DISCLAIMER: Well, the girls are mine... the kitty is mine... Angel and Buffy are not mine... Oh well, I still own three out of five! :-P
TIMELINE: Oh well, some time around 'One Of THOSE Days'.
DISTRIBUTION: Take it. Just tell me where it's going.
DEDICATION: To my 'Minina'. May you be in the Cats' Heaven... running after rubber mouses (and munching on them as you were so fond of doing), eating tuna with mayonnaise everyday and protecting poor, helpless puppies as you always did (really, she did!). *sniffs*
FEEDBACK: Feed the muse... she was hard to contact this week. dani_vasq@hotmail.com, a_d_v_v@yahoo.com.ar

Angel could feel their hopeful stares boring into him.

He glared at the black thing sitting oh so innocently on the store's counter.

He shook his head adamantly.

"Oh no. No way. No how..."

Three pairs of eyes pleaded with him.

He shook his head his head again.

"But daaaaaad..." Cathy wailed.

"No," he said determinedly.

He had never thought he would deny his dear family anything... But *this* was just too much... he stared at the squirming *thing* on the counter.

He blinked.

It wasn't on the counter... He heard cooes and 'darling's coming from his younger -by whole twenty minutes- daughter. His gaze turned to Marissa and yes, there IT was... making strange noises while searching for a comfortable spot in his daughter's arms...

"Please daddy?" Marissa insisted with her big brown eyes. "Please, please, pretty please?"

"With a cherry on top..." Buffy purred with a smirk.

For a second breath left him... his wife certainly knew how to ask.

Mmm... cherries.

But... "No."

Catherine ran to her sister and plead with her to let her carry the *thing*. Angel shook his head and stared at his wife. "Buffy, stop them... you know we can't..."

"Why not?"

"You work. I work... the girls are not even eight yet... who would care after it?"

She just cocked an eyebrow, letting him know that his words were without fair cause. "It's just a cat, Angel. And you did promise them a pet..."

"Yes bu---"

"Its name is Kiana," declared Catherine playing with the recently named kitty's ears.

Buffy smiled.

"Kiana?" Angel asked, closing his eyes. Good, they'd gone and made the black kitty *theirs*. Now it'd be impossible to tell the girls no.

"Well," Marissa explained, "I wanted to call her Kitty.."

"It sounds too much like Cathy!" her sister protested.

"..but Cathy wanted to call her Diana," Marissa continued.

"It's a better name too! Diana is a princess' name while Kitty is a name for every other cat in the world!"

"...so we settled for Kiana," the younger sister finished glaring at her interrupting sister.

"It's a beautiful name," their mother agreed, "don't you think so, honey?"

Angel was trapped and he knew it. It was not that he didn't want pets... his argument about no one having time was invalid, either he or Buffy was always at home, and the girls were very responsible for their short age... but why a cat?

Couldn't it have been a nice canary? Or some fishes even? For gods sake, even a puppy would have been better, in his experience dogs were a lot more manageable... but a cat!

He glanced at his daughters' happy faces, both of them petting and cooing to 'Kiana'... then at his smiling wife who was watching tenderly at their girls, and finally at the kitty...

As if she knew that he had the final word, 'Kiana' met his eyes with her own golden ones and purred louder... Angel smiled in spite of himself.

Demons and Apocalypsi he could fight, but not a little cat which his family already was in love with.

"Very nice." He breathed deeply, knowing that he was damned to follow their whims since that very first day in L.A. "Welcome to the family, Kiana," he finally allowed.

His three girls squealed in joy.

Once Buffy had sent the kids with the money to pay for the black kitty, she immediately went to hug Angel in a tight embrace. "You're the best," she whispered.

"I still want that cherry on top," he whispered back.

Buffy blinked in surprise. She turned and answered his smirk with one of her own... "You can bet on it," she purred.

They would have kissed but a loud MEOW called for help...

"Marissa!" Cathy whined. "give her to meeeeeee!"

"No, it's MY turn."

"It's mine!"

"No!"

"Give her!"

"Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!!!"

"Look what you've done!"

"It's your fault! You should have given her to me in the first place!"

"But it was still not your turn!" Marissa defended.

"It was!"

"No, it wasn---"

"Girls," their mother interrrupted, "it is daddy's turn now, okay?"

Both pouted but finally they handed the dazed kitty to their father. Angel looked bewildered at the offered cat but finally took her in his arms. For a moment he didn't know what to do with her but finally opted to put her on his chest so that her forearms rested on his shoulder and the rest of her body dangled vertically over his body. She began to purr when she found the perfect spot for her head.

"Go ask the owner what we should give her to eat," he ordered the girls.

They nodded and went to search the older man.

Buffy smiled and petted the black ball of fur. The kitty stared down at her questioningly, still looking a bit faint from the girls' manhandle. "Hey there," she said in a calming voice, " you know what, Kiana? You chose a very crazy family to stay with." And she winked playfully at the cat.

Angel laughed, petting unconsciously the small cat.

Golden confused eyes went from one to the other...

"Meow?"

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