Disclaimer is in chapter one.


11. The Plan

Daria was a smart kid, no, she was brilliant.

Who else at her age could go through what she'd done and still have enough cunning to make up plans on the fly?

When she'd spotted the tall, beautiful and very rich-looking woman almost walk straight into traffic, there'd been an eerie part of Daria that had acted instinctively. Something in her had all but screamed that she had to help the woman, a strange sense of déjà vu overcoming her even further when she first locked eyes with the stranger.

In that moment, Daria was contemplating several ideas that eclipsed into one very special plan when the woman, Pepper, made a deal with her to come home with her.

Sure, when she'd been left alone to take a much needed bath, Daria had suddenly been overcome with nerves and sought out the safest space she could find to hide in. Big deal, she was so gonna pretend it never happened anyhow.

When Daria woke up from her crouched position on the cool floor, she straightened herself out to her full –albeit not very big yet - height and slowly made her way out into the room that Pepper had gifted her. The cynic in her told Daria that she should take as many items she could find so she had something to sell before Pepper and her boyfriend kicked her out on her behind, but again, something bigger than her was telling her not to for some reason.

Shaking off the battling emotions inside of her, Daria focused on one very important fact. She was starving, and Pepper had told her multiple times to come to her with any requests whenever she wanted, and she really wanted.

Ignoring the beckoning siren call from the humongous bathtub in the bathroom, Daria finally decided to exit her room and locate the woman she now sort of worked for. Be on your best behavior, Daria told herself as she twisted the door handle, if you ruin this too quickly, your plan won't ever work. You need it to work!

The plan was relatively simple really, but in Daria's mind it was epic and told of her own self-proclaimed brilliance. She was gonna find someone, someone she didn't really know, or even remember. They had said he was one of the richest men on the planet and a stupidly smart asshole.

Now that didn't exactly give her a lot to go on, since in her experience as a homeless kid, all rich people were assholes, but as soon as she'd decided to go with Pepper, the plan had solidified itself firmly in her mind. Pepper was rich, and that meant she knew other rich people. Rich people always hung out together and ignored those with less than them. Ergo, she was bound to run into the one she was looking for just by association.

Easy peasy, lemon sqeezy.

But... While she waited, Daria was gonna go finish her quest for food before she did anything else.

The little, filthy-looking girl was so caught up in her mental review of her glorious plan that she failed to notice the two people standing in the gigantic living-room area, eyeing her interestedly.

A second later, she did notice however, when she stumbled into the one standing next to Pepper.

"Whoa there, kiddo." He chuckled and righted her before she fell completely to the carpeted floor. Daria looked up at the man and immediately, inexplicably, everything inside of her seemed to freeze when their eyes met.

Who was that guy?

0o0o0

TBC


A/N: *peeks out with a white flag in trembling hands*
Yeah, so the mysterious Daria doesn't remember the one she's looking for... My evilness strikes again ;)