Chapter 2

A/N: So here's the thing about this piece. I haven't written something this way in a long, long time. You know, where you write the chapters out and post them as you go? This doesn't give me much room to retcon the earlier chapters, so I can tell you right now, there are going to be continuity errors. Maybe I'll go back and fix everything up when I'm done with the story as a whole, but for now, the concept is evolving really rapidly for me, and I'm just gonna go with it. Spot me a little patience and I'll love you folks forever and ever. And now... a story!

It was a lovely morning for illicit transactions.

Willow had never been very good at dressing like a badass, her veiny self having more or less ruined it for everyone. Mystical flowy earth mother, yes. Badass, no. So she found herself feeling a tad silly, skulking around known crime syndicates in a fluffy sweater and old jeans. It was nippy out, though, and if she found herself running from something awful and toothy, all the better to be comfortable. Ah well.

Every city has its dirty districts and demon haunts. Bucharest, being so old and prone to serious outbreaks of impossible things, had a few more than normal. It was almost like home that way. Willow sat at a corner table in a filthy, back-alley bar, absently playing with the flame of one of the establishment's decorative candles. Flame gets big. Flame gets little. She tried turning it blue, then green, then pink. By the time she had it sparking, the bartender was staring with bemusement.

She stopped.

Just like a demon to be late to his own deal. Or, well, the skeevy sort of demon, anyway. Willow didn't want to be a bigot. She was sure there were some well-mannered, punctual denizens of hell running around out there somewhere. What most people don't consider is that 8 AM is actually the illicit, up too late and up to no good time of day for things that spend the night going bump. Got something to hide from the rest of the underworld? Get it done at the crack of dawn. It left Willow sleepy.

"Scuse me." She waved a little, flagging down the barkeep's attention. "Hi. Sorry. Is there any way I could get a cup of coffee?"

"Ver cer iertare, domnisoara?" He blinked at Willow, who silently cursed the Romance languages.

"Coffee," she said, enunciating carefully. She mimed drinking a cup of hot liquid, and the barkeep lit up. He plucked a bottle of wine from the back wall and held it up to his only customer, looking at her expectantly. Willow's face fell. 8 AM. It was 8 AM. Why was there so much booze in this city?

"Are the local customs not translating well?"

Willow glanced up. "Oh, nice of you to show up," she huffed. "You know, punctuality is the cornerstone of a healthy business relationship."

"Huff and puff, little witch." Crowley was your average low-level demon. Cherry red skin twisted around his form in off-setting ways, cute little horns curled out around his ears and a cheap suit trying to pass as an expensive suit hung awkwardly off the angles of his frame. He was a horrible, cowardly, simpering thing, more interested in turning a profit than anything particularly demonic, but the upshot was that he was more irksome than threatening. Willow sighed and shook her head. She had things to do.

"Got some books for me to look at?" she asked. Crowley pulled up a seat at her table, flapping his hands in what Willow assumed was a request for silence.

"Do you just go around announcing your business to the whole world?" he hissed.

"Only when I'm in the mood to share. I did very well in preschool." Willow offered the creature a sunny smile. "Come on. Cough it up."

Crowley uttered a litany of curses in an ancient tongue and dug about in his magical bigger-on-the-inside Doctor Who pockets. Willow had no idea what half-wit sorcerer had willingly enchanted something for this lamentable thing, but it proved both a blessing and a curse. He was a horrible thief, but good at getting away with it and not smart enough to keep his hands to himself around more ancient, deeply magical beings than himself. Hence, a supplier.

"Here." He produced a stack of weathered tomes and shot Willow a 'so there' look. "Finest merchandise this side of the Danube."

"Where'd you find them?" Willow wondered. She reached for a book but found her hand being slapped away. The look Willow gave him would have frozen the blood in his veins, had he any blood. The demon then pushed the stack cautiously towards her. Wisely so.

"South of here," was Crowley's response. "That's all I'm gonna say."

Willow was skimming the aged pages with nervous delicacy. It felt like they might disintegrate in her hands. "I don't recognize the language," she murmured. "It's, like, Greeky, but not. Phrygian, maybe?"

Crowley shrugged. "Don't know, don't care. They're plenty old, though. Want 'em?"

They had once been beautiful, she suspected, but the fading was too considerable to say that now. Much of the ink was either sun bleached or had simply worn away. The illustrations, of which there were plenty, were crude, clinical, but sort of lovely in a Dark Ages sort of way. They mostly depicted toothy, hairy, drooly things. Beasties. Hm. "This one looks like some kind of bestiary," she said to herself. "Summoning guide, maybe?"

