Updated Aug.23/10 - shadow shinobi57 Gave me this idea for this chapter. Thanks again!

'Well, whatever that Falco guy said sure put him in a mood.' Krystal thought as she sat on a bench outside of SFP. She looked back into the window of the Restaurant. Fox was finishing up the prep work for the opening of the store and had disappeared from view. But that didn't stop her from staring. 'Something about a reunion? I don't know. I'm sure he'll tell everyone eventually.' Krystal looked up at the sky. The red letters of SFP blocked most of her view of it. And what those didn't block, the cold steel of the building surrounding it did. This made Krystal miss her home planet. Her planet had wide open fields, Long winding forests, and small homely villages. Coming to Corneria on a whim had been a major culture shock. But she had little choice of where she went. Her planet was now gone. Destroyed by someone, or something she had yet to discover. Closer, maybe, Then she thought. "Fox... you really need to repaint this store." Krystal thought out loud. The chipped grey paint was peeling back from years of disrepair and neglect. The windows had permanent off-white stains from numerous "egging" and graffiti marked every corner of every window. What wasn't peeling or stained was broken. It was a world of difference once you stepped inside however. The blue tiled floor was a personal favorite of Krystal's, the black tables and chairs, led up to the waist high yellow counter, with SFP written out on the front of it.

"You should have seen it before." Fox said as he held the door open. Krystal shouted as he spoke. Quickly turning to look at him. Fox tried not to laugh, but lost it. "Oh god Krystal the look on your face..." He tried to calm himself with deep breaths, but they were to no avail.

Krystal, having recovered from her mild heart attack, stop her deer-in-headlights look and laughed with him. "You scared the ever-living out of me!"

"I noticed that." Fox finally got his laugh in control and sighed. "Kara called in sick, I need ya to work with me today. That alright?"

Krystal smiled at him. "Always." She walked back into the store and went for her stuff. "How long you need me till?"

'All damn night.' Fox thought, cause Krystal to giggle. "As long as you can, once you leave I'm on my own."

"As long as i can hmmm? I could stay all. Damn. Night. If i need to." Krystal grinned mischieviously at Fox, causing him to blush.

"T-That'll be c-cool. Thanks." Fox quickly retreated to his office, shutting the door behind him.

"Blushes that easily huh?" Krystal said taking her uniform to the staff bathroom to change."Its going to be a fun day."

11:00 AM

The musical that the phones put one usually didn't make Fox flustered, but today was different. 'Dammit, Dammit, Dammit!' Fox thought. 'Of course a lunch rush is going to happen.' Normally these wouldn't be a problem, but with Kara sick, and Krystal still in training, Fox knew he would be in for a rough couple of hours.

"How many Fox?" Krystal yelled over the phones.

"Looks like 3 orders. I'll be back with the slips soon." Fox shouted, putting another phone on hold.

Krystal took the first slip that printed up and read it over quickly. 'Oven... Sub?' She looked at the next one 'Cinna stix?' and finally the third one. '12 inch Works.. Oh, i know that one.'

"I'l do the first two Krys, you got the works, no Green Peppers on it though alright?" Fox said before disappearing into the walk-in fridge. Krystal only nodded and looked at the chart.

"Five, Five, Grey, Red, Red." Krystal quickly grabbed the necessary ingredients. "Pepperoni, salami, mushrooms, green peppers, bacon. Wait... Damn it." Fox came back out as she put the green peppers on the pizza.

"No worries, We'll sell it for sure later." He grabbed a knife and skillfully cut the bun down the middle, but not enough so that it cut through the bun. "Watch me right quick. Oven sub, cut lengthwise. Chart behind me. Pizza sub. Five pep five salami, grey cup mushrooms, two purple cups green peppers. Pizza sauce, one spoon full, cheese, Guesstimate it. Tray, from the stack here." Fox pointed at the large stack of metal trays beside the oven. "Halfway through the oven, done." Krystal looked at him, stunned. "Got all that?"

"Yup." She nodded as well."Visual learner as well as a hands on learner." Fox smiled.

"Oh, good. You'll be getting a lot of hands-on training in the food service industry."

"From you?"

"If you're lucky." With that Fox quickly made the cinna stix, explaining how to make them as he made them. By that time Krystal had made her pizza, correctly this time, and put it in the oven.

"Well, that rush wasnt so bad." Krystal joked as she watched the pizza slowly cook via the small window in the oven. "What is that window for anyway?"

