Title: Something To Mend For
Author: quirked_out
Disclaimer: I don’t anything, ‘cept all the books that my girl wants me to throw out… Never Surrender! Remember feed back is helpful, I’ve been toying with this idea for over a year.
Summary: Life throws the Scoobies a few surprises. Maeve and Jesse just don’t want to get into trouble when they make it back.
Maeve ran as quickly as her legs could carry her, Jesse at her side, taking much longer strides. If she had the time she would have cursed her vertically challenged genes, but there was green glowy light coming after them and she really didn’t have time to be voicing her disappointment in her genetic make-up.
Jesse threw a look at his lifelong friend as she began to lag behind. “C’mon Mae, we have to keep going.”
Maeve huffed tiredly weaving around the trees. “I’m trying-” She tripped, taking Jesse with her, only instead of hitting a dirt floor they landed with a thud on a beige carpet. Jesse had put on a lot of weight since the last time he had been sprawled on top of her. The last time being the final ever game of Kung Fu Masters played when they were five.
While the carpet took the brunt of their fall it still hurt, or at least it hurt Maeve, Jesse had his own Wicca cushion. “Oof, Jess get off, you’re like, uber heavy.” Jesse did as requested and pulled his friend up. Both finally settled themselves as best as they could before taking a look around and finding a startled Tara standing behind a chair.
“Mama?”
“M-m-mama?” Tara asked weakly, startled by the term of endearment. She got her first good look at them. The boy must have been at least 6’2. He had brownish hair and deep honey eyes, but he was muscular. Like… Xander. The girl…
Tara’s breath was stolen from her as she locked eyes with the girl’s; they were the exact same shade as Willow’s. She also had Willow’s high cheekbones, and her hair was the same brilliant red. If she hadn’t had those blue streaks it would have been like looking at a live photograph of her former lover as a teenager. Only she was a little taller and her nose reminded Tara of her own.
“Mama, what are you doing here? Wait, what am I doing here? Wait, where is here? Why do you look like those pictures from college- Oh Crap! Did we just pop out of a green glowy thing?”
*
“Oh this is not good. We’re going to be in so much trouble when we get home an-and Mom is going to kill me when she finds out I messed with the time stream, that’s like Scooby rule number four don’t mess with alternate universes and/or time streams. O-or is that rule number six? Doesn’t matter, I’m still going to be dead and-”
“Breathe Mae!” Jesse yelled as he saw his friend near hysteria.
Tara blinked. It had been as bad as Willow on one of her caffeine highs. “I’m your mom?” she asked again.
“Well, yeah… and I shouldn’t have just told you that. It’s all ‘Hi I’m Maeve, your daughter.’ Which is like, mondo surprising.”
“Kind of, I mean you,” Tara paused “you know I’m gay. Right?”
Maeve tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture that Tara found herself unconsciously mirroring. “Well duh! You gave me this talk when I was five, and Auntie Dawnie gave me the whole you have two mommies speech way before that. Oh, and you kissing Mom? Kind of a give away.”
“Oh.”
Tara decided that then would be a nice time to recoup her exhausted mind, she took a deep breath and passed out.
Jesse bit his lip and looked between his honorary aunt on the floor and his friend. With a finesse that was partially inherited, he scratched the back of his head and stated the obvious. “I think we broke her, Mae.”
*
Tara slowly became aware of soft voices around her, “What are we gonna do Jess? Rowan is so gonna tell on us, we weren’t even supposed to be out there.”
“We’ll get through this, we always do. Remember when you accidentally turned yourself invisible to get out of the state gym test? We fixed that, didn’t we? ”
There was a rustle of cloth and when Tara cracked her eyes open she saw her… daughter wrapped in the tall boy’s embrace. Maeve sniffed into his chest and tightened her grip. “I just… shouldn’t I be setting a better example? For all we know, she’s corralled Joyce, Le, and Li into a slay-fest to look for us.”
Jesse rolled his eyes, “ Row isn’t little anymore. She can handle stuff, at least if she’s anything like her big sister. Besides, if I’m right, they would be busting heads without any pushing from Row. ” Maeve gave a watery giggle, nearly jumping out of her friend’s embrace as she saw Tara was wide-awake.
