A twist of the blade, a shifting of the wrist, a carefully thought-out and well-performed deliverance between his fingers that made the object seem weightless and completely controlled.
A silent slash that seemed to shout out into the air as her eyes followed it into the ingredient at hand, the blade barely grazing the cutting board as it tore through the tomato.
It was glistening when it emerged once again, it had been for a while – soaked to the hilt from its invasion, dripping before it once again cut down into the fruit – the forbidden fruit.
Barbara's breath hitched at that, and she tried to turn her gaze towards the TV once again.
Her efforts were fruitless.
It wasn't as if she had been staring at him from the couch for the past 10 minutes, holding her breath every time he brought the knife down in a satisfying "chop".
It wasn't as if once again she had been sent in to relieve one or two colleagues because the hospital had been overrun with patients, and therefor had had a long and exhausting shift that started at 10 am this morning.
And it wasn't as if she had come home at 4 in the morning, careful not to disturb the sleeping figure on her couch, but had wound up making the floorboards creak just right, and she had found out the figure wasn't as much sleeping as he was just wary of his surroundings – ready to attack whoever thought they could out-smart him.
Yet right now it was as if he was the only thing worthy of her attention in the room, damned be the TV she never did care to pay attention to anyway.
He scooped the slices of tomato onto a piece of toasted bread, which already had the ham and cheese on it, alongside some fresh lettuce and mayonnaise.
He spun the knife between 2, no, 3 fingers?
Barbara's eyes tried to follow, but just as it had been with Jim, she never quite could figure out how that trick worked – thought it worked perfectly fine for her dazed mind, which was sleep-deprived, and her empty stomach, which had had cafeteria dinner some odd hours ago – she bit her lower lip, not entirely registering that she had done it.
She had insisted he go back to, er, bed – even if it consisted of her worn-out couch that had seen better days – but hehad insisted he stayed awake till she was tucked in herself - Some odd modesty concerning sleeping in a friend's house.
Because that's what they were, friends, right? She thought back to the fight at the museum, the fear she had felt, and the overwhelming feeling of safety she didn't know she had longed for when his arms folded around her.
She had called him partner that night. She had liked calling him that.
A discussion that never really grew in volume had ensued, and at some point the whole thing had ended with him preparing some sandwiches for both of them in his bath robe, after she had almost shouted at him about how stressed, tired and starved she was.
And Barbara Lake wasn't one to complain - She never did, but after months of having Walter Strickler living under her roof, as she had insisted he did until they figured out the whole cradle-stone thing, and watching her city slowly start to recover from the battle his people had brought with them.
She was tired.
She was tired of the extra shifts, and of the hospital being under staffed because of the severity of injuries and numbers of them.
And she was tired of constantly being worried about Jim.
Walter had asked what she wanted for a snack, and she had told him of Jim's sandwiches. Which was a mistake, as she had had to hurriedly catch a few drops of tears on her cheeks before Walt had seen them.
It had been 3 months since Jim's departure. 3 whole months of him dropping texts in the middle of both night and day, calling on odd hours and ensuring he was fine – he even sent pictures.
3 months of nonstop turmoil of her heart, and she cried happily almost every time a new sign of life popped up from her baby boy.
She heard the sound of a "shffff!"cutting through her inner reverie, a reverie that had been created out of the thought about her baby being further away from her than he had ever been before, and the sight of the man carrying two plates of sandwiches towards her.
He had deposited the knife into its holder on the kitchen counter, and Barbara had felt a little disappointed.
"If you wanted a midnight snack you could've just said so – no need to excuse my bad eating habits to get up and make yourself a sandwich." – she had meant it as a quip, to break the tension.
He chuckled as he set down the plates on the coffee table, and sat down next to her on his makeshift bed.
He had folded up the duvet she had given him, sat it aside on the far end of the couch and placed his pillow on top of it. The only thing giving his sleeping space away was the blanket she had spread out on the couch to make it more comfortable.
He had insisted she didn't, she had done so anyway, and it had been spread out every night ever since when he made his bed.
"Barbara my dear, by this point you must know I would rather have tea as a midnight snack than anything else. And that I wouldn't take anything from your kitchen without asking first." He gave her a mischievous, yet annoyingly flattering smile – he had meant it as a quip.
Walter would take stuff without asking, but not without going shopping for replacements afterwards.
It was like having Jim home, but much older and with different preferences.
