Mommy's Little CapitalistBy Gidgetgirl
Mommy's Little Capitalist Storms The Castle
"Halt! Who goes there?
Buffy looked down at the little girl with a smile. Her dark hair was pulled into pig tails, she was currently wearing a pair of underwear on her head, and what looked like a quarter had been ceremonially taped to her forehead.
"Hey there, Jenny," Buffy said with a grin.
Jenny wrinkled her little brow at Buffy. "I said who goes there?" She reiterated, raising her voice, the underwear sliding into her face a little.
Buffy forced herself not to smile. "I do," she replied. Jenny continued to look at her fiercely. "Buffy," Buffy amended.
"Please state your preferred form of currency, blonde Buffy," Jenny said, her little voice still overly serious.
"Ummmmm.... quarters?"
Jenny broke into a large grin. "You may enter," she told the slayer majestically. "May you live long and orgasm."
"Live long and prosper," Xander corrected her, coming into the room. "It's live long and prosper, Jen-Ben."
Jenny tilted her head to the side, considering her daddy’s words. “But wouldn’t you rather live long and orgasm?” she asked him. She pointed her finger at Buffy. “Buffy would. She likes quarters.” In Jenny’s four year old mind, these two statements
were firmly and logically connected.
Xander had no idea what to say, so he just grinned at his daughter, leaned down, and swooped her onto his shoulders. Jenny giggled delightedly. “Now I am tall,” she said. She turned her attention back to Buffy and put on her official voice again. “What say you, short person?” she asked.
“What say me about what?” Buffy asked.
Jenny smiled sweetly at the slayer. “Do you want to storm the castle with me?” she asked. “There might be profits to gain, small slayer.”
Buffy looked at Xander, clueless. “Why are we storming the castle?” she asked under her breath.
“Bastille day,” Anya explained, coming into the room. “I tried to tell her that it wasn’t an American holiday, but the young capitalist pointed out that not celebrating a holiday is like turning down free investments just because they yield only marginal gains.”
Buffy nodded. “Right,” she said, drawing out the word and nodding. “So we’re celebrating Bastille Day.”
“Vivre le France Libre!” Jenny bellowed.
Buffy did a double take. “Was that French?” she asked Anya and Xander.
Xander nodded, a loopy grin on her face. “She’s got a little friend at school whose mother is from France,” Xander said. “She just soaks this stuff up like a sponge.” Xander paused for a moment. “I’m having a soccer mom moment, aren’t I?” he asked, feeling awkward.
“Just a bit,” Buffy replied, struggling to keep from laughing. Xander was such a Daddy sometimes.
Anya got a thoughtful look on her face. “Soccer mom…” she said, trailing off with the visuals that were playing through her head. Then she opened her mouth again.
“Not in front of the b-a-b-y and the b-u-f-f-y,” Xander said under his breath.
Buffy processed for a moment and then spoke. “Xander,” she said patiently, “I can spell.”
“So can I,” Jenny said. “D-o-l-l-a-r spells dollar. And J-e-n-n-y spells Jenny. And h-i spells hi-hi! Wanna hear me spell male penis?” she asked. Without waiting for a response, Jenny immediately spelled out “P-e-n-i…”
“Hey Jen-Ben, how bout some more of that French?” Xander said. Sometimes, distraction was his best bet. Jenny was an awful lot like her mother.
Jenny grinned. “Vivre le France libre!” she said again. “Francs! Muy bien. Le lapin. Vivre le France…”
“Le lapin?” Buffy said, trying to remember what little French she knew. “Doesn’t that mean…?”
“Bunny,” Xander supplied unthinkingly.
Jenny and Anya both looked at him, alarmed.
“Where?!” Mother and daughter shrieked in unison.
“It’s just the French word for rabbit, guys,” Xander said soothingly. “Jenny must have learned it from Cara’s mother.”
Jenny reached for her mother, and Anya took her into her arms and snuggled her. “The things that woman teachers our daughter,” Anya huffed. “And to think she called me to complain about the girls playing sperm tag last week.”
“Sperm tag?” Buffy raised one eyebrow.
“Don’t ask,” Xander said.
Jenny, safe in her mother’s arms, looked up, the quarter still taped firmly to her forehead and her brown pigtails poking through the leg holes of the underwear, convinced herself there were no bunnies and then wiggled to get down.
“There’s a castle to be stormed, adult people,” she said. “Who’s with me?”
Xander, Anya, and Buffy looked at each other and shrugged.
“Vivre le France libre!”