After having eaten for the first time in days, Oz felt the fog lift from his brain and the realization that he had been self-indulgent by letting his feeling of guilt consume everything steeled his determination to just be better and do right by Spike and Willow.

His fully wolfed violent outburst was likely going to cost him everything, but he wanted to try and put as much back together as possible. He had attacked Spike first because some instinct told him that Spike would've been able to stop him from what blind jealousy had propelled him to do. Then he wanted to play with Willow and make her terrified before biting into her. He resented her for choosing someone else over him, never trying to find him, and then stealing Spike away from him on top of that. The wrath he had felt for her eclipsed any other he had ever felt in his life. And the fountainhead of that hatred was that he loved her, then, still, always.

Cleaning off all the bits of gore that came with dinner, Oz tried to balance being thorough with his need to hurry. He wanted to get back to Spike and Willow who were still unconscious. When he realized that he'd left them, his throat constricted in worry. Then he got back and saw that they were asleep, Willow's head on Spike's shoulder and her hand on his chest. The livid scars on Spike's chest had Oz clenching his jaw, but the sight of Spike's mutilated face brought tears to his eyes. He was never going to forgive himself for having done that to someone he loved and yes he was now willing to see that Spike had wiggled into his heart.

A flash of Willow and Spike walking, hand in hand, smelling of each other's sex, and smiling so broadly at each other while they had an animated conversation, distracted him for a minute with emotions that he really needed to suppress right now. Just that thought started changing him but he was able to breathe through it and put the wolf off.

Leaving the bathroom, Oz's eyes immediately sought them out. From this angle, he couldn't see the result of his jealousy and they simply looked like a happy couple sleeping together. The scent of blood in the air had been so constant since he did what he did that it never occurred to him that there might be something more wrong. But with his renewed energy and clarity, he realized that there was something very not right if the apartment still smelled like fresh blood. Taking a closer look at Willow and Spike, he noticed that the back of Willow's shirt was a different color than the front. Oz turned her onto her back and the blood smeared on Spike's naked chest got absorbed through his skin. Oz could see Spike's pores slurp the slimy substance up. Once his chest was spotless of blood at least, Spike began to start and stir.

Startling Oz, Spike shot into a sitting position, his one eye wide and a panicked look on his face, and said, "Tadpoles!" in such a frightened manner that Oz's instinct was to throw his arms around him. It wasn't until after Spike started to hold Oz back that the memory of who it was that had frog fear came to him. Willow was the one that was afraid of frogs in all form. Why was Spike shaking from a dream about tadpoles?

When Spike began belly laughing, Oz pulled back to look at him. "You okay man?"

"How bloody funny is it that I had a nightmare about tadpoles? I mean, me? That's just barmy, right?" Spike laughed one more time before reality hit him and he touched his face. The rage that Spike hit Oz with then came as no surprise. With a feral growl and movement so fast that not even Oz could track it, Spike had him pinned to the floor and was beating the tar out of him.

The last and first thing he was aware of was the pain. It encompassed his entire body, but the most pronounced pain was his leg. Grasping for his leg left him patting the floor. There was no leg there, just blood in the last phase of drying.

It would suck but all he'd have to do is turn and he'd have a new leg, so he just lay there without doing anything. The sound of Spike's Zippo caught his attention and he twisted his head to look. Willow sat there, cigarette dangling from her lip. "He's never drank your blood before, has he?"

"Ah no."

Willow nodded, took a drag from the cigarette and blew a ribbon of smoke out. "He has now."

"I thought so." Oz tried to sit up so he could have proper eye contact with Willow, but he was in too much pain.

"You should turn and take care of that leg."

Not wasting another moment, he turned. And as he was running through the woods he found that he wasn't the only werewolf there. There were two others. They ran together and played together and ate together and fucked together. He was home.


In the morning, Oz woke up in between a naked Willow and Spike just cuddling together in the middle of the forest. Pulling their hands up so he could snuggle his face against them, he couldn't help but notice that somehow they all had perfect matching manicures.