After the dinner party at the Janets' house Silvia said her goodnights quickly and disappeared into her bedroom with a cold face. Jo felt uneasy. She really couldn't afford antagonising Joker's mother. The woman was such a big part of his life that Jo needed them to get along. Except the mere fact of Jo's existence made Silvia her enemy. The only way to make her happy would be ending things with Joker, which would in turn defeat the purpose of making Silvia happy in the first place.
Jo simply had no idea how to handle these things. She stood in front of the window while Joker was in the bathroom. The bedroom was dark and Jo could see the beautiful scenery outside, rural street with sleepy little houses illuminated by smoky street lights, and the megastructure of the spaceship wharf on the horizon. The big city was close enough for the wharf to dominate the view. Even now a dreadnought was being constructed there, the traffic nothing more than thin chains of tiny lights all around it. It was beautiful, even majestic, a symphony of symbolic images of this new age. At the same time the nostalgic feel of this neighbourhood stood in contrast to the megastructure of activity. The warmth of the house was still weird for Jo. She'd spent too many years in the cold to know what to do with the warmth.
"You okay?" Joker whispered in her ear, stepping against her from behind and wrapping his arms around her middle. His hat was gone and he nuzzled his cheek against her ear tenderly. His stubble tickled her.
"I don't know," she said. She wanted to be honest with him in the darkness, and she delighted in the fact that she could be. Unlike every other man she'd ever met, Joker had her real trust.
"What's bothering you?" He inquired, his arms settling in a firm embrace around her, giving her the security and all of his attention.
"I don't belong here."
"No shit," he said. "Neither do I."
"But this is your home!"
"This?" She felt his chin jerk to point at their surroundings. "No, it isn't. Didn't I tell you already? Mum bought this house a few years ago when she retired from her engineering job on Arcturus. This is not my childhood house, I never played in this street as a kid, I don't know these neighbours, there is nothing here that ever belonged to me. I grew up in a tiny flat on a space station with exactly one window and the view of a warehouse. Sure, my parents always loved the wood, paper books, my mum always collected souvenirs, stuff like that, but this here is not where I'm actually from. This room isn't mine, it's just a guest room. I've only been here once before, after you died."
Jo relaxed a little in his arms, leaning her back against him instead of standing like a rigid rod.
"I guess I forgot. It's just… this place is so… specific. It's everything I never had and I didn't know what it would be like. I learned to deal with my fate, but here… It's like a rocket to my face. This is what life is supposed to be like for children."
"There are many different ways to raise children. Some grow up in big cities in tall apartment blocks, some on space ships, some on tiny colonies in the ass end of nowhere. How is this life better than what you had?"
"You don't know what life I had."
"So tell me."
"I'd prefer not to."
"Why? You think I can't handle it? Or are there things you've done that you think could make me love you less?"
"No. Nothing of the sort. Telling that story means going back there in my mind and I never ever want to go back there."
He paused for a moment, looking out of the window over her shoulder at the view she was admiring.
"Are you scared of memories?" He asked eventually.
"Yes," she whispered quietly.
"You know that my imagination is only going to run wild if you taunt me with big, terrible secrets, right?" He held her tighter against him. She wasn't ready to talk about whatever trauma she'd endured in her childhood and he didn't push her. He knew that she'd tell him when she was ready. Instead of opening old wounds they just held each other, looking out of the window at the half finished dreadnought and the beautiful, sparkling winter wonderland.
Moments of peace like this were so rare in Jo's life that she could count them all on the fingers of one hand. From the day Joker kissed her in her cabin she had expected to feel the familiar tension, a tugging need to get up and run, the restlessness that always made it easy for her to discard previous lovers (or rather fucks), but it never came with him. She'd been running from men's attentions all her life, learned to be the toughest warrior in the galaxy to make sure no man ever owned her, and then let it all go like dust in the wind when she met him. Belonging to him, being his, felt right. No one else had ever given her this feeling. It was how she knew he was the one. By all standards and logic Commander Johanna Shepard should have known better than to break the fraternisation rules, disturb the balance in the crew and endanger herself and Joker by risking a romantic relationship with one of her subordinates. She always had known better. Except this peace and belonging in his arms caught her off guard and she couldn't let it slip away from her. Which made the necessity to get along with Silvia even more urgent.
"Tell me about the rest of your family," she asked finally.
