Clumps of congealed cocoa powder swirled in her mug; Kay decided Stanley needed to redefine his parameters for 'not that bad'. But he'd bought her a cherry chocolate muffin to accompany the sad attempt at hot chocolate, and after dumping a few packets of raw sugar and creamer into the mix it was passing tolerable. It was also sweet enough to make her teeth cringe, and after her encounter upstairs, Kay needed a brush with a sugar coma to snap her out of her funk.

Stanley remained tactfully silent while he watched her methodically tear open packet after packet of raw sugar, sipping his own drink, the awful black sludge that passed for coffee in this place. The muffin wasn't half bad, but Kay couldn't muster an appetite. She picked at the sugar crusted muffin top, nibbling at candied cherries until Stanley set down his coffee with a grimace.

"Want to talk about it?"

Kay winced as she nipped the inside of her cheek. She tongued the tender spot, trying to come up with a response. With two younger twin siblings, aka the manipulative little devils, she never developed a knack for delicacy. Though her previous avoidance of the interoffice politics and power games at the firm worked against her in the end; by not engaging, the other interns thought her a snob. A snob they actively worked to sabotage, but here, it was just her and Stanley, and he seemed far too pragmatic for that sort of b.s.

"Honestly? I wish I could talk to my best friend, but I'm afraid they'd send a task force after her or something," said Kay. She looked up to find Stanley's brows creeping into his hairline.

"A task force? What--" He stopped himself, brows snapping together as he took another hearty swig of that vile coffee. How could he drink it black? The man had to have a stomach of steel. "I admit the company policy is somewhat stringent."

"It's the contract of a Bond villain, Stanley," said Kay, venting her frustration on the muffin as she tore it into chunks. "I can't believe he works here," she snarled at the crumbs.

Cherry chocolate muffin joined the collective grit beneath her nails, along with all manner of unpleasant detritus. She needed to clip them, for practicality's sake, but part of her mourned the loss of another small piece of outward femininity. Her ear-studs went after the pixies kept stealing them for their nests. She never thought she would be one to cling to the little girly things until she had to start giving them up, another reminder of how very different her life was now. A life that was a far, far cry from the one she shared with the Jerk.

"Wait, I'm confused, your friend works here?"

Kay made a face. "No, Matt, my ex. He works on the fifteenth floor."

Stanley's face screwed up further. "Your ex? Already? Well, interoffice romance, it blooms and withers in the blink of an eye." He nodded sagely and dumped his coffee into the potted plant next to their table.

Kay inhaled a deep breathe through her nose. "We broke up months ago," she said. The words left a sour taste in her mouth. Yeah, it had been months since the incident, but it was so sudden and so bizarre she never really processed what happened. "He never talked about work, that he couldn't talk about it. Used to tell people he worked the law department for a private business. I used to think that meant he worked for the government." The truth tasted so bitter her mouth physically puckered.

Stanley tapped the side of his now empty mug. "Not an amicable breakup?"

"He certainly seems to think it was," said Kay. She pinched her muffin crumbs into little gooey pyramids, an alternative occupation for her frustrations since it would be unseemly to slump onto the floor in a puddle of angst for the next few years.

"How do you feel?"

Kay viciously flattened a crumb pyramid. "Before or after I got stood up for dinner and came home to the locks changed with my shit boxed in the hallway?"

Stanley peered hard into the ring of sludge coating the bottom of his mug. "Your ex is a douche."

She barely stifled the snort. She hadn't expected the remark but it did make her feel the teensiest bit better. Kay still wished she could confide in Jess. She didn't like the nebulous gag order Fantasy Land Inc hung over her head. How far did that terminology stretch? Would it violate the terms if she mentioned Matt worked upstairs from her? His parting jab bubbled up through the mire of her thoughts and exploded in a nauseous mix of anger and hurt. Nothing about their break up made sense to her, including how he acted like what he did her was normal, amicable. Acid tickled the back of her throat.

He seemed so surprised to see her here, but what that parting shot stayed with her. What if his surprise was as feigned, as the bulk of their relationship appeared to be? The thought drained the color from her face. "Oh god, what if he got me hired here?"

Stanley's brow furrowed further. If she confused him much more, he wouldn't be able to see through the bunches of eyebrows and forehead wrinkles. "What are you talking about?"

Kay crumpled up the ends and odds of her massacred muffin into her napkin. "He had to know I was desperate for a job. What if he nudged HR to hire me?"

It made a sick sort of sense, if she honestly believed Matt gave her a second thought after their last phone call. A small, very small, minuscule part of her she didn't want to acknowledge secretly hoped he did care enough to keep tabs on her. Kay hated that the thought even crossed her mind, but she hadn't had many serious relationships in her adult life and the Jerk took up a significant portion of her dating experience.

"He had nothing to do with it," said Stanley. He confirmed what she already worked out for herself but somehow that made her feel worse. Matt didn't care, not even enough to take pleasure in her misery unless presented with a passing opportunity.

Kay pursed her lips. Was she that miserable here?

"I flagged your application through."

Stanley's words derailed her train of thought. "You did?"

He shrugged, as if it was no big deal he'd rescued her file from the trash bin. "Shaffer and I have an arrangement. The entrance exam failures are sent down for my perusal. She told you, right? That you had a rare quality?"

"Honestly, everything she says sounds slightly demeaning," said Kay.

