Throwback

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Sixteen

“Here’s your sodding blood, Mr. Spike,” Liam said, bouncing up and down and sloshing blood onto the floor.

Since Buffy was watching, Spike made a show of taking pains to accept the blood nicely and without any improper comments. “Thank you,” Spike said pointedly, shooting a meaningful look at the slayer.

Faith and Liam waited. “Thank you bloody hell?” Liam asked hopefully.

“Thank you wanker ass bint?” Faith suggested, and Spike struggled to keep a straight face. He’d never heard that one before. Eagerly, both of the kids stared up at the vampire, but Spike said nothing else. The two children turned to Buffy.

“What did you do to our Spike?” Faith demanded, her little hand knotted up in a fist. “Why isn’t he saying bloody sodding pussy hell?”

Spike turned innocent eyes toward Buffy, and crossed his chained arms over his chest, waiting for her reply, a smirk playing around the edges of his lips. “I believe the Little Bit there asked you a question, Slayer,” he said.

Buffy glared at him.

Liam nudged Spike. “Do you want me to eat her for you?” he asked, clamoring onto Spike’s lap. “Do ya, Mr. Spike?” he asked again. He turned to grin at Buffy. “Cause I will.”

Spike pretended to think hard about it. Buffy clenched her jaw. “No,” he said finally, raising his eyebrows at Buffy. Without a word, she turned and walked out of the bathroom. The slayer knew Spike wouldn’t hurt the kiddos, and she didn’t particularly want to listen to whatever it was he was about to say next. “She doesn’t look like she’d taste very good anyway, Liam m’boy. Bitter.” Buffy turned around to glare at him. Conspicuously, Spike took a sip of his blood and licked his bottom lip.

The blood dripped slowly from her arm, onto the tile floor. Drop. Drop. Drop.

“Look at the mess you’re making, Faithie. Filthy little animal.” Mommy’s voice cut harshly through the air. Faith breathed slowly, forcing herself not to make eye contact. She didn’t care. Her arm throbbed.

“Look!”

With no expression in her eyes, Faith did as she was bid and looked down. There was glass all over the ground, and the liquid that smelled like Mommy’s breath and trouble, and with a drip, drip, drip, there were little round droplets of blood.

“Eat it.”

The anger burned inside her stomach, and even though she knew deep down it was a mistake, Faith threw back her head and looked at her mommy. Straight. In. The. Eye.

The next instant, she was on the ground, and her head was being pressed up against the filthy floor.

“I said eat it.”

“Bite Sized?” Spike asked, bringing Faith back to the present. “You okay, tidbit?”

Faith didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him, at Liam, or at Buffy, who had come back to stand in the doorway.

Instead, she looked at the bathtub.

“My Faith?” Liam said. “Do you want me to sing to you? About wench-bies and glaives and sheep and… sheep-wenches with glaives?”

Spike made a soothing sound in the back of his throat and gently held a hand out to Faith.

Faith stepped toward him and stopped before she was actually touching him. People thought Mr. Spike was bad, too. That’s why he was here, chained up like an animal.

Filthy little animal.

“Let him go,” Faith’s voice was low.

Buffy looked at her. “He’s dangerous, sweetheart,” she said, her voice guarded.

“Let him go now.”

“Faith, what’s wrong?” Buffy bent down to her level. “Look at me. What’s wrong?”

“LET HIM GO. LET HIM GO. LET HIM GO.” Liam added his yells to Faith’s, and, like an expert, he launched himself out of Spike’s lap and onto the floor, and threw himself straight into a gargantuan temper tantrum.

He kicked and screamed, thrashing around on the floor, keeping one eye on Faith the entire time.

Faith stared at him, awed. No one had ever told her she could do that. Why hadn’t she known she could do that?

“Liam!” Buffy stared at him, every bit as awed as Faith. The longer they stared at him, the more into the tantrum he got. He kicked his legs against the bathtub.

“Quite a set of lungs,” Spike said wryly.

“LETHIMGO!” Liam yelled, smooshing it all together into one word.

Faith stood there, watching him, and a small grin settled over her face. Liam was doing that for her, and because he was yelling, she didn’t have to. The anger, the hurt, seeped out of her body, and, quite calmly, she turned to Buffy.

“I think you better let him go, B,” she said, and with that, the tiny girl sat down next to Buffy’s feet and popped her thumb into her mouth. Liam would tease her about it later, but right now, Faith didn’t care. She just sat back, and enjoyed the show.

Wesley rubbed his temples. When would that dratted person answer their cell phone? Honestly, it was beyond intolerable. It had been ringing for a full five minutes, and in Wesley’s opinion, it showed the utmost inconsideration to…

“Hey buddy!” A voice broke into his thoughts. “Answer the friggin cell phone!”

Wesley looked down. “Oh dear,” he said, fumbling with his phone. “Hello?”

He paused for a moment, and his stomach lurched. “You’re quite sure?” he asked. “It’s out of season.”

Even after the person on the other end hung up, Wes stared at his phone for the longest time. His supply man had said the last ingredient for the reversal spell would be waiting for him in Sunnydale by the time he got home.

He could turn them back.

Wes glanced down at Faith’s file and saw the child in his mind’s eye.

“You’re sure this is the place?” Kate asked skeptically. Take me. Take me now, she thought. She pushed the feelings down, disgusted with herself.

“Positive.” Lindsey’s tone was professional. “According to my records, they often meet here. This is where they would bring the fugitive.” His fingers itched to touch her hair, her face, her…

Lindsey indulged in the thought.

Without realizing it, Kate leaned her head forward. She’d been so careful, so guarded. She wasn’t going to do this now.

Lindsey leaned his head forward, his eyes locked onto hers.

“SODDING HELL!”

Kate bolted straight up. “Did you hear that?” she asked, pulling back.

Lindsey narrowed his eyes at the house, but all he heard was a small voice in the back of his head, asking him if he was a good man.

“PUSSY!” Liam hollered at the top of his lungs, still deep in the throes of a tantrum. “LETHIMGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!”

