The following characters, sadly, are not mine. I have received no profit from this. Much gratitude is due to my betas, Siryn99, Bonibaru, Rheanna, Corinna and DivaJess. I never saw BTVS seasons six or seven, so canon may be tricky, but I did my best. Feedback is welcome at yahtzee55555@yahoo.com .

I.

The inquisitors stood around the witch, darkly bundled together like wood at the base of a stake. Eerie orange light glowed beneath them, emanating from no visible source, painting every crease, every frown, every glare. The victim lay flat, twisting his head from side to side in what were meant to be his death throes.

In a voice that boomed unnaturally throughout the vast darkness of the room, the accused witch cried, "More weight!"

It was his death sentence.

The blonde girl next to Willow sighed heavily and said, "Is this meant to be camp?"

"No." Willow hoped the girl - was it Charlotte? - would shut up and let her watch the historical diorama already. She tried to ignore the dirty look from a nearby teacher who had brought her class on the Salem Historical Tour to learn something about the Puritans, not listen to gossip during the reenactment of Giles Cory's death.

Charlotte was oblivious to any disapproval; she kept scowling at the scene in front of them. "This is the fakest thing I've ever seen. Department-store mannequins are more realistic."

"Try to think about it, okay?" This time, Willow's voice was louder, and she didn't care who would hear. "These people weren't witches. People called them that because it gave them permission to kill. It wasn't magic they were afraid of - it was just their neighbors. And we're here to remember that. I mean, I guess that's why we're here."

"That's exactly right," whispered Greta, the Salem coven's leader. "We like to bring younger witches here to remind them how little their powers are related to the prejudice they face in the world."

And to remind them of the evil they can do, Willow thought. But she didn't say that out loud. She wasn't here to teach - or, really, even to learn.

It was just possible that she was here to say her farewell to magic.

Magic was no longer an addiction she had to break; whatever else Willow was uncertain of these days - and that was quite a lot - she knew she was finally in a position to choose or not to choose, to practice what she willed, as she willed it. For a long time, she'd longed for such mastery and believed it would give her answers.  Instead, she had only more questions.

How much of her life as a witch had she chosen? How much of it had chosen her? How much of it had just been an insecure girl's need to find a role in Buffy's strange world? And what had she given up along the way?

She'd invited herself to the Salem coven mostly to have a place to stay during her Boston visit. Deep within the knitted backpack she'd bought in Sao Paolo - the one Kennedy had talked her into buying - were brochures for M.I.T.  She could carry over enough credit hours from UC Sunnydale to come in as a junior; she'd still be older than her classmates, but not that much, and if she needed to explain her absence from academic life - and some of her last grades - well, Giles could probably come up with something.

It wouldn't be easy. But maybe it was just possible to turn back time.

Not literally. Willow mentally added that phrase to a surprising number of sentences, these days.

**

The coven met in a house old enough to have housed the victims, or the perpetrators, of the witch trials. Outside, the summer grass was high, tinted bluer than its true shade by the thick ripples of the antique glass in the windows. Women of various ages and races mingled and talked over lunch, good friends and guests all equal in the company; the handful of men there seemed to fit in. Everything - from the scent of herbs to the glass orbs on the shelves - precisely matched the ideals Willow had once had about a magical community.

She and Tara had always talked about finding a place like this, or creating one.  The palpable sense that Tara should be there - that this was her right, far more than anyone else's - kept Willow silent throughout the meal.

Tara was always with her. But Tara was never with her. The paradox had caught Willow fast years ago and never released her; sometimes it made her think about dragonflies in amber, their wings still splayed, ready to beat, forever still.

Worried eyes glanced in her direction a time or two, but nobody tried to draw her out until after lunch was over.

"We're going to be working on some barrier spells afternoon," Greta offered as they cleared away the dishes. Willow didn't look up from the reddish earthenware plate she was scrubbing. After a pause, Greta added, "I know that's something you're expert in."

"Expert is - that's a word I try to avoid. It sounds so, so know-it-all. 'Don't try to tell me anything, I'm an expert.' And we're all still just learning, right? No matter how long you do it. You never figure it all out."

Greta took as a life lesson instead of a brush-off. "That's so wise, Willow. I hope you're hearing this, Charlotte."

Charlotte, who was 17, shook her wild hair that corkscrewed in every direction at once and laughed. "Willow's being modest. Everyone knows she's got the mojo."

"Oh, no. No mojo. Okay, that's too much rhyming, but you get what I mean. I'm like Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me, that's how mojo-free I am."

The next pause was awkward; Greta now knew the invitation had been understood and refused, and no matter how good Willow thought her reasons were, it was hard to just blow somebody off when you'd just eaten two big bowls of her black-bean soup and a hunk of homemade bread for lunch at her house. Most of the other witches were in the other room, laughing and moving chairs and getting out candles. Better to go ahead and give Greta some kind of explanation now, when only Charlotte was there to hear. "I'd stay if I could. But this morning - I kinda had an impulse - well, I bought a train ticket to New York. I'm headed down there for a few days. The train leaves at four."

To her surprise, Charlotte lit up with excitement. "New York! Greta, did you hear that? I've been dying to go to New York to see the Icelandic exhibit, and you know it closes next week -"

"Icelandic exhibit?" Willow's entire impression of the nation of Iceland could be summed up in one word: Bjork.

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art has some Icelandic galdrabok on display. Old runes, spells, that kind of thing." Greta smiled gently at Charlotte, who was literally bouncing up and down on her chair. "It's folk magic, of course, but there are some interesting links to our real work. I'm happy with our transcriptions, but Charlotte's been wild to see the real thing for herself."

"If - if I came with you -" Charlotte almost seemed embarrassed to have blurted it out, but once she'd begun, there was no stopping her. "I could help you with your bags in Grand Central Station, and it would be cheaper to get a hotel room if we split it."

"I'd just stay a few days," Willow cut in. But after helping herself to Greta's hospitality for the better part of the week, letting the coven's youngest witch tag along to Manhattan didn't seem like too much of a chore. Even if she was also the coven's most irritating witch, too. "But, hey, we might as well make a trip of it, right?"

Charlotte smiled so sweetly that Willow was sure, for the first time in a very long time, that she'd done exactly the right thing.

**

Ten minutes into the trip, Willow knew she'd done the worst thing she could possibly have done.

Charlotte talked about the train car, about the iPods she envied other passengers, about Willow's backpack, about the rumors regarding Greta's love life - well, she talked. Incessantly. And until this moment, Willow had not realized just how badly she was craving silence.

Also, there was very little way to avoid talking back; Charlotte was good at asking direct questions and then staring at you, blue eyes guileless and wide, until you answered.

"So, why the rush? I mean, you could go to New York anytime. You didn't know anything about the Icelandic exhibit. And most people would at least wait until the morning. So why now? Why tonight?"

Lying would take more energy than explaining. Willow reached into her backpack and drew out a faded purple flyer she'd tugged down from a bulletin board on the MIT campus. "This is the reason."

"The New Dingoes Ate My Baby," Charlotte read. "Oh, I've heard of them - they played at Emerson a few months ago. Are you, like, a fan of theirs or something?"

"Yeah, from back in California." California. It sounded like another planet. "I, uh - I actually used to date the lead guitarist."

She pointed one black-painted fingernail at Oz, recognizable even through the flyer's crappy photocopying and days of sun exposure. His hair was a little shorter, but other than that, Oz looked much the same: flannel shirt over a tee, black Chucks, quizzical expression. Willow hoped he was exactly the same.

"Hey. Cute." Charlotte giggled. "Does your girlfriend in Brazil know about this midnight train to the guitarist?"

"Ex-girlfriend. Kennedy is my ex-girlfriend. All kinds of ex." Nothing like finding your girlfriend making out with a samba dancer - six-foot plus of tan skin and cocoa butter and sequins - to bring out the ex in a girlfriend.

Charlotte just shrugged. Apparently she had fewer questions about Willow's sexuality than Willow did.

My love life is now as edgy as an episode of "Will and Grace," Willow decided, except "Will and Grace" is still on the air.

"Well, if you guys hook up or something, you just let me know, and I can get out of the way. My parents gave me the Gold Card for emergencies, and I think a hotel in Manhattan sounds like an emergency, don't you?"

"Sure." It was easier to answer on autopilot, as Charlotte chattered on about her parents and their attitudes toward her witch's training, and to think about the meeting that lay ahead.

She hadn't so much as spoken to Oz since their farewell in his van, years ago, before she'd even kissed Tara for the first time. What if he wasn't glad to see her? What if he had a girlfriend? Maybe he even had a boyfriend; Willow didn't think that was all that likely, but she knew how life had a way of throwing surprises at you. Kennedy's final trespass was proof of that, too.

Though, of course, it had been more than a sexy samba dancer and a bottle of cachaca that had come between her and Kennedy. When Willow remembered Kennedy, she always remembered her pulling forward - eager for the next thing, the next stage, whatever it was she hadn't yet tried. And maybe that was good, at first. But Willow after the accident -

--that was the only way she could think of it, the accident in Manaus -

--she had wanted to stop and reflect on everything that had happened, and with Kennedy, there was no stopping.

Willow had tried to keep up for a long time, but she had resented it more and more, and Kennedy had known it. The samba dancer had been a bluff - a way of challenging Willow to step up and fight for what they used to have.

Instead, Willow had bought a plane ticket back to the United States the next day. Maybe Kennedy had deserved more of a chance than that. On the other hand, maybe Kennedy was still hooked up with the samba dancer. In either case, she would by now be having fun again, as much fun as she could possibly take, which as Willow knew was quite a lot.

For Willow's part, everything was still confusing, and she couldn't find home anymore, not even within her own skin. She never would know exactly what she'd felt for Kennedy, except that it wasn't the equal of what she'd felt for Tara. Was that all she had to know? Maybe, but maybe not.

MIT, Oz - they were part of the dreams she'd had as an 18-year-old girl. But maybe she'd been better at dreaming then.

**

II.

The voice echoed off tile and glass and metal, its sound all growl and gravel despite the tune: "Fly me to the moon - let me play among the stars -"

Fuckin' demons, Faith thought. At this point, I'm used to them trying to kill me. But they sure as hell shouldn't try to SING.

She crouched beneath the airplanes - all of them frozen in place, motion denied, propellers still - and tried to make her way toward the far wall. Why did leather pants have to make so much noise? Probably that was why superheroes wore spandex, Faith decided; sure, you looked like a total loser in your pantyhose, but at least spandex was quiet.

Faith planned to stick to leather. You gotta have some standards.

Besides, this scaly moron couldn't hear her over its tuneless singing: "Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars -"

Now.

Vaulting over a display panel, Faith kicked out, Slayer instinct guiding her motion so that her heel slammed home, straight into the demon's jaw. He tumbled back, all wine-colored scales and wings and flashing white teeth. But before she could get in her second blow, he had steadied himself, glaring at her as he slowly extended the claws from his hands.

"Tay Whore," she said as her greeting.

"Tei'hior." He grimaced as he corrected her, then called her by the only name that mattered: "Slayer. You should know better than to disturb my work."

"Rampaging through D.C. like you have every ten years since 1814, when the British dropped you off? You know that war's over, right?" Faith had read up on the war a bit - the real history, the one with the magic. She made it a point to read what Robin sent her, even if most of it was boring. 

Tei'hior drew himself up to his full height, horns gleaming in the after-hours lighting. "As long as there is an England, I serve." 

"You haven't been workin' for Tony Blair for a while now, buddy." Faith had learned a lot about Tony Blair in the last couple of months. "In fact, for the past ninety years, you haven't even eaten that many virgins."

"They're harder to find these days."

"That's one excuse. But you know what I think? I think you're still tryin' to fix your wings. They haven't worked so hot since Jeremy Kelvin got to 'em in 1914, have they?"

"That fool Watcher," Tei'hior's cat-pupiled eyes narrowed. "I am beyond tired of Watchers - and Slayers -"

Almost there. It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. So Faith gave him her absolute most annoying smirk. "I can see that you'd want to get your wings back. But breakin' into the Air and Space Museum? Tay Whore, that's just SAD."

Tei'hior growled and lunged at her; it was easy to duck and let his own supernatural strength carry him over her head. He landed in the display case behind her, crashing through glass to sprawl across a model of an aircraft carrier. Tiny toy planes crumpled beneath his weight.

Go.

Faith started running, drawing him after her, back into the main display area. The planes around her were almost all propeller-driven, so pretty much any of them would do. It was all a question of when the big scaly idiot would catch up with her -

Which was gonna be soon, to judge by the heavy treads coming up fast behind. Big scaly idiot, yeah, but FAST.

She swung around, just in front of one of the few planes on the floor, grabbed the propeller with all her might, wrenching it so that the tortured metal shriek. One good pull and the propeller's weight was in her hand - and then she wheeled back and threw it, hard, just like a Frisbee. The blades kept whirring even after they'd sliced off Tei'hior's head.

Cool, Faith thought. That "Raiders of the Lost Ark" thing worked. The demon's eyes blinked at her in shock once, from the floor, before both halves of him collapsed into dust.

Every major indoor Slaying action ended with one big question: to clean or not to clean? Faith used to blow that off all the time; now, generally speaking, she'd at least try and remove the obvious supernatural marks.

But maybe this was a job best left for historical preservation. Besides, she had a long drive ahead.

**

Faith gunned the motorcycle's motor was she sped up the highway toward New York. She couldn't ever have afforded the motorcycle, but Wesley had left it to her in his will. At first, she'd been sort of humbled by his gesture. What was it supposed to mean? "I finally forgive you for torturing me"? "This is the last thing I can do as a Watcher"? What?

Then, after a couple of weeks of riding that beauty, Faith had understood that it wasn't about her at all. It was about the bike. Wesley had wanted the motorcycle to go to somebody who'd love it, and she did, oh, she did.

The plane ticket that burned in the bottom of her duffel bag - JFK to Heathrow, one way -- had been another unexpected gift. Robin had folded them into a card, a simple one with some English lake or pond or something on the cover.

How did I fall for a guy who sends cards? Faith thought. How did he fall for me? Of course, given Robin's life history, his fascination with her had a kind of Oedipal thing going on, which was something Faith tried not to think about too much. Maybe she didn't really understand the Oedipus complex anyway.

"You'd like England," Robin had sworn when he'd last visited, four months ago. He'd been serving her breakfast in bed. Real breakfast, too - waffles and bacon and orange juice with the pulp in it - not just a bowl of cereal with milk that was half off, the best any previous boyfriend had managed. "The castle we're staying in - it's magnificent. I can't stop thinking about what you'd say if you saw it."

"I'm not so much a castle kind of girl." Faith knew it was true. She hadn't even ever wanted to be a castle kind of girl. But - there was something kinda nice about knowing somebody THOUGHT of her as that kind of girl, even if it was all wrong. No figuring that one out, but Faith had stopped trying to figure stuff out when it came to Robin.

"Trust me." His hand had been gentle on her shoulder. Faith hadn't known she could like gentleness so much. "You wouldn't be locked in an ivory tower. Even with all the new Slayers around - there's plenty in the UK that needs killing. We could use you, Faith."

Confused, but not unhappy, Faith had changed the subject to breakfast. And Robin had not pushed her, hadn't even mentioned the subject again - until two months ago, when he'd sent the card and the ticket.

Robin only described it as a visit in the card, but she knew that, for a visit, the ticket would've been round-trip. It was an invitation not just to England, but to an entirely different kind of life.

Faith had done some reading, trying to envision life in a country she essentially thought of as Planet Giles. By this point she more about Tony Blair than about George W. Bush, more about Parliament than about Congress, even more about the schedules for the BBC channels than anything that might be on American TV. She had an idea about what the life would be like now - and yeah, she might like it.

Life with Robin, though - that was something she couldn't imagine at all.

He was good for her. Or at least he had been good for her, at the beginning and for a long time after that. Faith knew that down deep, in a place even her own screwed-up brain couldn't reach. Her heart's response to him - it was kind of like the way your body felt when you finally ate chicken and salad after days of living on warm beer and cold pizza. Robin was fuel for the goodness inside her. She'd never dreamed how far she could go,with fuel like that. All the crap that had happened since then - Wesley dying, Angel too as far as anybody knew -  she'd pretty much been able to handle all of it, mostly because of the strength Robin had given her.

But all the same, sometimes it was hard to believe that what Robin really loved was her. Maybe it was just a Slayer he wanted.

Then again, wasn't she a Slayer? Wasn't that the best and most important thing Faith was, after all?

The plane left in three days. That gave her some time to work it out. Faith still thought it was fifty-fifty whether she'd get on the plane at JFK or walk up to the airport counter and try to get Robin a refund on the ticket price.  In either case, New York was the place to be.

Faith came in through the Holland Tunnel, exploded into Manhattan right in the heart of Chinatown. Of course, she could have kept on, heading up to Queens and then to JFK - but she then she'd have a couple days to kill in Queens, which was nobody's idea of a good time. So she wandered around Soho, eating and taking in the sights, until she glimpsed a flyer and instantly thought: I imagined that. I thought I saw -

THE NEW DINGOES ATE MY BABY - MERCURY LOUNGE -

That was definitely tonight's date. And definitely Oz's face staring back at her in ink.

Faith grinned. Talk about a blast from the past.

And come to think of it, she wasn't actually doing anything tonight -

**

III.

"You busy on Tuesday?" Devon said, between mouthfuls of fries. The expectant crowd on the other side of the black curtain buzzed, the most energizing sound in the world.

Oz was not busy on Tuesday, but he had learned through long experience with Devon's plans that it was better not to get yourself into them unless and until you knew exactly what they were. "What's up?"

"Jade said she'd loan us her studio. I thought we could call some of the numbers we got, start auditions for the new full-moon guy."

Devon was actually taking care of business. Nice change of pace. "Sure. Count me in."

For many years, it had been possible to simply schedule the band's gigs around the three nights of the month that Oz was, as Devon put it with his usual delicacy, a total fuckin' menace. Over the years, Oz had gained considerably more control over his change from man to werewolf - but that kind of control took concentration, quiet and calm, none of which you could come by in the average nightclub. So, with the band's increasing exposure during the past couple years had come the need for a Full-Moon Guy. The requirements: (1) a good guitarist, (2) could get along with the rest of the band, and (3) not quite sharp enough to figure out that the substitution gigs always happened around the same time of the month.

Once upon a time, all the Dingoes had known that Oz was a werewolf. But now Devon and Oz were the only ones remaining from the Sunnydale days, and explanations had to be a little more - creative.

The cheering and stamping of the crowd was getting louder, and Vicki glared at Devon as she thumped her drumsticks against her leg. Devon took one more mouthful of fries and held up his hand; three, two, ONE and they were running past the bar, into the crowd, jumping up on the stage and bathing in the lights and applause. Oz shouldered his guitar, flexed his hands and got ready. Vicki set the tempo, click click thump thump, and the first song began.

Devon's voice sang Oz's lyrics, the words rippling over the gyrating crowd:

As Oz started chiming in on the chorus, he automatically sought a face in the crowd - any face, just somebody to make eye contact with. He saw dark hair and big eyes and went for that, and then all of a sudden the entire Mercury Lounge seemed to turn to ice.

