Hi, i'm so so sorry for the incredibly slow update - I broke up with my boyfriend towards the end of last year and it's been a struggle especially considering how serious this chapter is.

No fair
You really know how to make me cry
when you give me those ocean eyes
I'm scared
I've never fallen from quite this high
¬Ocean Eyes, Billie Eilish (beautiful song and apt for this chapter tbh)

Daenerys didn't know how she had managed to remain as composed as she had when she left Jon in that hateful meeting room. Her eyes were brimming like a bucket full of water that dared to spill out at any sudden movement, but still she walked at a controlled pace as she exited and walked down the corridor. As soon as she entered her end goal though, which was the female toilets on that floor, her hard grip over her control crumbled away. Tears began to fall quick and hard as she kicked all the toilet doors to make sure nobody was occupying them.

Once she had confirmed she was totally alone, she entered a cubicle and fell against her closed door. A hard gasp escaped her as if to announce the loud, ugly sobbing that was about to leave her body. Daenerys wasn't usually a physical crier and was not one to ever sit on the floor and cry, let alone a toilet cubicle floor, but today, this terrible day, would be an exception.

She was crying because nobody was supposed to find out about this.

She was crying because she was attacked for her decision and that was her biggest fear of anyone finding out – to be made to feel bad for what she did. To have Jon be the one that doubted the reasons why she did what she did made it hurt more. Even though she had been holding back and by no means intentionally doing so, she had started opening herself up to him and this was the slap in the face to let her know that she was wrong to do that.

She was crying because due to being attacked she had to defend herself, she had to relive every single moment all over again.

She was crying because of Viserys.

She was crying because of Jon.

How stupid had she been to think for one little second that he was good and kind – something she felt like she didn't deserve to have to herself, but something she found herself wanting all the same.

That small cubicle contained the crying Daenerys for at least twenty minutes before the sobbing, gut-wrenching, red-eye inducing tears subsided and she was left just staring blankly at the toilet. She slowly eased herself off the toilet floor and headed to the sink to see what damage the crying had done to her face.

She washed her face and then stared at her terrifying reflection. Her lips were puckered and bruised, then her cheeks flushed a terrible shade of red on the backdrop of her pale skin and light hair and her eyes were red and angry. She composed herself and waited for the worse of the swelling to go down.

There was work to do and more importantly a man that begged for her to speak to him with his actions – Daario.

He told Jon and for what? She wanted to scream at him and claw his eyes out, but she also needed to know exactly why he would tell Jon that information. Did he suspect that something was happening between her and Jon? No, had happened between her and Jon. Certainly nothing would be happening between them now.

As soon as the redness left her cheeks, she walked with a ferocious determination to the lifts. Her blood was still pumping at a rate that suggested she was living off a huge adrenaline kick right now. This day had kicked her into overdrive.

When she made it up to the office, she didn't even turn her head to see if Jon was back at his desk, because that would send her over the edge yet again, instead she stormed right to Daario's office and swung open his office door, not checking to see if he was busy or not.

"Daenerys," He commented pointlessly, as she barged in, quickly shutting the door behind her. He seemed flustered and this was exactly the reaction that Daenerys had intended to instil in him. He eased himself slowly off his seat, doing up a button on his blazer as he seemed to try to appear more calm at this interaction. Daenerys, meanwhile, loudly stepped over to his desk, her face painting a picture of a stormy night.

"Do you suddenly want to make sure I don't get the promotion or is this something you've always wanted?" She asked, for once not smoothing over her anger or talking in twisted words to get what she wanted. Despite her face looking like thunder, she kept her body still, as she was very aware of the fact that this office was practically a glass bubble for people to view her.

"My wants have never changed – I've always wanted you to be the same level as me." Daenerys pointed her arm angrily in the direction where Jon sat behind the one wall that was thankfully not made of glass, but Daario continued on calmly before she could spit out her next words. "It's your wants that have changed."

It took Daenerys a second to respond to that. Her arm fell and so did her mouth, attempting to figure out what he meant. Her gut told her what it was, but she would never admit she knew out loud.

