War and Wonder
Chapter One
A/N: Hey guys! I just want to take a second to point out that this is only technically an AU in the fact that I disregard season eight entirely – partially because I haven't read most of it, partially because I just plain don't like it. This is my playtime, I can do that. If my time line is right, and it could be flawed, this would be set around 2006-2007, 3-4 years after the close of season 7. I'm also not sure how far this will go, as I started writing on a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing, but we'll see. Thanks for your time and happy reading!
Follow love and it will flee thee;
flee love and it will follow thee.
-Romanian proverb
Bucharest. It was a nice city, she supposed. Willow had seen lots of nice cities in the past few years, but this one really was lovely. It had the old world-y feel that put her so at ease, what with the cobblestones and old buildings and creepy gypsy grandmothers calling to tourists from dark alleyways and whatnot. It was a sort of ephemeral quality sadly lacking in the western cities, she felt. Paris had been a big disappointment. Might as well have been a snooty New York City.
Bucharest, though. She was in Bucharest. The big one, in Romania. Sometimes Willow would be sitting on a train or looking out her hotel window at a big, strange city, beautiful and foreign, and be suddenly astonished that it wasn't Sunnydale. There would be a moment where her glamorous, frightening life and the grown woman living it seemed as strange as the cities themselves, and she would panic. Just for a moment. Big, bad, spell-flingin', Slayer-activatin' Goddess-Willow didn't walk around having nostalgia-sparked anxiety attacks all the time; that would be silly. But still, every so often, the strangeness would catch up with her, and it was all she could do not to scream.
"Uh... vin... fiert? Multumi."
The swarthy old barista turned around and started pouring, mixing and heating things, so Willow assumed she had placed her order successfully. Good for me, she thought with a trace of smugness. Any old jet setter could figure out how to buy a croissant in France, but it took real savvy to navigate a Romanian coffee shop. She shuffled sideways to the cashier and presented him with a fistful of pastel banknotes. She wasn't sure she received correct change, but screw it. Who cared.
Willow was soon presented with a styrofoam cup of something hot and sweet smelling, and pleasure rippled through her. She wove her way through the crowd in the shop and made for the tables lining the street. The nights were growing colder and the sun was fixing to set, but it was too loud inside. Willow's tolerance for rowdy crowds had diminished rapidly in post-adolescence. I'm getting old, she thought. Old and boring.
It was a nice evening, though. Quiet. Normal. Folks bustled up and down the sidewalk in the failing light, chattering away, totally ensconced in the tiny, private dramas that made up the entire scope of their narrow little lives, as if good and evil did not, at that moment, wrestle for dominance. Willow envied it. She had spent her entire life desperate to be special, and now, well. Special could be a burden sometimes.
Pulling out a chair and sipping at her drink, Willow choked and spluttered in a very undignified, unwitchy way. The sweetly spiced concoction she had assumed to be distantly related to chai or something was, in fact, booze. Sweet, spicy, searing hot booze. Most of which was now slopped down her front. Awesome.
"Thanks, Romania," she griped aloud, wiping at her blouse. "Really. Spikin' my tea, like I don't have enough fun already. Stupid Europe."
"Can you really blame the entire continent for one misbegotten beverage?"
Willow's heart stopped.
She stood frozen for what seemed like several very long, very busy lifetimes. Her mind had simply shut down. Closed up shop. Gone fishin'. The most logical explanation was hallucination, of course. It was no secret that Will had not always played with a full deck, and while she was not often prone to hearing things, she wouldn't put it past herself to start. The second most likely scenario was that some horrible apparition or other was playing a very mean, very personal joke on her. That happened sometimes. The actual, genuine article standing behind her was somewhere at the bottom of the feasibility list, right behind drug-induced fantasy during a root canal. Slowly, she turned. And she gasped.
His hair blazed copper in the dying sunlight. Was that his natural color? She realized dimly that she didn't know. It had changed so frequently in their youth. He was still short statured, of course, but he seemed broader in the chest. Harder in the face. Wildness was written in every line in his body. He had grown. But his eyes were still heavily lidded and his thumbs still hooked automatically into his belt loop, and she knew, she knew right away that this was no copy. Oz. Accept no substitutions. The rush of joy nearly knocked her off her feet.
Her arms were around his neck and she did not remember putting them there. She did not recall crossing the three feet between them, for that matter, or abandoning her cup-o-booze to the mercy of the sidewalk, and yet, these were events that appeared to have transpired. Willow hugged him as she had never hugged anyone, save perhaps friends that had previously been more dead than alive. His grip was familiar and strong and for it she rejoiced; it had been so long since she had belonged anywhere. Everything else had changed, but not Oz. Not his embrace.
