A/N: A quick note to all my readers! I hope you're excited to see something a little different from our usual. To those who may have stumbled across this story, Childcare 101 is set in the Everything Is Illuminated AU in which Jo finds out she was pregnant before they took their little detour to 1947. Everything Is Illuminated is still a work in progress, but these short stories are set in the future. Spoilers should be minimal (baby names and whatnot). This could easily be read as a stand alone.
Childcare 101
Jo was suspicious the moment she stepped into the Sheriff's office. Sure, there were no screams, crashes, explosions or similarly alarming sounds to be heard -
But 'Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog' was playing loudly, several decibels louder than Jo might otherwise prefer, and she recognized all too well the preferred song of her middle child. Something about the situation smacked of trouble.
Also, her children were nowhere to be seen. Now, many years past a time in which this might send Jo into a frothing panic, she merely rounded the corner into the inner office with an air of calm resignation. That was where she found Andy.
"Don't you call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!" He was scolding a nearby computer. (So far as she could tell, it wasn't talking back.) For a moment, Jo stared, but Andy's sensors picked up on her presence, prompting him to turn and face her.
"Hello. I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. And this is my counterpart, R2-D2," he introduced the computer scornfully. Jo goggled at him, momentarily at a loss for words. "Madam? Are you certain you are quite well?" In a small part of her mind, one which had seen Star Wars more times than she cared to admit, Jo was just the tiniest bit impressed how perfectly they'd duplicated the personality of the prickly robot.
The moment passed.
"Claire Donovan, you get your butt into this office, this minute!" Jo roared. A head of black curls appeared from around a door into the back offices, hung low and radiating penitence. Jo crossed her arms over her chest.
"And where are your sisters?" Jo asked, her voice radiating that preternatural calm that heralded a coming storm. The head of curls bobbed back around the corner. The music stopped, and Jo could hear a flurry of whispering. Claire reappeared around the door, the mischievous sparkle in her blue eyes belying her solemnly apologetic expression. The two younger girls stepped out from behind her, hands clasped. They all looked far, far too innocent for the spawn of Zane Donovan. Jo was not fooled.
"Fix him," she said, without preamble, not even turning to look at the robot standing awkwardly behind her.
"What do you mean, Mommy?" Claire said brightly. Jo narrowed her eyes.
"Bring Andy back," she said, struggling to maintain her composure. Not for the first time, she found herself questioning her sanity - not because she bought the act. She had, after all seen Claire's 'charming innocence' act far too many times - from both her daughter and the father of her daughter - and that was the root of the problem. What on earth had she been thinking when she decided to reproduce with the man? Surely she could have seen this coming. Wistfully, she thought of her own childhood - a study in discipline, order, and a hell of a lot more control than this chaos.
"But Mommy, Andy's right there," Claire said, pointing behind her. Jo pinched the bridge of her nose with frustration. She was just opening her mouth to dispute this claim when Andy - C-3PO? - stepped in.
"Madame, if you don't mind, I do have some experience with children – why, my master Ani - " Jo shot him a withering glare. Robots. Why did it have to be robots?
"I can handle my own children, thank you," she told him stiffly, and the robot subsided. She turned a steely-eyed gaze back to her daughter, whose facade of innocence wilted somewhat under her mother's stare, as she sensed the sudden shift in mood. She did not, of course, know her mother's unfortunate history with robots, but she did know what that look meant. Still - Claire locked eyes with her mother with a stubborn tilt of the chin.
"I improved him." She defended herself firmly. Jo raised her eyebrows.
"Oh, really? Does he still know first aid? CPR? How to rescue your sisters from a burning building?" Claire didn't flinch.
"Yes." She said, and crossed her own arms, mirroring her mother's stance eerily. Jo tried not to let her amusement show. The robot jumped in.
"I can also translate any of 3,000 languages for your convenience - "
"Can it, tin man," Jo cut him off smoothly without looking away from her daughter. She gave Claire a meaningful look.
"You still need to put him back just the way he was," she told her, voice gentling slightly. "Your Uncle Carter needs his deputy back." Claire pouted.