Liam rolled around a little, and Buffy stared at him.

“Stop this right now,” she said, hands on her hips. “Liam…” she tried to put a little warning into her voice, the way she’d heard Wes do it.

Liam picked up Spike’s jar of blood and launched it across the room.

“Hey!” Spike said. Then he turned to Buffy, and, hiding a grin, she shrugged. “Tell you what, Slayer,” Spike said. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll handle little Poof Bit there, if you’ll, as he so eloquently put it, let me go.”

Without waiting for an answer, Spike turned his attention to the screaming child in front of him. “Liam,” he said, in a low, awful voice.

Liam paused mid-wail and turned to look at Spike.

Faith inched toward Liam and placed herself firmly in between her boy and the rest of the world. No one was going to hurt her Liam. Not ever.

Liam stared at Spike with huge round eyes still wet with angry tears. Spike opened his mouth and then closed it again. He had his mini-grandsire’s attention, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that attention. What was a person supposed to say to a kid in this kind of situation? His mind raced.

“That is not acceptable behavior…” Spike improvised. That sounded about like something he’d heard someone say on that on the show that came on before Passions. Liam stared at him, and Spike knew he had to say something else. “…young man!”

Spike finished, a parental look coming over his face. Buffy stared at him incredulously. Was that Spike? Spike?! Mr. Big Bad had just used the phrase “young man,” and it hadn’t been preceded by “I’m going to kill that…”

As Buffy stared, openmouthed, the words ‘time out’ floated out of Spike’s mouth, and when a brooding Liam sat down on the edge of the bathtub, arms crossed over his chest, Buffy narrowed her eyes at Spike.

“How did you do that?” she asked suspiciously.

Spike leaned back and shrugged. “I ate a preschool teacher once,” he said.

“Really?” Faith asked, not the least bit disturbed. “How’d she taste?”

Chapter Seventeen

Faith and Liam watched in satisfaction as Buffy unchained Spike. Spike winked at them, and Liam, remembering that he was supposed to be mad at Spike for putting him in time out, glowered at the vampire.

“That’s the best brood you’ve ever done,” Faith whispered to Liam. “It looks really scary.”

“Really?” Liam asked, his eyes lighting up with glee and a smile breaking into his brooding expression.

“Really,” Faith said, and without a word, she leaned over and put her head on Liam’s shoulder. If her Liam was in time out, then Faith was, too.

Buffy shot Liam a warning look. She wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure that talking in time out was a no-no.

Spike held a finger up to his lips, indicating that the children should be quiet, and Buffy gave him an incredulous look. What in the world was happening to Spike?

As soon as he saw the look, Spike let a tough guy expression settle over his face and did just enough Big Bad posturing to make up for the fact that he was getting rather attached to mini-Poof and the Bite Sized slayer.

As Buffy and Spike exchanged glares and smirks, Liam whispered into Faith’s hair. “I made up a brand new song,” he said. “You gave me the idea.”

“What’s it called?” Faith asked in a whisper. She knew how to whisper. Filthy little sluts knew when to keep their mouths shut.

Liam snuggled up against Faith a little, and after casting a furtive glance at Buffy and Spike, he told Faith the name of his new song. “It’s called the Wanker Ass Bint Song,” Liam said. “I think it’s about band-aids and crossbows and…” Liam gave Faith a devilish grin.

“And Wanker Ass Bints?” Faith asked, a smile coming onto her face.

Hearing her, Buffy opened her mouth to scold, but Spike caught her eye and shook his head. “Let her be,” he whispered gruffly under his breath. “Just let her be.”

“Sir, I’m afraid we’re going to need your ticket, not a cocktail napkin with a half-eaten cookie in it.”

The flight attendant’s voice snapped Wes out of his stupor. “Of course,” he said, fumbling through the pocket of his jacket. He handed it to her, his mind filling with images of a small, dark-haired little girl and an angry, hurting, dark-haired woman.

Could he change her back? He’d seen her hell. Tortured at a young age, forgotten by a system that couldn’t save every child. Could he send her back to a new hell of her own making? And what of Liam? Cheerful, joyful little Liam with the unruly brown hair and the heart of a champion. Could he curse the child by turning him back?

“Damn it,” Wes muttered savagely under his breath.

“Sir?” the flight attendant asked.

“Oh bother,” Wes muttered. “Not you,” he clarified to the woman. She looked at him, eyebrows raised and Wesley simply picked up his luggage and started walking toward the plane.

“Sir,” the woman called. Wesley turned around.

“Yes?” he replied, his British accent crisp and his voice polite.

“You forgot your cookie.”

“Me and my Liam are hungry,” Faith announced a moment later. “Is the time out over yet?”

Spike meant to say no. He wanted to say no. He opened his mouth to say no. “Ask the slayer,” he said, chickening out at the last moment.

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. Those kids had the so-called Big Bad wrapped around their tiny little fingers.

“Buffy?” Liam asked, looking up at her with huge, round eyes.

Buffy looked at them, looking up at her so hopefully, and her heart melted. “What do you want to eat?” she asked.

“A preschool teacher sandwich,” Faith said without hesitation.

Spike struggled to keep a straight face and failed.

“Or chocolate chip cookies,” Liam added.

“Faith, baby, come see what Mommy has for you.”

Faith looked at her mother warily. Sometimes she was Momma and sometimes she was Mommy, and sometimes she was the Mommy, and sometimes Faith was nothing. Sometimes what Momma had for her was a smack. Or a knife. Or the hot, hot stove.

“Oh baby, don’t look like that,” her mother crooned. “Sweetie, Mommy’s feeling good today. I’m doing better, baby, really. I made you cookies.” She held up a tray of cookies. “See?”

Hesitantly, Faith stepped forward, and silently, she ate the cookie her mother handed her. Her mother petted her hair and hugged her, and kissed her on the top of her head.

It was the best day of her life. Ever.

“Faith?” Buffy’s voice broke into the child’s thoughts.

