DISCLAIMER: I own Kaya, Brookie, Claire, Noelle, Geyton, Brandon, Drew, Val, Sunny, and the inconsequential Suri. All others are property of Joss Whedon/ Mutant Enemy.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: *happy birthday to me*… it was my birthday when I started writing this… prob not when I post it, but here's a gift from me to you. I hope you enjoy!
Also, I'm considering Halloween ficlets, and I was thinking about a Potential Pre School Halloween party, or maybe ficlets centering around Lindsey, Brookie, and Claire, Kate and Brandon, Val and Anne, or Faith and Kaya. If you have a preference, let me know please! Also, for more fluffy Halloween goodness, check out my fic about Anya and Xander's three year old daughter, MOMMY'S LITTLE CAPITALIST AND THE PERFECT COSTUME.
Also, expect to be confused a bit on the Darla/Sunny front. Just know that it will eventually make sense.
SMALL PACKAGES: CHAPTER SIX-ISH (I think)
The child thrashed back and forth, her non-corporeal body suspended in the air. She whimpered. It hurt. It hurt bad all over. Why were they hurting her? She wanted her mommy. She wanted her Kaya. She wanted her White Lady.
Darla reached up and gripped the child's hand. "Sunny," she whispered, saying the child's name almost reverently. "Baby, it's okay. I'm here. Darla's here." The child, her face frozen in pain, sang under her breath, the same desperate, comforting words over and over again.
"My Darla. My Darla. My Darla."
Her White Lady was here.
"My Darla."
Kaya wrinkled her nose. A moment later, she sneezed, and Faith, in mother mode, grabbed a Kleenex out of her back pocket and held it up to Kaya's nose.
"Blow," she said.
Buffy and Willow stared at her disbelievingly.
"Color me shocked," Buffy said in a whisper to Willow. "Way with the colorage." Then she looked around to make sure there weren't any spare kiddos running around. The phrase 'color me' was a very dangerous phrase to use in the presence of small, magically gifted children.
Willow gave Buffy a solemn look. "Remember the purple incident," she told Buffy sternly, the corners of her mouth pulling a bit in a stifled smile.
"Purple incident?" Kate raised her eyebrows slightly.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," Willow said, trying to distract them.
All of the adults stared at the wicca for a moment.
Val traced her hand softly over Willow's face. She liked Miss Willow best of all. "Wizard of Oz," she said softly.
Willow grinned at the little girl. Four year old Val always knew exactly what Willow was talking about.
Kaya sniffed again, and when Faith gave the little girl another tissue, Kaya threw it on the floor. "No that," she said.
Faith simply raised an eyebrow. Her daughter was perfectly capable of speaking full and coherent English sentences, but in the past few weeks, she'd resorted to baby talk. Faith wasn't sure why.
"Wrong," Kaya said. "Light. Sunny gone. Darla gone. Fuzzy." Kaya's voice got more frantic.
Buffy knelt down next to the child. She reached out a hand to touch her arm gently. "It's all right," she said. "It's going to be all right."
"Can't see," Kaya said, panicked for a moment. Lindsey moved his finger's towards the child's face, and she blinked.
She gave him an irritated look. Apparently, her normal eye sight wasn't bothering her at all.
"Can't see Others," Kaya said. "Only hear. Where Spike go? Anya?" The child was fighting back tears.
Spike rested his hand on the girl's shoulder, even as he felt himself being pulled from this place, pulled away from her. Anya did the same.
"Don't worry, little pig-tailed person," Anya said, even though Kaya wasn't currently wearing pigtails. From Anya, it was a term of endearment.
"We're here, half bit," Spike said. No one was going to mess with his girl. No one.
In Willow's arms, Val struggled to get down. Completely surprised that the child was being aggressive, Willow sat her down, and Val ran over to Kaya, wrapping her arms around the other little girl.
"Shhhhh," Val said, rocking back and forth with Kaya, hugging her. "They're still here."
"You," Kaya said simply. "What see?"
Val shook her head. "I don't see things," she said. "I'm not a seer. I'm a witch."
Buffy and Willow stared at the child. That was about the most they'd ever heard the shy little one say.
