Liberal leader Sussan Ley and her Nationals counterpart David Littleproud held crisis talks on Thursday after the latter pulled his party out of a decades-long political marriage days earlier.
Both parties agreed to delay the unveiling of their shadow cabinet as hopes of a reunion emerged.
Neither side was happy dirty laundry over the shock split was being aired through the media with both parties disputing accusations over the break-up.
As the stand off cooled, there was some love in war, with Liberal deputy leader Ted O'Brien telling Senator McKenzie, "I still love you" when the pair were asked about the relationship spat on Nine's Today Show.
Ms Ley convened a virtual party room meeting on Thursday to discuss the Nationals' policy demands which are central to any reunion. Another meeting will be held next week.
The Nationals want an ironclad commitment to nuclear energy, divestiture powers against supermarkets, phone connectivity and a regional investment fund that were taken to the last election.
Ms Ley had said she couldn't agree to any demands when they were first put to her because the party needed to discuss all policies after its massive election defeat on May 3.
But the Nationals said they didn't want to wait months until after a post mortem to re-commit to the coalition.
A compromise on nuclear energy will likely come down to removing a moratorium instead of the former policy of building seven reactors.
Some Liberals want the policy scrapped after the party lost a swathe of inner-city seats where the policy was unpopular.
National and Liberal MPs have been holding backroom talks since the break-up in the hope of bringing the estranged parties back together.Â
At least five Nationals expressed reservations about a split in a party room meeting before the decision was announced on Tuesday.
Bitterness between the parties was becoming increasingly public when a letter from Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie to her Liberal counterpart Michaelia Cash was leaked.
It said the Nationals Senate team would need to consider sitting apart from the Liberals in the chamber pending the outcome of coalition negotiations.
This was over anger at allegations the Liberals lured Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to defect from the Nationals and sit with the senior coalition party after the election.
Liberals seized on the letter as evidence the Nationals weren't serious about striking an agreement after a split was foreshadowed.
Privately, Nationals dismissed the letter as far from a smoking gun.
The Nationals insisted they had been open that only the policies were non-negotiable after Ms Ley said a refusal to accept cabinet solidarity was a sticking point.
Cabinet solidarity refers to members of the ministry needing to abide by the leadership's decisions and party policies, while backbenchers are free to vote against them without consequence.
Both camps offer different versions of events, with Ms Ley saying she didn't have an explicit agreement from the Nationals leader over cabinet solidarity and Mr Littleproud insisting it wasn't a problem.
Mr Littleproud said the proposition over cabinet solidarity was to ensure trust wasn't lost again but Ms Ley's response was "fair and reasonable" and the issue was dropped.
The cabinet issue has since been resolved with Ms Ley welcoming the public affirmation as the pair re-entered negotiations.
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