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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.

Katara smiled. She was glad to see that Jamie was liking the flavor: it was one she had worked on in private by herself, and had tested out making the broth in the Sensoriums before making the real thing with real ingredients. To her, cooking wasn't something that anyone did idly: they did with purpose and the hope that the person who was having it would be taken to a happy place.

"We're not talking about me!" Katara said hotly, hands on her hips. "We can get back to me in a second, but trying to change subjects like that is a pretty obvious move, Jamie Mccrimmon!"

Saying his full name was enough for Jamie to know when Katara meant business.

It's usually enough for Jamie to know that anyone would mean business, not just Katara. He's caught mid-eating yet again, but he finishes the spoonful first this time before looking back over to her. To his credit, he at least appears to be a touch sheepish.

"Look, I just didn't want to get into it, aye? Just because I've not found a lass I want to settle down and raise bairns with..."

He knows, though, that she's not going to let the subject go lightly, and he adds, "Maybe if Victoria had woken up, it would have been different." Or if Kaylee had shown some interest, perhaps.

Katara did feel a little bad here. She was just trying to playfully jab at Jamie, but maybe he actually didn't like the fact that he hadn't settle down with anyone after all. She didn't want them eating during tense circumstances. She sighed, taking another bite, Wow, this was really good!

"Look, you don't have to go raising 'bairns,' no one said you did. I just figured, y'know, after all of this time, a girl would have been smart enough to properly go after a guy like you, that's all. Thought for sure it would have been Kaylee, to be honest. She's all smiles and 'teh smexy' or whatever, who wouldn't go for her?"

Yes, Katara did pick up on ship slang, to Sokka's chagrin. But she understood where Jamie was coming from.

"But I can understand about waiting for Victoria. You know for me it wasn't all that different."

"I'm not saying I wouldna want children, Katara." He does, but not like other members of the crew. He'd rather have it be as part of a family, instead of just being a byproduct of a good time. "If I found someone, and it was right...I would."

He stirs the spoon around in the soup, but doesn't pick it up out of the bowl.
Instead, he fixes his eyes on the bowl, but he's looking through it more than looking at it. "Ye know as well as I do she's with Dean. She went for the one she wanted." It is what it is, and there's not much to be done about it now. He finally looks up at her and nods. "And, I know, with Aang. We seem to have that in common, aye?"

Katara knew he would: even she would never have understood having children as a mark of having a good time. The traditions in her world had always taken a sort of lesson onto her, forcing her to think on the level of how he would live her life. The person she would bare a child with, it would be because of love and affection, everything that she, still very much a girl, would want for him.

She took another spoonful, and gave him a thoughtful look. "You can't blame me for hoping you'd win out. I think Kaylee would have been good for you, Jamie: she's cheerful, sweet, always knows how to give her man hope. I mean, you do get it was why I didn't get involved with you for awhile? I didn't want to spoil that chance for you. I...kinda wanted you to be happy."

She blushed here, taking another spoonful.

He's quiet for a moment, studying her thoughtfully. "Aye. I see." He, too, takes another spoonful, but he's still looking at her over the top of it, his hazel eyes quite serious.

Finally, he sets the spoon back in the bowl and asks her directly, "What makes ye think I wouldna be happy with ye, Katara?"

Edited 2010-05-09 10:25 (UTC)

Katara took another spoonful of the broth, savoring it. It was tricky territory here, describing how she felt about Jamie in all this time. She had rehearsed it in her head, why it was she didn't go after him, why she'd even step away and have Kaylee go after if she liked him.

"Because I'm not like her," Katara said. "I'm not from this earth you guys talk about: I'm from the Southern watertribe. I can't like someone with just flirting and teasing: if I care about someone, its all or nothing. I always figured that admitting that was something that made most guys look the other way. I can understand that. So, you know, I figured Kaylee was more your type: less intense, more fun."

He's stopped eating, himself - which should say something. It's rare for Jamie to not take advantage of having food in front of him, but this is a serious enough discussion that he is giving it his full attention.

"There's a difference between flirting and having feelings for someone. Ye can flirt and have it not mean anything." Like when they first met, when Jamie didn't see Katara as anything other than a friend. There were still times when he flirted and viewed it just as innocent fun. Once he got realized that Katara might have misinterpreted it, though, he tried to tone it down.

He can understand caring about someone being all or nothing, though. He certainly cared for Victoria more than he let on...and he wonders now if maybe Katara's been doing something similar with her feelings towards him. "Do ye care about me, Katara?"

Katara was a little surprised to see Jamie stop eating, but it told her all that she needed to know: he was actually trying to see things from her perspective, get exactly where she was coming from. Katara cleared her throat a moment, looking genuinely happy.

"Yeah, I get that. We do that sometimes, although I had to get used to it at first when we initially met. I won't lie: back then I was lost as to how I could show anyone that kind of affection without meaning it. But I got used to it, and even did it back. But you know...I was always thinking I was going to be with Aang, just as you always thought you were going to be with Victoria. So I waited, and I figured you would have found someone else more reliable."

At the question, she looked genuinely surprised. "Of course I care about you. I have for years, you know that. You're one of my closest friends."

Which she knew was an answer to buy her time: to run what she was saying through her head. She wanted to be completely honest with him.

Jamie nods in agreement. "Aye, I understand. I felt lost sometimes myself, seeing some of the customs of the other crew." Romantic things, however, are especially tricky. He's found it hard enough to deal with that situation himself, and he's at least familiar with the Earth customs. Throw in being from another planet AND being 14 at the time? Jamie can completely believe that Katara was lost.

He smiles warmly at her for a moment at her response. "And ye are one of mine." It's not quite what he meant, though, and he figures she's likely trying to think of what she wants to say. "But...what I was wondering was if ye had feelings for me, beyond that." There's a pause, and he adds, "Or if ye think ye could."