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Her voice executed the façade of confusion beautifully. He was beginning to smile now, as if he was going to take joy out of telling her the answer.

"Well, you've pressed the pause button on us for all of this, but it's all because Jon Snow found out our little secret, isn't it?" She furrowed her eyebrows, still pretending that this was a shock to her. Of course his behaviour had all stemmed from jealously. "You two have gotten far too close."

She could have hit the ceiling with his suggestion, because after all this whole fucking mess was due to Daario's original suggestion to be nice to Jon so she could improve her chances at winning. Instead of hitting the ceiling, she took a deep breath and explained that this was his entire fault in a slow, composed manner as if she was talking to a very stupid child.

"You told me I should be friendly with him to help me win this and now it seems that you think otherwise."

"Friendly, yes, I'm fine with friendly." The way he said 'friendly' grated on Daenerys more than what he was actually insinuating.

Of course what he was insinuating wasn't great – she was getting romantic with Jon and Daario thought that was any of his business. Even if he was completely right in his opinion of her just pushing pause on them, they were never exclusive or anywhere near to that for him to have an opinion on who she was friendly with.

"Are you suggesting something else is going on? That I would be so stupid as to sleep with my competition?" She was allowing herself to get angry once more despite the fact that yes, she had been exactly that stupid. "Are you really telling me the grounds for you telling Jon confidential information about me is because you're jealous?"

This seemed to finally get Daario to react in a more human way and the smug smile had been stamped out.

"Although I wouldn't want you getting close with Jon, I didn't actually intend on telling him – it kind of just came out." Daario must have been able to tell he was losing Daenerys here, as she heavily shook her head and turned around. "Come on, he's not going to do anything with that and it's not even that confidential."

That got a snort from Daenerys and for her to turn her head back to the side. "Not that confidential? You think I wouldn't have heard from people if they heard I found out about my brother and then turned him in? It probably took Jon about five seconds to come back to me with that information."

"It's not like you were the very first person to find out."

"What are you talking about?" Daenerys snapped, not knowing what he was talking about, but wanting to know everything about he meant, especially as he looked so flustered that she was calling him out on it.

"You're right; I shouldn't have said it regardless of the reasons." He shrugged, avoiding her question completely.

She figured she could spend her time trying to get that information out of him, but he wouldn't be easy to spill unless she went back to being sexual with him and that was something she could never do again, so if she was going to get any satisfaction out of this conversation and he wasn't going to elaborate on his point, she was going to have to get it another way.

"Did you know that it was my brother who persuaded me to start something with you?" She began, her tongue wetting her lips with determination as she got this out. She couldn't stomach the pretty lie she had been telling him anymore. "And I won't respond very positively to you thinking you have a say in who or who I don't sleep with again, as what I pushed on us was the eject button, not pause."

She finally pushed the glass door open and left without regarding Daario with a second look, but she spent the rest of the day thinking about him. Well, not him, but about what he said.

It's not like you were the very first person to find out.

It felt like a cryptic message that she needed to get to the bottom of.

Upon entrance to her flat in the late evening, after greeting all three cats, her feet directed her to the red wine that had been bought with the intention of being used for a cooking sauce rather than her own personal drinking consumption, but it definitely wasn't turning out that way.

She poured herself a glass and slowly sipped at its contents like it was her medicine for her current mental state. She ran herself a bath as never in her life had she needed relaxation like she did right now. As she watched the bubbles rise to the top, her phone buzzed and she ignored it, like she had been doing every time it buzzed that day.

She hadn't seen Jon in person for the rest of the day, but she had continued to send him professional emails regarding the quickly approaching event that was unbelievably occurring this Friday and so she knew her phone buzzing would most likely be him apologizing or wanting to insult her further or Daario giving his response to her truth telling or Missandei wanting to hear more gossip about Jon and she definitely didn't want to talk to hear from any of these people right now.

When the bubbles reached the top, she removed her dressing gown to submerge her naked body in the almost burning water – extremely hot baths were the only way to do it. She felt the tingling sensation of relaxation throughout her body and she softly sighed, taking her glass of wine to nurse over in her bubbling paradise.

