Author's Note: Thank you! Irma, thank you for always reading and reviewing. I know I tend to update quite often (I swear I am gainfully employed), so it is quite incredible when someone can keep up with me :) And Letostag, I know I characterize Roger too much, but damn I love him!

Peggy entered the office of McCann Erickson, and felt like she might become shipwrecked in the sea of bodies and corridors. Jim Hobart's secretary had given her specific directions to his office, which she was incredibly grateful for now, as she wasn't sure if anyone would have stopped if she had asked. The office seemed like a microcosm of New York – overcrowded, unfriendly to outsiders, and never stopping. She was grateful, when she arrived to his floor, that it was less busy and rushing.

"Ms. Olson." Jim greeted her kindly as his secretary let her in. "Perfect timing, everyone else has just arrived. This is going to be your Tiffany's team." She looked around, and found three men and another woman sitting in various places in his office. "Ferg is the account man on this, and then we have Jeremy on artwork, and James on our TV production team. Elizabeth is another copywriter, but she's just here for you to bounce ideas off of and to help out when you need some inspiration. This will largely be your project. It will be your full-time work, as well as Jeremy's, and the others will pitch in as needed." Peggy nodded, and looked around anxiously.

"Can I put my coat somewhere?"

Don was especially irritated this morning. It was Peggy's first day at McCann, which meant that he was at the office, wondering who the hell was going to fill her shoes. Worst of all, they both had been at the office all of Saturday and Sunday, pushing for a Folger's Christmas campaign, and she had refused to let him sleep over that night.

"I need to be refreshed, and I can't do that with you in my bed all night." She had said it with a flirtatious smile, but the sentiment still irked him. He had wheedled her with promises of releasing any tension she might have before she left for the morning, but she had held steadfast. He kept drumming his fingers on his desk, and looking at the clock. She had vowed to call him when she had a chance, and he had arrived at work unusually early just so he wouldn't miss it. It was now 9:30, and his skin itched.

"Meredith, tell Ted I need to see him immediately." Don demanded. The speaker crackled.

"Right away Mr. Draper." Don continued to drum his fingers against his desk until Ted arrived, smiling with a handful of papers in his hand.

"Hey, what's so urgent?" He asked, and sat down in the chair in front of Don's desk, crossing his left ankle over his right knee so that he could use it for a makeshift surface as he made more notes on a document.

"Now that Peggy is gone, we need to divide up her work. To be honest, I don't know how we're going to do it. You need to start pulling your weight around here, Ted." He glared. The redhaired man stopped his scribbling and looked up, confused.

"Don, we've been trying to get you to divide her workload up since she accepted the position two weeks ago, and you've been keeping your head in the sand. If we had done this even a week ago, there wouldn't be this urgency now." Don simply glared, and Ted sighed. "Look, we have three creative directors, if you include Avery, which I don't. We can take the major accounts – anything over a million – and divide them between us, and get some freelancers to work on the smaller stuff. It'll mean more work for us, but I don't think either of us wants to fill Peggy's position unless she announces she's going over to McCann for good." Don picked up his whiskey and took a sip.

"Well, she won't be, so that is a good idea. She's also coming in on weekends to do some freelance work for us, so there are certain things that require her touch that we can leave for her. Tampax, Topaz, you know." Ted nodded.

"Right. So you can take on Hugo Boss, Chevalier, I'll take on Ciba - "

"No." Don shook his head. "Ciba loves Peggy, we can't take her off of it."

"So I heard." Ted muttered as he made some notes. Don raised an eyebrow.

"Are you still trying to make friends with her, or whatever you were trying to do?" Ted looked up and bit his lips.

"I'm not sure. I've heard she's having a fling with someone in the office, so it looks like that ship has sailed. I'm not happy about it, but I guess that is what happens when you fuck it up so grandly."

"I guess." Don looked through the bottom of his glass.

Peggy had been shown her office, which predictably was hidden in the bowels of the building, right next to the maintenance quarters. She wasn't particularly happy, but she had expected something similar, and for six months, should could suffer it. Elizabeth had been the one to get her settled in, which she was doing with great abandon. Elizabeth, as it turned out, like to talk. A lot.

