Hello dear readers! There's spice in the air it's the holidays and that means 4-day weekend for me, full of writing weeee~! I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while lol it's a long one too. Hopefully it brings your vacation a bit of joy =v= Now that I've seen the final word count for the chapter. I might have gone a weee bit overboard but in my defense. It's the first full chapter with baby piers, it has holidays in it and mandatory plot point shenanigans. lots to read, so I'll let you get to it.
Song suggestion: Cold December Night by Michael Bublé
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Capcom owns Resident Evil. I'm very barely borrowing it at this point, but it still counts.
The peaceful starry sky meets December's chilling air as long nights announce the beginning of winter and invite tired citizens to rest from their long day... so long as they were not in the Redfield home. The peaceful silence of the night was once more interrupted by the soft panicked wails of the newborn infant who was now almost 3 weeks old.
Chris inhaled as the sound caused him to wake up yet again and blood shot eyes looked over to an alarm clock that read 2 AM. A slow exhale followed as he covered his eyes with his hand "It's your turn," he says in a barely coherent grumble.
"mh-mh, your turn. I woke up at midnight," Emma replied while shifting to try and get comfortable again.
True, she did, but he woke up at 12:45, and she slept through it. "Alright," he says and gets up, rather than arguing. While he had the grounds to point out the error, he didn't really mind. She'd been dealing with this for almost two weeks without him and before long he'd be gone again, and she'd have to take care of the late nights alone once more. He could put in a few extra 'shifts' to pull his weight.
The agent sleepily shuffles out of the room and across the hall into the nursery where the tiny cries were growing more agitated. He leaned over the crib to pick up the small bundle and hold it close while quietly hushing to try and calm the screeching which did eventually calm down somewhat to a slightly irritated whine. "You have quite the howl going little wolf, what's wrong this time," Chris says while trying to figure out if the child was screaming for attention or if he wanted food again. It had been two hours since he last ate. The lack of pungent infant odor was enough to know that the baby probably did not need to be changed. Another tired sigh crossed his lips as his mind continued to wake up from the short amount of sleep he was given before making his way out of the nursery and down the stairs to the kitchen to get a bottle from the fridge.
The couple had been gifted a bottle warmer from Umber eye, and it had quickly become the heaven sent, the favored gift, the best thing ever because they didn't have to juggle a bottle between a microwave and the fridge to try wondering if that was too hot or too cold to get the right temperature while the baby was screaming. Less screaming is good.
A quiet melody from the machine announced that the infant's second of 12 meals for the day was warm and ready. Hearing the odd sound caused the child to whimper and threaten to start crying again.
"It's okay, I got you, you're okay," Chris says as he collects the bottle from the device and checks it before offering it to the infant. There was some initial resistance but once the child realized it was food he was quiet and happy as a clam. The 180 in attitude caused Chris to chuckle. "You're a food driven little guy, huh? Not sure if you got that from me or your mother..." Chris whispers quietly while moving to sit on the couch, so he could wait for the child to finish eating. "Well, you definitely got my nose," Chris says while continuing to talk to the child who couldn't understand him, more so as an exercise to stay awake. Maybe sitting on the couch wasn't the best idea, it was extremely comfortable, and it made his fatigue more apparent. The agent pushed past another yawn. Baby Piers eventually finished his meal and his eyebrows knit together in a frustrated pout while trying to spit the bottle out. "And that is absolutely a Redfield scowl," Chris says with a sleepy amused smirk as he puts the bottle down on the coffee table in front of them before sitting back again to check on the infant who was still making a face. Seeing this causes Chris to chuckle before gently poking the child's still furrowed brow, in between where two eyebrows should be which caused the muscle to relax. "Doesn't look quite as menacing when you don't have eyebrows yet kid." Chris points out. He takes a deep breath. He'd just rest his eyes for a second and-
Chris jolts awake to find he was still holding the child who was wiggling around in his wrapping. How long did he fall asleep? Chris quickly looks around for a clock and gives a sign of relief as he realized only 15 minutes had passed. "Alright, bedtime. For both of us," Chris says as he gets up with a slight grunt.
As if in response the child made a face and a tiny high pitch squeak of bowl movement could be heard shortly after.
Chris winced as he heaved a tired sigh. "You did that on purpose."
'*'*'*'*'
Morning arrived, and two exhausted parents sat at the dining room table, each with a mug of coffee as they tried to will themselves to not cancel their plans for the day and take turns napping.
"What time are we meeting the others again?" Chris asks quietly before sipping from his #1 Chris mug, which he'd brought back from the office since he wasn't there as often anymore.
"It starts at 2pm Cathy asked us to be there at noon to help with set up," Emma replies before gingerly sipping from her own mug.
"And she's okay to watch Duke for us while we're gone for the weekend? That's next week right?" Chris asks while trying to go over the plans for the rest of the time he was home.
"Yep... Are you sure it's a good idea for you and the kids to go with? I haven't been able to get a hold of her and you guys don't really... get long... at all..." Emma hesitantly mentions. There was also the part of bringing rose around that lunatic that threatened her before that didn't sit well with her.
"I want to make sure you'll be safe, and it's not like we can just call a babysitter with the current, situation," he says to avoid directly saying 'because of Rose'.
"Bringing the whole family might be a bit, overkill though," Emma points out once more. "She doesn't seem that dangerous."
"That's exactly why she is," Chris rebuttals, "She does what she has to, to get you to trust her, then when you're not paying attention she plants an idea or an item that puts you in danger. It's what happened with the tank, it's what happened with that stupid book. She doesn't directly attack she keeps a layer of deniability."
Emma frowns but nods. Once was an accident but twice is a trend...
"I know this was a choice you made, and I want to be able to be supportive of that but," Chris points out, "This is what I need to be comfortable with all this, so she can either deal with it or tell us to go home. There wasn't anything in the contract saying I wasn't allowed to be there so if one visit from me is too much then that's a huge problem."
While the two spoke Rose made her way down the stairs and to the living room to look for a toy. As she looked around, she noticed Piers was peacefully sleeping in the comfort of a small electric swing. She hadn't seen it before, but it showed up around the same time as the baby. It was kinda weird but interesting to watch, so she sat down in front of it.
"Why does he sleep so much?" Rose asks curiously while sitting in front of the small swinging baby carrier basket. "He always cries at night... Is he broken?"
Emma looked over from her seat, to see what Rose was doing, and a small smile crossed her face."No, he's not broken," she says with a short chuckle. "He's a baby, babies sleep a lot when they feel safe and happy. At night, they have to be alone and that's scary for them because they're not used to it yet."
"Oh..." Rose says in response to the answer. "... He looks like uh potato," the little girl says as she watches the tiny bundle contently sway forward and back.
Hearing that causes the two adults to laugh.
"He does kinda look like a potato when he's wrapped up like that," Chris mumbles into his mug with an amused smile.
"It's to keep him from scratching himself. He can't control his arms very well yet. Keeping them swaddled makes them happy," Emma points out while trying to keep a straight face and not laugh anymore. Swaddled baby sleeps better, sleep is good.
"I know, I know," Chris replies while still amused, he wasn't sure if it was actually that funny or if it was the sleep deprivation making it funny.
Emma finished up the last of her dwindling cup of caffeine before moving to get up, "I'm going to start getting ready for the day."
Chris nods and before long with a bit of coordinated effort the family of 4 were ready to leave and made it to a decent size two-story brick building. As they made their way to the parking lot of the building they passed a stone sign that was sitting next to a large flag pole.
"Her... Hair- Her-it-age, El-a-men-ta-ry..." Rose says while trying to sound out the words on the sign, "Heritage Elementary? What's that?" She asks curiously as she watches the sign disappear as they round a corner to enter the parking lot.
Chris and Emma hesitantly look at each other. She was going to learn about schools eventually... "It's a school," Chris simply replies figuring the less detail he gave the better.
