Author's Note: I was thinking up of more scenes since I published the last one, and I just thought it would be a cool small anniversary gift for my girlfriend, who is even more of a Don x Sloan shipper as I am. This practically wrote itself. It's not a continuation of what happened from last time, but instead, adds to the scenes in the previous chapter. Enjoy! [This chapter was first posted on AO3]

A six pack of Sloan's favourite ale in one hand, Don banged on her apartment door. He was on his third set of three knocks when Sloan finally opened it. "I'm sorry about what Charlie said. He's real old school chauvinist like that and I'm sure he'll value your intelligence as much as he values your good loo-" he stopped when he noticed that Sloan was wearing a navy blue dress - clearly dressed to go out. "Is this a bad time?"

"You can't be here." Sloan started shoving him towards the elevator.

"What? Why?"

Her reply was spoken through gritted teeth. "My parents are here."

"Sloan? Honey? Who's that?" A man's voice called out from inside the apartment.

Sloan turned around. "Oh, no one, Dad, it's just a friend!" she responded cheerfully.

"A friend?"

Don heard the noises of people getting up from the couch and walking towards the door. The first person he saw was a man of average height, dressed in a smart black suit and lavender shirt, and a shorter woman in a dress of a similar shade. Sloan bore resemblance to both of them in different ways.

"Sloan," the woman spoke, "aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?"

"Mom, Dad," Sloan sighed, "this is Don Keefer, he's the friend that got me the job at ACN. Don, these are my parents, Andrew and Wendy Sabbith."

Don stepped forward to shake their hands. "Pleased to meet you."

Andrew Sabbith ran his eyes over Don. "So, you're the one who helped my daughter out at ACN." He turned to his daughter. "Hey, why don't you ask Don to join us for coffee before we head off to the restaurant?"

Wendy was also appraising Don. "Coffee, and invite him for dinner too," she told Sloan. "Otherwise he'd probably just have that beer for dinner, won't you, Don?"

"Oh yes, absolutely, you can come to dinner with us," Andrew agreed eagerly. "We're celebrating our daughter's new career as ACN's financial news anchor."

"Uhm," Sloan fumbled, "I'm sure Don's busy tonight. Aren't you, Don?"

"No, it's a Saturday, so I'm perfectly free," he said. "I'd love to join you for dinner. I'll even text Mackenzie and tell her that I'm off the grid for tonight, if you want."

"You go ahead and do that, because the restaurant we're going to has the most exquisite dishes. You wouldn't want to be distracted," Andrew told him. "Let's come inside." He and his wife stepped back to let Sloan and Don step in. His wife went to the kitchen, murmuring something about getting a mug for him.

Don looked at Sloan. She was glaring at him. He shrugged.

"Do you take sugar or cream in your coffee, Don?" Wendy asked.

"Cream please," Don said, as he settled into the armchair next to the couch, while Sloan sat across from him in the other armchair, still glaring. "Two packets if you can spare it."

"Of course." Wendy came over and handed up a mug of hot, fragrant coffee, before sitting down next to her husband. "Sloan never told us about you. Tell me, Don, how long have you two known each other?"

"We met at Columbia. We were both in the last year of our studies."

Andrew's eyes widened. "You're an economist, too?"

Don shook his head. He noticed that Sloan couldn't help snorting. "No, I was in my last year of journalism school when I got my own radio show for the campus station. I had to do a show on economics, and my go-to economist at the time was this girl that literally bumped into me at Thomas J Watson. I wouldn't have forgiven her if I didn't discover that she was an economics major."

"You were the one who bumped into me!" Sloan exclaimed. "You didn't even help me pick up my books."

Wendy was grinning. "Well, that sounds like Sloan. She's always been a little bit clumsy," she chuckled. "So, you're a producer at ACN?"

"Yes, I am, but not for Sloan's show," Don replied. "I'm on the team of News Night with Will McAvoy."

"I do like that fellow," Andrew said. "But he doesn't cover the economy as comprehensively as he could. It's very shallow, and I think I heard him mischaracterising the concept of the debt ceiling on air once."

"Admittedly, before Sloan, there wasn't really any journalist in ACN that's properly equipped to cover economics," Don said.

"You don't say." Andrew regarded his daughter with pride. "Two doctorates in economics and I'm glad that she's using it to inform other people."

Don inched forward in his seat. "You got something against Wall Street, sir?"

