With a of her hip, Donna pushed the front door to her home open and staggered into the hall, dripping rainwater all over the floor. She harrumphed unhappily, as she balanced a large box full of office supplies under one arm and tried to pull her key out of the lock with the other really needed to oil this goddamn door. The old building in the heart of London was beautiful when she had bought it, but she hadn't thought about all the work one had to put in those houses to keep it that way.

Alarmed as the ringing of her phone began to resound through the house, she jerked her key free, but lost hold of the brown box. It fell with a crash to the ground, it's contents skittering across the floor. Squinting her eyes shut, she let out a frustrated snarl and then kicked the door shut with a lot more force than necessary.

She rushed into the living room to search for the still ringing phone, leaving wet patches on the floor behind, all the while muttering under her breath about the shittiest week she ever had. It hadn't stopped raining for days now and even longer she hadn't heard anything from Crowley, although especially today she wanted to do nothing more than crawl into his arms and hide from the world.

They had easily slipped back into a comfortable togetherness, both content to know now what the other wanted and had to give in return. Donna still hated it when Crowley had to go overseas for some important 'business meeting', apparently all the end-of-the-world scenarios went down in the USA, but since their fight at least he always let her know where he was going and for how long he would be gone.

But this time, all she got was a text on her phone four days ago, saying nothing but "Gonna be longer, going downstairs". When she tried to call him and ask for more specific information, the voice at the other end of the line told her that the number she tried calling was not available at the moment. Since then she had been waiting and wondering how much longer 'longer' meant. The only reason why she hadn't left some feisty voice mails was that as far as she could tell, this was his first time to infringe their ever-growing list of compromises, while one of her own new accommodations had been to try to be more patient and not so quick to anger.

They had made up a lot of new rules in the last month, some to be taken more seriously than the others, just like number 23 was about letting Crowley teach her everything he knew about how to ward onself from angels and demons and other monsters, while number 39 forbid her to watch an episode of Breaking Bad without him.

In exchange, he had to promise to at least try and get along with her mother. She knew that Sylvia could be a little hard to handle on her good days, but she was still her mother an if anyone was aloud to fight with her, than it was no one but her own daughter.

Speaking of the devil, Donna thought with a look at the caller ID. She gathered her thoughts and then took the call.

"Hi mom."

"Hey, did you know that your cousin Sheyla got a promotion?"

"No, I did not. Good for her", she said halfheartedly, waiting for the inevitable accusation between the lines.

"Do you know what she does with her raise? She visits Rome! And she invited her mother along!"

She let out an annoyed sigh and wiped away the remaining waterdrops from her face with one hand.

"Mom, I gave you money. If you want to visit Rome, just go and visit it."

"Who said I wanted to go on vacation? And if I went, I wouldn't like to travel alone. But you wouldn't come with me, would you? You'd be happy if I'd leave the country for a few weeks, wouldn't you?"

Donna rolled her eyes as let the continued magging of her mother wave over her. Somehow she thought this was her own fault, she had walked right into that one.

Two strong arms closed around her middle and she jumped before she noticed who embraced her from behind. Finally slowly relaxing, she leaned back against Crowley.

"Mom, I've gotta go", she declared, happy to have an excuse to hang up on her. "I have a guest."

"Is it that scottish bloke again?", her mother went on in her reproachfull voice. "I'm not sure if that man's any good for you, he gives me this bad feeling. You know I've always been a good judge of character, I always told Mikey that his girlfriend was just after his money an then she went and-"

"Okay, goodbye mom. I'll call you!", she interrupted Sylfia and ended the call. She threw the device back on the couch and turned around in Crowley's arms, reciprocating his hug. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and tightened his on her. After a few deep and calming breaths, his silence started to worry her.

"Have you been downstairs the whole time?", Donna tentatively broke the silence. She could feel his head moving affirmatively against the side of her neck. "Nine days here, how many days is it in hell time?"

"Too many time", he said, his voice muffled against her skin.

"That's not even a proper sentence."

Moving out of his embrace, she took in his crooked tie and weary expression. The line between his eyes was deepened from tension and she pressed a kiss to it, trying to smooth it out.

"You'd think that they'd be able to take care of the crossroad deals by themselves, now that I have all of hell to run instead of a small part, but they're all a bunch of incompetent idiots."

Donna sat down on the couch as she watched Crowley angrily flailing his arms.

