Daughter AU - Traditions

[troublewillfindme]

Generally speaking, he cannot cook. He is a hazard in the kitchen, an uncanny talent for culinary catastrophe plaguing him most of his adult life.

He’d considered taking another crack at learning to cook once Sally came into his life, the result of a vague understanding that one was not supposed to raise a small child on a diet of take-out, frozen foods, and candy.

Jack had quickly disabused him on the notion, however. “With your luck? You’ll burn the house down and you’ll both end up on my couch. No, I’ll handle the cooking.”

So, yes, they are over at Jack’s with some regularity.

 

It’s a system that works well, honestly. Jack cooks; he cleans; there is always someone to keep an eye on Sally. It’s not that he doubts Jane’s babysitting prowess, but his daughter is remarkably curious and remarkably resourceful, a combination of traits whose possibilities frighten him deeply if he pauses too long to consider them.

He hasn’t quite gotten over the idea of his daughter, let alone the reality. She is sweet and funny, and he sometimes thinks that the responsible thing to do would be to sit her down and explain to her that the best thing she could possibly do upon turning eighteen would be to get as far away from him as humanly possible.

He won’t, though. If he’s honest with himself, he can’t. He doesn’t deserve her, doesn’t deserve her wide-eyed innocence or the ferocity of her hugs. He knows what he has done; he knows he does not deserve to hear “I love you” or the chance to tuck her in at night.

And yet, here she is. Here they are. His own little family in spite of it all.

There are not many things he carries with him from his childhood, but this is certainly one of them. Maybe the most important.

For once, they are in his kitchen, blithely unsupervised. Sally sits at the table, one of his old, worn button downs serving as a kind of smock. Her hair, already getting long, is held safely back. She stirs at the mixture in the bowl with the utmost seriousness, but occasionally pausing to laugh as Jane licks at her feet.

He stares at the muffin tins, waiting for the oven to finish its pre-heat.

The Faradays may not have had much, but they made do with what they could. He still remembers sitting in the kitchen with his adoptive mother, the smell of fresh pumpkin muffins permeating the air.

The oven beeps, and he relieves Sally of her mixing duties. She relinquishes the bowl and spatula somewhat sadly, and watches in fascination as he portions the batter into the muffin cups.

Jane herds her back towards the kitchen table, away from the oven, giving him room slide in the two tins. He checks the temperature again and sets the timer on his phone, making sure its volume is set high enough.

“Now, we wait?” Sally asks.

“Now, we wait.”