"And then Joe and Mary had a fling, but it ended badly because her husband found out and he actually came into the office one day, incredibly drunk at 10am, and tried to go and see Joe to beat him up. It was quite dramatic, the police were called and the entire office was in an uproar for weeks. So she mostly keeps to herself now, although I noticed that James, not Jim, has been talking to her more, and I'm wondering if it's going to happen again. The entire office is taking bets on it, actually. We have quite a few betting pools around here, it's really easy to lose your money. In fact, one time we had a guy bet his fiancée's wedding ring on who was going to win the Stanley Cup, and wouldn't you know, he bet on the wrong team, and the guys still made him give up the ring and-"

"Where is the coffee?" Elizabeth looked surprised at the interruption, but then tilted her head up.

"There's a coffee station on almost every floor, except for this one."

"Great." She sighed. Her new coworker looked at her kindly.

"I hope you won't talk this offensively, but a lot of the copywriter girls might be rather cold to you. A lot of us wanted to be on this account, and they're a little sore that you were brought in from the outside. Some of them have even stopped talking to me, which seems a little unfair, but oh well. I guess that is office politics for you!" Peggy gave a forced smile.

"I guess so."

"Don't let it put you off, most of the people here are great. There is always the occasional bad apple. You might want to stay away from Margie, who works in accounting. She is always so miserable, which is horrible because she does payroll, and you can never talk to her about anything. One time I noticed that there was a day's pay missing from my cheque, so I went to talk to her about it, and..." Peggy tuned Elizabeth out as she continued. Everything is going to be OK she repeated to herself. Everything is going to be O.K.

Finally, around 11:30am, Don broke down and called McCann's main reception. When he asked to be transferred to Peggy Olson, he was met with a confused "Who?" He had sighed, and told the woman not to worry about it, and hung up. It looked like he had to wait on her. He had four different accounts on his desk, and he couldn't focus on any of them. He simply kept drumming his fingers on the oak, occasionally answering calls and staring out the window, drinking sullenly.

"Ms. Harris here to see you." Meredith buzzed shortly before noon.

"Send her in." He buzzed back. Joan entered his office, looking as glamourous and beautiful as she always did.

"What can I do for you?" He asked. She sat down in the chair across from his desk and opened up the file folder she had brought in.

"I heard you spoke with Ted and finally divided up Peggy's accounts. For the next quarter financials, I'd like to know approximately how many freelance hours we're going to pay. As much as I loath to admit it, not having Peggy on the payroll could save us some money for the next six months."

"Are you going to include all the contracts we might lose because we have Jerry from the freelance pool sticking his fingers into it?" Joan gave him a tired look, and Don sighed and looked up. "A rough estimate is 20 hours per week for six months." Joan scribbled down a couple of lines in her file, and got up.

"That was what I needed. Thank you, Don."

"Joan, did you want Peggy to go?" He asked, giving her a piercing look. She cocked her head to the side.

"No. But I want her to keep rising." She said evenly. He held her gaze.

"It's unfair."

"I know, Don." She gave him a look of sympathy that he had rarely seen from her in 16 years, and he suddenly felt like she knew more than either of them had said. It made him incredibly uncomfortable.

"Have a good lunch, Joan."

At 1:00pm, Meredith buzzed him. "Ms. Olson on line one." He immediately grabbed the phone and took a deep breath before answering.

"Hello Peggy." He said.

"Hey Don." She responded, sounding weary. His ears perked up.

"Is it going that badly already?" He asked, silently hoping that Tiffany's wasn't all she thought it was going to be.

"It's not bad. It's just... busy. And cold." Don smiled at the hint of frustration in her voice and leaned back in his chair.

"You can always come home, honey."

"They put me in the basement, Don. I'm not going to see sunlight for 8 hours a day." She groaned.

"For a 15 million dollar account I think they could have done a bit better for you."

"You're telling me. I don't even have a secretary. I have to answer my own damn phone."

"I could send Meredith over." He offered.

