Author's Note: Oh my God, everyone. I know. It's been three months since my last update, but I'm back, and so is this story! :D I hope you're all still willing to follow it and I am so, so sorry it's taken me this long. I hope you enjoy chapter seven, chapter eight will be uploaded soon, and I promise you'll never have to wait three months again! :) xo

Chapter Seven:

"Thanks, Roy!" Andy grinned as the car pulled up to the curb. "Bye, and…" She paused, before sheepishly adding "Wish me luck, I'll probably need it."

He nodded, glancing at her in the rear vision mirror.

"Good luck." He smiled. "No goodbyes for a while, Andy. I'm sure I'll see you in an hour or two when you have to run Errands for Miranda from here all the way to Timbuktu."

Andy couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Yeah, that is the most likely scenario for Andy's first day back at Runway, isn't it?" She said, opening the car door.

"Good- uhm… See you later."

Roy chuckled. "See you soon."

Andy stepped out of the car, swallowing hard against the lump that had formed in her throat. She was fine in the car on the way over, sure. She felt almost excited at the prospect of returning. But now the reality of the situation had sunk in, and the butterflies in her stomach were fluttering a little too close to her ribcage. It made her feel nauseous.

She gazed up at the looming building in front of her. Her knees felt weak and she found the height of the building itself dizzying as she looked up. She wondered to herself if this is how Belle felt in Beauty and the Beast as she stared up at the Beast's haunting, jagged castle. She imagined the character feeling both terrified as well as excited, exactly as Andy herself was feeling now.

She imagined the Beast gazing down at the girl with steely eyes, arrogant, proud, untouchable and closed off to the world in his castle that was just as much a prison as a safe haven.

She imagined Miranda looking down at her now, probably with much the same look in her eyes.

And the Runway building was her castle.

She suddenly felt as if she were trespassing. She wondered what her role in this particular rendition would be. Was she to be the beauty?

An ache gnawed at her heart. "Unlikely…" She muttered to herself.

Andy sighed.

'Great. Now I'm referencing Disney movies.' She thought.

She shook her head, and, mustering up her dutch courage, she took a small, trembling step. And another. And a few more. See? This wasn't so hard. It took Andy a while but she had rediscovered her once confident stride as she made her way to the top of the concrete steps at the base of the Runway building.

She could find the confidence to go back to her old job, she thought to herself. She could-

Suddenly she felt something heavy tumble into her side, and what felt like a leather briefcase knock at the back of her knees, causing her to lose her balance.

"Oh!"

A strong hand gripped Andy's forearm and steadied her, preventing her from hitting the ground, though her handbag dropped and hit the pavement with a thud, its clasp breaking and its contents – lipstick, money, notepad and the like – were strewn over the pavement.

"Sorry about that! Are you alright?"

She felt a strong arm pulling her back to her feet as the man bent down to quickly gather her things back into the bag.

She absentmindedly scratched at her shoulder, staring at the back of the man's head, his wavy brown hair bobbing in front of her.

"Wh… huh?" She muttered, dumbly.

The man stood and turned to face her, handing her the bag, its contents now where they were supposed to be. He laughed, shaking his head.

"I asked if you were alright." The corner of his lips twisted into a smirk. "The name's David, by the way. David Connolly. And you are…?"

Andy took the time to look him over. He had mid-length wavy brown hair, tan skin and dark brown eyes. He was obviously quite fashion conscious, judging from his designer leather trench-coat and boots that made her think she couldn't even afford one of them on a whole month's salary.

"I'm Andy. Andy Sachs." She held out her hand, and he quirked an eyebrow and frowned, before shaking it gently.

His hands were rough, rougher than Nate's, despite his clean-cut appearance.

"Andy? That's not a very becoming name for a woman. Did your dad name you that? Because it's usually the mother who thinks up all the pretty names."

Andy gave a disbelieving laugh. "Oh. Cute. I take it that's your idea of a great pick up line?"

"Yes. Did it work?"

Andy shook her head, "No it didn't. Sorry."

