I can't believe I offered to help them. I told myself when I left home four years ago that I was going to mind my own business. That I wasn't going to let myself get involved in the lives of anyone. Now here I was walking down the street with this...this southern giant who had a mob of kids waiting for him back in the alley and I had offered to help them find a place to stay.

Now I just had to keep him from finding out that I lived in the same building I had told him about. The last thing I needed was for these people to get attached. Last time that happened I was the one who ended up hurt when the man who raised me left and never came back. I would just have to make sure the landlady knew not to tell any of them which flat was mine. She owed me since I was bringing her some new tenents that would also help out with the chores around the place. My landlady was the only one I allowed to get close, but that was only because I had needed a woman to talk to a few years ago and she was there.

"If you're looking for a job you should try the docks, the train station or the stockyard. You and...Lee...should both be able to find jobs with your height and strength..." What am I saying? I will NOT help this guy anymore than I already have. Oh why did he have to start looking at her that way? She'd seen guys in the park look at their sweethearts like that. She looked up at him. "I'm helping you find a place to stay and a job...but after that I don't want to see you again, understand?"

Now he's smiling at me! I stared at him for a moment trying to find something to say. I can't think of anything, so my only option is to leave. I can tell he's following me because I can hear him whistling. How do I get myself into these things? Boy am I glad that's my building up ahead.

---

Rae moaned when she heard the knock on her door. She opened one eye and glanced at the sun shining through the window. It wasn't even ten yet...who was knocking at her door? Growling, she climbed out of her bed and sluggishly made her way toward the door. She threw open the door and made a face. Beauregard Wayne stood in the hall, grinning at her. "What do you want?"

"I come in peace," he said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice. He held out the plate of food in his hands.

Rae stared at the plate filled with bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits and a lumpy pile of something. She snatched a piece of bacon and stuffed it in her mouth.

Beau chuckled as she grabbed another piece of bacon, this time savoring it. "Vous êtes précieux, Cheri."

She cocked her head to one side, some hair falling in her face. "Speak English, Rebel."

He leaned against her doorframe, watching her. Beau longed to reach over and push the hair from her face. "I said that you are precious. I take it you don't know any French."

"I'm Irish," she snapped, taking the last piece of bacon.

He shook his head. "You're no kitten in the mornings. If you'll let me in, I'll make you some coffee."

She looked at the plate of food and then back up at him. Hesitating a moment, she took the plate from him and padded into her flat, leaving him to follow.

Smiling, he walked into her kitchen and sat about making her coffee. A few minutes later he set a cup of coffee in front of her. He watched her eat for a moment before walking around behind her. He pulled the hair from her face and deftly braided it. "There...now you don't have to worry about getting your hair in your food."

"Thanks," she mumbled around a mouth full of scrambled eggs. "Where did you learn to braid?"

He sat across from her. "I have five little sisters, don't I?" She nodded and kept eating. Beau glanced through the doorway into the living room. Piles of books were scattered all over the room. A small pair of men's boots lay where they had been kicked off and a man's coat was thrown across the back of the overstuffed chair. He could just see her curled up in that chair buried in a book. "So...you live here alone?"

She stopped eating and followed his gaze into the living room. "Most of the time. My brother lives here when he's in town. He's in the navy. What is this stuff?" she asked, poking at the unusual lump of her plate.

"That is grits...it's a southern favorite. I don't know how my sister managed to find the ground corn here." He smiled when she wrinkled her nose. "Just try it. Older brother?" It would just be his luck to find a girl with a protective older brother.

She shook her head, still poking at the grits. "He's younger."

"You have a younger brother in the Navy?" She couldn't be old enough to have a younger brother in the navy. He could be wrong but she barely looked fourteen.

"He's fifteen...and he lied about his age," she answered.

Beau nodded. He could deal with a younger brother. "I need to ask a huge favor..."

She looked up at him. "I want to know what it is before I agree."

"Lee and I have to go down to the docks tomorrow about a job and Carrie's going to try and find a job. North promised to help Mrs. B in the mornings...so...could you possibly keep an eye on the runts tomorrow morning. Just for an hour, maybe two."

Rae stared at him. "Just how many are we talking about?"

"Johnny, Ana, Jackson, Ginny and Callie. You won't have to worry about Ana, she's an angel...and Johnny will be a big help if you have a problem."

Rae made a face at him. "It can't be too hard right?"

She had no idea how she had gotten stuck in this situation, with Beau and Lee gone to the docks, Carrie out looking for a job, and North assisting Mrs. B so that Rae was asked to baby sit the little ones. They had said it was only going to be a little while…only an hour or two. However, as she stepped into the flat, Jackson and Ginny running around chasing each other, Johnny yelling after them, Ana quietly sitting in the corner, and Callie crying in the bedroom, she soon realized even an hour was an hour too long.

"I WANTED TO BE THE COP! IT'S MY TURN TO BE THE COP! I WAS THE ROBBER LAST TIME!" raged Jackson as he chased Ginny around, his four year old mouth showing no signs of stopping. The little girl kept running, nearly running into a wall every five seconds in an attempt to avoid her livid older brother, who seemed hell bent on being the 'good guy' this time around.

