Just in Case

"If you baked banana bread, I know a few people that would take it off your hands." - Nathan Grant

"Just in case." - Elizabeth Thornton

This takes place during season 11, episode 10, "What Goes Around"

Nathan turned around, clearly unable to let his current thought go. "Hey, why don't you and Little Jack join us for dinner tonight?"

The invitation thrilled Elizabeth's heart, and she smiled even brighter. "We would love that. What can I bring?"

In a deadpan voice, Nathan responded, "Dinner."

Elizabeth recognized that the invitation had been on a whim, so she responded with a whim of her own. "Here's an idea, why don't you both just come over to our house?"

"Well, I thought you'd never ask." Nathan gave her another smile before he headed into the saloon.

Few things in her past had made Elizabeth as excited as she was right now. Dinner with Nathan, even with the children, actually, especially with the children, was a significant, monumental step in their relationship. They were finally making up for the missed dinner three years ago, and with that history, she felt pressure to make the dinner special.

As she walked away, she began taking mental inventory of her cupboards. Her recollection was that they were on the bare side. Which made it even harder to decide what she should prepare. Maybe Jack would have an opinion. She turned away from the mercantile and towards the daycare to go pick him up.

"Momma!" Jack said, running up and giving her a hug as soon as she entered the daycare.

"Hi Honey Bear! I was hoping you could help me make dinner tonight. Nathan and Allie are planning to join us. What do you think we should make?" Elizabeth asked.

Jack pondered the question for a moment, then answered, "I like fried chicken!"

Elizabeth took her own moment to ponder. "That sounds like a good idea. Maybe with mashed potatoes and rolls?" Luckily, she had made bread dough this morning, so rolls would be easy to prepare.

"Shall we go to the mercantile to get some chicken?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yeah!"

They found chicken easily at the mercantile, but Elizabeth felt they were still missing something, so she headed over to the farmer's market. She found a promising head of lettuce, and thought of preparing a salad.

She turned to Jack to include him in her plans. "Can you find some carrots and tomatoes?"

"Okay Momma!" Jack set to his task with purpose, and Elizabeth looked for inspiration for something for dessert, but nothing seemed to be grabbing her attention.

"Are these good?" Jack asked, holding up 3 long carrots and 2 large tomatoes, barely able to hold them in his small hands.

"Those look great Jack! I think we have everything now. Should we head home?"

"Yep! Let's get cooking!" Jack announced.

Elizabeth still hadn't come to a conclusion about what to make for dessert, but she had some leftover cookies from earlier in the week she could offer if she couldn't think of anything else.

Once at home, she prepared the chicken first and put it in the oven to bake. While she had made many a successful meal over the years, the significance of this dinner had her anxious about getting it right, and that depended most upon the chicken.

"Can I help?" Jack asked as she shaped her rolls.

"Of course. Go wash your hands, and then you can shape these." Elizabeth pulled a portion of dough off her main lump while Jack quickly washed his hands.

Elizabeth gave instructions as she made her next roll ball. "Don't play with it too much, or the rolls will be tough. Just make balls, about this size."

Jack followed her instructions, and produce a reasonable dough ball. " Like this?"

"That's wonderful Jack!" It only took them a minute to finish the rolls, and Elizabeth set them aside to rise.

"What's next?" Jack asked.

"Well, the potatoes need to boil for a while, and then we can mash them."

"I'm good at that!" Jack said proudly.

"Yes, you are. So you can do that job when it's time. Right now, I need to chop vegetables for the salad, so maybe you can play until the potatoes are ready."

Jack eagerly hopped over to his toys, and Elizabeth focused on the salad. And inspiration finally struck. She spied 3 ripe bananas above the icebox, and she remembered Nathan's words of many months ago.

"I guess 'just in case' is today," She murmured to herself. And it made her even more excited to be able to share this meal with Nathan and Allie. A meal she hoped would be the first of many.

Up Next: Knocking

My computer died on me this week, so I'm blaming any errors you see from the fact that I'm doing this on my kindle now. Hopefully all of my stories will continue to come out on schedule but if not they will be coming soon.