Brittany knocked on Charlie's door and poked her head inside to see that the blonde was currently sitting on her bed cross-legged reading an instruction manual. There was an opened box with an untouched tablet sitting on the bed in front of her. "Charlie?"
Charlie looks up at Brittany and narrows her eyes slightly. Santana had taken her to the store to purchase a brand new one and she had insisted on setting it up by herself, it was her first big purchase by herself. Santana had given her a bunch of things but adults worked hard to pay for things, at least that's what Mike said. "Santana's in the bar," she mutters under her breath.
"I know, but I came to see you to apologize. I was out of line; some information has come to my attention and I believe you're not lying."
"I'm not a liar," Charlie says crossing her arms over her chest.
Brittany nodded, Santana's instincts about people were generally spot on when she wasn't trying to get into their pants. "I know that now, and I'm sorry for putting my hands on you, but Santana's my best friend and I care for her deeply. We've been through a lot together and I'm overprotective, she's never done this before and you are—" Brittany hesitates for a moment. Strange wasn't the right word to use, "You remind me of who I was back in high school." Brittany said, "And I guess I was just projecting my feelings onto you and that's not fair."
Charlie didn't respond to that and instead focused on her instruction manual before picking up her new tablet and carefully switching it on, she had told Santana she could do this by herself and she planned to do just that without her help. It seemed to be easy enough but she didn't know what an email was. Santana was going to be all smug about this.
"Do you need some help?" Brittany prompted watching Charlie.
"No," it sounded childish but she would be smart and figure it out. She crinkles her nose for a moment. She was stumped on the first bit.
"I can help and you can tell Santana you did it on your own," Brittany offered.
"That's a lie. I'm not a liar, I'll just ask Santana to do it for me," Charlie huffs and hops off the bed. Santana's tablet had bright colorful games that she was bad at, but it was fun for her and she wanted to be able to do that on her own tablet.
"I need to talk to Santana about her poorly thought out plan, can you give me a few minutes it's top secret, in return I'll tell her to not tease you about not knowing how to set that up on your own," Brittany offered. Charlie looks at her suspiciously but nods. "It shouldn't take long." With that Brittany made her way downstairs, Santana had refused to talk to her until she had handled her issue with Charlie and while she doubted that Charlie trusted her completely, their relationship was probably better than it had been. She opens the door to the kitchen and strolls in, "I talked to her. She doesn't know how to set up her tablet, you should help her."
Santana rolled her eyes, "I offered she said she could do it, I blame Mike. He's trying to build her independence but there are still plenty of things that she doesn't know. I understand that she's an adult but she spent her entire life in a cage, with brutal assholes beating her and torturing her to get her to perform magic like a dog learning new tricks. It's sick."
"You're right of course, but I talked it over with Mike, and you're going to need a far better plan, than create a distraction and walk in and take the info. It's got to be one hell of a distraction as in the entire building would need to be emptied, you would need a few glamours that work on security cameras—which is expensive. Tina doesn't do them for free, and even then, what if you can't use magic while you're in there? What if there are wards? Winging it, isn't good enough."
"I know that but what exactly is the alternative, Sebastian is getting us as much information as we need to make this go as simple as possible. He's getting us uniforms and ID cards. But all the pertinent information is on an intranet, it's going to take some time. We need the entire building cleared and personally I think burning down the building comes after we get the information not beforehand." Santana said with a frown.
"I don't see why we can't use the fact that Charlie has an identical twin?"
"Because it would require cutting her hair, and while I'm sure Charlie would do it if I asked her to even though she really doesn't like people touching her, she doesn't want to know that she has a family. She already knows that they're alive but it stirs up some terrible shit for her so I can't just let her know, she's not ready for it and quite frankly with a family like that who could blame her."
"The safest way to get in and out would be to get Charlie to do it," Brittany reasons.
"Sure, if Charlie understood computers, and knew what she was looking for. Charlie isn't ready for something like this. And I know she picks up things quickly but we would need a month before I felt she was ready and we don't have a month. We have a week and a half, that's the day that Quinn is supposed to be attending Rachel's opening night. It's also the day that we need to strike if we are going to use her. Look I don't want to use Charlie but she's our in and like Mike she's another teleporter if things go terribly wrong."
Brittany sighed, "Is she willing to fight the templars?"
"Willing and able to are two different things." Santana admits. "I'm hoping that her training kicks in, Mike thinks that she might freeze up. They're humans and everything Charlie has been taught screams that she won't be able to do this. But I do know that it's been eight long months, and Charlie doesn't want to go back."
Brittany sighed, "Go help her with her tablet and just explain things to her. Don't tease her Santana, and then we'll figure out a proper plan together."
Santana ran a hand through her hair, as she looked at the ugly red, white and black Templar uniform that she had hung on her closet door. They had finally managed to settle on a plan, though they still didn't have as much information as she would have liked. Walking in with confidence, and finding the servers were still their best bet. If that meant starting a small fire to help clear the building giving them more time, then they would do that.
Turning to look at Charlie who was playing some strategy game on her tablet, she smiled and shook her head. "Do you know what you're going to do tomorrow?"
"Wait at the drop off point, and wait for you to get back," Charlie repeated sullenly.
"Right, they don't know our faces Charlie, but you were one of their assets. I don't want them finding you. If they do—please just teleport away. Dead Templars are bad for all of us, so the smart decision is to—?"
"Run." Charlie repeated. She sighed, she had died once again. This game wasn't fun and colorful, it was boring and she had to make the correct decision all the time, which was hard, even when her army outnumbered the other army, she was still getting routed.
Santana placed her hand over the screen forcing Charlie to look up at her. "Charlie, this is important. I know you want to be right there beside me but in case things go wrong and me and Mike get captured you need to run to Brittany and she'll take care of you."
"That's not helping," Charlie repeats slowly.
"You are, if we make it back to you in one-piece Mike will be too tired to teleport and you can take us back home." Santana said, "Look Charlie, I know you want to be more involved, and I appreciate it but the Templars are still looking for you, and Mike and I both agree that you're probably not ready to face them yet at the very least without accidentally killing them, and then it doesn't matter if we release the information because all the news will be saying is that a dangerous magic-touched attacked a Templar-Base. They'll call you a terrorist, or a criminal and those kids won't be saved." Charlie nodded, but Santana wasn't going to let it slide, she could never tell what Charlie was thinking. "I need you to promise me."
"I promise."
"Good," Santana said before letting Charlie go back to her game. Charlie hadn't broken any of her promises yet. They were asking a lot from Charlie and she could only hope that she would rise to the challenge, and that she truly believed that this was her home.
"Can you help me with my game, I keep losing," Charlie said holding it out for Santana.
Santana rolled her eyes but flopped on the bed beside Charlie, "You know just having the biggest army doesn't mean that you'll win automatically, it helps. But formations are important. Since your army is so big why don't you try splitting it a bit so you can hit with a pincer formation, so you can circle around them."
"Will that work?"
"Why don't we find out?" Santana offers smiling when Charlie nodded.
