callmeemily | COOKIES well they're baking lessons - hopefully they don't burn down the house. (Levi)

You request a baking lesson, and you get a girl standing on your doorstep at 9AM with a bag over her shoulder. This time, there's no crutches; there's no crutches, and even though Levi had said he'd get the ingredients, she's got more, because she found out a yesterday that she can bake again. She can bake, and that means they're not just making cookies, even though they were still going to make those.

She wonders about making this a thing, the teaching, but then Raleigh realises that she'd rather have it be like this. Friends, and teaching, not anything more formalized. There's sort of an elephant in the room, the sort of elephant that she doesn't know if it can be banished with cookies and well-intentioned half-explanations, but she figures she does want to be honest; she can't go around with half the town knowing her name and the other not. But they'd get to that bridge when they come to it.

So she rings the bell - not needing a cab, she wanted the walk, she needed it because she's been too long on crutches - and waits.

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"Okay, as long as I get bossed around by a beautiful woman on the stool for even just a bit I'll be happy," he said, winking at her as he started to root through his fridge to try and find the butter that he had gotten at the store. Well, that Lara had gotten since he still wasn't up to driving.

"Also, there's salted and unsalted butter? I wasn't sure which one to get."

She still doesn't quite agree with his assignment as her as a beautiful woman, but she did put on eyeliner, after all - and so she doesn't even hesitate, and she perches on the stool in his kitchen, her toes barely touching the rung, tucked behind it. "Salted butter is... like a condiment. Like if you're making corn on the cob or want to butter toast. Unsalted butter is for cooking, so you can manage how much salt you add yourself." She smiles as she says it, and honestly-

She's never admit it, but it's kind of.... nice, to sit here and share her knowledge with someone. "There's a food scale in the bag I brought, if you want to grab it, and grab a big bowl."

She's going to 'boss' him a little more, and then she'd have to get started - but hey, they'd made plans, and she's going to honor them-- in good humor, of course.

"Unsalted butter is ketchup, got it," he said with a nod. Her explanation made sense though, now that he thought about it. Who wanted unsalted butter on corn on the cob? Putting the salted butter back in the fridge, he left out the unsalted. Hopefully there weren't too many other tricky things he needed to understand for this.

"Food scale, I have one of those," he said, pulling it out of the cupboard that it was in, although he got hers out as well. This way they could share because he knew that she wouldn't stay on that stool for long. "And I have a big bowl. How am I doing so far, boss?"

"You're doing perfect. How's the bossing going? Up to your expectations?" She doesn't even look at a recipe, because she just... knows, what to do next. "Do you know how to cream butter and sugar together?" She is itching to get off of it, and if he doesn't know how to do what she asked, boom. She'll be off of it so she can show him.

"It's adequate bossing," he said with a shrug. "You look happy doing it. And not happy to be doing it, just happy."

Which was good. Raleigh happy was very, very good as far as he was concerned. It seemed like she needed as much happiness as she could get.

"I will know, once you keep your ass on that stool and explain to me how to do it," he warned, knowing what she intended.

Raleigh rolled her eyes, and she stays sitting - for now, she stays sitting, and it's probably best for a few minutes because she walked here and she's not used her leg that much in two weeks.

"Yes, sir," her mouth quirks into a smile, and she's mocking him just a tad. "You want to take the softened butter - a cup - and put it in a bowl with a cup of sugar, and press it together with a fork until it sort of becomes one thing instead of seperate - like instead of sugar and butter, it's sugarbutter. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, we call that a different name here in New England," he said, getting out the butter and putting two sticks worth in the bowl along with a cup of sugar. Sugar was always a bit of a pain in the ass, no matter how careful he was Levi always seemed to get crystals of it all over the counter.

"We call it mixing. Because that's what it is, Emily, taking two ingredients and making them one is mixing."

"Smartypants, you try doing that with a spoon, you're going to get a ball of butter covered in sugar. Creaming it's different, it makes it actually...." She was going to say mix, but she caught herself. "Combine, properly. Creaming is a kind of mixing, but it's different then just like, oh, hey, mix it."

She pauses, and then her voice loses most of it's joviality. "Uh, about that. Remember when that guy - Bach? He said my name wasn't Emily?" She doesn't want to do this, she doesn't want to tell him she lied to him, but just can't keep doing it. "He wasn't wrong. I... uhm. I sort of was- Before they-" But she has to stop, because she's thinking about it. She's thinking about it, and she's not supposed to, she'd made herself not think about it, because when she does, it's like a ball rolling down hill. The last time it'd happened, it was with Les, and before that it was with Spencer and Bach, she can't stop the way that she reacts, and she can feel herself sliding into it again. The man asking her for help, and she should have known better, because then she's grabbed- she somehow should have known, and she has to force herself to take deep breaths. Deep breaths. She forces herself not to check behind her, and she sucks in another breath. Forcing a small smile for a moment, because if you act like you're alright, you'll be alright, somehow, she continues. "Sorry. Stuff was weird, and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone who I was, and so... I apologize, you deserve better than me lying to you. It's Raleigh." She's gripping the edge of the stool with white knuckles, but besides that, she seems... sort of normal.

That is, probably unless you happen to be a detective who can read minds.

Levi had been wondering about that and while he wanted to ask her about it he figured she would tell him in her own time if it was real. Why Bach had known he wasn't sure but he was glad that she had told him, that she trusted him that much. He just wish that it hadn't conjured up a lot of memories of her of the time Joseph had kidnapped her.

"Hey Raleigh," he said, turning to smile at her and offer her his hand. "I'm Leviticus Astor the Third. It's nice to meet you."

It takes her a second - it's a second of confusion, but she realises she hid it enough, or he's ignoring it, and he's just... he's letting it go, and she's so thankful that she feels like she could cry, although she doesn't. Of course she doesn't.

"You're a good man," she says softly, and she reaches to take his hand, and she squeezes it tightly, for just a second. It's not a handshake, it's something else, and it's weird, the way she just is all-in, with him and Les and Lara and likely Corry. The people who were there, she's put so much stock in them because she believes in them, because she knows that they're good.

"Thank you," she says as she lets go, her head bent for only a moment as she pulls in a deep breath. She's not going to think about it, anymore. She can't. She forces herself to stop, her eyes flicking to the bowl. "So... yeah," she says, even though her heart's a lot less in it than it was. "You cream together the butter and the sugar."

Edited 2014-07-14 01:48 (UTC)

"Are you kidding? Thank you for not making fun of the fact that my name is 'Leviticus'," he said, grinning at her as he started to mash together the butter and the sugar. She could call it 'creaming' all she wanted but it was just mixing and mashing.

He knew that what she had said was just a big deal for her but he was equally sure that she didn't want to act like it was a big deal. If she wanted to tell him more he'd listen but for now he figured that focusing on baking would be best. Levi had a sense that it's what they both really wanted to be doing at the moment.

"But there, I think this is creamed now."

COOKIES well they're baking lessons - hopefully they don't burn down the house. (Levi)

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