Warp & Weft

By Medea

Chapter Seven

As a space, it wasn't impressive.

A small, coffee nook toward the front of the store, with a well-worn, overstuffed couch and a few wooden tables and chairs. Further back, some book shelves. Far to the rear, several aisles of groceries and organic produce. Along one wall, a service counter with a computer and various papers scattered over the countertop. Behind the counter, wall shelves holding glass jars filled with what might be mistaken for simple herbs or teas, but which Willow recognized as ingredients for magic, from the most common to the extremely rare.

Near the entrance, a cluttered bulletin board.

It was such a...human space. The thought made Willow smile.

In some ways, the Cooperative reminded Willow of The Magic Box. Maybe a bit shabbier: she doubted that Giles would have tolerated the random graffiti that was scratched on the woodwork near the bulletin board. And her coven sisters seemed to have a greater fondness for potted plants than had the soft-spoken Watcher.

But there was definitely something warm and human and lived-in about the entire place. In its shabbiness and clutter, Willow could read stories about the people who passed through, who met here to exchange news or relax, who built their own community here, a haven from the dominant society without. It tugged at her memories of human life.

Of course, sitting just a few feet away from Oz also did a lot to summon up the past.

They had some serious catching up to do. She and Oz hadn't said much on the way over, for fear of alarming Edgar, who had been understandably nervous about the prospect of getting in a strange van. Hearing his two companions swap stories about mastering their demons and establishing themselves within werewolf or vampire communities wouldn't have made it any easier. But Willow was pretty sure that Oz had sensed what she was.

However, before she and Oz could sneak off to talk, the gang needed to resolve Edgar's situation.

"Tea?" Cyrene asked as she offered a warm, earthenware mug to the sandy-haired man. "You've had a rough night."

"Thanks," Edgar accepted with an awkward smile.

"It will be safer for you if you can get out of L.A., Edgar. Do you have some place to go? Anyone you could stay with out of town, and who might be able to help you find a new job?" Zoe asked. She sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair, her arm draped casually behind Tara who was comfortably ensconced in the center.

Edgar's countenance darkened. "That's not the problem. Quitting my job at Genomix would be...complicated."

Zoe froze and exchanged a silent, ominous look with Tara, Cyrene, Hannah and Oz. Willow felt a sudden jump in the collective tension.

Gravely, Cyrene voiced a shared suspicion. "Your DNA?"

Nodding, Edgar lowered his gaze and muttered bitterly, "Re-classified. It's company property now."

Zoe swore under her breath and turned away, her fists clenched. Tara, Cyrene, and Hannah lowered their eyes in grim comprehension, and Willow's sensitive hearing caught a slight growl from Oz.

"Would someone care to explain for those of us who have been out of the loop for a while?" Willow ventured, glancing tentatively from one of her friends to the next.

Edgar fixed her with a curious, uncertain gaze. Willow realized that she'd said something wrong, but she didn't know what.

"Are you a temp worker or something?" Edgar asked finally. "I mean, anyone who's worked for one of the majors knows about the genetics clauses in employee contracts."

"Not everyone is a corporate drone or a temp worker," Zoe snapped coldly enough that Edgar shivered.

"I-I'm sorry," stammered the confused lab technician. "I just didn't know...I mean..."

Tara intervened. "It's okay Edgar. Willow works independently, and for the past twenty years or so she's been traveling on a kind of...research trip."

"Yeah, okay," Edgar nodded, reassured by Tara's explanation. A forlorn sigh followed. He lowered his gaze to the mug in his hands and absently traced his fingertip around the rim. "You know, I never thought I'd feel this way, but I'm kind of jealous. I used to be so glad I was with one of the biggest genetic research firms in the business. I had job security, a future..." A bitter, derisive, snort. "And look at my future now."

Willow nibbled at her lower lip, but said nothing at first. After several seconds scrambling to think of an appropriate question, she suggested, "If you can't leave your job, how about getting a new apartment, changing your phone number...anything to conceal your whereabouts for a while?"

"I wouldn't know where to start," Edgar muttered, frowning. Then, he reached into his jeans pocket, tugged out his wallet, opened it and said, "Besides, it will be hard to hide anywhere since they got my insurance card."

"How much would they have on you?" Oz asked from across the room where he leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. "Social security? Blood type?"

Grimly, Edgar nodded and continued, "Dental records, retinal scan, fingerprints, medical history, psych profile, full genetic background, you name it. I'm with Genomix -- we're one of the leaders in genetic R & D, and all of us are team players. So I've got it all on file."

Narrowing her eyes in frustration, Willow pressed, "But why? What does it have to do with being a team player?"

