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TITLE: Hacker Confidential
AUTHOR: Laragh
CHAPTER RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Willow, Tara and any other characters from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise belong to Joss Whedon, FOX, ME and a whole host of other entities, none of which are me.
SUMMARY: AU, set in contemporary setting. A lot of W/T fluff and some semblance of a storyline.
SPOILERS: AU fic, so at most minor references or pieces of dialogue
FEEDBACK: Yes please
Chapter 42********
Previously:A loud cracking sound made the three girls spin around in place to see Angel, who had wandered slightly ahead of them, lying on a large patch of ice and clutching his arm. Buffy scurried over there, concern etched on her face.
“Jeez, Angel, I said you were on thin ice, not to fall on it!”
Willow and Tara rushed over to Angel’s side as well just in time to see Buffy put her hand on the arm he was clutching and the man recoiling in pain.
“I think it’s broken,” he said through gritted teeth after a moment.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” Buffy replied, helping him stand up, “Should we call an ambulance?”
“No,” Angel shook his head, “There’s no point, it's not an emergency. But I’m not going to be able to drive.”
“I’ll drive,” Willow offered as they walked as fast as they could out of the garden, before turning to Tara, “I’ll have to take the Lexus so Buffy can sit in the back with him, the Merc's backseats look really cramped. Can you drive Angel’s car? We can’t just leave it here. I’ll key the hospital into the GPS and you can just follow me.”
“Sure,” Tara nodded, “Okay.”
Buffy had overheard their conversation and reached into Angel’s jacket pocket, handing Tara the keys and giving her a grateful smile. Angel was in too much pain to notice anything that was going on and slipped into the backseat of Willow’s car as they reached it without question, Buffy sitting beside him and rubbing his knee comfortingly. Willow kissed Tara on the cheek before scrambling into the driver’s seat and keying something into the little GPS box in front of her.
“Okay, the hospital’s close by,” she said as she started the car, “I’ll have us there in fifteen minutes tops.”
She swiftly reversed out of the parking spot and, once making sure Tara was behind her, drove as fast as the speed limit would allow through the streets of Buffalo.
“No one can ever say we didn’t have an exciting first weekend here,” Angel managed a joke from the backseat, though you could tell he was in considerable pain.
“I know flowers aren’t your thing, honey, but there’s better ways of letting us know you wanted to leave,” Buffy joked back, “You just wanted to get out of paying for lunch after, didn’t you?”
Willow smiled at the loving interaction as she slowed down to go over a speed bump as gently as she could, not wanting to jolt Angel’s arm and sighed in relief as she turned a corner and the large building of the hospital greeted her.
“I’ll drop you guys off outside the emergency room and park the car, okay? Me and Tara will meet you in there.”
Angel smiled weakly at the redhead.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“Nonsense, of course we’ll stay,” Willow replied as she pulled up on the curb outside the ER, “You’ll need a ride back.”
Buffy mouthed ‘thank you’ as she ushered her boyfriend out of the car and into the hospital. Willow looked in the mirror and saw the Mercedes waiting behind her so put her hand out the window and indicated that she would be going around and pulled away, driving onto the street and searching for a space. She found one after a minute and watched Tara pull in somewhere a couple of rows down. She exited the car and locked it before quickly putting money in the meter and jogging over to her concerned-looking wife, who was doing the same.
“Is Angel okay?”
“He was hanging in there,” Willow replied as she took the blonde’s hand and started walking them towards the entrance, “I said we’d stick around so we could give them a ride home.”
Tara nodded.
“Of course we’ll stay. That sounded like a pretty nasty fall.”
Willow agreed and shook her head, her hands moving to begin to gesture.
“He should’ve taken heed of those ‘beware of slippery ice’ signs they had up. We should bring some coffees. If Quantico is anything to go by Buffy drinks a lot when she’s stressed. I don’t know what Angel drinks though. He seems like a straight-up ‘no cream, no sugar’ black kinda guy but I don’t know for sure. Hmm maybe we could just get extra creams and sugars and bring them with us. Oh and one of those cinnamon bun thingies, everybody likes those...”
Tara nodded along as Willow continued babbling about confectionary, knowing it was just her reaction to the stressful situation as they entered the hospital from the other side that Buffy and Angel had been dropped off. There was a small cafeteria and the blonde walked them in there.
“What does Buffy drink?” she asked, effectively cutting the redhead’s still-going babble off.
“Uh, mocha too,” Willow replied, seemingly a little surprised that they weren’t still on the street.
“Okay, I’ll be back in second,” Tara responded, giving her wife a quick kiss on the cheek before walking over to the serving counter.
