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Oh, he's attracted to Kaylee, and she may be able to wrap him around her little finger but he's never seriously pursued it. Whether it's due to Kaylee's involvement with Dean or just that Jamie doesn't seem to want to settle down with anyone is unclear.

He gives her an impish smile. "Well, why did ye not say so before?" He could have formed a band and had girls flinging himself at him! Jamie doesn't really believe that, though, because it is the bagpipes, and they do tend to be a bit of an acquired taste.

Dryly, he adds, "Should I get ye some earplugs or are ye just going to imagine them instead?"

Katara noticed that, and though she was sure she might do the same, years of Bebe Gesserit training and time with herself had made her think otherwise. Manipulation were for situations like political control or dire negotiations, not time with a guy she cared about very much. Katara had a long time keeping herself at bay from anyone due to waiting for Aang, enough so that a relationship now seemed impossible.

She playfully punched his arm. "Oh stop it, you know I love to hear you play that thing! It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it a lot, and its even more meaningful when you play it, ok? It makes me imagine where you're from: I can almost see it in the music."

It's not that Kaylee actually does anything like that - she doesn't. She's Kaylee, after all. But if she ever wanted to, she could, and Jamie wouldn't complain one little bit. That's a failing of Jamie's, rather than anyone else.

"Hey!" He rubs at his arm for a moment, trying to look indignant over being punched. That lasts approximately three seconds, and then he drops the expression. "I'm glad ye enjoy it. But as long as I'm going to play for ye, I think we should set it in Scotland. There's a wee spot on a mountainside I found once I think ye would like. What do ye think?"

Katara didn't mind. Jamie was one of the best guys she knew, and just hoped that he found happiness wherever he was. But Jamie was a man now, and he would find his own way, however he sought it. In fact, she gave him a playful grin.

"You won't hear me complaining. I've told you a billion times that your homeland is beautiful. I guess you really don;t mind hearing it a few more dozen times?"

"Not as beautiful as the company, if ye ask me, but if ye want to tell me that a few dozen more times, I'll be glad to hear it." He offers out his arm gallantly.

"Would ye care to accompany me to get some slop, then? We can get my pipes on the way."

"Well," Katara said, flushing a little, "I can see no matter how busy you get, you don't ever miss a chance to lose your charm." She took his arm, grinning widely. "But if you did, I guess it wouldn't be you, would it?"

Here though, Katara shook her head. "You know I like making the meals myself. I may be liberated, but I also know what I like, and it isn't Stacy's horrible meals. I figure if we're going to go to Scotland, we may as well eat like we're there too. I'll make some Cullen Sink, since its sort of like a water tribe dish in a way. It's got fish in it anyway."

If you think that Jamie's going to turn down a chance at decent food, you'd be sadly mistaken. "Oh, I haven't had that properly in years." He thinks it up sometimes in the Sensoriums, but it's not the same.

"I didn't realize we had Finnan haddie in stores." Or he might have raided them sooner and had some poached in milk for breakfast. "Or it just regular smoked haddock you'll be using?"

"When we had out last mission, i figured it might be a good idea to bring some of the species back on the ship," Katara said. "After that, it was all a matter of letting them grow in Haku's river, and being very careful about when I went fishing, and once I did that, where to store the fish. You don't live on a frozen wasteland and then on a living ship like this without making a few back up plans, after all. But I did smoke it, yeah."

Katara always took precautions, and loved cooking.

"Oh! Aye, that's right." Jamie, of course, had completely forgotten that fact. Not like he's going to admit it, though.

"Well, good. It wouldna work properly if it's not smoked," he adds, with as much authority as he can muster. Katara will probably see through his attempt to try and cover up his forgetfulness - she always does - but it's not going to stop him from having a go at it. He has his pride to consider, after all. That doesn't mean he doesn't trust Katara to not make the dish, though. He knows she'll do a better job than he will. Jamie likes to eat food, but cook it? Not so much.

"I know you'll do a grand job with it, though. Were ye planning on cooking it once we get there, or should I get the pipes and meet ye instead?"

Katara held back a grin. She knew by now when Jamie was trying to overcompensate for something, and that was okay: she wasn't really going to hold that against him anyway. As for how she procured the fish, it wasn't something she wanted spread across the ship yet, or everyone would go fishing and it might wipe out the species before they had a chance to really grow.

