Desperate Measures

Guin watched quietly as Jack continued his task, putting things away in his closet and looking through some documents in his safe. It wasn't the most interesting thing to watch, but there wasn't much else to do. It was also surprisingly cold in here, lending to her shivering.

It was a few minutes before Jack noticed her shaking. "Are you cold?"

Guin shuffled her claws. "...a little..."

Jack shook his head. "You can be honest. You won't hurt my feelings."

Guin nodded. "It's freezing in here."

With a soft nod, Jack reached down to the foot of the bed and pulled up the faux fur blanket. As unsettling as it was when Guin looked at it, it was surprisingly warm, though exactly as coarse as she had imagined. It was comfortable, though.

"Can I ask you something, Mr. A?"

"You can call me Jack," he said, returning to his work. "And yeah, go ahead."

Guin curled up, knowing that this was going to hurt him to hear, but needing to know. "That guard, the one who came to the door... He said you had a history of neglect."

Jack stopped what he was doing. He looked hurt.

"Sorry. Forget I asked..."

"No," he sighed. "You have every right to ask. After all, I'm supposed to be taking care of you, and you want to feel safe. How can you feel safe, knowing that the jackass watching you has a history of neglect and public intoxication?"

He sat down on the bed again. "It was just after Jenny was born. While she was pregnant, Muriel had fallen ill. When she died two days after giving birth, I didn't know what to do with myself. I turned to the bottle to drown my sorrows and..." He shook his head. "The rest is a blur. When I came to my senses, I was in a courtroom. I had just been sentenced to four years in prison, and when I was told to say goodbye to my kids, I saw..."

He sniffed. A couple of tears were running down his face. Guin put a claw on his wrist. "You can stop, if you want."

He shook his head. "I saw Muriel's face looking back at me. But it wasn't her. It was Jenny. I begged the judge for one more chance, and he was willing to give it to me. Every day for the next five years, I had to take a sobriety test, I had to go to AA meetings and I had to have a royal guard checking my house once weekly. But in the end, I was given the opportunity to watch my kids grow up. I can't stress enough how important that is."

Guin pushed the covers aside and hugged Jack. To her shock, he was warmer than the blanket. "You're really warm..."

Jack smiled, wrapping a hoof around her. "Yeah, I tend to burn pretty hot. When we were finished for the night and going to bed, she used to say that it was her favourite thing about me; that I could keep her toasty and comfortable, even in the howling winds of a blizzard."

"What do you mean, "finished for the night?" You mean when you were going to bed?"

Jack had to backpedal a bit. "I'll tell you when you're a bit older. For now, don't worry about it."

Guin snuggled up tighter to him. "Okay. I think she was right, though. You're very comfortable..."

Guin was the first to wake up once again, or at least, she thought that she was. After their conversation, they'd gone to bed, with Guin going back under the blanket and Jack staying out in the open air with a fan blowing across his body to help him cool off.

She didn't know why she was waking up now. Perhaps part of it was that Jack was snoring again. Perhaps part of it was due to the nightmare where she had stayed in the house, but the unicorn had taken Jenny and Kurt and Jack had turned back to drinking, leaving her alone and uncared for. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it was maybe a little too warm under this blanket.

She kicked it off and climbed out of bed, making her way out to the kitchen. The dishes were all clean, as Jack had scrubbed them all while she was in the shower. And of course, she and Jenny had already made lunch yesterday, so that was taken care of. It was time to try her claw at breakfast.

Guin had a favourite breakfast item, and that was a fried egg, over easy, on toast and cheese. But there were a few problems with that. First and foremost, they didn't have a toaster. Her gran had always insisted that she wouldn't need a toaster if she was more comfortable moving around, but the automation was appreciated. She could make toast in a pan, and used to do so when she was younger, but Guin had never paid any attention to how her Gran cooked. She always just guessed that she would have time to learn in the six years remaining until adulthood.

Either way, she knew that toast could be made in a pan, and even if she didn't know how to make an egg, toast on its own was an okay thing to have for breakfast. She just had to figure out how to use the stove.

Luckily, Jack came out to help her when the fire alarm went off, and they all managed to have breakfast before they left for the day. Even though she'd burnt her way through half a loaf of bread, Jack had been very gentle with her, and had made her favourite breakfast for her, though she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd ruined his morning, even after the smoke had cleared.

"I'm not mad," he said, after sending Jenny and Kurt back to their rooms to prepare for school. "What you did was wrong, but I know you had good intentions."

Guin wiped her face. She'd barely made it through her sandwich.

"I'll take some of the blame," he continued, placing a hoof on her shoulder. "I should have been out here to help. I have some time this weekend; why don't I teach you a few things here in the kitchen, hm? I'm not going to make you do all the cooking and cleaning, but if you're going to try to do it, anyway, maybe it's for the best that you learn how to cook something safely."