DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all BtVS and AtS related characters.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, people, here it goes… I'm dealing with a lot of requests here, some of which I can fulfill, some of which I can't.  Here's what you can expect to see some time in the next few chapters:

The Scoobs babysitting the kiddos: lots of Anya, Xander, and Spike, some of all the others.

Wes learning more about Faith's past.

Cordy having a vision in front of the kiddos.

A late night conversation between Liam and Faith (with some angst for both, and a lot of fun).

Kate and Lindsey working their way to Sunnydale and finding out the truth.

I think that covers most of your requests… and there are some covered in this chapter.  I'm doing my best here with all of these requests, so I hope you guys like!

Secondly, I wrote two companion fics to this piece.  SEEK AND DESTROY ON HALLOWEEN is about Liam, Faith, Cordy, and Wes on Halloween prior to trick or treating.  The second, THE BAD WORD GAME is written in Liam's point of view, a first for me.  If you haven't already, please check them out and let me know what you think.  Oh, and if you read THE BAD WORD GAME, some of the events Liam refers to will be happening in upcoming Throwback chapters…fair warning.

And look for little Faith's POV vignette, THE BAD GIRL, coming soon…

THROWBACK: CHAPTER THIRTEEN-ISH (I think)

            The car was silent except for the music Lindsey had turned on out of habit the moment he had climbed into the driver's seat. 

            He turned onto the highway, looking into the rear view mirror and catching sight of Kate's face as she did so.

            Her jaw was firmly set, her eyes hard.  She was a cop, Lindsey decided, maybe even more than he was a lawyer.

            Are you a good man?

            He turned the radio up louder, drowning out the little girl's voice in his head.

            She'd told him her name was Faye, but the longer he thought about it, the more firmly he knew that he'd met the child before, or more precisely, he'd met the woman-child before.  Faith.

            He wondered what exactly Detective Beautiful in the passenger seat was going to say when she found out her suspect wasn't even waist-high.

            "I know a game," Liam said solemnly.

            "So do I," Xander countered.  "My game is called feed Uncle Xander Cheetohs."

            Liam considered it for a moment and then wrinkled his nose suspiciously.  "That doesn't sound like very much fun," he said.

            "Sure it does," Xander said, putting enthusiasm in his voice, "it's almost as fun as playing Be Uncle Xander's Minion."

            "Xander!" Willow said.

            "What?" Xander asked, shrugging.  "Like I'm ever going to get this chance again, and come on, why are evil people the only ones who get minions?  Just once, I'd like to see a happy, skippy minion."  Xander took a sip of his orange soda.

            "Whatsa minion?" Little Faith asked, breaking away from her conversation with Anya for a moment.  "Is it like mission…missiona…" Faith looked to Anya for help.

            "Missionary position, Faith-esque child," Anya supplied brightly, obviously pleased with her pupil.  Xander choked on his orange soda.

            "I know a game," Liam repeated, a slight, brooding expression settling over his face at the fact that no one was paying attention to him.  He didn't care about any stupid missionary position anyway.

            Buffy knelt down next to Liam and looked into his darkly fringed eyes.  "What's your game?" she asked, smiling at him.

            Immediately, Faith's attention was on Liam.  "What's your game?" she asked, not wanting to be left out.  He was her Liam after all.

            "My game," Liam said, "is about sheep."

            Xander gave the room an incredulous look.  "Remind me to ask big Angel what's up with the sheep fetish," he said.  Then he thought about it for a second and shuddered.  "Actually," he said, "remind me not to ask big Angel about the sheep fetish."

            "Sheep are fluffy," Liam said, "and they can fight real good, like fruit loops."  In his four year old mind, it all made perfect sense.

            "Inflatable sheep," Anya piped up.

            "An," Xander said patiently, "remember when we talked about inappropriate conversations for young children?"

            "Nothing sexually explicit or permanently damaging," Anya said clearly.  Then she stared at Xander.  "Sheep aren't explicit," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

            Willow blushed, suddenly understanding the inflatable sheep reference.  In the corner of the room, Riley looked uncomfortably stiff.

            "So," Liam said, gesturing widely and explaining his game, "there are three sheep, and they all say baaaa and they always have to be touching each other."  Liam made up the rules as he went along.  "And there are a bunch of… a bunch of…" Liam stalled as he thought.

            "Cows?" Faith suggested.

