Wiping her eyes, the third grade teacher circled the grade she put on the newest worksheet before picking another from the pile.

All of her colleagues thought of her as a whore.

Emily's lips quivered as her mind quickly wandered back to how awful that day had been. Alexis had left her class to the student observing to come to her aid. She'd found the ambassador's daughter sobbing at her desk, the children who were supposed to have gone off to lunch stuck in the doorway, watching as their teacher broke down.

A ring from her phone had the teacher shoving the object from her coffee table. Her fingers raked roughly through her hair, tears falling from her eyes.

She had worked so hard for this job, and one woman had ruined all of that in one day.

The music from her record player was supposed to help her calm down and be able to get to work, but all it was doing was causing her to want to drill a hole through her head.

"Emily?"

Her head shot up at the sound of her friend's muffled voice on the other side of her door. Sniffling, she stood and padded over to it. "Jay?" she whispered, her voice cracking as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

The blond walked in and locked the door behind her, not even bothering to speak a word as she took her friend into a hug.

She refused to keep crying. Letting her friend hug her tight, Emily's fingers crumpled the younger woman's blazer draped over her shoulders. "They hate me."

"I'm sure they don't hate you."

The teacher let her friend lead her into her own living room and sit her down on the couch.

JJ ran her fingers through Emily's hair to do her best and untangle it as the elder of the two cleaned up the papers on her table. "What did they say?"

"Haley is no longer allowed within the school grounds," she sighed. "The headmaster of the school said the day's disruption was her fault and that if she had to come to pick Jack up she had to stay outside the gates." Nothing about Haley actually mattered though. All Emily was happy about was that after her meltdown she was glad she wasn't fired.

And somehow she still had a boyfriend.

But the school had forced her to take a week's leave, and after writing a detailed schedule for the substitute to follow the third grade teacher with her shoulders straight walked out of the school.

"Sweetie?"

Emily's head spun. "What?"

JJ frowned. "Did you hear me?"

The brunette slowly shook her head, running her hands down her face. "No, sorry."

JJ felt her stomach turn at the look of the broken hearted woman she saw beside her. "Come on," she said softly, forcing her friend to stand and walking her back to her bedroom.

"If this is some sex thing to cheer me up," Emily snorted, watching as the younger woman turned to her and smiled, "we haven't been together since sophomore year of college, and I have a boyfriend."

"Sit," JJ laughed as she forced her friend onto the foot of the bed. "Lay down, ok? I'm going to make you some soup."

The brunette shook her head. "I'm not sick," she denied, brushing her hair from her face.

"No, but you're sad."

Emily let her friend press a kiss to her forehead before she look back to her pillows.

Making her way around her best friend's kitchen, the journalist raided each cabinet to find a single can of soup to prepare for the older woman. Her friend was strong, that was obvious, but being humiliated at the one place Emily had thought of as safe, JJ couldn't even imagine how upset her friend had to be.

A knock at the door had the blond spilling the soup into a pot on the stove before rushing out of the kitchen. "Can I help you?"

Aaron stepped into the apartment, his eyes on the younger woman.

"Aaron?"

The brunette man slowly nodded his head, letting the journalist take his hand and give it a firm shake. "You're JJ," he almost smiled. "Emily talks about you a lot. Best friend from college?"

JJ smiled. "Yeah. She's back in the bedroom."

"Thank you."

Rounding the kitchen's wrap around counter, the blue eyed blond watched with delight as the unfamiliar man slipped off his shoes and climbed onto the bed her friend lay in. Emily's head turned just slightly to see her boyfriend lying beside her before she laid it back on the pillow, letting the father of one move up behind her and wrap his arm around her waist, their fingers intertwining. She wore she could see the engineer press a kiss just behind Emily's ear, and she smiled.