What If??

Giles groans quietly as he helps pick up the riot of wrapping paper strewn around the living room, a small smile coming to his face as he looks at the plethora of Christmas gifts.

Joyce leans against the wall, smiling at the watcher. “They went overboard, didn’t they?” Laughing as Giles looks up and rolls his eyes at her. “Of course it isn’t like you didn’t add to the mess.”

“Yes, well…” Giles blushes lightly and shrugs his shoulders. “What are the children doing, anyways?”

“Outside playing with some of their new toys.” Joyce chuckles as she heads towards him to help clean up. “I swear when Faith saw the drawing of all of us together she was going to cry.”

“She did when Tara gave her that painting she did.” Giles murmurs softly as he fills the trash bag. “That young woman is very talented.”

“Yes, she is. I’m planning on having a showing with her art in April. Lord knows she has enough different paintings to have five showings.” Joyce admits as she lifts the painting Tara gave her, that was the riot or colors that called out to her young and wild side. Looking out of the corner of her eye at Rupert, she chuckles softly. “The first time I saw this painting, it made me remember the Band Candy incident.”

Giles shifts to look at the painting, considering it for a few minutes. “Makes you feel wild and free, doesn’t it?” Wrapping his arms around Joyce, he kisses her firmly on the temple. “I’m glad they’re all getting along so well.”

“So am I. Even though there have been a few bumps along the way.” Joyce smiles sadly as she thinks about Faith.

“She’s getting there. Us not letting her get too bogged down in what happened, and Tara’s and Buffy’s continuous talking with her seems to help immensely.” Giles offers softly, hugging Joyce to him as she turns in to his arms. “Realizing she has people to talk to and that will be there for her, seems to have made quite a difference with the young woman.”

“Have you noticed she hasn’t even been going out on the ‘prowl’?” Joyce whispers softly, having noticed that Faith had been sticking pretty much close to home, and not being her usual ‘get some, get gone’ self.

“Yes, I have. I think she’s seeing what Buffy and Tara have together, and hopes one day to have just a tiny bit of that with someone special.” Giles thinks heavily. “I was actually thinking maybe she and Xander would end up together, but they act more like brother and sister than anything now.”

“That’s the way they feel for each other.” Joyce agrees quietly, snuggling in tighter against the comforting strength of her lover. “I wonder if she wouldn’t do better with just a ‘normal’ person, not someone from the group.”

“My dear! You cannot get much more normal than Xander.” Giles grins as he pulls back a short distance to look down at Joyce, chuckling at the look on her face.

“He’s a demon magnet, Rupert!! I have a feeling that the rate he’s going, he’s going to end up with some demon as a girlfriend.” Joyce grumbles, laughing as Rupert guffaws loudly.

“You do have a point, my dear. You definitely have a point.” Giles chuckles at the thought.

**********

“Go ahead, Xan-man!! I know ya’ wanna!” Faith calls out to Xander, smirking as he plays with the throwing knives that she’d gotten as one of her Christmas presents.

“Oh, yeah! I can see me missing the damn board, it flying over the fence and stabbing the neighbors dog, or some stupid nonsense.” Xander grumbles, rolling his eyes.

“It won’t go anywhere. If you don’t hit the board, it’ll land harmlessly on the ground.” Buffy explains, grinning at Tara. “Tara did a protective spell to keep all our shenanigans in the back yard, so no one will get hurt!”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Xander blinks and grabs the knife like he’d seen Faith holding it, turns to face the target and takes a couple practice flicks before letting it fly, pouting as it bounces harmlessly off the wood to land at the ground.

Buffy and Faith snort back a laugh. “Ain’t as easy as it looks, is it Xan?” Faith walks over to him. “You have to release it at the right place, or it won’t sink into the wood.” Faith explains and demonstrates for the young man as she sinks the knife in the bulls eye.

“Just like children.” Tara murmurs, shaking her head as she looks through a magic book Giles had given her for Christmas.

