She had moved Oz out of the cell and onto the exam table, using the restraints to prevent him from falling to the floor in his delirium. She had hooked him up to the monitors from the surgery suite and had him on IV fluids. His vitals were erratic. Watching him, she picked up the recorder.

"According to all previous testing the subject has an extraordinary immune system which becomes strongest the closer it is to the full moon, waning with the moon, and is at its weakest for the nine days following the last day of the full moon. I have not found a reason for the sudden onset of illness. The symptoms lead me to believe that the illness may be viral in nature; however I have not been able to diagnose what the virus might be, or how the subject might have become infected particularly with the level of precautions that have been taken to ensure such a thing did not occur.

"I hope to avoid bringing in outside personnel for help; however I have come too far in my research to lose this subject without a fight. This is not a case of being able to start over at the beginning; even as difficult as that would normally be. This subject is truly unique, research indicates that he is unique in his admittedly control of his condition, and in his experiences. He is also unique in the amount of background information we have access to, particularly that since he first acquired the condition of lycanthropy. Although there are other possible lychonthropic research subjects, as I have pointed out to him, we would not be able to gain as much from them as we can from this subject. I do hope at some point in the future possibly adding another subject to the program. I am particularly intrigued by the idea of the cousin, but that aspect of the project can only be explored fully if this subject lives."

She sat the recorder down and walked over to the exam table. Oz's normally pale skin had reddened and he was covered in sweat. She couldn't understand what had happened and her initial tests hadn't really shown anything definitive. The symptoms were indicative of something foreign to the body, but she had been careful. She had even ensured that Wayne… Wayne. How could she have missed the timing?

She took a look at Oz's forearm where the colonel's fingernails had broken the skin. It wasn't a virus she was looking at, it was poison. The thought hadn't crossed her mind. Everything was so controlled it shouldn't have even been a possibility. She just hadn't taken into account the possibility of sabotage from within; she had underestimated the depths of her rival's jealousy and instability. She re-ran the blood and urine tests, looking at the results with new eyes. She was finally able to isolate what had caused Oz's sudden illness. It was silver. Silver was poisoning his blood.

She had never seriously considered that silver would be harmful to a werewolf. After all, it was known that a regular bullet would kill a werewolf just as dead as it would a human, even if it sometimes took more of them, or else perfect aim at a major organ. Myths had always grown up around anything that isn't understood, and she had assumed that the effect of silver on werewolves was one of them. But now it appeared that she had assumed wrong. Now that she knew what she was looking at she could fight it.

She ran up the stairs through the door into the house that above that served as camouflage for what lay beneath. Picking up her cell phone, she made a call. "It's me. I know what's happened, and there are a few things I need..."

In less time than it took most pizza deliveries, she had what she needed. Quickly she took the IV bags downstairs. In the short time she had been away Oz had become weaker. The IV bags contained chelators that would hopefully bind the poison in the bloodstream which would cause it to be eliminated in the urine. Once she had them hooked up it was mostly a matter of waiting. Once she was certain everything was flowing correctly and Oz appeared stable she went back upstairs to make another call.

***

Oz awoke slowly, momentarily disoriented by waking up on the exam table instead of the cell floor. His body felt sore and stiff. Raising his head slightly he was able to locate Her. She appeared to be resting at the desk, but must have seen the small movement because she looked at him and said, "I wasn't sure that you would make it."

Oz spoke, his throat raw and his voice raspy, "What happened?"

"My esteemed colleague, or I should say my now former colleague, decided that he had waited long enough and if he couldn't have the job, then there would be no job to be had. He poisoned you. With silver."

"Silver?" Oz lay his aching head back down. "I thought that was a myth."

"Yeah, well that makes two of us."

"I've touched silver. I've never had a problem."

She got up from the desk and walked over into Oz's line of sight. "The silver acted as a poison, not an allergen. Touch wasn't enough. He got it through the skin and into you bloodstream."

"He... The scratches."

"The scratches." She came over to the table and removed the restraints. "My backers have invested quite a bit of time and money in you and were not happy, to say the least, that their expensive property was almost destroyed."

"I'm touched." Oz said dryly.

Ignoring the comment she continued, almost to herself. "I told them he was less stable than they thought, more dangerous, but all they could see was his qualifications. Anyway," She focused back on Oz "it looks like you're going to recover, and I'll be interested to see how your body responds during the moon. If the moon's phase affects the recovery time by aiding in the healing process for a poisoning the same as it does other damage, or if the silver has detrimentally affected the accelerated healing during the full moon. It will be useful data either way. Oz slightly shook his head, not really surprised by her callousness, but noting it all the same.

She rearranged the IV poles to make them easier to roll with one hand, and used her other as support behind Oz's shoulders. "Let's see if we can get you moved to the mattress. Now that the risk is over, you'll be more comfortable."

***

The full moon, and the change Oz was no longer able to prevent, did actually seem to help in his physical recovery, but the depression that had been held off had begun to come back. He was tired. Tired of pain, tired of being used, tired of not knowing the future - of not having a future.

He didn't know if he had ever really believed he would get out alive. She had once told him that when her work was complete (whenever and whatever that meant) she would let him go. He wanted to believe it, but he didn't, not really. And now after this, he realized how easy it would be for him to die here, whether she intended for him to or not. Even now he didn't want to die. Not here, not like this. She told him the colonel had been removed, but that didn't' mean that he would let it drop, not after showing the lengths he would go to get revenge, or to lay claim on what he thought should be his. It also didn't mean that her people wouldn't bring someone else in eventually, and the devil he knew was bad enough. Oz had long ago given up any hope at escape. He had learned that lesson well, but now that he had seen what death here in this place would be like, he didn't know how he could continue with the knowledge that no matter how long or short his life was it would most likely end here. And the journey to its end would unlikely be enjoyable.

