momslilassassin | Outside Anakin & Rory's apartment [Monday evening]

"I think you covered it with the 'intimidating' bit," Tahiri informed him, "but Juliet being really cute doesn't hurt much."

Ben grinned. "She is, isn't she? How hard could it be to watch her for a few hours?"

Famous last words, Ben.

Rory opened the door with some amazing timing. "Hey, you two!" She had a quiet-looking Juliet up on her hip as she beckoned them in. "Now, there's a list of emergency numbers on the fridge, along with a list of where Juliet's favorite toys are and what her evening schedule's like, and the fridge is stocked with plenty of food so help yourselves, and do either of you want something to drink? We'll be out of your hair in a second -- Anakin's still getting ready."

Rory, breathe.

"I'm done," Anakin said, yanking a little uncomfortably at his tie as he came into the room. "Now the nanny droid's shut off and my lightsaber's on a shelf over the bed. If something comes through the door that isn't us, shoot first, apologize for the furniture destruction later."

Very helpful, Anakin.

He leaned in to kiss Juliet on the head. "She's working on some elementary levitation, so don't be too shocked if the table moves by itself."

"I'm fine right now, thanks." It was kind of impressive seeing someone else talk like that, Tahiri had to admit, and still weird seeing Master Skywalker in a tie.

She glanced over at Ben, half you mean we should have brought blasters? and half I'm not used to things being this planned out, and nodded. "Right. We'll try to keep the furniture destruction to an absolute minimum."

Ben nodded, giving Tahiri an uncertain "do I have to hold the baby now?" look. "No kidnappings, check."

Skywalker family dynamics were special.

Rory, thankfully, didn't make anyone hold the baby. She went over to set Juliet in her playpen with her stuffed Ewok and yeah, okay, spent a little time fussing over her before finally turning around to find her purse. "He's not kidding," she added with a nod to Anakin. "If she starts throwing chairs or something, you have permission to use the Force however you need to get her to calm down. You know, without hurting her."

"And call us if anything goes really wrong," Anakin said.

They'd try not to call every hour just because they could, too.

He leaned down to smooth one of Juliet's curls and then headed for the door. "We'll be late for our reservations," he said to Rory.

"Yeah." Rory gave Juliet a last look before heading for the door. "Call if you need anything," she added to Ben and Tahiri, and then the door was closed and they were gone.

Ben looked slightly panicked as the door shut. "So....wrap the baby in bubblewrap now?"

Just because Ben was being a wuss about it didn't mean Tahiri would have minded holding the baby. Well, except for being worried that she might drop her and that would be awful, so -- she didn't mind the lost opportunity, either.

"We can handle it," she said as firmly as she could (which wasn't as firm as she'd like). It couldn't be that hard. Right?

"We just, um . . ."

She flailed a little. "I'm wondering if bubblewrap isn't a bad idea."

That was naturally the cue for the baby to burst into tears.

"What do we do?" Ben flailed.

"Okay, okay, no bubblewrap!" Tahiri exclaimed. She took two steps toward the playpen and stopped short, completely clueless about whether that would help or make things worse. "It's okay, really, we were just kidding about that, honest."

There was some hiccuping, then the international arm raise of "pick me up please".

And then, "Cookie?"

The international test to see if these babysitters were suckers.

"Um," said Ben helpfully.

Tahiri's only option here was to try and call her Leia, or Winter, or Mara, or someone from home who knew what to do, and under the circumstances that wasn't really an option at all.

She glanced hopelessly at Ben and . . . reached out to pick Juliet up.

She was a sucker, apparently.

The baby rested her head on Tahiri's shoulder for a second before wriggling to get down.

"Should we consult the chart Rory left?" Ben suggested.

Tahiri had no idea how hard she was supposed to try to hold on, and was a little bit afraid of what would happen if she put Juliet down (she knew what Skywalker children were capable of getting up to, thank you) so she tried awkwardly patting the baby on the back.

"Nobody is trying to get in, so I think those instructions might be more helpful right now," she agreed.

"Looks like...dinner, then a bath, then bed," Ben recited. "We have to sing, too."

He laughed. "Can you imagine Granddad doing this every night?"