"What's a school?" Rose asks while slightly tilting her head to express her further confusion and curiosity.
"It's a place where people go to learn things," Emma replies after while Chris works on finding a parking spot.
"So. The BSAA is a school?" Rose asks to see if she understands.
"It can be," Chris says since he's not sure how to answer that. For Rose, it was her school. She was just the only student.
"Do I have to do workbooks?" Rose asks while trying to hide her disappointment. She thought they were going somewhere fun...
"No," Emma says earning a dramatic sign of relief in response from Rose. "Sometimes schools will do fundraisers, which are fun things where anyone can come in and participate."
"Fundraisers?" Rose asks as her curiosity returns.
"Mhm, they're hosting a Christmas village, so there will be tables where you can buy baked goods and little presents, and you can talk to Santa to let him know what you want for Christmas," Emma explains hoping that explaining the event they were going to would be enough to distract rose from the 'school' part of the building.
"Santa's here?" Rose asks with a mixture of nervous excitement. She had been very very good this year. Talking to Santa sounds scary though...
Chris smiles at the question knowing well enough that 'Santa' was just going to be Jack in a costume stuffed with pillows. "Yep." Chris says to keep the illusion going. "Did you remember to bring your allowance in case you see something you want?"
Rose quickly pats her pockets to double-check but nods. She was going to buy so many sweets. Little did Chris and Emma know, She even brought the last $20 bill from winning the costume contest, so she had a whole $30 for snacks.
Chris pulled into a parking space not too far from an open Gym door at the back of the school. It took a bit of organizing between two kids and a diaper bag and a baby carrier basket, but they managed to get inside to find lots of reused Halloween spiderwebs which were now balled up as fake snow. Around tables that lined the edges of the gym that had decent but cheap table clothes and countless Christmas lights, where various vendors were setting up their trinkets and bobbles. At the front of the room where two large velvet chairs that the school rent surrounded by large fake gifts and more fake cotton web snow. Dozens and dozens of paper snowflake cut out were hanging from the walls and ceiling that were likely made by the students of the school as an art project.
"Wow," Rose says while looking around. While most of it was cheap and fake to an adult eye, to her, it was a magical place where snow was inside and there were little lights everywhere. "I'm gonna go look around" Rose says and hurries off.
"Stay in sight," Emma calls after as rushes off to the first table she could get to.
"Maybe she'll sleep through the night," Chris says while also keeping an eye on the excited child even if he was trying very hard to let go of his admittedly short leash for the kid.
"That would make one of us," Emma says with an amused chuckle.
"Oh um good. there you guys are so. oh dear," Cathy says as she walks over, clearly worried about something.
"Is everything okay?" Emma asks as her amused expression shifts to one of concern.
"Yeah... no, I. No it's not," Cathy admits with a defeated expression.
"I just got a call from Chelsea... Jack is sick and cant make it," Cathy explains while scribbling a nervous black void into the corner of the page on her clipboard.
"Oh no poor guy," Emma says in return.
"Oh no is right. The main income of the fundraiser was getting to take a picture with Santa. If we don't have a Santa this whole thing will be a bust, we'll barely break even if we're lucky," Cathy explained the larger issue at hand. "I knew I shouldn't have been put in charge of this."
"Cathy it's not your fault he's sick," Emma points out in return.
"I should have trained a back-up Santa too. There's always something that goes wrong," Cathy continues to lament. "Maddie will be here in a few hours with our little Timmy, This has been all he's been able to talk about... what do I do."
Chris watched silently, he was pretty sure he knew what was actually going on. Cathy was a pretty shy person and didn't like to directly ask for help. "We got two hours, Teach me the part."
"Really?" Cathy asks happily.
"It's just a costume. I wear those for Halloween. I don't see a problem with it." Chris adds before looking over to Emma who was smiling at him. "Are you going to be okay with the kids?"
"Yeah I got it, go save the day," Emma says with a slight chuckle as she accepts the diaper bag from him.
Chris walked away with Cathy who was continuously saying thank you as she led the way to a classroom where the rented Santa suit was waiting along with a few cheap pillows to pad the stomach. Privacy was granted to let Chris change into the costume but after that class began.
the very tall pillow padded man was sitting at a small children's desk and listening to Cathy go over the basics of 'santa'ing. He did not realize it was this much of a process that it would take over an hour to go over it as a crash course. His brain was starting to scream at him for volunteering for this but if he didn't, the school wouldn't get the funding it needed, there would be a bunch of screaming crying children packed into the same location, and he had a feeling Rose would probably be one of those kids since they told her Santa would be here.
"Okay, real give me a good jolly belly laugh. You know. HOO HOO HOO," Cathy instructs.
"Uh. Hoho. ho?" It was not the most convincing sounding attempt.
Cathy winces. "I-It'll work. This will be fine. This is fine. Just keep practicing." She says though it was more so to convince herself. "I need to go and check to make sure the misses' clause actually showed up" Cathy says with a tired sigh. "I'll be right back."
It took a bit of juggling, but Emma managed to keep an eye on Rose as she hurried from table to table in an attempt to try and see everything. Before long 2 PM rolled around and people slowly started to trickle into the room. "Hey," Chelsea says as she walks over to Emma with Summer not far behind her. "Where's Chris?" She asks confused as she noticed that Emma was on her own. "I thought he was home?"
"He's filling in for Jack," Emma explained still amused by the idea of Chris dressing up as Santa. As much as he was a serious guy who could be a bit difficult at times, he had his soft spots.
"What's that?" Summer asks while trying to get a look into the baby carrier basket.
"Oh, right um Chelsea, Summer. Meet Piers," Emma says as she watches Summer's eyes light up.
Summer excitedly gasps as she looks into the baby carrier basket. "I have a little brother?" she asks excitedly.
"I mean not really but," Chelsea replies since that's not really how that works.
"I have a brother," the 10-year-old says with a determined nod.
"Okay," Chelsea says with a chuckle. She'd grow out of it.
"Is Rose here too?" Summer asks before looking around to see if she could find her friend.
"Yeah, She's over there by the Crafts stand," Emma says and points over to the stand where Rose was looking at various homemade knitted items.
Summer hurried over to the table to find a much older Rose. "You grew again," Summer says happily.
"Huh?" Rose looks over and smiles upon seeing her friend. "HI!" Rose says excitedly "You're here too?"
"Yeah, I go to this school," Summer explains "but next year I get to go to the middle school."
"Really?" Rose asks awestruck. There are different kinds of schools?
"Yep, it's gonna be so cool," Summer says excitedly. "I get to pick what I want to eat for lunch, and I start picking what classes I want to take called electives and there's after school clubs."
Wow, that all sounds so awesome. "With other kids?" Rose asks in awe as she pretty quickly recognized that there were lots of other kids in here too.
"Well yeah, Schools are for kids," Summer replies with a confused expression. "Oh yeah that's right, mom says you got to some fancy private school, What's that like?"
"It's just a bunch of adults and tests and workbooks..." Rose says with a defeated sigh. "Can I go to school with you?"
"Well I mean my school still has that stuff too but," Summer rubs at the back of her neck. "I mean private school doesn't sound too bad. You get to learn things a lot faster because you're super smart and stuff, and you don't have to do homework right?"
"What's homework?" Rose asks confused.
"See, that's so cool, homework is the wooorst," Summer says while trying to help Rose feel a bit better. "Come on, let's go look around." she adds to change the subject and motions for Rose to follow her.
The two little girls walked around unaware their mothers were watching them like hawks from a distance to make sure they didn't get into, or cause, trouble.
Meanwhile, back with Chris, he was continuing to try and practice the laugh and took to using his phone to look up some videos on YouTube.