Those two warring ideas, the desire to live and the inability to continue a pointless pain-filled life at someone else's discretion, began to eat away at Oz. He knew even if he couldn't escape and even if he didn't have the means to end his own life there were ways he could stack the odds in his favor, causing her to accidently do it herself. Make her angry enough to lose control or a sudden movement while she was using a scalpel. And he had watched her with the equipment enough to know what some of the dangers were. Perhaps one of the simplest ways would be if he could get a chance to turn on the anesthesia, without her becoming aware before the gas could render them both unconscious and causing them to die. But that was a long shot and besides, Oz knew he wasn't ready to cause her death, no more than he was truly ready to die, but he wasn't sure how much longer he would feel that way, and he knew that this plan had an advantage. She might still believe he could be a danger to her and would be prepared for an attack, just as she might be prepared for him to become despondent again and perhaps a danger to himself. But he didn't think she would be prepared for Oz to calculate an unemotional mostly passive plan to kill them both. Now all he had to do was convince himself that it was the only way.

A few nights after Oz had begun formulating scenarios, all ending in his death, She left for the night leaving him to fall asleep in the semi-darkness of the lab.

"Oz. Oz, wake up."

Oz slowly opened his eyes. The voice he heard, or thought he heard, was not the voice he would have expected. There was only one female voice he had heard during all these months, and this wasn't it. This voice was one he had only heard a handful of times. It was also a voice he knew he couldn't be hearing. It was impossible. He turned over onto his back, half sitting up. What he saw sitting at the foot of the mattress in the semi-darkness matched the voice in his head, making it all the more impossible.

"Tara, is that you? She told me you were dead; are you really here?"

"I am."

"Here or dead?"

Tara smiled slightly. "Both."

"Oh." Oz sat up fully and asked, "Am I dreaming?"

"Yes," Tara answered still smiling, "but at the same time you're not."

"I guess that makes as much sense as anything in my life..."

"It is the only way I could be here without her knowing." Tara looked toward the wall mounted cameras. "Even though she couldn't see me on camera, it's safer if she doesn't see you talking to nothing." Tara turned her attention back to him. "Oz, they'll be coming for you: Willow and Buffy, and others. Don't give up yet."

"Why does it matter?" Oz asked, not even bothering to question what she, a ghost, might know, much less how the conversation could even be happening. "Willow is the only thing I have ever loved and I lost her. I lost her as soon as I first left Sunnydale, and I had left her so that I could be with her. How stupid is that? Then she found you, and I don't know everything...but I know she chose you. I know she loved you. I know what happened to her after you died, the good doctor told me that. That tells me how much Willow loved you, because that is how much I love her. And then...I hear there was another…another girl. Not to be crass, but that makes your relationship, like not a fluke. So I guess the fluke was me..." Oz looked away.

"No. You're Oz." Tara smiled. "Oz, we both love her with all that we are, but now there is only you. And you need her, and she will need you. She has my heart, but she has your soul. You brought out the sweetness in her and I brought out the strength. Now it's time to let her use that strength, and let her be strong for you. You think you have to control the wolf alone. But you don't. And you can't. It's time to stop trying."

Oz looked down at his hands in lap, picking at a hangnail. "It's worse now. At first She let me try to control it. She had given me back the charms, and she got me the other things I needed, and she left me alone. She'd watch and later ask questions, but she left me alone. But then she took those things away and left me with just the meditation. Then she wouldn't let me concentrate and started losing complete control again during the nights of the full moon. Then she started to...encourage... the wolf to come out. Now, instead of just the nights, if something negative enough happens the can wolf come out during those three days. And those days, no matter what happens, it is a struggle to keep it in, and sometimes I can't. And the nights...I have lost complete control, just like in the beginning."

"You can't control it Oz. Not alone. That's what you have been doing wrong, even in the beginning."

"What do you know about the beginning?" The anger Oz had held in for so long came to the surface. The anger toward the wolf, toward Her, toward Willow, toward himself, and toward the one who was impossibly sitting in front of him. "You didn't know me! Hell, you still don't know me! We met what? Three times? And the third time I tried to kill you! You weren't there! What am I saying? You're not even here now."

"I am here. I'm not alive, but I am here, and I do know you Oz. I know you through Willow, through your connection to her. And...I just know. Like I know they will come for you. But, before they do, you have to understand, or it's not going to matter. You'll still be trapped. You can't let yourself be alone in this."

"Really don't think I have a choice." Oz said, looking around at the walls and the bars.

"Not this," Tara said, indicating the same things, "what's to come and the wolf in you. You can't do it alone. Even Buffy figured it out; even she can't do it all alone."

"So," Oz said, reading between the lines "what She said is true? About Buffy and the other slayers? That the girls who could be slayers became slayers when Buffy shared her power?"

"It's more than that. The Slayer's weapon is what allowed it to be possible, and it was Buffy's decision. But, in the end Willow was the one who made the decision reality and put the possible into form. Let Willow help you now. Let Willow be your strength, not just for you, but because she will need you too."

"I don't even know what I am anymore."

"That's what they will help you to learn. No matter what else you have or may become, you are Oz. Only there is more to you now. And yes, some of it is dark, but Willow and the others can bring you out of the darkness, but you have to let them. Please Oz, in the days to come, please remember what I have told you."

When Oz awoke the next morning, he wasn't sure he could believe that he hadn't only been dreaming, at least until he noticed something small and green at the foot of the mattress where the vision of Tara had sat in his dream. It was a small narrow willow leaf. Turning his body to shield it from the cameras, he palmed the leaf then slid it underneath the mattress.