I Will Be Your Knight

Chapter 21

October ends in a high note with Gilbert's awesome party. November comes with colder weather and the changing of leaves. Ivan takes you to the park by his house to look at the trees shifting into their fall colors. The most common color is yellow. The majority of the maple trees turn a bright yellow like an egg yolk. A few of them turn red. Those are your favorite.

"I wish trees would change color with out it having to get cold," you tell Ivan with a shiver.

He chuckles and tightens the soft pink scarf around your neck. "Da, but don't forget that winter is important too подсолнечник (sunflower)."

"Well some of us don't thrive on the cold you know," you tease. 

"You just need to bundle up more," Ivan teases back. He actually does really well in the cold. Once it gets about mid October he'll start wearing his trench coat, scarf, and gloves, but after that, it's all he'll wear. He won't put on anything warmer, no matter how cold it gets. The funny thing is the colder it gets, the more lively Ivan becomes. "Someday I will take you to Russia, and you will understand what it means to be really cold."

"Maybe we should go in the summer," you suggest. Experiencing a Russian winter does not sound like a bundle of joy. Ivan chuckles softly. "C'mon. Let's go home." The two of you walk past the fountain in the center of the park hand in hand.

The rest of the month flies by pretty fast. You get very busy at work because of all the Thanksgiving sales in the store. Ludwig gives you as many hours as your busy schedule can hold. On top of that, you have your apprenticeship most evenings as well. Honda-san has you doing more and more in the kitchen as your skills improve. At first he had you doing simple things like washing dishes or taking inventory.

"Once you master the basics, the rest will follow," he had said. You just rolled your eyes as you scrubbed the floor in the back room. This is what the Karate Kid must have felt like.

Now Honda-san has you working with some of the other chefs to prepare basic things like salads and sandwiches. At first you were too nervous to talk to the other staff at the restaurant, but now you can have friendly conversations with them while making food.

Both work and apprenticing, plus classes and school work, fills your schedule pretty tightly. Any and all free time you do have is spent with Ivan, if he's free, or other friends if they're free. Everything is right with the world again. To make things better, winter break begins the last week of November. You didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving properly last year because of your accident with Belarus, but it'll be different this year.

This year you spend Thanksgiving at Ivan's house with the Baltics. The five of you have become a makeshift family of sorts. A family where some of the members are slightly terrified of another member of the family. So it's a bit of a dysfunctional family, but that's what you like about it.

You and Toris end up in charge of making the food. The other guys watch football on tv instead. You're in charge of the turkey, the gravy, the rolls, and the pumpkin pie. You put Toris in charge of the mashed potatoes, the cranberry jello, and the stuffing.

"Isn't it usually traditional to put the stuffing in the turkey?" Toris asks.

"Well, yes," you answer, "but it's hard for it to cook completely. It'll be safer if we just do it separately."

The dough for the rolls is made first and left to rise while you make the pie crust. Toris mixes the ingredients for the stuffing and sets it aside. The plan is to bake the rolls first and let them cool, then bake the stuffing and pie last so they stay warm for dinner. In between, the turkey will be in the oven for several hours. Potatoes boil on the stove while Toris prepares the jello. You pull the rolls out of the oven and set them on the stove next to the potatoes.

Then the turkey is put in the oven, and your real job begins. You have to watch the color of the turkey and, at regular intervals, bathe it in its drippings. It has a little thermometer in it you also have to watch so you can tell when it's done. It's a tedious job, but it has to be done if you want a turkey for your dinner. 

After a few hours, it's finally done, and you put the stuffing and pie in the oven the turkey just vacated. The poor oven has been on since the morning, and still has more to do. You drain the turkey drippings out of the pan, and use them to make gravy. Then you cover the turkey and start setting the table for dinner. By the time the table is set, the other two things in the oven are done. Toris has the potatoes and jello done as well, so you're ready to go.

"It's time to eat!" you tell the three men watching tv.

They file out of the living room excitedly. "Finally!" Ravis shouts. "I'm starved, and (y/n)'s food is the best!"

You take your place next to Ivan at the table. "I think we should go around and say something we're thankful for, since it's Thanksgiving and all." You're not really religious or anything, so this is the closest you'd get to praying or saying grace.

"I'm grateful for all this food!" Ravis blurts out first.

"Be a little more respectful!" Eduard chastises. "I'm thankful for the technology we have in our modern world to make amazing things possible."

"I'm thankful for the freedoms and independence we enjoy each day," Toris says.

"I am thankful for the weather," Ivan says with a smile. "It's wonderfully cold." You share confused glances with the Baltics. What an odd thing to be grateful for. "I'm also thankful for sunflowers, especially this little one right here," he says and kisses your forehead.

You blush lightly before speaking "I'm thankful for chance encounters and fateful meetings. Without them I wouldn't have been able to meet all of you." You smile widely at your odd 'family'. "Time to dig in!"

Everyone starts piling the delicious smelling food onto their plates. Ivan piles only mashed potatoes onto his plate. He makes a big crater in the middle of it and fills it with gravy.

"Do you want anything else Ivan?" you ask while watching him construct his potato volcano.

"Oh, da. Don't worry sunflower," he says with a grin, "this is just for starters."

In less than an hour, almost everyone is done eating. Luckily, after the last time you cooked for this group, you anticipated how much they'd eat and made more than enough. There might be enough leftovers for the next few days. The three that didn't cook look around sleepily after their feast. You and Toris share a knowing look. They don't know about the pumpkin pie.

"I hope you all still have room for dessert," you say in a sing-song voice.

"Dessert!" Ravis yells. He's suddenly attentive. "Heck yeah!"

"Looks like I will need to make more room," Ivan says as he undoes his belt and places it on the table. The Baltics look at it wide eyed while you laugh. They need to loosen up a little. 

You walk into the kitchen to grab the warm pie and a carton of vanilla ice cream. You also dig out the whipped cream. Toris comes in to grab clean plates and forks. The two of you walk back into the dining room to serve the pie. You're just about to sit back down when the doorbell rings.

"You're not expecting anyone, are you?" you ask Ivan. He shakes his head in reply since his mouth is currently stuffed full of ice cream and pie. "I'll go get it."

You wipe the pie crumbs off your hands and walk to the door. You get a sudden chill as you approach the door. You try to shake the feeling, but it persists. It even intensifies as you wrap your hand around the doorknob. You almost don't open the door, but you know it would be rude. Whoever it is can't be that bad.

You were wrong.

"Hello (y/n)," Belarus says without emotion. "Is Brother here?"