Alex sighed contentedly, his meal ignored as he listened to the canned music emanating from the Jack in the Box's speakers. His phone was still in his pocket as he watched Sarah wait for her order. A good part of him was simply enjoying the view, but now he was picking up on much less… carnal details.

There was the way she swayed as she waited, a smooth rocking motion that formed an easy, unconscious rhythm. In contrast to her easygoing pose, her eyes seemed needle-sharp. They snapped to each customer around her like some kind of weapons system, lingering for just enough time to log them in an imaginary database before switching to the next person around her. He could feel his cheeks flush as her gaze snapped to Alex, before her gaze softened and she flashed a small smile before those silver eyes moved on.

Silver eyes… he hadn't noticed those before. Alex didn't know it was possible, outside of fiction and some disease. She did wear plenty of makeup, however, so perhaps she complemented her look with some custom contacts. It was something he'd have to ask her about later.

Sarah eventually accepted her order from one of her coworkers, making her way towards the table Alex had claimed. His friend's plastic tray hit the table with a click, and Alex got his first look at her meal.

"Four tacos?" he asked, admiring the two orders she'd crammed onto one tray. "You must really like those."

"I prefer the burgers, really…" She admitted, a smug smirk creeping onto her features as she opened the first of two boxes "...but I did some calculations, and realized that this has the most calories per dollar of anything on the menu."

That caught him off guard.

"That's a good thing?"

"Yeah." She asserted, raising one of the tacos to her mouth and taking a bite. With her mouth still filled with ground-up hamburger, she continued. "Calories are a measurement of energy, right? I'm just being efficient."

"There's millions of calories in a gallon of gasoline, but you wouldn't want to drink that." Alex responded, chuckling. However, as all he got in return was a look of confusion, and humor in Sarah's proclamation faded. "Sorry. Er… What I meant was that those aren't good calories. What do you know about nutrition?"

"Nutrition?" she echoed, experimenting with the word. "Er… Nothing."

Oh, god. Sarah was in great shape now, but if Alex didn't help that wasn't going to last for long.

"Well," He started, suddenly realizing he wasn't remotely qualified to explain the concept, "there's good calories and bad calories. I think the difference is in how well the body can convert the different chemicals to energy, or something."

"Oh!" She interjected, revelation in her voice. "So it's like a less efficient fuel!"

"...Kinda?" He replied, not completely sure what she meant by that. "It gets, uh… turned into fat before the body can burn it, so…" he trailed off from there, unsure how to continue.

"That's bad." She asserted, although the statement almost felt like a question.

"Yeah, that's bad." he agreed. "You'll end up looking like-" Alex lowered his voice to prevent a certain coworker from overhearing. "-kinda like Stephanie."

Sarah's brow visibly furrowed, further confusion deepening her features.

"She doesn't look good?"

"I'm sure she's attractive to some people…" he stated, already regretting his words. Again, he wasn't a nutritionist, but now that he was looking at her Alex realized that his coworker probably didn't qualify as obese. He had to choose someone Sarah knew, however, and they didn't seem to get along too well, so poor Stephanie was the one he was going to shove under the bus. "...but you look a lot better than her, Sarah."

Sarah's chrome eyes widened.

"I do?"

Alex only then realized what he'd just said. Had he just made a pass on her? Was she offended? He needed to do some damage control, before Sarah thought anything less of him!

"Well- you're in a lot better shape than anyone else here!" He improvised, unconsciously scratching her neck. "You could certainly beat me in a race."

"Could I?"

'Yeah! Plenty of muscle, and not a lot of unnecessary weight to hold you back."

That was a bit of a lie. Sarah's body resembled more of an actress's or supermodel's than that of an athlete's, and the… swell in her shirt would probably cause problems if she got too active, but Alex was trying to get out of the doghouse here.

"So fat's unnecessary weight, then." Sarah asked, her surprise seeming to fade. It looked like he'd dodged a bullet, for now.

"Yeah." He confirmed, another question starting to nag at his thoughts. How the hell was she in such perfect shape in the first place?

"What did you mostly eat before coming here?" He asked, seizing the opportunity to change the subject. Considering how she looked without paying any attention to her diet, perhaps Alex should be passing this diet onto Mom.

"Ah, fish and fruit, mostly." She commented, taking another bite from her taco.

That… actually made a lot of sense. He wasn't an expert, but he was sure he'd heard about something like that advertised as a 'super diet' a few years back. It must have come with a lot of exercise, too, something Paloma was still struggling to find time for, but it made sense.

"Ah, that sounds pretty good." He admitted. "A bit expensive, though."

"It is, unfortunately." Sarah agreed, her gaze unfocusing. "I haven't had any of either in a while..."

That knowledge suddenly seemed vitally important to Alex.

"Well, there's a fishery a few towns north of here. Apparently they've got a good restaurant attached."

"North?" She echoed, clearly unenthused about the prospect. What about going north was bad?

"Well, I guess we could see about arranging a day trip to Raymond." He offered, walking back from the fish farm idea. Figuring out why she seemed opposed to the idea could be done later. "It's a coastal town, and there's still plenty of fishing industry there. We can get something fresh off the boat!"

