Hey readers! Sorry it took me so damn long to update, this is a really depressing chapter and it took a while to get everything the way I wanted it to sound, still it could probably use some more work but I wanted to get this chap finished by today. I'm also gonna say that this chap is graphic and there's some language, so be aware. And enjoy. Also note I'm sorry for the crappy writing of Willow in this chap, please forgive me, I just wasn't in the 'willow flow' Please review I need reviews to keep going!
DISCLAIMER: don't own any Wheldon or the song 'Hotel California' by 'The Eagles', though I do own Blade, Sasha and Jay…
SUMMARY: A werewolf bites Willow and Oz comes back to town followed closely by Jay. Chaos ensues… if you haven't read the other chapters I suggest you do or you'll be left in the dust, for lack of a better saying…
Without further adu…
It was a silent ride out of town until they his the 'now leaving Sunnydale, 'we hope you had a pleasant come again soon' sign.
Oz glanced over at Willow, wondering when they were gonna stop. There was a look of defiance in her face and her jaw was still locked. He guessed stopping wasn't in her line of thought yet.
Willow kept her eyes on the sign until they had completely passed it before she turned to Oz finally letting him see the tears that had fallen on the trip out of town. Some of these tears were from fear, of him, of her; tomorrow was her first change.
They both locked eyes and he saw her tears. He felt his features relax and he tried to give her a reassuring smile before looking back at the road. Willow knew what she needed to hear. His side of the story.
The way that… guy… explained it sounded nothing like Oz. She just had to work up the courage to ask him. She knew he knew this and was waiting patiently for her to do so, but she just couldn't bear to ask her ex if he was a murderer. She took in a quick breath of air and turned towards him.
"Oz?" she asked, silently willing herself to go on. Oz turned around again ripped away from the painful memories that he had gone over in his head millions of times.
If only I had told her to wait outside…
"Yeah?" he asked staring into Willow's green blue eyes. He took in a breath knowing what was coming.
"He-he said you-you… but you couldn't of. Not you. Never you…" Willow choked. She couldn't go on anymore, her throat suddenly went dry and seized up on her.
I've killed too…for love…she tried but failed
Oz watched expressionless as he fumbled with his emotions. He looked back to the road as a distraction, but couldn't do that for long. She was waiting; tormenting herself for something she thought was so un-believable.
Finally he looked back at her. This time he couldn't meet her eyes. "It was true…" he whispered finally. Willow let out what sounded like a sharp intake of air. Oz sighed. Willow struggled for her lost voice again and when she did get it back it was as soft as a whisper. "Tell me everything…"
Oz flicked on the ancient cruise control and turned back to the road. It took him a couple of seconds and then finally he spoke.
"I left Sunnydale and went back to my apartment in Cleveland. From the moment I had driven out of town I had felt broken. Like something was wrong, like my purpose and place in the world had been ripped out of my soul." Oz knew he was upsetting her. Tried to stop but couldn't; someone had to know, the only other person that knew was dead and it was his fault.
"I couldn't believe I just left you again… I couldn't accept the fact I had abandoned you again. I just couldn't. I had missed you so much, so many things I needed to tell you and that all just melted away. I was tearing my heart out a second time." Oz said his eyes never leaving the road.
"Soon I found I couldn't control my changes anymore… I couldn't concentrate anymore. Then I found I didn't care. It felt like nothing mattered. So I…" Oz choked this was harder than he thought.
Willow on the other hand was shaking her head. "No-no… Oz you didn't try to…" the words were too painful even thinking about them brought tears to her eyes; eyes of which were locked on the black studded bracelets on each of Oz's wrists. She was suppressing sobs now and had started shaking.
Oz put a hand on her shoulder. She slowly brought her hand up and placed it on his. It was ice cold. He gave her a small smile of assurance and allowed her to slowly take of the bracelet. She twisted his hand over and gasped at the bright white scars. They reflected of the moonlight. There were so many of them, over lapping distorting the whole wrist. Criss-crossing.
Willow's hand shook as she ran her fingers over them, smoothness turning into bumpy as the scars separated themselves from one another. The tears she had been holding back now flooded her eyes and fell down her face and collecting on the bottom of her chin. "Oh my God… Oz…" her voice caught.
Oz stared down ay his wrists too. The only memories of nights like that coming back to him in little fragments, all so blurry and dream like…
Sitting in a pool of his own scarlet blood, semi-conscious the white silk curtains blowing in the spicy midnight air. Silver dagger still in hand. Though getting hard to grasp. Somewhere far below a baby crying. The smell of the blood like an incentive to keep carving. Frustration building upon finding out that I was too weak to lift the dagger to my wrist. The sensation of my arms starting to become numb. Then the numb ness traveling through the rest of my body. The last feeling I get it the blood drying and sticking to me like sap. Cold as ice it embraced my body, stuck me too the floor. My mind; relentless on keeping its hold on reality, constantly sucking me back to the hard wood floor, before everything faded into black.