“Cookies are good,” Faith said. Then she grinned up at Spike. “Preschool teacher cookies!” she added.

“I’m home, I’m beautiful, and I missed you,” a voice called from the other room. Instantly, Liam and Faith were racing towards the owner of the voice.

“CORDY!” Liam yelled, flinging himself at the older woman.

Cordy squeezed the little boy to her side, and when Faith pressed her face against her knee, Cordy bent down to envelop them both in a giant-sized group hug.

“So, what did you stab?” she asked the kids conversationally.

“Nothing important,” Liam said. “We have band-aids,” he added proudly.

Cordy looked at the dinosaur and Barbie band-aids plastered all over both kids, and she made a mental note to take more pictures. Little Angel wearing Barbie band-aids? If that wasn’t a Kodak moment, Cordelia didn’t know what was.

Faith murmured something into Cordy’s leg.

“What did you say, sweetie?” Cordy asked.

“You came back,” Faith said loudly, hugging the woman’s leg tightly.

Cordy opened her mouth to reply, but the second she opened it, images flew into her mind with a force so powerful that she flew over backwards.

Moving with slayer speed, Faith managed to keep Cordy’s head from hitting the ground, and she held it, as Cordy’s eyes glazed over.

What was Mommy looking at, with her eyes all blank like that? Why was she asleep in the bathtub? The water was red, so red.

Mommy, Mommy, what are you looking at? Mommy, Mommy, why are you asleep in the bathtub?

“Cordy?” Faith said.

From inside her vision, Cordelia vaguely heard the little girl’s voice, but she was too caught up in images slicing through her mind to answer.

“Cordy?” Liam echoed. Why was she just sitting there? Like Kathy. Dead Kathy. Liam wrinkled his nose. Who was Kathy? He couldn’t remember.

“CORDY!” Faith screamed. Buffy and Spike charged into the room, followed by Xander, Anya, and Willow. Faith looked up at them through a panic-stricken face. “Make her come back,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make her go!”

My fault. My fault. My fault.

Don’t care.

My fault

Can’t care.

My fault. My fault. My fault.

Mommy?

“Cordy, come back,” Faith said. “I’ll be better. I promise. Cordy, just come back.”

My fault. My fault. My fault.

The real world came back into her line of vision and hit Cordy like a brick wall. Faith and Liam were looking down at her, their eyes wide, Faith’s body frozen stiff and her face devoid of color.

Cordy racked her brain, trying to think of something to say. “Uh, peek-a-boo?”

“Peek-a-boo yourself,” Spike said, giving her a meaningful look that made Cordy roll her eyes and made Buffy jab him suspiciously in the side.

“Vision thingy,” Cordy said, using the technical term. “Vamps, a bunch of them, right at sunset. In the high school.”

“The school?” Buffy asked.

Cordy nodded impatiently. “Charred. Burnt to a crisp. On the mouth of…heck. Yeah, that school.”

Xander looked out the window at the setting sun. “It’s almost sunset,” he said.

Cordy’s attention was on Faith. “Faith, baby, come back to me,” she said. Faith looked at her warily. “I’m okay, sweetheart.”

“Your hair’s messed up,” Liam volunteered. Cordy caught him up in a hug and tickled him. Cautiously, she tickled Faith, too, but the child didn’t respond. Instead, she stared at Cordy, her eyes blazing.

“Don’t you ever leave me,” she said fiercely. “I’ll be good, so don’t you ever leave, Cordy.”

Cordy kissed the top of her head. “I won’t.”

“Can you show us where?” Buffy asked, breaking into the moment awkwardly. “The vamps, with the… vampiness,” Buffy clarified. “Can you come with and show us where?”

Cordy nodded.

“I can stay with the kiddos,” Willow volunteered hesitantly.

“We can have another invigorating sing-along about the capitalism of sex toys,” Anya volunteered brightly. “Can’t we, small people?”

“No,” Faith said, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. “Me and Liam are going with Cordy.”

Cordy opened her mouth.

“You’re not leaving me,” Faith said, her voice hoarse. “I’ll be good.”

“And I can sing you my new song,” Liam volunteered. “It’s about Spike and band-aids and crossbows and it goes like this.” Liam took a deep breath. “This is the Wanker Ass Bint song,” he sang. “It’s about wanker ass bints and crossbows and the Big Bad who ate a preschool teeeeeeaaaaaaacheeeeer…” Liam looked at Faith and grinned. “Who was aaaaaaaaaaa….” Liam drew the word out.

“Wanker ass biiiiiiiiiiiint!” both kids belted out together.

Cordy fell helplessly into giggles.

“Catchy,” Anya commented. “You might add something about an orgasm or fair trade.”

Liam grinned up at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The song’s not over yet. Me and Faith, we’ll sing it all the way to the school.”

Chapter Eighteen

“If you’re happy and you know it, slay a vamp,” Faith’s little voice rang out just louder than Liam’s.

“If you’re happy and you know it, slay a vamp.” Both children clapped.

“If you’re happy and you know it, then your wench will surely show it, if you’re happy and you know it, slay a vamp!” The children dissolved into giggles, and Buffy found herself walking along to the tune.

Spike rolled his eyes. “I liked the other song better,” he said.

Immediately, the children changed tunes, and, if it was humanly possible, began singing even louder. “This is the wanker ass bint song. It’s about wankers and asses and bints…”

“Orgasms,” Anya said in a stage whisper. The children obliged her.

“And oooooooorrrrrrrrgaaaaaaaaaassssssmmmmms!”

“Do sheep have orgasms?” Liam questioned curiously, breaking off from the song while Faith went into another verse extolling the virtues of eating preschool teachers.

Spike eyed Liam, amused. “Note to self,” he said loftily, “mock Peaches Senior upon his return for unhealthy sheep fetish.”

“What’s a fetish?” both kids asked at once.

“Well,” Anya said, a huge smile crossing her face.

Xander clapped his hand over her mouth. “It’s kind of like cheetohs,” he improvised.

“Cheetohs?” Willow mouthed to Xander over the kids’ heads. Xander shrugged.

