andhiswife | Just a Little Bent

This whole thing's been fucked from the start, and were Darrow anything more like Nassau was, the outcome would've been a hell of a lot bloodier. Anne was prepared for it. Still feels like she ought to be. With no civilization left to sustain itself, she'd expect more total collapse than what they've got, which is mostly a lot of quiet confusion. Some fear. Always fear, but no one really feeding on it.

Of course Greta wants to help. It's what she does. One of the things Anne loves about her. It's the reason they met. And of course she's not afraid, not when there's pragmatism to wield. That's the reason Anne took note.

But Anne doesn't trust nearly anyone, and she's not about to let Greta go make herself a potential target in these uncertain times. Moreover, Greta wants to help, and Anne's not about to let her do it alone.

So she stands guard, sort of. Parks herself by the door, not close enough to discourage entry (only at Greta's insistence), but near enough to intercept anyone whose look she don't like.

Not that there's really much to do on that count. So far everyone just seems grateful. As they ought. Anne begins to feel a bit useless, prowling off to the side, drawing a few nervous glances. It should feel natural; it's her usual state of being to stand in a corner and glare. But now, here, it's difficult not to notice the poor fit. She shifts her weight and peers out from below the brim of her hat, eyes fixed on the door for the next person who might come in.

It's Regan, coming inside to get away from the oppressive quiet of the street outside. She paces a little, scrubbing her hands into her hair. She's calm. She's fine. This is all fine. It's just the city doing its weird city things, and definitely not the creatures' doing.

She doesn't notice Anne at first. Standing off to the side like that, like she usually does, it should be one of the first places Regan looks. But she's caught up in her own brief panic, the rise of it in her throat bitter and uncomfortable, until she turns just right, or maybe Anne moves just right, or maybe coming inside helps everything pass on its own and she just notices. Whatever the reason, Regan sees her suddenly, and instead of startling, she finds her shoulders relaxing a little.

She offers a wave and a wan smile, and tries not to seem too embarrassed at being caught having an internal freak-out as she goes over to her.

"Hey," she says, and tries to think of something witty to say, something funny or clever. But nothing comes.

Of the four of them, Regan is the only one who seems to be responding to this situation in a way Anne understands. She knows she doesn't understand it, not really, not the way Regan's fear is borne deep, established long ago by circumstances Anne can't possibly imagine. She knows very little of where Regan came from, only a few bits and pieces gathered here and there. She's certainly never pressed for more. But she understands the fear, even without knowing much about the root.

She catches the way the girl's shoulders loosen a bit on sighting her, and it makes her feel a little easier too, in an odd way. Like she's not overreacting to this. Her caution, her natural defenses, are worth something to Regan, at least. Even if there's ultimately nothing to defend against, it's better if she makes someone feel safer. Especially someone she cares about.

Regan greets her, and seems for a moment like she might have more to say, but nothing follows. Anne hesitates before returning the greeting — easy enough — and finds herself similarly uncertain.

Anne always feels a bit shaky in her signing ability. She's been learning steadily, and is now capable of carrying on simple conversations, but she's better at understanding than using. Always feels herself getting mixed up, stammering with her hands. It makes her shy to talk to Regan, but that can't matter now. Not when the kid so clearly needs reassurance.

"Okay?" she asks, a word she never uses in any other context. She tilts her head, considering. Slow and unconfident, she adds, "Come to help keep watch?"

"Yeah," she says, relieved that Anne's figured out something to say. Regan doesn't want to give the impression that she doesn't like Anne — she does, she realizes, the more she gets to know her — but it could've been easier for Anne to assume that given how nervous Regan sometimes feels around her. Now isn't one of those times, though. Anne is reacting to all of this with a level of suspicion that feels familiar and comfortable. Now, she's one of the few things that Regan doesn't feel nervous about.

"It's too loud out there," she adds. She doesn't necessarily mean it as a joke. Sometimes, she does: ha ha, the Deaf girl is saying it's too loud, ha, so funny. Anne could take it that way, if she wants. But this time, it's the quiet that's loud. It presses in and makes her feel on edge, and she thinks Anne will get that, more than any joke about sound. "I feel like... if I stay out there too long, I'll get distracted."

It took a lot of practice not to just watch Regan's hands when talking to her; Anne's not used to looking so directly at anyone while making conversation. But she is getting better at it, being attentive without staring too intently. Her lips twitch in a faint, bemused smile at loud, but Regan's expression is quite serious, and after a moment of reflection Anne thinks she knows exactly what the girl means.

"I understand," she says, then starts to say something more, something about herself, before stalling out, her hand coming to rest on her chest, her gaze turning pensive and distant.

There's so much she could say. That she almost always feels like things are too loud — literally and otherwise. That it's just as hard now as it is when she's surrounded by people she doesn't know or trust. That she feels, always, like she can't let her guard down for even a moment, and that it's only worse now. But her sign isn't good enough yet, even if expressing herself in general came easier. Which it don't.

"I feel the same," is all she can piece together after a long pause. Then she reiterates: "We'll both keep watch."

Regan nods with a wan smile. It would be so easy to fall into companionable silence with Anne — to sit or stand with her and be near each other without the pressure of trying to think of something to talk about. But Regan doesn't want that, exactly. She wants them to get to know each other. She has no idea how much or little Greta's told Anne. About Millbrook, about the creatures, about her family. Greta's always been really careful about that sort of thing; she's never wanted to overstep her bounds. People's private things are theirs, not hers.

And she finds she wants to tell her. Anne would be an asset against the creatures, if they ever showed up here. She seems like she moves quietly, and knows when to make noise. These are important things. She knows not to be reckless.

"It's just really similar to home, for me," she says after a moment. "It's uncomfortable."

Anne nods slowly. She doesn't know much about Regan's home life. Greta hasn't said, she hasn't pried, and Regan isn't so prone to sharing as Saoirse is. She's spent enough time around them all to get an idea that it wasn't good. Something Regan doesn't much like to talk about. This doesn't exactly explain anything — similar could mean a lot of things. That she was isolated. That some disaster befell her world. Things Anne can't imagine and wouldn't try to guess at.

"Sorry," she says after a moment, not sure what else to say. She wonders if Regan wants her to ask about it. Maybe not, but if she does, then it would be a mistake not to. If she doesn't, she can simply say so.

So after a moment's hesitation, Anne says, "Do you want to talk about it?"

God, she does. Her shoulders droop with the weight of how badly she wants to talk about it, and when Anne asks, they lift slightly, and she looks at her with a mixture of hope and uncertainty. She wants to talk about it, but she doesn't want Anne to have to imagine the creatures, or think about her parents, or — maybe worst of all — look at her with pity if she tells her about Beau.

But she also knows that, if she says no, Anne will take that at face value. She won't tell Regan she should talk about it. She'll accept Regan's answer and it'll hang between them, and Regan will regret not saying something forever. Or, at least, until the next time it comes up.

"Yes," she answers. Then she sighs and rubs her face before adding, "But we really don't have to."

Anne watches her closely, the subtle changes in her body language that come at the question. The hesitation before she answers Yes, then follows with an escape route. Like she's afraid the question wasn't in earnest, or that Anne will regret making the offer.

Anne doesn't quite smile, but there's sympathy and understanding in her expression. "It's okay," she says, as reassuringly as she can. "Tell me."