"Are you real?" Willow mumbled into his shoulder. She knew the truth, but her rational mind had difficulty accepting it. She was in Bucharest for god's sake. Oz shook with silent mirth.
"I'm real. Are you real?"
"Think so. Who knows, though."
They stood in silence for a while, holding up traffic as they clung to one another. Willow let herself stop thinking all together, silencing her own questions and speculations and theories in favor of enjoying the closeness. He carried the strange new scents of herbs and incense and travel, but below that was the same musky Oz-smell that she somehow still remembered. He still couldn't be bothered to shave regularly, the lazy creature, and his stubble scratched at her cheek. For a single, strange moment, the years fell away and they were children again, frightened, hopeful and free. Glory. Glory be.
But, like all wondrous things, it couldn't last. Reluctantly, the pair separated and stepped back to inspect each other. Years had definitely passed, and they were no longer children. It showed.
"What are you doing here?" Willow asked at last. Breaking the silence had always fallen to her.
The edges of Oz's mouth made as if they intended to turn upwards. He was still a bit spartan with expression. "Staring at you, mostly."
"Well, yes," she agreed, "you're definitely doing some of that, but what were you doing before the staring? You know. In Bucharest."
"Favor to a friend. There's a 14-year-old girl in the city that, uh, sometimes becomes... fuzzy and agitated. I'm here to help her get it under control."
Willow nodded. That made sense. She had always expected him to end up doing something like that.
"How'd you know I was here?" she wondered, though she suspected she already knew the answer. Oz's smile warmed a little, which confirmed it.
"Caught your scent in the street."
So he still remembered it.
He gestured awkwardly to the table Willow had been approaching and she nodded, seizing a chair. They sat across from each other, but the sunset, at the zenith of its power, hit him in the face and obscured his features. No matter. His energy was as familiar as her own, and it rolled over her in waves.
"So what are you doing in Bucharest?" he asked. Willow smiled.
"Official Scooby Gang business. I'm picking up some rare books that might be useful. Ancient knowledge and all that."
Oz nodded sagely. "Your average work trip."
"Tax deductible and everything."
"What, really?"
For all that had changed, it was easy to pick back up again. Maybe she would have felt more conflicted if things were more stable, but as it was, Willow was just pleased to see a friendly face. One that had never tried to kill her, even. (Not directly, anyway.) Big bonus right there.
Not knowing what else to do, they caught up. Oz was very quiet as she related the final events of Sunnydale history, face unreadable. He had cobbled together bits and pieces, but much of it had been a mystery, and Willow wondered if it would have been better for it to stay that way. It felt good to unload, to commiserate, but maybe the town should have remained whole in someone's memory. Now it was lost.
"You guys went through a lot," he remarked. Willow nodded. It was the grand return of Captain Understatement.
"So what about you? Tell me what Oz has been up to in the past six years."
Oz smiled a little, dropping his gaze. "Six years, huh? Seems impossible."
It really did.
"I've been up to less than you have. I still live in Tibet, for the most part. There's a monastery there that has opened its gates to supernatural folks seeking control. I travel some, but mostly just to help other people with my condition. I run a sort of rehab program, I guess. Zen principles as applied to not turning into a hairy beast." He had never been one to fidget, but Willow wished he would. His stillness was unnerving. "So... are you still with-"
"No." It came out a little more sharply than Willow had intended. "No. She... casualty of our lifestyle, I guess. She's gone."
"Oh." Oz's silence deepened. He didn't ask for clarification, and Willow didn't offer any. "God, Will. I'm sorry."
She knew he meant it. That meant a lot.
"What about you? Have you settled down yet?"
A head shake. "No. No, I never quite got there. Still young, though."
Willow smiled. "I guess so. I mean, I know, logically, I'm still young? Really young. Like, a couple years out of college young. But it doesn't feel that way. Twenty-three feels ancient."
"I know what you mean," he mused. "It's like I've already lived a dozen lifetimes. Twenty-four is just decrepit."
"Might as well give it up."
"Time to find a nursing home."
"I hear there are some good ones in Sweden."
"Oh, yeah. They have great health care."
Willow shivered. The dark was getting deeper and chill was setting in. Still, she wanted to linger. She wanted to freeze time itself, in fact. She briefly wondered if she could whip up a spell on the fly, but snapped herself out of it with some mental scolding. Bad witch. We don't think that way anymore. Bad.
The pair fell quiet. A crossroad was approaching, and a decision needed to be made. It worried Willow, the though of all the possibilities, all the potential futures that could be lost by one choice or the other. She had seen too many alternate realities not to be bothered by this sort of thing. How could she know what was right anymore? She barely knew which was was up.
