"Well that's ridiculously convenient," Willow said as she stopped outside the large office buildings that Tara would be working in, "I'm just around the corner from you."
"Must be fate," Tara replied as she pulled at the end of her shirt, straightening it.
"You look great, Tare-bear," Willow said when she saw the nervous demeanour of her wife, "I thought I got rid of those nerves this morning."
Tara blushed and grinned as their early morning amorous activities flashed through her mind.
"That helped," she replied coyly, moving her nervous fidgeting to her hair, tucking it behind her ear, "I hate first days."
Willow held her hands out, holding onto her wife's shoulders.
"I know. Me too. But just think, once today's over, then you never have to think about it again. I'll meet you out here at five, okay? We'll have to get our heads around the Buffalo public transport system now that the car's gone back. I still think it's something we should think about investing in. I mean we don't have to get one exactly like Angel's or anything; nothing flashy, just something for us to get around in."
"Can we talk about this later?" Tara asked, biting the skin around her nails, "It feels like an important marriage conversation and I don't think a street bustling with people when we both have to be behind our desks in the next twenty minutes is the time to have it."
"Right. Yea, of course, that's good thinking. And, um, speaking of marriage," Willow replied and pulled the blonde towards her, "I've never been happier than the past six days I've been married to you."
"Me either," Tara grinned, perking up as her nerves disappeared for a moment and she toyed with the chain around her neck and the three little hearts with her initials, the necklace Willow had given her on their wedding night, which she hadn't taken off, "I love being Tara Rosenberg-Maclay."
Willow beamed.
"Good. 'Cause I love being your wife. Now, I promised I'd meet Buffy outside so we could go in together so I better get going. I'll be right here waiting after work, okay?"
Tara nodded, exhaling slowly.
"Okay. Good luck. And don't get in trouble."
"Me?" Willow asked in mock-indignation, "Never. Love you, Tare."
"Love you too," Tara replied and leant in for a quick kiss before turning on her heels and going towards the doors of the building they were standing in front of, "See you later."
Willow gave a small wave as she watched her wife go through the doors and turn out of her eyeline before turning herself and swiftly walking the few blocks to the FBI building, spotting Buffy waiting outside, holding two cups of coffee. She quickly ran up.
"Hey, sorry I'm late. Tara was a little nervous going in."
"No problem," Buffy replied, handing over one of the cups, as they both walked into the building, "I thought I was gonna be late too. Angel woke up with what can only be described as the world's worst painkiller-induced hangover."
Willow laughed.
"Yea, he was pretty out of it last night."
"You're telling me. I just had to leave him there in the end. At least he doesn't start work for another week," Buffy said with an exasperated sigh as they approached the front desk, a young man greeting them.
"How can I help you?"
"Um, we work here," Willow answered, before amending herself, "Well, not officially yet, it's our first day but we do have jobs, had to go for training and everything for it, it's just this is our first-"
"We have an appointment with Agent Durrow," Buffy interjected, cutting the redhead off.
"Right, of course," the man nodded, "New employees?"
They both nodded and the man typed something into the computer in front of him.
"Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg? Uh, wait...Rosenberg-Maclay?"
Willow grinned excitedly at hearing her name before clearing her throat and nodding stoically, Buffy following suit. The man pointed to the left, towards the lifts.
"You can go right up. 6th floor, third door on the right."
They made their way over to the elevator and to the 6th floor, chatting amiably along the way until they got to the large oak door they had been directed to with 'Derek Durrow, Supervisory Special Agent' in brass letters across it. Buffy knocked and they heard a loud 'come in' from the other side so they entered.
"Rosenberg-Maclay, Summers?" Durrow asked shortly, barely looking up as he fumbled through thousands of papers on his desk.
"Um, yes," Willow replied, taken aback slightly by the abruptness, "Yes, sir. I'm Willow Rosenberg-Maclay."
Buffy spoke up as well.
"And I'm Buffy Summers."
The agent finally looked up and smiled briefly at his new employees before clapping his hands together.
