I think I have a tell. Maybe it's that my breathing changes, or my body shifts or something, but if Tsu'na wakes up before me she knows when I wake up. Of course, I can be dead to the world when I'm asleep, so, even if I start out with an arm around her and my nose in her hair, I can wake up to find her not there.

But this time my arm was still around her and my nose was still in her hair when my eyes opened, and she said. "Good morning, Husband."

"Morning, my love."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Of course. I was with you."

"Do you feel rested and energized?"

I smiled. "Omelette?"

"Yes, please."

"Can't I just stay with you a little longer?"

"I am hungry. Shall I eat your arm?"

I gave her a squeeze, removed my arm from within temptation range, dressed and lumbered toward the kitchen. Tsu'na has a recipe for omelettes, but it's a fixed thing with no variety in ingredients. So she likes it when I rummage in the kitchen and come up with something for her.

I found cheese in the fridge and canned mushrooms on the shelf, and sliced up some bacon to fry. She came in and watched as I added the ingredients onto the egg mixture in the pan. "How do you know what to add?"

"Whatever's here, whatever I fancy."

"And how do you know how long to cook it?"

"The way I learned it, you lift up the edges and let the liquid run out underneath, then fold it when there's no more liquid. Then until it's a little brown."

"So you...guess."

"Kinda. Matter of feel."

She glanced around the kitchen, then back at the pan. "I suppose I should try."

"Sure. You can do tomorrow. Get the plates?"

We settled at the dining table. "You know, this brings up something I meant to add to the list. Recipe templates."

"What are recipe templates?"

I started talking about algebra. I went on to Mad Libs. I got around to materia melding. I was about to bring up printf statements when she held up her hand and said, "You want to make recipes with holes in them to fill with things?"

"Exactly."

"Why did you not say, 'I want to make recipes with holes in them to fill with things'?"

"What would you have said?"

She sighed and looked down at her food. "'What do you mean?' But I might have needed less explanation."

"Noted."

"So now I will ask, why?"

I gestured at her plate. "So we can make an omelette recipe that we can add whatever we want to. Or a pizza recipe. Or a pie recipe."

"Pizza...that flatbread thing you made for me at the Bismark?"

I grinned. "Bus ride for lunch, my love."

"Will it be better than what you made? I like the bus, but not for poor food."

"Well, maybe you should see if one of your adoring fans would bring you one."

She tilted her head. "Are you jealous, Husband?"

"Of course! I want fans too!"

"I did not ask for the ones I have."

"Yeah...Wonder if it was what I said to Sam. Or the people at the diner."

"The Pit people are different from the diner people."

"Yeah, but small town. Everyone knows everyone. So everyone talks to everyone about everyone."

"Is it a conspiracy, like the Syndicate? Do they have secret meetings to talk about us?"

"Heh. We could follow them around for a day and find out."

We chuckled. We ate. We stopped eating. We looked at each other.

"We could do that."

"We could totally do that."

"It might be interesting."

"It might be boring."

"It might be both."

"It might be really intrusive and an invasion of privacy."

She nodded thoughtfully, meeting my gaze. "We are doing it, are we not?"

"We're totally doing it."

"I will start with May. She still seems afraid of me. Perhaps I can find out why. She closes her store at 3:00 today."

"I don't know where Sam lives...I need that to see how he spends his days. I should find that out tonight...tail him from the bar. Can you cover for me at the diner if I cut out early?"

"Of course."

"Cool. So...until then, I need to mow the lawn."

"I need to vacuum the library."

"And then we need to take a bus to lunch."

"Do not disappoint me with the pizza, Husband."

"Yes, my love."