A/N: Written for Dynapink in the Yuletide 2015 exchange.

Memory and Apples

Victoria hopped off the chair and blew the dust off the notebook's cover. Yes, it was definitely the one she'd been looking for. It had been seven years since she'd last seen it, but she still remembered the dark leather cover, slightly cracked with the wear and tear of time, and the bulky shape, heavy with pages that had been pasted or sewn into it over the years. She thumbed through it slowly, noting how the home-made ink had faded in places. The writing, however, was still readable and easily recognised. She knew the hand which had put the pen to paper, which had carefully traced each straight-backed letter, each neatly-spaced word. It was a book of recipes – only that, and yet also much more. Her mother's book of recipes, left unopened since the day her mother had died.

Victoria tried to swallow the lump in her throat, and discovered that she couldn't. She could almost see her mother sitting at the kitchen table, her face and hands lit up by the candle in front of her, her mouth quietly sounding out each word as she wrote. Mother had been as precise a writer as she had been a cook, although perhaps not quite as practised. Once she was done, she would always sigh and smile, and ask Victoria to put the book away for her. That was how it went… until the day when Mother was killed, and Victoria couldn't bear to take out the recipe book again.

A loose leaf of paper fluttered out and slowly drifted to the floor. A last recipe, which Mother had written down, but never had the time to glue into the book. Victoria bent down to retrieve it, and suddenly found herself shaking with sobs. Her mother was gone – so was her father, so was the home she had known as a child. She knew it. She had come to terms with it… and yet the sight of that forgotten little scrap of paper was enough to bring back the pain, the grief, the sheer injustice of it all.

"Victoria! Are you all right?"

Someone came into the kitchen, so quickly and quietly that she barely had the time to drag a sleeve across her eyes. The sharp, protective note in his voice made her think of Zorro, but no – it was Don Diego de la Vega. For a few heartbeats they looked at each other in silence. He was visibly tense; she – half-embarrassed and half-afraid that she might burst into tears again if she tried to speak.

Finally, Diego cleared this throat. The rare fire in his eyes seemed to flicker out. "I, ah, I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I thought I heard crying..."

"I don't know why you would," Victoria retorted. The sting of being caught in a private moment, even by a friend, helped her overcome the sadness for the time being, but it also put a lot more bite in her voice than was necessary. "I was… chopping onions, that's all."

It was an obvious, awkward lie, especially since there was nary an onion in sight, but Diego didn't challenge it. Victoria was thankful for that. His next words surprised her, though.

"Well, since I'm already here and I have some time before I need to meet with Father – perhaps you'd like me to help you cook?"

"Why, Diego! I never knew you could."

Diego smiled sheepishly. "Ah, yes. I imagine I can. That is, chemistry is a little like cooking, isn't it? Or so it seems to me, at any rate."

"Well, you'd better not try one of your experiments in my kitchen!" Victoria snorted, but, again, it came out sharper than intended, and she felt ashamed almost at once. Diego, her friend Diego, this kind, gentle man, was only trying to help her, and here she was, snapping at him because she was embarrassed. She smiled at him to soften her previous words.

"I'm joking. You can help if you'd like – I'm making my mother's apple pudding. How about you peel and chop these apples while I whisk the eggs?"

Diego sent her a truly beautiful smile in return. "I'll be happy to. And no experiments, I promise."

As she set to work, Victoria reflected on the fact that, while she was usually more likely to chase out anyone who tried to get into the kitchen while she was working, today the company was welcome. She was grateful, in fact – grateful that Diego came in when he did, and that he didn't leave her alone even after she had been rude to him. He was a surprisingly deft hand at the apples, too. His long fingers handled the knife with skill and confidence she had rarely seen in him before. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, almost without realising that she was staring. Then, suddenly, he looked up and saw her.

"Ah!"

"Diego! Did you cut yourself? Let me see!"

"No… well, yes, but only a little. It's nothing to worry about, Victoria. I – I suppose I got distracted."