Faith and Liam looked thoughtful.

“A cheetoh fetish,” Anya mused, as soon as Xander took his hand off of her mouth. “Interesting.”

“What in the world?” Kate spoke under her breath and Lindsey, barely masking his amusement, turned to look at her.

“I believe the children are singing,” he told her.

Kate shot him a disgruntled look.

Lindsey grinned. Disgruntled was a good look for her.

“I could tell that much,” she said.

“Ooooooorrrrrrrrrrgaaaaaaaassssmmmmmssss!” Liam’s yelling/singing hung in the air, and for an awkward moment, neither the lawyer nor the cop spoke.

“Interesting song choice,” Lindsey said finally, a note of amusement hidden in his voice.

“Who are those children?” Kate asked.

Lindsey, keeping his voice down, turned to her as they followed the loudly singing group into the old and slightly charred high school. “The little boy you’ve met before,” he said, sure of it now. “The little girl…”

His voice trailed off.

Are you a good man? She’d asked him.

Are you a good girl? He’d asked her in return, and brazenly, she’d told him no.

“Faith,” he said out loud.

“Sir, what would you like to drink? Sir? Sir?”

Wes finally focused on the woman. “Pardon?” he said, his voice rough.

She smiled brightly at him even as she couldn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes. “Would you like a soda? Some water?”

“You don’t happen to have answers in there, do you?” Wes asked, peering sardonically into her beverage cart.

She shook her head, making a clicking sound with her tongue.

“In that case, I’ll have a Ginger Ale.”

As he sipped his drink, Wes thought of the children. Liam with a chocolate-covered face. Faith snuggled tight in his arms. She was so little. So innocent.

The facts were facts, though. Los Angeles needed Angel. Did he have the right to keep the champion a child? A non-vampiric child who might never grow into a champion?

Wes shook his head.

Liam could not stay a child indefinitely.

But what of Faith? Wes wondered. What purpose was there in bringing her back? Bringing her back to what? To prison? To guilt? To the results of the fact that no one, himself included, had cared enough to fight the ghosts of her past?

They hadn’t even realized there were ghosts.

Wesley took a swig of his Ginger Ale. He closed his eyes, images of Faith and Liam burned into his mind.

“Remember,” Buffy told the kiddos. “You stay close to Cordelia, and if anything bad happens, scream.”

“Scream what?” Liam asked.

“Cheetohs?” Faith suggested, giving Xander an impish look.

He grinned at her. Underneath the anguish and the attitude, that kid was a charmer. Who could resist dinosaur band-aids?

Buffy stepped cautiously into the hallway, her slayer sense on high alert.

Faith shivered. The back of her neck felt all funny, and her stomach was playing tug of war with itself.

When the first vamp came into sight, Buffy and Faith both charged towards it.

“Faith!” Cordy’s voice rang out, but the little, dark slayer paid no attention.

Buffy thrust herself in front of the child, but Faith launched herself off the ground, flying through the air toward the vampire, and in the next moment, another vamp caught Buffy from behind, taking her attention off of the little girl.

Faith didn’t have a stake, but as her skin stood on end, she could only think of one thing.

Bad. That thing was bad. She hit him as hard as she could in the face with her tiny fist, taking him by surprise.

Bad.

Bad. Bad girl. Little slut. I’ll show you. Stupid little bitch. Do you know what happens to bad girls?

“Bad,” Faith grunted out, pummeling the demon with every ounce of strength she had. “Bad.” She lowered her voice to a hiss.

Liam started towards her. He wasn’t about to let Faith fight all by herself. Spike grabbed the back of the child’s shirt and unceremoniously picked up the wriggling little boy and handed him to Cordy.

“I believe this is yours,” he drawled. It wouldn’t do to let the Half-Poof get himself killed.

Without another word, Spike launched himself into the middle of the fight, on his way to retrieve Faith.

Silently, Kate and Lindsey stood in the shadows and watched the fight.

“Vampires,” Kate said, her voice dull.

“It would appear so,” Lindsey replied.

“And the girl, that little girl,” Kate said, watching the child whose every movement screamed of rage and pent-up anguish.

“Faith,” Lindsey supplied. He’d had to see it for himself to know for sure. He’d sent an assassin after Angel and somehow, both the assassin and the target had ended up as four year old children.

“Ugly,” Faith said out loud, grabbing a piece of debris in her fist and hitting the vampire with it, full force. “Ugly. Bad. Stupid.” She punctuated every word with a devastating blow. “Little bitch. Little slut.”

Kate watched, horrified, as the words surged from the little girl. This was the enemy. Hurt and open, raw and screaming. This was Faith.

Spike hauled the little girl into his arms, and in one smooth movement, Buffy leaned in and staked the vampire.

As the vamp burst into dust, little Faith, her dark hair coming out of its ponytail entirely, struggled against Spike’s grip.

“Gonna kill it,” she said ferociously. “Gotta kill it.”

Pillow on her face. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

“Let me kill it!” Faith said lowly.

Spike held the flailing child close. “Shhh, now, little luv,” he whispered into her hair.

“It’s dead,” Buffy said softly, as she finished off the last vamp. “It’s gone, Faith.”

Why was Mommy asleep in the bathtub?

Faith turned wild eyes on Buffy.

My fault.

“You,” Faith burst out angrily, tears cascading down her face. “You have to take everything.”

Buffy looked at her, bewildered. She reached out to touch the little girl softly, and as Buffy moved, Faith threw her arms up in front of her face protectively.

“Don’t.” The word escaped her mouth before Faith could stop it.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Buffy said, her voice low and her heart breaking. This was Faith? This was the girl who she’d once nearly killed? The one she’d never been able to reach?

“No one’s gonna hurt you, my Faith,” Liam piped up from Cordy’s arms. “I wouldn’t let them. I’d wanker their wench good if they tried something.” The little boy put on his fiercest face.

Cordy walked over to Faith and knelt down next to her. “No one’s going to hurt you,” she said, her voice even. “Not now. Not ever again.”