"They're on Tiptree. My dad and my sister, that is. Don't have any other relatives, as far as I know."
"What's your sister like?"
"She's… well, I have my colouring from dad, but she takes after our mum with the brown hair and big eyes. She's fourteen now, takes her classes online with a bunch of other kids because the colony is too small for their own school. In his last message dad said she wants to be a pilot, like me, but that's about as much as I can tell you about her. I was in the Academy when she was born and assigned to ships pretty much all her life. The last time I saw her was before I was assigned to the SR1 Normandy and she was about eleven then. She knows more about me from the news than I know about her at all. Not sure what else to tell you."
"And your father?"
"He loves the dirt. Couldn't find happiness on Arcturus. Ever since he and Gunny moved back to Tiptree, and frankly since he and mum separated, he's like a whole new person. His messages are few and far between, but he is happy with his land, his farm, his livestock, it's everything he ever wanted."
"So you're not in contact very often?"
"Well, I have a hardass CO who keeps dragging us to the most remote places in the galaxy that have no comm buoys, so falling out of touch with family is occupational hazard for the whole crew."
"Ah," she snuggled against him with a happy smile. "Here we go again, it's all my fault."
"Everything is always your fault, baby."
The morning began with Jo freeing the door from the snow again while Silvia made breakfast. When Jo was done, she offered Silvia help but earned a cold and quiet remark:
"Are you sure the kitchen won't confuse you too much?"
"Which part of it? The stove, the fridge or the frying pan?" Jo deadpanned but Silvia ignored the irony.
"I don't expect someone like you to know your way around frying pens, dear," she said without looking up from the bread she'd baked and was now cutting.
"Someone like me?"
"Just let me handle the food."
"As you wish," Jo said. Joker came in and they ate in silence.
"Did you like it?" Silvia asked Joker pointedly when they were finished. He grinned like a cat and rubbed his belly:
"Yeah, mum, it was great. Thanks."
"It tastes so good because it was made with love," Silvia said, busying herself with the dishes and pretending to speak causally. "I bet your janitor a.k.a. cook can't do that and who else is there on the ship to cook for you with love? What are your plans for today?"
Jo bit the insides of her cheeks, watching Silvia's back and Joker's slight confusion. The tactic was perfect. Trick the man into thinking he wants something, then suggest that he can't have it and change the topic quickly. He'll be left with an odd, lingering feeling of dissatisfaction and wouldn't even remember where it came from. Silvia was brilliant. If they were opponents in the field, Jo could use any number of tactics she'd learned to deal with psychological warfare. But they were in her boyfriend's mother's kitchen and all she could do was hold her tongue and hope to survive. For a moment she wondered if Joker's father and Hilary would have reacted to her presence differently.
"No plans," Joker said eventually. His eyes were narrowed as he looked back and forth between Silvia and Jo. Jo wondered if he really was so blind to his mother's passive aggressive behaviour, or if he saw what was happening better than she thought.
The door bell rang and Joker went to answer it. The voices sounded like he was accepting some delivery for Silvia.
"It's not about cooking, is it?" Jo asked Silvia quietly. "You're a worthy opponent, but there is just one thing you don't know about your own son. Nice girls like Kat Janet are absolutely not what he likes."
Silvia turned around and fixed Jo with a stare that sent shivers up and down her spine. There it was. No passivity anymore but open hostility.
"What's… going on here?" Joker asked dubiously from the door, looking back and forth between them.
"Jeff, I need you to pick up a new bookshelf from the store. They know you'll be stopping by," Silvia said without taking her eyes off Jo.
"Uhuh," he raised one brow, turning his gaze to Jo. She smiled a little bit, also keeping her eye on the other woman:
"Jeff, make yourself scarce for a couple of hours. Your mum and I need to have a heart to heart from woman to woman and this is not the catfight you get to have pictures from."
"Now that one I believe," he nodded. "Mum, don't hurt my girlfriend."
"What, no warnings for me?" Jo bit her lip in amusement.
"You may be Shepard, but you're no match for my mother in her own kitchen," he cackled to himself and left the house without any further trouble. Silvia turned to look at Jo once more with narrowed eyes:
"So it's like that?"
"What's the point in lying to him?"
For a whole minute Silvia just glared at Jo. They heard the engine of the shuttle fire up and leave.
"All right, your house – your right for the first blow," Jo put her hands on the table gently.
