a shard or two - Chapter 3 - nut_to_butt_sir (Aeithalian) - Red White & Royal Blue (2024)

Chapter Text

Prologue: December, 2037

If Alex’s eyes mist over as Henry stands proudly on the stage of the Stockholm Concert Hall to receive his Nobel medal and diploma from Queen Isla of Sweden, nobody’s the wiser. Three short bows - one to the Queen, one to the small crowd of laureates and committee members on the stage behind, and one to the audience.

Bea, sitting next to him, starts applauding so vigorously her royal blue sash falls off her shoulder, and Alex literally can’t stop smiling as Henry’s eyes find his in the front row. Henry’s cheeks tinge a brighter pink before turns around again and takes his seat in the fancy velvet chair on the stage.

Catherine, sitting on Alex’s other side, eyes Bea until she fixes her sash and Alex dares not laugh. Pez and Rayne, however, snicker from several seats down. Bea smacks her husband on the arm, and Philip and Martha, on Catherine’s other side, smartly ignore all of them.

Alex smirks at the commotion, but doesn’t take his eyes off Henry as the next speech starts. He feels Catherine’s gloved hand pat his own lightly, and he knows she’s looking in the exact same direction as him.

2 days later…

“Check it out!” Alex grins wildly as he holds up the thick, flat package. Henry blinks up from his phone, sprawled across the hotel bed, and watches as Alex rips open the paper to reveal the thick, glossy cover and iconic red border of this week’s issue of TIME magazine, with the words Person of the Year printed in a fancy font right along the top. Somehow, the staff over at TIME had managed to get a copy to him, all the way over in Stockholm.

The cover itself is an artistic rendition of Alex and Phil Bridgers standing in a sea of red and blue faceless bodies, the only ones in natural color. Alex flips it around to show Henry, who smiles widely.

“Person of the year,” Alex flaunts, miming flipping imaginary hair off his shoulder. “Well, one of two, but who cares?” He slumps onto the bed and starts skimming the magazine’s main article, talking about the ‘historical Constitutional amendment that will shape elections for the future’, and ‘bipartisan cooperation and teamwork the best it’s been in decades’, and so on. Henry reads over his shoulder, bare arm pressed to Alex’s side, rubbing absentminded circles into whatever skin he finds under his hands.

“Bring it downstairs,” Henry murmurs as Alex finishes the article and starts flipping to the unrelated pages of the magazine. “Mum’ll want to see.”

“Speaking of which-” Alex checks the time. “We should probably get ready.”

“Yep,” Henry grunts as he pushes himself off the bed, where they’ve just spent a very lazy morning. The “Nobel Week” celebrations are mostly over, and a good number of beneficiaries left yesterday once the awards ceremony ended. But today, the Nobel Peace Prize winners, who received their award in Oslo two days ago, are visiting Stockholm for the annual gala where all six of the Nobel laureates are present. Henry, as a laureate himself, was asked to stay for the event, along with Catherine, as visiting royalty.

Why the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, and all the other ones in Stockholm, Sweden, Alex will never know. Catherine had said it had to do something with the fact that Alfred Nobel himself had connections to both places, but Alex had mostly forgotten the finer details by now.

Anyways, just as a ton of people could have predicted, the winners of the Peace Prize ended up being Margit Enquist, the Prime Minister of Sweden, and Erik Onderburg, the President of Baltonia. Apparently (and by no feelings of national pride, absolutely none) the Nobel committee had awarded them the Peace Prize “for their inspirational work in bringing peace in the Swedish civil war, and cooperation to bring Baltonia independence in the wake”. The Swedish civil war had actually ended a couple years ago, but the treaty that had been signed back in ‘33 had only granted Baltonia full independence from the Swedish government earlier this year, for stability’s sake, and as far as Alex could tell, it had gone pretty well. Hence the Nobel Peace Prize for the leaders of both countries. If only Pinkley, who had so vigorously fought against Baltonian independence, could see them now.

Alex, however, is trying very hard to not be nervous about the whole thing. Pinkley, in his singular term in the White House, had royally f*cked up any and all potential for a good relationship with Baltonia, and Erik Onderburg had been very clear multiple times that he’s sick and tired of the American government, and has apparently flat-out refused to appoint a Baltonian ambassador to the US. Alex can’t blame him, but he also doesn’t necessarily agree with the whole “f*ck you” retaliatory approach to foreign affairs that he’s seen Onderburg clinging to for the last several years in office.

Regardless, Alex is bound to meet Onderburg at dinner, and he’s trying to come up with something to say that doesn’t scream ‘I am an American politician, and you hate me on principle’. It’s a strange thing to suddenly feel so self-conscious about.

But as he fixes his bowtie and Henry leans down to untwist one of the tails of his jacket and fix Alex’s red sash that denotes him as an honorary knight, or something (“It’s called a riband, darling”), before pressing a kiss to his temple, he decides he doesn’t really give a f*ck. If Onderburg wants to be bitchy with him over White House policies Alex had virtually no control over, then fine.

Catherine’s getting her makeup done by a stylist as Alex and Henry enter her suite, where Bea and Philip have their heads leaned together on a nearby sofa, scrolling along on Philip’s phone in an investigatory manner. Pez is nowhere to be found. Regardless, Catherine grabs for the TIME magazine as Alex flaunts it, and smiles widely as she flips through it to view picture after picture of Alex or Bridgers on the House floor or in an interview or whatever. “Congratulations, dear,” she says, smacking a kiss to his cheek and smearing lipstick on him. Snorting, he tries to wipe it off before the stylist, smiling to herself, offers him a makeup remover wipe.

Pez waltzes in within twenty minutes of their departure time. Alex, grinning, teases him for his waistcoat that is decidedly not white, rather a shimmering, iridescent silver: “I swear, Alexander, us men are given no leeway to white tie events. I say to allow a bit of flair now and then.”

“I thought that’s what top hats are for,” Alex says as they make their way downstairs and approach the cars, before peering back at Henry and trying to decide if he’d look stupid or hot wearing a top hat. Deciding that the likelihood of Henry looking like a pompous ass are higher than not, he’s delighted to hear Henry say that he never liked wearing them. Stetsons are much cooler, anyways.

Catherine takes Henry’s arm as they enter the venue, with probably too much pomp and circ*mstance for Alex’s taste, but he’s willing to let it slide. Astrid, the Crown Princess of Sweden and heir to the throne after her mother, Isla, approaches them with a giant smile on her face and leans her head in close to Henry’s to greet him. Apparently, she’d been in his year at Oxford where they’d spend their time commiserating over the woes of being royalty, as Pez likes to say. Alex likes her for her mischievous grin and stories of Henry in his infamous “Oxford slu*t phase”, which, while they embarrass Henry to no end, Alex finds entertaining.

Catherine, creeping on eighty years old, is nothing but the picture of grace as she practically glides across the room to greet the Swedish queen and her husband. Alex and Henry follow at a safe distance and leave Astrid, her accent thick and warm, trading jabs with Pez and Bea while Philip looks like he would like nothing more than to get sh*t-faced.

Alex grabs two flutes of champagne for them both and they mutter snarky comments under their breath as Catherine and Isla make small-talk. “Do you remember in my Senate confirmation hearing for the DOJ-” Alex is grinning and Henry has to turn away so Catherine can’t see him smirk into his champagne. “When someone implied that I’d have a threesome with the Swedish royals? Do you think they heard about that?” He leans in close. “Do you think they’d be down?”

Henry expertly smothers a smile as he subtly gives the Prince Consort Edvin a once-over, and shakes his head. “Not worth it.” It’s Alex's turn to hide his snort.

Catherine must see it, though, because she twitches her head as she turns back to Queen Isla and gestures for Alex to step forward. “Have you met Alex yet?”

“I believe so, but it’s been a while,” Isla says as Alex reaches forward to shake her hand. He can tell just by touch that her satin opera gloves are ridiculously expensive. “Almost twenty years, if I remember right. ”

Alex racks his brain - Isla and Edvin had done a state visit during Ellen’s first term, the first one since the 1970’s, and he’d been nineteen at the time… “Yeah,” he nods slowly, “Exactly twenty, I think.” He must pull a face that makes Edvin laugh.

“Feeling old yet?”

“Something like that,” Alex grumbles as Henry smirks and brushes a few fingers up his arm.

Catherine manages to carry the conversation for a few more minutes before Isla’s attention is pulled away. “Ah, Prime Minister!” she says, waving over somebody else.

Margit Enquist, the Swedish Prime Minister, is a short, petite woman with her graying hair combed into a neat pixie cut. Her mouth is small and pulled into a frown that never seems to leave her face, and she’s wearing a simple black gown that looks very uncomfortable, given the way she keeps shuffling her shoulders to try and make it fit better. Regardless, her curtsy is deep, and it gives Alex enough time to catch the eye of the man standing just behind her. His stomach does an uncomfortable backflip as the man approaches, bowing to both queens.

Where Margit Enquist is short and petite, Erik Onderburg is tall and broad. Alex would be lying if he said Onderbug wasn’t attractive, with abundant salt-and-pepper hair brushed back to expose his dark eyes and strong profile. But as Onderburg turns to face Alex, his eyes sharpen and narrow, and Alex feels the urge to hide behind Catherine to escape this conversation. But if Catherine is under any inclination to be kind to him, now is not the time as she introduces him to Enquist and Onderburg. “You know Henry, I’m assuming,” she says, and Enquist at least cracks a half-hearted smile. “And this is his husband, Alex Claremont-Diaz.”

Enquist nods as she seemingly recognizes him. “Ah. Congressman,” she says, and shakes his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.” Alex is willing to bet that she doesn’t actually give a rat’s ass about meeting him, but she gives Onderburg a look that makes Alex wonder if they’d happened to speak about him at some point recently. Onderburg doesn’t return the look, but shakes Henry’s hand, then Alex’s without a single word.

Alex is eternally thankful as they manage to escape the conversation not long after, and ceaselessly grumbles to Henry about the obvious stink-eye Onderburg had given to him. “I bet it’s just RBF. I thought he was fine,” Henry shrugs.

“Oh, sure he’s fine,” Alex wiggles his eyebrows, forgetting his troubles for a moment, and Henry rolls his eyes.

“You know what I meant.”

The reception hour ends after too long, and stewards start directing people to their seats. Henry, as one of the Nobel laureates, sits at the high table with the other laureates, and Alex is languishing in his spousal privileges as he sees his own name on a tiny card right next to Henry’s seat, only a few spots down and across from Queen Isla and her husband.

“Neat,” Alex says as he sits and nudges Henry’s foot with his own under the table.

He spies Enquist as she takes her seat to Queen Isla’s left, her husband at her side. He watches a steward lead Onderburg towards the table as well and expects him to sit in the lone seat next to the Prince Edvin, but his stomach drops as the stewards leads Onderburg around to Alex’s side of the table and further down. Alex frantically checks the name card for the empty seat next to him, and something heavy drops to his knees as he reads President Erik Onderburg of Baltonia on it. “Oh, sh*t,” Alex mutters.

Sure enough, Onderburg is gestured into the seat, and he takes it with what Alex thinks is the air of a man who wishes he were somewhere else. He gives Alex an unsmiling nod as a greeting before staring down at his plate as the rest of the guests take their own seats. Someone stands up to give a speech to honor the laureates, but Alex isn’t really paying attention until the first course is brought out.

Alex nearly forgets his panic at being seated next to Onderburg as he gets a good look at what’s on the plate. He thinks it looks like half a peeled tomato surrounded by piles of some sort of fish, but the most confusing part is the delicate-looking flower-crisp-thing that’s balanced atop the tomato. He turns his head ever so slightly to watch what Henry does (his go-to move whenever he has to fake having high-society etiquette at events like this), and is dismayed to see Henry hasn’t touched the weird crisp bit and has started picking away at the fish while maintaining conversation with a laureate sitting to his other side.

