Bass had been having absolutely no luck trying to find a babysitter for Connor. He'd only had his son for a little over a week and already one thing was becoming abundantly clear, Sebastian Monroe had no idea what he was doing and was in way over his head.
He knew that he needed a babysitter or someone to help him figure out what to do, but so far he'd had absolutely no luck trying to find one.
So when his best friend Miles pointed out that his niece Charlie was looking for a job, Bass took him up on his offer to ask if she'd be interested. After all, it was no secret that she'd had a big hand in raising her brother as a kid.
Bass knew that it was already bad enough to find his best friend's niece attractive and that it was even worse to hire her when he knew that, but he was desperate. After all, he was fairly sure that it wasn't normal for ten year-olds to live in an almost constant state of silence. Connor did occasionally speak up, but only when absolutely necessary.
When Charlie arrived at Bass's place, he was instantly overcome with a sense of relief. So far Connor had spent the entire night just sitting on the couch in absolute silence, doing nothing and looking miserable.
He had channel surfed for a few minutes before he turned the TV back off and continued to sit in a depressed silence. Bass had attempted to talk to him, but mostly had just been ignored.
"Connor, Charlie's here!" Bass called out as he let her inside.
That earned him no response. The only acknowledgement that he received indicating that his son had heard him was Connor turning and looking over at Charlie disinterestedly before looking back away.
As soon as Bass had turned back to Charlie, while supressing a sigh at his son's lack of response, Connor's gaze went back to Charlie and he let a tiny bit of his curiosity show.
"He isn't what I'd call chatty," Bass commented.
At that, Connor rolled his eyes and then got up from his place on the couch to stalk over to a chair on the far side of the room before he went back to pretending that he didn't notice that the other two were there.
"What's in the bag?" Bass questioned, jutting his chin towards the bag that hung loosely on her shoulder.
Charlie's lips cracked into a mildly embarrassed smile as her eyes flicked down to look at her bag instead of having to meet Bass's eyes.
After a second, she seemed to gather her wits again and her smile widened a little as her gaze flickered back up to his.
"Well I remembered that there isn't exactly much for kids to do in your apartment," she admitted with a small chuckle as she set the bag down.
It was true. When she and Danny had been younger they had spent a fair amount of time with Bass and Miles at each of the men's apartments and their games tended to be made up on the spot and out of whatever they could find around them. Charlie had grown very adept at making games that could be played primarily with bottle caps.
At least that was until Miles had bought a GameCube for her and Danny to play on when they were over at his place. Charlie had a sneaking suspicion that Miles had just used that as an excuse for him to get drunk and play video games, but nevertheless Miles had gifted it to them when he eventually decided that it would get more play-time at their place.
Charlie opened her bag to reveal that very same game console, a little beaten up and old, but still perfectly functional.
Bass let out a laugh before commenting, "I remember this thing. Miles and I used to play drunken Mario Kart on it."
"I knew that was why he really bought it," Charlie commented. "Me and Danny haven't used it in years, so I figured that Connor might want it."
"Your guess is as good as mine," Bass told her, letting his exasperation make its way into his tone.
Needless to say, Bass was having a stressful couple of weeks between Emma's death, finding out that he has a son, trying to figure out how the hell to take care of a ten year-old, trying to find someone to help babysit, and falling horribly behind with work stuff. Even though he hadn't seen Emma in years, it still hurt finding out that she was dead. He couldn't imagine what losing her must have done to Connor. This entire situation was a mess for the kid and Bass had no idea what he could do to help. After all, he was a complete stranger to his son. They didn't even share a name and the one person that they had in common was gone forever.
Bass hovered for a few moments longer, feeling awkward and in the way, before he excused himself to go try and get some work done.
Once he was out of the room, Connor hesitantly rose from his chair and walked over to look in the bag that Charlie had brought. He spent a moment flipping through the few games that she had brought, noticing as he did so that there was more than one controller in the bag. He figured that probably meant that she intended to play with him. At least that might be a little less weird than just having her take over Bass's job of either trying to discretely stare at him in silence or completely ignore him.
Finally, after an admittedly long amount of time of looking through the bag, Connor tilted his head up to face Charlie as he pulled the Mario Kart box out and quietly asked, "Want to play?"
A wide smile formed on Charlie's lips as she told him, "I'd love to. Although I'll warn you, I used to be pretty good at this game."
She had been pretty good when versing her younger brother, but what she failed to mention was that the only reason that she had managed to regularly beat Miles was through cheating by blocking his view or trying to kick or elbow him to mess him up. When Rachel was there she would always try and scold Charlie, but Miles would just laugh and praise Charlie on her competitiveness.
Connor remained quiet, not seeming to have anything to say now that she had agreed to play, as Charlie hooked the system up.
After they had played a few races, she managed to get a few smiles out of him as he made his way into first and a few laughs as she complained about getting hit by items.
