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"Alright, Fitz?" called Hunter just before he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "Right, let's get your kit on and then I'll go fetch your handler."
"My handler?" laughed Fitz, picking up the enormous faux fur onesie that had been laid out for him. "You make me sound like some sort of CIA asset."
Hunter shrugged as Fitz slipped his feet into the capacious leg holes.
"You can entertain yourself with spy fantasies if you like, mate, but know that once we get this suit on, you won't be able to see a thing. So I mean "handler" in the much more literal sense of the word."
Fitz sighed. Dressing up as the Gingerbread Man for the street parade of a local festival wasn't his favourite way to spend a Saturday, but ever since he'd started working for Hunter at his boutique sweet shop and cafe, the pair had become firm friends. This was a great way to promote the business and seeing as Hunter and his partner Bobbi were both needed to man the store, Fitz had reluctantly agreed to wear the suit. He obediently struggled into the brown furry outfit and stood still while Hunter zipped it up in the back. He was properly trapped.
His friend took up the slightly more structured, giant, round, smiling face and gave Fitz a sympathetic smile before lowering it over his head.
"Bob and I really appreciate this, mate," Hunter said, fastening the head to the neck with the press studs that secured it. "You know that, right?"
Fitz shrugged. "'Course. Least I can do."
“And we’ve thought of a way to pay you back already.”
Hunter’s tone had turned distinctly mischievous.
“Please, Hunter,” Fitz pleaded, “just buy me a beer or something.”
“Nah, mate. You’re gonna love this. Promise,” he insisted. “Anyway, I’m off upstairs. I’ll send in your handler.”
While he waited, Fitz stood about taking stock of how dark it was under the grinning helmet.
"Fitz?" called a woman's voice.
"Err, yeah?" he replied, turning in the direction of what he hoped was the door and sounding for all the world like he was talking into a pillow.
He heard what sounded an awful lot like a giggle and the click of a camera, then he sensed someone drawing closer.
"Can you breathe under there?"
Thinking about where the air was coming from made him feel suddenly claustrophobic. He reached up to struggle with the head a little until he felt the cool winter air on his lips.
"Ah, here we go. Found some mesh to breathe through."
"Phew!" the woman replied. "I don't think I'm up to dragging your unconscious body up the street!"
"Well, that's a comforting image," Fitz grumbled.
"I'm Jemma, by the way," the woman said. "I'm going to be your handler today."
"Great," said Fitz, staggering once more in the direction of her voice. "Because it turns out I can't see a bloody thing."
"Don't worry," said Jemma soothingly and he gathered that the brown pointy-toed boots that filled the entire blurry square of his vision belonged to her. "I've done a lot of this before. You'll be safe with me."
Fitz was intrigued. "How does a person build up experience in this sort of thing?" he asked.
Her voice sounded from somewhere very near. "I'd like to tell you that I've been working as one of the Snow Whites at Disneyland so I've had lots of practice guiding around Dopey and Doc."
"Yeah, that does sound fun," he agreed. "But really?"
Suddenly he felt her hand slip into his, covered though it was by a somewhat scratchy layer of faux fur.
"I'm an occupational therapist specialising in rehabilitation," she replied. "I spend all day guiding people who either can't see well or can't trust their depth perception or can't trust their limbs to remain steady. Anyway, trust me, I'm good at this. Shall we go?"
"Lead the way," said Fitz, noting he'd never before delivered that line with so much vulnerability.
She tugged lightly on his hand and he obediently stepped in the direction of her pulling.
"Alright, she said calmly. "You're going to need to duck to get under this door way, then we're turning left, straight onto a fairly steep flight of stairs."
Fitz pictured the scene as she described it, recognising her accurate description of the basement storeroom under the cafe in which he'd changed into his suit.
Jemma led him carefully up the stairway, supplying him with accurate and timely information all the way.
"You are good at this," he agreed, observing the change in light that heralded their arrival upstairs. "I feel quite safe!"
"Good," she replied, and she must have turned backwards because she suddenly took both his hands in hers. "I'm just leading you a bit carefully here because we have to weave through the chairs and tables. Don't want you ending up sprawled on the floor!"
Fitz nodded, though the movement was lost in the excess material of his outfit. "I fully support you in your efforts to keep me upright," he said. "There would be nothing dignified in trying to clamber to one's feet in this get up!"
