"The art of journalism?" Elizabeth read out loud as she looked up at Laura through her reading glasses. "It isn't really an impressive headline miss Hollis." The director said as she flipped through the pages.

"Yes, I know that it's not my best headline but I promise I will impress you when you read it." Laura nervously said as she played with her clammy palms. Even though she might have stood up to the director once she knew it would not happen again. She was still afraid of her and respected her extremely and it defiantly did not help that she had kissed her daughter.

The director started reading the first page and the blond looked at her intensely, trying to read every facial expression. However, you could tell that she was Carmillas mother by the fact that her expression didn't move one single time, however she nodded here and there which kept Laura's hopes up.

"I must say it is a good start. However, it is 8 pages long. Will I find this report interesting throughout the whole way?" She asked with a raised eyebrow at the young journalist.

"Oh, defiantly! I bring you the best of the best!" Laura said as she swung her arm.

The director was quite for a minute as she flipped through the pages as she drank her coffee. Finally she looked up again at a very anxious Laura.

"Well?" Elizabeth asked.

"Well?…"

"Why are you still here? Don't you have work to do?" The grey haired woman sneered.

"Yes, of course! I'll get right to it!…But you haven't really assigned me any work though. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do…" Laura said unsurely. The director looked up again from her paper and took off her glasses.

"Yes of course, go down to the reception and ask for Maria. She will help you find your way around." She said simply as she waved her hand at her to get out of her office. Laura nodded her head quickly and left the director to read her paper.

As she got down to the reception, Natalie greeted her with a huge smile and congratulated her on the job. "Hey, I'm looking for Maria. Could you call her? Director Karnstein told me to meet up with her here." Laura said after their little chit chat.

"Yes, of course, give me a second." Natalie said and proceeded to make a quick call.

Within minutes a tall blond woman stood in front of Laura and introduced herself as Maria. Laura's fist thought was that she was almost as tall as Danny, if not taller. Which reminded her that she needed to meet up with her soon.

"Well miss Hollis, follow me and I will show you to your desk." Maria said simply. But the tone in her voice was somewhat bitchy Laura thought.

Laura had expected to be shown around the office, however Maria seemed to have skipped all the essentials as the bathroom, lunch room and so forth and just brought her directly to her desk.

"Wow, my own desk! Isn't that cool!" Laura exclaimed as she sat down on her office chair and did a little spin. Maria raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her before going through the file she had been carrying around.

"Anyhow!" The blond woman said as she started looking through the file, ignoring Laura's comment. "Here's what you need to do today." She said and handed Laura a big stock of papers.

"Wait, I don't know how anything works here. Don't you need to go through some rules or something? Or what my new email is or where to post the articles and so on?" Laura asked hurriedly and confused. Maria smiled an evil smile at her.

"Oh honey, no no. Everything is written on the papers I gave you. Here at The Oracle we don't have time to waste on people like you."

"What do you mean by people like you?" She asked as she frowned at the taller woman.

"Well, people with no experience of course!" Maria answered with a big smile, however the tone of her voice did not hold any cheer.

"Oh… okay…" Laura answered hesitant.

"Good luck newbie." Maria smirked and left Laura alone.

Laura sighed and looked at the huge pile of papers in front of her. She had no idea of what she was doing and suddenly she felt that she was in way over her head.

"No, this will not go through miss Karnstein. We will not lower the price for this piece. It's worth a fortune!" A man dressed in a business suit told the brunette sitting in front of him behind her desk.

"Well, then I am not interested. I appreciate real art, and while this is art, it is obviously not worth the price you have presented to me. I am not an imbecile, I know art, thats why we at the Karnstein Arts Gallery we only bring in the best." Carmilla said as twirled her pen between her fingers.

"Well then, the deal is off." The man said briskly, clearly annoyed at the woman in front of him.

"Alright Mr. Stone, if that is what you want then go ahead. I'm sure the other arts galleries will be thrilled to pay that price you just offered." She answered sarcastically as the man started walking out of her office.

Mr. Stone stopped in his tracks aggressively ran his hand through his hair. Carmilla smirked, she knew he had him now.

"Okay, fine. I will go down 5% on the price." He said as he turned around to look at her, only to see her looking uninterested as she went through her paper work.

"15% or the deal is off." She answered, not even looking up at the slightly grey haired man.

"Are you insane?!" The man exclaimed. "That's too much!"

"Okay Mr. Stone, then you can take your business elsewhere."

"8%!"

"15% and we have a deal." She said simply as she looked up at him and leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.