He tries to sneak a peek across the table to see what anybody else is doing, but the centerpiece is blocking his vision, so he ends up side-eyeing Onderburg’s plate to see if he knows what he’s doing. He decidedly doesn’t, because all Onderburg has ended up doing is breaking the crisp and is in the process of trying to eat the tomato without it sliding all across the plate, a feat which Alex wouldn’t necessarily deem successful.

He just ends up copying Henry, and resists the urge to pick up the crisp with his fingers to see if it’s actually edible or not. He also doesn’t really want to eat the tomato, because just one bite tells him it’s not nearly ripe enough for his taste. He ends up just glaring at the monstrosity that’s on his plate, and really wishes that Henry hadn’t ended up in an in-depth conversation with the person on his other side about the finer points of caring for a vegetable garden, because the only person he has left to talk to is Onderburg, who isn’t married and likewise has nobody else to talk to.

Honestly, at this point it would be more awkward if I didn’t say anything, Alex thinks to himself as he pokes at the crisp with his fork, rocking it back and forth on his plate.

“I don’t know how to eat it, either.” Onderburg’s voice is much softer than Alex had thought it would be.

His head snaps up to see Onderburg’s brown eyes boring into his, but they’re nowhere near as hard or cold as Alex remembers from an hour ago. Something slips loose in his stomach and he internally sighs in relief. Maybe his first impression had just been wrong. But in this case, he’s more than happy to be proven wrong.

“I normally copy him,” Alex grins as he gestures to Henry’s plate, where the crisp remains untouched. “But I think he’s messing with me at this point.”

As if on cue, Henry smoothly picks the crisp up with frustrating deftness between his fork and his knife and, without breaking it, sets it aside. Alex huffs. “See?”

Onderburg’s stern exterior breaks, and his eyes twinkle as he watches Alex shoot Henry a glare. “What if we just-” With a swift motion, he seizes the largest piece of his broken crisp between his fingers, and pops it into his mouth.

Alex stifles a laugh as Onderburg nods appreciatively as he chews. Margit Enquist, across the table, shoots Onderburg a raised eyebrow, to which he responds with a puerile shrug. Table manners be damned, Alex picks up his own crisp between his pointer finger and thumb, and (knowing full well how stupid he must look) shoves it in his mouth.

Henry clicks his tongue from beside him, and Alex cheekily grins over while still chewing. Onderburg has carefully smothered his own laugh as Enquist quietly and resignedly shakes her head from across the table.

“Table manners are overrated,” Alex says as the places are cleared and a steward comes over to refill his wine glass. Idly, he considers asking for a glass of water - he’s shocked that Europeans aren’t dehydrated all the time.

“I agree,” Onderburg nods firmly, looking surprised. His accent is thick, but his English is fantastic, if not a bit overly formal.

Alex notices Onderburg observing him more closely as the next course is brought out, something that looks more edible and less frivolous. “I apologize, but I thought- …no, never mind.”

Alex looks up to see Onderburg looking flustered and staring down at his plate. “No, go ahead.”

Onderburg considers for a moment, then angles his shoulders towards Alex. “I thought you grew up at the White House. I imagined this was… standard for you.”

“Oh,” Alex blinks, his turn to be surprised. But, of course, Onderburg wouldn’t be the first person to assume that Alex is an entitled nepo baby before they had a single conversation. “No, not really. I mean, I didn’t live in the White House until I was 18, and it was only for four years, really. Before that, we were working middle-class in Texas. I mean sure, by comparison meals at the White House are nice, but it’s nothing crazy for, like, family dinner.” He points down at the plate, with meticulously crusted venison, thinly sliced and rolled kohlrabi, and a tiny tower of other foods he can’t distinguish. “This is nuts.”

Onderburg clearly relaxes at that, nodding and smiling slightly. “I see. I also grew up middle-class.”

“Oh, really?” Alex asks.

“Yes. In Kiruna.”

“That’s your capital city now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Onderburg nods. “But it was much smaller when I was a boy, only about twenty thousand. The city now holds nine million.”

Alex’s eyebrows shoot up as he does some quick math, which tells him that the one city must hold about three-quarters of the country’s entire population. “Wow. That’s-”

Onderburg nods. “Almost the size of New York City.”

Alex shakes his head, bewildered. “If you don’t mind me asking, why is it so condensed?” It’s something the US State Department has been trying to parse out for years, trying to understand why so much of the population is crowded into one city. Alex, personally, doesn’t think it’s for nefarious reasons, but give the US any reason to get into other people’s sh*t, and they will.

But if Onderburg knows that the State Department is curious for not-so-innocent reasons, it doesn’t stop him from answering: “We’re a small country. It’s easier to keep tabs on everyone if there’s one city rather than suburbs spanning our entire territory. And it’s cold, obviously, so the city infrastructure supports living in the environment better than rural communities.”

“Huh.” It makes perfect sense, actually. The State Department had theorized that it was just easier to hide illegal stuff if the satellite images can’t pick it up through the layers of the city, but Alex was never very inclined to believe that, especially now, having heard Onderburg’s side of the story.

Sarah Sattler, the old Deputy Secretary of State, had been saying the same thing for years, but nobody had believed her, to the extent that it had gotten her “resigned from office” by the time Pinkley’s term in the White House had ended. Alex makes a mental note to give her a call when he returns to the States.

“Is it very different from New York? I know you’ve been there, what with your speech at the UN,” Alex prods. Besides sleuthing around, he’s really just curious. He’s obviously never been to Baltonia - relations have always been tense, and there’s that pesky little issue of Ny Frihet… Having an American share the same soil as the base of the most prominent anti-American terrorist group in Europe sounds like a recipe for disaster, even if the US is the only country that’s designated it as a terrorist group.

“Oh, yes,” Onderburg nods fervently, pushing his food around on his plate. “Many aspects of Kiruna are inspired by the native Sámi people, so the architecture is very different. And Kiruna runs purely on net zero energy, so I find it smells better.”

Alex laughs at that. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

“But even outside the city,” Onderburg continues, his eyes sparkling again, and Alex is momentarily inspired by just how much this man seems to love his country as he starts wildly gesturing with his hands, “the sights are beautiful. There are footpaths all around, and if you can climb the mountains just after it snows, all you can see is glittering white, all the trees and hills and lakes.” He spares a glance towards Alex and seems to carefully word his next sentence: “You would be welcome to visit, one day.”

Alex blinks as he takes the sentence in, in all its oddity. Americans aren’t allowed into Baltonia, there’s not even an embassy. But here Onderburg is, the President of Baltonia… offering Alex a visit. Suspicious… but is it?. “Really?” he asks, interested, before he can stop himself, and winces internally. “I mean- sorry-”

Onderburg just smirks. “Really.” He sees Alex squirm in his seat, and waves him along with his fork. “Come on, spit it out.”

Alex shifts in his seat. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it, but…I thought you don’t like American politicians,” he blurts out.

Onderburg shrugs. “I don’t.”

Alex blows a raspberry. “Then I’ve got bad news for you, buddy,” he says, then immediately cringes. I just called the president of a foreign country with whom mine has had very poor relations for literal years buddy. “Sorry- sir.”

But Onderburg is already laughing, leaning forward onto the table and eyes squeezed shut, shoulders trembling. He has to set his fork down with a slight clatter to pass a hand over his face. Smiling bemusedly, he looks back at Alex, who’s definitely squirming and flushed at the face. “That’s why.” He sighs to himself, suddenly turning somber. “I hate to bring up politics at a time like this, but you must know by now that the traditional channels are not effective. Forgive me.”

“Of course,” Alex nods along, recognizing the face of a man who needs to get something off his chest.

“I am…” Onderburg pauses and places his hand flat on the table. “I am interested in healing the relationship between our two countries.” He looks up at Alex to catch him making a dubious face. “You doubt that?”

“Well,” Alex idly scratches his head. “It might be the media blowing things out of proportion. But everyone in the States is under the impression that you’ve refused to appoint an ambassador, or set up an embassy.”

Onderburg’s brow lowers. “And where is your ambassador? Where is your embassy?” He looks angry for a moment before it passes. “When we gained preliminary independence four years ago, I had high hopes for what we could do with the US. But Pinkley was an obstinate fool.”

“He was concerned about Ny Frihet-” Alex starts, momentarily dumbfounded that he’s defending Pinkley right now, but Onderburg interrupts him.

“Ny Frihet will always be a concern. And I’m not saying that making a stand on the issue in general was a poor choice, but the fact that he resorted to underhand tactics to undermine our dignity and autonomy as a fledgling country will always be a sore spot.” Onderburg inhales heavily, then hangs his head. “I apologize for interrupting. But Pinkley’s actions were inexcusable.”

Alex just watches him, at a loss for words. He’s getting whiplash, honestly, with how quickly Onderburg has completely flipped his point of view around. Because of course, why shouldn’t the US bear part of the responsibility?

“And Treacher,” Onderburg continues, leaning in close as if it will get the message through to Alex more effectively. “I had similarly high hopes for Treacher when he expressed a desire to bridge the gap between us. But in the year since he has taken office, there has been no such increase in effort from his administration. You must feel this frustration, no?”

Alex nods along. “I mean, yeah. Treacher made a lot of promises during his campaign, and a lot of it sounded great, because he was a breath of fresh air compared to Pinkley. But ever since he’s taken office… I mean, it’s one thing to fail to meet an expectation, right? But it’s something else to just not even try. We’re operating on the baseline right now, and it feels like Treacher has no desire to excel, or even do what’s beyond the bare minimum.”

“Precisely,” Onderburg’s hand balls into a fist. “I admit, I have not lost hope that this relationship is mendable. Ny Frihet is the unfortunate roadblock, but there must be a way to step around it. It simply requires a conversation.” He picks up his glass and toasts Alex slightly before sipping lightly. “Not unlike this one.”

Alex frowns as he watches the stewards clear his plate. “What’s your plan, then?”

“You, if you wish,” Onderburg says shortly. “You must know by now the great deal of influence you have on your own country, and in your politics. I’ve been following your career, and I know the people to look out for when I see them.”

“You’ve been following my career?” Alex raises an eyebrow.

“Of course,” Onderburg nods. “And besides the point that you are significant in American politics, you also are a… a person of interest in Baltonia.”

Alex doesn’t have to ask, even if Onderburg can’t share. Everyone knows by now what happened: Alex poked around in US Attorney General Dan Davis’ private sh*t, and found out he was using his power to cover up for tech CEO Travis Silson, who’d sent a sum of about $50 million off into the ether, probably to Ny Frihet, headquarters right in the heart of Kiruna, Baltonia. And Alex, of course, had snitched, then been overly optimistic about the whole thing and made the stupid assumption that nobody would ever find out who exactly had done the snitching. But alas, what does David Pinkley do with information on his hands, pissed at Alex for backing Raf instead of him in the election last year? Blackmail, of course.

Thing is, Amy had told him to look behind his shoulder every so often once they’d gotten an inkling that Pinkley was going to leak the fact that Alex was the whistleblower. Because, the problem is the fact that Ny Frihet, having gained $50 million from Silson and protected by Davis, practically worship them as the pinnacle of anti-Americanism, and really don’t like Alex for being the one to get Davis sentenced to life in prison and Travis Silson permanent fugitive status by the UN.

And then Pinkley blew the whole thing out of the water, and told everyone what Alex had done. Sure, he had violated the Whistleblower Protection Acts, and so Alex had quietly pressed charges when Pinkley lost reelection, but all it did was effectively give Pinkley a slap on the wrist.

So, yeah, that’s a fun thing to think about. He’s on a terrorist group’s sh*t list.