Getting sucked back into reality through all the black, like being sucked through a giant vacuum cleaner the un-nerving feeling of hitting corporeal-ness again like an un-expected slap in the face. Being trapped inside my broken world again. Then my body hits ice and all is hard and cold again. The cycle then starts again. My heart beats again, my consciousness being pulled back into the world.
Waking up days later in the last place I remembered, still stuck in my own blood. Becoming even lonelier knowing that no one had even found my body. Then getting up, scrubbing the floor clean during the day and the cycle started again the same night
"When Jay found me he took me to his place, picked me up and dusted me off. Slowly I got better. When I say slowly I mean like 6 months of working at Pizza Hut just to get some human interaction."
Oz almost smiled, "that's where I met her…" he half whispered.
"Deep dish pizza no sauce no cheese." I looked up to see a beautiful woman with short chestnut hair biting her lip and looking up at the menu. I could smell the wolf on her… I walked up to the counter and she stared for a second.
"You on a diet or something?" I asked wondering how we were gonna make a pizza with nothing on it. "Naw just wondering how much meat I can afford to shove onto the sucker" she said grinning.
"I met her there, we clicked and after that we were never too far away from each other. Which in the long run was a mistake. But for that time… it was some of the best days of my life…" Oz explained taking out a picture from his wallet and handing it to Willow before going back to watching the road.
Willow took the picture silently. The corner was crumpled and the shiny gloss was all but shiny. When she finally had the guts to look down at it she saw a tall smiling woman. She had striking green eyes with gold flecks, mahogany brown shoulder length hair cut all choppy. It looked like it was always in her eyes. She had freckles and was grinning; her nose was all crinkled up. Oz was beside her with the same stoic smile he always had on but with a sparkle in his eyes she had never seen before.
Willow looked up again and her thoughts fell on Tara. She missed those times so much, just lying in bed, knowing that they had to get up but just stealing their last couple of seconds with each other. She sniffed a little before handing back the photograph.
"We lived in an apartment right by the beach. We surfed, wrote songs; even had a band. We lived for the weekend…" Oz said remembering those beautiful times when the world seemed to be new. Like it had regenerated itself again. They had lived for the moment because the moment was all they had.
God he missed her.
"Up for from pre-dawn surfing?" She grinned and ran off before he could answer. Newly waxed board swinging at her side. He followed closely behind her; a grin sliding onto his face as she stripped off her clothes and ran into the foamy water. He followed suit, the smell of the on coming dawn and salt water filling his nostrils and making his heart soar higher than any mere bird.
She was the first one standing but soon they were both up riding the waves with un-natural balance and instinct.
Soon the surfing but a memory they embraced in the golden glow of the dawn. They kissed passionately before coming up for air. The foamy green ocean embracing both bodies...
They walked home hand and hand the clothes on the sandy shoreline all but forgotten.
"We completed each other. Human and wolf it didn't matter, the bond was deep." Oz said pulling out of the memory. Willow remembered Tara and nodded. Oz deserved that kind of love too. She missed Tara so much sometimes; it was like the world had stopped spinning after she left.
Oz frowned at the memory; it had been so long since he had thought of Sash as she was. As she should be remembered…
Meanwhile,
Everyone back at Slayer central was going bananas. "Where the hell do they think they're going!" Jay cried his face reddening. Buffy; who was just about to say the same thing shook her head. "I can't believe they did that." She added through her teeth.
Xander frowned from his place on the couch. "She loved him, he loved her. Nothings gonna happen to them. I'm sure they'll pick up the old telephone and give us a call when they get everything settled." He said knowingly.
Jay scowled; you could almost see the vain pumping in his forehead. "But my orders were to…" "Take Willow away to your Nancy boy monastery before Oz could get to er; and make er feel better with 'erself." Spike said looking up. "She wouldn't have gone with you anyways…" he added looking up.
"But she's with a murderer!" Jay tried to explain. Giles looked around the room. He remembered Glory and Ben. Hell, half the people in the in the room were murderers for the cause. This kid was just too young to see that yet. He was pretty sure it wasn't exactly Oz's situation but he trusted the fact that Oz had done what he had thought was right.