As the words left Val's mouth, her mind was filled with a vision. Sensing the older girl was seeing something, Kaya held onto her fiercely, hugging her with a vengeance. Whatever Kaya did, she did with a vengeance.
Val's mouth went dry. Five of them. There were five of them. In a circle? No, that wasn't a circle. It was pointy. Red chalk on the floor. Blood? Children lying on the ground. See through people. Collapsing. Down the drain. Blood?
Faith reached out a hand to steady the little brown haired waif of a girl. Val blinked several times.
"What see?" Kaya asked her.
Val looked around the room, blinking several times.
She said nothing.
Another bright flash of light had Kaya jumping, and this time, everyone saw it and heard the accompanying pop.
"What was that?" Buffy asked suspiciously. She was automatically suspicious of anything that popped, sizzled, or deteriorated in a dead-like fashion.
Lindsey's heart skipped a beat. "Claire," he said suddenly, bolting for the door. "Brookie."
Buffy ran toward the playground, Kate and the others on her heels. Outside, the ground was littered with children.
"Xander," Willow yelped. She ran to him and squatted down beside him. She smacked his face a couple of times.
Spike watched Willow slapping the whelp. "Wish I could do that," he said, only half kidding.
Anya sighed dreamily. "Me too," she said, clearly lost in some kind of sadomasochistic fantasy.
Buffy knelt over Drew and Geyton, and she pulled a dart out of Drew's body, hissing in a new breath as she did so. What kind of monsters had been here? Her students were special, but they were still kids. Just kids.
Willow got herself together and mumbled a spell under her breath. "Levantasa," she said.
"Wake up," Val chimed in, her voice hoarse and barely there.
Xander's eyes fluttered, and all over the playground, the children started to wake up.
Lindsey knelt next to Xander. "Where's Brookie?" he asked, his voice hard and edging on desperate. "And Claire?" Lindsey felt the sheer ice of panic working its way up his body.
"Where's my son?" Kate asked, anger clear in her voice.
"They're gone," Buffy said, hardly able to believe it. "And Noelle."
"Where?" Kaya demanded.
"The bad place," Val murmured, shivering.
"We tried to stop them, Miss Buffy," Drew said, trying manfully not to cry. "We really did."
Geyton nodded. "I was gonna bite them," he said.
Lindsey forced his heart to stop racing and picked up one of the darts. He stared at it, his vision blurring for a moment with bitter hatred in the back of his throat.
"Wolfram and Hart," he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
They had taken his daughters. They were going to pay.
The half-demon guardsmen rubbed his temples, located just below his second, invisible set of eyes. He had no idea how he'd gotten stuck watching the children, and now they were starting to wake up. He wasn't supposed to watch children. He was supposed to eat them, but these children, with the possible exception of the male child firmly magically attached to the older of the two sisters, were not to be eaten. They had another purpose.
Noelle was the first to wake up, and looking around. Then her eyes settled on the guardsman.
"Who are you?" she asked, never one to be afraid of anything, let alone strangers.
The guardsman didn't answer.
"Am I supposed to kill you?" Noelle asked earnestly. The guard looked at her, surprised a little, but he said nothing. "Maybe I'm supposed to stab you," Noelle said, thinking out loud.
"Are you a demon?" she asked. The man looked human, but something about him made her hairs tickle the back of her neck.
"Ummm…no," the demon responded, sounding incredibly unbelievable.
Noelle narrowed her eyes at him. "I bet I'm supposed to chop you up," she said, her voice bright. Maybe this was going to be fun after all. "I want some juice."
The guard stared at her, completely taken off guard. "What?" he asked.
"I want some juice," Noelle insisted. "I'm thirsty. Then maybe I'll kill you. Do you have a glaive? Or maybe a crossbow or a hand axe? Just not Holy Water. I hate Holy Water."
Claire and Brandon opened their eyes to see Noelle chatting up the guard.
"Holy Water is for boys," Claire said. "And little kids like Brookie."
Brandon glared at her. "Stupid girl," he muttered, not even thinking about the fact that he was glad she was safe. "Who are you?" he asked the guard. "Where are we?"
The guard returned to saying nothing.
"Where's my juice?" Noelle asked, her little eyes flashing. The demon guard got out his cell phone and made a quick call to the drivers of the transportation unit.
