********
TITLE: Hacker Confidential
AUTHOR: Laragh
CHAPTER RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Willow, Tara and any other characters from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise belong to Joss Whedon, FOX, ME and a whole host of other entities, none of which are me.
SUMMARY: AU, set in contemporary setting. A lot of W/T fluff and some semblance of a storyline.
SPOILERS: AU fic, so at most minor references or pieces of dialogue
FEEDBACK: Yes please
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Quite a few of you have guessed already but added disclaimer here, I'm pulling inspiration from Criminal Minds.
Chapter 7********
Previously:Quote:
“Willow Rosenberg?”
“Um, yes?”
One of the men pulled a badge from his pocket and held it up in front of her.
“I’m Special Agent Monroe, this is Special Agent Morgan. We need you to come with us.”
“You need me…um, what?” Willow asked, bewildered, “You’re FBI? Why the hell does the FBI want to see me?”
“If you could just come with us, ma’am,” Agent Monroe said stoically, nodding to the other agent.
Agent Morgan walked passed Willow into the apartment and went over to her laptop.
“Uh, that’s mine,” Willow said, going over and grabbing her laptop before the man could take it, “And I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s happening.”
“Ms. Rosenberg, we have a warrant here to take possession of that laptop. Now you can either co-operate or we can arrest you, but you will be coming with us this afternoon.”
Willow opened and closed her mouth in shock and placed her laptop back on the table.
“Can I see your badges again?” she asked in small voice.
“Of course,” Agent Morgan said, producing his badge again, Monroe doing the same.
Willow looked them over and satisfied that they were the real thing, she nodded and looked between the men.
“Okay,” she said, before a thought struck her, “Hey, this isn’t about Tara, is it? She isn’t hurt or something or, or that guy who was hitting his kid, he didn’t hurt her, did he? Oh god, please don’t tell me she’s hurt. I couldn’t handle it if she was hurt.”
The agents glanced at each other, confused by the sudden outburst but Morgan saw the redhead was getting quite distressed and put a hand on her shoulder.
“I can assure you, ma’am, we’re not here to tell you of your friend being hurt.”
“My girlfriend,” Willow replied quietly, “Fiancée, actually.”
“Ma’am, we’d like if you could come with us. We’ll be taking you to the Boston FBI offices and we need to take possession of your laptop. Everything will be explained to you in due time, but for the moment we just need you to follow us.”
Willow didn’t like not knowing what was going on, much less the idea of being somehow involved in something with the FBI and even less the thought of giving someone her laptop, but was still aware of the threat of arrest and knew it would be easier if she just complied.
“Okay. Um…lead the way?”
Morgan put the laptop under his arm as Monroe started walking down the hallway again. Willow grabbed her cell and keys from beside the door and closed it, following the two agents out of their building and into the black SUV that was parked on the road, her heart pounding in her chest as she wondered what exactly was going on. It was a short car ride to the FBI offices and once there the redhead was lead to a small room where she sat by herself for a few minutes before a new man, dressed in similar suits to the first two agents came in and sat opposite her, smacking a large file down on the table.
“Ms. Rosenberg. We have a lot to talk about.”
**
Tara left her office building and walked around the corner to where there was a taxi rank. She normally relied on public transport or walking wherever she needed to go, mainly because of the cost, but using either of those options today would take up her entire lunch hour to get to the hospital and back and she needed as much time as possible with Timmy to talk to him. She slid into the back seat of the cab at the front of the line.
“Boston’s Children’s Hospital, please.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the driver replied in a thick Boston accent, “Hope there ain’t no one too sick there.”
“He’ll be okay,” Tara said with a small smile, “I’ll make sure of it.”
The man nodded before turning on the radio and singing along softly to a Johnny Cash song. Tara found herself tapping along to the tune as well, but it was more out of nervousness than any real love of the song until the cab pulled up outside the hospital. She thanked the man and handed over the fare before getting out of the car and going up to the ward that Timmy had been admitted to, stopping by the nurse’s station on the way.
“Tara, hi,” a young, raven-haired woman said from behind the desk.
“Hi, Cheryl,” Tara greeted the nurse with a smile, “Um, I kinda have a favour to ask.”
“Shoot. I’ll try and help with whatever I can.”
“I need to talk to Timmy again and I need you to distract Mr. Buckton while I do it.”
Cheryl bit her lip but nodded.
“Okay. I can tell him he has more discharge papers to sign or something. But you know what he’s like, you might not have long. And you probably shouldn’t let him see you. He goes ape when ever social workers are mentioned. Trying to cover his own ass, the bastard.”
“I owe you one. Is he in there now?”
“Yea, I saw him go in a few minutes ago. I’ll go get him out here.”
Tara mouthed ‘thank you’ and grabbed Timmy’s file from her bag, hiding her face behind it as Cheryl went behind one of the curtains, bringing a tall, hard-faced man out with her a minute later. She got a subtle nod from the nurse and slipped inside the curtain herself, her heart breaking when she saw the young boy still covered in bruises.
