Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemies, Fox et al own ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and the characters of Willow and Oz. I am merely a fan! Don’t sue!

Summary: Willow misses Oz.+++

I did it unconsciously, half-expecting, half-knowing. I thought I would touch air, like all the other nights. The crisp dark air filling his room.

When I touched skin, I gasped. And he said my name again, “Willow.” I hummed a sigh and I felt his weight on the bed. He pulled my frame towards him. Just touching me, he seemed to fill me with much needed nourishment. Warmth I hadn’t felt since he left. He gave me a buzzing heat that no one, not even Tara, could come close to.

He ran his beautiful thumb over my lips and I noticed that his hands seemed more worn with frustration than before. And by no concentrated effort from me, I opened my mouth and let my tongue slid across his finger.

He leaned down, shadowing my face with his. I knew what he was doing. He’d done it a thousand times before. But it had been so long. Just remembrance, fantasies. I learned that no memory can simulate the presence of a man. The smell of cologne on their neck, the feel of their chest under your fingers. I had gone so long without those things.

But he was here, right in front of me. He was probably afraid, just like me.

It seemed like hours before his lips grazed mine, but when they did all the warmth and haziness that goes along with him, came coursing through me like a current.

His lips rested on mine as he began to cry his tears onto my burning cheeks, and whisper apologies and forgiveness against my mouth. And the only thing I could do was to smile and tell him that I had already forgiven him.

I hushed him and opened my mouth to let my tongue run across his bottom lip. He took in a ragged wet breath and did the only thing he could, the only thing I wanted him to do.

He pushed his tongue inside my lips and licked and kissed every inch. His fingers danced across my body and down my arm to my hand.

I wrapped my fingers around his, telling him that he could never leave me again. I knew, through the gold haze that encompassed us that he never would.

He broke the kiss and laid down next to me, watching my eyes in the twilight that spilled from the window.

He smiled, and from that moment on, I couldn't fathom the reasoning I had to think that someone could come after him, or before him.

All there was to me, in the darkened room, was Oz.