“My point is,” Onderburg continues once he sees that Alex has gotten the subtext, then pauses as he tries to reconfigure. “When you go back to your peers in Washington, what will you tell them? Will you tell them that I was… intransigent?”

“No,” Alex shakes his head. “Of course not.”

“Will you tell them I was violent? Or hateful? Or rude, bullish, or otherwise unpleasant to be around?”

Alex huffs a laugh. “No.”

Onderburg nods in thanks. “Reconciliation requires one step forward from both of us. President Treacher has refused to do so, but I am ready to, with whomever wishes to reciprocate.”

“And you think…” Alex sits back slightly in his chair and watches Onderburg’s eyes follow him. “You think that’s me?”

“It could be,” Onderburg says.

Alex looks down at his plate without really seeing it. The clatter and chatter of the large ballroom fades from his mind as he makes a mental list:

1. Onderburg wants him to be the point-man in the American-Baltonian reconciliation
2. Onderburg’s a cool dude, actually
3. Baltonia sounds cool, too, besides the terrorist group that hates his guts

“How?” Alex asks before he can stop himself. “What is it I can do?”

Onderburg’s eyes flash with some kind of certain victory. “Let’s start with embassies. If you can convince President Treacher to begin plans to build an embassy, I can guarantee that the same thing will happen on my side.”

Alex nods. “I can do that, but I’d have to convince Congress to allocate funds for it, too.”

“Then it’s a good thing I trust your persuasive talents,” Onderburg says, shrugging, and Alex snorts. “And, before they ask, no, I don’t know where Travis Silson is, and they can stop asking. It’s highly likely he’s hiding somewhere out in the tundra, but my intelligence agency is not as advanced as yours.”

Alex laughs out loud. “No guarantees they’ll believe that. But I’ll see what I can do. Most of us are tired of no progress, and I’m sure half of Congress would jump at the chance to make it look like they’re actually doing something. Honestly, the hardest part might be trying to get in to see Treacher.”

“Well,” Onderburg says, turning in his seat ever so slightly and looking over his shoulder. Alex copies him and sees a photographer winding around the rows of seats. Alex is willing to bet they’d caught at least one picture of him and Onderburg conversing. “We are at a highly photographed event.”

They drop the politics talk as dessert comes out, and Alex is gushing about the beaches in Mexico, in which Onderburg is very interested, apparently having never been that far south.

“The only ocean we share a border with is the Gulf of Bothnia, by the town of Lulea,” Onderburg is saying, “but it’s rarely warm enough to swim in, except in July.”

Alex shudders mockingly, and Onderburg laughs loudly. “Nope,” Alex says. “Put me where it’s warm. I don’t do year-long winters.”

“Ah, but then you miss out on the northern lights,” Onderburg says, smiling widely. “They only come in the winter months.”

Alex nods his concession. “True. That would be cool to see.”

Onderburg nods excitedly. “I’ve never missed them.”

“I’ve seen them,” Henry says from behind Alex, startling him. Onderburg prompts him along with an interested nod. “When I was young, my dad took me up to the Scottish Highlands, but they weren’t very strong. Just a green light over the horizon.”

“In Kiruna, they take over the entire sky. Bright green and yellow all over, but if you are lucky, you see the red and blue lights,” Onderburg says, waving his hands around like that’s a good way to imitate the lights. “An advisor tried to explain the science to me once, but I didn’t understand any of it.” Alex laughs and Onderburg looks very pleased with himself. “But I always say that if I die a slow death, let it be beneath the lights.”

Henry shoots Alex a raised eyebrow as Onderburg pokes at the strange jelly-ish dessert in front of him, silently teasing Alex for getting so worked up about meeting him. Alex just grins sheepishly.

“Okay, fine,” Alex grumbles as he folds his glasses and puts them on the nightstand later that night. “You were right.”

“Oh, did you overthink it?” Henry teases him. “I seem to remember you telling me that some things aren’t worth overthinking.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Alex, scowling in the bed.

“I feel like it was warranted,” Alex pouts. “I mean, you overthinking where you’re gonna put a f*cking vase is one thing, but- oof.” He’s cut off by a pillow smacking him across the face.

“That was a very expensive vase from the Prime Minister’s wife,” Henry points a finger in Alex’s face, and he smacks it away with a grin. “It was a decorative vase, not that trashy one Nora got us-”

“Oh, so Tammy’s vase is worth more thought than international relations and foreign policy that will shape our interactions with northern Europe for the next couple decades. Got it,” Alex says through laughter as Henry clicks his tongue and turns heel into the en suite. “I wonder how much that vase is worth,” he muses, loud enough that Henry can hear and yells back with a ‘don’t you dare!’ that makes Alex laugh harder.

Onderburg had been right, that was for sure. By the time Alex and Henry land back in the US the next evening, there’s a picture plastered all over the internet of Alex and Onderburg, sitting at the table, conversing closely. In the picture, Onderburg looks like he’s explaining something and Alex is listening attentively, like they’re plotting something.

Well, Alex thinks as he watches his phone buzz with a call from Zahra, that thought wouldn't necessarily be incorrect.

“What’s up?” he says, answering the call.

“If I ever have a heart attack, I want you to know in advance that it'll be your fault,” is how she greets him.

“Good to know,” he says, kicking his suitcase so it slides across the carpeted floor and nearly crashes into the Christmas tree. “What did I do this time?”

“The President wants to see you at the White House sometime tomorrow morning,” she says. “I bet it has something to do with that picture of you and Onderburg at the banquet.”

“Can’t wait,” Alex says, resisting the urge to pump his fist. Getting Treacher’s attention had been way easier than he thought. And so far nobody on the internet’s calling him a terrorist sympathizer for even talking to Onderburg. It’s a win-win situation. Kind of.

It’s cold and rainy as his car pulls up to the white canopied entrance to the west wing of the White House, the EEOB looming on his other side. The few steps it takes to dash under the canopy make him sure his hair is all messed up by now, with how the sheets of rain are coming down like there’s no tomorrow.

Fighting his annoyance at the wet spot on his sock, he brushes his feet against the carpet on the outside of the door to dry them off, then raises his chin and marches in. A beaming (and annoyingly dry) secretary is waiting for him as he enters. “Good morning,” she says. Her teeth are unnaturally white. “The President would like to see you in the Oval Office.”

“Great, thanks,” Alex mutters in annoyance as his wet shoe slides on the smooth floor, slinging his nice coat over one arm.

“Do you need someone to show you the way?” She hasn’t stopped smiling. Alex wonders if she’s a robot.

“Nope,” Alex says, shooting her an equally robotic smile as he slips and slides his way through the halls. Catching a glimpse inside the Cabinet Room as he passes, where a solitary bald man is peering down at a sheaf of papers, he successfully finds his way into the executive secretary’s office.

The secretary, a middle-aged woman with a short graying bob cut, spies him as he enters. “Good morning,” she says, without smiling at all, standing up and stepping over to the gleaming wooden door on the opposite wall, the one that leads to the Oval Office. Alex just stands there awkwardly as she poked her head in. “Mr. President,” she says, her voice muffled. “Congressman Claremont-Diaz is here.”

“Send him in,” Treacher says from the depths of the office. “And let Ivanson know.”

“Yes, sir.” The secretary pulls her head from the room and opens it wider so Alex can enter.

“Give me one moment,” Treacher mutters as Alex enters, scribbling furiously on a notepad.

Alex pushes the door behind him so it’s half-cracked, assuming this Ivanson person will be joining them shortly, and taking a moment to survey the room.

Where Pinkley had decorated the Oval with garish yellow curtains and a deep blue carpet, probably meant to evoke Clinton’s days, and where Ellen had muted the carpet to a soft cream and kept Obama’s red curtains, Treacher had decorated the Oval with pale blues and clean whites. Wondering if it was meant to evoke George H. W. Bush’s days in the office, Alex shifts his coat in his arms and hopes he’s not tracking rainwater on the rug.

The door creaks open behind him again and the bald man who had been sitting in the Cabinet Room strides through, and after giving Alex a once-over, extends his hand. “Kaleb Ivanson. Director of the CIA.”

Oh sh*t. Alex smothers the sudden surge of dread he feels as he pulls up his politician smile and shakes Ivanson’s hand.

Treacher, over on the other side of the room, huffs and drops his pen on the desk, then pushes the large leather chair back and stands up, striding across the carpet and shaking Alex’s hand quickly, like it’s nothing more than a formality at this point (which, honestly, it kind of is). “Good morning, gentleman.” He gestures to the bright white sofa with intricate embroidery, and they all sit, Alex slinging his coat across a spare chair as he does. The couch is actually horrifically uncomfortable, and it’s much too stiff for Alex as he takes the seat across from Ivanson and Treacher takes one of the armchairs.

“So, Congressman,” Ivanson says, leaning forward as Treacher gestures for him to start. “As you probably know at this point, the issue that the President and I are trying to make a priority right now is relations with Baltonia.”

Alex resists the urge to raise an eyebrow. If it was really a priority for Treacher’s administration, Alex is willing to bet they would have made more progress by now. And if it was really a priority, Treacher wouldn’t have his fingers in another half-dozen conflicts across the globe.

“And as such,” Ivanson continues, “we are looking at our options, but our main struggle is cooperation from Onderburg and his government.”

Ivanson then starts yapping on and on about all their potential ways to be buddies with Baltonia, talking about trade routes and the UN, and arms agreements and so on and so forth, and Alex really wants to interrupt to tell him that Onderburg was very willing to cooperate, actually, but he can’t seem to get a word in otherwise.

Treacher clears his throat loudly, and Ivanson immediately shuts his mouth. “What the director is trying to say,” he says, his voice low and tired-sounding, “is that it’s in our best interests to figure out this cooperation sooner rather than later. Ny Frihet is, at this point, built into the foundations of Baltonia, and we’d like to solidify our relationship with their government the best we can in the off chance we might have an advantage over any terrorist action over there.”

Something slots into place in Alex’s brain as he understands part of Onderburg’s frustration: Treacher wants to micromanage Baltonia, but that’s not going to fly. Certainly not on Alex’s watch. Both Treacher and Ivanson are probably hoping that Alex has gained some juicy detail from his conversation with Onderburg that might help them gain a foothold in the Baltonian network. Well, Alex has no juicy details. Just a stupid idea.

“Well, I don’t know what kind of advantages you’re thinking of,” Alex says slowly, hoping the ‘not on my watch’ message sinks in, and words his next sentence very carefully, “but when Onderburg and I spoke the other day, he expressed that his ideal cooperation with you and your administration would begin with building an embassy.”

Treacher leans back to sit against the back of his armchair more fully. “An embassy? Onderburg said that?”

“Yes,” Alex nods. “And he said that if you begin plans on building one here, he would as well, in Kiruna.”

“What else did he say?” Ivanson prods, eyebrows furrowed. “Anything about Ny Frihet? Or Travis Silson?”

“Not about Ny Frihet, but he said that Silson is most likely somewhere in the tundras, and that his intelligence agency is having a hard time pinning him down.”

Ivanson shoots Treacher a glance. “Well, at least he’s trying.”

Treacher hums, crossing his arms and surveying Alex, looking through him like some anthropomorphic crystal ball. “I will speak to Onderburg myself,” he muses, mostly to himself. “Begin bilateral agreements, if possible.” He stands up, and Alex and Ivanson do the same. “Thank you, gentlemen.”

“I’d be careful, if I were you,” Ivanson mutters to Alex as soon as they leave the office. “You never know which Baltonians you meet are Ny Frihet agents. Onderburg might not be, but, you know… I wouldn’t get too comfortable with them.”

Alex raises an eyebrow in his direction. “You talk like that, and yet you wonder why it’s taken so long to build an embassy?” Ivanson clearly doesn’t like that, but Alex shrugs it off as he dons his coat again.