"If one more demon forgets to collect an overdue soul, I'm gonna let the hellhounds rip him apart along with their client."

He puffed out a stream of air,as if he could let out all his anger with one breath, and then let himself drop down on the couch. With a pout, he draped himself across Donna's lap. She had to suppress the urge to laugh at the demons childish behaviour, it was hard to believe that this guy was in charge of hell. Instead, she combed her fingers through his dark hair and mused how she could improve the day for both of them.

"There's some chinese left-over in the fridge."

"You gonna get it for me?"

"No", she said, stretching the o. "I can't, you're lying on top of me. And my week wasn't all peachy either, you know."

Crowley sighed loudly, before he wiggled around and looked up at her face.

"Alright, alright. So, what's up with the box in the hall? The one with the broken mug and the stapler with the name Patrice on it?"

"They sacked me", she huffed angrily.

"Great. So you got more time for me now", he said with a halfhearted grin.

"Stop being a selfish dick." She pushed him from her lap. "I lost my job!"

"Come on, it can't be that bad. You hated it anyway", he said sitting up and facing her properly.

"I didn't hate my job, I hated my co-workers. On tuesday, Patrice had deleted the first draft of the Newman-contract and I felt so sorry for her that I helped her to tipe the whole thibg anew and then I didn't get a thank you and she didn't even mention to our boss that I helped her. Who, by the way, let off all of his steam by criticising my work. He said I wasn't typing fast enough. I'm the best temp in that whole bloody office. None of those hairspray sniffing skirts can type as fast as I can and he's telling me that I'm to slow."

"He fired you because you're to slow?", Crowley asked confused. Donna's layoff wasn't a big deal to him. He had always told her to get another job or just quit altogether. Money wasn't their problem, it was time that they both seemed to be lacking. Still he tried to follow the stream of words tumbling out of her mouth, because he knew that Donna could best deal with her problems by discussing them.

"No, but in a way yes."

Crowley rolled his eyes and loosened his tie, preparing himself to sit a little bit longer on this couch.

"They have been ungrateful all week", Donna continued without pausing. "And yesterday my boss told me to get him a cup of coffee and I'm stupid enough and I get it for him. And of course there isn't enough sugar or too much milk in it, I don't know anymore, but he was nagging again. So I told him that it is not my job to get his fucking coffee, that he can shove it up his lazy ass and if he won't thank me for getting it for him right now, I'll quit."

"Quitting is not being sacked."

"It is when your boss throws you out before you can say another word." She increased the pout on her face and let herself be pulled into the demons side. "I don't understand what the heck went wrong. I just wanted a nice and easy job that gave me the feeling of being a valuabe part of society and not some useless chick that got all her money only by chance."

"Oh, shut your pretty mouth, you are not useless. You're very valuable to me. In fact, you could be really useful."

Hearing the thoughtfull tune in his voice, Donna turned her gaze towards his face and found an expression she knew all too well.

"Stop scheming!"

"I don't scheme."

"Oh, yes! You do! You have that look on your face. The same look you had before you modified my reading glasses with holy fire."

Crowley smirked at the recent memory. Donna hadn't been home when he had the idea that she should finally be able to see what she's always been cuddling with and when she had later put on her glasses to continue reading her cheap novels, he had already forgotten about her glasses new advances. Her reaction upon seeing the feral looking beast consiting of sharp teeth, long claws and thick, dark smoke had been hilarious.

"I just had the best intentions", he chuckled.

"You just were a dick as usal. Now spill it! What are you plotting?"

Crowley mulled over the rights words to use, before he cleared his throat and shared his idea with her.

"Well, you want a reason to get up in the morning", he recapitulated, waving his hand first at her and then at himself. "And I need someone clever to take over the crossroad business."

"No!", Donna exclaimed before he even had finished his sentence. Crowley starred at the woman as she shook her head, her red hair flying widly from the movement.

"Come on! At least, hear me out", he demanded with a frown.

"No! I don't want to have anything to do with your eternal damnation crap. I can't trick anyone into selling their soul and I don't have the stomach to kill them later on. I'd do a lot for you, but I won't hurt anyone." Determined, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave Crowley a firm look. He held his palms up as he spoke loudly over her protests, causing the woman to raise her voice, too.

"It's not tricking people. We don't approach ou customers, they call us! And they make the deal knowing what the conseauences are."

