Pairings: Willow/Oz (non-consentual), Willow/Angel/Spike (eventually), Cordelia/Gunn, Buffy/Angel (but we get over THAT one soon)

Rating: Perhaps R to NC-17, for detailed violence, allusions to rape, and probably sex later.

Disclaimer: Greg is mine, everyone else is not. Guess who they belong to? Joss Whedon, that’s who, and Mutant Enemy and Kazui and Sanddollar and Fox and UPN now (if not UPN, the WB). The song Chelsea Morning (Chapter One) was written, I think, by Tracy Chapman but made famous by Joni Mitchell. The song One Tin Soldier (Chapter Two) is an American folk song. I don’t know who wrote it (sorry!). There are excerpts from Torn by Natalie Imbruglia, Virgin State of Mind by K’s Choice, and Love For Sale, by Cole Porter (all in Chapter Two). Chapter Three’s version of Love For Sale is, like I said, written by Cole Porter, and performed by Ella Fitzgerald.

Author’s Notes: I’m a little nervous about using the present tense, so tell me how it goes. All the blabbing about familiars is purely the product of my warped mind and not, as far as I know, based on fact.

Warning: To all Oz fans, I suggest you leave now. Seriously. And to all y’all with squeamish tummies, you should leave too. This is not gonna be a pretty story—not until the ending-ish part, anyway. Lots of violence coming up, and not the fun kind when Spike slowly tortures people we didn’t like anyway. Willow gets hurt. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Feedback: Feedback for me is like chocolate for Buffy—I sure as Hell don’t deserve it, but I love it and it does me good. Please no flames, but do tell me what you think because I’m a little thrown by this story and I’d like to know how I’m doing. Thanks!

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I heard

Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words

It came ringin’ up like Christmas bells and rappin’ up like pipes and drums

Oh, won’t you stay? we’ll put on the day, and we’ll wear it ‘til the night comes

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I saw

Was the sun through yellow curtains, and a rainbow on the wall

Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won’t you stay? we’ll put on the day; there’s a sunshow every second

Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today

And the streets are paved with passers-by

And pigeons fly, and papers lie waiting to blow away

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I knew

There was bacon, toast and honey, and a bowl of oranges too

And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses

Oh, won’t you stay? we’ll put on the day, and we’ll talk in present tenses

When the curtain closes, and the rainbow runs away

I will bring you incense-owls by night

By candle-light, by jewel-light, if only you will stay

Pretty baby, won’t you

Wake up, it’s a Chelsea morning

Chapter One: Waiting to Blow Away

Greg looks up, as if he hears her laughter; perhaps he does, perhaps she was not thinking quietly enough. He nods cordially enough at her and goes back to stirring the eggs. Willow goes to the refrigerator, takes out blood for Greg and grapefruit juice for herself, and takes a small glass and a mug out from the cupboard. Greg scrapes the last bits of egg from the pan into the two wooden bowls and puts the pan into the sink. Together they walk to the table and sit down. Willow hands Greg his blood, heated quickly by magic, and Greg unenthusiastically pushes Willow’s bowl of eggs across the table towards her. She smiles at him and is unsurprised to not receive a smile in return; Greg is never sociable before lunchtime.

There is a slight rustling movement on the curving iron stairs, and Marmalade slithers down onto the floor. Greg turns and graces his familiar with a hint of a smile; she glides quickly to the table and twines her way up Greg’s chair leg into his lap. He strokes her golden back absently as he eats his eggs. Willow watches and smiles herself. If Marmalade is up, Fiddle, Oboe and Timpani will be awake soon too.

Greg clears his throat as he puts down his mug and Willow looks up at him. She does not ask what is wrong—because something obviously is—but waits for him to tell her. He does not make her wait long this time. 

“You are ready to leave now,” Greg says.

“Oh,” Willow says. She was not expecting this. There is a comforting touch on her back; it is Fiddle and Oboe, resting on her shoulders. Timpani thumps once at her feet and is then on her lap.

“Your mind is healed,” Greg continues, staring at the patterns on Marmalade’s back, “And your body healed enough.”

“Why can’t I stay?” Willow asks, although she knows the answer.