Again, Edgar stared at her like she was from Mars. He hesitated, then withdrew his plastic, employee i.d. card for Genomix. Scooting forward on his seat, he held it up for Willow to see, and pointed to a long sequence of colored bars that formed a strip across the top edge. His finger stopped over a narrow, red bar at the beginning of the strip.

"This means I'm a company blood donor," Edgar explained slowly, as he would to a child. "My insurance deductions are lower if I donate for the company's reserves. Gotta put in if you want to get out, right?"

His index finger slid to the next bar. "Purple is for my kidneys. If I'm a match for someone at Genomix who needs one, I can earn ten years' salary plus stock options if I'm willing to give one up."

Next, Edgar pointed to blue. "Blue means I've signed a consent form authorizing Genomix to use my body for R & D after I die." His finger slid once more to the right. "Yellow means anything still salvagable after R & D will be donated for medical uses..."

With morbid fascination, Willow listened as Edgar proceeded through a half-dozen more bars, all color-coded for different ways that his body had come to be defined as a company resource or commodity.

The unease she'd felt after the meeting with Murdoch at Caritas returned. Briefly, Willow wondered if it was possible for vampires to get ulcers.

When Edgar finished, there was little doubt that the black market could trace him anywhere if he continued to use his current identity. Zoe thought it would also be wise to relocate him further from the heart of Los Angeles. Her search through the Co-op's database, however, didn't produce many options.

"It's easy enough to invent new identities and slip people into the temp worker population, or if we're lucky, set them up with one of the independent producers in our network," Zoe explained as Willow moved to stand behind her, scrutinizing the computer screen. "But only so long as we don't flood any one area with too many false records. Right now, most of our usual communities have a recent plant."

Willow frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then suggested, "How about Sunnydale?"

She received a dubious glance from Zoe. Tara, on the other hand, nodded from her seat near Edgar. "It might work. You're thinking of Xander and Anya?"

Willow nodded, glancing at the clock on the wall. "It's not *too* late...I'll give them a call to see if they're okay with the idea."

Tara flashed her a warm smile of gratitude. Then, glancing toward her girlfriend, she asked, "Zoe, do you think we should spread the news about what happened to Edgar?"

"Already on it," Zoe confirmed as she rapidly typed out an e-mail message.

Willow's conversation with Xander was brief. After chiding Willow for the fact that it had been nearly two weeks since she'd called or visited, her childhood friend listened patiently as she explained the situation. Xander readily agreed to offer Edgar a guest room in the dream house that he'd built for Anya and himself years ago, but said he had little experience helping people make new identities for themselves.

"Apart from one minor project involving a cute little hacker I once knew who got a bad break at a bus stop," Xander teased through the receiver.

Willow smirked and fired back, "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for your help, Xander. Oz will be there with Edgar sometime in the morning."

"OZ!?!" came the stunned reply.

"Uh huh. I can't tell you much, since I haven't had a chance to play catch-up." Turning, she saw that Oz had sauntered over to her and was waiting, patiently, with a relaxed, easygoing expression she remembered well. A slow smile spread across her face. "But it looks like life has been good to him." A slight pause, then her eyes narrowed slyly as she added, "Oh, and Xander? Jesse looks really good with an earring."

"WHAT?!?" Xander bellowed into the phone. Laughing, Willow disconnected, leaving him to stew over the thought of his son with pierced ears.

Oz grinned and tilted his head to the side, studying Willow as if he were still getting used to the novelty. "So...catch-up time?" he suggested.

Willow suddenly found herself tensing with nervous anticipation. A hesitant smile trembled on her lips as she said, "Maybe we should step outside? You know, privacy?"

With an amiable shrug, Oz followed her to the back of the Co-op.

A cool breeze filtered through the alley as Willow and Oz stepped out through the Co-op's back door. She pulled the door closed behind them, then turned to face her high-school sweetheart. A mildly awkward silence ensued, although it wasn't due to fear. Willow sensed none in him. It didn't surprise her. She'd encountered one or two werewolves on her travels and knew they could hold their own against vampires.

Not that it would be necessary to test that in their case.

Oz regarded her steadily, his hands thrust into his jeans pockets. Slowly, a hint of a grin tugged at his lips and he ventured, "Hey..."

"Hey," Willow replied, feeling her cheeks stretch into a broad, goofy smile. It was an instant flashback to her teenage years.

With a bemused twinkle in his eye, Oz asked, "So...is this one of those I'll-show-you-mine-if-you'll-show-me-yours situations?"

After a momentary smirk, Willow shifted her features to that of the demon. Oz stepped closer. Curiosity sculpted his entire expression, pressing thick eyebrows upward, slightly widening gentle eyes, a hint of flared nostril as he breathed in. And then there was his mouth. Despite the changes wrought by time, the calm, unperturbed line of his mouth was so very like the unflappable, laid-back musician Willow had loved in life.