"Oh, I've read all about the ways of demons. Don't try to play it down!"

"It's not even the kind of work I had in mind. You'd be more like supervisor, not really doing anything but telling people what to do."

"You are like those bankers. 'We don't pressure people into taking out a loan, they run up debts for fun!'"

"I thought the job was perfect for you, you love to boss people around!"

"And you love to put me into situations that I'm not comfortable with."

"If you're so uncomfortable around me then maybe I should leave."

"Fine!"

"Fine!", Crowley yelled so loud that he wondered if the neighbours could hear them.

With a huff, Donna turned around and stormed away into the kitchen. The demon could hear the banging drawers and cabinets being angrily pulled open and slammed shut. He took a minute to calm himself down, then followed her.

He stopped in the doorway, giving her some space to decide if she wanted him here right now or not. The microwave pinged and the room was filled with the mouth-watering smell of chinese food as Donna took out the hot plate and put it on the table. Two plates had been set out and a bowl with already heated up rice stood next to them. She sat down and pilled an excessive amount of food on her plate.

"Next time we should eat first and then fight, so I'll have enough energy to take up with your crap."

"Please, that wasn't a fight", the demon said with amusement in his voice. "That was just me offering you a job and you declining it."

He took the seat opposite off her and filled his own plate.

"You know I have come to terms with, well", she paused, her fork vaguely waving in his direction. "With everything you are. But you know that I don't want to take part in... That."

"You're right, it was just a rash idea, but I won't come up with it again. You told me where you drew the line and I won't push you over it", he promised her with a sincere expression. But I can still flash some treats to lure you over, he thought to himself as he stretched out his legs and trapped her ankle between his feet.

Pleased with Crowley giving in, Donna gave him a consenting smile.

"Thank you." She turned back to her meal and continued eating, her foot under the table firmly pressed against Crowley's.

"Your hair looks great, now hurry up!"

"It's so flat. Don't you think it's to flat?", Donna asked uncertain, her hands tousling through her fiery hair. She turned from the mirror in the hall towards Crowley, who already stood outside and impatiently held the front door open for her to follow.

"You look perfect, my love. Can we please go now?"

Donna let her annoyance swing in her voice. "Why are you in such a hurry? The movie doesn't start before eight."

"I've got something to take care of before we go and see the movie."

"Wait", she said with one hand hold out towards him before she bend over and threw her hair forwards, and just as fast stood up straight again. She repeated the movement and then ran her fingers through her puffed up hair. On her way out, she threw on her heavy coat and pulled the lapels up to guard herself against the cold winter weather. "Okay, let's go!"

"Finally", he sighed as she stepped through the door, but then he let his head drop in defeat as she turned on her heels and walked back inside.

"What now?"

"You can drive a car without car keys?" She snapped them off the hook and rushed past Crowley to her red Mini cooper. Actually, she had wanted one of those big flashy cars that important people in the hollywood bluckbusters drove, but she had realised that, living in a cramped city, the smaller her car was, the smaller was the likelihood to bump against something.

"So, what's the thing you've got to take care of?", she questioned as they drove into London City. "Some soul you've got to suck out of somebody? Some black cat you've got to sacrifice?"

"Donna, darling, I need you to stop watching Twilight Zone. It plants stupid ideas into your pretty head. Now follow St Mary Axe, then take the turn left and pull into the second drive on the right side."

"I don't want to witness you doing any of your demon stuff. 'Til now, I successfully blocked out that I'm sleeping with a creature from hell, but this would be kind of counter productive."

"Relax", he tried to reassure her. "I'm meeting an employee and not a costumer."

Swallowing down her further complains and gathering her strength for a proper I-told-you-so-speech, she followed his instructions and drove into a narrow one-way street. Tall buildings stood high on both sides, looming over passersby, all build in the same fair stone, every house mirroring the other. She counted the gateways and turned into the right one. The narrow driveway lead them down into a small underground car park. Donna navigated the Mini onto a lot between a blue van covered in dirt and a shiney black bentley and cut off the engine.

"You gonna wait here?", Crowley asked as he got out of the car. "No way am I gonna stay alone in the creepy dark car park of your evil villain headquarter."

The demon rolled his eyes at her and threw the door shut to hide his amusement. Donna hastened to unfasten her seatbelt and follow him. When she catched up with him, he took her hand and pulled it into his coat pocket, their fingers entwined in the warmth.

