#midnight baking

She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t even want to fully wake up, but she wanted you and you certainly weren’t in the bed. She peeked one eye open, squinting around the bedroom to find it dark but the bedroom door cracked open and she wondered if you were in the bathroom. Her hand soothed up and down your side of the bed and not an inch of it held any of your remaining body heat, wherever you’d disappeared to it had not been recent. With a reluctant groan she pushed herself up to sitting, stretching out her body as she yawned, grabbing a hoodie from the floor and sliding her slippers on while she began her adventure through the house.

Upstairs was quiet, dark and empty aside from the soft snores coming from Sergio who Emily gave a little scratch on the head to as she made her way passed him. A light was left on downstairs but that was nothing new, it was instinct to always leave a couple on for the nights Emily was coming home from a case, never sure what hour she’d finally make it back to you. Wandering down the stairs she found the living room empty but a book upturned on the coffee table and a blanket crumpled up on the couch. Her lips twitched up into a grin at the thought of you burrito’d up with your favourite stories as she crossed toward the couch. She flipped the book over, sliding a bookmark into the open page before setting it back on the pile on the table, next neatly folding the blanket and laying it over the back of the couch.

A few steps later and she finally found the main source of light and you, both in the kitchen and she stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame to watch for a minute. You were lost in your element and clearly had been at it a while, there was a smudge of flour on your cheekbone, three racks of cookies already cooling and incredibly sweet smells lingering in the air. She noticed the window was wide open and upon lingering for a minute realized it must have been to combat the heat from the oven. Her eyes trailed back to you, a frown taking over her features as she began to examine yours, you were more than focused, it was almost intense, your brow furrowed, eyes narrowed just the slightest as you stirred up ingredients. She could tell you were clenching your jaw; your shoulders tense and she just knew you were holding stress in your lower back, especially with the way you kept shifting from one foot to the other to try an alleviate any hip pain.

“Didn’t realize I was living with Willy Wonka.” She teased and you jumped slightly, pulling out an ear bud.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.” You pouted, taking out the other ear bud to safely drop in a ramekin before wiping off your hands as you turned to her.

“So are you.” She replied with a soft laugh, moving through the room to wipe the flour off your face, “what are you doing?”

“Well,” you let out a breath before rattling things off, “I’ve got sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies done, there’s lemon bars in the freezer setting, I just put in a batch of peanut butter cookies and am working on cupcakes. But I don’t even know if any of it will turn out, I’ve been doing it all by hand so I didn’t have to use the mixer and worry about waking you up.”

“Jeeze, how long have you been down here?”

“More than a few hours…” you replied sheepishly, your body nearly sinking around itself, “I couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to disturb you so I came down here to read. But my brain just wouldn’t shut up, I needed something to make me think and I’ve always kinda been a stress baker so…” You vaguely gestured to the state of the kitchen.

“Is this about what you told me over dinner?” Emily asked, stepping toward you and squeezing softly at your elbow.

“Yeah.” You sighed, “and talking about it won’t help so I’d really rather not.”

“That’s fine.” She shrugged, glancing around, “well, can I at least help?”

“How are you helping if I don’t want to talk about it?” You turned to her with a furrowed brow and she laughed softly.

“I meant with the baking.”

“Oh!” You huffed out an embarrassed laugh, your hand coming to cover your face briefly before turning back to her with a small smile, “yeah, of course. That might even help distract me more.”

“Good.” Leaning in she pressed a gentle kiss to your cheek before rolling up her sleeves, “well, what’s the next step chef?”

You giggled softly, sliding the mixing bowl you’d been using over to Emily and guiding her through the next few steps. While Emily was pretty decent in the kitchen, she certainly would never claim to have your level of skill when it came to baking and that was because she was never about following strict rules. She liked to add in her own flair, skip certain steps or mess around with the amounts and while that always worked out to delicious dinners, it would definitely result in cupcakes with the texture of sandpaper or butter tarts that were left soggy in the middle.

Having Emily in the kitchen with you not only distracted you, it calmed you down, relaxed you to a sense of peace that you’d been craving the past couple of weeks. She asked what you’d been listening to when she interrupted and you admitted with a small smile it was the road trip playlist the two of you had put together of all your favourite songs. You knew it wasn’t a road trip but music was known to bring back memories and every time you heard any of the songs you were immediately transported back to the adventures the two of you had together the previous summer. They made you feel warm and fuzzy inside and always brought a smile to your face and Emily felt the warmth bursting through her at your admittance, a grin plastered on her face while you guided her through the steps to make meringue.

The sun was nearly creeping over the horizon by the time you were finally yawning, a warm and gooey tray of cinnamon buns being pulled from the oven. Emily placed them on a rack to cool, washing her hands before turning back to you to ask what was next. Instead she caught you with your hands on your hips, chewing on your lip as you surveyed the state of the kitchen.

“You mentioned something about Rossi hosting a pretty big get together this weekend, right?”

“Yeah. Retirement party for one of the other agents on our floor, why?”

“Cause I think I maaayy have gone a little overboard.”  Your nose scrunched as you glanced over to her and she laughed softly, stepping towards you to kiss the tip of your nose, relaxing it as she did so.

“It’s the first time I’d seen you genuinely smiling all week, I wasn’t about to stop you.”

“Thanks.” Smiling softly you leant into the embrace, kissing her gently, “hope you’re ready to eat nothing but baked goods for a month.”

“Can we start with the cinnamon rolls and call it breakfast?”

An uncontrolled yawn escaped you when you opened your mouth to reply and Emily chuckled, “only if we follow it up with a nap.”

“Sounds perfect.” She pecked your cheek before moving to the cupboard, pulling down a couple of plates to serve the cinnamon buns with.

Overall you ended up with two batches of cinnamon rolls, five sheets of cookies, three dozen cupcakes consisting of vanilla, chocolate and confetti, three dozen muffins (blueberry, carrot and cranberry orange) lemon meringue pie, apple pie, lemon bars, peanut butter balls and a black forest cake. Emily stashed some of it, whether in the pantry or the freezer to save for later and helped you pack up the rest for that weekend, where you discovered Rossi was more than ecstatic to have someone else providing the goodies. Because after all, you were the baker, he was the chef, you’d stay out of each other’s ways but you each had your specialties and you were more than happy to share, especially if it meant quality time in the kitchen with Emily.

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