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Author's Chapter Notes:
many many thanks to my lovely reviewers, they make my day.
This will be Spuffy, more Spike soon I promise
if you have a minute please check out my other new fic.
Oz was sitting quietly on the stage. He regretted leaving Willow in such a manner: he’d just been so upset when he smelt Tara all over her, he'd always hoped that they could get back together but in his heart he knew they never could, not now. She was lost for all time. He had to be philosophical about it, after all that was him.

He hardly noticed the bright whirling mass of light appearing in the middle of the room.

'Hi Oz.' Willow had been volunteered to be the one to go talk to Oz; she knew it would be hard, he would not know about years of the Scoobies history. For him, Buffy was still at college, and she was with Tara.

‘Willow?’

‘Hi, yep, it’s me.’

‘You’ve changed: you look really different and I only saw two days ago. What’s happened?’

‘It’s been a lot longer for me,' Willow wasn't sure where to start.

‘You smell different as well. Willow what’s happening? My nose tells me you’re Willow, but older.’

‘Yep, about 5 or 6 years we think. And eww with the smelling thing.’

Oz nodded, he didn’t freak or anything, his laid-back attitude was one of the things Willow had always loved about him.

‘Drink?’ He asked, pointing to the bar.

‘Soda please.’ She answered, grateful for the normalcy of the conversation.

Oz put his guitar down and made his way over to the bar. He hopped up and fetched a couple of cans. Opening one he sat at the table and put it down in front of Willow, opening and taking a long drink out of the other.

‘So spill. This must be important for you to time hop.’ He looked at his first true love, she seemed amazing now, mature and smelling better than ever. He could feel the wolf coming to the surface, and it wasn’t thinking about violence. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself. Bad mistake: he could smell and taste her in the air.

Willow picked up the can, managing to spill some of the drink in her lap, she was clumsy and wanted to babble, sure signs that this was hard.

‘Are we together? In the future I mean? Come to tell me to wait patiently?’ Oz joked, hoping to get her to relax.

‘No, no togethering; I’m with someone.’

‘Tara?’

‘No.’ the sadness in Willow’s voice couldn’t be hidden. ‘She was killed; I waited for years then met someone else, very different from Tara, but she loves me and I love her. I think you’d like her: she’s funny and loyal and good to me…’

‘I’m glad.’

‘You’d be welcome to come and see us, when you get to our time, but we’re about to face another apocalypse and we need your help.’

‘Why couldn’t you just ask me then? You know, use the phone and call? In your time?’

‘Cause you don’t have the Ring of Amara then, in our time; we need it back.’

Oz looked at his old love. The wounds were fresh and painful for him, but he knew Willow better than most and this woman wasn’t his Willow. She was Willow though, and she was being truthful. His wolf side didn’t sense anything wrong: she was nervous, but he could smell she was human, just older, more mature. Not a demon or a vampire, just Willow, sweet loveable Willow.

‘OK, I haven’t taken it to Angel yet, but he’ll know if I give him a fake, and from the way you’re talking you don’t want the time lines meddled with.’

‘We thought of that. We made one, it will last for about 4 hours from first being worn, but that’s it, it was the best we could do. We know Angel is going to destroy the ring, so we made the fake.’ She handed over a perfect copy of the ring to Oz. ‘Please understand Oz, this is really important.’

Oz nodded and went to his guitar case. He opened the pocket that held spare strings and fetched out the original gem and handed it over to Willow. Willow grasped it tightly in her hand: the first task was done. She smiled at Oz. ‘You know I do miss you,’ and headed back to the bright light of the portal. She turned before entering the shimmering playing light.

‘If you’re in LA in about 8 years, we’re at the Hyperion, but don’t come ‘til you hear about the second big gang fight OK?’

‘OK,’ Oz said with a gentle sad smile, ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘Oh, you will.’ Willow stepped into the light and it shut off behind her. Oz stared at it for a few minutes and shrugged. Second big fight? He was leaving the city as soon as he could. New York seemed a good idea.

He picked up his guitar and started playing again. Life was sure strange at times, he thought to himself and lost himself in his music once more.

Willow stepped through into the small room they’d set aside for the portals to be opened into. It was more a storage closet than a room and they hoped it would prevent mishaps like someone going through accidentally. They knew that now they had started using magic they had little time. Giles would be able to track them, but the list of jobs was important.

Mary and Cathy had arrived two days earlier, they were supposed to have flown all the way to LA but Cathy had received a really bad feeling at the airport just as they were getting on the plane. She’d run from the building, before they’d even checked in, dragging Mary behind her. They had had just enough time to get clear in a taxi before a ‘gas explosion’ had taken out the plane they were supposed to have been on. Thirty people dead and Cathy could feel the oily stench of dark magic. They’d hopped a taxi, and driven to a private airfield and persuaded some lad to take them half way to LA, it had cost them $5000, but they’d made it. A greyhound the rest of the way had seen them turn up dirty, tired and hungry, but alive.