Willow looked around the building, getting a small shiver up her spine. She’d never liked hospitals, they always gave her the creeps. A collection of vending machines off to the side distracted her and she decided to get a couple of bottles of water as well in case anyone wanted some instead of coffee. Tara noticed her wife leaving the cafeteria but didn’t really have time to process it as the server called her up and she placed their coffee order.
She moved off and collected the 4 steaming Styrofoam cups and the two small baggies that had the cinnamon buns Willow had been talking about before grabbing some extra cream and sugar from the small stand that was there and going to the front of the cafeteria, just as Willow came back, her arms laden down with a variety of different candies and chocolate bars, a bottle of water stuffed into each of her jeans pockets. The blonde quirked an eyebrow and Willow just shrugged.
“You said it was good to be prepared. And I couldn’t choose.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Tara said with a hint of a smile as they followed signs to the ER.
“You didn’t have to. You did the eyebrow thing. The one that means you think I’m insane.”
“I’ve never thought of you as insane. Insanely hot, maybe. But not insane. You’re more...quirky.”
Willow didn’t hear anything after ‘insanely hot’ and giggled, blushing like a schoolgirl and looking down at her feet, whispering something under her breath.
“What was that?” Tara asked, a bemused grin on her face.
“I said,” Willow spoke up a little louder, her voice turning into a singsong, “You think I'm gorgeous, you want to kiss me...you want to hug me...you want to love me...you want to smooch me, you want to-”
She was cut off as Tara leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips before pulling back with a loving smile.
“You’re right. I do. Now come on, we better get to the other two before Angel thinks you stole the keys from me and drove off with his car.”
“I was tempted,” Willow grinned as they rounded a corner into the emergency room, filled with people and noise.
She spotted their friends in the corner and nudged Tara, pointing them out and they made their way over. Buffy looked up when they arrived and raised her eyebrow at the stash in Willow’s hands, much like Tara had. Angel, however, feeling quite broody and sorry for himself, spoke up in a forlorn tone.
“Are those M&M's?”
Willow’s face lit up and she nodded.
“Peanut or plain?”
“Plain, please.”
The redhead happily handed the candy over to the man, sticking her tongue out at Tara in the process. Tara contained a chuckle and smirked slightly as she handed a cup out to Buffy.
“Mocha?”
“You’re a godsend,” Buffy said, gratefully taking the offering, “These forms are so confusing. Pretty convenient you broke the arm you write with isn’t it, honey?”
“Here, let me help,” Tara said, taking a seat beside her friend, “I have to fill these out a lot with the kids I work with.”
Buffy frowned for a moment at the idea of kids being hurt but gratefully accepted the help as Tara took her own coffee and handed the others out.
“We weren’t sure what you drank, Angel.”
“I like it black.”
“Ha!” Willow said, pumping a fist triumphantly in the air, causing a few strange looks from the others in the waiting room, “I told you.”
“You’re awfully cocky for someone who’s not going to be able to hold their coffee ‘cause off all the candy in their hands,” Buffy responded with a wry grin, bringing her cup up to her nose, “Mmhh, mocha. Delicious.”
“You guys are worse than the kids I work with,” Tara said, but was grinning as well as she opened her bag and motioned Willow forward, indicating for her to drop the candy in there.
“Always thinking, baby,” Willow smiled as she took hers and Angel’s coffee, turning to the man “I’ll hold your coffee while you finish your M&M's.”
Angel gave a small smile as he slowly ate his candies, resting the packet between his knees and dutifully answered the questions he was asked until the required forms had been filled out and Buffy dropped them back to the nurse.
“So now we wait...” she said with a sigh as she plopped back down in her seat.
And wait they did, as other patients, critical and not came and went through the door of the ER until the majority of the candy Willow stockpiled had been eaten out of pure boredom and Buffy had consumed almost her bodyweight in mochas. Willow had been right, she did use it as a stress-buster but it was also serving to make her quite tetchy as she paced back and forth in front of the other three, muttering expletives under her breath.
The others had long given up trying to get her to sit down, and therefore weren’t able to react until it was too late as Buffy walked up to the nursing desk and slammed her fists down.
“Hey, we have been waiting here for hours and my boyfriend is in A LOT of pain. You think you could maybe stop sitting around and I dunno, HELP HIM?!”
The nurse behind the desk exhaled for a moment before regarding Buffy calmly.
“If you’d please take a seat, ma’am, he’ll be seen as soon as possible.”
“As soon as possible isn’t good enough, his arm will have healed himself at this rate!” Buffy shouted irately, before narrowing her eyes, “I work for the FBI you know, so you really oughta-”
Willow and Tara had rushed over by this stage and the redhead managed to drag Buffy away before she caused an even bigger scene and Tara gave the undaunted – she worked in an ER, she was used to angry outbursts – nurse an apologetic smile.
