A/N: Lol, I know the café got burnt down, but knowing Ian Beale, he'll somehow make sure business is running again the next day. (I bet he'll never go on holiday ever again)!
Danielle was patiently waiting in the café for Ronnie. She gave her phone a double tap, which responded by vibrating into life and displaying the time. 1:10pm. Maybe Ronnie was having second thoughts. The least she could do was let Danielle know. Danielle decided to get a coffee whilst waiting. Twenty minutes was all Ronnie had to prove she meant what she said last night. Danielle was not prepared to let Ronnie hurt her like this, it wasn't fair.
"Danielle!" A flustered looking Ronnie barged into the building. Her voice was much louder than she had intended but was so relieved that Danielle had not left. "I'm so sorry, Ben's not well at all, he's been throwing up and everything, and then Amy started crying, Phil's at the Arches, and…"
Danielle couldn't help but giggle at Ronnie's need to explain. "Ronnie will you calm down? It's fine." She turned around to face the counter, "Jane can you make that two please?" Jane smiled over in acknowledgement. Danielle was surprised that everyone was acting quite normally towards her. Sure, she got the odd stares on her way over, but it was much easier to avoid them then she thought. No one had actually questioned her on last night, and she hoped the inevitable wouldn't come.
"Right, what shall we have for lunch? I fancy a cheese and onion sandwich, my favourite." Danielle hid behind the menu, glancing over it. She was being a little reserved; trying her best to act like this was an ordinary lunch with a friend.
Ronnie was a little taken-aback. She was mentally absorbing everything about Danielle. How she handled herself, how she mentioned her favourite sandwich, how she seemed to find this lunch time as any other. To Ronnie, this was one of the most important moments in her life; she wanted to make a good impression to Danielle. It was an interview for the job of a life time ~ nerve-racking as hell ~ but Ronnie's dream job. To be a mother.
An awkward silence had fallen as both women were deep in thought. Ronnie had removed her jacket and neatly placed it behind her chair. She was deep in thought about her past encounters with Danielle, but she stopped as she soon realised that most of them involved her rejecting her daughter. Ronnie felt physically sick, all the pain she rooted, all the words she had stringed together... She had spent all of last night thinking it over, but now she had to focus on today, a new beginning, a life time of correcting her mistakes. Her daughter's favourite sandwich was cheese and onion? Argg, that's vial. Ronnie hated that combination. She looked up to Danielle who was still reading the menu and smiled at her deep concentration. She wanted to retain every detail, every feeling, but it was so overwhelming. She was having lunch with her daughter; it was all so unreal.
"Yeah, I think I'll have the same." Ronnie smiled just as Danielle looked up. Who knew, maybe she would grow to like that flavour.
A/N: Next chapter already written. They were meant to be one, but it was nearly 3000 words, so I thought I'd make this the shorter one, and have the next one really long, how about that??