It's not like you were the very first person to find out.

Another reason she opted for a bath today was that she needed to allow herself enough time to reflect and stew over that statement. She had already now come to the conclusion of what it meant, but she needed to now decide if she needed the proof of this and how to go about getting proof.

Daenerys had always assumed that she must have been the very first person to find out about Viserys and his illegal actions, as how could somebody know about this and not do anything about it? This had all changed now due to Daario's words, but who could have known?

Daario?

He would have turned Viserys in immediately to make himself look good unless he had been on it as well, but… that didn't seem likely. He would have, hopefully, for his own sake, not been so stupid as to reveal this piece of information to Daenerys or even reveal the truth about her turning in Viserys to Jon.

But Daario perhaps knew who had found out before her. And so she thought that could only mean one option – Management. Someone in Management had found out and done nothing about it. It had to be someone in Management, because Daario was in Management and she couldn't imagine him finding out about someone else in the company knowing about Viserys. It could have been Tyrion, Cersei, Jaime… anyone in a high up position.

Whether it was Daario, someone in Management or just a regular employee, she felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach that her company still had the corruptness living inside it. If she wanted to be promoted, then she needed to know that they weren't corrupt – that wasn't a life she wanted to live anymore, not since she had scraped the corrupt leech that was Viserys off her body. And because this situation was still at the core about Viserys, she had to see it through till the end; she needed to find the evidence.

How did she do that?

She figured Daario knew he had told her too much already and would definitely not be willing to give her any more information with the way she had left things with him. She knew she should have probably thought it through more before telling Daario exactly where he stood with her, but what she had said was still the best part of her very bad day.

The bath felt colder as her mind considered another alternative. Her eyes dared to fill with tears as she thought about what could give her the quickest answer – Viserys himself.

She had never contacted him since she turned him in. She had watched him be arrested whilst he shouted abuse and spat at her and so the word 'bitch' was probably the last word he had spoken to her. She had been at his sentencing, but had sat as far back as possible and she had almost walked out before he was sentenced in the fear that he would be marked as innocent, coming straight for her throat as soon as he was released, but that didn't happen. Her parents remarkably had turned up for his sentencing and she thought they still visited him, but the sentencing was actually the last time she had seen them as well.

Her hand placed the wine down on the side of her bathtub and shakily picked up her phone instead. She had no idea how these things worked – could she ring a number and be put through to him or did she ring to arrange a visit or would she have to speak to her parents in the first time in months to find out how the visiting worked?

As she looked at the screen to decide what she needed to do, the two missed calls from Jon and a message from him simply saying 'I'm sorry' stared back at her. The moments she had to relive today came flooding back and she knew she couldn't speak to Viserys. She would never be able to speak to him again and that's how she wanted it to be. Jon though… she still didn't know what she wanted from that.

She placed her phone back down, ignoring Jon's contact once more. She wouldn't think about him now, because she knew she had a lot of work on her hands. If she couldn't get information from Daario and speaking to Viserys was not an option, she knew she would have to find out herself.

Despite the disgustingly low day Daenerys had suffered the day before, she had woken up with a determination for the day ahead with what she had tasked herself with. She felt like the literal depiction of a woman on a mission as she walked back into the office Tuesday morning with two coffees in hand from Starbucks. She pretended that Jon was not sitting a simple turn of her head away and walked straight over to her desk, however she soon regretted her decision to firstly go to her desk, because something very odd and upsetting sat on her desk.

A tall and wide vase took up most of her desk surface.

Her walk slowed in shock as she got closer to it. Nobody else was around her desk to supply her with information on who had dropped it off, but only a stupid person in her circumstances would not know who had left the present there. If she did need help with figuring that out though, there was a small envelope stuck to the top of it. She opened it with the expectation that it wouldn't say that much and she was not let down. The simple, cursive writing told her 'For you – Jon'. It was so simple that it was almost maddening, but that maddening feeling at Jon's direct way of speaking was what had got her to lose her control over him in the first place. If she didn't find him so frustrating, would she ever have found him that intriguing to kiss him the way she had? I don't know and it doesn't matter now, she told herself, as she shoved the note in a drawer to not be looked at again.

