Kris began chopping vegetables as she stood next to Nathan. He'd asked her to help him with dinner, which was highly unusual since he was usually chasing her out of the kitchen. But she didn't care, she was happy to help out. Christopher had come down earlier and congratulated her on her win against Russell, but had scolded her for exerting herself so much. He stated that her leg was still trying to heal, and her fighting certainly wasn't going to help it. He'd also forbidden her from doing any other heavier work for another few days, and that he would clear her hopefully by the time they all started training. She'd brushed him off and told him that she would be more careful with it, and after she spent a little while standing next to Nathan, she felt her leg begin to throb in delayed response.
She nibbled her lower lip as she favored her good leg, continuing to chop. "So, just out of curiosity, why did you need help with dinner tonight?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well usually you're trying to chase me out of the kitchen, but this is the first time you've actually asked me in."
"Your cooking skills really suck. You almost burned the kitchen down the other day when I did ask you to do something."
Kris blushed slightly, remembering the fiasco with the stove the last time she'd been in there. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Sorry again."
"It's alright. I thought I'd help you work on them while you were in here."
Kris looked at him. "Really? You'll teach me?"
"Sure, why not? You just keep working on those vegetables and then in a little while I'll show you how to prepare them for a stew."
Kris nodded as she continued her work. "Where did you learn to cook like this?"
Nathan glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow with that teasing look in his eyes. "Asking personal questions again are we?"
She glared at him. "Ok princess, you can't be that opposed to conversation while you're cooking, can you?"
"I suppose not."
"So where did you learn?"
"When I was younger I worked at a restaurant as a waiter. I spent a lot of time back in the kitchen, and the cook who worked there would stay there late after work and would show me how to cook."
"He sounds like a really nice guy."
Nathan nodded. "He was."
"Whatever happened to him? Do you still go see him?"
"He passed away a few years ago."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
Nathan shrugged. "Well what about you? What made you stay in bandit country for so long?"
Kris kept her gaze on the vegetables in front of her. "My parents died when I was little, and I had to fend for myself somehow. It was all that I knew for the longest time until I inherited the bar."
"You inherited it?"
Kris nodded. "Yeah. The guy who owned it before I did was a good friend of mine. I met him when I was young and tried to pick-pocket from him, but he caught me. Instead of getting mad or anything like that, he actually took me to get something to eat. Guess he knew that I was stealing from him because I hadn't eaten in a while. Although he didn't live nearby, he'd come back to visit me all the time. I was so young when my father had passed away, that he was kind of like a father to me. He always was telling me how he wanted me to get out of the bandit life and such, that I would always have a place there at his bar if I wanted to. But I was young and stupid, and arrogant. I would just shrug him off, saying that I could take care of myself. He really was such a kind and caring man…"
Nathan looked over at her. "So what happened?"
"He got sick. Just couldn't get better. I found out about it too late."
Nathan stopped what he was doing and looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"I heard that he was sick, so I went to go see him, to help him get better. But by the time I got there, he was gone. I wasn't going to stick around, but I soon found out that he left the bar to me in his will. He didn't have any family or children of his own. Guess he thought of me as his own…"
"I'm sorry."
Kris shrugged, keeping her face forward so he couldn't see the tears forming in her eyes. "Shit happens. But that was why I was so pissed when Sterling and his gang of idiots burned it down."
"It was all you had left of him." Nathan said, his voice soft, softer than it usually was.
She nodded. "Yeah."
As she continued to chop, looking forward, she felt a hand pat her head gently. Shocked, she turned to look at Nathan, who was smiling sadly at her. "We'll help you get your bar back, so don't worry."
"T-Thank you." She replied, her heart pounding in her chest. He'd only touched her head, why was her heart thundering away? As she looked up at him, she leaned onto her bad leg and winced, the pain coming back. She winced and went back to immediately lean back on her good leg.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing. I'm fine, don't worry about it."
He raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't look like nothing. Is your leg hurting?"
"I'm fine." She repeated, turning back to her work.
"Babe." Nathan said, his voice warning , as if he knew she was lying.
She rolled her eyes. "Ok maybe a little, but I'm really ok." Nathan walked towards the other side of the kitchen and grabbed a stool, pulling it back over to where she was. He placed it beside her and nodded his head towards it.
"Sit on the stool for now. Christopher's right, you probably overdid it earlier."
She looked at it hesitantly, but took the stool and sat down on it, immediately feeling the relief in her sore leg. "Thank you."
"No problem babe." He replied, sounding teasing once again.
She couldn't help but smile. "Alright, you don't get to call me 'babe' just because I call you princess."
He grinned. "And why not? There was never any arrangement saying that I couldn't call you something. The agreement was just that you could call me that, and I wasn't allowed to say anything about it."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's kind of skating around the rules a bit, don't you think?"
"Perhaps, but I'm still going to call you that."
"But why 'babe'?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know, you just look like a 'babe'."
Kris glared at him. "And you're really going to stick with that?"
He smiled at her and winked. "You bet your bottom dollar babe."