"Oh, you wound me." David remarked, placing his hand over his heart in mock pain. He continued, in a sarcastic tone of voice that no one on God's green earth could ever take seriously. "I'll just have to overlook that you wounded my manly pride and assume that Miranda is a good judge of character, after all."

Andy narrowed her eyes. This man was reminding her a lot of Christian. It bothered her.

Wait… Did he just say Miranda?

"You… Know Miranda?"

Andy knew she wasn't going to like where this conversation would end up. This guy was already getting on her nerves. If she found out that she'd have to work with him, she'd-

"Miranda's my boss."

… Fuck.

"… Oh." Was all she could manage.

"Well, I should correct myself there, I suppose. Technically Irv's my boss." He picked up his briefcase that he had dropped earlier while helping her up. He motioned for Andy to follow, and she complied.

"I'm one of the lead fashion designers for the next three issues. I work alongside Nigel. You know him, I take it?"

Andy nodded. David pressed the button, and as they waited for an elevator he continued; "He's a good guy. Bit of a fairy, though."

Andy glared at him, then. He didn't take any notice of her though, he was too busy repeatedly pressing the elevator button, like it was some sort of criminal offense to wait more than ten seconds for an elevator.

"Anyway, we have to run everything through Jaqueline before it reaches Miranda. If she thinks anything we've done will piss Miranda off too much, it gets canned before it even reaches her desk."

Andy scoffed, scrunching her brow in disbelief. "But… Miranda is Editor In Chief. Isn't that her job, you know… To edit?

He laughed as they entered the elevator. They stood side by side and as the doors closed, Andy glanced at him. "What's so funny?"

"Seriously?" David raised an eyebrow. "Come on, Andrea. Nigel's told me all about you, and your working relationship with Miranda. You were her assistant for over six months, surely to God you know what that woman's temper can be like? Jaqueline's just trying to shelter us from the shit storm, so to speak. It prevents drama. You can understand that, right?"

Andy glared at him as he watched the floor numbers counting up. He just called her Andrea. No one calls her Andrea expect Miranda. Even her parents call her Andy. He didn't even get the syllables right, God damn it.

It would have sounded stupid to anyone else, but she felt the name "Andrea" was something that tied her to Miranda, the way in which Miranda said her name was so… Special to her. She would pronounce each syllable separately almost like a purr. Even when Andy was obviously in trouble because she'd done something that Miranda deemed stupid, a small part of her still loved hearing Miranda call her name.

'An-dre-ah…'

She shivered. She wasn't going to let this… Man bastardise something that was so special to her.

She shook her head and pouted her bottom lip slightly.

"It's Andy, if you don't mind. Make as many jokes about it as you like, that's what I'm called."

He looked at her, obviously confused. "Well… Pardon et moi. I didn't mean to offend, Andy. It's just sounds… Prettier, like you."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please…"

He smirked at her.

"Wait…" She said, "You're serious, aren't you? God, don't tell me women actually fall for those lame one liners?"

The elevator chimed to notify them that they had indeed reached their floor. David held out his arm, allowing Andy to exit before him.

"Well, you have a fun little reunion." David remarked.

Andy turned back to face him. "You're not coming?" Andy couldn't help but retort in a sarcastic voice, "Aww, and I was just starting to like you and your terrible pick-up lines. Damn."

David laughed before giving her a wink. "Don't worry. I'm just ducking downstairs to get some designs for Miranda. I'll be back before you know it, baby."

Andy opened her mouth to shoot back a snarky remark, but she found herself staring at a closed elevator door.

Baby? Really?

She thought back to her one nighter with Christian in Paris and huffed, folding her arms across her chest. Damn it, this David guy was really hitting close to home with a lot of his comments.

'I am definitely not your baby.' She thought, before turning on heel and heading down that familiar hallway. With each step she took, the butterflies in her stomach distracted her from her annoyance toward David.

The walk to her old desk seemed like forever. She saw a lot of familiar faces who greeted her along the way, some with polite hello's and how-are-you's and others with claps and cheers. She blushed slightly at all the attention she was suddenly getting.

