Title: ...And Back Again

Authors: the OzMIA RR gang: Lily, Vashti, Karen, MD, quantumLiz, Tabitha, and Little Faith.

Spoilers: Through "Same Time, Same Place"

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: The only thing we own is the weirdness.

Summary: Round Robin Fic from Oz: Missing In Action.

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Willow put her hands to her head. "This is too confusing!!! You left me for Veruca, Oz. You slept with her skanky ass to keep her from killing people..."

"You said you understood that!" Willow was shocked when Oz raised his voice. He never shouted. The look on his face was deafening. Taking a breath he continued, "That's why I stayed. You understood that wolf cried out for wolf and it was more animal then anything. I love you. How can you bring all this up again?"

Willow started crying. "I don't know what's real anymore."

"Sh," Oz pulled her into a hug. Smoothing her hair, he whispered, "Don't be scared. None of this is real."

She pulled away from him. "What?"

"It's not real, any of it. This is just another one of my dreams, Willow. I have them every night. Sometimes I never left you. Sometimes you found me. Sometimes I never even met Veruca. Other times I save you from destroying the world. They're just dreams, Will. You don't love me anymore. I know that. But I still love you." He tried to hug her again and she backed up against the wall. Sadness bled from his green eyes. "Course this one has to be a nightmare."

"Why?"

Oz stared at her. "Because in my fantasy ... when I'm kissing you..."

"I'm kissing you." Willow's heart melted. "Oh, Oz. I must have tapped into your dreams... Everything's connected." She reached out and took his hand. Lightening flashed between them and Oz woke up in his New York motel room.

"Wow." Oz sat up. "That one was intense." He tripped over a bunch of English wildflowers growing out of his carpet.

"Oz..." the flowers whispered.

Oz blinked. Leaning down to touch one...

MD's turn!! Crack may have played a role...)

. . .he strained his super cool ears, hoping to hear the flowers whisper again. They did.

"Oz," they repeated. Oz stared, wondering why these particular flowers had English accents.

"Well, we're from England, stupid," said the flowers, this time less in a whisper and more in an exasperated, yet flowery, tone.

*Did you flowers just read my mind?* Oz thought. Of course, he didn't say it out loud, because that would have compromised his little experiment.

"Duh," said the flowers. The use of a decidedly un-British slang word was a little jarring.

"Why are you growing out of my carpet?" Oz asked.

"Why are you talking out loud?" the flowers asked. It was odd; there were over a dozen flowers there, but they all spoke in perfect unison.

*Sorry* Oz thought. The flowers, if it is possible to imagine, nodded at him with a satisfied air.

"We are growing out of your carpet because we were planted here," the flowers explained. "Sort of a gift for you."

*From who?* Oz thought.

"Whom," the flowers corrected. They waited patiently for Oz to correct his mental grammar.

*From whom?* thought Oz.

"The love of your life," said the flowers. They broke unison then, as some of the flowers started winking teasingly at Oz, and others whistled, and still others shouted "you go, boy!"

*The love of my life...* Oz started. *And that's whom, exactly?*

"Who," the flowers corrected impatiently, joviality long gone in the face of careless phrasing.

*Who?* Oz insisted. In his head, he sounded loud.

"See for yourself," the flowers invited rather Britishly, and at once they all started swaying and turning until they suddenly began morphing together into some kind of shapeless mass.

BAM!

Just then, reality blipped with a flash of static, and Oz was no longer staring at a tangle of deforming flowers. No, a figure stood in their place now. It was a tall figure, and rather strapping.

Oz squinted.

"Giles?"

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part 11

"You're the love of my life?" The unflappable Oz regarded Giles steadily. His lips were ever so slightly parted, the only hint he might be startled.

"Good lord no," Giles said. He removed his glasses and wiped them. "I mean, I'm quite fond of you, but the age difference..." He ended with a flustered shrug.

Giles couldn't help but notice that Oz's perfect lips had gently and serenely closed.

"I've never thought age was particularly important."

"Oh dear," Giles mumbled faintly.

"Did you put the flowers in my carpet?" Oz's green eyes gleamed.

"Eww!" cried the flowers. "Him?! You think it's him?!" Giles managed to look alarmed and crushed at the same time.

"You can't suddenly switch teams!" cried the flowers. "You're not a poof!"

Oz walked over to Giles, grasped the man's lapels, and pulled him down for a searing kiss.

"Ugh!" cried the flowers. "Ptooey!" They writhed in a reddish mass, then managed to get themselves together long enough to form a picture of Willow's distraught face.

"Willow may have been the love of my life," Oz told them quietly and with a hint of danger. "That doesn't mean I'm going to ruin the rest of my live over her."

"Ah, Oz..." Giles mumbled. "I can't be your revenge against Willow. I'm sorry."

Oz smiled at him serenely. "Who said anything about revenge? I'm serious."

"Aieee!" screemed the flowers, all composure gone. They flowed together in the form of Willow's face again, and the ones that depicted her eyes turned black.

"You don't own me, Willow," Oz said to them.

There was a crack of thunder and the flowers disappeared. In their place levitated Willow, her red hair standing out in a short fuzzy halo around her tear-ravaged face.

"Oz!" she cried. "Look what you've done to me!"

Oz smiled sadly. "You've done it to yourself."

"How could you be gay?" she screamed. "Didn't I mean anything to you?!"

Giles coughed nervously. "I think I'll just be going."

part 12, by Tabitha

The Englishman was halfway to the door when his form rippled and vanished. Oz turned to look at Willow, but she disappeared in a similar fashion. The hotel room followed, first dissolving into a white room before molding itself into the old high school library. From there it turned into the Bronze, as seen from his place on stage before morphing into the book cage. Willow's old bedroom was next, followed by his room at the Dingoes house. Finally the wild shifting stopped in a comfortable-looking, if unfamiliar, living room. "Boy, you sure do have some weird dreams," came a voice from behind him. Turning, the werewolf looked at the young woman who was smiling brightly at him. "I didn't know this was all still a part of your sub-conscious. The things you can learn from a person's dreams can truly boggle the mind." The girl wandered around the room, twirling a long strand of curly red hair around her index finger. "Pretty stable mental construct, if I do say so myself. So, do I pass?" She turned back to him, watching him expectantly with sparkling blue eyes.

"Pass?" Oz quirked an eyebrow at this strange girl. While her name evaded him, something about her face was familiar.

"Y'know, Dad, do I pass dreamwalking? I observed your dreams, including that weird lightsaber thing, I halted a dream in progress, I created a stable mental construct, and I talked with you. Seems like I should pass, so you need to tell uncle Giles that I can move on to the next part of my teaching now. So wake up!"

Oz jerked, finding himself back in bed. "That's enough dreaming," he muttered, sliding out of bed and stumbling into the bathroom. Grabbing his toothbrush, he glanced at the mirror before doing a double take. Instead of one day's growth of stubble, he now sported a close-cropped beard. There were faint lines around his eyes and across his forehead, and the hair that should have been jet-black and in a spiky disarray was it's natural red and cut into something a teacher would sport. He lifted his free left hand up to touch his face, and then looked down at the gold ring on said hand. The door to the hotel room swung open as a short blonde woman walked in, brushing past him with an affectionate caress of his rear end.
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end part 12