Loretta was glad that Oliver had folded his blanket because it would have taken her too long to do it herself with just one hand. She was also glad to wake up alone, firstly, because she was used to it this way and, secondly, because it gave her the time to slip into her robe and make up the bed before her director could protest and insist that she had to take things easy and not exert herself—which is exactly what happened when Oliver found her yanking up the fold-down bed.

"Oh, let me do that for you!" he fretted as he hurried across the room.

"It's very easy," Loretta claimed, pushing the bed up with her left arm. She then leaned against it with her shoulder and proceeded to push the bed into place with her back. It all took her extraordinarily little time, so she was all finished by the time Oliver reached her, and she found herself nearly pinned between the bed-turned-wall and Oliver. A little flushed with the effort and the already comfortable closeness, she grinned at him with victory.

Oliver's eyes were twinkling with the sunlight pouring in from her eastward windows. "Most days I can't even fold my dog's stroller," he quipped, impressed, and his underlying earnestness made Loretta snort with laughter.

She hadn't realized how straining the night before must have been for Oliver or how different that quietly attentive man from last night was from the exuberant showman she knew from rehearsals. The Oliver standing before her now was once again full of energy and purpose, and he looked ready to tackle anything life or his producers would throw at him. And yet, his stubborn unkempt hair that would not stay put at this hour gave mute but helplessly adorable testimony of that caring man from last night being there still and wanting to stay around. His stance was relaxed and he appeared in no hurry to leave even as his phone kept buzzing with hectic text messages.

It was Oliver, though, who stepped back from her to release her from the enticing trap of his proximity. The soft kind admiration in his gaze made Loretta feel underdressed—but not unsafely so. She slipped past him, eyes locked with his, defying modesty. It felt entirely good to have him around—there was no need to make empty small talk as they quietly shuffled around the tiny apartment without getting in each other's way.

Getting dressed was more taxing than Loretta would have thought because every other movement with her dominant arm sent a nasty jolt of pain through her tormented torso. After she had accomplished this feat, she approached Oliver with one of her shawls and asked for his help with tying a knot in it behind her neck and transforming it into a sling for her arm to get some pressure off her shoulder—and to remind herself not to use the arm.

Oliver watched intently as she positioned her arm into the sling. "Any pains?"

Loretta chewed lengthily on the answer before deciding, "M-no."

"Now, really," Oliver persisted, in a manner that had every right to come off as patronizing, but oddly enough, felt compassionate, "how are you feeling?"

It made Loretta pause and assess her current condition in a way she probably wouldn't have taken the time to otherwise. She noticed that she no longer felt the need to put out a hand to the nearest piece of furniture to ensure she stayed upright and that with her arm fixed in position her shoulder was feeling less sore.

Loretta cracked a little smile as she looked for the right word to convey both the current relief and the apparent severity of her condition. "Zonked," she admitted with sunny honesty, and the both of them snorted with laughter.

"Well, that's how I feel," Loretta added lightly as the smothering, overwhelming elation at making Oliver laugh prompted her to avert her gaze and brought the full picture of her surroundings into focus.

"What's all this?" Loretta marvelled at the prosperous efforts Oliver had performed with the meagre selection of food her fridge had provided. Apparently, she had caught him in the middle of preparing breakfast for the two of them.

Oliver looked blissfully natural tinkering about in her kitchen. "Well, whenever I wake up a beautiful girl, I like to give her breakfast," he explained, an enamoured twinkle in his eye.

Sensing a blush breaking out on her cheeks, Loretta turned from him and inquired casually, "And does that happen often?"

She caught sight of a weak reflection of her movement in the polished side of a tea pot and was abruptly reminded of the horrid mess of hair that had greeted her earlier in the bathroom mirror. Mortified that she had forgotten to take care of it, Loretta retreated from the kitchen and started rummaging around for her hair brush.

"Well, not as of late," Oliver was saying bashfully when she set up a little mirror on her desk and started untangling her braids.

It took Loretta longer than usual to unbraid and comb her hair. She had to be careful to be kind to the frustrating tangles at the ends of her hair. Operating with just one hand made the process slow and each tug felt like a risk. She could feel Oliver's eyes on her—a certainty that was proven by the clinking of plates and tea cups as Oliver tried to set the table blindly, distracted by watching her.

The prolonged procedure gave Loretta time to consider what to do with her beloved but, admittedly, currently inconveniently unmanageable hair. She considered her hair clip and contemplated the plausibility of Oliver knowing how to braid hair. As far as she knew he had never had a daughter, so the chances that he had ever partaken in hairdressing were relatively low.

"Can you help me?"

