A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed. Please continue.
Sarai and Darla arrived at the mall, stopped at JcPenny's for underwear, socks, and some plain shirts, that Sarai insisted are always good to have around, but mainly it they went there because it was the only store Sarai knew that sold children's clothing, so they bought stuff for little Sarai.. Then it was on to the important stuff; Darla's main clothes. For that, they went to any store that looked good from the window display. They began to browse around one store, collecting things that were suitable. However, the soon clashed on what was considered suitable. "What are you doing?" Sarai asked her mother.
"Looking for my size," Darla replied as she looked through a rack of skirts.
Sarai pulled one off the rack, it was a short red leather one, "I don't think so!" she exclaimed. Darla stared at her. "You're not buying this."
"And why not?" Darla questioned, rather annoyed at being told what to do by her child.
"Because I bought one just like it last week! You can't wear anything I own! That's... it's... wrong. Against all things natural!"
"Too bad," Darla replied as she found her size. She then began to look at some black lacy tops.
"Do you know how much cleavage that will show?" Sarai questioned sternly, before covering her mouth, horrified. "I've turned into dad! I need to be shot."
Darla couldn't help but slightly smile at that as she continued to look around. They were in a up scale boutique-y store, Darla liked it. When they were in Penny's she was not pleased with the 'mediocracy' of it. Sarai however was the opposite. She was very comfortable in stores like that and stores that were for junior sizes, expensive stores like the one they were in made her uncomfortable. Mainly because she was convinced that sales people looked down on her and mock her with their stares, always looking at her like she's going to steal something. "So... ah... you done picking out inappropriate clothing?" Sarai asked. "Are you ready to pay so we can leave?"
Darla turned and looked at her, "soon... what's your hurry?"
"It's just... ah... it's hot in here," she lied.
"No it's not."
"That's cause you have a cool body temperature."
"No, it's cause you're clearly lying."
Sarai sighed, "okay fine. I just wanna get out of here. This place... it's not exactly my scene. It's so..."
"It's classy," Darla interrupted.
"Exactly! I am not comfortable in places that play soothing music, most with no lyrics. I need a place that blasts 50 and Avril, to get you in the fun shopping mood. Can I take you into my world?"
"Weren't we there already?" Darla questioned.
"Kinda, but not really. That was more like a small town. So, can we leave? Can we, can we, can we?" Sarai questioned.
Darla sighed. "Fine, but give me five minutes to look more, and then I'll pay and we'll go."
"I accept these terms," Sarai replied, making sure she had control over the situation. When the five minutes past, Darla went to the register to pay for her items. Sarai handed her Angel's credit card, and got a semi-evil sense of enjoyment as the card was used to purchase a high priced amount of clothing, as did Darla. "How do you think it's going with your father and... you?" Darla questioned as the clothes were being bagged.
Sarai thought for a moment about herself at five, and then about her father. She couldn't help but grin wickedly. This made Darla happy.
Back at the penthouse, Angel was in his room taking a business call. He didn't want to take the call, he wanted to get to know the little girl he wished he could've raised himself, but his phone wouldn't stop ringing so he eventually realized he had to take it. But it came to an abrupt end when he heard a loud noise from the living room. He dropped the phone right away to see what it was, and dropped to the floor when he saw his favorite axe now imbedded in one of the walls. "You need better weapons," little Sarai told him. "It goes to far when little power is used to throw it."
That bit of advice coming from a child disturbed him. He walked over to the wall and managed to remove the axe from the wall, and then stared at the nice hole it left. A small part of him almost felt bad for the wall, between that and the damage done to it when Sarai tried to make her own fireworks on the 4th of July that summer, it took a real beating within 6 months of each other. "Dammit," he swore when he thought about how it needed to be fixed, at the same time he saw the blade on the axe was destroyed. He liked that axe.
Little Sarai did not like the tone of his voice at all; he was mad. She realized she did something wrong. "I-I didn't mean it," she stuttered. "Don't hate me, I'll be good, don't want me to not be here," she begged, which took Angel by complete surprise.
Angel put the axe down and moved closer to her. "I don't hate you," he said gently, "I know you didn't mean it. I don't hate you."
"Really?" she questioned.
"Yeah. I don't hate you. I'm not mad at you. And your not in any kind of trouble. So, why don't we find something to do so we can forget about this?" he suggested.
"You mean like practice fighting without weapons?" she asked.