"Its for us to see if the pizza's are bubbling up. So we can save them before the toppings get moved around. But as for the rush, its so far from over, it hasn't even begun. Now, ovens. I'll teach ya how to get the pizza's out of them. Then I'll leave you to fend for yourself. Course I'll be here if you need help." Fox took the sub out of the oven and placed it on the counter. "Now, this is only a half sized sub, Therefore no additional cutting is required. Place it on a long sheet of wax paper in the lower right or left hand corner and roll once, fold both sides of the paper in, and continue rolling." Fox let Krystal do as he said before continuing his instructions. "Now, put the wrapped sub into this bag. Aptly named, the oven sub bag." Krystal put the sub into the bag. "Alright. Cinna Stix. Don't worry too much about these fucked up things, i discontinued it cause Brownies not only sell better, but aren't a hassle to make in a rush." Fox cut the stix, into sticks and boxed them. "Now the pizza, you might already know how to cut it but for training reasons, I gotta help you do it. Grab the big ol' cutter please." Krystal grabbed it while Fox took the pizza out of the oven. "Right." Fox placed his paws over Krystal's cause both them to blush. "We cut our pizza's into slices by size. Personal, and Small , or six inch and nine inch get cut into four will the Medium, which is what we got here, gets cut into eight, the large gets cut into a whopping twelve slices, or two by four is eight twelves." Fox guided Krystal's cuts, taking his sweet time to stay this close to her. Normal he'd get people to look at the chart when they cut for the first time, but Krystal was different. He knew he was attracted to her, and that built up each day. Though he had a store policy for no Staff relationships to keep the drama out of the store, he was quickly rethinking it. "Oh no." Fox said slowly moving from Krystal. A loss of warmth quickly took her place.

"What?" Krystal said boxing the pizza and placing it on top of the oven. Then she heard it as well. The high pitched sound of the phone ringing off the hook.

"It has begun." Fox looked at the phones. Krystal walked up to the phones and gasped as she realized what he was staring at. All 5 lines had gone up and the 2 reserve lines that displayed the waiting list showed another 5 on it.

"Ten orders?" Krystal whimpered. " At eleven thirty?"

"Only eight. One it Glenn, one is a ordering company. But yeah, this happens once or twice a week." Fox picked up a phone, Krystal following suit. After about 10 minutes of the two of them answering phones they had 20 orders to fill.

"Ten orders each, max 5 mins per order. Think you can keep up?" Fox said as they got the slips arranged but earliest to latest.

"Should be able to." Krystal looked at the slips.

"I'm not going to be able to check all your slips Krys, double check them so we don't have to remake all of them." Fox began attacking the slips, a flurry of movement to the symphony of metal hitting metal, and pans clattering onto the prep table.

In this wild whirl of movement surprisingly few mistakes were made. Krystal had however dropped on dough onto the floor just as she finished a double stacked super works pizza.

"Watch your step!" Fox said as he quickly cleaned the pizza up. "Krystal, go up front and wait on some customers. I'll finish this up. And don't try to throw the pizza onto the oven next time eh?"

"Sorry, Fox... I didn't mean." Krystal looked at him sadly, she was worried he'd snap at her like he did Gary.

"Look, this happens all the time Krys, I'm guilty of it. Don't worry about it just get upfront." Fox said quickly, not even looking at her. Krystal let a shaky breath out, Before walking up front to serve customers. They didn't have a chance to speak to each other for another 3 hours, due to the fact that they were being hit hard by the payday lunch, and the special SFP had going from 11-4, By one, get any free. That promotion had killed Fox's food cost but brought in enough for him to break even, if but barely.

By the mid afternoon it had died down enough for Fox to clean up the prep table and put some dishes through the dish washer. Krystal brought the rest of the dishes from the oven to the sink, bumping into Fox and nearly dropping the dishes. Fox caught them and her and stared. 'God... Everything about her, is Beautiful.' He thought as he took the dishes from her and placed them into the sink. "Thanks for bringing these over."

"No problem." Krystal said more to herself, still in a daze of Fox's thoughts.

"Hey, Krystal. About snapping at you earlier. I'm sorry. I get too worked up about this place sometimes. Its, well, It's my home while i wish i was at home ya know? I like keeping it tidy."

"Its alright Fox. I understand. But, I am still sorry i ruined a pizza. That's not going to come out of my paycheck is it?" Krystal grabbed some paper towel and dried off some clean dishes.

"Nope. Stuff like that happens all the time, like i said." Fox looked at his watch. It blinked 3:45 PM and he pushed another batch of dirty dishes into the dish washer. "Look I gotta call Falco, I'll be right back to finish this up. Why don't you make yourself something to eat?"

Krystal nodded. She finished up the batch of clean dishes and walked over to the prep table.

Fox stuck his head back so he could see her again. "Actually, could you put in a small meats pizza for me? We may as well eat at the same time." Krystal smiled at him.

"Why certainly sir." She said with a giggle. 'Wow, not two days we've known each other and he already wants me to fix his dinner..' Krystal shook the thought out of her head and made their supper.

Fox's Office

"Falco? Ya. In response to your question earlier." Fox took a deep breath. "Sign me up. But on one condition."

"Whats that McCloud?" Falco grumbled, mad that Fox had interrupted yet another game.

"I'm bringing another one with me to join the team." Fox replied, knowing that would get Falco's attention for sure.

"Peppy replacement?" Falco asked. "Better be someone good. You know how Peppy gets."

"Ya, you'll meet her soon." Fox smirked, know Falco would bust his balls about this when he got home.

"Alright sounds good!" Falco went to continue his game before stopping. "Hold up Foxie, what do you mean her?"

"Bye Falco."

So this is where I felt the need to keep you guys updated as to what time it was. You're welcome... I think.

H-T