[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

[st_oriedqueen]

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

Comments

Re: OTA

[st_upidgravity]

"Give me an apron and call me cookie." Steph saluted but since he couldn't see it, it was a wasted gesture. "What do you need me to do? I should warn you, I'm not like, a good cook or anything. But I can follow directions."

Re: OTA

[st_eadfast]

"Cookies actually sound like rather a good idea." He'd been focusing, as was his wont, on savory items. Miss Williams had done the lion's share of the baking, but she was among the gone.

Yes. A basic drop cookie, into which could be mixed fruit, chocolate, spices, or bizarre prank items at any not-a-cook's discretion. "Butter, then. Two pounds to start, cut into cubes. Should you genuinely want an apron, I believe there are some in the closet, there." Ignis pointed, in the right direction as ever, but slightly off from target.

Re: OTA

[st_upidgravity]

"Aye, aye, captain." Steph headed over to the place he'd pointed and discovered that, yes, aprons lurked within. They were, somewhat surprisingly, not actually pink, unlike everything else.

"Cold butter?" Steph called over as she tied her apron on and pulled her hair back into a braid. She wasn't a cook but she'd had long hair for most of her life. She knew it's tendency to escape at the slightest provocation.

Re: OTA

[st_eadfast]

"Refrigerated but not frozen. We'll be creaming it with the sugar, cutting it into cubes first helps." Ignis started gathering the dry ingredients, flour, salt, baking powder.

Re: OTA

[st_upidgravity]

"Gotcha." Stephanie had made chocolate chip cookies before, the ones with the recipe right on the chips bag. There was no information on it about how to treat the butter other than "put it in the bowl with the sugar." She fetched the butter from the fridge and, after pondering for a few moments, grabbed a knife off the rack. She'd always used a fork at home but cold butter didn't fork well. "So it's wet ingredients, dry ingredients but why is sugar a wet ingredient?"

Re: OTA

[st_eadfast]

"It's really just the flour that needs to be added last, separating dry and wet aids remembrance of that." Once you added flour, it was the point of no return. "But it's been my observation that butter blended with sugar mixes better with milk and eggs and such. One rarely ends up with small wet chunks of butter."

Re: OTA

[st_upidgravity]

"Wouldn't melting the butter make it easier too?" She was genuinely curious. She had, on occasion, tossed her butter and sugar into the microwave when it didn't want to blend properly.

Re: OTA

[st_eadfast]

"Yes, but it alters the texture of the cookie, makes it significantly flatter and chewier." Sometimes that was desirable, sometimes not. "Which is also why dough gets refrigerated prior to baking, to inhibit spread as the butter in the dough melts."

Re: OTA

[st_upidgravity]

That all made sense (and explained why her cookies were sometimes so chewy). "Neat." She chopped the butter into cubes and dumped it into a bowl. With Ignis being, you know, blind, there was no one to see or question why she - indifferent college student and sometime unlicensed massage therapist - could wield a knife like a pro. "Butter's ready. What's next?"