DISCLAIMER: Joss owns all.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I think the best way to work my way through this block is with shorter updates.  Your reviews keep me going, even when it's hard.  Hope you guys enjoy, and thanks to

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For their support and recognition of this fic.  Thanks to all of you, also, for reading.  This was only ever meant to be a ten chapter fic, and I HATE writing more than fifteen chapters for ANYTHING, so just know that without you, the story would have ended a long time ago. 

THROWBACK: 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?"

TBC… That's all I can manage for now.  Next chapter, Cordy gets a vision, and the whole gang goes a-demon hunting, complete with a brand new song, and Scooby goodness, and Wes struggles with the decision he has to make.

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