It's not often that Greta gets the chance to entertain — or, rather, that she gets the chance to entertain a fellow adult. Most of the gatherings at the cottage are casual things involving Regan's or Saoirse's friends, with Greta's own involvement limited to some light supervision and making sure there's enough food to satisfy the average adolescent's appetite. The prospect of a quieter, more relaxed sort of visit would have been enticing on its own; the opportunity to catch up with Martin makes it a preemptive delight. Given what a difficult time he was having upon arrival here, she doesn't think she'll ever tire of seeing the settled, satisfied man he's become.

She has a pot of tea and some assorted pastries set on the table by the time he arrives, and is quick to ask after him once they're both sat down. He hesitates for a beat in a way that intrigues more than it worries. She quickly gets the sense that he's building towards something specific, but can't fathom what it might be. There's a fraction of a moment where she half-wonders if he and John might be tying the knot (and if he perhaps wants her to make a cake or something), but then... well. It's been years since she filmed Bake-Off, but she's familiar enough with being approached by fans to recognize the particular brand of sheepishness Martin's exuding, even if it's odd to be getting it from someone she knows.

She's fighting back a grin with limited success by the time Martin finally admits to having seen it, and then she lets out a bashful snort of a laugh, covering her face with one hand. "God, that feels like a lifetime ago," she admits. "But I do still get recognized, sometimes."

Anne is doing something in the kitchen that Greta is reluctant to describe as 'skulking,' even to herself, and she gives the other woman a brief, slyly affectionate sort of look. It was all rather fraught at the time, but she can't help but look back at the time Anne threatened a few of her admirers with some fondness.

The snort of laughter that erupts out of her when he admits to looking her up online is notably more embarrassed than the laugh that preceded it, and she can feel her cheek heating up where it still rests against her palm. "Oh, god," she says again, softer but with more feeling. She has largely avoided whatever the internet has to say about her, a habit that was strongly encouraged by one of the show's publicists and easy to maintain once the whirlwind was over and there were other, more important things to think about. But she knows that whatever was out there probably still is out there, easy to find if you're inclined to look.

She also can't really blame poor Martin for not being able to take the suspense. She's seen other so-called 'reality shows' before, and she has to admit that few of them try so hard to find contestants who are universally delightful. You might hope a certain person wins on a different show, but you're as likely to hope that several others don't win; on Bake-Off, every loss stung. It's not hard to imagine why Martin might find the show — let alone her season — uniquely stressful to watch.

"All of the contestants were lovely," she says, dropping her hand and taking a bracing sip of her tea. Then, her eyes narrowing a fraction, she adds a more pensive, "Paula, though... she was tricky. Not many people know this, but she looks exactly like the Witch that lived next door to us back in the Village." Greta hitches her shoulders in a shrug, glancing down at her cup. "That's, er, actually why I went for it. I wanted to know if it was really her."

Greta gives Martin a sheepish look over the rim of her cup. "I... well, I-I'm still not... entirely sure...?" she admits. In her defense, it had been rather difficult to judge. Paula had been inscrutable on purpose — it was, as one of the crew had put it, 'sort of her brand' — and was so well-practiced at being impossible to read that Greta hadn't been much of a match for her. "She seemed far less out of her depth than I was, but for all I know, she could have arrived ten years before me and settled right in."

She sets down her cup and takes a biscuit, fidgeting with it for a few moments in lieu of taking a bite. "And whatever interest she had in me could just as easily have been because I was a— a curiosity. 'Their first competitor from out of town,'" she recites with a weary roll of her eyes. "But she didn't do any magic that I could see, so..." she trails off, hitches her shoulders in an embarrassed shrug, and takes a bite of her biscuit.

"There wasn't much she could do about the audience reaction, I suppose," Greta allows, taking another thoughtful sip of her tea. "And even if she is the Witch, it seems she's doing well enough here that there's no need to go flinging Curses around like she did before."

Really, the only reason the uncertainty bothers her is because of how intrinsically odd it would be to have someone else from her world here that she just... politely ignores. She can't really imagine a future in which she and the Witch would ever have been friends, or anything more than uneasy neighbors. Sharing a city so large that they can fully disregard each other ought to be a blessing. But it's so antithetical to how things are generally done here that it feels like doing things wrong, somehow.

"Anyway, if you really read up on how things went, you'd know she did stop me from winning," she adds wryly. "Not that second place was a terrible disappointment, of course."

"Oh no!" Greta blurts, keeling to one side with an embarrassed laugh. It's probably absurd to feel guilty for spoiling him. The whole thing happened years ago, and Martin just admitted to reading up on it, so her assumption that he knew how it all shook out feels fair enough. But she would've tried to preserve the surprise if she'd known there was anything to preserve in the first place. "Well, I guess that's out, then."

She leans back towards him to read the headline that he proffers on his phone, and then straightens with a bashful smile. "Everyone was very kind," she allows. "Got a bit overwhelming, actually. I suppose I wasn't expecting so much fuss over second place." Back home, bragging rights were more for the winners than any runners-up.

It's only after the words leave her mouth that she realizes they could easily be misinterpreted, and she hastens to add, "I certainly don't mind talking about it with you, though. It was more startling at the time — especially since it was filmed far enough in advance that I'd managed to get over it a bit by the time it hit everyone else."