"They want juice," he said, feeling ridiculous. He was a Krysnthos Demon, not a babysitter, and yet, here he was, asking for juice.
"JUICE!" Claire bellowed, and her voice echoed off the walls. The guard shuddered. That kid could really yell.
"Quiet, Claire-y," Brookie said, putting her hands over her ears as she sat up. Recognizing the man who had captured her, Brookie wrinkled her nose.
"Where's Brookie's Daddy?" she asked.
The demon guard said nothing.
"WHERE IS OUR DADDY?" Claire bellowed.
"Quiet," the guard hissed. To his surprise, Claire quieted for a moment. She shared a glance with Noelle. There was definitely something demon-y about this guard.
Brookie, still too young to pay much attention to her slayer sense, stood up on her feet. The guard cursed himself for not tying the children up. The tranquilizer was supposed to have knocked them out for the duration of the trip.
No such luck.
"Where Brookie's Daddy?" Brookie asked. The man said nothing. "Brookie. Want. Daddy."
Claire's eyes opened up a little wider. Brookie was getting mad. Claire's little sister didn't get mad that often, but when she did, she threw the world's biggest tantrums and only Daddy could stop her. Not even Miss Buffy could stop a Brookie Tantrum.
Brookie threw herself against the side of the van with all of her strength, screaming as she did so.
The guard approached her, and she threw him all the way across the space of the van. He landed with a loud crash.
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Brookie screamed. Claire covered her ears.
Brookie stomped her feet. "Brookie want Daddy!" Brookie screamed, throwing herself against the side of the van again. Her eyes glinted murderously and the demon guard cringed.
He had so not bargained for this.
In the front of the van, two gentlemen in suits turned to look at each other as the van trembled madly, rocking back and forth until it almost tipped. Simultaneously, they looked back to the back of the van.
"You know," the one in the passenger seat said nervously, "maybe we should get them some juice."
The vision was coming in strong, and Doyle placed his hands carefully on top of Dawn's head.
"So you're the reason my hair always got messed up after a vision," Cordelia told him crossly. "I should have known."
Doyle grinned at her. "Aye," he said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "That would be me, Cordy."
Cordy huffed a bit, but she smiled back. The kiss that had given her Doyle's visions had bound them together for the long haul, now that she was…
"Dead?" Doyle asked, breaking his concentration for a moment. "Now that's not a good word to describe a voluptuous woman like yourself."
"Do your air quote 'work,'" Cordy said, feeling more herself than she had since she'd been dead and infinitely more herself than she had during her years spent in the coma.
Doyle settled his hands on the nape of Dawn's neck and he tempered the vision as it flowed through him and into her, gentling its effects. He'd held Cordelia's neck the same way, and even then, the visions had become too much for his girl.
Dawn chewed on the end of her pencil. Translation was hard work, especially with roommate, Suri, blasting Christina Aguilera in Spanish at an obscenely high volume.
The vision gripped her, suddenly and violently. After a moment, she calmed, trying not to attract Suri's attention.
Five men. A pentagram drawn in blood. Children on the way. Blood.
Dawn gasped.
Suri looked over. "Soy un genio atrapado…" she sang in Spanish along with Christina, trailing off. She gave Dawn a concerned look. "Do you want me to call your cousin again?" she asked. As far as Suri knew, Dawn suffered from migraines, and her cousin was a male nurse who got medicine for her.
Angel had just about died when he'd realized that Dawn had told her roommate he was a male nurse. Dawn, even though she was still shaking from the vision, grinned, just thinking about it.
"I can call him," Dawn said, her voice a little hoarse. In the months since Cordy had slipped out of the coma and into death, she'd gotten used to being Angel's seer. She picked up the phone and dialed the number by heart.
Hearing Angel's secretary answer the phone, she rolled her eyes. "Just put Angel on the phone," she said. Dawn rolled her eyes. "Mr. Angel," she corrected at the woman's insistence.
Suri went back to her singing, thinking about Dawn's hunky male nurse cousin.
"Dawn," Angel answered, his voice low and concerned.
"You know the thing?" Dawn asked. "The thingy thing," she specified, casting a concerned glance at Suri. "Yeah, it's..ummm…thinging. So, yeah…"
"I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes," Angel said.
