Thank you all for reading! This chapter NSFW.


Hours later, Oz walked Willow home. It was very late—the small dark hours of the middle of the night. Tomorrow was Sunday, and Willow hoped she could get enough sleep so that she could be ready for school again on Monday. It was hard to imagine wanting to sleep, she was still so keyed up from the events of the night. Only Oz's hand in hers felt real; everything else was too bright, too vivid, as if she was seeing the world around her for the first time.

They snuck into her house, her parents already long asleep. She had to wonder if they had even noticed she wasn't home, if they had bothered to check. Of course, she was so often out with Buffy that it really didn't make a lot of sense for her parents to look in on her—and she was about to be a high school graduate, too, so maybe they felt she was old enough not to need checking on.

Maybe she was old enough for other things, too. As Oz hesitated outside the door to her room, she tugged on his hand. "Come in."

"Are—are you sure?" But he wanted to; he didn't want to be away from her for a minute. Willow felt a pang, thinking of how worried he must have been, and after the vampire Willow thing, too.

"Yes. I'm sure. I want you here."

"Will." He stepped into the room, pulled her into his arms, and nudged the door closed with his foot all in what seemed like a single motion. He held her tightly, his hands buried in her hair, his face pressed against her shoulder. "If she'd hurt you, I—" His grip tightened even more.

Willow pulled back to look at him. "Oz. I'm all right."

"I know."

"And … I'm going to be all right. I know that now. I didn't before."

"What do you mean?"

"I dusted a vamp, Oz. With magic. I wasn't scared. I mean … I was scared, I didn't want to be eaten, but I was thinking so clearly, knowing just what to do. I lifted the pencil with my mind and got him in just the right spot. And when Faith caught me—I was scared then, too, because she's crazy and she hates me, but I stayed calm. I was her equal, for the first time."

"You've always been Faith's equal."

Willow shook her head. "No. I've always been smarter, but in a situation like that, with the adrenaline flowing and a fight coming … I've always been the girl cowering in the shadows, too afraid to step forward and do something about it, too weak and helpless to defend myself. I've spent three years hiding behind Buffy. But tonight I wasn't weak, and I wasn't helpless, and I didn't have anyone to hide behind. I stood on my own two feet, and it felt good."

Oz was still stroking her hair, still looking at her, and as she so often did with his eyes on her, Willow felt as though she had really been seen. "I'm all for the personal growth, but next time can you do it without scaring the daylights out of me?"

She smiled. "I'll try. Oz?"

"Yeah?"

"I … think I know now. What I want to do."

"What do you mean?"

"You know I got into all those colleges and I didn't know what to do. Where I wanted to go. But now I know—I want to stay here, and work with Buffy, and help her save the world."

"You don't want to get away and see new places?"

"No. I mean, I do, but … not as much as I used to. You can't deny we get a lot of excitement in Sunnydale."

"That we do." He smiled.

"What about you?"

"Seems to me I have an acceptance letter to UC Sunnydale kicking around somewhere. And I've got the band, and you—I'm good here."

"So … you'll stay, too?"

"Right here with you, I promise," he said huskily, and kissed her, hard.

Somehow they made it across the room to the bed, still kissing, although Willow didn't see how because her jacket and his overshirt and T-shirt were on the floor by the time they made it. Oz was on top of her, and she was absolutely melting between the heat of his body and the heat of her own and the velvet dress she wore. She drew up one leg, feeling him settle more firmly between her legs, feeling something hard pressing just where she was softest. "Oh," she sighed, partly in surprise and partly in pleasure. She rubbed against him, the sensations new and exciting.

"Will," he groaned between clenched teeth.

With one hand on the back of his neck, she drew his head back down to hers, kissing him. With the other, she pulled the skirt of the dress up as best she could, to reduce the barriers between them. He was still wearing his jeans, and even in the haze she felt, she didn't think she wanted him to take them off, but she wanted more, the pleasure she felt like nothing she had ever felt before.

Oz said her name again and pulled away, and she heard a lost sad little whimper that must have come from herself. There was almost an ache there between her legs. "I can't," he said, "not without … But …" He stretched himself out alongside her, his mouth at her ear, gently nibbling, and she felt his hand sliding up her leg, pushing the velvet skirt up along with it. And then he cupped her, his strong sensitive musician's fingers drawing a little circle right on that spot that was the most sensitive. Willow cried out, and Oz chuckled and stopped her mouth with his to keep her from waking her parents.

Slowly he massaged her, the fabric of her panties growing wet as he did so. He didn't move to take them off, and Willow didn't ask him to. Not right now, not this time. She kissed him back, feeling aches and tension and need all through her body, spiraling in tighter and tighter circles just as his fingers drew smaller and smaller circles right where she wanted them.

And then somehow she was free, the tension bursting and sending her flying through space.

When she came back to Earth, back to her bed in her house in Sunnydale, her limbs felt leaden, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion. Oz kissed her on the temple, pulling down her skirt and smoothing out the dress and taking off her boots. Somewhere in the process she fell asleep, and when she woke the next day to bright sunshine cascading across her bed, he was gone.