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[stepfordbot]

They'd been doing well. The world hadn't ended, five was home, the house was full- they'd celebrated. They'd danced and laughed and lived and had fun as normal families do. They reached out to one another to build a better understanding, they spoke more than they ever did in their youth without the specter of Reginald hanging overhead. It'd been light in the mansion. Full of joy. Potential. For the first time since her creation Grace could say without a shadow of a doubt, she was happy. Without a single qualifier or exception. Happy except for the things she had to endure hearing Reginald say about the children. Happy except for how she wasn't allowed to truly be happy.

She was allowed to feel, to express that feeling. She was allowed to change her appearance outside of the strictly defined aesthetics painted onto her by her creator.



And then the ghost. The specter, the threat of everything she managed to recover, to build being taken away again. Of being pared down to the bare doll of a thing she'd drifted about as just after Reginald's death. Reminded in so many ways she has a place and a purpose and it isn't what she wanted- because she isn't meant to want anything.

She's a tool. There are rules.

It means resuming the old routine. The old appearance. All the lovely clothing the children, her children helped her choose folded away in her closet, unworn. Back to the old swingdresses and pincurls, the carefully painted lips and penciled brow. Back to stiffly, mechanically baking and preparing tea at a certain hour. Back to filling the dessert case, a single deviation from the old programming, because the kids are upset. They snack more when they're upset and cookies make everything better. How many batches she's baked now- she doesn't know. She's lost count. The counter and cooler are full of pies, cakes, and pastry, sweet after sweet kneaded, shaped, baked, and dusted with sugar. Flour on her hand and apron but not a curl out of place- not a single, lilting note sung under her breath. Grace bakes in absolute silence.

Comments

[ouiking_ouija]

It was incredibly rare that Klaus was glad to have missed something while he was out, but Reginald's return, so to speak, was definitely one of those things. Somehow he had as yet managed to avoid the specter while he was home, though he had been filled in almost as soon as he'd returned the day it had happened, and the knowledge alone had almost been enough to send him into a panic attack. Though he had felt perpetually on the verge of one ever since, a little off-balance, like there was a storm-front rolling in and disrupting his inner ear with the pressure.

He doubted that he was actually keeping it together as well as he wanted to pretend he was, but so far he had managed not to go back to old coping mechanisms, or at least not to the levels that he would have even just a few months prior.

That day, he had managed to get a few hours of sleep, in his own bed, but knew when he woke up that was all he was going to get for the foreseeable future, which was what had him wandering down to the kitchen, realization dawning just from the smell as he got closer, a reminder that the rest of them had actually been there, had actually seen the man in question, which meant that he had no excuse.

It was why he walked into the kitchen already rolling up his sleeves, "What do you need help with, mom? I'm not going to accept 'nothing' as an answer, just so you know."

[stepfordbot]

Directing someone else as she works the batter by hand (they have a mixer but she can't get tired, not from this, and she wants to expand the effort), whipping egg white and folding in sugar little by little, is easier than attempting to explain herself. Than trying to put to words how this has set her off balance just as she'd found her footing- it isn't her job to bare her troubles to the children. It is her job to help them bear theirs. That is what she is for, that is why she was made, and while she can't say she's been lacking- It's all she can think of, the baking. "You can get the cherry jam ready for the filling." Never needing a written recipe doesn't keep her from pausing long enough to write out what Klaus will need to do in longhand, the same practically perfect, uniform cursive she's always used. The ingredients are already measured out and portioned, waiting to be put to use by the stove. Every moton is- stiff. Precise. Measured. None of the careless ease she had at the party, none of the humming, the dancing of a few weeks ago. A clockwork doll in the shape of a mother.

[ouiking_ouija]

He nodded at that, "Okay, but we've got to do something about the noise in here, first." Or, rather, the lack thereof, he might not be able to help with much, and especially not without directions -and he was definitely thankful for those- but music he could handle.

He gave a silent thanks to whichever sibling had left a portable speaker in the kitchen, taking just a moment to plug his phone into it and start some music, not as loud as music had been in the kitchen as of late, but loud enough to be heard at least. That done he rummaged around in the drawer with the tea towels, careful not to unfold any of them from their tidy stacks, finally finding the apron he was looking for, tying it on, "Okay, cherry filling, that's what I'm doing, right."

