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Oh, God.

I came down here to give him his breakfast. I mean, after a long night of wolfiness he's always starving. And oddly frisky, too. You know? More than willing to just grab me and kiss me all over. I think we've made love in this crypt, in the mornings after the full moon, about three or four times.

Never again. Because I can feel my heart start to shrivel up, my hands start to shake in...disgust, almost, at the thought of ever touching him again. Ever looking at him again.

Someone is curled around his naked body. Someone female, and very naked, with short blond hair and an abundance of tattoos, from my point of view. And I'm pretty sure of who that someone is.

My hands are still shaking, and the thermos and bag of those chocolatey donuts he loves so much fall out of my hand, onto the floor with a dull, hollow ring. It sounds like the inside of my heart. Tears start to slip down my face, and I back up, away from them as if that will tear the sight from my eyes.

They come awake at almost the same instant, eyelids fluttering and limbs shaking in unison. Oz's beautiful green eyes open, and as he looks at me they widen, and he pulls away from her.

"Willow."

"Oh my God..." The words come out of my mouth before I even know I'm saying them, and I can't believe how broken I sound. I see the woman roll over beside him at the sound of my voice, and her face comes into my view. "Oh my God."

It's Veruca. I don't have to look at her face to see the triumph there, but I do anyway. Bitch. She has scratches all over her, and she is not at all ashamed of her nudity as she slowly rolls to her feet, an oddly lupine movement. Her preternatural grace tells me what I already know.

If only these tears could wash this disgusting sight from my eyes. They're both...covered in scratches, all over them. I wonder how I could have missed them, but then I realize: Oz barely let me touch him yesterday. Well, I guess now I know that he was just too sated from the night before. Oh God.

He's pulling on his pants, trying to talk to me. "I know what you saw, but it wasn't..." Oh yeah. Try finding a good end to that sentence. You bastard. No, don't look at his eyes because they are full of pain and regret. He's unlocked the cage and is stepping out towards me. "I had to. I had to lock her in there with me."

Sure you did, sweetie. Sure. "I bet."

He steps towards me, and I recoil. His normally emotionless face is rigid with pain as he tries to talk his way out of this. "She's like me. A wolf."

No no no no no. That doesn't make it any better. I want to shout at him, 'Now she knows you in a way I never will, you have more in common. She can be with you in the full moon, she can touch your soft fur. I can't." But instead I just smile bitterly and say, "Well, I knew you two had a lot in common." My eyes catch Veruca's as she steps out of the cage towards the exits, and she blows me a kiss. I shudder. Fucking bitch. I have never...hated anyone before. I didn?t know I could feel it so deep.

Oz noticed how far away I was and he reached for me. Jerking from his hands I yell at him, "Don't touch me!" I don't want your corrupted hands on me, on my skin. Save them for Veruca. Oh God, how could you do this to me?

He backs away slightly, but he is still pleading with me. "She was going to hurt somebody. I didn't have a choice."

Bullshit. That is a complete load of shit. I remember yesterday, I put my hands up under his shirt... His flesh was scratched, like it is now. Buffy said that two wild dogs were roaming last night, and that Oz got out of his cage. I can do the math. This is not their first night together. Or their first morning.

I shake my head at him. I never expected him, of all people, to lie to me. No, he's not people. He's an animal. All the way through. "But you did. You could have told someone." Like me. Or Buffy. Or, I don?t know. Xander. There were a thousand ways out of this, and you ignored them all. "Your solution is to put the two of you together in a room all night?"

"Girl's got a point." Veruca speaks up in a sultry voice from the corner. I look over and see that she has put on a leather jacket over her naked flesh. Where are your clothes, Veruca? Did Oz tear them off you?

"Leave." Oz's voice is low and angry, almost as disgusted as mine.

Her eyes widen, and she balks. "I was just sayin--"

"Now!" he roars, his nostrils flaring. I guess his usual morning leftover beastiness is showing itself in odd ways.

Good.

She takes off, but not before throwing another victorious glance in my direction. Oz turns back to me with his pleading eyes. God, I used to bury myself in those eyes for hours. I used go to sleep with him watching me. Now I want to pry them from his sockets.

I guess I have a few animal instincts of my own.

"I'm sorry." Emotion. Something so very rare in him, and now his face and eyes and voice are full of it.

Doesn't matter. I can't...can't do this. You know what, I never even wanted to fall in love with him. I was happy and safe in my little Xander-bubble, infatuated with someone out of my reach. I was safe. And now he had to come and make me really love for the first time in my life. He had to make me feel.

He had to break my heart.

I let out a breath and turn my tear-filled eyes on him, happy to watch him flinch. "I knew. I knew, you jerk."

There. That is definitely pain on his beautiful face. Good. Feel it deep, you bastard.

"And you just sat there, and said everything was fine?" I continue. "That's as bad as...as..."

"I know how it feels." He raises his eyes to mine. "I remember."

Oh no. He is not putting this on to me, as if it's my fault. It's completely different, and he knows that. "Oh. So what, this is...payback? I had this coming?" No one deserves this sort of pain, Oz. not even me. "Because I thought we left that behind us. And you know what happened with Xander? This doesn't compare." I spit the words out as though they are coated with venom. Hell, they are. "Not with what you and I had. Not with whatever you've been doing with her." I refer to the cage with a jerk of the shoulder, and I can tell how disgusted I sound. Good.

He seizes onto that. "I don't know what Veruca and I have done." His face goes blank again as he tries to explain. "When I change, it's like I'm gone, and the wolf takes over."

That doesn't explain it all. How did you get her in the cage with you, Oz? You must've done something to encourage her in, because she doesn't seem the type to get locked up. Unless it's for something kinky.

And you know what? Saying 'I was a wolf. I couldn't control myself' is just a cop-out. What you really mean is, 'I wanted her, and now I?m trying to justify it.' Just stop.

"But when you were regular-Oz, you had feelings for her, didn't you?" Just say yes. Tell me the truth, and maybe I won't hate you so much.

"No," he assures me. Liar. He tries to explain it. "I--"

'Wanted her' is the end to that sentence, but he won't say it. Not to my face.

Fuck that. I'll say it.

"But...you wanted her. Like, in an animal way?" He doesn't answer. "Like, more than you wanted me?"

He doesn't reply, but his face, for the first time ever, tells me all that I need to know. Shaking the tears from my eyes, I run up the stairs of the crypt, away from him.

I don't care anymore. About anything.

I run off towards a future without Oz.