"Nearly outside," she commented. "Okay, three shallow steps down and we're on the street. Three, two, one."
The wind must have been icy because it bit Fitz even through the bulky suit.
"Blimey," muttered Jemma. "It's freezing out here."
"Are you rugged up?" Fitz asked. "I can only see your boots."
"Not really," she replied, and he could already hear the quaver of a shiver in her voice. "I'm just wearing the Gingerbread House t-shirt Bobbi gave me to put on.
"Nothing underneath?" he squeaked, then realised it sounded like he was enquiring about something other than her maintaining an optimal body temperature. "Don't answer that!"
Jemma laughed again and Fitz realised both expressions of amusement had thus far been at his expense. But he liked the sound, it was sort of musical, so he resolved to see if he could hear more of it as the day wore on.
“How did you come to get roped into this?” Fitz asked.
Her teeth were properly chattering now. “I’m a friend of B-Bobbi’s,” she explained. “I owe her so many favours, and this one sounded almost fun! Though I wasn’t b-banking on the wind chill.”
Fitz had a moment’s pause before he gallantly held out one heavy fur arm and said “Umm, Jemma? Maybe you could slide in here? I guess I am sort of wearing a giant blanket.”
Whether she looked him over or hesitated or grimaced, Fitz would never know, but within a second or two, the pointy brown boots reappeared in his one small square of vision and he felt her press in against his side. He draped his arm around her shoulders and hesitantly drew her as close as he dared.
“Thank you, Fitz,” she sighed. “This is so much better.”
“And it is sort of practical too,” he went on brightly, “considering that you’ve got to lead me all the way up the street in these crowds!”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “This should make my job much easier.”
It didn’t take them long to get to the assembly point on the oval of the local primary school and in the carnival atmosphere of the rehearsing marching band and the West-African drumming group, with an unknown but attractive-sounding woman in his arms, Fitz began to feel positively festive.
However, the standing around was no fun at all for Jemma.
“Fitz, I know we’ve never met…” she began, as she moved round to face him, sliding both arms rather snugly around his waist, “but do you mind terribly if I sort of cuddle up to you like this? Just while we wait? My hands are like little ice-buckets!”
One of the gripes of Fitz’s single existence was that he didn’t mind a cuddle and cuddles for single men (especially single men who found the whole pick-up artist thing deeply disturbing and predatory) were a little hard to come by. In his little blurry grid of vision, he no longer saw boots. Instead, his window on the world gave him an impression of chocolate brown wavy hair and a distinct but subtle flowery scent. He noticed that she was just a little bit shorter than him.
“Err, fine, yeah,” he replied, wrapping his fur-covered arms around her and relishing the human contact.
“Thank you,” sighed Jemma, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. “I’d be in serious danger of turning into an ice-sculpture without you.”
“Glad to be of service,” replied Fitz. “Besides, you’re no good to me if you’re frozen.” He splayed his hands across her back, not that she’d be able to tell through his fuzzy mittens.
“So,” she said conversationally, “are costumes a big part of your life?”
Fitz laughed. “Not exactly, unless you count that apron Hunter has me wearing in the cafe. You?”
“I take costume parties far too seriously,” she replied with an air of confession.
“Okay, now I need to hear all the stories.”
When at last the parade got itself organised enough to start walking, Fitz was almost regretful. Jemma had kept him chuckling with her hilarious anecdotes about the lengths to which she regularly went to create the perfect costume and something about the lilt of her voice, or the character traits her stories revealed, intrigued him. Hitting the street with the noise of the crowd and the marching band directly behind them made further conversation impossible. But she remained snuggled into his side, which was almost as good as the cuddles, until they hit the steep hill and even the pale winter sunlight became a bit much.
Though she stepped out from under his arm, Jemma slid her hand into his once more, leading him confidently up the street until they reached the top. The enormous marching band had settled themselves under their designated canopy and had begun to play some renditions of the latest pop songs scored for brass. The music was infectious, even to Fitz, and whether or not it was the freedom of hiding behind a giant furry costume head, he couldn’t help dancing along with Jemma’s brown boots shuffling eagerly in his blurred line of sight.