“It’s not as simple as that.” Ivanson snaps as Alex turns to leave the way he came.

Alex shakes his head as he quickly shoots a text to his driver that he’s coming out, then turns to look Ivanson squarely in the face. “I know I look like some optimistic kid to you, but it took me five minutes of conversation with Onderburg to do what two presidents couldn’t do in five years. All I’m saying is that, you know, it might actually be that simple.” He spies his driver pulling up, and nodding shortly to Ivanson, steps back out into the rain.

December 20, 2037

Washington Post - Adrianna Lee

Plans develop to build a Baltonian embassy in DC

In a press conference at the White House yesterday, President Treacher announced that the US would begin building a Baltonian embassy in DC, and said that plans to build a US embassy in Kiruna, the capital city of Baltonia, are underway as well. This announcement comes a week after the Nobel Laureate’s banquet in Stockholm, where Baltonian President Erik Onderburg was photographed conversing with Representative Alex Claremont-Diaz (D-TX-37). While the contents of that conversation were not made public, one can assume that it may have had something to do with the plans to build two respective embassies.

While an ambassador has not been named as of yet, Rachel Jadis, a career diplomat, has been appointed as chargé d’affaires (the ad interim ambassador - a temporary position) to head up the project until full diplomatic status is reached.

While there was clear concern as to how the public would react to news of US and Baltonian involvement, the response has been mostly positive. 56% of survey respondents said that they agreed with an increase in Baltonian diplomacy, and an additional 23% said that, while they don’t feel negatively towards Baltonia or Onderburg, they don’t necessarily care about the development.

Individual respondents who responded negatively to the development expressed a dislike of Ny Frihet rather than a dislike of Onderburg, even though US-based intelligence says that Onderburg has no ties to the terrorist group. [read more here]

December 21, 2037

New York Times Opinion - Angel Tropenley

Pinkley insists: ‘He’s not who he says he is’

In light of recent developments in the relationship between the US and Baltonia (re: the new plans for the embassy, to finish construction early 2039), many are wondering just who exactly Baltonia President Erik Onderburg really is, and how he seemed to get so buddy-buddy with Texas Rep. Alex Claremont-Diaz at the Nobel Laureate’s banquet last week, where Henry Fox and Onderburg were guests of honor. In a picture taken and released by the Nobel Committee, ACD and Onderburg appear to be in deep discussion, and one can only assume that it contained relevant information having to do with the embassy, which was announced by the White House only a few days later.

However, former president Pinkley has made his opinion on US-Baltonia relations well-known, and NYT received input from an anonymous source that Pinkley is ‘not happy’ with the development of the embassy and that Erik Onderburg is ‘not who he says he is’.

Pinkley, who was a staunch opponent of Onderburg’s during his time in office, attempted to prevent Baltonian independence during his administration’s first year. However, one might continue to question his motives – last year, he exposed ACD as the one who had disclosed sensitive information about former US Attorney General Dan Davis out of revenge for, as far as we can tell, not endorsing him in the US presidential elections. ACD has not publicly addressed this revelation, but has taken moves to quietly press charges against Pinkley for violating the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, which would most likely result in a fine with the minimum of $500.

However, public opinion of ACD has not changed - in fact, NYT ran a survey and determined that most people saw his actions taken against Dan Davis and refusal to endorse Pinkley as a positive. Furthermore, many don’t believe that Onderburg is as much of a threat as Pinkley believes him to be, regardless of the presence of Ny Frihet, the biggest anti-American terrorist group in Europe, based in Kiruna, the capital of Baltonia.

Maya, aged 29 from SoHo, says what we’ve all been thinking: “Saying Onderburg hates America because of Ny Frihet is like saying that Obama was racist because the KKK still existed during his presidency. Make it make sense. I just think Pinkley didn’t like losing, you know? He was pissed that ACD didn’t back him, so he outs him thinking it’ll make everyone hate him because he didn’t hold up his end of the deal, but like, how is that an equal trade? Like, ‘oh, yeah, I’ll do my sworn civic duty, the bare f*cking minimum and arrest this piece of sh*t guy that I appointed, but be an asshole to you because you didn’t hold my hand through the election and then got mad at me for calling you a d*ck-sucking Mexican’. Like, what? Pinkley’s just a whiny little b*tch, you know? Anyways, ACD for President 2040. I’d vote for him, 100%.”

Part I: November 2038 - March 2039

The Texas warmth floats across Alex’s face as the sun rises. He inhales deeply as the porch swing sways beneath him, pushed only by the movements of his own body. Wrapping the soft blanket tighter around himself, he hears the beginnings of rustlings in the kitchen and wonders if it’s Ellen, making the first preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, or Henry, woken by the early morning and making his first cup of tea.

The wind rustles the leaves of a nearby tree, and he can hear a mourning dove off somewhere in the distance. He inhales deeply, feeling the tension ebb away as he exhales. Oscar should be on his way over soon, and Alex is determined to not let his parents’ inevitable bickering get to him this year.

The door to the porch creaks open. Alex barely has to look, identifying Henry only by the shuffle of his footsteps, before he feels a warm mug pressed into his hands and a kiss dropped on his cheek. Alex wordlessly splays out an arm to allow Henry under the blanket as the smells of Earl Gray and coffee hit his nose. They sit in companionable silence, Henry’s hand tracing absentminded shapes on Alex’s knee. The mourning dove quiets for a moment, then starts up her call again.

“Do you ever think about having another kid?” Alex blurts out, disturbing the rustling silence.

If the random thought surprises Henry, he doesn’t let it show. Alex only hears him inhale and sip his tea. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

“Not that I think there’s anything wrong with only having one kid,” Alex justifies quickly.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with that,” Henry says, and Alex can hear him smiling.

The silence stretches on for another few minutes, as if the question Alex had just asked wasn’t huge and momentous.

“For what it’s worth,” Henry says as they watch a lone runner, separate from the Turkey Trotters, jog along the quiet road about a kilometer away. “I think you’d be great with a boy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Henry says, soft enough that Alex isn’t sure he heard him. Looking over, Henry’s eyes have misted over, lost in thought. “When we were young, you know? Before we ever thought of Ellie… When I imagined us having kids, I imagined you with a boy.”

Alex is quiet (a rare occurrence) as he processes that. He lets himself imagine it, too, and he can’t help but fall in love with the idea. Coincidentally, he’d always imagined Henry with a little girl, and he also can’t even perceive the idea of not having Ellie, as he can hear her chatting away with Leo and June and her cousins in the kitchen as the sun rises even further.

Henry’s fingers still on his knee as Oscar’s car pulls up in the expansive driveway and he honks twice. Ellie and her cousins all spill out the door in their rush to be the first to jump on him, then they all swerve as Raf steps out of the car, unable to decide who they’ll tackle first.

There’s a jumbled mix of English and Spanish as the kids all grab something from the trunk of Oscar’s car and carry it up to the house, and Raf is nodding along, wondering aloud why he never had kids to do his chores for him.

“Hola, mijos,” Oscar grins at them as his feet land on the wood of the porch, placing his hands on his hips and nodding down at them like a proud surveyor. “Happy f*cking Thanksgiving.”

“Dad,” June scolds from inside the house. She hates it when people swear in front of her kids, which Alex finds hilarious to no end.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, waving an aged hand in her direction as he shuffles into the house.

Raf shakes his head in Oscar’s direction as he, too, steps onto the porch. “He was playing Christmas songs in the car,” he grumbles, like it’s a crime against humanity.

“Oh, that’s a punishable offense now, is it?” Alex grins at him.

“Yep.”

“My mum’s been listening to Christmas music for weeks now, why don’t you tell her that?” Henry says, sipping his tea and raising a singular eyebrow in Raf’s direction.

“Maybe I f*cking will,” Raf raises a finger and follows Oscar at a march. “It’s a crime. Diplomatic immunity, my ass.”

“We gotta get him married off,” Alex snorts. “He’s turning into an old, crotchety, sad little man.”

“I f*cking heard that!” Raf yells from inside.

“Seriously?” June protests. “Do boundaries mean nothing to you people?”

“f*ck, no!” Alex yells inside, and the only part of June he can see is her raised middle finger.

Henry chuckles as Alex grins. The silence has been permanently disturbed at this point, with the screaming of children and June yelling across the house in rapid-fire Spanish and Ellen’s doing something with pots and pans that is making way more noise than socially acceptable. The moment doesn’t really feel ruined though, as Alex presses his lips to Henry’s, letting it sink into him and engulf him in sunny warmth.

Henry hums as they part, but only by a couple inches. “Is… I don’t know- did we decide anything, or are we still considering? Another kid?”

The entire conversation feels like it goes unspoken, a gradual shift of feelings and thoughts between them, contact made only in the scope of their eyes. The wordless thing exists between them right now, and Alex wants to cradle it and nurture it and plant it in a garden where he can kneel next to it every day and watch it grow. He doesn’t know what it will grow into, but he’s hard pressed to imagine anything coming from it that isn’t beautiful.

“Yeah,” he says, nearly a whisper. “Yeah. I want that.”

Henry’s eyes light up. “Yeah?”

Alex grins and nods. “Yeah.” There may or may not be some wetness between their cheeks as Alex leans in again, using his free hand to cradle Henry’s face. He feels light and airy and untouchable as Henry presses their foreheads together, and the background static of his brain fades away.

Alex presses his head onto Henry’s shoulder, feeling Henry’s fingers carding through his hair as he finishes his coffee, completely and utterly at peace despite the racket coming from inside the house.

“We should go inside and save your mother,” Henry says after another few minutes of companionable silence.

“Eh, she was the president, I think she can manage,” Alex says, but he must have spoken too soon because there’s the sound of breaking glass and a scream from one of the younger kids. “That’s on me,” he groans, sitting back up and snatching Henry’s empty mug away. “My bad. I jinxed it.”

Henry tuts at him as he stands up. “If only the laws of luck were kind.”

“Never gonna happen,” Alex shakes his head and lands one more kiss on Henry’s lips before turning inside.

Holidays always make Alex anxious, but maybe he manifested something in his little meditation, or he’s still riding the high from this morning, because by some miraculous act of mercy from a benevolent higher power, everything goes smoothly. Nobody dies or cuts off a finger on accident, and during dinner, Oscar and Ellen have found it within themselves to not argue over the table for literally the first time in Alex’s life. He wonders if it’s for the sake of their grandkids, who are all sitting together at the end of the table and may or may not be feeding mashed potatoes to the half-dozen dogs that have taken up residence in Ellen’s house for the next few days.

But asking his parents to get along for the entirety of the day is apparently too much to ask for. The sun has set by the time Alex starts rinsing off the dessert platters to put them in the dishwasher, being extra careful with the china set that’s probably worth more than both of his degrees combined. Raf and Henry are chatting about some new book they’d both read, sorting the leftovers and breaking the conversation to bicker over who’s going to take the last of Oscar’s tres leches. June and Leo are watching a movie on the couch, but Alex suspects they’ve both fallen into food comas, and the kids are downstairs playing Uno. No sign of Oscar and Ellen, though…

Putting it out of his mind, Alex seizes one of the clean forks and snatches a heaping pile of the tres leches as Raf tries to surreptitiously slide the half-empty tupperware across to his claimed pile of leftovers. Raf scowls and snaps the lid on top, and Alex shoots him a cheeky grin. “You’re a menace.”

“Th’nks,” Alex mumbles through bulging cheeks. He turns back to the sink and twists on the faucet, rinsing the fork off before bending over to put it in the dishwasher. He gets back to work, cringing at the odd textures of wet food waste as he rinses dishes off, and spares a glance out the window above the sink, looking straight out onto the driveway. Which was probably a bad idea.

