He knew he fucked up. It wasn't so much as he made a mistake, it was that he had made a mistake he had talked himself out of making (on an almost daily basis) since she started working here. He was the head of the division. Sure, he carried himself like an old news man, and he was proud of that, but even he had moved with the times: he'd done all the 'sensitivity and diversity' trainings. And mostly, when he did slip into calling the females 'girls' and no HR chargers were made, he was being placated as that old news man. However, there was just something that she did to him, and against all better judgement, Hell, against all his judgment, he fucked up.

"Charlie, you have to do something about her! Will has... infected her with his morals. I'm just trying to get her to make recommendations, and suddenly she's decided that she's the arbiter of good and bad, which is ridiculous, because all of her watchers are just greedy fuckers anyhow."

Zack paced in Charlie's office. Charlie, in his usually manner, had his feet up on the desk, his drink at hand, and was looking at Zack with a bemused look on his face.

"Zack, you are her EP, have a set of balls and tell her not to do it again."

"You don't understand: I did. The whole fucking reason I'm here, is because she told me to take it up with you."

"What?" Charlie, looking a little concerned, puts his feet firmly on the floor.

"I thought it was Don, and dragged her to his office and told him to quit putting ideas in her head." Charlie chuckled as Zack continued. "Then basically she told me that if I had a problem to take it up with you."

"She did, did she?"

"Yes. So now go tell her to listen to me. I don't care how educated she is, or how much smarter she is than me, we are here to present factual, relevant information on how to make money, and he's suddenly got a fucking conscious."

"You know that this is one of the reasons why she's doing so well with Mackenzie's team, right?"

"Yeah, but when she's not on that team she's on mine, and she needs to play ball, not give a treatise on the relevance of injuries from the game."

"Zack, I can't promise anything. I'll talk to her."

"... I'll talk to her." The words were still in the air and he knew it was a bad idea. It wasn't like he avoided her, but there was a hierarchy where he didn't necessarily interact with her on a regular basis. Unless there was a fuck up like the Japan situation. Charlie handled that predictably. Then, he realized he was going down to the newsroom to instigate.

It started with "Money Skirt", it was occasionally "Girl". Whenever he went to talk to her, he gave her an insulting nickname. The last time it was "Brain on Legs". This was unlikely to go well. As such, Charlie knocked back a drink, decided he was going to go with "authoritative" and went barreling down to her office.

He walked at a purposeful pace through the newsroom to her office. Everyone saw him. He just walked into her office like he owned the place, letting the door swing behind him and bellowed in only a way that Charlie could before the door was even closed.

"Do you have some sort of disability that prevents you from listening to your EP?"

Sloan was startled. She was sitting at her desk, pouring over the numbers from the foreign markets. She wasn't sure that Charlie was ever in her office, let alone knew where it was.

"I am perfectly capable of listening to him about production matters, as he should listen to me about those of an economic nature."

Sloan could keep her cool. She was used to being the only female in a bunch of guys, so while inside she was shaking, on the outside, she was standing her ground, because that was the way she got everything she had. Charlie was her boss's boss, so while she didn't want to disappoint, she wanted to do the right thing.

"In case you didn't realize, this is the news we are producing. It's not a geneology of companies and their product lines. It's not some sort of fucking moral mission. You are here because you are very smart, very beautiful and can deliver fucking information to the public. Zack, while he can be a very annoying little terrier, is your boss. Do me a favor and listen to him."

"No."

"No?"

"I don't want people to look at me when I'm giving them advice, I want them to listen, so I want to give them good, relevant advice. Zack is a moron."

Sloan stands up. She desprately wants to win this one. She grabs her portfolio. "I have to get to makeup."

"Your make up is fine. Sit back down. We aren't done."

Sloan stops, but she doesn't sit down. Charlie never moved from his position by the door, so he has to move in order for her to leave.

"I'm going to be late."

"We aren't done."

"When I tell you to sit, girl, you will sit. I am in charge here, as you reminded Zack.

Sloan picked this moment. This was the moment that she wasn't going to let Charlie intimitate her any more. She pulled her reserve together and made a break for it.

"Charlie, can you just yell at me later? I'm going to be late, and I don't want to disrespect my EP." The last bit she said with a sarcastic sneer.

She was approaching the door. She was running from him. He moved over slightly so that she'd think she had a clear break for the door. He had an instant to get her to pay attention to him.

And here lies the mistake: he grabbed her arm at the elbow. She stopped, as he had a firm grip. He pulled her from facing the door to face him. He leaned down to her ear, it was supposed to be menacing.

His nose caught her scent: the smell of her perfume warmed by her skin, her shampoo, and a slight tinge of fear and standing your ground. He didn't think it was noticable. He though it was an instant. He didn't know that she realized that he was inhaling her.

"I don't want Zack in my office over you. We are not done."

Charlie let Sloan go. She bolted from the room.

Charlie on the other hand slowly walked through the newsroom and back to his office.

"Kenzie?"

Sloan was at Mackenzie's office door.

"Hi Sloan. Come in." Mackenzie looked at Sloan's face. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not really sure how to say this: Charlie sniffed my hair."

"We've been over this: he's a dottering old fool, but he's the best one there is. Charlie is the reason we get to have jobs, and there is no better man."

Mackenzie wasn't convinced that everything was alright, so she pushed a little further.

"Sloan, did he make you feel uncomfortable? Was he not 'Charlie'? Is something wrong?"

"Yes. No. Yes." Sloan started playing with the hair on the left side of her face, bringing it to her nose to smell it.

"Kenzie, I want him to do it again."

"Ok, we are going to have the rest of this discussion later tonight. We are clearly both distracted, and may say things we don't mean."