Take Care of My Baby! [solo]

Katherine stood at the front door of a cozy looking house in Magnolia, waiting for the door to open after she'd knocked. It'd been quite a while since the last time she'd visited the town and she hadn't planned to come back, but here she was. Taking on a babysitting job of all things. She'd never had much interaction with children, not even her own brother when he was a baby. This should be interesting...

As soon as the front door was pulled, loud noise poured out and she had to cover her ears as she winced. Before her, stood the mother of the child she was to watch, Katy, disheveled and looking tired by every definition of the word. Behind her, her husband ran back and forth to catch the baby before he could do anything else troublesome. Oh, dear... What did I get myself into?

"Oh, hello! You must be Katherine!" The mage looked up when the woman spoke and forced a gentle smile.

"Yes, that's me." She nervously tucked some of her hair behind her ear and tried not to look back into the house before she had to. It looked so lovely and peaceful on the outside, but inside was chaotic and, she had to admit, a little scary.

"Wonderful, I'm so glad you're here. Come in!" Katherine followed Katy into the house,
where the chaos still occurred, but it seemed she had gotten used to ignoring it when she had to. She showed her everything she needed to see and told her everything she needed to be told. By the time she was done, the mage held the baby in her arms cautiously and watched as the parents hurried out the door. The latch clicked and suddenly she was left in silence. In her arms the baby cooed and gnawed on his tiny fists, seemingly calmed down, but she felt like she should be cautious and not take the behavior for granted. She was right to do so because as soon as she let her mind wander he gripped handfuls of her hair and yanked.

"Ah!" She yelped in pain and quickly tried to grab his hands and untangle them from her crimson locks. He hoisted himself up to her shoulders and caught himself in it more and enjoyed it thoroughly. While she struggled to remove him and cried out, he let himself down and crawled away. Katherine panicked a little, ignoring her discomfort to chase after him. Every move she made to grab him, he evaded with some kind of sneaky trick. He might have been young, but this child was smart.

At some point during their chase, Katherine lost sight of him. She thought she had looked everywhere he could possibly be until she heard a small cry from a room further down the hall she was in. She rushed to the room and pushed open the door.
There he was, she'd finally found him, but... He was crying and holding his hand. Filled with worry and curiosity, the mage went to the baby. She knelt down and bent to his line of sight.

"Hey, little guy... What's wrong?" She watched him carefully as he cried before taking his hand in her much larger one. There, across his fingertips, was a red line. It looked irritated and painful. Katherine looked to see where it might have come from and next to them she found a small open-faced space heater, it's wired glowing red. He must have touched it., she thought. She touched his fingers to her lips gently and slowly, his crying ebbed away until he only sniffled. Now her own fingers stung but it was well worth it to take his pain away.

The mage grabbed the child and held him in her arms again, running a hand over his head to smooth what little hair he had.
He'd stopped crying but there were still tears in his eyes, so she wiped them away. "Hey...it's alright." Katherine held up his hand for him to see. "Look. No more owies. So you don't need to cry anymore okay?" The baby just stared at her intently for a moment before he laid his head on her chest, hicupping. She was stunned. She didn't think he would ever calm down for her and now he had. Hesitantly, she stroked his back as she felt his tiny hands grip her sweater. He could be sweet when he wanted to, she decided.

Katherine carefully moved them back to the living room and onto the couch where she laid back and let him rest on her chest. It was comforting almost; having a baby fall asleep on her. Eventually her fingers stopped stinging and she too felt tired. One look at the clock assured her that it was late, but she wasn't sure when they would get home so it might not be bad to get some sleep herself. With both of them exhausted from many hours of running around, they dozed off quickly and slept sound.