“Mama, we were just-”
“You have a little sister?” Tara asked; her brow furrowed in curiosity.
Maeve blinked at the unexpected question. “Um, yeah. A year and two months younger.”
Tara breathed deeply and sat up on her couch, which she had somehow been put on. She had a family. The one thing she had wanted growing up was a loving family, not the harsh and cold people that she had lived with. Until Willow, her mother was the only person that she had loved, that had shown her love in return. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what are your names?” She asked, realizing that she didn’t know anything about the teens in her living room.
“Jesse Rupert Harris.” The boy flashed his obviously inherited, goofy grin. Tara’s eyes widened, no wonder he reminded her of Xander. Her eyes drifted to the pair’s still entwined hands; apparently the Harris charm was still going strong.
Tara looked expectantly at her daughter who flashed a familiar quirky smile. “Maeve Relina Rosenberg. Oh, before you ask my little sister’s is Rowan Cecelia Rosenberg.”
The older woman gave a small chuckle, “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Willow named you.” She paused, “We’re together, I mean Willow and I are-”
“You’re very much together and very much in the world of love.” Maeve confirmed giving her best smile.
Her mother gave a sigh of relief, broaching another topic entirely. “W-why are you here?”
The teens looked to each other. “We can’t really say, I mean it would be really bad if we unintentionally let something leak.” Jesse finally explained. “Plus Aunt Dawnie would be super pissed if she found out we used a portal without her permission, even if we accidentally fell into it.”
Tara was a little overwhelmed. “What I am I supposed to do with you?”
“Maybe help us, or something to that effect.” Maeve suggested. She pushed a hand through her blue-streaked hair and sighed. “Goddess, why can’t anything ever go right? I wish Grandpa was here, he’d know what to do.”
Jesse let out a disbelieving snort, “Oh please, Grandpa would have made that weird clucking sound and lectured us on the evils of rash and half-thought-through decisions.” Maeve merely raised an eyebrow, “Which, okay, we should have listened to…” another pointed glare; “I should have listened to.” He amended. “Still, there’s no way I would want Grandpa here, maybe Aunt Buffy, or Uncle Connor, hell, right now I ‘d be plenty happy to have just the regular Scrappies.”
Tara felt completely lost by all of this, Grandpa? Could they be talking about Giles? When she thought about it Grandpa Giles had a really nice ring to it.
She turned her attention back to the matter at hand as she heard Maeve snort in disbelief. “You just know you’d get into the least trouble with Uncle Connor.”
“Well, yeah.”
Maeve rolled her eyes and turned back to Tara, “Can you believe this guy? We’re stuck in the past and he’s scared of what Grandpa would do to him if he came to rescue us.”
Jesse looked miffed, “It’s reasonable, you never get in trouble like I do.”
“Because I usually have the good sense to stay out of your bone-head ideas.”
“Who was it that wanted to levitate to the top of the bookshelf to get Yennarah Codex and try to have a snow day in June, hmmm? Oh that’s right! You!”
Tara had had enough, “Hey!” Two sets of eyes swiveled to her instantly and oddly enough Tara didn’t want to hide from them, in fact she felt strangely empowered. “You two need to calm down and we need get you back to where you belong, understand?”
Their meek answers of “yes Mama” and “yes Auntie Tara” felt strange but right.
“All right, it’s too late to try to get the gang in one place so we’ll try tomorrow. For now, Jesse, I’ve got one of Xand– your dad’s old shirts and Maeve you can borrow a set of pajamas.” She looked between the two and bit her lip. “The couch is a futon, can I trust you two?”
Maeve’s eyes were huge, “I’m not gonna do any naughty… and…when you’re… when you’re in the next room.” Her face was flushed red, “We, and, the, and so with the no way…” She trailed off as she decided it would be best if she just ceased talking.
Tara shook her head and sighed, things were about to get really interesting, really soon.
Should I continue? Are you interested?
oh yes more please I love the past and the future thing MORE 
They fit!
I like the names, and I'm very intrigued by where you're gonna bring this.