He raised his hand to feel the ridges on Willow's forehead. His fingers mapped every bump, every contour, even the sharp points of her fangs, as Oz grew as mesmerized with her changes as she was with his familiar features.

"This is...weird," Oz remarked after a lengthy scrutiny.

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "But so was high school."

Bushy eyebrows rose again as Oz nodded in agreement.

"You're not like the vampires I remember from Sunnydale," Oz noted. "Or the few I've tangled with in San Francisco."

Willow shrugged and shifted back to her human guise. "I was kind of an accident. The vampire who made me wasn't strong enough. With Angel's help, I learned to control the demon and salvage a little of who I used to be. Then, somewhere along the way, I, um...I kind of grew a soul. Or, sort of one."

Smirking, Oz commented, "I didn't know they did that. Like Sea Monkeys or a Chia Pet?"

"I haven't quite figured it out yet," Willow confessed with another shrug. Then, her eyes dancing playfully, she prompted, "So, how about you?"

Oz stepped back, quickly shed his clothes, and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly in concentration. They flickered amber as the wolf emerged. Dark hairs sprouted over his entire body, rapidly lengthening into a thick, gray coat. His human face morphed to a canine muzzle and pointed ears, while his hands and feet became clawed paws. When the transformation was complete, he stood on all fours, his head cocked slightly to the side and tail wagging.

Smiling, Willow dropped to one knee. Oz padded forward, let out a tiny whine, then licked her on the cheek. She stroked her hands through his soft fur, luxuriating in the tactile sensation, and drawing even more pleasure from the significance of his voluntary transformation.

It made her happy to see Oz like this. She'd learned more about werewolves during her time spent wandering from one demon community to another. Most of them were peaceful and well-adjusted members of the living world. Only the inexperienced ones were enslaved by the phases of the moon. Once an individual achieved an inner balance between human and wolf, he or she could easily shift between forms at will, and in wolf manifestation was no longer vicious or murderous.

More than anything else possibly could have, seeing Oz like this assured Willow that he had finally found the peace he'd been seeking when he left her.

Slowly, Oz began to revert to his human shape. The fur beneath Willow's fingertips grew sparse until his smooth skin was covered only by light patches of masculine hair and a naked Oz knelt in Willow's embrace. Neither of them felt in the least self-conscious. As demon entities, they no longer fussed over modesty. Nonetheless, Oz retreated and pulled his clothes back on.

"So, everything's good with you," Willow surmised, beaming warmly at him.

Buttoning his jeans, Oz nodded easily. "Yeah, I'm good. So, time for the Tell segment of Show-and-Tell?"

"I think we have a few minutes before you and Edgar need to get going."

Head emerging from the neck of his tee shirt, Oz began recounting the high points of his life after Sunnydale. "I found a pack after a few years of trying to control the wolf on my own." A pause, followed by a pointed stare. "Bad idea." Oz slipped on a red jacket and continued, "I needed a community. The lone wolf thing just makes it worse. But my pack helped me understand myself better and get it all blended the right way. I stopped fighting the wolf. It's the pressure of trying to force the wolf down that makes it a monster."

"And you've been working with the Co-op?" Willow prompted, nodding her head toward the back door.

"On and off. They're part of a pretty diverse group my pack has ties to," Oz acknowledged. Crooking his finger as he walked toward his van, he said, "Wanna hear something cool?"

Intrigued, Willow followed. Oz opened the driver-side door, leaned in and turned on the radio. Something that sounded like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and traditional sitar music soared from the speakers.

Willow's eyes widened and she asked warily, "This isn't the Dingoes, is it?"

A lazy half-smile tugged at Oz's mouth. "No, this is my radio station."

Snapping her head toward the radio display on the dash, Willow squeaked with glee, "Your radio station?!?"

"Yeah. We broadcast over the internet and by satellite. It's kind of an underground operation. We mix music with a lot of news reporting that gets labeled 'subversive' these days. Not too good about paying royalties for any of the songs we play, either. The Co-op has helped sponsor us in exchange for using our site as a community bulletin board. And sometimes I run a few deliveries between San Francisco and L.A."

As Oz finished his account of Radio Dingo -- the name drew giggles from Willow -- the music set gave way to a brief news report outlining the basic details of Edgar's attack earlier that evening.

Oz arched an eyebrow. "Wow. Zoe sent that e-mail pretty fast."

At his remark, an idea took shape in Willow's mind. "Oz...would you and your pack be willing to work with vampires? If it meant helping people?"

Oz's gaze locked with hers and he grinned knowingly. "Helping, as in cracking this black market ring?"