"This is not a war. Do you see everything as a confrontation?"
"No, I see a confrontation as a confrontation, and this is definitely a confrontation. So, let me have your concerns."
"What do you want from my son?" Silvia asked the same question she'd already asked her on the first day, adding real pain to her voice.
"I love him."
"No, you don't. Maybe you believe it, and you certainly made him believe it, but you don't really love him. You just found yourself a wide-eyed admirer who would do absolutely anything for you. I mean, look at you! You seduced him with your…" she waved a vague hand in Jo's general direction. "And now he's happy to chase that tail into his own death!"
"Are you saying I pussy-whipped him?" Jo made the point that Silvia was too prudish to make and earned a huff and a blush. She had no idea people still did that at the mentioning of sex these days, but apparently Silvia Moreau was not only stuck 300 years in the past when it came to her fashion sense.
"Of course!" Silvia was angry because of her own embarrassment and Jo was the only one in the vicinity she could blame. "One look at you is enough to know how you manipulate men. You arrived up there with the big and mighty and got bored, so you found yourself a gullible boy who is too blind to see you for what you really are. You play with him now because he amuses you, but the moment something better comes along or it's time for one of your great and wonderful sacrifices, you'll drop him like he was never there. I know women like you. You won't think twice about leaving him behind, and my boy will suffer another heartbreak, worse than the last one, and that almost killed him! I'll be damned before I let you destroy my boy's happiness. I know you will, eventually, and I know he's too blind to see, but he is my boy and I won't sit idly and watch this whole thing. It's like watching a ship on a collision course with a sun! You keep shining in your glory and he'll go up in flames completely unnoticed, never having had a chance."
"Did you just call me a tramp?" Jo didn't even breathe through the tirade.
"Whatever you are, I'm telling you: Leave my Jeff alone. He's been through too much because of you already and he deserves happiness. The kind of happiness you can never give him, nor would you care to."
Jo's heart was barely beating when she got up from the chair, walked over to the other woman and firmly wrapped her arms around her shoulder in a hug. Silvia was too shocked by the sudden gesture, so completely at odds with her own mood and fighting spirit that she just stood there, gaping, listening to Jo's whispered words in her ear:
"You are wonderful. Simply magnificent. I always knew that Jeff is a fantastic man, but I see now that you are a worthy mother who made him into the man he is. I wish I had a mother like you. You uprooted your life when you realised he needed your care, you gave up years of your life, your own happiness and probably your relationship with your husband because your son needed you and there was no other choice for you but to be there for him. I admire that more than you'll ever know. You stand here, knowing exactly who I am, knowing that in my job I kill people who address me in that manner, and yet you stand up tall when you believe your child needs your protection. You amaze me, Silvia. I truly wish the white trash whose name is on my birth certificate was worth the dust off your shoes, alas she wasn't. You are a fighter and you would go any distance for your child, and knowing that there is loyalty out there in the galaxy like your loyalty to your boy gives me the strength I need to fight for it. I see now that you taught him the meaning of loyalty, because he gives me his without reservations, and it means the world to me."
Jo moved back a little, her hands still on Silvia's upper arms, and looked into the astounded woman's big brown eyes.
"I'm sorry that you don't approve of me and I'm even sorrier that I can't oblige. Even if you don't believe me, I do love Jeff. I may have pussy-whipped him a little, I mean I know how I look and what people think when they see me. But the truth is that I haven't been around the block as much as you believe. Before your son has ever touched me, I've had sex exactly twenty seven times in my whole life. I'm not counting a whole night of fucking as one, either. I'm talking about twenty seven actual sexual acts. Not all of them have ended in an orgasm for me, either. I made my career based on the fact that I don't sleep around to achieve something, I swear to you. No one better is ever going to come along and tempt me away from Jeff. He's the only one I ever really trusted. I would do anything for him. Anything at all."
"Would you give up fighting for him?"
"Yes, if he ever asks me to."
"Love is not about giving the other what they want. It's about giving them what they need, and true love means knowing what the other really needs before they even realise it."
"Jeff needs someone who sees his true beauty. He needs to be making a difference in the world. He needs a cause and a purpose. He is on the Normandy voluntarily because he believes in what we do and he's ready to give his life for the galaxy. I can't say much about the future because chances are big we all die tomorrow in one battle or another, but whatever I have now I'm giving to him fully. I truly hope that one day you could accept that I really love him."
