Across Dimensions

4~ baking in the night

Gideon sat irritated on his bunk bed, listening to the silence which had finally fallen over the dormitory. He stared out of the window, and wondered how on Earth he was supposed to put up with a whole summers worth of evenings spent in silence so as not to wake the others, none of whom, except for Will, who was surprisingly quiet, would extend him the same courtesy.

He had just about had enough of the wasted time, and was about to lose his temper and wake everyone else up in revenge when he saw a light in the lunch hall window.

"What on Earth?"

He got up and walked over to the hall, silently.

Crash.

Almost silently.

When he got there, he saw the door ajar and, curious, he walked in. He wasn't sure exactly what he expected to see in a lunch hall at 12:45 in the morning, but he was certain that this was not it.

Cassandra Millicent Wilde-Pines stood at the counter, mixing ingredients in a bowl and talking to herself.

"Well, this is stupid, isn't it. You're awake at stupid o'clock baking random confection for a crush who probably doesn't even care about you as anything more than a friend. What sort of an idiot are you, you absolute moron." She berated herself as she cracked eggs with extreme precision into her bowl.

Gideon walked over to her, and attempted to make conversation. "Cass?"

"AAAAAAIIIIH!" She spun around, holding a frying pan in one hand, and the batter in the other

"DON'T KILL ME!" Gideon dropped to the floor, hands covering his head.

She put the pan and batter down and pulled him to his feet. "Sorry. Reflex. Are you ok, Gideon?"

"Yes, but I feel you owe me an explanation. Who are you baking for and what are you doing awake?" He brushed himself down, and attempted to have some sense of his former dignity restored.

"Ok, so you know how you have a crush on Mabel?"

Gideon turned the exact shade of pink seen on Neon signs. " What? Of course not! Don't be ridiculous, she's irritating, a know-it-all, a Pines-"

Cass gave him a stern look. "Mmhmm."

Gideon sighed. "Fine. Yes, I do like her. But tell anyone and I'll fight you."

"You'd lose. But anyway, I feel the same about Will."

"So you're baking?"

"Yes. Want to join me? It might make them like us." She asked, beginning to pour the batter into a cake tin.

"Ok."

"Pass me the icing sugar." She said, putting the cake into the oven. "We're making buttercream."

He handed her the sugar bowl, hopefully.

Cass looked down at it. It was salt, not sugar.

"You don't bake, do you?"

"No."

"It's ok, Gid. I'll teach you. Lesson one. The normal sugar we use is granulated, whereas icing sugar is kept in the cupboard." She pulled it from the cupboard and handed it to him, before grabbing butter, vanilla extract and cocoa powder and mixing it all into the bowl.

Both of them spent the night talking, baking/burning cakes and cookies, and smiling.

Neither were sure at what point they started thinking of each other as siblings, but, by the end of the evening, they had referred to each other more as Bro and Sis than their actual names.

The others arrived at breakfast to find the two laughing and covered in flour. No one had any idea why. No one asked.

It was rare enough to see them smile.