"Remember you don't want to actually just say, ho ho ho. that's just H.O. H.O. Written out. You want it to sound like it, without it just being the letters" the video says before giving an example of a good jolly Santa laugh.
Chris held his face while realizing maybe this was a mistake and there was a reason there were professionals that do this.
"Now when you're working with the kids, your attitude has to be one of caring, and loving and having fun and if they talk to you, try to really listen to what they are saying, so you can give them an answer." The man adds after, going beyond the bare minimum of just teaching the laugh. "Sometimes you can't quite understand, but that's okay so to whatever they said, just say 'THAT'S GREAT HOO HOO HOO'," The man instructs and Chris nods. That was good to know. "You want to keep your voice nice and jovial." with that the video ended.
Okay, that one help a little, but he kept looking and moved on to the next video.
"My belly laugh starts actually," the Santa points to his head, "In my mind... because it's the happiness and the joy that brings that laugh."
Oh lord, he was screwed. The cynic with PTSD has to figure out how to Santa laugh. Great plan, 10 out of 10. He went back to the video from before and listened to the example laugh a few more times while trying to replicate it.
"Hey Santa," Cathy says while peaking into the room. "We're ready when you are," she adds with a nervous smile.
Chris takes a deep breath and nods before walking over. It was just a few hours, he could do this. After walking out to the hall he found Cathy standing next to a woman dressed as Mrs. Claus.
"So you're the Santa fill in? My name's Barbra nice to meet you," the woman says while offering a hand.
"Chris," He says while accepting the handshake.
"Well you're in character Kris Kringle," Barbra replies with an amused smile.
"No my actual name is Chris," He replied. This is why he hated his name sometimes.
"Oh," the woman says with an embarrassed expression. "Well they found a good fit then," Barbra says while trying to back pedal a bit. "Well I'll be handing out candy canes to the kids that visit but, If you get any kids who are too unruly or upset just hand them over to me, and I'll help calm them down." Chris nods and the woman offers her arm. "Ready?"
Nope, he thought but nods again all the same and links arm with the Mrs. Claus. "okay," he says in return and the two made their way to the main double doors to the gym.
3.2.1.
"Hoo Hoo Hoo!" he tried to make sure he was loud enough to be heard over the chattering as he walked into the gym with the Mrs. Clause. He was nervous, enough that the adults could tell, but the kids only cared that the recognized the seasonal sound as tiny cheers of 'Santa!' filled the gym and joyful squeals were mixed in to the shouts.
Chris felt a breath of relief cross his lips, the scariest part was done. kind of. he just had to keep it up. the two walked over to their seats and the event began.
"You know, I'll give him credit, not bad for only, what, two and a half hours?" Chelsea says whiles smiling to herself.
"He makes a pretty decent Santa," Emma says with a chuckle. "Though I suppose now I have to get a picture of him with the kids. I can already tell I'll regret it if I don't."
"Absolutely," Chelsea says with a snickering smile.
As the questionably jovial laughter filled the gym Rose and Summer looked over as well. Rose was surprised to see a large man with a long white beard. It really was Santa!
Summer claps and smiles as the other kids cheered. "Oh wow the line's already super long," The 10-year-old says as her shoulder's dropped before looking around. "wait, everyone's busy with that, so the stands are all empty!" Summer says as she starts to see a silver lining. "Come one we can go buy stuff without waiting as long while everyone's distracted."
"I gonna buy a whole cake," Rose says excitedly as she follows Summer. the two were about to rush over when one of the stalls rose saw before came to mind. "Um. I'll meet you there," she says.
" 'kay don't take too long," Summer says and continues to make her way over to the baked goods table.
Rose turned and stopping at one that had some genuinely decent toys mixed in with some cheaper novelty gifts like a small glass rose that had perfume in it, pocket knives and other various items that were easy to mark up.
Rose smiled while staring at a model car that was neatly displayed in a cardboard box that had a plastic window to show it's content. That car along with a few others were sitting near the edge of the table. It was like those hot wheel cars on TV but bigger. the commercials always showed boys playing with them, and they looked really happy. The baby can't play with small toys thought... Rose looked around a bit before pointing at the model car. "Can I have this?"
"That'll be 25 buck." the vendor explains.
"25?" she parrots back disappointed... But her cake... She was gonna buy a whole cake and eat it... she couldn't get a whole cake for $5...
"Sorry kid, that's as cheap as a 1:24 scaled model car gets when it's die-cast," The man explains with a slight frown, he seemed to be kinda use to this. "you could maybe go to a craft store and get a kit cheaper to build it yourself, but it's gonna be plastic, not metal."
Rose frowns and shifts her weight between her feet. She really wanted cake, but she also wanted to get her new baby brother a present to put under the tree. There weren't presents there yet, and he was only just born. What if Santa did know?
Rose looked at her hand full of money and hands it over to the man at the stand with slight reluctance.
The man took the offered money before handing back 5 one dollar bills since he knew kids tend to prefer having more to hold. "take your pick." the man says and waits for Rose to do so.
Rose hurried over to another table that wrapped gifts. they even put it in a bag to make it easier to carry. Another dollar down leaving her with 4. Feeling happy but sad at the same time Rose trudged her way over to the baked good table where summer was waiting for her.
The baked good table was filled with homemade pies, cakes and sweet breads.
"Are you okay?" Summer asks curiously as she watches Rose rest her chin on the table to stare at the ocean of sweets.
"Yeah..." Rose says with a depressed tone. being a big sister was hard work.
"that doesn't sound okay," Summer points out in return.
"I don't have enough money for cake anymore," she explains with a dejected sigh.
while the two were talking the lady behind the stall was listening. "well, how much do you have?"
"I only have these," Rose says and shows the lady the 4 dollars.
"Well you can have 4 cupcakes, and that's like 4 tiny cakes which is more than 1 cake." the woman explained knowing that the flawed logic was just strong enough to work for a child.
"Really?" Rose asks excitedly.
"Yep, is that what you want to do?" the woman asks in return.
"YEAH!" Rose says as her mood drastically improved. she had enough for both! kinda.
"Okay," the woman says with a laugh before packing up the 4 cupcakes into a tiny cardboard box and handing them over to Rose.
"Can I have 4 too?" Summer asks and holds up her own allowance.
"Sure," they replied and packed up 4 more cupcakes for summer and gives the girl her change for the purchase.
They were just about to hurry off to find a place to hide and eat their treats when their mothers walked over.
"Hey girls, we're going to go ahead and get in line to see Santa," Chelsea says while still trying not to laugh as she'd occasionally hear a distant 'hoo hoo hoo'.
"Wohoo!" Summer says and walks over to show her mom what she got. "Mama, look at what we got!" she says while holding out her box of cupcake.
"Oh boy sugar," Chelsea says while trying to pretend to sound excited which caused Summer to laugh. "you better not spoil your dinner by eating too much."
"I won't" Summer replies while taking a cupcake out of the box.
Emma noticed Rose hurrying over with a similar box and a bag on her arm. "Did you get something too?"
"yeah," Rose confirmed happily.
"Okay, well, try not to over do it," Emma replies and Rose nods before taking out a cupcake as well.
The two girls enjoyed their treat while giggling and talking as they waited in line for their turn to meet THE Santa Claus.
"Are you okay to stay with Rose for a bit while I make sure Piers won't freak out for the photo?" Emma asks while looking over to Chelsea.
"It's just a few seconds, I should be okay," Chelsea replies those she did seem a bit uncomfortable. If it had been anything longer than that she probably would have asked for a slight adjustment to the plan.
"Thanks, just a few seconds, I promise," Emma agrees.
eventually their turn arrived. "Okay Rose, stay with Auntie Chelsea for a moment I'm going to make sure that Piers and Santa will be okay for the picture, so the baby doesn't cause a scene." Emma explained, though she also wanted to check in on Chris to make sure he was doing okay. he'd been at it for a while now.
