We Fell In Love In October - Wintumn Flufftober

Reading Together

A/N - Thank you to @autumnsw1nter for saving Flufftober with this one. I could not ask for a better British consultant you bitch <3

"You really will do anything to avoid working in the rooms, won't you Marjorie?"

Autumn returned from her lunch break to hear the tail end of a conversation between Charlotte and Marjorie. They had received a last minute call from Carly's assessor that their meeting was actually today, the schedule they'd sent out for the week had a scheduling conflict that they had just caught, meaning they had to figure out how to get the apprentice out of ratio for the afternoon. In Roger's infinite wisdom he kept their roster completely full at all times without hiring extra staff, meaning they really had no wiggle room for emergencies. The two women had already tried to call in staff members who were off for the day, but none of them were available and it was far too late to get any agency staffers. So they just had to make do with who was in the building.

"No it's fine I have it all figured out..."

The deputy manager took a seat at her desk and logged back into her computer as she tried to drown out the ramblings of her coworker. The convoluted plan of changing nap times and staff floating between rooms could have been easily avoided if one of the managers just stepped into Carly's place. But everyone knew that Marjorie hated working in the rooms. It's not like she wasn't trained to do so, that was where she started out and everyone in the nursery was required to keep their credentials up to date so they could cover. She was just out of practice and much preferred to stay in the office. Up until recently Autumn had felt the same. On occasion she would be sent to the sister nursery to deal with more unruly staff or to punish Siobhan, but in her nursery she was hardly ever sent to the rooms in her nursery. And that was what she preferred, she was hired with the understanding that she wasn't really going to be in the rooms with the kids. But now things had changed.

"Marjorie." Autumn spoke up suddenly, shocking the two other women in the room.

"Yes, my love?"

"If I cover the rooms this afternoon, will you stop talking?"

"You?" Marjorie and Charlotte exchanged a quick, concerned glance as they turned away slightly. Marjorie did her best to lower her voice, but was less than successful. "Has she done that before??"

"She covered toddlers with me once, remember?"

"Yes and if I recall she hid the Legos and accused you of stealing them!" 

"Well yes..." Charlotte stuttered out, trying to come up with a good reason that Autumn could cover the rooms. She certainly didn't want to run around as much as Marjorie was suggesting.

"But this time she'd be with Winter. He doesn't really need any help, he just needs another adult in the room."

Charlotte looked back just in time to see Autumn rolling her eyes at how little the women were trying to hide their conversation. She lowered her voice even more since, as far as she knew, Winter and Autumn thought their relationship was still a secret.

"And if anyone is going to be able to work with her...."

"Oh you're right!"

Both women knew that Autumn had been trying to be better. She wasn't as critical of the staff and had even started defending them against the more difficult parents. And everyone knew that Winter was a big part of that. They turned back around, coming face to face with a very unamused Autumn.

"Hello, Autumn!" Marjorie and Charlotte had wide grins plastered on their faces, hoping they could ignore the fact that Autumn had absolutely heard every word they just said.