![[I saw three ships]](../2005-1icon.png)
Willow walked through the market carefully. Istanbul was not a Hellmouth but it had its share of non-humans. Demons weren't the only danger. She drew her hijab closer around her. She would have preferred to hide under a burqa but Giles refused to allow it. Still, she was glad enough to conceal her red hair and blend in as best she could.
She still didn't know why Giles had brought her here, what they were looking for. She didn't know much of anything right now. Buffy and Xander were at the other Hellmouth in Cleveland. Fath and Wood had gone to LA. The potentials had scattered to the four winds, even Kennedy. At the end of it all, Giles had pressed plane tickets and a passport on her and whisked her away.
There had been time with the coven in Glastonbury, learning to control all she had subsumed and to come to peace with having been the Goddess, if only for a few moments. There had been time in Paris, weeding out a nest of minor demons which did not require a slayer but rather a sorcerer and a witch.
Since then, they had been traveling and Willow could see no pattern to it. Now they were here. She had picked up smatterings of both Turkish and Arabic and haggled for their necessities in the bazaar daily. She told Giles it would be easier to shop at the modern stores, as most Turks and all the tourists did, but he insisted on going native. Not all of what they bought could be acquired from the stores or, for that matter, from humans.
Once she had their dinner, she wandered the narrow streets of the old quarter, thinking how much Kennedy would enjoy this. A flash of a skirt caught her eye and she looked at it, imagining Tara in it. She could smile now, the pain of her beloved's death reduced to an ache that curled around the good memories and lent them a poignant sweetness.
She saw a trinket box and it spoke to her. She knew she had to have it and she had no idea why. The old woman in the booth haggled hard but Willow won. She was looking at her new treasure, all silver and scroll-work, as she turned the corner and bumped into Oz.
She dropped the trinket box and her string bag of fruits and vegetables and sausages.
"Willow?" The young man's nose twitched. His hair was its actual biological brownish-red. "Willow!"
He seized her in a hug and then kissed her cheeks. Realizing where they were and how she was dressed, he dropped to the sidewalk and started picking up her scattered shopping. Willow went down too, picking up the dates, oranges and the large melon that actually had survived the fall.
"Should I call you Mrs. Someone?" he asked, gesturing at the head cover. "How's Tara?"
Willow was stammering in a way she hadn't for years and, in a moment, she knew she would start to babble. She swallowed hard. "Come home to dinner. Giles will want to see you." She heard her voice squeaking and didn't trust it to say more. As she led him back to the small apartment they shared in the Old Quarter, she kept stealing glances. It had been five years since they had sat in his van and said good-bye. Since then she had loved and lost Tara to death, destroyed a Hellmouth, seen friends die, seen her town vanish from the map and had her second lover leave to follow her own calling. She wondered what had happened to him.
Giles was researching, as usual, when she came in. "Anything interesting in the market today, Willow?"
"Oh. Uh, yeah."
"Hey Giles." Oz sauntered in as if he was coming back to the library after a quick soda run.
Giles polished his glasses. Willow busied herself making dinner, since it was her night to do so. Oz simply came in and had a seat.
Willow could hear the low voices as she cooked. She wanted to know what they were talking about, whether running into Oz had been mere coincidence. They spent dinner catching up with all the Sunnydale and Slayer news.
After dinner, Giles excused himself to clean up and take his evening constitutional.
"So. Istanbul."
Willow nodded. "How have you been? Still meditating?"
Oz shook his head. "I have a pack. We have a place. Nobody gets hurt."
"You aren't even trying any more?" Willow looked as if he'd slapped her. He'd left Sunnydale, left her, to find a cure.
Oz shrugged. "Time to quit fighting what I am." He looked hard at her. "You leave Tara for Giles?"
"She died." Willow's voice was soft and broken. Two words to encompass the rage and pain and Tara's blood back-spattered all over her shirt and face and arms. Two short words, telling nothing of arguing with the Powers or her vengeance or recovery. "Still gay."
Oz almost laughed. He sniffed. "Not what my nose says."
"Who said you could smell me?" Willow was incensed that he could negate the identity she had claimed with a single sniff.
"You want Giles. You want me. You wanted the pretty girl we passed on the street. Time for you to stop fighting, too."
"Fighting what?" Willow asked. She sipped at the coffee she'd made, hating its cold bitterness.
"All you are. Witch. Goddess once. Woman always. Willow forever." Oz leaned over to kiss her.
She let him for a second and pulled away. "Gay, remember?"
Oz flickered an impossibly long tongue over his lips. "Don't taste like it. Not arguing."
Things were uncomfortable until Giles returned. He invited Oz back the next evening. Willow spent the rest of the time before bed thinking far too hard.
"Willow? Bedtime." Giles handed her the pillow and blankets. She spread out on the futon and he turned out the lights as he went to bed in his own room.
Willow lay quiet in the dark thinking about her life, sex, men, women and love. She came to no good conclusion before she fell asleep.