At the sound of her request, Oliver stumbled over his own feet, eagerly hurrying over to her.

Loretta sent a wavering smile over her shoulder, but addressed Oliver's reflection in the little mirror standing on her desk. "Would you gather up my hair and hold it in place while I clip it together," she instructed, refusing to let herself hesitate.

Oliver sprang readily into action, the expression on his face admiring—if Loretta hadn't known better, she would have thought Oliver was humbled by being allowed to touch her hair. His fingers brushed lightly against her neck as he gathered her hair behind her head, and a tingling shudder coursed through Loretta's chest, brought on both by the touch itself and the dear conviction that Oliver was actually trying meticulously to remain discreet.

"Like- Like this?" Oliver worried, holding her hair in place.

"Yeah," Loretta said softly. She reached up, feeling around for Oliver's hands and for the hair caught tenderly in them, and deftly secured it at the nape of her neck with her hair clip.

For a brief moment Oliver's hand found a tentative resting place on her shoulder. "You know, you still haven't told me what happened last night," he broke the warm fuzzy tension gently. Their eyes met in the little mirror on the desk and at Loretta's curious look Oliver added, "We've rehearsed that scene dozens of times."

With a lasting twinge of stubborn defiance Loretta turned to look away, busying herself with putting away the mirror and consequently sealing herself away from Oliver.

"What horrible luck," he mentioned, his lingering tone filled with volumes of implications, "right on opening night."

"I didn't mean to fall, if that's what you're getting at." It was meant to come off as a joke, and yet a prickling little tangle of guilt unravelled inside her gut after confessing this.

"No! No, of course not." The immediate fervour with which Oliver seized on her words encouraged Loretta to face him again, meek and trusting. "I just can't imagine… what could have happened."

Loretta bit her lip in thought, disinclined to share a detailed account of the evening before even—or especially—with Oliver. "Have you spoken to anyone from the theatre yet?" she inquired furtively instead, steering the conversation discreetly into safer waters. She was curious as to whether Ben had backed up her version of the story or come up with his own. She didn't believe for a second he would have told anyone what had really happened between them. "They must all be devastated."

Oliver must have noticed her evasiveness, but he chose generously not to linger on the fact. "No. No, I haven't yet," he replied, and his voice took on an eager, conspiratorial note. "Although I did skim the messages in the group chat. Can you believe that-"

He gave a miffed grunt when the ringing of his phone cut him off, and upon seeing the name on the screen, he excused himself, "Hold on, I gotta take this."

Loretta watched with a tilted smile as Oliver shuffled back into the kitchen to take his call. Recognizing this as as good a time as any to check her own phone, which she had rather been neglecting ever since before the fight call the night before, Loretta opened it up to find no less than sixteen messages from Dickie, wondering about how she was and expressing his regret about the fate of the play. With this thrill of her son's attentive concern for her twinkling in her chest, she went on to browse through the myriad of messages in the Death Rattle group, wondering if they were what Oliver had wanted to tell her about.

The first few messages from people wondering about her whereabouts and health were considerate but hardly worth Oliver's excited attention, but then links to news articles about Ben's death started appearing in the chat and a terrible, numbing chill went through Loretta. It was alleviated but not quite extinguished when she made it to the messages conveying, first, everyone's shock and then relief at their star's revival.

With the unresolved turmoil of the startling news on her mind but with Oliver still preoccupied, Loretta made herself useful by checking what was still missing from their breakfast table. Effortlessly she moved past Oliver in the kitchen, straining herself not to listen in on his phone conversation, and carried the steaming pot of tea over to the table.

She had already settled down and was pouring the both of them a cup of tea when Oliver joined her at the breakfast table, carrying a plate of cookies with that distinctive rattle design, as if daring her to try and avoid the topic of their show any further.

"Did you hear about Ben?" Loretta burst out, her astonishment at the previous night's events getting the better of her.

"Yes, I did," Oliver said heavily but gave a small, appreciative smile when Loretta placed his teacup in front of him. "That was his brother on the phone."

Loretta was quick to regain control over her expression and close her agape mouth at the disheartening realization that Dickie must have gone back to Ben after his near miss with death.

"That's another mess I've got to face at the theatre today," Oliver muttered, running a hand absent-mindedly through his hair. "They're wondering what's gonna happen to the show."

"I am, too," Loretta mentioned gently.

She could tell he was trying to hold it back—and when his clear, sincere eyes locked with hers, it almost seemed that he was going to manage to—but he let out a weak, defeated sigh. In this moment Oliver revealed himself to be much less self-confident than was likely for the strong-willed visionary that Loretta had come to know. She was stunned and at the same time touched to be allowed to be privy to this side of him and not just guess at it from behind his extravagant jolly mask.

