Finally the next chapter is up.
I appreciate all the reviews on the last chapter.
Shout out to NicoleR85, Olivia0707, Howling2themoon, and the two Guest Reviewers.
Also the name for Angel's UI, 'YINSIN' came from a fic that I've read before but I don't remember where or the name, so if anyone knows please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.
"Alright baby, you guys are coming into the garage with momma to-do some work, so you gotta pick what book you wanna practice reading with okay?" Angel spoke to Chanel that night once they arrived home.
Chanel hummed while going through her trunk of toys and books, while Angel got Marina cleaned up from her soiled diaper.
"Can we do animals?"
"Animals? When did you get an animals book?"
"Miss Taylor gave it to me." Chanel said digging out said book.
"You like it?" She said picking up Marina placing her on her hip, her fist immediately curling into the front of her shirt.
"Mhm. We was leaning about animals in school." Chanel said following her mother from the room.
"Yeah? What was your favourite?"
"I liked the giraffes."
"Really?" Angel questioned as they arrived in the garage and Chanel began to get settled in the play area that was set-up in there that had not gotten destroyed in Tony's redecoration. "So how about we play a game?" Chanel's eyes lit up even as Angel set Marina down inside her playpen that had various toys scattered about. "You have to find an animal for ever letter and spell it, and if you do all of them I'll read you any story you want. How's that sound?"
"Good."
"Good," Chanel nodded. "Alright let's shake on it," and they did. "Now get to work." Angel stood with a sigh and moved over to her workbench. "And I mean both of us."
Hunkering down she got to work she powered up Mrs. Wess' computer and figured out what the problem was shortly thereafter when the screen blacked out before making a strange noise and freezing completely. Angel forced a shut down and flipped the computer over so she could access the back panel.
"Anteater. A-N-T-E-A-T-E-R. Anteater."
Taking a small screwdriver she unscrewed the back panels to get to the inner workings of the computer, Chanel's spelling along with Marina's nonsense babbling, obvious reading along with her big sister, becoming calming background noise.
"Momma?" Chanel asked hesitant.
"Sound it out baby." Angel said after glancing up and seeing her little face scrunched in confusion.
"Hip-po-pot-am-us. H-I-P-P-O-P-O-T-A-M-U-S. Hippopotamus."
"Good girl." Angel praised listening to her continue.
Rewiring the motherboard and connecting wires should fix the problem that Mrs. Wess was experiencing with the laptop but it would really be in her best interest to just get a new computer.
"Seahorse. S-E-A-H-O-R-S-E. Seahorse. Momma I'm tired." Chanel said.
"Me too." Angel said packing up her tools and putting the laptop back into its bag. "You ready for bed."
"Yes." Chanel answered as Angel went over and picked up Marina who was fighting sleep with a vengeance. "You still gonna' read me a story?"
"Yeah babe."
Chanel trudged to her bed but was very adamant about being read to tonight as she once again dug through her trunk and came back with the Little Mermaid book, no surprise. Ariel was her favourite Disney princess.
A few pages in Marina, who was nestled comfortably in her mother's arms began squirming a bit and loosening her grip on the bottle in her hands, but for righting herself and continuing to nurse the bottle, determined to her every last drop. This made Angel realize that it was a good thing that both of her children had weaned themselves of breastfeeding rather early, because as far as she knew, with her new abilities she wasn't even producing milk anymore.
Luckily Marina seemed quite content with her bottle, especially when she gave into the pull of sleep and it rolled out of her hand.
Chanel followed suit, somewhere around the middle of the book, sliding down the bed until she was comfortably nestled under the covers.
Carefully removing herself from the bed Angel placed Marina in her crib before kissing Chanel on her forehead and leaving the room.
Angel locked up the garage and the rest of the house as quietly as she could before showering and getting into bed herself, falling asleep almost instantly.
Only to be woken what felt like minutes later, but in reality it was several hours, by the poking of her forehead.
Peeling open her bleary eyes she saw Chanel standing by the edge of the bed.
