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“How’s it taste?” Beatrice asked a little nervously, focused on Ava.
Ava who was sitting on the kitchen counter, taking her sweet time to chew and taste and give Beatrice any hint of an opinion as to how the spaghetti they were having for dinner was tasting so far.
It was their third day in Switzerland, and they were starting to settle in a little more. Beatrice was cooking just as she had the two nights prior, but this was the first time Ava dared to venture into the kitchen while Beatrice was cooking. The only times Ava had seen Beatrice look even slightly less tense and more relaxed than usual was while she was cooking, and Ava didn’t want to take that away from her, or impede upon it.
“It’s good,” Ava finally said, nodding decisively and smiling at Bea.
Beatrice blinked. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean?” Ava asked, confused. She felt her eyebrows draw together and her lips turn up in a frown.
“You… You took so long to say something, I just expected a bit more than “it’s good”,” Beatrice explained, trying not to focus on the bit of sauce at the corner of Ava’s mouth.
“Oh,” Ava said, frowning. “Sorry. I was just eating it. It was good.”
Beatrice took a deep breath and sighed once more before turning around and continuing to cook over the stove.
Ava worried her bottom lip for a minute, she was pretty sure Beatrice was upset, or annoyed, or something, but she couldn’t figure it out and she didn’t know how to make it better.
“Did I- That wasn’t what you wanted to hear, was it?” Ava asked, sitting on her hands and letting her legs swing back and forth, gently knocking on the wood of the cabinets below the counter.
Beatrice sighed before turning around. If there was one thing Ava had learnt about Beatrice because of their hiding in Switzerland, it was that she sighed a lot.
“There was nothing wrong with it, but usually when someone asks someone else how the food they’re cooking tastes, they’ll tell them what they liked and what they didn’t, especially if they took that long,” she said, turning around to face Ava and lean back against the counter next to the stove.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said immediately, feeling bad.
“No, no you didn’t do anything wrong,” Beatrice said honestly, reaching forward to squeeze Ava’s shoulder. “I just… would like it if you gave me a bit more of an opinion.”
“It’s just,” Ava chuckled humourlessly as she turned her head and looked away from Beatrice. “My only marker for how good food can taste is the food they fed me at St. Michael’s. And that food was horrible, it was so bad-” Ava shuddered, “Literally just about anything in the world could top it, I’m sure. So I just- I need a bit more guidance, I think. Maybe you could ask me things?”
Ava watched Beatrice mull over her words for a few seconds before asking her a question.
“Did you like it?”
“Yes,” Ava answered immediately.
“And, what did you like about it?”
Ava blushed briefly. “Um- I liked the sauce in the spaghetti. The way it felt.”
“The texture?”
“Yeah. And the taste.”
Beatrice smiled, it was only small and her lips were pressed together, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Was it too salty, or not salty enough?”
Ava shook her head. “No, it was good. I liked it.”
“Okay,” Beatrice said, nodding in content. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for cooking,” Ava returned quickly before Beatrice turned around.
“You’re welcome,” Beatrice laughed quietly. “It’ll be done soon.”
“Do you want me to get a drink for you?” Ava said as she hopped off the counter.
“Yes, please, I’d appreciate that. Just some water is fine.”
“Cold or tap?”
“Cold, please.”
“Okay,” Ava said cheerily, moving around Beatrice in the small space of their kitchen.
She walked carefully with both of their glasses of water once she had filled them up, and put them down on their round dining table that was already in the apartment when they got there.
“Bea?” Ava called out. She had taken to calling Beatrice that, and Beatrice never said anything about it, so it stuck. “Can we have the sharp cheese with it?”
“The sharp cheese?” Beatrice asked, turning towards Ava in confusion as she walked back into the kitchen.
“Yeah, the one we had last night. It’s kind of sharp.”
“Oh. The parmesan cheese.”
“Whatever it’s called. Can we have it?” Ava asked again, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Yeah, it’s in the fridge. You’ll be alright to grate it?”
“Yeah, it looks easy enough. Plus, if I grate my hand by mistake, the Halo will fix it, so it’s fine.”
“Ava-” Beatrice said as she carried the pot of spaghetti from the stove over to the counter. “You can’t just rely on the Halo to heal you all the time. You’ll overexert yourself one day, and you should learn how to do things without it as well. The Halo is-”
“-something that should only enhance what you do, not something to be relied on,” Ava finished in time with her, resulting in Beatrice narrowing her eyes at her. “I know, Bea, I’ve heard that line too many times since we’ve been here. Really, you should come up with something else. Make it a little more interesting for me.”
“I…” Beatrice started, a little confused and unsure of what to say.
Ava giggled at the look on her face. “Don’t worry, Bea, I’m kidding. You totally should come up with something new, but I am listening, promise. See?”
Ava started to grate the block of parmesan cheese she had pulled out of the fridge. It was going well, until-
“Ow.”
“Ava! What did we just talk about?!”