Tara looked back before she entered her work building and saw Willow starting to walk away, so proceeded to enter and turned the corner towards the elevators, waiting patiently and nervously for it to arrive. She stepped on when the door opened, with a bunch of other people and pressed the button for the 5th floor, where the Office of Children and Families headquarters were, her Buffalo equivalent to the DCF in Boston.
It was a short ride and when she stepped off, she saw the sign for the offices just ahead and walked in, where a receptionist who had a name-tag that said Angela greeted her.
"Welcome to the Office of Children and Families, Buffalo. How can I help you?"
"Hi. My name is Tara-"
"Our new social worker?" Angela asked with a warm smile, "I was told to expect you. Mrs. Peterson said to send you on through. Her office is right at the end there."
Tara recognised the name as the head of the Buffalo division and felt at ease by the friendly demeanour of the office. She smiled at Angela.
"Thank you. So just right through there?"
"Yes," Angela nodded, "And don't worry, she's very nice. No reason to be nervous."
"Okay," Tara replied, exhaling a breath she didn't even know she was holding, "Right. Better get in there, then."
"Good luck!"
Tara smiled again as she made her way to the office pointed out to her and saw the door as ajar. She knocked and poked her head in, just as a woman in her early forties with curly black hair looked up from her desk.
"Hello," she said almost as a question before a look of understanding crossed her features, "Oh you must be Tara. Come in, sit down."
"Hello, Mrs. Peterson, it's a pleasure to meet you," Tara said as she entered the room and extended her hand, which the other woman took warmly.
Mrs. Peterson gestured towards the seat on the other side of her desk.
"Please, call me Steph. You know, your transfer request couldn't have come at a better time, we'd just begun a search for a replacement for one of our social workers that decided to become a full-time mother. You come with glowing recommendations from Boston. Paul Evans is an old friend of mine, we studied together at NYU, so I was more than happy when he called saying he had someone for me. Am I right in thinking you moved here with your partner's job?"
Tara nodded from her seat.
"Yes, my wife is an analyst with the FBI. It's a pretty new development in our lives."
Tara bit her lip, wondering whether she should have made her sexuality so clear on her first day - it hadn't been a problem in Boston, everyone knew who Willow was and never made an issue of it but she wasn't sure whether it would be the same there. Steph, however, either didn't notice or didn't care and just continued to smile.
"Well I've read through your file and I've put you on a few cases with some of our senior workers to get you started here, though I'm confident you'll be working your own cases soon. It's really just a formality to get you settled and see how we work things here in Buffalo. Also, I have an open-door policy here, so if there's ever any issues feel free to drop in. I'm afraid the first couple of days here might just be a lot of reading and paperwork, but that's all part of the job, right?"
"Right," Tara agreed with a small grin, "I can handle that."
Steph clapped her hands together and stood up.
"Great. Well I'll show you to your desk and introduce you to Michelle; you'll be working with her for the first little while. Very experienced, I think you can learn a lot from her. Shall we? Oh this is your employee badge by the way and I've put your computer log-in details on a little post-it on the back here. Remember them."
"I will," Tara replied, jumping up from her seat and taking the offered badge before following her new boss out of the office.
Steph introduced her to a few of the other employees as they walked through the office until they reached a bare desk with just stationary supplies and a desktop computer on it, as well as a nameplate with Tara's name embossed on it.
"This is your desk, your place of mindless labour while you work here," Steph said with more than a hint of mirth in her voice before turning towards the desk behind it where a middle-aged woman with brown hair and green eyes was writing something in a large file in front of her, "And this is Michelle. Michelle, I have the new social worker here I was telling you about. This is Tara."
Michelle looked up and instantly paled when she saw Tara, opening and closing her mouth a few times in shock.
"Are you alright, Michelle?" Steph asked when she saw her employee's demeanour, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Um, yes," Michelle replied after a moment, her voice shaky, "Just you know, that déjà vu thing. It's nice to, um...it's nice to meet you, Tara."
