A/N: Nope, don't own YW or the Gary Allen song 'Tough Little Boys'.If anyone wants, I can use Audrey in a different, much longer story…

Chapter Three

Talk/Tough Little Boys

Audrey Rodriguez heaved a sigh and reluctantly plopped down onto her hammock in the front porch, her brown eyes sparking with annoyance. Why did her dad insist on giving her these wholly pointless talks? She was thirteen now, she was a big girl… why the constant talks? Besides the fact that they usually made her cry as she learned about her father and mothers' pasts, she didn't see any point, especially now that she had told her father she hated him for grounding her for a whole two months. Her mother had merely looked at her sadly and watched as she stomped out onto the brick porch and slammed the door behind her.

Running her fingers through her shoulder-length auburn hair in a way that attracted the attention of most of the other boys in her junior high class, she sighed and buried her face in her hands.

The California sun beat down nice and hard, literally boiling the tarmac as Audrey, frustrated, contemplated how the talk was going to go this time.

The door opened, and her father, his brown hair now flecked with gray, sat down beside her, placing a comforting arm around her slim shoulders. Audrey looked away, a reluctant lump rising in her throat as she avoided Kit's soft brown eyes.

He finally caught her, and he murmured softly, "Oh, Ree, what's gotten into you? First it was this sneaking out bit, then it's telling me you hate my guts… why?"

Audrey ripped her gaze away from her father's and stared moodily at the rusting, cast-iron gate she was sitting next to.

Her father continued quietly. "Look, Audrey, I was a teenager once, too. I know what you're going through… your mom probably knows a lot better. You're changing, in some ways good, in others bad… but that doesn't mean you can take your anger out on your parents."

Audrey, still staring at the gate, looked somewhat ashamed of herself, but remained stolid and mute.

Kit sighed. "I'll be right back."

He got up and cracked the door open, shook his head at Nita's questioning look, and shut it behind him, leaving a very confused Audrey behind, wondering what on earth he was retrieving from the house.

She didn't have long to wait, as he reappeared with a large, dusty volume under one arm, and returned to his seat beside her. He opened the book, and a picture fell out of the inside of the cover. Curious, Audrey picked it up, and saw a much younger Kit and Nita under a tree in a park, holding hands and smiling at the camera.

Kit looked at it fondly and nodded. "That was when your mother and I were dating… through college…"

Audrey studied the picture, and noticed another that attracted her attention quite well. It was of her Aunt Dairine and her Uncle Ethan, and she squinted at the small, shiny object floating next to her Aunt.

"What is that, Dad?"

Kit peered closer, and thought fast.

"I dunno… I haven't seen it before." Spot… he thought, and rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, let me show you something."

With a hearty sneeze, he flipped toward the back of the album, and grinned as he pointed to a happy-looking infant in a blue carseat.

"Guess who that is?"

Audrey looked closer, and could identify the birthmark at the base of the infant's neck, and unconsciously touched where it still was on her.

"Me."

Kit nodded and looked through the photos. He smiled and motioned toward the same infant, arms outstretched, apparently stepping toward the camera.

"Scared me to death when you took your first steps," he grinned. "I remember I'd fall every time you fell down…"

"Here, your first day of school… I cried like a fool, and I followed your schoolbus to town…"

Audrey looked up at her dad, her eyebrows raised.

"You cried?"

Kit, looking somewhat sheepish, nodded assent. "Yeah. Look, I'm a grown man, but as strong as I am… Sometimes it's hard to believe… how one little girl with…" He studied Audrey. "…short auburn hair… can totally terrify me. If you were to ask, your mom would just laugh. She'd say I know all about men, and how tough little boys grow up to be dads, and turn into big babies again."

Audrey grinned and listened attentively as her dad continued his speech.

"Ree, I know one day… I'll give you away. And, heck, I'll just stand there and smile. But when I get home, and I'm all alone, I'm gonna sit in your room for a while…"

A long pause followed that, in which Audrey's brown eyes began to tear up as she thought of that future day, and imagined her room, cleared out and deserted, and her father, head in hands, staring at the spots where her stuff used to be, missing her.

Kit sighed, and continued.

"I never cried when Old Yeller died… well, at least not in front of my friends… but when tough little boys grow up to be dads… well, they turn into big babies again."

Audrey sniffed, sighed, and let her gaze wander, over the various plants that her mother kept for no particular reason, over the cracked cherub sitting on the window ledge, and finally back to the photo album.

Kit sighed, wiped one eye, and pointed to another photograph. "Here's great-aunt Annie, trying to teach you and Mom to play the bagpipes… mom was a dismal failure, but you sounded like a little protégé…"

"KIT, YOU'RE ON THE COUCH TONIGHT."

Audrey giggled as her dad rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right…" he muttered, but continued anyway.

"Here's when Auntie Dairine and Uncle Ethan took you offroading in Palm Springs… I remember you had way too much fun… kept bugging me to take the van offroad…"

Audrey rolled her eyes and grinned sheepishly as her dad sighed, stretched, and closed the album.

"Well, I gotta go work on the van's brakes again… wanna come help? Or do you still hate my guts?"

Audrey hugged her father tightly. "Oh, Daddy, how could I hate you? It's impossible to stay mad at you…"

Kit laughed, winked at Nita through the screen door, and led his daughter out to their '96 Sienna, chatting animatedly about cars, brake shoes, and, of course, Kit's dating days with Nita.

Inside the house, Nita rolled her eyes good-naturedly and returned to her knitting, which she was determined to get right. Who knew the Kit she had first met, shy and a little bit strange, would make such a great dad?

She sighed and gazed moodily at the needles.

Minutes later, the steady click of her needles echoed throughout the house.