“This place is not for humans,” Greg says.

“I know,” Willow says, and sighs. “When are we leaving?” We is Willow and Fiddle and Timpani and Oboe.

“This afternoon, if you would like to say goodbye to everything,” Greg says. He is being silly. Of course she wants to say goodbye.

Thursday, April 19^th, 2007; just outside Sunnydale

Willow gets out of the car, because she knows she is not driving well. She has stopped the car a little off the road, in the grass on one side of the highway. She opens the door and falls out; it is her door that was keeping her upright. She cries into the grass, feels the terrified trembling bodies of Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani pressing into the small of her back and her stomach. They are frightened, she is frightening them. Willow tries to stand, falls back in the grass. She cannot stop crying because she hurts so badly, Oz has never hurt her this much before. She can barely believe she made it down the stairs to the front door and to the car. She wonders if she has left a trail of blood…?

Oboe moves up her arm gingerly, nestles between her shoulder and chin, licks her face tenderly. “Oh, Goddess,” Willow moans, as there is nobody else to hear her, “If you were ever to help me, please help me now…”

The Goddess does not answer, but Greg does.

***

Willow wakes nude. She is afraid, the only person who has ever seen her naked is Oz, and she remembers how well that went. She opens her eyes, is afraid of the cool air on her skin. It is Greg who is worriedly looking down at her, but she does not know that. She whimpers and tries to press herself further back into the mattress she is lying on and screams in pain. She had forgotten Oz hurt her back.

Greg whispers vaguely soothing things at her and touches healing cream to the wounds on her stomach and thighs. Willow eventually is silent and can understand what he says: “Your familiars are fine, they’re with mine—you must be a pretty powerful witch to have three familiars. I’m Greg, I’ve said that already, but you didn’t hear. Uh, you’re not in Sunnydale any longer (Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, thinks Willow) and you’ll be staying with me until I can fix you, make you better…”

Willow sighs and falls back asleep.

***

When she wakes, Greg is leaning against the wall next to her slender cot, snoring slightly. She is not quite sure what to do, as her legs throb too much for her to stand, but she is restless and exhales heavily.

Greg’s eyes open and he smiles tentatively at her. “I’m sorry you were scared,” he tells her. He does indeed sound sorry. “You’re dressed now, and your familiars are here.”

Willow nods stiffly. Her tongue feels swollen.

Greg picks something up and shows it to her. It is three pieces of cream-colored hemp, tied tightly together at one end. “If you get bored, braid this,” Greg says. 

Willow blinks. Why?

Greg answers her, though Willow is quite sure she did not speak out loud. “While you’re here, you’ll do a lot of monotonous things,” he begins. “Regularity heals the mind and soothes the body, and that is all I’m really capable of doing anyway. Until you can sit up, I think braiding is all you should do; and once you have more time and fewer tears, you can tie knots

Tie knots? Summer camp, brightly colored landyard/gimp, counselors, ‘here tie it this way, that’s the Chinese staircase, that’s the Box, that’s the Barrel, this here’s the Zipper’…

Willow opens her eyes and shudders. Greg is looking at her intently. “You have very strong memories,” he comments. “That’s good. You can’t forget who you are because I don’t know you well enough to remind you

Remind? Radio stations, static, tuning radios—tuning guitars! Kangaroos, no, dingoes, dingoes ate—no no no no no, radios, radios, no guitars, ‘there’s always something there to remind me’—I really hate that song, Xander really hated that song, Xander Xander Xander…

Greg brings her back from the depths of her mind with a touch on the shoulder. “I may shield you from your memory,” he says sadly. “You’re tying yourself all up in knots—stop!” Greg yells, and blocks her memory so that Willow cannot go back to summer camp. “You won’t heal if you can’t think about healing.”

Willow goes to sleep clutching the hemp.

***

This time she sleeps for nine days, and when she wakes up she knows somehow that she has slept for nine days. Greg is not there when she wakes up, but blessedly, Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani are curled up next to her.

Willow sighs, moving her head a little to gaze at her familiars. She loves them so much. She does not know if what Greg said is true, if having three familiars is a sign of power, but she doubts it. If it were true, then what happened would not have happened.