"You too," Tara replied, shaking the woman's hand and feeling an odd sense of familiarity, but not focusing on it since she was more concerned with the odd way this woman was staring at her, "I'm looking forward to working with you."
Michelle dropped her gaze and started nervously wringing her hands at her sides.
"Well, I'll leave you to it," Steph said after a moment, then turned to Tara, "I mean what I said, Tara, any queries or issues, my door's always open."
Tara smiled at her boss and thanked her as she left before turning back to Michelle, an uncomfortable tension in the air as the older woman started to gape at her again.
"Um, I'm sorry about this," Tara said after a minute to try and ease the tension, "I'm sure the last thing you want is to chaperone some junior social worker through cases you've already worked on. I promise I'll just follow your lead, do whatever you want me to do. Or don't want me to do."
"Right," Michelle replied, still lost in whatever thought was going through her mind, "Good."
Tara was at a loss at how to react and was starting to feel extremely awkward just standing there while this woman stared at her.
"So..." she tried again, "Maybe you could give me the files of the cases you want me to work on and I can catch up on some histories?"
"Uh huh," Michelle nodded, before seemingly snapping to attention and starting to gather some files around her, "Um, you could start on these. Nothing too hectic. If you write up your own notes I could review them with you at the end of the day?"
"Done," Tara replied, happy to have been given a clear directive for the day as she took the files in her arms, "I'll come back to you with these around four thirty?"
Michelle averted her gaze again but Tara saw her give a small nod.
"That should be fine."
"Okay," Tara replied before shaking her head in disbelief at the odd behaviour of this other woman, "Well, um, thank you."
She turned towards her desk and sat behind it, piling the files in front of her, determined to make a good impression on her first day. She turned on the computer and keyed in the username and password she had been given, before tucking the post-it away in her bag on the off-chance she forgotten her log-in details again, then opened the first file and sighed wistfully as she started reading the notes already written; a pretty standard case involving a mother who had a habit of winding up in jail and her six-year-old son.
She quickly got back into work mode and starting writing her impressions of that case and the others she'd been given, taking her time to get to know each situation as well as she could, eating lunch at her desk. She was eerily aware of Michelle's eyes on the back of her head throughout the day, even when she was distracted by work or other colleagues coming up to introduce themselves and welcome her to the building.
Why does she keep staring? I know there's nothing on my clothes and there's no way she could feel her job is threatened, I'm just a junior...maybe she's just really pissed she has to work with me?
Tara began dreading their meet-up at the end of the day, wondering if Michelle was going to be the type to criticise her work just because she didn't want her around. She made sure her notes were flawless and read over the files more than once to ensure the full histories were embedded in her mind until the clock on her computer told her it was half four. She gathered the files again and stood up, going across to Michelle's desk.
"I have my notes here," she started, nervously biting her lip, "You, um, you said you'd review..."
"Oh of course," Michelle turned in her seat and took the files and papers offered to her, "I'll, um...I'll just. Oh god, I don't think I can do this."
Tara looked at the older woman, confused.
"Are you okay?"
Michelle stood up and looked around.
"Could you come with me to the break room for a moment?"
Tara was completely perplexed but agreed and followed the woman to the break room, which was completely empty as most of the employee's had either already gone home or were getting ready to. She started to get a little bit scared when Michelle closed the door behind her, wondering if she was going to be yelled at or whether the woman was experiencing some kind of psychotic break and that's why she'd been acting strangely all day. Her fear only heightened as Michelle walked towards her, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
"You're Tara Maclay, right?"
"Rosenberg-Maclay," Tara corrected automatically, "But Maclay is my maiden name, yes."
Michelle walked towards Tara and put her hand out, as if to touch her, but stopped short of actually doing it.
"I knew as soon as I saw you. You look just like her."
Tara looked at the woman in confusion.
"What? Who?"
Michelle visibly and audibly inhaled.
"Your mother."
