I do not own RWBY or any of these characters. They are the creations of Rooster Teeth and the magnificent Monty Oum, may he rest in peace.
"I take it you're Mrs. Rose?" Glynda said to the woman who peeked out the door. This was Glynda's first babysitting assignment, so she'd worn her best button-down shirt and business skirt, and she'd braided her hair and cleaned her glasses.
"Call me Summer," said the woman. She had deep bags under her eyes and her hair was a little dis-shelved. She had a white coat on. She smiled grimly as she opened the door another crack to hold out her hand. "And thanks so much for coming on such short notice."
Glynda smiled and adjusted her glasses and shook the hand. "It's really no problem, Summer," she said. In all honesty, what with her internship ending abruptly when the company went under, she was grateful enough that Ozpin's project for AP business turned out to be popular enough to support last-minute volunteers. Paid volunteers, even, so maybe that word wasn't the correct one.
"Yang's mother is in town so it's just little Ruby today," Summer said.
"Oh, ok," Glynda said. Her brow furrowed as she thought of a bunch of follow-up questions. "Uh, 'little Ruby'?" was what she decided on.
Summer opened the door all the way. There was a small child wrapped around her leg, dressed in a giant red hoodie, bawling her eyes out.
"Mommy!" choked the child, "Mommy please don't abandon me!"
Summer's expression flattened. "No, see, this time I hired a babysitter so, legally, it wouldn't be abandonment."
"Was I bad? I'll be good, I promise! Please don't leave mommy! Please please please!"
"I will be back before midnight (probably)," Summer deadpanned to her leg.
"But that's forever!"
"A bit clingy, I see," Glynda joked. Summer shot her an exasperated expression.
Summer picked up her daughter by the armpits and looked her in the eye. Ruby calmed down slightly, wiping her eyes on her little wrists.
"Someday, Ruby," Summer said, "You will understand why I became a doctor. And you will know that no matter how many nights I have to work, you're all that's ever mattered to me."
Summer hugged her daughter. Ruby returned the desperate hug, falling silent during the embrace. Glynda coughed.
Then Summer tossed her daughter at Glynda. "And now I need to go save some lives. Toodles!"
"Mrs. Rose!" Glynda said, almost dropping her charge, "I still have a lot of questions-"
"You'll be fine!" Summer called over her shoulder.
"You mean me or your daughter?" Glynda yelled at the receeding woman.
"Pick one!"
Ruby cried even more as Summer got into her car, but as soon as the car drove out of sight, Ruby went silent and went limp in Glyndas arms. Glynda shook her charge a little to try to get a response. It didn't quite work.
"So," Glynda said to the child in her arms. "I'm Glynda."
"I am nothing," Ruby intoned. "My joy has been ripped away from me. My life is a nightmare from which I cannot awake."
"Is Ruby your name or is it short for something?"
"Yes."
"Um," Glynda said, "Ok."
Ruby stared off into the distance.
"Do you prefer to walk or will I have to carry you everywhere?" Glynda said.
Ruby slumped a little.
"Oooh-K," Glynda said, adjusting her center of balance. "I'm going to take you inside now, ok?"
The house was pretty large; to be expected, if one of the parents was a doctor.
The house was also pretty empty. There was a bowl and some accessories out for a dog, which Glynda would later find out was being watched by an uncle. Somebody named 'Taiyang' was out this week. There was also someone named Yang who had things in the house with his or her name on it. Glynda really wished she'd had time for some prep work before heading over.
Ruby let herself down from Glynda's arms and walked over to the couch in front of the front window. She crawled up to sit on its back and placed her hand on the window and looked sad.
"So, umm," Glynda said to her charge. "What do you want to do for the next six hours?"
"Nothing," the child sighed.
"Cool, ok, yeah," Glynda said to the room. She took a seat on the couch next to Ruby. "So how old are you?"
"Loss has aged me an eternity."
"So like eight?"
"Eight and a half."
Ozpin had said babysitting was easy. You get to network with parents, play with kids, and after they fall asleep you can get some homework done. Glynda hadn't exactly had much experience with children, so she figured this would be a good opportunity to start, and it'd probably beat fetching coffee and calibrating test equipment.
She breathed. This would be fun, Glynda told herself.
"So I wasn't given any ground rules," Glynda said. "Anything I should be aware of?"
"I don't know," Ruby intoned.
"Are you allergic to anything?"
"Happiness," Ruby intoned distantly. "Also broccoli."
"Ok- wait," Glynda said. "You're not just saying that to get out of eating your green vegetables, are you?"
"No," Ruby pouted, "Broccoli is my mortal enemy. I avoid it at all costs."
