Lock and Key

In Space

Grace ran around the kitchen trying to finish the mac and cheese while Amelia did her damnedest to open the can of cranberry sauce. Hazel added butter to the mashed potatoes but quickly tapped Grace on the shoulder when she'd finished.

"Grace," Hazel said far too calmly. "I think the turkey is done." she said gesturing to the insane amount of smoke coming out of the oven. Upon noticing this Grace panicked and threw on the oven mitts grabbing the significantly blackened turkey out of the oven. Amelia, who had finally given up on the can opener and bashed open the can of cranberry sauce, walked over to view the sight.

The turkey was burned, the macaroni and cheese was under-cooked and the cranberry sauce had pieces of the metal can in it. "At least the mashed potatoes look good." Grace offered hopefully. Hazel looked at Grace nervously.

"Do you think our guests will notice?" she asked. Grace saw Amelia open her mouth likely to begin giving some pragmatic comment that while most likely true would also be a massive bummer. Grace decided to cut off her attempt at honesty with a more optimistic answer.

"If we just act like we did a really good job, maybe the car will reward our effort and give us the door." she said putting on the fake overly nice voice she used to use with younger recruits. At least now she was using it for a more savory purpose she supposed. Hazel gave her a weak smile and went to go grab her mashed potatoes with the intention of presenting them. As Grace and Amelia went to grab their dishes Amelia addressed her.

"You know that's not how the train works right?" she said. Grace simply shrugged, at this point she was far beyond the point of expecting the train to make any sense whatsoever.

"Who knows, maybe it is." she offered as the three held their poorly created dishes and walked into the dining room. Thanksgiving themed denizens sat all around the table, thankfully no turkeys however. They placed the dishes on the table in front of them and Grace held her breath. Every member of the table grabbed a helping of food and picked at it for a bit before giving them a weak thumbs up, presenting them the door and promptly trashing everything they'd made, besides the mashed potatoes. As the three tossed off their aprons and oven mitts Hazel squealed in excitement.

"We did it! We did a good job!" she said happily. Amelia shook her head and gave a different explanation.

"Actually I think they may have just been too polite to properly critique our food. Makes for awful judges but I guess it's lucky for us considering we did an awful job." she said honestly. Hazel didn't seem too fazed by the news that the trio had actually done terrible when it came to cooking but Grace felt the need to reassure her anyway.

"You did a great job Hazel, your mashed potatoes were by far the highlight." she said happily. Amelia nodded along seemingly having no snarky objection to that specific comment. The three stood at the exit to the car and Amelia changed the subject.

"How far are we from your little group." she asked. Grace looked at the trackerpad again and could barely contain her excitement at the results.

"Not far at all, in fact, all we have to do is get through this next car and we're home free." she said happily. Grace felt better than she had in longer than she could remember. She was going to see her kids again. No caveats, no time limit, no one chasing them. She was going to help them get their numbers down, to send them home, and even if she never saw many of them after that she would at least be able to rest easy knowing that for all she'd done wrong, she'd helped people. Hazel grabbed her hand in excitement upon hearing the news.

"I'll get to meet all of your friends in the Apex!" she said happily. It was so nice to see Hazel acting more like a kid again. She'd lost so much, had to become her own caretaker so young. Grace knew that Hazel deserved to be taken care of by a community of people who loved her, to be able to have friends and go on adventures. While she hadn't really thought about what would happen when the three of them reunited with the Apex maybe this would work out after all. Maybe she could take care of everybody.