Notes:Thanks to Mari and Sammy as always. Special thanks to Mari for all the bouncing on this one!
Readers and REAL McRollers - Thank you for your continued support. It's always appreciated.
Hope you enjoy!
Ambrosia (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)
Steve stood at the kitchen island, unpacking grocery bags mostly filled with food purchased in preparation for Thanksgiving the following week. He looked over as Catherine walked into the kitchen, finishing up a phone call.
"Okay, we'll see you in an hour, then," she said before ending the call and pocketing her phone. She picked up a couple cans of cranberries and turned to put them in the pantry. "Angie's having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma Ang."
Steve smiled. "Of course she is."
"She was fascinated with Grandma Ang's rainbow parfait containers of bingo chips. Apparently they make quite the musical instrument."
"She's definitely in the anything-that-makes-noise-is-great stage," he agreed, putting celery in the refrigerator's vegetable crisper.
"And those lids can be hard to open so Mom was sure Angie wouldn't be able to get into it but …"
He looked over inquisitively.
"Of course she did," Catherine finished with a knowing smile.
He chuckled. "Of course she did."
"Luckily now she's more likely to show off what she finds on the floor instead of putting them in her mouth, so they made a game of picking them up for Grandma Ang."
He nodded, taking several onions out of a bag and putting them in one of the metallic baskets on the counter.
Catherine opened up the next bag and smiled, taking out a can of mandarin oranges and a jar of maraschino cherries. Steve caught her smile and moved to stand next to her.
"Thanksgiving tradition," he said. "Thanks to you."
"Me? It was your memory."
"That I would have left in the past if not for you."
November 2003
"Remind me why we're here and not back at your place," Steve said as Catherine pulled a cart from the rack at the grocery store.
She rolled her eyes. "Because after you arrived …" she glanced around and lowered her voice "... and after we came up for air …"
He smirked, falling into step beside her as she started up the center aisle.
"I realized we needed to hit the store if we wanted to eat at all this weekend," she finished.
"You know they have these places that will make food for you now …" he teased. "What are they called? Oh, yeah, restaurants."
She elbowed him. "Smart ass." She straightened out the cart. "But if we buy enough food for the weekend, we can spend the rest of the time …"
"Pursuing other activities?" he suggested with a quirk of eyebrow.
She grinned. "Exactly."
"I like the way you think, Rollins."
"I knew you'd catch up eventually."
He tried to frown at the implied insult but couldn't hold it and grinned back at her as they continued down the center aisle.
"They've got all the Thanksgiving foods out," Catherine observed.
"Yeah, that's coming up, isn't it?"
"Mmhmm, next week."
He glanced over at her. "You gonna see your parents?"
She shook her head. "Not this month. Mom and Dad won't be back stateside till the new year so we'll wait and do a holiday roundup then."
"I'm sorry," he said. "That's too bad."
Catherine shrugged, a sad smile on her face. "That's the life," she said simply.
He nodded.
"With Dad's career, and now mine," she went on, "we don't usually get to celebrate together on the actual holiday, but we make up for that when we do all get together." She smiled at the thought. "Big Thanksgiving dinner in January or April. Christmas in May." She looked up at him. "And this way I could use my leave this week while you're here."
He smiled at her, his steps slowing to a stop. She maneuvered the cart to the side out of the flow of other customers in the aisle. His eyes drifted over the shelves of gravy and stuffing mix. "Well, since I'm here for a couple days, why don't we do a little Thanksgiving together?"
She looked surprised. "Really?"
He picked up a jar of gravy. "Yeah. We don't have to do anything big, but … I mean, the stuff's pretty much all right here and we need food for next few days anyway, so …"
She grinned. "So it'll be quick to grab some side dishes and a turkey, then we get back to my apartment faster …?"
"You said it, not me," he quipped, grinning back.
"You know, Thanksgiving dinner, even a small one, requires quite a bit of cooking which isn't exactly conducive to … 'pursuing other activities.' "
His lip quirked. "So we'll take breaks." He shifted, facing her fully and holding up the gravy as he raised an eyebrow in question. "What do you say?"
She looked up into his eyes, seeing the sincerity behind the teasing, and smiled. Taking the jar of gravy from his hands, she placed it in the cart. "Let's do it."
Fifteen minutes later, they were back where they'd started, surveying the contents of their cart.
"Okay, we've got a small turkey breast, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, rolls, ingredients for a green bean casserole, pumpkin pie … anything else you want for this impromptu Thanksgiving?" Catherine asked with a grin, looking up at Steve.
He started to say "No" but stopped. "What about …" His voice drifted off and he shook his head. "Never mind."
"What?" she asked encouragingly.
He hesitated, but seeing the genuine interest in her face exhaled a breath and continued. "It's just there was this … I guess it was kind of a dessert that Mrs. Mills used to make every year when I stayed with them during Thanksgiving leave. It had pineapple and coconut and those little … mandarin oranges and maraschino cherries …"
Catherine smiled. "And marshmallows?"
He looked surprised. "You know what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah, we called it fruit salad. Some people call it ambrosia because it's so good." She smiled. "My aunt Susan makes it so we had it whenever we saw her and Uncle Jim for Thanksgiving. I think she uses Cool Whip and sour cream …" she said, looking towards the back of the store where the dairy and freezer sections were located.
"It's okay," Steve said. "It's not a big deal. Don't worry about it."
She stopped and turned back to look at him. "It's a Thanksgiving memory of yours, Steve." She smiled softly. "That's the what the holiday's about. No matter when it's celebrated. We should make it." She turned the cart decisively and started back towards the dairy section.
He looked down for a beat, a small smile growing on his face at her determination to make his memory a reality. Raising his head, his smile widened and he hurried to catch up.
"If it had been up to me, I would have said 'Forget it,' " Steve said, smiling at Catherine now fifteen years later in their own kitchen. "We would have had our little Thanksgiving dinner together, and I know it would be great, but … because of you, we created a new tradition."
She smiled. "I remember asking you if the fruit salad was as good as you remembered."
"It was better," he said. "And that's true every year we've had it, because it reminds me that you wanted there to be something special to me on the table. Something I remembered from my Thanksgivings with the Mills. Celebrating with them was the first time I'd celebrated at all for years so …"
"I knew that if you'd mentioned it all, it had to be special, so I would've called Aunt Susan right there in the store if the recipe hadn't been on the side of the Cool Whip container to make sure we got all the ingredients to make it for you for our Thanksgiving." She smiled. "Our first Thanksgiving."
He smiled back, wrapping his arms around her waist. "First of what's turned out to be many."
Her smile widened as she lifted her arms to drape them around his shoulders. "And we'll have ambrosia fruit salad at all of them, even if you and I are the only ones who know why."
"I'm sure the story will come out one of these days."
She nodded, smiling. "Maybe this is the year."
Hope you enjoyed!
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