When I wrote this it felt longer than the first chapter. Guess not. Oh well.

Thanks scabiorxxx and Dddd for the reviews ;)

It was almost cruel that, of all days, this was the one that the sun decided to finally come out from behind the rain clouds for. The puddles were drying up, the ground a little less soggy as it had been, and birds were chirping happily from the telephone lines where they were perched in groups of ten or more. If any day should have been free of rain, it should have been three nights ago when Reginald and Olivia Blackmore got in their car, leaving Dalina behind at her grandmum's for an overnight visit so they could celebrate their nineteenth wedding anniversary with dinner followed by whatever else grown-ups did together. Dalina was only a child and naïve to such things.

Instead of picturesque weather for optimum driving conditions, the downpour continued throughout the night, long after Dalina had been tucked into bed in her grandmum's house. She loved her grandmum to bits, even if she had found out, several hours before, that she wasn't her biological grandmum. She was the only grandmum she had ever known and they got on like a house on fire. In fact, if grandmum had been eight years old, or if Dalina was sixty, she was sure they would be best friends.

That evening, grandmum had made homemade pizza for dinner. Dalina had eaten three large slices but she was still able to make plenty of room for dessert which consisted of strawberry shortcake; the whipped topping made from heavy whipped cream, made by grandmum. And it was delicious as usual. Before bed, they both had cups of tea. Dalina liked hers like grandmum did; with extra sugar. The sweeter the better. She was tucked into bed shortly after watching a bit of telly, particularly part five of Doctor Who's "The Monster Of Peladon". Grandmum couldn't follow, because she had never watched the programme before, but Dalina was entranced for the entire twenty-five minutes it aired.

When Dalina fell asleep that night, she had only thoughts about what would happen in part six of Doctor Who's "The Monster of Peladon" the following Saturday. She was not thinking of anything terrible happening to her in real life.

She was woken up by the sound of grandmum crying sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning. The crying was coming from downstairs. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Dalina crawled out of bed in the extra bedroom that was made up especially for her as she was grandmum's only grandchild. She had once overheard her daddy saying his brother Chester would never have children because he was "light in the loafers". Whatever that meant. Dalina stepped quietly into the hall and made her way to the stairs, holding onto the bannister with one hand as she peered down toward the first level of the house. Once she reached the bottom step she had tiptoed toward the living room where she found grandmum sitting on the sofa, head in her hands, while two police officers seemed to be consoling her.

Dalina just stood there in the archway between the foyer and the living room, staring at the three persons within, not knowing what was going on. She focused on grandmum and called out to her and the moment grandmum looked up, fresh tears began to stream down her face.

That was three nights ago.

Three nights ago when Reginald and Olivia Blackmore were in a head on collision with a lorry. The roads had been too slick from the rain and the driver of the lorry had looked down at his dashboard a moment too long and by the time he looked back up he had already drifted into the opposite lane and right into the Blackmores. Their Volvo had been no match for the larger vehicle.

Dalina had not been given the same, gory details grandmum had been given. Grandmum just gave her the much watered down version: "Your mummy and daddy were in a terrible accident and were hurt too badly. My darling girl, they didn't survive."

It was a Tuesday now, and such a bright and cheery late April day.

Dalina was sitting outside on the front step, leaning forward with a stick in her hand as she poked at the concrete pathway at her feet. She could feel the warmth of the sun upon her mane of dark brown hair that reached to the middle of her back. The colouring of her hair matched her outfit. She wore a black jumper, black skirt, white stockings and black, patent leather Mary Janes.

Uncle Chester's Citroën GS came rambling down the road and pulled into grandmum's cobblestone driveway. He turned off the ignition but didn't get out. He simply rolled the window down and smiled over at Dalina.

"'Ello, Lina Beana. Your grandmum inside?"

Dalina looked up and simply nodded.

"Cat got your tongue, dearie? You can answer me with words."

