I guarantee no expertise in or even basic knowledge of babysitting, romance, the correct way to put the apostrophe in McDonald's restaurants, or math. Especially math.

However, I am trying to be as sensitive as possible about disability. Apologies if I offend, and I welcome any corrections.

I also do not endorse the consumption of any sort of food or food-like substance sold at the McDonald's restaurant chain. Use your best judgement when dining anywhere. But especially at McDonald's.

-OOO-

Qrow Branwen leaned back in his office chair. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

It was the end of the day; the distant window down the hall let in the afternoon sunlight, though most of the time the fluorescent lights and desk lamps were enough to illuminate all the paperwork they had to do. It was Friday; half the staff had gone home early, and they'd cleaned up the engineering bay so there wasn't anything for Qrow to wire up or anything. So Qrow got to waste time at his desk.

Most of the furniture in the office was kind of cheap looking; the desks had some discreet areas of duct tape and the lamp flickered if he bent the cord the wrong way.

If someone came in to ask if he was done with his work, he'd just lean forward, open one of his eyes and smirk his trademark smirk and say 'yes.'

Of course, nobody actually came in to pester him about finishing his work anymore. It made him feel like maybe working so efficiency wasn't quite so worth it.

But he still held out hope that maybe the cute finance director might pop his head in again. Maybe Qrow would flex his arms and flash a recalcitrant smirk that made big, tough guys want to wipe it off his face.

Oh well, though. He shouldn't really be thinking about being popular. Shouldn't be obsessing about it. Instead, he should just go with the flow and let things happen naturally.

Qrow refreshed his chill. He had a bit of time today; he could use the company internet to download updates on his phone, or send some e-mails or-

Oh! That was right; he had a personal phone call he'd been meaning to make. Better sooner than later, probably.

Qrow glanced aside and rocked back and forward twice until the person on the other end of the line answered.

"'ello?" said a woman.

"Hey sis," Qrow said. He smiled, in reflex.

"Oh, hey Qrow-bro!" They exchanged pleasantries.

"I -uh," Qrow sat up and straightened his back, "I heard you moved back in with the Roses. Congratulations!"

"Oh, yeah- on probation, though. No problems so far, so I'm keeping myself on my best behavior."

"Well, it's a good start. And the Facebook says you three are doing this marriage workshop thing together?"

"Yeah, I guess its a marriage camp for polyamorous people. Who don't have to be married, so maybe 'marriage workshop' isn't the right description."

Qrow smirked a bit. "It's still pretty cool. I'm sure you'll have fun. When was that again?" he asked, for the sake of politeness. He knew when it was.

"That's this weekend, actually. It was real nice of Taiyang to agree to go right when he gets back."

"Ah sweet!" Qrow leaned back. "So I guess you'll need a house-sitter. I am definitely available."

Qrow leaned back and crossed his leg on his desk. He already had a lego set for Ruby and a bear for Yang, and a bag full of goodies.

"Well, actually," Raven began, apologetically.

...

...

"WHAT?!" Qrow yelled.

And then, for the first time in forever, someone came in to Qrow's cubicle to ask what was going on.

Glynda didn't bother with a suit this weekend; she had a comfortable pair of cargo shorts and a set of t-shirts and her tennis shoes. School had gone by even more slowly than it normally did on a Friday, and Port and Oobleck had even noticed Glynda's jitteryness and apprehension by the lunchbreak, and speculated at the cause all afternoon. Glynda didn't tell them exactly what it was that made her unable to concentrate, and she hoped Ozpin hadn't said anything (he'd smiled insufferably the whole day, though).

So yeah, it'd only been like two weeks, but Glynda had graduated from just babysitting to house-sitting while babysitting, over an entire weekend even, and that was cool. There were some extra responsibilities; making sure the lawn got watered, making sure the kids ate enough to stay conscious, that sort of thing. Glynda had done some quick experiments with cooking these last few days and she felt confident that her cooking was edible. And if not, they'd probably order pizzas or something cool. That's what cool people did, right?

Glynda hadn't been to too many slumber parties. Ozpin had hosted a study session that ended up going late enough that they'd all just decided to spend the night, once. It wasn't really a 'party', though, no matter how many times they called it a 'study party', Glynda couldn't imagine that sitting in a circle completing math homework was something people looked forward to. Like, if someone was all, 'hey, there's this cool party I'm going to this weekend,' it would probably involve less math and more, like, party games. (This weekend, Glynda mused, would actually involve a little math.)