"I can, actually." Tahiri tried rocking Juliet tentatively. Would that distract her at all from wanting to get down? (Was it horribly optimistic of her to hope so?) "It's a little frightening."

She grinned at him mischievously. "Does this mean you're going to sing 'Dance Dance, Little Ewok?'"

"It's on the list," Ben said unhappily as Juliet reached out to yank at Tahiri's hair. "You'd think it was the only lullaby in the galaxy."

"Oh, good, that means -- ow, no, that's not for playing with!"

That wasn't what that meant, of course.

Juliet's lower lip trembled. "No?" she repeated.

"I'll get her dinner started," Ben said, hastily retreating behind the safety of the fridge door.

"Please, no?" Tahiri tried more gently. Sure, throw her onto an enemy-occupied planet with one other being for backup and she could deal with that, but a baby was threatening to be more than she could handle, and now Ben was . . . well, not hiding exactly.

This was probably very sad.

Maybe she could bargain with Juliet? "You can play with it, if you don't pull too hard?"

Juliet gurgled happily and gave the hair a good yank.

"Found it!" Ben sang out. "Mmm. Pasta and squished up peas."

. . . at least Tahiri could handle pain? Not that it hurt so much as it was a little embarrassing.

"That sounds good, right?" she asked Juliet, hoping maybe dinner would be a more interesting prospect than hair-pulling. "Maybe before Ben tries to eat it all?"

Ha.

"Oh, this isn't my kind of food at all," Ben said, making a face. "Ooh, but there's pizza!" He opened up the freezer. "And ice cream! And popsicles! I like Rory."

He popped the little plate of food into the microwave and walked over with a bib. "Guesses on where this goes?"

He wasn't quite that clueless. He was trying to push it.

"Ben Skywalker, you are not that hopeless," Tahiri exclaimed. "Come on, Juliet, just for that I think we should make him put that on you, and give him a hard time about it."

"Well, better her wearing it than me," Ben said, rummaging through drawers until he found one with spoons. "Hee, they have tiny little baby spoons! Did you know those existed?"

"Oddly enough, I think I saw you being fed with one last time I was home," Tahiri retorted, smirking. "But I guess that was long enough ago that you don't remember."

Ben tried very hard to match his face to the color of his hair. "That's mean," he declared. "I don't have any embarrassing stories to retaliate with."

Tahiri laughed and tried to disentangle her hair from Juliet's fingers. "The Tuskens aren't exactly in the habit of getting holos of everything, or I'd offer."

"I know," Ben said, putting the food next to the high chair. "So I'll just have to make things up instead."

"I look forward to what you'll come up with," Tahiri told him as she carried Juliet over to the high chair. "Really."

"For instance, I'm not sure how you lived through the embarrassment of the Mos Eisley Boonta Eve pageant costumes," Ben made up cheerfully.

"That never happened," Tahiri felt the need to inform Juliet.

But she had to play along. "That was one of the few advantages to having to wear a mask all the time," she said solemnly.

Ben snickered, loading up the spoon with dinner and held it out for the baby. "It also helped to hide those experiments with make-up that went so badly," he teased.

Because the Tusken Raiders were known for their beauty regimes.

"That was how we learned that hubba gourds made very, very bad facial treatments," Tahiri deadpanned.

Ben burst out laughing. "I'll be sure to pass that along at the next slumber party I have."

"I was wondering," Tahiri replied, reaching for a napkin, "how you spent all that vast amount of free time of yours. I'm a little disappointed. I thought it was something more exciting."

"I also write poetry," Ben lied, "and cliff dive."

"Awful poetry, I bet," Tahiri snorted. "That you're not inflicting on your poor baby aunt."

"It could be worse," Ben said. "It could be a passion for droid spoken word albums."

Tahiri shook her head and looked at Juliet. "He's hopeless, isn't he?"

Juliet gurgled happily.

"Hey!" Ben replied. "I'm not the member of Face's fanclub."

"And I'm not the one who signed me up for it," Tahiri replied sweetly.

"Teach me to get you any more gifts," Ben said, sticking his tongue out at her.

Outside Anakin & Rory's apartment [Monday evening]

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