Tony paced around his room. Michael had left over an hour ago and he still couldn't shake the queasiness he felt as soon as he'd walked in on his and Angela's friendly conversation.

He'd been prepared for some sort of reprimand. Though he and Angela had stopped counting his hours years ago, he still had household responsibilities – responsibilities he was paid to uphold. All day he'd felt guilty for not calling to tell everyone he'd stayed in New York, but what if Angela heard the message? Or answered? Telling her that he and Kathleen took an unexpected trip together was more than he could bear.

But she hadn't said anything. Not aside from her casual remark in Michael's presence. It was Samantha who scolded him, asking where he was and what he was thinking and how he could let them all worry. Angela went straight to her den after seeing Jonathan off. It wasn't surprising after Michael's tongue-in-cheek comment to them, but for her as his boss to walk away without giving him any kind of admonition? It wasn't sitting right.

He couldn't put off talking to her any longer. His conscience had been eating at him since their conversation a couple of weeks ago. Rather, the gnawing had become stronger and more incessant. Knowing that she'd thought about throwing him out of the house hurt. Deep down, he knew it was a justified response no matter how official or unofficial their relationship had been, and he knew he was a fool for treading the thin ice today. Samantha's presence was likely the only thing saving him.

He slowly made his way downstairs. He'd been listening carefully for her footsteps in the hall, still expecting her to confront him. They never came, so assumed she was still in her study. Once there, he held his breath as he raised his hand to knock once he reached the door, wishing he'd been able to come up with some way to start this dreaded discussion on the way down.

"Come in," she called, and Tony opened the door and walked inside.

"Hey."

Surprised, though she wasn't sure who else she would have expected, she reciprocated. "Hi there."

"I was, um… hoping we could, you know, talk?"

"About what?" she asked nervously as she took off her glasses.

"Just…" He cleared his throat. "Everything."

Angela sighed. "Tony, it's been a long day. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid I'll lose my nerve."

Her pulse increased, starting to worry this was more about Kathleen than about her. "Fine."

Tony wandered closer to the front of her desk but still kept a good distance away as she sat looking up at him. "First, I want to apologize for being gone all day."

She waved her hand. "It's forgotten."

"I feel like I need to explain myself."

"Really, it's okay. I don't want to know."

He carried on anyway. "It just got so late and it didn't make sense to come back last night—"

"Tony, I don't want to know. You're allowed to take a day off. My only request is that you call one of us. Samantha and I were worried you were hurt."

"I'm sorry."

Standing up, she asked, "Is that all?"

"Actually, no."

Moving around to the front of her desk as well, she leaned against it. "Go on."

Tony shifted his footing nervously. "I've tried letting things be normal again. I haven't forgotten what you said."

She shrugged. "There's been some improvement."

"Not enough."

"Why the sudden worry?" she asked, her tone leaning toward an accusatory one.

"Seeing you with Michael…" he started after a moment. "It hit me that you're more comfortable with him than you are with me."

"I wouldn't say that."

"You can barely smile when we're in the same room. With him you looked relaxed and you were laughing. It only stopped because I showed up."

Unable to deny this, she said, "It was more because I knew Michael was unaware of our situation. I didn't anticipate him making a blatant comment like he did, but I thought he'd ask what's new in your life and I'd have to… well, you'd tell him."

Tony nodded, accepting the answer.

"I guess tonight it was easier to be with him," she admitted. "Because I didn't have to be on guard. I know what to expect from him. I don't have to pretend…"

Before she could say any more, she turned around, bringing a hand up to her mouth. Tony took a step forward in concern, but before she felt the touch of his hand on her shoulder, she moved away toward the window seat. There, her knees appeared to buckle as she fell against the seat.

"Angela—" he said, rushing to her side.

She kept her head bowed as she held up her other hand. "I'm fine. I just need today to end."

"You don't sound fine."

Still trying to suppress her cries, she said through gritted teeth, "This is exactly what I didn't want."

"You can't help how you feel."

"Not that," she snapped. "Us. I didn't want all of this to happen."

He stared at her.

"I thought if I stepped aside, it would make everything easier. Now I wonder if it made it worse – if I should have fought harder."

"What do you mean?" he asked softly.

Losing grip, she answered, "If I should have said how hurt I was when I found out about Kathleen. If I'd asked why you wanted to keep seeing her instead of giving my blessing. Ask why after a year – really more than a year – of flirtations and suggestions you suddenly decided to be with someone else without giving me a chance or at the very least discussing things with me."

Tony bit his lip as she struggled to continue.

"I know when we talked about marriage nothing was set in stone. I didn't expect that one day our relationship would be figured out and you'd propose. At first, I didn't anticipate anything. I was just glad to finally have acknowledged things that both of us have thought about and left unspoken. Then we sort of fell into this vague commitment that soon excluded other dates. You'd get so jealous if a man so much as looked at me. I started to assume it was only a matter of time before things fell into place. Realizing I was wrong… it made everything with Kathleen hurt more. And it wasn't that it happened in the first place, it was that you'd decided to keep seeing her. You decided to keep seeing her and all of a sudden I had no idea where I stood with you. Not now, and not in the last year. You chose her over me."

Sobs took over as she pulled her knees up onto the seat and hugged them to her chest as she buried her face. Not able to fight instinct, Tony wrapped his arms around her, saying nothing aside from the occasional comfort phrases as she cried. Feeling her shake in his arms, he struggled to swallow his own emotions.

"I'm so sorry, Angela," he croaked. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry about everything."

She wasn't able to speak yet. All she could do was grip his arm that had settled across her.

They remained this way until she was able to pull herself together, thoroughly exhausted when that time came.

"I… I didn't mean to collapse like that."