"You are just so wrong for him," Silvia stepped out of Jo's reach and once again turned her back to her. "You weren't there when he came here last time. He was devastated. If you were a mother, you'd understand that I'd do anything I have to in order to keep such pain away from my baby. It tore me apart to watch. He died that day with you. The next time you die, he'll be completely destroyed. Can't you understand how impossible it is for me to watch him dangling over an abyss by a thread and happily sliding a knife over it? I can't watch him do that to himself, I don't care who you are and what you swear to me. I want you out of his life, Johanna, and I won't stop trying."
"I respect that," Jo nodded. "I understand where you're coming from. I may not have given birth to a child, but I have my children. I know what it feels like to care for them, provide for them, teach them everything I know, show them how to face the world, share their joy and soothe their aches, and then send them into their death. Which is why I won't point your tactics out to Jeff, I'll never complain and leave this choice completely up to him. Will you do me the courtesy of respecting him for the grown man who can make his own decisions? If he chooses your safety net, I'll walk away. If he chooses me, will you stop putting him in the position that would definitely break his heart unnecessarily? Choosing between his mother and the woman he loves? After all, we have one thing in common. We both want his happiness."
"What scares me most is that your true commitment is not to my son's happiness. It's to saving the galaxy, most likely with your own life."
"I make no excuses for who I am and what I do. But I have noticed that you're not very close with Jeff anymore, so what scares me is that you firmly believe to know what's best for him without even knowing who he is now. He was your baby, your little boy, sixteen years ago. I need to know that you're fighting this battle for his happiness and not your own peace of mind."
Silvia turned around and left the kitchen. Jo couldn't say that this conversation had gone well, but she could see she'd struck a nerve with the last thing she said.
Mere minutes later the Kodiak landed in front of the house again and before Jo could even put on her jacket, Kevin and a bunch of other kids swarmed Joker. She walked out to the landing pad and he side-stepped the kids when he saw her.
"How did it go?" He asked with some concern over her grave face. "Something I should know?"
"Not as far as I'm concerned. You have the means to find out whatever you want to know, but I don't have anything to say right now." She stepped into the Kodiak and lifted the solid custom-made wooden shelf like it was made of paper and started towards the house with it.
"Am I in trouble?" Joker trailed after her with some unease in his voice.
"Not at all," she looked at him openly to let him see in her eyes that she wasn't cross with him. "I just want to be by myself a little bit, if you're okay with that."
He followed her into the house and to the living room where Jo put the shelf down in front of Silvia, who looked as pale and serious as Jo did.
"Put it there against the wall, thank you," she said and Jo obliged her.
"I'm going for a walk in the woods," Jo said when the heavy lifting was done.
"I'm going to sort my books," Silvia said.
"And what am I supposed to do?" Joker looked back and forth between them.
"Take the kids for a joy ride," Jo suggested, putting on her combat gloves. The next moment he was left standing alone in the living room, confused and worried.
The women had obviously gone through several rounds of a cat fight and whatever had been said had affected them deeply. The mere fact that they were both ruffled like that after a conversation made him uneasy. He thought about what Jo said. The conversation had been saved through the chip in her jaw and he could listen to it once he was back on the Normandy, but… This was the first time that Jo hinted that he shouldn't listen and he dreaded hearing things he didn't want to hear if he dug up that recording. That scared him.
Jo needed time alone and some physical exercise to calm her nerves. His mother would remain stoic and sort her books to do the same. He hadn't even been present but he needed to calm down his nerves, too. His way of doing that was flying. He looked out of the window. Kevin and the other boys were still lurking around the Kodiak. They'd been asking him for days to take them on a joy ride. Jo's suggestion to take them made him smile. She knew he would be upset by what he'd found in the house and knew what would make him feel better.
He taught the kids how to put on the safety harness and adjusted each to their size. It made him grin when he remembered Grunt sitting in one of these seats just a few days ago, and now some ten year olds. Kevin and his same-aged best mate could ride with him in the piloting cabin.
He hadn't expected it, but the kids aaahing and wheeeeing at every sharp turn actually made him smile. His cargo had always been precious, but this time it became invaluable. He caught himself imitating a roller coaster to give them a gentle but intense ride to remember. Kevin kept bombarding him with questions about tech, sporting knowledge from the books Jo had given him yesterday. Joker didn't doubt that the boy had spent the night reading. He'd been eager like that when he was nineteen and in the first year of the Academy, too.