"What's the matter baby?" Chanel just stood there wringing her night dress with one hand sucking on the thumb of her other. "Wet?" she shook her head 'no'. "Bad dream?" she nodded and Angel sighed quietly before moving over in her bed and pulling back her covers. "Venga." Without a moment's hesitation Chanel climbed up in the bed and wasted no time in snuggling into her mother's chest.
Wrapping her arms around her and pressing a kiss to her hair, Angel listen and felt Chanel's breathing even out and hers followed suit.
The feeling of a completely dead arm from having her child's weight against it for an entire night is a feeling that Angel had quickly gotten used to in the last five years, and normally there was an easy and painless escape.
But couple her numb limb with the sounds of her second child crying from her room, made things a little more difficult.
As carefully as she could manage, Angel rolled Chanel off of her arm until she could wiggle herself free and make her escape to the other bedroom.
It was there she found Marina standing up in her crib, her face red and scrunched up with the force of her crying, no doubt from having woken up in a room by herself and without her big sister. But as she saw Angel she started to calm and reached out her arms to her mother.
Angel picked her up and rubbed a soothing hand up and down her back and over her hair as her sobs began to taper off into hiccups.
"Está bien cariña, mamá está aquí. Estoy aquí, cariña. Estoy aquí siempre." Angel whispered to her. (It's okay sweetheart, mommy's here. I'm right here baby. I'm here always.)
Marina quieted down sucking and gumming on her fist as she started to doze off again.
Angel took her back into her bedroom where Chanel was still happily snoozing away and didn't stir when she crawled back into bed with Marina on her chest. Thank goodness it was Sunday and her say off, Angel thought as she drifted off once again.
Waking for the second and final time to the sounds of the television from the living room, Angel sat up and glanced around and noted that she was alone in bed.
Checking the time on her phone and seeing that it was just past nine, Angel climbed out of bed and went into the living room where Chanel was on the floor in front of the TV eating cereal and in the kitchen Marina was in her high chair being fed by Miss Taylor.
"Just let yourself right in why don't you?" Angel said sarcastically by way of greeting as she began to make herself a cup of coffee.
"You know it baby." Miss Taylor shot back instantly.
"What're you doing here? I told you I didn't have to work today." Angel questioned.
"I came to bring your mail." She nodded to the stack that was on the table. "And Chanel was up, so I got her some food to let you sleep for a little while longer.
"We've been living here over six years, you'd think they'd soon get this right." Angel said as she began rifling through the mail. Bills, bills, and more bills. A knock at the door interrupted whatever Mrs. Taylor was about to say next. "That'll be Mrs. Wess." Miss Taylor made a disgusted sound. "Be nice." Angel warned as she went to open the door. "You're late." Angel told her.
"I know," Mrs. Wess said while letting herself in. "I do apologize, but something came up at work and I was on a conference call since seven this morning. Anyways, where is my computer."
"Right here." Angel said handing her the bag.
"Thank you, how much to I owe you? I need to get going, I need to get signed and send out a few forms that Andrew wants in London by tonight."
Never one to pass up an opportunity to take a jab at the woman, Miss Taylor choose that moment to emerge from the kitchen with a broom in her hand. "Well here hop on, with the time difference you'll just make it." She said offering her the broom.
Mrs. Wess glared at the older woman while Angel tried but failed to hold back her laugh.
"That'll be $80, Mrs. Wess. But I do suggest just buying a new computer."
"I'll take that into consideration." She said handing her the money. "But until then, I'm off." She said as she left, at which point Angel and Mrs. Taylor burst into laughter.
"That was being the exact opposite of nice." Angel reprimanded.
"C'mon baby, she pitched it perfectly. I had to swing." She defended as she moved back to the kitchen. "But it was a good one right?" she added cheekily holding up her hand for her high-five.
"Yeah, it was." Angel relented, high-fiving her.
"You know I'm starting to understand your name." Angel told the robot the bright orange, DJ or Dum-E Junior, as the computers had informed her.
