Babysitting Guidelines

Summary: Gildarts has to go back to work and in order to make sure his little princess is well taken care of he has a *few* guidelines.

Disclaimer: I don't own

AN: Thought about doing dating guidelines, but then I realized that he probably wouldn't let her date and then went with my second idea. This is kind of inspired by the first time I babysat- she gave me the most stupidly detailed list on the planet, and I was only watching the kid for three hours.

As much as he might wish, his sole job wasn't to take care of Cana. For the first few months after his precious angel had come into his life he'd been on a pseudo-paternal leave. Putting all of his energy into making sure Cana got settled in and that he knew how to be the father his darling deserved. Unfortunately, the grace period was now officially over.

A dark guild utilizing some pretty nasty magic had been terrorizing a small village on an island called Terasaka. It was a job that no one less than an S-class mage could do, and he was the only S-class wizard Fairy Tail had available. But… this was going to be the first time he was separated from Cana since he brought her home and… well this might be described as 'separation anxiety'.

Master was more than willing to take Cana in for however long the job would end up lasting. Gildarts trusted the old man, he had taken care of Cana for a month and a half before he had come back to Magnolia- but that didn't make him any less nervous. So, to make sure his princess was as well taken care of as possible, he had written up a few little guidelines.

"- bath time is typically seven, but if she's been inside all day then its okay to skip one. No candy of any kind before lunch- she won't eat anything if she has some. Speaking of lunch, I have a meal plan written out on page twenty-six. It's nothing too fancy, just things she will eat, things she won't, and things that if she doesn't eat, she doesn't get dessert."

"Gildarts, do you remember when we had that talk about being too protective?" Master interrupted flatly.

The red-haired man blinked," Of course I do- that's why she has an hour allotted for playground time in her schedule in addition to her indoor playtime- sunny days only of course." He finished frantically, he didn't think Master would put her health at risk by letting her play in the rain, but it never hurt to clarify.

For some reason Master just gave him this totally unimpressed look before nodding," Uh-huh."

The Ace decided to ignore his lack of enthusiasm and continued," Bedtime is at eight and she won't sleep without Roo, so please make sure she has him during the bedtime routine. She likes a bedtime story and I listed all of her favorites on page forty-three." He said, flipping to the appropriate page to show the older man the list.

"Its okay to let her pick out her clothes for the day but she still has trouble tying her shoes. Am I forgetting anything?" The crash mage muttered to himself as he looked over the manual.

"Oh yes, one more thing!" He said brightly, pulling out four small communication lacrimas. "I have the matching pairs to each of these- if anything happens or if she misses me too much you can reach me on any of them, any time day or night. I mean… I'd like it if we could talk at least twice a day, but that might be a little tricky with the time change issues."

"Gildarts, why did you get four?" The older man asked incredulously, making the red-haired man flush slightly.

"There's no shame in being thorough." He said shortly.

"Oh, you have certainly been thorough." Makarov muttered under his breath.

"So that- that should be everything," Gildarts said in a tone that was definitely higher pitched than was normal. "You know what? Maybe we should go over this one more- "

"Gildarts go kiss your daughter goodbye and get going- the sooner you leave the sooner you'll be back." The guildmaster said roughly- beyond done with this crap. He'd be sure to have another talk with him about being too smothering once he got back.

As endearing as it was to see him be so attentive to his daughter, there was a point at which it became too much and Gildarts passed that point a long time ago.

Maybe it made him a terrible babysitter, but if Cana and Laxus stayed up late, ate ice cream before dinner one night, and splashed around in the mud then that was just him making sure she got some normal childhood experiences that she might otherwise have been deprived of.

AN: I actually have a second part that I'm drafting that might get posted- an alternate ending where Cana sneaks onto the job with Gildarts and everyone is left wondering why he has a kid with him and he just excuses it with 'haven't you ever heard of bring your child to work day'? I had a lot of fun coming up with overprotective Gildarts rules- like how paranoid he would get over every little thing in his precious baby's life.

And if anyone's wondering the manual has a hundred and fifty pages total.