It a bright summer's morning, the sun is creeping out from behind the mountains, casting glorious ribbons of light across the lush green fields, sending shimmering waves across the lakes and rivers below, it's first beams cascade through the small streets lighting the houses and footpaths. It's light rays bounce round lighting the rooms inside and waking the slumbering people inside.

Ana is already awake, watching the majestic beauty of morning unfold around her. Her long brown hair swaying behind her in the gentle summer's breeze. She sits on her balcony surveying the landscape before her. Nature's canvas in its radiant glory, summer in full bloom, she shuts her eyes and breathes in, smelling the flowers sweet scent billowing up from the gardens below.

"Ana? Are you awake sweetie?" Her head turns towards the slip of a girl that has entered the room behind her.

"Yeah, I'm out here Stella" Stella wonders out onto the balcony, three steaming mugs in hand.

"I brought you some tea, Kate will be up in a minute with the toast." The girls shared a smile, both knowing that the toast would either be bread still or burned to a cinder as was Kate's way, always with a liberal layer of butter so that at least it tasted good.

Ana picked up her mug, warped both hands around it and took a long drink. Stella watched her friend intently, she knew something was off but didn't want to push the issue. Kate lurched out onto the balcony, nearly spilling her platter of toast onto the garden below.

"Your gonna kill yourself one day Katie" Stella quipped

"It'll be worth it in the end" Kate snapped back.

"Your 'walk' will get you noticed but not by talent scouts, I don't think agency's go out looking for your kind of thing anymore, your more likely to get notice by the police, especially if you insist on lurching at people like that!" Ana couldn't hide her giggle, Stella did have a good point but Kate had the determination and nothing was going to get in the way of her dreams not even reason!

Kate glowered at Stella. Stella shrugged and raised her eyebrows in reply. Ana shook her head at the two of them.

"I gotta go get ready, are you two staying out here?" Ana inquired as she rose from her plastic chair.

"Yeah, it's too nice to be inside. I need to work on my tan you see I've got an appointment with a modelling agency!" Kate screetched.

"Oh my God! Why didn't you tell us?" Stella swept her into her arms knocking the small plastic table over, sending the toast through the railings, making it rain down onto the perfectly manicured garden below. The neighbours would undoubtedly be paying the trio another visit about spoiling the landscaping. The mugs smashed off the terracotta tiles, not that the girls notice the three of them jumped up and down screaming in triumph.

"So which agency is it then?" Ana asked once the screaming had subsided.

"Select! Can you believe it? Me, little Katie, has an appointment with Select!"

"I'm so proud of you honey I knew you could do it!" Ana held Kate close and Stella wrapped her arms around the two of them.

"I never imagined Select would want me! I was aiming further down, Mum has been posting out my head shots for months to everyone and she decided to set her sights higher and sent them to Select's top agent and they phoned the next day!"

Kate's gushing was becoming somewhat overbearing to Ana, she was truly happy for her friend but knew that it was going to come at a cost to her and Stella if it worked out. She mentally chastised herself for not being supportive of her friend, but the truth was debt was crippling her. If Kate's dream job worked out for her she'd leave and Ana would go under. The bank was already sending threatening letters, the flat would be re possessed if she wasn't very careful, she needed cash quickly to keep her home safe.

"Text me and let me know how it goes" Ana forced the smile to her lips, hoping her friend were too distracted to notice its fakeness.

She slid the balcony door shut and dressed quickly, she'd had a shower earlier so was good to go. She chucked her phone and keys in her back pack and put it on. She left the flat politely acknowledging the neighbours. She headed down the communal stairwell to the ground floor. She walked until she reached her small outbuildings. She pulled the key from her bag and opened the lock. She wheeled out her bicycle before locking up behind her. She removed her cardigan and stuffed it haphazardly into her saddle bag. She jumped on and peddled her way down the street. Her work was a twenty minute cycle from her building, she enjoyed the feeling of the wind whipping through her hair as she ploughed forwards, using her anxiousness to build her speed she made it to the cycle stand in only fifteen minutes. She retrieved her cardigan from her saddle bag and put it on over her back pack she then pulled out its only other content, a small chain that she secured through both wheels and round the stand, she clipped the small padlock closed and made her way into her office building.

"Morning Ana!" Mr Jeffries her boss held the door open for her "your in early today."

"Five minutes early" he laughed as did she, he had tried to convince her that she needed a car or she'd always be late. Every day she enjoyed proving him wrong, not that she didn't like her boss, she did, she just didn't like to be wrong, ever. It was why she still had a job, most of her department had lost their jobs in the recession she was almost certain that she would be in the cull, but her diligence and fact checking abilities hadn't gone unnoticed by the papers bosses. She was now in a higher position but was paid less. Her stress levels had gone through the roof to begin with, she was running the whole IT department, if it was on the papers website, she had read it fact checked it and approved it, some stories slipped through her net but she filtered out most of the crap. Jeffries was the official head of IT and on the board of directors, it was his job to catch the crap Ana missed, it didn't happen often.

"Will you be at the meeting tonight?" He inquired Ana hadn't intended to go, but if her boss was asking...

"I wasn't going to..." Jeffries eyebrows raised "but I might just check it out. It can't be anything worse than the last one" she smiled. He nodded but did not return her smile. He strode away into his office his door slamming behind him.

Ana felt her insides knot up. Something big was going down, the reporter in her sniffed the story driving through the air, she could smell it as strongly as she'd smelled the flowers that morning.

