Rina Makes Breakfast

[hazlogs]

Date: 10/23/02

The morning after the Moot, Rina is there: in the morning, a little later
than they usually get up, she is in the kitchen cooking breakfast with
whatever happens to be available.

Cat sits at the counter, chin in palms, watching Rina cook. It's oddly
entertaining for him. "Will you be finished soon?" he asks softly, the
hint of a whine in his tone not disrespectful, just the murmur of a very
hungry boy.

Rina nods quickly. "Yeah... how d'you like your eggs? Jack said you were
gonna sleep late..." She flashes a quick smile over her shoulder, as she
expertly juggles pancakes and eggs and bacon in their respective pans.

Salem, for once, is the last one awake. After the interruption in the wee
hours, the halfmoon lay awake until just past sunrise. He's still asleep.

"Scrambled please," an eager Cat replies, tilting his head a bit and
watching stuff get fried. It smelled so good. "Should I go wake Salem-rhya
soon?"

She shakes her head. "Nah, let him sleep. He had a rough night." She seems
to be dumping a lot of things into his eggs.

His own cooking ability limited to the microwave and toaster, Cat doesn't
notice if too much salt or pepper is going into his meal. "Oh," he says,
genuinely sorry the Salem didn't sleep well, and even more genuinely
hungry. "Almost done?"

Rina ducks her head, smiling a little to herself. It smells Italian and
wonderful and strange. "Voila. Peppers and eggs the quick way." She slides
a spatula-ful of the gooey concoction onto a plate, and passes it to him
along with a fork. "I'll join you in a sec. Want some oj?"

Cat nods, grinning- all out grinning -at the sight of food, taking the
silverware and plate gratefully. "Yes please, and thanks. Wow it smells
-good-." The plate clatters a bit as he sets it on the counter and starts
cutting into it with his fork. Yay goey yellow eggs.

Cheese, and red and green peppers, and onion and garlic... it's such a
wild mix of tastes that it's hard to even identify at first. But it's
wonderful.

Rina flips a couple of pancakes, and then pours the glass of juice and
slides it onto the counter beside him.

The cot doesn't have squeaky springs the way the bed does, so there's no
sound to warn the pair that the halfmoon's awake. He simply appears at the
doorway, having pulled on sweatpants and t-shirt, pushing overlong hair
away from his face. "Mn," says Salem, looking a mite chagrinned.
"Morning."

Cat waves at Salem with the sort of sunny cheerfulness he only displays
when eating, his mouth full of eggs and pepper. "M'ina may ekfst," he
manages around the food. "An s'ood!"

Rina glances over her shoulder, offering a quick smile. "Hey. Peppers and
eggs if y'want, and pancakes, and bacon--oh." She turns back to the stove,
and rescues the loudly-sizzling pan. "Well done bacon," she adds.

"Ah," says the still-groggy Walker, scratching at unshaven stubble on his
neck. "Breakfast. Be there in a bit." He vanishes into the bathroom for a
minute or two.

The boy's quiet, save for the clink of silverware against plate,
swallowing, or sipping his orange juice. He's thoroughly, thoroughly,
enjoying his meal.

The pancakes and bacon come next, a big stack slid onto the counter at his
elbow. The butter and syrup are out already, and Rina turns off the stove
and sits down to join Cat, digging into her own plate of the egg stuff.

The toilet flushes, the water in the sink runs a bit, and Salem finally
emerges, pulling his unkempt hair back into a loose ponytail to keep it
out of his face. It's getting quite long, near the middle of his back.
"Taking notes, Cat?" Salem asks as he pads toward the kitchen area.

Cat's nearly finished with his eggs, his last mouthful in fact, when the
Walker's question comes. "Hn?" is the muffled question, confusion on his
face.

Rina rolls her eyes a little, and slides down from her seat to get the
burners going again. "Please. Nobody outcooks an Italian."

"Nevermind," Salem tells the cub. He leans against the end of the counter,
turning an eye over toward Rina, watching her bustle about domestically in
his kitchen with a bemused expression. "Nobody?"

Rina pours out a few more pancakes, and puts the peppers and eggs on low
heat. "Nobody," she answers decisively.

Cat swallows and starts tugging a pancake onto his plate. "Salem-rhya
makes very good hamburgers," he volunteers.

There are only two stools at the counter, but Salem doesn't move to take
the one that Rina's vacated. "My grandmother used to make a marvelous
_szerb bableves_," he remarks.

Rina flips pancakes absently. "What's that?"

Cat can't speak, as he's drinking from the orange juice, but presumably
he's thinking the same question.

Turning to let them cook a bit, she steps over to the counter long enough
to snag a bite of eggs.

"Serbian bean soup." Salem stretches his shoulders, jaws tightening as he
stifles a yawn. "Would spend all day on it."

Rina smiles, fetching another plate and dishing out peppers and eggs.
"Soup's always an all day thing," she says idly. "Like marinar'." She
hands the plate to him, along with a fork. "Don't eat on y'feet, it's not
good for ya."

Blue eyes glance from kin to cliath, and slowly the boy settles into his
usual mood. Although he does smile a bit at Rina from time to time, highly
appreciative of the delicious pancakes.

Salem snorts a bit at the order, but obeys it, taking the other stool and
tucking into the eggs with relish. "Mmn."