Willow pauses mid-thought. What did happen? She cannot remember. Why can’t she remember? Willow writhes silently in anger and suddenly wrecks Greg’s spell that shielded her from her memory.

Oz is what happened, Willow thinks. Oz’s spell that she should have been able to break, Oz’s pain that she should have been able to stop… Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz…

Willow whimpers and tightens her hold on the bedsheets around her as a tear slides down her pale cheek. Oz has hurt her, so badly, and she let him…

The door opens silently and Greg rushes in. “What have you done?” he says. Willow flinches because Greg sounds so angry—when Oz got angry he hurt her. Greg sees her reflex and his dark face softens. “I’m sorry,” he amends quickly. “But you’re supposed to sleep for another sixteen days straight to let your body heal, and I had a memory-blocking spell up that is in shambles…”

“I-I-I c-couldn’t remember,” Willow explains slowly. Her mouth feels like it is made of lead.

“Yes, there was a spell to stop you from remembering,” Greg repeats.

“I w-wanted to- to- to- to remember,” Willow spits out painfully.

“Did you knock my spell down on purpose?” Greg asks.

Willow finds it easier to shake her head than to actually say no.

“This time, I’d better tell you what I’m going to do,” Greg says, watching her carefully with his black eyes, eyes so dark Willow cannot see his pupils. “I’m going to put a sleep spell on you, so that you’ll sleep for sixteen more days.”

“W-w-w-w-why…”

“Because your body heals better while you sleep,” Greg interrupts. It takes too long for Willow to say things. He pauses and studies Willow’s frightened face and her familiars in their comatose sleep. “Then we’ll see how you do. Perhaps your nine days’ sleep has helped, as you haven’t had any severe memory attacks.”

It annoys Willow that Greg talks about her memory as if it is asthma, but she does not say so. Instead she says, “Wh-wh-why can’t I-I-I t-talk?”

It is extremely annoying to have to try several times to say each word, and it must show on her face, because Greg’s mouth twitches in a sympathetic smile. “I suppose the only way of explaining it is that the air here is heavier than what you’re used to; it takes a while to get used to it.”

Willow sighs and imagines she can feel the weight of the air on her chest. It does not occur to ask where, exactly, they are.

“I’m going to put you to sleep, now,” Greg says gently. Willow nods tiredly.

***

Willow dreams a great deal as she sleeps. She dreams of a tiny shop with wood-framed windows and a hand-painted sign hanging above the door; someone moves within but she cannot see who it is. She dreams of tying knots in cream-colored hemp miles long, so long that the end disappears over the horizon. She dreams of bloodied coat hangers and dull kitchen knives, and as she sleeps she cries quietly, and Greg watches over her worriedly.

***

When she wakes it is sixteen days later, and she is hungry, thirsty and desperately in need of a bath. The ceiling above her bed is unpainted honey-colored wood, with asymmetrical rings expanding outwards on each board; a softly burning lamp hangs from the ceiling on a chain of polished chrome. Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani are awake, and they are soft and loving and keen sweetly as they compete to touch her face, to reassure each other that they are all together, all awake finally.

Greg watches from the doorway, his own familiar twined around his neck. Willow turns her head to look at him, and smiles weakly. 

“How do you feel?” Greg asks.

Willow sighs and prepares to pour all of her energy into talking, but when she speaks it is suddenly effortless. “I feel rested, but I’m hungry and thirsty and I wouldn’t mind a bath,” she finds herself saying.

Greg nods. “Can you stand?”

The next day Willow walks outside for the first time. Walking reminds her of being in the hospital or the dentists’ office, just before or after she has gotten an x-ray, and she still has the lead vest draped over her shoulders, weighing her down. Everything is slow here except for Greg and his familiar, Marmalade. They spin through this place like—like—all Willow can think of is a dreidl on a tabletop. Greg and Marmalade are supernaturally fast, like Buffy in the midst of vampires.

Willow does not miss Buffy, although the thought of Xander and Anya tugs at her heart, and she misses Giles like she might miss a beloved father.

With Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani twining around her ankles as if in slow motion, Willow walks in her imaginary lead apron out of the door and into the ankle-deep grass outside. The sun is shining lazily and the sky is blue and the grass is soft. If she listens carefully, Willow can hear a stream gurgling idiotically nearby; Greg apparently lives in some kind of Utopia.

Standing up is tiring, so Willow sits—slowly, still, as if a rope is lowering her—in the grass and looks up at the sky. There are no clouds. It’s a happy sky, she would have said when she was younger, and it defies her mood. All she can think of are the wounds on her legs, thighs, stomach, breasts, neck and deep inside her and how they came to be there. She may be powerful, like Greg said, but how could a witch as powerful as she supposedly is just let something like that happen to her?

Willow hears Greg’s quick steps in the grass behind her, and then he is kneeling beside her, holding out the hemp. “Don’t cry,” Greg says; “Tie knots.”

He leaves the hemp in the grass next to her and walks away.

Willow picks it up, frowns. Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani settle themselves down in a little circle around her, and she begins to tie knots.

Greg comes out of the house much later, when the sun is setting; Willow is still tying knots. She does not notice when he kneels beside her again and watches her concentrate.

Greg has had other people here before, people who called out for help. He is the Goddess’ understudy, in a way; when She is too busy, She sends the needy to him instead. Many of the people Greg has helped were girls, young women, hurt and frightened and lost. He cleaned and bandaged and fed all of them, and told them all to tie knots.

Many of them scoffed at him; the remainder sulkily tied knots, tossed the hemp down after five minutes. Greg stares at Willow’s fast-moving hands, fast even in the heavy air here, and is silent.

The cream-colored hemp is streaked with pink, blood from the tips of Willow’s fingers as she has scraped them raw. There are five feet of tiny knots pulled impeccably tight, winding around and around and around. “The Chinese staircase,” Willow says slowly, alarming Greg, who thought she did not know he was there.

Willow turns to him, holds the knotted hemp out to him and looks at her hands. “My fingers hurt,” she says wonderingly.

April 19^th, 2008; location unknown

Willow sets down her linen bag full of belongings just inside Greg’s front door and sighs. She turns around, bends down, lets Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani alternately flow and scramble into her arms. “I’ll miss you,” she says honestly to Greg.

He smiles, pets Marmalade’s bespeckled head with one large finger. “You can always visit,” he says. Then, “I have a question for you.”

Willow waits. He will tell her.

“If there were… ten guns in front of you on a table,” Greg begins slowly, “and one was loaded, and you would get one million dollars if you picked up one gun, put it to your head, and pulled the trigger, which gun would you choose?”

Willow is surprised. She had expected this to be another of his philosophical questions, ending in ‘would you do it?’, not ‘what gun would you choose?’. “I don’t know,” she answers, stalling for time. 

“I will help you decide,” Greg says, “But with something else rather than a gun.” He pushes the front door open, picks up her linen bag, and leaves, expecting her to follow. Willow, of course, does.

They walk across the lush field of grass, to the stream which still gurgles in its ridiculously optimistic manner, over the tiny footbridge Willow had built. They walk together, matching steps, speeding through the heavy air like dreidls on a table.

Eventually they can go no further; they have reached the edge of SomePlace Else, which Greg has mentioned but never shown to Willow before. The air in front of them is no longer heavy but solid, and in it are embedded ten doors.

“One door is the loaded gun,” Greg says to her, holding out the linen bag. “You will not be fully healed in your mind until you can live in the place the door sends you for a year. You must pick one. Nine doors lead to relatively peaceful places—Florida, for instance; Australia is another one. You will live in these places without trauma, and can come back here or go as you please afterwards. But one door leads to difficulty, where you will be pursued by those whom you fear and will be hurt further.”

Willow shudders at the idea of being hurt more. She still has scars, thin pale ones, adorning her body, and she has unhealed wounds within her, ones that Greg cannot touch.

“I can heal your mind and soothe your body,” Greg has told her; “But that is all I can do, is soothe. The Powers that Be have seen fit to give me only normal healing powers, ones you yourself might possess without use of magic. I can alter your body, which perhaps I have, for the better; but I cannot heal it. That is up to you.”