"But I wanted Daddy to see him!" Jo raised her eyebrows. If Daddy knew what was good for him, he'd ground you on sight, she thought darkly. But if Jo knew Zane - and she liked to think, after eight years of marriage, that she did - he'd be too busy laughing to breathe, much less ground their nine year old. Of course, she could hardly tell Claire that. Besides which, she was having a hard enough time struggling not to laugh as it was.
"I'm sure Daddy would be very impressed," she said diplomatically, and it was true - after more than ten years in Eureka, Jo knew enough to realize that Claire had finessed some remarkably complicated programming. It didn't make her any less grounded, but it did mean Jo was going to enjoy telling this story in a few hours. It was, after all, a parent's prerogative.
"It was pretty complicated, but once I got in I started working with the language systems - " Claire started telling her conspiratorially, but Jo cut her off.
"Go," she said, glancing back at not-quite-Andy pointedly. Claire gave a start before scrambling over to Andy, and Jo turned her eyes back to her two youngest. Lizzie appeared to have applesauce smeared all over her face and clothes, and - oh, for the love of God, were those Sharpie marks? Jo sighed.
"Come on, you two," she said, resignation in her tone.
Claire had Andy back to his old self in about an hour, which, based on the destruction ranging through the Sheriff's office, did seem to be less time than it had taken to mess with him in the first place. Jo stood in front of Andy with Amy and Lizzie as Claire rebooted him. She had been fortunate - what had, at first glance, seemed to be Sharpie had in fact washed off and Amy would not have war stripes affixed to her face for the next two weeks, though she had snapped a picture for her own amusement when Amy wasn't looking. The extra clothes she had long ago learned to pack with the girls had come through, saving her from getting applesauce smeared all over Lizzie's car seat, though the four year old had been none-too-pleased with her impromptu sponge bath. Really, all that was left now was Claire's repair to C-3PO's - Andy, Jo corrected herself hastily, Andy's circuitry.
Jo watched as Claire tweaked one last thing from behind Andy and stood up.
"That should do it," Claire said, sounding pleased with herself, and Andy shifted in place, blinking and looking around.
"Mrs. Donovan," he said, focusing in on her. "I wasn't expecting you back so soon." Jo bit her lip, trying not to laugh. She couldn't condone what Claire had done, certainly, and one of these days she was going to make Zane have a talk with his eldest about using her powers for good and not evil - but, well, she couldn't help finding it just a little bit funny. "Is everything alright?" Andy inquired.
Jo's eyes widened a fraction. Should she - should she tell him? She scrutinized Andy's blithe, smiling face for a moment. No doubt he would accept it and move on - but then again, Jo remembered an alternate timeline where Andy had decided Eureka was just too much for him. And babysitters... well, for the Donovan family, babysitters were at a premium, and from the events of the day it was obvious enough why.
Jo gave Andy her own blithe smile.
"No, no problems. Crisis averted." She told him smoothly. "Thank you for watching the girls," she added, sincerely.
"Any time!" Andy assured her. "They were perfect angels." Jo practically dragged the girls out of the office, lips twitching. Behind her, just before they passed through the large glass doors that marked the entrance to the Sheriff's office, she heard it:
"Oh, my, three o'clock already? How peculiar!" Oh, God. Jo froze, torn between laughter and horror.
"Mommy?" Amy asked when she stopped walking. Jo bit her lip and glanced back to the office before looking back down at her eternally curious children. Well... no nine year old's programming was perfect, she supposed. Andy was mostly intact, and that was what mattered - wasn't it?
Claire's eyes met her mother's, bright with contained amusement, and Jo caught her breath. Had she - for the love of God, but she was Zane's daughter through and through - Jo raised her eyebrows at her impossible, terrible, brilliant daughter, and tried not to laugh.
"Sorry, sweetie, Mommy got distracted," she murmured to Amy, and raised a hand to push through the swinging glass door and into the sunlight. She could almost feel her eldest daughter's shock, a palpable thing beside her, and Jo let a small smile creep over her face.
The best way to handle the Zane Donovans of this world was, after all, to keep them guessing.
A/N: Well, now. I hope you've all enjoyed this little peek into the future. Seriously, I do want to know that there's interest in these little tidbits - after all, that's what makes them worth writing. I for one had fun writing this one.
ADM