"okay," Rose says and stays put while Emma heads over.
"Hey, how are you holding up?"
"I am, so tired," Chris admits "how long has it been?"
"You're about half way done, you're doing great," Emma answers while putting the baby carrier basket down, so she could work on getting Piers out.
"ohohoho that was not what I wanted to hear," Chris says with a pained laugh.
"You're getting the laugh down," Emma says with an amused smile which causes the Mrs. Claus to chuckle.
"Oh my heart, he's precious. Is he yours?" Mrs. Claus asks as she watches Emma hand Piers to Chris.
Chris gingerly holds the child making sure to support the child's head, and smiles at the sleeping infant. "Yep," Chris answers with a hint of pride in his voice.
"Think you'll be okay with both of them?" Emma asks and Chris nods.
"There's another?" the woman asks curiously while looking over at Emma.
Emma looks over to find Rose watching from behind Chelsea. "Come on over," Emma says and gestures for Rose to come towards her.
Rose was not completely sure if she wanted to or not, but she watched the bearded man carefully but does end up cautiously making her way over to hide behind Emma instead.
"Do you want to say Hi?" Emma asks
"Hi" Rose says to Santa.
Okay, you've done this over a hundred times now, come on you can do this. "Hoo Hoo Hoo, Hello there, and what's your name?" Chris says while trying very hard to disguise his voice.
"Rosemary," Rose replies while still cautiously watching the magical present giver.
"What a lovely name," Mrs. Claus says with a smile which causes Rose's face to turn pink. "Would you like to come over here and tell us what you want for Christmas?"
Rose nods and walks over to the two. "Uhm, okay so. um. I've been trying to be really, really, good this year and um. I-I was hoping that for Christmas,"
Chris tried to lean forward a bit, so he could hear Rose better. He never really had an issue with her speaking so quietly. She was always so lively and excited around him, Emma and the hound wolf squad. However, this was the first time he was talking to her from the perspective of a stranger.
"...Can I go to school with Summer please?" Rose asks curiously.
The request was a bit confusing to hear. " ohoho, I'm afraid I'm not sure if that's something I can fit under a tree," Chris says while puzzling over the request. What kid asks to go to school?
"Oh, right um," Rose thinks it over for a few moments before nodding. "Can I have Ballerina shoes, please? Cause then, maybe my other dad will let me take dance classes even though he always says no when I ask."
"... I'll see what I can do," Chris says while quietly thinking it over. It was a bit hard to ignore that the one thing the two requests had in common, was that she wanted to be around other kids. It was even harder to ignore now that he'd seen her struggling to communicate with a stranger. She might be doing well academically but, just as Emma warned, Rose was falling behind socially.
A hopeful smile crosses her face and a quiet but excited "Yey," could be heard. Rose stood between Mr. and Mrs. Claus while Emma kept an eye on Santa who was holding the baby and with a quick click of shutters the family picture was taken.
'*'*'*'*'
"In 200 feet, your destination is on your right," the GPS announces.
Chris squints while trying to see by the light of the headlights. "Where?" he asked the phone rhetorically as he saw nothing but trees on either side of the road. He'd been here before, but he kinda didn't take the roads last time. The car slowed to a crawl as Chris tried to find the house, but he didn't see it anywhere. There was an unmarked road of sorts that lead into the woods. Despite every fiber of his being screaming at him to NOT go down the dark road that wasn't on the GPS into the unlit woods, he flicked on the turn signal and made his way down the path and to his relief, there was the house he remembered seeing before.
"Well, here goes," Emma says with a nervous tone. As much as she tried to reach out ahead of time all attempts failed.
"Relax, it will be fine," Chris says though he kinda doubted that, since that's why he was here in the first place. He picked up his phone and checked the screen which read Friday, December 9th, 8:09 PM
"Okay," Emma says though she was pretty clearly unconvinced as well since he really didn't seem to grasp that his presence was likely going to cause more problems than it was going to prevent. It's just one time. She can do this. Emma helped him with collecting the kids from the car, Chris picked up a sleeping Rosemary and the diaper bag while Emma gather Piers and tucked him into the baby carrier basket. car doors swung shut and the family of 4 approached the front door and Emma rang the doorbell
It took a second, but eventually the door opened."-at this time of night. Oh gosh, it's the whole family," Charlotte says as her shoulders drop.
Emma winced slightly at the woman's tone. yeah, she kinda figured this was going to happen.
"You had four months to figure this out," Charlotte points out while holding her face in one hand while the other held her opposite hip. "You didn't think to call?"
"I'm sorry," Emma replied with a sincerely apologetic tone. "I tried to call but the number from before and on the papers didn't work. It said it was disconnected? I tried looking up a home number for this address and couldn't find a landline..."
"You tried calling the office line then. that was shut down in October," Charlotte explains as she stares at Chris with a deadpan expression. "I know you have my number."
"I deleted that a long time ago," Chris replies with a slight shrug. Wasn't his business to keep it.
"Oh, you deleted it from the BSAA System? That's very generous of you," Charlotte says in return. It takes a second, but she eventually moves out of the way to let them into the house and out of the cold. "Just try not to be a nuisance." She says with a slight frown as she closes the door behind them. "Your room is over there under the loft to your left. you'll have to figure out your sleeping situation there's one bed." Charlotte explains while gesturing over to a door to the left. "There's a bathroom next to it that you can use." She adds while motioning to the door next to the one she pointed out before. "And I suppose since the council is all here, we can figure out what we're doing going forward as far as dates go."
"Right," Emma agrees with a nod.
"When are you available then," Charlotte says as she moves to take her phone out of her pocket and pokes at the screen.
"Um. Well, it's kind of a moving target at this point. Work and travel has been a bit hectic," Emma admits while trying not to directly say 'I can't say because we have two kids and Chris's schedule is nuts'.
Charlotte rolls her eyes "Fine then I'll pick for you. You'll be expected here on the first weekend of every month and that will start effective next month, so January to avoid any confusion."
"Now hold on," Chris says as annoyance was starting to become evident in his tone. He wasn't going to be here, how was this going to work?
"If you have a problem with this you shouldn't have been so difficult and just gave her my number, so we could have more time to figure this out, but you didn't, so we don't." Charlotte counters.
Chris sneered at her attitude but remained silent for now, he told Emma he'd try not to cause trouble so that meant biting his tongue for now.
"Good boy," Charlotte says while turning her head to ignore him. "Now, off to bed with you. I'm sure you're all exhausted from traveling so far." She says while giving her attention to Emma. "Emma I do expect breakfast in the morning we wake up around 9."
"Yes Ma'am," Emma replies trying to tip-toe around this situation since being in between Chris and Charlotte felt like walking on eggshells now that she had a better idea of how poorly they got along.
"Charlotte is fine," She corrects before going on her way over to a couch where the Silver haired man from before was smiling to himself, likely listening to the whole conversation while pretending to focus on a movie that was paused.
Chris and Emma make their way into the small guest room. sure enough it had a decent size queen bed some bedside tables, a dresser and closet like any other standard bedroom set. To their surprise there was a crib as well set up by the dresser.
"How strange," Emma says under her breath while looking over the crib. she put the carrier down on the dresser next to it. It's either Charlotte sterilized the thing recently or it was brand new. the dresser had a thin layer of dust that the crib did not have. A short chuckle crossed her lips as a thought came to mind. In Charlotte's own weird way, perhaps she was trying to be accommodating and planned for what ifs even though Emma couldn't reach out to her.
"I think you mean rude," Chris says having only heard her word and not her thoughts as he moves to put rose down on the bed and tuck her in. "How are we going to pull this off, I'm going to be gone until the end of January,"
"Maybe we can talk to Gary... He's watched Rose before," Emma offers as a potential solution while getting Piers situated in the crib.