She takes a breath and feels her shoulders relax a little. Anne's never struck her as someone who says something for the sake of sparing someone's feelings. If she says she doesn't mind, then she probably doesn't mind. So she nods and she explains.

She tells her about the meteors, and the creatures that seemed to come from them. She tells her about how the world shut down. Any noise they made, they were hunted, so they had to be as silent as possible. And any trip to town was carefully planned, carefully executed, as a family, so they could keep an eye and an ear out for each other.

"Everything was just... empty," Regan says. "A lot like this. So I feel like I have to be that quiet, again. Like if I don't, one of those things is going to appear and..." And kill everyone she cares about, she doesn't add. She shivers a little and shakes her head. "I just keep thinking everyone's being too loud, even though I know it's not the same thing."

It is difficult to follow all that Regan tells her. The story is long and complicated, and it's clearly something she's been holding inside for a long time. Anne doesn't imagine she talks about this much, or that it ever gets much easier even when she does. All she can do is pay attention, take in what she can, keep her expression soft and neutral.

But what she can gather from it is horrible. An ending of the world beyond what she could ever imagine. Horrors etched forever into Regan's life, defining her no matter how far she gets from it. It is at once familiar and utterly foreign.

Anne can't help but grimace at Regan's final trailing comments. She nods slowly, taking a moment to consider it all and to think what she can possibly offer in return.

"I think it's normal to feel afraid after all that," she says eventually. "Fear keeps you alive sometimes. And other times it keeps you stuck." She looks into Regan's eyes, meeting her directly. "It's not the same thing. But if it helps, I'll keep quiet with you. And you should know that if anything comes for you, or Greta, or Saoirse, I will kill it."

Regan doesn't know if being quiet will help, or if she'd rather just go back to the cottage and hide away. But Anne offering settles something in her chest, and she finds herself smiling. That smile widens a little when Anne promises to kill whatever comes for her, for them, but she knows it isn't a joke. Anne really does care about them that much. (She's not sure Anne knows how to joke.)

Then she frowns and swallows.

"I don't know if those things can be killed," she admits.

Anne holds Regan's gaze with serious intensity, even at the sight of that little smile. She doesn't want to smile back, lest it look like she don't mean it. It isn't until Regan's smile fades and she replies that Anne lets her expression soften.

"Everything can be killed," she says. Only then does she let a smile touch her lips, wry and a little bit ruthless. "And they haven't met me."

It isn't bravado or arrogance. She wouldn't be so stupid as to go seeking out confrontation — not anymore, not even for sport; not since that mess with Mad Sweeney, after seeing how much it had hurt Jack and Greta. Things have changed since then. She states this as a plain fact. If it becomes a necessity — and they will all have to trust it won't — then she will do what needs doing.

This time, when Regan smiles, it's even softer. She's honestly really touched that Anne wants to reassure her like this. And it is helpful. She really does believe that Anne will do everything she can to protect her and Greta and Saoirse, if one of those things ever shows up.

She just hopes she won't have to. She hopes she'll never have to, ever.

"Thank you," she whispers, emphasizing the sign.

Anne nods once. Sharp and serious. There's nothing more to say, as far as she's concerned. She sets her hand on Regan's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze, and then looks ahead once again, resuming her so-called post. She doubts there will be anything to protect against here, today, but she'll keep watch all the same. It's what she does.

She wouldn't admit this readily — not least of all because there's no way to phrase it without sounding a bit ridiculous — but Greta rather enjoys it when Anne gets all... intimidating. Some combination of finding the idea of Anne defending her (with a blade, no less) rather dashing, and the fond familiarity of it all, as if glowering at strangers from beneath her hat is a natural default.

Granted, it may not be entirely necessary, in this case. Greta's aware that she's banking rather heavily on the fundamental decency of the immigrant population, but so far, at least, it all seems to be working out. Everyone's been grateful, and some have circled back with ingredients after seeing the signage, but no one's attempted to take advantage (whatever that would even look like). But she still has to bite back a smile when she sees Anne prowling around like a caged tiger. Maybe it isn't needful, but it's still a reassuring sight.

Greta wipes her hands on her apron, then selects a ginger snap from one of the trays set atop the counter and neatly breaks it in two as she crosses over to her. "Here," she says, settling in beside Anne and giving her a light nudge with her hip before offering her half of the biscuit. "I think we've both earned a breather."

It is natural enough to relax when Greta approaches, even without looking at her — Anne knows her footfalls well enough by now. She takes the nudge with a rather sheepish smile, and takes the half biscuit hesitatingly, like she's not sure what it's for.

She knows she's probably being a little overprotective. She doesn't want to scare people away — that's not the point, after all, much as it's her natural instinct. She also knows Greta fancies her like this. There's still a fine line to be drawn before it becomes too much, and Greta's fancy isn't all that draws it.

"Am I scaring everyone off?" she mumbles in faint, amused acknowledgment, and she nudges back before taking a satisfying bite of the ginger snap.

"No," Greta says, drawing out the vowel in playful reassurance, as if the idea hardly bears consideration. "Not everyone." Softening into sincerity, she adds, "You're certainly not the only reason people might be on edge."

Nor is it something they could allay even if they wanted to. It would be nice, she thinks, if they could create a little oasis of near-normalcy in all this, but she isn't sure it's likely, and that isn't why she's here. It's a practical matter, first and foremost: the dwindled population still needs to eat, and not everyone can take raw ingredients and make something edible out of them. She isn't worried about the city running out of flour (yet), but that doesn't mean any of it should be wasted in clumsy attempts to learn how to bake under extreme duress. Not when she can make enough bread for everyone, given time and a little assistance.

"It's enough that we're feeding them. And if you're keeping them on their toes...?" Greta shrugs. "Might be just as well. Everyone's been very polite." She might chalk that up to basic human decency as much as anything else, but she also likes to think Anne's presence is a motivating factor.

Anne scoffs, but her deepening grin as she dips her head, ostensibly to hide her chewing, belies a hint of pleasure that she might actually be helping, or at least that Greta is willing to pretend she is. It's better, really, if all her caution isn't warranted. But it's nice not to feel useless, all the same.

"Back home, if something like this happened, I can't imagine it going like this," she murmurs. "Too much bad blood. Too many greedy fucks. Everyone waiting for a chance to get theirs. More likely it'd be a war. Or just... panic." And the people like Greta, who might want to help, getting caught in between it all. Her mood turns a shade darker for a moment, a frown taking the place of that smile. She doesn't like to think of Greta back home. Greta may be stronger and braver than anyone would give her credit for, but against the warring tides of Nassau, Anne can't imagine that being enough. And she would never have known to protect it.

Stupid thoughts. Imagining things that might've been, but aren't. Won't be. She lets it out with an exhale.

"They're all lucky to have someone like you around," she says after a moment, and lifts her head to look at Greta, offering her another gentle nudge. "I just hope they know it."

"I can't even imagine," Greta replies, shaking her head. Not just the chaos that Anne is predicting, but what would happen if something like this were to occur in the Village. It wouldn't be impossible, perhaps the result of an evil spell of one kind or another. She thinks, with a twist of discomfort, that she probably would've been one of the mysteriously vanished: her disappearance an insignificant fraction of a larger problem. The spell would've been broken by some adventurer, perhaps a downtrodden wizard's apprentice with something to prove, and she would've been restored without any memory of what had occurred.

Not so different from this, then, presuming Darrow plays the part of the spellbreaker, as it inevitably does. Goodness knows the citizenry are good at forgetting whatever the place has subjected them to.