Oz came for dinner every evening, until the full moon. Then he ran with his pack and told her of it when he returned: running through their private compound high in the mountains, hunting the small animals, playing chase and romp with the other werewolves.
He stayed that night, not on the futon but in Giles's bedroom. Willow looked shocked for an instant, more by the age difference, but still, it was Giles and Oz knew she'd thought he was hot years before. She lay on the futon, letting her imagination run wild from the brief kiss she'd seen before Giles had closed the door.
When Oz came the next night, she kissed him. "I think I get it. Having a same sex lover doesn't make me gay any more than having an opposite sex one makes me straight."
Oz smiled. "Now is that time."
She burst into tears, remembering how they had parted, and this time he took her in his arms. There were no comforting words, because Oz was still pretty laconic. They were that way when Giles came out of the kitchen from making dinner.
"Am I interrupting?"
Oz shook his head. Willow looked up, blotchy and tear-streaked.
"Oh. Good. Dinner's ready."
After Oz left, Willow cleaned up and caught Giles before he closed the door. "I... I'm all confused, Giles."
"Yes? Is it a research confusion or a—." Willow stopped the words with a kiss.
Tweedy Giles, who had been at Sunnydale and stood against the Master, Angelus, the Mayor and a thousand lesser demons. Dear Giles who liked to pretend most answers could still be found in the arcane library he packed everywhere. Bad-boy Giles, who had been Ripper and could probably still kill her with anything at hand. She knew in an instant there had never been a time when he hadn't loved her and the rest of the Scoobies.
Giles removed his glasses when she let him up for air. "I see. That sort of confusion." He undid the cotton khaki vest he wore over the white shirt. "Perhaps I can clear it up."
Willow nodded. "I thought liking girls made me gay. But I keep wanting Oz. And you. The same way I wanted Tara and Kennedy."
"So, do you wish to clarify through talk or experimentation, my dear?"
Willow subsided, suddenly sixteen again and intimidated by the handsome British librarian who knew everything in the world. Giles smiled at her reassuringly and took off his glasses.
"Willow, sexuality is not set in stone. It is remarkably fluid. Wanting to kiss Oz or myself does not lessen what you felt for Tara or what you still feel for women. Love and desire shared can only multiply, never subtract."
Willow nodded, not really understanding.
"Not tonight, my dear. You need to clarify more things in your own mind first." Giles kissed her forehead, his lips almost burning on her skin, and went to bed.
When Oz returned the next night, Willow had made up her mind and settled a great many things. She made her favorite for dinner, just to buoy her courage.
After dinner, she made coffee and watched Giles take his walk. She'd already spoken to him and he agreed they needed their privacy.
She settled on the futon with Oz as she had all those years ago. She remembered Barry White on the stereo, a red dress cut higher than she had been comfortable with, and snow in Sunnydale for the only time in history.
"You smell like snow," Oz said softly, smiling. "And more."
Willow was relieved when he leaned over to kiss her. She was ready this time and let herself enjoy it. He tasted different than she remembered: darker, wilder. She almost thought she could taste the wolf.
"Strawberries. And Willow. Always." Oz was still smiling.
"Oz, I'd like. I'd very much like."
He nodded. "Not on the futon."
She shrugged. "It's my futon. I don't feel comfortable in Giles's bed."
At that moment, Giles walked in. "What about my bed, Willow?"
She jumped, turning as if she had been caught. Then she remembered what they'd been discussing. "I don't feel comfortable making love in your bed without you in it."
Oz raised an eyebrow and sniffed a little. Giles gave a small nod and a smile.
"My dears, would you like to join me?" There was no stuttering, no hesitancy, confirming what Oz knew and what Willow had begun to suspect: that the mild-mannered librarian was a pose, one he'd hidden behind as long as she'd known him.
Oz got up and went to him for a kiss. He'd known about his own bisexuality for years. Many of the Dingos' gigs had ended in slightly stoned make-out sessions. He'd known of Willow's crush and kept his mouth shut about his own. Giles kissed better than anyone he'd ever known, slow and sensual, a knowing kind of leisure to his mouth.
Willow watched. She'd never expected to enjoy anything involving men and sex together, but now she was breathing hard, hating to blink for fear of missing something: a turn of the head, a stroke of a hand. Her first thought was "hot;" her second was "my turn."
She got up and when they parted, kissed Oz. She was used to that. She loved that. Kissing Giles just seemed like a big step. A minute or so later, she found the courage to take it. He kissed her gently, thoroughly, one arm still around Oz, the other around her waist.
That was when the dybbuk dropped through the roof.
A day and a night of fighting later, they staggered back to the apartment. Willow, too tired to even flip the futon, washed her hands and face and dropped onto the bed. Oz, still shaking from the after-effects of voluntarily channeling and using the wolf, fell beside her, smelling of sweat and animal musk.
Giles, his face drawn and exhausted, kissed each of them, saying "There will be many other nights." He went to the futon and did not bother to unfold it.
The promise followed them all into sleep.
![[fin]](../2005-1banner.png)