But when other wierdos promised a slumber party that was just to hang out and play party games- Glynda didn't really quite see their appeal. Even if she did think it might be cool to spend the night in a cathedral or the school auditorium, she'd turned them all down because she didn't want to spend the night with the kinds of people who did that sort of thing. That might have been some circular logic, she realized.

But the point was, Glynda had a little bit of perfomance-based apprehension as she drove up to the Rose household after school. After she parked and before she got out of her car, she double-checked her goody bag; some candy and fruit-flavored gummy snacks, the Star Wars edition of Monopoly, a few DVDs of movies she thought Ruby and Yang might like. (Though, a part of her was looking forward to working through Yang's cartoon collection. They'd gotten through a fair amount of shows these last two weeks). Also, an epinephrine injector pen (Ruby and Yang weren't allergic to anything as far as Summer knew, but it helped to be safe), a first-aid kit, a small set of tools and a roll of duck tape, in case they broke anything.

Glynda also checked her personal pouch; extra toiletries (Glynda realized she usually forgot to brush her teeth when she babysat here, so she vowed to fix that tonight), a towel and shampoo, (Ozpin had assured her it wasn't that weird to use someone else's shower. In fact, some families wanted the babysitter to bathe their children, which was, thankfully, something Glynda didn't have to do.), an extra pair of glasses in case she misplaced her normal ones or Yang tried to steal them. Today, she was actually prepared. Hopefully.

And so Glynda knocked on the door and it opened to a familiar young girl, in an oversized red hoodie and black leggings and a big, big smile on her face.

"Glynda!" said her charge.

Ruby ran up and gave Glynda's legs a hug. Glynda smiled and picked up her charge by the armpits, holding her up, arms length, angled a little above Glynda's head. Ruby's mouth opened in a blissful smile and she held her arms out for a hug. Glynda pulled the girl towards her and leaned into the tightness of little Ruby's little hug around her neck and shoulders.

And Yang was there, leaned against a wall, one knee bent and her arm under her stump. She smirked knowingly, and Glynda decided she'd be willing to let the older sister's attitude slide, this time.

"Heh. You guys are silly," Yang said.

"Yeah?" Glynda said. She puffed out her cheek just a bit and reconsidered her decision to let Yang's attitude slide. "Well, you're silly times the infinite sum of all real and complex numbers from negative infinity to positive infinity, squared." Glynda closed her eyes and stood up straight. Ruby applauded.

Glynda peaked her right eye open. "And I mean that, each term in the series is squared, and the result of those operations are summed together."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Is that your final answer?"

Glynda wavered only a moment. "Yes."

"Well," Yang smirked, "If you add a complex number to a complex number with components of the opposite sign, it sums to zero. Every complex number squared results in another complex number, which by the nature of complex numbers can have either a positive or negative real component. Since each element has a counterpart with the opposite sign, the square of each element has its own counterpart of the opposite sign, meaning the whole series sums to zero."

Glynda paled, just a bit.

"Babysitter says I'm zero silly, which makes the sane one!" Yang laughed manically. She ran deeper into the house.

"Glynda," Ruby lamented, "Why would you say that?"

Glynda sighed in defeat. "I didn't mean to~"

Ruby chuckled and beckoned her sitter into the living room.

They decided upon spending the afternoon nestled on the sofa in front of the living room TV, watching cartoons. Ruby had brought out a selection of cereal, and Glynda decided to try a sugary one she'd seen the commercials before but her parent's refused to buy. Ruby poured Glynda a bowl immediately after the sitter mentioned this fact to her, and Glynda let Ruby spoon the first bit into her mouth. It was only a little awkward.

And at some point, while they were watching cartoons and eating cereal, there was a knock at the door.

Glynda blinked, twice. Then she lifted Ruby off her lap and pulled the spoon out of her mouth and set it in the bowl and set the bowl on the coffee table. She patted her shirt and pants free of any errant cereal dust and approached the door. Glynda took a breath and opened the door a crack and peaked out the door.

There was a man with familiar black hair. He wore some loose-fitting black khakis and a formal shirt, sleeves rolled up and half unbuttoned, showing half the logo on the t-shirt he wore under it. He also wore the most shizz-eating-est grin ever. He scratched the back of his head.

"Qrow!" Ruby yelled. She jumped off the couch, out of the blankets, and she ran, arms outstretched, to the door, opening it all the way and hugging the man's legs. 'Qrow' returned the hug and allowed the child to climb into his shoulder.

