler. ""Be kinda hard to battle evil if we were buzzed all the time. That's from the immortality. Feels way different don't it?" All Oz could do was nod. "Here, I wanna check out your powers real quick."
"Powers?" Oz asked, trying to hide his excitement.
"Well, yeah. Ya know, powers of prognostication and all that junk. We have to prevent the end of the world here! That means we gotta see it coming. You gotta be able to know something's future just by looking at it. It's different for all of us though. Me, for example. I get visions when I sleep. I see a bunch of different outcomes for the future. They're clear but I don't know which one is gonna come to pass. I know this girl Sally, who's like us. Nice girl, kinda homely. Anyway she knows exactly whats gonna happen all the time 'cause she sees it written in mirrors. But the girl locked herself in a cage, ate the key, and only talks in riddles. You know, different."
Oz raised an eyebrow. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't end up spouting nonsense from a cage, but he did want to find out what his power was. "How do I test it?" he asked eagerly.
"Look in there," Whistler said, once again pointing at Tara's dorm room window. Oz took a deep breath and turned to look. "Tell me what you sense, and how you sense it. Tell me what you feel about those two in there. Ignore the wolf, it's just a distraction. Focus on them, not on what they did to you."
Oz looked into the window breathing heavily, trying to combat the wolf. Suddenly he smelled something. It was nothing he had ever smelled before but he immediately knew what it was. "Power," he said. "I smell it. There's power there."
Whistler smiled and nodded. "Good. But there's more. What else can you, er, smell?"
Oz inhaled deeply. "It's not just the power that they have as individuals," he said, not sure what about the smell was making him say that. "There's power in their relationship. In their…" He couldn't bring himself to say the last word.
"In their love," Whistler finished for him.
Oz nodded. "It's the kind of power that could really change the world," he said definitively. Barely able to take any more he turned and walked back toward his van without a word to Whistler.
The demon held back a second, still looking at the two witches through the window. "Change the world, yeah," he said to himself. "Or destroy it…" He turned away and followed Oz to the van.