DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the characters, you know who owns the movie and the book.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've put pics of all of the kids up on my website, so if you're bored after you read and review, use the link in my profile and check it out.  

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Four

            Within seconds of Dad bellowing my name, all us younger kids were lined up, from tallest to shortest, and Dad had gone into total British Guy Lecture mode.  I tried to keep the smile off my face.

            "You dyed his face an absurdly bright shade of blue."  Dad's statement hung in the air, and next to me, I could practically feel Dawnie trying not to laugh.  "You waxed his left leg." 

            Way down at the end of the line, I heard Andrew sniffle. 

            "You glued his hands to his crotch!"

            Xander lost it first, and the second she heard him laughing, Dawnie burst into giggles.  I wasn't far behind them, and once I started laughing, all the kids started laughing.

            "This isn't …"  Dad took his glasses off and cleaned them.  "All right," he admitted with a sigh.  "This is rather funny."

            Mom started giggling.

            "You guys!" Buffy said, stamping her foot, her eyes flashing.

            "Funny," Dad amended, "but wrong."

            Mom struggled to keep a straight face.  "Very unkind of you children," she said, dissolving into laughter again.

            "For the record, we still maintain he did it to himself," Lindsey said, laughter dancing in his eyes.

            Buffy glared at us.  "This isn't funny, kids," she said, like she wasn't even one of us kids anymore, just because she was twenty.  "This is my life you're playing with here.  That was my boyfriend, a man I care about, and when you treat him like this, you're really treating me just as badly."  Her voice caught in her throat.  "Not that you care," she added.

            Cry me a river, B, I thought, but at the same time, my stomach clenched a little.  Buffy the Oldest, Buffy the Perfect Daughter didn't even realize that I was doing this for her own good.  Did she think I didn't want her to be happy, just because life had sucked for me ever since we'd moved to this town?  She didn't understand me at all. 

            At Buffy's words, Dad sobered up.  "Faith," he said lowly.

            Of course, I thought.  Buffy brings on her Poor Me Speech, and immediately, Dad's ready to send me to the slaughter.  Was there any trouble telling who the black sheep of this family was?

            "Yes?" I replied, arching my eyebrow.  As Lindsey would say, he had no solid proof against me.

            He gave me a hard look and then turned to the rest of the kids.  "Whose idea was this?" he asked, trying to get some proof.  As if any of my brothers or sisters would turn me in. 

            Without hesitation, Anya spoke up.  "Sex me!" she exclaimed brightly, stepping forward and taking the blame.

            "Oh dear…" my father cut himself off and took his glasses off to clean them again.  Anya elbowed Andrew in the waist, and Andrew stepped forward, too.

            "It was my idea, too…and stuff," he said hesitantly.  Dad looked at the two of them for a second, and Andrew began to writhe, bouncing back and forth from foot to foot.

            "I think Andrew has to go," I volunteered sweetly.  Buffy glared daggers at me.

            Mom and Dad looked at each other and then turned back to us.  "This brilliant little endeavor just cost all of you this weekend," Dad said.  "You'll help me at the shop or your mother with the house or the gallery."

            Mom turned to smile at me.  "And Faith, dear," she said, "you'll be helping Buffy with whatever she needs."

            Buffy shot me a triumphant look, and I groaned inwardly.  Outwardly, my expression never changed.  A Giles never showed weakness.

            "A whole weeeeeeekeeeeennnnd?" Dawn asked, drawing the word out into about fifteen syllables.

            "It's not like we were liable," Lindsey pointed out.  "He signed the release form.  How about we work Saturday and Sunday we have family time, with the entire family?"  On the word entire, Lindsey glanced slyly at Buffy.  "There are child labor laws in this country, and I'd hate to think that…"

            Dad cut him off.  "Deal," he said.

            "Can I go to the bathroom?" Andrew asked, jumping up and down and grabbing the front of his pants.  "Cause I really really really really REAAAALLLLLY have to go now…"

            Jumping around like that with his hand on his pants, he kind of looked like Parker.

            "Go ahead," I told him, and he made a beeline for the bathroom.

            Mom and Dad went back into the kitchen to salvage dinner, and Buffy turned to flounce out.  Before she made it even a couple of steps, Tara and Willow were standing in front of her, staring at her silently.

            "It's not going to work on me," she said, "I know all your tricky…tricky…" Buffy fumbled for the right word.

            "Maneuvers?" Willow suggested.  "Ploys?  Manipulations? Acts of passive aggression?"

            Tara stared at Buffy.

            "No," Buffy said.  "Tricks."

            "Tricky tricks?" Xander asked, flipping into a goofy headstand.  "Sounds kinda crazy, Buffster."

            Tara stared at Buffy and held one hand up to her.  "Stay," she whispered.  "Please."

            For Buffy, that was all it took.  Tara didn't talk very much, but when she used words, she used them wisely.

            "Fine," Buffy said, glancing briefly at me.  My stomach churned a little, and I knew that Buffy might not be mad at anyone else, but she was still mad at me.  Forget the fact that I was just trying to keep this family together.  Every family had a bad child, and most families the size of ours had two.  As far as Buffy was concerned, I was both of them.

            Quietly, Tara hugged Buffy, and before I knew it, the rest of the kids were piling on, and everyone was laughing.  This was how it was supposed to be, how it was in the good old days, but with the way Buffy had looked at me burned into my memory, I couldn't bring myself to join in, so I just crept upstairs and made plans of my own.  Tara had been even more quiet than usual lately, and I had the feeling that some of the neighborhood kids were giving her a hard time.  We'd see about that.  No one messed with a Giles kid, not on my watch.

            My hand was already on the doorknob to our room when I heard a voice behind me.  "Hey Faith," Lindsey said.  "Should we keep a sample of his handwriting, you know, for the files?"

            "Sounds good, Lindsey," I said, and without saying a word, he gave me a hug.  Sometimes I thought he understood me better than the others, except for Dawnie, and that was a twin thing.

            "So did the hidden camera pick it all up?" I asked, a wicked smile returning to my face.

            Lindsey nodded, a huge grin on his face.  "We'll be enjoying that memory for many years to come," he said.

            Sitting there, I took stock of the situation.  Parker was gone, for good, and my Saturday belonged to Buffy.  I so didn't even know what Princess Buff was going to have me do, but at least I knew that Mom and Dad would never make me miss soccer practice just on account of some mild boyfriend torture.

            And when Buffy picked me up from practice, I could see what she thought of Spike.

            "Sodding hell," I said under my breath, trying to sound just like him.  "This is going to be great."

TBC… the next chapter's the Spike chapter, with a cameo by Dru, and then the next chapter, the Giles kids ban together to protect Tara, and Angel enters the scene.

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