"Maybe..." Chris agrees as he goes to check the closet and finds a few spare sheets which he takes with him to set up on the floor near the door. If anyone tried getting in, he would be the first to know.
Emma managed to get a few hours of sleep on the other side of the large bed before she was inevitably woken up by an upset infant. Chris jolts awake as well as Emma gets out of bed.
"Go ahead and rest, I'll take care of him," Emma whispers. Chris nods in return and lays back down on his not as comfy makeshift bed. While she was tired, she knew how important it was for Chris's health that he sleep well. the last thing they needed was for him to have a night terror while in Charlotte's home. he'd probably end up hurting someone.
The woman yawns as she collects the upset bundle from the crib and manages to calm him down by feeding him. as she did so she slipped out of the room and made her way over to the kitchen. the Microwave clock read 11:45 pm in bright-green numbering.
"Let's see what we have to work with for breakfast," Emma says under her breath, figuring she could take this time to get somewhat better acquainted with what supplies she'd have to work with in the morning. To her horror, the fridge was mostly empty. among some half-eaten paper cartons of takeout, she finds a few sticks of butter, a half-eaten bag of apples, a few oranges, some molding cheese and 2 eggs. That was it. "Do they just not eat?" Emma quietly asks with a stunned expression. how on earth was she going to make enough food for everyone... She continued to look around and found a day-old loaf of bread next to the fridge. "Oh dear... I can work with this... I think," Please say they have the basics...
Once Piers was fed and sleeping once more Emma started to work in a routine. she'd sleep for an hour or so, the baby would wake up. she'd get up with the baby take care of any diaper, feeding or affection needs while working on a solution for the unexpected challenge of making something from nothing. As a single silver lining, Emma did manage to find spices tucked away in a cabinet with a few other basics like oil, flour and sugar.
the bread was a bit stale, but it's hard to taste that if it's toasted... only two eggs... French toast maybe? beat the two eggs with a bit of Cinnamon sugar and nutmeg, dip the bread in that to fry it? it would be a pretty harshly paired down recipe, but it could work. The milk was kinda important though since it helps the egg mixture stretch a bit...
by now it was 4 AM The baby was sleeping and Emma was standing at the kitchen island looking over the ingredients that she took out of the fridge and separated them out into groups for different recipe ideas.
This was going to be a bit of an experiment but hey what better time to try. Into a pot went the apples and water. Emma smiled a bit at her creative solution for not having a cheese cloth. A coffee filter with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and half an orange was tied shut with string and added to the pot, along with some brown sugar, before putting a lid over it. This was kinda going to determine if everything else worked...
While she waited for that to cook over the next three hours she continued to work with the limited ingredients, looking up recipes and substitutes rather consistently. 3 hours turned to 4 then 5 and a very tired Emma smile at the product of her hard work. A good size pot of Fresh apple Cider, Some Apple sauce made from adding a bit of the cider back into the strained out apple pulp, A fresh loaf of apple bread made without yeast thanks to a quick recipe from the internet and by substituting milk for apple sauce. next to the bread was a spreadable orange compote which would work well as a jam substitute.
Emma yawned as she worked on the last step of mixing sugar, eggs, cinnamon and nutmeg together to try and make French Toast and thinned it out with a bit of the apple cider since they shared a lot of common ingredients. The apple bread would hide any of the flavor of the cider which was an unintended bonus. Between running around the kitchen, taking care of the baby. She was exhausted.
Chris stretches a bit as he wakes up, he was a bit sore, but he actually was feeling pretty decent. he must have gotten at least a solid 3 hours of sleep some ho- that thought cut short as he noticed the sun was up, that it was well past 8, and that Emma and the baby were not in the room.
Shit, shit, shit, repeats in Chris's mind as he hurries out of the room, only to find Emma setting the table and Piers laying on a blanket on the floor, off to the side for some early morning tummy time. upon realizing they were safe he breathed a side of relief while holding the door frame.
"Are you alright?" Emma asks as she stared at Chris with concern. She was hoping she could avoid any sort of Night terrors here, but he still seemed panicked.
"Fine," he replies with a nod before heading over to pick up the infant who was trying to wiggle his arms and legs. "Are you an early bird or a night owl, kiddo. You can't be both," Chris says as he kneels down to pick up the child. to Chris's surprise the infant managed to turn his head to look at him. "Hey, he moved his head on his own." Chris says with a slight smile.
"I told you, he's not going to be small forever," Emma replies with an amused tone as she watches Chris pick up the baby.
Rose made her way out of the room shortly after while rubbing her eyes. how long had she been asleep for? "is it time to wake up?" Rose asks since she was used to her guardians being her alarm clock.
"I'm almost done making breakfast," Emma says with a nod, "why don't you change and wash your hands. I should have something ready by the time you're done."
"How long have you been awake?" Chris asks as he walks over to take a seat at the table.
"A couple of hours," Emma admits. "Piers was having a restless night anyways, so I figured I'd just stay up with him. not the worst thing in the world since I had a few pieces of fruit and two eggs to work with as far as supplies go."
"You're kidding?" Chris asks as his annoyed tone from the previous night returned. They were setting her up to fail. That didn't sit well with him, but he remained quiet otherwise and let Emma focus on her work. Chris and Rose were a good way through their breakfast and a growing pile of french toast was starting to form on the plate in the middle of the table.
Footsteps could be heard from the loft and sure enough a voice came after. "How in the Snow White hell..." Says the deeper gravelly voice of the metal lord who was standing next to Charlotte. both were staring at the table with confused expressions which was more than enough evidence to Chris that he was right. They knew they didn't give Emma enough to work with to fill her end of the deal.
"What the shit is all this?" Charlotte asks while looking at the breakfast spread with a skeptical squinting stare that Emma was too tired to notice.
"Oh! You're up." Emma says in response as she moves one more slice of eggy fried bread onto the serving plate. "Well this is apple cider french toast, There's apple cider to drink and some apple sauce. If you prefer a sweeter breakfast I made an orange compote to put on the french toast as well. Oh, I started a pot of Coffee too I hope you don't mind."
The two were stunned by the answer, but Heisenberg eventually shrugs and walks over to take a seat at the head of the table and starts serving himself and Charlotte wasn't too far behind him.
"This actually works out rather well," Emma adds after Charlotte takes her seat. "Part of learning to cook is learning how to prepare. So we can start off with picking a few recipes that you want to learn and go get the ingredients for it."
Charlotte is quite as she eats and seemed more focus on her plate but nods to show she heard what Emma said.
"So what kind of food do you like?" Emma asks figuring that would be a good place to start.
The younger woman thinks it over a bit. "Lamb with duck fat potatoes is a nice treat. Gnocchi with burnt butter and walnuts is also rather tasty. Panna cotta or truffle maybe if you mean desserts."
Hearing the list of rather extravagant dishes caused Emma's shoulders to drop slightly. "Those can get a bit involved um. Maybe something easier like comfort food or a quick dish that you remember your parents making for you that liked as a kid."
Charlotte remained quiet, and the two stared at each other. "So my parents had a personal chef while I was growing up."
Of course. "... Maybe we should start with mac and cheese from a box." Emma says with a nervous smile which causes Heisenberg to laugh. This was going to be a bit more challenging than she thought. All the same she ate a bit more. She'd be lying if she said she didn't already have her fill. Any good cook tests their food before the serve it, Especially if there was experimentation and substitutions involved, but she wanted to sit with everyone all the same.
"When you're done eating wash up and change," Charlotte instructs. "The two of us will go to the store, and you can go over this prepare work you mentioned."
"Understood," Emma replies with a nod. A shower sounded nice, Hopefully she wouldn't fall asleep in the warm water... Emma moved to stand up and took her plate with her. "Chris could you clear the table when everyone is done?"