"It's alright, I probably won't even get any calls. I'll just die down here, and eventually maintenance will investigate the foul odour." Don wouldn't admit it, but he had been drinking steadily enough throughout the morning that he was a little tipsy. In his loosened state, hearing from Peggy was a riveting experience. Her voice sounded like a chorus of angels, and Don felt like if he gripped his telephone hard enough he might feel her skin beneath his. He closed his eyes, focusing his attention completely on the woman who had almost gotten away.

"What does your team look like?" He asked.

"Another copywriter on the account part-time, a full-time artist, an account man and some version of Harry Crane for TV. We had a meeting to go over the basics, now I've got to start turning out ideas."

"What do you have so far?" Don stood and went over to his bar cart, throwing some ice into a glass and pouring himself some rye.

"I keep thinking, what do women want when they they get jewellery? What does it say to them? And I think it's this idea that there is this incredibly valuable trinket, made of rare metals and stones, and when a husband or boyfriend buys them this gift, it's saying 'You are more valuable to me than these precious stones. I'm spending this money on you because I know that all the funds wrapped up in this piece is but a fraction of what you are worth to me.' The woman is truly the precious thing, not the stones. It makes her feel cherished." Don took a sip, and let the idea bounce around in his mind.

"That's good. From the other side, it means 'I finally bought it. Stop asking, and shut up about getting the shed built.'"

"The makings of a 15 million dollar ad campaign." She replied dryly.

"How about 'Sorry I cheated on you with your best friend, how much to buy back your affection?'"

"I think that is a strong subtext. Maybe the tagline will be 'When both of you know he fucked up, Tiffany's is there.'" They both laughed. Peggy was smiling broadly, and for a moment they both sat quietly, enjoying the comfortable space between them.

"Peggy." He said suddenly.

"Hmmm?" She asked.

"I love you." Her breath caught in her throat, and her mind went blank. Peggy knew he loved her, but she had known that before they started sleeping together. This was a declaration of a different kind of love, one that they had been dancing around the edges of since that night in Ohio, and she was exhilarated and terrified at the same time. This wasn't something that could be taken back, or glossed over, and she knew that if this failed between the two of them, that was it. They were over, as friends, as coworkers, as mentor and protege. But if it did work out, it could be amazing. The entire thing felt like an uncontrollable runaway train, and she was still unsure if she was going to hop on the car with Don. She cleared her throat.

"Don, I..." Then she heard the sound of a knock at her door. "Don, I have to go." She could almost feel his melancholy on the other end of the line, and she silently cursed herself. She had found the wrong words yet again.

"Ristorante Italiano, 7pm?" Don asked, wearily. She beamed into the phone.

"Sure. I'll see you then." She paused, and then willed herself to stop thinking, overanalyzing, for a brief moment. She quickly hissed "I love you too" and then hung up, feeling a small and belated victory. The brunette then wiped the grin off her face, and smoothed down her skirt self-consciously.

"Come in." Ferg opened the door with a grin that radiated insincerity and smugness.

"Hello new girl." Peggy forced out a small smile and laugh, and grabbed her pencil, trying to make it look like she was deep in the thought process.

"I haven't been called that in a long time." Ferg sauntered over, full of some undeserved bravado that repulsed her.

"So, have you got anything yet?" Peggy shook her head.

"I'm working on ideas, but nothing concrete yet." He nodded, and swaggered over to her desk, putting both of his hands on it and leaning over, staring at her like he was a smug lion.

"You know what always helps me, Peggy?" His voice was low and gravelly, and Peggy could smell the scent of altoid mints on his breath.

"No."

"I like to have a few drinks, relax, and then whatever problem I'm working on seems to find a miraculous solution." There was a silence, and she wasn't sure exactly what she was supposed to say.

"Drinking does have some magical properties." She finally agreed half-heartedly, trying to avoid the intensity of his stare.

"Come out with me tonight. We'll have a few drinks, shoot the shit, and see where we get to." The young brunette looked back into his gaze and blinked.

"Well, I have a boyfriend, so I think I'll pass on that." Ferg only smiled wider.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Come on, Peggy. Just a drink or two." She shook her head, a little too rapidly for a polite rejection.

"Sorry, I have plans." He removed his hands from the desk, and looked at her with his suggestive eyebrows wiggling.

"Let me know if you change your mind." He sauntered back out, closing the door after him, and Peggy sighed and let her head hit the desk.