Disclaimer: I don't own. Obviously.

Thanks: A lot of thanks to Khay and Bria for all the help and the listening to me and basically writing half of this (and in case of Bria even watching me do so). Another thanks goes to Cassandra for organizing this and all the other events. It always was fun and nice to see the achieve (and tags) full of new things bade. And thanks to Thea for the amazing cover :)

AN: This is my fic for the last bade prompt challenge and the longest one-shot I've written so far, so I hope you like it.

Prompts: The prompts were (S)he didn't tell you, did (s)he and for hire

If Beck Oliver was told years ago that he would one day risk being puked and peed at on a daily basis just so that he would have a chance to go to auditions, he would probably have shook his head in amusement and went on with his day.

Now he was older and wiser, though his parents would probably contest the later part, and he knew that the life of a struggling actor could be hard. Especially the life of a struggling actor without any other job.

That was why he was now standing in front of an impressive mansion to apply for a job as a child care provider, so basically as a nanny for a four-year-old and a baby. Beck had the feeling that it was a good thing that his old high school friends couldn't see him now.

In the house he was met in the foyer by a serious looking man in a business suit who scrutinized him critically before shaking his hand and introducing himself as Leroy West.

"You don't look like the other candidates", was the next statement out of the man's mouth.

Beck was just about to launch into his "I'm willing to do anything"-speech when it was followed by:

"Here's her address, if you're still there at the end of the month I'll send you a paycheck."

Bewildered Beck took the offered card and with one last nod from Mr. West he was dismissed.

This treatment made him question even more why he even considered taking the job, it was only babysitting after all, but then he remembered the sum the paycheck would be.

That was something Mr. West had made no secret of in his announcement, unlike everything else.

The house he ended up in front of next was a lot more modest than the one he just came from, but still he took one last deep breath and told himself all the reasons this was a good idea again, he rang the doorbell.

The door was opened for him by an eccentric looking man with no shoes who was holding a coconut.

He was about to introduce himself when the balding man turned around and shouted: "There is a good-looking man at the door!"

The shout seemed to have disturbed a baby because the next thing he heard was a loud wailing noise.

Then a woman holding said baby came into sight, and he nearly forgot to breathe for a moment.

She looked incredibly annoyed but also more beautiful than anyone Beck had ever seen before. Dark hair framed a pale face, that was the home to one of the most fascinating pairs of eyes he had ever seen and her black dress showed off her well-built body.

"How many times have I told you not to shout while he's asleep, Sikowitz?", she hissed at the man before starting to coo at the baby to calm it down, with little success.

When she saw that, she turned to Beck.

"Whatever you're selling, we're not buying it!"

Beck was about to explain himself, but he thought maybe he had a better chance if he'd just proved his worth. So he just nodded towards the baby and asked: "May I?"

She shot him a look that clearly said: "Really, you think I'm just going to hand my baby to a stranger?" but then the wailing got louder again and with an exasperated sigh she pushed the baby, that had her clear blue eyes but a tanner skin, into his arms.

"He likes to puke on strangers, so your choice." was her last advice before she turned to go back into the house.

Unsure, Beck followed her, while simultaneously trying to remember everything his cousin had ever told him about babies and babysitting. He nearly started singing to the baby to calm it, when fortunately for everyone involved, it quieted down and started playing with his hair.

The man, Sikowitz, he guessed, was staring at him in amazement. He was about to say something when the woman came back, a phone in her hand.

"So you're one of my father's recruits?", she stated more than questioned.

"Well, I guess you could say that, I mean he hired me.", he stuttered.

"Whatever! You got Ben to calm down, so you can stay I guess. Sikowitz show him everything! I'm going back to my writing.", was her comment.

And with that he was left alone in the hall with a baby, apparently called Ben, in his arms and a man who was wearing checkered yoga pants to a striped t-shirt to show him around.

Sikowitz proved to be a good guide though, after Beck had promised to stay away from his coconuts, whose milk, he conspiratorially whispered to him, gave him visions.

He told him that a lot of nannies before had been fired by the woman, whose name was Jade as he learned, or quit because she was difficult to work with. Not to mention the whole Ben liking to puke on people he didn't like and the daughter, Charlotte or Charlie, who apparently was a prankster.

Jade worked as a script-writer and after the father of her children, some guy named Ryder had left her, her parents were trying to make sure that she was provided for, hence his hire.

Jade liked to be independent though and so she had used her savings to buy this house, and Sikowitz, the old family butler, before he started to like coconuts, had come with her.