            Liam nodded vigorously.  "Cows," he said.  "And the cows have to close their eyes, and the blue cows--"

            "There are blue cows?" Riley asked from the corner, amusement entering his voice.  Little Liam glared at him.  He did not like the big man.  He was kind of hoping Uncle Spike would eat him, because then, Uncle Spike wouldn't be hungry anymore and he could have lots of sodding blood, and then there wouldn't be a big man anymore.  Liam thought that sounded like a good plan, and he filed it away in the back of his mind for future reference.

            "Blue cows," Faith said with an affirming nod.  The big man was looking at her kind of weird.  He smelled like Buffy, and that made him scary, because Buffy smelled nice even though she was angry, and that was bad.

            Faith was bad.  BAD.

            Liam jabbed her in the side, and without thinking about it, she took a step toward him. 

            "Blue cows," Buffy reminded Liam, amused and wondering what kind of game the creative little boy Angel had been would come up with.

            Liam nodded.  "The blue cows have to try to catch the sheep," he said, "and the pink cows try to catch the blue cows, and the sheep try to catch the pink cows."

            "Back up the cow wagon there," Xander said, trying to wrap his mind around the rules of the game.  "So the pink cows and the blue cows have their eyes closed, and the sheep have their eyes open, but they have to always be touching each other…"

            "And they can't walk," Liam said.  "They have to roll and crawl and stuff."

            Faith nodded.  This all made perfect sense.

            "And the pink cows chase the blue cows and the blue cows chase the sheep and the sheep chase the pink cows," Willow said.  Then she paused and grinned.  "That's a lot of cows."

            "Let's play," Liam said.  The scoobies looked at each other for a moment, hesitantly, and Riley came to stand next to Buffy.  Buffy stood up, and Riley wrapped an arm around her.

            Liam growled at him softly.

            "Did he just growl at me?" Riley asked, completely disconcerted.

            "No," Buffy said quickly, giving Liam a warning look.  "Strong wind."  Silently, Buffy cursed herself.  What kind of lame excuse was 'strong wind' when they were inside the house and wind wasn't very growl-y anyway?

            "So," Willow said brightly, "how about this game playage?"

            Liam looked darkly at Riley.  "Okay," the little boy said finally, a smile coming over his face.  "We'll play.  Me and Faith and Buffy, we're sheep.  And Anya---"

            Anya cut him off.  "I want to be a pink cow," she said dreamily.

            Xander looked at her closely.  "Is it wrong if I'm turned on by that?" he asked.

            "Xander!" Buffy scolded.

            "Anya can be a pink cow," Liam said decisively.

            "With Riley," Faith said, suddenly inspired.  She grinned wickedly. 

            "What?" Riley asked.  He smiled at the kids.

            "You don't want me to be a pink cow," Riley said, feeling ridiculous as he flashed the kids a cheesy-sensitive Iowa farm boy grin.  "How about I be a blue cow instead?"

            Both children shook their heads firmly.

            "No," Liam said.  "Pink cow."

            And that, was that.

            Half an hour later, Liam was still making up rules to the game, and Xander was relishing the fact that his team was beating Riley's team, according to Liam, eleventeen to nothing.

            "This time, the blue cows sing," Liam said.

            "Sing me, Mommy," Faith said.

            "Damn brat," her mother mumbled.

            Faith climbed into her lap.  "Sing me," she said again.

            Her mother shoved her onto the floor.

            Faith climbed back into her lap.  "Love you," she said simply in her not-yet-two baby speak.  She'd heard Sarah's mommy tell her that.

            Faith's mother shoved her to the floor, and this time, Faith cut her knee on broken glass.

            "Do you love me now?" her mother asked.  Her mother's face crumbled.  "Do you love me now?" she asked again, half desperate, half raging.  "Do you?"

           

           

            Faith inched toward Liam, and since she, Liam, and Buffy were lying on the floor next to each other as Liam had dictated they had to do because they were sheep, Faith unconsciously moved toward Buffy, too.

            "Yes, blue cows have to sing," Liam said.  "That's the rule."

            "You're just making up the rules," Xander said.

            "Am not," Liam argued.

            "Are too," Xander said.

            "But you like singing," Faith said softly, a desperate and haunted tone entering her voice.  Buffy looked down.  The child was practically in her lap, and Buffy could see that Faith's little body was completely tense.  Cordelia had said that Faith was dealing with stuff that Buffy couldn't even imagine, and Faith's own words echoed in Buffy's head.  Why is Mommy asleep in the bathtub?