Angel shook his head. "No fighting at all." Over the past two years, Angel never thought he'd ever be telling Sarai, younger or teenager, what he was about to say, "why don't you watch Television?"
"What's television?"
And that was a reply he never thought he'd get. "I'll show you." He took her over to the sofa, sat her down, and turned on the TV. She was instantly fascinated by it, which didn't shock him one bit. As he found a suitable program for them to watch, little Sarai began to test out the cushion. It was very soft. She began to bounce on it slight. Curiosity got the best of her and before she and Angel knew it, she was jumping up and down on the sofa, eyes locked on the TV though. "Maybe you shouldn't-" Angel began to say, but it was too late. The sound of a table lamp crashing to the floor after being knocked into, interrupted his sentence.
Little Sarai quit jumping at the sound of the crash, she fell onto the couch. "Is it okay?" She asked. "D-did I kill it?"
"It's not okay, but you didn't kill it. It wasn't alive to begin with, we can get a new one." Angel assured her. "It wasn't your fault."
The child allowed her not so long attention span to get the best of her as she tilted her head to one side and studied her father. "Your hair is pointy... is it some kind of defense mechanism? I've heard about those."
"It's not. It's not even that pointy... did Sarai put you up to saying that?" Angel questioned.
"I am Sarai," she told him, demeaningly.
"Older Sarai," he corrected.
"Oh, her. No. I noticed this all by myself. It was all me," she bragged.
'Smaller body, same huge ego,' Angel mused to himself. He was also very grateful that no one, especially Sarai, was around to hear her say that.
Back at the mall, Sarai took Darla to a store she liked to shop in. It was filled with teenage girls. Sarai right away grabbed a pair of hot pink silky/stretchy pants off a rack. "You're getting those?" Darla questioned, eyeing the color.
"Why? Do you like the lime green better?" Sarai replied, picking up the green.
"They're both bright."
"Yeah? So? That's what's fun about them... and why you always wear them with a black tank."
"Okay," Darla said before looking around. She didn't want to be in the store, but she didn't want to spoil their first shopping outing together, so she kept quiet. "This would look cute on you," she commenting as she held up a dark purple cotton, semi- short skirt.
"Really?" a rather surprised Sarai questioned. Darla nodded. "Wow, usually when dad shops with me he picks out things like that," she pointed at a pink long sleeved dress that went down to the floor.
"I'm not him."
"I know. But you still shouldn't wear things that short, just for the record. Just so we're clear, how much are you okay with, clothing wise?"
"More then your father," she answered, "but not that much by any means," she pointed to a manikin modeling a halter top the was really just a bra with a tie in the back wearing a black leather skirt that looked like crotch-less leather underwear.
"Okay, glad we got that straight. So... speaking of the daddy, are you going to be living with us from now on?"
"Until I find my own place I will."
"Oh," Sarai sighed, "I see. You know you could stay though, right? I'm sure dad won't mind."
"He would."
"If he wouldn't mind, would you? Would you mind living with him?" Sarai questioned.
Darla looked at her, "What are you... oh. I get it. Darling, your father and I aren't going to start seeing each other."
"Why not?"
"For starters, he's seeing Cordelia."
Sarai scoffed. "So? There's no law keeping them together. I've got nothing against Cordelia personally, but I'd much rather see you with dad then her."
"That's not going to happen, Sarai. Your father and I... we're over, had more second chances then anyone and each time... it never worked out in the end..."
"But that was years ago... when..." Sarai began to interrupt.
"Doesn't matter. We just don't work. In a way, the night we conceived you, when we had sex..."
"MOMMY!" Sarai screamed, covering her ears. Several shoppers turned and stared at her. "Don't ever speak that way again... please? Let's just... call it 'the beginning of me', or 'the night., yes that's better.' It's sorter and nice and vague, but get's the point across," she insisted, still horrified.
"Let me finish and then you can go back to being traumatized," Darla said. "The... The night, was ending of your dad and I. The final ending."
"But... did you want it to be the end?"
Darla went back to browsing. She hoped that would make Sarai drop it. But Sarai took that as a sign to talk to her father when she got home.
When Darla and Sarai returned to the penthouse, Little Sarai was sleeping and Angel was reading the paper. "My room, now," he said, looking at Sarai. She smiled awkwardly and followed him to the bedroom. "Care to elaborate on what you were talking about before you left?"
She shook her head, "not really. But thanks for asking."
"That wasn't a question."