"Just as well it's happening here, I suppose," she concludes. It might not be business as usual, but at least strangeness is something the city's taught them all to accept, whatever form it might decide to take.

She softens a little at Anne's second nudge, reaching over to curl her (slightly floury) hand around Anne's fingers. "I'm lucky to have you," she replies quietly. "Don't know if I'd have the nerve for all this without backup." She might, she thinks — but knowing Anne would be with her had made it a far easier decision than it would've been, otherwise.

Anne ducks her head down, hiding a soft smile beneath the brim of her hat, behind the curtain of her hair.

"Ah, you'd have done all right," she says, only the faintest whisper of teasing in her tone. She means it; she knows it. She brushes her thumb over Greta's hands, brushing flour dust from her knuckles, then lifts her chin just enough to find Greta's eyes. "But I'm glad I can help."

She is, she thinks. Glad to do something good. Something kind. It's new, strange, different. Good. Good in all the ways Greta is, and new, and strange, and different. She lets her words linger for a moment, then leans close, not quite brushing her lips to Greta's cheek, but just shy of it. As though she wants to let Greta choose whether or not to close that little distance.

Greta hums, playfully dubious, even as she lets the vote of confidence warm her. Anne might be teasing her a little, but the joke isn't the idea of her getting by as much as the supposed question of it, and it's impossible not to find that flattering.

Her smile softens when Anne looks up at her, and says she's glad she could help. It's a sentiment they both share, and she gives Anne's hand a gentle squeeze. They almost could've pretended normalcy at the cottage, but she knows it never would've worked — that they both would have been climbing the walls if their only occupation was sitting at home, ignoring the mess outside until it dragged itself over their threshold and they couldn't, anymore. Maybe keeping the peace in a commandeered bakery is only a little more urgent, or a fraction more likely to result in some sort of trouble, but god, anything is better than just sitting on their hands.

Anne leans in to kiss her cheek, but pauses a hair's breadth away: close enough for Greta to feel the warmth of her, far enough to require Greta's active participation to close the remaining distance. There's something oddly bolstering about that, as if they should be equal partners even in displays of casual affection — or as if the smallest tokens still deserve to be chosen — and a faint blush colors her cheeks as she lists agreeably into the kiss.

She draws back after a moment, turning to look at Anne directly. Her gaze flickers down to Anne's lips, and she considers leaning in for a proper kiss, but stays herself. Barring the notable exception of their first kiss, she knows Anne isn't given to effusive displays of affection in public, and while the bakery isn't exactly crowded, it's busy enough to not feel particularly private, either. Still, she doesn't entirely like the idea of that just being it, even as the awareness that she can't linger out here forever sits in the back of her mind.

"I should probably head back soon," she says, endeavoring to make it sound like a neutral observation, though there's a sly smile in the corners of her eyes. "You could come with, if you wanted. Change of pace." She lifts Anne's hand and presses a gentle kiss to her knuckles, eyebrows quirked in polite inquiry. "Help with the kneading."

Anne smiles softly at the kiss to her knuckles, then leans into more of a smirk at the suggestion. "Suppose I could," she says a bit loftily, then straightens up and gestures for Greta to lead the way.

She has started to pick up a few things about baking, and about preparing food in general. She quite likes it. It's comforting, in a strange way. And she's certainly happy to help. Just how much of this invitation is about help, though, and how much is about something else, remains to be seen. She follows Greta into the back, agreeable and unassuming, even if there is still a smirk playing about her lips.

"Where should I start?" she asks lightly.

Greta hums, drumming her fingertips against her chin in ostensible consideration. "I could use your help in the pantry, actually," she replies, searching for some justification — as if it matters — and landing on the entirely absurd: "There's, er, something on a very high shelf. You'll see."

She knows how transparently ridiculous she's being, and she has to smother a giggle beneath her hand as she guides Anne back into the pantry. It's a rather large and well stocked walk-in, with a central aisle just large enough to not feel cramped as she turns to face Anne directly, drawing her close.

"I've lured you here under false pretenses," she admits, biting back a grin in a failed bid to pretend at contrition.

Anne's smirk turns to a softened chuckle at the suggestion she might be any use for a high shelf. She enjoys the little games Greta occasionally plays, and how obvious they are. There is no need for subterfuge here, except for the pleasure of it. She nods dutifully despite her clear amusement, keeping close until Greta stops, turns around, and draws her closer still.

"Have you," Anne replies with a grin, a little flicker of teeth. She settles her hands gently at Greta's waist but makes no further moves just yet, eyeing her thoughtfully from under the low brim of her hat. Lightly, she murmurs, "Not every day I'm caught unawares."

Hearing Anne laugh isn't exactly a rare thing, but it still give Greta a little thrill to hear it, as if she's achieved something special. There's a hint of that little triumph lurking in the corners of her eyes as she looks Anne over.

"Well," Greta allows, carefully tipping up the brim of Anne's hat for easier access, "I was very clever about it, just now. You hardly stood a chance."

There's a real risk that she'll just start giggling again if she tries to keep rolling the joke along, but more to the point, that's not why she all but dragged Anne into the pantry to begin with. So she leans in, pausing just a breath away from letting their lips meet — letting Anne choose, this time, to close the little distance.

Anne tilts her head slightly as Greta adjusts her hat, patient and indulgent. She hums in solemn agreement despite her continuing grin, which only softens as Greta finally leans in. She stops, though, just shy of the kiss, just as Anne had done out front. Handing the choice back to her.

Anne makes herself wait for a moment, her eyes roaming over Greta's features, studying her up close. The little smudges of flour dust here and there, the traces of sweat from a day spent at work. She smells of bread and honey, and she's beautiful.

She hums again, softer this time as she brings them together, pulling Greta in with subtle, gentle pressure around her waist and kissing her as delicately as she knows how. She wants to savor it, to go slow, to let each moment linger as long as they like. To crowd everything out until the world is as small as the space between them.

"My mum's the best baker in the whole city!" Saoirse declares to a tall ginger lady — John and Martin's friend, she thinks. She remembers her from when they were small, lingering at the edges the way Anne does — who's picking up a fresh loaf of bread in exchange for a plastic jug of milk that hasn't gone off yet.

"Oh," she says, followed by, "Oh? Good. For her." She says it awkwardly, but sincerely, and Saoirse thinks that maybe she's not really used to talking to kids.

"Mhm!" She accepts jug and thanks her with a curtsy of her colorful skirt, then brings it inside to Greta. "Mum! A lady brought milk! She must've read your sign!" The jug is slightly sweaty from the walk from wherever it'd come from to here, but she holds it tightly with both hands on the handle so she doesn't drop it.

"Real milk?" Greta replies, staring at the jug in surprise. There hasn't been much of that to go around, and she's been getting by with condensed milk and water, for the most part. She supposes it's not impossible, though, and she nudges over a stool that Saoirse might set the jug on for a moment. "Have you checked it?" No one's offered them anything outright spoiled, but it doesn't look as if the jug has been opened at all, yet. It could go either way.

Saoirse twists her precious bundle in her hands so she can read the printed date. Her eyes light up. "It's for today! But it hasn't been opened yet, so I bet it's still good, right?" She's fairly familiar with expiry dates on things, but she wants to verify with Greta, who is, frankly, the smarter of the two when it comes to cooking and all things ingredients.

