A/N: For some reason, I though I had already posted this. Apparently not so I'm posting it now. Anyway, I'm going to leave the fic in progress until I decide whether or not to write a follow up chapter. If you have an opinion on that, I'd love to read it in a review or message.

Margaret Tate hadn't always been so guarded. Once upon a time, when she was very young, she had been a happy child with friends and parents and books. She could remember her sweet sixteen, her first boyfriend. She had been so happily connected to the world around her.

She didn't hear the groaning metal or smell the sticky, metallic smell of the blood. But she imagined it, that summer night when she was all alone. No one had come to dry her tears or hold her while she sobbed. Not her boyfriend or her friends. Her entire life was uprooted that day and nothing was ever the same. The funeral she paid for was beautiful and the flowers filled the whole house, blanketing it with the sickly sweet smell of people trying to pay off their grief or guilt. She could never look at a Calla Lily the same way ever again.

After both parents were buried, Margaret, or Maggie as she was known then, threw out every floral arrangement. For a little while following the funeral, she lived off the life insurance. Then she got a job waitressing at a diner three blocks away. The house was paid for so she only had to make enough money for basic living expenses. It got her through high school, which she graduated from third in her class. She would have been Valedictorian had she not spent thirty hours a week working.

In those two years, she grew her wings. There was nothing keeping her in Toronto anymore, no family, no friends. Just a house and a dead-end job. So she left Canada for New York University on a scholarship and with a student visa. Margaret rented out her parents' house and started creating the new her. Not a single friend she made in college knew her as Maggie. It was always Margaret. She had casual relationships, not long-term commitments. She controlled every part of her life she could. And she avoided putting down roots at all.

During her first few years in the business, Margaret bounced from one publishing company to the next. When she landed an editorial position, she stayed put and slowly let her wings rest a while. They were always on alert, though, ready to fly away, despite the fact that she had risen to editor-in-chief of Colden Books. It was never because she didn't want to be happy in one place; in fact, she desperately wanted to feel safe enough to put down roots again, but she couldn't figure out how. She had already spent so long alone that she had become quite comfortable that way.

Even buying her apartment at Central Park West wasn't enough for her to feel settled down. It felt like...like a betrayal to this beautiful apartment she'd come to love so much in the five times she had asked the realtor to bring her back to it. Margaret didn't feel ready to own something again. It had been a decade since she'd sold her parents' house in Canada, her last root in Toronto, and she wasn't sure she had enough room in her still broken heart for more failed commitment.

Under the advisement (and not so gentle prodding) of her real estate agent, Margaret did buy her dream apartment and set about making it her own. They both thought she would be less inclined to move again if it felt homey and was exactly how she wanted it. The entire space became airy and light, comfortable but more connected to the sky than the city. Now though, it wasn't her reservations that kept her from using her home to ground her life. She had simply forgotten. Over the almost twenty years she had been on her own, she had forgotten how to feel connected, forgotten what it felt like to be connected.

Margaret's life consisted mostly of work and she didn't understand how anyone else had a constant life apart from that. This had driven away ten assistants in four years. She held little hope for Andrew Paxton. When he arrived Monday morning, before her, and was already dressed in a suit and tie, she was pleasantly surprised. He showed an amazing work ethic from the first day she met him and he had the potential to be an amazing editor one day. But not today, perhaps tomorrow. She said this to herself every day for the first two months. By that time she knew she couldn't afford to lose him as an assistant.

It was a Friday night two months after Andrew had been hired and it was nearly midnight when he walked into her office with a manuscript he'd finished. Instead of the prim and proper boss he was used to during normal business hours, he found Margaret with her heels (Christian Louboutin, he noticed absently) lying abandoned under her desk and her blazer tossed haphazardly atop a stack of manuscripts on the desk. She had one arm around her stomach and the other curled around the manuscript she was reading, fingers poised to turn the page. Margaret Tate looked exhausted and extremely uncomfortable. She had been toeing the line between her usual unhappiness and severe discomfort all day, but now her defenses were down.

When she noticed him, she immediately tried to straighten herself up and look more professional. The sudden movement caused her more pain and she curled up again. He asked what was the matter but she only replied that it was nothing he would understand. Having had the same girlfriend for nearly six years, he did actually understand. Even though she insisted there was nothing he could do for her, he was far more stubborn and she eventually caved, listing only two things: Tampax and Midol.

He had unknowingly sealed his own fate that night when he returned twenty minutes later with exactly what she asked for and no embarrassed flush. After swallowing her pills and using the bathroom, Margaret returned to her office only to find Andrew tidying up. If his Tampax run for her hadn't been enough to ensure him a long career as her assistant, his gentle but insistent manner as he took away her manuscript, made her put on her jacket and shoes, and handed her purse to her definitely was. Then he walked her out of the building, hailed a cab and sent her home with a stern glare that warned her against returning over the weekend.

Since that night, Margaret had begun taking on projects around her apartment. Slowly, it was starting to feel grounded the same way Andrew made her feel. It had been a very long time since she'd last felt like that, but her assistant brought her down a level and reminded her that she was still human. He reminded her that she still needed people, no matter how independent she wanted to be.

When she was about to be deported, it was his phrasing that gave her the idea and she couldn't have picked a better victim if she'd tried. Sometime in his three years as her underling she had become attached to him, used to seeing him every morning, and legitimately worried about what Bob might have done. Bob Spaulding was the grudge-holding type and he probably would have fired Andrew on the spot.

During their adventure in Alaska, she realized just how empty and untethered her life really had become. Margaret was acutely aware of his family and its issues, but it painfully, horribly reminded her of what she hadn't known she missed. Andrew and his family filled that void and she couldn't bear to hurt them and lie to them any longer. She was too afraid of uprooting their lives the same way hers was. She was running away from it all, hoping it would hurt them less.

Then Andrew was standing in the middle of the office panting, coming for her, needing her. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to put down roots, wanted to hang on to someone instead of some job. But she was scared, still terrified of screwing up the life of the man she loved. He wanted it, though; he wanted to help her put down roots. And she would never want anyone else. He was the only one she ever really trusted and he would never do her wrong. He would ground her, keep her tied to a family, his family, their family.

He would be her roots and she would be his wings.

So there it is. Please leave a review if you feel so inclined. Thanks for reading!