Through the dark blue twilight, and lit only by the lamp on the porch, Alex can see Ellen and Oscar standing out on the driveway. They look like they’re arguing. Alex shuts off the sink, wondering if he can hear them from the house.

“What’s wrong?” Henry says, but Alex hushes him. He still can’t hear them very well, their raised voices muffled through the glass. Raf just sighs heavily from the other counter, shaking his head.

“I bet they’re talking about me,” Alex grumbles.

Henry snorts. “Egotistical much?”

“No, I’m serious!” Alex protests, his eyes never leaving his parent’s argument. There’s a momentary increase in the volume, when Ellen yells something, throwing her hands in the air, and Oscar tips his head back and groans to the heavens. “I mean, come on, you’ve seen them argue about the most random sh*t without bothering to leave the room. But they’ve excused themselves, so they don’t want someone to hear it. And there aren’t many things they’re self-aware enough to do that for.” He turns back to Henry and shrugs sarcastically. “Just saying. They could totally be talking about me and I wouldn't be surprised.”

“Oh, come on,” Henry says, bending over to close the dishwasher. “That’s highly presumptuous of you.”

“Mmm,” Alex shakes his head. “I will literally bet you money they’re talking about me.”

Henry laughs. “I’d be careful, making bets is how you ended up wearing a bedazzled Stetson to work.”

Alex raises an eyebrow in Raf’s direction, who’s been awkwardly silent since the conversation started. “C’mon, man, I’m not delusional, am I?”

“I mean, sometimes you’re delusional,” Raf starts, but quickly sobers. “But… I mean, I did hear the beginning of the conversation-”

“Hah!” Alex raises a finger in Henry’s face. “I was right. Eat it.”

“He didn’t say that-” Henry protests.

“Yes he did,” Alex insists, then turns back to Raf. “What were they saying?” Raf pinches his lips together between his teeth and narrows his eyes. Alex can tell Raf’s trying to decide if telling him is a good idea. He’s not having it. “If you don’t tell me right now, you will never know peace.”

“Jesus Christ,” Raf rolls his eyes, then levels Alex with a meaningful glare. “Okay, man, but this is serious. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Alex and Henry exchange a worried glance. “Okay…” Alex says slowly. “What the f*ck is going on?”

Raf shoots a glance out the window, where Oscar and Ellen are still going at it. “Okay, well, they were talking about Treacher, right? And the next election.”

“That’s still two years away,” Alex raises an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah,” Raf shrugs. “But, you know, people are going to start announcing campaigns any day now, and with the amendment, you’ll have more independent candidates than usual. There’s lots of competition, is what they were saying.”

Alex shrugs. “Yeah, and? I don’t get how this has anything to do with me-”

“Jesus f*cking Christ Alex, shut the f*ck up.” Raf holds out a hand and Alex closes his mouth with a snap. “What Ellen was saying, basically, is that the Democrats are hoping to put up a big name this cycle, since they lost so badly last time. And, obviously, they want Treacher out. So, you know, Oscar was throwing names around and stuff as to who might go for it.”

Henry inhales sharply. Alex looks over, but Henry won’t meet his gaze. The corner of his mouth is pinching like it always does when he’s worried, and his fingers start absentmindedly fiddling with his wedding band. Alex’s stomach sinks for reasons he can’t quite parse out yet.

“Well, I’m assuming Pinkley will try again,” Alex says, frowning. “And maybe Handler or Ingrid, I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Raf continues. “That’s what Ellen was saying. But then, um,” Raf shoots a look at Henry that plainly says ‘please don’t make me say it’. “Well, Oscar suggested-”

“He didn’t say McKinney, did he?” Alex groans. “That f*cking panini-brain couldn’t run a campaign to save his life, who the f*ck thinks he’d be a good presidential candidate-”

“He means you, darling,” Henry interrupts him, looking over at Alex with big worried eyes.

“Wha-” Alex looks between them, bewildered. “What, me, run for president?” He barks out a laugh that sounds too cold to have come from him. “That’s dumb as f*ck.”

“Is it, though?” Raf mutters. Alex glares at him. “Okay, fine,” Raf says, raising his hands in defense. “Well, yeah, Oscar suggested that maybe you would run this cycle.”

“Hah,” Alex pushes out halfheartedly. “Yeah, uh, no.”

“Well, then Ellen got pissed for a second, and that’s when they stepped outside,” Raf finishes.

“I f*cking hope she got pissed,” Alex grumbles. “‘Cause that’s a stupid-ass idea and she knows it-”

“Well, no,” Raf interrupts again, shrugging and gesticulating like he’s not turning Alex’s world upside down. “That’s not why she was pissed. The case she was making was that you should wait to run until ‘44, and that you’re too inexperienced right now and you’d have a better chance after a couple more terms in Congress.” He sees Alex’s dumbfounded face and firmly shuts his mouth.

“She also thinks I should run?” Alex asks, and his voice is higher and more tremulous than he’d like. “I- what?!”

Henry’s eyes are big as he watches Alex splutter along, his mouth firmly shut. Raf looks like he’s wondering why he ever opened his. “Alex, you have to understand… for everyone else, this was much more of a ‘when’ kind of question, not really an ‘if’.

“It’s an ‘if’ for me,” Alex snaps. “Notice how nobody f*cking asked if I even wanted to run, you’re just all gathered around with your heads up each others’ asses, and I’m nowhere in the picture!” He’s seething by now, shaking fingers curled into balls by his sides. He storms across the room, wanting to either rage some more or just get out of the kitchen when the front door swings open and Oscar and Ellen walk through, still clearly fuming at each other, but no longer arguing.

Alex takes a moment to openly glare at both of them. Apparently, they think they’ve done a good job at hiding their argument, because they both stare blankly at Alex, but he just scoffs and wrenches open the door again, stomping through, and slamming it behind him.

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” he can hear Oscar asking Raf.

“C’mon, man, this isn’t really the kind of conversation you should be having behind his back,” Raf can be heard defending himself, muffled. “I don’t think he’s even really considered it…”

No f*cking sh*t, Alex thinks to himself as he sinks down on the porch swing, feeling childish all of a sudden. But the feeling fades, and so does a bit of the anger, and he’s suddenly filled with something not unlike dread, and he’s not entirely sure why just yet.

The door creaks open. Alex is half-expecting it to be Ellen, or even Henry, but it’s June instead. His raised voice must have woken her up. “Hey,” she mutters, sounding tired, and prods him until he scoots over on the swing to make room for her.

The swing gently sways back and forth as they watch the darkness creep in, their shadows eerily illuminated by the light of the house streaming in from the windows. Alex can see the shadow of a Secret Service agent stirring at the end of the driveway. Offhandedly, he wonders what it’s like to have to spend your Thanksgiving listening to the former President and her ex-husband bickering for an hour straight out in the cold damp of night.

“Talk to me?” June nudges his shoulder with her own. “You’re too quiet, it’s unnerving.”

He smiles slightly, despite himself, and shrugs. “It’s just- I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

Alex spreads his hands out. “Anything!” He tips his head back, landing it on the top of the backrest with a quiet thump. His brain, loud even on his best days with the hum of a nest of bees, is increased in volume so much that he feels like he’s going to burst, like the entirety of NYC traffic is jammed into the space between his ears and shunting off any possible formulation of cognizant thought.

“Okay,” June says slowly, nodding. “Start with the easy question first.”

Alex scoffs. “‘Do I want to run for president’ isn’t an easy question, Bug.”

June shakes her head. “Not that question, dummy. I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘why are you mad right now’?”

“I’m not mad-”

“Yes, you are.”

Alex huffs, annoyed, but does as she asks and does some introspective thinking. Why is he mad? “I’m mad because… well, I guess I just wished someone had asked me if I even wanted to run for president. But Mom and Dad kind of just skipped over that teensy little detail.”

“Maybe they thought you’d already considered it,” she shrugs.

“Yeah?” Alex scoffs again. “And decided that I wanted to with their powers of telepathy?”

“I don’t f*cking know, Alex,” June glares at him. “Should they have asked you? Yes. Yes, they should have. But in no world do I believe that you haven’t actually considered it.”

“I haven’t!” Alex throws his hands up. “No, don’t give me that look. I really haven’t considered it.”

June’s eyebrows go up. “Seriously? You, Alexander Gabriel, have not even thought about running for the presidency?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Well, thinking about it and considering it are two completely different things.”

June barks out a laugh. “Oh, really? Please, enlighten me.”

“Well, thinking about it is a pipe dream. It’s not a serious thing. Considering it is like, actually taking steps towards doing it.”

June levels him with a heavy gaze. “But you have thought about it.”

“Bug, every politician thinks about running for president,” Alex says, probably more harshly than he meant to. He sighs. “But, I mean, yeah, when I was getting through law school, and I was thinking about my long-term goals, I thought about Congress, I thought about a governorship- yeah, sue me, I thought about the presidency. But it’s one thing to have that as a far-off goal, and another thing completely to be faced with this as a decision that I have to make within the next six months.”

June’s quiet for another minute. “But, I mean, where else would you have gone? Like, everyone around you, even Henry, knows that you were always going to do big things. And I guess we’re all just a bit surprised that you’re so hesitant right now, now that it’s time to do the big things.”

Alex groans. “But the presidency? The highest position in the country, the job that makes you the most powerful person in the world? And I’m only forty-”

“What, you don’t think you’re ready?” June snorts. “Nobody’s ready for the presidency, Alex, anybody who says they are is delusional. But hey,” she shrugs. “This means you’re not delusional. And there are people who have run that have had way less experience than you. Remember that dingbat in 2016?”

“I don’t know,” Alex rubs his hands across his face. “Does two terms in the House really count as extensive experience?”

“Don’t forget five years in the Texas AG office, and one year in the DOJ,” June points out. “During which you got your own boss arrested for treason. Which was kind of a big deal. But also-” she raises a finger in his face as he opens his mouth to interrupt, “during your ‘measly’ two terms in Congress, you passed a Constitutional amendment that completely overhauled the presidential election system and single-handedly incorporated a multiparty structure into mainstream politics.”

Alex glares at her. “Not single-handedly, Bridgers was literally there the whole time.”

“Not the point. Seriously, though, you can only go up from here. Where else would you go? Like, where do you see yourself in ten years?”

Alex pauses for a minute. “Governor of Texas.”

“Then f*cking run for governor,” June shrugs. “I don’t know, Alex, it’s your choice.”

“But is it?” Alex protests. “Like, think about it. It’s not even about wanting to run for president or not, it’s about me deciding. Even if I’m not a nepo baby by definition, that’s what people see me as. Which is why it felt so important to me that I was the one to make this decision, and that Mom and Dad had nothing to do with it. But now I’m wondering, if I do decide to run, if it will really have been my decision.”

June raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re overthinking it.”

He pouts. “And what do you propose, oh mighty one?”

She shrugs. “Just tell Mom and Dad to f*ck off.”

“Never gonna happen,” Alex snorts. “They love to micromanage my career.”

“I know this is going to sound crazy to you,” June says, “but maybe you need to set some boundaries.”

Alex smiles despite himself. “Easier said than done.”

“It’s gotta happen at some point,” she says. “Especially if you do decide to run, they’re gonna have their grubby little fingers all over it if you don’t put your foot down now.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, staring down at his hands.

“But, you know,” June continues. “Think about it. Running. Consider it.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” he murmurs.

She watches him for another minute, like she’s trying to peel back the layers of his brain to expose Pandora's box. “You’re scared.”