He just wanted to ask why she had allowed him to stay then, he was hired by her father after all, when he noticed she had returned. Only to tell him the rules though, it seemed.

"Okay, so I only let you stay because you will quit anyway, and while you're here you can at least keep the baby quiet. So here are the rules: No drugs, no alcohol and no women in my house, whatever you do, do it in your free time, aka when the kids are not here or asleep, and on the weekends. And Sikowitz does not count as a substitute. Clear?"

"Crystal!"

"Okay. I want coffee!"

Normally, Beck really wasn't one to just follow people's orders, but he thought that on his first day of a job, where the whole world just seemed to wait for him to quit, he could bring someone a cup of coffee, especially if it was to prove them wrong.

So he laid the now sleeping baby back in its crib and went to search for his other charge.

He found her in a her room, that looked nothing like he had imagined, because while he was aware that not all little girls loved pink, he had never seen a room's walls covered with paintings of scissors before. She was in the middle of the room, occupied by a puzzle, but looked up when he walked in.

"Hey, I'm Beck, the new nanny", he introduced himself, cringing at the word nanny inside.

"I'm Charlie, you don't look like a nanny", was her retort.

He gave her an amused "Thanks!", and then went on: "Do you want to help me make your mom some coffee or do you want to stay here and play with your puzzle?"

"You would let me help you make coffee?", somehow she seemed really excited by that prospect.

"Sure! So you want to help?"

"Of course!"

So he found himself in the kitchen with a four-year-old, who looked exactly like her mother, just with lighter hair and brown eyes, trying to make coffee for her mother.

It all felt very mother's day like to him. Not that he ever imagined himself doing stuff like that in the future.

"So do you know how your mom likes her coffee?", he asked after he had learned a lot about the four-year-old's love for puzzles and for making her own, mostly by cutting things up, he gathered.

Looking through the cabinets for the coffee mugs he missed the manic glint that sprung into the little girl's eyes at his question.

"Mommy loves her coffee all sweet and with a lot of milk", she informed him.

Five minutes later he was on his way with two mugs of coffee and a four-year-old on his tail in hopes of getting to know his new employer a bit better.

She was sitting at a desk, poring over a laptop, but looked up when they walked in.

"Made you coffee!", he announced with a nod to the mugs and handed one over to her.

Smiling at him she took the offered mug and one absentminded sip out of it, which she nearly seemed to spit all over her laptop.

"What is this chizz? Are you trying to poison me?"

Fortunately for him Beck had always been able to react fast.

"Oh, sorry! I must have given you mine." With that he offered her his way less watered down version in exchange for hers.

She seemed to accept that and took another sip, more cautiously this time, as soon as she had the new one in her hands. This time she smiled and commented: "Better. Did Charlotte tell you that I like it black with two sugars?"

He took his time to smile at Charlie, who was staring at him anxiously.

"She did. She even helped me make it.", he complimented.

"That's nice of her. Thank you Charlie", she smiled at her daughter, "though I'm not sure if we can trust that new nanny of yours, with such a bad taste in coffee." Winking at him, she went back to her laptop.

The day went on with minimal difficulties, there was just one diaper incident he'd rather forget about and Charlie had tried to make him believe that her kindergarten started at 11 am.

He got her out of that one by suggesting that if she would be home so much, she could always help Sikowitz clean, or him with the grocery shopping.

Maybe they'd even have time to start the great bedroom cleaning spree, starting with her room of course. After that it hadn't been brought up again.

In the evening he had went to his RV to get most of his stuff, because it had been decided that it would be easier for him to stay in the guest room, and also cheaper, because as much as he loved his RV he had to pay his parents for the electricity and the water he needed for it.

The next day he dropped Charlie off at the kindergarten, at the right time of course, and then decided he might as well take Ben with him on his trip to the grocery store.

Afterwards he wasn't quite sure if that had been a good idea. Not because Ben had made any problems, no he had slept through most of the trip, but because a lot of women cooed at either him or the baby, or both.

He also got a lot of numbers that day, apparently he looked like a single dad who desperately needed a pick-me-up.

This was also the day he started to question his sense of style. Maybe his mother had been right when she told him he looked like a hobo wearing all that plaid.

He got the final proof that it hadn't been a good idea, when his mother called him to ask why he hadn't told her about her grandson. Someone from the tabloids seemed to have recognized him from one of his more famous projects and thought that a picture of him with a baby in a grocery store would give a great story.