He would have killed Angelus for what he did to Jenny, he just wasn't strong enough. Not being able to do that still tore his heart apart. Revenge is human nature. But human nature was nothing compared to the power of love. Love could move mountains, make miles into millimeters. The world moves aside for love.
Back in the V.W.:
Both young adults were stuck in their own memories…
The sun was setting on the night of the full moon. Both lovers were lying on the dock, welcoming the change. The moment the sun disappeared behind sparkling water he turned to her and smiled. He waited until they had eye contact before pulling a small velvet covered box out of his pocket
"Marry me?" he whispered. She smiled "thought you'd never ask baby…" she said embracing him. She pulled back for a second and whispered in his ear. "I have a surprise…" before the change took hold.
Oz felt the tears on his cheek for the first time and glanced over at Willow who seemed pretty into herself as well. He had just enough time to wipe his eyes with his sleeve before she looked up at him ready for more.
"We were on our way back from the beach at dawn, we had just changed back and were walking into the apartment when I smelt it. There were intruders inside. I tried to get her to just walk away but she insisted we fight for our home. She had always given logic a backseat to instinct to her, our territory was being violated and she wouldn't stand for it. She was born a wolf and that's just the way she had always done things. She and the wolf went hand in hand, you couldn't have one without the other. She wouldn't have it any other way. She embraced that part of her life and just that notion helped me to do the same, though I always gave instinct a backseat to logic."
Oz looked over at Willow and gave her a slight smile. She had been silent since he had began and he appreciated it. Willow reached over and squeezed his hand. He knew it was more for her assurance than his; but it helped slightly.
They barged into the apartment fangs and claws baring. He knew it was a trap the second he heard someone lock the door behind them. The air stung his lungs and made them burn. He took the first one on easily slitting its throat with a silver blade. The next one was harder but finally it fell harder than the first.
By the time he got to the 6th his eyes and throat were burning. He looked around desperately for one of the masks the intruders had. He glanced around to see Sasha viciously tearing the head off the closest imposter. That's when he felt the sharp pain on his head as the baseball bat made contact. He staggered only for a second and was back on his feet dealing out one of hardest punches he had ever had the pleasure of being on the giving side of.
They fought for what seemed hours against the relentless intruders and by the time there was no more remaining strength in his body his lungs had had just about enough. What ever they had poisoned the air with was slowly breaking them down. Soon taking in a breath was more painful than his other wounds.
Finally he fell. With the last of his blurred vision he saw Sasha fall as well. Her face screwing up in agony as she hit the floor at an odd angle. There was the sound the bone-shattering crunch of her shoulder splintering and then it all turned to haze before the darkness wound its arms around him and he passed out.
"We fought and eventually fell. The next thing I remember is waking up alone; in a cage." Oz said sorrowfully. Willow looked stunned "Oz…" she half whispered. "You don't have to…" she tried again. "It's okay, someone has to know." Oz said tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
Willow nodded. "The next thing I knew I was locked in a cage in someone's basement. Alone. The owners of the house were there too. Well… their bodies at least. The place reeked of death and blood… "
The cage kept getting smaller and smaller as he came in and out of consciousness. The record player in the corner blared "hotel California" by the eagles over and over.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
The seconds took hours. His thoughts never leaving Sasha. Was she alright? Was she dead? Did she manage to fight her way out? The song blared on. His head was booming but it hurt to breathe more than anything else. He had to will himself to take one breath at a time.
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
His hands kept going numb as he was tied to a chair. He tried to wolf but couldn't this was probably what scared him the most. He couldn't even feel the wolf inside him anymore. This made him panic. The wolf was so much apart of him and now he couldn't even draw out the strength to break the duct tape that confined him to the wooden chair. He wondered if Sasha was going through the same thing. He wondered if she was alive. It hurt so bad to think of her as dead. No. She wasn't dead. She was safe at home, waiting for him. He had to get out.
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here
"Welcome Daniel, we hope your stay has been comfortable," a sickly sweet male voice said from the shadows. Oz opened his mouth and tried to retort, upon finding he had lost his voice; so instead he spat some of the blood in his mouth on the ground. His chest shuddering from the effort. He looked back up to the shadows and could almost see his interrogator smile. "It hurts doesn't it?" he cooed from the darkness. Anger bubbled to the surface but Oz managed to keep his face stone. Upon finding his lost voice he croaked. "And if that wasn't enough you had to torture me with the interior design too."