**
“We do?” Willow asked, biting her lip, “What about?”
“Indeed we do. I’m Agent Patterson,” the man said, extending his hand which Willow took, “It’s seems you’re quite the computer whiz.”
“Well, you know what they say. There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary code and those who don’t,” Willow replied with a nervous chuckle, ducking her head when the agent just stared at her, “Geek humour.”
“We’ve been watching you for a while, Ms. Rosenberg,” Patterson said, opening the file in front of him, “A long while. Ever since you blipped up on our radar when you were in high school for hacking into the SAT website. Eager to get your results, were we?”
Willow looked at Patterson, wide-eyed, having no idea how to respond.
“I, um…well I just…”
“You’re quite the adept at bypassing security systems and gaining access to servers you have no business having access too. Like government databases. Like the FBI database four years ago looking for information on a man in Rochester.”
Willow’s face turned into a scowl as she remembered trying to access information on Tara’s father – just after she’d been told about the abuse – and had failed at trying to get him locked up for something, anything, wanting the man to pay for what he’d done to her love. She'd spent hours trying to break into the server and when she had she'd found nothing that could've actually helped her.
“Most recently," Patterson continued, "The city power grid…”
“It was only lights,” Willow protested, quickly “I didn’t turn off the power supply of anywhere. That could cause all kind of havoc or lost work, you know, people really don’t save their data enough or back it up, which is irresponsible really and-”
“You’re on a list, Ms. Rosenberg,” Patterson cut her off, rubbing his temples as he tried to keep up with the redhead’s speech.
“A list? Like a list-y list?”
“Um, yes. A list-y list,” Patterson agreed, blinking a few times in confusion, “You’re one of a few what we consider extremely dangerous hackers in the world.”
**
Timmy’s face lit up as he saw Tara and tried to sit up more in his bed.
“Tara! Hi!”
“Hey, Timmy,” Tara greeted with a warm smile, sitting on the chair beside the bed, “How’re you doing?”
“Okay. My arm isn’t so sore now, but the cast is kinda itchy.”
“Well don’t stick a pencil down there. You don’t want to break off and be stuck.”
“I won’t,” Timmy shook his head, “I promise.”
Tara scooted closer and took one of the boy’s hands in hers in comfort.
“So you’re going home this afternoon. How’re you feeling about that?”
“Fine,” Timmy answered, but Tara saw his face fall.
“Is there any reason why you wouldn’t want to go home?”
Timmy stayed quiet and averted his eyes.
“You can tell me, Timmy. I just wanna help. I can keep you safe.”
“No one can keep me safe,” Timmy whispered.
Tara leaned forward, this was the closest she’d ever gotten to the boy telling her something.
“Safe from who? Who’s hurting you?”
Timmy ducked his head and Tara saw him purse his lips, trying not to say anything.
“If you tell me, I can make sure they never hurt you again. That you never have to see them again.”
“What would happen to me?” Timmy asked in the same small voice.
“Well, you’d go to a big house with lots of other kids to play with for a while and no one there would hurt you. Then we’d try and find a new family for you to stay with.”
“Would they really play with me?”
“Yep,” Tara nodded, “And I bet they’d all think your cast was super cool and want to sign it.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
Timmy looked at his cast and Tara for a few moments.
“He doesn’t mean to hurt me. He just gets mad ‘cause Mommy went to heaven when I was borned and it was my fault. I didn’t mean to make her go to heaven or anything.”
“Oh sweetheart, of course you didn’t,” Tara replied, holding the boy’s head to her shoulder, “Sweetie, who gets mad and hurts you?”
“My dad,” Timmy replied, almost inaudibly.
“Timmy, how did your dad hurt your arm?”
“I was brushing my teeth and he told me I was wasting water. So he dragged me out and kicked me and I fell down the stairs.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Tara said, stroking his hair, “And your dad told you to say you hurt it during a soccer game?”
Timmy nodded silently and a tear came to his eye.
“I didn’t want to ‘cause I don’t like lying, ‘specially to you, Tara ‘cause you’re my friend but I was scared.”
“It’s okay, Timmy, you did nothing wrong. And no one is gonna hurt you ever again, okay? I promise.”
Just then the curtain swung open and Mr. Buckton appeared, seething.
“Get away from my son!”
Tara put herself in front of the bed and glared at the man.
“No, you get away from your son. You’ll never lay a hand on him again.”
**
“Dangerous?” Willow asked in shock, “I’m not dangerous, I mean just ‘cause I can get into the FBI or NSA or - whoops I probably shouldn’t have told you that, but I wouldn’t do anything, ever and oh god am I going to jail? I wouldn’t survive well in jail, I didn’t even survive high school well and what about Tara, oh god, this is not happening…”
“Ms. Rosenberg, that list can also go by another name. Extremely useful hackers. We have some of the best IT technicians in the world analyzing your laptop at the moment, gathering information to see just how savvy you are. You see, in these situations, we prefer to use all the intelligence we can and have useful personnel join us.”
Willow gaped at the man for a few seconds before speaking.
“Are you offering me a job?”
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