He got back around dinner and found Jo still gone. He didn't worry about her getting lost, but she'd been gone for hours and he had no way of monitoring her without the mini datapad. He regretted now having left it on the ship.
"So, what happened between the two of you?" He asked his mother while she was cooking.
"Nothing."
"Yeah, well, remember this morning? If I ask Jo, she'll tell me the actual truth, even if you won't."
"Then why don't you ask her?"
"Because I think I deserve some honesty from my own mother, don't I?"
"We had a talk. We both expressed our opinions, that's it."
"Opinions about what?"
She ignored him completely, leaving his question without answer. He'd left the house so many years ago and came for visits so rarely and so short that he sometimes forgot his mother's ways. She was extremely good at silent treatment, ignoring and selective hearing. That was how her and his dad's fights were carried out, mostly. He was also reminded how much he hated that. How admirable and scarily pleasant he found Jo's policy of answering his direct questions exactly, no matter the consequences. In her own way Jo showed him that women weren't these mysterious, oppressing creatures who always made you guess what they thought about and punished you for guessing wrong. Jo simply talked to him.
"You know what?" He got to his feet and headed for the living room. "If you plan to ignore me, you can do it while I'm watching the news."
Sixteen years ago he wouldn't have dared to say that to his mother. Back then he wanted her affection, needed her approval, respected her authority. Since then he'd learned a thing or two about authority, about approval and about people. It turned out that his mother's tactics weren't quite as effective anymore.
Jo didn't come back for dinner and he started worrying when the darkness fell. It was close to midnight and he was quietly trembling with worry, sitting in the darkness of the living room, when he heard her steps on the porch.
"What the fuck, Jo?" He greeted her at the door. "What did she say to you that made you run for the hills for twelve hours?"
"That she would do anything to ensure your happiness," Jo said. He narrowed his eyes on her:
"A masterpiece of an evasive answer. She kept silent like a fish all day, ignoring my questions. What the fuck happened between you two? Answer me straight and fully."
"Your mother is convinced that I'll bring you pain and death, that's it. She wants what's best for you and you have no idea how lucky you are having a mother who'd move mountains and confront Commander Shepard for you."
He took a moment to think about her words and she took that time to take off her outside clothes.
"So basically she wants you gone before you can hurt me, and you can't help but admire her motherly protective instincts, even if she tells you to leave the man you love. About right?"
"About."
"We can leave if you want."
"I can't dodge her forever. She's your mother, your family, and by that sort of my family, too."
"Jo," he took her upper arms and made her look at him. "I made that deal with myself the night we slept together for the first time. I'll stand by you through everything, and if you die in the end, I'm not going to live through another heartbreak like the first time. I'll meet you on the other side. I don't care who wants what for me. I know you're my life and the air I breathe. I don't plan to live a life full of pain after you."
She flinched a little bit, looking him in the eyes, searching for the truth there. He had nothing to hide.
"It probably makes me a selfish bitch, but… I know I wouldn't want to live without you, so… I'm okay with your decision."
"Good. 'Cause if one day you started telling me to live on and honour you after some heroic death you pull off, I'd have to really hurt you."
She sighed and her eyes glistened in darkness of the corridor when she slid her arms around his neck and whispered against his skin:
"You're my home. I'd do anything for you. I love you."
"Same goes the other way around, girl."
"Sorry for running off like that. I needed to clear my head."
"I don't care how long I have to wait as long as you come back to me."
The next day was calm mostly because his mum was treating them both with silence. After shovelling the door free from snow again Jo went on and made a whole little snow town with that shovel for the little girls to play in. She seemed to enjoy the exercise, throwing snow around for hours and hours. How weird was it to sit around, doing some decorations in the snow when your girlfriend did some really manly heavy lifting? But that was the reality of his life and he wouldn't trade it for anything. Kat Janet stopped by to leave some vegetables from the market for his mum, but Joker was too preoccupied watching Jo work and didn't notice when the other woman left.
The day after that his mum seemed in a slightly better mood when she made dinner. He noticed how she insisted on doing everything in the kitchen by herself, no matter how often he and Jo offered help. Maybe retired engineers were just as restless as one Commander Shepard was getting from doing nothing.