Kids began rushing up to him for tackle-cuddles around the legs and some mostly playful punches but Jemma was quick to defend him from the more aggressive of his admirers and spin him away into a more intimate style of dancing that caught up just the two of them. He genuinely believed he might actually enjoy dancing with Jemma even without the protection of his suit, especially when he caught the occasional sound of her laughter or a phrase of her singing along to the band through his odd little window. His desire to get to know her better was increasing with every little detail he managed to glean.
While Jemma kept him safe from his affectionate attackers and simultaneously kept him moving uncharacteristically enthusiastically to the music, Fitz idly wondered if this might be what a real relationship would be like. Mutual concern and assistance, laughter, cuddles, actually getting to know someone. It seemed like maybe it wouldn't be such a bad set-up. He also began to idly wonder if Jemma was in a relationship. She hadn't mentioned anyone specific.
The only female who had even vaguely registered on his horizon had been this staggeringly beautiful woman who came into the cafe now and then. Hunter took every opportunity he could to rib Fitz about his mystery girl but how was he supposed to help his stunned silence whenever she walked in? He'd taken to just ducking downstairs to the store room whenever he saw her coming to save himself the embarrassment. He could never talk to a woman like that. He'd only make a fool of himself. Thankfully Bobbi had never witnessed his utter romantic failure. She'd probably enroll him in some patronising social skills course and sign him up to a dating website. Hunter would be beside himself with glee.
The band began to wind down and Fitz and Jemma found themselves panting to recover their breath. Whether or not it was the endorphins from the exertion, Fitz would never know but something prompted him to say, "Wanna piggy back?"
The sheer delight in Jemma's musical laugh cemented the idea as his best yet and in a heartbeat she'd found a low retaining wall to stand on so that she could leap onto his back.
The first few steps were highly successful. He could hear her warm laughter right in his ear and her whole body was wrapped around him. It was a dream! But without her eyes on the ground before them, Fitz was walking blind.
He never found out what precisely it was that tripped him but down he came, gracelessly crashing to the ground where he lay winded for some moments with Jemma sprawled on top of him.
"Fitz!" she cried, panicked. "Are you okay!?"
"Err, I think so," he murmured, "but you might have to help me up!"
Once Jemma heaved him to his feet, he went to step forward but the minute he placed his full weight on his right leg, he felt it go from underneath him. The pain was impressive.
"What can we do?" Jemma cried. "We're too far away to take you back to the cafe!"
"Can you see a big shop front with an Office Magic sign anywhere?" he asked through gritted teeth.
After a moment, Jemma shouted, "Yes! It's just to your left!"
"Good," he sighed in relief. "My apartment's directly opposite."
"With a sort of old school art deco foyer?" she asked.
"That's the one. Think you can get us there?"
Jemma wrapped her arm under his right shoulder and encouraged him forward. "Lean on me," she said.
The only words he heard from her for the next minute or two were, "Excuse me! Excuse me! Injured Gingerbread Man coming through!" but he was too busy concentrating on avoiding excruciating pain to find it all that amusing.
At last he made out the familiar creak of his unoiled apartment block entrance door and then the din of the crowd suddenly dimmed behind them.
"Okay, we're in," Jemma said. "What now?"
"Lift," gasped Fitz. "Third floor."
"Done," she replied, hitting the button forcibly enough that he heard the sharp clack.
When the lift stopped, Jemma guided him out.
"Apartment Eight," he said, and she maneuvered him down the narrow corridor helping him lean on the wall for support.
"Key?" she said suddenly.
"Oh, no," Fitz groaned, patting at his suit. "Here, in my left front jeans pocket."
Without so much as announcing her intentions, Jemma was suddenly unzipping his suit from behind. It felt oddly exhilarating. Perhaps it was just the pain.
Her cold hand slid carefully along his back, around his side, down his waist and patted cautiously about until she managed to find the right pocket.
"That's the one!" Fitz cried, noticing the extra octave his voice had raised itself.
"Sorry, Fitz!" Jemma whispered.
He didn't let himself dwell too deeply on the sensation of her hand plunging into his pocket and it was mercifully over quickly.
The keys dug into him as Jemma navigated her way efficiently out of his suit and turned her attention to the door.
She guided him to one of his kitchen chairs, one hand nestling through the open zip to rest comfortingly against his back.
"We have to get you out of the suit," she announced. "I assume you're decent under there."