The day dragged, her mind was busy all day but her body fidgeted and twitched like a toddler. Lunch was a sorry affair, she'd forgotten to lift her paper bag from the kitchen so had to use the small amount of change in her purse to buy a small loaf and some jam from the supermarket on the corner, whilst all her colleagues bustled into the numerous sandwich bars where everything costs five times what you could make it for. Thankfully there was a coffee maker in the staff room or she would have gone thirsty. As much as she hated the stuff, and its tar-like smell it had gotten her through most of her early career. The coffee seemed to calm her, normally it had quite the opposite effect, she made it to five o'clock without realising the time. It wasn't until Jeffries tapped her on the shoulder that she realised the time.

"You ready?"

"Yes, I lost track of time, sorry." She scuttled about thrusting her belongings into her bag. She hadn't even noticed the office was empty.

"I hope they wait for us" he shifted nervously from foot to foot, setting Ana back on edge again.

"I'm sure they will, we aren't late yet." She replied, hoping he hadn't noticed her slightly gritted teeth.

They took the lift to the top floor, they were not the last ones in by far, Jeffries escorted her to a vacant seat almost at the front before taking up his own seat on the raised platform, with the other board members, or at least that's who Ana assumed them to be never really having met them. She knew the woman on stage was or had been a journalist that had worked her way up through the ranks, Sarah Fisher, although a lot of the rumours implied she had done more than just work, Ana had been informed of that on her first day. It set the tone for her working life, she would become a Sarah Fisher one day but only after years of hard graft, not that she believed the rumours, in this place she had heard rumours she was a lesbian, had been a nun and had a secret child hidden away, she had even been give a card to sign to wish herself luck in a new job!

A tall gray haired man banged the table loudly with his fist, the hubbub died down instantly, everyone flocked to the seats eager for information. The newbie journalists had there pads and pens at the ready, the older ones sat back with dictaphones. The secretaries sat with the unmistakable deer in the headlight look about them. Everyone else sat back and waited for the man to deliver his speech. Silence descended upon the room and the man took a deep breath.

"For those of you that don't know who I am I'm Gary Stewart, former head of the board and previous majority shareholder of this paper." Small pockets of chatter started in the crowd, you could hear the pencils flying across the paper of the newbies, the cumulative click of the pausing tape recorded and the sharp intake of breath from Ana. She had not been at the last meeting, from all perspectives it had been a blood bath, but she did know this man had been there and delivered the speech that had ended careers before they had begun.

"Quiet!" Mr Jeffries jumps up and shouts across the room. Mr Stewart gives him a polite nod and motions for him to sit back down.

"We have been bought over, by a hostile takeover we don't have too much information at the moment as the company that has bought us is giving us hardly any information not even their name yet. It is my understanding that the board will all be gone as this is a solo buyer. We will have a CEO and heads of department structure. The company's HR department have provided us with small packets to be given out to all staff, there are voluntary redundancy packages available and I hope that the new company will keep them to a minimum. I'd like to personally thank you all for your hard work during my time here and wish you all continuing success in the future." He dropped back into his seat a beaten man. Ana was glad that she was sitting for Gary's speech she wasn't sure that her legs would have held her otherwise. Her eyes scanned along the podium, the nine people sat up there looked deflated and defeated. This takeover had obviously been a long time coming.

Ana made her way brusquely from the room, there was no point staying. She thrust her packet into her saddle bag, the night was still warm. She pulled her phone from her bag and saw the little green message light flashing. She opened her text viewer to find a message from Kate.

* Got signed and a commission! I'm going to Paris for two weeks! Then I might have work in America! TTYL8R 3 *

She thrust the phone back into her bag and mentally started writing the advert for a new flat mate. By the time she got home, she had taken the longer scenic route to calm herself, she was in an improved state of mind. She locked her bike away and held her packet close to her chest, she would pour over it later for as long as she could. She slid her key into the snib only to have the door yanked open and Kate barreling into her.

"Did you get my text?" Ana nodded "I can't believe it apparently my look is high demand right now! Sorry to dump moving out on you, I know someone looking for a place though..."

"No. It's fine, I'll stick an advert in the paper, might as well use the perks while I still have them eh?" Kate looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"The papers been taken over, a hostile takeover, the board are being dismissed, I might not get kept on." She surmises all her calmness evaporating.

"Fuck Ana! That's bloody awful, I can't believe your so calm about it all." Stella's words struck a chord in Ana, it's the same question she'd been asking herself.

"There's nothing I can do to change it. Don't get me wrong I don't fucking like it, but what happens now happens." She almost shouted that, slamming some cupboard doors, she felt a bit better for it, of course her friends could tell it ran deeper, but Ana was often a closed book.

"Okay let's get that bubbly out and celebrate Kate finally becoming a grown up and a bloody model! Let's also commiserate Ana for having the suckiest job ever on the shitty Bridgewater Gazette!" Stella said as she grabbed the glasses from the cupboard. Kate did the honours popping the cork and breaking the light shade in the lounge.

"I'll pay for that with my first cheque! I swear, sorry Ana" Ana nodded and necked the first glass in one gulp, Stella topped her up and motioned to Kate to bring in the vodka, knowing Ana as well as she did this was going to be an epic night.

A.N: Hello! I know a chance encounter isn't finished yet I'm still working on it new inspiration hit me. I'm not in journalism at all (or modelling!) so if I've gotten details wrong I will call it poetic licence! I know this is the start of a long bumpy road for Miss Steele and hope you enjoy what I have planned, (a lot less brutality and a more focused story is what I'm aiming for!)

Please leave a review if you like it x

CarrieJ x