"Hey, Red, I'm not running a lending library here," the demon snapped. Willow's eyes produced a mighty roll. "You remember my rate, yes?"

Willow snapped open her cell phone, punched in a short text and held it up for Crowley to see. "The cash'll be in your account in half an hour, grumpypants."

"How do I know your buddies aren't gonna stiff me?"

Willow Rosenberg, the most powerful witch alive, raised her eyebrows at the bumbling underworld nobody. Half a heartbeat passed before he nodded politely, turned tail and scampered away.

She snickered. It was still sorta novel that she could get away with spooking bad guys into submission. It stopped working as soon as you got to know the girl, of course, but intimidation was a neat trick when dealing with oogidy boogidies more familiar with her reputation than her general Willowness. She gathered up the group's newest acquisitions and nestled them in her bag. Pretty good score, if she did say so herself.

She'd have to get them to Giles, though. He'd figure out what language it was. Normally Willow could at least place the origin, if not read a little of it. Studying dead languages was a common pastime for the mystically inclined. Completely strange volumes were so unusual to her nowadays.

The endless chase for knowledge and resources was beginning to tucker Willow out. It was nice, of course, having an evil-slaying army of hundreds to draw upon, but staying on top of it all had not grown any less incomprehensible with time. And it seemed no matter how powerful they became, an equivalent darkness always rose to go toe to toe with their forces. When the time had finally come for preemptive preparation, it changed them. The Scoobies. It changed the way they fought. The way they thought. The way they lived. O, brave new world, that has such monsters in it.

But Slayerette nonsense aside, Willow had – well, maybe not bigger, but other, equally large fish to fry. She slipped out of the city's demonic danger zone, abnormally still and sleepy in the early hour, as casually as if she were out for a stroll. The area was a bit out of the way from her hotel, but all the better; the fewer cranky monsters that pieced together the business of the Slayer's inner circle, the less fuss all around.

Her phone rang as she was racing to catch the train uptown; Willow nearly tripped in response. Fear blew through the witch. Sweet, senseless, illogical fear. Best kind.

"H-hello?"

"So this morning I woke up, had some bacon, took a shower and transferred huge sums of money to a secret, offshore, Swiss bank account in exchange for dangerous artifacts of terrible power. Plus I have an eye patch. I'm basically a Bond villain now."

Willow almost groaned. False alarm.

"You got out okay, right?"

"Yeah, Xander. I'm fine. All limbs still attached." Willow ran a hand through her hair, trying to relax. She plunked herself down on an empty seat on the train and fixed her eyes on the city skyline. "Thanks."

"No problemo, pretty lady." Xander sounded chipper. Things must have been running pretty smoothly in Scotland. "What'd you end up with?"

"Not sure. Might be something, might be nothing. I can't even figure out what language they're in or where they came from. I figured I'd FedEx them to Giles and let him have at it. Does FedEx service the lower Balkans?"

"Hm. Federal Express. You know, I'm betting not."

Willow snapped. Damn.

"Just bring them with you. Hop the next train to Madrid and I'll pick you up. S'easier than getting ancient tomes through customs." Xander liked to point out the obvious. Normally Willow would agree, but.

"I can't just yet. I figured I'd just-"

"You can't?" Uh oh. Serious voice. "Why not? What's wrong?"

"Nothing! I don't think. Nothing big, anyway. Something might be up, but it's hard to say yet. Just murmurs. I'm going to check it out before skedaddling on back, okay?" Over the years, Will had become more adept at keeping her voice level, but it would never be her strong suit. Thank god it was easier over the phone.

"If you're sure." Xander didn't sound convinced, but he knew better than to interfere with Willow's affairs. "Be careful while you're out there. If you need backup for any reason, just call. We can have a squad out there in six hours."

She stepped off the train and melted into the crowd, raising her voice to be heard over the din. "I will. I promise. Send Dawn my love."

"Signed, sealed and delivered."

Back to base with Willow. She had work to do. Busy busy busy. She stopped at the concierge desk in the lobby of her hotel, and after some artful miming, managed to locate an English speaking staff member with whom to arrange some emergency mailing services. The sooner Giles got his hands on the new pieces, the better. They could be anything. The curiosity, it was killing her.

Sorta.