"Yeah," he agrees while still keeping an eye on their hosts. he didn't trust them as far as he could throw him... Although, he had a feeling he could throw them pretty far. "Just try not to take too long?" He asks in return. He wasn't sure how well he could guarantee he wouldn't get into a fight if Heisenberg tried something.
Emma was about to nod and agree when Charlotte stepped in "You're not calling the shots here, we'll take as long as we take."
Emma held back a tired sigh as she watched the two glare at each other. "He has a point though, I'm the baby's food source, and he needs to be feed every two hours or so."
Hearing that caused Heisenberg to nearly choke on his coffee.
"Are you alright?" Emma asks concerned by the reaction.
"Fine," he replies in return.
"Okay," Emma says in return, while she wasn't completely convinced she walked away to clear her plate and heads back to the guest room to gather her things, so she could wash up and change. The warm water was soothing and relaxing. Soak, soap, rinse and the tired mother was ready to tackle the day after drying off and changing into clean, baby spit free clothes.
While Chris still wasn't thrilled about the idea of being separated Emma and Charlotte left for the local grocery store to pick up groceries.
"Let's see, we have a decent list of meals to make now. Because of that, we know what recipes we need. The recipes will include a list of ingredients that you need. so, once a week, sit down and check for recipes you want to make. Gather a list of all the ingredients for those recipes, and then you'll have your shopping list," Emma explained while poking at her phone as the two walked through the store.
"Seems easy enough," Charlotte replied with a nod.
"So probably an important question. but. Generally speaking, how do you learn," Emma asks.
"Excuse me," Charlotte asks unamused.
"Well that is, how do you prefer to learn. do you prefer to receive instructions as you're working, do you learn better if you see it done first and then repeat the process, or do you do better if the whole process is explained first, then you're given a written copy of the instructions to follow as you work on your own," Emma says while listing a few examples?
"I'm not completely sure when it comes to something like this," Charlotte admits with a slight frown. "Most of my formal education was all, number and book based not trade. So I'm not really used to, manual labor," She says in return. "There were the two years in the village, but that was a bit of an extreme 'learn or die' situation."
Emma winced a bit upon hearing that. Learn or die was not really a method she was comfortable offering. "And when you were learning, how did that work," Emma asks hoping she could figure out a more, healthy, way of teaching the woman.
"I was mostly just watching videos on my phone. I'd get a few hours to myself at night while I was in the mines," Charlotte explains with a slight shrug. "I had been backpacking at the time, when I got caught that is, so I had a few small luxuries that I was able to keep. One of them was a Wi-Fi hotspot which pretty much saved me," She adds for further context.
Oh dear... you know maybe the middle of the grocery store is not the best place to ask about this. "Okay so, it sounds like you learn better if you watch first then try it on your own." Emma says in return.
"Maybe?" Charlotte replies with an unconvinced expression. "Karl tried to show me a few times but after the whole 'catching water on fire' thing, he kinda gave up," she adds with a slight frown.
Sympathy took the place of concern as Emma looked over the list of items she'd written down. most of it was just box items that have instructions on the back. it took a few seconds, but she switched through a few webpages. "do you have a slow cooker?"
"No." Charlotte admits.
"We're going to need one." Emma admits as she makes a mental list of ingredients to replace her old list of box to plate items. "Okay we're going to need a roast, some potatoes, eggs," the list continued as the two walked through the store. From talking to her for a bit, it seemed like she wasn't bad at it, she just never got the chance to learn while growing up, and she was given up on too quickly when she did try. What she really needed was a reason to have more confidence in her ability to learn this. It would require a bit of hand holding, but something says she'd be able to handle it.
Ingredients for the next two days worth of meals were purchased and to the relief of both women, the house was not on fire when they got back. The car was unloaded, and the two got to work putting the ingredients away. While the two were gone it seemed Chris and Heisenberg came to a silent agreement to stay away from each other and on opposite sides of the living room. Heisenberg had taken to tinkering with a small device of some sort and Chris was watching the kids. Piers was enjoying more tummy time and figuring out that his arms were attached to his body, so he might be able to control them enough to get his hand into his mouth if he really worked at it, while Rose watching the child figure this out.
"Okay, I need to take care of the baby for a bit but," Emma pauses as she finished writing down physical copies of two recipes. One for gnocchi and one for a slow cook roast. "While I'm away look these over and tell me what you think we should do first. one is for dinner and one is for lunch." Emma says and leaves the two recipes with Charlotte. If Emma had been working with a child she wouldn't have given open-ended work like that so early on, but Charlotte was an adult and capable of critical thinking. This would be a good way to see how she does with prioritizing.
"Lunch first obviously," Charlotte replies with a soured frown.
"Read them over, I'll be right back," Emma repeats to try and hint that Charlotte missed something.
With that Emma retreated to the guest room to take care of the baby who was quite unhappy that he had to wait for his 6th meal of the day and furthermore the goal of putting his hand in his mouth had proven to be too much for him. it was an impossible task and he was inconsolable. Even after being fed, getting a fresh diaper and plenty of cooing and attention the child was not having it. His complaints would be known, and it would be everyone else's problem.
"oh goodness, such a difficult life for such a small baby," Emma coos while trying to get the child to calm down though, the words did nothing to help. Humming a quiet tune and offering toys and the like did nothing as well. Emma eventually gave up and exited the spare room to offer Piers to Chris. "Sorry, I need to get back to work, can you try and get him to calm down? I think he just wants attention at this point."
"I'll see what I can do," Chris agrees while accepting the child and standing up to try and walk around and gentle bounce the child to get him to calm down.
"Thanks," Emma agrees and heads back over to the kitchen with Charlotte.
"The shit is it screaming about," Karl says as he breaks the silent agreement and walks over to try and get a look at the kid. However, Heisenberg's looming presence only caused the child to scream more.
"Stop it you're scaring him," Rose says as she moves to get between the two and shoves Heisenberg back while glaring at him.
Chris smiled a bit at that, while normally, he'd correct her and tell her not to push people. He was willing to make an exception as the memory of the knife embedded in his kitchen wall came to mind.
Charlotte was trying to ignore the screaming child while talking to Emma. "so it looks like" more screaming. "Sorry um I was saying that we should probably," and now the boys were arguing. Charlotte's eye started to twitch as she lost her train of thought once more. With that she stops what she's doing to turn and face the bickering duo to stare them down.
"OUT!" Charlotte announces with an aggravated tone while pointing at the front door. "Men and children out the door, I am trying to focus, and you are not helping."
"Seriously?" Chris asks with annoyed disbelief. Kick him and the asshole out sure, but it was too cold out there for the kids.
"Did I stutter?" Charlotte says as she crosses her arms.
Heisenberg smiles to himself as he walks over to a coat rack by the door, seemingly happy with the reaction.
"And you better share the workshop, you're in trouble too, so don't think you get to run off and hog the warmth," Charlotte says as she stares at the back of Heisenberg's head while watching him retreat.
"Oh come on," the two stare each other down before he shakes his head. "Fine."
Chris looked to Emma for back up and received a nervous shrug in response. What did he want her to do? It's not her house, not her call and she pointed out several times this would be difficult if he came with and brought the kids, but he insisted so. Yeah. It sounds like there was still a place to stay warm so, go outside, please.
The agent was not thrilled by the lack of a reply. he grumbled a bit as he heads over to the spare room with Rose and Piers only to exit with their coats on, so they could head outside. the two trudge through the cold across the yard where a decent size shed had been built that was filled with various tools. a few electric heaters had been set up and turned on as well to fight off mid-December's chilling air.
The metal lord turned to see who walked in, and his expression made it pretty clear he was not thrilled to be sharing his space. It took Heisenberg a couple of second and squinting, but he eventually noticed that Chris was wearing what looked like a tactical vest under his coat and the baby was nowhere to be seen. it then dawned on him that the tactical gear, was a bit too padded and that tiny legs were sticking out of the 'vest' which was actually a macho-ified baby harness of some kind.