Faith looked back at her. “Don’t you leave me, Cordy,” Faith said. “Don’t you leave me again, like everybody. Don’t you leave me like Wes, Cordy,” Faith practically growled.

Cordy reached out and smoothed a hand over the little girl’s hair. “Oh, baby,” she said. “I’m not leaving. This is me, not leaving. And Wes is coming back.”

Faith stared at the seer, her little arms crossed over her chest.

“And you shouldn’t have run into the fight,” Cordy continued. “What’s the rule about fighting evil?”

“Always ask first,” Faith and Liam said at once.

“And look both ways before crossing the street,” Liam added. He grabbed Faith’s hand casually in his own, and with the motion, a single Barbie band-aid fell off of his arm and onto the floor.

“And don’t pretend Giles is evil,” Faith added with a tentative little grin.

“Yes,” Cordy said. “Not pretending Giles is evil just so you can throw him around is a very important rule.”

“No biting,” Liam continued, “unless it’s Riley.”

Cordy tried not to laugh, but failed miserably. Then she fixed a look on Faith. “The moral of the story is that you don’t just run into a fight,” she said. “It’s dangerous and something bad could happen.”

A stubborn look settled over Faith’s face, and moving on instinct, Cordy pulled both children into a hug. Liam readily hugged back, but for a moment, Faith stood there, motionless. And then, fiercely, she threw herself against Cordelia and hugged her hard, burying her face in the older woman’s chest.

In the silence that followed, Buffy looked up and saw Lindsey and Kate staring at them.

Anya broke the silence. “This is the Orgasm song,” she sang under her breath in a surprisingly good voice. “It’s about enticing sexual positions and the capitalistic integrity of domestic currency…”

Liam and Faith looked at each other and joined in on the song.. “Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd…. CHEETOHS!” They both added, dissolving into giggles.

Anya sighed happily. “And cheetohs,” she added, poking Xander in the side.

“Cordy?” Faith said, realizing something.

Faith looked at the little girl, who was giving her very innocent eyes, and she wanted to groan. Those were totally Faith’s Let Me Stab/Kill/Maim/Eat/Do/Say something I’m not supposed to eyes.

“Yes, Faith?” Cordy answered warily.

“Do we have to tell Wes?” Faith asked, all innocence. “About the vamp?”

Liam solemnly shook his head side to side, trying to influence her decision, and looking at the two of them, absolutely covered in band-aids, their hair disheveled, Cordy felt the insane urge to laugh.

They were a handful, all right, her little Seek and Destroy, but they were her handful.

Cordy threw her hair behind her shoulder and responded like a true parent. “We’ll see.”

Chapter Nineteen

Giles walked into his apartment and took one look at the children, who were sprawled on the floor doing something that could only be described as unbelievable.

Giles took his glasses off, and a small, British sound escaped his throat. “What are they doing?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

Cordelia looked up from the magazine she was currently flipping through, glanced over at the children, and shrugged. “Painting each other’s nails,” she replied.

Liam held his messily painted right hand up proudly. “Look!” he ordered Giles. “It’s blue.”

Xander barely constrained his glee. “And sparkly,” he added. “If this isn’t a Kodak moment, I don’t know what is.” The idea of Angel covered in Barbie band-aids, joyfully painting his nails a bright, sparkly blue appealed to Xander on so many levels. Oh, the potential for mocking!

Anya leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Xander got a goofy look on his face, his eyes going wide and a half smile settling over his lips. Anya’s idea of a Kodak moment got him… thinking.

Giles cleared his throat and busied himself with desperately trying not to conceptualize whatever it was Anya had said.

“It involves honey,” Anya told him. “And quarters.”

“What would you do with honey and quarters?” Faith asked curiously. The little girl’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as she added some finishing touches to one of her fingers.

Xander gently clapped his hand over Anya’s mouth as she turned to respond.

“I bet it has something to do with an orgasm,” Liam said innocently. Xander’s hand still on her face, Anya nodded vigorously.

Desperate for a subject change, Giles knelt down to talk to Faith. “Your nails are very pretty as well, Faith,” he said in a tone that had Faith wrinkling her nose. He didn’t talk to her like she was a real person, just because she was little. Or maybe just because she was Faith.

Maybe she wasn’t a real person.

“Faith, what do you say?” Cordy prompted upon hearing Giles complimenting Faith’s nails.

“I was taught by the best?” Faith suggested, shooting a grin at Cordy.

Cordy shrugged. She’d been shooting for ‘thank you,’ but she couldn’t argue with the plain, hard truth.

“Why is one of your nails pink when the rest are blue?” Giles asked Faith curiously, patting her on the head while he did so.

Faith shot him a wicked glint and delicately lifted up her middle finger, clasping the other fingers in a fist. “This finger?” she asked innocently.

Giles looked at her. Was the child flipping him off? It was hard to tell. At that exact moment, he stopped patting her head.

“Faith!” Cordy said.

Faith turned to Cordy, her lone, pink finger still raised in an indelicate position. “Yes?” the child said, the very picture of innocence.

“Put that finger down,” Cordy said.

“Can’t,” Faith replied. “It’s drying.”

Cordy opened her mouth and then closed it again. That was the kind of logic that she just couldn’t argue with.

A room away, Buffy sat, holding a mug in her hands and watching the marshmallows swirl gently in the hot chocolate.

She hadn’t managed a coherent sentence since she’d sat down at the table with their two visitors from L.A. A lawyer and a cop? The cop she could understand. They were, after all, talking about Faith.

Faith? Her dark hair flying as the woman whaled away at a vampire, beating him senseless before staking him.

Faith? The child fiercely and rhythmically punching a vampire, grunting out the echoes of her past as she did. Little slut. Bad. Bad. BAD.

Faith? The rogue slayer fighting with Buffy on the roof tops.

Faith? The child with her arms thrown up to ward off oncoming phantom blows.

Faith? The child frozen to the ground, caught up in memories she couldn’t understand and a past she couldn’t escape.