"Meet me there," Katara said. "Otherwise other people might smell it and want some, and its not like I can tell how much I should cook at that point. I want to make it just enough for the two of us."

Jamie's not about to blab on where Katara got the fish. He's aware that they need to establish themselves first, otherwise there's a real risk they'll get fished to extinction. So he'll stick to fishing in the Sensoriums for now.

There's a quick nod of his head. "Aye. That sounds like it will be the best way. I'll just go and set everything up so it'll be ready when ye get there."

She gave Jamie a grin and a salute. "Then its you and me in the Sensoriums in a few, and you pick the drinks this time: you know the alcohol I like by now."

It had taken several years before Katara had warmed up to alcohol, as she had been very picky about the taste, but now that she figured out that she liked it, she'd been giving a shot at making her own. It was most for special parties and for barter if she ever needed something in exchange. She'd appointed Jamie as the keeper though, since she knew it wouldn't "mysteriously disappear" in his care.

He looks a little surprised for a moment when Katara asks him to do that, knowing she doesn't part with the bottles of her brew lightly. Still, if she's willing to share, he'll be happy to partake - Jamie thinks she's as good as making alcohol as she is at cooking.

"Aye, if ye like."

Lifting a hand to wave, he heads back to his quarters to retrieve his pipes and sort through the carefully guarded stash to find the ones he knows she likes the best. A few minutes later, and he's in the Sensoriums, calling up the memory of a small meadow in the spring. If it's a little brisk, Jamie thinks Katara won't mind. The view, if nothing else, is magnificent.

Katara arrived with the skinned haddock already smoked, something she had already been brewing for the past hour. She arrived with the necessary ingredients in her hands: milk, potato, salt and pepper, butter, a pot, heating materials and water. When she saw the backdrop she smiled, then joined Jamie at the clearing. Without a word she started on the food, boiling the fish and, once that was done, deboning the fish and putting it in a separate pot with the broth while she diced up the remainder of the fish.

"Play me a song Jamie!" She exclaimed as she continued adding the ingredients.

He looks up from where he's sitting by the edge - a dangerous spot, if one isn't careful. It would be easy to slip and fall down the side of the mountain here. But Jamie seems unconcerned, simply leaning back, arms propping him up.

When Katara arrives, he scrambles to his feet with alacrity, going over to help her get settled in before picking up the pipes from the flat rock they're resting on.

"Your wish is my command, lass."

He's feeling a bit playful at the moment, going to far as to give Katara a small bow and a bit of a grin before he inflates the bag and tucks it under his arm. Accordingly, the tune he chooses is rather fast and a little like this. The piece calls for more instruments, but he doesn't care to think up the rest of it right now, so it's just the piping that Katara gets to hear.

Katara would have hoped that he didn't put himself in danger getting so close to the edge, but she was glad when got to his feet and settled upon the bagpipes. She started on the food when she heard the swell of the music, and slowly, as she started to cook the food, a slow smile started to form on her lips, and she couldn't help but bang the pots a little with the spoon to the beat, and without realizing it, a chuckle of laughter escaped her lips. There was always one surefire way to get Katara happy, and that was live music. Without thinking about it, her feet started to move to the music as she was finishing up on the food, and she couldn't help but glance in Jamie's direction.

When she was done was about the time Jamie finished, and she let out a happy sigh. "That was wonderful!"

There's no real danger in the Sensoriums with the safety on, and Jamie's made sure it is. Katara has no need to worry on his behalf. He, too, gets into the song, tapping his foot in time to the fast-paced tune, and when he's done he smiles broadly at Katara.

"I'm glad ye liked it." He's pleased she does, too. Deflating the bag for the moment, he sets it back down on the rock and comes over, taking an appreciative sniff of the air by the cookfire.

"Och, I'm fair starved. That smells wonderful, Katara. Let me go get the drinks, aye?"

She was glad for the safety: it would not have been the best thing for Katara to spend her day off peeling Jamie from the ground. Of course it wasn't quite that simple, but she was just glad when he was away from the edge. Even now she couldn't help but be in full on motherly mode when it came to her friends. It did help, though, that the sing had relaxed her to the point of her being almost done with the food: all she needed to do was mix in the broth now.

