*Dark and cold, closing in
I'm feeling something new begin
Is it a flower that begins to bloom?
Or is it history repeating too soon?

All at once, it rushes in
Makes itself my new best friend
Is it safe, I don't know
Bought the ticket, so I'll try and enjoy the show

And I pray that tonight
Will show me mercy from this fight
And I pray that tonight
That I am wrong and she is right*

*Dogstar - And I Pray*



Bryan was waiting for her when she got home. His face was completely expressionless, and his mind was a mix of disappointment, shock, amazement, and anger. He was mad at her for getting in a fight, but he couldn't believe how she did it. Neither could anyone else, for that matter.

"How-" he started.

"Don't ask."

"Okay then, next question. Do you still want me to find a job, or are you okay with me still sitting on my ass all day?"

She glared at him. "Under normal circumstances, I would beat your ass just for saying that."

He folded his arms. "And I take it these are not normal circumstances?"

She glared at him again. "What are you, a fucking owl?"

He raised his hands in surrender. "Well, aren't we just full of piss and vinegar today? Explain these unusual circumstances."

"What's unusual, other than the fact that I just inherited a sizeable fortune?"

"Do WHAT now?"

She smiled that knowing, cocky smile and dropped her backpack on her chair in the living room. "A lawyer came to the school today. Him, and some banker guy. They said that to their knowledge, Kenji didn't leave a will. He didn't have any living blood relatives, either. Guess who got everything?"

He folded his arms and let his eyes bore holes into her back as she rummaged through her bag for the documents. "You gotta be shitting me."

She grinned. "Nope. Here, take a look." She handed him the papers.

Bryan saw the dollar amount and the assets, and almost shit his pants. Angel was nearly a millionaire! Not actually a million, granted, but it was still several hundred thousand dollars. "Jesus Christ..."

"Exactly. He was a bastard, but a rich bastard. He made LOTS of money, and saved nearly every penny of it in banks all over the world. Almost like he was trying to hide it, from me. I also got the house, and all his personal effects, including those supercomputers in his study." She couldn't keep the banana smile off her face. "I'm the luckiest foster kid in the United States."

Bryan had to sit for a moment, to digest all this information. "So, where is this fortune now?"

Angel curled up in the chair. "I'm going to organize my finances tonight. Most of it will stay right where it is, in savings. I'm going to put some in the stock market. And tomorrow, you and I are going car shopping."

Bryan thought some more. "So, we're rich?"

"I'm rich. But of course I'll share. After all, what are siblings for, other than people to beat up on?" She grinned.

Both of them went to bed very happy that night.



The next day, Bryan and Angel went car shopping. Bryan chose a black Dodge Ram, while Angel traded in her old gray Honda for a Grand Prix. She wanted to be conservative, as her foster father had just died and she needed to keep up appearances. It was still an awesome car.

Angel slipped Bryan a hundred, and told him to go enjoy himself. She went home, and began the process of cooking lunch. A nice, big lunch, consisting of whatever she wanted.

An hour later, Bryan marched in the door and plopped his new black leather jacket over the back of a chair. The house was thick with cooking smells. Walking in the kitchen, he immediately spotted a basket of warm, fluffy rolls just out of the oven. Angel was busy stirring something cooking on the stove, so he reached out to grab a roll.

"Touch that and I'll break your finger."

Bryan drew back as if he'd been burned, which he hadn't, and stared incredulously at Angel. What the hell? She hadn't turned around, so how the hell did she know?

"I AM psychic, you know," she said a bit snippily.

Bryan's shoulders slumped, defeated.

"Jesus. Fine, take one. You're gonna eat me out of house and home, anyway. I still don't know how you eat so much."

Bryan shrugged and grabbed a roll. It was really hot, and he juggled it between hands until it cooled down a bit. "What's with all the cooking?"

"It's my birthday. I can cook if I want to, can't I?"

"Fuck, I don't care. How old are you?"

"Eighteen today."

Bryan coughed around the roll. Her eighteenth birthday? He would have sworn she was nineteen when he first met her. She looked and acted years older than she actually was.

"Why, thank you. In a few decades, I'm sure I'll be clamoring for compliments like that." Her tone was incredibly sarcastic.

"Dammit, Angel, what have I told you about reading my mind without my permission?" Now he was the patronizing older brother.

"Don't? Yeah yeah, whatever. You seem to forget who cooks and cleans for you. Speaking of which, I'm doing laundry tonight, so I need you to put all those shorts of yours in the laundry room." She caught his disgusted thought. "Unless you'd like to do it yourself?"

"No no, that's fine." He muttered something under his breath and went to fetch his dirty drawers. She grinned and continued stirring the spaghetti.

Lunch was a nice, friendly affair. Then Angel spoke up. "You have something important to annouce?"

He glared at her around his glass. Setting it on the table, he took a breath and said "I need your help with something."

"Yeah?"

"I've decided to start dating again."

The silence was deafning.

Then, "Please tell me you're joking." Even then, she knew he wasn't joking.

"I'm not joking."

Angel took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully. "So, what do you need my help with?"

He coughed. Not just an embarassed cough, but a deep, rasping one coming from his diaphragm. He hacked for a moment, then took a drink to soothe his aching throat. At Angel's worried look, he gave her a reassuring glance. "In response to your question, I was wondering if you knew the best places in town to pick up chicks."

"Pick up chicks?" Angel echoed. She glared at him. "Do these 'chicks' have a name, or are they just walking pieces of meat to you?"

He eyed her warily for a moment. "So you're a feminist. Isn't that cute."

"Don't get smart with me. I can kick your ass any day, and you know it."

"Yes, but THEY don't, so don't spoil it for me." He took another drink. "You do, and I will find a way to beat your ass. You have to sleep sometime."

She raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Then, "The best place I know of to get a date would be Jerry's." Emphasis on the 'date' part; she was still disgusted with this sexist pig.

"I was afraid of that."



The Bar wasn't very crowded that night. Since Angel was now officially eighteen, she could legally serve alcohol. She was behind the bar with Jerry, learning how to mix drinks. She'd paid for a private table for Bryan, and now he sat there with a beer, and one chair pulled out in what he hoped was an invinging gesture. None of the women were interested in this pale, scarred, tattooed man, and for all his bravado Angel could tell that he was slowly getting depressed.

The late-night crowd was beginning to trickle in, with a few men and women in business suits coming in to knock back a stiff one before going home. There were more than a few single women, and Angel psychically nudged each one, just a nudge, in her brother's direction. They noticed him, all right, and immediately looked away.

Even the hookers weren't going for him, Angel thought with some pity. Her baddass brother was shaping up to be Least Desirable Male. She had to do something. She didn't know why she helped him. She'd never felt the need to help anyone before, and here she was helping the mighty, hardass Bryan get a date. She was going to laugh her ass off when she got home tonight.

She walked over to his table and grabbed his empty beer bottles, and pushed the chair in. When he glared at her, she gave him a wink and walked over to a table of single women. She sat down two martinis, saying that they were from her brother, and pointed him out before heading back to the bar. The women eyed him, eyed the glasses, then gave polite shakes of their heads in his direction before sipping on the drinks. Bryan was disappointed. Angel was puzzled, that usually worked on TV.

She took a light reading of the female minds in the bar. They found her brother frightning and unapproachable, somebody to be left alone. Well, she could fix that. Grabbing a Diet Coke, she walked over to her brother's table and plopped down in a chair. Feigning exhaustion, she started chatting idly with him. At first he had no idea what the hell she was doing, and even got mad at her, before she leaned over and whispered a little in his ear. He got the message.

For the next hour, anyone who wanted a drink went to the bar, and Angel would stand up, and prepare the drink at the bar. Then she would head back to Bryan's table and watch TV with him, making snide cracks at the crappy sitcoms. She also made sure to refer to him as either Bryan or even "brother dear" as often as she could, as nauseating as that made her. She was making him seem approachable, and it was working.

Finally Bryan felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned in his seat, and had a flash of deja vu as he stared at the woman. A brown-eyed blond, with business-suit type clothes, a martini in one hand, and a pocketbook in the other. What was her name? Oh yeah, Cassandra. A very desirable female, in Bryan's book.

"Excuse me, sir. I know this isn't my table, but may I join you?" She was polite, and a bit nervous.

Bryan stared for a moment, when Angel gave him a swift kick in the shins. He grunted, glared at his silver-haired sister, and pulled out a chair. "If you want to." He grunted again as Angel kicked him a second time. She made a quick gesture, one that was lost on Cassandra, that Bryan immediately read as meaning 'dumbass.' Bryan gave her a meaningful glare, and Angel rose from the table.

"No no, Angel. I wanted to ask you something."

Confused, Angel sat back down. "Yes?"

"I heard Kenji died. I'm really sorry to hear that." Her face was one of compassion, but there was a faint gleam in those wide, brown eyes.

Angel caught the gleam. "Are you really?"

The older woman coughed. "Well, I supposed I am if you are, but the really sad thing is that now there's nobody to fix up my computer for me."

Angel grinned. "Well, I could always do that. I mean, I still have all of his stuff, and he taught me almost everything he knew about them. Keep it to yourself, though, because I'm only doing it because I know you."

Cassandra gave a thankful smile, when Bryan loudly cleared his throat. "Oh, I remember you. The rude man from a few months ago, right?" She started to rise, when Angel caught her arm.

"Cassandra, I'd like to introduce my long-lost brother, Bryan."

The blond woman froze, half-seated, and stared at Angel. "I didn't know you had a brother, Angel."

Angel's reply was thinly laced with sarcasm. "Neither did I. That's why he was long-lost." She planted a firm idea of curiosity in the older woman's mind, and stood. "I'd better get back to the bar."

Now Bryan and Cassandra were alone. Just great, thought Bryan. He was a bit rustier than he thought when it came to getting chicks. Now here was one, and he was silent.

Cassandra cleared her throat. "Well, I think we should start over. My name is Cassandra Harrelson."

Bryan straightened in his chair. "I'm Bryan Fury."

She frowned. "I thought Angel's last name was Leah," she said, pronouncing it the two-syllable way (lee-ah).

"Leah," Bryan corrected automatically, pronouncing it Lee. "And don't ask me where she got it, either. I have no fuckin' idea." She frowned, and he got worried. Had he offended her, or something? Damn, these chicks nowadays were too prissy for him. "Sorry."

"No problem."

There was a period of silence, in which Angel brought drinks for the both of them. A vodka tonic for Bryan, and Jim Beam on the rocks for Cassandra. "On the house," was Angel's explanation, and she left them to stare at the beverages.

Cassandra took a drink, found it to her liking, and remarked "You certainly have a nice little sister."

Bryan snorted. "You don't live with her."

She smiled. "Ah yes, sibling rivalry. I'm guessing that you two reunited that night a couple of months ago, correct? Yes, I thought so. I've never seen a case of sibling rivalry develop this fast before."

He snorted again. "What are you, a shrink or something?"

"No, but I do work with a lot of people." She didn't offer any more than that, and he puzzled over it for a minute before mentally tossing it over his shoulder.

At the bar, Angel could almost feel the weak, infantile link between them. They were definitely attracted to each other, and she smiled as she thought of her baddass brother walking on eggshells around this beautiful woman.

Yes, she was definitely going to laugh her ass off later tonight. She smiled, and went back to her job.