Buffy swallowed hard and looked up at the man sitting across from her at the table. “I get the cop thing,” she said, glancing over at Kate. “But what’s with you, lawyer type guy? Are you Faith’s lawyer?”

“Not strictly speaking,” Lindsey replied.

Are you a good man?

Faith’s words echoed in his mind. Lindsey heard the children laughing in the other room, and he sensed himself coming to a crossroads. The laughter took him back, into his own past, into the person he had once been.

The little girl laughed gleefully as her brother tossed her up into the air. Other children clung to each of his feet, and he could hear the baby coughing in the other room.

“Lindsey, Lindsey!” the little girl in his arms yelled gleefully. He was her favorite person in the world. The only person in her world.

“Yeah, Menley?” he said, fixing the child on his hip even as he thought about the medicine he’d never be able to afford for the baby.

His four year old sister touched one slobber-covered hand gently to the side of his cheek. “You’re my brother,” she pronounced, as if that was news to him. “I don’t even care if you’re a boy,” she promised him. Menley was currently on an anti-male kick. “You’re a good boy,” Menley clarified, distinguishing him from her other brothers, all closer to her age.

Lindsey, age thirteen, blushed.

If he was so good, why was the baby coughing? Why was Menley still wearing that scrap of a summer dress when it was starting to get cold? Why did he wish to God that Momma would wake up out of her work-induced exhaustion and make everything okay?

“Throw me again, Lindsey,” Menley ordered, and Lindsey did as she asked.

The child’s peals of laughter from the memory echoed in Lindsey’s head, and he made a decision in that moment.

“I would like to represent Faith when and if she returns to her former state,” Lindsey said. “I’m currently in between law firms, but I could provide counsel nonetheless.”

Kate stared at him. A Wolfram and Hart employee walking away? It was almost unheard of.

“Is Faith returning to her former state?” Kate asked, pushing down everything inside of her that was shouting that the current situation was nothing more than some trick of mirrors and smoke, that the criminal in her mind was still out there somewhere, an unforgivable, inhuman monster.

Faith? The little girl with the haunted eyes and the tortured past?

“Should Faith return to her former state?” Kate rephrased her question, surprising herself.

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. She opened her mouth to say more, but a yell from the other room distracted her.

“NOT-A-PUSSY! YOU’RE HOME!”

Kate and Lindsey looked at each other and then shot questioning and sardonic looks at Buffy.

“Wesley’s back,” Buffy said, biting down a grin. Not-a-Pussy Wyndam-Pryce. It had quite a ring to it.

Silently, Buffy, Kate and Lindsey walked into the other room to the sounds of Liam informing Wes in one fantastically long run on sentence of everything that he had missed out on while he was gone.

“And then we sang about sheep, and Anya taught us the Kama Sutra, and we played the sheep game, and Riley was a wanker, and so we…” Liam trailed off guiltily. “Uhhhhh…we did not staple him to a wall,” the little boy amended his story as he talked. Wes might not like what they’d done to Riley. “And then Cordy had a vision, and Buffy fought vampires, and Giles was British, and Mr. Spike got his sodding blood, and we sang the Wanker Ass Bint’s Orgasm song all the way home.” Liam paused, so excited and cheerful that no one in the room could reconcile the image of the little, bouncing, band-aid covered, nail-polished four year old in front of them with Angel, the master of the brood.

“Not-a-Pussy,” Liam continued, “you missed out on an awful lot.”

Wes gave the child a stern look. “Language.” Liam looked at Wes thoughtfully. He had forgotten how much Wesley wasn’t a person to be pushed. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to push Wesley.

“Well, it’s not like you are a pussy,” Liam started to say. Wes tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at the child. Liam shut his mouth and scuffed his foot into the ground.

A single band-aid dropped off his elbow, and Liam bent down, picked it up, and resolutely tried to stick it to the middle of his forehead.

Wes turned his attention to Faith. “And what about you?” he asked the child, aching to hug her, to hold her, to love away the pain that he was only just now beginning to understand. “Did you have a good time while I was gone?”

Faith looked at Wes, her little lips set in a firm line and her eyes stormy. Without a word, she punched him in the stomach.

It knocked the breath out of him.

“Faith!” Everyone in the room said at once, horrified, except for Lindsey, who bit back a grin.

Wes said nothing. He merely straightened up and looked at Faith, refusing to back away from her.

“You left,” Faith said flatly, by way of explanation.

“Yes, I did,” Wes admitted in the same voice.

“You left me,” Faith said, her bottom lip quivering. She took her arm back to punch him again, but he took her little fist firmly into his own.

Little Faith of the burnt feet and blood red past.

“I came back,” Wesley said simply, his voice low and steady. He looked down at the child’s clenched fist. “And this isn’t the way to solve anything, little luv. We don’t solve problems with fists.”

Unless they were vampire problems, Wes added silently, but that would come with time.

When he called her little luv, Faith wavered. Was that the same thing as love? Did her Wesley love her? Really love her? Like the way Liam maybe-loved her? Like the way that people maybe didn’t hate her quite so much anymore? Like maybe she wasn’t quite so bad that people had to leave and never come back?

“Maybe I should kick you instead,” Faith said, her sullen voice cracking to let in just a hint of a wicked smile.

Wes gave her a look, and without another word, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. After a moment, Faith hugged back, fiercely. He picked her up, and Faith snuggled as close to him as she could get.

“If you ever leave me again, I’ll kick your ass.”

Faith’s statement hung in the air.

“If I leave,” Wes told her quietly, privately. “I’ll always come back to you, Faith.” His voice caught in his throat. “You’re my girl. My little girl.”

He knew that those were the words she needed to here.

“And I love you.” His final statement fell on Faith’s ears like a clap of thunder. She looked at him, bewildered, terrified, and painfully hopeful.

“You do?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” Wes replied steadily.

Faith tried not to look like she cared all together too much, but for the first time, in a long time, she felt safe.

“Would you like to hear the Wanker Ass Bint’s Orgasm Song, Not-a-Pussy?” Liam asked finally, breaking the silence.