"Oh my fucking god you seriously can't have anything on you that's not military grade, can you?" Karl asks with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
Chris's deadpan 'done with all of this' expression remained. "It's efficient," he says in return.
"It's ridiculous," Karl rebuttals while still smirking to himself. he eventually turns back to his project to get back to work. "There's a seat over on the other side of the shop, stay there, keep the brats from crying, and don't touch anything."
"Fine," Chris agrees and moves to take the seat and keeps his arms wrapped around the bundle strapped to his chest to make sure the kid stays warm. Rose sat down by one of the heaters next to the chair and looked around the space with bored curiosity. Anything was interesting if you were bored enough.
"What's that?" Rose asks while pointing at one of the tools that lined the wall.
"It's a band saw," Chris replies while Karl continued to tinker with his latest project and added the little gizmo he'd been working on inside to the larger project on his workbench.
the questions continued one after another. what's that? And what's that? why? what does it do? each time Chris would answer the question while Karl tried his best to ignore their existence and focus on his work. After a while, the questions seemed to stop, but that only lasted for a few minutes.
"... What are you making?" Rose asks in an attempt to more directly ask Karl a question.
"Nothing if you keep talking," Karl grumbles before clicking his tongue. While he was probably making progress it seemed like whatever he was working on was giving him a run for his money. "Come on you dumb shit. work," The man says before clicking away at the keyboard that was on the other side of a make shift blast shield.
"... what is it gonna be if I stop talking?" Rose asks figuring that might work instead which causes Chris to chuckle and smile to himself. She was growing up to be pretty darn clever.
The question seemed to throw off the metal lord who opened and closed his mouth before eventually giving up. "It's a mechanical arm that works with an AI system to, hopefully, interact with none electronic devices."
"Oh," Rose replies though she was still kinda confused, she understood the basic idea of what he was explaining.
"It's not going to work," Chris adds after glancing at the device again.
"No shit, it's already not working captain obvious," Heisenberg replies as his annoyed tone returns, and he goes back to try and adjust some of the parts.
Chris watches for a bit longer as the problem he noticed was not being addressed by the engineer. "It's the hydraulics, they're set up wrong. It won't work like that."
"Oh and you're suddenly an expert mechanic," Heisenberg says with a condescending tone. "The hydraulics are fine."
"Enough of an expert to get that dumb tank of yours running," Chris points out in return. "The door to one of the fighter planes I used to fly back in the air force had a similar set-up. It was always temperamental and the only way I got it to stop jamming up was to add an extra piece to the door."
Grumbles and complaints could be heard but not understood before Heisenberg eventually threw his hands up defeated. "Fine, Fine. Just. What's wrong with it."
Chris gets up and walks over to look at the drawn out schematic for the device. While he keeps one arm around the baby attached to him, he uses his free hand to pick up a pencil and start making adjustments to the plan and draws out the part that was needed.
"That literally shouldn't work," Heisenberg stares at the drawn on addition Chris made to the blueprint.
"It does," Chris says with a smirking smile. He was fine with watching the guy continue to struggle if he was going to be a jerk after asking for help.
Karl frowns a bit before pointing at Chris "Don't touch anything," He says before walking out of the shed. Some rifling around outside suggested he was digging around through various parts that were locked away behind a chain link fence attached to the side of the small building. Before long he eventually returns with a sheet of scrap metal.
Rose takes Chris's place on the chair and watches the two work on the device. It took a while, Rose had to cover her ears and Chris had to cover the babies as Karl cut the metal down to replicate the makeshift part that Chris was suggesting.
"Socket wrench. should be in the drawer to your right. third one down," Karl instructs and Chris gets the mentioned tool.
"here," Chris says and hands it over.
some tinkering and adjustments were made as the two worked together on the robotic arm.
"Moment of truth," Karl says as he goes back to the Computer and Chris steps back to get away from it while keeping a hand over the area where he knew Pier's head was, in case it does malfunction.
A few moments pass before the arm starts to move in the programmed test pattern. Seeing this Causes Heisenberg to smile and a short chuckle to cross his lips.
Chris smiles a bit as well as the device sprang to life though the smile dropped to a neutral expression as he noticed Karl held up a hand, offering a high five. It takes the agent a few seconds before hesitantly giving the metal lord a quick high five. This was actually kinda cool looking.
'*'*'*'*'
Charlotte gave a sigh of relief as she watched the last of the distractions leave the house. "Much better." She says as she turns back to Emma and the recipes on the table. "As I was trying to say, It looks like we need to do both at the same time somehow..."
"Yep, you got it right," Emma says in return. "A lot of cooking is waiting and learning how to use that wait time for multitasking to make multiple dishes. In this case, starting dinner and lunch at the same time since the recipes take a while to make." She explains as she points to the roast recipe. "This one has a short prep time, so it means you don't have to actively work on the dish for very long. but the cook time is 5 hours, so it has a long waiting period to be aware of." Emma adds before pointing to the Gnocchi recipe "Inversely. this one has a cook time of 5 to 10 minutes but a prep work time of about an hour and a half, so it has a more involved process." the home cook adds as she starts teaching the basics on how to read a recipe.
Emma showed the initial process for each step of preparing the Roast for the slow cooker they picked up while they were out. After showing the action for a few seconds she'd hand over the tool or ingredient to Charlotte to finish the rest of the step and when it came to measuring ingredients Emma would measure it out once first to show Charlotte how it was done before putting the ingredient back into the container, so Charlotte could do the genuine measurement to add to the cooker.
"Cooking is more of a science when you're first learning, what you need it to know the different elements that make the compound," Emma says hoping that translating the task to a more book like term would help. "It doesn't need to be pretty at first, so focus on making something where you're happy with the taste before you worry about what it looks like. and the nice thing about slower cookers is that you just put everything in it and leave it alone until it's done."
Charlotte nods in return. "So it just sits in there for 5 hours?" she asks confused. that didn't seem difficult at all. "what keeps it from burning?"
"Good question," Emma says with a nod. "Let's take a look at the ingredients. See this recipe calls for tomato sauce. if you look at the can, water is one of the man ingredients. The recipe calls for a bit of water too. Those two will mix with the juice from the meat as it cooks and keeps it from burning. If it were to stay on a high heat for longer than that it would probably start to burn. That's the other nice thing about slow cookers they adjust the temperature after the cooking time is done, so it's less likely to burn."
"So meat fat and water doesn't catch fire like oil and water?" Charlotte asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes and no." she paused, while this was a bit technical Emma had a feeling she understood why Charlotte was asking. "Fats and Oils are naturally hydrophobic, but usually the issue occurs when the fat or oil is already hot enough to catch fire before being introduced to the water, if you put oil and water together and they both heat up at the same time, it won't catch fire unless something really weird happens and at that point it's not your fault." Emma explains in return. "so don't add frozen meat to hot oil the frost is cold water. cold water and hot oil is bad. the greater the difference in temperature the two are when they're introduced, the more extreme the reaction will be."
The lesson continued and since this was a bit of a sticking point for Charlotte Emma went over what to do if a small and manageable flame starts up while cooking. Naturally, without the addition of actual flames. She went over smothering the flame with a pot lid, throwing baking soda or salt on it and the like to make sure that the younger woman was prepared in a worst-case scenario. Knowing was half the battle after all.
Charlotte moved to take a seat at the kitchen island while the two waited for a pot of boiling water to cook diced up potato chunks.
"There's still a lot of waiting time," Charlotte points out with a slight sigh.
"True, it's a good time to work on other hobbies while you wait," Emma says in return. "What do you like to do with your free time?"