Faith. Faith the Vampire Slayer. She was in a coma. No, she was standing in the middle of a Manhattan nightclub, nodding her head to the beat. Oh, fuck. Had she come here to kill him?

But when she saw his eyes on her, she smiled - not in a creepy, I'm-gonna-stab-you kind of way, but just a smile. Huh. Could he get Giles on the phone after this set? Find out what the hell was going on?

Devon, oblivious to the fact that they were being stalked by a Slayer who had been and might still be insane, kept on singing:

Vicki crashed the drums hard on that last line, which led into the guitar solo. Time to concentrate. Oz managed to focus on the instrument in his hands, to be strings and rhythm and song for a moment, instead of a man. To him, it still sounded a bit off - Devon would bitch about it after the show - but the crowd didn't lose energy.

As the solo ended, Oz looked back out into the crowd, seeking another face - ANY other face - to fix his attention on. And that was when he saw Willow.

Longer hair. Softer look. Gypsy earrings and a loose linen shirt that hung off one shoulder. She was gold and green, smiling and sweet, both the girl he remembered and someone dazzlingly new.

Okay, Oz thought. Weird night.

Vicki brought the song into a close, and the crowd went nuts. Oz wondered how he could somehow show Willow that he'd seen her and yet warn her that something - namely, a psychotic Slayer - was really, really wrong. No way this was a coincidence. Faith must've followed her - maybe she was stalking her -

Then he saw Willow glance over at Faith and wave. Faith grinned back.

Well, that was unexpected.

Devon yelled, "Next song is one of our first, and one of our best. Remember the good ol' days with 'Pain'!"

This night was only going to get weirder.

**

After the first set, he made his way into the crowd, to the leather bench against the wall where Willow sat. Bad news item #1: Faith was sitting there with her. Not as bad but still bad news item #2: A pretty blonde was sitting at Willow's side. Oz knew something about Willow and pretty blondes.

"I recognized you even without the Eskimo parka," Oz said. Willow got the reference right away; he could tell by the light in her eyes.

"Hey, Oz. It's good to see you. Really good." Willow rose to meet him, and clearly wanted to hug him - but he wasn't leaning right, and then she sort of shifted, and the moment was gone.

First things first. "Hey, I wanted to clear something up," Oz said. "Is anyone here evil?"

Willow shook her head. "Not currently."

"Good to know."

"Hey," Faith said. "Sorry about the whole kidnapping your girlfriend and betraying you to a guy who was turning into a huge demon snake thing."

The blonde girl frowned - apparently she wasn't up on the whole backstory. Then again, apparently Oz wasn't either. "No big," he said. Sadly, by the standards of his Sunnydale life, this was almost the truth. "Last time I heard about you, you were kinda in a coma."

Faith brushed her hair from her eyes. "I woke up."

"Yeah, I worked that out."

For another moment, they all stood there, awkward and confused - and then Willow held up her hands and said, "You know, if we want to get all the explanations out of the way tonight, we really ought to start now."

That broke the tension, mostly, and the pitcher of Sam Adams they ordered did the rest. In short order, Oz learned that the blonde girl's name was Charlotte, that she was still a teenager and - he was not imagining the stress Willow put on the words - just a student. Not, say, a girlfriend. Charlotte, instead of pouting at being left out of the conversation, listened raptly as the history of the last few years unfolded.

Apparently Faith woke up from her coma, did some more damage, then went to L.A. and got her head straightened out by Angel. Oz had never really thought of Angel as really being a guy who could straighten people's heads out, seeing how he needed so much straightening out himself. Then again, maybe you just had to know where a formerly homicidal penitent was coming from.

"Angel's dead," Faith said abruptly. "I mean, not just vampire dead. Really dead. I don't guess you knew that."

"As far as we know," Willow corrected. "They might just be in a different dimension."

Faith's lips were pressed into a line, and her cheeks were pale. It was the first time Oz had ever recognized pain in her - Faith, who had always seemed both so strong and so shallow. "He's lost. And I don't think we're ever gonna see him again."

Time to change the topic. "So, what did you do after you hung out with Angel?"

"Confessed. Spent a couple years in prison." Faith shrugged, like it was no big deal, but Oz knew better.

Great. He would've thought it was impossible to bring the mood of the conversation down after the whole Angel-death scenario. He was wrong. "Just to get this out of the way - is anybody else we know dead?"

Willow ducked her head, red hair falling in front of her face. It was Faith who answered him. "Wesley's dead too. Not in another dimension. He's got a grave in Forest Lawn, if you ever want to go. Cordelia - she got messed with bad. Real bad. She was in a coma for a long time, and they were trying to help her out, but - well. She died about eight months ago."

Cordelia. Somehow that seemed more wrong than Angel or Wesley - not that those seemed right, exactly, but they'd been a vampire and a Watcher. In the line of fire. But Cordy - she'd been a cheerleader. Suddenly, Oz felt a lot older than 24.

Faith kept going. "Buffy died, but she came back."

"Again?"

"She's living in Italy now," Willow chimed in. "She's all mixed up in an affair with some vampire called The Immortal." 

"Oh. What happened to Riley?"

"Moved. Married. Dropped off the face of the Earth. Then Anya died in our last apocalypse. At least, what I hope was our last apocalypse." Willow sighed. "But she died saving Andrew - you remember Andrew from school, right? - so I guess that kinda made up for the vengeance- demony stuff, at least a little."

That should've been the worst of it. Buffy was still alive, and Oz was sure that Willow would've mentioned Xander or Giles before Anya if they'd died, so apparently they were okay too. So why was Faith still glancing over at Willow with worried eyes?

At last Willow said, "And Tara. Tara died two years ago."

Jesus. Tara. Oz's memories of her were few - and not all that friendly, even though he'd never blamed her, not exactly - but that news hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. It wasn't his own reaction to finding out about her, he realized; it was the way saying those words put out the soft light in Willow's eyes.  "Wil, I'm sorry."

"Thanks." She took a deep draught of the beer, and even in the middle of the crowded nightclub, with sweat beaded on most of the patrons' skin, Oz thought it suddenly seemed very quiet and cold.

"What about you?" Faith said quickly. This was about as close to tact as Faith had ever come, Oz figured. "What've you been up to? The band's doing great, huh?"

"Great. We're listed on iTunes now. Always a good thing." What else was there to say? A series of apartments in Alphabet City, each of them slightly less scary than the last. Better lyrics, in his opinion, even if he felt like his finger work had hit a plateau. A half-dozen girls, three of them unimportant, two of them over too soon, and one of them the only serious contender there had ever been for Willow's place in his heart. But she had checked out not long after he told her the Big Hairy Truth, five months ago - so that left him more or less without much to tell. "It's working out, I guess."

"Saw the flyer, and I just had to check it out." When Faith smiled at him, Oz remembered just how much he used to like her, back when they first met. But Faith still wasn't the person he was most interested in.

"What are you guys doing in New York?" Oz said it to all of them, but it was Willow's eyes he looked into. "We could hang out, maybe."

"We're going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tomorrow!" Charlotte chirped. It was the first thing she'd said in a long time, and everyone else at the table jumped a little. "There's this exhibition of Icelandic folk-magic artifacts. It's going to be GREAT."

"You should come, Oz," Willow said. He could tell she meant the invitation, and he could also tell that she knew he didn't really care about Icelandic artifacts. It was a different kind of invite. Against his will - he really, really needed to think about this, but who could think? - Oz could feel himself getting, well, hopeful.

"Yeah," he said. "We ought to do that. Thing about living in New York - it's weird how much of New York you never see. Haven't been to the Met in a year, at least."

Faith said, "Can anyone join this party?"

Willow stared at her. "Well - yeah - I mean, you're welcome to come, but you know it's a museum, right?"

"I like museums." As they stared at her, Faith got defensive. "I could like museums."

Oz would've preferred to be alone with Willow - but then again, Charlotte was already going to be there. Maybe Faith could distract Charlotte, give her someone to talk to. "They do have weapons there."

"See? That's my kind of museum." Faith lifted her chin, defiant. "So we're set, right?"

"Sounds good," Willow said, as if determined that her words would be true.

Yesterday, I'd put Sunnydale behind me, Oz thought. Tomorrow, I'm hanging out with Faith and Willow.

Weird night.

**

IV.

Maybe the Met was a world-class museum, Willow admitted, but the sidewalk outside was a total tourist trap. Hot dog stands competed for attention and visitor dollars with a couple dozen sidewalk vendors of photographs, magnets and artwork of varying quality.

"I like that one," Charlotte said, pointing toward a brightly colored image of a Japanese woman holding a fan. The vendor behind the card table sat up, instantly alert.

Willow tugged her ahead, saying, "Half that stuff you could buy in a shop in the mall."

"She's right." Oz had his usual amused half- smile on his face, which made it impossible to tell what he was really thinking. "Authentic New York souvenirs are usually a little different. Like bruises. Or maybe hangovers."

She laughed at his joke, maybe more than it deserved. But he smiled back, and his steps swerved slightly closer to her own. Was it going to be that simple? Could they really just change their paths, only a smidge, and come right back together?

For the past month or so, Willow had thought she would like that more than anything else in the world. But with Oz right here - it wasn't that she wanted it any less, she told herself, only that it was a little, well, scary. Not big-demonic-cobra-trying-to-eat-the-senior-class scary - Sunnydale had a way of putting all later fears in perspective - but intimidating all the same.

Maybe she'd get used to it.

Willow had been convinced, last night, that Faith would fail to show. But as they ascended the stone steps in front of the Met, brilliant exhibition banners fluttering blue and gold overhead, she saw Faith standing right in front of the entrance. It took a moment to recognize her.

"Hey," Faith said. Her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail - not just neat for Faith, but actually neat in a styled kind of way - and she wore a simple white Oxford shirt and black pants that were definitely not leather. Apparently Willow hadn't done a good job of not staring, because Faith's next words were, "I bought this stuff at the Gap. I went into a Gap."

"Why not?" Charlotte smiled. "You should've gotten the pink cardigan Sarah Jessica Parker's wearing in the ads. It's so cute!"

Faith's face fell. "I can do Gap. But I can't do pink."

"What's with the makeover?" Oz said. He was wearing a blue T-shirt that had almost faded to gray and battered jeans Willow was pretty sure she remembered from the Bronze. "Not that you don't look good."

"I thought maybe you'd dress up to go to a museum. Like, during the day with people, not breaking in at night to fight stuff." Faith scowled at the motley tourists all around them. "Guess I was wrong."

"They're mostly come as you are," Willow explained. She was wearing a pair of denim overalls over a black T-shirt; she hadn't actually worn overalls in years, but she'd picked some up before coming to New York. Oz always thought the overalls were cute.

"Got it." Faith seemed to be thinking very hard as they walked into the air-conditioned coolness of the Museum atrium. "Do you think they dress up to go to museums in England?"

This question remained unresolved as they made their way into the Met itself. Their tickets didn't admit them into the special Icelandic exhibit for another half hour; Faith said she'd be glad to look at the paintings, but there was no mistaking her relief when Oz led them instead to the Temple of Dendur. While Charlotte studied the hieroglyphics, frowning at the graffiti left by Napoleon's troops, Faith paced the perimeter, studying it as though she were preparing for a battle.

"Mummies," Oz said, gesturing to the Egyptian exhibition room behind them. "At least we never had to deal with those."

"Actually -"

"You're kidding." He gave her the half-smile again as they walked along the small pool in front of the temple. "Sunnydale got even crazier after I left. I wouldn't have thought that was possible."

"That was before we really knew you, actually. But the mummy was Incan, not Egyptian. We had to stop her from killing Xander. She nearly got Jonathan, too."

And if the mummy had killed Jonathan then he would never have teamed up with Warren and Andrew, and if he hadn't done that then maybe Warren would never have --

"I take it back." Thank God Oz was talking again. "Hostile Incan mummies are much less weird than hostile Egyptian mummies."

"I'm still anti-mummy on principle."

"Is that mummyist thinking? Are you guilty of prejudice against mummies?"

"That's me. Willow the anti-mummy bigot."

"You can get kicked out of college for that kind of talk these days, you know."

"I took care of that on my own," Willow laughed. But as she saw the question forming in Oz's mind, she changed the subject again. "Come on. We ought to get in line."

She knew that she could have told Oz about the reasons she'd left school; he would have understood. Oz always understood. But explaining it meant reliving it, and today, Willow wanted to pretend none of it had ever happened. Just for today, maybe she and Oz could pretend that they'd escaped straight out of senior year at Sunnydale High into the museum.

No, it didn't even have to be an escape. It could just be an adventure.

**

"No other document of comparable age gives so many details of the preservation of the archaic Germanic gods, cosmology, and magical practices as do these manuscripts. Here we are not dependent on folktales -"

Willow tugged the headset away from her head, already tired of the voiceover droning. Probably the exhibit was better experienced without some CSI actor yapping in your ear. For instance, Charlotte seemed to have been transported into another world, her blue eyes wide. Even Faith and Oz looked interested, and Willow couldn't blame them. The manuscripts, laid out page by page in various narrow rooms, were only dimly lit; bright light might destroy the fragile vellum. But the illumination around each border was still clear, still brilliant. Capital letters exploded into dragons or birds or wild curling vines, the thinly gilded outlines shimmering and enhancing the illusion of movement.

Amid the illumination were markings that would be less familiar to most exhibit guests, but that Willow knew well. Even in such elaborate inscriptions, the runic symbols were still simple. Eihwaz, nauthiz, elhaz -

("A zigzag, an off-kilter cross and a - chicken foot," Willow had proclaimed, though she knew better.

As she'd hoped, Tara laughed. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy bun with cloisonne chopsticks, revealing the curve where her neck met her shoulders. "You know their real names by now. Or you should."

"I know them." Willow had tossed the book aside and lay back, so that her head rested in Tara's lap. Through the bright silk of Tara's skirt, she could feel skin's warmth against her cheek. "But I'm tired of studying them. So tired."

"I don't think you're tired of studying them." Tara had possessed the most wonderful sly smile. "I think you're interested in something else."

Willow had reached up with one hand to touch Tara's cheek. She always had skin like peaches and cream. "I don't need to predict the future. I know my future.")

The runes blurred with Willow's tears, and she blinked them back. No. No, she wasn't going to do this; she wasn't going to REMEMBER.

"Hey. You all right?" Oz touched her shoulder, obviously hesitant - as though he didn't have permission anymore.

Willow took his hand firmly in his; the grip was still natural, after all this time. When she did, Oz's face changed. It was still fairly expressionless - this was Oz, after all - but she could tell he was pleased. "I'm fine," she said. "Better than I've been in a long time."

If she entered MIT and dedicated herself to computer science - and to Oz - magic would more or less leave her life forever. The thought made Willow's heart heavy, but maybe that was only memory weighing her down.

"Ooooh," Charlotte said as they walked past a huge knitted hanging of a bird of prey, into a smaller exhibition room. None of the other museum-goers had caught up with their party; for the moment, the four of them were alone. Willow kept holding onto Oz's hand, even after she knew Faith was staring at her. "Look, this book's not in a glass case. We could touch it."

"Don't touch it," Faith said. "This is a good rule with magical artifacts. Trust me on this." 

"Did you see the signs for the History of Technology exhibit?" There was really no reason for Oz to whisper in her ear, except to be closer to her. "Whole history of computers, up on the third floor."

He still knew what Willow was interested in. She smiled. "Yeah. We ought to check it out."

But even as they started to turn the corner, Charlotte whispered something - a basic silencing spell, one Willow knew well - and reached down to brush one fingertip against the galdrabok's page.

The air shivered, ripples of hot and cold wavering against every inch of exposed skin. A breeze ruffled Willow's hair and flapped the collar of Faith's shirt. The gilding on the pages began to glow, lighting the room in deep gold.

Oz breathed out. "Uh-oh."

Charlotte tried to pull her hand from the page, but instead jerked her whole body against what appeared to be an unbreakable bond. "Should've listened," she said weakly, as her corkscrew hair began streaming out behind her in the strengthening breeze. "Whoops."

"Whoops?" Faith looked like she might take Charlotte's head. "You get yourself glued to a book and then you say whoops?"

Then a giant pinwheel of pink and gold light exploded out from the page, surrounding Charlotte in a kind of brilliant tornado. Charlotte looked as if she might scream. Then the light flashed so bright Willow couldn't even see -

And Charlotte was gone.

Willow, Faith and Oz all stared at each other, as if one of them could simply make Charlotte come back. Faith broke the silence. "Where did she go?"

"Let me read the page." Willow let go of Oz's hand to get a look at the book. "If there was a spell written there - certain runes could mean, well, lots of things -"

She started trying to read the text, then stopped immediately. It wasn't the runes that halted Willow in her track, or even the fact that the spell was written in old Icelandic.

It was the fact that one of the illuminations on the page was of a girl with curly blonde hair, each ringlet outlined in gilding. And that the girl was pacing the margins, moving across the paper, back and forth, as if testing the confines of her prison.

"That wasn't there before, was it?" Oz said.

Willow couldn't stop staring down at the drawing - at Charlotte, as she now was. "Nope."

Faith shook her head. "Whoops."

**

Willow stared down at the illustration-Charlotte on the page. She stared back and opened her mouth; the paper nearby crinkled slightly, until ink welled up to form the tiny word HELP.

"Holy shit," Faith said, which was as good a reaction as any. The ink letters - at least, the ones that hadn't been there to start with -- faded back into the page; a few lines appeared on Charlotte's forehead, perhaps a sign of worry.

"Don't touch the book." Willow held out one hand.

"I got that," Oz said. "Totally on top of that precaution."

Quickly she held her hand out over the book and made a swift series of motions, a five-word incantation. The spell had a long and elaborate name in Latin, but Willow had always thought of it as "Undo," just like on a computer. Sometimes, for minor spells, it worked to un-cast what had been cast before. You could even dry up a few spilled potions that way.

But, as she'd suspected, the ancient magic that Charlotte had awakened was anything but simple. Instead of pulling Charlotte out again, the spell just caused a sharp SNAP of white light.

One of the museum docents leaned his head into their chamber and said, in a bored drone, "No flash photography."

"Okay. Sorry." Willow smiled at him, along with Oz and Faith; then as one they all wheeled back around to stare at the book. A tiny cobalt-blue tear was visible on Charlotte's cheek, but other museum patrons were beginning to crowd into the room. And their own exhibition tickets would expire in a few minutes. She faced the book and spoke loudly and slowly, enunciating just in case Charlotte could do no more than lip-read: "We have to go, but we'll come back later. Won't we, guys?"

"Sure," Faith said. "Absolutely." Oz just nodded.

And then there was nothing to do but let themselves be carried out in the tide of tourists, farther and farther, until they were back out in the Museum proper.

"What the hell was that?" Faith glared back the way they'd come. "Was it a trap?"

"Maybe. It might just have been the way the book was supposed to work." At times, Willow had read about such things, but she'd never expected to run into one. "If it contains magical wisdom, going into the pages might be one way to study the spells written there."

Oz said, "Cool. Creepy, but cool."