Tara backed away and held onto the side of the table in the room in shock.
"What're you talking about? Who are you?"
"You don't remember, do you?" Michelle asked sadly, "You were young, we only met a handful of times. Your father never liked associating with anyone on our side, but your mother brought you to Buffalo a couple of times a year so we could meet. He didn't know I lived here, at least not then and your mother would pretend it was to bring you shopping for new clothes. You always got a vanilla milkshake from this little cafe on High Street."
Tara felt her chest begin to tighten as a flood of hazy memories descended on her, the other woman's words triggering the onslaught. She'd always remembered, vaguely, her and her mother in Buffalo, but now she remembered the exact things her new co-worker was saying. She remembered that little cafe and the milkshakes, and she remembered...she remembered Michelle. Fifteen years younger and a few pounds lighter, but she remembered Michelle...except...
"Ella," she croaked out, "You're my mom's friend Ella."
Michelle smiled a sad smile and shook her head slightly.
"That was her nickname for me. Ever since we were little. But I wasn't just her friend."
Tara's eyes widened as she started to wonder whether she and her mother had something else in common that she'd never known about, but Michelle spoke up and explained her comment just a second later.
"I was her sister. I'm your Aunt Michelle, Tara."
Tara's eyes stayed wide as she felt her whole world begin to spin and quickly sank into one of the chairs surrounding the table she had been gripping onto. Michelle quickly got a glass of water and handed to her niece, sitting in front of her.
"Drink this, sweetheart."
Tara gratefully took and downed the water, her head swimming. Michelle noticed her distress and put a hand on Tara's knee in comfort but the blonde shrunk back and Michelle moved her hand away.
"I'm sorry, this probably wasn't the place or time to unload all of this on you."
Tara held a hand against her head, massaging her temple.
"I just...I don't understand. My mother was an only child."
"No," Michelle replied softly, "She wasn't. Your father...he didn't like us... associating."
Tara could understand that - 'controlling' was a nice way of describing her father. She looked up at the older woman.
"I have...so many questions."
Michelle nodded her head.
"Of course you do. Of course you do. Do you want to go somewhere more quiet? And I'll answer anything you have to ask."
"Okay," Tara nodded as well, before meeting Michelle's gaze, "You're really her sister?"
"I really am," Michelle replied, cupping Tara's cheek and smiling when she didn't flinch this time, "And you are most certainly her daughter. You're a carbon copy of her."
Tara smiled at what she considered to be a very big compliment.
"We could go back to my place, it's not-oh god, Willow."
Tara anxiously checked her watched and sighed in relief when she saw she wasn't late.
"Willow?" Michelle asked.
"My wife," Tara responded, standing up, "I'm supposed to meet her after work."
"Wife?" Michelle asked in surprise, "Oh..."
Tara set her jaw.
"If that's-"
"Wonderful that you found someone you want to spend your life with," Michelle cut her niece off with a somewhat awkward but warm smile, "I'm just sorry I missed your wedding. If you're busy, we can reschedule for another time..."
Tara gave a small smile back and shook her head.
"No, we can still..."
She trailed off, exhaling in thought before Michelle spoke up again.
"Do you drive?"
"Um, no," Tara replied, then amended, "Well, I do, but we don't have a car. We've been getting the bus to and from work."
"Okay," Michelle replied, calmly, "How about I drive you and...Willow? Back to your place? If that's still okay?"
"Yes, definitely, that's definitely okay. I, um..." Tara wrung her hands nervously, "I really don't know how to react to all this."
Michelle looked saddened.
"Me either, sweetheart. I never thought I'd see you again."
Tara was about to question why exactly that was but decided it would be better to wait until they were out of work. She motioned for them to leave and quickly collected her bag and turned off her computer before getting into the elevator and riding down in silence. She kept glancing at her aunt-
My aunt? How is that even...really, my aunt?
-in disbelief, until they got outside the building and saw Willow walking towards them, looking confused.
"Hi. Um, who's this?"