"So what do you like to eat?"
"Cookies."
Glynda chuckled. "Well, ok, but not before dinner."
Ruby stuck her tongue out at Glynda. "You can't tell me what I can't eat! You're not my mom!"
"Your mom left me in charge," Glynda stated, a little annoyed.
"Why'd she leave some dumb teenager in charge?" Ruby tucked her hands into her armpits.
"I'll have you know that I'm slated for valedictorian next year," Glynda jabbed. She put her hands on her hips and shot an accusatory look at her charge.
Ruby mirrored Glynda's expression. "Well I'm the best reader out of all the third graders in the district, so nyeh!"
They glared at each other until Glynda realized she was in a stand-off with an eight year old.
"Eight and a half year old," Ruby corrected.
Glynda cleared her throat and straightened her back. "Back to the issue at hand," Glynda said, "What do you normally do when your mom's gone?"
Ruby's anger dissipated back into sadness and she slumped against the windowpane again. Glynda wondered if maybe the anger was an improvement.
"Wait for her to get back," Ruby breathed onto the window and drew a heart in the condensation.
"Doooo you have to do any homework?"
"No."
"Or anything to do at all?"
Ruby sighed theatrically, in the way that only children can.
Glynda shot an exasperated expression to the wall and then picked up her charge. "Ok, maybe you'll find something you'll like in your room?"
Ruby's room had the biggest collection of LEGO construction blocks that Glynda'd ever seen. There were three tables stacked completely with city vistas and desert tombs and alien worlds and scenes from famous movies, all in intricate interlocking plastic brick configurations. Somewhere in the room was also a bed and dresser.
"Wow, Ruby," Glynda said, "Did you build all these?"
Ruby tried not to look happy at the compliment. "Yeah."
"That's pretty cool!"
"I guess."
"You don't think so?"
"I had instructions for most of them." Ruby scratched behind her head.
"So you built some of them though? That's even cooler!"
Ruby's mouth almost wobbled into a smile. "The agriculture set," she pointed to the table closest to her bed. "I designed all of those."
Glynda let Ruby down and Ruby went off to pick various constructions. She showed Glynda the alien spaceship and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sewer base and the submarine and the setpiece from that one British phone booth show and the scale model Panzerkamfwagon IV and also the firetruck, explaining each set more confidently and happily than the last. By the time she got to the ninjas, it was hard to tell she'd been a total sad sack only fifteen minutes prior.
Glynda picked a tractor up and it broke apart.
"Ahhh!" Glynda said.
Ruby took the halfs from her sitter and snapped some pieces back into place.
"It's kind of not good," Ruby said as she moved the tractor around on the table. It had some gear pieces that picked up little yellow pillars as it moved over them.
"Woah," Glynda said, "That's amazing, Ruby! I think it's plenty good!"
Ruby didn't stifle her smile this time. "Thanks." She rolled the tractor around some more.
"When I'm growed up, I'm going to design combine harvesters," Ruby said as she shifted some of the gearing on the plastic block contraption. "With guns. Pew pew."
"I don't mean to crush your dream," Glynda said, "But combine harvesters have already been invented."
"By several people independently, I know," Ruby said. She stood up straight and went into lecture mode- something Glynda thought you had to be like 30 years old to do. "But several grains don't have harvesters designed for them at all, and many commercial foods such as blueberries and peaches have many unique challenges that automation has to overcome."
And then Glynda had a surprisingly intellectual conversation about agricultural practices with her charge. She almost forgot that Ruby was only eight - and a half - until she used a word that was too big and the illusion shattered as she tried to explain it.
General Glynda surveyed her troops; the aliens, the mutants, the time travelers, the fellowship. She was the leader of an army of misfits and outcasts, but she solemnly vowed that she would lead them into a better, promised land-
A land currently defended by the fiendish Sankt-Kaiser Ruby Rose and her evil minions and, in this location, a massive desert tomb structure, complete with mummies. The Sankt-Kaiser herself sat atop her custom combine harvester, immune to laser blasts, magic, and mustard.
The General had to keep her mutant ninjas on reserve, in case the Sankt-Kaiser fielded her own. Her Balrog could incinerate the mummies, but Glynda knew her opponent had a firetruck. And the time traveler wasn't effective under this season's showrunner. That just left one option.
"Aliens!" the General yelled, "Do your thing!"
"Hahahaha!" laughed Sankt-Kaiser Ruby, "You think abducting some cows is going to help you, General?"
The Sankt-Kaiser lifted her arms up madly, and the desert temple started spinning its minarets, with the mummies brandishing their ankhs and prayers. "Sand lasers!" she yelled.
