DISCLAIMER: I own Kaya and the other kiddos. All others are property of Joss Whedon et al.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Like I said last time, this was a late night effort, and I'm not sure how long my muse will carry me on it, but if you all will keep reading, I'll do my best to keep writing. Here's a quick kid index, with the kiddos' names, ages, and powers from last chapter, just so you all don't get too confused.
Brandon, 4.5 (the broody one who doesn't like girls)- a male witch.
Val, 4 (the quiet one, Willow's favorite)- a witch.
Claire, 4 (the loud one) slayer
Noelle, 4 (the one who loves weapons)- slayer
Drew, 3 ("no biting")- the werewolf
Geyton, 3 (the one who almost got bit)- little vampire hybrid
Talla and Mara, 3 ("the twins") – twin witches
Brookie, 2 (the hyper one)- slayer
Kaya, 3, Faith's daughter- ability to communicate with the dead
Don't worry about all of the characters… most of the kids won't be used in every chapter, so be sure to let me know who you like the best so I can give them more screen time!
As for Kaya's dad, you all are right that it's not Wood… you'll just have to wait and see.
SMALL PACKAGES: Chapter Two
Buffy stared at Kaya. The little girl never met her eyes. Instead, she looked over Buffy's shoulder, her serious expression melting into a soft, baby smile. For some reason, the innocence in the smile made Buffy take a step back. The child had Faith's smile, but there was an aura about her that Faith had never had.
Faith noticed Buffy's expression and grinned wryly. "She looks like me," Faith said, shrugging and trying to keep her voice from becoming too defensive. She took a deep breath. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me," she said softly, stroking the little girl's hair with her left hand.
"Long time, no see, pet," Kaya said to Buffy in a surprisingly good imitation of a British accent.
Buffy sat down at her desk, trying to push back the roaring in her ears. What was going on here?
Not liking the way Buffy was looking at her daughter, Faith leaned down and easily swept the little girl into her arms, loving the feeling of holding the child. Never taking her eyes off of the spot just over Buffy's shoulder, Kaya snuggled against her mother.
"Hungry, Mommy," she said simply.
Faith pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her forehead. "We'll get you some food," she promised. Then she turned to Buffy. "Got any food around here, B?" she asked.
Buffy nodded. "We're a pretty graham crackery place," she said, dying to ask Faith what was going on, but not about to deny a hungry toddler some food. "We can take Kaya in to the others. It's about snack time, anyway." Buffy gave Faith a meaningful look. "Then you and I can talk."
Faith held Kaya a little closer, feeling the little girl's heartbeat next to her chest. Kaya squirmed to be let down, and after a moment, Faith set her down, and the two of them followed Buffy into the main room.
"Bye bye, Spike," Kaya said, waving.
"Bye bye?" Buffy asked, alarmed. "No bye bye." Buff tried to ignore the fact that she sounded like a little kid saying goodbye to her mommy.
Kaya looked up at her, giving the slayer an annoyed look. "No you," she said.
"Kaya," Faith said softly. "Play nice with B."
"We no play nice," Kaya said, giving her mother a wicked grin. "Kaya only play nice with Mommy. And others." Buffy could tell by the way the little girl said it that she wasn't referring to other living people. What exactly did that little girl see?
Buffy walked toward the nap room, and about halfway down the hallway, she could hear the joyful screams and giggles of the kids.
"Naptime," she said wryly.
Faith arched one eyebrow as she, Buffy, and Kaya walked into the room. Naptime indeed, she thought.
A quick head count told Faith that there were nine children other than Kaya in the room, and she quickly recognized Willow, holding a little girl's hand, and Xander, being bombarded by the other eight kids at once.
"Miss Buffy," a little girl with honey blonde hair said, her eyes lighting up. Instantly, she stopped pummeling Xander, and after shooting a warning look at a little boy with a broody expression on his face, Noelle ran over to Buffy's side.
"Fun with weapons," she demanded. The hem of her dress had already been torn completely off. Buffy groaned inwardly. The last thing she wanted was another afternoon chat with Noelle's mother about Noelle ruining her clothes every day.
"I don't want to play with weapons," Brandon said sullenly. "Neither do Drew or Geyton. We want to do boy things."
Hearing Drew's name, Buffy looked around for the little werewolf. He had a tendency to bite things. Buffy heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that Xander had Drew tucked safely under one arm, easily out of biting reach. Drew grinned charmingly at her and waved.