"You put out some porn magazines like that, you could make a killing." Faith grinned. "Maybe we should set something up after we get done with this, huh? Playwitch?"

Willow whirled on Faith, surprising her - and herself - with her anger. "Do you just not care that Charlotte's trapped in there? She's scared, and she's alone, and it's - it's like you can't even -"

"Hey, hey, hey." Faith held up her hands as if in surrender. "Chill, okay? I know we've got to get her out. But, seriously - the girl's stuck in a book. A BOOK. On the Scooby Crisis Scale, I figure that's about a 1.5."

"Compared to your average apocalypse, it doesn't seem like that big a deal," Oz agreed. "Unless you know something about this we don't.

"Not really." All at once, Willow felt ashamed. Faith and Oz - they were both so sure that she could do something about this. She was the witch. She could take care of it. Once upon a time, she would have shared their confidence. But now - "It's just, well, there are a lot of different spells I could try to get Charlotte out, and I don't know which one to choose."

The Corporeus In Integrum Restituere would be best, if only -

"When do we go back in there?" Faith said as a cluster of Japanese tourists wandered by, clutching maps. 

"Tonight," Willow said. "After hours. For the kind of privacy and time we'll need - it's going to have to be after the museum's closed."

Oz tilted his head. "Are we talking about breaking and entering here? I'm up for that, but the security here is probably better than in Sunnydale. Just a hunch."

"I've seen that in movies. They have, like, laser beams and shit." Faith looked more annoyed than afraid, with her hands on her hips. "Should we rent 'The Thomas Crown Affair'? Like, for research?"

"We'll stay here." This, at least, Willow knew how to arrange. "I can hide us while they shut down, and then it'll be simple to mute the alarms and put the guards to sleep. Now I'm going to call Giles."

They seemed to find this much more surprising than her suggestion that they hide out in the Met overnight. "Giles? You guys check in every day?" The tone of Faith's voice made it clear that she thought that was overkill.

"No. I haven't talked to him in - months, really." And that won her an odd look from Oz, so Willow tried to explain. "The first spell I thought of - it would get Charlotte out of the book, but it's - I don't want to use it, not if I don't have to - it's a dark spell -"

Faith understood. Oz didn't - how could he? Why did he ever have to understand? Willow didn't want him to know, but now he would have to. For years, she had preserved the memory of their romance as if within a delicate shell - something sweet and wholesome and almost perfect, something that didn't have anything to do with the mire her life had become afterward. But now that shell was broken - just a crack, but it was still too much.

"I'm going to call Giles," Willow repeated, and she walked away from them both to find a relatively quiet hallway. Neither Oz nor Faith made any move to follow.

It had been so long since she'd phoned Giles that his number had faded from her memory, but fortunately she had it stored in her cell's address book. She leaned against the wall, next to a sign that directed tourists to the bathroom in six different languages, and prayed for Giles to be home. Come on, come on, don't pick today to come up with a social life -

"Hello?"

"Giles!" Willow breathed out in a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God, I thought you might be out. Not that this is, like, super likely, because you don't go out much - not that you couldn't go out a lot if you wanted to, because you could -"

"Ah, Willow." Giles sounded positively fond. "How lovely to hear from you."

"I'm babbling, aren't I? I know I do that sometimes when I get nervous -"

"I remember that quite well," he chuckled, before his tone abruptly changed. "Oh my. Is the world ending?"

"Nope."

"Grand. What's the matter, then?"

As succinctly as she could, Willow summarized the past two days, what Charlotte had found and what she'd done. If Giles had any reaction to the fact that Willow had looked up Oz, or that Faith had apparently had the same idea, he kept them to himself as he focused on the principal problem at hand. "So, basically, I need some suggestions about where to go from here. And you're Mr. Suggestions."

After a pause, Giles said, "Is there a reason you aren't using a Corporeus spell? That's the most logical choice. Should be effective."

Oh, no. She shut her eyes, blacking out the hallway, the museum, all of it. "Maybe I'm not asking for the most effective spell. Maybe I'm asking for something else. Something a little less on the dark side of the Force."

"Certainly there are other alternatives." He spoke gently but firmly, more like the teacher he'd been long ago than the peer he was now. This was a habit Giles fell into whenever one of them was in trouble; she found it comforting, which was probably why he did it. "But I thought you were past such worries."

"You never get past them." It was a hard thing to say, because it was true. "Not ever, Giles."

"You've drawn upon darker powers since - since then." There was no need for him to specify further. "You've handled magic stronger and more primal than anything we'd previously encountered. When you transformed the Potentials into Slayers -"

"That wasn't me. Or - it was me, but - I'd tapped into something, something really strong. It knew the way - but that doesn't mean I know the way. I'm not tapped into that power now. And without some kind of guide, Giles - I honestly don't know if I can do it."

This did not mean that she couldn't successfully cast the spell. Willow knew quite well that she could, and was sure Giles understood this. As long as she lived, she would always be able to call on the darkness. What she didn't know was whether she could set it aside again - whether even one more faint stain of evil within her would set another terrible chain reaction into motion, one that couldn't be undone this time.

What Giles did not know - and would not know - was what had happened in Manaus.

Giles replied very carefully. "I think you're wrong, but you are the one handling this situation, so we'll trust your judgment. Did you consider a Vivicus spell instead?"

"Vivicus? Of course!" It was an animation spell, one that could have been used to make the illustrations move even if they hadn't been previously enchanted to do so. It was mostly used for research and experiments, but if cast on an illustration that was already a trapped living creature, it would probably have the effect of extra-animating her - in other words, restoring her to what she had been. "That is the most geniusy thing your super-geniusy brain has come up with in a long time."

"You MUST cast a barrier spell first," Giles warned. "The Vivicus has more power than you might think."

"I'll be casting one of those anyway." She'd need a barrier spell to make sure nobody, authorized or un, tried to enter the Met after hours. "So we should be in good shape."

"Well, well. That wasn't so difficult, was it? You'll have to call me tomorrow and let me know how it goes." The pause that followed was more awkward than it ought to have been.

Willow promised, "I'll call tomorrow. And - and we'll talk. Really talk. We'll catch up." She checked the time display on her phone - another nine hours. "Okay. I'll take it from here."

"Good luck. And don't forget the barrier spell!"

"I won't. I'll call tomorrow for a good long chat." And she meant it, she told herself. She really did.

**

II.

"Tell me what's wrong," Oz said.

Faith tried to act as if she hadn't heard him, as though the world had changed enough that she would be the kind of girl who actually took an interest in silk scarves printed with Tiffany-window designs. Oz, undeceived, set down the book of postcards he'd been pretending to look at and stepped closer to her.

"You've not very good at lying," he said.

"Fooled you once."

"Let's not get into that." Oz knew about dealing with the monsters within, but he had forgiven Faith on Willow's word, not for herself. "Why is Willow so scared when she talks about this spell?"

With a disdainful glare, Faith moved through the gift shop, pretending to admire the rack of posters on the wall. Her well-muscled arm flipped through the metal display frames, Van Gogh to Renoir to Magritte. "Some spells are worth bein' scared of. You gotta remember that much, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Not that this had ever seemed to bother Willow - sometimes, the excitement in her eyes as she delved into yet another power had been almost unnerving. But it had been beautiful too, that wild energy she'd hidden for too long coming out to play at last. "But it's not the spell Willow's scared of."

Faith dropped the act then. When she looked back at him, her face was serious; for the first time, the more polished clothing she wore didn't look like a costume - never before had Oz seen her looking like an adult. "I'll tell you if you want. But she's the one you oughta be asking."

He considered that for a few moments. "If she wanted to tell me, she would have told me already."

"And you're not going to let her make that call?"

Oz had loved Willow as dearly as he'd ever loved anyone - but during the months he'd wandered on his own, without money or shelter or any company but the wolf inside him, he had learned that love was no substitute for judgment. "No. Tell me."

Her fingers wrapped around his forearm, her grip Slayer- strong as she led him deeper into the museum gift shop. Most of the tourists were clumped around the cheaper items, the ones that would fit in their carry-on suitcases for the flight home, but they had a little privacy in the back, near the statuary. As a black figure of Horus stared malevolently at them, Faith said, "I wasn't there. I was still in prison then. So all I know is what they told me, okay?" 

Oz nodded. Deep in his stomach, he felt a strange, cold shiver that wouldn't quite go away.

"After Tara died - wait. I gotta go back farther than that." Faith was clearly concentrating, almost as if she were trying to remember the words verbatim. "Tara was killed. Murdered."

"A vampire?"

She shook her head. "Just some asshole with a gun."

A gun. Oz had imagined all of them dying in ways both unspeakable and baroque - and he'd forgotten to be scared of anything as ordinary as a gun. "Jesus. Did they catch the guy?"

"Willow caught him."

All of a sudden, Oz wanted the story to be over. He wanted to fill in the blanks for himself: Willow called the police, pointed her finger, held her head up high while the murderer was slapped in handcuffs and led off to jail. That was the way the story ought to end, right? But he knew better, and he had to keep listening.

Even though they were several feet from the nearest tourists, Faith lowered her voice when she continued. "The way Giles described it - it's like Willow gave into the darkness in the magic. Or it gave in to her. Oz, she went totally dark. She was calling on powers that you can't call on, ever. Apparently the whole world was in danger for a while there -"

"We've all done that," Oz said. Technically, he hadn't - he'd come near chomping several people, but he didn't have a near- apocalypse on his personal rap sheet. But most of the Sunnydale crew couldn't say the same. 

"The big-scale stuff - it's easier to get your head around." Faith's smile was both knowing and sad. "Me, I can deal with the fact that I was helping the Mayor. I don't like it, but it's there. Don't keep me up nights. But that guy I stabbed - the old guy - sometimes when I think about that - well, I'm not gonna think about that. We gotta focus."

Don't ask. Don't do it. "I'm guessing you brought that guy up for a reason."

"Yeah, I did." She took a deep breath. "When Willow caught up with the guy who killed Tara -"

"She killed him." Oz said it so he wouldn't have to hear it. It didn't actually make it much easier.

Faith nodded, but he could tell that wasn't all. How could that not be all? "First - first she skinned him alive."

Oz turned away from Faith and walked toward another part of the gift shop, moving blindly, not caring about what he was seeing or the Japanese shoppers he was mowing over. He didn't want anybody looking at him right now, didn't want to have to think of something to say.

Skinned him alive. Whenever Oz went through the change, his body felt like it was on fire, head to toe, every inch of him, and he'd always thought that must be what it felt like, to be skinned alive.

Slightly nauseated, Oz bent his head down and leaned over a counter of knickknacks. When did it get so hot in this place? And when did Willow -

--his Willow, with her animal crackers and her snuggly sweaters and her sweet smile -

--when did Willow become a person who could strip off a living person's skin? Because she hadn't been that person before. Oz was sure of that, if he was sure of anything. Big if.

"Heya!" He jerked his head up to see Willow standing in front of him, hands jammed in the pockets of her overalls, rocking back and forth just as though they were standing in the hallway of Sunnydale High. "So, you found William."

"William?" Bewildered, he followed her finger with his eyes as she pointed at a small blue figurine of a hippopotamus, decorated with lilies.

"William," she pronounced with pride. "He's the museum's mascot. I think he's kinda cute, don't you? I know they say that human perception changes, and we all see the world differently depending on the age we live in, but - if you ask me, even 4000 years ago, William was just plain cute."

She sounded just the same. But she wasn't the same.

"Oz? Are you okay?"

"I will be," he said. "I just -"

He lifted his face to hers, and her smile vanished in an instant. It wasn't magic, the way she understood him so completely and so instantly; it wasn't even their old romance still connecting them. Oz could tell that Willow had been frightened of this - and now it had come to pass. She recognized it because she'd been dreading it for so long.

"Faith told you." Willow's voice was barely even a whisper. "About Warren."

He didn't have to ask who Warren was. "Yeah. She did."

Before he could say or do anything else, Willow had turned from him and fled, shoving her way out of the gift shop. He heard a muttered curse behind him, and then Faith appeared at his elbow. "Shit. I gotta catch up with her."

"No," he said. "Let me do it."

"You fast enough?"

"I don't have to be fast."

It took him a while to find her - maybe around an hour, though Oz never stopped scanning the crowds and the hallways even long enough to glance at his watch.  When he circled through 19th-Century European Art for the second time, he saw her sitting on a bench, staring forlornly at a Degas ballerina, all in bronze except for the filmy skirt. Oz walked toward her slowly, giving her time to realize that he was coming. Willow's body tensed, but she didn't move as he sat beside her.

They were quiet together for a while, studying the graceful tilt of the ballerina's head, before Willow said, "How did you know I stayed in the museum?"

Oz shrugged. "You wouldn't leave Charlotte behind."  He knew that much about Willow; everything else might have changed, but not that.

 If Willow understood Oz's trust in her, she gave no sign. "Faith shouldn't have told you."

"She didn't want to. I made her."

"Since when can anybody make Faith do anything she doesn't want to do?"

This was such a good point that Oz decided not to argue it. "When you talked about that spell - I knew something was wrong. I just wanted to know what. That's all."

Willow's eyes were red - either she'd been crying or she had been fighting not to. Oz wanted to put his arm around her, but he didn't. Was it the years between them or what Faith had just told him in the gift shop?

A pack of German students crowded around them, laughing loudly, more interested in each other than the artwork. This effectively cut off all conversation about magic spells and murder for a couple minutes, but Oz decided that was a good thing. It would give him a chance to decide exactly what he wanted to say.

After the students had jostled past, Oz began: "I'm not going to tell you that I understand. I haven't been where you are. But you know where I have been."

"It's not the same thing."

"No. Still - it might let me understand."

"I don't want you to understand!" Willow was on her feet in an instant, hands clenched in fists. "I don't want to talk to you about it! I don't want you to know what it was like! I never wanted you to know at all! I just wanted one thing - one part of my life - not to have that, that - STAIN on it -"

"Wil -"

"Don't. Don't say it. Don't be all kind and sweet and Oz-like - not that you can help the Oz-like, because you're Oz, so semantically - but just don't, okay? Pretend it didn't happen."

Interesting, Oz thought. Not "pretend you don't know." Pretend it didn't happen.

He could pursue that later.

"Okay," Oz said. "Didn't happen. You okay?"

Clearly surprised by his sudden acquiescence, Willow hesitated, then nodded. "I'm okay. I'm better, anyway."

"You know what you need?"

Her mouth tilted upward into that shy smile he remembered so well, though it affected Oz differently now; he finally realized that he wasn't seeing the girl he used to love, but what remained of her in this Willow, the one who stood before him now. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. "Let me guess," she said. "Therapy?"

"Ze doctor, he haz a deeferent prescription," Oz said, in what he hoped was a vaguely Viennese accent. "Chocolate."

She laughed out loud, more from relief than from his joke, he thought. But it would do. "You know, I think you're onto something."

"Now ze patient, she vill come vif me to ze Museum Caf." Oz stood up beside her and offered her his elbow. Willow took it, but her arm linked awkwardly with his, as though they didn't quite fit any longer.

If he hadn't known about the skinned guy - Warren, that was the name - Oz realized that Willow would have taken more comfort in his presence and his jokes. But if he hadn't known, how could he have comforted her?

And why was he so sure that Willow was his responsibility again?

Oz had never deceived himself about his feelings for Willow; every girl he'd been with since then had been forced to shine through her shadow. But he'd never deceived himself that someday he and Willow would reunite. After all, he hadn't lost her to Xander, like he'd feared; he'd lost her to Tara. No questions like, "What's she got that I haven't got?" The answer was pretty obvious. Oz had accepted the inevitable and lived his life with fairly few regrets.

Then Willow walked into the Mercury Lounge and time started running backwards, putting Oz right back where he'd started.

Later, Oz decided as they started down the wide white stairs. I'm going to worry about this later, after we get Charlotte out of the book. And after I have some chocolate.

**

III.

Either Willow's ditched us all for good or she and Oz ran off and got married already, Faith figured. Whatever. I've got a kid to rescue.

She didn't seriously think that both Willow and Oz wouldn't come back - but she planned out her operations as though they wouldn't. It invigorated her thinking, made her focus. Even in a world where there were Slayers in just about every town, the spirit deep inside Faith still responded to the idea of being the lone warrior in the fight.

First, she canvassed the gift shop with a critical eye. The keychains and picture cubes faded away, as other items came into sharp relief in her mind. The letter openers could work as daggers; the molded handles would be uncomfortable to hold, but the blades looked plenty sharp. There were mock weapons, too, but Faith had a feeling they'd fall apart at the first blow.

Yeah, Faith thought with a grin. If this book gives me some shit, it's in some serious trouble.

More realistically, if Willow wasn't around to help with spells tonight, Faith would have to hide, steal the book and break out on her own. She could do that without killing anybody, but she was fairly sure she couldn't do it without fighting anybody.

So Faith kept going, heading down to the lowest level and pacing it out methodically - official exits, emergency exits and elevator shafts. The security cameras were worth noting, too; Faith had held her own in prison, but she had no intention of spending so much as one day more behind bars.

After she felt that she had a solid layout of the lowest level, she went back up to the main level and did it all over again. That brought her back through the Egyptian area, past the Temple of Dendur they'd studied before. As she walked up the temple steps, her bootheels clicking on the stone, Faith felt a shiver of what she'd sensed before - and now, without Willow or Oz or that ditz Charlotte around to distract her, she was able to let it sink in more deeply.

Magic, Faith thought. This place is filled with it. Like - not like a Hellmouth or anything, but still - it's everywhere.

Downstairs, she hadn't felt it that strongly, but maybe that made sense. The lower level was dedicated to lots of fancy clothes that had been popular back when Angel had a pulse. But this floor was where they kept the antiquities. She'd walked past statues from a dozen different civilizations dedicated to three times as many gods; stood to reason at least some of them might have been fashioned and used in the name of real spirits instead of fake ones.

This temple, for instance - it wasn't magical, in and of itself, but magic had been done there long ago. The traces were still there, for those who could feel them.

Faith shivered, not sure whether the extraordinary powers she could feel reverberating at the edges of her consciousness were good or evil. Most likely, they were power, pure and simple. The good or evil would come in how they were used.

Willow was so freakin' scared about using that Corporeus thing. About calling on the darkness inside her. Faith wasn't all that sympathetic; being a Slayer meant calling on that darkness every single damn time. Yeah, you could get lost in it - but you could come back again. Then you kept on going. Why add drama to the story?

Whatever, Faith thought. She just hoped Willow could compensate for the extraordinary powers flowing through this building. And that she would pull her nerve together long enough to use the best spell, whichever one it was. And that she and Oz hadn't eloped to Niagara Falls -

"Heya." Faith turned to see Willow standing behind her, waving somewhat sheepishly. Oz was next to her, looking totally relaxed. "Kinda ran off on you there."

"Kinda spilled the beans," Faith replied. "Sorry about that."

"I wish you hadn't." But Willow didn't seem angry. "But it's done, and it's not like it's not true, so, you know, let's just move on."

"Got it. Where the hell have you guys been?"

"Museum caf," Oz answered. "Very scary mass-produced brownies. Bad scene."

Willow nodded. "We had to go back for the apple danishes. To cleanse the palate."