However the vase itself got her mind running in different directions. The vase seemed expensive in appearance and quality – purple and gold leaf rising from the base to a thick glass rim. She imagined Jon, someone who probably would never spend a sum of money on something like a vase, going to a fancy store and picking this personal gift for Daenerys. Despite his accusations, that single thought of him buying her vase brought the tiniest of smiles to her face.

Jon was yet again proving himself to be a massive distraction for her.

She threw her coat over her chair and headed to the place she had been intending on going to straightaway before the vase: the practically cupboard-sized office that her favourite I.T technician holed herself up in. It was stuck in the space between the kitchen and one of the manager's offices – frighteningly close to the place where she had first kissed Jon.

She knocked at the door to the little office, which was a difficult task whilst holding two cups of coffee, and waited for the greeting that was bound to occur. Daenerys knew that Kit was going to be in, because she seemed to be the only other person in the office who stayed at unreasonable hours.

"Yup," Kit called out and Daenerys pushed her weight against the door to open it. Kit turned to see who it was. "Ah, hey Dany."

Kit was a bizarre young girl, but Daenerys actually found her amusing for the most part when she marched into the office in the morning with a gigantic coffee and with a hood covering most of her features. And she was incredibly useful. Everyone in I.T was useful, but Kit being useful and willing to help was what made her the most valuable.

"I thought you might have downed your daily extra-large coffee by now, so -," Daenerys began innocently enough, as she handed over one of them to an all too keen to accept Kit, but she still eyed Daenerys suspiciously.

"Thanks - what do you want then?" Daenerys looked shocked at it immediately cutting to business talk, but Kit was a straight talker and didn't like to waste time away from her work.

"I am shocked by the accusation, but… you know I'm up for a promotion, right?" Daenerys asked, very willingly steering the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go in. Kit shrugged.

"I might have heard some whisperings of that." Daenerys gave her sweetest smile in the hopes that would help in her ask for help.

"Well, I've been given a task to look at the past financial reports from the past five years and Jon Snow, my competitor, is expected to be doing the same but I've noticed I don't have full access to the finance drive and I doubt Jon does either." Daenerys knew she most likely wouldn't have to be as obvious as to ask the question directly, Kit would know exactly what she was getting at.

"Ah, so that's why you're not putting a formal request in?" Kit asked, shaking her head with a little laugh. This was a positive response for Daenerys and so she leapt at it.

"Yes, but I also think they wouldn't give me access to everything." There was silence as Kit pondered over this. Daenerys waited with baited breath until Kit finally nodded.

"If you got promoted you would get access to everything anyway, so no harm in doing it a tad early."

"Really?" Daenerys asked, before realizing she shouldn't sound that surprised. "I mean it wouldn't get you in trouble?"

"Sure, whatever, it'll take a minute and without a formal request from you, I doubt it'll ever be tracked." Daenerys smiled, as Kit explained.

"Thank you, I owe you."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks for the coffee." Kit waved dismissively, so clearly it was the end of the conversation.

And that was that. Step one of her so-called mission was complete.

She needed Kit to think that there was some sort of task for her to look at anything financial – there wasn't.

She needed Kit to think the reason she couldn't put in a formal request was because she was merely cheating in her competition, because Jon also didn't have access – that wasn't the case.

She needed Kit to think that by being granted this access, her chances for promotion would be increased and so it wouldn't matter if she got the access all the managers had a few weeks early – definitely not the case.

Step two would be going through the whole financial drive that she would now have unlimited access to and find anything that suggested someone else might have found out about his little illegal activity or had a part in it.

Hopefully she wouldn't need a part three and she would find out everything she needed to know after step two.

She went to the kitchen to make the most of the fact that most people weren't actually in the office yet and so it was quiet, to make herself a little natural yoghurt and fruit ensemble. She placed her coffee on the counter and began collecting her things out of the work fridge when the familiar voice came from behind her.