Greta hums, tentatively optimistic but not quite willing to bank on anything. "Open it up and give it a sniff," she advises. She's elbow-deep in half-scrubbed pans, otherwise she'd check it herself, but it's not as if it takes a connoisseur to recognize when milk smells off.

Saoirse sets the jug on the floor and kneels beside it. It takes a moment to twist the cap; the seal hasn't even been broken, after all. But she gets it open, and then lowers her face to the opening so she can take a sniff. She waits a moment, then sniffs again.

"It smells like milk!" she assures excitedly. "That's good, right? Bad milk smells bad, but this doesn't smell bad at all."

"That is very good," Greta replies. "You should probably have yourself a glass before we use it for anything else." She doesn't think this will drag on until malnourishment becomes an issue, but she'd sooner see Saoirse take advantage of some unspoiled milk than pour it into recipes that can do without.

She stops to think for a moment, trying to remember if this place even has cups that aren't of the measuring kind, before remembering that there's a coffee machine out front. It's nothing fancy — she imagines being able to offer guests something was their only real goal there, as opposed to competing with Ahab's in earnest — but it means there ought to be some disposable paper cups out there. "Check out front, by the coffee machine; there ought to be some cups, I think."

Saoirse nods, and she re-caps the milk before dashing out for one of the cups. There are a couple that had been set upright, like someone had grabbed it to fill with coffee and just sort of walked away. That's sort of what happened, she supposes. She leaves those there, though, and grabs one from the stack. She returns a moment later, then carefully pours some milk into it — slowly, so she doesn't spill or send the cup flying.

"Maybe, when this is all better, we could get a cow," she says, in a sort of thoughtful way. "Then we can have milk all the time."

"A cow?" Greta echoes, eyebrows ticking upwards. Her most recent memories of dealing with a cow are notable, if not entirely fond, and she shakes her head a little as she scrubs out a mixing bowl. "And where would we keep it?" she asks. "Might get a bit cramped in the chicken coop."

She almost adds that a goat might be easier, except she isn't sure that's true, when all is said and done (goats might be smaller, but they're less biddable and more prone to escapes, from what she's seen), and she doesn't necessarily want Saoirse to think she's considering it that seriously. The real issue is less to do with housing, anyway, and more to do with the fact that you have to breed them to get milk, which means an adorable calf that Saoirse would probably be loathe to part with, which means, in the long run, bloody infinite cows.

"We could make a house for it!" she declares. She sips the milk, still knelt there on the floor, then hums and takes a bigger gulp. "Just in cow-size instead of in chicken-size." She seems proud of her deductive reasoning, and she brings the jug over to Greta and places it on the counter beside her. Then she grabs her cup and sips from it again. "You're so clever, I'll bet we could figure it out."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Greta says drily, giving Saoirse a mild but pointed look. They'd both assisted in building the little workshop before repurposing it as a chicken coop, but Thomas had been running that particular show. All they'd had to do was follow his directions, not figure things out on their own. A barn might be less complicated, in some respects — no need to run wiring for electricity — but that still doesn't mean it'd be easy.

"Besides, I'm not sure I fancy building a barn from the ground up," she adds. "Even with help."

Saoirse gives Greta a charming grin when she makes the remark about her flattery. She supposes she had sort of been trying to flatter her, hadn't she? Whoops.

"I suppose it would take a lot of work." She considers it a little more, then says, "D'you think they make them to buy? Like dog houses! But, bigger, of course." She giggles a little, and looks a bit contrite over continuing the conversation. She doesn't want to make Greta cross by talking about it so much... but she is curious, now.

"God, probably," Greta replies, her tone suggesting she's never really given it much though, but wouldn't find it surprising. Darrow has always amazed her with its various prefabricated offerings; if you can buy clothing off a rack, perhaps it follows that you could buy a shed, or the easily-assembled pieces of one. "Maybe not a-a cow house, but something more like a garden shed."

Saoirse nods like that makes perfect sense. She's seen garden sheds with big barn doors on one side that open up to showcase how large they are on the inside. Until right now, she never would have considered putting a cow in one. But as they talk about it, she realizes she doesn't really know how cows work, entirely.

"Are cows like chickens?" she asks curiously. "Chickens lay eggs all the time, even if there isn't a baby inside. Do cows do that, too, just with milk?" She looks at her curiously, sipping milk and giggling to herself a little as she considers that, once, this came from a cow.

"They don't," Greta replies. She minds this line of questioning a bit less, if only because she imagines Saoirse might find the answer a little discouraging. "You need a calf if you want a cow to produce milk. That means you have to get a bull from somewhere — I suppose you could just borrow one, if you knew another farmer — and then figure out what to do with the calves once they've grown up. Back in the Village, that usually meant sending it off to the butcher before winter set in."

She doesn't intend to be harsh, just honest, and she thinks Saoirse's mature enough to handle it. Really, she just wants to make sure that Saoirse doesn't get it into her head that keeping a cow would be as straightforward as keeping chickens, especially if you want milk out of the bargain.

"Oh," she says. She's obviously a bit disappointed, but she doesn't so much pout as she does frown a bit. "That sounds like an awful lot of work just for milk," she reasons. "I'm not afraid of work, though," she adds. "But I don't know any farmers for a bull, and I don't think we have enough room for two cows."

She doesn't add that she wouldn't want to see any calves go to the butcher. She knows that's where meat comes from, but it probably would be hard to watch a baby cow born and grow up, just to send it off like that. And if they don't have enough room for two cows, then they definitely don't have enough room for two cows and however many babies cows have.

This is weird, and wrong, and uncomfortable. The city is empty, and it reminds her all over again of home. Of the way the town looked when they went to the pharmacy for Marcus's meds. Things are broken, stolen from, left abandoned where they lay; there's no movement except for them. It's too similar, and she's spent the last however many days trying to hide in the cottage, and texting Richie, and pretending this isn't happening.

And pretending that she's not waiting for the creatures to appear.

But this is a big deal. People need food, and for all Saoirse might insist it a lot, Greta really is one of the best bakers in the city, even when it's populated by people who believe they've always lived there. This is a big deal, and Regan can — wants to — help, so she's going to. She is. She's here, and she walks with Saoirse to update the signs, and she even goes out to grab some raw ingredients herself, when it feels really necessary.

[ Find Regan pacing nervously in or outside the bakery, or else anywhere within a few-block radius, either adjusting/affixing signs to street fixtures to direct your pup to said bakery, or in nearby convenience stores or supermarkets looking for ingredients for said bakery. ]

Martin hates this. It hasn't gotten better or easier. His and John's little jaunt through the public library took the sting out for a few days — it was comforting to have that little adventure, in more ways than one. But time wears on and the problem doesn't fix itself, and Martin still feels like he's trembling on the edge of one of his own nightmares.

It's a relief to get a text from Greta, both in a practical sense — they're starting to worry about their own dwindling food stores — and simply because it's nice to hear from one of the most reassuring people he knows. So he's on his way to find her little appropriated bakery, striking out on his own almost as if to challenge his own fears. Maybe he can stay there a while. Find some way to help. Anything to take his mind off it.

The streets are so oppressively empty that it startles him whenever he catches movement, even though that ought to be a comfort. He relaxes at once when he recognizes Regan, though it's still a bit surprising to see her out on her own. She's fussing with a sign advertising the bakery, and she looks about as tense as he feels. Which makes perfect sense. He saw her world — he remembers it sharply enough, and he was only there for relatively short time. A dream, technically. It still haunts him. He hadn't explored much beyond Regan's family's home, but it is easy enough to imagine how hard it must be hitting her to see Darrow in this state.

