PLEASE NOTE: I am no longer writing this story as I have moved on to other projects, but I want to keep this story up for archival purposes. Who knows, I may return to it in the future.

The days never seemed to go any faster, not even when he was kept busy. He would still find his eyes being drawn to the wall clock, and the thin black hand would tick rhythmically – 1...2...3...2...3...2...3...He blinked his eyes once, twice, but no time seemed to pass. Every minute felt more like an hour – and with 480 minutes to kill in one day, he could feel the grey hairs beginning to sprout and he had half a mind to take measurements for his own coffin. He'd be dead by the time 5pm arrived.

Dennis Finch dropped his pen onto the table and rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing loudly. One of these days, he was sure of it, his head would swell and throb so much that it would explode. It never got any better from Monday to Friday – Monday would see him at the brink of Hell and it would go downhill from there. It wasn't that he hated his...OK, he DID hate his job, but not the people he worked with. Maya, Jack, Elliott...and alright, even Nina - they were all crazy in their own unique ways, and he loved them for it. If nothing else, he'd leave this job with the knowledge that he'd made some unique, firm friends during his time in the Blush offices. But despite having their presences, they would only be able to offer a short period of distraction before he would have to return to his regular mundane tasks that his job as Jack's assistant required.

"Monday morning is so bad...Everybody seems to naaaag meee..." he crooned to himself, hooking his blonde hair behind his ears. A Backstreet Boys ballad was on the small clock radio sitting on his table, but he wasn't listening to it – whenever a bad song was on the radio he liked to sing a song of his own choosing until the song on the radio ended. He'd heard the song 'Friday On My Mind' by The Easybeats during his recent vacation in Australia and it seemed to suit his life perfectly. Putting aside the fact that he'd had to drain his bank account dry to take that vacation, and was now trying to nurse it to health again by working overtime, Australia had been great.

"Finch!" Nina scurried towards his desk clutching an item of clothing in each hand. One was a skintight, neon orange sweater and one was a leopard- print faux leather jacket.

"I must be crazy asking for fashion tips from the style-impaired, but what do you think of these?" She asked, holding the clothing up in the air. Finch raised an eyebrow, gearing up for one of his famous sarcastic remarks.

"You mean as clothing?" he asked. Nina frowned and stomped her narrow heel on the floor. If Nina happened to step on a bug in one of her nosebleed- inducing shoes, the bug would surely be impaled on it.

"Finch, i'm serious! I have a date with Steven Seagull tonight and I can't work out what to wear!" she moaned.

"Nina, dearest, I'm sure Steven Seagull isn't the least concerned about what you have on...but, rather, what you DON'T have on." Dennis skipped a beat before asking, "What are you doing, going out with Steven Seagull? As in the actor?"

Nina blinked. "Steven Seagull acts?...No, no, he's a banker...BANKer," she elaborated upon seeing the amused expression on his face. "You know, as in the guy that gets to tell you that you're broke." She gave him a taunting grin. "You'd know him, right?"

"I'm not listening," Dennis dismissed her, turning his back to slide papers into Jack's pigeon hole. However, Nina wasn't through with him, and leant forward over the table.

"You've had to work so hard to try and fill up your bank account again. In fact, I commend you. You've been doing the work of three men – Larry, Curly and Moe."

"I used to think that you were a colossal pain in the neck. Now I have a much lower opinion of you," Dennis shot back without hesitation.

"I bet you've had to give up a lot of things in order to save money. Which reminds me – 'Juggling Jubblies' called about your subscription."

"A smart mouth doesn't necessarily equal a keen mind. Nina, if you seriously want a beauty tip from me, then here's the best I can offer: HIDE."

Nina narrowed her eyes and began walking away, but suddenly turned back to Dennis. "Oh, a guy dropped in to see you a few minutes before you came to work."

"Oh, really?" Dennis mumbled, his head lowered as he picked up his pen and went back to work.

"Yeah, some guy named Ethan."

Dennis's hand froze in midair and he lifted his eyes to Mina. "Ethan? Are you sure his name was Ethan?"

"Unless he stole someone else's name tag, then yes, his name was Ethan. He left his card on your table. Good luck finding it beneath that mess."

As Nina strode towards her desk, Dennis dropped his pen on the table, where it rolled onto the floor, and he began lifting papers and folders frantically in search of the card. By the time he'd been through everything, he had more of a mess than he had to begin with. He growled and pressed his palm against his forehead at the same time as Maya rounded the corner. She eyed him curiously.

"Dennis, what's the matter?" she asked, approaching the front of his table.

"Someone I know left his card on my desk before I got here this morning and now I can't find it." He fumbled through the vase in the corner and lifted the desk phone in the air.

"Is it Ethan's?" Maya asked.

"What? You know Ethan too? How does everyone know Ethan? Has someone been talking to you?" Dennis said quickly.

"No! No, I don't KNOW Ethan, I just know his name from the card."

"The card?" Dennis spun around the side of the table to meet Maya at the other side, clutching her shoulders. "Think very, very carefully. Where did you last see the card?"

Maya shrugged him off and took a step back, shaking her head. "God, what's gotten into you? All this excitement over a CARD. It swept off the table and onto the floor while you were flapping in and out of the office."

"And it was vacuumed up?" David concluded in a panic.

"NO. I picked it up and put it in your pigeon hole."

"My pigeon hole?"

"Yes, that little slot where we put your papers and your letters and your cards that drop onto the floor," Maya replied sarcastically, pointing to his pigeonhole. "Look, it's right at the top."

Dennis glanced back and heaved a tremendous sigh of relief when he saw a small white business card sitting at the top of the pile in his pigeonhole. He held Maya's shoulders again.

"Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU," he said gratefully, shaking her shoulders gently. "I could just kis...I could just - just shake your hand!"

He whirled around Maya and went behind the table once again to retrieve the card, leaving Maya dazed and confused. She shrugged and decided to let his excitement slide. "I'm off to do an interview. Don't forget, we have a meeting in a couple of hours."

"I've already got it written down!" he called after her. Once she was out of his sight, he picked up his pen from the floor and scribbled into his daily planner 'Meeting', mumbling the word as he wrote it. He slid the business card out of his pigeonhole and held it between his fingers, staring at it with another sigh. His excitement withered away. Ethan. He hadn't wanted to hear that name again. The mere mention of the name conjured up thoughts and memories that he'd been trying to bury. He'd been to the Blush offices. He'd come to see him after...after everything. And he'd left his card. Now that Dennis had the card in his hands, he couldn't pretend that he didn't exist. His name was there, printed in black ink across the tasteful white card: Ethan Corrigan.

"You had to come back NOW, didn't you, Ethan?" he said aloud, stuffing the card into his pocket. He took his pen once more and tried to continue working but after a matter of seconds he was rubbing his nose again, his stress multiplied by the reappearance of the man he'd been trying to forget about. He knew Ethan would be expecting his call, and he was tempted to throw the card away, but he couldn't – partly out of courtesy and partly out of curiosity. What did he want? He had to know. He WANTED to know.

The clock ticked on – 1...2...3...2...3...2...3...