"Sounds good," Faith said. "Maybe I'll steal one as soon as this place shuts down."

**

Instead, while the museum closed for the night, Faith spent a solid hour hiding in a women's bathroom.

"This is significantly nicer than the men's bathroom," Oz said, standing on the toilet tank. "Not that it's scary in there. It's nice. But these are still nicer."

"How much longer have we got to do this?"  Faith's boots were braced against one side of the toilet seat, opposite Willow's tennis shoes. She leaned her back against the avocado-green metal that enclosed the stall. A flimsy banner of toilet paper fluttered against her calf. "I can't read the instructions for the seat covers one more time."

"Not long." Willow's voice was distant. She was concentrating on the effects of her last spell, the ones only she could sense. "They're almost all asleep now. I'm almost positive."

"As soon as almost turns to totally, we're ditching this place." Faith shifted her weight against the metal side of the stall, bored and impatient.

"Let's run a test." Willow murmured something and flicked her hand at Oz, who instantly vanished. Faith blinked.

"Whoa," said Oz's disembodied voice. "Freaksome."

"It won't hold for long," Willow said. "Invisibility spells are usually pretty unstable. But that should give you a chance to get out there and see if the guards are asleep. All the security equipment ought to be shut down, too - so check the lights on the security cameras, okay?"

"You got it," Oz said. The top of the toilet tank clattered, and then there was the rubbery THUMP of shoe soles on tile as he jumped to the ground. "Full report coming up."

"Good luck." Faith felt weird saying it to thin air. Oz didn't answer, but the latch flipped over and the door opened. Footsteps made their way to the bathroom door, then past it. She gave Willow a look. "You don't warn a guy before you make him invisible?"

"It's Oz," Willow said, tugging her auburn hair back into a makeshift ponytail. "He deals with stranger things before 9 a.m. than most people do all day."

"That's gotta come in handy." Then, feeling as though she'd been snarky without reason - not an uncommon experience - Faith added, "Robin's the same way. It's a good thing, not having to explain stuff to him all the time."

That came out weird, Faith thought. That was like an invitation to bond or something. Please don't take me up on it, please, please -

"You and Robin, huh?" Willow raised an eyebrow. "I like him. A lot."

Fuck. "Thanks." Maybe she'd drop it right there -

"It's not like we didn't kinda figure out something was going on with you two." What was up with that coy little smile? Willow seemed to think she totally had something on Faith, which was nuts. So why did Faith feel like she was right? "You know, he went out with Buffy one time - not that they hit it off! Because they didn't. I mean, they like each other, but they didn't, you know, LIKE each other. In that way."

"I got that."

"When we found out about his mother, I thought maybe it was just some kind of Slayer thing - which I'm sure it wasn't. Isn't!" Willow's face crumpled up like a paper bag. "Oh, God, can't you stab me or shoot me or just stop me somehow?"

Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind, Rosenberg. "He's got a Slayer thing. I know it. I don't mind it. Works to my advantage."

But maybe she did mind, just a little. That ever-nagging suggestion that it wasn't her Robin was in love with - as much as what she was. Wasn't the same thing. Never would be.

"Hey, that's good. Thinking positive." Willow looked relieved, which she didn't deserve, not after that.

Before Faith could stop herself, she said, "So what's with you and Oz, huh? I thought you were on an all-tuna diet these days, but there you are - back on the beef."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just asking." Faith knew it was coming across as hostile - it was hostile - but she couldn't quite stop herself. "So, the answer to the question is that you're BI-sexual. Just so I know."

"I think - I'm not - maybe - I think I'm, like, homo-and- Oz-sexual. Maybe." Willow's cheeks flushed dark. "It's not always either/or, you know."

"I was in a women's prison for three years. Trust me, I know."

"Oh, my God - Faith -"

The drawn look on Willow's face pissed her off as badly as the talk about Robin had. "Nothing ever happened I didn't want to happen. I'm a Slayer, remember? So spare me the sympathy crap."

The door's squeaky hinges announced Oz an instant before he said, "Hey, guys? I think the coast is clear."

Without meeting Willow's eyes, Faith opened the cubicle door and jumped down. Oz, still slightly translucent but more or less back to normal, had the door propped open with his foot. "Cameras are down, guards are zonked. Good job, Willow."

"Right." Willow didn't seem to be able to focus. "That's great. Thanks."

"You okay?" Oz said.

"I'm fine," Willow said, all business once more. "Let's get this started. I'd like to get back to the hotel before room service stops." When Faith and Oz stared at her, she said, "What? An apple Danish isn't that much to go on."

"Nothing," Faith said. "This show's on the road."

"You know, we could just raid the snack bar." Oz shrugged, the hallway behind him still slightly visible through his fog-blue shirt. "As long as the night has a whole breaking-and-entering motif."

Willow was almost brusque as she headed to the door. "It's not necessary."

"Fuck that," Faith replied. "First we get snacks. THEN this show is on the road."

"Fine," Willow huffed. "Be that way."

She pushed her way past them both as she stalked into the museum. Oz glanced back at Faith. "What did I miss?"

Faith shrugged as she headed after Willow. "Your girl's tense, Wolf Boy. You gonna do something about it?"

Let Oz make something out of that, if he could.

**

IV.

Several apple Danishes and three pink lemonades later, they were headed back into action. The museum wasn't as dark as she'd feared it would be; some emergency lighting stayed on throughout the night, no doubt for the benefit of security cameras and the guards who were still sound asleep thanks to her spell. But some of the statues still cast forbidding shadows, and the sounds of their footsteps echoed altogether too loudly.

Willow breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the Icelandic exhibition's doors were wide open; although she had magic spells for virtually every circumstance under the sun, lock-picking generally still involved long minutes of jamming a bobby pin into a keyhole.

"You ready?" Oz said. His face was kind. Faith's was challenging. Both of them were hard to deal with, in a way.

"As I'll ever be." Willow hoped he'd take that as an answer - even though it wasn't, not exactly. "Let's go."

The Corporeus, she thought. It would be a sure thing. The Vivicus spell can't be, not even with the barrier spell - and Charlotte's got to be scared to death -

But even as Willow considered it, she could feel the deep trembling dark all around her. It vibrated in the shadows of the statues; it resonated with something inside herself forever attuned to that frequency.

No, she decided. There's got to be another way. Besides, Giles told me the Vivicus would do it. Why risk having everythinggo wrong again?

As if in reply, Oz moved closer to her, so that their shoulders almost touched. "Are we going to need to go invisible again on the way out?"

"Maybe. It might be a good idea, just in case there are extra cameras on the grounds." Willow tucked her hands in her pockets. "Why? Didn't you like it?"

"I liked it a lot, actually." Oz's grin was unexpectedly sly. "I might even pay you to let me try that out on Devon sometime."

She smiled back, though Oz's friendliness wasn't affecting her at all the same way anymore. Before, it had been welcome, even warming - now it almost frightened her.

Am I always going to be running away from everything? Willow wondered. Am I ever going to be running TO something?

("You're always worried about changing," Tara had said, as they sat on the beach one night beneath a crescent moon. "You worry about your hair and your clothes and your powers - and you never look at how amazing you already are."

"Complacency is death," Willow had said, mock-seriously, to make Tara smile.

Tara had smiled, sweet and shy, as she tucked a blonde lock of hair behind one ear. "I just want you to think about all the beautiful things you are," she'd whispered against Willow's cheek. The tickle had made Willow's toes curl in the fine sand. "Just once in a while."

"I like thinking about all the beautiful things you are," Willow had insisted, pushing Tara's shoulders down against their beach blanket to get her ready for an absolutely mind-blowing kiss -)

At least Tara had never known. She hadn't been there to learn what Willow had done to Warren -

--she hadn't been there to learn what Willow really was, the way all the others had, Xander and Buffy and Giles and Dawn and Faith and Oz, even Oz -

Willow closed her eyes tightly, leaning against a panel of display text as she tried to collect herself. She couldn't afford to start crying, not now. Some falling-apart time could be scheduled for later.

"And here we go," Faith said. She held up a small flashlight and shone the beam at the pages of the book. When Willow looked at her curiously, Faith shrugged. "I had a long time in the gift shop on my own today, remember? I figured I ought to buy something."

"Good thinking," Oz said. "Anything you need us to do, Willow?"

"Just be here." Willow breathed in, filling her lungs so that her ribs expanded, then blew out through her mouth. "And if I fall down? Catch me."

Oz smiled back. "We're on it."

They all looked down at the open book. Charlotte was huddled in a corner, one elbow resting on the page number; at the beam of light, she lifted her head, then smiled in a quick flash of carnelian-red ink. In thick Gothic print, letters appeared above her head: YAY!

As the letters absorbed back into the paper, Willow smiled and waved. "Almost over, okay?"

OKAY.

Barrier spell first. Willow held out her hands, flattening her palms, not unlike a mime inside his invisible box. She closed her eyes and let her sense of the museum's structure ripple through her. Deep currents of power flowed through the place - was that just the book? Probably so - but the outlines were still clear. She recited the barrier spell quickly, tongue tripping over the old language, and a jolt of electricity warmed her palms as it flashed in the room, bright enough to see even through her shut eyelids.

Wall, wall, wall, wall - yes. That had it. The perimeter of the Met was now sealed, ensuring that her spell couldn't go ricocheting throughout the entire island of Manhattan.

"She's still in the book," Faith said unnecessarily.

"Let's just be patient, okay?" Willow cracked her knuckles and held her hands out over the pages. Through her outspread fingers, she could see Charlotte's illustrated face, hopeful in the margins.

One more time, she considered the Corporeus. One more time, she rejected it. Better safe than sorry. She knew too much about bring sorry already.

Quickly, Willow recited the words to the Vivicus spell. No sooner had she finished the first line than a wind began to pick up, ruffling through her hair, unexpectedly cold. This was going to be a strong one, she realized - and so much the better. As she kept going, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped, and Oz was shivering next to her as an eerie green St. Elmo's Fire began to flicker above their heads.

"Is this normal?" Faith asked.

"How about we shut up and find out?" Oz said, which made Willow love him again for at least fifteen seconds. And then the wind got faster, and faster -

WHAM! The greenish fire sprayed out, lacing across the ceiling like so much static, crawling free of its own will along every surface. It tickled its way up Willow's legs, and Faith swatted it away from her arms. As the fire danced across the book's pages, Willow waited for it to center on Charlotte, spring her into three dimensions and set her free -

--which didn't happen.

The green light disappeared. Faith stepped closer, shining the flashlight's beam directly on Charlotte, as though they might have missed the magic somehow. Charlotte, still utterly two-dimensional, blinked as big cobalt tears began to appear on her cheeks again.

Oz said, "Houston, we have a problem."

"What happened?" Faith demanded, turning the beam on Willow as though to begin an interrogation.

"I don't know!" Sick with disappointment, Willow leaned against the wall and sighed. It seemed to her as though the tapestry on the far wall was looking at her accusingly. "It felt like it took."

"Looked like it too," Oz said. "But we still have a cartoon instead of a girl."

Faith bounced on her heels, clearly impatient for action. "Maybe you just gotta try it again."

"But I cast the spell. If I cast it again without understanding what I did - that's a bad idea, okay? Just give me a second."

During the silence that followed, Willow once again felt as though the knitted tapestry on the far wall disapproved of her - as though it were her fault. Stupid hawk, she thought. Or osprey, or puffin, or whatever you are.

It blinked once, then kept staring.

Willow froze, willing herself not to have seen what she'd just seen. Then one of the wooden totems in the corner shifted on its feet - just a little bit, but enough.

Her voice came out as a squeak. "Uh, guys?"

"What's wrong?" Oz said, leaning closer.

She stretched out her arms so that she could clasp both Faith and Oz's hands. "Let's just - take a little stroll, okay?"

Faith rolled her eyes. "You can't want another Danish already. Take another stab at the spell, will ya?"

"After the stroll. We're walking. We're walking." Willow edged them both into the hallway, then hissed, "Serious, serious problem!"

Instantly, they both went completely still. A few years in Sunnydale instilled a rock-hard belief in the phrase "serious problem."

Willow continued, "I think - when I cast the Vivicus spell - it didn't work on the book."

"Yeah, the whole part where Charlotte didn't jump out again kinda drove that home," Faith said, folding her arms.

Oz, on the other hand, looked even more serious. "What did it work on?"

"Some of the other stuff in the room. I don't know everything, but there was definitely that big hawk on the wall -"

"I thought it was an osprey," Oz said.

"Who gives a fuck?" Faith's attitude had taken a hike; she was on alert again, in Slayer mode. "Whatever it is, it's about thirty feet long and it eats meat. Not good."

"There was an idol too," Willow said. "Oh, God, I wish I could remember everything in that exhibit?"

"Do you hear something?" Oz tilted his head. "Like - a Gregorian chant, maybe?"

"It's your wolf ears." Willow tried to get him to focus. "Charlotte's probably safe in there - nothing would attack a book, and it's part of the exhibit - but that doesn't change the fact that it's going to be harder to get her out."

"When you use the Corporeus," Faith said firmly.

Before Willow could object - though she wasn't even sure she wanted to - Oz said, "I'm really sure I hear chanting."

Then Willow heard, not chanting, but a metallic thunk, thunk, thunk, right behind them. She whirled around to see the Degas ballerina, heavy in her bronze, skipping along the wallway. Her filmy tutu bobbed up and down as she went.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this, but -" Faith took a deep breath. "Please tell me that was some kinda elf."

Willow's voice was small. "No elf."

A shimmering sound around the other corner made them all whirl - just in time to duck as a silver shape flew by, fluttering long, aquiline, metal wings. Willow's long-ago art history course helpfully supplied the name Brancusi as she watched it dip and soar over the ballerina's head, on its way.

Oz was the first to speak. "I hate to say this, but none of that explains the chanting. Which is still going on, incidentally."

"The barrier spell." Willow felt faint. "I just put it around the walls of the museum. Not in the room - oh, God, why didn't I just do the room?"

"This is not a great time to be asking that question." Faith gripped the flashlight, as though she wanted to bash something's head in with it. Probably Willow's.

"So this went through the whole museum?" Oz blinked. "That means that - all the statues -"

"-and the tapestries," Faith added.

"-and the paintings," Oz said.

"-and the hundred jillion mummies -" Faith's eyes went wide.

Willow finished for them. "Are all affected. I think - I think the entire museum - it's alive."

**

I.

If I'd actually meant to do this, Willow thought, it might be kind of cool.

They were backing down the hallway, none of them speaking, each of them staring at the chaos Willow had wrought. As they eased away from the special exhibit into the medieval area, Willow's eyes kept darting to the tapestries, where unicorns leaped past maidens, whose exclamations of surprise in Latin scrolled from their mouths upon banners. A collection of stained glass windows were all moving slowly, shifting the colors of light that flowed through them: saints giving blessings, the Virgin Mary cuddling the baby Jesus close. Nearby, a giant carved wooden altarpiece chanted the music Oz had been hearing earlier.

"You know," Faith said, "if you just leave it like this, the Met's gonna make a million bucks."

"Not if the artwork escapes," Oz pointed out.  "Which is pretty much the only thing that could make the New York subway system weirder."

"One look at the subway and they'll come running home," Faith said; a wooden statue of a bishop shushed her, and she stared up at him.

"That's two," Willow said.

Oz gave her an odd look. "Two what?"

"Two of the artworks that have noticed us." Willow was pretty sure this distinction was key. "The hawk-osprey thing in the Icelandic exhibit was definitely upset with us. And now that bishop thinks we should be quiet in his church." The bishop raised a carved eyebrow; the ivory paint on his forehead flaked slightly.

"You're right." Oz looked around the medieval gallery slowly, nodding as he took in the scene. "All this stuff - it can see us and hear us. But mostly it doesn't care that we're here."

"So what if they do care?" Faith said, just before they turned the corner. Everyone froze, and Faith added, "Okay. Glad they don't care."

Before them lay the Arms and Armaments exhibit. Various suits of armor were wandering around, brandishing swords and battle axes at one another, oblivious to the fact that no soldiers were inside them. The armor for horses was trotting around the perimeter, scarlet plumes on its helmet dancing. Within one of the display cases, a gauntlet was rapping insistently on the glass, obviously eager to break free and -

--and what? Willow thought, a little hysterically. Grab stuff?  Wave?

Faith stepped slightly in front of the others. "I think we can all agree that, no matter what we manage to do from here, tomorrow morning, the museum staff is going to be able to tell something happened. Am I right?"

"Agreed," Oz said. Willow could do no more than nod. 

"Not to clean," Faith said. "Right. I'm gonna get armed."

Willow felt as though she and Oz were just drifting in Faith's wake as they made their way through Arms and Armaments. Already, she realized, the various suits of armor were unhappy with each other: The German, Italian and Japanese suits had all separated into their separate corners, holding their flags up, darting glances at each other beneath eyeless visors.

With one clean punch, Faith shattered the glass of a display case full of swords. One of the hilts writhed and hissed at her, making Willow jump; it had been carved in the shape of a snake.

"Plain hilts," Faith muttered, then smiled. "How about some hunting swords?" She grabbed up two of them; the handles weren't plain - one shone in mother of pearl, and the other was some kind of pink stone - but they wouldn't bite.

"Great," Oz said. "Can we find a place to sit down and plan where nothing's - you know - alive?"

"I'm not sure there's anyplace like that left in the museum," Willow said dully. She thought: Barrier spell. Giles mentioned the barrier spell. Repeatedly. He couldn't have thrown in, oh, the need to make the box for that barrier spell about ten by ten?

Faith just grinned. Obviously, her initial disquiet had faded; now she was a Slayer again, going into battle. Willow felt reassured by that, but knew the reassurance for a lie.

She can't take care of this for me, Willow thought. No matter how good she is. Oz can't do it either. It's all going to be up to me - and I don't want it to be up to me - it was up to me last time, and look what I --

"I tell ya what," Faith said. "Let's go ahead and rule out Ancient Egypt."

"Mummies," Oz said. No elaboration was needed.

"-and just start looking around for something medium quiet, okay? There was, like, a furniture area, right? What's furniture gonna do? Trip us?"

"Moving ottomans are dangerous," Oz offered. "Just ask Dick Van Dyke."

"The furniture area sounds good," Willow said. Anyplace she could get her head together sounded like a good place to be. "Let's move."

They backed out of Arms and Armaments, Faith looking almost disappointed as she held her swords in front of her, only to be roundly ignored by the ghostly soldiers all around. A golden dragon atop a samurai helmet bared its fangs at them, but that was all.

"Sculpture garden," Willow murmured as they went through another archway. Dozens of marble nudes were all around of them, some of them ducking and attempting to cover themselves. The gods and goddess portrayed seemed a bit more confident. "Aphrodite. What a show-off."

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Faith, with a scowl that suggested she'd never studied Greek mythology or seen "Clash of the Titans."

"Nothing." Even Oz's brief touch on her shoulder couldn't calm Willow completely. Then she shrieked as a heavy shape whooshed overhead. "What was that?"

The heavy golden thing flapped its wings; each quill of each feather clanked against the others. Oz squinted up at it. "Federalist eagle."