He shrugs halfheartedly, which basically confirms it. She’s right, and he knows it. Underneath the simmering anger, there’s a deep pit in his stomach that he feels like he’s fallen into, spiraling in the darkness with no point of reference. “It’s like… do you remember that hill by the playground at the park we used to go to when we were kids?” If she thinks he’s being stupid, she doesn’t scoff or anything, for which he’s grateful. “The really steep one. If you ran down the hill, you were probably going to fall, so you had to do it carefully. Or you could just keep going along the top, and you’d get to the set of stairs on the other side. It’s like that.” It’s a stupid analogy and he knows it, but he continues regardless.

“Considering a campaign for the presidency is like going down the hill,” he explains. “You know me, I don’t really slow down for anything. But I need to, or I’m gonna fall and take a couple million people with me. But I don’t know if I can, so isn’t it almost safer to find the stairs on the other side?”

June nods along, processing for a second. “Sure, finding the stairs is safer, but safer isn’t always better.” She looks at him, and sighs. “Here’s the thing: you’re passionate, you’re motivated, and you care so much, almost to a fault. Your constituents f*cking love you, right? Now imagine how much you could do as President. There are so many people that would benefit from it. Yes, the stairs are safer for you, but what about everyone else?”

How do you do all the good you can do? Any time a politician does anything ever, there’s a near-100% guarantee that at least one person will get hurt as a result, intentional or otherwise. Does he owe it to people to run, knowing he would most likely ruin lives in the process? Or does he owe it to them to protect them by not running? Regardless of gain, there will always be a loss, so where does he step on the balance? Or is he giving himself too much credit in the larger scope of the cost-benefit analysis of the universe?

Yeah, he’s definitely overthinking it. But, come on… it’s the presidency. If there’s anything in the world to overthink, shouldn’t it be this?

June leaves him to his thoughts as he lapses into silence. As she opens the door to go back inside, telling him to have fun freezing his ass off, he sees Henry waiting in the doorway, as if waiting for permission to come out. Wordlessly, Alex raises an arm and Henry slides under it onto the swing. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Don’t,” Henry says, shaking his head. “This conversation was always going to happen eventually.”

Alex snorts. “Seems like everyone got that memo except for me.”

“Well, darling, you’re not exactly an introspective person by nature,” Henry says, smiling.

“Shut up,” Alex grumbles.

“Well, then,” Henry says, inhaling the cold air and shivering. “What’s the verdict?”

Alex purses his lips and gathers his scattered thoughts. “I haven’t decided anything. But…if I do choose to run in 2040, I have to decide in the next six months. But if not 2040, then I have literally the rest of my life. So I think I’m just… waiting for a sign.”

“Like what?”

Alex blows a raspberry. “Dunno.”

“And…” Henry’s voice sounds tense, and his fingers tangle together. “What about… what we said earlier?”

“I still want that,” Alex says quickly. “No matter what. And if people don’t like it, then f*ck them.” He watches as Henry’s face visibly relaxes, and he suddenly feels so f*cking guilty for ever making Henry doubt it.

Henry smiles a bit, snaking his arm around Alex’s shoulder. “Well, having another kid might be a bit logistically difficult if you do decide to run.”

“Ugh,” Alex groans. “Talk about literally anything other than logistics right now. In fact, let’s just remove the words ‘president’ and ‘campaign’ from our vocabularies until further notice.” He leans into Henry’s body, tucking himself under his arm. “Tell me about our baby boy.”

“Well,” Henry says, smiling wider. Alex watches the crinkles on his nose appear, and his heart feels like it’s going to burst. Absentmindedly, he wonders if feeling like this whenever he looks at Henry is ever supposed to end. He hopes not. That would be a dreary existence. “I was thinking we might adopt this time.”

Alex grins. “Yeah?”

“M’hm,” Henry nods.

“You were totally looking up the Texas adoption laws earlier, weren’t you?”

Henry laughs. “No, of course not. What makes you say that?”

“At least it’s legal,” Alex says. “SCOTUS is right once every so often. You know- mmph.”

Henry tilts Alex’s chin up with a finger and kisses him firmly. Alex feels his eyes flutter closes, chasing the softness of Henry’s lips as he pulls away. “That’s enough of that,” Henry murmurs, close enough that he can speak softly, his deep voice sinding tingles down Alex’s spine.

“Okay,” he says, equally soft, and leans in again.

It’s literally his first day back in the office after Thanksgiving. He opens the door to the little office complex, expecting to find his secretary Mandy working away at her desk. Well, he does find Mandy, but barely two seconds after he steps through the door, Zahra’s stalking out of her office with what looks like a giant brick in her hands. With a loud bang, she drops it on Mandy’s desk, who jumps five feet in the air. It’s a giant 6-inch binder, with a bright blue cover and absolutely jam-packed with papers and several dozen color-coded dividers.

“Jesus Christ,” Alex mutters as he tries to pick it up. It must be at least thirty pounds.

“I’ve had this sh*t for two years,” Zahra says, crossing her arms as she stands in front of the desk, and he wonders if he’s about to be lectured. Mandy leans back in her chair, probably wondering if she should call the police. Alex is of half a mind to let her.

He opens the binder and, spying the title page, groans quietly: Presidential Campaign Overview. “You talked to my parents,” he guesses, then quickly shuts it when he sees Mandy reading the title page upside down with widening eyes.

“You’re going to run for the presidency?” she squeaks out.

“Nobody’s saying that,” Alex says shortly.

“He’s supposed to be considering it,” Zahra corrects him with a glare. He returns the glare, but begrudgingly picks up the binder and stalks into his office. Zahra follows him.

“I have six months to decide,” he says quietly once she shuts the door behind him.

“Five,” she corrects him again, gentler this time. “You have until April to announce if you’re running in 2040. Which means we need another month to put an announcement together. So, March.”

He slumps into his chair. “What if, hypothetically, I decide I’m going to run eventually? Like, not in 2040?”

She points at the binder. “Page 63. Pros and cons of running in any of the next three cycles.”

“What the f*ck, Zahra?”

“2040 would be the best option, as of right now,” she continues, ignoring his outburst. “Regardless of what Ellen thinks, you have a lot of momentum right now, and you are accomplished and decently experienced. You wait too long, people will lose interest in you. Plus, running in this next election would show people that you have faith in the changes you made to the election system with the amendment. But the con is-”

“Treacher,” Alex interrupts. “Running against an incumbent isn’t exactly a recipe for success.”

She nods. “Right. And let’s be honest with ourselves, bud. You are impulsive. You are simply not capable of being patient, so a ‘not yet’ mentality isn’t really an option for you.”

He sighs heavily and fiddles with his wedding ring. “That’s the problem,” he mutters quietly. “What if I f*ck it up because I’m too impulsive with it all?”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for.” Zahra nudges the binder forward with her gigantic thermos of coffee, then spins on her heel to open the door again. “Read it. You get five months.”

“Great. No pressure.”

He gets started almost immediately because, well, he’s impulsive, and he wants to see what Zahra’s spent two years working on (seriously, you’d think she didn’t work for a Congressman and have three teenagers at home to look after). It’s got literally everything: roadmaps worked out that hit all the major stops on a campaign trail and then some that she’s somehow already predicted will be key areas. Preliminary policy drafts. She’s even got a few sponsors and superPACs that she knows he’s already vetted. She’s written contingency plans, hypothetical staff picks, and even the phone number for Ellie’s nanny in the likely scenarios when they can’t drag her across the country on the campaign trail for ten months straight.

He takes a pen to some of the pages, scribbling little notes in the margins of the policy drafts about gun laws, crossing out the name of a speechwriter he had a bad run-in with once, and jots down the name of a guy who might make a good Secretary of Commerce.

He has to stop himself from going through the whole thing, because he has a meeting. But as he shuts the binder, he can’t help but feel a little sick to his stomach. This had been exactly what he was afraid of… He can feel himself stumbling down the hill already. Pump the brakes.

Logically, he knows at this point that he’s already too far down the hill with this, even if he’s only just now admitting it to himself. He knows he’s too late to go find the stairs, because the idea of the presidency has wormed itself into his brain at this point. Maybe everyone had been right - he’s suddenly overwhelmed with it all, all the people he could help, all the lives he could make better if he were president.

But, if there’s one thing Alex knows he is as he sits through his meeting with his head up in outer space, it’s that he’s stubborn as sh*t. If he’d told June he’d be waiting for a sign, he’d wait for one. Because sure, God is patient, right? But maybe he’s just as stubborn as Alex is.

It all kind of comes to a head one day in early February. To put it shortly, Alex gets more than he asked for. One sign? Pfah. More like five in the span of a few hours.

Sign number one. Alex wakes up to his alarm at seven o’clock to find his phone chock-full of Google alerts for Pinkley: Former President David Pinkley announces a campaign for the 2040 election.

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” Alex mutters as he slips out from under the duvet and hunches over his phone on the edge of the bed. He can hear Henry shifting awake behind him.

“What’s wrong?” Henry mumbles, still half-asleep, but reaches over and splays a hand across Alex’s lower back.

“Pinkley’s running again,” Alex says, scrolling through story after story of the same message over and over again. “As if getting absolutely whooped in the last election wasn’t enough. I swear, he must be a masoch*st or so painfully self-unaware to think he could pull this off.” He curses loudly again and shoves the duvet aside and grumps over to the bathroom. His day is already ruined, he knows it.

He spares an absentminded glance at Zahra’s massive binder on his desk as he shoves random sh*t in his bag, then pulls it under his arm as he slumps down the stairs. He’s read the whole thing through once, but he’s mostly put it aside until now.

“You’ve got a thundercloud, Daddy,” Ellie points out as he puts his stuff down on the counter with more force than strictly necessary. Alex looks down at her, eating her scrambled eggs on her duck-themed plate (she’s eight years old now and loves reading her big-girl books, but God forbid you take away her duck-themed plate). Henry shoots him a knowing glance as Alex checks himself and tries to breathe his bad mood out (which sometimes works, but not as well right now) before pressing a kiss to the top of Ellie’s head.

“Sorry, baby,” Alex mutters as he accepts a cup of coffee from Henry, which is nearing on too hot as it broils the roof of his mouth.

The heavy weight of anxiety is roiling in his stomach by the time he’s in the car on the way to work as he imagines the horrific implications of another Pinkley term. Then comes sign number two.

Here’s the thing: It’s been over a year and some change since Alex met Onderburg at the Nobel banquet and crafted their little deal for the embassies. And so far, both sides have kept up the agreement.

As far as Alex can tell, the US embassy in Kiruna, Baltonia, is well under way, and nearly done with construction. Rachel Jadis, the temporary ambassador, has been doing fairly well, even if she’s a bit shrewder than who Alex would have picked for the job. He likes the Baltonian ambassador to the US though, a young woman with lots of spunk named Linnea. She gets on Treacher’s nerves, though.

The halfway-complete Baltonian embassy in DC is the object of Alex’s annoyance this fine morning. Since construction started last summer, Alex has taken to asking his drivers to detour by it every morning just so he can see how it’s going. He knows the construction schedule by heart at this point, what with his incessant weedling of Treacher’s Chief of Staff. Which is why he’s beyond confused when they pass the skeletal mass of beams, bricks, and tarp, and the site is… dead. There’s no movement, no rattling noises and beeping of trucks, no construction workers finding other ways to spend their time than laying brick after brick. That’s not right. He double checks his phone, where the construction schedule is saved. Yeah, no, the site should be active right now. So what the hell is going on?

His pissy attitude is exponentially increasing as he storms into his office and shoves his sh*t onto his desk. Zahra materializes within seconds. “Did you hear?”

“About Pinkley?” Alex shoots over his shoulder. “No, actually, I missed that and I’m in a bad mood for no f*cking reason.”

“M’kay,” she says, sauntering in. “Cut the attitude, dude.”

He sinks into his chair and accidentally pushes himself back from the desk too far. Sparks of red-hot annoyance fly through this chest as he curses under his breath, pulling himself back and waking up his desktop. He sighs heavily and looks up at her. “Sorry. Yes, I saw.”