"I think they're something wrong with a society that believes that a block of stock trading offices should be regarded as a proper neighbourhood in a city like New York just because the global economy rests upon it. That, and what a poor use of a valuable degree!" The older man laughed heartily.

"Dad always thought that I'd follow in his footsteps and be an academic," Sloan said.

"You can still be one, Sloan," Andrew said. "When Market Wrap-up takes off, NYU, Columbia, CUNY, Barnard - they'll all be wanting to get you as an adjunct professor. Trust me on that one."

Don addressed Sloan's mother this time. "So, Mrs Sabbith, what do you do?"

"I'm a lawyer for ACLU in Illinois," she replied. "I specialise in women's rights, immigrants rights and reproductive rights."

"Doesn't reproductive rights come under women's rights?" Judging by the expression on Sloan's face, he may have asked that question too quickly.

But Wendy was gracious. "Of course not. It's not only women that possess ovaries, you know."

Don paused to consider. "Gotcha."

"I knew you would." She nodded approvingly.

"Well, I can tell where Sloan gets the strong sense of justice from, then," Don said.

"And the good looks," Andrew chimed in.

Wendy waved the two men off, but she was still smiling. "Oh stop." Her eyes flicked to the clock hanging on the wall. "We better go now, otherwise we'll be late for dinner. Come on, Sloan, let's go pick some shoes. You promised to lend me those new Louboutins you bought." She stood up and used her hand to guide Sloan to her shoe rack.

Don self-consciously tugged at his wrinkled button down shirt as Andrew smoothed down his suit. "I apologise I didn't dress a lot more appropriately," he said. "I had no idea that you guys were flying in, let alone inviting me to dinner."

"Sloan didn't tell you?" Andrew looked at him curiously. "I wonder if she's embarrassed of us," he mused. His tone inferred that he was only half-joking.

They watched as mother and daughter discussed their footwear for the evening. "Nah, maybe she's embarrassed of me," Don said.

"Okay, we're ready," Sloan said. Her mother was wearing her new Louboutins, but she was wearing a good pair of heels as well. "Shall we go?"

"Yes, we shall." Andrew offered his arm to his wife, and they exited the apartment first.

Don and Sloan walked side by side. "So," Don said, smirking. "How am I doing?"

"Oh, screw you."

"I'm Sloan Sabbith and thanks for watching Market Wrap-up. Stay tuned for our ACN's five o'clock news bulletin, coming up next." Sloan finished her broadcast to the sound of slow clapping. The camera operators never did that.

"Bravo, bravo!" It was Don. "That was sublime."

Sloan hopped off her seat and walked past him, and through the studio doors. "Don't you have a show to help produce?"

Don followed her out to the hallway. "Yes but not until you tell me about the meeting you had yesterday. Are you leaving us so soon, Sabbith?" he asked.

"Of course not," Sloan said. "It was a meeting with Columbia University."

"Are they extorting you for your hard-earned alumna money already? They haven't started on me yet because I've still got student loans to pay off."

"Nope."

"Then what?"

"They offered me an adjunct professorship. Teaching Tuesday and Thursday mornings."

"On what?"

"Comparative macroeconomic histories of Germany and Japan in the 1920s. It's a sophomore course."

Don looked at her blankly. "Sorry, you lost me right there."

Sloan hit his arm.

Don winced. "What the hell?"

"Be more supportive!"

Don rubbed his arm. "I am being supportive! I have loads of support for you. But I'm giving it away in little chunks at a time."

Sloan cocked her head to the side. "Why is that?"

"You're going to be teaching twenty-year-olds." He made a face. "Think about how you were when you were twenty."

"Twenty." Sloan's eyebrows furrowed in thought. "I was delightful, just like I am now, except I have a better haircut now, of course."

"Everyone was an obnoxious idiot when they were twenty!" Don insisted.

"I was an exception."

"You studied economics at Columbia." Don opened Sloan's office door for her and let her in first.

"And you studied politics at Georgetown," Sloan retorted. "We were just as elite and as insufferable as each other, but no, I was not insufferable at all. Wait a minute, why are you in my office?"

Don's face sobered. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you something. Just our little secret for now, okay?"

"Is it bad? Did you get offered a higher paying job at Fox or something?"

"Mackenzie's resigning."

Sloan's jaw dropped. "Why?"

