A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed. It means a lot. Keep em' coming.
Also, whenever it says 'Sarai' I am talking about regular Sarai. 'Little' or 'Younger' will appear before Sarai when talking about 5 yrd old Sarai.
No one spoke since Sarai's 'mini-me' comment. They weren't sure what to say, including Patrick. Sarai knew it was up to her to break the silence. "Well...this is yet another strange thing that happens around here," she sighed. Everyone looked at her. "What? It is."
"Well, I guess I'll leave you all too take it from here. Call if you need me," Patrick said, before leaving.
"You should call to fire him for being a sissy and running out," Sarai told her father. She followed that by getting closer to her younger self, "come in." She stood there. "Or not. But really, come in, there's TV and chocolate in here... you'll like them trust me."
"You won't hold me captive for long," the younger Sarai replied. She attempted to hit her older self, but was stopped right away.
"Don't even," Sarai warned, grabbing her hand. "And you're not captive, cause we don't know what you got here. How did you get here?" The child shrugged. Sarai was not pleased by the response.
"Now you know what it's like talking to you," Angel couldn't help but point out.
"You say that as if I'm supposed to care and it's not my intentional goal," the teenager replied.
"What am I doing here!" the child verison of Sarai demanded angrily.
Maybe it was because Angel was extremely used to the angry teenage, who averages at least 3 angry outbursts per day, not counting rants, but he was finding it impossible to find young Sarai intimidating or scary. In stead he found it cute. Or maybe it was because even angry teenage Sarai at her angriest, on some level remained cute to him. They both were factors. The rest of the group, sans Darla and Sophia, felt the same way as Angel for reason number one. Darla didn't know what to think or feel about what was going on it all. Sophia, not only didn't know what was going on, but also was the only person in the entire building who had never witnessed angry Sarai. "Why don't you tell us how you got here?" Angel questioned, nicely.
"I don't know," she answered, sounding annoyed.
"Well do you re-"
"I don't know!" she insisted, attempting to be fearless, but it showed she was scared. Sarai was disturbed by this. Not out of concern for her younger self or anything, but she didn't want her friend's exposed to her past. The only person who had almost full knowledge of her whole life was Angel, and she intended on keeping it that way.
"Hey, I have an idea, why don't me and mini-me have a chat... alone," Sarai suggested, as she grabbed her former self.
"You can't make me do anything!" the child exclaimed.
"Well, there's conformation it's really her," Lorne muttered.
"Yes, I can," Sarai insisted, "cause I'm not making you do anything, I'm making me doing something cause you're me, but younger. And me being the older one makes me the boss of us...er...me" she added, before dragging her former self into her bedroom. "Alright, look kid..whoa, hold on!" She exclaimed as her saw the little girl hover over her dog, like she was about to kill it.
"There's a demon in here," she replied.
"No! No Demon! Doggie... very good, will apparently remain sleeping through anything doggie, back away from the doggie!"
"No demon?" the child questioned.
"What the hell did I just say! No, not a demon. Not a demon, should I spell it? Do I even know how to know what it spells at your age? I think I do... I do, right?"
"Huh? Who are you? Where am I?"
"You are me, I briefly touched on this already. You're not being held hostage or whatnot. You're not in Quortoth, your on earth, a whole other dimension. And I know you know about Earth. And Angel, our father is here."
"Oh... so he came back for me? That's why I'm here?" little Sarai tried to understand.
"Not exactly," Sarai sighed, not enjoying answering that. "You... I... me... whatever you wanna call us, came back ourselves. As me. But you, came back because, well, I don't know why. But I am here already as you but older, cause you're from the past."
To most, that explanation might seem confusing, but to the five year old Sarai, she understood her older self perfectly. "Oh, okay," she said. "So... the people in there... they're not evil?"
"Not in the way you mean," Sarai mumbled. "I mean...no, they're not evil," she told her louder.
"Are you sure? Because.."
"Yeah, I'm sure. I know what you're thinking, what you've been told to believe, but it's crap... it's not true. No one's evil, or hates you..."
"Or my real father happy I'm gone?"
"Yeah, that was a lie too."
"I knew it," the child said, mostly to herself.
"Wait til' you're eight," Sarai muttered, before changing the subject, not wanting to reminisce anymore. "So, yeah, lets go back to the other room where the breakfast food is, or at least where it should be cause I'll kill Fred if she took advantage of my coming in here, and finished off the strawberry-jelly doughnuts, I mean it, I'll cut her! Oh yeah, also, no need to bring up ya know, what went on in Quortoth."
"Okay... what's a strawberry-jelly doughnut?"
"Yeah, we need to get you one right now," Sarai stated. The two walked back to the others. The doughnut box, with no Jelly's left, caught Sarai's eye right away. "Run, run fast," she warned Fred.
"It wasn't me! It was Dawn," Fred quickly replied. Sarai locked eyes with Dawn.
"I thought we were closer then this?" Sarai gasped.
"Oh please, you'd do the same to me in a second," Dawn replied.
Sarai sighed, "fine, you do have a point there. You're not totally off the hook, but friendship is thicker then pastry's."
"Except eclairs," Dawn corrected.
"No duh," she agreed. "But only the kind with the whip cream and not that other filling," she added. "We need to go get more... I want some... and I promised the mini, I'd introduce her to them.."
"Don't you think time would be better spent researching how your younger self got here then having doughnuts?" Wesley asked.
"I intend on getting a Coolata for myself too. And don't you think by now you should no I don't research... or read anything that's not about the prime time line up or the whole Brad/Angelina/Jen fiasco?"
"Who?" Angel questioned.
"You make me sick, living under your rock," Sarai stated. She suddenly started to laugh. Everyone stared at her. "Sorry... I just visualized you actually living under a rock," she told her father, "it's pretty funny."
