It was 8:34 when Paul arrived at work; he was late but only by four minutes so hopefully Dan wouldn't fire him for that. He would have been on time if his sister hadn't called him just as he was about to leave the house to shout at him and to tell him how stupid he was being for continuing to spend time with Stephanie. He had ended up just hanging up on her and leaving the house, his phone had beeped since but he didn't dare look at what was likely to be an angry text from his sister.

"Paul!"

Being brought out of his daze he lifted his head and smiled, "Jessie, it's so good to see you."

"I could say the same. I didn't know you were coming back today, I did wonder why Dan was so fucking moody though when he came in this morning."

"Aww, he loves me?" Walking closer to her he leant on the reception desk, "So did you miss me?"

"Yes, a lot actually. I know you understand my hatred for Dan and mock him with me and I missed that. In all seriousness though, it really is good to see you back and you're looking so well. How are things?"

Good question and one that didn't come with a sympathetic look which was nice. "Things are good thanks. I have been helping out at the hospital so I have been kept busy. Talking of keeping busy though, I should go and see what work there is for me to do and hopefully it won't bore me to tears."

"Good luck, it sounds like you might need it."

Crossing the office towards his desk he waved at a few colleagues as they talked on the phone before he reached his desk and groaned upon seeing the stack of files, "Fan-fucking-tastic."

"Dan picked out a very special job for you apparently. Those are the clients that we have lost in the past few months, he wants you to call up every single one of them and see if you can convince them to come back to us."

He took a second to scan the files and quickly count the number before he turned his head to look at his Supervisor, "Are you fucking kidding me? In the few months that I have been away you have lost roughly fifteen contracts? How the fuck is that even possible Nick?"

"I don't think you need me to answer that question Paul, you already know it."

"Dan was a dick to them?"

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner." Nick glanced around the room to make sure that Dan wasn't anywhere around before he continued, "Between you and I, I have heard a rumour from a few friends who work at different companies that we might be losing another contract too and if we lose this contract we will probably all be looking for new jobs."

He didn't even need to ask for details, even after being off for a few months he knew exactly what contract he was talking about and he hated the idea of losing it. He had been so heavily involved in building that contract up to what it was and he absolutely adored working with them as their contact was an older lady with a lot of spirit who always made him smile.

Before he had a chance to speak up he felt a hand slap him on the shoulder and instantly he felt like he needed a shower, surely after everything he wouldn't be crazy to act all pally with him.

"It is so good to see you back Paul."

Apparently he had given him too much credit; he really was crazy enough to act like that. "Funny thing is I didn't have a choice in coming back, somebody said I either came back or I lost my job."

"So did you see what I wanted you to do? I thought that I would ease you back in with a simple job." He was going to rise above the snide remarks and not get in to it with him as he needed him to do this.

Picking up the top file Paul absently flicked through it, "Oh yeah I know, you want me to go and suck up to all of the people that you pissed off to save your ass by trying to convince them to come back, I'm just not so sure that I want to save your ass."

"You won't be saving my ass; you will be saving your job and keeping everybody else's job if you can convince some of these people to return to us."

He did believe that everybody's job relied on him doing this, it was why Dan was so insistent that he returned, he just wasn't convinced that Dan's ego was going to be willing to let somebody else take credit for it. "Your ass, my job, same thing really. I should get on with this as there are so many to get through. I have no idea how you managed to piss so many people off but wish me luck." Not waiting for him to have a chance to reply he pulled out his chair and took a seat to begin going through them all.

Before he actually called anybody Paul read through all of the files to put them in order of what could potentially be easiest and what could be hardest. Once he had the pile in order he stood up to stretch his legs and get a coffee as he desperately needed one, being back at work was not easy.

He made a small detour to reception but tryied to stay out of Dan's potential sight. "Jessie, do you want a coffee?"

"You are my hero Paul. Please can I have a coffee?"

"Of course." He was just about to go and make the coffees when he heard his name, hesitant about who he was going to see he began turning around slowly until he found the person calling his name, "Mrs King, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be retired?"

"You remembered?" She couldn't help but smile at the fact that he had dealt with so much and must have seen so many people but he remembered that tiny little detail about her. "I did retire, for about a week, I found that being retired was boring so I went back to work a couple of hours a few days a week to help out and to take the load off my sons. How are you doing? I was so sorry to hear about your wife." Instantly feeling guilty for bringing it up she frowned, "Sorry, I read about the accident in the paper and Dan mentioned that the reason he had taken over the file was because it was your wife."

Unable to stop himself rolling his eyes he sighed heavily, of course he couldn't keep his fat mouth shut. "I'm doing well thank you. It has been a trying few months but I have come out the other side and am doing something positive with myself. I should go back to work as I am sure Dan will be out soon."