Dalina just continued to stare, narrowing her green eyes. She didn't like to be patronised. Especially now when she was grieving. She could understand now why her dad had never been close to his brother. Uncle Chester was a bit of an arse.

The front door opened then and grandmum came out, tapping Dalina on the top of her head. "Come now, we have to get to the church."

Begrudgingly, Dalina got to her feet, tossing the stick into the grass as she followed grandmum obediently. Grandmum got into the passenger's side of Uncle Chester's car and Dalina got into the backseat behind her. As the car came to life, they pulled out of the driveway, onwards to the funeral.

The service had been droll and boring, and not enough to distract Dalina from staring at the two caskets side by side at the front of the church as the pastor rambled on and on. A few times Dalina looked around at everyone in attendance, filed into the small church that had seen its first religious service a few hundred years before. She noticed some distant relatives from both sides of the family; distant only because, with the exception of grandmum and Uncle Chester, there were no immediate family members present. Grandpa Blackmore had died a few years before Dalina had come into the picture and Olivia's parents had also died sometime before then. Uncle Chester was Reginald's only sibling and Olivia had none. It was great aunts, great uncles, cousins once and twice removed, friends, neighbors, Reginald's co-workers...

...some old man with a long, white beard and a pair of half moon spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

Dalina turned slightly to look over her shoulder at him. He was dressed as typically as the other mourners in the church; in a simple dark suit and tie. His beard struck her as unusual. Not because of its length but because it was tied with some sort of pale string so that it wasn't unruly. And just as she was staring at him, he turned his attention from the pastor's recitation of Psalm 23 to Dalina.

Her eyes went wide as if she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, and turned around abruptly in her seat in the front pew where she sat with grandmum and Uncle Chester, the former who was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Dalina wished she could cry as well, but she had run out over the last couple days. She understood and comprehended what death meant; that her mummy and daddy were dead and gone, never coming back. One day, when she was old and she, too, died, she would be reunited with them again. Grandmum tried painting a pretty picture of them being in heaven with God's angels.

It's not that Dalina didn't believe in God. For one, it was such a large concept for any child to truly grasp. But the idea of her mummy and daddy floating around on clouds, donned with wings and halos seemed unlikely. She liked the idea of them watching over her, though. It made her feel less of an orphan. And that was some irony, right there.

How many children were twice-orphaned by the time they were eight? Whether her birth parents, whoever they were, were alive or dead, they had orphaned her either way, allowing Reginald and Olivia to become her parents instead. She wished she could know who her birth parents were and exactly what the circumstances were that led to them not being able to care for her anymore, but she was thankful at the same time. The parents she had just lost had been the greatest parents she could have ever asked for. She never lacked for love, and she was going to miss that feeling. She had her grandmum now to take care of her and, as mentioned before, they got along swimmingly. She loved her grandmum and vice versa.

But it wasn't the same as her mummy and daddy. It never could or would be.

When the service ended, the palbearers, Uncle Chester included, proceeded in lifting both caskets up and carrying them down the narrow aisle between the rows of pews, outside to the cemetery beside the church. Dalina wasn't sure who was in which casket, but she trusted the palbearers did, so that when her mummy and daddy were buried, they were in the right plot.

Grandmum and Dalina followed next behind the caskets and then everyone else waited their turn to file out of their pews and out of the church. As the cemetery reached an incline, there two unearthed plots were, mounds of dirt off to the side and out of the way. Family and friends gathered round as the caskets were positioned to be lowered into the graves, slowly and steady. Dalina was holding onto two white roses that seemed to be drooping slightly. She was too busy staring at the caskets being lowered and barely listening to the pastor saying something about "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" to realise that the old man with the long beard and half moon spectacles was watching her from amongst the crowd of gathered mourners there for a final goodbye to Reginald and Olivia.

She didn't even notice that the more she focused on the caskets and how much she was going to miss her parents, that the roses started to straighten up and droop less, even blooming slightly.

The old man with the long beard and half moon spectacles did, however.