"Okay, well first off, Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm sure you'll find working for your country a fulfilling and enriching experience. Normally I conduct these introductions to the Bureau separately, but since you're together and I have a whole caseload to get through today, we'll have to make it the snappy version. Miss Summers, as I'm sure has been explained to you, your services could be required by any of our staff or departments, we have a highly skilled and competent team of language specialists whom you will be joining. If you go to the third floor and ask for Selena Ruiz, she's in charge of that division and your boss. She's expecting you and looking forward to getting some new eyes on the team. Here's your ID badge."
Durrow handed over an identification badge with a photo that had been taken in Quantico on the first day of training and Buffy dutifully snapped it onto the waistband of her pants, a small cocky smile playing on her lips.
"Thank you, sir. The third floor, right?"
Durrow nodded.
"That's right. Oh and once again, welcome to the FBI."
Buffy's grin got wider and she gave Willow a quick wink before she left the office and went to find her new boss. Durrow turned and smiled at Willow as she left.
"And Mrs. Rosenberg-Maclay. Newly married?"
Willow tried to hold herself confidently and nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"Congratulations," he said warmly, before exhaling slowly, "I must admit, you're one of our more unusual recruits. I've been briefed on why you were initially enlisted, as well as your... specific abilities. Given the particular skill-set you possess, I've assigned you to work in our white collar crime division."
Willow breathed a small sigh of relief - she'd been secretly worried that she might of had to work a lot with violent crimes and wasn't sure how well she would've handled that.
"You could get requests for research information from anyone in the division, but you'll be specifically working with two of our field agents," Durrow continued, leafing through the papers on his desk and finding another ID badge, handing it over to the redhead, "I'll introduce you to them now, then show you your office. It's separate from the rest of the division as it requires more...space than a standard cubicle has. Shall we?"
Durrow had made his way to the door as he spoke and Willow rushed over, walking with him as they quickly made their way through the corridors and floors of the building.
"I'd just like to thank you, sir, for this wonderful opportunity," Willow said as they rode the elevator up to her floor.
"Don't thank me," Durrow said with a hint of a smirk playing on her lips, "Thank your inquisitive curiosity into security systems and city power grids."
Willow opened and closed her mouth a few times in surprise but recovered quickly and gave a small laugh as the elevator opened into a busy floor, filled with cubicles and people bustling about.
"McNally, Harris!" Durrow yelled as they walked onto the floor, and two tall men scurried over, both with dark hair, in suits, "Your new associate, Willow Rosenberg-Maclay. Willow, Agents Alexander Harris and Jesse McNally."
Willow shook the two agent's hands just as Durrow's cell began beeping and he pulled out his phone, answering quickly.
"Durrow. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay, I'll be right there," he said into the phone before hanging up, "I have to go. Harris, show Willow her room, will you?"
He turned on his heels and left quicker than he'd arrived and Willow chuckled nervously.
"So...Alexander and Jesse, right?"
"Yea," Jesse nodded, "I'm Jesse. And this is-"
"Call me Xander," Xander cut his partner off before eyeing Willow suspiciously, "You're the computer whiz?"
"Yes," Willow replied defensively, her eyes narrowing just slightly, "Why? Expecting some guy with glasses and suspenders?"
"Well...yea," Xander responded with a shrug, "Kinda. Not that I'm complaining about getting a hot girl instead."
Willow glared at her new colleagues and held up her hand.
"A hot, married girl."
"Hey, whoa," Xander said, holding up his hand as well, showing off his own ring, "Married too. I was just messing around."
"Oh," Willow replied, her features softening, "Sorry. Just, you know, first day jitters and all. Are you married too, Jesse?"
"No way," Jesse scoffed playfully, "And give up being a bachelor?"
Willow giggled and decided in that moment that she thought she was going to get on just fine with this job. Or at least with her co-workers since she had yet to actually do any work. Xander seemed to read her mind and pointed towards a small corridor.
