I think I forgot to mention that I also learned that making a bit of a fool of myself made UK happy. As the hero, I think that if all it takes is to be a bit of a goof, it's a noble sacrifice, hell the first time I wasn't even trying. With a smile still on his face, UK turned from his spot at the fire and playfully punched me in the arm.

"You dolt, stop messing around and help out." He turned back around reached into the drawer and a cupboard below the counter. When the blond turned back around, he placed a small bowl and a paring knife. "There, now peel those potatoes for me." UK grabbed another small knife and sat down in the chair next to me. Once settled, he set to peeling his carrots.

"So, what are we even making?"

"Well if we were under normal circumstances it would be beef stew with carrots and potatoes. Ha, what am I even saying, if we were under normal circumstances we wouldn't even be in this mess."

"Soooo, what is it instead?" I looked down, peeling potatoes is harder than it looks, way harder.

"We don't have any beef so I guess it's just potato and carrot stew. It's a really simple dish, we don't need much, to be honest there isn't much I can make without things I'd need to find from the outside, so we might end up having this often." UK stood up and headed over to one of the many kitchen cabinets and came back with a cutting board and half an onion.

I glanced down at the pile of peeled veggies, the carrots were completely outnumbering the potatoes. "How did you get so good at this?" I was almost in awe of his skill with a knife.

"I... wait I'm not falling for that again." The soft smile faded and changed to a victorious smirk.

"Hey, don't act like I was trying to trick you or anything! I was just curious, that's all." By then I had finally finished one of the potatoes, you'd be amazed how long it takes with all the little bumps and crevices. "Sorry I asked I guess."

The blond brit let out a sigh. "Fine how about this, we can share small things, for everything I tell you you tell me something, and vice versa. No asking about names, family, pets, or anything else you wouldn't want to tell someone you just met."

I smiled, UK was opening up to me! I mean, it wasn't that much, but tiny steps right? "That's alright with me. I guess you get to ask first since you already shared."

"Where did you come from? I assume from somewhere in the United States but I was hoping for something a bit more detailed than that. It's a big country you know."

"Yea it is, and an awesome one at that! Well, I'm from New York, New York, you've gotta know where that is right? I'm not really from there though, I grew up in Washington. Not the capital, the state! You know the pacific northwest, two states above California, right below Canada. I don't blame you if you don't know it, most people don't. What about you? I'm guessing that you're from somewhere around here since you came here as a child often."

"You'd be correct about that. And for your information 'around here' is known as Epping. We're in Epping forest at the moment." I wasn't able to tell because it was fast and small but I think UK was smiling. It was then the thought crossed my mind that the Englishman might actually be enjoying himself! "Owww oww owwwww, what was that for?" "Too much sarcasm."

"Hmm, well now it's my turn to ask a question. How are you so good at this? I mean sure I grew up in a big, techy city I never did much of this plant stuff."

"Hmph, I guess you already forgot didn't you? I was a gardener remember? I did this 'plant stuff' for a living. As for the peeling I've been living here for a while, cooking for myself so I've had practice. Speaking of which, how did you get through the past six months?"

"I couldn't make my own food well enough to survive on so I just foraged. I ate berries, nuts, I hunted a bit and cooked that well enough to the point it was edible and I wouldn't die from anything like salmonella. Anything I could get without too much prep was food. And to think I wasted all that time on twinkies, they don't really last forever you know?"

"Of course they can't last forever. It's still food, I'm surprised they're even edible with the shelf life they have."

I could tell he wanted so say something else, most likely point out something wrong with what I said, but for some reason the guy didn't.

The rest of the time until we ate was relatively uneventful. Except for when the boiling water somehow caught fire. Yea don't ask me how that happened I have no idea. My dad was a biologist not a chemist. Oh wait we haven't gotten to that point yet. Uh, forget I said anything about my dad. Anyways, UK fixed the fire problem. No one died from that or got hurt, and we somehow managed to still fix our beefless beef and potato stew. This was the first, and sadly, not the last time I would encounter UK's cooking.

When he first put the bowl in front of me I was a bit uneasy. I don't know if I mentioned it before but I'm not much of a cooker. I mean, I can cook just as good as the next guy. I'm more of a barbeque and grill person and there's not a lot of opportunities to do that during an apocalypse.

But even with my limited culinary skills I could tell something was off with the stew. The carrots were charred and looked more like black lumps than veggies, the potatoes looked the same, but a bit bigger. The lack of meat made it more of a soup than a stew. Or slightly flavored water with coal chunks half floating in it. But when I looked up from the meal to ask the brit what the hell was this supposed to be, his face just made me stop.

He had on the widest smile I'd seen that wasn't some sort of smirk or sneer. His green eyes were lit up. His cheeks were dusted a light pink. UK held his chin up, like always his posture was picture perfect, but the way his arms were crossed and he held his shoulders you could just see how happy he was. If we were in an anime UK'd have sparkle effects all around him. It was like, the fact that someone was eating something he made filled him with a sense of pride that was like nothing I'd ever seen.

There was no way I could crush that, it would be like killing an adorable baby animal. Just extinguishing that pure light, who can do that? So, I made the decision to shut my mouth and just eat the food. I took a medicine approach, do it fast and let as little of it touch your tongue as possible. Because of the carrot and potato lumps I had to do a bit of chewing. You know what? It wasn't bad in the sense that it tasted bad, but more that it lacked taste. When I glanced back up at the chef he was still just as excited as before I ate that spoonful and eagerly awaiting a response.

"Well, how is it?"

I swallowed the stew (and my pride) and returned a smile. "It's great! Definitely better than anything I could do with that little."

Somehow the Brit's expression brightened even more, turning my forced smile into a genuine one. It was like I said before; UK was an outwardly 'gloomy' person, snarky and judgey, a pessimist. But those times where you can get him to show how he really felt, when you can get him to smile, to laugh; he goes from cloudy to full on sunshine.

Somehow both of us survived that meal. I'd been feeling like I wasn't helping out enough so when UK went to clean up I helped him out. It had been a very eventful first day. I went from exploring in a forest, getting hung upside down, traveling to what seemed like a pocket dimension, magically tied to my supposed 'soul mate' who by the way had created the trap that caught me upside down in a tree. After that we learned a bit about each other, I learned that UK isn't the greatest of cooks, and more fun stuff. With all those adventures of the day we only had one more obstacle, bed time.


A/N: Sorry I'm a bit late with this chapter. I'm going off to a convention tomorrow and I've been spending most of my time today on preparations. My offer still stands for that prologue! Thank you so much for reading! Until I write again!