A Top Secret Mission

Disclaimer: Claire is mine, anyone else who makes an appearance isn't.

Claire stood still, listening intently. No one was around the coast was clear. Her eyes shifted from side to side as she surveyed the scene before her. Everything was in place, as least she thought so. She had never attempted anything like this before, so if something went amiss it really wasn't her fault. She reached forward to choose her weapons of choice.

A measuring cup, a ¼ measuring cup to be precise. With hand on hip she reached for a bag identified as flour and dog her cup in. She turned back to the small 3x5 card on the counter top to double-check her measurements.

"Add ¾ cups flour to a small bowl." She looked around for a small bowl and dragged it over to her depositing the white contents of the cup into it. She continued around the kitchen gathering utensils as she needed them, adding her ingredients into the bowls.

She went to pick two eggs out of the refrigerator, but froze when she heard someone walk into the room. She peeked through the crack in the door to see Remy standing there staring at her with a bemused look on his face.

"Great," she thought, "just what I need." She straightened up and brought her eggs over to the counter, ignoring the smirk on the Cajun's face.

She looked at the card on the counter, looked at the bowls, looked at the eggs, and then looked at the card again. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and she slammed one the measuring cups on the counter and turned towards him.

"What?" she yelled.

He held his hands up in front of him. "Remy no say anything."

With a glare she turned back to her bowls/

"Remy jus didn't tink that you were interested in anything. . .feminine."

Claire drove one of the eggs she was holding onto the edge of the bowl causing yolk and shell to fly everywhere. She picked a spoon up and started to stir, bringing a yelp from behind her.

"Mon deu! What you be doin? You can't jus mix the shell in with the rest of the batter!" He strode forward quickly to take the spoon and bowl from her, but quickly rethought his actions when they elicited a low growl from Claire.

"There are a couple of other things that aren't supposed to go into the batter here too, but keep pushin me and they might end up in it anyway." She looked pointedly at his crotch, causing Remy to turn a shade of red and then white when he realized she was completely serious.

He held his hands up again, "Look chere, Remy just tryin to help. He don't think you too familiar with the fine art of cookin and he just want to make sure it's an enjoyable experience."

She turned towards him, pushed some hair out of her eyes so she could glare at him effectively. She raised an elegantly arched eyebrow and replied, "Since when do you care if any of my experiences are pleasurable?"

He smiled as he looked at her standing in front of the counter with flour all over her shirt and a streak of batter across her pert nose.

"Maybe Remy care now, non?"

She simply snorted at him and turned back to peer into her bowl of batter. Remy watched as she reached her slender fingers into the bowl to extract the shell pieces and slowly licked the batter off of her fingers. Remy felt a lump start to form in his throat.

He reached towards her, hesitating as she turned her head to glare at him.

"First thing you need to do chere, is pull your hair out of the way." He took the bandanna off of his forehead and gave her a questioning look, "you mind?"

She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head and turning back towards the batter. He ran his fingers through her hair gathering it behind her. It was softer than he had imagined, it was like a mass quantity of thick silk running through his fingers. He finally tamed it enough that he could rap the bandanna around it in a semblance of a pony tail, but as he leaned against the counter next to her she saw that some strands had escaped and fell prettily around her face, curling towards her chin.

"What you be makin?"

"Cookies."

He smiled at her gruff response. "Who be the lucky receiver."

She turned her head to look him in the eye. "Not you."

He chuckled deep in his throat, "then it be ok if Remy help you." He reached for the bowl of t flour and baking soda as she placed the larger bowl of wet ingredients under the mixer.

"So what next?"

She peered intently at the card trying to ignore the way he was looking at her. For the entire time she had been here he had been nothing but hostile, but since she had come back with Jubilee and Scott in tow he seemed to pop up where ever she was, and he was being eerily-nice. She didn't like it one bit.

"We add the flour slowly into the bowl." He nodded and added cupfuls of flour as she scraped the side with a spatula. Suddenly he grinned evilly and dumped the entire contents of the bowl into the mixer cause a white cloud to cover her.

When the cloud cleared she was covered from head to toe in flour. Remy covered his mouth with his hand as he laughed.

She glared at him, "you think that's funny Gumbo?"

He was gonna die, but it was worth it. He laughed harder tears coming to his eyes as he nodded.

Claire pursed her lips, grabbing the spatula tighter with one hand, nails tapping the counter with the other. Suddenly she smiled at him.

"What about this? Is this funny?" She flung batter over her shoulder at him and hit him square in the face with a gob of batter. As he sputtered and wiped it out of his eyes, causing it to run down his nose she smiled.

"Yup, that's funny." Claire smiled as Remy scowled at her through the floury haze of poorly mixed batter, wishing she didn't have such a beautiful smile so he could be more angry.

"Non chere, that be amusing, but this," he picked up an egg from the counter. "This be funny." And brought it down with a resounding splat on the crown of her head.

Her lips pursed together as she wiped the egg running down her forehead with her hand. She took a deep breath and reached for the vegetable oil.

"That was good, Cajun, I can see how you attract so many women with such--Icharm/I. However I think this will help you get even more." She reached for his waistline and poured the contents of the bottle into his pants, patting it when she was done.

"There ya go slick, better?" she said smirking, raising her chin defiantly.

Remy looked at her gazing at him so smugly and did the first thing that came to mind, which if he ever looked back on he would realize it was the dumbest thing he could have done.

He reached forward and kissed her. His intent was to simply wipe the batter on her face, at least that's what he told himself, but if anyone had walked in they would have known better.

He saw his mistake when he realized that she had a firm grip on his groin.

"You ruined my batter Cajun, that upsets me."

"Remy can see dat," he squeaked.

"Now how are you gonna make up for that?" She said raising an eyebrow.

Remy grinned slyly, but his eyes widened when she squeezed harder. "Give Remy some time, he tink of a way."

"I'm sure he will." She let go of him and he backed away, and she gave him an innocent smile. "How about you clean up, I'll finish what I'm doing and then I'll check up on how you're coming along with ways to make it up to me."

He nodded, grinning sheepishly as he walked away, trying not to limp.

A short time later Logan walked into the kitchen, only to find it looked like there had been a war with baking products.

"What in the hell happened in here?" He grumbled heading towards the fridge, only to stop when he saw Claire standing in front of the stove holding a cookie sheet. He rubbed his eyes, yup that was Claire, his daughter, the one who was wanted for murder, standing there in an apron with a cookie sheet in hand.

His face grew more confused as he realized that she was covered in flour and had egg running down her head.

"What in the blazes are you doin darlin?"

She turned toward him, and for the first time since he had known her she didn't glare or growl at him. She simply said, "Baking, what does it look like?"

"Baking?"

"I can kill mass quantities of people and not get a raised eyebrow, but if I decide to make cookies people get suspicious? It's kind of insulting."

"I'm not suspicious, just never took you for the baking type, I guess."

"Well there's a first time for everything."

That's when Logan noticed that although her face was covered in batter there was none on her mouth, or more precisely her lips. His brows grew together suspiciously.

"Yeah, I guess so."

END