note More food-titled stories, but this one actually involves a pie. I promise. Annalogia are Jellal's parents here, an idea from wordslinger on ff.n. I am behind this idea.

PIE

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3:14 AM

Since the clock never lied (and she always made sure the time was right every week; a habit she never unlearned from when her housemates in college pulled "funny" pranks like changing the time when thy knew she had a paper due at a specific time), Erza accepted that it really was three-fourteen in the morning. And that there really was a knucklehead pounding on the door downstairs. She groaned sadly before remembering to be angry, letting deep frown lines set onto her forehead. As far as she knew, she'd put up the CLOSED sign last night when she closed up the bakery before ascending to the second floor where she lived. She shared the space with her grandmother and sometimes her sister when Eileen felt the devoir to grudgingly spend a yearly, hasty holiday in the place she grew up in. Aside from that, it was pastry and the small-town quiet that Eileen's turbulence couldn't touch.

Erza cursed again before jumping up and sliding her feet into slippers. Who in their right minds were even awake on these times? If some stranger had the lost address and was knocking on the wrong door, Erza promised herself as a treat that she would plant a nicely balled and swung fist into their kisser. It probably wasn't anyone she knew. Her friends respected baker hours: the very same hours they knew would have her awake just another hour later if they had any goddamned patience because god knew every baker or fisher woke at four on the dot.

She grumbled to herself as she stomped onto the first level. By the time she reached the main entrance, she had a pretty snappy speech in mind and the fury of a thousand warriors stamped onto her facial features. She undid all the locks and wrenched the door open just in time to catch the next knock.

"Oh." came the newcomer's voice.

Erza didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at first: the wild blue of his hair, the odd burgundy marking on his face or the big brown (wait, hazel? Yes.) eyes that looked just about terrified at her expression. "Yes?" She'd never seen this person before. As one of the measly two hundred-something citizens of Magnolia and an owner of an establishment that saw any and all of the city it resided, Erza was pretty sure she knew anyone who lived here. He must be new. It still didn't save him from an ass-beating. A gentler one, maybe, since he was new. "What can I do for you at three AM?"

"Yes, sorry about that. I would have come at a later time, seeing as I had just come from an exhausting trip to here." Ah, so he wasn't above the 'pity on me' card. "It's my mother, I'm afraid. She's pregnant."

"Oh." Erza clutched at the door she was holding to prevent from doing something silly with her hands as was her nervous habit. "I don't know what you expect for me to do. This is a bakery. I don't and have never dealt with children. I had to spend some days with cows for my Agriculture thesis but I've never really seen a birth or anything. Would you like me to tell you where the midwife is?"

The man blinked at her statements but smiled when she finished. He really wanted to laugh but he didn't think it was called for at this hour. She probably wasn't feeling very humorous right now. "No, it's not that kind of problem, but thank you for your kindness." His smile turned into a grin when he couldn't quite stop thinking how funny it was that she was talking about cows. "Actually, I was hoping to buy some pastries. I've just found out that my mother gets terrible cravings. She's in her first trimester so she's not above kicking down my door and throwing me into the cold to go buy her poison."

Erza flushed a beet red. If she could embarrass herself any further, she would probably move to the next country. "Please, come in. I didn't mean to keep you in the snow." She stepped aside to let him in and fumbled to put a lock back on. "I apologize for my tartness. My manners aren't awake yet. I'd like to help but we haven't started baking yet. But if your mother can wait, I can make her something more edible than poison."

The man laughed. "I guess that would be preferable. My mother loves your apple pie. And maybe a bunch of other things I didn't catch. Her voice started sounding like a demonic gurgle right after she said apple pie and pointed me at your direction. Oh," He held a hand out. "I'm Jellal, by the way. The pregnant mother is Anna Heartfilia."

"I'm Erza Scarlet. Good to meet you." Pieces of information started to click together. Anna Heartifilia, recently widowed by her intimidating husband, Acnologia. Now she was pregnant and her unfamiliar son was home. Erza shook Jellal's hand and told herself to save the pity for a more polite time. "I can start the apple pie now. Give me thirty minutes and you can be on your way with a hot one for Anna."

She began to gather clean tools stored in an overhead cabinet and laid them out in a methodical semicircle in the stainless table ahead of her. With a recipe committed to muscle memory, she measured out dry ingredients onto her sifter and set aside a mixture of wet ingredients for the batter. Soon she had a soft ball of dough from the mixer. She didn't like talking while she worked. Her grandmother liked putting The Carpenters on, and that was the extent of human talk Erza liked in her kitchen. She might let her staff talk around her but they knew she liked to keep to herself when her fingers were in flour.

