Baking.

Rosie could do baking.

Flour smudged on her cheek, apron straps coming unraveled, Rosie fidgeted, staring intently at the oven so she Wouldn't Forget, and breathed in relief when it beeped, taking the steaming apple pie out and placing it, predictably, on the windowsill.

That was everything, right?

Automatically, she glanced at the string of rememberalls tied round her waist like a jingling sash, and pouted as they each swirled an unhappy red back up at her. Not for the first time--although she believed it to be--Rosie frowned at them. Gosh darn things were definitely defective. They were ALWAYS red. Worried nevertheless, she checked her list (there were several, scattered around the cozy little cottage). Potato salad, check. Fried chicken, check. Watermelon, bread, cheese and apple pie. Tablecloth, napkins, all there, as outlined in the charity auction date she had volunteered for on behalf of the Pendlewicks. The only thing that was missing was--

The bell above the door chimed and Rosie flew to it, throwing it open to beam with ridiculously chipper cheer at the face on the other side. "Good morning! You must be," She squinted at what she'd written on her hand, now smeared under flour and oven mitts, "Rock."

With something sweeping across his expression like constipation (–but most definitely wasn’t, thanks, yes he was sure), Rick stared down at the short, cheerful blonde thing standing on the other side of the threshold– then at the chaos she had left behind her– and wondered just what, exactly, in the fresh hell he’d gotten himself into now.

‘Rock,’ she’d called him. Actually Rock.

Charities, man. Christ.

Rick cleared his throat. “Rick, actually,” he offered, forcing himself to smile. He could do this. “Morning to you too,” and the smile turned liquid golden– none of that ‘tender by moonlight’ stuff only Leon received (and Rick pretended wasn’t a thing), but the great, terrible, failproof thing he subjected other people to. It was bright and broad and dazzling, for all that it unfurled as slow as honey, but it was definitely quick enough to notice. Especially with the way it dimpled his cheeks. “You have flour on your…” He pointed to a spot on his face.

Were those remembralls hanging off her waist? Red ones? Oh, god…

“These are for you,” he smiled, offering her a modest bouquet of mixed flowers. like a shield

It was (at least as far as she could remember) the first time someone had brought her flowers. Well, aside from Poppa of course and several people Rosie had, at the moment, completely forgotten about. Her eyes immediately went watery and she sniffled and accepted them with a sound that wasn’t quite a squeal, but resembled a breathed, “Oh, They’re lov--” Her hands closed around the stems and her expression went immediately blank, tone going flat though the words were no less chipper, “Minty! He rather thought they tasted minty, the caterpillar did, which was of course nonsense because these were his first swallows of any substance in the world at all, and there was no basis of comparison, but had he actually possessed the life experience to compare, he most assuredly would have thought those swallows minty.” She blinked, glanced down at the flowers in her hands.

“Oh,” she breathed, “They’re lovely.” She beamed at him, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. “Oh! Good morning! You must be--” She paused, and a vague, puzzled expression settled on her features, not defined enough to be a true frown, but perhaps resembled intense concentration. She continued, slowly, “Rick, actually?” She glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes late, that wasn’t bad. “You have a lovely smile,” She said, “It’s very dimply. Does it always do that? Oh of course it would, wouldn't it?” Something caught her attention, and she looked at the flowers. It was the first time, at least that she could remember, that anyone had brought her flowers! “Oh, these are lovely, I should put these in water, do you want something to drink?” She skip-walked through her little kitchen, leaving him to enter as he pleased, but somehow or another, the flowers ended up in a glass of pumpkin juice, and Rick was handed a vase of water. Then she was bustling over to the pie on the windowsill, cutting two large, generous slices and adding them to the picnic basket, along with some cheese and a jug of lemonade, in addition to what was already there.

She whirled on her heels, basket in both hands, the remberalls jingling like laughter, “Ready?”

Rick’s brows twitched into an almost frown, before he forcefully schooled his expression into a carefully neutral one the way he always did when he was confronted by things he was sure he didn’t want to understand. What was that? “Uh, no,” he said, when she’d gotten his name wrong. (Again.) It was that, or linger on the… whatever just happened. Which, no. “Just Rick—Rick,” he enunciated. hopefully And added, hopefully, “Shona’s brother…?”

Too, too late Rick bit his tongue, just realizing he was probably (re: definitely) making things worse. For the second time in the last two minutes, a look of express pain flickered across his face. Slowly – reluctantly – he followed Rosie into the house, whatever dread he’d been feeling since she first appeared, doubling.

By the time she handed him the vase of water, it had become terrible foreboding, and he was actively tamping down on every instinct that was telling him to turn tail and run. The way she stopped and apparently forgot she’d just been doing, was… worrying. Really, really worrying.

Obviously focusing on the pie was a much more attractive option.

“Yeah,” Rick replied distantly, licking his lips as he watched the pie disappear into the basket. And then he blinked, and frowned, and shook his head; when he looked back, the smile was there again, albeit not as brightly as before. When Rick lost his bearings, he never lost them for long. “Where to?”

“Just Rick.” She repeated obediently. Blinked. “Who’s Rick? Shona’s brother?” She frowned at him suspiciously. “Why on earth are you talking about Shona’s brother?” She studied him for a minute, and then blinked, and suddenly the all too familiar feeling of being…off-footed returned, clued in by that smile she’d seen before on other faces. She’d forgotten something. Squirming, she twisted her hands restlessly on the picnic basket handle. “I’m sorry. I’m not…good with details.” She would try, really, and she tried to smile, sheepish and squirmy. “So you…know Shona? You remind me of…” She shook her head, trailing off. It wasn’t Shona. It was something else.

She hummed, and the rememberalls swirled darker, and she fished around in the picnic basket, whipping out an old brass doorknob.  “I don’t know!” She announced with such brightness he rose on her toes with it. “I thought we’d let the door decide! It’s hooked up to all kinds of doors.” She looped a cheerful arm into his, the other looped in the picnic basket, which oozed with the scents of fried chicken, pie and potatoes. Conspiratorially she chirped, “I’m not entirely sure it’s legal but it’s less messy than the floo network and Momma and Poppa really only used it during the wars so it can’t be all bad, right? Let’s go!”

She inserted the end of the knob into the keyhole of her pantry, spun it, and opened the door to a gray sky, with the ominous rumbles of thunder that she clearly didn’t hear over her own humming. If one were paying attention, they would notice the neat rows of carefully engraved stones, and the old, gothic-style stone architecture of the door they were exiting, but all Rosie saw were “Flowers! Oooh, this looks like a nice place, come on, come on…what was your name again? No, no you told me that. I should call you Dimples. I can remember that. No, that's not right either. I ought to get it right, really. Names are important, so it's really not a thing to make up on the spot--although you do have lovely dimples, has anyone told you that? Of course they have--did I tell you my name? I'm Rosie. Well. Euphrosine, but that's really a bit of a mouthful, don't you think?"

She let go, which instantly proved to be a mistake, because she immediately tripped over her feet.