It was pretty odd. And Willow did have a compulsive need to understand things. Especially old, magical things. It was sort of a defining trait. It wasn't like she was looking for a distraction from certain strange events or anything. No sir.

She leaned on the door to her room as she kicked it closed and exhaled. Truth was, she really wasn't thinking about the elephant in the room. She couldn't. Willow had woken that morning with the memory of the previous day tangled around her like a dream, and she couldn't tell if it was or not. It didn't seem real. There was no proof it had happened. Hadn't she entertained similar daydreams dozens of times? Tara visited her unconscious mind all the time, and that usually seemed real. How was this any different?

And if it had happened, well. She didn't begin to know what to think. Turning around to see Oz hadn't seemed odd at the time, but morning air had brought a clarity Willow hadn't found in the Romanian twilight. The concept was freshly impossible now. Freshly terrifying.

Willow gave her head a bracing shake. Like so many things in life, the answer was a healthy work ethic. If she was going to hang out in a strange city waiting for hallucinations to call, she might as well do something useful in the meantime. Out came the books and the laptop shortly behind them. Time to research.

She knew full well it wasn't Greek, despite the similarities. The upshot of that were the dozens and dozens of languages, most dead and buried, that shared Grecian markers. That narrowed the playing field considerably. Of course, she didn't speak any of those either, but she did know that Greek influence was common throughout eastern Europe. It would have been helpful if Crowley had been willing to share more on their region of origin, she thought.

South, he had said. How south? Giurgiu south or Bulgaria south? Above or below the equator south? 'South' was really no help at all, come to think of it. With a sigh, Willow started with the basics. This area of Romania had been divided up by Alexander the Conqueror, but was more or less culturally unified before that. Maybe-

Her phone rang. Deep into a research trance, Willow answered automatically. "Yeah?"

"Hey."

Willow's daydreams became abruptly real again.

"Hey," she squeaked. "Hey. Morning."

"Feel like checking on some garden variety paranormal happenings?" Oz asked. She could almost see him standing there, shoulders cocked, free hand in his pocket. He was masking hesitation with nonchalance. Wonderful, unshifting Oz.

"Totally. Yes. Sounds like fun." Kinda.

"Total funfest. Hotel Christina, right?"

She nodded. When Oz didn't respond, not having developed telepathy, she verbally confirmed it.

"Meet you in the lobby in ten?"

"Sure. That'll work."

"Okay then."

"Right."

Smooth, Willow. Very sophisticated. Elegant conversation skills. She huffed at herself and repacked her bag for the day ahead. One magical survival kit. Supplies for one suppression charm. One powder compact in natural ivory. Check, check and check.

He was waiting for her by the time she got downstairs. Standing there, doing the Oz thing. He was leaning against a wall and looking contemplatively into space, as he tended to do. Willow was struck by the surreality of the situation.

She offered a wave and a smile as she approached. Oz blinked, ripped from his reverie, saw Will the smile and raised her a hot drink. "Actual coffee," he explained. "To make up for the one you jettisoned. Feel like I mighta had something to do with its demise."

"I probably wouldn'ta finished it anyway," Willow assured him. "It was all boozy and stuff. Not that I have anything against the boozy stuff, but, you know, I like some warning."

"Yeahhh, that'll happen. I'd stay clear of the frozen desserts."

At long last. Real coffee. She didn't know where he got it, and she didn't care. It was sweet and bitter and laced with cinnamon, exactly as she liked it. Oz remembered her coffee order. There was something steadying in that one, tiny detail.

"Did you get your – you know?" He asked. Midway through a gulp, Willow nodded.

"Yeah. It went pretty smoothly. No surprises, at least, which is how we like it these days."

It was back to seeming normal. Standing there, in a patch of sunlight with her ex of a million years ago, next to some massive potted fern. Apparently Will only found the whole situation bizarre when she was alone, because at the moment, it felt completely natural. Bouncing between stages of disorientation like this couldn't possibly be healthy, she thought.

They had fallen into contemplative silence again. Dangerous territory. They'd be having none of that. So Willow cleared her throat and blundered on. "So," she began, "where are we headed?"

"Dristor. District in Sector 4." Oz, too, was all business. "It's sort of a drive."

Willow shrugged. "Doesn't bother me."

