Chez Cooke. Ronnie is explaining to Billy Zane why he can't come in and do Shakespeare. Actually, she's taking Harry's advice and making up a lie about how the school won't let him. "I'll do it anyway. What's the worst that can happen? They'll ask me to leave?" She tries to quell the fire, but he gets all, "Now I'm determined more than ever to do it! School policy indeed." Hey, I just realized, I made a Titanic reference before, and he was in the movie Titanic. Totally unintentional, I swear. Anyway, Ronnie comes clean: "I don't want you to do it. Because I'm afraid that kids'll laugh." He's really dim, and she has to repeat this six more times in different ways. Then he says, "I'm coming tomorrow." Oh, Ronnie, when will you learn to say no to men? Hopefully, sometime after I meet you. But you really ought to learn it at some point.

Sanctum Stevenorium. Still late that night. Steven pores over various papers. Lauren comes in. She really has become the Coach Kevin of Season Two. She's all up in everybody else's scenes, trying to steal screentime off their story arcs. She says, "Either we're way too dedicated, or we just don't have personal lives." Steven snaps at her, and she gets all defensive and asks if he's okay. He says, "Can I be allowed to hate the job once in a while?" No, wait, he doesn't, but can you blame me for getting identical scenes confused? I'd have to be paying pretty close attention to tell them apart, and I can't really be expected to do that. Anyway, Steven talks about how Brooke got expelled, and then he actually says, "I am in the business of touching lives. And I have lost my grip on two that I care the most about." Lauren asks about what happened between Steven and X: "You never talk about it." Maybe that's because he doesn't WANT to talk about it, eh what, Nosey McGetyourownplot? But Steven says, "Oh, you know. A string of early mornings and late nights. You wake up one year suddenly hating each other." Then he says, "The job…I don't have to tell you, it beats you up." Oh, brother, here we go again. "And I needed her. If for nothing else, just to hold onto. Just to say, 'I know, baby.' That's all I wanted at the end of my day. Or even to say nothing, I'd have settled for a look. But you know what I got, Lauren? Anger and resentment. For spending too much time in the place that just beat me up. And one day, she left. And she took my daughter away. She took my little girl." Lauren says, "You still have her." And Steven says, "Yep." But he doesn't sound convinced. And that is kinda sad. Poor Steven. Still, his daughter seems to rock, so that's something.