Maya was the second to last person to get off the plane. She, like everyone else, was relieved to have arrived at her destination, but unlike most egocentric travellers she had the decency to wait and let all the families clear first. No one needed her clogging the aisle up, and she hated the pushing people did in efforts to leave the plane as soon as possible. She had been in the window seat for the flight, so she had no excuse not to stay put while the crowd thinned. By the time she was through the airport, the usual swarm around the gate had dwindled significantly, making it easy to locate her fiancé- and her sister with him.

"Katie!" Maya greeted, throwing her arms around her sister, "I'm so glad you could come. How are you? Did Zig look after you?" she glared playfully at her fiancé, before hugging him in greeting as well.

"Of course he did," Katie responded with a playful roll of her eyes. "How was LA?"

"Let's just say I'm happy to be home." Zig took Maya's hand, and the trio made their way towards the baggage claim together.

"So?" Zig prompted, hoping that she would have good news to share.

"Brent wants me to do a tour." Zig and Katie both beamed, stopping in their tracks to congratulate Maya. The two were thrilled, and Maya had to let them be thrilled. She couldn't reveal the other side of that until it was just her and Zig, without company or a general public around.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be going out celebrating?" Zig asked, taking her hand again. Maya shook her head.

"I just want to go home."

"Okay," he said sweetly. Maya was grateful for Zig at the best of times, but it was moments like this where he knew not to pry, to just take her less verbal cues and trust them, that she was stopped in her tracks. She was incredibly lucky to have him as her biggest fan and the base of support network, and she didn't want to ever forget that.

Maya was unsurprised when she arrived home to find Zoe was reading, curled up on the couch. She was sure Grace was around somewhere, but even since she had been staying across the hallway at Tristan and Miles' apartment Zoe had been spending a lot of time around Grace. The gossip amongst their friends had still not got any further information about what was going on between the two of them, but they had an obvious connection, regardless of whether or not they were dating. The pair were interesting to observe; they had only known one another for a short amount of time, but they seemed to have the same kind of comfort around each other that she and Zig had- the kind where you could leave someone to themselves in your house while you got some work done and it wasn't awkward.

"Oh hey," Zoe said warmly, marking the page with her hands, "welcome home."

"Thanks," Maya replied, not even bothering to ask why she was there, "is Grace around?"

"Yeah, she is. She went to take a shower a while ago." Katie went over and sat down beside her. Maya supposed the two had met earlier, which saved her some hassle. If the two got along well then they would be able to keep one another company at the engagement party and whatever else came up.

"What're you reading?" Katie asked, starting a conversation between the two girls.

Zig nudged Maya gently. "I'll go put your bag in our room. You can go catch up with Katie- do you want anything?" she smiled at him, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm going to get changed first."

The two of them walked through to their bedroom, and Maya was overwhelmed by how comforting it was to be there. Her regular side of the bed was the one that looked slept in. She had to admit that she did exactly the same thing when Zig was away, just to be surrounded by his scent. She flopped down on the bed face first.

"That bad?" Zig asked, sitting down beside her, "want me to pet you while you make pathetic noises?" Maya whined, probably what Zig was classing as a pathetic noise. He exhaled heavily, and without looking at him Maya could tell that he was stifling laughter. "Okay, what's up?"

"You know the tour?" she started, muffled by the bed and all its covers.

"I've heard about it, yeah. And I'm really proud of you."

"I don't want to do it." Zig lay down. He probably knew they would be there for longer now.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," he said, "but… why?"

"We finally set a wedding date, and guess when Brent set my tour for?" She rolled around to lie on her back beside her fiancé. He found her hand and held it, stroking the back of it softly.

"I see."

"And he's going to make such a big deal about it if he changes it. It's not like he's even booked any venues yet!"

"Uh-huh." Maya knew Zig was just making acknowledgements to make her feel listened to, but it was working. It was all the support she really needed while she vented. She knew he was listening with all the attention he could give her, all his heart, and all his mind.

"I know you hate him."

"I know he makes you unhappy," Zig amended.

"I don't want to do a tour if I have to push the wedding back, Zig. That's the most important thing to me."

"We could just do it, you know. We don't have to have the big party." But the big party was what they had been working on. They had hired a wedding planner, for goodness sake.

"You want a party though. I want that too. Tristan wants that. You know we can't let the boys down."

"They could be our witnesses, and then their wedding date wouldn't be a problem," Zig suggested. Maya sat up to glare at him. "Okay, fine, no eloping." Zig sat up, turning to face her properly. She could feel the weight of his words before he even started. "For what it's worth, I think you should go for it- no, hear me out. This is an amazing opportunity, and I think you should take it when it's offered to you."

Maya nodded. "Thanks, but I'm not going to," she said, "I made it this far on my own. You know that Brent hasn't done anything for me other than book endless meetings that don't go anywhere. I've done this much, if I want to do a tour I'll do a damn tour."

"If that's what you want, then I'm going to support you through it, you know that."

"I do. And I'm really thankful to have you, Zig. I missed you so much."

"Gee, Maya, it's like you want to marry me or something," Zig teased, pulling her to him. He kissed the top of her head sweetly.

"I love you," she said plainly. Love didn't always need grandiose declarations.

"I had a hunch… and I love you too."

The next day, Maya stood in front of her full length mirror, adjusting her engagement party dress. Zig came up behind her, gesturing that he needed help fixing his tie- he couldn't interrupt her phone call. She nodded, balancing the phone between her head and shoulder as she sorted her fiancé out.

"Yeah, I was hoping that you would represent me, Angela," she said, "your agency has been very accommodating of me and I don't want to walk away from that, but I'm not comfortable being represented by him anymore."

"That won't be a problem, Maya. Do you want to put through a formal complaint?" Angela, one of the other talent agents that worked with Brent, said to her. If Maya was interpreting her tone of voice correctly, she was hopeful the answer would be yes.

"I'll think about that, thanks. Oh, Angela, Brent and I were in talks about organising a tour, but the dates that he set aren't going to be possible."

"There aren't any dates listed in your file that I can see. If you're interested we can definitely talk about that. Hey, look, I'll get you all shifted over and then we can make a date for you to come to LA to meet with me, but there's no hurry for that. I just think we need to talk face to face before we do much more. Or, hang on, if it's easier I'm going to be in New York in two weeks- we could fly you there, and that would be shorter for you from Toronto?" The suggestion was like a breath of fresh air.

"That sounds amazing. How do you feel about my fiancé coming with me?" she felt like she was pushing the boundaries now, but she did genuinely want Zig there, and she equally wanted to know whether or not the Zig-less trips were a Brent enforced rule or something more than that.

"I don't see why not. I'll send you an email when it's all set up, alright? I'm looking forward to working with you, Maya."

"Thanks, Angela, I feel the same way." She hung up the phone, turning back to the mirror. She looked over herself and Zig and nodded in approval.

"So that went well?" Zig asked.

"The best. Come on, we've got a party to get to."