Rina leans a hip against the counter, and nibbles on some bacon. "So," she
asks Cat, "how'd you like last night?"

The cub chews and swallows his bite of pancake, fork dangling from his
fingers. "It was interesting," he says softly, trying to think back to the
details of last night. "A...lot...of people there."

Rina's smile tugs upward at one corner.

"Actually," says Salem, between mouthfuls, "attendence seemed a bit low
last night."

Rina nods minutely, lowering her eyes. "Mmm. Y'want somethin'a drink,
Jack? Tea, or coffee or anything?"

Salem wipes at his mouth with a napkin. His plate's almost entirely clear
already. "Coffee. Please."

Cat finishes his food quickly, giving Rina another bright smile as he
picks up his plate and silverware, slipping away from the counter. "I'll
go shower," he says softly, depositing his plates in the sink.

Rina sets her own aside, to flip the pancakes over a couple of times and
then hand the new plate to Salem. "Sure." She busies herself on the other
side of the narrow kitchen, setting up the coffee.

Salem grunts acknowledgement to the cub, finishing off the last of his
eggs just as Rina sets the pancakes down. "Good Gaia, woman," he says. "No
wonder John's been putting on weight."

It's to those words that the cub disappears into the bathroom, where the
sound of running water can be heard shortly thereafter.

Rina blinks at him, startled. And then she turns back to the stove,
starting to clean up a little. "He was too thin," she murmurs, half to
herself. "Needed t'take better care'f himself."

Salem pauses with his hand on the bottle of syrup, squinting at her. Then
he shakes his head slightly and applies syrup, along with butter, to his
pancakes. "How did you two meet?"

Rina glances over her shoulder, toward him. "Me an' Gianni?" Ducking her
head, she starts washing the dishes. "When he came to town. He tried
t'shake down a frienda mine, tryin' to find out who the local bad guys
were."

"Ah. And you went to see who the new thug was in town, mm?" He watches her
sidelong as he eats.

Rina lifts a shoulder. "I stuck up f'my friend. We kinda danced around it
some, but eventually... we figured out what was what."

Salem nods. He's quiet for a few more moments after that, concentrating on
pancakes and coffee and shifting his brain more fully into 'awake' mode.

"He calls it the hedgehog's dilemma," Rina murmurs. "We both-- we'd long
since decided there wasn't any sense in feeling, any more. I was all
fucked up, 'cause things were goin' south with Jenny... and he, he pretty
much never felt anything. He was totally shut down." She swallows. "Like
you."

Rina corrects herself a moment later. "Like you used t'be, anyway."

Salem blinks a bit at that, looking up with a forkful just lifted from his
plate. He simply looks at her; there's a touch of bemusement in his eyes,
but otherwise, his expression's hard to read.

"He reminded me so much of, of Angelo..." Her voice is soft, quieter than
the sluice and splash of water. "Somebody who'd just given up on
everything. And Id'no when we figured it out, it took a while, but
somehow... it just happened. He din't wanna get pinned down here, he kept
sayin'. But at some point he stopped sayin' it."

Salem grunts and turns his attention back to finishing his breakfast,
frowning pensively as he forks and spears the pancakes. They vanish pretty
quickly.

She ducks her head, and for a time she is still, very still. "I didn't
mean for it to happen. Not ever again. But it just... it just happened. I
never thought I'd have anything that good again, after..."

"I remember Angelo, vaguely," says the Walker thoughtfully, pushing the
last forkful of pancake around the mess of syrup on his plate. "Bone
Gnawer, wasn't he? Merria introduced us, once."

Rina nods minutely. She pours two cups of coffee, and then returns to the
counter to finish her own meal; the dark eyes are downcast, focused
somewhere far away.

Salem notes this with a rueful shake of his head. "Sorry," he mutters.
"Didn't mean to, mm, bring up old wounds."

"S'aright," Rina says quietly. "I got over it, with Angelina... you can't
look at a kid's face and let 'em see the pain. Gotta move past it,
sometimes."

Salem's brow furrows a bit at this. "Angelina?" The last bite of pancake
is still on his fork; he gives it another swipe through syrup and then
pops it into his mouth.

"Jenny was pregnant by him, when he died," she says quietly. Her smile is
soft, wistful. "So for a while I was dad... now I'm kind of like
divorce-dad."

Salem's mouth twists into a crooked half-smile at that. "Ah." He takes a
swallow of coffee -- black, of course, untainted by dairy product or
sweetener -- and then sets it down to stretch his shoulders, one hand
rubbing at the back of his neck. He glances over toward the bathroom,
grimacing faintly. "If that boy uses all the hot water..."

Rina grins. "He will if you let him," she answers. "Better train him out
of it now."

"Cubs," he mutters, with half-hearted curmudgeonity. He downs another
swallow of coffee and then pushes to his feet, taking up his plate and
silverware in order to deposit it in the sink. "Bah. Pardon while I go
evict him." On the way, he glances at her. "Thank you for breakfast. You,
ah, didn't have to."

Rina lifts a shoulder, sipping at her coffee. "You didn't have to wake up
and talk t'me, either," she answers, glancing to him with a faint smile.

"Hmmm," is all Salem has to reply to this, that and a crooked little grin
before he's headed for the bathroom.