Title: Madeline's Garden
Character(s): Oz, Madeline Sands
Rating: PG/FR-13
Summary: Madeline makes her case to Oz.
Length: ~1,570 words
Notes: originally written for the 2016 TwistedShorts FAD, and posted as an independent story. This is also currently the last story in this series.

"What are you doing?" Oz mumbled.

Madeline's eyebrows rose. "Are you challenging me?"

Oz chuckled softly as he curled himself even more closely around her lower body. "Never," he said on a sigh as he pressed his nose into the juncture between her waist and thigh. The wool of her suit held her scent in suspension: expensive perfume, gun oil, confidence and protection.

Madeline's steady motions in his hair had him sleeping again in moments.

Oz hadn't felt so good after a change since Veruca had decided that she wanted him to mate. She persisted despite his regular and unchanging refusal, determined to wear him down. It had been more than five years.

The general wisdom in the pack was that whichever of them could rise in rank would "win" against the other. Despite their very different temperaments, however, they were equally stubborn and couldn't seem to rise in dominance without the other nipping at their heel – or being snapped back into place by an older pack-member. Oz was sure that Veruca would eventually pull the wrong tail and take care of the problem for him. He wasn't the only thing she had her sights on, after all. Oz could be, had been, patient. There was no one in the pack he wanted. He could, he would, outwait her.

But maybe he didn't have to. It had never occurred to him that he might leave. Where would he have gone, after all? He hadn't been lying when he'd told Madeline that Section Four was all he knew and all he wanted. Until the Sunnydale mission, he'd never had a chance to be anything other than a tech and systems analyst, when he wasn't spending his required time with the scientists.

But now he had people under him. He was responsible for lives, not mere packets of data. He was respected and, as the team had begun to have individual run-ins with the supernatural, a little feared. Oz wasn't even sure he could go back - not and be the same were that had left the pack a little over three weeks before.

Madeline's fingers stilled in his hair, and Oz stilled with them. At home an end of affection might signal that the dominant was bored now, or had made their point, or that the subordinate had worn out their welcome. With the scientists, it usually meant they felt that you had suffered your time well and could leave soon. Madeline was neither a scientist nor a were...mostly. So he waited.

When Madeline's fingers began to move again, he relaxed a little.

"You're awake?" she phrased it as a question, but Oz sensed the statement in it.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Are you better now? You should probably get ready for school."

Oz's internal clock agreed. Even if it hadn't, he still would have scrambled to get himself together. A gently worded command was no less important than a harshly worded one. The handlers liked to use them sometimes as tests.

Standing, Oz saw that Madeline was leaning back against the cave's natural back wall in such a way that she couldn't be seen by someone walking in. The tranquilizer gun was by her side, far from where he'd curled around her in his sleep but close enough to grab quickly.

"There are fresh clothes, there," she said, pointing to the other end of the cave.

"You're very brave," he said in response, startling himself.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh? Why do you say that?"

Oz gestured to the gate and then to where she was still seated. "You're pretty far from the door. I could have ripped you apart. Or made you a were, like me."

"Who's to say I didn't wait until you changed back before I entered your cage? And please, feel free to get dressed while we talk. It's far more efficient," she said on a smile.

He shrugged, but felt a blush rising from his shoulders to his face as he turned from her and retrieved his clothes. That smile had been pleased. Something he had done had made her happy, and that made him happy even if he didn't know what it was yet.

"It, uh..." He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly remembering that regular humans outside of Four had very definite feelings about nudity amongst strangers. Madeline appeared undisturbed. "It feels like you were there with me for a long time."

He was pulling up his jeans when she chuckled. "Yes. At one point I thought my arm would cramp from stroking your fur, but you changed back not long after. Your human hair at this length is much easier to play with. And your eyebrows."

Oz's hands drifted to his eyebrows.

Another smile flit across Madeline's face, amused as well as pleased. "You seemed to like that."

"Did I?" Had he? It was such a personal gesture.

She chuckled again. Oz took that as his cue that their conversation was effectively over and continued dressing. He was pushing his arms into a red plaid flannel shirt when Madeline said, "I want to keep you, Oz."

"I should be less hostile to you tonight, ma'am, now that you've been with me through the change once. And the third-"

"No. Oz. I want to keep you. In Section One. I don't want return you to your handlers. Your pack."

Oz stilled again. As much as he wanted to howl with excitement (she'd had the same idea on her own!) he was surprised to find that he also wanted to whine with pain. Fulfilling though his rank was in this loose, mostly-human pack, he cared deeply for the weres he'd been separated from at Four. They were his friends, family, playmates, future, past, imagination and truth. Leaving them was more than wishful thinking. It was a dream - a dream that made his heart thump, but a dream nonetheless.

"Are you serious?"

One corner of Madeline's lips rose, but Oz would have been hard-pressed to call it a smile. "What do you think?"

"I-"

"That was a rhetorical question and does not require a verbal response."

Oz nodded, cowed for the first time since waking with his head in his al- in Madeline's lap.

"Come," she ordered.

Fully shrugging on the flannel shirt as he went, Oz crossed the cave to her side. In her right hand was the tranq gun. Her left hand was extended to him. He noted her changed position on the floor, her braced feet, and knew what she wanted.

His hand gently gripping hers, Oz easily pulled Madeline, and the gun, off the floor.

"Thank you."

"Yes, ma'am."

Madeline smiled and stroked Oz hair with the backs of her fingers. Then she passed a single finger over the closer eyebrow, then the other. His eyes fell closed on their own and he sighed. "I do like that."

"I said you did. You didn't believe me?"

Oz tensed. "I didn't know what to believe," he said truthfully, hoping she would believe him.

She hummed but didn't otherwise respond. She did, however, inspect him: his clothes, his hair ("Have you tried purple yet?"), his skin, his face, his nails ("These are far too neat for a contemporary American teenager. Someone observant is going to wonder about them, and, in turn, about you."); she even went so far as to bend his arms at the elbow, manipulate his fingers and turn his head. By the end of it, Oz was ready to go back to sleep.

Lips curved in the pleased smile, Madeline stepped back to observe him. "I want you, Oz. Not as a toy or a pet or a curiosity. I want you for yourself. Your supernatural nature gives us an opening to a world Section One world otherwise not be able to approach. More than that, you have proven yourself calm in new and uncomfortable situations, as well as under pressure. You're smart and thoughtful. Your team respect your authority, including those who had been reluctant to do so when you were first introduced.

"And you are being wasted in Section Four. I realize that it was Four that forced you to develop the qualities I admire in you. But now that you have them, when will you get the chance to use them? Four sent you to me because you were one among many and could be spared. You could be lost and not be missed."

Oz flinched, but Madeline kept going: "There is no one quite like you in Section One. Four also doesn't believe in the Slayer. One does. What do you think will happen to her, however, if Four gets its hands on her."

There was a pause wide enough for Oz to say, "She'll never see daylight again."

"Hmm." Madeline held out a hand to him. When he took it, she gripped it tightly and led him to where he'd left his shoes. Oz adjusted his grip so that he braced her as she stepped into them. "Thank you."

"Will you come back tonight?" he asked. "Or will Dale be here?"

"I'll be watching you for the next two nights." Madeline released his hand and looked down at him. "I may not be able to keep you, but I do protect what's mine. Think about what I've said.

"Until tonight."

Oz watched her stride out the cage, his heart pounding in his ears.

Fin[ite]