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
"Always incompetent… we can change that." The voice said again. "So when would that be? What with the hiding in the dark corner cowering over the scary werewolf." Oz said glaring at the corner. "Yes… well that's the problem isn't it? All this rebellion from the animals. It's gotta stop. So I'm going to ask you once, where is the rebel base?" Blade said stepping into the sunlight pouring through the window. A long scar ran down his face and his dark military haircut shone with streaks of silver. Several of his teeth were missing and he was wearing cargos and a muscle shirt, his sweat beaded on his upper brow and showed up as darker marks on his shirt, in his armpits and his back.
He said,'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Oz couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. "Rebel base?" he asked frowning. "You know what I mean" Blade said a vain protruding from his greasy forehead. He slowly walked closer to the cage and tripped over the smaller of the two bodies still on the floor. He cursed angrily and cried for a few henchmen to clean up the mess. "Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you…" Oz started. Blade wheeled around teeth grinding in anger. "The maid service sucks, if they are getting paid commission, I suggest installing cameras." Oz managed to stammer. "Don't get cocky yet boy, the fun isn't even here yet. I've tried asking nicely but it seems we have to do this the hard way." Blade said inspecting his greasy hair through the reflection of the window. Oz let out a bark of a laugh; it sent spazzums of pain down his left arm. Blade let a sly smile slip onto his face. "Paint the window black." He said to the muscular henchmen.
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
With that Oz was confined to complete darkness. It choked him. Closter phobia set in. his breathing got anything but better. Slowly his lungs were breaking down. He hadn't been fed in days and no one had even been in he room he was in what he guessed was about three days. Now the mind can be a blessing but it can also be hell. And for Oz the what 'if's' just kept getting bigger. Slowly they started eating at him, like a cancer
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast
Oz woke up. The wolf pulling him to consciousness. Suddenly forgetting where he was. He eased his eyes open and looked around. His eyes widened as he remembered his current situation. He calmed slowly and then realized what woke him in the first place. The wolf was back. Relief flooded through his body calming his tense muscles. He let the wolf mingle with his mind for a while and he picked up some scents, which gave him more of an idea where he was.
He was just about to break his bindings when the door opened and 4 army guys entered each holding an AK47. They came toward him showing not fear, Oz sat and waited for his bindings to be cut loose before trying to stand and fight. However lack of hunger made him dizzy and he still had a problem breathing. Instead he ended up leaning on one of the guards for support. He chuckled and pushed him to a standing position. Oz wobbled for a second and got his feet back. One of the guards poked the butt of his gun into Oz's back and Oz moved forward.
He was lead down a long hallway and into a room that looked like it used to be a rec. room because there was a pool table in the middle. Oz frowned. Why would I be here? He thought to himself. Then he noticed the pool table had been tampered with. There were now large leather restraints on one of each of the four sides. The guards lead him towards the pool table. They stopped and waited for orders from Blade who was sitting on a crushed velvet easy chair with a smirk on his face. Oz eyed all four guards wearily. He knew what was coming next. Yet he couldn't help smirking slightly "rack it up boys." He said eyeing the guards. One's lip twitched. It was silent for a few seconds more. Blade surveyed Oz and Oz stared back coldly. "Do as he says." Blade said with a wave of his arm. At that the guards grabbed his arms and legs and swiftly pulled him onto the pool table. "Yeah, rack IT up." Blade hissed. Oz struggled against the strength of the men and managed to shake one off, only to be shoved back onto the table.
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
The room was dark except for the one hot light directly over top of him. Oz stared at it a moment dazed. Until Blade bent over him grinning maliciously. "Where are your friends hiding?" he asked. Oz couldn't comprehend the words for a second, as the wolf sensed Sash's scent in the air. Finally he croaked "Sasha…" his eyes fluttered wildly, before he finally settled on keeping them closed. He heard the hiss of metal and smelt the hotness, but he couldn't do anything but lie still. He felt his shirt being pulled off and heard the searing on as the red-hot poker collided with his chest. Then the blinding pain came, it was numb for a few seconds but then it came in agonizing waves. His lips never parted, he made no sound, he couldn't he was in too much shock. Finally the pain subsided into a dull ache.
Blade came into his blurry vision again "ready to talk now?" he asked. Oz blinked up at him, his clothes smelt of her blood. "What did you do to her?" Oz demanded attempting to sit up. The wolf flashed in his eyes and using all his strength he sat up breaking the leather bands holding his arms and wrapping his hands around Blade's throat. His stomach burned as his skin adapted to being in an up right position. Ice pierced his spine and yet his hold stayed. He looked into Blade's icy gray eyes and watched the panic spark as lack of oxygen began to take its toll.
