The Babysitter

Scarlet

Lime's PoV:

"Hey, Lime!"

Hearing a voice behind me, I whip around quickly, my heart pounding, the wires momentarily forgotten.

"Oh, hey Red" I awkwardly murmur.

"You wouldn't mind watching Scarlet for a moment, would you?" She asks, indicating to the tiny crewmate at her feet. "I just need to go to the reactor for a second, and, well, you know how I feel about that place-" she trails off

"Uh, yeah of course!" I quickly agree. "Heya" I say, crouching down to Scarlet's height.

"Be a good girl, Scarlet" Red says before promptly walking off.

This was how it always worked. Nobody ever talked to me unless they wanted me to 'babysit'. Of course, they never called it that, but since I'm the only crewmate around here with no kid of my own, I'm the go-to person.

"Please can you buy me a cookie from the vending machine?" She asks sweetly, making my heart melt a little.

"Okay" I agree, whilst knowing that she wasn't really supposed to, but I can't say no to her! "Would you like to get a drink as well?"

She eagerly nods as we walk out of electrical.

"Oh" I mutter, stopping to pull out my tablet.

"What's wrong, Lime?" Scarlet asks

"Nothing, sweetie" I smile, looking at the map. "Ah, it's this way"

Yeah. I've been working at The Skeld for a whole month just like everyone else has, let's just say I'm not the best at tasks. Also, Mira HQ (where we are now) is much bigger and I get lost here. I mean, we've only been here for a day, but everyone seems to be getting around just fine. Perhaps I'm just not great at navigation.

Or making friends, either, I think to myself as I walk through the corridor past White and her son, Snow. She immediately grabbed Snow's hand and walked off down the hall in the opposite direction, going into communications. Unless she had to accept diverted power, she didn't need to be in there, and I know that she hadn't been in reactor.

Nobody liked me, but White... she avoided me at all costs.

We eventually reach the Cafeteria and I punched in the code to get some juice, handing it over to the mini crewmate. Oh, that's a task done. At least that one is always easy.

Just then, someone else enters the room. Cyan and her daughter.

"Hi Scarlet!" Teal exclaims, bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Hey Teal" Scarlet waves to her friend. "My mum is in the reactor so Lime's looking after me, do you want to join? We can play and-"

Teal and Scarlet have been best friends since that first week we met in The Skeld, pretty much inseparable at cafeteria times.

Teal quickly shakes her head, stepping closer to her mother. "No thanks- I think I'll stay"

Cyan places her hand on top of her daughter's head comfortingly. "Well we'd best be off. Tasks to do and all that."

Scarlet's PoV:

Yeah, Teal is my best friend, has been for so long, yet she never leaves her mother's side. We don't get to play or to talk much, since we are always following someone or other.

I do like Lime, he lets me do things that mother won't let me do, like eat cookies and shoot asteroids. That's my favourite task. Luckily for me, as if he had read my mind, Lime asks, "would you like to shoot some asteroids now?"

"Yeah!" I exclaim, jumping out of my seat, wiping the cookie crumbs from my face before putting my helmet back on.
Why do we have to wear helmets again? Oh well - they look cool anyway.