"I just need a little time to think," he said then, reassuring, first and foremost, himself. "I'm going to fix this—somehow."

Loretta wondered if perhaps she was spending too much time with Oliver and was falling under his crazy bombastic spell—because she believed him. Somewhere beneath that constant smirk she had discovered a bold unyielding decisiveness which she could trust, and as unlikely as it was, her mind was put at ease concerning the play.

"Well," Loretta said, clumsily seizing the opportunity to shut off the rest of the world and its problems from the two of them for just a little while longer. "'Till you do, what, um… What else is there that you… enjoy in your life? B-Besides the theatre."

At ease now after spending such a long period of time with him, she specifically wanted to turn the conversation towards the real Oliver, the one outside of the spotlight. He had already told her about his true crime podcast and she was familiar with his position in the theatre world. This was her chance to get to know him and Loretta was convinced he would share bits and pieces of his life just as eagerly as he told his crazy showbiz stories.

Oliver paused to consider her question. Hoping he knew that there was no need for him to think of anything to impress her with, Loretta wondered how often anyone really asked him about himself.

"I've got two grandkids, with a third on the way," Oliver revealed with a bashful smile, getting caught in his inherent devotion to his family.

"Wow…" Loretta reacted with a deep sigh, impressed both at what he had said and at the bold, honest plunge that Oliver had taken into a topic that genuinely mattered to him.

Within an instant Oliver's insecurity about whether or not he had picked the answer Loretta had been hoping for seemed to have dissipated, and with his eyes glimmering again with his characteristic encouraged excitement, he shared, "I can't believe I've never mentioned them. They're my pride and joy, I- I feel like I'm about to burst with joy every time I think about them! They're so great."

"That's…" Loretta struggled to voice how her admiration for Oliver was growing exponentially by the minute. "That's amazing."

With a delighted air of surprise, Oliver's face broke into a sunny smile. "How about you?" he asked with faintly hesitant eagerness. "You got any… kids? Family?"

Instantly Loretta's heart dropped. This would have been the perfect moment to tell him, since he'd asked, but she couldn't—not him. Dickie had to be the first to know—maybe the only one to know if that was what he wished. That was the way she had planned it and changing that decision was too radical to even think about. She would trust Oliver with her life, never mind keeping her secret, not because he was the best at keeping his tongue but because she suspected he wouldn't want to hurt her, but it wouldn't have been fair to her son.

On top of that, it felt unimaginable, all of a sudden, that she should tell this committed family man that she had given up a child and still expect him to respect her.

"Um, no," she said, her lips pressed into a bitter thin line. "M-mm."

"Really?" Oliver must have noticed how her face had fallen, but he chose generously to stumble out of the uneasy tension with a charming flair. "That's- I mean, I'm just surprised, you know. A girl like you, I mean, you could have had your pick." He paused, considering her with pensive fondness. "Well, I guess life had other things in store for you."

Loretta responded with a cheerless chuckle. Disillusioned with herself for letting this opportunity to be candid about her past slip through her fingers, she didn't want to let Oliver's flatteries land this time around. She was lying to him now.

"Like blowing my first and last chance at my Broadway debut," she mentioned, disheartened.

"No, don't say last," Oliver insisted. "It's not the end of the world. I mean, I might not make it in the theatre ever again, but you…" Drawing a fluttering breath between gathering his wits and drowning in the presence of the woman across the table from him, Oliver unveiled an underlying steadfast conviction when he said, "You are special, and people are going to see it."

The sound of Oliver's phone buzzing with notifications, which prompted him to grunt with inconvenienced frustration, covered up the fact that Loretta was left entirely speechless. She was hopelessly touched. Oliver really was relentless at flattery, but if she had learned anything about him, it was that at least in Oliver's mind all his praises to her were always sincere.

Oliver's phone kept ringing all throughout breakfast and the more he tried to brush off his inherent need to answer it, the more Loretta insisted that he ought to. There were dozens of people depending on him today, people who needed reassurance and answers and directions.

"You should get back to the theatre," she pointed out when Oliver flipped over his phone once again after cringing at the name of their stage manager that had popped up on the screen.

"Your 24 hours aren't up yet," Oliver mentioned weakly, although it was evident that Loretta was right—and he didn't intend to outstay his welcome any more than he already had.

"I'm sure nothing's going to happen to me any more." She was convinced that Oliver wasn't there merely out of his sense of duty to her health, but since he still looked somewhat troubled, she offered him a compromise, "What if I send you an update every couple of hours?"

With a mischievous squint of his eyes, Oliver seemed to consider this. "Every hour on the hour," he bargained.

