Chapter 4 (Willow-crush and dweebie-dorks)

"You can call me Tara. I'm Artie's Watcher."

Xander held up his hand. "Woah, okay. You lost me there."

"You are pretty young," Willow nodded. 'Scratch that. You are pretty. Period.'

"-and you dress like a normal person! Lookit! No tweed."

"Ahem."

Buffy blushed. "Sorry Giles."

"Fair enough," the elder Watcher sniffed. "Though I think Miss Tiler could better answer your questions if you gave her a chance to speak?"

It was once of those cool moments, Buffy decided, where everyone turned their heads in unison, the way they did on TV, and only ever happened rarely in real life. For all intents and purposes though, Tara did not seem to find this as awesome as they did, and looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"It's okay," Willow whispered soothingly, sliding her hand across the table to take hold of Tara's. "It's your story; you can take as long as you want. And I'm pretty sure no one else wants to head back to class, anyway."

'Whoa,' Buffy glanced around the table to see if anyone had the same reaction as her. Willow had been repressing herself for what seemed like an eternity, and then Watcher-girl comes along and Willow was suddenly all with the touching and the class skipping. 'Go Willow!'

Tara smiled warmly at the redhead, jerking her head to the side in a movement that served to flick her bangs out of her eyes. "My mum was a witch and my step-father was a Watcher. I kinda grew into it, I suppose."

Willow rubbed her thumb along Tara's knuckles encouragingly and was rewarded a smile for her efforts.

"I guess I'd been trained to be a Watcher since I was little, but my real training didn't begin until I was about ten. I completed my training last year, when Artie was assigned as my Potential. I still have to check in with my superiors from time to time though."

"Assigned as your whatsit?" Buffy blurted, confused.

Tara looked at her incredulously, and spoke slowly, as if to a child. "Artie was assigned as my Potential Slayer. Whom I train."

The three main Scoobies looked rather confused, though Faith stared at her blonde counterpart as if she had dribbled on her shirt. And then licked it up again.

"A Potential?" Faith prodded. "A girl who might end up a Slayer, assigned a Watcher to train them? Seriously B, have you been living under a rock?"

"Well I-"

"Buffy is a bit of a special case," Giles interrupted. "She did not meet her first Watcher until around the time she was called."

"I didn't know this!" The aforementioned Slayer exclaimed. "I thought that was the normal Slayer shtick!" She turned her big, distressed eyes to her Watcher. "Giles, does this mean I'm like, developmentally delayed?"

"Ah, Tara? Please do carry on."

"Smooth," Faith snorted.

"That's," she swallowed. "That's pretty much it."

"Pretty much it?" Willow leaned closer, determined to hear more. "You're a Watcher! But young! Giles went through Watcher training too and he's ancient!"

Giles seemed to puff up indignantly. "I'll have you know that I am only-"

"Well, Mister Giles, you trained with the research department, didn't you?"

"Well yes," he straightened the lapels on his jacket. "And Historical European Martial Arts," he sniffed.

Tara nodded with approval. "Well of course. You do have Slayer to train. I-I was part of the Sentinel program."

Xander interrupted the two. "Wait, there are different kinds of you guys?"

"What, you assumed we all wore tweed and spent all our time reading?" She caught Willow's eye, mirth shining in her own.

'I'm pretty sure she could pull off the librarian look no problem,' Willow mused to herself. 'Aaand there you go again, Rosen-perve!'

"There's the administrative folks, that's who Mister Giles and I answer to," Tara began ticking off with her fingers. "Then there's the research fellows who usually get assigned Potentials and Slayers," she said with a nod to Giles.

"Don't forget the archaeology department," the elder Watcher said.

"Oh, right. A whole network of grunts and secretaries…We've got some witches, too. Not many though, since we got the Devon coven on retainer…"

Willow tried to edge closer. Being on the other side of the table, this merely dug the edge it into her stomach. "And Sentinels? What are those?"

"Sentinels. I'm one. Basically, a field-Watcher. You only get one-well three now-Slayers at a time, but demons are a world-wide phenomenon. Sentinels are Watchers who're trained in combat, usually as teams, to take out demonic threats, conduct preliminary investigations, take out any Slayers that go rouge-"

"What?"

"Yeah, it's a cheesy title. But hey, sentinel? One who watches and guards? It fits, right?" Willow smiled. Finally, someone else with a quirky sense of humor.

"No, that last thing you said."

"What? The part about taki-" Tara froze. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"W-well, no one's had t-to d-do that for years n-now." Both Slayers seemed torn between leaning forward to scrutinize her, and wanting to back-the-fuck-up. Faith chose the middle ground, leaning back in her chair casually.

"A Watcher who can fight? That's a new one."

