The Babysitter

What The Adults Say

Lime's PoV:

Knock knock knock!

"Huh?" I mumble, only half awake until I practically fell out of my bed with a big thump. Then I was fully alert.

"It's me! Rose! Something bad happened..."

This sounded urgent... I scrambled to my feet, reaching for my card and opening the door. "What... is everyone okay?" The panic in my voice was obvious, but I didn't care. Rose seemed pretty shaken, and mumbled back,

"Teal shot Scarlet"

"She... what?!" I exclaimed, the pair of us racing to what used to be Blue's room. A patch of the carpet was soaked in blood, Teal was backed up in a corner, with Emerald carefully watching over her; Lapis fiddling with a gun; other children staring at him or quietly murmuring in confusion and fear.

Lapis gazed up at me as I entered the room. "Lime... what do we do?"

I wasn't exactly leader material... I could never replace Blue, or even remotely compare to her... however the responsibility now lay upon my shoulders.

"I... well... uh.... can I have the gun, for starters?" I ask more than order, and the child dutifully passes it over.

"What do we do with her?" Peach snaps, scowling at Teal. "She hurt Scarlet... just because her mother was an imposter. It was never Scarlet's fault, she didn't deserve any of this!"

Now, I turn my attention to Teal, who hadn't spoken a word since my arrival. "Okay... Teal, do you wanna come and talk with me for a minute?" I ask, but she frantically shakes her head. "Come on... you're not in any trouble" I assure her, and Rose scoffs.

"She shot someone! Of course she's in trouble!"

"Well, you've forgiven Scarlet's mother, haven't you?" I ask, Rose considers this for a second.

"But Teal didn't have a reason! She wasn't protecting anyone!" She protests

"Well," I sigh, "maybe she thought she was protecting all of you?"

Silence fills the room, so I take this as my cue to step over to Teal, taking her hand and walking her into the hallway.

"This was my fault" she shakily murmurs, not taking her gaze off the floor as she traipsed along next to me.

"I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt anyone" I offer, just how more stupid could I sound at this point? Blue could have easily sorted this out... even Black would be good at this sort of thing, but he was too busy saving Scarlet's life. I couldn't even manage to do the easier task!

"But I did" Teal blatantly replied, "I wanted to kill her"

"Well..." I squeak, now slightly afraid. "Maybe... uh...."

Now all out of comforting words to say, I didn't have a single clue how to deal with this situation.

"I'm dangerous" the mini crewmate sighs, "and I wish I didn't hurt Scarlet."

"See!" I point out, "this is good!"

Teal flinches, shooting a confused look up at me, which made me realise my mistake. "I mean... you regret it, which means you won't do it again... so it'll be okay"

"Maybe" she reluctantly murmurs.

"Okay" I declare, "you stay in my room, and I'll talk to the others"

"Sure" she shrugs, plopping herself down onto the unused child bed.

After peeking through the crack in the door one last time, I rush back to he rest of the children.
"Alright everyone. I know you're probably scared, but you shouldn't be. Teal isn't happy with what she's done, she says she really regrets it. I don't think she was thinking right at the time, all of you have been through a lot-"

"That doesn't mean we're shooting each other!" Coal yells, and Emerald nods in agreement.

"Everyone has different reactions to grief" Lapis murmurs.

"Yes" I agree. There's no way I could have put it into words as well as he just had.
"So we're going to be nice to Teal. I promise she won't hurt any of you. I'll make sure she stays away from all of you for a while, just until she gets better."

"She's sick?!" Chocolate gasps, "Do sick people always kill their friends?"

"No!" Lapis speedily replied, "she's not dead!Scarlet is going to be okay... nobody else is dying..."

"What if I get sick!?" The youngest child whimpers, "I don't want to hurt my friends!"

"You won't" I assure him, yet I can see he's not entirely convinced.

"So, we be nice to Teal." Lapis recaps, "we do what the adults say"