It may be hitting them for different reasons, but he thinks he can imagine all too well how she feels.

He adjusts his walk, approaching her at a wide angle, hoping to catch her attention without startling her. He lifts his hand to wave.

It's too slow to be one of the creatures, but she still jumps a little before she realizes who she's seeing. Martin. It's good to see him. It's good to see anyone out here with her, in the abandoned street, but she's glad that it's him. She gives him a relieved smile, and offers a wave back.

"It's good to see you," she adds, one-handed as she holds a freshly cut-out letter in place while the glue dries. There are probably way more efficient ways to do this, but Saoirse's proud of her hand-cut lettering, so Regan figures that taking the time to glue them in place isn't such a bad thing. Besides, it does help the signs stand out better.

Martin smiles, first apologetically, then warmer at her greeting. "Same," he answers; his signing ability is still very limited, but he's gotten better at understanding it, at least.

Not that that does them much good while she's stuck with only one hand at her disposal. Awkwardly, slow and unsure of himself, he gestures at the sign and asks, "Can I help?"

She nods with a smile and shifts to the side to give him space in front of the sign. It's easy enough to see what she's doing, and she offers him the glue stick, then the next letter. It's a quick-drying glue, something of Saoirse's from school, but there's still that window where things can shift if they're not careful.

While he holds one letter in place, Regan can glue the next one, and slowly, 'SUPPLIES WELCOME' comes into view along the bottom of the sign. Saoirse had wanted to write 'BRING YOUR OWN INGREDIENTS' but that was way too long for the signs, and way too many letters to cut out for her small hands.

"How are you?" she asks when her hands are free.

It's nice to be able to do something helpful, even a small thing like this, and he suspects that may be why Regan is out here doing it in the first place. He resists the inane urge to make small talk — even more useless now than usual — and tries to imagine this sort of silence being a natural or even comfortable thing. It isn't, though. It isn't natural for him, and it certainly isn't comfortable to stand on a city street and hear nothing. He wonders if there's a difference for Regan, as well, apart from the visual and how it must remind her of home. He thinks there must be, though he really can't imagine it.

When they're finished, she asks after him, and he smiles faintly.

"Okay," he says with a little shrug, and fumbles a bit before just reiterating, "Okay." His expression and general body language should make the sort-of clear enough. "You?"

He's probably as okay as she is, and she offers him a wan smile that suggests she regrets asking. "Okay," she agrees. She hesitates, then sighs and finally explains, "You read about 'deafening silence' sometimes. It used to make me mad, until everything at home. I finally got it. It's like that again." She looks around and gestures at the empty city. "I can almost feel it, like I'm carrying it on my shoulders." She wonders if it's the same for him. If the quiet is like a weight on him, the way it is on her, the way it seems to be on Anne and so many others she knows.

He watches carefully, keeping up with her explanation at a bit of a lag, but well enough that he can offer a look of sympathy and a nod when she's done. He may not be able to imagine what it's like for her, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand, on some level.

"I think I know what you mean," he says after a moment. "Sometimes..."

He trails off, his hands hovering uselessly. Christ, even if he had stronger vocabulary, he's not sure how to explain this.

"Sometimes I feel that way even when it isn't like this," he says finally, matching her gesture to the city. Then he hesitates, embarrassed, wondering if he should even be talking about this with a kid. He doesn't really think of Regan as just a kid, especially after seeing the world she came from. But that's not necessarily a good thing. Just a sign of how quickly she had to grow up.

"It's good to talk to people," he says a bit awkwardly, offering a faint smile. "Reminds me I'm not alone."

There's more he wants to say. She can see it in the aborted way he moves his arms before he course-corrects. She wants to ask, but if he doesn't want to talk about it, then she'd just be prying at a scab, wouldn't she? She doesn't want to do that.

Still. It is good to talk to people.

Regan hesitates, then says, "You used to not, right? Talk to people. Saoirse said, when she first met you, you were... distant? At first I thought you were shy, but she said you were lonely." She smiles a bit ruefully. "She's good at seeing stuff like that." Even when you don't want her to.

He's a little taken aback by the question, once he parses it, his eyes going a bit wide before he recovers himself with an awkward chuckle. It's not exactly something he hid. He even tried to explain it to Regan, once, before he really knew how. And it certainly doesn't surprise him that Saoirse picked up on it and talked about it herself. He smiles a little, fondly remembering how kind she'd been at her birthday party, a while ago now but still dear to his heart.

"She is," he agrees. "And she's right. I was really lonely."

It's hard to convey what that means. He hesitates, mulling it over.

"You've talked to John, right?" he says, knowing the answer but finding it more polite to ask. "You know how our home is... weird."

She and John had sort of traded stories. It'd been weird, and a little scary to think about them going through that, but she'd understood a lot more by the end — and felt a little better, too. John's ability to understand ASL with pretty much no effort had made telling her story a lot easier than with most people. She hadn't had to hesitate, or slow down, or backtrack. He'd just known.

That's still so weird, when she thinks about it.

She nods, quietly encouraging him to continue.

He isn't totally sure how much detail John's gone into with Regan, nor how much he wants to go into himself, but it's good to have some sort of mutual baseline. He nods in return and pauses for a moment, trying to work out what to say and how to say it. The difficulty isn't just that the story is odd or frightening; it is also personal and painful. He wants to avoid it and doesn't know if he should trust that impulse; he feels obligated to confront it, and doesn't know if he should trust that, either.

"I've always been lonely," he says eventually, his expression as matter-of-fact as he can make it. "That made one of the, um..." He flounders a bit, his sign not good enough to word this with any nuance, and in the end he gives her an apologetic look as he digs out his phone and types it out: "One of those Entities from our world feeds off of loneliness, just like the one John and I sort of work for feeds off knowledge. And it was feeding off me for a while."

Once she's read this, he hesitates. He could just keep typing it out, but that feels both too difficult and like it would be rude, or lazy. He'd rather work on getting better at this, and the focus of just saying it is a better distraction than having to write it out, having to sit with it like that.

"So..." He pockets his phone again. "When I came here, that was still... happening. It was hard to stop."

So unbearably, painfully hard. He still thinks about it sometimes. He still has dreams. He still feels, on very few and very small occasions, the little wisps of cold fog chasing around the back of his neck.

"It made me feel like there were no other people in the world, sometimes," he says. "So, all this..." He gestures around them and then lets his hand fall, just staring at the empty streets for a while. Then he looks back at her. "It's hard."

He needs to rely on his phone a little to explain some of the finer nuances, but it's not that big of a deal. She nods when he reads it, and lets him continue. She can't really imagine a world where there are whole entities that feed off of people's fears and pains. It's hard enough believing the creatures that she'd lived with, and she'd seen them. She can't really imagine what Martin had been through.

Haltingly, Regan moves closer to him. She doesn't know if this is the right move, but she'll figure it out pretty quickly, she decides. She pulls him into a hug, arms around him and chin on his shoulder. For very different reasons, the current state of the city has them both uncomfortable and afraid, but she thinks they have similar solutions. She steps back, a little embarrassed at her unsolicited action.

"Come on," she says. "You should come back to the bakery."