And before she knew it she was only one door away from her old office.

Just one more hallway, and then…

Her desk was no sooner in sight when suddenly she felt thin, albeit strong arms fling themselves around her neck and shoulders. She stumbled back, bursting into laughter at the redhead's almost inaudible hysterics which were being mumbled into her shoulder.

She patted the other woman on the back affectionately.

"Hey, Em. I missed you too."

Wide blue eyes suddenly locked on her own as Emily continued her rambling.

"Missed me? Missed me?!" I'm the one who's missed you!" Why the bloody hell did you leave, you irresponsible twit?!"

"A-Ah…" Andy's mouth went slack before she shrugged and gave Emily puppy dog eyes. "I'm sorry?"

Emily paused for a moment, pouting and shaking her head. She threw her arms up in the air and strode around her desk.

"Oh, whatever. You're forgiven, just… Don't give me that look. I hate it when you do that, you look like a small child who's puppy I just kicked or something. Makes me feel terribly guilty."

"Aww, Em. I really have missed you, though." Andy walked over to her desk, all the familiarity of her former role flooding back to her. She glanced through the open door of Miranda's office, catching a peek of her boss flicking through what she knew was "The Book". Her heart fluttered and she quickly glanced away. She knew she could not walk in there unless she was wanted, so she would wait until she was called.

The anticipation, however, felt like it was killing her.

"S-So… How have things been here?" Andy put her bag down beside her as she sat down, and promptly began rearranging her desk for the sake of something to do.

Emily looked up from the notepad she was writing on. She lowered her voice as she replied. "Shite. She's fired three bloody assistants, which is a good thing I suppose, since you're back. But still I have been doing the work of two people. And we have this new fashion designer, David… Total prat. Have you met him?

Andy opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by the sound of her boss's familiar call.

"An-dre-ah!"

Andy froze, looking slightly like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. Her tummy felt like it was doing backflips.

"An-dre-ah!"

Crap!

Emily rolled her eyes. "For Christ's sake, Andy, you know the drill. Get. In. There!"

Andy stood quickly, and accidentally banged her knee against the corner of the desk. "Oww, crap!" She hissed, causing Emily to roll her eyes.

Ignoring the pain, Andy rushed into Miranda's office, trying to get in there before the third name-calling.

And there Miranda was, perched at her desk, red blouse unbuttoned slightly to show off the slope of her neck, dipping down to reveal a modest amount of cleavage. Her silky white hair was flicked up into its trademark forelock, silver reading glasses perched on the delicate bridge of her nose.

Andy's breath hitched. She looked divine.

She had missed this woman so much over the previous months, she could just cry. Andy let a soft smile tug at the corners of her lips as she fought back the tears of pure happiness.

'I'm never leaving you again, Miranda.' She thought to herself.

It was then Andy noticed that Miranda was staring at her, one eyebrow quirked in annoyance.

Andy cleared her throat. "Uhm… Good morning, Miranda. What can I do for you?"

"Well, now that you've finally brought yourself back to reality…" Miranda regarded her, then continued flicking through The Book. "Call Irv and tell him we'll have to move our meeting forward an hour today. Tell Nigel that I need less animal print for the shoot, I'm not doing a spread on the local zoo for God's sake. Call Sandra Galeo and tell her the answer is no, she'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Oh, and go and pick up the designs from David downstairs. He's taking far too long and I need to see them by midday today for the shoot. Tell him that his inability to meet a deadline irritates me greatly and that if he wants to work for a magazine that runs on deadlines, then this is one aspect of his so-called work ethic that he needs to work on."

Andy smiled. She'd enjoy that last one.

Miranda flicked to the next page of The Book, not even bothering to look up.

"That's all."

"Of course, Miranda."

Andy stopped in the doorway on her way out of the office, resting her hand on the doorframe and daring to glance back at Miranda, who was far too engrossed in her work to notice. A smile formed across Andy's lips.

'I love you.' She thought to herself, before walking out the door.