"And you want to get more coffee," Angel mused.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," Angel sighed shaking his head.
Sarai shrugged it off and changed the subject. "So, yeah, we should go. Anyone wanna give me the key's to their car?"
"No!" everyone who owned a car replied. She scoffed in annoyance. "You're not even sixteen yet, it's not legal even if we did trust you with a several ton object that can go a hundred miles an hour," Fred pointed out.
"Well, I will be in a few weeks, 6 weeks and 5 days, to be exact. And then you all won't have a choice!"
"Oh yes I will have a choice," Angel told her, slightly shivering at the memory of the one time he did allow her to drive his car, the viper no less, around the parking lot.
"We'll see about that," she challenged.
"I'll drive you," Fred offered, "I have to take Sophia to speech therapy, so I can drop you guys off."
"Sarai, if you're feeling up to going out again, I'll shower while you're out and then you and I can go shopping, since I need more close," Darla stated. "Maybe we should get some things for you... younger you, too," she added.
"That might be a good idea, we don't know how long she's going to be here," Wesley agreed.
Sarai smiled and looked at her father. "Do you need water or something? I know having to support two me's clothing must be freaking you out... all that money being spent and all. Lay down even if you need too."
Angel returned the look, "it's fine with me, I'll just make you get a job, other then watching Sophia, to support your own."
"You're a sicko for even joking about that, unless of course you mean..."
"Don't mention the TV show. It's a waste of your time," he interrupted.
"Let's go," Sarai ordered to Fred, younger Sarai, and Sophia before storming out of the penthouse, not liking the conversations. Three seconds later she stormed back in, looking down at her feet. "Why didn't anyone remind me I am still wearing my purple fuzzy slippers!" she demanded, taking off the slippers in question and putting actual shoes on and storming out again before anyone could actually answer.
Twenty-five minutes later, the two Sarai's returned from there doughnut adventure. "I bought some for you all... because I'm that damn good of a person," Sarai announced.
"Yeah, the Nobel Peace Prize was delivered when you were gone," Angel said.
"What? And no party in honor of me?" she replied, "I'm officially offended."
"Sarai, did you like your doughnut?" Angel asked then asked, nicely.
"Don't I always? Why'd you even a- oh, you meant the small one," Sarai replied. "We're going to need some kind of naming system here."
"It was good," little Sarai said. "But different. Eveythings's different here," she sighed.
"Yeah the people walking around are less murderous and more stupid. I mean how hard is it to understand the concept of extra sugar in the coolata? Yet when you order a strawberry smoothy, it takes five hours to convince them not to add banana! And don't get me started on when you order a damn pizza but the person on the phone hardly knows English so you have to scream the shit out of your order and the address still get's written wrong so the delivery man gets lost and it takes forever to get the food," Sarai ranted.
"Glad you're not getting started on it," Ryan laughed.
"Hey, you know that wasn't me getting started, I curse way more."
"True."
"What are you talking about?" little Sarai asked her older self, not knowing anything at all about pizza delivery, or pizza in general, the same for strawberry smoothies.
"You'll find out soon enough."
"You mean I will be yelling at those people who gave us the... doughnut-things and your drink?"
"All signs point to yes, since we're the same."
"I need to urinate," Little Sarai suddenly announced.
Sarai pointed to the bathroom, 'handle it in there."
"Darla's in the there," Angel pointed out.
Just then, Darla came out of the bathroom, trying to dry her hair with a towel. "Not anymore," she said. Little Sarai went into the bathroom. "Do you have a blow dryer?" Darla asked Sarai.
"Under my bed, somewhere," she replied.
Angel laughed, "good luck finding it under that death trap."
"Hey! I'll have you know I cleaned it out last year," she defended.
After Darla dried her hair, Sarai went in her room to fix herself up a little before going heading to the mall. She was interrupted when Fred and Sophia knocked on her door. "You busy?" Fred asked.
"Yes terribly, go away," Sarai teased. "What's up?"
"Sophia's been working on something really hard in speech lately, that she really wanted to say. And today, she said it and she wants to say it to you," Fred explained.
"Really? Sureness."
It was Sophia's time to speak, so she did, "Sarai," she said.
Sarai's face lit up, "OH! It's me! You said me! YAY!" she exclaimed, happy, proud and flattered at the same time. Unfortunately, she said it a bit too loud, which made Sophia cover her sensitive ears. "Oh!" Sarai whispered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be loud. I'm sorry. Still love me?" Sophia nodded. "Damn straight," Sarai nodded, as her way of saying thanks/good. Fred glared at her. "I mean good," she corrected. "Wanna come to the mall?" Sophia shook her head. "You sure? We can go to Candy World and I'll buy you one of those giant lollipops." Sophia shook her head once again. "Okay then. I'll see you when I get back."
Sarai went back into the living room, took Angel's wallet out of his pocket and transferred his credit card to her wallet. "It's nice that you feel close enough to me to rob me right in front of my eyes," he said.
"Duh! It's not theft if it's done right in front of you," she replied. "Just like it's only plagiarism if your teacher figures out you were too lazy to write up a paper so you downloaded one instead." All the adults, Ryan and Dawn stared at her, "not that I'm speaking from experience. Okay... time to shop," Sarai added, heading out the door quickly. Darla followed.
"You have a ton of explaining to do when you get back!" Angel yelled in the hallway as Sarai dove into the elevator, and shut the doors by using her own strength. Everyone else left eventually, leaving Angel alone with 5-year-old Sarai. It was going to be an interesting day.
TBC
A/N: Okay, hope it was an enjoyable chapter. Feel free to review. Up next: Sarai and Darla shop, Angel spends time with little Sarai, Sarai defends her paper crime, and also takes it upon herself to try and get her parents together.