Nobody Beats Me In The Kitchen

Posted on Fri Sep 27th, 2024 @ 10:06am by Ellie Evans & Spencer Gustaffson

1,651 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Secret of Corvus
Location: Megaship - Kitchen

The Megaship, being the size it was, came fully stocked and equipped. And that included the facilities, Ellie had discovered. With the overwhelming stress of the last few weeks, she needed a more comfortable place to settle herself, and there was no place she felt more able to do that than in the kitchen. It was the one space she was able to control and understand far more than the universe-ending threat the team faced.

Despite being deep in mixing a bowl of batter, out of the corner of her eye she spied a flash of blue clothing.

"Just in time!" she called through to Spencer, giving him a motion of her head to indicate he should enter her realm. "I need a taste tester." She held out a wooden spoon with a blob of mixture at the tip.

Spencer had been out on a walk through the ship. He was getting toward hunger, so headed for the kitchen. Finding Ellie there in a better mood, he walked in and grinned at her, taking the offered spoon. "Are you making cookies, cakes, bread, or something weirder than I know off the top of my head?"

"Scones!" Ellie replied. "For an Astro-Megaship that can fly through space and all, there was a disappointing selection in the pantry. Remind me to make a list for whoever keeps this place stocked." She motioned to the spoon while cleaning her hands. "Come on then, it's not going to kill you."

Spencer grinned and tasted the batter. Knowing that it was batter for scones, he nodded appreciatively. "That's going to come out really well. You're a great baker." He nodded at the comment about the supplies, thinking for a moment. "I don't know who's supposed to be the quartermaster. Maybe the robot lady?"

"Oh I have no idea..." Spotting his face, she giggled slightly. "You got some on your..." she pointed to the tip of her nose.

Spencer actually laughed, and wiped the end of his nose with his thumb, licking it off. "Oops!" He sighed. "One of these years I'll figure out the whole 'eating' thing, I swear."

"You'll get the hang of it," Ellie agreed, scooping the mix out and starting to roll some of it out with a rolling pin. "If I can learn how to be a Power Ranger, you can figure out the eating. Isn't that how it works?"

Spencer chuckled, leaning against the counter and shrugging. "Nah, being a Ranger is easy. See a monster, punch a monster. Or shoot it if you're too far away to punch it. The normal human stuff takes time and energy that I've never quite nailed."

"Depends on your definition of 'normal'," Ellie challenged back, her attention focused on the baking for the moment. "I mean, we're all from wildly different backgrounds as it is. And before all this started I'd never been to space...or even got into a scrap that wasn't between me and my sister, so..." She shrugged a little and finally glanced over. "You like raisins? I sometimes put raisins in. Think it'll work?"

Spencer nodded and thought for a moment while watching her. "I do, actually. Especially the golden ones, do we have any of them." He shrugged lightly. "I'd never been to space either - my birth parents went, though, as part of the Space Force. Their shuttle, uh... blew up. I was actually kind of scared of space, but I figured I'd get back up here, someday." He sighed. "I can't blame my mom and dad for the way they raised me, or the way I got for a while. When I was in high school, I got angry, that became my norm. It was stupid, but the only thing that saved me was realizing that I wanted to help people - even though if I was honest about it, at the time, I didn't even much like people. And then the GPF gave me the structure I didn't realize I needed." He shrugged lightly with a smile as he leaned forward over the counter. "Then we all became Rangers and the rest is history." He straightened and started looking through the cupboards, trying to find raisins - golden or regular.

"Sounds like we both had 'interesting' parents," she noted, slowly turning the mix with an absent-minded look on her face. "I suppose I can't blame mine either. But I try not to think about it too hard." She turned the mix again. "Hey, maybe we're more like a batch of scones after all; a bunch of different ingredients all mixed together to make something worthwhile. Sorry...that's a weak analogy..." She mumbled, checking to see if he'd had any luck with the raisins.

Spencer found a box of raisins at the back of the cupboard, behind several other kinds of dried fruit, and stretched to get them. He brought the box out and put it next Ellie. Once it stopped being cargo and started being an ingredient in her cooking, he knew better than to get in her way. "It's not weak at all. I think you're right - whether it's scones or anything else, we all do come together to be something special that's more than the sum of our parts." He looked at her and shrugged lightly. "What's the 'interesting' bit about your parents?"

Ellie snorted slightly, a slight eye-roll - not at him, but at the notion of having to talk about it. People seemed curious, especially when they found out about her rather 'traditional' upbringing. "The Lord and Lady? Oh there are stories. Let's just say they had a lot of expectations relating to their little girl that didn't quite pan out. I'm not sure they expected her to be running around the galaxy in green spandex, that's for sure."

Spencer smirked at Ellie's comment, chuckling lightly. "Well, there's one worry down, then. Whatever our suits are made of, that is not spandex. Lasers and swords don't just bounce off spandex. I'm sorry you've had such expectations though. I'm not sure which is worse, having someone put goals out in front of you, or having no idea what you're supposed to do. I always had a feeling there was something I was 'supposed' to do - and now that I'm here, it feels right somehow."

"I'm glad some of us feel that way," she noted, implying that the same wasn't true for her. Strangely, though, she was closer to agreeing than to disagreeing with his sentiment. As much as she had worries and fears about what they were supposed to do, the fact that she was here was one of the things that actually felt nominally right. Fate, perhaps. "Do you think your parents would be proud of you? Being a Power Ranger?" she asked after a short silence, not wanting to seem ignorant of his loss.

He thought for a moment about her question, and her insinuation that this wasn't something she felt was right. But he'd learned so far - the Solar Crystals didn't go to people by accident. Only a handful of people in the whole galaxy could handle them, and even then, they still had to earn it. He nodded after a moment of thought. "Yes. Both my blood parents and my adoptive parents would be proud, if they knew. Because this is something like what I always wanted." He shrugged lightly. "From as early as I could remember, I wanted to help people. Either as part of an OEM team or in the GPF. And now, being a Power Ranger? I can do more to help more people than if I was in either of those places."

He shrugged lightly. "It means a lot to be able to put out a fire or save people from a collapsing building; I'll never diminish the courage that takes either. But now, with the abilities we have, we can save entire worlds. As long as we work together and put our minds to it, we can help more people as Power Rangers than we could even if we had the whole GPF behind us."

She arranged the mix on the baking tray, looking down at them; small, unbaked. A lot like the team, in some ways. "Now you definitely sound like Damien," she noted with a little smirk. "Except a lot more serious." She gave the wooden spoon a little lick, then offered it to him. "It's good to lighten up sometimes too."

Spencer chuckled, taking the spoon and giving it a small lick, then nodding approvingly. "We've rubbed off on each other, certainly. When you three had to leave me behind that one time, I found a way like I always do. I realized that I can't do it alone. None of us can. I know I can be sort of standoffish, or appear that way, it's something I'm working on. It's been a hard lesson to realize that I can't be the lone fighter anymore, or the obedient soldier. Being here means being part of something important - and it means caring about each other. I'm not always the best at expressing that, in the heat of the moments when it matters."

Ellie slid the baking tray into the oven and set the timer with a quick twist of her fingers. "Well, maybe we all need to learn that lesson," she said with a kind grin. "C'mon, these will be in there a while, take a walk with me."

Spencer looked over the timer she set. He wasn't sure if it was correct (but absolutely trusted it was); but he could keep track of time, so no matter where they got to, they'd be back here in time to make sure her scones didn't get burned. "I like the sound of that." Waiting for her, his expression eased from its normal seriousness. This would be a good walk.

 

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