Victoria's first instinct was to chide him, her second – to feel guilty about the first. Diego already looked angry enough with himself; odd, since he had much more impressive feats of clumsiness to his name than a mere accident with a kitchen knife. Fortunately, the cut was indeed not very deep, although it had bled considerably at first. They cleaned and bandaged it together, and Diego eventually began to joke that his lack of skill with blades of any kind evidently extended to kitchen utensils.

"You nearly finished the apples, in any case. I don't think we need any more," Victoria said, relieved to see that her friend's mood had improved. "Perhaps you could take the notebook and read the next part of the recipe to me?"

Diego was quick to oblige. "Let's see… Take four apples, remove peel… I've done that… Chop not too finely… I've certainly done that," he said, sending Victoria a wry look that made her laugh. "Eggs, yes… Oh, here we are! Mix a good piece of butter with the apples, then put in raisins, sugar, lemon extract and powdered cinnamon."

"How much cinnamon?"

"Only a teaspoon. Do you know, Victoria," Diego said with sudden wistfulness, "I recall, back when we were children… this is Señora Rosa's book of recipes, is it not? When I was about Felipe's age – younger, perhaps – I often saw you working with her in the kitchen. I used to sneak in, do you remember? Señora Rosa sometimes asked you to read the recipes out to her, too."

His voice was quiet and kind, and Victoria felt some of the barriers around her heart melt. It was a strange feeling. The walls had protected her, back when she had still been a girl, alone in a world where fathers could disappear without a trace and mothers could be shot down in cold blood for the crime of helping a wounded man; but she had not realised until now how much of a weight they had become over the years. Suddenly she found that she was able to speak freely again.

"She knew all the recipes by heart, I think. She just liked having me with her. Oh, Diego – I miss her so. It has been seven years, but..."

She didn't need to say more. Diego understood. "My mother died when I was only six years old," he said. "I barely remember her – I only know her face from the portrait in Father's study. And yet – this is a void that's hard to fill."

Victoria struggled to blink away sudden tears. For a moment it seemed that Diego wanted to reach out to her, but then he simply said, "Señora Rosa was a wonderful woman, brave and good-hearted… just like you. Victoria, your mother is proud of you."

The kindness in his voice helped Victoria compose herself enough to return to her work, stacking layers of buttery-sweet apples and milk-soaked bread inside the pudding pan. The next thing she said, still a little tearfully, was, "Your mother must be proud of you as well."

She raised her head just in time to catch Diego's sad smile. "Must she? My father doesn't always seem to be."

"Well," she huffed, "you must not have looked at him when you didn't let the alcalde turn the newspaper into his personal catalogue of lies – or when you stood up to that mad Englishman – or when you went to speak to the emissary on our behalf! Of course Don Alejandro is proud of you! I'd have words with him myself if he wasn't. And... I'm proud to have you as a friend, Diego."

The intensity of his look caught her off-guard. "Thank you, Victoria. You do not know how much this means to me."

They finished the pudding in comfortable silence. Once it was in the oven, and the kitchen had begun to fill with a rich, warm smell of bread and apples, Victoria spoke up. "It should be ready just in time for dinner. Gracias, Diego. Thank you... for everything."

Diego smiled. His eyes were full of light. "De nada, Victoria. Save some pudding for me, please; Father and I will be coming by the tavern later."

"Don't worry, I will." She laughed. "After all, you've earned it."

As she watched him leave, she was struck by a sudden feeling of protectiveness, like nothing she had ever experienced with anyone else – not her family, not Don Alejandro, who was like a second father to her, not even Zorro, whom she loved. There were dangers out there that could not be defeated through reason and kindness, and Diego was so vulnerable in other ways. When he needed a friend, who would stand by him, the way he had always stood by her?

She would, she decided with an air of finality. Whenever you need me, whenever you're in danger, I will be there for you.

That, Don Diego de la Vega, is a promise.

THE END

A/N: The pudding recipe used in the story is taken from Encarnación Pinedo's "El cocinero español", published as "Encarnación's Kitchen" by the University of California Press. The book first came out in 1898, so it's a little later than Diego and Victoria's time, but still reasonably contemporary, I thought. :) The section in italics, which Diego reads out, is pretty much a direct quote from the recipe for Pudin de Rosita, which incidentally also gave Victoria's mother her name.