"Actually . . . would you mind taking on the case again please? I wouldn't ask this of you as I'm sure you have more important things to be dealing with but well, I am actually here to tell Dan we're done working with you. My sons are far from impressed, they are actually incredibly unhappy with the work and want to find somebody new."

He had been told that his job was to get clients to come back to them so this would fall under that, technically. "Of course I will. Jessie is the file around?"

"Paul, Dan will be mad." She supported him sticking it to their boss, she just didn't want him to be fired and she knew once Dan found out about this he would hit the roof.

"I asked if the file was around."

Reluctantly she pulled the file out from beneath her desk, "Here you go, and on your head be it."

"Thank you." Taking the file he smiled politely before he turned and offered his arm to the older woman, "Mrs King?"

Taking his offered arm she clung to it tightly, "You are a polite young man."

"My Mom would be happy to hear that. Let's get you sat down and we can go over exactly what you are here for."

Once they were sat down he opened up the file and skipped right to the most recent notes and immediately rolled his eyes, no wonder they wanted to leave, he could easily cut their bill with one phone call. "So do you really want to leave us?"

"I don't." Opening her bag she removed the pieces of paper that she had brought with her and placed them on the desk, "But when my son shows me these invoices when we were supposed to be saving money he understandably wants out because he feels like we are being taken for a ride and we can't afford for the prices to go up this much."

"Would you be willing for me to try to lower those costs for you? I won't put anything in to place, I will print out details that you can take back to your sons and discuss with them and if you are all happy I will change it all over and if not then I will cancel it all for you."

This was why she liked working with Paul, he wasn't doing it for the money or the glory, he was doing it to help businesses. "I would be more than happy with that, thank you Paul."

"It is my pleasure."

Fifteen minutes later and he was escorting her back out to reception, "Now remember what I said, you have my number so if you or your sons have any problems or they just want to discuss it then call me and I will be more than happy to do that for them."

Turning to face him she hugged him tightly, "Thank you Paul, my sons will be so happy to hear that you are back and that you sorted this out."

"It was my pleasure."

He watched her closely as she left to make sure that she was safe before he turned around only to come face to face with Dan.

"What the hell do you think you are doing Paul? You didn't have a meeting with her; I did, so why are you getting involved?"

Well this was awkward; he could have at least pretended not to be angry for thirty seconds of his life. "Mrs King and I go way back, she has always been one of my favourite clients and when she asked me to see her I didn't think that you would have a problem considering she was here to tell you that they were done and I seemed to be the one with the job of getting all of the old clients back. Mrs King has to run the numbers by her sons but they shouldn't be leaving us, you're welcome."

"How did you do that?" Dan was annoyed that he had taken over his client and ruined what he had planned.

"By saving them money?" Maybe he was missing something with it being his first day back but he thought that was obvious.

"You're an idiot. Rather than saving the business you have cost us more. The reason it was costing them so much was because the supplier they were using was the cheapest in the long run as they didn't have such strict rules."

"And you never thought to speak to one of the other suppliers to get a better deal out of them? Who is the idiot now? I have work to do so go and sulk in your office." He refused to stand there and argue with him so made a hasty exit back to his desk.

When lunchtime hit and everybody else was heading out of the office to get some food Paul stayed behind as there was a phone call he wanted to make. With the office practically empty he picked up his phone and called the hospital.

"ICU, can I help you?"

"Hi, it's Paul, I was wondering how Stephanie was doing today please?"

The voice was familiar; she just couldn't place where she knew it from and why he was asking about Stephanie. "Paul who? Stephanie who?"

"Levesque and McMahon, seriously I have been sitting with her every day for the past few weeks, you can't have forgotten about me already." He was trying not to be offended but it was proving to be quite difficult.

"Ohhh. Sorry Paul, you sound different on the phone. Stephanie is fine, she's good actually. We got her to sit in a chair for half an hour this morning and we may try for another half an hour this afternoon if she is up to it. I think she is missing having you around to keep her company though as she is quite quiet."

"You mean to tell me that she might be missing my ugly mug? I do feel sorry for her." Laughing softly his mind drifted to the guy that he had met yesterday, maybe he would go against Cassie's advice and meet up with him, he might be able to tell him something about her.

"Well when you put it like that I might get the Doctor to see her, clearly she is crazy." There was something about the way that he was checking up on Stephanie that told her that there was more to what was going on than there seemed so she was going to have to talk to Cassie about it.

Chuckling softly he shook his head, "I can't argue there. Just let her know I will be in tonight okay? She has probably forgotten about that by now."