“Which gun do you choose?” Greg asks gently.

“Third from the right,” Willow says, choosing randomly. How else can she choose?

Greg nods and smiles, and Willow puts down her bag and Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani to give him a hug. Greg steps back, holds her at arm’s length. “Good luck,” he tells her, and gives her one last glance up and down. She has abandoned the knee-length long-sleeved white linen tunics she has worn the last year for some clothes that might be acceptable wherever she lands; she wears loose low-waisted black linen pants now, and a turquoise linen T-shirt, cut off just above her belly button. The scars on her stomach are now little more than colorless welts, although Willow says they are sore sometimes. Greg has given her some soft-soled sandals to wear, the Goddess knows where he got them from, but despite their comfort they imprison her feet. Willow hopes she ends up somewhere she can go barefoot.

“I won’t say goodbye,” Willow tells Greg, “because I will see you again.”

Greg nods, bends down to kiss her cheek, and opens the third door from the right.

The loaded gun goes off with a bang and a cloud of smoke.

Late spring, 2007; location unknown

Willow has begun waking up early, to watch the sunrise. She tries, anyway, but the sun seems to be there perpetually, to fade a little at night but to flare back up as soon as she opens her eyes in the morning.

It is five-thirty, now; Greg will not be up this early. Willow swings her leaden legs over the side of her delicate cot, moves the light sheets away. Fiddle and Oboe and Timpani move from the sides of her cot to the center, snuggling in together, a mass of silken fur.

Willow must open the door with magic, which is difficult. If she wanted, she could sleep until eight, when Greg would wake her himself; but at five-thirty in the morning, Greg will not wake her, and so she is faced with the problem of the knobless door.

The door fits its frame perfectly; there is no room to sneak her fingers under or over and pull in. There is no room for a blade to work its way, not even room for a slip of paper to slide in. The door is made of what seems like cork; it is light wood and makes almost no sound when Willow taps it with her fingers. It is not hard to pull in with magic, then; it could be much heavier, require more effort. But the heavy air hampers Willow’s already exhausted powers—her magic is just as afraid and tired as she is.

Still, each morning, perhaps for no reason more, really, than to prove to herself that she can, Willow wakes early and opens the door.

The wood does not creak under her feet as she moves forward into the little house’s main room. Sun pours through the single-paned windows that take up most of the front wall. Willow, struck with memory, slowly sits down in a bright beam of sunlight, achingly crosses her legs, and begins to clear her mind.

She has not meditated for the longest time, since before Oz even came back, never mind since—No. She does not want to think about him now. Instead, Willow thinks of beautiful things, like the sunshine she is bathed in, like her familiars curled up in the bedroom behind her, like the stream a short walk away from the house, like Spike’s eyes…

Willow’s own eyes pop open in surprise. She thinks Spike’s eyes are beautiful? This was unexpected, and it is also a problem. Greg does not want her to think of home very much while she is here, because it will distract her; and Willow does not particularly want to think very much of home anyway. It will lead to sadness and fear, most of what is at home, and there isn’t much good to think of anyway, except, apparently, Spike’s pretty blue eyes.

Willow feels too impatient to deal with trying to meditate Spike’s eyes out of her head, so with a great effort, she forgets about them, and slowly stands up. She will get herself some breakfast now.

But it turns out that she will not have breakfast until much later, for as she enters Greg’s spacious kitchen, Greg takes a bag of blood out of the microwave.

Greg is standing in the kitchen, leaning easily against the counter with an empty mug in his hand. He must be thinking about something, because he doesn’t notice Willow; he vamps out and punctures the now-warm blood bag with a sharp fang and lets the blood drip sickeningly into the mug.

Willow has seen procedures like this so many times. Angel and Spike prepare their meals the same way, but it is chilling to know that Greg is a vampire as well. Does he have a soul? Is he, by some strange chance, chipped? Why has he not hurt her yet, and why has he not told her what he is?

It is Willow’s quick, strained intake of breath that alerts Greg to her presence. He looks up, alarmed, blood staining his mouth dark red. He reaches out with one strong hand, but Willow is gone, her shock and fear granting her the speed of a dreidl spinning across a table.