"I always thought that the bagpipes produced such a strange sound when I first heard them," Katara commented. "They weren't like any instrument I know in my world at all. But now I know that it has a way of giving you power somehow, like being in a battle or something." I really like it!"

A weird explanation, but it made perfect sense to her.

"Sure, go ahead!"

He doesn't have to go far - just over to a handy mountain stream where he's placed the bottles of alcohol so they will cool. He doesn't mind drinking them warm, but there's something nice about a cool beverage coupled with a warm dish.

As he comes back and offers one out to Katara, he says, "Funny ye should phrase it like that. That was a big part of what they were used for back in my home - battle."

Katara actually ONLY would have a drink if it were cold: it wasn't likely she'd have a warm alcoholic beverage unless it was cider. For that reason, she was really glad that Jamie had remembered to keep the drinks in a relatively cold place. She grinned and the Sensoriums produced a table for them. Katara served up the food the sat in a kneeling position.

"Was it really?" Katara said, grinning. "I thought they were. You can't hear something like that without getting your blood pumping, you know?"

She produced spoons and a tablecloth. "So how have things been for you, Jamie?"

"Aye, that's true. There's nothing quite like the pipes to stir the blood, like ye said. Even if ye are the one playing them." Jamie gives Katara a lopsided grin.

There seems to be a lack of chairs here, which may have caused some hesitation a few years ago. Now, however, he simply follows Katara's lead and kneels on the opposite side, setting his bottle down on the table.

"Busy, but ye pretty much figured that out when ye were teasing me about working too hard." He's willing to admit she wasn't too far off the mark there. "Mostly doing things in Engineering or down in the city, although I've got some ideas for a wee song or two I need to work on."

He takes a spoonful of the soup and blows on it to get it to cool down. "How about yourself?"

"I should say not! You know,in all the time I've been on the ship, I've experienced a lot of things, but I really regret not being able to play an instrument. I guess you can't be good at everything...or even be able to have the time to learn something like that. It must make you pretty popular."

She brought them some napkins, arranging them neatly on the table and gave a small bow to the food. "Thanks to the fish, for giving us the sustenance we need to feed our bodies."

She never ate something like this without thanking the animal itself: it was natural to her, and she could just as well have been eating Stacy's slop, which was NOT sustenance to the body.

"I'd love to hear that!" she said, uncorking her bottle and taking a delicate sip. "For me, well, the girls really give me a workout, but they're getting to where they won't need me as much...they're getting as independent as I am when Arha was getting overwhelmed with all of her duties. The Outsiders are doing pretty good too: I just visited Haku pretty recently. You could say I'm doing pretty good. Work and more work really."

She gave him a small smile. "And how's your love life, to get to a more cheerful subject?"

"I'll play it for ye when I'm finished," he promises.

Now that she's given thanks, he's just about ready to try a spoonful of the Cullen Skink when she brings up the subject of his love life. Subtle, Katara. Jamie arches his eyebrows briefly, then lowers the spoon.

"It's fine," he says unhelpfully. Unlike some of their fellow crew, he's not a braggart - not in that particular area, anyway. "Ye aren't thinking of trying to play matchmaker for me again, are ye?"

"Thanks, I'd really like to hear it!" Katara said, grinning.

Katara took a bit of the Cullen Sink herself. It wasn't bad: once she adjusted to the fact that fish back home were going to taste differently from fish on the ship, she grew to like the taste. Also, the spices made all the difference too: you couldn't really get a hold of spices in the Southern Water Tribe, so the Cullen sink tasted especially delicious with the sale and pepper and broth.

Katara would never have thought Jamie a braggart about girls (that was Julian), Jamie was gentlemanly like most of the guys she knew. "Why not?" She asked. "I'm usually busy training people and being with my family. I'd like just as much to have a hand in making my closest friends happy!"

Jamie shakes his head, then takes that mouthful of the soup. It's cooled to the perfect temperature, and the combination of spices enhances the taste. He closes his eyes for a moment, simply appreciating the flavor.

He hasn't forgotten this discussion, however, and his eyes open again after a bit. "What about making yourself happy? I don't see ye trying to find anyone on the ship." Not answering her question is deliberate - he's definitely trying to sidestep the issue.