DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the last chapter.  There may be a sequel.  More info on that at the end of the fic.  It's been seven months, and this fic had to end sometime.  I hope you guys have enjoyed the ride.

Oh, and if punctuation looks iffy it's because ff.net turns ellipses (three periods) into a single period sometimes.  It's really irritating.

THROWBACK: Chapter Twenty

            "How about a grin there, Liam?" Xander asked, snapping a picture and finishing up with his fifth roll of film.  He turned to Cordy.  "Do you think he'll streak any time soon?" he asked.

            Cordelia snorted.  "Like I'm supposed to have his streaking itinerary.  Sure, Xander, let me get it out of my purse."  Xander was too busy putting in another roll of film to notice her sarcasm.

            "Streaking itinerary," Anya mused.  Then, abruptly, she turned to Xander.  "How's next Thursday at noon?" she asked.

            Xander's eyes grew wide and then he broke into one of those guy grins that men couldn't help but have around a woman like Anya.

            "Did you get a picture of my nails?" Liam asked.  "And my band-aids?"  He held up his hands, an enormous smile on his little face, his hair mussed almost beyond repair.  "What about Faith's nails?  Did you get a picture of Faith's nails?"

            Xander turned to snap a picture of Faith.  The little girl smiled up at him almost shyly, vulnerably, her darkly lashed eyes open disarmingly wide.  Liam slung his arm around her shoulder.  "Take one of both of us."

            "Okay," Xander replied.  He still couldn't believe his luck.  Dead boy would never be able to live this one down.  "Say cheese."

            Faith and Liam looked at each other.  "Wanker bint!" they called at the same time, shooting the camera toothy grins.  In a transition too smooth for anyone else to see, the children went from standing next to each other to wrestling, screaming with laughter.

            Faith held back, wrestling gently with him.  She wasn't going to hurt her Liam.  Not ever.

            Liam, scrappy little fighter that he was, held his own, and as the two rolled around on the floor, they burst into song.

            "This is the wrestling song," Liam sang.  "It's about wrestling and blood and wenches and wanker sheep with bow ties."

            "SHEEP WITH BOW TIES!"

            Spike, standing in the doorway, watched them with a wry grin on his face.  "Sheep with bow ties, Poof Junior?" he muttered.  The children shifted seamlessly into the Wanker Ass Bint song, and rounded out their medley with the loudest version of the wench song ever, sung in an odd little round.

            "Looks like you're set," Willow said, trying to keep a straight face as the children's song drifted into the room. 

            Wesley nodded.  "I can turn them back," he said. 

            Cordy peaked into the next room, and Liam, delighted, waved at her, a gigantic smile on his little face.

            "Do we have to?" Cordy asked.  "He's so…" she paused and sighed.  "So innocent," she said.  "And happy.  He's happy."

            "The world needs Angel," Buffy said.  "As adorable as Liam is, as nice as it is to see him little and worry free, the world needs him."

            Cordy rolled her eyes heavenward.  "Champion shmampion," she muttered, even though she didn't mean it.  Then she turned back to Wes, her stomach lurching.  "And Faith?" she asked.

            Wes looked at each of them in turn: Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, and Giles.  He'd made up his mind, and nothing they said was going to change it.

            Faith of the burnt feet and blood red past.

            Just out of earshot, Kate turned to Lindsey.  "You think they'll turn them back?" she asked, her voice low.

            Lindsey didn't meet her eyes, caught up for a moment in another time.

            She'd slipped through the cracks.  How had he not noticed?  How had Momma not noticed?  He'd been cooking dinner and keeping the twins from killing each other and trying to study, all at once, and he hadn't realized how quiet she was being.

            Menley was never quiet.

            And now, he was standing on her grave.  A pathetic little slab, and that out of charity.  Too many kids and not enough money, and now she was gone. 

            He wouldn't let it happen again. 

            Never.

            He'd get them out of there, all of them.

            Never again.

            "I don't know," Lindsey answered finally.  He looked at Kate out of the corner of his eye, and the depth she saw in his liquid pools of color almost knocked the wind out of her.  "Do you think they should?"