They were pretty evenly matched and they'd both won a few games when Charlie turned to him and asked, "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"
He shrugged and told her, "A little."
Truth be told he was pretty hungry, but he still felt awkward in this place. It was as if he was just a temporary guest in what was supposed to be his new home.
"You like pizza, right?" She questioned.
"Yeah," he responded.
"Well then I'll make you a deal. We play one more race and whoever wins gets to choose what kind of pizza I order," Charlie told him.
Connor smirked, seeming to like the agreement. He was thrilled at the opportunity to order pizza instead of having to eat any more of the Kraft Dinner that Bass had made every night since he'd been there. Bass didn't even know what the kid like to eat and he figured that all kids loved macaroni and cheese. So, with that logic in mind, he had decided to make it every night since he had no idea what else to make for Connor.
Bass had managed to get some work done and decided to give up for the time being. As he walked through the halls towards the kitchen, he heard noise coming from the living room. Not just game sounds either, voices. So far Connor had only seemed to talk when it was absolutely mandatory and seemed to be fairly miserable, so it was needless to say that it was a surprise for him to hear Connor laughing as Charlie called out in disappointment as he passed the room.
He watched the pair playing from the hallway for a few moments, feeling a mixed swirl of emotions. On the one hand, he was glad to see Connor actually seeming to be enjoying himself and part of the reason that he had Charlie here was to try and figure out how to take care of the kid and cheer him up. But at the same time, he was ashamed to admit to himself that part of him was bothered to see Connor having fun playing games with Charlie when he had just met her an hour ago while the kid could barely seem to tolerate looking at Bass for more than a few seconds at a time.
Bass shook his head to himself as he decided that he needed a drink and turned to head for the kitchen.
Charlie had managed to get back into the lead for most of the last lap, but at the last moment Connor had managed to hit her with a shell and pull in front of her right before the finish line.
"So close," Charlie told herself in a defeated tone before a smile formed on her lips. "So what kind of victory pizza do you want?"
Connor considered for a minute before he told her, "Pepperoni."
"Good choice," Charlie told him. "That's what I was going to choose too if I won… I'll be back."
With that she got up from the couch and left the room, heading for the kitchen.
When she walked into the kitchen, she found Bass leaning against the counter with a freshly opened bottle of beer and a look of defeat. Funny, she's the one who had just lost and yet he seemed to look much more beaten down than she did.
"Are you hungry?" She asked him and he nodded in response. "So is Connor. I was just going to order a pizza. Is pepperoni good?"
"Yeah," Bass responded. There was a short silence before he let out a weak laugh and took a quick chug out of his drink. "How do you do it, Charlie?"
"Do what?" She questioned.
"Connor's been living here for over a week and the most that I can get out of him is the occasional brief answer or nod or shrug," he explained. "You've been here for an hour and he's already warming up to you while I'm still just the unfortunate roommate."
"He also doesn't have to live with me," Charlie pointed out. "I'm temporary. You're the stranger that he's stuck with for good. Things are bound to be a little awkward at first, but come on. He'll get used to you."
"Yeah, I guess," Bass responded in a less than convincing tone before taking a chug of his drink and deciding to change the subject. "So… Pizza."
When the pizza arrived, the three of them ate in the living room while watching TV. After they finished, Charlie and Connor remained on the couch as Bass left the room, taking the garbage with him to clean up.
There was a brief silence before Connor asked, "Want to play again?"
"I don't know if I can handle losing again," Charlie told him with a smile. "Why don't you check if your dad wants to play?"
There was a pause before Connor responded bitterly, "Not likely… He's too busy with all of his adult stuff to even bother paying attention to me… He doesn't want me. He's too mature to deal with having a kid around."
Charlie cracked up a little at that, earning her an annoyed look from Connor.
"Sorry," she told him. "It's just that I've known your dad for a long time and, trust me, mature is not a word that I would use to describe him... Look, he didn't even know about you until after-"
She cut herself off.
"You can say it," he told her. "It's not like my mom's going to come back if you don't say that she's dead."
Charlie shot him a sympathetic look before she told him, "He's trying, but he doesn't really know what he's doing… It's weird for him too."
After a few seconds, Connor decided to go at least try and ask. He figured at the very least he would be able to end this conversation with Charlie before she would start trying to talk to him about his feelings after everything that had happened.
Bass was pleasantly surprised when Connor came into the kitchen and asked if he wanted to play Mario Kart, keeping his hands in his pockets and his facial expression indifferent as he spoke.
Bass knew for sure that Charlie had something to do with the request when he re-entered the living room with his son and she shot them both a wide grin.
When the duo first began to play it was very quiet, but by the time that they had finished a couple of races there was a smile on both of their faces and some of the tension had begun to defuse between them.
Charlie smiled a little to herself thinking that as far as first days on a job went, this had been a pretty good one.
A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys liked the first chapter :) Also this fanfiction is dedicated to sammxhill and asweetdeception for giving me the idea :)