Marissa stepped into Krystal's and was surprised to find herself engulfed in her mother's arms.

"You're sure you're ready for this?" her mom asked, still holding her tight.

"Mom…" said Marissa with a laugh. "I'm your manager it's about time I got back to work!"

"Look, you don't have to hurry back you've still got a lot on your plate and we're coping." said Krystal not letting go.

"But I want to." said Marissa extracting herself from Krystal's hug. "I need normal right now."

Krystal stepped back and gave her daughter a smile.

"Well it's good to have you back!" she said.

…

'WELCOME BACK!' exclaimed the banner over the Miranda Centre entrance.

Bianca gave everyone who was politely applauding her return a warm smile.

"I'm glad to be back!" she announced, to more applause, "So let's do some good!"

The assembled crowd of staff and volunteers took turns to personally welcome Bianca back to the Miranda centre. Despite desperately wanting to be there, she hadn't properly returned to work since her assault at the art gallery opening almost three months ago. Bianca was pleased to see that Muriel had kept everything running so smoothly.

Muriel pulled her to one side before Bianca could begin her descent of the stairs up to her office.

"I hope it's not an imposition." she said, giving Bianca a nervous smile, "But we made a few changes while you were away. We thought you might be better on the ground floor. We put you in Pete's office and he's moved upstairs next to finance."

"Makes sense." said Bianca, trying not to notice the embarrassment on her old friend's face as she tried hard not to stare at Bianca's crutches and scars. "I wasn't relishing climbing those stairs every day."

Muriel nodded, a look of relief on her face.

"I'll be right next door if you need me." Muriel added.

Bianca put a comforting hand on the older lady's arm,

"I'm sure I will, because you're indispensable."

She paused for a moment.

"Actually," said Bianca, as she moved towards her relocated office, "There is something… I've an idea for a fund raiser, could you send Naomi and Trevor through to my office, and is Nadia still PR manager in our L.A. office..?"

"I'll get her to give you a call." finished Muriel.

"Thank you." said Bianca. Then she froze; her new office had been set out exactly like her office upstairs - right down to the photo's of her girls on her desk.

"You set it all up?"

"Well, we all wanted your return to work to be as effortless as possible. We've missed you."

Bianca gave the older a woman a grin.

"You know I really am going to have to buy you a halo, you're an angel."

Muriel laughed.

"Better not, it will only look rusty compared to yours. I'll let you get settled and then send the two 'funds'-gurus through."

Bianca watched Muriel hurry away before slowly stepping across to ease herself into her chair. Despite the change in location it felt like she had never been away.

…

Marissa pinned her order onto the carousel and called to Tom the chef to hurry with the meal for table seven.

"Feels like you've never been away." said Krystal giving her daughter a grin as she slipped passed with a tray of drinks.

"It really doesn't." said Marissa, giving Tom a nod of thanks as he brought the requested order up to the hatch.

It wasn't entirely true that nothing had changed; Marissa was sensing people were staring at her more. Before, except to her friends and family, she had been nothing special, just a face in crowd. Now complete strangers knew her face and felt they knew her. Women she didn't know were being terribly friendly with her and one man looked up, started and then after muttering rude words stormed out of the restaurant. She tried to let it go, but it made her wonder if that is that what it feels like to be a celebrity. She wondered how Erica could stand it all these years, it was exhausting.

As the morning rush settled into the lull before lunch a sullen looking Scott came it.

Seeing him so down worried Marissa immensely,

"Oh, god what's happened… not Holly?"

Scott held up his hands to stop her rushing forward to give him a hug.

"She's fine… she opened her eyes yesterday!"

Marissa smiled with relief.

"So why the long face?"

"I was passing a news stand and thought you should see this, if you haven't already."

Scott dropped a copy on the Inquirer on the counter. They had put the Hello magazine picture of her hugging AJ in his room on their front cover. The headline read, 'Lesbian turns her son into a girl'.

Marissa turned to Scott in horror.

"What the hell?!"

…