"10%!"

"I asked for 15%."

"Let's meet at 13%!" Mr. Stone said in frustration which made Carmilla smirk. She would have been satisfied with 8% but it was so easy to negotiate with the sellers. Her mother had thought her a thing or two it seemed like. Carmilla stood up from her chair and reached out her hand.

"It's a deal." She said and shook his hand. After the papers were signed Carmilla was left alone in her office again, looking through some files on her computer when she started thinking about Laura and started smiling. She was wondering how she was doing on her first day, worried that her mother would have rejected her paper. She had barely heard from her since their phone call. They had texted a bit but Laura kept on saying that she was working on her paper so Carmilla decided to leave her alone to finish it, however she still had no idea what idea she had given her. But for her sake she hoped it was good enough to impress her mother. She heard her phone pling next to her and she saw she had a text from Laura.

"I think I'm in way over my head :(" The text read, which Carmilla quickly replied. "Tough first day?"

"Yeah, they aren't nice Carm! They are evil here! :(((" Carmilla felt bad for Laura. She knew that the company was a very competitive environment and you had to look out for your own back.

Carmilla hesitated before sending her next text. "Well, why don't you come over to my place after work and we can tell me all about it ;)?" Carmilla was never one for emojis, however Laura had started to complain that she sounded to serious and she never knew she she was teasing or being nice. So she had started sending emojis here and there, even though when pressing send she wanted to barf.

A couple of minutes went by without an answer and Carmilla started to regret texting Laura that message. "Must be that freaking emoji…" Carmilla mumbled as she started looking through her papers again just before she heard another pling.

"Yeah sounds awesome! ;D" Carmilla chuckled at Laura's text, but that didn't change the fact that she hated emojis.

It was around 2 o'clock and Laura had finally gone through all the instructions and she had finally set up her new work email and some other essentials before she started reading through what needed to be done for today. Suddenly she felt someone standing next to her which made her look up.

Elizabeth was looking down at her with her paper in her hand. Laura gulped.

"I read through your paper." The older woman said simply.

"Oh…okay. Did you like it?" Laura said with a timid smile on her face.

"No." The director said simply and threw her 8 pages report on her desk. Laura felt her heart sink and she bit her lip.

"Oh, I'm sorry I will do better next time. I promise!" Laura said eagerly.

"I hope you do for your own sake." She answered simply as she turned her heel and left Laura alone. Laura felt her lip quiver but she then realised that she shouldn't feel sad. She hadn't gotten fired. She was going to show them that she was the best reporter they had ever seen. The short blond grabbed her file and started reading through what needed to be done, eager to prove herself.

Downtown a couple of hours later Carmilla was on her way home and felt like even though it was monday, she had been able to fix most of the important shipments that needed to be done for the week. She had texted Laura and they had agreed to meet at her place in 30 minutes and she was in a rush to get home and change from her business suit. She heard her phone ring and she sighed when she saw it was her Mother calling.

"Hello Mother."

"Hi Carmilla, how was your day?" Elizabeth asked, not really sounding interested.

Carmilla rolled her eyes at her Mother. "It was fine Mother, was there a special reason why you called?"

"Well, I've talked to my therapist and he told me that I need to improve my relationship with you, which I agree. I don't approve of this fall out we've had for the past two years. So, I thought calling you once in a while is a good start." Elizabeth said. Carmilla was taken aback by this. Her mother had made no attempt before to fix their relationship after what happened two years ago and she was slightly touched by the act.

"Well, if you think that might help I'll try my best." She answered, trying not to sound too happy over the fact that her mother was trying.

"I have something interesting to tell you actually."

"Oh, really now?" Carmilla said slightly intrigued.

"Yes, well it is work related but I thought talking about work is a start at least."

Carmilla couldn't help but chuckle, her and her Mother were more alike then she liked to admit.

"So, I've hired this new employee, Laura Hollis. I know, I was as shocked as anyone else that I hired someone new and someone who has no experience actually." Carmilla directly understood who she was talking about and she started to get nervous. If she was going to talk bad about Laura she didn't know if she could bite her tongue, but she knew she had too to not to put Laura's career on the line.

"Well, that was unexpected. How come you hired her? I mean you always want a long list of references and experience." Carmilla continued, trying to get some information.

"Well, she has something special I must say. I don't know if it's good or bad. But she got nerve and I like that. Not a lot of youngsters like her have that passion and drive I'm afraid."

"Yeah, well mostly people now a days think they can get anything just by a click of a button." Carmilla said as she opened her front door.