Tara quirked her brow. "What are you talking about? All Watchers know how to fight. How do you think we train our Slayers? It's a requirement."

Buffy turned to look at her own Watcher, polishing off his glasses. He had been the one to train her to fight, and realized that despite being no match for her or Faith, Giles could most certainly hold his own in a fight, more so than most. Had he been a younger man, Buffy had no doubt that her Watcher could outlast most vampires in a fight.

"Wait," Xander said. "I thought it was the research-y guys who got Slayers, not Sentinels."

"W-well," Tara blushed and ducked her head. "The Potentials who are too young to be Called anytime soon, o-or the least likely to be Called are assigned to a S-sentinel to work as an assistant of s-sorts. If they survive long enough," something in the way she said that made Willow think they didn't often. "They can choose to be inducted into the Sentinel program. On the off chance they do get Called, the Council hoped that their experience with the Sentinels would make a pretty kick-ass Slayer, if you pardon my language."

"What do you mean, 'On the off chance'?" Buffy's eyes narrowed. She was supposedly working for the Council, yet there was so much she didn't know.

"It's never happened before," Giles interrupted. "Slayers don't live long, even with their powers. Unfortunately, Potentials assigned to the Sentinels are even worse off, being extremely young and having no powers to help them deal with demonic threats. It's akin to scraping the bottom of the metaphorical barrel."

The words were barely out of his mouth when Tara leapt to her feet. "Artie's a survivor, dammit," she snarled, all trace of her faint stutter gone. "And I'm gonna make sure that child lives to have a fantastic life, no matter how difficult it gets for me."

Meanwhile at Sunnydale Junior High

Dawn grimaced at the other girl she was supposed to be helping to the nurse's office, dodging the 7th and 8th graders as she led her fellow 6th grade brunette through the halls.

"You're Aar-"

"Everyone calls me Art."

"Oh. Okay."

"But yeah. I is me!" Dawn felt that the other girl's huge grin was entirely inappropriate for the situation.

"That's cool. Me is Dawn." Well, okay. So maybe talking weird was funny. She grasped Art by the elbow and pulled her aside as Derren Giannino barreled towards the cafeteria. "Can I ask how you-"

"I wanted to test it out," Art said, flexing her fingers. "See how much better my pain tol-" she stopped herself, and tried to say something else. "Cuz you see, it's only been two weeks since-" she stopped again, still not sure what to say. Her lips pursed for a moment and Dawn stopped walking too, waiting in anticipation.

"Forget it," she said, curling her injured hand towards herself and continuing on to the nurse's office. Finally reaching it, she raised her uninjured hand to push the door open.

"Wait!" Dawn's hand shot out and grasped Art by the elbow again. Big brown eyes peered at her questioningly. "Just wanted to let you know, the medical staff is a bit loony."

"Ha! In this town, I bet they are." She waved goodbye with her undamaged hand, pushing the door open with her shoulder. Dawn stood there, turning to leave only when the bell rang.

'What does she mean by 'I bet they are'? Does she know about the weird stuff that goes on at night?'

"HOW DID YOU END UP STAPLING YOUR HAND TO YOUR SLEEVE?" The nurse's shouting could be heard even from behind the door.

"Dork," Dawn muttered, scurrying to class.

Meanwhile, back at the library

Giles muttered an apology, cleaning his glasses again. Willow glared at him, still holding Tara's hand after all this time.

"No, I-I should be the one who's sorry."

'There goes that stutter again,' Willow mused. 'She seems to do it when she's uncomfortable, like Giles and his glasses.'

"Wait," Buffy was glancing from Tara to Giles with a look of distress on her face. "Does this mean the new Slayer's been killing demons for a year before she even got her powers?" By this point, Faith was beginning to catch on, and her shoulders began shaking with mirth. "Giiiiiles! I am delayed! We need to train more!"

Ignoring Buffy's whining and Faith's jeers, Willow swallowed and squeezed Tara's hand. "Hey."

The young Watcher's mouth twitched. "Hey."

"You know, a couple months back, I made a slaying schedule for these two dweebs," she jerked her chin over to the two Slayers, one heckling the other.

"R-really? That's pretty cool."

"Heh, insane more like. I use a system of different colored pens, so we know who's doing what, when and where."

Tara giggled, and the redhead decided she liked that sound. "I wouldn't say insane. Maybe…quirky?"

"Quirky works," she ran her thumb over the sandy haired girl's knuckles absentmindedly. "So I was thinking…"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you wanted to meet up sometime? Work on a new schedule? To fit in your Slayer?"

"I'd like that, Willow. I'd like that a lot."

Having been entranced by the Watcher's story, then with Buffy's distress, and now by each other, the two young women failed to notice the blue and red sparks the appeared whenever their hands touched.