"Oh-" he says aloud, just a startled syllable escaping as she steps in to hug him. He's surprised, but not at all averse, and it only takes him a second to relax into it, his hands resting gently on her back as he returns the gesture. It's nice. It's really nice.

When she steps back, she looks just as embarrassed as he feels, but he still manages a smile and nods at her suggestion.

"All right," he says, and touches her arm before she can turn away, wanting to make sure she sees him: "Thank you."

Regan smiles, warm and a little relieved.

"You're welcome," she answers.

It's easy enough to lead him back to the bakery. She knows the way almost by heart, now, just by sheer virtue of how often she's gone out with glue and a stapler. The signs are more thickly placed the closer they get, until they come upon it. There are plenty of people there. Anne, Greta, and Saoirse, of course, and other people have been coming and going. There's even a tall, slender redhead there, holding a jug of milk. The way she nods at Martin, Regan thinks they know each other.

Eliot knows he looks absolutely frightful, but he feels all right about it.

The strange townie Rapture had been an inconvenience at first, and he was only mildly annoyed at the disruption, but he’s started to worry about what might happen in the long term, if things stay like this. There are certainly plenty of transplants who have more civic pride than he does, and have invested themselves in the day to day operations of the city, and he’s beginning to feel just the tiniest bit guilty that he isn’t more involved. It’s not as if he swore an oath to this land, but still.

So Greta’s text offered a welcome distraction, and Eliot leapt at the chance to help. Now, sweating and dusted with flour up to his elbows, he actually feels good. He had the foresight to steal one of Jack’s scarves before heading over, so his hair at least will come out of this unscathed. And it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, anyway.

It’s hard to know what kind of demand they’ll have, but Eliot did a bit of localized fussing with entropy around the kitchen’s proofing cabinet, to get the dough rising quickly and speed up production.

“Behind you!” he calls, maybe a little manic, slipping past someone to put a rack of fresh herbed fougasses into the display shelf. He brought the rosemary from home, and it was a little wilted, but he felt fine giving it a magical nudge back to green. It’s probably not safe (or the most palatable) to do something more drastic like un-spoil milk, so the recipes will likely get simpler the longer this situation lasts. He hopes it’s not too long.

It shouldn't surprise him to see Eliot here, all covered in flour and wearing — is that one of Jack's scarves? Martin smiles in spite of himself, already feeling a little more at ease now that he's in the company of friends, and a far more bustling environment than he's seen in the past week or so. He waits until Eliot has settled a bit before approaching with a friendly wave.

"Hullo," he says. "Keeping busy, I see?"

Eliot is difficult to read sometimes — more prone to manic cheeriness than showing his hand — but Martin wouldn't be surprised if they weren't all feeling this to some degree. So he keeps his tone light, but there's a bit of genuine care there, too.

“Well,” Eliot gives a little self-effacing shrug, and grins. “You know me, I had to involve myself.” He’d like to give Martin a hug, but even after dusting his hands off on his apron he’s still in a state, and settles for affectionately bumping him with his shoulder.

“It hasn’t been that much of a hardship, really, so far. The power’s still running, we can all communicate...and I’m exploring my artistic side, made some bread that looks like a leaf.” The question of what comes next is looming there, as it has been, but that’s not something any of them can deal with alone. “What about you, are you and John getting on all right?”

"I do," Martin agrees rather fondly, returning the companionable nudge. Eliot utters it like a joke, but Martin knows the truth of it, how deep Eliot's passion for helping, for being involved truly runs. But he's not here to embarrass his friend or make things sentimental, so he's happy to stick with Eliot's more characteristically lighthearted tone.

"Oh, very impressive," he notes, craning his neck to admire the leaf-loaf. It looks bloody delicious, and he catches himself hoping no one makes off with it before it comes time for him to leave.

"We're... all right," he says, lifting a shoulder. It's true enough. This whole situation may be rather difficult for him personally, but that doesn't feel worth going into. And his unique experience aside, it's not as if this is any less difficult for anyone else. "Making do. Really grateful to have friends who are good at this sort of thing. If we were really on our own I figure we'd just be eating out of cans by now."

He hesitates, feeling a bit wrong-footed, like he's disrupting the work flow by just standing here amid the relative bustle, but then he remembers himself and reaches into his bag.

"I, erm... I brought some sugar." He lifts the rubber-banded, mostly full package out and offers it. "I figure you already have plenty of this sort of thing, but I didn't want to come empty-handed, so..." They've got enough in the sugar bowl for him to make his tea how he likes for a while yet, and if this situation persists beyond that, well... there'll be bigger problems.

Having spent her formative years in the care of the increasingly paranoid leader of an insurgent group, Jyn is fairly certain that the tendency to brace herself for the worst is one far too deeply instilled in her to ever rid herself of. That's certainly been the case recently, with the city nearly empty now. Having lost so many people here, the first thing she did was check on the few people she stays in touch with, but after being assured of their presence, since then, she's just been waiting it out, and in the waiting, tense and on guard, her mind has wandered. So many people are gone now. It would be easy to make herself disappear, too. She's good at that — going off the grid, starting over. She would have the perfect cover, and could easily find somewhere to lie low for a while until showing back up again as someone else. Plenty of people here look like other people. It wouldn't be let the same seem to be true in her case.

Though it's a thought she keeps coming back to, she hasn't done anything about it yet. When it really comes down to it, she's not sure she'll be able to. As often as she's been left, she isn't very good anymore at being the one to do the leaving, not when there are people who actually know her, people she cares about. Greta's text is, in a way, a reminder of that. Besides, Jyn has never been one to turn down food.

She's on her way to the bakery in question when she sees a sign mentioning the same, with an addition that ingredients would be welcome, so she stops in a store before she gets there. She's done her share of raiding shops this past while, but in this case, the door has been broken into already, which she supposes counts for something in this case.

With what she can carry in tow — some flour, some cooking oil, and a few bags of frozen fruit, since she doesn't trust anything fresh that remains — she finally reaches the bakery, though she hangs back a bit once she's inside. Helping, she can do, and eating, she can do even better, but she's awkward at best in social situations, something that feels even truer now that she's been around fewer people than usual.

"Jyn!" Martin was just on his way out, but he's pleased to be stopped by a familiar face. They haven't met up in a while, which makes him feel like a bit of an arse — it's always easier to just hole up with John when things get difficult, and he'd really like to be better at reaching out to his friends. Especially in times like these.

At least he has an opportunity now. "Hey," he says, coming close so he can lower his voice. She looks a little skittish, which he's learned isn't totally unusual. "Sorry it's been bloody ages since I got in touch. How've you been? Er, apart from..." He shrugs, gesturing vaguely. "Everything."

Awkward as she might feel here, with people whom she mostly doesn't know going in and out, Jyn relaxes just the slightest bit when she spots Martin. Aside from Greta, who understandably seems to have her hands full, it's nice to see someone she knows. There aren't many of them left — those she's closest to are all still around, but the disappearances still don't sit well with her, part of her bracing herself for others to go at any time. Any reassurance of people who matter to her still being around goes a long way, though she would never admit as much.

With a small smile, a little stilted but earnest, she shrugs in response. "I haven't been in touch either," she points out, though it's a simple fact, not particularly self-deprecating. She's good at going off the grid, so to speak; she's not good at having friends or maintaining friendships. "Been alright. Same as usual, apart from everything. How about you?"

"Oh, you know," he says with a half-hearted chuckle. "Hanging in there, in spite of everything."

