Ana spent most of the night wondering what kind of baked goods said 'I'm sorry you're upset, I'm honoured you think I'm a good enough friend to share your problems with'. She was up at four am with only a few hours of sleep attempting not to burn gingerbread, assuring herself that November wasn't too early at all for gingerbread and even if it was seasonally inappropriate it was going to be delicious, once she remembered how to work her own oven.

Once her third batch of gingerbread had come out acceptably well and not blackened around the edges, Ana entered her bedroom to figure out what to wear. She dressed, with Kate's help, a lot better than she had done in high school. Being the personal assistant to a high-profile CEO came with an expectation that frumpy cardigans and off-white shirts would be relegated firmly to the back of the wardrobe apart from if they were necessary for a particularly ugly Halloween costume. Mostly she wore dark coloured blouses that she still raised her eyebrows to the price tag of and pencil skirts. She was teased by a few people around the office for not having upgraded her slip on pumps to anything with a hell higher than an inch yet but she was getting there.

She selected a dark blue blouse – blue was a calming colour, right? Maybe not if it was this dark though? Could she call Kate and ask or was six am too early for that kind of advice? Probably too early; since Kate had gone freelance with her journalism she rarely bothered getting up before noon, claiming all the best stories happened in the afternoon anyway. Since she always seemed to have the best stories, Ana had to assume she was right about that.

Ana changed the blue blouse for a pink one before shutting the wardrobe door firmly.

"You're way overthinking this." Ana said to herself in the mirror, shaking her head as she brushed her hair and applied the most minimal amount of make-up she could whilst masking how few hours she'd slept for. Hair up or down? It didn't look too bushy today – definitely keep it down. At least then she could play with it if she was feeling uncomfortable.

Picking up coffee was even more difficult than usual carrying a box of the gingerbread she'd baked.

"This was such a stupid idea." she sighed to herself, looking at the box. Maybe she'd hide them under her desk. No, then she'd just spend the entire day eating them, better being teased for baking than having to spend the rest of the week eating like a rabbit to offset the sugar.

Ana looked at the clock above her desk – fifteen minutes early? She'd never been that early for anything in her entire life. Christian wasn't even there yet.

"You're early. You should have just let yourself in." Christian said, taking one coffee from her desk and walking over to unlock his office. He held the door open for her and shut it behind them with a lot more ease than she ever had.

"I don't have a key – it's your office."

"You're my personal assistant, Ana, you should have a key."

"I've never needed one, you're here nearly twenty four hours a day, you have all your meetings in here, I think this is the first time I've ever been in this building when you weren't already here." Ana made her way to one of the nice seats and took a sip of her drink. "I was right, chai latte is much better now I know it's tea."

"What's in the box?" Christian asked, nodding towards the Tupperware she'd placed next to her.

"Oh, that? I made some gingerbread." Christian motioned for her to pass it over.

"Did you make these for me?" Christian asked, looking almost amused. Ana nodded in response. "I didn't know you knew how to use your oven." He opened the box and took a bite out of one of them. "These are actually really good, Ana." She blushed, extremely relieved he seemed to like them. "It's really sweet that you did this." She bit her lip softly.

"I didn't really know how to work it before, but I worked it out eventually. I wanted to do something nice for you."

"Fuck, you must have been up so late doing all this."

"No, I made them when I got up, I wasn't sleeping very well last night." she admitted.

"Be honest with me – was it because you knew I wanted to speak to you this morning?"

"I was just a bit worried about you."

"You don't need to be worried, Ana, I'm okay. It's just Mom, she's got a lot worse over the last few weeks and there's all this shit with Mia going on and you're the only person I have to talk to outside the family."

"Okay." Ana said, trying to make her voice as calm as possible. "Shall we start with your Mom?" He nodded.

"Well, she was sick for a while with ovarian cancer a few years ago, went into remission, then it turned out it had spread and just started getting completely unable for them to control it – I've told you all that part, right?" Ana nodded – never quite like that but she'd put the pieces together on her own. "Last night she told us all she'd been to see the doctor recently and while they've advised she continues with her chemotherapy, they've pretty much said she's not going to survive more than about three months."

"That's so awful. I'm sorry your family has to go through that." He smiled weakly and she resisted the urge to reach out and take his hand to try and reassure him. She hadn't quite anticipated how painful she would find it to watch him like this.