He was, but he had never felt more sympathy towards Michael Fassbender's eccentric character, Frank, in the movie of the same name as Jemma began to gently undo the poppers that secured his enormous faux fur smiling helmet.
He had been witty, confident even fun in the suit. Heck, he'd even danced. Now he was going to lose his disguise and be left as just his disappointing, pasty self.
But she was focused on getting to his ankle as quickly as possible so, though the poppers about his neck hung loose, Jemma's issued commands and gentle maneuvering and manipulating of him was all focused on his lower body until it at least was free and unencumbered.
While she gingerly removed his shoe, Fitz was left still entirely unnecessarily sporting the giant head. His anti-climactic revelation was entirely within his own power.
Fitz took a deep breath and then reached up to divest himself of his disguise. The first breath of fresh air made him feel instantly more human.
A petite, dark-haired woman was rifling through his freezer.
"No ice packs?" she demanded.
"Frozen peas?" he offered instead.
He saw her nod decisively into his refrigerator and then she grabbed the peas, slammed the door and turned back to face him. It was his hopeless crush from the café.
"Ohhhh," he groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "Of course it'd be you. Bloody Hunter."
She was silent a moment, face hidden as she ransacked his lower kitchen drawers in search of a tea towel. At last she located one.
"Err, Fitz?" Her voice sounded strained.
He supposed his would too, lumped with a socially deficient idiot in a fairytale costume who couldn't even put one foot in front of the other correctly.
"I wasn't aware that we knew one another," she said carefully.
Fitz shook his head. "You come into the cafe sometimes. Hunter always gives me a hard time because..." He heard himself on the verge of an awkward and almost certainly unwanted confession. "It doesn't matter."
Jemma studiously averted her gaze, focusing once more on his swollen ankle. “As it happens,” she said, reaching for a compact messenger bag she must have been carrying with her, “I always travel with bandages and pain killers. Occupational hazard, you understand.”
Fitz nodded, trying not to wince as she gently touched his swollen joint.
“I know it probably feels terrible,” she said sympathetically.
He clenched his teeth. “No,” he said, hoping he sounded nonchalant. “It’s not too bad, really.”
Jemma looked back at him skeptically. “So if I do this?” She grasped his foot firmly and bent his toes downwards.
Fitz didn’t imagine he would ever recover his dignity after the high-pitched yelp that escaped him.
“Mmm, thought so,” she replied knowingly. “We better get you to bed so we can elevate that ankle more effectively. It’ll be easier to bandage there too.”
He started rapidly cataloguing all of the things that were likely to be spread all over his bedroom floor. It was lucky he never stood a chance with this girl.
“Alright,” she said firmly, taking her place by his side and encouraging him to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “One, two, three, up!”
Fitz obediently followed her lead, though he tried his hardest to keep the bulk of his weight off her shoulders.
“Let me help, Fitz,” she said, exasperated. “You’ve got a bad sprain there.”
He may have allowed one or two more hundredths of his weight to lean on her in response.
After what seemed like an eternity of shuffling, they got him settled onto his bed.
Jemma smirked at the empty teacups scattered all over his bedside table and indulgently carried an armful of them back to the kitchen while he gingerly obeyed her command to get his jeans off. It was much harder going than he’d imagined and by the time she wandered brazenly back into the room he was at his most exposed.
He yelped again and grabbed for the covers in an attempt to preserve at least a smidgeon of his remaining dignity.
“Oh, Fitz,” she sighed, walking purposefully towards him. He didn’t have a lot of experience of beautiful women prowling towards his bed, insistent on divesting him of his trousers, but if it were ever to happen again, he wanted it to be under vastly different circumstances. He didn’t mind if the casting remained unchanged, his traitorous brain reminded him, but he pushed the scandalous thought to one side.
In one hand, Jemma held two yellow pills and a glass of water.
“Here,” she said, offering them to him. “These will help with the pain. Though I should warn you, they may make you a little bit drowsy. Some people get a little delirious too...”
…
Fitz woke and thumped off his alarm which, after reading one of those productivity books, he had conscientiously set to go off at six am every day. It did not ever seem to help him get out of bed before eight.
He flung his arm back across the pillows with every intention of drifting back to sleep but when his knuckles brushed against what was undoubtedly the softness of human hair, his entire being was catapulted into complete and utter alertness.