The cupboards had additional cereal brands, other spices and boxes of, non-surprisingly, more exotic tea than Barbara had ever seen.
She had thought of Walter as a man who liked one brand, but found he experimented a lot with the flavors he'd subject himself to when it came to tea.
She suspected that drinking the same kind would get dull after a few centuries.
Over the span of these 3 months she had grown content in how her house had changed, especially her living room. It smelled like him and carried more of his personal belongings each week. She couldn't help but feel a faint flutter in her stomach when she realized he was slowly but surely moving into her home, and into her life.
He had of course asked her several times if this was okay, if he could bring this and this from his apartment and sometimes his office, as he needed it for official "troll-business"as she had dubbed his other life, and in the beginning she had been wary of what sort of items he had needed.
But it had turned out to be a few boxes the first week, filled to the brim with ancient books, scrolls and talismans.
The next week it had been some eerie masks and crystals… and some daggers of varying length, which he had stowed away in a bag – out of sight, out of mind she supposed, and he had ensured her, he didn't mean to alarm her – apparently they were heirlooms.
She had allowed him to stow some of it away in the basement.
With the tunnel that still connected her house to Trollmarket – which she had remembered suddenly after getting back from work one night and going down to check on the boiler because the shower was acting up again– it was natural for him to build a sort of home-office down there.
The tunnel had been blocked out with some shelves, and other varying items Jim had obviously pushed up against it when she had had her memory removed, but was now open, and Walter had used it from time to time to move back and forth between her house and the market.
What he was doing in Trollmarket, had hadn't told her yet.
Once again her inner train of thought was cut short by the unmistakable shift of a blade.
A regular knife, and one he had brought with him to cut the sandwich. A fork accompanied it, but he seemed to have a habit of picking up the knife first to weight it in his hand – she wondered if he did it on purpose or if it was actually a force of habit.
She watched the knife slide from finger to finger, and even though it was spinning gracefully fast with an elegant curve to it, her eyes caught it all in slow motion, which also seemed to add to the highlight of the blades polished surface as it caught the light from the lamp above the table.
Her eyes drooped a little, her mouth parted slightly and she felt as though she was sitting far too close for comfort, yet the warmth of his body dragged her nearer.
"Truth be told, I wasn't actually hungry. I, er, enjoyed making you a sandwich and seemed to get carried away and I wound up making two! By all means, if you want the other one too you can have it, or I can put it in the fridge for you, for later?"
shfff, shfff, shff– the blade continued to spin and by this point she was sure he didn't do it on purpose, in fact, she was convinced he didn't even know the knife was in his hand.
He had asked her a question, hadn't he? Why did those sandwiches seem so incredibly dull right now?
He had also only brought one set of cutlery with him; she would have to take the knife from him if she wanted to cut the sandwich. But she only ever ate sandwiches with her hands.
He had stayed with her. He had invaded her life in the most wonderful of ways, brought back to her from a distant dream, one in which she had forgotten all about James, all about how he didn't want her or her son, his son.
He had comforted her whenever she needed it, he had agreed to find a solution to the whole cradle-stone dilemma, even when it wasn't his responsibility, or hers for that matter, they had just sort of accepted it – together.
He had asked for nothing but her patience, for her understanding of the situation he found himself in, for her acceptance that he would tell her everything she wanted to know as soon as he knew how to tell her.
A twinge of a memory had hit her then – one of him walking down her porch with a sweet expression on his face. The lingering taste of him on her lips, the light pressure of his palm on her hip, his fingers brushing gently against the small of her back.
Then another memory zapped at her consciousness - how he had shattered her entire image of their relationship with lies. Broken her trust and endangered her son.
And how he had mended it afterwards.
How he had stayed away to protect her, because he fully believed Jim had told her about the vast world beneath their feet.
How she'd wished she knew that his only reason for staying away for so long, was because he cared for her.
"Barbara, are you quite alright? Your eyes are a little glassy and unfocused – are you feeling okay?"
The blade stopped, and she followed it's descend towards the table to be put neatly beside the fork – she bet he didn't do that on purpose either.
She felt a light pressure on her cheek, and then on her forehead. She blinked and turned her gaze to meet the jungle-green eyes of her companion.
She was sleep-deprived, she was hungry and her mind was dazed, and yet she found that the only thing she wanted to do was stare into those green eyes forever.
She had called him partner that night. She had liked it.