DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic is going to be winding to a close soon.  Three more chapters, maybe.  Sorry for the length of time between updates.  I've been a bit blocked on it.

THROWBACK: Chapter Fifteen

            "You two stay right here," Buffy said firmly.  "I'm going to go have a talk with 'Mr. Spike' before you go in there."

            "Can I hold the blood while you're gone?" Liam asked, his eyes wide.  It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, but Buffy couldn't make herself do it.

            "Watch him," she ordered Xander and Riley, and carefully, she handed the cup of blood to Liam.

            Faith inched toward Liam, who got to hold the blood because nobody hated him.

            Liam smelled the blood.  "Smells like band-aids," he declared, with his characteristic cheerful grin. 

            Immediately, Faith and Liam met eyes, and an unspoken message passed between them.  "We want band-aids," they chorused at once.

            "What?" Riley asked, surprised to hear Liam saying anything that wasn't some variety of 'grrrrrr,' the wench song, or 'stab-stab-stab.'

            "Band-aids," Liam piped up.  Glaring at Riley, he put on what passed in his four year old mind for a manly voice.  "Me and Faith want band-aids," he said, his mouth now set in a firm line.

            Xander looked at them and then shrugged and looked at Riley.  "You heard the man," he said in a goofy, booming voice.  "Band-aids!"

            By the time she was done with Cordelia's right hand, the manicurist was getting tired of hearing about the woman's two 'adorable' hellion children.  By the time she was done with Cordy's left hand, the woman was learning to hate the name 'Liam,' and by the time she was halfway done with the pedicure, she'd begun to shudder every time she heard the words 'sheep,' 'wench,' and 'glaive.' 

            What kind of kids did this woman have, anyway?

            Cordy shifted in her seat, wondering how the Scoobies were doing looking after Liam and Faith.  She glanced down at her watch.  Was it her, or was this pedicure taking an awful long time?

            "If you do anything to hurt either of them," Buffy said, fixing her eyes on Spike.

            "I know, I know, you'll stake me good and proper," Spike said.  Buffy glared at him.  Spike gave her a disgusted look.  "I'm chained up in a bathtub, Slayer," he said mildly, gesturing with his eyes toward his chains.  "What do you think I'm going to do to the nibblets?  Stare them to death?"

            Buffy steeled herself against the fact that he had a good point.  "You won't call them nibblets, or platelets, or munchies, or anything food-related," she said.  "You won't say any bad words around them.  You won't tell them bloody stories."

            Spike yawned, giving her a bored look. 

            "You won't let them kill themselves," Buffy said.

            A crash from the kitchen had her jumping.

            "Looks like you're doing a bang up job of it yourself, Slayer," Spike said, a smirk on his face.

            Buffy pointed her index finger at him sternly, but couldn't think of anything to say.  Another crash from the kitchen had her running out of the bathroom and towards the sounds of the kiddos' laughter.

            Kate glanced at Lindsey, not letting herself feel anything towards him.  He was a means to an end, a way to Sunnydale.  A way to catch a murderer, an animal.  A woman without a soul. 

            As a detective, Kate Lockely was first rate.  She had no pity for the criminals, and no fear of their crimes.  This Faith woman was no different.  She would catch her and lock her up, like the animal she was.

            Kate glanced at Lindsey again and then looked quickly out the window when he turned to look at her.  As a detective, she was first rate.  As a woman, she wasn't, and Kate was willing to live with that.  She didn't want to be anything else, didn't want to feel.

            Lindsey looked at her for a moment, and she felt his gaze on her face.

            A small smile crept onto Kate's face.  She'd get the criminal, like always, and maybe this time, though she didn't even let the thought cross her mind, she'd get the guy as well.

            "Oh, Faith."  Wesley's voice was soft as he read through her file.  She'd been called sullen, a rebel.  An attitude problem.  Shuffled from foster home to foster home from the time she was four until she was nine, when she had finally settled down in a group home, with good people.  By the time she was twelve, she was years behind in school.  One foster brother was killed in a fist fight, another sent to juvie on charges of sexual molestation.

            Wes pored over the file.  It was all so straight-forward, so matter-of-fact.  Oh, this child fell through the cracks.  Oh, this is the one we lost.  No big deal.  Can't win them all.  Oh, she found her mother's body.  Oh, no one ever taught her to read.  Oh, she spent her formative years without a permanent home or steadfast authority figures.  Oh well.

            Wes slammed the file closed, haunted by the child he'd held in his arms.  His little Faith.

            Another crash and the sound of Xander trying to cajole the kids into calming down had Buffy rushing into the kitchen.

"That was great, Faith!" Liam said.  "I didn't know plates made such good Wench-bies."

            Buffy came to a hault, looking at the shattered plates on the floor of the kitchen.  Wench-bies?  Wench-bies?  What in the world was a Wench-bee?

            Liam pulled another ceramic plate out of Giles's cabinet and, with an expert fling of his wrist, sent it flying like a Frisbee to crash into the wall.

            "Oh," Buffy said out loud, a smile on her face.  "I get it.  Wench-bee.  Frisbee."

            "Clever," Xander said.  The kids beamed up at him, and Buffy narrowed her eyes at her friend.  Xander put a stern expression on his face.  "Clever and wrong," he amended emphatically. 

            "Where'd Riley go?" Buffy asked, "and why are they covered with band-aids?"

            Xander opened his mouth to answer, but before either of them realized what was happening, Seek and Destroy were making a beeline for the bathroom and dear old Mr. Spike.

TBC… that's all I can manage for now.  I'm trying to write through this block, but it isn't easy, so you all will have to settle for a short, short chapter.  If you all stay with me, I'll see this fic through its end.  Coming up: Spike and the kiddos (yes, finally), Cordy has a vision, Tara visits, Kate and Lindsey are faced with a Faith they do not expect, more Anya, and, much to Faith's surprise, Wes returns..