"I'll show you the robot room, come on. Jesse, grab the intel on Fisher, meet us in there."
Jesse nodded and went off to gather some papers while Xander led Willow down the corridor he had been pointing at.
"What's the robot room?" Willow asked as they walked.
"Your office," Xander replied in answer, "Pretty new addition to our floor as well, only people who've used it are the IT crowd when they were setting it up."
"But why is it called the..." Willow trailed off as Xander opened a door and they stepped inside the quite spacious room, a large desk with six desktops set up in a semi-circle around it and monitors on the walls above them as well, "Holy..."
"That's why," Xander grinned at the impressed face of the redhead, "You think you can work in here?"
"Uh, I think so!" Willow said enthusiastically as she made a beeline for the swivelling chair behind the desk and running a hand along one of the newly-polished keyboards, "Oh I can definitely work here."
"Good," Xander pulled up one of the chairs from the side of the room and sat next to his colleague, "Hey and about earlier, I didn't mean anything. I really do have a wife, who I love dearly."
Willow nodded and met Xander's gaze shyly.
"Me too."
Xander's mouth formed an 'o' shape in surprise just as Jesse burst through the door.
"Right, I got all the reports and info we've gathered so far on Fisher, you filled her in on the background, Xand?"
"Uh, no," Xander shook his head, going into work mode, "Didn't have time. So, Willow, Fisher's the big case we're working here at the moment. David Fisher, CEO of Fisher Industries, got offices all over the country but HQ is over in Seneca. We know he's been embezzling, hiding assets, but every time we think we get a concrete lead, the paper trail goes nowhere. We're looking into an off-shore account somewhere in Switzerland. Think you could help with that?"
"Sounds doable," Willow replied, processing the information she'd just been hit with, "Just give me an hour to get used to the equipment and leave whatever information you have on this bank."
"Excellent," Jesse said, cracking his knuckles before fishing a business card from his pocket, "Call us if you get anything. Me and Xander have to go see a man about some identity theft."
Willow accepted the card and held it in her hand.
"Right. Okay, will do."
Jesse nodded and motioned Xander to follow him out, which he did but not before turning back and smiling at Willow.
"I'm totally cool with the gay thing by the way. It'll be nice to have someone to talk to about the women in our lives, Jesse's too much of a 'love 'em and leave 'em' type to understand the perils of being married. Good luck with the case oh and..." Xander produced his own business card and handed it over, "Any questions or anything, feel free to call. Jesse can be pretty work-orientated, I'm sure this is probably pretty overwhelming."
Willow looked a little embarrassed, but nodded.
"A little. Thanks, Xander."
"Harris!"
Xander jumped at the sound of Jesse's voice yelling for him outside and gave a small wave before scurrying off towards his partner, leaving Willow alone for the first time. She turned and bit her lip to contain the squeal of excitement threatening to erupt from her as she went about turning on the various machines set out in front of her.
"Oh this is definitely the start of something beautiful," she muttered to herself as the screens filled in front of her.
She spent the rest of the day acclimatising to her new office and work environment, the sheer advancement of the technology and resources she was working with nothing like she'd ever seen before, and something she was very excited about working with.
It turned out that the Switzerland account that David Fisher had been trying to hide was easier than she'd expected to find and once that had been discovered, it lead to a whole host of other accounts and institutions that he could be linked to, which made her a bit of superstar in the eyes of the rest of the department.
Jesse and Xander had especially been impressed, since they'd been working on getting some incriminating evidence on Fisher for months and Willow had been able to do it in a matter of hours. The redhead practically skipped out of the building at the end of the day, overjoyed that she'd finally found her true calling, job-wise, and couldn't wait to tell Tara all about her day.
She arrived outside her wife's offices just as Tara was coming out and was about to throw herself into the blonde's arms when she noticed someone was walking with her, a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brown hair and bright green eyes. Tara looked somewhere between nervous and stunned as they walked together and Willow walked up to them, question in her eyes.
"Hi. Um, who's this?"