This is for KatieMusicLuvr177, who requested a story about Liam, absolutely ages ago, and I'm sorry it took so long, and you're not being whiny, don't worry - it's just that some characters, I find it harder to ... hear in my head - Liam is a what... 11 / 12 year old boy - I'm neither, so his voice is harder to hear.

Hope you enjoy it, and please point out any mistakes, I haven't tricked my friends into Beta-ing this one.

Brown eyes flicked up to brown, as Liam met Frankie's gaze, the two of them grinning as they motioned silently with their hands - well, with the limited movement that what they were holding between them currently gave them.

Three, Two, One... The countdown needed not words nor signals, the two not-children so in tune with each other that they could almost see the numbers in the other's eyes ... in a completely normal and non-weird way, of course.

Dropping the bag, they ran in opposite directions, Frankie for the nearby bushes, and Liam for the further trees.

It was going to be a close call, but they had had closer and still made it.

Liam felt the sharp points of the branches scratch slightly through his shirt, just as the oversized bird escaped from the bag that Kat's ... slightly weird cousin had thrust into their hand earlier that morning before pointing them in the direction of the chicken coop and quite conspicuously turned a blind eye.

Even she could tell that the Sparticles needed to be shaken up slightly, that they needed new life jolted into them, even while they were forced to stay on this corner of a field, waiting for Reese to be classed well enough to travel again.

"Frankie!" Sadiq yelled, at the same moment Kat screamed, "Liam!" Neither of them had any doubt, even in their sleep-addled minds, who was the culprit of this ... attack.

The cockeral crowed again, and Liam felt a flicker of a smile pass across his face before it died.

...Mum would have had a fit if I had done this to her.

Liam doesn't know what made him think of her, despite the scrap book he had been filling out almost ... dilligently (a new word that Jeff taught him just a few days ago, though not as fun to say as some of the new words that Callum had accidently taught him, after he and Frankie dropped a water balloon on his head while he was sleeping ... he'd been in a mood all day after that, and they weren't allowed pudding with their tea, but it was worth it to see Callum's face. Well ... almost, he would have preferred to be able to have had pudding as well, but that wasn't what he was thinking about) he was thinking about mum, and howhe never thought about mum, and how sometimes he had to strain to remember what she sounded like, and was forgetting what she looked like, and couldn't even remember why she had locked him in his bedroom on the day of the disappearance, what happened that day that meant the last memory he had of her ... was her being mad at him.

In all honesty, Kat was having a fit, but she's Kat, and almost-mum .

He had heard rumors that Kat was planning on leaving - not like Ami and Jordan were pretending they weren't - on a Quest of her own, to shut down the nuclear reactors, to make it safe for children to live and adults to come back.

She wouldn't let any of them come with her, he knew that even without confirmation that she was going, but he was guessing that Lucy would squirm her way into it anyway - the little girl having grown very fond of the physisist, of Kat, not to mention being as weird as Reese, without being as weird as Reese, not that that makes much sense.

Liam didn't want Kat to go, didn't want to lose another mum, because Tia would have to go back to being almost-mum with Jeff being almost-dad , and despite the fact that the new couple had all but raised them for the past, was it five months, or six, by now ... however longit had been between the Questers leaving, and the Ranchers joining them.

A rustle of leaves to his right had Liam tensing slightly... he wanted to be found when his Tribe had calmed down, even just a little, even more preferably after a certain brunette told them that she had put them up to it, albeit not in so many words.

A head that was all too familiar popped up amidst the greenary, and Liam relaxed a minute amount.

"That was awesome," Frankie breathed him, a grin nearly splitting her face as they watched through the trees at the rest of their Tribe still trying to catch the running bird, still with little luck so far.

He knew Frankie was referring to the bird, to the event that they were going to get into so much trouble for, but Liam couldn't help but look more into her words.

Yeah, it is awesome, what they are doing (as a group, even if not specifically the two of them), but ... it was tiring, and ... it was grown-up, and ... he wanted to be a kid again.

Yeah, it is awesome, with superpowers and giant underground minds and adventures in police vans that took them all over the country, but sometimes he didn't want awesome.

Sometimes he just wanted to cuddle up on the sofa and watch telly.

Sometimes he just wanted his mum.

And at this point - he didn't even care which one.

Thank you for reading, and please review,
Mia.

Posted 00:30, 15th March 2013