"Hey sis, who you talking to? Is it Laauuurr-" And before Will could finish his sentence, Carmilla had thrown her keys at him and made an aggressive hush sound.

"What? Don't be so moody!" Will answered annoyed.

"It's mother" Carmilla mouthed at him which made him drop his jaw.

"Shit, I'm sorry!" He hushed back. Carmilla just waved her free hand at him in annoyance and went into her room. Elizabeth had apparently gone on talking about todays youth and she was happy she hadn't missed any information about Laura.

"So, whats so special about her?" Carmilla asked when she finally got an opening. "Is she a good writer?"

"I haven't seen such a good writer and journalist since my young self actually. I was very impressed by her paper, of course I didn't tell her that. I can't spoon feed her on her first day." Carmilla smiled with pride for Laura, however she was a bit annoyed that her mother had not given her good feedback, however somewhere deep down she understood her. She did it to make her push herself harder, it was not the technique she personally used for her employees but a lot of people actually used it.

"Well, I understand where you are coming from but shouldn't you give this Laura?" Carmilla said unsurely, playing the game. "A bit more credit, I mean she did a good job and she should be entitled to know it, otherwise she might be going in a completely other direction how to write her articles which you might not like." Carmilla said as she started taking off her suite, changing into something more appropriate.

Elizabeth was quite for a moment before answering. "You know, I've never thought of it like that. I'll bring her into my office tomorrow and tell her that she did a good job but she needs improvement in some areas."

The brunette smiled that she had made her mother change her mind. "Well, thats good. Make sure you take good care of her."

"Why do you care how I treat my employees?" Her Mother asked in confusion. Carmilla widened her eyes realising that this was in fact extremely out of character for her to care about a person she'd never met. But she was quickly came back on her feet again.

"Well, if she really has potential and is as good as you say, then you should make her the best. It would only benefit the company." Carmilla said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

"Ah yes, you're absolutely right. Well Darling, I have to go and make some phone calls.

Thank you for your input. I see that I have raised you well." Carmilla sighed and rolled her eyes at the last comment. "Yes mother you have, bye now. Thanks for calling."

The phone went dead and Carmilla smiled, everything seemed to be going good.

Laura was standing in front of Carmillas door and she been standing there for a while. She didn't really know what to expect or how to greet her. Was she going to hug her? Was she going to kiss her? Was it gonna be awkward? No, it couldn't get awkward, could it? The phone call wasn't awkward, but this is in person, maybe it will be different?
Before Laura could psych herself up even more she rang the doorbell.

However, she wasn't meet by Carmilla which she had originally though, there stood Will, looking as confused as she was.

"Oh right! You guys have a thing!" He burst out upon realising why Laura was standing in front of him. Laura felt her cheeks go red and she didn't really know what to answer.

"Yeaaah…eum I don't know? Hi Will." She said awkwardly as she took the liberty to step in.

"Hey Laur, I'll call carmilla one sec. CARMILLA!" Laura jumped at his tone of voice changing so quickly.

"YEAH?" She heard Carmilla answer from somewhere in the apartment.

"Your date is here!" He said with a smirk as he nudged the tiny blond who just blushed even more.

"Will, I swear I will kill you!" Was heard as she stepped into the living room.

"I was just joking!…I think. Anyway, I was just about to go meet up with Kirch, do you guys want to join?" He asked as he looked at the two.

"Maybe later" Laura said before Carmilla had the chance to answer.

"Great, text us. We're going for beer, you know where." He said with a wink to Laura who suddenly felt even more uncomfortable. "Bye love birds!" He smirked as he closed the door behind him, leaving a very awkward Laura and Carmilla in the living room.

"Sorry about that." Carmilla said after a couple of seconds, feeling the tension in the air.

"Oh, no problem." Laura said as she waved her hand.

They both stood still for a couple of seconds not really knowing what to say or do.

"Would you like a glass of wine?" Carmilla asked, sounding a bit unsure.

"Sure!" She answered a bit too enthusiastic and as soon as Carmilla had turn to the kitchen Laura immediately slapped her head at how awkward she was behaving.

"Take a seat" The taller brunette said as she started to pour up the wine and Laura took of her jacket and sat down. Just then, William jumped up in her lap and started nuzzling her chest. Thank god, Laura though, a distraction.

Carmilla handed Laura her glass which she thanked her for and sat down next to her.

"So?" She asked as she looked at Laura who was focusing on the black cat.

"So…?" She repeated as she looked up at her.