While is mother was easily placated Jade didn't seem so pleased. She accused him of using her baby to score woman and to increase his fame. Fortunately he had learned to calm her down by making her coffee, a feat none of the other nannies before him seemed to have learned.

After that, things quickly fell into a routine.

Jade would spend a lot of time working on her script so he was looking after the kids and tried to stop Sikowitz from destroying the house (coconut-milk did weird things to that man).

In the evening he would either talk to Sikowitz and listen to his stories, or spent his time with Jade, which mostly was listening to her rant about things that annoyed her and watching a horror movie called the scissoring.

Sometimes one of Jade's friends, a petite red-head, would come over and tell him stories about her brother and a Mr. Purple, while they watched the kids and made sure that Jade left her office every once in a while. This was mostly achieved with coffee.

He even had time to audition for a few things, because after Jade had made him act out one of her favorite scenes from the movie, she had decided that he was decent enough to allow him to go further his career in acting. So she tried to give him off whenever he had an audition.

This all would change with a call, a few month into his employment at the West household.

It wasn't a suspicious call, it was just one of Jade's friends, though he had never heard Jade call her anything like that, asking him if he was okay with also working this Saturday evening, because she wanted to take Jade out for a girls night out. Since he had nothing better to do and thought that Jade could use a break, he agreed.

What he didn't expect was opening the door to a very drunk Jade early on Sunday morning.

After he opened the door for her, somehow she had had enough sense to text him and not ring the door bell, she nearly threw herself into his arms. He was preoccupied with trying to move her to her bedroom when she decided that she needed to tell him something.

"Beck, Beck, Beck!", she hissed.

"What?", he asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"I like your hair!", she giggled, "it's so fluffy and it looks so soft, like a llama."

"Thanks!", he said drily. By now he had gotten her to her bedroom and was trying to make her sit down on her bed.

"Beck?", she piped up again when he had finally gotten her shoes off and gotten her to lay in bed, "Don't leave me!" Looking up at him with big puppy dog eyes, she held tried to stop him from getting up by holding onto his arms.

Rolling his eyes, he got into bed next to her, vowing that he would leave as soon as she was asleep.

Jade snuggled deeper into her blanket, rolling over so that she was lying closer to him and he could swear that he heard her mumble: "Seriously, don't leave."

He was woken up the next day by Ben's screaming. Carefully, as to not wake the probably very hung over person next to him, he got out of the bed, to pick up the crying baby.

After he had calmed Ben down and made Charlie, Sikowitz and himself some breakfast, he prepared the coffee and painkiller for Jade, who had just gotten up and looked even less like a morning person than the other days.

Beck was sure it didn't have to do anything yesterday, that she still looked beautiful to him.

They decided to spent the day in the park, because the children could use the entertainment and Jade could use the fresh air.

Sitting on a park bench in the sun, watching Charlie (and Sikowitz) play around, having Jade sitting next to him with a sleeping Ben in her arms, he wondered how his life had come to this.

He was just thinking that some day, he wanted this for himself without it being his job, when he realized that he didn't want his own children and his own wife, he wanted Jade and her kids. Hopefully her behavior from last night meant that she wanted the same.

Charlie would be thrilled with the development, he was sure about that. Her matchmaking tries weren't exactly subtle and he had lost count on how many times he had saved "Princess Jade" as a bedtime story.

In a now-or-never kind of decision he leaned over to kiss her, hoping that his deduction had been right.

After a few moments she kissed back much to his delight and he was just about to blissfully forget about everything around them when she pulled back rather abruptly.

"You work for my Dad!", was what she told him, quite panicked as soon as he looked at her questioningly.

"Yeah, about that, I was thinking I'm going to quit.", he tried to reassure her.

"You're going to leave us?", she sounded even more panicked now, and he didn't think he'd ever seen her eyes so wide.

"No! That's not what I meant.", he answered at once, " I just thought it would be fairer to you and the kids if I quit and - she didn't tell you, did she?"

"Who didn't tell me what?", she demanded.

"Your friend Tori, she got me an audition for this new play, "The wishing Well", and I got the main lead."

To his surprise Jade started laughing at that.

"What's so funny?", he wanted to know, because seriously he had seen her laugh like that maybe once before and then it hadn't been good for anybody but her.

"She didn't tell you, did she? That's the script I wrote, I'm going to produce it too."

Her answer prompted him to smile too.

"See, I can't leave now!"

And with that he leaned over to kiss her again, until they were interrupted by a rather loud "Finally!" and a "Good Gandhi, do you see what I see?" respectively.

Just little Ben was still fast asleep.

Reviews would be greatly appreciated :)