"I don't know. No one knows," he answered. "That's between her, Will and Charlie. But the point is, she's resigning and I'm getting promoted."

"To executive producer?"

Don shook his head. "Senior producer. Rob's moving up to EP," he said. "I'm in charge of the APs, and I'm in charge of putting the rundown together for him and Will. I think it'll be a good fit for me."

"I thought Rob was a senior producer because that means he didn't have to work all that closely with Will since they don't get along." Sloan was rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "And don't you have more training in being an EP?"

"Seniority," Don said, shrugging. "Anyway, this warrants a celebration. Do you want to go have drinks after Will's show?"

"At Hang Chew's?" She didn't know most of the people on the News Night staff and she would feel awkward if she had to celebrate with them.

"I was thinking just the two of us at my place. I think I have beer, and we can order pizza?"

"You don't want to celebrate with your colleagues."

"It would be douchey of me to celebrate. Will is on the warpath and everyone's a little on edge right now," Don said. "And we haven't spent time together in ages. Come on, professor, I'll even put on those inanely stupid Gordon Gecko movies you seem to enjoy so much."

"Those movies are not inanely stupid!" Sloan exclaimed. "God, I don't even know why I hang out with you."

Not without hesitation, Don knocked on Sloan's apartment door. It swung open almost immediately.

"Don." She looked exhausted - being chewed out by Charlie Skinner did that to you - and she wore sweatpants and a Duke t-shirt.

"Are you okay?" Don mentally kicked himself. It was a stupid question to ask. It had been over twenty-four hours since the incident with the Tepco representative, and Sloan had just been forced - by Charlie Skinner, of all people - to lie on air. "Don't answer that. I know you're not." He showed her the paper bag in his hand. "Pie place is closed this time of night but I got your favourite burger."

"Thanks." Sloan snatched the bag out of his hand. "I haven't eaten."

"Can I come in?" Don asked.

"I suppose you can," Sloan said. She went off to sit on the couch, leaving Don to lock the door.

He sat on the couch next to her. "I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier."

"Don't be." Sloan unwrapped her burger. "I deserved it. I should have understood what was at stake. But hey, I feel worse about having to lie on the air."

"That must have sucked."

Sloan snorted. "Must have sucked having to help me write the copy for it."

"It was nothing." Don shrugged dismissively. "Ethics was never my strong suit either."

Sloan didn't laugh. "I think it's true, Don," she said slowly.

"What? Of course you have value to ACN as a reporter!" he said incredulously. "I told you not to listen to Charlie."

"I meant Maggie. You're losing Maggie."

Sloan watched as he entered Hang Chew's. His posture was the worst she had ever seen it. Slumped shoulders accentuated the fact that he didn't iron his shirt, and his bowed head only showed how unkempt his hair had become. When he raised his head, his beautifully sad, brown eyes instantly locked with hers.

She felt bad. She wrote prisoners often, and Don got the idea of writing to Troy Davis from her. Journalists are discouraged to be invested, but journalists are human, after all. Even if they were hotshot EPs from the Columbia School of Journalism. "I can get you a beer and a bowl of fries," was all she could say.

Don shook his head. "Actually, I have some beer at home. I wanted to ask if you wanted to tag along with me," he said.

"Sure." Next thing she knew, she was hailing a cab for them. Don slid silently into the backseat, followed by her. She relayed the address of his apartment to the driver while buckling her seatbelt. Not a word was said during the entire ride.

They sat on the floor by his couch. Don cracked open a beer and handed it to her, and then he opened one for himself. "God, I really screwed this one up," he said. "I thought I had it. I thought I was doing the right thing, and that it was gonna turn out okay."

Sloan lifted a finger. "Inappropriate question, but is this about Troy Davis or is this about what happened between you and Maggie?"

"Both." He didn't seem offended or even fazed by her question. "I was trying to be the good guy."

"You don't have to try, Don. You are a good guy."

"Oh, bullshit," Don scoffed. "An innocent man is dead and it hasn't even been a month and Maggie already had to get cartons."

"Neither of which is your fault!" Sloan told him firmly. "Troy Davis isn't dead because you failed, he's dead because the entire system was built to fail against someone like him. And Maggie had to get cartons because you guys finally got the courage to be honest with yourselves."

"You really think Maggie and I didn't love each other?"

"Sure you did," Sloan replied. "But maybe not as much as you two wanted to."