"Really? Because it sounded just like one."
"It was a rhetorical question."
"AH HA!" she exclaimed, "you admit that it IS some kind of a question."
"Yes, yes I do," he sighed.
"Then why'd you say it wasn't? Why'd you lie? Huh? Huh?"
"Why don't you stop stalling?"
Sarai rolled her eyes. "It's not as bad as it sounds. It was once. And... and... I didn't even get caught. I mean, the teacher made a comment about how it didn't have one curse word in it,and wasn'ttyped in a colored font, but she never accused me of not being the writer."
"But you weren't," he pointed out.
"But I wasn't accused of not being the writer. And like I already said, it was once. And I'll have you know it was expensive too, I had to put off buying Spike a birthday present because of it. I wasn't able to buy it until the day of the party Dawn threw him, and I had to borrow some money from Faith. And CRAP!" she slapped herself on the head, "have I paid her back yet? No. Any chance you'll reimburse me seventy dollars?"
"Tell me this is one of your jokes."
"No. No. You know what? The more I think about it, you should give me back the cost of the paper, because technically it was for educational reasons. And as my parent, you are responsible for my education expenses," she argued with a very straight face.
Angel shook his head, "you amaze me sometimes with the stuff you come up with." She replied by giving him the puppy eyes. "This isn't a gift, it's a loan. Pay Faith back, and you will pay me back eventually," he said, taking money out of his dresser.
"Thank you, best andfavoritest daddy that ever daddy'd," she happily replied.
"Hey, have you heard anything about murders last night? I've been getting calls all day about something, signs pointing to a vampire, out last night, causing quite a bit of a body count."
"No, sorry," she shrugged. "Now, on to what I wanted to speak to you about," she added, her tone completely changing. "Do you, or have you ever, loved my mom?"
Angel was caught completely off guard. "What?"
"I didn't stutter."
Angel blinked twice, "I... I'm with Cordelia," he stumbled.
Sarai shook her head, getting real meaning behind it. "Right," she sighed, leaving the room.
After an hour of thinking over the situation; her father with another woman, and her mother alone mostly likely still having feelings for her father, she knew she needed to do something. This wasn't fair to her mother. She didn't deserve this. Sarai knew she had to take action. She formed a plan and acted on it right away. "See you peoples laters," she announced as she headed for the door, carrying a backpack.
"Where are you going?" Angel and Darla asked in unison.
"Spending the night with Dawn. I'll be back tomorrow."
"You feel up to it?" Angel questioned.
Sarai nodded, "modern drugs, ice cream and healing abilities kick ass."
"Alright, have fun."
"Bye," Darla said.
Sarai waved, "bye. Bye mini me."
"Bye," little Sarai replied.
Sarai exited. Darla and Angel were left alone with child Sarai until the next day. It was going to be an interesting few hours.
Meanwhile, Dawn stood outside the Wolfram and Hart building, also with a backpack, waiting for Sarai. "What's going on?" she asked when Sarai came outside. "Why did you call me here and tell me to pack over night stuff?"
Before Sarai could answer, a man in a suit approached them. "Your plane is ready when you are Miss Angel," he said.
Dawn stared at her friend, "what? What?"
"Thanks. But please, just call me Sarai. No need to be all formal, besides 'Miss Angel' just gives me images of my father in drag. And that's not good," Sarai said.
"I'm sorry, but what is this about a plane? There's a plane?" Dawn questioned vigorously.
"Of course there's a plane, there's always a plane. All good plans have a plane."
"Plan? There's a plan too?" Sarai didn't need to say anything to answer that question, Dawn got the answer on her own. "Sorry, I forgot who I was talking too. Of course there's a plan."
"So are you with me on my plan? Are you still my partner in crime?"
"This is metaphor crime right?"
Sarai shrugged, "I don't think there's anything illegal about it. Then again, I'm not Gunn. We should have Gunn for this, but I don't think he'd go for this one."
Dawn took a deep breath. "Let's do it," she said, willingly going into this without any knowledge of what they were actually doing.
Sarai turned back to the man in the suit, "you heard her, let's go." He took them to the plane, and soon enough they were in the air off to carry out Sarai's grand plan.
TBC
A/N: Alrighty, that's chapter 4. Hope it was good. The murders will be figured out in chapters to come.
Up next: Angel and Darla spend time with little Sarai. And maybe, just maybe, Sarai's plan will be revealed. What is the plan? Wait and read. Until then, please review.