Buffy couldn't help but grin back. She loved her job.
"Quite a zoo," Faith commented under her breath.
"A ZOO," Claire boomed. Kaya looked at the loud girl for a moment, then she turned to her mother.
"No her," she said softly.
"Play nice," Faith said again. Moving slowly but not cautiously, Kaya inched forward toward the group, her face blank for a moment. She walked up to Willow, looked at the silent Val for a moment, and Kaya's little pink lips settled into a soft smile.
Seeing Faith, Willow was taken aback for a moment, but moving on instinct, she knelt down next to the child. "Hi," the wicca said awkwardly. "I'm Willow."
"Heya, Red," Kaya said simply, shooting the older woman an adorable smile for just an instant before she turned her attention back to Val.
"You," she said simply, reaching out and softly touching Val's shoulder.
Val opened her mouth, but no words came out. Sometimes, it was very hard for her to talk, even when she really wanted to, even to younger kids.
"Will, could you and Xander feed the kids a snack and watch Kaya while Faith and I talk?" Buffy asked, a note of urgency in her voice.
Willow nodded, looking between Faith and the child standing in front of her, her mind reeling. "Sure," she said. "We can make big with the snacking."
"SNACK!" Claire boomed.
Buffy and Faith walked back to her office. Kaya stared after her mother as she left but didn't say anything to stop her. She knew Mommy would be back. Mommy always came back for Kaya. Mommy loved Kaya.
After getting the kids situated in a circle, Willow sent Xander to fetch the graham crackers.
"Who are you?" Claire asked Kaya curiously, her voice only mildly louder than was civil.
"Do you have a crossbow?" Noelle asked, as if Kaya might be hiding a crossbow in her tiny jeans.
"Kaya," the little girl said firmly.
It took Willow a moment to realize that was the child's name. "This is Kaya," she told the kids, feeling a little awkward for repeating what the dark haired child had just said.
"What is she?" Brandon asked curiously, before remembering that he wasn't interested in Kaya, because she was very obviously female. Still, when the child looked at him, he had to look back.
"Is she one of them?" Brandon asked, gesturing toward Noelle, Claire, and Brookie. Two year old Brookie, a platinum blonde with dark brown eyes, stuck her tongue out at Brandon. Disaster was averted only because Xander arrived with the graham crackers just in the nick of time.
Willow looked at Kaya, wondering if the child had inherited any of her mother's slaying powers.
Why had Faith brought her here?
"Talkage," Buffy said firmly as she and Faith reentered her office. "Spill, Faith."
Faith sat down in a chair next to Buffy's desk, putting her feet up on the slayer's desk, right on top of some of Buffy's papers.
"She's not like other kids," Faith said finally, looking out the window. She took a deep and ragged breath. "She sees things, people. Are they ghosts? Her imagination? I don't know, B, but she knows things she shouldn't know."
Faith said nothing for a moment, and then she continued, still not looking directly at Buffy. "She's tough," she said. "She never cries, but she likes to sleep with a light on at night time. She's survived vamp attacks without flinching, but she still sucks her thumb." Faith's voice was low and reflective. "She's sweet and fierce, and she calls me Mommy." Faith's voice broke for a moment, and Buffy was floored by the amount of emotion on the woman's face.
"She loves me," Faith said simply. "And I'd do anything, kill anyone for her." Suddenly realizing that she'd gone off topic, Faith returned to the issue at hand. "I saw Giles," she said, so softly Buffy almost couldn't hear her. "A couple of months ago, in a Chicago airport, and he told me about you guys, about what you were doing here. He saw Kaya. He didn't know about the things she sees, but he told me to come here anyway, that Kaya might be a slayer because I'm a slayer. He said you guys had a way to identify gifted students."
Faith looked down at her hands and shook her head wryly. "He calls them gifted," she said. "Is that what we are, B? Gifted? I don't feel like this has been much of a gift, you know?"
Feeling the connection to Faith, the only other person alive who had felt the burden, the loneliness of being a slayer in the days before all Potentials had become slayers, Buffy stepped forward and put her hand on the woman's shoulder. To her surprise, Faith didn't turn away. Instead, she put her own hand on top of Buffy's.
"I need to know, Buffy," Faith said, her voice showing none of the vulnerability she felt. "I need to know what Kaya's seeing, what it means."
