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The next morning, Willow's mother sat at breakfast with the psychology journal she always read while she ate her cornflakes closed. When Willow sat down, her mother actually looked up at her, looking into Willow's face as though she was really seeing her.

Willow would have loved such a look, if it hadn't been there because the night before her mother had tried to have her burnt at the stake. "Um … good morning?" she offered brightly, hoping to get past the apologies and the awkwardness quickly.

"Good morning." Her mother frowned. "You've cut your hair."

"Yes. Yes, I have." Willow was confused. Hadn't they already had this conversation?

"I suppose the shorter hair is more efficient in the mornings."

"It is."

"I see. And your studies, they're going well?"

"No complaints." In fact, her classes were fairly boring, but the question was nice.

"Good. Did I see a stack of completed college applications on the table in the hall?"

Willow nodded, but she couldn't help frowning. So there weren't going to be apologies? No 'I really shouldn't have had you dragged out of the house by a mob'? She sighed, remembering Buffy's mom, and all the years of repressing she had done before she finally learned who Buffy was and had to come to terms with it. She supposed she should have expected her mother to simply gloss over the whole experience. Should she come out again and tell her mother she was a witch, about the spells and the potions and the glamours?

No, she thought, watching her mother open the journal to the place she'd left off yesterday. She'd lost the chance, anyway, and the less her parents knew about her extra-curricular activities, the more freedom she had to pursue them. It was better for everyone this way, even if Willow did still wish for parents who actually cared about her. There were so many times when she envied Buffy, even as she was doing the supportive best friend murmurs about how terribly strict and lacking in understanding Mrs. Summers was. A little strictness might be nice for a change, she thought with a sigh.

Putting her banana peel on her plate, she got up to carry it to the kitchen. At the doorway, she heard her mother call her name.

She turned to look at her mother, whose nose was still buried in the article.

"Bring your musician boyfriend to dinner on Friday. I want to talk to him."

So that's the part she remembered? Thinking of Oz, Willow smiled. He was worth remembering.