solo_sword | MCA #6- Tuesday evening

Jaina had had a full day. Class, training to make up for what she'd missed, shopping for tonight because she was woefully underprepared... And there'd been a call home. Spending two days looking like Jacen had been a wakeup call in a few ways. First and foremost, looking like someone she was mad at every time she caught her reflection had really made her start to feel guilty. She had a perfectly good reason to be mad at Jacen for the stunt he'd pulled, but she had to get over it sometime. It didn't mean she had to trust him. Besides, if she did take that incident as a sign that he was leaning the way she feared he wouldn't, then maybe he didn't need her isolating herself from him.

So she'd swallowed her considerable pride and called. It wasn't too awkward, and when she said she had to end the transmission to start cooking, his reaction had actually been something like the old Jacen's would have been. Maybe there was a way to work at this.

But for now, she had that dinner to finish. Don't think that Jaina was trying to impress John, except for how she maybe was a little, but he'd offered the challenge and so she was rising to it. Of course it wouldn't be that simple, though. As soon as she tried straining the vegetables (by putting a plate up against the edge of the pot so that the water could drain out, because someone didn't own a colander), the steam was just enough to set off the smoke alarm.

"Oh come on," Jaina yelled at it. "I didn't even do anything!"

[For the possible food poisoning victim!]

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"The cardio thing at the gym," she said. She'd ended up doing that much the same way she'd ended up doing this. As the timer went off and she went to get the chicken from the oven, she went on, "I still don't own spandex, by the way."

"You did that? Did I see this class?" John didn't recall.

"I did that, but I don't know if you watched," she said, studying the chicken to make sure it looked okay. She'd put it in a little long, because she figured it was better to overcook than undercook. "Maybe it'd have been more memorable with the spandex..."

"Probably," he agreed. "Most things are."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Oh, and there's the part where I decided I didn't need a dining set because I'd never use it? Well, we get to use the coffee table for dinner. Hope you don't mind."

John wasn't expecting edible food so he was pretty far from caring about the location. "I'm used to alternative meal locations."

"Does this mean you eat standing up in your kitchen a lot?" she wondered, picking up a couple of the dishes to move to the living room.

John grabbed the glasses and bottle to follow. "More like standing at the bar."

"Like Caritas, you mean?" she checked, setting things out. If so, that was a potentially worrisome statement.

"That too," he nodded, taking a seat. "So is this Jedi food?" He was totally kidding.

"No. Jedi food is fixed by a processor, first off, which would be great to have here," she said wistfully, bringing over plates and utensils and taking a seat, "and is honestly probably- Well, I'm not going to pass judgment on what I made till I try it."

"And you should. First. Then, if you're alive in five minutes I'll try it."

"If you're really that scared to try it," she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and stabbed a small piece of chicken with her fork to try. Really, meat was going to be the potentially scary thing here.

And if she looked surprised, well. It was a little dry, and she wouldn't be winning any food competitions (someone needed to take the TV away from her), but it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought.

John laughed at her surprise but started eating anyway. "Nah, just wanting to see how scared you were. It's not bad. There's hope for developing domestic skills yet."

"There's still no point," she told him. "You know how many times I had to cook for myself when I was at home? Never. Which should make this a little more impressive now."

"Or it just says something about home." John wasn't sure where he was going with that.

"Like what?" she asked, looking over at him.

"It's a cultural thing," John shrugged, trying to explain. In my country, we put a lot of importance on cooking and eating as some familial bonding time."

That kind of put the eating at the bar comment into a new kind of perspective. "That makes sense," she nodded. "It's probably partly my lifestyle, too. Does that mean we're bonding now?"

"Dinner plus bonding? I didn't come prepared for all that," he teased.

"I think it's too late. I hear it's a cultural thing," she said lightly.

"I probably should point out we're not family and you're less than likely to drop your fork and remind me that I'm not as funny as I think I am." Like his father would have done in the past.

Jaina felt a little bit of an ache at that, because she used to think of him as family. She pushed it away, though, something that wasn't always so easy to do anymore. "I don't think I could say that unless I was messing with you," she admitted.

"Because you find me endlessly entertaining?" John waved a bite of speared chicken on his fork.

"Well, you do add a certain something to the days I see you." She'd given up on fighting that fact.

MCA #6- Tuesday evening

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