            Tentatively, Buffy reached down a hand and gently rubbed small circles on the little girl's back. Faith looked up at her, and the surprise, mistrust, and masked awe in the child's eyes made Buffy flinch.  This Faith wasn't the woman Buffy had known.  She was a child, an innocent, and Buffy hadn't quite realized it until this moment.

            "But I'm a blue sheep," Willow said suddenly, panic entering her voice as she realized that her group was the group that was supposed to sing under Liam's new rule.  "I can't sing.  I don't do the singing thing.  There will be absolutely no Willow singing.  No how, no way, no sir-ee, bub."

            "Who's Bub?" Liam asked.

            Faith pointed at Riley.  "I think he is," she said.

            "I'm not Bub," Riley protested.

            "Sure, Bub," Faith and Liam replied at the same time.  Buffy stifled a grin.  It was nice to see Riley flustered like this.

            "No singing," Willow protested again.  "Never."

            Five minutes later, Willow and Xander were singing with their eyes closed, trying to find the Buffy-Liam-Faith complex that was making a poor effort at crawling around on the floor, and Riley and Anya were wandering around with their eyes closed, saying nothing.

              "Come on," Buffy told little Faith and Liam, "let's go get him."  She steered them toward Riley and away from the singing blue cows.

            "This is me singing about blue cows and blue cow things and blue cow-y stuff and ummm …" Willow trailed off, at a loss as to what to sing next.

            "Sing about wenches or wankers or blood or ketchup," Liam called out helpfully.

            Willow followed the direction of his voice.  After all, she was a blue cow, and blue cows were supposed to catch sheep.  Those were the rules of Liam's Game.

            Giggling fiercely, Faith, Liam, and Buffy made their way to Riley, and Faith reached out and tagged his leg.  "We got him!" she yelled joyfully.

            Buffy, Liam, and Faith collapsed into laughter on the floor, the little ones rolling around on top of Buffy like puppies in a litter.

            Riley knelt down and pressed a kiss to Buffy's cheek.

            Xander, Willow, and Anya opened their eyes just in time to see Liam sink his teeth into Riley's calf.

            "Yeeeeooooow!" Riley screeched.

            "Yeeeeooooow!" Faith echoed joyfully, pleased with the sound.

            Liam spat on the floor.

            "Liam," Buffy said sharply.

            "But he tastes bad," Liam insisted, thinking she was yelling at him for spitting.

            "You don't bite people," Buffy said, giving the little boy a look.

            Liam, well accustomed to looks, was quite impervious to them by now.

            "How bad did he taste?" Faith asked.

            "Standing right here," Riley reminded her.  Faith paid no attention to him whatsoever.

            "Worse than Wesley's pudding," Liam said, and he stuck his tongue out of his mouth and raked his fingernails down it.

            Xander started laughing.

            "This isn't funny," Willow said, cracking up, "this is bad.  Very bad and not funny."  The wicca couldn't keep a straight face. 

            "Wesley made pudding?" Buffy asked, distracted for a moment.

            Faith and little Liam nodded with big eyes.  Wes had tried to surprise them, but his pudding had tasted bad.  Real bad.

            "And he tastes worse than that?" Faith asked incredulously.

            Liam nodded and spat on the ground.

            "No more," Buffy told him.  "Spitting's not nice, and neither is biting people.  Now tell Riley you're sorry."

            "You want me to lie?" Liam asked, wide eyed.

            "Yes," Buffy said.  "No," she corrected.  "I mean…yes…no…"

            "I want my sodding blood," Spike yelled from the bathroom.

            "I WANT MY SODDING BLOOD!" the kiddos echoed.

            "You know," Xander pointed out, "none of this would have happened if we'd played feed Uncle Xander Cheetohs."

            Bedlam was alive and well in Sunnydale.

TBC… up next, more kids plus spike time, a cordy vision, kate and Lindsey get closer to the truth, and Wes finds out the details of Faith's past.  It's three in the morning, and I've been sick anyway, so I hope you liked the chapter, and please let me know what you think.

REFERENCE: Rules of Liam's Game (in case you get confused after you read it the first time)

There are three groups: sheep, blue cows, and pink cows.  All cows have their eyes closed.  The blue cows sing.  The sheep are lying on the floor, and they have to stay physically connected with one another.  The object of the game is to catch someone you're supposed to catch.  Blue cows chase sheep, sheep chase pink cows, and pink cows chase blue cows.

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