For now, she decided that a little conversation wouldn't hurt. She didn't want Jellal feeling anymore unwelcome than she already made him feel. "We make the filling the night before so they can marinate longer." She took mixing bowl from one of the many chillers lined up by the back wall. "It tastes better that way."

"I'll bet." Jellal could smell the cinnamon-y goodness before Erza could even take the film wrap off. "I can't thank you enough for doing this."

Erza waved a hand. "Please. Tell Anna this is a congratulatory gift." Normally, she would have left the dough to rest for a while but she was pressed for time. She rolled it into an imperfect circle easily rectified once on the baking pan. "And how do you feel about the incoming sibling?"

Jellal kept his eyes on her hands trimming the excess dough. He'd rather watch her hands than her face or the marvelous red hair she'd hastily twisted into a bun at her nape. He didn't think he could chalk the pink on hi cheeks to the cold if he started blushing. "Honestly, I don't know what to think about it. It's very sudden, after all that's happened. I took time off work to come down here and help my mom around the house and in whatever work she's still doing. I'm still on the fence wether or not to quit and move back here permanently or not. I don't want to be a stranger to my first sibling."

Erza nodded, listening carefully while she spooned fragrant apple filling into the dish. "That's a tough decision. Still, it's very nice of you to come back and take care of your mother. I admire people who are smart enough to put their family over ambition." For a little while, Erza thought of Eileen who after all these years could not be happy with the people she grew up with, always chasing the next big thing and never staying put enough to notice what mattered. She'd cried at their parents' funeral, Erza remembered. Did she regret that the last thing she'd ever said to their parents was that she would never like to see them again before she ran away?

"Thank you. You sure are making this crisis an easy one to resolve, if you put it that way." Jellal smiled a dimpled smile that Erza barely caught.

"For some people it's an easy choice and I don't impose that idea since the circumstances are always different. But anyone with a mother as lovely as your deserves to spend time with her in such a beautiful time of her life." The crumble for the top of the pie was an easy blitz of butter, brown sugar and flour. The simplest things were always the tastiest. It went above the filling and the complete dish went into a preheated oven. Already her kitchen was filled with that homey smell of cinnamon and apples and that undertone of nutmeg.

Erza dusted crumbs off her hands. A peek at the clock hanging above the door signaled that by the time her pie was done, it was just about time to open up shop. She didn't even feel sleepy anymore. "It should be done in twenty-five."

"Excellent. You bake very efficiently. I'll have to come at a normal time and buy you out." Jellal began to pull out his wallet. "I'll make the payment now, so I'll be out of your way later. I know you open early."

Waving flour-whitened hands in dismissal, Erza said, "No, I insist. This is a gift for your mother. And maybe a welcome home for you, if she lets you have some."

"If you refuse this payment, I'll be happy to pay you back with dinner." Jellal replied cheekily. He was probably pushing his luck, what with the rude wakeup call and the semi-tragic backstory he casually burdened her with.

"Oh, you don't have to─" There was that damned blush again, heating her neck up. She hoped it wasn't as obvious as she felt it.

If only he knew how blood pumped under her skin as violently as his did. "It's not for mom. For me. I am selfishly asking to take you out."

"Well." Erza didn't go on very many dates, but she didn't dread this one as any other time someone asked her out. That had to be a good sign. "As long as "taking me out" is of the dinner variety and not the murder variety, then I'd love to. I normally get off at three."

Her answer surprised laugh out of Jellal. "Dinner, then. I can swing by later and see if tonight works for you."

She would damn make sure it would. Being boss had perks. "I'd like that."

note: I couldn't remember the term for "filling" until I texted my mom "what do you call the shit we put INSIDE a pie?" and stubbornly kept typing out [[[[[INNARDS]]]]] to change later in the hopes that I would come upon the word I wanted by myself. So if you see any stray use of innards... tell me. I swear I didn't intend to leave it there. And thirty minutes to make a pie is probably just about right. I take forty minutes making it from scratch so if she's a pro and she had premade filling/innards she would get it done by thirty. Idk don't quote me on this.

I'm still writing about pregnancy cravings, which is something I'll never take as a joke. If your mother wants apple pie at three am, make it happen. Make her happy.