#marchhhh 🥺 this was such a good question i didnt even realize i had this much to say abt au squared walt

[kylejsugarman]

hello syd! does walt ever babysit au baby? does she ever have play dates with holly (or is there too much of an age difference, i'm not sure)?

hiiiii march 🥺 occasionally, yeah!! never really of his own volition, but it does happen, especially towards the End of the series where skyler is aware of the operation and reluctantly helping out. initially, walt is almost like. Vaguely Disgusted by baby because of his disgust towards jesse and the notion of him being a father, but those feelings sort of have to fade after jesse is hospitalized following the first tuco encounter and walt feels obligated to take care of baby until he's released. he passes her off as the child of a coworker at the high school ("her mother is really struggling right now. i know it seems asinine to babysit right now given everything that's going on, but she's in a rough place and well. we would want someone to do the same for us when holly is born, right? 🥺") and even though skyler is still a little puzzled, she of course accepts her. spending that bit of time with baby and seeing how distraught she is to be separated from jesse softens walt significantly, but he still doesnt think very highly of jesse as a father. it almost sort of makes him think the opposite, that baby should live with a family like theirs instead (<- man who thinks He is a good family man)

when skyler becomes Aware of the business and that baby belongs to a Different kind of coworker, she sort of takes on the duty of baby alongside her other duties of buying out the car wash and coaching walt. for a lot of the time that walt and jesse are cooking in the super lab, skyler is bringing baby to work at the carwash with her along with holly just to make things run smoothly ("shes the daughter of one of ur father's friends" skyler says when flynn asks why his mom suddenly has two babies). baby is ten months older than holly, but they can still have a vague approximation of "play time" together with the Classics like stacking rings and buttons that say "moo" when u press them. even though skyler approaches all of this with a sort of clinical outlook, she is definitely endeared to baby and likes that holly is able to play with another infant given their family's lack of. Social Time with other families. she even misses her once gus offers to put baby in daycare.

walt also ends up looking after baby several times during that period between him poisoning her/blowing up gus and jesse realizing that he poisoned her. the poisoning incident almost makes him love baby even more: the knowledge that he now has jesse's complete and utter loyalty and affection empowers him. it's like a man successfully having two families at once and getting everything he wants from both of them. skyler knows about jesse, jesse knows about skyler, and he can still get both of them to do what he wants. baby is as much His daughter now as holly. he's able to control her!! he poisoned her and baby still loves him. it's almost an accomplishment to him. the winner took it all!! (<- man who doesnt know that jesse is about to figure out what happened and go fucking postal)