Willow looks over, chuckling at the blonde Wicca. “They always will be. We all kind of have the competitive streak in us, but I know my limitations. Xander still hasn’t figured his out.”

Tara laughs quietly and looks up as Xander bounces another knife off the target. Eyes twinkling with mischief, Tara whispers a spell and watches as the next knife Xander throws nails the target directly in the middle. Seeing a raised eyebrow, and the grin on Willow’s face, Tara shrugs, looking back at Xander who’s jumping up and down for joy.

“You know, it isn’t fair helping.” Buffy murmurs leaning over Tara and placing a quick kiss on her neck.

“But it made him happy. And Christmastime is a time to be happy and thankful.” Tara tilts her head back to look up at her lover, smiling softly.

“True.” Buffy nods her head as she leans down to place a loving kiss on Tara’s lips. “You wanna play?” Buffy wiggles her eyebrows before she hands a crossbow to Tara.

Tara looks at the item, and looks up at Buffy. “Do I have to?” Tara turns her eyes to Willow who snorts back a laugh.

“Hey, I had to learn how to operate one of those damn things, you need to, also!!” Willow explains, grinning.

“Okay.” Tara rolls her eyes as she stands, following Buffy to another target, following the instructions and slowly learning how to shoot the crossbow halfway decently.

***

“I hate to say it, but we really should start to discuss what we need to do.” Giles looks apologetically at the group.

Willow speaks up quickly. “I did a little researching earlier, and from what I can tell with my… unauthorized checking out of the city plans, there is an underground area almost as large as the college campus, and possibly two if not three levels deep. It wasn’t really clear on that.” Willow winces apologetically. “Plus, there is an IMMENSE amount of electricity being drawn through there.”

“Great. So we’re looking at a fortress type area, with a lot of electricity…” Buffy blinks and looks at Willow for a minute before her gaze turns to Faith. “Is there any way that the power could accidentally get knocked out down there?”

Faith frowns heavily as she turns her gaze from Buffy to Willow, waiting to see what the redhead would say.

“Anything’s possible.” Willow shakes her head as she leans forward, placing her elbows on her knees. “If the right person knows what to do, they could cut off the electrical power to the Initiative. I’m assuming the Initiative would have some kind of back-up generators down there, to keep everything going, but I don’t know what they would have tied to it.”

“And if someone were able to shut down the back-up generators…” Buffy bites her bottom lip as she paces back and forth. “First off, I really, REALLY, do not like the fact that they have what feels like literally hundreds of demons down there captive. I want to get in there and scope the place out.” Buffy turns to look at Tara, who’s frowning heavily.

“You’re not going alone.” Tara shakes her head as she looks at Buffy. “I’ll go with you. Maybe Faith and a couple other people can be close by, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go down there by yourself.”

“I can go down with her.” Faith offers quietly, looking at the two women who are staring at each other, slightly tense.

“No.” Tara shakes her head, not breaking eye contact with Buffy. “We can’t have both of you down there… if you both were captured, we’d be without a slayer, and that isn’t going to happen. And Goddess only knows what kind of experiments they would love to do on you.”

“You’re not going.” Buffy states calmly, though her tense body and the lightly glowing eyes let anyone paying any attention know that Buffy was anything but calm at this moment.

“Yes, I am.” Tara stares down her lover. “You have access to my magic, but you aren’t used to using it. It could make a huge difference if I’m there with you, you can use your slayer powers while I use my magical powers.” Tara explains quietly.

“I don’t want you down there.” Buffy’s voice gets deeper, her eyes narrowing.

“It’s not your decision to make.” Tara replies softly. “Anything they throw at us, between the two of us, we should be able to counteract, this isn’t something we’re going to argue about, Sarim.”

Everyone in the room looks from one woman to the other as they talk, all of them afraid to say or do anything to set one of them off.

“Outside.” Buffy growls the one word before striding through the house.

Tara clenches her jaw, taking a deep breath, she follows her lover out of the living room.

***

“Shit, is that what they were like when they argued over helpin’ me?” Faith finally questions quietly, her eyes turned back to look at Joyce and Xander after Tara left the house.