            "This is the wench song it's a song about wenches and the Big Bad and sheep with glaives…"

            The sound of the children singing made Kate smile.  "She killed a man," she said.  The words hung in the air.  For so long, Kate had thought of people like Faith as monsters.  Faceless, soulless monsters.

            "Wench me, Liam!" Faith called, and no one, other than Liam, had the least idea what she meant.

            "I don't know whether they should," Kate said finally, "but I don't think I could."

            Lindsey smiled softly, images dancing through his mind.  In the right light, Faith looked almost like Menley.  Almost.

            "I couldn't either."

            "You're sure?" Cordy asked Wes, her voice low.

            Wes nodded.

            Giles cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.

            Wes simply held up one hand.  "I've made up my mind," he said.  "I won't let you, any of you, send her back to a life where she went from being abused to being ignored, never once having anyone," Wes looked at each of them, "never having anyone, including the lot of us, give her what she needed."

            Buffy opened her mouth.

            "She's my girl," Wes said simply, and that, was that.

            "Faith?  Liam?" Cordy said.  Instantly, the wrestling kiddos looked up at her, a tangle of arms and legs and extraneous limbs.

            "Yes?" both children answered sweetly at once.

            Cordy groaned.  She knew that look.  Seek and Destroy were at it again.  "What did you pummel this time?" she started to ask, but she cut herself off short.  "Wes and I need to talk to you two for a minute."

            Instantly, Faith froze, her entire body going stiff.  She forced herself to stay in the present, not to remember that talking meant hitting and that hitting meant hurting and the taste of blood in the back of her mouth.

            Easily, Wes took both children into his arms, and he settled them each on a leg. Faith relaxed, and the children wiggled to get comfortable. 

            "Do you remember when you came here?" Wes asked.

            Liam and Faith looked at each other and nodded uncertainly.

            "Sort of," Liam said.  The memories, of his mother and father and Darla (whoever that was) and Kathy (Kathy?) and the last, sweet kiss were all meshed together in his mind, just out of reach.

            "We found a way for you to go home, Liam," Wes said.

            "No!" Faith burst out angrily.  "I won't go back, and I won't let you take my Liam!"

            "Hush, little luv," Wes said softly, kissing the top of her head.  "You're not going anywhere."

            Liam's eyes widened.  "I'm going alone?" he asked.  He couldn't really remember life before he'd had his Faith.  Not really. 

            Cordy, her gut wrenching, took a stab at it.  "There are people there who need you, Liam.  Hundreds and hundreds of people who need you to be big and strong."

            "Like Wes?" Liam asked.  "Like Spike?"

            Cordy nodded, biting back a smile.  "Like that," she said.  "And, if you're here with us, they might be in trouble."

            "They might need me," Liam said slowly.  "But what about Faith?  She needs me too.  I think she needs me worst."  Liam looked down and muttered the last few words.  "Besides," he said, rushing the last few words together.  "I love Faith best of all."

            Faith looked at him.  "Really?" she asked, her bravado cracking just enough that everyone could see she cared.

            Liam nodded.

            Faith looked at Cordy and Wes, torn.  Inside, she was panicking.  Liam couldn't go.  Not her Liam.  Not her boy.  He couldn't go.

            And yet, deep down, she knew that he had to. 

            "Are there lots of people who need him?" she asked in a terribly small, but still tough voice.

            Cordy nodded.  "Yeah, baby," she said.  "There are."

            Faith looked at Liam.  She was Cordy's baby.  She was Wesley's little girl.  But she was, and always would be, Liam's Faith.

            Liam looked into Faith's eyes for a moment, and then, his expression sober, turned back to the adults.  "I have to go back, don't I?" he asked.  "They're going to die, like Kathy, if I don't go back."  Half memories came flooding back.  "And people are going to be hurt, kids like Faith and me, and there bad people…" Liam trailed off, thinking of Faith's mom.  "They're going to hurt people if I don't go back."

            Tears filled Faith's eyes, and she wiped them angrily away.  "I don't want you to go," she told Liam honestly.  Before she would have said she didn't care, but now she did care, and it was all his fault.  "I don't want you to go, Liam, but I think you have to."

            Wes hugged the little girl to him tightly.  She was trying so valiantly not to cry.

            "I'll miss you," Liam said sweetly.  "But you'll always be my Faith."

