Cassie stepped into the well fortified kitchen, it had enough automation to make any smart house she'd heard of look absolutely prehistoric. She paused by the food dispensory and tapped though a variety of stock options. As she noted the material on hand, she tapped a few, pausing to pull up a recipe from the touch screen as well. She nodded as she noted that everything she needed was on hand and tapped in another request for the items to be dispensed.
A moment passed before the dispenser hummed and opened to reveal a small pork tenderloin, some shrimp, spices, peppers, rice and vegatables. She smiled as she collected them and walked over to the counter to prepare the meal.
Two years earlier, Atlanta Georgia
"No no Cassie." Malcom Prophet, Atlanta PD Captain of Detectives and newly adoptive father, took the knife from his ward and eased her aside. "You clean and cut the tenderloin like so." he says as he shows her, putting the chunks into the waiting marinate. "And now we turn to the shrimp and tomatoes."
Turning he nods as she looks at him, then resumes stirring the simmering mix of shrimp and stewed tomatoes. "Good girl." he says with a grin, it was nice to see the quiet girl trying to do somthing. She could field strip anything in the police station armory, but he had discovered outside of how to react to threats or use a weapon she was pretty much a blank slate. "You keep that up and you'll have no problem getting the boy of your dreams" he teases her, then stops as he takes in her blank look. "Don't worry, that will make more sense later on. How is the rice coming."
"Quite well sir." she says in her quiet formal voice. He could almost hear the stiffness in her spine as she snapped to attention then relaxed before he could check.
The Here and Now
Cassie smiled as she recalled that first night with Malcolm. She was still not too confortable with most people, her lack of social skills made it hard for her to communicate well she thought. For example with Ryan, but she had learned a lot from her foster father. The big bear of a man was the one who introduced her into reading and thinkign for herself. His family musuem was impressive, going back to the first free family members back in the 1750s and how the family had grown and evolved in the years since.
He had taught her a lot, shapping her to be someone who looked to do the right thing as he did. She knew he didn't always agree with her, but their conversations were never negative. If anything, he tried to challenge her beliefs. That was almost as much fun as the cooking lessons he had insisted on giving her every night when he came home from work.
Dinner was 'their time', work and school never entered into it. He would teach her something new to cook and regale her with stories of his great grandmother Beatrice from New Orleans and how she had taught him to cook. It had been a fun time.
Her thoughts went back to those simpler more confortable days as she sliced the tenderloin and started cooking the other parts of the meal almost automatically, the grace she normally had in combat making her cooking prepartions a ballet. For the moment, she was at peace.