[stepfordbot]

"If you like." The records of survival lectures had been burned with the portraits or donated upon the first batch of clearing out the house to be more like a home for the kids- a premature notion. Dead as Reginald might be, ghostlike as he is? It doesn't make the fact that he is here and it throws so many questions of legality and reality into play. All Grace can do is...bake. Bake and hope Reginald doesn't get it into his head to erase her again. "That's right. Just follow the instructions on the page and be careful not to burn yourself as it cooks down. The sugar makes the filling hotter than you'd expect." Lightly warning against the little hurts, the smaller dangers. The things she can, she always could keep them safe from. But never enough freedom to keep them safe from Reginald.

[ouiking_ouija]

He had enough sense to read over the instructions once before starting, and made sure to keep them where he could see them even as he started, double-checking the heat under the pan even as he said: "Yeah, molten sugar burns are right up there with the molten cheese burns on the 'no thank you' list."

He did hum along even as he stirred, movements maybe a little too cautious, certainly more than they usually would be, finding himself gnawing at an already shredded thumbnail while he tried to sort out how to ask, finally just going with blunt, because that was what he was good at: "You know he's just a fuckin' ghost, right? Can't actually do anything to you? To any of us?" Granted, given the fact that he still couldn't handle the inarticulate ghosts of strangers and had yet to see the fully-aware ghost of his father aside from the one time before everything had turned around for the better, he might not be the best person to give that reminder.

[stepfordbot]

The whisking stills for a moment, a stutter in an otherwise well choreographed, perfectly tuned dance. For that moment she is frozen in place, mind straining for something she can say, something that'll make sense before she resumes whisking, folding in ground almond and flour. "The helper app on your cell phone, Klaus. How does it work?" Her voice is even and mild, still folding, still whisking. "Voice activation, correct? You ask a specific question, she recognizes the question, and is compelled to perform as requested." She finishes folding in the flour, peering into the creamy, pink mass before transferring it to a piping bag. "All you have to do is ask the right question, or give the right order. She doesn't have a choice. It's what she was made for."

[ouiking_ouija]

"Yeah, I mean, I guess. When she can understand me." There were plenty of reasons Klaus didn't like voice recognition, and trying to articulate actual questions through any kind of hangover was one of the reasons.

His brow furrowed, right back to gnawing at that thumbnail, stirring slowing again as he thought it over, "So, if you can't hear him, there shouldn't be a problem, right? We could get you a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones, for when one of us isn't with you to distract him." He shrugged, " I mean, it's not perfect, but it could work until he gets bored and goes away, right?"

[stepfordbot]

"That...that could work." She hadn't thought of it. Finding ways around her programming is mentally taxing, focusing on ways to circumnavigate Reginald's instructions and expectations acts as an anchor around her mind. Her intellect. She could do more, wants to do more- but can't as long as she's thus hobbled. She slows in her piping as she considers the simplicity and elegance of the solution, some of the tension in her shoulders melting away. "...I don't want to lose this." This sense of self she's been able to cultivate. The joy everyone had at reuniting without the world ending.

[ouiking_ouija]

Klaus wasn't exactly an expert at creative workarounds, and his logic didn't quite run the same lines as most people's because it tended to go the path of what would be the least work, and if voice recognition was the problem, they just had to block out the voice. It wasn't a long-term solution, and he didn't expect it to be, they were a family of geniuses and then him, so they could, collectively, come up with something better before the quick fix was no longer effective.

He gave her an actual smile at that, reaching over to rest a hand on her arm, giving what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, "You know none of us are going to let that happen, mom. I think I even have a pair, they probably need new batteries, for the noise cancelling part, but I'll go check when we're done here."

[stepfordbot]

"I never realized how much happier you all were with him gone." Until- until. Until she was herself in this house, until the world didn't end and they got to live like a semi-regular family. Until the party and all the joy and frivolity that didn't need a schedule. Until-

Until.

"Thank you, Klaus. That's very kind." She's proud of him for thinking of something so straightforward and simple, for thinking of how to help. For understanding. Once she's finished with piping the last row of macarons she rests her hand on his, squeezing.

[ouiking_ouija]

"You're welcome, mom." He replied as he went back to stirring, tipping the next precisely-measured ingredient into the pan, careful not to splash, tone gone breezy as he added: "And if all else fails, I can sure as hell figure out how to make him solid enough to push off a balcony."

Which probably wasn't a long-term solution either, because then he'd be a ghost of a ghost, and that would probably end up being like a copy of a copy after a while, blurrier and increasingly illegible, and he definitely already had enough ghosts like that to contend with.

But for her sake? For the sake of the rest of them? He absolutely would.