"That… sounds pretty good, actually." She admitted, unknown calculations rolling across her face. "Still expensive, though. Maybe after I've saved up for that phone."

"I'll hold you to that." He joked, although Sarah's dead serious expression made him reconsider. "Er- not really! If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out!"

"Well, we can hope it does." Sarah replied, taking another bite of her taco. Alex suddenly remembered his own meal, the cooling hamburger neglected for the majority of his lunch break. Seeing the conversation had lulled, he picked up his own hamburger and started eating.

The music from the restaurant's speakers wrapped up, switching to another ancient love ballad.

...wait, had he just asked Sarah out on a date?

"Hmm, I'm not very good at 'healthy' food…" Paloma mused, the Princess patting her midsection with a chuckle, "...although you could probably tell that!"

The Abyssal had no idea what the human was joking about, but falling back on old tactics, Trinitite weakly laughed with her. The Abyssal had been with Alex, reading through the manual on Valkyries as he applied the last layers of wash to his fleet, when Paloma had invited her into a kitchen. Finally, the cooking training was about to begin. For once unintimidated by the princess, the Wo-class had followed her to their base's little galley.

"Fajitas are kind of healthy, and really easy to make!" She'd introduced, removing a plastic bag from the refrigerator. "Get me one of those pans, will you?"

Her Jack in the Box training kicked in and she made for the sink, her rangefinders flitting over to the arsenal of pans she'd been ordered to select from. There were almost a half dozen, much more if she counted the pots and other suspended cooking equipment. Recalling the prices from her shopping trip weeks ago, the abyssal always marveled at the… arsenal of supplies that she passed regularly, but hadn't thought of a way to ask about it yet. Now seemed like an appropriate time, though…

"How much did all of this cost?"

"Oh, quite a lot." She answered, removing a plastic slab from a compartment and laying it down on a countertop. "I don't remember exact prices, but this was a lot of small purchases in the nineteen years I've been with Mitchell."

Nineteen years? How old was the princess of the Martin-Campos fleet? And it took them that long to accumulate a cooking setup like this? The Princess had described them as 'small purchases,' but she had no doubt attempting to make all of those purchases in just a few months would make it ruinously expensive, and that was just the items hung on the wall! What about the rest of the equipment in the kitchen? The electronics in the living room? The money paid to the fleet who built this house?

The Wo-class fished one of the pans from the holding it up for the princess's approval before placing it on the stovetop. All of… this… wasn't possible for her to obtain. She wasn't planning on staying in human society for that long. It could happen, she had no idea what to do once she got to her Princess, but she couldn't afford to think that far ahead until she was in a more stable situation.

"You know how to properly cut food?"

Trinitite did, but hesitated before replying. While being trained by Mother in her first months on the seas, she'd discovered plenty of tasks that seemed self-explanatory at first, but were much more complicated in execution.

"Maybe?" She replied, allowing her uncertainty to creep into her answer.

"There's a trick to it." The Princess admitted, waving Trinitite over. She'd removed the meat- chicken, the abyssal recognized- from the bag she'd taken, and slapped it down on the plastic slab she'd grabbed. As it hit the plastic with a thud, some of the seasoning that coated it fell away, spackling the board with black and red powder. Paloma placed a hand on the meat, pressing her fingertips into the carcass as her other hand straightened into a knife shape. "Now, most people would think of cutting like this, right?"

"Right." The Abyssal followed along, nodding. It was how she would do it. How was it wrong?

"It's what most people do, but it leaves their fingertips unprotected." She cautioned, making a chopping motion with her hands.

"Oh, okay!" Trinitite nodded, remembering all of the training videos she'd been forced to sit through. Humans were made of meat, after all, so the steel knife probably did pose a serious threat to their fingers. Paloma scooped up the knife in question, crunching her fingers so her knuckles protruded out, instead of the fingertips.

"If you put your hands like this, however, with your knuckles out…" She brought the knife to the meat, resting the side of its blade against the protective wall of bone. "You probably aren't going to cut yourself. Want to try?"

"Yes, please." The Wo-class nodded, accepting the knife. Paloma watched as she started to cut, allowing the blade to do the work rather than her boilers. With that done and the slices sliding into the warming pan, The Princess started cutting up a collection of plants as Trinitite continued working on chicken.

As they worked, a junior officer in the abyssal's bridge hastily scrawled the steps Paloma layed out into a new 'recipe log.' Hopefully she'd have something usable once this was over. If that failed, she still had the recipe books, and was starting to get familiar with all of this cooking equipment.

If she bought the materials and did the work, perhaps Trinitite had another way to pay back the Martin-Campos Fleet...

A bit of a short chapter, but it serves it's purpose well enough, I think. I was planning on writing more of that cooking segment, but what's out there does a good enough job without drawing the scene out too much, I think.

I've kind of fallen behind on updating the story here on , but good news is that I hope to correct that problem ASAP. Figure it's best to post the two chapters with a bit of delay so they don't step on each other, so the next chapter will be posted tomorrow, and then you'll be all caught up! Apologies for the pretty pointless delay...