"It's a deal."

And it felt like a sensible solution until they found themselves lingering at the door a little while later, the both of them, apparently, experiencing a similar kind of faint hesitation.

With an urgent tightness in her throat, Loretta tried to push back the terrible looming fear of Oliver turning back into merely the showman that the rest of the world knew him as once he left her little corner of the world. But had he ever really been just the showman with her, she wondered to generate reassurance for herself.

Treating Oliver to a grateful smile, Loretta sought for a way to keep him close for just a moment longer. "I would hug you but if I move my arm…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Oliver took it as his gentle dismissal and started shuffling, backwards, out of the door. "I'll just be off and- Yeah."

"O-Oliver," Loretta stopped him and calmed his fidgeting with a hand on his chest. Having already stepped up to him and set things in motion that she had no wish to halt, Loretta leaned over and planted a kiss on Oliver's cheek.

His eyes shining with rapture, Oliver beamed and caught Loretta's hand to keep her from slipping away. Just like Loretta, who was reluctant to let him go, Oliver appeared to be debating if he could ever make himself leave if he didn't go now, and after a breathless moment of deliberation he swayed himself with the enthusiastic promise, "I'll see you around."

Furtively Loretta sought support from the door-frame as she watched him turn and parade, almost skip, down the corridor. "Buh-bye," she whispered after him fondly.

"Can I interest you in some dinner rolls?" Oliver announced his presence as he barged into Charles's apartment and made a beeline for the kitchen. "I can't find Mabel."

He placed a platter of dinner rolls from his flop of an opening night party on the counter beside whatever it was that his friend was cooking on the stove and calling lunch. Oliver had timed his arrival perfectly with Joy's leaving and, therefore, letting him in.

Charles gave an approving nod at the platter. "How's Loretta?"

"Oh, she's a fighter," Oliver dismissed the disguised worry in Charles's tone as he swept over to his coffee machine. But as he poured himself the cup of coffee his friend had clearly made for himself, he reconsidered his answer. This was Charles he was talking to, he could be honest with him.

"Actually, she's a wreck," he admitted. "But she's trying to battle through it at independently as- Well, as independently as I let her, I suppose."

Having taken out a tub of dips from his fridge, Charles gave him that light contemplative look of his, mentioning, "Sounds like you're taking your directing job very seriously with her."

"Oh, Loretta doesn't depend on my directing, she's a natural in everything," Oliver declared, whipping out a spoon and dragging the dip Charles always kept around for him closer across the counter. Oliver had found out about this particular sweet quirk of Charles's when Joy had expressed her utter bewilderment at Charles's insisting that she could not eat the dips they constantly had in their fridge. "She would have dazzled the house last night if she'd had the chance."

Oliver watched Charles give an agreeing hum and return to setting the table for himself—and now Oliver—, having accepted the dinner rolls as repayment for his being a thoughtful friend, and a revitalizing revelation came to him. Here was someone who had the exclusive inside scoop, the on-site insight into the case, who could bring some light into the tragedy that Loretta had been reluctant to elaborate on and who was delightfully bad at lying.

"Charles, can I ask you-" he started, casually pushing aside the little voice in his head that was telling him that he was somehow betraying Loretta's trust. "You were there first, right? What did you see?"

Charles was immediately on the same wavelength with him, as if he had been expecting this interrogation. He became serious and in a tone of solemn concern said, "Well, I was just a moment too late, but… Oliver, I think Ben pushed her."

A chilly jolt of alarm shot through Oliver's gut at this thought, and Charles reacted quickly to the scandalized look of anguish that he had inadvertently displayed. "I mean, I didn't see them, but there was certainly some kind of a scuffle. She was screaming," he added, a hint of perplexity in his voice. "And the Nanny is not supposed to scream in that scene, not like that."

"And you're sure she wasn't screaming because she was taking a tumble down a nine foot high platform to the bare floor?" Oliver challenged him, trying to fight the devastatingly insistent mental image of a violent fight between his two leading actors.

"No, that was before that," Charles explained, convinced. "And she sounded upset, I'd say even scared."

"Oh my God…" Oliver muttered under his breath as the disturbing gravity of the situation sank in and started to weigh on him.

He thought back to the meek, remarkably vulnerable side of Loretta that he had been privy to the night before, the same one he had diligently tried to swaddle in his care and support throughout the rehearsal period. Oliver couldn't bear the gut-wrenching notion of that same precious woman being manhandled. "But why didn't Loretta tell me about this?" he wondered weakly.

Charles was quiet for a little while, rummaging around his head for a better explanation than the one he had to settle on. "Maybe she's still scared."