They walked back out onto the street and towards an unimposing entrance with a square business sign attached next to the door with a security lock. To Donna, it looked like every other office building in the street and even the label reading "Hades Finance and Accounting" was too obvious to raise suspicion.

In the small, but modern looking lobby sat a clean-shaven man in a black suit behind a high desk. He struggled to his feet as he saw Crowley entering stuttered out a polite greeting. The demon didn't take note of him and walked right past him towards the elevator.

Crowley let her hand drop as they rode up to the second floor and the elevator's door opened with a ping. He lead her with confident steps through the corridor and she whipped her head arround from one side to the other to take everything in.

The rooms had the typical high ceiling of every old building, yet the interior was bright and modern. Through the glass doors she could sneek a peak into the offices where more people in dark suits sat over yellowed, old papers, scrabbling some notes and scratching others out or typed swiftly at their computers.

"So, all the talk about hell and demons was just a farce to deflect from your actual job of hunting aliens with the Man in Black?", Donna remarked in a sharp tone, still a little skeptic about the purpose of Crowley's meeting.

"It's a timeless piece of fashion culture", Crowley answered unfazed. "Now shut your little cakehole, before my employees stop respecting me, or you'll be responsible for at least two deaths."

Ignoring Donna's heated glare, he stopped infront of a glass door and knocked insistently. Without waiting for an answer he stalked into the office with open arms.

"Winnie! My pet!"

The adressed woman looked up from her paperwork and started smiling so wide that Donna feared her face would split in half. Behind old-fashioned glasses glistened a pair of beady eyes surrounded by deep wrinkles. Her greying hair was pined up in a tight knit and her dark pantsuit looked new and spotless.

"Mr. Crowley", she greeted him good-natured. "What can I do for you?"

"Most recent quarter's stats, if it is no inconvenience."

"No inconvenience at all!" She pulled a thin folder out of a drawer and handed it over to him. "The figures aren't as good as anticipated", she said sheepishly as he went over the papers quickly. "But we don't have them all, yet. Some haven't send all their newest contracts, yet."

"A shame." With a sigh he closed the folder and gave it back to her. "But the world cup is this year, you should be able to increase the number of new contracts again. If not, then you can pick the most non-productive demon and send him to me. You can have your wicked way with the second worst", he said with wink that put a smile back on her face.

Donna watched the exchange in confusion until she couldn't keep quiet anymore.

"You're a demon, aren't you?"

Winnie looked at her as if she noticed her for the first time and then turned towards Crowley.

"Who's the human?"

"Excuse my bad manners!", he burst out with a grin on his lips that looked uncomfortable. "Donna, this is Winnie, she's responsible for northern european statistics and bookkeeping. Winnie, this is Donna, my dinner date", he said in a conspiratorial tone and Winnie let out a deep-throated giggle that send shivers down Donna's spine.

"Nice to meet you", she said politely and shook the other woman's hand, her grip firmer than usual as she tried to hide her discomfort behind her self-confidence. "So, you work for Crowley?"

"Yeah, it's all pretty boring. Juggling with numbers, reminding co-workers of expired deals, tracking down rogue demons. I nearly don't have the time to enjoy the occasional piece of man", the woman tittered. Donna raised a questioning eyebrow towards Crowley, who was laughing politely.

"She means the non-sexy way", he told her cryptically, before he added quickly "And I can't be held responsible for what my employees do in their spare time. Winnie, my sweetheart, there's one more thing you could do for me", Crowley changed the female demon's focus back on himself. "Do you have any news about the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show?"

She turned to her computer and made a thoughtfull noise after some mouse-clicks.

"They didn't have a come back as far as I'm informed."

"What a relief. Thank you, Winnie, you're a pearl. I've got to go, but it' s been a pleasure as always."

"Oh, the pleasure was all mine, Mr. Crowley."

He blew her a kiss as a goodbye, then took the perplexed Donna by her shoulder and led her outside.

"What the hell was that?", she demanded to know as they stepped out into the street again. She wasn't sure if she had the right to be angry with him at he moment, still she shook his hand of and glared at him. Even though he had spoken true and she didn't have to witness any immoral or stomach turning incidents, just the normal, boring business stuff, the normality had left her puzzled and it irritated her to feel left out.

"That was Winnie, she keeps track of the crossroad demons in this part of the world for me. She's good at the job, intelligent, and better at handling modern technology than most demons if you consider that she died 150 years ago."

