A/N: I've decided to make this one multi-chaptered. What I want to write couldn't fit in just one! Lol And, as promised (sort of) the guy from Home Alone will appear, but I just have to decided on when xD
"One, two, three, not only you and me, got one-eighty degrees, and I'm caught in between. Countin', one, two, three, Peter, Paul, and Mary, gettin' down with 3P, everybody loves … "
Dawn skipped around the kitchen as she was preparing dinner. She had turned the stereo on in hopes that it would fill the empty house with sound so she wouldn't feel as alone as she really was. Tuning the radio stations back and forth until she'd found a good one, she had squealed when she'd found Brittany Spears's "3" playing.
As Brittany sang about three or four people playing Twister on the floor for some reason (note: she has no idea what the song means), Dawn searched through the CDs that were laying on top of the stereo, flipping through them absently until one caught her eye. A Nickelback album. "Dark Horse". Huh, let's see what it sounds like, she thought as she popped the CD out of the case and set it on the CD tray after she pressed the Eject button. She waited until Brittany's song was over then pushed the tray back into the stereo.
As the stereo warmed up, she walked back over to the counter and looked at the list she had printed out earlier. All right, she thought. Let's get started on this lasagna! But her positive thoughts were startled when the album finally began to play on the stereo. When Dawn heard the first lines of the song, she paled as she thought, Good grief, Paul. What kind of music do you listen to? She immediately went to change songs, switching to the next one. It didn't sound so bad. In the beginning at least.
The words made her wince a little in some places, but she went back to work on dinner. The song drifted around her in a loud cacophony of drums and bass guitar, and soon she got into it, moving and shaking along to the song as she tore apart the basil leaves, setting them aside in a small bowl once she finished. She turned the stove on and searched in the cabinets for a saucepan. Pausing to think, she stood again, walking over to the other side of the oven and pulled out two saucepans from the cupboard beneath the silverware drawer. Reaching into the higher cabinets, she pulled out extra-virgin olive oil, salt, then stepping over to the cabinet beside it, she grabbed a can of tomato sauce from the top shelf.
Now, she thought, surveying the kitchen. Where did he put those pots? They weren't with the saucepans. She took a guess and checked in the drawer under the oven. "Ah-ha!" She picked the pot out of the drawer and set it on the counter. "Now," she mumbled to herself, "measuring cups, spoons,wooden spoons … Aye! There's so much to get together for just a pan of lasagna. And such an odd place for pots!" But instead of just griping she set back to work.
Now familiar with the beat of the song, she hummed along as she set one of the saucepans on an eye on the stovetop. Taking the olive oil (extra-virgin, I really don't get that) she poured some into the saucepan until it filled the bottom, then she tipped it back up and twisted the top on. Setting the olive oil aside, she went to retrieve some garlic she had peeled earlier from the fridge. She took a knife from the drawer and cut it in half, then set one half in the oil, returning the other to the refrigerator. She let the garlic sizzle as she took the tomato sauce and opened the can. When she noticed that the clove was beginning to get brown, she pulled it out with her hand. Found out the hard way that was a bad idea.
The garlic clove in the trash now, she poured the tomato sauce into the hot oil, stirring with a wooden spoon she retrived from the same drawer as the knife as she added the crushed basil. She covered the saucepan with a top, then went into the living room to watch some TV for a little while, switching off the stereo as she went.
Every so often she would get up from her seat on the couch to stir the oil-sauce mixture to make sure it wouldn't burn. On one of her kitchen trips, she heard the click of the front door. Ever since the break in last time, they'd kept a baseball bat beneath the kitchen sink, which Dawn retrieved now. Readying herself, she held the baseball bat in front of her like a sword, her face set in determination. But she relaxed when Paul walked through the front doorway.
"Oh my god, Paul. You almost gave me a heart attack!" Dawn said, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as she put the bat away.
Paul frowned as he pulled off his coat and hung it on the rack next to the door. "I wasn't sure we'd have any real use for that."
"Yeah, well. Even though it was over a month ago, I'm still a little jumpy. I wish you'd call and tell me when you're on your way home from work. Make me feel a whole lot better."
"I know what you mean. My sleep has been lighter since then." He made his way into the kitchen where Dawn was standing in front of the oven, stirring the oil and sauce mix as she held the cover with her free hand. With about fifteen minutes left, she grabbed the pot she'd pulled out earlier and filled it about three-quarters full with water from the sink. Taking the salt on the counter, she she took a large pinch and tossed it in and set the pot on another eye, twisting the dial to heat it up.
This went on for at least an hour, Dawn bustling around the kitchen preparing dinner, shooing Paul out of the kitchen as she worked. He went grumbling the entire way. He didn't like being shooed anywhere, and Dawn had been doing it a lot recently, making him get out of the living room when she was cleaning, out of the bedroom when she was tiding up. It was starting to get on his nerves.
"Paul, you know I only shooed you out because I want to get this done."
He looked up at her from where he sat on the couch watching TV while Dawn kept at dinner. She never liked him in the kitchen when she was cooking something that took as long as lasagna.
"Yeah, I know. But you don't have to shoo me out of the kitchen. Just say get out and I would have." He picked up the remote and changed the channel.
Dawn sighed from the doorway where she stood. "I don't do that. You know I like to work on dinner myself. You should learn to relax sometimes, I swear." She went back to the stove and stirred the lasagna noodles she had placed in the pot of boiling water.
Paul just rolled his eyes at Dawn's lecture. "I can relax, you just don't know how to figure out when I do." He set his bare feet on the couch, leaning against the arm as he watched the news.
"Feet off the couch, Paul!" Dawn called from the kitchen.
Bloody hell, how does she always know? Paul thought, baffled. But his attention snapped back to the TV as he heard the tail end of what the news reporter was saying.
" … a string of break-ins in the surrounding area, but what is baffling is that the intruders don't steal anything, only search through house onwers' belongings. This is …"
Paul muted the TV and looked toward the kitchen, checking on Dawn. There she stood in the kitchen doorway, her hand on the doorjamb as she stared at the now-silent TV, the screen showing the newscasters back in the studio, silent as they talked back and forth to each other about who knows what. She sure didn't know. "Dawn …" he started, but stopped when she held up a hand.
"It's all right. I'm fine," she said as she headed back into the kitchen. She hoped to push the whole thing to the back of her mind, forgetting and losing the memory of it to her subconscious. But it kept coming back as she started to layer the lasagna in a pan, spreading cheese and sauce over the noodels evenly, laying another noodle on it. Tears pricked her eyes as she worked and she rubbed them away, determined not to cry. But when she felt a pair of strong arms around her middle, the tears broke through her walls.
A/N: Hmm. I probably could have ended this chapter better, but I couldn't figure out how x..x Sorry, but I guess you'll have to stand this until I get the next chapter up. I also think of this one as an introductory chapter, not sure if it would really count ._.