Growing up in such a supportive and broad-minded environment, Oz came to accept and tolerate a vast spectrum of beliefs. His mellow seeming was actually a result of this open-mindedness; being open to just about anything made you hard to surprise or upset. His father's light interest in the guitar--which probably started because everyone could play the guitar in the Sixties--had gotten him started at a young age, and nobody was happier than Oz that he turned out to have some amount of talent. A series of lucky (and not-so-lucky) breaks had led Oz to hooking up with a little band called The Dingoes Ate My Baby and becoming best friends with its lead singer, Devon (which is a complete story in and of itself, and not to be discussed herein).

As it would turn out, the easy discipline he had lived his life by--first as a new age child, then as the lead guitarist of an actual band--would come in extremely handy later in life. Apparently, the gene for the disease of lycanthropy ran strong in his family, and his cousin Jordy was one of them. When the cute little tyke chomped Oz's finger, he passed the disease on, and the rest was history. Oz's considerable mental endurance was a blessing with a disease such as lycanthropy which usually altered its victims' mental state, giving them a false sense of power and the delusion that their condition was a blessing.

As far as Oz was concerned, he was still just a normal human being with a serious disability--but a disability that he could live with. His strength of will and inability to be surprised had even given him some slight control over the beast in recent transformations, though he was still unwilling to go unchained during the three nights of the full moon. And he did have to admit, being a werewolf was handy in certain instances: he didn't have to carry out the trash one week a month, he had privacy when he needed it, and he had gotten a bigger room in the last six months--okay, it was the basement of his house, but a bigger room is a bigger room. By that same token, however, he had developed a whole new slew of problems: he had to make excuses for showing up all over Sunnydale naked, he couldn't practice *or* play gigs three nights of the month, and his kid sister kept bugging him to bite her; he figured it was only a matter of time before there were two werewolves chained up in their house during the full moon. At least his parents had been okay with it; it seemed they had known something about this whole "Mouth of Hell" business all along and just never thought to tell him.

And then there was his biggest problem of all: Willow. He loved her dearly, and he thought she felt the same about him (though who can tell with women), but she was the only thing that could frustrate or surprise him; that made him nervous. Also, there was that "werewolves and sexual heat" thing. Recently, he had felt their relationship heading in a new and unprecedented direction, and the last several times they had been alone together it was all they could do to keep from tearing each others' clothes off. Less than a week before Willow's injury, they had been making out leisurely in Oz's van when he had felt the change begin, his teeth sharpen, his mind start to falter. He had only just managed to retain control, and missed biting Willow by the slimmest of margins. He had explained his reaction as "moving too fast" and Willow seemed to accept that, but he knew that they couldn't keep this sort of thing up much longer.

To burn off his frustration and some of his pent-up sexual energy, he had turned to his first passion: the guitar. His practice sessions had become more frequent and more intense, not to mention longer and longer; earlier this week, he had somehow managed to waste an entire night trying to perfect the new song he had written--a song about Willow, no less--butfound that part of the song was completely beyond even his not-inconsiderable talents. Since that night, his passion, his driving force, had taken on a new form: the quest for an E-Flat Diminished Ninth. He would spend hours on end looking for the elusive chord, trying new positions for his fingers, building flexibility, doing all he could to prove that he was worthy of the song. In his mind, the quest for the chord had become synonymous with his quest for control over his transformations, over himself.

Then, two nights ago, a setback had occurred. While he was struggling for the proper grip, he had for the first time in a long time become angry. His level of fury surprised and terrified him; though it was directed more at himself than at his guitar, by the time he regained control, he had already partially wolfed-out and shredded the poor, helpless rig. It had so disturbed him that he confined himself to bed for the entire following day and refused to even touch a guitar the following night.

The compulsion he had built into himself, however, had proven far too strong for even his willpower to bear. The siren song of his guitar called out to him, daring him to try again, to fling himself at the rocky atoll that was the E-Flat Diminished Ninth--and to make it ashore or be destroyed on the rocks. In the end, his first passion had become his ruling one--a pale substitute for Willow, he realized, but a slightly safer one for the both of them.