He nodded. Together they turned to the revolving glass door and filed out, one after another, into the street. Oz hailed them a cab to pile into, which was a delightful experience. Willow found herself at the far end of the seat, pressed against the window, while her new (old?) companion glued himself to the opposite side. There was a wide ocean of cheap pleather upholstery dividing them. Behold, the natural order.

Oz and the cabbie exchanged several phrases in Romanian (directions, Willow assumed) and off they went. Traffic was thick. Mid-morning in the business district, she supposed. Willow let her eyes linger on the window to aid in ignoring the awkward silence, but within minutes, it was gnawing at her. She just wasn't the stoic type. Regrettably.

When she turned, Oz was staring at her. He deliberately held her gaze a beat before gracefully looking away. Still intense. Got it.

"So... you speak Romanian now?" She had to fill the silence with something.

"A little." Oz leaned back. He was relaxing almost imperceptibly, but Willow knew. "Enough to get by. I speak bits and pieces of six or seven languages now, I guess. I pick it up pretty quickly."

Willow followed his lead and relaxed into a slight slump. "Well, you are practically a genius," she observed. The half smiles they shot each other counted as one whole comfortable expression, Will was fairly certain.

She saw him more clearly by the light of day. He appeared more as the man he was, less the one she remembered. The fella she had known so well had always sported the uniform of the disaffected American youth, and it was strange to see him clad differently. He still sported the (unintentionally hilarious) sheepskin jacket he'd been wearing half a decade earlier, but under it was a coarse linen shirt that put Willow in the mind of humble shepherds in distant villages. The battered jeans were a little too long for him, but that was normal. His hair was longer and.. well, floppier. She supposed there weren't a lot of available hair products in Tibetan monastaries. A line of prayer beads encircled his right hand, but he'd been sporting a set the last time they'd spoken. Part of the suppression. In a moment of absurdity, Willow wondered if he still played guitar. Like, with a cute little portable amp in the high Himalayas, jamming away.

"You look so different." The words were out of Willow's mouth before she had a chance to consider them. She winced inwardly. "I mean, you still look like you and all, just, you plus some time away. I like the new look, though! The whole bohemian thing? It works on you."

"See, that's funny," Oz responded, "because I was just thinking the same thing."

"What, really?" Willow glanced down at herself. She knew she had changed in some violent ways, but she wasn't sure how visible it was.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I guess I saw a glimpse of it in the, like, thirty seconds of our last reunion, but you're all..." he gestured.

"I'm all?"

"You know how last time, you said it was weird how I'd been all over the world while you were in Sunnydale?" Willow nodded. "It's like that. But with you."

"But you've been traveling and seeing big stuff much longer than I have-"

Oz shook his head. His expression had a fondness to it. "Nah. I get the feeling you've seen and done a lot more than you could have told me last night. It's like you're just... you're light years away from the goofball in the Eskimo costume."

That took Willow a minute. "Wait – you saw that? When did you see that?"

He grinned. "That's the you I always see in my memory."

"Fuzzy Eskimo Willow?" She was horrified.

"Goofball Willow," he clarified.

"Well – well I always think of you as monkey guy," Willow replied in lieu of a proper comeback.

"Monkey guy?"

"Yeah, you know. All monkeys are French?"

To her surprise, Oz barked a laugh loud enough to startle the driver. It sounded strange and natural at the same time. Willow smiled in spite of herself.

"Now that was a lifetime ago," he observed. The witch had to agree. "Did you come up with anything last night?"

"Oh!" Willow could have smacked herself. "Yeah, I think I've got something useful. This one time, last year? There was a rash of bonded possessions in the Slayer ranks, and we had to keep them all calm and human-ish for this six-hour mass exorcism, so I modified a suppression spell to split their natures and lock the dangerous side down. I think I can scale it back and imbue a physical conduit with the charm. As long as the girl keeps the object on her body, she shouldn't be able to change."

Oz's eyebrows knitted together. "Seriously? That simple?"

"Well, it's not simple, exactly, and she's – werewolves aren't possessed or anything. Just. Furry."

"Thank you for that distinction."

Willow flashed him a sheepish smile. "So it might be different. I don't know what the long-term effects would be. It's more like a band-aid than a cure."

"No, I totally agree. She's going to have to deal with it. There aren't any shortcuts to accepting the fact that you're two-natured."

"Two-natured?"

Oz nodded. She noticed that his thumb was absently playing with the beads wrapped around his hand. "Weres. Kind of the politically correct term, I guess."

"I do like being correct," Willow mused. "I guess you've got it all under control and stuff now?'