Wes opened his mouth to reprimand the child for his language, but then said nothing. The contents of his pocket, everything needed for the reversal spell, made Wes look at the little boy in a new way.

Before she began singing along with Liam, Faith whispered one more thing into Wesley’s ear. “Don’t believe anything Cordy tells you,” Faith said solemnly. “I was awful good while you were gone.”

As the word good crossed her lips, for the first time, Faith didn’t feel like it was a complete lie. Maybe, some day, she really would be good. Maybe she wasn’t going to be a Bad Girl, and Ugly Girl, a Little Slut forever.

Maybe, instead, she’d be Wesley’s girl. And Cordy’s girl. And Liam’s girl.

Just maybe.

Chapter Twenty

“How about a grin there, Liam?” Xander asked, snapping a picture and finishing up with his fifth roll of film. He turned to Cordy. “Do you think he’ll streak any time soon?” he asked.

Cordelia snorted. “Like I’m supposed to have his streaking itinerary. Sure, Xander, let me get it out of my purse.” Xander was too busy putting in another roll of film to notice her sarcasm.

“Streaking itinerary,” Anya mused. Then, abruptly, she turned to Xander. “How’s next Thursday at noon?” she asked.

Xander’s eyes grew wide and then he broke into one of those guy grins that men couldn’t help but have around a woman like Anya.

“Did you get a picture of my nails?” Liam asked. “And my band-aids?” He held up his hands, an enormous smile on his little face, his hair mussed almost beyond repair. “What about Faith’s nails? Did you get a picture of Faith’s nails?”

Xander turned to snap a picture of Faith. The little girl smiled up at him almost shyly, vulnerably, her darkly lashed eyes open disarmingly wide. Liam slung his arm around her shoulder. “Take one of both of us.”

“Okay,” Xander replied. He still couldn’t believe his luck. Dead boy would never be able to live this one down. “Say cheese.”

Faith and Liam looked at each other. “Wanker bint!” they called at the same time, shooting the camera toothy grins. In a transition too smooth for anyone else to see, the children went from standing next to each other to wrestling, screaming with laughter.

Faith held back, wrestling gently with him. She wasn’t going to hurt her Liam. Not ever.

Liam, scrappy little fighter that he was, held his own, and as the two rolled around on the floor, they burst into song.

“This is the wrestling song,” Liam sang. “It’s about wrestling and blood and wenches and wanker sheep with bow ties.”

“SHEEP WITH BOW TIES!”

Spike, standing in the doorway, watched them with a wry grin on his face. “Sheep with bow ties, Poof Junior?” he muttered. The children shifted seamlessly into the Wanker Ass Bint song, and rounded out their medley with the loudest version of the wench song ever, sung in an odd little round.

“Looks like you’re set,” Willow said, trying to keep a straight face as the children’s song drifted into the room.

Wesley nodded. “I can turn them back,” he said.

Cordy peaked into the next room, and Liam, delighted, waved at her, a gigantic smile on his little face.

“Do we have to?” Cordy asked. “He’s so…” she paused and sighed. “So innocent,” she said. “And happy. He’s happy.”

“The world needs Angel,” Buffy said. “As adorable as Liam is, as nice as it is to see him little and worry free, the world needs him.”

Cordy rolled her eyes heavenward. “Champion shmampion,” she muttered, even though she didn’t mean it. Then she turned back to Wes, her stomach lurching. “And Faith?” she asked.

Wes looked at each of them in turn: Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, and Giles. He’d made up his mind, and nothing they said was going to change it.

Faith of the burnt feet and blood red past.

Just out of earshot, Kate turned to Lindsey. “You think they’ll turn them back?” she asked, her voice low.

Lindsey didn’t meet her eyes, caught up for a moment in another time.

She’d slipped through the cracks. How had he not noticed? How had Momma not noticed? He’d been cooking dinner and keeping the twins from killing each other and trying to study, all at once, and he hadn’t realized how quiet she was being.

Menley was never quiet.

And now, he was standing on her grave. A pathetic little slab, and that out of charity. Too many kids and not enough money, and now she was gone.

He wouldn’t let it happen again.

Never.

He’d get them out of there, all of them.

Never again.

“I don’t know,” Lindsey answered finally. He looked at Kate out of the corner of his eye, and the depth she saw in his liquid pools of color almost knocked the wind out of her. “Do you think they should?”

“This is the wench song it’s a song about wenches and the Big Bad and sheep with glaives…”

The sound of the children singing made Kate smile. “She killed a man,” she said. The words hung in the air. For so long, Kate had thought of people like Faith as monsters. Faceless, soulless monsters.

“Wench me, Liam!” Faith called, and no one, other than Liam, had the least idea what she meant.

“I don’t know whether they should,” Kate said finally, “but I don’t think I could.”

Lindsey smiled softly, images dancing through his mind. In the right light, Faith looked almost like Menley. Almost.

“I couldn’t either.”

“You’re sure?” Cordy asked Wes, her voice low.

Wes nodded.

Giles cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.

Wes simply held up one hand. “I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “I won’t let you, any of you, send her back to a life where she went from being abused to being ignored, never once having anyone,” Wes looked at each of them, “never having anyone, including the lot of us, give her what she needed.”

Buffy opened her mouth.

“She’s my girl,” Wes said simply, and that, was that.

“Faith? Liam?” Cordy said. Instantly, the wrestling kiddos looked up at her, a tangle of arms and legs and extraneous limbs.

“Yes?” both children answered sweetly at once.

Cordy groaned. She knew that look. Seek and Destroy were at it again. “What did you pummel this time?” she started to ask, but she cut herself off short. “Wes and I need to talk to you two for a minute.”

Instantly, Faith froze, her entire body going stiff. She forced herself to stay in the present, not to remember that talking meant hitting and that hitting meant hurting and the taste of blood in the back of her mouth.

Easily, Wes took both children into his arms, and he settled them each on a leg. Faith relaxed, and the children wiggled to get comfortable.