She didn't want to admit to him that she had already asked about him as she wondered what was taking him so long to arrive; she wanted to focus on the positive if possible. "Of course I will. I will see you tonight Paul, have a good afternoon."

"I will try to, thanks." Ending the call he got up to go and get himself some lunch but stopped when he saw Jessie stood there as he turned around looking stern, "Jessica, what is wrong?"

Ugh, she hated when people called her Jessica because her least favourite teacher had always insisted on calling her that despite her being known as 'Jessie' for longer than she could remember. "What's going on Paul? Who were you on the phone to checking up on some woman?"

"Eavesdropping much?"

Smiling sheepishly she did feel guilty for listening in on his conversation but she couldn't help it when there was nobody else around. "Guilty as charged on that one, sorry."

"It's fine, I have nothing to hide." He really didn't have anything to hide; he just didn't want to be judged for the choices he was making. "The call I just made to check up on 'some woman' was to the ICU to check on a patient that I have been sitting with and hanging out with for the past few weeks as she lost all of her family."

"Fuck, that is awful. How badly injured is she?"

"For the most part her injuries will heal and she is doing a lot better than she was as she is awake now but she has a broken leg, broken ribs, damage to her back and a pretty serious head injury so is unable to remember a lot of things."

She felt so guilty for being nosey now, that woman sounded like she had it so hard. "So she literally has nobody?"

"Literally nobody. If she does have any friends then they haven't come forward to help and to fill in the blanks in her life that we are unable to fill. I have been spending every day with her at the hospital and I will be going by every night after work so that she has somebody to see but also because I really do enjoy hanging out with her."

Jessie didn't know if she was overstepping boundaries or anything but hearing how badly somebody had it made her problems pale in comparison. "If it helps at all if she wants to see another face or would like a female to hang around with I would be happy to visit a couple of times a week. I want to do something positive with my life and that sounds pretty positive to me."

"You don't have to do that."

She didn't know how to react other than to shrug, it wasn't that she felt obligated to do it, she was just offering because she wanted to do something good. "I know that I don't have to do it Paul, I'm not the kind of woman that you can make do anything she doesn't want to do."

Snorting he smirked, "Yeah tell me about it, I had enough trouble getting that file off you earlier."

"Exactly, so you should know that I'm not offering for any reason other than I want to do it so the offer is there if she wants it."

He really couldn't say no to that as it would probably do Stephanie a lot of good to see more people. "I am seeing her tonight so I will talk to her about it."

Just then the phone began to ring causing Jessie to groan, "It is called lunch hour for a fucking reason you idiots. Can nobody read?" Storming off she had to ignore her own lunch for a minute to answer the phone.

After what felt like a really long afternoon at work Paul was actually looking forward to seeing Stephanie so when he was buzzed in he barely managed a polite smile to the Nurses as he made a beeline for her room. Knocking gently on the door he slowly peeked his head around the open door, "Room for a small one?"

"You came!"

Walking into the room he couldn't help himself from going over and giving her a hug, "Of course. I promised you that I would, I even called to check up on you at lunch and told them to tell you that I would be in tonight."

Did somebody tell her that earlier? She really couldn't remember being told that but she was just happy to see him. "How was your day?"

Not bothering to pull a chair up he sat on the edge of the bed, "Tolerable. My boss gave me a bunch of files that he wants me to work on getting the clients back as he apparently drove them away. I did see my absolute favourite client though, she was meant to have retired but she was bored within a few weeks so went back to work a few days a week. I did kind of get in to trouble for poaching her from my boss but she likes me and not him."

"Paul!" She couldn't help but giggle at him causing mischief at work but it did make her a little sad to know that he had found going back to work so easy, he would soon not want to come and see her at all and she would be all alone.

"It's not my fault, he asked for it. So how was your day? Did you do anything exciting?"

"I should have known when I heard giggling that you were here causing mischief Paul."

Looking towards the door he playfully rolled his eyes at Cassie, "I'm not causing any mischief, I am just telling Stephanie about my day. Shouldn't you be off harassing somebody else?"

Ignoring him she placed the tray on the table and moved it further up the bed forcing him to get off the bed. "Enjoy your dinner Stephanie and then after dinner if you are up to it and Paul sticks around long enough you can go on a little trip in the wheelchair."

When he turned from looking at Cassie to look at Stephanie he nearly died from the killer puppy dog eyes she was giving him, if he had even thought about saying 'no' he would have been changing his mind now. "It's okay; I'm staying for a while. You eat up a minute and I'll go and annoy Cassie and then I will be back."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Pressing a kiss to the top of her head he removed the cloche covering her dinner and placed it on the side, "Eat up."

Not wanting to argue with him she picked up her knife and fork to begin to eat her dinner.