be happy (barbara/blinky)

It's nice, being able to cook for people.

Jim is learning to cook again. It's been a slow, frustrating process relearning what's good for his taste nowadays, but he's always been a natural, and he's clearly been warming to the task of getting to explore all over again. She isn't really sure how to replicate her results exactly, but she's apparently made for good study in his experiments, and it puts a little bubble of joy in her chest to see him really, truly enjoying her food.

He's not the only one, either. Mr. Blinky--Blinky, she's slowly slipped into calling him--has been over at their house for dinner once or twice a week at first, and then on the regular, and now almost every night. It's weird, how easily he fits into their lives.

Barb wouldn't have thought six months ago that she'd be laughing around the table with a blue monster made of stone, and a son just as blue as he was; but here they are, and it feels like the most normal thing in the world.

She can /talk/ to him, is the thing. She isn't overly formal or wordy herself, but she wouldn't be a doctor if she wasn't good at jargon. He seems absolutely delighted that she can keep up with his running, rambling torrent of words, that someone actually wants to. He's... clueless about some things--she wonders, a lot, if that's a troll thing or just how he is--but he's actually got his head pretty well on his shoulders when it comes to others. They end up trading advice a lot.

And he loves Jim. Maybe as much as she does, if that's even possible. It's clear in every line of his face when he looks at her boy, and it's about the most common ground she can imagine having with anyone.

Barb listens to Jim laughing at something Blinky's said in the dining room, as she pushes aside the packed lunches she brings them at their work sometimes to grab some of the leftovers Jim's made for her.

She likes this, she thinks. They might just be happy, like this.