It is easy — natural — to make small talk, to affect this sort of casual lightheartedness. That tendency has been the foundation of his social skillset for just about as long as he can remember. But it's also eroding, more and more the longer he lives here. He catches himself, his smile softening a little. His friendship with Jyn has always been a little intermittent, but it is also consistent. And he thinks there is always a lot more comfort in being honest with her than in simply making small talk.

So, after a moment, he admits, "This... whole thing has been really hard." His manner remains relaxed, even as he sobers slightly. There's nothing to fear here; he's in good company. "We're getting by, but..." He shrugs. "Well, I suppose things will go back to normal soon enough, right? They usually seem to, here."

Whatever "normal" means, anyway.

Two things that Jyn has never been good at are small talk and vulnerability. For that matter, friendship in general isn't exactly a strength of hers — not the social aspects of it, anyway. Once she cares about someone, there's little she wouldn't do for them, but loyalty strikes her as probably a bit different than friendship, or at least how most people would consider it. Martin is a friend, though, and friends do this sort of thing. She just has to remind herself of that sometimes. Lately it's been especially easy to lose sight of that, quiet as the city is, easy as it's become to withdraw as a result.

"Probably just a matter of time," she agrees with a nod, sincere rather than dismissive. That does tend to be the way of things here. Something happens, and then it rights itself, and usually most of the people here carry on as if nothing ever happened. It doesn't usually last this long, but it has before, so it could again. "Even knowing that, though, it's still... weird."

"Yeah," he says quickly, flashing a rather nervous smile. He redirects his gaze out the window, looking over the uncomfortably empty streets. "Yeah, and it's..."

He gropes around for what he wants to say. He's been trying very hard not to think about all this, really, the implications and the questions it stirs up in him. A lot of tension and fear that's sort of always there, operating on a low enough frequency that he usually doesn't have to think about it.

It is terrifying, though, how little they actually know about this place that's taken them all. How arbitrary its whims. The seemingly unflappable native population has always felt like a fixture, easy to trust and easier to ignore, and now? It just feels like a reminder how tenuous this really is.

But he doesn't know how to voice all that. It feels too grim, too real, somewhere beyond his growing preference for honesty. In the end he looks down at his feet and coughs out an awkward laugh. "Sorry," he says, though he's not sure what for. He thinks for a moment, then says, "I feel like it's a lot harder to trust the whole... thing when there are visible gaps in the foundation right now, you know?"

He looks away, toward the more active center of the bakery. Wanting to pull away. With another, even more awkward laugh, he says, "Sorry, let's... d'you want to get some pastries, or something?"

That subject, at least, is an easier one, something Jyn knows how to respond to. She doesn't intend to ignore the rest, but it's a trickier thing, difficult to sort out her own feelings on and even more to express those feelings. For her part, she's never trusted it all that much anyway. She's lost far too many people, both before and here, for her to put any sort of faith in a place where anyone can disappear at random, often against their will. Still, she knows, too, what a change this is, shifting the entire nature of this place. The unpredictability, she doesn't mind much, when most of her life has been like that, but it's still strange to be in this sort of limbo when at least certain aspects of this place have been fairly consistent.

"I always want to get some pastries," she points out, giving him a small little smile, warmly teasing. She's been told before that she could always eat, and while she's pretty sure that was meant to be a joke, she also doesn't think it's very far from the truth. Just what it is, she couldn't say — maybe some sense of making up for all the time she never had enough, or wanting to take advantage of what's available to her in case it runs out — but either way, she's hardly going to turn down food, especially not pastries made by someone she knows to be an excellent baker.

A moment later, not wanting to disregard what he's said, she shrugs. "And you don't need to be sorry," she adds. "I get it, I think. There's one thing that can generally be counted on here, and now suddenly it's... not there."

He steps over to the counter where Greta's laid out some fresh items, and throws her a grateful smile as he swaps out his offerings for a few items, some he plans to take back to John. He's a little surprised when Jyn responds to his fumbling comments after all, and after a moment he shoots her a quick, grateful smile. "Yeah," he says softly. "And I think I'm always a bit in danger of getting too complacent, so..."

He trails off, not sure where he was going with that thought. So, what? This was somehow a good thing, because it shook him out of some sort of stupor?

He huffs out a breath and shrugs. "I guess I wonder how many rude awakenings it'll take before I just... toughen up, or something."

It's probably a strange thought, and one she knows better than to say out loud, but instinctively, Jyn thinks that it's sort of nice that he hasn't. Not that it's probably easy to be on the other side of that, but she had to toughen up too much too early, without ever having a chance for anything else. Although she knows the way she lived is what kept her alive — although she would still, after everything, say that Saw was a better father to her than her own father was — it's hard not to wonder who she might have been had all the softness not been drained from her when she was so young.

"Well, you'll probably find out at some point," she says, optimistic rather than unkind. "I don't think… strange things like this will ever stop happening here. Might not always be like this, but I think there's always going to be something." Grabbing a muffin from the counter, she takes a large bite out of its top. "This is good."

He casts a thoughtful sidelong glance in her direction, turning that over in his mind before accepting it. She's probably right. He'd like to think she's right. It's encouraging rather than dismissive, the way she says it. But at the same time, he can't help but wonder. She doesn't know what he's already been through, both at home and here. And he's still... this.

That feels far too dark, though, so he smiles as she enjoys one of the muffins, reaching out to take one for himself. "I'm not surprised," he offers. "They're made by Greta, after all. Do you know Greta?" He asks that suddenly, a little surprised he doesn't already know. She could be here because she knows Greta, or it could just be having heard there was mutual aid happening. He sometimes forgets how small their community really is, and that all his friends might actually know each other to some degree. An oddly bolstering thought.

There's something about the way he changes the subject that makes Jyn feel like there's something going unsaid. Even if it weren't for that segue, though, it wouldn't seem like her place to push. She likes Martin — would consider him a friend, and there aren't many people about whom she would say that — but despite having encountered each other in awful situations, there's still only so much she even knows about him. He can say whatever he's comfortable with, but she's not going to press him for details.

The question distracts her quickly enough, anyway, a lopsided smile spreading across her face as she nods. "I do, yeah," she says. "We've known each other for a while now." They've come a long way from her awkwardly staring at Greta at a party that took a turn for the chaotic, in the wake of her stint on Bake-Off. "That mean you know her too, then?"

"Yeah," he says, smiling softly. "She's the first person I met here, actually. She happened to be at the train station when I arrived, and..."

He shrugs. It's a bad memory, but Greta is the reason it wasn't much worse. "I was not in a good place. Before I came here, I mean. And the transition was... bad. Difficult. But she took care of me. And she was the first person in a really long time that I... that I let take care of me. I suppose I didn't really have a choice, but I think it was something about her, too, like... I can't really explain."

He can. He's known since his week as a little boy, since before that, if he's really honest with himself. It's because she reminds him of his mother, or rather, a mother he would have liked to have. But he can't just say that. He looks at the floor for a moment.

"I think I'm very lucky that it was her who met me there," he says quietly.

It's weird, working in a bakery again. Some of the oddness is just like flexing an unused muscle, remembering how to pace herself as she works towards a finish line she can't quite see. 'Until she can't anymore' or 'until it's over' or 'until everyone is fed,' whichever comes first. But a large part of it is simply how the shop is arranged, with the actual baking facilities tucked prudently out of sight behind a pair of swinging doors. She's used to being within eyeshot of the entrance, being able to see the customers as they come in. Instead, she works in relative isolation, assuming that the lack of any audible swordplay indicates that everyone is getting what they need and behaving themselves in the process.