            Faith looked at Cordy and Wes with knowing eyes.  "He has to go now, doesn't he?"

            Faith sat on the stairs, her stomach hurting deep down where it felt like her heart was breaking.  Liam was going away.

            But he loved her, the voice inside her head said.  Like Cordy and Wes and maybe even Buffy a little, Liam loved her.  Liam loved her best of all.

            As Willow and Wes sprinkled the chaoctive powder over Liam's head, the little boy wrinkled his nose.  He felt funny, fuzzy, and in his last moments, he did what he did best.

            He sang.

            "This is the wench song," he sang.  "It's a song about wenches.  It's Faith's song, cause she's my best girl.  It's a song about fun and cookies and vamps and sodding blood.  It's a song about wenches.  It's a song for my Faith." 

            Liam took a deep breath.  "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," he sang.  "This is the Faith song."

            And with that, there was a sound like a vacuum, and a very confused and full sized Angel, band-aids plastered all over his body, his hair completely gel-less and utterly messed up, and his nails painted bright blue, cleared his throat.

            "Guys," he said, his memory fuzzy.  "What's going on?"

            Xander snapped a picture.  This was too good to be true.  "Say cheese," he told the vampire.  "You're covered in Barbie band-aids."

            "Good look for you, Peaches," Spike said.  "And we'll be needing to have a conversation about sheep here pretty soon."

            "Faith," Angel said, the memories just almost in his mind.  "Where's my Faith?"

            Upon hearing her name, Faith walked into the room, her face tear stained, but brave, her little hands jammed into the pockets of her jeans.  She looked at Angel, long and hard for a moment, and then she smiled, a heartbreaking and almost tender expression on her face.

            "I'm Faith," she said, her hands moving to her hips.  "What's it to you?"

            Angel shot sideways looks at the others in the room.

            Wesley picked Faith up, and the little girl snuggled into his arms. 

            "Angel," Wesley said.  "I'd like you to meet my girl.  My daughter."  He looked at Faith.  "If that's all right with you."

            Faith looked up at him.  She'd never had a Daddy before.  Not ever, cause she was ugly and bad and stupid and no Daddy had ever wanted her.  Only now it was different.  Because of Liam and Wes and Cordy and everyone.  It was different now.  Faith nodded her permission, a smile playing around the corner of her face.  She and Liam had talked about Cordy and Wes being their mommy and daddy a lot.

            "And Cordy?" Faith asked.  "Am I Cordy's, too?"

            "Hell yeah," Cordy replied.  Then she looked sheepishly around the room.  "Sorry," she said.  "They're a bad influence on me."  No one commented on the fact that she'd been corrupted by four year olds, and Cordy brushed Faith's hair out of her face.  "Of course you're my girl, too," she said.  "Someone's got to pass on the fashion wisdom to you, and Wesley's tortured rogue look still has tweed vibes."

            Wesley continued with the introductions.  "And Faith," he said.  "This is Angel."

            Faith looked at Angel, hard for a moment.  "I know," she said.  For a moment, the little girl saw Liam in the vampire's eyes, and her own eyes sparkled with mischief.  "Do you know any good songs?" she asked Angel.  "I bet you'd make up really good songs."

            Before he knew it, Angel was singing.  "Ohhhhhhhhhhh…" he trailed off and looked around the room.  "Okay," he said, "someone has to tell me why I have a sudden urge to sing a song about wenches."

            Xander snapped one last picture, finishing the roll, and Angel gingerly removed the Barbie band-aid from his forehead.

            Faith leaned her head into Wesley's chest.

            She'd miss Liam forever, but for the first time in her life, it felt like she was home.

THE END.

There might one day be a sequel, set two to three years into a future in which Cordy is pregnant with Wesley's child, and Faith, feeling left out, casts a spell to bring Liam back, which backfires somewhat, either bringing another child (Lindsey's dead sister Menley) back from the grave OR (I haven't entirely decided yet), turning those in Angel's line (Dru, Spike, and Darla) into small children.  Maybe both.  If you're interested in reading, let me know, and if you're reading this, REVIEW.  That's right, it's been seven months of my life writing this, and you can darn well tell me what you thought.

PLEASE REVIEW