“I’m very sorry, she’s just had a little too much caffeine and is worried about her boyfriend. I’m Tara Maclay. I’m actually a social worker for the Office of Children and Families, so I might be hanging around here a lot in the future. Unfortunate nature of the job.”
The nurse’s features softened and she gave the blonde a small smile.
“I’m Evelyn. I’m the charge nurse here, it’s nice that you’ve introduced yourself. We often get new social workers in here and don’t know them from Adam. It can be especially confusing for the poor children that come through here when we don’t even know who’s who.”
Tara put her hand through the small glass opening and shook Evelyn's hand.
“Well I’ll be doing my best to make sure those kids get the best aftercare possible.”
Evelyn widened her smile at Tara before giving a quick glance to where Willow was trying to calm Buffy down, then behind her as one of the doctors put a chart down on the desk.
“Not that I’m encouraging yelling as a means to get through here faster, but your friend has been waiting quite a while. I’ll just grab the doctor here, you can tell him to come on through.”
“Really?” Tara asked, breathing a sigh of relief, “Excellent. Thank you. I’ll be seeing you again, Evelyn, thanks so much for your help.”
Tara quickly skirted over to where the others were and nodded towards the double doors into the medical area.
“You’re in.”
Willow looked surprised and Buffy just jumped up, grabbing Angel by his good arm and guiding him through the people.
“Maybe you should wait out here?” Angel asked tentatively but a quick glare from his girlfriend quickly put that idea out to pasture.
“How’d you manage that?” Willow asked as they watched them go through the double doors.
“Oh, you know, flirted with the nurse,” Tara replied nonchalantly, “May have told her I wanted to get in her panties.”
Willow folded her arms across her chest.
“Am I gonna have to go over there and kick her ass? I know I’m not large with the butch, but I’ll do it.”
Tara playfully hit her wife on the arm before lowering her voice.
“You know yours are the only panties I want to be near.”
Willow shot the blonde a sultry smile in return and was about to lean over for a much-deserved kiss when she suddenly remembered they were in a room full of sick people and that it might not be the best place for some full-on PDA. She settled instead for resting her head against Tara’s shoulder and took comfort in the small strokes her wife was caressing down her arm.
It was in that same position that Buffy found them in three hours later as he helped a doped-up Angel walk along, except Willow was quietly snoring on Tara’s shoulder.
“When did she crash?” Buffy asked with a wry smile.
“About half an hour after you went in,” Tara replied as she started trying to stir her wife, “Honey, wake up. It’s time to go.”
Willow resisted the wake-up call, just burying her head deeper and Tara sighed, knowing she’d have to go for the old tried-and-tested method.
“Sorry sweetie,” she whispered before plugging her nose, making Willow shoot up straight away, gasping and blinking in quick succession as she tried to get a bearing on her surroundings.
“Tara!” she said, annoyed after a minute as she rubbed her eyes, “You said you’d stop doing that!”
She then noticed that Angel and Buffy were standing in front of her and jumped up.
“Hey, are you finished? Is everything okay?”
“Just a wrist fracture,” Buffy replied as Angel thrust out his now cast-covered lower arm, “He has to wear that for four weeks. And he’s completely doped up. I don’t even thing they gave him something that strong, but he’s completely out of it.”
“Probably for the best,” Tara responded as she went to the other side of Angel and helped Buffy hold him up, “We should get you home.”
Buffy just managed a tired nod as they all walked out onto the street and found the cars. They used the same set-up as before, Willow driving the injured party and his girlfriend back to their apartment, getting directions from an exhausted Buffy and Tara followed in Angel’s car. When they arrived at the apartment, Willow helped Buffy up the elevator with Angel, who was practically asleep between them and managed to deposit him on the bed.
“He can sleep in his clothes,” Buffy sighed as she shut the bedroom door behind her, “I’m so sorry about today. Thank you for everything, you and Tara have been a goldmine.”
“No worries. You’d have done the same.”
“Still,” Buffy replied, then pulled her friend into a hug, “Thank you. And give one of these to Tara, too. You know, we had a pretty good chat earlier. She’s something special.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Buff,” Willow replied fondly, “She’s my girl. Now, you should go get some sleep. We have to be in work first thing.”
“Oh god,” Buffy groaned, “I’d forgotten about that. I’ll meet you outside the building at quarter to nine? I’ll bring the coffees.”
“Sure,” Willow smiled, “We have to report to one of the senior agents first, right?”
“Yea, agent Durrow.”
Willow nodded her head for a moment before pulling Buffy into another hug, then moving towards the door.
“See you at work, Buff.”
Glad you liked the new friendships!