"I've had nothing but that lately," Charlotte says with a bored tone. "I don't know. Normally, I'd just work on reports for the office, but that's gone now. so. Play chess, I guess. read a book. watch a movie," She replies though she seemed to more so just be providing that as an answer for the sake of answering the question.
"Hmm I'm not sure if we have that long but if you have a book you're reading that could work to pass the time," the home cook says with a slight smile. She'd just poke around at her phone to see what's new in the world and check on Chris.
"Eh, not really," Charlotte replies with a slight shrug. a few moments pass before the woman speaks again. "So what do you do?"
"I'll usually pass the time between recipes by listen to the radio and cleaning up around the house," Emma says in return.
"No I mean what do you do with your free time. like hobbies," Charlotte asks in return with a confused expression that was halfway between concerned and judgmental.
"That is my free time," Emma replies with a short laugh. "I used to skate but, eh. I was thinking I might take up scrap booking though."
"What do you mean you used to? Do you not like it anymore?" Charlotte asks as the somewhat judgmental confusion remained. why bring it up if that was a past tense hobby?
"Nah, I just don't have the time," Emma says with a short chuckle. "It's a bit difficult to get the time to leave the house. between scheduling conflicts and two kids it's not exactly a viable hobby anymore. not to mention I couldn't practice while I was expecting."
"So why isn't the Ass helping? You're telling me he's gone for heaven knows how long at a time, and he can't figure out how to give you a few hours away from the house without him?" Charlotte complains more than asks, and she was prepared to keep going if she hadn't been cut off.
"That's enough," Emma says shortly. "I get that you two don't get along, but I won't hear another word of that."
"Whatever," Charlotte says while rolling her eyes before moving to get up and the woman eventually returns with a chessboard. "This should pass the time well enough. do you play?"
"I know the basics, but I can say I've ever really played before." Emma replies though, her frown remains from Charlotte's earlier comments.
"You can go first then," Charlotte offers as she simply waits.
Was that a good thing? If she didn't know what she was doing, moving first seemed like the not smart thing to do but. "okay." Emma says and moves a pawn from g2 to g4.
Charlotte bobs her head a bit before moving a pawn as well from e7 to e5.
Emma stared at the numerous pieces. maybe if she made a zigzag pattern with the pawns that would make it, so Charlotte can't get pieces through? with that tactic in mind she moved another pawn from F2 to F3.
Charlotte stares at the board before laughing and moving her queen from d8 to h4. "You are awful at this," She says with a surprisingly genuine smile. "checkmate."
"Wait I lost already?" Emma asks as she looks over the board as well and too her dismay. the game was over.
"Try again," Charlotte says as she resets the board.
This went on for some time. Eventually, the potatoes finished boiling, they were mashed, mixed with flour and egg, shaped then boiled again before being fried with butter, and herbs. Just like before, Emma went through each step initially showing Charlotte what needed to be done before letting her take over and by the end of it there was a large serving dish full of well-made, homemade Gnocchi.
"Huh... it actually looks edible," Charlotte says quietly though some level of surprise is still notable in her tone.
"You did well, you're better off with cooking than you give yourself credit for. It's normal to be nervous about trying new things though so just keep practicing," Emma says while trying to build up Charlotte's confidence. "We should let the others back in and have lunch."
"Do we have to?" Charlotte asks in return with a somewhat soured expression. It was a bit hard to tell if she was joking or not.
"They've been out there for 2 hours, yes," Emma says, feeling more than a little concerned that she couldn't tell if the businesswoman was joking or not.
"Fine, you can go get them then," Charlotte agrees while making some slight adjustments to the table settings.
Emma nods in return and gets her coat, so she could head outside. It took a few moments, but she eventually made her way over to the workshop and peaked through the door to find Chris and Karl working on the mechanical arm. A few clicks of a keyboard and the arm started to move. She couldn't help but smile to herself as she watched the two give an awkward high five. It was kinda nice to see that they managed to find a way to get along and not punch each other in the face repeatedly. Emma counted to 10 before Knocking on the partially open door.
"Lunch is ready, you guys can come in now if you want," Emma announced.
"Lunch!" Rose cheered and was the first to leave the workshop and hurry back to the house.
"We'll be right there," Chris calls after.
"Okay," Emma replies and walks back to the house with Rose.
Before long the seats at the dinning room table were occupied once more. Plates were filled, and the table was mostly silent as everyone was more focused on eating. No complaints which was good, but positive feedback would also help.
"Charlotte did great for her first lesson, I barely had to do anything," Emma says as open praise to continue to try and repair the damage that had been done to Charlotte's confidence with her ability to cook.
"You made this?" Karl asks with a raised eyebrow while looking at Charlotte.
"Sort of," Charlotte admits in a tone that was borderline sheepish.
"It's not bad," he admits and continues to eat.
'*'*'*'*'
Their weekend in New York went pretty smoothly after that. There was still an occasional side eye or snide comment made from time to time but by the end of it Chris was a bit more willing to accept that Emma would not be in immediate danger if she continued to go and visit. It was welcomed peace of mind since, as time moved on, the day arrived where his leave came to a close, and he had to go back to work. There was no transition time with office work and he'd have to fly out first thing.
As such, on Monday, December 19th, Chris woke up early and made his way to the basement to pack his bag. While he'd personally started staying in the master bedroom again. he'd been too tired during that whole 3 week break to worry about moving his stuff back up the two flights of stairs. So for now, it remained in the basement next to the recently completed study.
"Shirts, pants, extra socks," He lists while packing the items away into the large duffle bag to try and make sure he didn't forget anything. His packing moved from his temporary bedroom to the study. A few spare med packs were tucked away, and as he was looking around to make sure he didn't miss anything a bright orange sticky note caught his attention. it was sitting on top of a wrapped gift and in bright red ink the words 'DO NOT FORGET' shouted at him.
"Shit that's right," He says under his breath as he picked up the gift, removing the sticky note and put it on his desk for now. It was a small box not much bigger than a football. A festive gift tag read 'From: Chris To: Emma' and under the colorful wrapping was a box containing a relatively small charging dock speaker combo for her phone. The device was designed to look like an old fashion radio from the 60's and even had a functioning radio scanner built in too. It wasn't an expensive or fancy gift but, it was something which was better than their 'no gift' ruling last year. At least with this Emma would have a place to put her phone when she wanted to listen to music that would keep it out of the way and safe from sticky fingered children. Not to name names. Rose.
He finished packing his bag and carried both the bag and gift back upstairs before taking the time to stop by the tree and neatly tuck the gift away towards the back.
"Merry Christmas," he says quietly to himself while taking a second to look at the tree, before moving to head out. There was work to do.
Credit where it is due I actually looked up a how to laugh like Santa video, so I used the quotes from the "How to laugh like Santa" Video posted by Expert Village Leaf Group and I could not resist the intro from the "Our Christmas spectacular Santa teaches to you how to belly laugh" posted by the Rockettes. It was gold I could not pass up. The chess game moves were from Schlatt's game vs Alexandra Botez. it's almost impressive how quickly he lost to the point I'm 90% sure it's scripted.
Also for your entertainment I spent almost an hour trying to figure out the word for 'baby carrier basket' because I was originally just calling it a baby carrier then I looked it up and that's the chest harness thing that you put a baby in so yeah. Kinda had a moment where I was questioning my life because I didn't know the word for the thing and had to use search terms like "what is the plastic basket thing you put a baby in". Why we can't just call one, the baby carrier, and the other, the baby harness, I donno but English is stupid.
Who's ready for new years? :)
Review Responses:
starrat - I'm always happy you enjoyed it. Thanks for continuing to read.
Guest1995 - yes~ I am so excited to get to include more of Rose and Baby Pier! I can definitely see Rose being a bit more protective of the baby since that's kinda how she was raised? everyone around her was particularly protective of her. I'm sure that Summer can help teach her about being a big sister though if she ever gets worried.
