This one takes place, if I'm remembering my own timing correctly, about five and a half months after the main events of Old Ghosts (six weeks since they've been in Northern Ireland and I think I had them leave Charming around three months after the attack.)
Characters: Chibs Telford and Fiona Larkin with mentions of Kerrianne and Tara
"Fi, what are you doing?" Filip Telford asked rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was three A.M., give or take a few minutes and he stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching his wife. The kitchen table and counter were covered in baking supplies and in the center of it all stood Fiona wearing a floral apron over her pajamas.
"I haven't made banana bread for Tara yet," she responded, looking at him as if it was the most natural response in the world.
"Let's go back to bed. She's waited six weeks for your banana bread, surely a few more hours won't hurt anything." He stepped forward and picked up the carton of eggs attempting to return it to the fridge.
"Filip, you and Kerri both eat bananas on your cereal and the grocery store isn't open on Sundays." Now she had that look in her eyes that told him that there would be no way to talk her out of her plan. Her absolute stubborness and the good intentions behind this particular act were part of what made him love her so much.
However, you couldn't just let your wife make banana bread alone at three in the morning. It wasn't like he hadn't spent late nights awake before, and baking banana bread with the woman he loved had to be far less dangerous than fighting dangerous criminals. "What do you need me to do?"
Fiona sighed, "Go back to bed."
Trying to show that he could and would be equally stubborn, Filip repeated his previous statement enunciating the words. "What do you need me to do?"
"Why don't you mash the bananas while I mix the dry ingredients?"
It was almost four by the time the loaf of bread went into the oven and although baking was certainly safer than biker wars, it was no cleaner. A canister of flour had spilled across the kitchen table and Filip is sure if he were to pat the top of Fiona's head right now, flour would puff out of her hair.
The state of the kitchen must have served to turn off the fire that had drove Fiona to bake in the early hours of a Sunday morning because she immediately shook her head and let out a loud laugh. "What a mess."
Immediately Filip developed a mental image of Happy Lowman chastising them for not keeping a clean house, but he quickly brushed it a way with a shake of his own head. "Flour is a lot easier to clean up than blood."
Fiona immediately fixed him with a glare. "Filip..."
"Look, all I'm saying is if we work together maybe we can even make it back to bed before we have to go play good Catholics."