"Well, how did your first day go?" She asked as she took a sip of her wine. Laura let out a long frustrated moan which made Carmilla chuckle and William jump off her lap.

"Carm, it's not funny. It went sooooo bad." She said with a pout and Carmilla smiled at her with adoration at how cute she was being.

"Come on cupcake, it can't have gone that bad." She said, trying to cheer her up.

"No, seriously. First, I had to hand in the paper to Elizabeth which was by far the scariest thing I have done! Then she told me to go to this Maria who was going to show me around. And guess what? She didn't. She didn't show me to the lunch room, nor the bathroom or nothing, just to my desk. I had to ask like five people for the bathroom which was really awkward because I really needed to go! Then she didn't show me how anything worked so I sat for three hours trying to figure out the system and how to put up my own email and how the main site worked. Then your mother came back with my paper and said she didn't like it. Which made me really sad. But then I decided I needed to get my things together and I finished everything I had to do for today so that's good but they are all so mean and I didn't even get a chance to eat today because I wasn't informed about my lunch hours so now I'm hungry and yeah no. It was a bad day…" Laura finished her rant and drew in for air, not realising how fast she had been speaking.

Carmillas eyes had gone wide from the speed of her words, however for some reason she had understood everything. "Cupcake, relax." She said as she put her hand on her leg and started stroking it. "Isn't most of it in your head?" She tried and smiled a reassuring smile at her.

"No, it's not. How can it be? I mean Maria literally said "The Oracle don't have time to waste on people like you" which she then explained was people with no experience. So no Carm, I don't think it's all in my head." She said as she leaned back on the couch in defeat. Carmilla felt bad for Laura, she had done her best and she was nothing but kind, yet people chose to step all over her.

"Maybe you should just show them your front feet and show that you have what it takes?" Carmilla tried.

"Not on my first day Carm, I can't do that. Maybe a couple months in, if I even last that long. God, I don't know anymore." She said defeated as she buried her head in her hands.

"Hey, cupcake don't say that. You got the job and you can't give up now." She said with a small smile as she sat closer to her and held her arm around her shoulder. "Plus, my mother called me after work and told me a thing or two." She said with a smirk, which caught Laura's attention and she looked up from her hands.

"What did she say?" She asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing much. Just that this Laura Hollis had something special and she hasn't seen such a good writer since her young self." She said with a smirk, Laura frowned at her before giving her a little push on her shoulder.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better." She said with a huff as she dragged her hands through her hair.

"No, I promise. I wouldn't just make that up. I've learned my lesson about messing with your career, which I'm still extremely sorry for, but I'm telling the truth." She said as Laura looked up at her again.

"Really?" She asked with hope in her voice.

"Really."

"Oh, Carm that's amazing! Thank you!" Laura smiled widely as she jumped into a hug Carmilla wasn't ready for. Which made her freeze and widen her eyes for a split second before hugging her back. The brunette wasn't used to hugging and had never liked it, but she could get used to this.

"Oh, sorry…" Laura said after pulling away. "I didn't mean to jump you, or I did but…yeah." She said as she averted her eyes and started to scratch the back of her neck.

"Cupcake, it's okay." She answered with a chuckle. Laura looked up at her again with her clear brown green eyes and Carmilla felt herself not being able to look away. She leaned in slowly and gave her a small kiss, which she didn't respond to at first, until she kissed her back. Laura smiled into the kiss which made Carmilla smile too. Suddenly, she heard the blond stomach rumble and Laura pulled away giggling.

"Well, you mentioned not eating lunch. Want to get out of here and grab something to eat?" Carmilla asked as she looked at a slightly flustered Laura.

"Yeah, sounds like a good idea." Laura smiled at Carmilla and they stayed like that for a while just smiling at each other before Laura looked away and let out a small laugh.

"You have to stop doing that. We won't make it out of your apartment if you continue."

"Was that a sexual innuendo?" Carmilla said with a smirk which made Laura's eyes widen and a bight pink blush appear all over her face.

"No, no that's not what I meant! Not that I don't want too or like well it's too soon or like you know it's just-"

"Laura, I was joking." She deadpanned.

"Oh, yeah right of course!" Laura laughed nervously.

"Besides, it takes a couple of dates before something like that happens right?" She said with a wink before she stood up.

"Wait, is this a date?" Laura asked as titled her head.

"Well, Will did tell me that my date was at the door, didn't he?" She said nonchalant as she took hold of Laura's hand and helped her up.

"Yeah… I guess he did." Laura answered with a timid smile on her lips.