"What's up Zo?" Max asked as he walked into the staff room and found Zoe sat there staring into a untouched mug of coffee.

"Nothing." She said, coming back to her senses.

"Don't lie." Max spoke softly, a tone that still stabbed at her heart and made her yearn to be with him.

"Fine, being with Grace today made me realise how much I missed Sharice." Zoe sighed.

"Unless something's changed, you skype her once a week don't you?" Zoe nodded, smiling at the thought of her favourite point in the week. "So what's really the problem?" Zoe stared at him for a minute, clearly deep in thought.

"I wish I was a mother." She finally spoke, before they were interrupted.

"I'm not going anywhere with you. You're a cow." Grace screamed at her mother, as the ED went silent and suddenly all eyes were on Connie and her daughter.

"Well you've been kicked out of boarding school and have no where else to go so you hardly have much of a choice right now." Connie spoke, not noticing the eyes on her and just focusing on her daughter and the anger bubbling away in her tummy.

"I'll go to Zoe's. I've known her a few hours and she's been a better mum to me in that time than you ever have." Grace screamed as she spotted Zoe and ran into her arms for the second time.

"How dare you Grace!" Connie shouted before she went to raise her hand in anger, finally realising what she was doing as Max stepped in front of Zoe and Grace.

"I'll take her back to mine Connie, she'll be fine and we can fix this tomorrow when we're all calm again. Max, can you take her out to my car?" Zoe asked as she chucked her car keys to him, both Zoe and Connie watching as Grace took his hand and they left the ED.

"Here's my address in case I need you and you have my number." Connie spoke, not even thinking about what she was doing anymore.

"I'll look after her, I promise." Zoe spoke as she left. She walked closer to her car and smiled as she saw both Grace and Max in her car seemingly playing eye spy, both laughing as they did so.

"Max said we could go out for dinner." Grace said as Zoe got into the car.

"Did he now?" She said, looking at where Max was sat in the passenger seat.

"I thought it'd cheer her up." Max explained before he picked up on what she meant. "I should get going."

"No, stay." Zoe spoke, smiling at him seductively as she did so.

"Okay, so where shall we go Grace?"

Connie walked back to her office, ignoring all the eyes that followed her as she did so. Slamming the door behind her, she fell to the floor. Reaching for the bottle that Zoe had got her weeks before and that she hadn't got round to moving from her office, she opened it and took a big swig before the tears started spilling down her face. Connie Beauchamp had failed, she wasn't perfect as she liked to appear and now the ED had watched her fall apart and her fail at being a mother.