He sees her spy the massive binder. He’s never brought it with him to work before this, but she doesn’t say anything. “What do you think? About Pinkley.”

He opens his email and scrolls through his unread list, looking for key words or people. “He’s still a strong contender among the Democrats if nobody else slightly more significant or reasonable pops up,” he says absentmindedly as he flips through a few emails that look promising, but not what he’s looking for. “They’ll nominate him again if it comes down to it, but the Democrats will want to put someone else up they think actually has a chance against Treacher, and that’s not Pinkley.”

Finally, he spots the email he was looking for, bcc’ed along with a group of people deemed of high enough importance to give frequent updates on the construction efforts of the two embassies. Looking closer, it’s a string of messages from the Baltonian ambassador Linnea Hurtig, asking the exact same question Alex is to Treacher’s Chief of Staff, Jason Arabaugh:

Dear Mr. Arabaugh,

I am writing mainly in question to discuss the apparent pause in the construction of the Baltonian embassy site at 3614 Massachusetts Ave.. I passed by this morning, as I always do, and noted that the site had no activity, despite being scheduled for work today at the normal times, according to the information shared with me by the construction manager. Upon contact with the manager, however, he advised me that the decision to halt the project until further notice came directly from your office, and as I am assuming, the President’s personal opinion on the issue.

Since no information nor input has been shared with me by any other member of your staff as is protocol, I thought it best to reach out to you directly so we may further cooperate on this project in the spirit of the relationship we seek to solidify with the construction of this embassy.

Please do not hesitate to schedule a meeting at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Linnea Hurtig

Ambassador of the Republic of Baltonia to the United States of America

|

Ms. Hurtig,

Thanks for the email. The decision to halt construction for today came from advice from Rachel Jadis that the embassy in Kiruna had halted construction this morning as well (the decision came in at about 11 o’clock last night local time). According to the contracts drawn up between our respective offices, construction is contingent upon equal and sufficient effort from both offices, and halting construction of the embassy here in DC was a decision made in reflection and respect of that agreement.

Best,

Jason Arabuagh

White House Chief of Staff

|

Mr. Arabaugh,

Upon reading your response, I contacted Mrs. Jadis myself, wherein she told me that the construction of the US embassy in Kiruna was halted due to an influx of winter weather and an unexpected five inches of snow last night. Please understand that while this does necessitate a temporary postponement of the construction efforts in Kiruna in order to protect the safety of the workers, it is by no means a result of a lack of effort from the Baltonian ministry. While I respect and understand your decision on the grounds of the contract between our two nations, I would urge you to reconsider and return the construction of the Baltonian embassy to its normal operating hours as soon as possible.

Linnea Hurtig

Ambassador of the Republic of Baltonia to the United States of America

|

Ms. Hurtig,

Again, thank you for your concern, but understand that there is little to be done in this situation. Work on the Baltonian embassy construction site will only resume once we receive the word that the same is occurring in Baltonia, as is stated clearly in the initial agreements.

Jason Arabaugh

White House Chief of Staff

“Alex? Are you even listening?” Zahra snaps her fingers in front of Alex’s face as he finishes skimming the emails.

“Uh, what?”

She rolls her eyes. “Christ. I was saying that Ingrid and Handler might announce soon, too.”

Right. The campaign. Pinkley. Alex shakes his head after a split second of consideration. Sure, while Tobias Ingrid and Josephine Handler could be reasonably prominent candidates in this election, since they did so well against Pinkley in the Democratic primaries back in 2036, he thinks it’s a hard pass and he tells Zahra as much: “If either of them are planning on taking this campaign seriously, they should have never stopped campaigning when they lost in the primaries. They should have been building momentum for the past three years if they even wanted to have a fighting chance.”

He misses her full-on glare as he glances back to the email to see the last message that Linnea sent, to Alex specifically. It’s only one exhausted word, probably accompanied with a long-suffering sigh as she wrote it less than an hour ago: Help.

All over it, he writes back.

In the past two years since Alex met Onderburg, Alex has ended up deeply entrenched in this whole business, more so than he was expecting to be. When he met Linnea on her first visit to the states, she had immediately asked to meet him and they’d hit it off right away. Ever since that meeting, she’d included him on most of the major discussions, saying that Onderburg himself had requested it, and even though Alex knows that pisses Treacher and most of his staff off to no end, he really appreciates it. So when sh*t like this happens (and, frankly, it happens all the time) and when Treacher’s staff won’t give Linnea the time of day, she’ll immediately call Alex up and he’ll force her offender to take it down the throat from a fellow American. All in good fun. He’s willing to bet Rachel Jadis doesn’t have to take this sh*t from Onderburg and his staff, though. If only he were President… he’d have whooped anybody’s ass for trying to stall this project any longer than it’s already been stalled.

Given, his connection with Linnea means that Jason Arabaugh is probably waiting for Alex’s call by the time Zahra nonchalantly nudges the campaign binder towards him and takes her leave.

Arabaugh sighs as soon as he picks up the phone. “Congressman. How can I help you?”

“Give her a meeting, Jason,” Alex says immediately. “Linnea.”

Arabaugh curses on the other line with the enthusiasm of a depressed party clown. “She showed you our emails, did she? Listen, I meant what I said. We can’t resume construction until I get word from Rachel Jadis that they’re doing the same thing over in Kiruna.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alex shoots back. “You know by now that the contract only has those stipulations about equal and sufficient effort so you wouldn’t drag your feet on the thing. No, listen, the fact that they closed the site in Kiruna for one day because of snow is such a bullsh*t reason to close the site here- it’s not a lack of effort, Jason, it’s concern for worker safety, and you f*cking know it.” There’s a thump and a rustling sound on the other line as Arabaugh probably rubs a hand across his face. “Give her a meeting,” Alex persists.

“Fine,” Arabaugh spits out, and it’s probably just to get Alex to shut up. To be honest, though, that’s where he does his best work.

“Great!” Alex says, adopting a lighter tone. “Nice talking to you, Jason.”

“You, too,” Arabaugh grumbles, and the call cuts.

Feeling slightly more accomplished than he did five minutes ago, Alex loses himself in some preliminary polling numbers from Pinkley’s campaign. There’s a f*ckton of statistical fallacies, he realizes as he skims through the numbers, and he gets a text from Nora that simply translates to: this lying bitch. The numbers are all skewed in Pinkley’s favor due to leading questions and frankly illogical comparisons and conclusions, and Alex has to stop looking before he gives himself a stress aneurysm.

Sign number three comes right about before lunchtime and it makes Alex want to throw something with how much it’s pissing him off. There’s this bill he’s been sponsoring lately, that had gone through the House and Senate with little to no fuss. It would increase the amount of money that a state government would receive in federal grants if they raise the amount of affordable housing they implement in a fiscal year as an incentivisation tactic. It’s about as glamorous as a budget bill, and honestly, it was pretty well-supported for once. But the part that’s pissing Alex off: the f*cking pocket veto.

Pocket vetoes are Alex’s worst enemy. If he ever gets his sh*t together and becomes President one of these days, he swears on his life that he would never ever pocket veto a bill. It’s degrading. It’s f*cked up beyond all recognition. It’s such an asshole move, and Treacher’s a f*cking professional at it by now.

Here’s the thing about pocket vetoes that makes Alex want to rip his own hair out: when a bill, any bill, is passed by the House and the Senate, most if not all of the time it has to go across the President’s desk before it officially becomes law. The bill could be vetoed, and kicked back to Congress for another vote to override it (which rarely happens), or it could be passed. But the pocket veto (bleugh) is when the President takes no action on the bill, neither passing it nor vetoing it within the ten days it’s viable, so it gets kicked back to a Congress that isn’t in session to accept it. And, surprise! Congress is adjourned at the moment. The only reason Alex is even on the Hill right now is because he’s supposed to get lunch with a couple lobbyists (something he’s very much not looking forward to) and he stopped by his office to avoid the f*cked-up traffic of DC as best he could. And Zahra’s there… for whatever reason she’s there, he really doesn’t know.

The point is, it’s such a dick move. And it’s exactly what just happened to Alex’s latest pet project. He curses as he responds to email after email with a growing cloud over his head and a deepening scowl.

Sign number four comes at that aforementioned lunch with lobbyists. He’s doing it on a favor, mostly, and Alex has his own opinions on the detrimental effects of interest groups on democracy, but he’s one guy, and there’s only so much he can do.

The restaurant is nice, but by no means is it Michelin as he’s led to a back room by a kind hostess and is hand-shaken into a seat across the table from three white men with fluffy white hair and such slow voices that Alex wants to slam his head on the table and straight into his mediocre salad of wilted lettuce, soggy croutons, and grilled chicken that has something slimy about it.

The guy in the middle passes him a file with their proposed legislation that they want him to sponsor in the House, and as he skims through it, he can feel his brain cells slowly dying. “Sorry, what organization were you with again?” he has to ask.

“The Farming Science Association of America,” Thing Number Three says through a mouthful of overdone steak (he’d ordered it well-done and something in Alex had splintered and cracked at the sound of it).

“Right,” he mumbles.

“To summarize,” Thing Number Two says as he fumbles his fork and drops it on the plate with a noise that does not help Alex’s growing headache, “this legislation that our lawyers have drafted up would open up a whole new market for farmers who can’t keep up with the new, high standards.”

“The new standards being… organic?” Alex frowns as he skims through the file. “Sorry, correct me if I’m wrong. You want me to pass this bill that would allow genetically modified produce to be marketed as organic?” He can’t help it. He laughs, so over-exhausted and tired of this sh*t and kind of angry at the world that it bursts out of him, loud and unstifled. “That’s… something that’s been genetically modified is… the opposite of organic.”

“Well, by the new standards proposed in this bill-” Thing Number One starts, but Alex pushes the file back across the table.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, then corrects himself. “Actually, I’m not sorry.” He stands up and grabs his jacket, still chuckling derisively. “Have a good day.”

Could he have done that kinder? Yes, he could have, but what would that have solved? Probably nothing. What would really solve sh*t like this would be limitations on interest groups, for one. Limitations on campaign finance and monetary contributions and incentives for elected members of the government… but there’s no way that kind of change would come from a third-term Representative. It would have to come from someone much higher up. It would have to come from someone like the President.

With that thought festering, he returns to his office and grumpily peers through Zahra’s campaign binder for the PACs and interest groups she’s already cleared, just to make sure he would never ever take money from groups that would lord money over him in exchange for sh*tty legislation. Alex knows he’s notorious for running cheap campaigns, but that’s what you get for being picky about your PACs - you get less money, but he’s fine with it. Or, he’s fine with it when he’s running for Congress. Running for President is much more expensive…

Sign number five comes in the article he reads in the car on the way home. With Pinkley’s campaign announcement this morning, speculation is high as people catastrophize: will the 2040 election be a Treacher/Pinkley rematch, without Raf to mediate? Treacher’s not the favorite on the Republican side, considering he’s more moderate and not as outspoken on social issues as some of his party members would like, but Pinkley’s enough of a pain in the ass that moderates are already preparing to plug their nose and vote for Treacher again if it comes down to it.

Oscar is the one who sends the article to Alex, with an accompanying text that says how’s this for a sign? June is such a little traitor for telling him about that.

February 11, 2039

NPR - John Pewett

Pinkley’s campaign survey results reveal his possible biggest contender

This morning, former President David Pinkley announced his campaign for the 2040 presidential election, making a bid at being the second president to serve two nonconsecutive terms. Along with his announcement come results from some preliminary surveys, but statistical analysts have said that the numbers presented by Pinkley’s campaign are highly falsified and break most of the rules of statistical practices. Raw numbers say that Pinkley’s chances among voters are abysmal at best, polling at about 12% approval, even though it’s presented at 75% by the campaign due to faulty randomization and survey bias.