Johnny continued to yell at them, Rae's headache growing with each passing syllable he shouted out, her nerves being rubbed raw. What happened to so called "Southern" manners? These kids seemed to have reached their quota for the week before she had arrived, as they continued to weave in and out of doorways, narrowly escaping walls, counters, and furniture as they attempted to get their ways.

"Stop it, damn it! You're not going to be cops or robbers, now both of you sit your asses down, you're annoying me!" Johnny raged at them, the nine year old obviously having had enough. Rae smiled inwardly at how he sounded like her friends when she was his age, only, well, minus the southern accent. Her humor turned sour, however, as another surge of pain passed through her head when the infant started crying. Would these kids ever stop?

"Could you all please stop?" Rae tried to reason with them calmly, squeezing the bridge of her nose before awkwardly lifting Callie into her arms to try and get her to stop wailing. The children, however, deafly kept going about their business, screaming like banshees and causing her head to spin. Alright, so, this wasn't fun anymore.

"IF YOU KIDS DON'T STOP THIS MINUTE, I SWEAR TO GOD OR WHATEVER IS UP THERE THAT YOUR BROTHER WON'T HAVE ANYONE LEFT TO COME HOME TO!" she screamed, obviously not helping Callie's sobs, but it stopped the other three in their tracks. They stared at her for a long moment, her gray eyes staring right back, ignoring the scared and almost forgotten Ana, now finding shelter in the corner.

Of course, with all good things, they come to an end, and the children were back to square one, running around and leaving Rae there, steamed and highly irritated, lifting Callie into her arms to see if she could at least shut one of them up. Collapsing on the couch, she waited for the others to tire themselves out. It would happen, right? Right?

Sure it could happen, but not before Beau arrived home to see three of his siblings engaged in a fight, throwing things at each other, Johnny calling the other two harsh names in an attempt to get them to shut up, not realizing he was just as bad as they were. Clearing his throat, everyone in the room looked over to him, Ginny, Johnny, and Jackson lowering their weapons.

"You!" Rae yelled before he even had the chance to open his mouth. "You…you talked me into coming to this zoo and said that it wouldn't be so bad, or something like that! You said…Oh I don't even want to go over what you said! I'm…ugh!" she finished, pushing, albeit gently, Callie into his arms and huffing right past him. Slamming the front door, she left a very stunned Beau with several very frightened children.

"You three," he started after a while, putting Callie down for a moment, "come here." He couldn't be angry with them, but, he could very well be upset. That girl they had just chased away was, well, something special, and they had just ruined…something. As the three of them slowly approached, he knelt down and stared them all sternly in the eyes. "You three know better than that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," they muttered in unison, Ginny fidgeting, scratching her leg and shifting her weight, not liking the stern look in her oldest brother's eyes.

"I'm very disappointed. I told her you all were behaved and would obey her. I…I'm tired, and I don't have the patience right now to explain to you what you three should already know. You did wrong, and you're all to go to bed. Now."

"Without dinner?" Jackson asked, who practically ate like a horse.

"Without dinner," Beau confirmed, all three of them muttering under their breath. He knew Ginny and Jackson were young and just had to grow out of such things, but Johnny was another story, and he couldn't help but feel he should speak to him before the night was over, if not some time soon.

Listening as the bedroom doors closed, Beau went to collect Callie once more, holding his little niece to him and kissing her forehead, changing her and feeding her before lulling her back to sleep. Once the infant had quieted down, he went to see to his poor little Ana, huddled in the corner looking wide eyed and frightened.

"Come here, Sweetheart," he called gently to her, lifting the girl into his arms. She had always been like this…the yelling affecting her greatly since she was a small child. Episodes, they called it, which she simply needed to grow out of. "I'm here…no one is going to hurt you…"

Ana curled into his arms, white as a sheet, holding on to him for a long moment, her breathing barely audible, looking off in the distance. Sitting down, he coddled her for a long while, petting her hair and kissing her cheek. Finally, he looked down at her and realized she had fallen asleep, her forehead resting lightly against his shoulder.

Unbeknownst to him, Rae had stormed out of her flat in a fit of teenage rage, still muttering to herself about the "big brute" and his "little rats". Deciding she needed to take a walk before she trudged a hole through the floor, she raced down the fire escape, stopping abruptly to look through the window into the Wayne flat. Whether it be out of curiosity or simply to shoot a look of contempt at the man that had gotten her into this mess, she crossed her arms and glanced inside, before instantly dropping her shoulders. She watched as he held Ana, rubbing her back as the little girl slept on, her pigtailed braids hanging loosely, moving only slightly as she exhaled.

Suddenly, she found she was no longer angry, despite how much she tried to convince herself otherwise, with her "he thinks he's so great"s and "tries to look so perfect"s. Yeah, that wasn't working in the least. Sighing deeply, she decided to forego the walk…she didn't need it anymore.