"So, what are your plans for the future?" His mum said eventually and Joker raised his head to look at her. There was something in her voice he didn't like. "Are you planning on getting married?"
He jumped to his feet so fast and so forcefully that the chair toppled over and skidded backwards.
"What kind of question is that?!" He glared at his mother as his heart picked up the pace, trying to compensate for the icy pit that was opening somewhere in his gut. "Did you forget what's out there? Didn't I tell you time and time again? The Reapers are coming, mum, and we're breaking our backs out there trying to find a way to stop the destruction of all organic life, and you ask us about wedding plans?!"
He was suddenly hit in the face with the truth. His mother was a civilian who had no idea. She had no idea and never would, no matter how often he told her.
"What's next? Will you want to pick out the menu for the wedding, or teach Jo how to crochet, or exchange recipes, or go to the beauty parlour together? Geez, mother, I can't believe you! The apocalypse happened nine hundred and ninety six days ago, and Jo here is the sole reason why you didn't even notice! You're already dead, ashes in the wind with your bookshelves, dinner parties, grocery stores and neighbourhood kids, and we're out there facing the unimaginable, throwing ourselves into danger, living through one nightmare after another just so you get to keep this shallow life of yours for just one more day!" He tossed the datapad he had been holding at her, almost hitting her in the chest with it. She was shaking all over, tears running down her face, but he didn't care. He pointed at the picture on the screen: "You know what that is? A human Reaper, built from synthetic materials and human DNA, which they harvested by kidnapping whole colonies and making goo out of all the people. The galaxy is facing annihilation and you want to talk weddings? I thought as an intelligent woman and my mother you would be a little more appreciative of the situation!"
He turned around and stormed out of the house.
Jo discovered what those doors with knobs were good for. Joker had slammed it so hard that the whole house shook. Silvia still shook all over, holding a hand over her mouth, tears running down her face as she stared after her son. Jo made herself as small as she could. Note to self: don't piss off Joker.
The pause was long, but Silvia's tears and trembling didn't want to subside. Slowly she lowered her gaze to look at the picture on the datapad. She hiccupped even harder at the image of the Reaper larva Jo had fought on the Collector base. When Silvia touched the screen with a shaking hand, the picture changed to the next one. This one looked almost beautiful, if you didn't know what it was.
"What is this?" Silvia's voice was as shaky as her hands, tears still rolling down her cheeks.
"I could tell you, but you really don't want to know," Jo said quietly.
"Tell me."
"It's the inside of the Collector ship. Every yellow dot you see is a capsule holding a human body meant for dissolving for that human Reaper."
Silvia gagged, crying even harder, but touched the screen again. This was a close-up of the same Reaper, his three eyes and a huge mouth gaping like all-devouring holes of pure evil from the screen. Next picture – about a dozen husks rushing towards the camera. Next – a Collector being taken over by Harbinger. Next – colonists stung by the Seeker swarms. Next – a Praetorian spewing out more and more husks. Jo watched the other woman's reactions, unsure what to do.
"Sorry if it's a stupid question but… where are these pictures from? A vid?"
"I'm going to have words with Joker for the gory collection," Jo sighed. "He's taken these from my helmet camera feed. See that shadow in the lower corner? That's my assault rifle."
"Excuse me," Silvia suddenly stood and rushed out of the kitchen towards the bathroom, pressing her hand against her mouth. A few seconds later Jo heard her emptying her stomach into the toilet.
Silvia didn't come back to the kitchen. She disappeared quietly into her bedroom, still crying. Joker stormed off somewhere without taking the Kodiak or even his winter jacket. Jo remained alone in the kitchen. The glowing datapad was a harsh reminder of what was out there, but also a reminder of how different, innocent most civilians were.
Jo got up and started collecting groceries and kitchen supplies she would need. Joker was still walking off his anger when she finished a batch of Russian traditional pirogi, something she learned while training under a Russian Special Forces Major back on Earth in the Officer Candidate School in Quantico. Just because she hadn't been in a civilian kitchen before and didn't cook often didn't mean she didn't know how to.
Joker resurfaced when she was done with the third batch, each batch with a different filling. He came into the kitchen, saw her work and sighed:
"Didn't know you cook."
"Remember the ton of things I can do but haven't told you yet? One of them," she shrugged and hugged him close, giving him the warmth of her body. He was cold and shivering. She held him tightly, telling him without words that she was always there for him.