Hearth

***

If asked - although he never, ever is, and that's kind of sad - Scott Summers would say that his favorite times always happen in the kitchen. It's a cliche, almost, to think it, the kitchen being considered the center of the typical American home and all, but still. It's accurate.

Some of his fondest memories of his very early years are centered around the kitchen. Playing with his brother on a soft blanket. Listening to his mother sing along, badly, to Diana Ross and the Supremes while making dinner. Skewering vegetables on kebob sticks to grill with his father.

Later, it had been memories of four other teenagers and a solemn but sharp-witted instructor, then other friends and laughing and jokes and warmth and food. A blur of good and bad, all centering around the kitchen.

They are the bits and pieces of his life that he holds sacred. Worry rocks that he pulls out when everything seems bleak and endless, and given the life he's lead, those memories have been dragged out a lot.

Still, it's different now. The other kitchens in his memories have always been somehow, less warm than the one he's currently finishing up dishes in. He knows the difference is in that this is his kitchen, with his wife humming along to a U2 song while wiping down the table with a rag.

Yes, he'd been married before and the kitchen he'd shared, briefly, with Maddy had been his own, but when he's honest with himself, he knows that relationship had been born in grief and yearning and had ended in something more than just tears. It hadn't been like this. It hadn't been this comfortable or soft.

He smiles then. Scrubbing at a bit of stubborn teriyaki sauce, he grins stupidly out the window above his sink and into the evening twilight of his backyard.

And then Jean snuggles up to his back, winding her arms around him and biting his ear gently. "And what are you so happy about, handsome?"

He flicks soapy water at her just to hear her squeak and laughs, low and deep and happy. "Everything."

-fin-

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