As its eyes gleamed down at them, Faith said, "First rule: Let's give birds of prey a miss."

They went toward the outer sculpture garden, where a 19th-century version of a Native American scout stalked around the tile floor, pausing every few steps to strike a dramatic pose, hand over his eyes as if trying to spy an enemy approaching across far plains.

"If I'm remembering my Edith Hamilton," Oz said, "it would be a good idea not to look to the left. Diana in her bath."

Willow heard the splashing and averted her eyes. "Very good idea. And this place isn't nearly not-alive enough for me."

"I think the furniture was over that way," Faith said, pointing toward a Tiffany-glass window where lily pads bobbed on a softly flowing cobalt stream. As they hurried in that direction, Willow realized that Faith was right; they turned a corner to see a hallway full of lamps and jewelry.

Oz half-glanced over his shoulder, then said, "Jackpot."

When Willow looked in that direction, her first reaction was anything but enthusiasm. A statue of something not quite human stood there, its angular sandstone face squinting at them with an expression that might have been delight or distaste. In sandstone it was hard to tell. But then she realized that the statue - the plaque on the wall nearby read "Sprite" - stood at the doorway to what looked like an ordinary living room, complete with chairs, couches and lamps. "Definitely," she said, taking Oz's hand and tugging him behind her.

Faith followed them into the room. As they passed, the Sprite followed them with her eyes, but she gave no other reaction. "Sweet," Faith said. "This is actually kinda nice."

"Should be," Oz said. "Apparently this room's by Frank Lloyd Wright."

A screech behind them made Willow jump, and they all whirled to see one of the Federalist eagles swooping toward the door. To Willow's astonishment, the Sprite held up her hand and shouted "Stop!"

The eagle stopped. It sank to the ground and turned its head to the side - just as if it were posing for the head of a coin. Then it shuffled sideways, back toward the sculpture garden.

"The hell was that?" Faith said.

The Sprite half-turned and said, "The eagle is NOT period."

"The interior decorator as security guard," Oz said. "I can go for that."

Willow sank down into one of the chairs and curled up in a ball. Now that she was still and - more or less - safe, she ought to be able to think. To concentrate. To understand how best to get them out of this mess, and rescue Charlotte, all without having to do the Corporeus-

But she couldn't think. She couldn't concentrate. She could only see one more mess with her name written all over it.

"Hey, Wil?" Oz stepped to her side. "You okay?"

"No," she said miserably, and lowered her head down onto her knees.

She'd deal with it. She'd deal with all of it.

Later.

**

II.

Okay, Faith thought, Willow's on the ropes. And we're on our own.

She kneeled on the "window" seat - which, in this case, looked out on the sculpture garden. A few more artworks were wandering around now, getting more and more mixed up, further and further from where they needed to be.

Oz sidled up beside her, hands in his jean pockets. "This is definitely more exciting than my last trip to the Met."

"This IS my last trip to the Met," Faith replied. Maybe she could do all that other artsy crap people did in England, but she'd just have to tell Robin that museums were out of the question.

"Willow's kinda taking a break."

"I kinda noticed." Faith glanced at Willow behind them, huddled in a chair and shivering. You'd think having serious magic mojo would help somebody cope in a crisis, not make it worse. Then again, you might think that about being a Slayer, too, and you'd be wrong.

As though he'd read her mind, Oz continued, "So I was wondering what the Slayer instincts were saying about this situation."

"They're telling me to go out there and slay some stuff." Faith looked longingly at the two swords crossed on the window seat beside her. "That's pretty much the Slayer instinct's answer for most problems."

"I'm not sure you can slay any of it."

"You don't think I can take out a statue of a lady with a sheet draped over her?"

Oz shrugged. "You know how they say great art is immortal."

In the corner, a statue of a Japanese woman fluttered its fan; even this room was still partly alive. All in all, though, Faith thought she would take it over the freakshow that was developing in the rest of the museum. "So what are we supposed to do here? Hang out until morning, when a busload of tourists gets the shock of their lives?"

"We're supposed to wait until Willow's ready to deal with this." Oz's voice was steely - more so than she'd ever heard from him before.

But Faith just lifted her chin as she said, "That could be a while. Like, a lot longer than morning."

If Willow was listening to them, she gave no sign.

RING!

The sound made both Faith and Oz jump - but it was just the telephone in the corner. At least, Faith figured it was a telephone, though she'd never seen one like it in real life before, just in old reruns.

"Should we answer it?" Oz said.

"Why not?" Faith hopped off the window seat and went to the phone, mostly to have something to do. Let's see, she thought, you hold the little trumpety thing to your ear and talk into the top, right? "Hello?"

"Hello there! Rosemary? Is Richard in? There's the most appalling news from Germany. You won't believe what the Kaiser's done. This means war, I tell you."

"War with Germany?" Faith tried to think of anything that had happened in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall and came up blank. She hadn't looked up Germany at all.

"I say - this is Rosemary, isn't it?"

"Nope. You got a wrong number, pal."

"Won't these operators ever learn? We've had lines up for two years now, and still this nonsense -" The caller, speaking mostly to himself now, hung up.

"War with Germany?" Oz repeated.

Willow jerked upright; apparently she'd been listening more closely than Faith thought. "Wait a second. When was this room built - or furnished, or whatever it is?"

Oz went to the small sign near the door. "1914. So - you think - that call -"

"Was from the year 1914," Willow finished. But as quickly as she'd brightened, she seemed to get depressed again. "Not that this does us any good at all."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Faith held up her hands, smiling as the connection clicked into place. Something she'd read in a book was actually going to be important. What were the odds? "Could you call, like, anyplace you wanted in 1914?"

"I don't know about transatlantic," Willow said doubtfully. "But in the United States - yeah, I guess you could call anyplace that had a phone."

Faith didn't know the number she needed - but in the old reruns, when people used phones like this, they didn't need numbers. She clicked the receiver down, then lifted it again and said, "Operator?"

"Your connection?" said a static-thick voice from the year 1914.

She took a deep breath. "I need to reach a man in Washington D.C. His name's Jeremy Kelvin."

"Hold, please!" the voice chirped. This was a lot nicer than having James Earl Jones boom at you, Faith thought.

Both Willow and Oz were staring at her, completely perplexed. It was Oz who asked, "What are we doing here?"

"See, I just got done with killing this demon in D.C. Big ugly thing with wings that had been tearing up the place every ten years since 1814, a demon called Tei'hior." Faith had studied notes from every person who had caught up with Tei'hior in that time - or died trying. Before her, only one person had been successful at all. "Tei'hior used to be seriously deadly, but in 1914, he got his wings broken. Couldn't fly after that, so he didn't do as much damage. And the guy who broke Tei'hior's wings was a Watcher named -"

The phone rang, then rang again. Faith finished, "Jeremy Kelvin."

"Ah, yes? I heard my name - thought that was my half of the conversation -"

Faith straightened up. "This is Jeremy Kelvin? The Watcher?"

"Good Lord." The guy on the other end - Jeremy Kelvin himself, almost 100 years after he kicked the bucket - seemed way too surprised that somebody knew he was a Watcher. "Are you - is this - I thought the Council had decided against using any of the modern technologies until the risks of magical manipulation had been fully -"

"Until you got dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century," Faith said.  "The Council never changes." Until they all got killed, anyway, but there didn't seem to be any point in telling Kelvin that.

"If you're not with the Council - if you don't mind my asking - how the devil do you know -" His voice shifted into a stage whisper that was almost louder than his regular speaking voice. "-I'm a Watcher?"

"Well, see - I'm a Slayer. Faith the Vampire Slayer. That's me."

"Ah-hah." Kelvin didn't sound impressed. "Then how is it that my records show the current Slayer is Dorleta Nkomo of Rhodesia?"

"I ain't the Slayer now. I'm a Slayer that's going to be." Faith crossed her fingers for luck and said, "I'm calling you from the future."

Either he's about to hang up the phone, she thought, or -

"How extraordinary!" Kelvin breathed. "The future? What - may I ask, what year --?"

"2004. Ninety years on. I could prove it to you, but let's face it. We don't have that kinda time."

"But this is marvelous. Truly marvelous! To be able to use modern inventions to reach the future - or, in your case the past - it's unbelievable. Only imagine what wonders the phonograph may portend!"

Willow whispered, "How's he handling it?"

Faith put her hand over the receiver and said, "Take Wesley when we first met him, add sugar and caffeine, then shake up the can before opening, and you've got this guy."

Kelvin bubbled on. "Have you reached anyone else in the past? It's not in any Council records - but perhaps it couldn't be -"

"Hey, listen, this is amazing and everything, but I actually have a problem I could use some Watcher help on. You game?"

"Beg pardon?"

Gotta try to talk without slang, Faith thought. That's gonna be tough. "I mean, will you help me?"

"Of course. It is every Watcher's duty to aid the Slayer - even if she is a Slayer yet to be." She could almost see Kelvin's chest swelling with pride, and had to resist a smile. "But why is your own Watcher not assisting you?"

"Well, see, at the moment my friends and I - this witch and this werewolf -"

"My WORD."

"-right now, we're kinda trapped." As quickly as she could, Faith summarized the situation with the museum, Charlotte, the Icelandic book and the spell that had brought everything to life. She kept looking over at Willow, hoping that she'd correct her if any of it was wrong, but apparently she got it all right.

Kelvin, amazingly, appeared to have followed the explanation. "You have gotten yourselves into a muddle. I can't think why your witch friend didn't simply use a Corporeus-"

"Yeah, the Corporeus is real popular," Faith said, shooting Willow a dark glance. Willow turned away and balled up in the chair again. Oz went to her side, and Faith groaned. They were definitely back to two against one. "Listen, what's done is done. Now we just have to undo all of this. And get Charlotte out. And maybe fix it so the statues and paintings and stuff all end back the way they ought to be? If that's possible."

"I should be able to devise some solutions for you," Kelvin said. "But I'm afraid I'll need to do some research."

"What, a Watcher wants to look some stuff up in books? Color me shocked."

"What has color to do with it? Your speech patterns are so intriguing."

"Sorry," Faith said. "Yeah, research would probably be helpful right around now. I guess I can call you back from here. I don't think you could call us."

"Probably not. Shall we say - two hours? I shall work as quickly as possible."

For a moment, Faith wished she could give Jeremy Kelvin ten minutes with Google. He'd probably be in heaven. "Two hours works. Hey, the night is still young, right?"

"That's the spirit. Well - until later - good luck!" Despite his obvious reluctance to end the time-traveling miracle that had come over his phone line, Kelvin hung up to start his research.

"Help is on the way," Faith said. "Or lots and lots of academic stuff is on the way, and it might be helpful. Couldn't hurt. But what are we supposed to do for two hours?"

"We wait," Oz said. His eyes were on Willow - who was still wan and forlorn, her spirit clearly a million miles away.

Faith wanted to argue with him - but what could she say. Mostly she just wanted to bitch-slap Willow out of the coma she'd put herself.

But then, comas didn't necessarily work that way. Faith had good reason to know.

Sighing, she went back to the window seat and tried not to look too long at her swords as they sat there useless. Outside the class panel, she watched three statues of bears gambol and play in the ivy, as a Federalist eagle circled overhead.

**

III.

Oz had never been able to stand the sight of Willow in pain. Years had passed since they'd broken up, but the sight hadn't gotten any easier to take.

But the days when animal crackers could fix this were gone.

He pulled a chair up beside hers - or tried to, anyway, before the chair scooted across the floor, back to its original place. The Sprite leaned through the doorway. "All the furniture in the Frank Lloyd Wright room has been placed for maximum efficiency and harmony!" she sing-songed, her cheer doing nothing to disguise her annoyance. "Everything in this room remains precisely as Mr. Wright designed it."

"No rearranging," Oz said. "Got it." Very, very slowly, the Sprite turned around and resumed her place in the hall.

Instead, Oz sat cross-legged on the floor at Willow's feet. Unsure if it was too much, but following his instincts, he hooked one finger into the denim leg of her overalls.

The move won him a small smile. "I'm glad we got the Watcher," Willow said. "That was a really good idea."

From her place on the window seat, Faith merely shrugged; she was giving Oz the space to do his thing.

"Yeah, it was," Oz said. "But we're okay as long as we've got you."

He meant for it to give her confidence; instead, she blanched, her freckles suddenly dark against her skin. "Oh, Oz, no. Let's just listen to what Mr. Kelvin comes up with and do that, okay? Don't put it on me."

Oz didn't argue with her; it wasn't what she wanted or needed. But that left the question: What did she want? "When are you going to start trusting your magic again?"

It was a real question, not a rhetorical one, and he was glad to see that she treated it as such - though her answer surprised him. "Well - after this - I was thinking, kinda, maybe never."

He raised his eyebrows. "Huh."

"I wanted to see if I could get into M.I.T. again. They took me once, so, you know, maybe it's possible, even with all the gaps in my record. And I could study the stuff I used to love - that I still do love, but just don't pay any attention to, because the magic just gets in the way. The stuff I learned from Jenny Calendar - instead of, well, the stuff I learned from Jenny Calendar."

"You'd be in Boston." Oz couldn't keep himself from speaking aloud his very first reaction to that news: "The Dingoes play a lot of gigs in Boston."

Willow tilted her head, her red hair falling across her cheek. "I know. That's not why I'd be going - I didn't even know about the band, when I first thought of it - but, you know, that would be nice. Wouldn't it?"

Yeah, he wanted to say. It would.

But Oz knew that, in some sense, Willow was trying to turn back time. It was scary how badly he wanted to help her do just that. In the end, though, turning back time didn't work; he'd found that out the hard way, when he drove back to Sunnydale in his van only to discover Willow in love with Tara.

"I want you to do what's best for you," Oz said carefully. "But I always thought magic was part of that."

Willow glanced away from him. "That's because you weren't there."

He thought again about "Warren," whoever the hell he'd been. How was it possible to simultaneously hate the way someone had died and yet be so, so glad he was dead?

"There's nothing left that connects me to California," Willow continued. "I mean, Sunnydale's just a hole in the ground now, which is not so homey.  The girl I was seeing - well, I'm not seeing her anymore, and I'm not going to be. I have to start over someplace and somehow. Why not at M.I.T., studying computers?" Her eyes dropped, so bashful it made his heart turn over. "And why not with -"

Then she sat bolt upright, energized for the first time since she'd cast the Vivicus spell. Startled, Oz said, "What is it?"

"The history of computing." Willow made her flappy hands of excitement for about five seconds before she stopped herself. "Oz, that phone was connected to the year 1914, right?"

It was Faith who answered. "Yeah, it was."

"That means the computers - they're all connected to the years they come from too, aren't they?"

Oz shrugged. "Should be."

"What are you up to?" Faith said. "What, you want to send an e-mail to 1975, tell your parents to invest in Microsoft?"

"No," Willow said, then paused. "Actually, if we had more time, that wouldn't be a bad idea. But we don't have a lot of time, so we should probably only do the most important thing."

"Which is - what?" Faith left the window seat to walk toward them.

"I have a message to send." And why wasn't Willow telling them what? But it would be better not to push.

"Fuck, NO." In an instant Faith had bounded across the room to their side; her face was so angry that Oz was relieved she hadn't brought the swords with her. Apparently not pushing wasn't Faith's style. "Wil, have you not learned anything about not screwing with death? Or did B have to get punted out of heaven for nothing?"

And there's another story I don't know, Oz thought. But he filed it away for later.

Willow's cheeks burned hot, but she stood up and faced Faith. Oz got up too, so the whole conversation wouldn't be taking place feet above his head. "I'm not going to tell anybody anything they don't genuinely need to know."

"So you're just gonna jack the whole timeline, and you think this is going to turn out okay?" Faith was unconvinced.

Oz hated to say it, but it was important. "I have to agree." When Willow stared at him, with those wounded puppy eyes that bowled him over, he added, "I've spent too much time watching the Sci-Fi Channel not to know that this stuff doesn't turn out well."

"Nothing's going to change. Not in some major historical way." Willow demanded.

"Who's to say we'll even be standing here?" Faith demanded.

To this, Willow simply folded her arms. "Explain to me how that's a bad thing."

Faith opened her mouth, then shut it again. This was clearly Willow's strongest ground.

Oz had his own suspicions about what Willow was up to - but he knew the best thing to do. "We should give it a shot," he said.

Both Faith and Willow looked at him, confused by what had to look to them like a reversal. He stood his ground.

"You mean it?" Willow said at last. "You'll come upstairs with me?"

Oz cast a doubtful look at the scene past the "window," where a marble archer was trying to shoot down one of the eagles. "I'll try, anyway."

"You sure this is a good idea?" Faith crossed her arms.

"No," Oz said. "But there's only one way to find out." Only one way for Willow to find out, he meant - but it would go against his purpose to say so aloud.

"Thanks." When Willow laced her fingers into his, Oz had to remind himself that this was all about a lesson, and a lesson that was as much for him as it was for her. It would be easy to forget that while he was holding her hand.

"Whatever." Faith went back for the swords and then marched back to their side. "Let's get this over with, okay? Assuming we don't throw the entire time-stream or whatever the fuck you call it out of whack and end up on the Planet of the Apes -"

"I doubt that," Oz interjected.

She ignored this. "-let's just get it done within two hours, okay? Because if all else fails - and you might've noticed that it usually does - Kelvin's going to be waiting by his phone, and the guy would be disappointed if it didn't ring."

"I'm ready," Willow replied, though Oz though she suddenly seemed much less certain about that.

**

IV.

The Burghers of Calais twisted their robes mournfully as Willow tiptoed past. Faith led the way, a hunting sword in each hand; Oz followed just behind. Although the Museum was by now wholly surreal - an Egyptian statue was walking at the far end of the corridor, striking poses with every step as if he were in a Bangles video - Willow tried to stay focused on her next task, which was surely the most important she'd attempted in the last several years: composing  an e-mail.

Tara, hey. It's Willow. Not the Willow who's with you now, not NOW now, unless I'm there or something and I guess I might be -

Okay, scratch that.

This e-mail is from the future. DON'T STOP READING. I know you and how you get, and just trust me that you need to read this, except you probably already stopped, didn't you?

Maybe she should send it anonymously? Willow tried to remember her old e-mail accounts and passwords, wondering if there were any Tara hadn't known and used.

This message comes from someone who loves you. In May of 2002, you will be shot -

No. Too scary.

You will be attacked by someone who intends to hurt you or your friends. It is vitally important that you -

That Tara what? That she never go to Buffy's house?

"Great," Faith muttered as they reached the stairwell. "Did I ever mention I hate abstract art?"

A sculpture that was half-wire, half-metal plate, wheeled toward them; a few free spirals spun, as if in irritation, before it continued on its way downstairs. Oz said, "I think it hates you back."

"Let's just get upstairs," Willow said, starting up so that the others would have to follow. "I want to get this done."

"What's on the second floor besides this computer thing?" Faith said.

Oz pulled his battered map of the museum from the back pocket of his jeans. "Let's see. Nineteenth-century art - so, lots of water lilies and haystacks."

Faith grinned. "Think we can handle haystacks?"