Dawn hung up the phone and looked down at her notebook. "Yay for supernatural procrastination," she said.
"That's my girl," Doyle said, removing his hands from her neck.
Cordy looked at Dawn's perfectly manicured nails. "That's my girl," she said, feeling her body pulling to a place she didn't want to go. Putting her hand on Dawn's shoulder, Cordy steadied herself. She was Dawn's champion now. A ghost champion, sure, but a champion with an impeccable sense of fashion none the less.
"I could use a bit of a drink," Doyle said.
Cordy rolled her eyes. Ghost Doyle could always use a bit of a drink.
By the time the men tentatively opened the window to the back of the van where the captives were being held and set down four juice boxes, the screaming in the back of the car had stopped, and the half demon guardsman was lying on the floor unconscious.
The men eyed the children suspiciously.
"Who did this?" the man on the right asked gruffly.
All of the other kids looked at Brookie, who was currently lying down on the floor and using her feet to make herself spin around in circles. She giggled fiercely.
"Spinny Brookie! Spinny Brookie!" she sang, collapsing into little kid laughter.
The men looked at the two year old and back at the demon. She wasn't even a fifth of his size.
"Wheeeeeee," Brookie said, spinning faster.
Seeing the juice, Brookie stood up and wandered over to them.
The men looked at each other. Why oh why hadn't they tied the children up? They should have known the sleeping potion would wear off quicker than they had thought. They should have had a contingency plan.
Brookie bounced over to them. "Juicey juicey juicey juice for Brookie," she said, cheerful again now that her temper was spent.
Brookie looked at the juice. "Brookie wants orange juice," she said.
The men looked at each other. "There isn't any orange juice," the one on the left said gruffly.
Brookie narrowed her eyes and began stomping her feet.
"Brookie wants orange juice. Nofe air!" she screamed, still cranky from being kidnapped and her lack of afternoon nap-age.
"Nofe air?" one of the men asked.
"No fair," Claire translated. "NO FAIR," she yelled, just to be yelling something.
"NOFE AIR! NOFE AIR!" Brookie echoed. Then she tilted her head to the side, remembering something. "Brookie want Daddy!" she screamed.
The guard on the floor was slowly regaining consciousness. He groaned. Not this again.
Noelle reached for a juice box and sipped it happily. "First the juice," she said. "Then we play battle and spar." Noelle's eyes sparkled. "I need something sharp," she said seriously.
Claire giggled fiercely and grabbed a juice box. Brandon did the same. Noelle's plan sounded just fine to them.
Looking at each other, the two men in the front of the van carefully slid the window to the back shut and locked it. The man on the right double checked the lock twice.
Better safe than sorry, he thought.
Through the window, they could still hear Brookie yelling, and every once in a while, the entire van shook violently with the child's tantrum.
The employees of the underground faction of Wolfram and Hart had a feeling it was going to be a long, long day.
"My Darla. My Darla."
Slowly, the tension ran out of the little girl's body, and she sank back to the ground. Darla caught her in a gentle hug, and she rocked the child back and forth, crooning to her.
Sunny snuggled into Darla's lap, the tears still wet on her face.
"Why do they hurt me?" she asked. "Where did Kaya go?"
"It will be all right, my darling girl," Darla whispered, kissing the child's forehead. She gazed off into the distance. "I won't let them get you now. Either of you."
Sunny laid her head on Darla's chest. "My Darla," she murmured sleepily.
Darla held her tight. Sunny was hers, and whatever force was attacking the child was going to pay, pay dearly, and pay in blood.
Sunny sank into sleep, and Darla rocked the child, cuddling her and singing to her in a soft and lilting voice.
TBC… yes, I did kill Cordy. Yes, I did interpret ghost Doyle as having been at Cordy's side all along. Yes, Dawn now has Cordy's/Doyle's visions. No, Buffy does not know this. If you have any other questions, feel free to email me.
Up next, the Scoobies, Lindsey, Kate, and some of the kiddos head to LA, Brookie, Claire, Brandon, and Noelle make a plan, we see a few more familiar faces on the other side of things, and Angel hops into the picture.
This was an UBER long chapter and it took a long time to write.
PLEASE REVIEW!!!