She'd spent most of her day with her kids, and now they were next door at Miss Taylor's house for while, and Angel took the opportunity to familiarize herself with the new equipment in her garage. Mostly everything that was installed was voice operated, which was quite different for her.
"DJ," Angel said patiently. "You're holding the light to close." She told the robot from beneath the hood of the corvette and the arm retracted a few inches. "Better." Angel praised.
Tightening a few bolts on the engine Angel straightened and placed her hands on her hips staring down at it. "Thank you DJ." The robot responded by a twist of its metal claw. "YINSIN, run a scan please."
"Of course Miss." The computer responded. A blur light briefly covered the engine. "Engine quality is nearly 76% complete. A new carburettor is needed along with a fuel gage before it can be fully restored."
Angel sighed. "What's the current market price for a carburettor?"
"The current average market price for a carburettor is $180?"
Angel groaned. "Dammit. Thank you YINSIN."
"You're welcome Miss."
"DJ," Angel snapped her fingers, "Clean this up."
"Miss," YINSIN called out. "It seems you have a visitor." A camera showed up on the screen showing that there was indeed a visitor at the front door.
Angel left the garage and walked around the side of the house. "Hey," the person turned around. "Ritchie?"
"Hey Angel. How you doing?"
"I'm good. What are you doing here?"
"My bike broke down, a few miles out." He gestured to the four-wheeler that was sitting there. "I was wondering, you know if you could take a look at it. If you ain't too busy."
"Your timing is good. I just cleared up." His shoulder sank in obvious relief. "I'll slide open the door for you."
He nodded and went to retrieve his bike from where is was sat in the driveway.
"Holy shit." Ritchie said upon entering the garage. "Did you rob a bank, girl?"
"No, I uh, won this stuff." Angel stammered. "In an engineering competition that I uh entered . . . over the break. Yup, that's what I did." She mumbled the last part.
"Must've been one hell of a competition." He said still staring in awe. "For this prize."
"Yup it was." Angel nodded quickly trying to end the conversation.
"Right, so where should I?" He gestured to his bike.
"Just push it right here." She pointed to the space behind her corvette. "YINSIN close the garage door please." Ritchie stared in even more disbelief. "Like you said, one hell of a competition. Uh, DJ, come down here we've got more work to do." The orange robot was like an excitable puppy, every task given he was more than happy to complete.
"We found you problem," Angel said not to long after. "You're intake valve is shot, that would definitely effect the bikes performance. When was the last time you had this thing checked?"
"Last year, when me and some friends rode over to Knoxville."
Angel smiled. "Yeah that'll do it. And I'm guessing this thing doesn't see much action outside of days like that but it still needs proper maintenance." DJ had started poking around in the toolbox. "DJ!" Angel snapped and the robot dropped his claw in shame. "Anyways I don't get much bikes in here to service so I don't have a valve that'll fit. The auto body shop across town, check them out." She advised. "There's a temporary hold on it right now, should get you home."
Ritchie sighed and hung his head. "Alright." He said standing from the stool he had settled on, and reaching for his back pocket. "How much?"
"It's on the house."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." Angel nodded. "YINSIN, please open up the garage door and lock up when we leave."
"Of course Miss."
As Ritchie started pushing his bike back out he seemed to be debating with something.
"Listen Angel, I wanted to apologize." At her confused look her went onto explain. "About Damien." Angel scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah I know. But you didn't deserve to be treated that way, hell no one does. But Damien cares, he just has a hard time showing it."
Angel shook her head. "Don't defend him Ritchie. I'm over it."
"You shouldn't be. Cause you shouldn't have had to deal with that shit. And I know how bad he was to you but I never did nothing." He sighed. "Look what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry and I hope me and you could still be friends."
"Yeah," Angel smiled. "I'd like that."
Ritchie nodded. "I'll catch you later."
She nodded and watched him get on his bike and leave before walking next door to gather up her kids.