"You know the creepy demon lady wasn't what I meant. Don't think that I don't know exactly what you tried to doby dragging me into this stupid thing you call a meeting. You didn't care about the figures at all, you just needed a reason to show me your little demon business."

"You got me. I just wanted to show you that there's more to hell than mindless torture. You wouldn't listen to me and this was the only other way." Not sounding sorry at all, he put his hands in his pockets and met her scorching eyes with a calm expression.

Donna stopped short on the sidewalk and stood with her hands on her hips.

"Just because you're pretending that it's all just a big business corporation doesn't mean that I'll start helping with you and your collection of innocent souls to torture."

"For the hundredth time, they're not innocent and it's not all torture. And I just wanted you to understand the whole aspects of my offer. I'd still accept it if you said no."

"Good, 'cause my answer is still no."

"Fine, then I won't bring it up again."

Calculating, she looked at him before she continued to strut to the car. Crowley followed her, grinning to himself. He quickly sobered as she addressed him again.

"And did you just tell her that you'll eat me?!"

"Yeah, well, I told you I don't want them to know about you. They could hurt you to hurt me. Plus, Winnie digs eating human flesh."

"Then why are you so determined to suck me into that world? That doesn't make sense at all!"

"I don't know how you couldn't notice this until now, but" he raised his hands in a flourish gesture "I am an egoistic arsehole who wants to spend more time with you."

"Is that your attempt at sweet-talk?"

"Is it working?" Donna didn't want to dignify the question with an answer, instead she squinted her eyes at him and then got the car. The demon was already sitting on the passenger seat, twirling his thumbs and trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Look", he said in a grave voice. "I'm sorry for tricking you and I accept your decline of my offer and we can never again speak about this if you don't want to, okay?"

She took in a deep breath through her nose, visibly relaxing a bit.

"Okay, but I am still mad at you."

"As you are entitled to", he answered, quickly pulling his hand back from where he wanted to lay it on her leg and put it back into his own lap.

An uncomfortable tension hang between them, as Donna refused to meet his eyes. She started the car and was thankful for the motor's rumble filling the silence. She had made it as far as stearing the car out off the car parc, when her coulnd't stand it any longer and her curiosity started to push questions out of her mouth.

"What if I want to talk about it?" Crowley turned his eyes from the passenger window back to her, his eyebrows knitted tightly together to surpress the grin that wanted to spread across his face. He couldn't make a wrong move now. He had worn her down and Donna seemed finally willing to consider working with him.

"Talk about what exactly?" The human went through all the questions she had in her mind, before she aettled with one of the easier ones.

"How did Winnie become your employee? Did she make a deal with you?"

All the muscles in Crowley's body relaxed at once. He hadn't even noticed that he had tensed up this much. This wasn't the kind of question he had anticipated, but it was a good start. He could work his way up from this irrelevant topic to the more important one.

"No, I never met her until she had become a demon. You know how that happens?"

"Yeah if a soul suffers in hell over a long time, it becomes dehumanized. Why was she in hell?"

Crowley looked forward out of the wind shield, thinking about where he could begin with Winnie's story.

"It's around 1848, the middle of the great irish potato famine. The british government isn't any help and a quarter of the Irish population is starving to death. Everyone is hungry, everyone except for Winifred Kerrigan."

"Oh, no", Donna groaned and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "So, the not sexy kind of devouring men is literally devouring them?"

"Exactly. She later died of the flu but murdering and eating people got her into hell."

"Obviously."

"A century later I met her demon self lurking after some homeless people and I offered her to work for me in exchange for food. Now she can have her pick of fresh meat out of the pit."

"Okay, that's enough cannibalism for today. You better change the topic before I change my significant other."

Crowley rolled his eyes, but complied. With minor interest, he asked about the trip to rome of Donna's cousin, which the woman quickly turned into a rant about all the reasons why she would never sit in an airplane next to her mother.

Neither mentioned Crowley's offer again, until they were seated in the squashy chairs inside the theater, Liam Nelson shooting bad guys on the screen. Without taking her eyes from the movie, Donna leaned over the armrest and whispered into Crowley's ear.

"I will try it, but it doesn't mean that I'm gonna do it. If only one thing is rubbing me the wrong way, I'm out of there."

"Sure", Crowley answered with a loopsided grin and patted her hand. "Whatever you say."