“Do you remember when you came here?” Wes asked.

Liam and Faith looked at each other and nodded uncertainly.

“Sort of,” Liam said. The memories, of his mother and father and Darla (whoever that was) and Kathy (Kathy?) and the last, sweet kiss were all meshed together in his mind, just out of reach.

“We found a way for you to go home, Liam,” Wes said.

“No!” Faith burst out angrily. “I won’t go back, and I won’t let you take my Liam!”

“Hush, little luv,” Wes said softly, kissing the top of her head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “I’m going alone?” he asked. He couldn’t really remember life before he’d had his Faith. Not really.

Cordy, her gut wrenching, took a stab at it. “There are people there who need you, Liam. Hundreds and hundreds of people who need you to be big and strong.”

“Like Wes?” Liam asked. “Like Spike?”

Cordy nodded, biting back a smile. “Like that,” she said. “And, if you’re here with us, they might be in trouble.”

“They might need me,” Liam said slowly. “But what about Faith? She needs me too. I think she needs me worst.” Liam looked down and muttered the last few words. “Besides,” he said, rushing the last few words together. “I love Faith best of all.”

Faith looked at him. “Really?” she asked, her bravado cracking just enough that everyone could see she cared.

Liam nodded.

Faith looked at Cordy and Wes, torn. Inside, she was panicking. Liam couldn’t go. Not her Liam. Not her boy. He couldn’t go.

And yet, deep down, she knew that he had to.

“Are there lots of people who need him?” she asked in a terribly small, but still tough voice.

Cordy nodded. “Yeah, baby,” she said. “There are.”

Faith looked at Liam. She was Cordy’s baby. She was Wesley’s little girl. But she was, and always would be, Liam’s Faith.

Liam looked into Faith’s eyes for a moment, and then, his expression sober, turned back to the adults. “I have to go back, don’t I?” he asked. “They’re going to die, like Kathy, if I don’t go back.” Half memories came flooding back. “And people are going to be hurt, kids like Faith and me, and there bad people…” Liam trailed off, thinking of Faith’s mom. “They’re going to hurt people if I don’t go back.”

Tears filled Faith’s eyes, and she wiped them angrily away. “I don’t want you to go,” she told Liam honestly. Before she would have said she didn’t care, but now she did care, and it was all his fault. “I don’t want you to go, Liam, but I think you have to.”

Wes hugged the little girl to him tightly. She was trying so valiantly not to cry.

“I’ll miss you,” Liam said sweetly. “But you’ll always be my Faith.”

Faith looked at Cordy and Wes with knowing eyes. “He has to go now, doesn’t he?”

Faith sat on the stairs, her stomach hurting deep down where it felt like her heart was breaking. Liam was going away.

But he loved her, the voice inside her head said. Like Cordy and Wes and maybe even Buffy a little, Liam loved her. Liam loved her best of all.

As Willow and Wes sprinkled the chaoctive powder over Liam’s head, the little boy wrinkled his nose. He felt funny, fuzzy, and in his last moments, he did what he did best.

He sang.

“This is the wench song,” he sang. “It’s a song about wenches. It’s Faith’s song, cause she’s my best girl. It’s a song about fun and cookies and vamps and sodding blood. It’s a song about wenches. It’s a song for my Faith.”

Liam took a deep breath. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he sang. “This is the Faith song.”

And with that, there was a sound like a vacuum, and a very confused and full sized Angel, band-aids plastered all over his body, his hair completely gel-less and utterly messed up, and his nails painted bright blue, cleared his throat.

“Guys,” he said, his memory fuzzy. “What’s going on?”

Xander snapped a picture. This was too good to be true. “Say cheese,” he told the vampire. “You’re covered in Barbie band-aids.”

“Good look for you, Peaches,” Spike said. “And we’ll be needing to have a conversation about sheep here pretty soon.”

“Faith,” Angel said, the memories just almost in his mind. “Where’s my Faith?”

Upon hearing her name, Faith walked into the room, her face tear stained, but brave, her little hands jammed into the pockets of her jeans. She looked at Angel, long and hard for a moment, and then she smiled, a heartbreaking and almost tender expression on her face.

“I’m Faith,” she said, her hands moving to her hips. “What’s it to you?”

Angel shot sideways looks at the others in the room.

Wesley picked Faith up, and the little girl snuggled into his arms.

“Angel,” Wesley said. “I’d like you to meet my girl. My daughter.” He looked at Faith. “If that’s all right with you.”

Faith looked up at him. She’d never had a Daddy before. Not ever, cause she was ugly and bad and stupid and no Daddy had ever wanted her. Only now it was different. Because of Liam and Wes and Cordy and everyone. It was different now. Faith nodded her permission, a smile playing around the corner of her face. She and Liam had talked about Cordy and Wes being their mommy and daddy a lot.

“And Cordy?” Faith asked. “Am I Cordy’s, too?”

“Hell yeah,” Cordy replied. Then she looked sheepishly around the room. “Sorry,” she said. “They’re a bad influence on me.” No one commented on the fact that she’d been corrupted by four year olds, and Cordy brushed Faith’s hair out of her face. “Of course you’re my girl, too,” she said. “Someone’s got to pass on the fashion wisdom to you, and Wesley’s tortured rogue look still has tweed vibes.”

Wesley continued with the introductions. “And Faith,” he said. “This is Angel.”

Faith looked at Angel, hard for a moment. “I know,” she said. For a moment, the little girl saw Liam in the vampire’s eyes, and her own eyes sparkled with mischief. “Do you know any good songs?” she asked Angel. “I bet you’d make up really good songs.”

Before he knew it, Angel was singing. “Ohhhhhhhhhhh…” he trailed off and looked around the room. “Okay,” he said, “someone has to tell me why I have a sudden urge to sing a song about wenches.”

Xander snapped one last picture, finishing the roll, and Angel gingerly removed the Barbie band-aid from his forehead.

Faith leaned her head into Wesley’s chest.

She’d miss Liam forever, but for the first time in her life, it felt like she was home.

~Fin~