"Mm. It's a process, but yeah. I know myself pretty well now." He offered her a heavy-lidded smile. His comfortable smile. "The trick is not shutting part of yourself out or acting like it's evil. Weres have to accept what they are and let the furry part out when it's right. I can control the change completely at will now."

Willow's eyes lit up. "Really? Like, any time you want, no moonlight necessary?"

"It's easier around the full moon. That's when I'm strongest. But yep. Whenever I want. Or need."

"Do you, like, fight crime?" He stared at her a moment. Willow blinked. Then coughed. "Right," she mused, "probably not a lot of crime in a Buddhist monastery. Dumb question."

Oz shook his head in something Willow couldn't place – fondness? Amusement? Ah well. The rest of the ride passed in relative silence, but it was a more comfortable, bearable sort and Willow didn't mind. She had always appreciated the way Oz could simply be. No chatter necessary. It helped her slow down a little herself. They passed out of the developed inner-city and into the cheaper tenements, lined by narrow streets of torn up pavement and dilapidated apartment units. The ethnic division changed sharply in these slums. The city's nicer areas were primarily populated by Romanian nationals, but the ghettos were dominated by poverty-stricken Romani clans and Asian immigrants. It reminded Willow that much of the world still didn't add up right. Bothersome.

When the cab rolled to a stop, they were sitting beside one of the ragged high rises that looked as if it has weathered a war or two. Oz paid the man and they slipped out without a word. Small knots of children were playing here and there, but the area was curiously devoid of life otherwise. No flowers, no grass. No pedestrians and very few cars. Willow felt watched, in a people peeking out of shaded windows kind of way, but she shook it off. Paranoia wasn't going to help anyone today.

Oz took the lead and she followed up a flight of concrete stairs. The plaster was peeling off the walls. It was silly to feel nervous – God knows Willow was capable of taking care of herself – but the place put her on edge. Something wasn't right.

Her friend rapped gently at a weathered door. There was muffled movement inside, and after a long couple of minutes, it creaked open a few inches, pulling the chain taut. A pair of mistrustful eyes peered out peered out at them.

"Hi." Oz's voice was low and soft. "Daniel Osbourne. Friend of Florin Popa?"

"Who is with you?" It was a male's voice, deep and heavily accented. Even through the suspicion, Willow could hear it dripping with fear.

"My friend, Willow. A witch." The witch in question offered a waggle-fingered wave. "She might be able to help."

There was a moment of hesitation, but the door slid shut, clicked as it was unchained and slid open again. Just wide enough for them to duck through sideways, she noticed. Folks out here sure were jumpy.

Willow found herself in a dingy, two room apartment as dark as night. She blinked. Blankets had been hung over the only window; the effect was disorienting, unnatural darkness. Candles, four or five of them strategically placed, were the only source of illumination. The air was heady with incense, but it wasn't a blend she could place. Furniture was sparse and threadbare and the walls were lined with a considerable collection of crucifixes. It was like a bunker for the vampire apocalypse. The man who had answered the door was short and paunchy, beady-eyed and nervous, and a soft choking sound led Will's attention to the huddled form of an elderly woman sobbing in the corner. Cheery.

Short and paunchy was wringing his hands. "You can help my daughter? Yes?"

Oz nodded. "Yes. I think so. Everything's going to be okay, Mr. Cuza." He was careful to keep his tone even and comforting. It didn't appear to help, but points for effort.

"She is cursed!" he moaned. "She has been – she is lost to God. Help her."

"Where is she?"

Mr. Cuza led the pair across the apartment to the far bedroom and nodded. Oz knocked tentatively. A line of rapid, angry Romanian erupted from inside; the old woman's sobbing intensified. Oz and Willow shared a glance. Furious teenagers. What would an adventure be without them?

Swearing to himself (naughty words sound the same in every language,) Mr. Cuza flung the door open himself, much to the chagrin of the girl inside. He bellowed at her, she bellowed back, angry gestures all around. Oz and Willow instinctively inched away. There was something almost a touch absurd in the dramatics. The matriarch in the corner, meanwhile, rose to shriek at the pair of them and the teenager uttered something very rude in response, judging by the shocked silence. Then more shouting.

"What's going on?" Willow whispered.

"Just your average hysterical family smackdown," Oz muttered back.

"Good to know some things cross cultural barriers."

"We're all the same under our parents' roofs." He pulled Willow out of the firing zone as the weregirl launched a jewelry box at her father's head.