"Did you see the vase?" Daenerys froze, her breath stuck, not wanting to look back at those eyes that depicted the stormy seas, because she didn't want to go swimming right now or possibly ever again.

His body appeared at the side now, his arm leaning on the counter. She didn't want to be able to see any part of him.

"It was unnecessary." She simply responded, sounding cold as if she didn't sound cold then she would sound upset, hurt and betrayed – all things she couldn't sound in front of Jon again. She didn't have to turn to him to know that he was staring at the side of her face with intent.

"I wanted to say sorry, but I don't know how to say sorry to someone like you." A laugh filled with no happiness left him and either the words or that laugh caused her to finally turn to him, forgetting about her breakfast, as staring at him with bewilderment seemed more vital right now.

"Someone like me?"

Was he suggesting again that she was horrible and stuck up, like he had done before by saying she was different from others? Did he want to enrage her further?

"No, I –," His face looked startled, like it wasn't what he wanted to say. He licked his lips, as he tried to continue on. "I've just never met someone like you before. In a good way."

Her mouth parted slightly as his words washed over her. She had felt that she was someone different in a bad way and Jon had usually made her feel that way, but now… now he saw her as something different in a good way. She didn't want that simple sentence to affect her the way it was.

Jon huffed out a deep breath before continuing on.

"I'm so sorry, Dany, for what I've done and what you've been through. I should have gone about it completely differently, I just obviously had bigger trust issues with you than I -,"

"Yes. Well, thank you for your apology." Daenerys couldn't hear any more of what he had to say and so she had to interrupt him.

It made it more difficult to hear his lovely words as she couldn't do this right now – it was completely the wrong time. Everything had changed since the day before; her priorities had to be different for now. Jon Snow couldn't come and distract her further, but he was looking at her earnestly with a lot more to say to change her mind.

"I know I was a twat, I know now that there is so much more to you to know and I want to find it out without prejudices or the ideas I used to have about you… If I can."

"Uhm…" It was such an undignified sound for her to make. Daenerys never hummed or uhmed her way through a sentence, but she was stalling; she didn't want to get her next words out even though it was the right thing to do. "Like I said, thank you for your apology and I forgive you. I know I would have probably jumped to the same conclusion."

His face visibly relaxed despite it being painfully obvious that she wasn't done there.

"I shouldn't have though." He said, his apologetic eyes not backing down from this. She let out a little hopeless sigh.

"We shouldn't have. This was all a big mistake and thankfully we're realising this sooner rather than later. We should remain professional from this point on."

"I – no, what? I don't want that." He was shaking his head violently at that idea of them not doing anything else and Daenerys had to bite her tongue, because this was the first time Jon had come close to telling her what he wanted with all this and he had to pick now to display that? When she was firmly telling him no?

She couldn't risk discussing this further, because she would change her mind back. She raced through the reminders for why she was doing this: he didn't really want her, the complicated her with a horrible backstory, she couldn't have the distraction of him and she couldn't have a relationship! And so she instead started talking about something entirely different.

"I don't think I need to reschedule that meeting that we were supposed to have yesterday as I think we know what we're doing with our separate, but uh… on Friday we should make sure our schedules are completely free as we'll have to check everything is ready at the venue and things like -,"

"Dany, come on, this is ridiculous. We need to talk about this more." He put his hand on top of hers that was still resting on top of the yoghurt. Her skin let out a jolt of electricity and she snatched it away before her body reacted in a completely illogical, physical manner.

"No, we don't. That's exactly what I don't need. Please."

She hurriedly started putting her things back in the fridge and gave him a final look that was cold – the emotion washed out of every pore once more.

"If you need to talk about the event or have any issues then please contact me and I will do the same with you."

She turned away then and walked back to her desk in a careful manner.

She didn't need to have Jon in her head right now; he would be taking up valuable space for her mission to find out what had happened, so she cleared her thoughts of him. She replaced his voice telling her that he never met somebody like her with the work that she now had to do.