strong enough [crossover]

xv. out of the frying pan and into the fire

trigger warning: brief references to mj's sexual assault

*

Jack makes the fluffiest omelets MJ's ever seen and crispy home fries for breakfast.

MJ's ravenous. She eats two massive omelets (stuffed with sausage, peppers, and mozzarella cheese) and finishes her and Rose's portions of home fries. She even has a couple of slices of toast. The Doctor and Rose watch her with concern, worried about the lingering side effects of (mostly) dying and coming back to life, but Jack just looks impressed.

"I'll have to add you to the chore wheel when I get a chance," the Doctor tells Jack. Yes, they have an actual chore wheel that's on the kitchen wall.

MJ raises her hand as if she's in class. "Um, can I be removed from the dinner part of the chore wheel? Because I literally only know how to make bacon, eggs, and toast."

"I knew it!" Rose crows triumphantly, whacking the Doctor on the arm. "I bloody told you! Her favorite meal my arse."

"No one taught you how to cook growing up?" Jack asks, more curious than judgemental.

"My mom taught me how to make bacon, eggs, and toast," MJ says sheepishly. Fiddling with her Snoopy watch, she adds, "And then, you know, I was homeless for about five years so I didn't do much cooking, and then uh, when I was living with my dad, other people always did the cooking so...yeah. I just never really learned."

Rose gapes at her. "What do you mean you were homeless for five years? You never told us that!"

"Well, I don't really like talking about it," MJ says. "It wasn't like, awful or whatever, but it wasn't exactly fun, either. We had to steal and dumpster dive to survive." She smiles crookedly. "Actually, dumpster diving was kind of fun. Grocery stores throw out so much perfectly good food for bullshit reasons, it's insane. The best was when we went through the dumpsters of like, the bougie grocery stores like fucking ALDI and Whole Foods and whatever. You could find all sorts of treasures."

"Wait, wait," Jack says. "What do you mean they throw out perfectly good food?"

"In the United States, people waste an estimated ninety-two billion pounds of food annually," MJ says. "38% of all food goes unsold or uneaten."

Rose looks stunned. "But...why?"

"Um, I'm not 100% on the numbers but some of it is people and businesses throwing out food that's approaching or a few days past the sell-by or expiration date," MJ says. "But almost no sell-by and expiration dates are actually regulated by law, so they're kind of subjective. Another reason is overstocking, oh, and foods that are perfectly fine but the packaging is damaged. I actually did a research paper about food waste in my junior year and seeing the actual numbers and everything was...incredibly depressing."

"So why not just donate it?" Rose asks. "Or like, give it to the homeless?"

"Because they're assholes," MJ says simply, "and they only care about profits, not people. Luckily, there are food rescue programs and organizations like Feeding America that are doing everything they can to get the food to people who need it."

Jack eyes her suspiciously. "You said 'We had to steal.' Not 'I had to steal,' 'We had to steal.' So you weren't alone then?"

MJ takes a sip of coffee and then she tells them. She tells them about Thalia's mom, about Jason, and how his disappearance was Thalia's final straw. She tells them about her own reasons for running away, how they met Luke, and how they survived. She tells them about meeting Annabeth and later Grover, and how he got them off the streets. She leaves out all the demigod-related details, of course. She says Grover got them into a summer camp-esque housing program that turned out to be partially funded by her 'dad.' In her attempts to keep the divine out of it, MJ makes the whole thing out to be kind of culty. Oh well.