"I want to say yes, but honestly?" Oz raised an eyebrow. "Let's not give irony any openings here."

"This is a good point," Willow said. Faith considered this, then nodded.

Still studying the map as they reached the second floor, Oz continued, "And there's also this Assyrian exhibit - don't know what's up with that -"

"Oh!"  Willow stopped short, remembering her interest in that exhibit from earlier in the afternoon - which seemed like a thousand years ago. "They have demons up here."

"Demons?" Faith cocked her head, and Willow didn't think she was imagining the renewed gleam of interest in her eyes.

"Not demon demons - well, maybe they are now, but -" Willow shook her head and tried to be clear. "I read that they had some statues up here that used to be in the palace of the King of Assyria. The demons were supposed to repel the Jinn." At Faith's blank stare, Willow added, "You know. The Jinn? You know what a genie is, right?"

"Barbara Eden?" Faith said.

Oz said, "Yes, but evil."

Faith frowned. "She wasn't?"

"The point is," Willow said, "those are protective spirits. They can ward off danger, if they're asked."

Down the hallway, she could see a banner for the History of Computing exhibit; a vintage Apple logo showed its rainbow stripes even through the gloom. The machines were that close; she could send the e-mail in ten minutes. Five, if she ran it.

But then how would she know what to say?

"What are we doing here?" Faith said, glancing down the stairwell at samurai armor that seemed to be studying them. "Because let's make up our mind."

The people who are here come first, Willow decided. "Let's talk to these spirits. Ask them for their help. If we could be sure that we were going to be safe, we'd be a lot more free to move. And, hey, they're magical, 4000-year-old beings, right? Maybe they know how to fix this mess, or a spell to get Charlotte out. Or maybe they can do it themselves."

Oz gave her a look, as though that wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. But Faith nodded.  "You got it. Lead the way."

It was actually Oz who guided them, with the help of the map. Upstairs, the museum was slightly quieter - no doubt because of the greater percentage of paintings, who only seemed to be able to move within her frames. Of course, some of that was rather lively; Willow paused for a couple of moments to watch a couple of glass-green-skinned dancers by Toulouse-Lautrec do a vigorous can-can. But it made for easier traveling, and Willow thought perhaps the most intimidating moments of the journey were behind them.

Then they reached the Assyrian exhibit.

The Metropolitan staff had recreated the temple it self - not freestanding, like the Temple of Dendur, but it was easy to believe you were within the ancient structure when you were surrounded by stone walls. Faint carvings of soldiers marched endlessly by, in lockstep, never quite going forward. And standing on either side of a narrower hallway --

Faith said, "I don't like sayin' this, but those are the biggest fuckin' demons I've ever seen."

"Right there with you," Willow replied. The protective demons were enormous beasts, perhaps 15 feet tall. They had the heads of men, with tightly curled hair and beards and flat eyes without pupils that nonetheless appeared to be focused directly upon them. Their bodies were those of lions - 6-inch-claws were clearly carved from the sandstone - and they had wings that if spread wide would certainly be vast.

Oz leaned nearer to her. "Maybe I could have pointed this out before, but I don't think any of us speaks Assyrian. Unless Faith's got some angles I don't know about."

"They're magical," Willow said. "Probably they'll understand. There are some ancient incantations I could try if I have to." She studied the massive creatures and their regal bearing, then added, "We're here to ask them for a favor, so let's start acting like it."

She lowered her head and crept closer to the demons, then went down on her knees. With the demons studying her so intently, Willow didn't dare glance behind her to see if Oz and Faith had followed suit, but she thought probably they had.

"Hey. Hi." That wasn't a very regal beginning. "We come seeking your help and protection."

The demons' reply wasn't something Willow heard, but felt - a powerful sweeping through her mind, a ripple that made the hair on her arms stand on end. Their question rose up, wordless yet undeniable.

"Yes, I cast the spell that brought the museum to life. It was an accident." Willow couldn't tell if the demons were happy or unhappy about that, but she figured it was wise to tell the truth regardless.

Another question half-formed in her thoughts, forcing her to find the words to frame it. This one disquieted her more.

Quietly, she said, "I possess that much power."

Faith whispered, "What, are they talking to you?"

One of the vast wings flickered, stone feathers rumblings. Between her teeth, Willow said, "Yes, and they don't like being interrupted." Faith shut up.

This time, there was no mistaking the demons' anger - no, Willow thought, it was more like annoyance, though anger wasn't far behind.

"I haven't cast it because it's dangerous," Willow said. She hadn't realized the Corporeus was old enough for the Assyrians to know it; they used a different name, but she could understand. "You have to realize that."

Memories flickered up within her, as though they were photographs the demons had chosen to leaf through. Willow shivered as she relived the most powerful moments of her life: finding Angel's soul and sending it home, delving into every single Potential on earth and making her a Slayer, , reaching into Buffy's grave and reconstructing her into something of flesh and life once more -

--and Warren. Flayed and bloody, screaming out his last pain. And then the darkness that followed, the destruction that welled up and bled out of her as if through a thousand cuts, the wish to end the entire world rather than live in it without Tara, with only the cold, hard knowledge of what she really was -

--and then Manaus, the rising water and the screams and the mud, Kennedy clinging to a tree limb while Willow grabbed for a roof and wondered how everything could have gone so horribly wrong --

Willow gasped as the demons let go of her. She expected condemnation, but felt none; still, the tears began to slide down her cheeks.

This time, she understood not a question, but an answer, hard and final.

"No," she pleaded. "No, I can't. I can't handle this myself. Haven't you seen that? Yes, I have the power to do it - but that's WHY it's dangerous! Don't you get it?"

It's not the magic I don't trust, she thought to them. It's me.

It hit them like a tidal wave - vibrations that shuddered through the air so strongly that Willow fell back, sprawling, upon the floor. "What the hell?" Faith said. "Did you piss them off or something?"

The air above them flickered, gold-red and hazy. "Yeah," Willow said. "I did."

Because it wasn't curiosity or annoyance Willow felt now. It was contempt.

They wanted her to leave, and she realized too late that they weren't even going to give her the opportunity to go on her own -

WHAM! The energy wave struck them again, harder than before, sliding them all out of the Assyrian exhibit, into the hallway, tumbling over and over. Willow managed to cover her head with her arms, but she could hear Oz yelp and Faith curse. A sharp clang of metal on the stairs meant that one of the swords was already falling back down to the first floor.

"Shit," Faith said. "Let's get out of here."

"Wait -" Willow glanced over her shoulder, back at the fluttering sign for the History of Computing exhibit. She could tell that the demons wanted them to leave --  but if she left, that e-mail to Tara would go forever unsent. If she didn't, though, Oz and Faith might be in danger.

Oz sat up, studying her carefully. "You have to decide," he said. "We're right there. And you can say whatever you want to say."

The tears welled up in her eyes again as she realized the surest way to save Tara - which was the worst thing she could do. "No," she replied. "That's the only thing I can't say."

Oh, Tara, she thought. Tara, I'm so sorry.

Willow forced out the words, "We're done here - "

But she spoke too late.

WHAM! The next wave of energy was even more powerful than the last, blowing through the museum like a gale-force wind. Paintings swung back and forth on the walls, jostling the people inside so that they tried to brace themselves. Willow nearly skidded down the hall, but Faith got one hand on the stairway banister and clutched Willow's arm with the other. "I got you," Faith yelled over the sudden roaring. "And Oz -"

Oz was trying to grab onto the other side of the banister - but, to Willow's horror, he was slipping. And the wind only got stronger, and stronger -

Willow screamed as he lost his balance at last and began tumbling down the long stairs like a broken doll. "Oz!"

**

I.

At the moment, Oz was not having a very good relationship with gravity.

He could hear Willow crying out over the roar of the wind or the magic or whatever it was those demon guys were spewing. But he didn't have that much time to worry about her; he was way too busy trying to brace himself, elbows and knees , ow and OW, as he tumbled down the stairs.

Not good at all - but -

With a thump that seemed to make his skull vibrate, Oz landed at the foot of the stairs. Sick and dizzy, he could still tell that nothing seemed to be broken. Yeah, a lot of things HURT, but everything still seemed to be moving, feeling and open for business.

"Oz!" Willow called again. "Are you okay?"

The first time he tried to answer, he realized the breath had been knocked out of him. Oz managed to pull in a deep, painful gasp, then choked out, "I'm all right!" This was hyperbole but, under the circumstances, probably a good idea.

Then he opened his eyes and saw the knight standing at his feet.

Oz sighed. "Oh, boy."

The knight cocked his head - more precisely, his empty helmet - as if studying Oz and asking, Friend or foe? Oz managed to stop grimacing and smile. Smiling was friendly, right?

With a heavy whoosh of metal through air, the knight brought his battle axe up to his shoulders. Maybe not so friendly, then.

Quickly Oz started scrambling backward, trying to put as much distance as possible between Oz parts and the axe. That's funny, he thought in a daze even as the knight's metal boots clanked closer, you wouldn't think you could move backwards on all fours this fast, but it turns out you can if you -

WHOOSH! Oz rolled over fast, just in time to avoid getting chopped in two. The axe smashed into the stone-tiled floor, sending chips and dust clattering in every direction. Coughing, Oz got to his feet to run for it, but then a gauntlet punched into his chest, robbing him of the little breath he had.

With a retch, Oz went down hard on his knees. The knight was picking up the axe again, and through his distress Oz had the distinct sense this wasn't good -

"Hey, Tin Man!" Faith's voice rang out. "Catch this!"

He looked up even as the knight did to see Faith sliding down the banister on her feet, as if surfing, her ponytail fluttering like a banner behind her; in an instant she was in midair, leg smashing into the suit of armor. Pieces of metal flew everywhere - helmet here, vambrace there, hundreds of bits of metal that all still seemed to be trying to move, but weren't nearly as scary on their own.

Landing in a crouch, Faith grinned. "That wasn't too hard."

"Kick the crazy metal warriors," Oz gasped. "Just kick them. I'm going to remember that for next time."

The rubbery thump of tennis shoes on the stairs made him look up to see Willow, face stricken, as she ran to his side. "Oz! Are you okay?"

"'Okay' might be an exaggeration. But it's nothing major." He flexed his neck and back and arms, hoping he was telling the truth. A stripe of heat against his cheek made him touch his fingers to it; they came away bloody. The stairs? A shard from the axe-shattered floor? No telling. It didn't feel deep enough to matter, anyway.

"I'm so sorry," Willow said, touching his elbow; earlier in the day, he would have enjoyed that touch, but now it kinda hurt. "I never should have taken us up there."

"You had to go," Oz answered gently. "You know that, right?"

If she hadn't understood before that he had a reason for wanting her to face sending the e-mail - and that he'd known exactly what she was going to do all along -- he could tell by her eyes that she did now. "Yeah, I know."

One of the gauntlets flopped toward Faith, as if still trying to reach her to do battle. She smirked at it, saying, "Gosh, I know I've faced down vampires and demons and lived to tell the story, but I wonder if I can survive a GLOVE?"

The gauntlet tilted back onto its wrist and then extended its middle finger.

"That thing flipped me off!" Faith looked astounded.

Oz shrugged. "You know, that gesture goes a lot further back in history than you might suspect."

Faith kicked the gauntlet in its palm, sending it flying until it smacked into the side of a totem pole - a totem pole that Oz was almost entirely certain hadn't been there before. Five wildly painted faces all whirled around as one, their eyes wide, and the grimacing man in the middle waggled his tongue at them. "Oh, that's just creepy," Willow said.

Then the totem pole began whirling toward them, its eight wooden fists all clenching and the hawk's beak at the top snapping at them. Oz vaguely thought that it was a hell of a lot faster than he'd ever have suspected and holy shit that thing was getting close and maybe Faith could -

"Prester Spiraculum!" Willow shouted, and a bolt of violet energy radiated from her palm, turning into a kind of cyclone that wrapped itself around the totem pole. Oz could see the hawk's beak snapping even faster, but the totem pole was now held in place.

"That's what I'm talking about," Faith said. "There's your mojo."

"We'll talk about it later," Willow replied, as if she almost couldn't believe her own response. Once it would have been natural to her, Oz knew; maybe it would be again. Then again, maybe he could think about all that later.

The feeling was beginning to return to Oz's extremities, which would have been better news if the feeling in question hadn't been pain. "Could we do some lying down right around now? Because I could go for that."

"Frank Lloyd Wright room," Willow said, steering him down the hall. "We're moving."

"How come that armor attacked us?" Faith glanced backwards at the scraps of metal; the gauntlet was now feebly shaking its fist as they moved away. "And the totem pole? Nothing else seems to be giving us a hard time." And indeed, as they wandered through a hallway of Roman busts, the white marble heads never paused from their conversations in Latin even to notice them - though Oz thought Caligula tossed his curls.

Willow kept them moving as they went back through the sculpture garden, peering up uneasily at the Federalist eagles - which, for the time being, seemed content to watch them from their perches. "Oz almost fell into the armor -"

"I should point out that was an accident," he said heavily.

"-and maybe the armor thought it was an attack. Then you kicked the gauntlet into the totem pole, so that might have seemed hostile too." Willow finished, "But as long as we leave the art alone, it leaves us alone."

Oz said, "I will never be interested in art again. I swear."

"I never was to start with," answered Faith, which was not exactly in the running for the most surprising thing Oz had ever heard.

At the entryway into the Frank Lloyd Wright room, the Sprite stared at them - specifically, she frowned at Oz and the small cut on his cheek. "Blood red is not an acceptable color for dcor in this room," she said, her smile stony.

"I'm not going to bleed on anything," he promised. "But I need to sit. The room's supposed to be designed for living in, right?"

Now the Sprite seemed less interested in the true purpose of the room than she had before, but she gestured them in with one angular, Art Deco hand.

He made his way to one of the couches and flopped down. Who knew it could feel so good just to breathe?

"We couldn't be having worse luck." Faith muttered, letting the hunting swords drop to the floor with a THUNK that startled the tiny Japanese statuette.

"It could be a full moon," Oz said tiredly.

"I take it back."

Willow sat beside him on the sofa, taking a bandanna from her pocket and dabbing gently at his cheek. "You sure you're okay?"

"I could actually lie down for a couple seconds." The fact that they were staying up and going without sleep was the least of their problems - but exhaustion plus injury seemed to add up to an inability to keep your eyes open, Oz thought. "How about you?"

"I'm good," Willow said. "Better. You get that, right?"

She understood why they'd gone upstairs after all. Oz smiled at her. Maybe something would happen with him and Willow after this, and maybe it wouldn't. That didn't seem to matter that much anymore, compared to the knowledge that he'd been able to give her something. It felt like keeping a promise, though Oz couldn't say what promise it was, or when it had been made. "Yeah. I get it."

"How long do we have before we call Kelvin?" Willow asked.

Faith checked her watch, a battered plastic thing that obviously had belonged to her a lot longer than her still-crisp Gap clothing. "About an hour."

"An hour-long nap sounds great." Oz stretched out on the couch, wondering if the adrenalin still coursing through him would keep him from falling asleep.

His eyelids shut, and the world swam away in blackness, and he only had time to think: Guess not.

**

II.

"Told you there was still some mojo going on," Faith said from the window seat.

Willow tried not to snap back at her. "I said I didn't want to talk about that."

"Yeah, see how I'm totally ignoring you? Sometimes I'm just crazy like that."

The first response that came to mind was that Faith was crazy in many, many different ways, and no one person could ever be expected to narrow them all down. But saying it aloud would take the friction between them to a new level. With Oz lying bloodied and exhausted on the couch, not to mention a museum full of animate and cantankerous art outside, Willow figured the night had enough stress. "Yes. I cast a spell."

"A powerful spell," Faith said, examining the hilt of one of her borrowed swords. "I can tell that stuff, you know."

"Go ahead and say it."

Faith accepted the invitation, leaning forward to rest her forearms on her widespread knees. "A dark spell."

The taste of it was still in her mouth, acrid and strong, like cheap, over-boiled coffee. "The totem pole had - has - its own magic. Could you feel that, too?"

"I could tell something was going on." Faith's cocked head made her ponytail tilt to one side, an absurdly schoolgirlish look that might have made Willow smile, in less frantic circumstances.

"That was powerful magic. Ancestral magic. No other spell would ward it off."

"I'm not sayin' you shouldn't have used the spell," Faith replied. "In fact, that's the exact opposite of what I mean."

Here it comes, Willow thought.

"If you could do that spell - how come you can't do the Corporeus and get Charlotte the hell out of there?"

"There might be another way," Willow said quickly. "If I hadn't cast the barrier spell so broadly, the Vivicus spell might have worked in the first place. And who knows what Kelvin's going to say? He might come up with something that's -"

"Not the Corporeus," Faith interjected. "Which we know would work."

Willow ran one hand through her hair, which was damp with sweat. How had she forgotten just how heavy and warm overalls were? She'd given them up for a reason. Although she loathed every second of this conversation, maybe it would be better to just get it out there. "I used the Corporeus, not that long ago. And it - it didn't go well."

"What do you mean?"

Manaus had been a little port town - just another place for her and Kennedy to wander and spend days kissing in the sun. When they'd discovered the locals were being tormented by tribal spirits, and that their local witch was believed trapped in the river, Willow had wanted to help. She'd just wanted to help. If the Corporeus had gone well, it would all have been so easy ---

--but instead, it had awakened the spirit that dwelled deep within the river, a spirit far older than the witch, one angry about ships and dams and pollution. And it had bought back.

Willow and Kennedy had both survived the flood. They were two of the lucky ones. Kennedy said it wasn't Willow's fault, and she refused to talk about it ever again, even to think about it again.

Dead bodies and mud and heat and stink and mosquitoes - it all welled up again in her memory, and Willow forced herself to push it aside. She wouldn't tell Faith this story. This, at least, remained her own.

"If you use a dark spell when you have another choice -  Faith, the dark spells are easier, usually. They feel better, if that makes sense. And you get used to that feeling and how easy it is. You can even get addicted to it. And then all the other magic gets poisoned, somehow."

"I understand that." Faith's voice was quiet, but in it Willow could hear echoes of so much of their past: the Mayor, the body-switching spell, all the Slayer magic that Willow had ever sensed at a distance - but that flowed through Faith every second, every heartbeat, like her blood. "But that power, it's like - I'm not good at explaining this stuff -"

Although Willow's first instinct was to tell her to skip the explanation, she couldn't bring herself to say it; Faith was trying so hard to help. "Just give it a shot."

"You gotta find the balance, you know? Robin and I, we were talking about this one time. He was asking me about the darkness in a Slayer, and how you fought it. But you don't fight it - well. Maybe B does. But me, I just have to find a way to use it without letting it take over."

Willow had heard versions of this from virtually everyone in her life, from Tara to Giles to Greta. "I think it's better not to use it at all, if you can avoid it."

"What, you think if you ignore it, the darkness is gonna go away?" Faith laughed, not kindly. "Thought you were smarter than that. Face it, Willow - fighting the darkness isn't about winning, because you will never, ever win. But you don't have to lose, either. It's about learning to put up a fight every day. That's all."