Don looked at her. "You were never good at this sort of thing."

"Perhaps I'm not as bad as I claimed to be," Sloan said, shrugging.

"I really thought I could change something." Don took a long drag from his beer bottle. "Is it so wrong to be idealistic about this country?"

"Somebody's got to be."

Don didn't know when they first started playing chess. It was sometime when they were in Columbia, when he noticed a chessboard lurking on Sloan's bookshelf, and asked her casually about her playing ability. It was their favourite activity when they both needed to think. And right now, they were ruminating over Operation Genoa.

"Corruption in the administration, I can buy. Human rights violations committed by our troops in Afghanistan, I can buy." Sloan moved her bishop to capture one of Don's knights. "But a war crime? That Jerry did always seem like a gunner to me."

"You know, Mac asked me if I trusted him." Don moved his other knight to safety.

"And what did you say?"

"I said yes. But I was lying. I think she knew that, but she'd rather believe the lie."

"Don!"

"I'm guessing you don't trust him."

"You don't either. You know why? He's not one of us," Sloan said. "He's not 2.0."

"I'm not 2.0," he grumbled bitterly. "In fact, Jim and Mac tried to make that clear the first few months they were here. I'm the guy who ditched Will. The guy who only realised that he was good enough to do the show Charlie wanted Will to until he left." His queen captured Sloan's rook. "Check."

Sloan moved her king. "You did the hard yards. Proved your worth."

"I was the guy Mackenzie could have taken to Afghanistan, but I stayed to be loyal to Will, yet I was the one accused of not being loyal?" Don wasn't listening to her. He moved her queen back to avoid it being captured by her bishop, capturing a stray pawn in the process. "It was my newsroom. They came into my newsroom, and they came into take over two weeks early, essentially discrediting the years of hard work that I've done to become an EP. You know that. You saw me."

"No. I know that because I never saw you," Sloan said. "Don Keefer, you're the best guy I know. You're a great journalist and a great friend. The teams at Right Now and News Night would all walk into fire for you. So you need to stop beating yourself up. Mac trusts you now, and that's what matters. Jerry Dantana is who we have to worry about here, not you."

"You know what's interesting?"

"What?"

"Mac and I literally just had a conversation like this. About trust."

"I figured." Sloan nodded. "When was it?"

"Two nights ago, I think. When you were out with that Jets player." He hesitated. "How did that go, by the way?"

"He actually plays for the Giants, and I don't want to talk about it." Sloan moved her bishop. "Check."

Don moved his king out of the way. "Are you seeing him again?" He didn't look her in the eye.

"Probably not. What's it to you?" But Sloan didn't wait for an answer, because she cheered right after moving her queen. "Checkmate!"

Adrenaline was coursing through Sloan's veins. She had just driven her knee through a guy's balls, and punched him in the face. She couldn't remember if that would be grounds for an assault charge, but she knew Scott wouldn't dare make that public.

Don was in the cab with her, restlessly scrolling Twitter on his phone. After getting a midnight coffee with him after dropping by Scott's apartment, he insisted on coming to her apartment and sleeping on her couch, in case the ex-boyfriend followed them back. Not that Don stood a chance against him. He wore long-sleeved, loose-fitting shirts often to hide his soft belly and flabby arms. On the other hand, Scott got his shirts especially tailored to show off his musculature.

But Sloan didn't really need anyone's protection. "You can go home, you know. Sleep in your own bed."

"For the last time, Sloan," Don didn't even bother looking up at her, "I insist."

"Fine." Sloan looked out the window. Unconsciously, the knuckles of her right hand brushed against the inside of the car door. She winced.

Don looked up this time. "You okay?"

"My hand just kinda hurts."

He tutted disapprovingly. "Well, that usually happens when you hit someone with a face sculpted by a Greek god."

Sloan gasped. "That's an insult to the talent of the Greek gods."

"You may be onto something." Don laughed. He looked at his watch. "Hey, it took you almost forty-five minutes to realise that you're in pain. That's impressive."

Impressive. Don had called her impressive for the second time that night. What did he mean? Did he mean it? Sloan, taking a chance, opened her mouth to ask him.

But the cab stopped. Don paid the driver, and chuckled at the blank look on Sloan's face. "Hey, come on," he urged her gently, but teasingly at the same time. "Get out of the cab so we can get some sleep."