"I missed you," Oz said at last. "Never stopped."
Warmth spread through Willow. "I know," she murmured. "I know. Me too."
"Really?"
"Of course." She reached across the little table and slipped her hand over his; he squeezed her fingers reverently. "You're part of me. Remember?"
"I remember everything."
So did she.
"Do you want a hand?" Willow asked suddenly, cursing her presumption with every syllable. "I mean, I know it's a wolfy thing and I totally understand if it's private, but maybe I could come up with something to help that girl deal with the changes until you can train her and stuff. Make it a little easier on her. If you want."
Oz's eyebrows raised considerably. "You can do that now?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I can do lots of things now." Most of which he would never hear about, if Willow had her way. "Won't know unless I try."
"Well... yeah, that would be great. I know the family would be really grateful. If you've got the spare time."
"I have to pick up the books from our source early tomorrow, but I've definitely got time for an old friend." She'd make the time.
They shared a smile. Decision made. Willow hoped it was the right one. She was now a big believer in trusting the will of the universe, though, and if it was time for their paths to cross again, she wasn't going to run from it. Running never worked out very well. And, ultimately, it was Oz. Oz.
"Where are you staying?" he asked.
"Hotel Christina, up by the City Center. What about you?"
"With friends, down in Titan."
Her nose wrinkled in thought. "That's a neighborhood, right?"
"Right. South of here, in Sector 3."
"I love it when cities are divided into sectors. It's like being in a sci-fi movie."
Oz melted into a grin. Just like that, everything was okay between them. Distant pain remained distant. Willow could have danced.
"I was going to go see the girl and evaluate the situation tomorrow. Obviously, it would be best if she could stay here with her family, but she might need to spend some time at the monastery. We just had a new moon, though, so we've got some time," he explained. Willow's head bobbed in confirmation.
"Works for me. I'll check my books tonight and see if I can't come up with anything clever."
Oz returned the nod. They spend a moment regarding each other before a light bulb flashed over Willow's head, and she turned to her purse to find a slip of paper.
"Call me at this number when you're ready to go," she instructed. "I should be done by nine or ten, and I always pick up." Their fingers brushed as Oz accepted it. Ancient shyness rippled through her.
"I'll do that." His eyes were light and happy. "Thanks."
For lack of anything else to do, perhaps not wanting the moment to grow awkward, they stood to part. One more hug was in order, and Willow savored it. There was something grounding about Oz. Something immutable and permanent. She hadn't realized how badly she'd needed it. Willow was fresh out of anchors.
"I'd offer to walk you back because the streets can be dangerous, but... I think that might be a little insulting," Oz remarked. Willow snorted. He was right. "So. I guess I'll just say good night."
She smiled. "Good night."
Their fingertips were the last thing to separate.
The city Willow had been contemplating less than an hour earlier seemed entirely different. The streets were still dark and twisty and bustling along, but they seemed friendlier now. Some of the strangeness had thinned. To her surprise and pleasure, she felt a little more like herself – her old self, the person she'd been before all the fear and loss had ravaged her. Real Willow. Willow-Willow. She'd missed that version of herself as much as she'd missed Oz.
And she had missed him. She'd always known she would. Beyond the whole first love factor, she'd missed him as a person. As a best friend. She missed his company and his presence. Their lives were more complicated now, certainly, and it was hard to get a grip on the situation with so much distance between them, but... love doesn't just evaporate as the years go by. Not even as new loves come and go. It changes shape, but it doesn't decay. In as violent a world as Willow lived, anything good was welcome. So welcome.
Passing through the grandness of her hotel and slipping into her room, Willow dropped her bag, draped herself across a luxurious bed and sighed. She so loved creature comfort. For a moment, the witch allowed herself to close her eyes and simply be. She would have to try and make sense of things soon, but for now, it was enough to feel it all rolling over her.
When she did move, she dug for her phone. Giles answered on the second ring.
"Hey, I need a favor."
"Willow? Is everything alright?" London wasn't that far away, really, but his voice crackled with the distance. Spotty Romanian reception.
"Yeah, everything's fine. Can you check my books for a suppression spell? Something I can turn into a charm, maybe."
"Whatever for?"
Willow's mouth opened to respond, but she hesitated. She didn't know what to make of it all yet, and not for the first time, she found she had something she wasn't ready to share. Not yet.
"Nothing big," she finally responded. "Just a little side project. Can you?"
"Well, yes. Certainly. I can email you the results, if you like." Several years behind the curve, Giles was just now coming to terms with the fact that computers were not likely to go away.
"That would be super great. Like, a paragon of greatness. Thanks."
"Always."
She hung up, dropped the phone and turned her attention to the ceiling. Bucharest was so beautiful.