Willow swallowed hard. Everything Faith had said - others had said it, or at least come close. But none of them had ever descended into the darkness the way Faith had; none of them had that same strange mixture of weariness and even humor in their voices when they spoke this not-so-simple truth. That was what made it okay to say, "Sometimes I don't think I can do it every day. Sometimes I don't think I can do it anymore at all."

"No way. The witch who turned every single Potential on planet earth into a Slayer? You can do it." Faith hesitated, the expression on her face like someone who'd sniffed milk gone bad. "Hey, you get that I'm just telling it straight, right? Because I don't say stuff just to be nice. Especially not when there's a zillion works of art on the loose."

"Weirdly enough, I did get that." Willow smiled. "Faith, the magic that transformed the Potentials - that wasn't me. Not exactly me, anyway. It was something that chose me."

Faith just shrugged. "Okay, maybe so. But I figure it chose you for a reason. And if the Whatever From High Atop The Thing trusts you, maybe you oughta just trust yourself."

"I have some pretty good reasons not to trust myself," Willow replied. But as she spoke, she remembered not the things she'd done wrong, but the journey she and Faith and Oz had taken upstairs.  She'd been hell-bent on sending that e-mail to Tara when they began - on turning it all back, if she could. But that would have been the worst mistake she could have made - and she hadn't made it.

More than that: Oz had known she wouldn't.

Trust was what had brought her back from the depths of her madness before; as long as Willow lived, she would remember the way Xander had looked when he'd told her that he loved her mere moments before she would have destroyed the world. Oz's trust was a smaller gesture, offered in the face of her fear and not her insanity - and yet, somehow, it almost touched her more. Oz had seen what she needed at a time when it was hard to see.

And for the first time, her warmth toward him felt less like the past remembered and more like something that belonged in the here and now. Maybe, just maybe, even in the future.

Outside the window, a suit of Samurai armor wandered past the frolicking bears, shaking his dragon-headed helmet as if in disdain. A carved medieval angel, perhaps escaped from an altarpiece, flapped stiff, gilded wings as it swooped above it all, sending a light dusting of glittery flakes down upon the bears.  For a moment, Willow wondered if maybe she should go to an entirely different university and major in art restoration, just to make up for the sheer amount of damage to history she'd done that night.

Faith said quietly, "If you could handle the power that went through you when you changed the Potentials - you can handle this."

"I want us to talk to Kelvin first," Willow said, though already she had begun to understand what he would say - and what she would do. Then she studied Faith for a few minutes, admiring her profile against the gray-green of the window glass. The moment of attraction she'd felt to Faith earlier welled up again, softer and warmer than before - more pleasant for the surety that she wouldn't act upon it. Whatever else she did tonight, and afterward, Willow felt that she didn't need to run away anymore - not from anything, and not to Faith.  "So let's call him."

"We've still got a while," Faith said doubtfully.

"He's a Watcher. He might not have all the answers yet - but there's no way he doesn't have a theory." The joke made Faith smile.

Then Willow glanced down at Oz, who was sprawled in unconsciousness across the elegant couch. No matter what else had gone wrong in her life, Oz was definitely, absolutely, still on her side.

**

III.

"Kelvin here."

"Hey. Slayer from the future here." Faith had to grin at the sharp intake of breath she heard on the other side of the line; obviously, even for a guy who spent his life dealing with the supernatural, getting a call from 90 years in the future was still a thrill. "Guess our bridge through time's still working. What did you dig up?"

"Believe it or not, it appears there's precedent for your extraordinary situation."

Faith hesitated. "And that means - what, exactly?"

"I mean, it has happened before, though not since antiquity. The Bernardine Codex suggests that the library of Alexandria was not in fact burnt by the Romans, but had to be destroyed after a Vivicus spell gone wrong brought several of the, ah, less savory characters of myth and mythology to life. The Romans were rather cunningly framed by Cleopatra - I admit, I'd scanned this before and thought it merely colorful storytelling, but your friend's accident seems to have confirmed the account."

One time Faith had seen an old movie on TV about Cleopatra with Liz Taylor in it. Mostly she remembered that there was some serious eyeliner action going on; certainly none of it seemed to have anything to do with what was going on. "Okay, the big problem with that story? It ends with a whole lot of books getting burned. And we kinda have a girl IN one of the books right now."

"I wasn't advocating setting the place afire," Kelvin said in a rush. "Dear me, no. Such a waste of knowledge - the wisdom and artwork of the ancients - truly, it might be nearly as tragic as the destruction of Alexandria itself -"

"Right, got it, but if we're not setting it on fire, what are we doing?"

A heavy thump and papery fluttering suggested that Kelvin was struggling to balance both a large book and the unwieldy, old-fashioned telephone. Though, Faith figured, it was like a Verizon cellular to him. "You see, in the Codex, many scholars gave their opinions of what might have been done to save the library instead. There are literally dozens of theories here, of varying degrees of complexity and fancifulness, written by some of the finest Watchers in history. Theroux, Earnshaw, Nilsson -"

"Spare me the hall of fame, okay? Which one of these dozens of theories looks like it might work?"

This finally seemed to snap through Kelvin's old-book high; all business, he replied, "I believe Earnshaw points us in the correct direction.  He is one of the few who realized that the reversal of the Vivicus spell is really the least of the difficulties -"

"Easy for him to say!"

"Well. Perhaps. But you see - there are many spells that will de-animate the artwork. What's far more difficult is restoring it all to its original form, as I'm sure you'd prefer to do."

Clean or not to clean? Faith thought. Somehow it always comes down to this. "What's most important is getting Charlotte out of the book. This stuff - yeah, it's priceless and famous and all that cra - junk, but it's just paintings and statues. We have an actual person in trouble here."

Kelvin's enthusiasm remained brilliant. "I assure you, I've not lost sight of that. But her release from the book should be the final step in your efforts - otherwise, you've merely taken her from one difficult situation into another, do you see?"

"Right." Personally, Faith thought that Charlotte deserved some time in difficult situations, seeing as how this was all her fault to begin with. But whatever the man said. "So what do we do?"

"Your friend should cast the Abel-Ra-Tehman, an Egyptian spell that was once used in the mummification process. It's centered upon preservation, normally quite narrowly focused - but if she can cast it on a broader scale, it should not only de-animate the art but send it all back to original locations and postures."

Faith lowered the phone for a moment and stage- whispered to Willow, who knelt by the sleeping Oz: "Hey, do you know a spell called Abel-Ra-Tehman?"

"Yeah, sure." Willow's brows knit together in a frown. "But why - oh. Oh! Hey, that's brilliant!"

Smiling, Faith returned to Kelvin. "She's all over that like white on rice."

It seemed to take Kelvin a few moments to process this. "Right. Well. Very good. So, upon casting the Abel-Ra-Tehman, she'll need to wait a few minutes for the spell to take full effect. To cleanse the surrounding energy, you might say."

"And let the art go back to its frames or stands or whatever."

"Precisely." The approval in Kelvin's voice was so warm that it made Faith remember what it had been like to have a Watcher - one that was yours, not somebody else's, and always had your back. In a way, it reminded her of the way she felt when she was with Robin. "Afterward, your witch friend has two possible options. First, she could try to cast a much more narrow barrier spell and recast the Vivicus. This has obvious drawbacks -"

"Yeah," Faith said, watching the sculpture garden, where a Federalist eagle dive down and snatch up a stone bear cub in its claws.

"-but nonetheless, with the proper precautions, she might fare better this time."

"Monty, what's behind door number two?" She grimaced. "I mean, what's the other option?"

"The name is Jeremy," he said kindly. "The other option is a rather powerful spell called the Corporeus In Integrum Restiture -"

"I don't think that's what she wanted to hear," Faith replied. Willow glanced back over her shoulder, obviously understanding what Kelvin had suggested - though Faith could no longer read her reaction.

Kelvin sighed. "It's not a spell that just any witch can cast, certainly. One might call it a 'spell of last resort.' But it would certainly extract your friend Charlotte from the Icelandic galdrabok."

"I guess we'll leave it up to her," Faith said.

"Sometimes that's best." The pause that followed indicated both that they'd reached the end of their conversation - and that Kelvin was reluctant to hang up. In a lifetime filled with the strange and surreal, Faith realized, Kelvin had never had anything quite this strange happen to him before. That was kind of cool.

"How long have you been a Watcher?" she asked.

"Oh, me? All my life, in a sense - but I only began field work, ah, sixteen months ago."

Newbie. "You're gonna do great," Faith said softly. "Can't give you specifics, Prime Directive and all, but ninety years later, I knew who to call."

She could practically hear Kelvin standing up straighter and puffing out his chest. "Well. Splendid. That's good to know. Is there anything that I can tell you? Any scrap of past history that could illuminate the future?"

He meant some kind of lost scroll or something, Faith figured, but she decided to go a different way with it. "About Watchers - you guys, you're all sort of into Slayers, right? I mean, you like them. A lot."

"What do you mean? Oh. You mean - good heavens. If you're suggesting that - that anything improper -"

"I got it. You're pure as the driven snow." Faith didn't know why people said that, since nothing was less pure than snow somebody had driven over, but whatever. Robin wasn't technically a Watcher, at least not yet, but she got the sense that the mindset was the same. "Still, there's a fascination there. With all things Slayerish."

"Naturally. Why else would one become a Watcher?"

Seemed like a whole lot of statuary was wandering into the garden now - Greek marbles and Egyptian animals and a bunch of stuff Faith couldn't begin to identify. Probably it was time they got going. But she couldn't quite drop the subject yet. "Does caring so much about Slayers keep from caring about one Slayer? Just as a person?"

She could hear the smile in Kelvin's voice. "Of course not. Miss Jennings - Sylvia - the Potential I serve -- she is a dear girl, and she will always be, even if she is never Chosen. Her potential to be the Slayer is why I serve her, but - if you will understand that I mean nothing indelicate by this - it is not the reason I love her. Does that answer your question?"

"Yeah. It does." Faith grinned. "We're out of here. Thanks again for the help, Kelvin."

"Thank you for the remarkable experience. I shall be sure to write it up for our next conference."

"Stop it. You're getting me excited." In the pause that followed, which could have been either horror or pure bewilderment, Faith laughed. "Hey. Have a really great life." Then she hung up.

"Oz?" Willow was shaking his shoulder now, clearly understanding Faith's intent. "The art is getting restless. We should probably get started. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, wincing as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position. "It'll do."

Faith picked up her hunting swords - all right, the museum's hunting swords - and gave them each a twirl that let her check their weight. She knew she was smiling like a crazy woman and didn't care. "Let's get moving, okay?" she said. All she could think was: London, here I come.

**

IV.

Willow wondered if Oz would let her drape one of his arms around her shoulders; two steps out of the Frank Lloyd Wright room, and he did it himself, without even asking. "You don't look good," she murmured, as the Sprite looked at them darkly. "If you're not up to walking around, you can just stay in the room. Faith and I could come back for you after we get Charlotte."

"Nah. I'm gonna feel better when we get this all over with, not until." Oz squinted at something past Willow's shoulder - she glanced over and saw the Burghers of Calais, all of them shuffling behind, their black, angular faces glinting in the dim security lighting. "Is it just me, or is the art paying a lot more attention to us now?"

"It ain't just you." Faith kept her swords at her sides, as though she were walking into battle. "This stuff barely knew we were here at first. But now it's all - staring at us."

Willow realized she'd been too preoccupied with Oz's condition to notice before, but in fact nearly everything in the museum seemed to be paying rapt attention to them. Paintings on the walls all stared, eyes following the three of them as they walked back into the heart of the museum. The totem pole that had unnerved her before stood in the main hallway, carved wooden faces slowly turning with them as they went. A flash of silver overhead was the Brancusi bird, circling them like a vulture. "Okay. This is getting creepy."

"It's actually been creepy for a while," Oz said. "But yeah, it's worse."

"Almost over," Willow said, perhaps as much to the art as to her friends. For her own part, though, she was beginning to feel more at ease than she had in a while - at least since the Vivicus spell went wrong, and maybe a lot further back than that. She didn't yet know which spell she would cast after the art had been put back in its correct places - the Vivicus or the Corporeus -- but she no longer felt as though she wouldn't know what to do when the moment came.

When had everything settled back into place? Willow wished she had a better answer than what appeared to be the truth: the moment Oz had fallen downstairs.

Tomorrow morning, when all four of them were safely out of the Met, maybe she could explain to him why.

They turned the corner to go back through Arms and Armaments on their way to the Icelandic exhibition. Standing there were two dozen suits of armor, all shining, all standing at attention. The small nationalist conflicts Willow had noticed earlier in the evening seemed to have vanished; the ghostly soldiers were all in formation now. United -

--against a common enemy.

At the side of the armor's ranks, a marble Perseus held out the gorgon's head. Before, Willow had thought the statues were only striking their familiar poses; now, she realized, he really thought the Medusa would freeze them dead.

As metal scraped against stone behind them, Faith said, "Do you think the totem pole ratted us out?"

"Possibly," Willow said, eyes darting over to the Burghers of Calais, who were now blocking one of the exits.

Faith brought her swords up slowly, obviously trying not to make any sudden moves. "Do you think they've figured out they're not alive?"

"I think they've figured out they are alive," Oz said. "And they'd like to stay that way."

"So I'm guessing this would be a real good time for an Egyptian spell," Faith said. "You ready with that, Willow?"

"I need a quiet space," Willow said. It was true - soundlessness was a key element of the spell.

All the armor took a step forward, metal creaking and clanking, echoing throughout the hallway.

Oz frowned. "None of this sounds good."

"The Frank Lloyd Wright room," Willow said. "We're going back. We can do it there - and we should have to start with." It had seemed more convenient to get to Charlotte in the galdrabok and take care of everything at once - but then, she hadn't realized that the art was angry. Who thought about art getting angry? Jackson Pollock, maybe, but besides that?

"You guys lead the way," Faith said quietly. "I'll take the back."

Willow took Oz's arm in her hand and starting steering him back the way they'd come. As they went they passed the display cases full of weapons once more - and somehow, all the metal edges appeared just a teeny bit sharper. "Have you guys set up, you know, some kind of Slayer signal?" Willow said. "Where you can call other Slayers to come and help you in times of need?"

"Like a fuckin' spotlight with a bat on it? No." Faith was staring up intently at one of the Federalist eagles, which was staring back. That thing's wingspan had to be ten feet across. "Tell ya what, I'll bring it up at the next Slayer knitting circle."

"Great plan," Oz said, and as one they all quickened their pace, then again, until they were jogging through the museum. The art, unfortunately, quickened its pace too - statues clattered after them, and the armor marched in perfect lockstep.

"Thank God for interior decorating," Willow said as they approached the door of the Frank Lloyd Wright room - but just as they drew close, the Sprite swiveled on her chunky base to block the door.

"What are you doing?" Faith said.

Oz pointed at one of the Italian battle flags. "They're gonna bring red in here. You don't want that, do you?"

"I've been here for decades," the Sprite replied.

Willow thought this wasn't exactly an answer, but she decided to go with it. "Wow. That must be fun, huh? Let's all go inside the room and talk about it."

The Sprite didn't budge. "Children ignore me. Teenagers pose so that it looks as if I'm making rude gestures behind their heads. I don't do that. I wouldn't do that. It's not aesthetic."

"Yeah, you're way too polite for that." Faith held both her swords out in a defensive posture. "Which is why I know you're gonna invite us in that room any second now."

"They take flash pictures. Every day. Every hour. Somebody takes out a camera and uses a flash." The Sprite's stone face twisted into a terrible etching of rage. "Even though there is NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!"

All three of them stared at her.

She collected herself and smirked once more. "You get tired of hearing it every day. You would think people would learn. About the flash photography."

"Every job has its down side," Willow agreed.  This didn't seem to calm the Sprite at all; at any rate, she didn't budge.

"Great," Oz muttered. "We've run into statuary's Norma Rae."

"We should really get in that Wright Brothers room," Faith said.

Another glance up at the Sprite convinced Willow that wasn't going to happen. "We're going to have to get to the Icelandic exhibit. I think that's our best shot."

The Sprite leaned forward, her eyes narrower than ever. "The special exhibits are only open during designated hours."

Oz suggested, "We could just steal the Icelandic book. Run out of here with it."

"If you'd had that idea four hours ago, we would be happier people right now," Willow said. "As it is -"

The soldiers all moved as one, shouldering their weapons with a crash of metal on metal that made them all jump.

Willow decided their next instructions should be simple, basic and to the point: "Run."

**

I.

Every once in a while, Faith remembered how cool it was to hang around with people who all had superpowers to match your own.

No sooner had she leaped forward to confront the Samurai soldier closest to them than Willow shouted "Saepiro!" A glittering curtain of energy descended around the troops, holding all the soldiers in - at least, for the moment. A marble Cupid making its ungainly way through the air fired a stone arrow at Oz, but he sprang to one side with energy and flexibility that were at least part wolf.

"Iceland," she said. "Let's roll."

They all started running, none of them obviously looking out for anyone but themselves - but they stayed close enough, Faith thought, to back each other up if something serious went down. Already her blood was humming with battle energy, making it more pleasure than pain when one of the knights struggled free of Willow's magical bonds and swung a mace at her. Faith ducked and spun, bringing her hunting swords crashing into the armor. Trunk and legs disconnected, flopping about on the floor wildly as she kept going.

Dismemberment without blood, Faith thought, scrambling around a corner as they tried to get into the antiquities. That's my idea of a good time.

Then a marble hand slammed into her gut, burning the world black behind her eyes for the long second it too her to gasp in another breath. Not such a good time.

Faith dropped and rolled before looking up to see who or what had punched her; Willow or Giles would probably know the name, but all she could tell was that it was a fuckin' enormous guy with snakes wrapped around his legs. Behind him, another statue, that guy with the helmet she'd seen before, held out the carved, severed head of the woman with snakes for hair. "That guy really thinks her head is gonna creep us out," Faith said, lunging up at the one who had attacked her with her swords. He recoiled, but not far enough.

"Wait a second," Oz said, darting into her line of vision to grab the stone head away from the statue - who gaped and stared at his empty hand, as though he couldn't believe he was even able to let go of it. Oz was clearly staggered by its weight, but he turned it around to face the other statues -

--which all froze, back to stone, in an instant.

"Of course!" Willow said. "The gorgon's head - it doesn't work on humans, but it does on the art!"

"Not for long," Faith guessed, looking at the curls of her attackers beard, which were still swaying slightly. "Take that with, okay, Oz?"

"Try and make me let go."

**

Willow let Oz take the rear, so he could freeze and re- freeze the statues as they got closer to the exhibition. The Medusa-head solution wasn't foolproof - it only worked on statues, and not on suits of armor, totem poles or - duck - Federalist eagles. But what Oz couldn't do with Medusa, she could do with magic.

"Tendicula Funis!" Bottle-green arcs laced around the armored boots, tripping some of the soldiers and making them stumble. This slowed them up - but, as the disconnected bits of armor kept coming after them, slowly reassembling, it wasn't a long-term solution.

But then the scrollwork and banners that announced the Icelandic exhibition were right in front of them, and Willow breathed in deeply. "Get the Medusa ready," Willow said. "No idea if it's going to work on the tapestry or not -"

"The osprey thing," Oz said, sounding no more excited than she felt. "Let's find out."