Then he felt 4 strong pairs of hands forcing him back down to the table. Oz screamed and struggled but all he could do was go along with them at the end. Blade came back into view, leaning over top of him, a sneer plastered on his face. Oz smiled inwardly at the redness of his neck. "I see you need a new dose…we can't have the big bad wolf come back in our sessions now can we? Give me the syringe." he demanded. One of the guards came over and handed Blade a black velvet box. "This will make Mr. wolf go away for a while." Blade said holding up a syringe containing an icy blue liquid. Oz stopped struggling and froze. The blood rushed out of his face. Years ago he would have died for a cure. Now it scared him to the point where he shook violently. The thought of loosing the wolf again was enough to bring him over the edge.
'Relax,'said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave
Blade smiled. He took the syringe up and examined it for a second. Oz cried again as he felt the cool metal pierce his skin. He felt the wolf die inside him once more, being conscience for it was more devastating than anything physical they could do to him, his body began to shake, not being able to pull strength from the wolf any longer. He looked up at Blade, his hatred coming to the surface. He wanted to scream, but no longer hand any control over his body. He started to panic and found he was now slightly paralyzed. The next thing he remembered he was dumped back into his cage…
"I was tortured and sent back to my cage on a daily basis, each day it felt like they took another piece of my soul. Worst of all I knew Sasha was going through the same thing. I was just about at my breaking point. I could feel it, if Blade asked that question again holding that syringe I would break, I would have told him everything.
Then Jay and the rest of the band came storming into the compound and pulled me out of there." Oz stopped again, looking into Willow's green eyes. Emotion welled up in his throat as he continued. "They couldn't get Sasha out, I wasn't conscious at the time, but when I woke up I was in a bed for the first time in 2 months. When Jay came in to look up on me I found I was in the monastery, that's when he told me they couldn't get Sasha out. He said she was most likely already dead. He told me I was brought back from the brink. At that point I would have rather died.
He also told me that the stuff in the air was silver dust, and it had slowly broken down my lungs to the point where there were holes. That I could no longer run." The emotion of that day returned to him and tears fell down his face. They were echoed with the rain falling on the window shield as Oz stared out into the darkness.
"I had been there for a grand total of 2 months. Most of which I can only remember when I sleep." Oz paused for a second; and for the first time Willow noticed the giant dark bags under his eyes, she was going to suggest they stop the van and get some sleep, when Oz continued,
"That night rage got the best of me and found my way to the library. There I found where they kept the floor plans for the building they were keeping her in and left. Sure I was still weak, but the wolf and rage powered me and I killed everything in that fucking compound. When I got to Blade, I did something worse, well, at least worse to him, than death. I bit him. Changed him into the one thing he despised the most. One of us…" Oz stopped for a second shaking with pure emotion.
He thought of the faces that haunted his dreams every night. Staring up at him with the empty eyes. He had done that. He wouldn't admit that he felt remorse for those he killed but he did… Even more than that though, he felt hollow. Then the memory of her mangled body came back to him and more tears flowed.
"When I found her she was lying in a pool of vomit, her finger and toe nails were gone. Her breathing was worse than mine had ever been and she was delusional. I remember scooping her body up in my arms and barely feeling any weight. Her eyes opened for a second and rolled into the back of her head. He hair was gone. Her clothes were gone and her back was mutilated. When she felt someone holding her, she spat at my face, the spit was red, and it smelt of bile and rot. Yet she still fought against my hold with what ever strength she had left." Oz stopped he remembered the moment like it had just happened. He had whispered in her ear, told her who it was and that he was so sorry. He had known… it was only a matter of time.
"I had carried her to our apartment and placed her on our bed. Everything was mangled. Like the day we had been taken. I dabbed her hot head with a cool cloth and stroked her cheek softly. I whispered in her ear. But I could tell she only had a few hours. I held her hand and listened to her heart beat get fainter when it finally stopped. I stood up and walked away. I- I had, failed them…" Oz's voice caught for the first time. And he looked down as tears streamed down his face while he remembered his beautiful Sasha.
Willow stared into his face; it was screwed up in pain and sadness. She knew this had hurt him more than anything that had come before. She had no idea… then suddenly she realized something. She knew she shouldn't but she had to know, "who's they?" Willow asked.
Oz looked up, his red eyes softened as he remembered the moment; the night after he had proposed Sasha had told him… he was going to be a father. "She was pregnant…" He said. A ghost of a smile had appeared on his face.
There you go folks, that's the big secret! It's so good to have that out in the open. I really hated writing this chapter until the end. I'm sorry it's so long but it had to be I had promised you guys that the secret would come out. So now it's out and we all know what happened to Oz. Next chap should come soon and will have Willow's first change. It will also introduce you to the better side of Jay and some more memories. Until then, please review…