Willow nodded. Then, clasping her hands behind her back, she glanced down at her shoes and explained, "Angel, Spike, and I kind of control all of L.A.'s vampires." Green eyes rose to catch what was probably her first, ever, sight of Oz looking surprised. True to character, he recovered quickly and gestured for her to continue.

In short order, Willow explained the impact that the black market was having on local vampire hunting grounds, as well as the steps she and her Mates were taking to shut it down.

Latching onto her train of thought, Oz concluded, "And if you could broadcast some of the details on Radio Dingo, it would really turn up the heat." His eyes flashed impishly. "We'd be glad to help."

After fishing around on the floor of the van for a few seconds, Oz found a pen and a scrap of paper beneath the driver's seat. He scribbled his e-mail address and handed it to Willow. "If you have any news you want us to spread, just drop me a line." With a shrug, he smiled and added, "Or drop me a line just because you want to."

"Sure," Willow readily agreed.

They paused and regarded each other with quiet, contented smiles.

"I should probably head home," Willow reluctantly admitted. She glanced upward, then explained, "I don't do so well in the sun, and Angel and Spike will worry if I'm not back before dawn."

Oz's brow wrinkled ever so slightly.

"Things don't always turn out the way you expect them to, do they?" he noted after a poignant silence.

Willow shook her head. Softly, she agreed, "No, they don't. Who would have guessed we'd end up like this, way back in Sunnydale when we were fighting the monsters?"

Nodding, Oz regarded her thoughtfully and said, "We still are."

This earned a grin.

"You look good...happy..." Oz added.

"So do you. Life with a pack agrees with you," Willow answered.

At this, a tiny gleam appeared in Oz's eyes. He leaned into his van once more and produced a palm pilot. Holding it up for Willow to see, he tapped the display a few times until an image appeared. Willow looked closely and saw Oz, perhaps a few years younger, with a petite, chestnut-haired woman, a little girl, and a boy who strongly resembled Oz from his high-school years.

He had a family.

Willow hesitantly placed her hands on his shoulders. In the next instant, they had enveloped each other in a warm embrace. "So, you're really happy," she whispered behind his neck.

Oz gave her a little squeeze. "Yeah. You?"

"Uh huh," she affirmed, squeezing back. "But that's a long story...maybe we could get together sometime and just talk?"

Oz stepped back and smiled. "I'd like that."

Their good-byes said, Oz and Willow returned to the Co-op. Edgar seemed a little less anxious about abandoning his life in Los Angeles, although it took little effort for Willow to read the conflict in his eyes. Still, when Oz suggested they get rolling so they could stop by Edgar's apartment and pack whatever he wanted to take, the sandy-haired lab technician approached her and shook her hand.

"Thanks for everything you've done for me. I'm not sure how I'll be able to repay you."

"I had help...more than I realized," Willow demurred with a smile, glancing at all of her friends throughout the Co-op. "Group effort. So, don't pay me back. Just help someone else out when you have the chance."

"Karma," Oz added with an easy nod. "It's a pretty cool thing."

"Although, actually...if I could ask a favor," Willow amended, glancing at a clock on the wall. "Could you two drop me off before stopping at Edgar's place? It's kind of late..."

"Yeah, and she can be a real monster without her beauty sleep," came Zoe's droll remark.

Willow's gaze flicked to the Mediterranean beauty. Zoe had managed to keep her expression almost perfectly blank, but Willow detected the faintest quiver at the corner of her mouth. Slowly, a warm glow spread through Willow's chest.

That little wench was teasing her!

A smirk danced across Willow's face. In return, Zoe's eyes twinkled mischievously. She winked at Willow. Giddy with this new turn of events, Willow was unable to suppress a giggle. Somewhere along the way, Zoe had finally decided she was one of the "good guys", and felt comfortable enough to tease her.

Chuckles soon erupted around the room, eventually blossoming into full-scale laughter from Hannah and Cyrene. Tara crossed to her girlfriend, flashed her a bemused, Well-Listen-To-You-Miss-Thang look, then gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Poor Edgar frowned at all of them in confusion.

"C'mon, let's roll," Oz suggested with a wry grin, ushering Edgar toward the back door.

As Willow turned to accompany them, Zoe's voice halted her.

"You're dedicated, Willow."

Willow paused, glanced over her shoulder, and smiled. Zoe stepped forward and, somewhat awkwardly, offered her hand. Willow took it, whereupon Zoe clasped her other hand on top in a strong gesture of solidarity.

"I'm glad we're on the same team," Zoe added.

"Me too," Willow teased with a wink. "Because you can be a real witch when you want to."

Zoe tucked her tongue in her cheek and nodded dryly, while Hannah was unable to resist commenting, "Hey, witches everywhere resent that remark."

With that, Willow bid farewell to her friends and followed Oz and Edgar out to the van.

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