They were welcomed by the sight of a run-down, if not derelict building, but this was where they’d been told to come. They pushed against the door and it tingled as they entered into a well lit and clean foyer. Looking around, Mary saw Willow who was waiting curled up on a chair reading a book.

‘Hi, anyone home?’ shouted Cathy, only for the two of them to be grabbed from behind as they were noticed by the red haired witch. Cathy and Mary reacted immediately. Their attackers regretted their actions almost immediately. Cathy and Mary may have been tired and hungry but they were still slayers. They grabbed the arms around their necks and executed perfect judo throws, perfect with added slayer. The soldiers who had supposed to be on guard duty had immediate and comprehensive flying lessons, over Willow’s head and into the opposite wall where they landed with an umph as the air exploded from them. Sam had come into the room at the first sign of disturbance and had seen the flying guards as they sailed majestically across the air.

‘OK, who was so stupid as to piss off a slayer?’ She asked as she nursed the peppermint tea Willow was insisting she drank. Between that and some of the other concoctions she’d been made to ingest, Sam was suffering none of the normal side effects of her pregnancy, but her bulge didn’t look right in combat fatigues.

‘These two, er, females got past the guards on duty and when we went to question them they attacked us,’ one of the soldiers, Brian, said. He got up from the floor and headed towards Mary and Cathy, loosening his gun as he came forward, a determined look on his face.

‘Want to try again?’ Mary was in no mood for lies. ‘We walked in and were grabbed: no words, just hands and we dealt with it. Didn’t see anyone other than Willow,’ she pointed at the witch who was staring at the pair of them, not having said a word.

‘You two report to the colonel and may I remind you again, not to hit any slayer, they make look like weak females but they can kick your asses, and you’d look really stupid without any teeth; dismissed.’ She turned away from the two men hurrying towards the office and smiled.

‘We’ve been expecting you two: Mary and Cathy? Yes? Buffy wants to see you asap, and she said you have something for Willow.’

Cathy nodded and lifted up the case. Willow came over and took it off of her ‘Thank you,’ she said ‘I’ll get started immediately.’

Willow went down towards the basement where Morgana was waiting. They had a circle ready and it was the work of only a couple of minutes to complete the ritual now they had the blood of all those affected.

Morgana opened her mind to allow Willow in: they only needed one witch to do the spell but she was supposed to teach Willow all she knew.
Willow allowed herself, her ego, to be free and followed the trail in the older witch’s mind, hitchhiking where Morgana’s thoughts took her. Morgana had placed the case of phials of blood in the centre of their circle: she wove her hands over it, ‘feeling’ for each of the lives the blood represented. She could feel Willow and Xander, Buffy and Dawn and hundreds of others, each tied to the horrendous glamour Rupert Giles had wrought.

It was a matter of seconds and a touch of white magic to break the spell. The screams from the slayers echoed in their minds. Faith would be fielding a lot of calls in the next few hours and Giles had run out of allies. None of the slayers felt like they would back up a warlock who had raped and murdered with impunity amongst them.

There was one phial that felt as if it hadn’t been affected. Andrew’s. The spell woven on it was a heady mix of black and white magic. Morgana tasted the spell, ensuring Willow could feel her every move and, using dark magic herself, started to unweave the diabolical curse. It broke under their ministrations, but Willow and Morgana were exhausted: they collapsed quietly onto the floor. Willow’s last thought was that she was glad they hadn’t locked the door.

Septamus heard a sigh and a soft thump from his place in the storeroom. He had been going through all the files that those nice young soldiers had brought with them. Something told him he should look into the noise: as far as he knew he was he only person down in the cellar. He timidly peeked around the door, and was quite astonished to see both Willow and Morgana asleep on the floor. They didn’t look comfortable but he couldn’t reach them: the circle prevented him entering the area. He started to panic and went in search of help. He found Dawn talking quietly to the medic, Martin Longsworth. Dawn had found every excuse she could think of to help the young man, she’d help him set up the medical bay and was presently going through the files on demon medicine with him.

‘Excuse me,’ Septamus stuttered.

Dawn looked up, her cheeks slightly red from a blush. ‘Can we help?’

‘I do hope so, it’s Willow and Morgana, they appear to have collapsed. I couldn’t enter the circle; they’re in the large storeroom,’ he shouted to the disappearing backs. Martin had grabbed his bag as he ran.

Dawn was first into the room. The circle prevented her from going to her friend and she started screaming loudly for her sister.

Buffy came down the stairs three at a time, terrified of what she would find, Closely followed by Xander and Riley. She looked in amazement as her little sister was chanting and bringing down the walls of the circle of protection. As soon as she had, Martin was on his knees checking both Morgana and Willow.

‘They’re alive, it looks like exhaustion, but I need to check them out, we’ll get a stretcher and take them through to the infirmary.’

‘No need,’ Xander said coming into the room. He picked Willow up in his arms and Buffy picked Morgana the same way.

‘We’ll follow you,’ she added and they made their way out of the room.
‘How did you bring down the circle?’ Septamus wondered at Dawn. Dawn showed her finger, a single drop of blood.

‘It opens every door.’ she smiled.





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