As he began to play, he enforced the Zen-like calm he had become so adept at over the years and simply refused to think about what he was doing. At first, he fumbled over the first few bars of one of the mellower songs from The Cure, but in no time flat he was randomly zig-zagging from the blues-style rock of John Fogerty all the way to the other end of the spectrum with power chords in the manner of "Helter Skelter" and "Back In Black." His fingers blurred up and down the strings with an endurance and agility he had never known before. He almost started to analyze it, but he tripped over a note, making a terrible cacophony, and forced himself back into the "do or do not, there is no try" mindset he had been in for--he glanced at the clock, subconsciously registering the time--almost the entire day.

While he played, thoughts gradually came back; they were disconnected and floating, almost like the one time he had tried marijuana, but without the messy aftermath. His thoughts flowed, merged, crossed, and headed apart on eternal tangents. For the first time ever, Oz and the music were truly one. In his lack of concern, he had found a greater peace and wholeness than he had ever known. Nothing, he thought, could possibly compare to this freedom. Then Willow entered his mind again, and he knew he had been mistaken: one thing could compare.

Shifting from the loud, brassy arrogance of AC/DC to the milder, but more sorrowful and bittersweet tune he had written in honor of the love of his life, Oz changed chords so fast that he nearly took off the tip of his left index finger. There was pain now, and a little blood on the strings; that was okay, it just made them slicker and easier to play. The scent of blood--coppery and strong--was almost overpowering, but he blanked it out of his mind. The pain was strong, too; checking quickly, he found that he had mild friction burns over most of the skin on his hands and forearms and that even the calluses he had built up in a decade of playing hadn't prevented him from various cuts and scrapes. But none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered now was the song; he smiled vaguely for a moment as the slightly ludicrous thought that he had never titled it occurred to him.

He continued to play, clearing his mind of all concerns. Oz didn't even realize it, but he was mumbling the lyrics as he played; he had never been very confident of his skills as a vocalist and avoided singing with the Dingoes whenever he could. Had Willow been there, she might have marveled at how much better his singing voice was than how he had described it to her; but she wasn't, so she didn't see what happened next. None saw that--not even Oz himself, really.

As Oz played, his mind a clean slate, the change began. His muscles bulked, barely noticeable at first, only to become thick and bunched; his teeth elongated, cutting his lips as he unknowingly mumbled song lyrics; fur began to sprout on his body; his ears pointed and lengthened; his hands started to twist into claws. And then an amazing--almost impossible--thing happened: the transformation stopped halfway, and reversed itself, healing many of Oz's wounds as it receded. Oz finally became conscious of what was transpiring, but in his mentally dulled state it registered as something far away, as though it were occurring to a total stranger.

His fingers, caught somewhere between human and animal digits, never ceased their relentless working of the strings and frets; indeed, they moved faster and slower, speeding and delaying in time with Oz's internal beat. Then, as he neared the end of the song, it became time for his crowning achievement... if he could do it. Oz's half-human hands crept toward the chord, almost leisurely, and twisted the strings into the shape of the do-able E-Flat. His other hand, as near-monstrous as the first, plucked the proper notes that would end the song. With a flourish that was completely unnecessary, Oz's left hand pulled the E-Flat out of place, sliding to the ninth fret and reforming. In a move that was so smooth it astounded even him, it happened.

E-Flat Diminished Ninth.

As the final notes faded into silence, Oz collapsed to the basement floor, his aching hands clutching the guitar like it was his last anchor to reality. Gradually, the partial transformation faded and his hands returned to normal--hurting, but human. When Oz's senses returned, he found that he was weeping. Searching his heart, he realized that he was not weeping for the chord or the song--they were good, but any musician could have accomplished them eventually. He was weeping for himself, for his happiness. After all, the chord he had been so passionate about was really just a symbol to him, a symbol of his own level of control and restraint. The E-Flat Diminished Ninth had been a test--a test he had no choice but to pass if he and Willow could ever truly mean anything to one another.

Oz stood slowly, the pain from his frantic playing dull and throbbing now. But despite the pain, he was glad, for now he knew that he was truly capable of mastering himself and his emotions, that he had a discipline that no passion--save only one--could ever break. And when his last passion broke his control, he knew, even then he would not release that final mental floodgate that could harm someone he loved more than life itself. And now, when Willow decided that they were ready, they would take that final step into the realm of relationships, taking the step that both had dreamed of for what seemed like forever. He had beaten passion at its own game, overcome his weakness, even conquered his terrible disability.

And he had done it with a song in his heart.