Breakfast by Jack. Pray.

[captainjack]

Stu and Jack had come to an agreement at dinner in the past week. Jane was getting close and breakfasts were getting tough on her and since there were plenty of hands to help, so it would be. This particular Monday found Jack in the kitchen. He was nothing of a cook, not the way Jane was, but he did his best. He'd made pancakes (which weren't

Comments

[no_emptynest]

Ruth would have been happy to volunteer to take Monday breakfast from Jane, had the woman made any public indication she was in need. Well, that wasn't entirely true. The young woman had been wilting visibly for weeks now, but Ruth hadn't really felt it her place to pry.

She rose early, like she often did, and made the trek up to the compound, dressed in what amounted to an awful cotton track suit and a terrycloth robe, before her shower but looking as pulled together as a woman could possibly look having just woken up in a bamboo hut.

There was a man in the kitchen, one she'd never met but had certainly seen, and the kitchen...

Ruth murmured a discrete, "Oh dear," and stood with her hands clasped over the spread, already puzzling out how to fix the mess.

[captainjack]

Jack was starting to think he was going to need to beg the clothes box for some glasses too, trying to put these tiny things together for people. He looked past the pearl and the string at the woman who didn't look very pleased.

"If you want something else, I can try for it, but no guarantees it'll be any better," he said. "I'm not at my best in the kitchen."

[no_emptynest]

"No, that's quite alright," she said, already straightening up here and there without being asked or prompted. She literally could not stand there another moment without wiping up that spilled drop of pancake batter on the stovetop.

"Are you a friend of Jane's?" Her voice was light, higher pitched with just a slight shrill. A subtle way of asking both if the woman was alright and if she knew what the man was up to in her absence.

[captainjack]

"She's like my sister, more than a friend," he said, the fondness for her clear in his voice and on his face. "Her husband and she and I had dinner the other night and I offered to take this week since she's...well, she works too hard."

[no_emptynest]

"The poor woman needs a break, she's going to run herself ragged," Ruth said, agreeing wholeheartedly but somehow managing to sound argumentative at the same time. She stood over the bowl of meat mush, eyes blinking rapidly in complete bafflement, then silently found a cover for it and stuck it back neatly into the fridge.

[captainjack]

"She's a woman of her time," he shrugged, not overly concerned. Jane worked hard, but she also listened to Stu...which, while horridly sexist in Jack's eyes, was beneficial this time. "I don't think we've met. I'm Jack."

[no_emptynest]

"Ruth Fisher," she said, turning to him and offering him an almost amused smile, "It was very kind of you to fill in, I'm sure she and her husband appreciate it."

The food was awful, but it was no doubt a thoughtful gesture.

[captainjack]

"Nice to meet you, Ruth," Jack said, poking through the pearls to find a slightly smaller one. "Stu and Jane are family. It's the least I can do."

[no_emptynest]

"Well, the pancakes certainly were ambitious," she said, and from her tone it was difficult to tell if she was possibly teasing him.

[captainjack]

"They're a little beyond me," he grinned sheepishly. "I should have stuck to toast and jam."

[no_emptynest]

"Well, it's early. There's time set a little out, just in case," she said, already moving to find the day old bread and the canned preserves.

[captainjack]

Jack scratched his hair and ducked his chin a little. "I should help...I take orders well," he offered, climbing off the stool.

[no_emptynest]

"I think we can manage toast without too many orders," she smiled, slicing the bread into hearty portions and arranging them neatly onto a plate, "You could run these through the toaster on Light, if wouldn't mind."

[captainjack]

"Yes, ma'am," he beamed, eager to do something useful. He got busy working, peering into the toaster to make sure it was working. "Is this all there is to it? Waiting?"

[no_emptynest]

"Yes, that's all there is to it," she nodded, and after months on the island she'd accepted that many of the residents had never even seen a toaster in their previous lives. "Just watch to make sure they don't get too dark, but they'll pop on their own after their time is up."

[captainjack]

With those instructions, Jack watched attentively. When they popped up, he took them out and added fresh slices. And then repeated the task until it was done.

When he turned to her with a plate of toast that was perfectly fine, he beamed proudly.

"Toast!"