He carefully turned his head to the side.
Yes. There she was.
It was her.
And she was sleeping in his bed.
On closer inspection, not only was she sleeping in his bed, she was also sleeping in his clothes. His mum had knitted him a Fair Isle jumper for the previous Christmas. It was undoubtedly the softest and most comfortable item of clothing he owned. And now the most beautiful women he had ever seen was wearing it while she slept beside him.
He cautiously lifted the sheets a little way then snapped them back down when his suspicions were confirmed. She was in his bed, wearing his jumper but no trousers! Oh, Buddha. How was he ever going to recover from this!?
She stirred and started to move so he took the only mature option open to him and pretended to still be asleep.
“Fitz?” he heard her whisper. Now what did he do? Play dead? Or go for the Oscar-winning “your dulcet tones have awoken me” performance he'd had no opportunity to rehearse?
He hesitantly chose the latter, stretching and yawning like a consummate professional.
“Oh,” he said, noting that no particular thespian effort was required for his voice to sound like he’d been drinking heavily all week. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Jemma replied with a wry smile that made him paranoid she hadn’t bought any of it.
“You’re still here,” he observed redundantly.
Her smile grew broader and more mischievous. “You don’t remember, do you?”
Fitz felt the cold fingers of doom creeping up his neck. “Remember what?”
“Well, your reaction to the drugs was pretty extreme,” she replied. “I’ve never seen them work so much like a truth serum before.”
“Err… what?”
“You became particularly loquacious from the moment you took them,” she commented, amusement dancing in her eyes. “I was treated to your full philosophy of life, your extensive thoughts on the future of Europe post-Brexit, quite a melodramatic commentary of the development of your pain, a rather poetic cataloguing of all the things about me that you thought were wonderful and a heart-warming confession of your undying love for me that you admitted has been building ever since that first moment you ducked out of my line of sight in the cafe three months ago.”
“Oh,” murmured Fitz. “Great.”
“You simply insisted I try on your mum’s jumper. And you should have heard yourself gallantly declaring your intentions to paint pictures of me and write epic poems for me and arrange extravagant photo shoots of me in it. Anyone would think I’d just donned the latest season Oscar de la Renta ball gown.”
“Well, it… umm.. It is a nice jumper,” he countered lamely.
“And then you pleaded for me to stay with you,” she continued, still twinkling. “And I thought I’d better, because after your near psychosis, who knows what you might have done if left to your own devices.”
Fitz covered his face with his hands. “Did I.. erm.. try anything?” he asked. “Please tell me I didn’t try anything. With you, I mean.”
Jemma laughed.
He still loved the sound of it, even despite his extreme mortification.
“You were the perfect gentleman,” she assured him. “Which I must admit, I found a little disappointing.”
Fitz lifted his arms off his face and turned to her with an incredulous expression.
“You were hardly in a fit state to attempt anything too vigorous,” she said defensively. “But I sort of hoped you might at least try to kiss me.”
“W-why… Err, why did you hope that?” he stammered, more baffled than ever by the female of the species.
“Alright,” she sighed, sliding her legs out of bed and sitting with her back to him. “I got your confession out of you by nefarious means. I might as well return the favour.”
She leant forwards to find her jeans on the floor and pulled them on quickly. Fitz couldn’t help but appreciate the fleeting glimpse of lavender lace underpants and the pale, small of her back as she did them up before letting his jumper fall back over the waistband and turning back to face him.
“I noticed you too, that very first time I dropped into the cafe. Bobbi and I have been friends for ages but I never knew that it was her place and I hadn’t yet met Hunter. I’ve been living overseas for a while and since moving back, my work has been my entire life. The Gingerbread House was just a convenient place to get a coffee. Aaaaand it happened to be the work place of the best-looking man I'd laid eyes on in a very long time."
Fitz no longer trusted his brain. It had obviously betrayed him outrageously the previous evening, so it didn't matter what he thought he heard, none of it could possibly be as it seemed.
"Hunter?" he enquired lamely.
Jemma turned back to him, rolling her eyes. "You, you wally."
"You think I'm good looking," he repeated, flatly. "You."
"Well, why not?" she asked defensively. "I suppose there's no accounting for taste. Maybe you’re just my type!”
