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Baking sweets is not something Demelza has had much practice in and is very much something she would like to learn, for even when she is mildly cross with Ross for not talking to her as he should, she is still the sort who wants to make him happy. And to be able to bake him a fresh, sweet pie would be lovely.

Given her abilities in the kitchen, Demelza is of the mind she'd be able to accomplish such a thing with little effort and few mistakes, but it seems truly silly not to take advantage of having met a woman like Greta, with whom she'd felt a sort of kinship regardless of what she can do. Perhaps she would manage on her own, but some things, she knows, are simply better done with friends, and Greta knows more than Demelza does in this regard.

It's not proper custom in Darrow, to show up unannounced, but Demelza does it anyway, not yet used to her telephone except in emergency situations. The problem Demelza faces now is that she does not yet know where Greta lives and so she cannot simply arrive at her door. Instead, knowing Greta to be a baker, Demelza leaves her children and Garrick with Abby one morning, then goes to the market where she has found some the freshest and most wonderful tasting pastries and it seems as though it might be just the place where Greta would be.

She's perusing a small selection of croissants when she sees a familiar figure and Demelza bursts into a smile, then lifts her skirts, hurrying through the crowd.

"Hello!" she calls. "Greta!"

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While she's been in Darrow long enough for her to understand that such things are true, Demelza still hasn't been able to work out the how or why of it. For Greta to have her sister-in-law here and for her to not be the right version all at once feels terribly cruel and she wonders if such things might ever happen to her. If Verity were to come to Darrow, but without the slightest knowledge who she is.

Demelza thinks such a thing would break her heart.

"Tis strange how that happens," she says. "Strange and unsettling. I don't think I'd be able to bear it if my family were to be here and yet for them to not be the right versions of themselves. Not my father, but my brothers or my cousin-in-law. I miss her so much."

"I hardly knew her back home. It was mostly by reputation, really," Greta says, not wanting Demelza to think this is too tragic. It's certainly not on par with what happened to Sam, or anyone else who might be dealing with a friend or family member from a different point in time. It does make her a bit more anxious to get home, if only to tell her husband of her suspicions (though, if she's being entirely honest, it's also the thought of having a familial connection to royalty that captures her imagination), but there isn't much it can do to impact her life here. Not with a completely different Rapunzel in the city.

"Still strange, though," she allows, shaking her head. "To know, but not be able to do anything with it." And that's assuming her world's Rapunzel would even welcome a claim from a humble baker. She might just as easily want to leave the past where it belongs. Her husband might too, for that matter.

Greta gives Demelza a sympathetic smile. "Your husband's cousin, then?" she clarifies, to make sure she understands it. "A more tolerable member of the gentry, I take it?"

"Yes, Ross' cousin Verity," Demelza says with a smile. "Had Jeremy been a girl we were going to name him after her. At first she made me so terribly nervous because I thought, like everyone else, she'd just see me as the scullery maid and not worth a moment of Ross' time or his family's name. She came to visit not long after we were married and it was that uncomfortable at first, but that were really all my fault."

She had been terrified and so she'd not made herself open and available to Verity, who had only ever been trying to do right by her new cousin-in-law.

"I was tryin' so hard to be proper, too, so I'd not shame myself or Ross, but I was getting the rules all wrong and then Verity... well, she told me she didn't care at all where I was from, only that she'd not seen Ross so happy in a long time and oh, she was so kind. Too kind sometimes, she let her brother and her father walk all over her, but she's happy now. She has the life she wanted, the one she deserves."

Demelza had seen to that. She'd destroyed the lives of several other men in the process, but she'd had no way of knowing Francis would take such revenge and give over the names of Ross' investors to George Warleggan.

Greta listens with her brow furrowed in sympathy. Much as she might have daydreamed about being a Lady - the sort who might don a beautiful gown and attend a Festival - she hasn't actually done much mingling with the gentry, and what she had experienced wasn't always pleasant. Cinderella was all right, but she's not sure Cinderella even counted. It's not as if she was a Princess when Greta spoke with her in the Woods. Rather, Greta got the impression that she wasn't so different from any of her neighbors, just blessed with a bit more youth and much fancier wardrobe.

Including slippers as pure as gold, of course.

Point is, she doesn't envy Demelza's abrupt induction to the upper class. It all sounds terribly stressful - and not the sort of stress a working class person would be accustomed to.

"She sounds lovely," Greta says, starting to nudge a few things aside and clear some counter space. "And sensible." Which isn't a trait she necessarily expects from the gentry. Glancing over at Demelza, she adds, "It's hard to wish anyone here without feeling selfish, but... I'm glad she's happy, at least, if she can't be here."

"Tis true, for all I wish to see her, I'd not want to take her from her husband after the struggles they went through just to be together," Demelza agrees, clearing more space on the counter by moving her groceries and other items aside. There's flour and sugar and butter and she rummages through the drawers before she produces two knives for cutting and peeling the apples. There are days when she's still stunned by the abundance of fruit, remembering well enough just how many children suffered from scurvy in Illugen, unable to get what they needed from fish and grain. Here there's absolutely no chance of it and she feeds Julia fresh fruit as often as she can.

"He had been married before Verity," she explains. "And he'd had trouble with drinking. One day he and his wife were fighting and he pushed her too hard and she... well, she died. He was charged and served his time in gaol and he never touched a drop of alcohol since that day and I... well, people deserve second chances, do they not? He was so in love with Verity and Ross accused me of being naive, but I believed they would be happy together and so I helped 'em."

She smiles, deciding it's best to gloss over all the consequences of that decision and skip right to the happier bits. "And now they're married and Verity's brother can no longer treat her as if she's his slave."

It's a rather harrowing story, but Greta finds herself nodding along to much of it. The exact circumstances aren't familiar to her, of course, but she does understand what it's like to want to help, to know you could make a difference -- to know it so certainly that you don't ask for permission, even if everyone else would presume you ought to get it.

"It was good of you to help them," she says. "Honestly, it's as if people forget that we can -- be of use in ways they haven't already decided we should be, I mean. When we were trying to break the Curse... well, if my husband had his way, I would've stayed at the cottage. But I wasn't about to just sit around, not when I could do something."

He'd come round eventually, of course, but she's the one who'd forced the matter. If she hadn't been out there getting things done in the first place, she doubts he would have come back to the cottage and begged for her help until it was too late.