3Simple Question, Simple Answer
The old, beat-up van moved slowly through the streets of Sunnydale. Oz was at the wheel, with Willow in the passenger seat. He couldn't see her face; she was staring out the window as they passed by the lawns of quiet, dark homes. A majority of the houses were abandoned—most of the town had attended Sunnydale High's graduation, and Oz guessed that most people don't get over the shock of seeing the mayor turn into a giant snake demon as quickly as the Scoobies.
Willow turned her head and broke the silence, giving him a smile. "So how're you doing?" she asked.
Oz glanced at his favorite redhead, considering her question. How was he doing? When was the last time he had actually stopped to think about that?
Sometime before he had become a werewolf, of that he was sure. He decided to start there and work his way up.
He had changed. His first creature-of-the-night experience happened about a year ago, when he'd woken up one morning in the woods, sans clothing of any kind. Now that had been a crazy trip home…Of course, by that point he had begun to suspect that something was up. By the time the phone call with his aunt had ended and he'd learned that he'd been transformed into a werewolf by his little cousin, he'd decided that he would never, ever, ever attend another family reunion.
Three nights of each month he had to be locked in a cage in the school library. He never remembered those nights, and had never learned to control himself while the full moon was out. Another thing he had never learned was the answer to the mystery of where his clothes disappeared to whenever he transformed.
What he had learned was that high school floors were very cold in the morning.
He had fallen in love. With the girl sitting not three feet from him. He had had girlfriends before, sure—being in a relationship was nothing groundbreaking for him. But he had never really loved any other girl before. At least, not the way it was with Willow. She was everything he wanted in a girl: funny, really hot, and not afraid to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun.
…Okay, so that last one wasn't on his list of girlfriend priorities, but it still showed that she cared about him. Or at least that she didn't want him attacking and mauling people on a monthly basis. Whatever. He wasn't picky.
He had flunked out of high school. Having to repeat senior year had its ups and downs, obviously. The ups were that he wasn't separated from Willow or any of the Scooby gang, and that he could help fight the forces of evil without commuting. The downs?
Snyder.
He had been betrayed. One telltale night before Christmas break, he and Cordelia had come to the rescue of hostages Willow and Xander—to catch them in a makeout rampage. His heart, as calm as it usually was, had broken then. In that moment he felt alone, like Willow had forgotten all about him. He was angry.
But grudges could never cling to him for very long, and he'd been more than ready to accept Willow back into his life. He'd missed her, and he knew she felt the same way. He understood her reasoning for the whole Xander thing—at least he was pretty sure he did. Besides, there wasn't any point to keeping apart if they both wanted to be together again…was there? Doubts aside, they had tried again, and so far Oz had not been disappointed.
And yet, there was always a cloud of uncertainty, thin as it was, that seemed to hang over Willow's head whenever he saw her anywhere near Xander…
He had hunger. He hated that, but during a full moon he couldn't help himself. Unfortunately, that hunger had been satisfied a few times. He remembered in particular waking one morning feeling oddly full…and then the remains of a Mr. Jack O'Toole were discovered in the school basement. He'd beaten himself up for that, but forgiveness thankfully came quickly from the gang. What still sickened him to this day was that he sometimes still felt that same kind of hunger…
…And sometime during all of this, he had dusted but then been held hostage by a vampiric version of Willow. Yeah, weird.
He had fought. And not just the normal, run-of-the-mill one-on-one vampire fights. No, many big battles, including the one tonight (especially the one tonight) had been the life or death, sink or swim, do or die kind of battles.
And he wasn't just thinking about enduring Mayor Wilkins' graduation speech. Although that had been a hard fight too.
But however freaky or dangerous the fight had been, he and the others had escaped mostly unscathed. Of course, the same couldn't be said for Snyder, and as unpleasant a death as it was, Oz couldn't help but feel a strange sense of relief. Now that he actually acknowledged that, he mentally smacked himself for being such a bad person.
And now here he was, driving along with his girlfriend like nothing had happened between them in the past months, when in reality a lot of things had happened. Many things, many terrible things that they really needed to talk about. Right now.
Mustering all his strength, he looked at Willow, got ready for confrontation, and opened his mouth.
"Fine."