Fitz looked down at his rumpled t-shirt, cheap boxer shorts, bare hairy legs and the now well-and-truly defrosted bag of somewhat mushy peas resting precariously on his thankfully much less swollen ankle.
“What about this is your type?”
“Does it matter?” she asked haughtily. “I just find you very attractive, alright?”
He shrugged in the face of her obvious lunacy.
“Anyway, on Thursday I finally happened upon the cafe when Hunter and Bobbi were both on together. They’d sent you out to pick up some more supplies or something.”
Fitz nodded in recognition of those facts.
“Bobbi introduced me to Hunter and he loved the fact that we knew each other because apparently he’d been trying to tell her for weeks about this girl that you had a desperate crush on. He claimed it was me. I’ve never seen anyone quite so gleeful.”
“Bloody Hunter,” Fitz said once more with feeling.
“I was, of course, completely taken by surprise because every time you saw me coming, you practically ran in the opposite direction. The amount of times I’d come in only to catch sight of your back as you disappeared down the stairs to the storeroom…” She fixed him with a look. “I was beginning to take it quite personally.”
“Sorry,” Fitz mumbled.
“They both raved about you. Told me what an amazing guy you are, how much they love you and think of you as part of the family. So I asked Bobbi if she’d set the two of us up, and Hunter was the one who came up with this little scheme.”
“You asked to be set up with me?” he asked incredulously, certain the pain medication was acting up again.
“I did.”
“And you entrusted the specifics to Hunter!?”
“They both seemed to think, rightly I imagine, that you’d never even come near me let alone talk to me on your own. Hunter thought that maybe if you didn’t know it was me, you’d sort of open up. And you did, didn’t you? So I guess he was right.”
“Did I open up before you fed me the psychosis-inducing truth serum?”
Jemma rolled her eyes. “It was pain medication, Fitz, for your sprained ankle, remember? And, yes, you did! We were dancing together out on the street!”
“Huh,” Fitz responded. “I suppose.”
“I had a really good time with you, actually,” she said, so quietly he almost missed it.
“You did?” he asked hopefully. Goodness he was pathetic.
“Yeah, I did.” She twisted her fingers together nervously. “I’d like to go out with you again if you’re still interested.”
Fitz felt his eyebrows suddenly launching off to explore his hairline. “Y-Yeah,” he stammered. “Definitely. Yeah, I’m interested.”
“How about breakfast then?”
Fitz grinned. “Should I wear the suit?”
Jemma’s laugh somehow sounded even more musical. “Why don’t I just borrow your jumper this time?”
“It’s pretty cold out there, remember?” warned Fitz. “Want to borrow a coat too?”
She fixed him with a look. “I don’t want to be too warm,” she replied playfully. “Then I’d need to find some other excuse to cuddle up to you.”
“Jemma,” Fitz said seriously, bringing his arms around her. “If your main objective is cuddling up to me, to which, by the way, I am extremely amenable, we’re pretty well set up for that right here.”
“What if my second main objective is eating breakfast?” she asked, just as seriously, tilting her head back to look into his eyes.
She was tantalisingly close. So close he could feel her warm breath on his face.
“I-I could make us pancakes?” he whispered.
Her light brown eyes flickered down to his lips and back up to meet his gaze.
“Okay, but not just yet,” Jemma whispered back.
“Do you think I should rest my ankle a little longer?” Fitz asked.
“Mmm,” she nodded, her hazel eyes twinkling. “And while you’re doing that, I think you should maybe spend some time kissing me.”
Fitz grinned like an idiot for the instant it took her to close the space between them. Her full lips were soft against his mouth, their first kiss sweet and tentative.
When they broke apart, Fitz was still smiling. “I imagine this sort of thing will do wonders for my recovery.”
Jemma pretended to pout. “Suddenly you’re all in a rush to get back on your feet!”
He shook his head. “I doubt I could brave the outside world without my handler.”
“No more talk of the outside world,” she said, smiling. “Kissing, pancakes and then we can get set for you to paint that portrait, Picasso.”
“Picasso? I mean Cubism is fine if that’s your thing, but-”
Fitz wasn’t sure whether it was the force of her eye roll or her landing deliciously in his lap that cut him off. Either way, the first item on Jemma’s agenda was thoroughly attended to before they moved on to pancakes.