Buffy didn't say anything for a moment, and then she spoke. "We'll find out," she said. "I'll talk to Willow about a gift divination spell, and I'll email Dawn and see if she can do some hunting for a prophesy of some sort. There's always a prophesy." Buffy smiled. "Dawn's a linguistics major at UCLA now, concentrating on ancient languages. She always did have a thing for Sumerian."
Buffy realized she was rambling, and that Faith still held her hand. "We'll find out what we need to know," Buffy said. "Kaya will be fine."
Faith turned to meet Buffy's eyes. "She has to be fine," Faith said. "She's all I've got." The dark slayer paused for a minute. "I love her, B," she said finally.
Buffy realized it was the first time she'd ever heard Faith say the word love. The child had changed her, or maybe Kaya's existence was forcing her to look at Faith through new eyes.
Either way, things were changing.
"Chinese battle star!" Noelle said joyfully, expertly flinging a gram cracker across the room at Geyton with a quick flick of her wrist.
"Noelle!" Willow and Xander said at once. She turned darkly fringed innocent eyes on them and batted her eyelashes.
"What?" she asked sweetly.
Geyton, shrugging, picked up the graham cracker and ate it with a grin. For a child with vampiric qualities, he was surprisingly laid back.
Kaya, sitting in between Drew and Val, watched the interaction with interest. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Drew leaned over and tried to take one of Kaya's graham crackers.
Thwack. Kaya's little hand pinned Drew's to the ground. She narrowed her eyes at him, looking more like Faith than ever.
"Mine," she said softly.
Drew made a ridiculous face, and after a tense moment, Kaya giggled a very childlike giggle. "Funny," she said, pointing at Drew.
Drew smiled at her, and his smile only faded when he was pelted with a graham cracker from Claire's general direction. Whatever Noelle did, Claire did too. Jumping to her new friend's defense, Kaya leapt through the air and tackled Claire to the ground.
"HEY!" Claire screeched a moment later. "She bit me!"
Drew grinned broadly at Kaya. He liked the new girl. He liked her a lot.
Intervening, Xander lifted Kaya off of Claire and gave her what passed for a Xanderized firm look.
"No biting," he said firmly, and all of the students echoed him.
"That's our number one rule," Geyton said, "cause I'm a vamp and Drew's a wolfie."
Xander sat down and held Kaya firmly in his lap. "If you can't play nicely," he said, "you'll have to sit with me."
Kaya was silent for a moment, and then she spoke. "Anya," she said clearly.
Xander stared at her. "What did you say?" he asked her.
"Graham cracker is a good aphro… aphro…" Kaya struggled with the word she was trying to say. She tilted her head to the side, as if listening. "Aphrodisiac," she said finally, beaming up at someone no one else could see.
Xander looked down at the little girl. "Now that's just freaky," he said.
Noelle tugged on his shirt sleeve. "Weapons?" she asked sweetly. "Please, Uncle Xander?"
Xander nodded, standing up, Kaya still held firmly in his arms. He wanted to talk to Buffy. He wanted to know what was going on with Faith's daughter.
"Okay, everyone ready for weapons?" Xander asked.
"Wah-taaaaaaaaah!" Drew said, striking a ridiculous karate pose.
Kaya grinned at him.
Brandon grinned at him, forgetting for the moment about brooding, even if he was going to have to play a girl's game. He kind of liked the new kid, even if she was a girl, because she'd bitten Claire. In Brandon's sage opinion, Claire needed to be bitten at least once a day, possibly more often.
"We want the crossbow," both of the twins said at once.
"Boing boing boing boing beeeeee-oing!" Brookie, the youngest potential, yelled, bouncing on one leg around the room. There was a very good reason they normally tried to limit Brookie's sugar in take. "Boing!"
Willow, Val stuck close to her side, exchanged a grin with Xander. Potential Preschool was in chaos, and that was exactly the way they liked it.
TBC… I know there are lots of new names and kiddos right now, and I'll try to narrow it down a bit as it goes. I hope you guys aren't too confused and that you're still liking it. Next up, fun with weapons time, we meet the kiddos' families and some familiar faces there, and the mystery surrounding Kaya, and an ancient prophesy, are unveiled.
PLEASE REVIEW!!! (Let me know which of the kiddos you like best, please)