“They didn’t argue over helping you, Faith. They argued over the fact that Tara didn’t exactly disclose everything about what COULD happen with what she planned on doing. Buffy wanted you to be helped as much as possible, she just didn’t like the fact that Tara didn’t tell her all the possibilities.” Joyce explains quietly. “This is something totally different.” Joyce shakes her head, wondering what this butting of heads between the two women is going to do.

“Tare explained what could have happened.” Faith shakes her head as she stands, walking over to the front door, opening it to look out at the nice day. “How, if I’d a wanted to hurt her, I coulda. That girl has entirely too good a heart and wants to help, when she should just leave things be.”

“Then there would be a good chance you wouldn’t be here right now.” Xander shakes his head, looking at the dark-haired slayer. “She may not do things the way that you guys would like her to, but she does get it done. Give her a chance.” Xander explains softly.

“Buffy has that knee-jerk reaction when she thinks Tara might get hurt.” Joyce explains quietly, looking between the two teenagers. “I wonder if Buffy even took into consideration that she’s put that protective spell around all of us?”

Faith growls and rolls her eyes. “I can guarantee she didn’t. I sure as the hell didn’t think about it!” Faith trots out the front door heading towards the back yard, where she can hear the two women arguing in low tones.

“Hey! Did ya’ two forget somethin’?” Faith questions hoarsely

“What?” Buffy growls angrily looking at Faith.

“You’re worried about Tare getting hurt, but she’s got that damn protective barrier on all of us, so what are ya’ two arguing about?” Faith raises an eyebrow and waits just long enough for the looks of surprise and embarrassment to come across both women’s faces before smirking and heading into the house, whistling.

“Fuck!” Buffy growls throwing her hands up in the air as she turns her back and strides out into the yard, looking up at the sun in the sky. “Do I feel like an imbecile!”

Tara chuckles softly, before finally laughing loudly. “Honey, neither one of us thought of it!”

Buffy shakes her head and turns to look back at her lover, who’s grinning crookedly at her. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Tara.”

“I know, honey. I know.” Tara closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around Buffy. “I understand, I really do. But we need to get this taken care of, and our best chance is doing this together.”

“I know. It just makes me crazy whenever I think about something happening to you.” Buffy takes a deep breath, exhaling it loudly as she tries to let go of her worry.

“I understand, honey. And knowing what happened before has made it even worse.” Tara understands completely what’s going through her lover’s mind, because the same thing is working it’s way through hers. “Just remember, I have the same memories you do, honey. And it scares me shitless to think of something happening to you.”

“So we both have the same worries.” Buffy sighs heavily, beating herself up mentally to not even think of Tara having the same worries that she does. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh. It’s okay, we’re still going to have our bumps and bruises along the way, love. That’s a given. We can’t be the perfect couple all the time.” Tara smiles softly as she buries her face against Buffy’s neck, placing a firm kiss against the flesh as she holds her lover tightly.

“But I like being the perfect couple.” Buffy whines quietly, before laughing as Tara pinches her. “Okay, I like the arguing also, gets the blood flowing and makes me want to carry you off somewhere so we can make up.”

“And normally I would be all for that…” Tara laughs quietly as Buffy growls.

“But we can’t, we need to figure out what we’re going to do. Do you have a plan of action?” Buffy questions as she shifts back from Tara looking at her lover curiously.

“Invade, kick ass and wipe out the evil demons.” Tara shrugs her shoulders, her eyes twinkling.

“Well, that was a given.” Buffy rolls her eyes, grabbing Tara’s hand. “Come on, let’s head in and see what we can come up with. I’d rather get this taken care of soon!” Buffy urges them back into the house, while her mind starts running over their options, coming into the living room, the rest of the group are laughing at her mother as she’d put her glamour charm on and was trying to get Giles to give her a kiss.

Tara laughs as Giles captures the woman and lays a huge kiss on her, even looking like a man. Rolling her eyes she looks at her extremely quiet lover, seeing the calculating look in her eyes. “What are you thinking?”

