Hot Stuff (Pregame 2, EN, Kitchen)

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

Her lips wrapped around the finger, sucking on it for a moment before pulling away with the cherry. "Mmm... that taste will always be associated with you now."

She quickly began to combine ingredients and give them to Mei to mix. "We probably don't need to chill this. It won't take too long."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

Mei licked her finger then took the bowl and started mixing.

"Good, the oven should be plenty hot so hopefully we can get out of here before the breakfast rush. Cookies only take like 15 minutes right?"

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Yes. It shouldn't take long at all." she nodded, as she continued to add to the mixture.

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"So would it kill the mood if I started asking you doctor stuff? Like, what made you want to get into medicine in the first place? The hands on caregiving?"

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"It was something my parents wanted." she admitted. "But, I found I liked it and I was good at it. I took it further than they expected."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Well it's nice that everyone could be happy with it. Lots of people get pushed into things they hate and just stick with it."

Mei grabbed the chocolate chips thinking it was about time to add them and poured a few into her mouth.

"Is one bag going to be enough?"

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Two may be better." she nodded. "You can't really add too much."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"So I should stop eating them?" She said dumping the bag into the bowl. "Hey do you by chance teach first-aid? It's really high on my list of things to learn." She grabbed another bag and started pouring.

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Eating ingredients is a time honored tradition in cooking." she grinned. "I can teach you, if you'd like. I taught my assistant technician."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"That would be awesome, thank you. I've waited way to long to learn and it's cost me in the past. I don't want to go through that again and learning from you will probably be easier and more fun than reading it in a book."

She poured all but the last bit into the bowl and held up the bag to Elle.

"I'm going to get started portioning out that other dough."

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Good idea." She took the bag. "I'll get these ready to bake."

She found and prepared some baking sheets for them.

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Have you ever gone for a ride in a mech? My Lance is built around speed so if you ever want to go out for a run I'd love to take you if you don't mind sitting on my lap and getting really really hot."

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"I have not." she shook her head. "But, that definitely sounds like fun. I'll think about it."

She began to place the chocolate chip cookie dough on a baking sheet. "Hmm... how big should we make these?"

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Hmm, probably fairly big since these peanut butter kiss ones are usually pretty small."

She started scooping out the peanut butter cookies with a pair of spoons.

"So you trained your assistant. have you known each other long?"

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Just over a year." she answered. "I needed someone who could repair and maintain medical equipment. She's pretty good with tech, but didn't have much familiarity with medicine. So, I had to teach her."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"I'm kinda surprised that you even saw to me yourself, the last "doctor" I had regular contact with just had their assistant do everything then would come in after, repeat a few things to me and then leave. It really I a comfort to have someone like you around and I mean that. So let me ask you, professionally, how bad did the surgeons mangle my leg? When I got injured it took a long time for them to find me and I had to tourniquet it myself, I didn't know that you had to loosen those things from time to time. It would have been savable otherwise, it's lose is my fault."

She sighed a little.

"I had great legs, I miss it."

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"I've seen worse. Amputations can be tricky. You don't want to remove too much, to take away from your patient. But, sentiment needs to be balanced with reason. The stump needs to be shaped to support the patient comfortably." She slid a full sheet into the oven. "And, it needs to fit comfortably with a prosthetic. Fortunately, I think we can modify your prosthetic to help you."

"By the way, you still have great legs."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

That really touched Mei as it clearly was an issue with her and her reply came out soft and meek.

"Thank you."

She had to gather herself for a second her normal bravado returned.

"I would say the same but I've yet to get a chance to examine them as thoroughly as I would like. They look like they will do a great job of keeping my ears warm though."

Mei was putting the finishing touches on her sheet of cookies.

"Can these both go in at the same time?"

[Eilonwy Ainsley]

"Yes. We'll just have to watch them closely." she nodded. "You better keep my ears warm, too."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

Mei slid her tray into the oven and closed the door.

"That shouldn't be a problem at all. They say Cherawhatsits or wherever we are going is pretty cold this time of year, I may need to come to you after some missions to warm up. I don't want to risk hypothermia."

Mei started cleaning up their mess and setting things right.

"How are we going to stop people from eating these too early? Are we going to have to take it back to...you room?"