Ten minutes later, the pair were standing awkwardly in the narrow bedroom, pointedly ignoring the old woman's horrible hiccuping weeping as it echoed through the unit. The subject of their little field trip sat on her bed, radiating fury and confusion and staring at her toes.

"These people help you, Elena," Mr. Cuza was saying. "They fix you."

The girl shot back something in Romanian and turned her gaze defiantly towards the strangers in the room. "I can't be fixed," she growled. "Everyone's tried. Go away."

Mr. Cuza's mouth opened in a retort that would surely start the rumpus back up, but Oz held his hands up. "Let us talk to her, maybe."

"Yeah!" Willow cut in. "Yes. Give us a minute?"

The paunchy little man looked back and forth between his daughter and his guests, simmering with fear and anger that had no where to go, but he withdrew. Willow couldn't blame him. It was a scary situation. He made to shut the door behind him, but carefully left it open a few inches. She couldn't blame him for that, either.

The girl herself broke Willow's heart. She was deep into the gangly part of puberty, all arms and legs, and currently sat tucked into herself as if afraid to move. Insecurity was another thing Will didn't need to translate. Thick black hair was gathered into a single braid the brushed the base of her spine. She was dark, like her father, and she boasted the thickest eyelashes Willow had ever seen. She'd be a beauty when she grew up.

"Your English is amazing," Willow remarked, mostly for lack of anything else to say. Elena made a 'harrumph' sound.

"Mama made me learn," she muttered. "When I was little."

"Sounds like she wanted to give you a nice future," Willow observed. "With, you know. The possibilities and all."

Elena kept her eyes fixed on the floor.

"My name's Willow. This is Oz." Oz himself was hanging back, letting Will take the lead on the whole establishing trust thing. He waved when introduced, though.

"Are you priests?" the girl asked. "You don't look like priests."

"Nope," Oz responded. "No priests here."

"Jewish," Will interjected.

"So... who are you? Why are you here?"

Willow pulled up a seat on the floor at Elena's feet, offering her warmest smile. "Well. We're here to help. Oz is just like you."

Elena's eyes squinted, trying to follow. "You're a monster?"

Oz shook his head. Willow knew him well enough to read sadness behind the gentle expression. "I'm not a monster. And neither are you." He sat beside Willow. "We're two-natured, Elena. Werewolves."

The girl stared at him for a moment, struggling to keep her face blank, before dissolving into tears. Will reached up to stroke her back as a mother might, chest twisting. "Hey, it's okay," she cooed. "Werewolves aren't monsters. I've seen lots of monsters, and Oz is one of the greatest people I know, hands down."

"Are you too?" Elena choked through the sobs. Willow shook her head.

"I'm a witch."

Elena's head snapped up. Her eyes were wide with fear. "Witches are the emissaries of the Devil," she managed through trembling lips.

"What? Oh, no, honey, no, I'm a good witch. I won't hurt you," Willow promised in as soothing a voice as she could manage. "No pacts with Satan or anything. I swear."

"A friend of your father's asked us to come and help you," Oz explained. Elena trembled, but managed to stay calm. He had that effect on people. Especially girls. "With the changes."

"You can make them stop?" The girl breathed. Oz's head shook.

"Not entirely. But we can help you control them. Help you to make sense of it. Okay?"

"I don't want to hurt anyone," she whispered. "Papa says... they say I'm cursed. I'm wrong. I don't want to hurt anyone."

Willow shifted herself onto the bed and wrapped her arms around the girl. To her surprise, Elena didn't pull away. The poor thing was so desperately alone. "You aren't wrong. And you won't hurt anyone. We're super good at this sort of thing."

"The best," Oz agreed.

After a few moments of sniffles and trembles, Elena nodded. She was in.

"What do we do?" she asked.

Oz and Willow exchanged a silent set of glances. He nodded. "Well," Willow started, "Oz is going to teach you how to control the changes, but that's very difficult. It'll take a while. So in the meantime, I'm going to make you a nice, safe, totally not evil at all little charm that will keep you human on the full moon."

"Full moon?" Elena frowned. "Just the full moon?"

"Yeah. You know, the three nights you change?"

"Three?"

The trio was trading frowns and furrowed eyebrows as confusion settled over them.

"You don't change when the moon is full?" Oz asked slowly.

"I change every night. You don't?"

Oz and Willow locked eyes.

Well.

Shit.