"It's been shitty, I'm not going to lie. Dad's trying to put on brave face but he's falling apart and she's not taking it well either. She's taking it out on us a bit – I don't mind, I get it, it's just hard. I mean, She's fine with Mia at the moment – perk of being the baby of the family I suppose. Me and Elliot are getting the worst of it, she keeps saying how upset she is that she won't get to have grandchildren or go to our weddings or even to see us just be happy. She's using the guilt card to the fullest advantage she can, she's admitted that and like I said, I can't mind, it's just her way of dealing with it but fuck, it's unbearable sometimes. I don't know what to do, I don't want her to go and be worried about us, I just want her to be happy."

"I know you love her, but have to realise it's not on you to make her happy. Even if you did everything she wanted you to, it's not going to change what's happening, it's not going to make it better. She'd still be sick, she'd still be scared."

"I know. I just feel like I need to do more for her but it's hard, you know? I mean, I have a business to run, as it is I'm driving out to see them most nights. And on top of that I'm paranoid that she's going to find out what's happening with Mia at the moment."

"What's happening with Mia?" Ana sensed he was attempting to move on to the second part of his issues, she could sense the grief he was feeling with every word he spoke about his mother.

"God – where do I even start with her mess? She's started seeing this much older man – married, kids, the works, apparently in the process of getting a divorce, but who knows really, I think that might just be a lie to get me off her case… The other week she was terrified she might be pregnant – false alarm, luckily. The only reason I know about it is because I happened to go over while he was there once and she swore me to silence, not that I'm eager for anyone else to find out. She's just being so irresponsible, I can tell she's gotten involved way too quickly and she's hiding it from everyone. If Mom found out it would just cause her so much more stress which isn't fair. I tried telling her to end it but she won't listen to me."

"That's not fair of her to put you in a position like that."

"She doesn't see it though, she thinks that me asking her to finish things is selfish and that I should be happy that she's found someone. No regard for the wife of this guy or his kids or our parents when they find out. She just likes the dramatics of it really."

"I don't know how people have love lives that are that dramatic, I really don't."

"God, I know, I can't even remember the last time I went on a date let alone I had a full telenovela storyline playing out." Ana laughed softly. "She'll figure it out eventually, I get that she's young, she's a bit like your friend Kate, she's taking full advantage of the ability to make mistakes and settle down when she's older, but the pregnancy scare the other week should have shocked her a lot more, it's one thing messing around and having fun, but there's consequences, if she actually got pregnant because she was being stupid it would be awful."

"But, plus side, you would have a cute niece or nephew!" Ana joked, hoping he wouldn't take it seriously. He laughed, thankfully seeing the funny side.

"Poor thing would probably end up living me while she spent a few more years off partying. Still, I suppose that would solve the problem of Mom not having a grandchild." He seemed a lot more upbeat now everything was off his chest.

"Do you feel a bit better now?" Ana asked him hopefully. He smiled at her and nodded.

"Much. Thank you for doing this, Ana, the cookies and coming in so I could talk to you. You're honestly – and I know this is ridiculous as fuck to say out loud – but you're the best person I know. I really don't know what I'd do without you. If you ever need to really talk, like this, I'll be there."

"I know you would." The pair stood up like they needed to physically release the tension caused by the seriousness of the conversation.

Christian looked like he was deeply considering something for a few moments before he reached out and put his arms around Ana. She was so surprised by the gesture that she stayed completely still for a few seconds before returning the hug. She gave him a small smile when he let go of her. She wanted to say something but she wasn't quite sure what and she'd learned that in situations like that it was better for her to keep her mouth shut lest she accidentally put her foot in it.

"So, uh, we've got ages before work. Fancy carrying on your musical education?"

A few months back Christian had seen Ana listening to an Abba song and though she had insisted they were firstly an iconic seventies band and that it wasn't a real reflection on the kind of music she listened to anyway, he had been annoyingly insistent about 'musically educating' her and introducing her to the various bands he enjoyed who were usually quite unknown which she almost always liked, songs from previous decades which she was usually quite split on and sometimes playing her classical music which she always hated with no exceptions. Usually she'd argue for a while that she didn't need musically educated but she was very aware that he wanted to forget about all the things he'd just unloaded on her.

"Fine, but no classical music today."

"Just a few?"

"Fine! Let me text Kate happy birthday so she doesn't think I've forgotten about her and then I'll start counting down the seconds until I can escape to the bliss of digitising more files." Even if she was willing to be nicer to him than usual it didn't mean that she couldn't make the occasional snippy comment about the worst of the stuff he made her listen to, right?