"Hey," Qrow said to Glynda. He offered a hand and his grin intensified. "You must be the babysitter I've heard so much about."

Glynda paused only for a moment. She had the impression that she had made a good impression on the Rose's, (wait, Yang had a different last name- eh, she'd worry about it later), so that probably meant Qrow had heard only good things about her. So Glynda dropped her guard a bit.

"Oh, yes," Glynda took the hand and returned the smile. "And you must be Ruby's father."

The world broke.

Yang was the first to recover, cackling wildly from the couch behind them.

"What makes you say that?" said the man, guardedly, as he shook Glynda's hand twice and released it.

"Uh," Glynda said, a little less sure now, " You have the same hair color?"

"I think Summer's hair matches Ruby's more closely."

"You have the same eyes?"

"...No we don't."

"I-" Glynda took another look. "Huh. I guess I thought you did on first glance-"

Ruby pouted. "You never looked into my eyes, Glynda?" she said.

"I- I mean-"

Ruby leaned over, out of Qrows arms and squished Glynda's cheeks with her palms as she made a face, staring at her, right in the eyes. Ruby had brilliant, silver eyes, Glynda noted; the ripples in the corona (shoot, she used to know the word for those) blending into a darker slate at the edges of the sclera. And right now, like most of the time, Ruby's eyes were wide with an endearing childlike wonder. And, Glynda realized, Ruby was looking into her own eyes as well; what did her eyes seem to suggest? Hopefully nothing bad.

Glynda looked to the man, and then to Yang, and then back to Ruby. "Aha." she laughed.

"Ok, that's better now." Ruby let go of Glynda's cheeks.

Glynda adjusted her glasses; they had been fogging up a little. "I don't think that was entirely necessary."

"But now you know what kind of eyes I have!" Ruby said, excitedly. Then she turned to Qrow. "See, it was very important. Oh! You haven't been introduced- this is Glynda, my favorite babysitter!"

"Your... favorite?" Qrow said.

"And Glynda, that's my uncle!" Ruby said, pointing to the man she was literally three centimeters away from.

"Oh! Oh. Okay. It's nice to meet you," Glynda said holding her hand out again, then pulling it back when she remembered they'd already shook hands.

The man cleared his throat.

"Yes. Uncle Qrow. So just asking, do I really look old enough to be the father of an eight and a half year old girl?" Qrow said.

"Eight and 2731/4380." Yang interjected.

Glynda glanced him over again. "I guess barely? You're like, what, twenty-three?"

The man closed his eyes and put his hands on his hips and stood up straight. "Twenty-three and a half."

"Twenty three and 1559/2196." Yang said.

Glynda's mouth flattened. "Ok, yeah. I can see how you're Rose's brother."

Yang cackled maniacally.

"I'm Raven's brother, actually," Qrow said.

"Oh! Oh. Okay. Sorry."

"I guess I can understand the confusion," he said, "Ruby, rather than going into medicine or sales or dropping out of college to play guitar in her van-"

"My mom's in the custodial business now," Yang said.

Glynda furrowed her brow and turned to Yang. "Wait, really? She wore a business suit to interview for a janitorial position?"

Then Qrow looked to the side and grimaced. "Shoot, I forgot to congratulate her on that-" He snapped his fingers. "Eh, siblings aren't perfect. But anyway- instead of doing any of that, Ruby wants to go into agricultural engineering, like her uncle."

"Oh, so you're," Glynda pontificated, "Actually, I think I've learned my lesson about assuming things. What was your field?"

"Mechanical engineering."

"Oh. That's pretty cool. Explains Ruby's obsession with Legos."

"Glynda's going to go into Physics!" Ruby said. She waved her arms.

Qrow looked surprised before he caught himself. "Physics?"

Glynda smirked a bit. "It's just general physics, so far. I'm trying to decide if I want to take the optics or the plasma elective at the college next year."

"Huh. I guess that's cool." Qrow nodded reluctantly.

"She's on track to be valedictorian next year!" Ruby said. Glynda blushed a little at the adoration.

Qrow's eyebrows shot up. "Really? So what are you doing babysitting little kids?"

"Hey! I'm not that little." Ruby pouted.

"Oh, aha," Glynda waved the air, "The company I was interning for went under," she said, softly, weakly.

"Wait," Qrow siad, "It's not the - " he coughed, "Well, I'll stop assuming things as well. So Ms. Babysitter, which company did you work for?"

Glynda scrunched her mouth to the side.

"Cyberdyne."