"Yes, she does have a way with words." Stanley awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

Kay twisted her napkin ball of destroyed muffin, mulling over Stanley's reveal. "Did you fail the entrance exam?"

"Er, no," said Stanley. He set the empty mug down on the table with an audible thunk and dropped his chin in his hands. Thoughtful as this endeavor was, Kay could read the despondent and worried on the man's face.

She tossed the napkin ball in the trash and sipped her cavity inducing cocoa. "So, do breaches happen often?"

Stanley slumped forward, lifting his thick glasses to vigorously rub his eyes in hard circular motions. If he pressed any harder he might shove them back in his skull. "More often than they should," he said. "I've told them for years they need to move these two units, or at least one of them. They've had bad blood for centuries."

"Who exactly breached who?"

Stanley frowned. "What? Oh." He flicked the air. "The gnomes and elves, going at it again, like cats and..." His eye twitched as he searched for a comparison. "Smaller cats."

Kay opened her mouth and stopped, trying to process. "I thought those two would be allies. Or at least, not enemies." Maybe gnomes versus trolls, if the cartoons of her childhood were anything to go by, but elves? Granted, she hadn't had much interaction with either group, since Stanley usually handled that floor without her help, but when he toured her around, the elves seemed so shy and quiet. Wispy and willowy, much shorter and thinner than the noble sexy warrior race in the movies. They looked like they'd topple over trying to hold a sword. Kay couldn't even recall what the gnomes looked like, since they hide in the foliage of their woodsy containment unit. Stanley didn't take her inside like he did the others, though she hadn't wondered why at the time.

"Allies?" Stanley snorted. "Gnomes are vicious little despots. Not to mention extremely territorial and avarice as magpies. They'd soon as steal your pocket change as they would stab you in the ankle."

"Wait are you saying a bunch of gnomes--" Kay held her thumb and forefinger a few inches apart, "--breached the elven unit?"

"Tunneled right through the concrete, like rats," Stanley sneered.

Kay closed her fingers. "With their teeth?"

"No, pickaxes. But get a swarm of them together and they can go through a wall in a night," said Stanley. "That's what happened when we tried to move them next to the unicorns."

"Oh no," Kay covered her mouth, imagining the carnage.

"I know! We nearly lost half the herd."

"What." Her imagination went sideways.

"Least the clean up crew was able to round up the little bastards after they gorged themselves." Stanley shook his head. "That was the last time HQ let us move them. Said it wasn't worth the paperwork."

She stared at him, jaw slack. Kay tried to picture it, a swarm of gnomes with cheery cheeks and colorful cone hats skeletonizing one of those carnivorous unicorns like piranhas on a cow; she took a long swallow of her cocoa and wished she hadn't. Clearly, the cartoon depictions of her childhood were absolute rubbish.

"Do they at least wear pointy hats?"

"I suppose their helmets are a little pointed," said Stanley. "More dome-like really."

"Are they--" Kay struggled to keep her imagination in check. "Are they going to eat the elves?"

"No," said Stanley. "Too stringy. But we might lose a few."

He said it so casually it took her a moment to register the words. Lose a few, as in the gnomes would straight up murder any elves they caught in pickax range.

The cocoa sat heavy in her stomach, like sugary cement. This was one of those logistical situations she hadn't worked up the nerve to ask Stanley about and despite the casual tone of their conversation she chickened out on asking how Fantasy Land Inc disposed the bodies of its inhuman 'residents'. It lead to other unpleasant thoughts, like how long they naturally lived? How many of these creatures died in captivity, without ever seeing the outside world? How long could she turn a blind eye to questions like that for a paycheck?

Her train of thought already on the forbidden track, took another unexpected turn to gold, gold, gold. Kay looked up, as if she would see Serena waltz by the open cafeteria door. Why was she down there, on the very bottom floor of the Grid? Was she really a magical creature like the others? The golden overtones aside, she looked so ...human.

Kay itched to question Stanley about her but that would mean confessing she'd bent a few rules in their interaction. Plus, he was clearly preoccupied by the Great Gnome Invasion. And it wasn't like she would ever see Serena again. It was a fluke encounter. So why couldn't she stop thinking about it?

"How long does the clean up crew usually take?" Kay latched onto the subject change.

"A day or two," said Stanley. Worry lined his features. "Once they get in there, they manage things fairly quick."

"Will the Grid be okay without care for that long?" Guilt nibbled at Kay for asking, especially after how hard Stanley tried to comfort her when the man was so obviously out of his depth. He was much more comfortable man-handling dragons.

Stanley gave her a weak smile that wobbled at the edges. "They'll have to let me in tomorrow to take care of things, but you're technically still in training. You're out until they give the all clear."

"Oh." Kay looked down at her dirty fingernails, uncertain how she felt about the unscheduled break. She was just getting a handle on her job and dealing with her unusual charges, but her interaction with the Jerk was still fresh and raw. Maybe the unexpected vacation would give her some perspective.

"I'm afraid it's unpaid leave," said Stanley.

Her mood blackened. "Of course," she grumped. She hadn't made it to her first pay day yet, which would go directly into feeding the debt beast that lurked in her bank statements. A couple days off wouldn't break her more than she was already broke.

"Don't worry," said Stanley. He awkwardly patted her hand. "These are professionals. You'll be back in no time."