“You can make any of us look like anybody with one of your charms, right?” Buffy narrows her gaze as she thinks, not even paying any attention to her mother and watcher.

“Yes, I…” Tara trails off as she catches where Buffy’s going with this. “Get pictures of them, that’ll help me get the details down better, along with telling me exactly how tall they are.”

Buffy nods her head, her eyes showing her excitement. “Then we might be able to get in and out undetected. What about voices?”

“If someone can get a recording of there voices, I can get the ingredients and make our voices somewhat close. It won’t be perfect, but it should pass if we keep our answers short and to the point.” Tara nibbles on her lip as she considers their options. “Uniforms will be needed.”

“How about we just capture a couple of the commando’s and keep them here? That way we can impersonate them, and not worry about the other shit? We also wouldn’t have to worry about running into ‘ourselves’.” Buffy suggests, frowning heavily.

“But do we want them to know who we are?” Tara shakes her head at that thought, before rolling her eyes. “We could blindfold them and knock them out…” Tara narrows her gaze on a happily grinning Faith and Buffy. “NOT THAT KIND OF KNOCKING OUT!” Tara shakes her fingers at both of them.

“Don’t let us have no fun.” Faith pouts for a moment, before grinning. “So we need to capture two of the idiots, huh? B and I could play around and get a couple of them separated from the rest of the group and take them out.”

“With help.” Tara looks at Giles who’s being uncharacteristically quiet, seeing him thinking intently. “Mr. Giles?”

Giles blinks a couple times and turns his gaze on Tara. “I’m sorry, dear.” He picks up the newspaper he’d been reading earlier, before sliding it towards Buffy. “This seems to be a bit out of our normal happenings.”

Buffy looks down at the newspaper that Giles had opened and folded to a certain section, frowning as she reads over the blurb. “Tara?” Buffy whispers softly, turning up her eyes at the Wicca. As soon as Tara looks sharpens her gaze, Buffy frowns heavily. “It seems that Professor Walsh has been torn limb from limb.”

Tara pales and swallows hard. “That’s not good.” Tara shakes her head, looking from her lover to Giles. “If she did work for the Initiative, like we think she did…”

“There’s a good chance something’s going on down there.” Buffy finishes, tossing the paper down on the coffee table. “Faith, I think we better do this soon.”

“Like tomorrow, it’s too late to probably start this tonight.” Faith agrees, looking round at the group. “Any and all suggestions, would be of the good.”

“I’ll see if I can find anything else out on-line.” Willow offers, shrugging her shoulders.

“Want me to go to Willy’s, see if he has any news?” Xander offers, raising an eyebrow at Buffy.

“I’d rather you didn’t go by yourself, but it is a good idea.” Buffy admits quietly. “Just in case he’s heard anything, but I don’t know with the majority of the demons being gone.”

“I can go with him.” Tara looks at Buffy, shrugging her shoulders. “There isn’t a lot else I can do. While we’re out, we can go by the Magic Box and get the ingredients I will need to have prepared, if that’s okay with Mr. Giles.”

“Be careful.” Buffy whispers, looking at her lover.

“Always.” Tara nods her head smiling at Buffy.

“I actually had a couple extra set of keys made up for the shop.” Giles smiles embarrassedly. “I thought it might be best if some of you had a set, just in case.” Giles stands and pulls out the keys, handing a set to Joyce, Tara and Xander.

“You don’t get a set?” Tara questions, looking at Buffy with a raised eyebrow.

Buffy smirks and shakes her head. “I already have a set, against his better judgment.”

“I didn’t get you a set, Willow, since you’re clear across the country.” Giles explains quietly. “There’ll be a set here for you when you come home for the summer.”

“That’s okay, Giles. Not really a biggie.” Willow smiles in thanks at the watcher. “Not much sense in my having a set of keys to it when I’m clear across the country.”

“Okay, let’s decide on a plan of action… after we eat some more!” Faith wiggles her eyebrows as she heads towards the kitchen amidst groans and laughter.

*********