"Oh!" Qrow laughed accusingly, "So you were hoping to be sniveling quisling in chief to the robot uprising?"

"Noo~," Ruby waved her arms, "Glynda would be an obsequious quisling in chief at the very least!"

Glynda laughed awkwardly. "Well," Glynda shot back at Qrow, partially out of curiosity but mostly because of this weird feud that had arisen between them, "What company do you work for?"

Qrow lowered his voice a bit. "Monsanto."

"Oh! Oh!" Glynda said accusingly, "And you're bashing on Cyberdyne? At least our terminators had uses beyond cheating small farmers out of their income."

"Look, I'm sure we could repeat vaguely remembered arguments from our respective company's legal departments, but I actually work on the harvesters, so I have nothing to do with the biological patents at my company."

"And I worked on plasma coils, so I had nothing to do with the AI fiasco that got the government to freeze my last paycheck."

Ruby waved her arms between them. "Don't fight! Both of what you do is cool!"

Glynda and Qrow stopped and then muttered apologies and then went silent.

Ruby tapped Glynda's shoulder the next time she was in reach. "But plasma coils are so cool, Glynda! You never told me you worked on those!" Ruby said.

Qrow bit his cheek. Glynda smirked triumphantly.

Then they all walked into the living room proper. Ruby had jumped out of her uncle's arms at this point and had resumed eating cereal.

"Hey Qrow!" Yang waved her stump, "How's Zwei?"

Qrow slapped his forehead. "Ah shoot! He's good- He's healed enough that he could have visited, sorry I forgot."

Glynda blinked. She wondered if there was a good time to ask who Zwei was.

"It's cool. I'm glad your roommate likes him." Yang said, "So how was work?"

Qrow waved the air. "Alright, so this morning, I had to go to Autozone to buy some fuses, and I saw there was a stand with a Frozen logo on it. Pretty sure it was antifreeze."

"Noooooo~" Ruby said.

"Yeah, tell us a story that doesn't suck," Yang said.

"Actually, we were watching cartoons," Glynda gestured towards the paused television. On the screen, a bear was in the middle of opening its mouth.

"Well, if you're tired of that," Qrow hefted his bag, "I got you another lego set, Ruby. And a bear for Yang."

"Wooo." Yang lethargically pumped her fist.

"Well, if you are tired of cartoons, I brought a board game." Glynda said, "Star Wars monopoly."

"Yay, Star wars!" Ruby said. Yang sat more upright on the couch.

"You know it's not actually Star Wars, it's just the normal game with different pictures." Qrow tried to say. He was ignored, and Glynda tried not to focus on how good that made her feel.

Glynda saw she had the advantage though. She smirked and opened her bag."And if you're hungry," Glynda said, "I brought some candy."

Ruby and Yang jumped around Glynda like she was some sort of maypole, flailing their arms in the air. "Candy! Candy! Candy!" they chanted as they waved their arms.

"I brought homemade cookies," Qrow said. He hefted his own bag.

Ruby and Yang paused for a moment to share an exuberant look. Then they ran to Qrow and started jumping around him, like he was a maypole, arms flailing. "Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!" they chanted in unison.

"Well-" Glynda rummaged through her pack, "I brought some fruits snacks and a coupon for pizza-"

Ruby and Yang started bounding around Glynda, now. "Pizza! Pizza!" they chanted, the warbling, echoing intonations of hungry children.

"If you're really hungry and want actual food," Qrow said, "I could treat you to Mcdonalds. They have green shakes there this time of year."

Glynda was going to say something about Mcdonalds not being real food, but Ruby and Yang had stopped completely and were entirely silent, frozen in mid-pose.

Then they starting running in circles around Qrow, chanting the loudest they had ever chanted. "Mcdonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!" they chanted in hideous unison to the pallid accompaniment of unknown winds.

"Oh," Glynda sighed in defeat. "I- I guess if you want to go to McDonald's, then you shouldn't let me keep you-"

"Glynda!" Ruby ran up and grabbed one of Glynda's hands in both her own, "C'mon! You'll love the green shakes there," Ruby turned to her uncle, "Right Qrow? Can Glynda come with us?"

Qrow coughed. "Yeah. I mean, I wasn't just going to leave the babysitter behind, aha," he said nervously.

"Yay! So c'mon Glynda!" Ruby said. She was now leaned at 45 degrees from the ground, pulling on Glynda's arm with all her weight. "Green shakes!"

"Green Shakes! Green Shakes!" Yang chanted in the distance.

Glynda smiled. "Okay."