"It's okay… seems like it's been building up."

She had to nod.

Tony continued. "I hate that I'm the reason for it."

Rubbing her eyes, she said, "It's not only you. It's been a bad day. Work was stressful, the kids were at each other's throats this evening, and then Michael threw me for a loop. I haven't even had time to process that I won't be seeing Jonathan for two weeks."

He rubbed her shoulder, secretly glad she wasn't pulling away from him.

When she said nothing more, he thought it was over, but then her voice broke softly through the silence once again.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why…" She took a breath. "Why did you choose Kathleen over me?"

With a stunned look, he pulled his arm away, clasping his hands in front of him.

"I wouldn't say I chose her over you."

"How else am I supposed to take it?" Angela challenged.

"It's just," he sighed, pausing a moment before starting again. "It's easier with Kathleen, you know? You and I have always been so complicated. Then it got more complicated. She and I are in the same place. She's getting her degree later in life, most of her income goes toward her education. You've been unbelievably supportive, and I can't tell you how much that means to me, but can you tell me you relate to what I'm going through?"

Sadly, she shook her head.

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I didn't even realize it was an issue until I started seeing her more. More of it is that you're still my boss. It's easy to forget when you and I are doing something together, especially outside the house, but every time I start to think that we should take the next step, I panic. Until I'm out there on my own, I can't see myself getting involved with you. So, right now, it makes sense to be with someone else. And yet, I still haven't been able to shake the feeling that I've betrayed you."

Her eyes shone with fresh tears, though she didn't let them fall. "Don't you think if we were at a place where you feel like sleeping with someone else was betraying me, you probably were?"

Hurt radiated from him with the words, but he wasn't defensive. Any other time he might have been.

When he failed to respond, Angela said, "I don't always feel that strongly. Fact is that we didn't have a commitment to one another. I only wish we could have talked about things first. We leave so many things unspoken. It's too much sometimes."

"It is," he agreed. "I wish that, too, but I was just as blindsided as you were. I didn't even like Kathleen earlier that day. But it forced me to think about you and me."

"So, what are you saying? That you'll see Kathleen until you're through with school and then you can reevaluate our relationship?"

"I don't know… maybe?"

"That's a bit unfair to me. I was willing to wait until you figured things out, even just to figure out where we thought we were headed, but graduation is still a long way off. She can't be a way to kill time until then, and I'm not going to keep waiting only to watch your feelings change – which they inevitably will if you're together with someone for that long."

"Who's to say I'm going to be with her until then? We're not too serious."

"I'm saying 'what if'. If not Kathleen, it might be someone else. All I know is that I can't keep banking on the fact you and I are going to end up together one day. I would like to get married again someday. I wouldn't mind having another child. I want you in my life, Tony. You're still my best friend. But I need to know where I stand. I can't keep living in the dark about us."

He mulled this over for a while, Angela left to do nothing but watch his expressions change along with whatever thoughts were going through his mind. What he eventually said could've knocked Angela off her seat.

"What if I break up with Kathleen?"

"And?" she questioned. "What then?"

Tony shrugged. "We can go back to how things were. Just for now. I won't drag my feet as much, though. I know two years is a long time. At least I'm not as bad off as I was a year ago. I have a major now, and I know what career I'm going into. Sam's off to college sooner than I thought, but I've sort of wrapped my mind around it. All I really need time for is to get past the whole being your housekeeper thing."

"Tony," she said, touching his arm. "Do you hear yourself?"

"What?"

"Being with me shouldn't require this much thought. You're the one who taught me that."

In an attempt to backtrack, he said, "No, no – it's not thinking. Just a plan of action."

Pursing her lips, she said, "I'll agree to this if you can answer me one thing."

"Yeah?"

"If you hadn't seen me break down like this, would you still be considering breaking up with Kathleen?"

Tony stared blankly at her. He wanted to pretend that he'd been thinking about it all along. He wanted to convince her and himself that everything he'd done was out of sheer panic. It wasn't entirely untrue but still too much of a fib to put it past his lips. He couldn't lie to Angela.

"No," he finally said, his voice low and somber.

"That's what I thought."

"Angela…" He started to defend himself, but couldn't find the heart. There was no denying his wrongdoings anymore. Whether or not the world saw his actions as right or wrong, he'd hurt Angela, and that made it a problem. "I'm sorry," he uttered instead.

"I don't know if we'll ever start a life together different from the one we've already made, but if we do, this isn't the way I want to start it. I want us both to be happy and on the same page. And as much as I still hope someday that will come to fruition, I need to live in the moment for a while. You're with Kathleen and I'm with Peter. He's a sweet guy, and I think I need to focus on that for the time being."

"Is it serious?" he found himself asking.

"Not really," she answered. "But it could be. It's like you said about Kathleen. He's in a similar place as me. You and I are different. Usually, it's not a bad thing, but it seems right now that it is." Voice beginning to tremble, she finished, "My first priority is making sure we're okay as friends. I want us to be okay again."

Without thought, he reached around her, guiding her head to rest on his shoulder. "We are."

"Are we really?" she sniffed.

His voice was strained and unsure. "We're going to make it okay." He said it for his sake as much as hers.

Angela kept her head against him, savoring what she could of this closeness. She'd missed him so much these last few weeks. Hurt as she was, she still loved him. She didn't see that ever-changing even if it turned out they were never met to take things beyond where they were. Part of her was glad to have finally let out her emotions. Aside from a few tears that first night, she hadn't let herself weep. She was embarrassed that Tony had to be a witness to her collapse, but it seemed to be for the better. They were talking now, at least. And they were close. Their physical proximity wouldn't last past this moment, she knew, but with everything out in the open, things could only improve.