"But little did you know," Glynda said, "That your mummy's gods...were actually aliens!"
The pedestal atop the pyramid flipped around to reveal a bust of alien head- the same kind of alien head that Glynda's aliens had!
"No! Nooooooo!" Sank-Kaiser Ruby yelled as her troops defected, shooting lazers beams at her farming equipment.
"But no matter!" Ruby yelled, activating her harvester, "I'll deal with you myself! LET'S REAP!"
Ruby's stomach growled.
"Are you hungry?" Glynda asked, dropping her General persona. She was hungry as well, but she wasn't about to show any weakness. That last part was a part of her persona in general.
Ruby bit her lip and nodded.
She looked out the window- it was already dark. Wow, had they lost track of time. Glynda picked up her charge. "So Summer didn't leave any instructions for dinner or anything. What do you normally eat?"
"We usually have cookies!" Ruby said.
"Usually?"
"Yes." Ruby stated. "For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes it's candy-canes instead."
Glynda looked at Ruby's face. Ruby fidgeted.
"I- I mean," Ruby said, her mouth wobbling, "I guess we eat normal food too..."
Glynda put her army away and jostled slightly the girl in her arms. "C'mon," she said, "Let's go feed you." Glynda smirked. "Something not 80% sugar by volume."
The pantry was, unfortunately, less than well stocked. Sure, there were the staples; flour, sugar, a full spice rack. If Glynda knew how to and wanted to cook something from scratch she probably could.
There was also, just out of reach for a small child, a massive stockpile of cookies. Glynda could reach them if she pulled a chair out and climbed up to them, or if she was willing to use her gymnastics skills for something so petty.
She checked the refrigerator; a couple cold slices of pizza, some cans of beer in the back (Summer drank?), some cheese and butter and a carton of milk. And for some reason, several broccoli stalks.
"I can microwave some of this broccoli-"
"NOOO!" Ruby said, "Broccoli is the worst!"
Glynda scratched her head. Yeah, she remembered that.
"There's a bag of frozen diced vegetables," Glynda said, "And maybe some bread? Do you like sandwiches? Because I'm pretty confident that my cooking skill is great enough to make a PB&J."
"We don't have jam," Ruby said. She saw Glynda's frown, and backtracked "But I like peanut butter!"
Ruby poked her fingers together and tilted her head down. She looked up with her eyes. "And maybe I could have a cookie for dessert?"
Glynda ruffled Ruby's hair and climbed up on a chair to the cookie stockpile.
There were a lot of them here; clearly Summer wanted to keep some on hand for her daughter. But there was no way Ruby couldn't figure out to get up here if she really wanted to; what was stopping her charge from waiting for an opening and sneaking out her to grab any number of these delectable pastry disks?
"You can have a cookie too if you want," Ruby said.
Glynda scrunched her face, and then plucked two cookies from the stockpile. One of which she stuffed into her mouth in one motion. She'd finished it by the time she climbed back down.
Glynda set the machine to shoot microwaves at a bowl of vegetables while she put some peanut butter on some bread. She poured two glasses of milk (so they could grow up big, Glynda told Ruby.) It wasn't the worst dinner, Glynda decided.
Glynda stuffed the first sandwich into her mouth and started the second one. Ruby only laughed goodnaturedly at Glynda's eating habits; at school, Glynda lamented, she'd usually get made fun of unless she caught herself in time.
Ruby frowned at the sandwich until Glynda cut the crust off, and then she picked it up in both hands and slowly gnawed at it. She occasionally used both her hands to pick up her glass of milk to wash down her bites. After she finished the sandwich and the milk and even the cookie, she completely ignored the bowl of diced vegetables.
Glynda took a moment to swallow a cheekful of the vegetables she'd made for herself before taking matters into her own hands.
"C'mon, Ruby," Glynda said, "You need to eat vegetables to avoid getting horrible malnutrition disorders."
Ruby bit her cheek and turned away.
Glynda picked up Ruby's spoon and shoveled a pile of vegetables cubes on it. "Here comes the choo-choo~" Glynda lilted, lifting the spoon.
Ruby folded her arms.
Glynda made ever more elaborate train noises as she waved the spoon around. Later, at places where she needed to retain dignity, she would recall this moment with horrible, horrible shame.
Ruby reluctantly opened her mouth, eyes closed tight and arms folded even tighter, and ate the spoon of diced vegetables. The train was only five spoonfuls long, and by the final car, Ruby wasn't throwing a fit about them.
It was probably a good thing Glynda didn't mention the vegetables had broccoli in them.
"So when's your bedtime?" Glynda asked at some point during dinner.
"Never," Ruby said.
Glynda's face flattened. "Really."
Ruby closed her eyes and straightened her back. "I'm allowed to stay up forever," she explained, "Because my parents trust me enough to manage my own sleep routine, knowing that I'm responsible if staying up too late negatively impacts my life."
Glynda scrunched her face. Dang, that was better than she got.
"And besides," Ruby whispered, "I can't go to sleep because the bedmonster wants to grab my legs."
Glynda kept a straight face, only barely. "The bedmonster?"
"It's," Ruby pontificated, "like a giant wolf with a skull for a head."
"Like a cubone?"
"No, the skull has glowing red bits. "
"Very well," Glynda stood up, "I will go and slay the bedmonster, restoring your restful nights.
"Noooo!" Ruby grabbed onto Glynda's skirt, "I don't want you to get eaten!"
Glynda ruffled Ruby's hair. "You don't think a high schooler like me can't kill a simple bedmonster?" Glynda pouted theatrically. "That makes me sad."
"But-," Ruby began. Her face was a horrible contortion of worry.
"I'll be right back," Glynda said.
"Glynda noooo!" Ruby reached out in futility.
Glynda went back into Ruby's room and turned on the lights. She waited until she heard Ruby walk right outside the room; Glynda caught the red hoodie in the corner of her eye.
Glynda pulled out her phone and searched for a youtube clip with monster noises, and then she put on a little show; there was wailing and yelling and some references to movies she didn't expect Ruby to get. And she did step on a LEGO brand construction block piece during the performance, so she did sustain some battle damage.
When Glynda returned to the hallway, triumphantly, her hair a little mussed up and her glasses a bit askew and only the slightest hint of a limp, Ruby was wringing her little hands.
"Glynda!" Ruby ran towards her babysitter and wrapped her arms around the older girl's leg. "You're so brave," Ruby said.
Glynda gave an incredulous smirk to the wall. "You bet I am," she stated. It almost didn't feel like a lie. She kneeled down. "So now you can go to bed."
"But I'm not sleepy!"
"Well you have to go to bed sometime," Glynda said. She picked up her charge.
"No I don't! We can play more!" Ruby tried to escape from Glynda's grip.
"I think I'm too tired to play," Glynda gave a theatrical yawn.
"Well, then," Ruby bit her cheek, "We can do something more passive! I have a bunch of cartoons!"
Ruby leaped from Glynda's arms and down the hallway.
Glynda was conflicted; she liked to think she'd be the kind of sitter who insisted on doing the responsible thing and sending Ruby to bed. But then again, what was the expected level of responsibility in this household? Was Ruby really telling the truth about being able to stay up forever?
And, Glynda noted with some chagrin, she usually never got to stay up late watching cartoons. So maybe she just took a liiittle longer walking to the living room than a fully responsible person would have done.
And when she found that Ruby had already turned on the TV and slid in a DVD and set the volume to medium-low so not to wake the sleepy world, Glynda just took the seat Ruby set up for her next to her charge. Ruby stretched back across Glynda's lap once they'd started.
Ruby sang along with the title songs- quietly for the first episode, but louder on subsequent ones until, by the fifth one, she stood up and did the accompanying dance as well. Glynda applauded the performance.
And by the seventh episode, Ruby was nodding off. By the ninth episode, Glynda was as well.
A door creaked open, the sound piercing through Glynda's veil of lethargy.
Glynda blinked. Had she been asleep?
The television was on- on a title screen, though. The current disk had finished its playthrough. Cool menu screen though.
"Hello?" whispered an adult. It was Summer, in her doctor's uniform; labcoat and stethoscope. Her hair was more mused up and her eye bags were more pronounced.
Glynda rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She looked around for a clock- 12:45. Summer was almost an hour late.
Ruby was snuggled up to her side, her face content, drooling a little onto Glynda's side, with a little more cookie crumbs around her mouth than Glynda remembered.
Summer picked up her daughter and lay her over her shoulder. Ruby awoke just enough to grab onto Glynda's shirt, reflexively. Summer gently unfolded Ruby's little hand.
"Hey Ruby," Summer rocked her daughter just a little.
"Mommy mommy," Ruby rubbed her eyes, "Can Glynda babysit again? Can she?" she said sleepily.
Summer scrunched her mouth. "If she wants to." She turned to Glynda, a little worried, a little hopeful. "You want to make this a regular thing?"
Glynda looked to Ruby, and then to Summer, and then thought of the double overtime clause in Ozpin's babysitting contracts, with an extra double for after-midnight sitting. "I'd love to," Glynda said.
"Yay!" Ruby said as excitedly as her dreary voice allowed.
Ruby smiled as she fell asleep.