multiversallogs | (no subject)

Who: Martha Jones and Maggie Thomas.
What: Maggie's going to attempt to show Martha how to cook. There's no way this can go wrong.
Where: Hellsing's kitchen
When: Late evening?
Warnings: Not at the moment?

After her shift, Martha moved from the medical ward and headed towards the kitchens. If it hadn't been for the thoughts of actually staying here for the long term, Martha might not have asked for the recipe, but it seemed like taking a step in the right direction. Besides, Martha had liked Maggie the last time that she had spoken to her when she'd arrived.

Pushing up the sleeves of her sweater, Martha has already decided that this round of cooking lessons was going to be better than trying to learn from the book of recipes that Brax had provided. Maybe recipes were a part of the problem and she just needed to go with her gut when planning on how to cook things. And maybe she needed to not watch them so closely. Or let them catch on fire.

Martha smiled when she entered the kitchen, announcing her presence with a knock on the door before she came inside of it. It was only polite when stepping into the area that was under the dominion of someone else. The forays that Martha had made into the kitchen had definitely informed her as to just how far outside her normal capabilities this place was.

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The last time Maggie had shown somebody how to cook was... never. Her mother never really stuck around in the kitchen for any longer than was necessary to demand dinner or berate her daughter for something she may or may not have did. Maggie honestly doesn't know the first thing about teaching somebody else what comes so naturally to her, but cooking is really the only thing she knows how to do and do well, so a rare opportunity to show off isn't going to be taken lightly.

Her back is turned to the door when Martha shows up, elbow deep in soap suds as she scrubs out a large soup pot at the sink. She could have had the rest of the kitchen crew do it, but never send a child to do an adult's job. Maggie is quite particular about some things. Clean utensils are one of them.

"Hey. Wash your hands." If Martha thinks she's really just going to watch, she has another think coming.

The order to wash her hands was expected, and Martha headed over to the sink and quickly began to give her hands a good hand washing. After all, it made sense, given germs and everything. Once her hands were cleaned, Martha turned off the water with a well-placed elbow and then turned to look at Maggie again with a smile.

"I am actually really good at taking directions," Martha began to assure Maggie. There was something about seeing the woman in the kitchen that reminded her of Francine, and Martha's heart clenched with a painful ache. Accepting the concept of being here for a very long while with Sev was one thing, but the reminder that she was going to lose her family was something else entirely.

Eyeing the pot that was being washed, Martha gestured towards it. "I hope I'm not putting you out."

Maggie runs a tight ship in this kitchen; just ask the other cooks. She doesn't raise her voice or throw things around, but she is firm in delegating who does what when and how. One wrong move, a forgetful action, and somebody's getting food poisoning. Not under her watch.

"How about not taking your fingers off while chopping?" It's a joke, but after the pot is put aside on the stovetop, Maggie pulls a chef's knife from the block, holding it out handle first to Martha. "You're not and you're also on cauliflower duty."

"Chopping is one thing that I'm actually very good at." And she was, and not only because once upon a time Martha wanted to be a surgeon. In her family, when people were delegating out chores to help with the cooking, Martha always got chopping duties. She hadn't ever cut herself doing it.

She took the knife and then started to look for the cauliflower. "How small do you want it? And do you want the whole thing or just the florets?" Sometimes her mum wanted everything, and sometimes she just wanted the heads for when she did things. n

"All of it. Not too small though. We'll mill it later anyway." Martha doesn't have to look too far for the vegetable because Maggie's placing it on the chopping board near the other woman. It's been washed and dried carefully, as is everything that needs to be prepped before the stove is turned on. Somebody else other than the kitchen crew gets to witness how particular Maggie is about some things.

"So the spaceship?" And by extension, the crockpot.

Martha quickly moved the vegetables into place, and she traced the knife easily through them. She wasn't exaggerating about having those chopping skills, really. With her fingers out of the way like a pro, Martha began to speak in a tone that she had always used when it came to storytelling. "Well, the place where I was before was called the Barge. It was this big ship-thing that floated outside of time and space. I mean, it looked like space? But it was never any space that people could identify and we had people there who'd literally been everywhere in the universe."

Maggie stares at her, half confused and half amazed, really. She comes from a world where nothing like the stuff Martha's describing happens. Sure, there are those crazies who swear that they've seen aliens and said aliens probed while listening to Elvis tunes, but nobody actually belives them because there's no proof. The only things they have are ghosts and Maggie only believes that because she's seen then with her own two eyes.

Martha smiled at that look, it was a familiar one and it amused her in that way. She kept chopping as she went on. "It pulls people from time as well as space. One of my best friends aboard came from 1899, actually. And we'd other people from different time frames as well. There were Roman citizens and Aztecs as well as people from different worlds."

Maggie shakes her head, curls popping out from the bun that's gotten looser over the course of the day. "That doesn't make sense. Those people are dead."

Or supposed to be. Whatever. Her point is there and obvious.

"Well, my husband describes the ship as 'purgatory'. It's to give people who've made mistakes in life a second chance. The people who come are all dead or about to die. The entity that runs it is a man called the Admiral, and there are wardens who help the inmate graduate. One per inmate, really. In general, the wardens come because they're getting a deal of some sort."

All of this without a break in her chopping.