Counting To Fifteen [Grey's Anatomy]

chapter eleven - birthday cakes & messy kitchens

Daisy and Calypso were somewhere in their rooms by the time Mark had gotten off of work.

Naturally, after being in a hospital all day, he felt gross, and he was exhausted.

Naomi said her goodbyes as she left for the day, and Mark immediately made his way to his bedroom.

He took the quickest shower he could, changing into clean clothes. Despite it being only 4PM, Mark was ready for bed. He could probably sleep all the way until 4PM the following day. He was ready for a laid back night, an uneventful night.

Yet as Mark made his way into the kitchen to get a glass of water before his highly-anticipated nap, he knew he wouldn't be having an uneventful night.

Calypso was stood on a stool, a wooden spoon in her hand as she stirred some sort of combination in a metal bowl. Copious amounts of flour were spread all about the kitchen. Mark wasn't sure how the kid had created such a big mess in the ten minutes he was gone to shower. Heck, he wasn't sure how she'd created such a mess with only one available arm.

"What are you doing?" Mark sighed out. He wasn't trying to sound mean at all, but his irritation most definitely came through a bit. He was tired, and the sight of flour all over his kitchen wasn't exactly heart-warming.

But it appeared Calypso was harboring some frustration of her own. Rather than giving Mark her signature smile, she glared icily towards him, something that made Mark immediately frown.

"What's wrong?"

Calypso ignored Mark, continuing to stir with her wooden spoon, her frustration only building up as a result. Stirring with one hand proved to be a challenge considering she didn't have an extra hand to steady the bowl while she stirred. Even more so, she was right-handed, and her right hand was currently lying in her arm sling, off limits for any use.

She had learned that today at school when she found out she wouldn't be able to write until the sling was off, and she would need her own personal scribe to write things down for her. How embarrassing.

Mark tried to rack his brain. He hadn't done anything particularly worthy of pissing off a six-year-old...had he?

They hadn't even seen each other all morning, actually. He'd been at work, and she'd been at school. So what was the issue?

Mark examined the very tense-looking kid in front of him frantically stirring with that wooden spoon. Mark figured the chances of a six-year-old seriously maiming him with a wooden spoon were slim to none, and he took that as an invitation to beckon closer and see what on Earth was in that bowl.

Whatever was in the bowl did not look promising. Lots of flour, brown powdery mix, and two whole eggs.

At first, Mark thought she was partaking in some sort of science experiment.

But then he spared a glance at the chocolate cake mix that was ripped open beside the bowl, making it very evident Calypso was attempting to make a cake.

"Oh, Cal..." Mark trailed off, grimacing at the contents inside the bowl. It looked like anything but cake batter.

But Mark figured "Your cake mix looks really ugly" was a great way to piss the six-year-old off even more. Then he probably would have to worry about getting maimed with a wooden spoon.

Mark cleared his throat, trying to think of something a bit nicer and more constructive. "You're not actually supposed to just...put the eggs in like that. You're supposed to crack them."

"The box said two eggs." Calypso snapped harshly, not seeming to see anything wrong with placing two uncracked eggs in her batter, shells and all.

Mark nodded slowly, watching Calypso continue her aggressive one-handed stirring. "I'm getting the feeling you're not happy with me."