It's not bad, exactly, but it's a little lonely, and she finds herself slipping out behind the counter as often as she can get away with: a little frazzled and a lot flour-dusted, but pleased to see that people are finding the place and getting some food that doesn't come out of a bloody can.

When she sees Jyn enter, looking a little wary but also holding an armful of supplies, she breaks into a grin. "Jyn, you found us!" She hasn't been too worried about the other woman's safety — she's always struck Greta as too tough to be brought down by this sort of nonsense — but it's not just safety that concerns her. She slips out from behind the counter and beckons Jyn over, curling an arm around her shoulders as soon as she's within reach. "How have you been holding up?" she asks. Then, aware that that might not be anyone's favorite question to dwell on, she nods at the armful and adds a more cheerfully conspiratorial, "And what've you got for me?"

Jyn smiles, a little awkward but earnest all the same, when Greta beckons her closer, more appreciative than she cares to admit for the presence of a friend. She's used to being alone, and has more or less managed to convince herself that she's alright — that she's better off — that way, but still, the emptiness of late has been unsettling to say the least, everything too quiet. It's easy, too easy, to start to feel like there's no one else left at all, or like anyone else still here might well vanish, too. But the bakery is warm and full of people, a pleasant sort of chaos, the sort that oddly feels a bit like home, though she never really had this sort of comfort. Maybe it's just the camaraderie of people stuck in a screwed up situation together, carving out a life when and however they can. That would explain it, probably.

"You know me," she says with a shrug, which isn't really an answer. "Getting by." Rather than elaborating, she hoists the haul she's brought with her up a little higher. "Brought whatever I could carry, really. Some flour, some oil, figured more of both couldn't hurt. And all the fresh fruit had gone bad, so I got some of the frozen kind. Thought it might be useful for something."

Baking isn't her forte, nor is anything in a kitchen, really, but she's never been very good at idleness, and there's been little to do of late besides looting for supplies. With that in mind, she asks, "Anything I can do to help?"

Greta hums in quiet understanding — 'getting by' is a deliberately vague response that she knows better than to prod, at least right off — and steers Jyn into the back, where she can set down her offerings on a bit of empty countertop.

"I'm sure we can find a use for all this," she says, already thinking about the fruit, in particular. Anything that was fresh in the shops when this began has gone off by now, and while the garden at the cottage has a few blueberry bushes that are producing, it's not nearly enough for baking on such a grand scale. Frozen fruit will make a perfectly fine pie, though, and work well enough in muffins.

"And for you, if you're offering," she adds, giving Jyn a light, friendly nudge. "How would you like to knead some dough?" It's good, absorbing work, and she does it often enough during her day to day that her arms haven't forgotten how. But it's been a long time since she's done quite so bloody much of it in one day. She'd certainly appreciate the assistance.

Jyn can't help but smile just a little at the assessment of the supplies she's brought. She really doesn't know much about baking, only what she's learned from Greta and from watching TV here in Darrow. Though she has a few vague, distant memories of her mother teaching her about baking in their little home on Lah'mu, the actual instructions are long gone to her. Only the feeling has lingered, and that really isn't something she likes to think about very much anyway. For now, she's just glad that she seems to have chosen well, and, too, that there might be something she can do to help. A baker, she might not be, but kneading is definitely in her wheelhouse.

"I can do some kneading," she agrees with a nod. It's better than just standing around and waiting, or going back out into the quiet, or hanging out back here while Greta does all the work. "I'm also very good at taste testing." A flicker of amusement crosses her face, a clear sign that she's teasing. As much as she may enjoy that aspect of things, it isn't actually true, anyway. She's much too far from picky to be any good as a taste tester.

"Oh, excellent," Greta says with a grin that's only a little bit weary. "Saoirse's been taking quality control very seriously, but there's only so much she can do before she might make herself sick."

It's the kneading that she's looking forward to relinquishing most, though, and she shows Jyn where she can wash up before directing her to the little bread station she has set up along one stretch of counter-top. A loaf of bread — one made properly, anyway — is a fairly lengthy baking process, needing generous pauses for the dough to rise, so she has several loaves cycling through varying stages of readiness. But the heaviest kneading is at the front of the line, and Greta has a ball of freshly-mixed dough that's ready for some attention.

"Like this," she says, demonstrating the rhythmic fold, press, and turn motion for a few moments before stepping aside to Jyn take a crack at it. "Sort of funny, really," she adds as she watches Jyn work, making sure it's correct and then nodding in satisfaction. "It's been ages since I had to churn things out in such numbers. I'd almost forgotten what a production it was." Bake-Off had been a whirlwind, of course, but the challenges were never about sheer bloody stamina.

Though Jyn has watched enough Bake-Off that she's not totally clueless, there's still a difference between watching on a screen and watching in person, and between watching and actually doing. She pays close attention as Greta demonstrates, taking in the way she kneads the dough before she tries it herself. As with anything, it's a bit strange at first, but it doesn't take her long to fall into a rhythm. It feels sort of good, actually — more difficult than it might look at a glance, making it clear why Greta would have enlisted her help with this part of the process, but she hardly minds that. Hell, it's nice just to have something to do.

"I guess it's different doing this much of it than, I don't know, sculpting bread into some fancy shape, isn't it?" she replies, half-joking, a wry little smile on her face as she kneads. "Makes sense that everyone left would want some now, too. Everything in stores must've long since gone bad by now." If the fresh fruit she saw had, she assumes the same must be true for all the bread and related products as well. While she's hardly about to balk at the thought of eating something slightly stale, she's not about to make a sandwich on something that looks like a science project.

"Exactly," Greta replies, shaking her head. Her memories of doing Bake-Off are largely fond, but she doesn't often miss the challenges, and she never misses the deadlines. At least now, if she decides to try something fancy, it doesn't matter if she makes a botch of it. She can always try again.

"Even running a bakery back home was different. We'd get up before sunrise and make things, but once we sold out for the day, that was it. Now..." she glances towards the doors that lead out to the front, though there isn't much to see through the two little porthole windows, especially from her current angle. "Well, it's as you say. Anything that was fresh when this started has gone off by now, and people ought to have something real. It wouldn't feel right to just... hang up the apron because I'm bored, or something." She knows no one's starving out there — plenty of canned goods are still perfectly fine — but bread is a staple she thinks people ought to have, and she's not sure there are many people left who have any experience churning it out like she does.

"Not a whole lot of people who can do this themselves," Jyn says by way of agreement, still steadily kneading the dough under her hands. It's not easy by any means — she understands a lot better some of the comments she's heard while watching Bake-Off episodes — but it feels good, too, almost an outlet of sorts and something deeply satisfying about it. She's one of the people in question, after all, with virtually no skills in the kitchen because there was never anyone to teach her, never any occasion for her to learn. She vaguely remembers her mother showing her things, but she was far too young then to retain them, and it isn't as if she ever had a chance to put those few lessons to use.

This might be the gruntwork side of baking, but it makes her feel useful, which is a first during this whole particular turn of events. Idleness has never suited her, and there's been little else the last few weeks. "It's nice. Going to all this effort. Giving people something fresh and homemade to eat."

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

More than the moon

Just a Little Bent

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags