A/N: Set in the I've Been Dreaming of a Future universe, and based off the prompt below that I got on tumblr. Please enjoy! :)
Prompt: Prompt, should you be brave enough to accept it: When they beg her (because all other options are out) Tasha agrees to watch the Brenton bunch for Jane and O, but ends up calling Allie for help. Chaos ensues. I COULDN'T RESIST OK. 😆
"Are you sure you can do this?" Allie asks again over the phone.
It is the tenth time she's asked in half as many minutes—Tasha's been keeping track—and the more she asks, the more stubborn Tasha gets. She is currently on her way across town, heading to Jane's apartment where she'll be the sole babysitting for Jane's kids over the long weekend while she and Oscar leave the city to celebrate their anniversary upstate.
"They have three children, Tasha. Three. Do you really think you can take care of three children for three days?"
"I can do anything, Allie, you should know that by now," Tasha replies confidently. Despite Allie's reservations, she is feeling good about this babysitting opportunity. Really good. Even though she basically raised two of her younger brothers (and did a rather okay job at it, all things considered), babysitting has never exactly been her thing. But she has an incurable soft spot for Jane, and Jane's husband, and their kids, and so when they called up and asked, desperate for someone to look after their little family so they could have a few days alone… How could she say no?
Tasha pauses on a street corner, waves to one car that lets her pass, and then flips off the taxi that nearly runs her over with a quick burst of her favorite Spanish and English obscenities. Her tone is normal again, casual, when she returns to her conversation with Allie:
"What is with this Doubting Thomas routine you've got going on anyway?" she asks, finally making it safely to the other side of the road. "Jane and Oscar asked me, that means they trust me. That should be good enough for you." Knowing where the doubt likely stems from—she and Allie have a history of being competitive in everything from drinking shots to entrance exams at the police academy—Tasha can't help but resist, adding with a grin, "Besides, it isn't like they asked you, Allie."
There's a pause on the line. With anyone else, Tasha would be gloating over her glory. But it isn't like Allie to pause. It isn't like her to not rise to an insult. Tasha stops walking as she realizes.
"Oh my God!" she cries, actually stamping her foot on the ground in anger. "They did! They called you before they called me! What the fuck? Those assholes—"
"They were backed into a corner! They were asking everyone, you know they've had this trip planned since—"
"And they asked me last?!" Tasha is screaming now, and people are starting to stare, but she can't be compelled to care for even a second. The only people that stare at screaming women on the street in New York City are tourists, and she doesn't give a shit about tourists or what they think of her. She doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks of her, except the couple she's currently on her way to babysit for. "What the hell is wrong with them? I can't believe they asked you before me!"
"Oh, Tasha, come on." Allison's rolling eyes practically make an audible noise of disbelief through the phone line. "You're not a bastion of maturity, let's be real here. Don't act like you aren't surprised that you're their dead last pick."
"I may be dead last, but I should at least be above you! I'm better friends with them! Oscar and Jane love me!"
"That may be, but I'm the one that's actually an adult, Tasha."
"Why'd you say no, then?" Tasha demands, stomping her feet a bit harder than necessary on the pavement as she gets going again. She'll be late now, if she doesn't hurry. "If you're such an adult, Allie, why didn't you help them out after Patterson and Ed bailed?"
"Well, because…" Allison hesitates on the other side of the line, and Tasha stops stomping so loudly as she can hear. She waits at a crosswalk as a few cars go speeding past, and turns up the volume on her phone so she doesn't miss anything.
"What?" Tasha presses finally when Allison still doesn't answer. "Why didn't you say you could take care of them? You already said you aren't doing anything this weekend—"
"Just because I'm not doing anything doesn't mean I'm willing to spend my time babysitting!"
"What, so now you hate kids? Since when? You've been in love with Sawyer since the moment you met him—"
"Jane's kids aren't Sawyer," Allison interrupts.
Tasha frowns, feeling secondarily insulted by that. She loves Jane's kids. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demands, harsher than probably necessary.
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that," Allie sighs. "I just… Look, Sawyer's a kid I know. He's a kid I know how to take care of, and know how to act around."
"And Jane's kids aren't? C'mon, you were there when they were born!"
"Yes, exactly!" Allison replies. "I was there, and—Jesus, I can't imagine watching Anthony for an afternoon let alone a whole weekend. What if he got hurt somehow while I was supposed to be watching him? How would I tell them that? What if something happened with his lungs, or his heart? Can you imagine having to tell Jane and Oscar that you let their son get hurt? Even if he ended up okay, I think they might still kill me just to prove a point. And the twins! God, the twins scare me. They're so little and tiny and there's two of them and—I don't know infant CPR, Tash! I don't know any of the protocol with babies that small; Sawyer was already five when I met him! What if they choke on something, or they stop breathing or they hit their heads—I can't even tell them apart, either! They look exactly the same to me, and trust me, I've tried! What if I have to take them to a hospital and I don't even know who is who? How do I explain—"
Tasha can't contain a snort of laughter. While she had understood the first few worries on Allie's list—Ant's premature birth still hung a bit heavy on all of them at times, even six years after the fact—the last few are just ridiculous. Tasha can't help but laugh.
"You can't tell them apart? Are you serious? That's what you're scared of?"
"Shut up, Natasha," Allison snaps. "It's a normal fear. What if I mix them up and then they're mixed up for the rest of their lives, going by the others' name? I don't want to be responsible for that!"
"It's a stupid fear. And besides," Tasha replies with a laugh, "I think Jane and Oscar can tell their own children apart, Allison."
"Yeah, well, I hope you can too," Allison shoots back sourly. "Because I'm not racing over to help you out after you mess up."
"I'm not going to mess up," Tasha replies, her confidence back. She can see the front of Jane and Oscar's apartment now, and she smiles at the sight of this. She can do this. She doesn't have Allie's stupid hang-ups, or anyone else's problems. She may have been picked last, but she has the best experience. Plus, Jane's kids are almost always well-behaved. She can definitely do this.
"See you on Tuesday," she tells Allison smugly, and then hangs up.
"So we'll be three hours away, okay?" Jane reminds Tasha for about the fifteenth time, and she hurries around the kitchen cleaning up the remains of the family's dinner. Since the moment Tasha stepped into their apartment five minutes ago, this has been the only piece of information she's been given. "Just three hours. So if something happens—just call us, okay, Tash? We'll only be three hours away. We can get back in—"
There's a thump from a room down the hall—likely a suitcase being moved around—and then there's Oscar calling out, "Wait, how many hours away will we be again, Jane?"
"Thr—" She starts to answer automatically before she realizes he's mocking her. "Shut up!" she yells back.
A door opens down the hall, and his head appears a moment later, smiling as he pulls a suitcase out into the hallway. With a free hand, he waves at their babysitter-to-be.
"Hi, Tasha."
She grins back. "Hey."
She has always liked Jane's husband. Even when he'd been locked up at the FBI, potentially awaiting charges of treason, she'd liked him. She'd had a sixth sense for him then, a gut instinct than he was more than, and different from, all the other strangers in chains that they brought in and out of the Bureau's interrogation rooms. It hadn't taken him long to prove himself, and in a matter of months, he'd been released. The others had had their lingering doubts for a while afterwards, but Tasha had always trusted in Jane's judgment—if she vouched for him, Tasha could believe it. Plus, there was no proof quite like the way he somehow managed to make her smile, even after days in interrogation. He made her the happiest Tasha had ever seen her within the walls of the FBI, chains and all.
"So are you sure you guys are going to be three hours away? Are you really sure?" Tasha teases, to which Jane rolls her eyes and moves deeper into the kitchen, cleaning up the remnants from the kids' dinner.
"I'm sure, Tasha," she replies dully. She hates when the two of them gang up on her, and it always bleeds into her tone. "Three hours."
"Good." Tasha watches her friend as she throws a few leftover bits of food into the trash, a less-than-angelic smile brightening her mischevious face. "Because, you know, I just wanted to be certain that you guys were really leaving the city this time, actually getting out of the house. Because if you recall the last time you asked me to watch your offspring, I opened a door in your home and stumbled upon you two butt-naked, going at it like—"
"Tasha!" The lid of the trash shuts with a fierce clang as Jane whirls around, pale cheeks brightening for a moment with patches of embarrassed pink. "That was four years ago! How many times do I have to tell you we're never speaking of that again for you to get the message and shut up?!"
"Oh, just as soon as I get that image out of my head, Doe," Tasha replies, an easy smile on her face. She loves pissed-off Jane. "So, you know—maybe another two, three years? Or I don't know, maybe it'll never go away. It's certainly seared in there. I see it whenever I close my eyes, you know."
Jane turns back to the kitchen, muttering something low and fierce that sounds suspiciously like Fuck you.
Tasha grins, glancing over at Oscar, who mouths, You're just jealous it wasn't you.
She rolls her eyes. Please.
Tasha helps Jane with the kitchen until it's relatively spotless, and then waits there as Jane and Oscar say goodnight and goodbye to their kids. When they come back into the front room, there's a soft look about them, and Tasha rolls her lips together so she won't grin. She knows that look; she knows what it leads to.
When Jane starts reminding her about the three-hour distance again, Tasha literally shoves her towards the door.
"I've got this. Go on, go, have a lot of sex."
"Tasha!"
"What?" The agent doesn't bother to look even the smallest bit chagrined. "It's your anniversary and you won't have any kids around. Come on, don't tell me you'll be doing anything else. And hey," she calls as Jane stalks out into the hall in silent protest, "who knows? Maybe you'll make a fourth!"
Jane turns around to glare at Tasha, snapping Shut up to the suggestion, but Oscar only grins. "That's the plan, wish us luck!"
"I hope all the condoms break," Tasha replies cheerfully.
Jane grabs onto the doorknob once her husband's out into the hall, shifting her baleful glance from one to the other.
"I hate both of you," she mutters unhappily, "and I hate that you're friends," and then she pulls the door shut, a little harder than necessary. Tasha can hear Oscar laughing from the other side, Jane ordering him to cut it out, and she smiles as they leave.
The first night goes well. Anthony goes to sleep on time—passing out after just one and a half bedtime stories—and the twins only wake each other up once in the night, and then go down rather quickly again so that by the time Tasha wakes again—even if it is a few hours earlier than usual on a Saturday—she doesn't think it's so bad. She can do this. She's made for this. She basically raised two of her brothers, didn't she? And she'd been twelve at the time. This is just three little kids, and all she has to do is look after them until Monday night when their parents get back. She can do this. She thinks it now with a smile, even says it aloud.
Her hopes and her confidence are both dashed by breakfast. Trying to feed the twins and Ant at the same time was perhaps a rookie mistake—yes, she can admit that—but she figured if Jane and Oscar can do it every day and still get to work on time, she can manage for a weekend.
As it turns out, she can hardly manage for two minutes. She remembers Allison's fear of not knowing what to do if the twins should choke on their food, and she thinks it's a baseless fear—the twins won't even eat anything in the first place. And Ant is hardly any better. When Tasha stares him down, he eats a couple bites, but the second she turns her back to focus on the twins again, he returns to playing with his food instead of eating it. She tries plying him with the Don't you want to be as big and strong as your dad line, but he just looks at her blankly. Apparently Jane and Oscar haven't yet gotten around to enforcing conventional gender roles, and in her mind, Tasha curses them out for it. When she isn't looking, Ant dumps his breakfast in the trash and demands "cheesey pasta" instead. The twins follow his lead, but instead of aiming for the trash, all they manage to do is dump their soupy baby food on the floor, making it look like one or both of them projectile-vomited across the kitchen.
Things only get worse from there.
Tasha has the brilliant idea (well, it seemed brilliant after that disaster of a breakfast) of taking the kids to the park. For some reason, she thought being in public might aid her in her babysitting quest, might force some manners into the three, but it only had the opposite effect. The twins get into a screaming match the second they're put into the double stroller, and Ant wanders away any time Tasha lets go of his hand for even a second. Despite being an active agent for the FBI—she's in foot chases nearly twice a week–Tasha finds she actually has trouble physically keeping up with them all. She had wondered, on and off over the last few years, how Jane had kept her slim figure after each pregnancy, and now she knows: one morning out in the park, and she's already more winded than she is on most days at work.
But when Allie calls later that night, ostensibly to check on her but really, Tasha knows, to gauge her suffering, Tasha lies right through her teeth and tells her things are going fine. After struggling through two more meals that were more like foodfights, she's ready to collapse. She gets parent time now, she thinks. It's 9 PM and she just wants to roll over and die. But when Allie calls, she sits straight up, forcing every yawn away, and replies as casually as she can, "Oh, it's going great."
"Great?" Allie's doubt is so thick it's like it's a new layer in the air.
"I mean, great as can be expected," Tasha adds, relying on her old guard insult. "You know their kids are monsters."
Allie laughs at that because, as far as the rest of the world is concerned—as far as Tasha was concerned twenty-four hours ago—Jane and Oscar's kids are virtual angels. She spends a few more minutes gossiping with Allie (Tasha did, of course, find time during her exhausting day to snoop around the more private parts of Jane's home), and then when she deems it appropriate, she ends the call. She barely has time to close her eyes before she's dead asleep.
She goes through the same routine with Jane and Oscar when they call Sunday morning to check in. Tasha's actually rather surprised they made it this long without checking in with her. She wonders if Oscar had to hide their phones to keep Jane from calling every hour since they left the apartment. She wouldn't be surprised if they'd struck some bet about it, and she tries to play up to it after she answers the phone: Isn't Sunday supposed to be the day of rest? Shouldn't you two be in bed? Of course, they're not so easily distracted. When backed into a corner, Tasha gives the same reply she gave Allison: that the kids are great, they're being great, and everything's… great!
There's silence on the line for a good five seconds before Tasha hears Oscar break out laughing in the background.
"'Great'," Jane repeats dryly. "Uh-huh, sure. Just call us when you're sick of lying and need some help, okay, Tash? We're just three hours away, remember."
Tasha casually pushes off the offer, while internally battling between screaming Come save me and Back off, I can do this. She hangs up before she can make an even bigger fool of herself. She goes into breakfast number two, and day number two, with a firm attitude that she will do better. She knows now that she managed the first night only because Jane and Oscar did everything for her before they left: tired the kids out, fed them dinner; hell, Jane probably even read to Anthony for an hour before Tasha stepped in with the last little bit.
"Today will be better," she says, coaching herself aloud as she changes the twins' diapers and dresses them in day clothes.
But by that night, she isn't hoping for better, she's only hoping for "survivable." And even that might be a stretch. By Sunday evening, things have quite literally gone to shit, and despite tomorrow being Monday, Tasha can't see an end in sight. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. No choir of angels. There's just shit.
It's her own fault, really. She was exhausted after another day of trying to exhaust those in her care, so tired that she, somehow, forgot to check the twins' diapers before she put them to bed. She just dumped them in their crib—God, her arms were so tired. Bench-pressing was nothing compared to lugging around infants all day—and then she turned off the light. She hardly even remembered to wish them goodnight before she went into Jane and Oscar's room to collapse.
Hours later, just after one AM, she wakes to the indignant screams of two very unhappy feces-covered babies. She spends the next three hours washing them each (and nearly flooding the bathroom in the process), washing their bed linens, and then trying to rock them both back to sleep. She tries everything—cooing and threats and singing and silence—but nothing seems to work. She even tries a few old Spanish lullabies she remembers her mother singing her, in those rare sober moments of hers, but they only make the twins yell louder. Apparently Tasha's voice is not the one they want to hear—not in English, and not in Spanish. By four AM, she's resigned herself to chopping off her hair at chin-length and drawing fake tattoos over her body with magic marker on the slim chance that perhaps Jacob and Matthew will mistake her for their mother and quiet down.
Sometime around four-thirty, her mind moves forward a little bit, and she realizes it isn't a visual that she needs—not like she'd ever be able to pull that off—but simply the illusion of a presence. The twins are so young, so new to the world, they hardly know how to respond to all the stimuli around them. But they, like all newborns, do latch onto very particular stimuli…
Tasha breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes, for the first time in days, as the twins finally stop crying and lie still. She has wrapped them each in various pieces of clothing from their parents—a few shirts of Jane's, a sweatshirt of Oscar's, a towel from their bathroom—and it seems to have done the trick. She's so tired once they go down that she doesn't even bother getting up to move them back to their own bed. She just lies down beside them, closes her eyes, and sends up a silent prayer of thanks for the respite. Perhaps there is a God after all.
The prayer has hardly passed from her mind to the great Above when the door opens and a little voice calls, "Mama?"
Tasha is awake at once, a smile somehow managing its way up onto her face as she spots Anthony poking his little head around the doorframe of his parents' bedroom.
"Hey, Ant," she calls softly, waving him in. "Your mama's away, remember, bud? She and your papa will be—"
"I want my mama."
"Okay, honey, I know, but she's not here right now. We can call her first thing tomorrow, though, I promise. Over breakfast," Tasha adds, already thinking ahead, hoping Jane's voice might incite the boy to eat more regularly. "We'll call—"
"I need my mama."
There's something scared in the little boy's voice that makes Tasha's entire body, exhausted as it is, seize up. She pushes herself up off the bed at once, and makes her way quickly over to the door. Anthony still hasn't stepped into the room. She crouches down in front of him, and gently pries the door out of his grasp so she can see him fully. No injuries, that's good. He doesn't look flushed. She checks his legs—he doesn't look like he's wet the bed, either.
She touches his cheek gently, inching closer. "Ant, hon, what's going—"
She doesn't even finish the sentence before the boy opens his mouth and vomits all over her.
By the time Allison gets there, it's after dawn, and the twins are up again, screaming for God knows what reason, and Ant is refusing to take a bath to wash up until his mother comes home.
Allie just sighs, hands on her hips, and watches all the chaos from the hallway for a moment. In the end, she can't help but pile on before helping out:
"And you were bragging that you got the babysitting gig."
"So," Jane says to Tasha the next night, once all the proper hugs and kisses have been distributed to her children (Ant is still hanging on her leg, though of course he doesn't throw up on her), "How'd it go, Tash?"
"Oh, peachy," Tasha replies easily, all the misery suddenly out of her now that Jane and Oscar are home and able to care for their own children from now until forever.
"Peachy?" Jane repeats suspiciously, as Oscar laughs from the front door, through which he is carrying their suitcases.
"Great! So does that mean you'll watch them next year, too?" he taunts with a grin. "I'd love to keep you on retainer."
Tasha glares at him, pointing a dangerous finger in his direction. "Don't even joke."
"Oh, come on," Jane calls, bending down to hoist Ant up and cradle him to her chest. He immediately burrows his face in the crook of her neck, whispering her name. "It couldn't have been that bad."
"It was bad," Tasha replies flatly. Despite multiple showers and multiple runs of laundry, she swears she can still feel Jane's eldest's throw-up on her face and neck and chest. Thinking about it makes her gag a little. "But we all survived," she says finally, pushing all the horror away. "And I suppose that's all that matters." She catches Oscar's eye as he laughs again and comes to stand by his wife's side. He leans over to kiss the top of his son's head, and then he wraps an arm around his wife's waist. Tasha catches a glimpse of his wedding band, and remembers why they'd left the apartment in the first place, why she's here, and what she'd teased them about as they'd headed out.
"But dear God," Tasha breathes, "if you two made a fourth, don't ever expect me to babysit again."
"Oh, what's this now?" Oscar's smile widens. "Since when do you give up this easily? C'mon, Zapata, surely you can take another round?"
Tasha shakes her head, hiking her bag on her shoulder as she walks past them towards the door. "You win, Brenton. Enjoy the madness of your own making."
"I will!" he shouts after her as she reaches the front room. She shuts their front door to the sound of Jane laughing along.
A/N: Thank you for reading, and please let me know if you've got any thoughts! :)
PS - I swear the Brenton kids aren't this bad usually. I just wanted to torture Tasha. I'm awful. x)