Faith reached the doors first; when a carved walrus heaved its bulk toward them, Faith lunged out and chopped its head off, sending splinters everywhere. Willow had to jump to keep the tusks from driving through her feet. "Faith!"

"This Egyptian spell's supposed to fix everything, right? I say we destroy some art."

"Go upstairs and see if you can get Van Gogh's other ear while you're at it," Willow said, hurrying through the winding exhibit as they got closer to it -

The tapestry on the wall snapped its beak at them but, to Willow's relief, couldn't move from its frame. Oz still held the Medusa head up experimentally, to no effect. "Work fast," he said. "That frame looks like it's been shaken loose."

"The Abel-Ra-Tehman doesn't go fast," Willow said as they reached the book. "It requires some concentration, no matter what your skill level, and so - oh, no, NOW what?"

The galdrabok that had snatched Charlotte into its depths still sat in the display case, but its pages were flipping wildly, in one direction and then in another, as if someone were furiously leafing through it in a search for information. She, Faith and Oz all skidded up beside it to see Charlotte's animated form, running in the margins, looking for all the world like a cartoon flip-book. It was Faith who spoke first: "What is she running from?"

"There," Oz pointed, his gesturing drawing Willow's eyes to a flash of carnelian red. With a shock, she realized that a dragon as big as her palm - in other words, three times Charlotte's current size - was pursuing Charlotte through the pages.

"The dragon - it's an illustration." Guilt lashed at her again, thicker than before. "All this time we've been figuring out what to do, and Charlotte's been in danger -"

"Not anymore," Faith said. She gave Willow an odd sort of a smile as she handed Oz one of her two hunting swords. "Listen, I don't care which spell you cast in the end, okay? But whatever you do, get it right."

"Of course - but why -"

Willow's words broke off as Faith deliberately set her hand on the book. The air shivered again, hot and cold, trembling against Willow's forehead and cheeks. Faith's ponytail fluttered in the breeze, but she made no move to try and pull her hand away. Once more, the gilding on the pages began glowing, gold and pink light blazing out to make the museum as bright as day.

Oz said, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Faith laughed, staring down at the pages and the tiny Charlotte-illustration who was gaping up at her. "Are we ever?"

Then the cyclone of light swirled out from the page again, surrounding Faith, enveloping her -

--and she was a blur in black and white, standing in the margins with Charlotte as the dragon crept closer. Silver paint glinted off the tiny sword in her hand.

Faith trusts me, Willow thought. Oz trusts me. There's only one person left to vote.

"Now," she said, and began drawing into herself the energy for the Abel-Ra-Tehman.

**

The first thing Faith noticed about being two-dimensional was that she couldn't breathe. The second thing she noticed was that she didn't have to, which, all things considered, was a relief.

LOOK OUT! Faith couldn't hear Charlotte's words, but she could read them, even upside down. Hovering at the fringes of her sight - seeing was strange now, different and yet not unmanageable - was a shape in brilliant red that could only be the dragon.

FUCK. The word appeared above Faith's head as soon as she'd thought it. An illustration of some guy with a halo on his head and an ox at his feet frowned and shook his finger at her.

The dragon seemed to be able to clamber over the words, but when Faith tried to push through a few letters to get to him, she couldn't budge them.

Above Charlotte, Faith read the words THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS ARE STRONGER. Probably the girl had figured that out the hard way.

Faith thought, determined, and the words appeared ANY BLANK PAGES IN THIS BOOK?

NEAR THE END.

The dragon crawled closer, but Faith wasn't worried now. TAKE ME THERE AND LET'S HURRY. I NEED ROOM TO FIGHT. She braced her foot against something that might've been an R and pushed for the next page.

**

Oz was pretty sure the osprey was going to get loose any second now. He considered saying so, but decided against it. Willow was casting the spell as fast as she could; distracting her would only slow things down. If the osprey did get loose and eat them both, well, that could just be a surprise. A big surprise.

But then he realized that Willow wouldn't be distracted that easily.

She sat in the center of the room, breathing in and out, deep and fast and steady. Her skin had begun to take on a soft glow that Oz didn't think was magic as much as it was her knowledge of what she was doing, and how, and why.

Her palms lowered to the floor as light began to emanate from her fingertips. Her voice was low and soft as she started chanting "Abel ra, Tehru ra, Tokra Koth -"

Clanking and thudding told him that the armor was getting nearer - and then the arrow that swooshed into the wall beside his head told him they'd arrived. "Not good," Oz muttered as the crossbow's archer, a soldier with a plumed helmet and no face, turned the corner, his compatriots behind him.

" Abel ra, Tehru ra, Tokra Koth! Abel ra, Tehru ra, Tokra Koth!"

The osprey froze. As Oz watched, fascinated, the weaving that had frayed all along the tapestry's edges began to reknit. The suits of armor halted, mid-march, then began moving backward as though on a videotape being rewound.

Faith's sword bucked, dropped, and began skidding backwards, heading to the place from which it had been stolen.

Outside, Oz could hear scraping and scratching and groaning; after a moment's consideration, he ran to the nearest door and looked out at the museum's hallway. It was as crowded as it had ever been during the day - but instead of tourists, it was filled with artwork, all of it walking or sliding backwards toward its original location. The bronze Degas ballerina clutched at a corner, as if trying to hang on in the face of a terrible wind that blew her filmy tutu back. But then her hands slipped down into a ballet position, and she moved backward, vanishing out of sight.

It was almost sad, until he remembered the part where they'd nearly been murdered with arrows.

**

Faith felt the blank page rather than saw it - she had no room, and then she did, as everything flipped over and upside down again, depositing her in an unwritten space. The blur of blue and gold next to her was Charlotte, which meant that the approaching red shape -

Flames in orange and gold curled out toward her, forcing Faith to duck between them. She could feel no heat from the fire, but still, better safe than sorry.

HE FOUND US! Charlotte's letters were shaky, as if written by someone terrified.

NOPE. Struggling to work within her new confines, Faith managed to bring her sword stiffly up; it felt a bit like doing that dance The Robot, not that she had ever been a big enough dork to do that. WE FOUND HIM.

She propelled herself forward, sword headed toward the dragon's belly, forcing herself not to glance sideways at an illuminated claw -

There was no impact, no sound, not even a jar to her arm. But the dragon's face folded in, black lines turning into mush, as red ink swirled around Faith and Charlotte. Faith could feel her smile crackling across the page. I ALWAYS DID COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES.

This was Charlotte's cue to thank her, but instead, the next word to appear was LOOK!

Faith couldn't turn her head fully, but she glanced backward to see the watery outlines of two huge faces standing over them. Nothing was clear, and there was still no sound, but the red hair and the redder hair told her it could only be Willow and Oz.

ALMOST OVER. Faith dropped her sword and reached out for Charlotte's hand.

And then, sound and light returned just as the words rang out, filling Faith's whole world: "Corporeus In Integrum Restiture!"

**

Willow stepped back, pulling Oz after her, as Faith and Charlotte began to expand out of the book - first becoming huge, scarlet-splashed, two dimensional cutouts, larger and more lifelike by the moment, then unfolded into three dimensions almost as though they were being inflated.

The spell still crackled along her skin - dark and nasty - but it was over. And Willow was still herself, Oz still safe, and Faith -

"Okay," Faith said, shaking out her flattened hand until it popped into normalcy. "That was so weird."

"You saved me!" Charlotte went to fling her arms around Willow, then froze. "Oh, no. The ink -"

"It's ink?" Oz breathed out a sigh as he stared at Charlotte and Faith's red-soaked clothing. "Thought it was blood."

Faith laughed. "So much for shopping at the Gap."

"Not that I'm not completely and totally grateful, because I really, really am, but -" Charlotte wiped her red-stained curls back from her face. "What took so long?"

"We had ourselves a little bringing-the-museum-to-life accident," Oz said. And from there they could simply have segued into the story, which would make Charlotte laugh, and then they could all just leave.

But Willow decided to tell the truth. "I tried the wrong spell. I was too scared to use the right one immediately, because I've had spells like that go wrong before." Maybe it wasn't really the spells that had gone wrong, though perhaps that was a conversation for another time. "I put you at risk, because I was scared. So I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

Charlotte, instead of being moved, just shrugged. "I'm the one who got us into this mess. So I don't need any apologies."

Peering down at the book, Faith swore. When the others stared at her, she said, "Left my sword."  Sure enough, on the page that had once been blank, there was now an unevenly drawn sword lying next to an illustration of a slain dragon with its claws in the air. "Figure we can get that out?"

Willow held up her hands to try, though it seemed in the back of her mind that there was something she was forgetting - something she'd done before but really ought to do again --

RING RING RING RING RING RING!

In unison, they all said, "Security alarm!"

Quickly, Willow popped her hands out at all of them, rendering them temporarily invisible. "Door! Run! Now!"

"I am never going to a museum again," Faith said as they went for the door.

**

II.

Oz wondered what the hotel clerk thought about the guy who went upstairs with three women at 4 a.m. Maybe it would be worth asking, so Oz could get the words engraved on a plaque or something, to look at during the down times.

Of course, all they did was crash - Willow and Charlotte in the bed, Oz and Faith on the floor - but Oz figured the hotel staff never had to know that.

By 10 a.m., they were up again; Faith refused to wear Willow's clothes for any longer than necessary and, grumbling, set out to shop at the Gap. "This makes twice," she complained as she hitched the overall strap over her shoulder. "Twice I've been to the Gap in two days."

"I think it's becoming a trend," Oz offered.

"Next thing you know, you'll be rolling up your jeans like Sarah Jessica Parker," Willow agreed.

Faith looked decidedly pale as she went out to shop. As the door shut, Oz heard the hissing of the shower nozzle within the bathroom; it was Charlotte's turn to get clean. And that meant that, for the first time in what seemed like a lot longer than a few hours, Oz and Willow were alone.

They were both sitting on the floor, leaning back against the foot of the bed. Willow spoke first: "You're the one who got me to do it, you know. To cast the spell."

"You did that all on your own," Oz said. "I mostly ducked."

"But you're the one who took me to send the e-mail to Tara, if I wanted to."

He smiled at her. "You didn't want to."

"No. I did. I really did." Willow sighed deeply, and he could see real sorrow there - but no regret. "I realized that - the only way I ever could have made Tara safe, the only way I could have been totally sure that Warren wouldn't hurt her - I would have had to tell her never to meet me. Never to love me. And I would have given that up - even that, if I had to - but I learned too much from her. The magic she taught me, and gave me the confidence to learn - Oz, I used that to save Buffy's life and Xander's and Giles' and other people besides. I used it to endanger the world - but to save it, too. Giving her up, even to save her - the price is too high. Even for Tara."

Oz hadn't considered this side of things, before; he'd simply thought Willow would be too reluctant to give up her past. But apparently she really was ready to move on - to consider new things, and to accept everything that she'd been through before.

Did that mean that M.I.T. and Boston and - well, and him - were they no longer in the plans? Oz knew that, if it was what Willow really needed, he ought to be supportive and even happy. To his surprise, though, all he wanted to do was grab her hand and say, Stay. This time, stay.

"You know what?" He said. "We need food."

In response, Willow's tummy rumbled. They both smiled.

Oz got to his feet and brushed off his jeans. "The diner across the street's pretty good. I'm gonna get on line, reserve us a table. Sound good?"

"Depends. Do they have blueberry pancakes?"

She looked so much like his girl that it was all Oz could do not to drop to his knees and kiss her. "They have the absolute best."

"Okay. We'll be there soon." She scooted back up onto the bed, clearly jonesing for nothing so much as a few more minutes' sleep. Oz, somehow more tired than he had been before they got to the hotel, went off to stand in line.

**

III.

"We have a sale on flower brooches today!"

"Wow, so did not need to know that," Faith said, scooting past the Gap greeter. The store's layout was similar to the one she'd been in yesterday, and so she automatically began migrating toward the black slacks and oxford shirts once more. But then a chiming from her pocket startled her in the instant it took her to recognize her own cell phone. Almost nobody ever called her, except for - "Robin?"

"Hi, there." His voice was as warm and sweet as cinnamon toast. Sometimes he made her cinnamon toast, with so much butter that the bread was soft. "I wondered if maybe you were having some pre- flight jitters."

"Hey," Faith said, unable to keep herself from smiling, though the rack of tweedy blazers was daunting. Maybe the time had come to be totally honest with him - though, as soon as she'd thought of it, she couldn't decide why she hadn't been totally honest with him from the beginning. "Jitters, yeah. Pre-flight, no." The words made her nervous all over again, and she blurted out, "What time is it over there, anyway?"

"Two-thirty in the afternoon." Robin didn't ask her why she was nervous, though she knew he'd heard. His voice was still soft and steady and smooth. "It's a rainy day. Misting a little bit, you know? The way that turns the world gray. But it's nice. Quiet."

"Sounds nice," Faith said. Outside, sun glinted off the brilliant yellow taxicabs as they raced past, never slowing, never stopping. "What are you doing?"

"I've been looking through the Bernardine Codex, helping Giles cross-reference it. Strange thing, but there are all these notes nobody had ever catalogued before. Ideas about time-travel and - this part is weird - the phrase 'white on rice' is written down and circled, with a question mark."

Faith grinned; she should've known Jeremy Kelvin wouldn't be able to resist taking notes the whole time they were talking. "I bet I can clear those up for you. But telling the story is going to take a while."

"You can tell it when you get here," Robin said.

She wanted to tell him she wasn't coming. She wanted to tell him to bring her roses when he met the plane, because she'd always envied those women who had lovers in the airport, holding flowers and waiting for them. Instead, she said, "You know I'm not a castle kind of girl, right?"

"How could I miss it? But all the same - I think you'd like this place."

As she talked, she wandered away from the black slacks and toward the blue jeans. "And I hate museums. Hate them. It's not like I was ever all that big on them before, but from here on? No museums. Unless, you know, there's a demon or something in one, but then it's gonna be: go in, stake demon, get out. Period."

"That's fine," Robin said. "Honestly, I've never cared all that much for museums myself."

"But you do all that other stuff. Like, you have tea and scones -" Whatever the hell a scone was. "And you wear ties even if you aren't going to a funeral, and -"

"Faith, I moved to Great Britain. I didn't have a brain transplant." He was both worried and amused, Faith could tell - but maybe just a bit more amused. "I'm still the same guy you were with before."

"I know that," Faith said, trying very hard to believe it. "But - you know - I never quite figured out how to be with the guy I was with before. You're not my usual style."

"I see. You haven't dated many - high-school principals."

Now Faith was laughing as she grabbed a couple of tank tops off a SALE table. "I usually stick to elementary-school principals. They're a little more raw."

"Playing with blocks will do that to a man."

Who knew the Gap sold so many wide leather belts? Faith scooped up a few as she said, "I guess you push me outside my envelope."

"But in a good way. I hope."

"I hope too." Faith hesitated; there was no way to ask him, Are you just obsessed with Slayers? The only answer she would get would be "No," and neither she nor Robin would really know if it was the truth.

No, the truth was something she could only get in one place.

His voice was almost sad as he said, "So, if I come to the airport tonight, will I find you there?"

She grinned as she tossed her choices up to the register girl, who flinched. "You better bring flowers, or I'll kick your ass."

"Flowers it is."

**

IV.

"A motorcycle?" Willow was completely nonplussed. "What would I do with a motorcycle?"

"Anything you wanted, I figure." Faith smiled as she brushed her loose hair away from her face. They were standing in front of Grand Central Station, where a weary, grateful Charlotte had just been placed on the next train to Boston. "Come on. It's a great bike. Used to be Wesley's. He'd want it to stay in the family - so to speak."

Willow had never had motorcycle envy - though, now that she thought about it, a vehicle would be nice. She'd always put off getting a car; maybe that was going to turn out for the best. "I don't even know if I could ride one. I've never tried."

"Betcha Oz has," Faith said, gesturing down to the corner, where Oz was purchasing hot dogs from a stand. "Let him show you the ropes. He's good at it, huh?"

There was no way Faith could have known about Oz and Willow's first time - she'd been busy with the Mayor at that point - but nonetheless, Willow felt her cheeks getting a bit pink. "Yep. The best."

"So, you and Wolfman Jack - is that a yes or a no?" Faith's curiosity seemed more sincere than wicked, though with Faith, there was never any telling. "Giles is gonna grill me, so I want to get the scoop now."

"It's not a yes or a no," Willow said. "Situation unclear. Ask again later." It didn't feel at all confusing or scary to say that.

Faith leaned a little closer, and the glow Willow had felt so briefly last night flared up again - gentle, though, instead of blazing. "Let's make a deal: If you and Oz don't work, and me and Robin don't work - we'll meet back up. In New York. Have ourselves a good time. I'll give the girl thing another try."

For a moment, Willow could only think of "Sleepless in Seattle" and "An Affair To Remember" and other schmaltzy movies Faith would never, ever have seen. She said, "Faith - I think it's going to work out for you."

Faith shrugged. "You never can tell." Before Willow knew it, Faith had dipped down for a kiss - quick and soft, though still enough to send a pleasant kick through her system. "Gotta go. Use it 'til it wears out, okay?"

A pitch, and the motorcycle keys landed solidly in Willow's palm. "You got it."

With a wave to Oz, Faith turned and jogged into the railway station to catch the next shuttle to the airport.

"What did she just give you?" Oz said, as he came up the steps.

Willow realized that - with some restraint - Oz wasn't asking about her and Faith's kiss. She held out the keys and jangled them. "A motorcycle. Do you know how to ride one?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. It's just like riding a bike - which is something people say a lot, but rarely so accurately." Oz smiled. "You'll be great at it."

She knew that he expected her to tell him goodbye. It was something she could do - something, maybe, safer for both of them. But she was tired of playing it safe, tired of running. It was time to choose a path and to be willing to follow it wherever it led.

"I'm moving to Boston," she said.

Oz was extremely surprised; she could tell by the way his left eyebrow sort of moved. "You're really giving up magic?"

"No. I am going to apply to M.I.T., maybe Boston College, too. But, you know, there's this amazing coven in Salem - Charlotte's group - and I could hook up with them. Keep exploring both pathways, you know?" Willow sighed as she began walking along 42nd Street, Oz matching his steps to her own.  "I always used to think I could balance the two worlds before. I didn't fail at that as much as I just, well, stopped trying. So I think I'm going to try for a while and see how it goes."

He smiled, putting his hands in his jeans pockets as they strolled beneath the Chrysler building. Willow took a moment to be grateful she hadn't brought the gargoyles to life.

"So," Oz said. "I might've mentioned that the band plays a lot of gigs in Boston."

"Yeah, you did." Willow knew she was starting to smile. "Before - I think maybe we were both trying to -"

"Getting ahead of -"

"Right." She took a deep breath. "But if you're just coming into town a weekend a month - or two - that seems like time we could hang out together. Get reacquainted, maybe." Whether it would be as friends or lovers, Willow couldn't say - but for once, she liked not knowing.

Oz was quiet for a while, but she could tell he was happy. With Oz, she always could tell. "I think I like the sound of that."

THE END