NPR received a set of the questions being asked at the polling centers by an unnamed pollster, detailing exactly what it is that was being asked to respondents across the country:

• Would you agree that David Pinkley passed productive legislation while he was in office?

• Do you believe that President Simon Treacher should be focusing more on issues at home, rather than spending taxpayer money on building the Baltonian embassy?

• Do you believe that President Pinkley had a positive effect on technological advancements during his time in office?

To any voter with an inch of common sense, the questions are all leading and don’t allow for much variability or nuance in answer or analysis, and the surveys ask for little demographic information beside zip code, meaning the answers cannot be weighted properly, either.

But the most interesting of the questions are not the ones that target President Treacher, rather someone else who the Pinkley campaign seems very worried about becoming a player in next year’s election: none other than Texas Representative Alex Claremont-Diaz.

A series of questions are mixed into the survey, including but not limited to:

• Do you think that Rep. Claremont-Diaz has overstepped his influence in fostering the relationship between the US and Baltonia?

• Do you believe that Rep. Claremont-Diaz should be considered ineligible for public office considering his ties to the aristocracy of a foreign country?

• Do you agree that the passage of the 28th Amendment that implements ranked-choice voting would enforce a difficult and confusing voting structure?

These questions are particularly illuminating when you consider Pinkley’s target audience of the poll - Democrats. It seems to be that Pinkley is attempting to shape Democratic opinion to place Rep. Claremont-Diaz as public enemy #1, which is a hard ask for most of the party. While this tactic might work for the small subset of Democrat voters who feel that ACD has turned his back on the party by supporting Rafael Luna’s presidential campaign in 2036 instead of Pinkley’s, then siding with a Republican to pass a constitutional amendment, it is not necessarily a strategy that will work for ACD’s supporters, which includes more than just Democrats, but unaffiliated liberals and independents across the political spectrum.

Safe to say, however, that Pinkley’s data on these specific questions about ACD didn’t go the way he and his campaign expected, since those numbers were not published by the campaign and only exist as raw data. One can only assume that ACD’s support in the Democratic party remains strong enough to scare Pinkley out of sharing those particular results.

Alex snorts as he finishes the article, and texts Oscar back: John Pewett wrote that. Of course he’s defending me. John Pewett, the journalist who used to work for the trashy tabloid Enquirer until Alex gave him an in at NPR, has pulled this kind of sh*t multiple times now, using his influence to publish articles that make Alex look like a f*cking angel. It’s sweet, honestly, but if Oscar’s looking for unbiased support for Alex’s potential campaign, it’s gotta come from someone who’s not a superfan like John.

Not even talking about the article itself, kid, Oscar texts back. It’s the survey questions Pinkley didn’t publish. He’s f*cking terrified of you, and for good reason.

Alex feels sick to his stomach as he reads through the survey questions again once he arrives home to an empty house and gets to his study. John’s analysis seems right to him, though, as he finds the list of survey questions leaked by the anonymous pollster. There’s question after question of leading words, sh*t that’s designed to get the respondent to say whatever it is Pinkley wants them to say. What a bullsh*t way to run a campaign. If you’re going to run for President, you might as well do it right. Alex would do it right…

He loses himself in it all, all the data he’d be better off asking Nora to parse out, all the thoughts floating through his head he’s not sure he can parse out, either.

The sun has set by the time the door creaks open and Henry stands in the room, with him in the flesh. Alex looks up and his heart skips a beat, as always. He leans back in his chair and sighs heavily as Henry enters his space, sitting on his lap and leaning down to kiss Alex so softly he thinks he’s going to float away. Alex slides his hands around Henry’s waist, holding him close and burying his nose in the nape of Henry’s neck, breathing in that clean linen scent hiding underneath his stale cologne.

“How was your day?” Henry asks quietly, but Alex immediately ruins the softness of the moment by groaning out loud and throwing his head back.

“It was sh*t.” He glares at the ceiling as Henry’s fingers thread through his hair, abating the wave of frustration that’s been building all day by just a bit.

“Hm,” Henry hums, scratching Alex’s scalp and sliding his thumb along Alex’s jaw at the same time in a senseless juxtaposition that has even more of Alex’s bad mood flow out of him like from a sieve. “Tell me.”

“Well,” Alex huffs loudly. “Pinkley started it, you know? f*cking jackass can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, even if it’s from several million people. Then I find out that Rachel Jadis had to pause construction on the embassy in Kiruna because there was too much snow, and that’s not a problem, right? Well, Treacher and Arabaugh said ‘f*ck that’ and paused construction on the embassy here, too, for no f*cking reason other than weather halfway across the world. They’re playing a game of chicken with f*cking embassies, and it’s driving me up the wall. So I had to do damage control on that. And then, Treacher pocket vetoed my bill on affordable housing finance reform, which was like a giant ‘f*ck you’. And then-”

“Oh, God,” Henry says, wincing as he realizes that Alex is nowhere close to done.

“Yeah. Then I had to go to this absolutely bogus meeting with a couple lobbyists who tried to tell me that I should help them pass a bill so farmers could market genetically modified produce as organic, which is complete bullsh*t because that’s the opposite of organic, right?”

“Right.”

“And then my dad texts me this article about this absolute garbage heap of a poll Pinkley did, and apparently half the questions were targeting me, so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last,” he checks his watch, “two hours.”

Henry’s fingers flex in his hair. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Alex says. “Maybe.” He sighs. “No, not really. The worst part is that I was having these thoughts the entire day… you know, ‘what would I do differently if I were President’, and all that sh*t. And I just-” Maybe he’s finally decided he’s going to run, maybe that’s what’s been going on in his head all day. He glances at Zahra’s campaign binder, sitting closed on the desk with all six million pages and points and ideas, and Henry turns slightly to see where he’s looking.

Then they both look towards the other stack of papers on Alex’s desk, and his stomach clenches with guilt. At the very top of the stack of papers is the first one in a huge open file of forms given to them by the Virginia Department of Social Services, and its title reads: Family Registration Form for Adoption. It’s only one of the first steps, the first form of several dozen, but they’ve already gone through orientation and training and the application forms are sitting right there.

Their future child, or the presidency. Maybe they can’t have both. They have to pick now, and Alex feels so f*cking guilty for it. Because there’s no way in hell he can adopt a child and run a presidential campaign at the same time. It’s not what any social worker would consider a stable environment for a child, and f*ck, what if he’s not ready? But what if he’s not ready for the presidency, either? The file of adoption papers, or the binder for Alex’s future?

Henry looks down at him, and smiles so kindly that Alex thinks he’s going to melt. “Let’s table it,” he says quietly. “For now. One thing at a time.” A hard ball forms in his throat as Henry leans away from him and softly, gently, and with so much care it’s painful, closes the file of adoption papers and opens the campaign binder to the front page.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers. Henry doesn’t say anything, because they both know Alex wasn’t talking to him.

He has a cry about it, considers calling his therapist he hasn't spoken to in several years, but chickens out. Thankfully, his and Henry’s plans to adopt a kid never made it outside of their hypotheticals, and they never told anybody about it, so that saves them the extra pain of having to tell people they’ve changed their mind. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an extra pang as he looks at Ellie across the span of the weekend, or glances at the empty chair at their table meant for four.

Meanwhile, there is something else Alex has to share. “It’s go time,” he mutters to himself as he gets ready to text every single important person in his life that he’s ready, he’s going to do it. Alex Claremont-Diaz is running for President.

One week later…

“Nope. I’m not doing it. I changed my mind. Pull me out.” Admittedly, he’s being hysterical. He’s on the edge of a panic attack because he’s overwhelmed and tired and he feels like he’s going to vomit.

“Alex-” Zahra starts, but Alex just puts a hand in her face and says ‘shut up shut up shut up’ enough times that she closes her mouth with a click.

It’s been another long, hard day of meeting with political analysts and potential hires and a campaign manager that really rubbed him the wrong way. But he’s finally had enough after the fifth guy in a row made a comment about borrowing an idea from his mother’s campaign and he had such a vivid image of someone calling him a nepo baby in the middle of a debate that he had to walk out the room.

He’s so f*cking tired. He hasn’t slept well in days, Ellie’s sick, and Henry’s depression is acting up again and Alex wants nothing more than to go home and be alone for five f*cking minutes.

So now he’s in his office and Zahra is glaring at him. Jesus Christ. He’s barely made it a week into his own campaign. They haven’t even officially filed yet, and he’s basically a mental wreck. What the hell is he going to do a year from now, when it really counts?

“What is with you?” she asks heavily, finding him a bottle of water, uncapping it, and basically shoving it in his face so he can slow his breathing down enough to drink it. “Feel any better?” she asks dryly as he finishes downing it.

Yeah, actually, he feels loads better. Maybe he was just dehydrated, because the feeling like he’s going to vomit dissipates and he takes a couple more deep breaths. He nods shortly and sinks down on the short couch. “I don’t know,” he answers her first question with a mumble.

“Something’s wrong, spit it out,” she says, not unkindly, but not softly either. “I thought we got this sh*t out of the way already. You’re committed now, so what’s wrong?”

Well, there’s any number of answers to that question. Is it the child somewhere out there that maybe he should have adopted but let his own ambition get in the way of it? Or is it the fact that his husband is putting on a brave face so he can pretend like it’s not affecting him, too, and yet is at home as they speak, with little energy or drive to even get out of bed, and Alex is here, notably not with him? Or is it the fact that for the last week Alex can’t help but to compare himself to his mother, his father, and even Raf as they have to walk through the preliminary stages of his campaign, knowing that there’s probably no way he’ll ever live up to their legacies? Or is it the fact that he knows that Henry’s going to have to step back into the public eye more so than he has in a decade and a half just because Alex wanted to be the boss? Or is it the knowledge that Ellie’s life will never be the same, and he could have just ruined her chances at a normal childhood?

Oh, hey, he’s panicking again.

“It’s just- I don’t- f*ck,” he get out as his shaking hands ball into fists. “I can’t do it, Zahra.” He looks up at her, and he knows he’s literally about to cry and that’s not really something that prospective presidential candidates should do to their Chiefs of Staff, but Zahra is Zahra, and she’s known him since he was five. He feels his lip wobbling. “I’m gonna f*ck it up. I can’t- God, I don’t know how-”

“Hey,” Zahra says as she sits down on the couch next to him and pulls his hands away from his face. “I get it. It’s hard. But you are more prepared for this than anybody else I’ve laid eyes on, Alex.” He looks over at her, and even through his tear-blurred vision, her eyes are hard and flashing. “You are not going to f*ck this up.”

“I’m not-” he huffs as his voice cracks halfway through.

“You’re not what?”

Good enough, he almost says. “Zahra, everyone else is better at this than I am.”

She snorts. “Well, then, you clearly have some reevaluating to do of Treacher’s popularity if you think he’s better than you in some notable aspects-”

“No,” he protests even as she smiles. “I mean, like, Mom. Dad. Raf. I’m not… I can’t be like them.” Ellen is a superstar, an untouchable pinnacle of strength and cunning even in her retirement. Oscar, despite being ineligible for the presidency because he wasn’t born in the US, had always been a source of wisdom for most of the Senate at any given time. And Raf, while he was once that attainable vision Alex had for his own future, had risen and grown into something else, some beacon of hope and unbudging goodness that doesn’t feel like something Alex can reach anymore. And Alex is… Well, Alex is supposed to be their legacy. And it’s starting to feel like he bit off way more than he can chew. It’s filling his throat, his nose, he can’t breathe around it.

Zahra’s gaze softens on him. “Nobody’s asking you to be like them.”

He raises an eyebrow at her, even as he’s shaking like a leaf. “Are you sure about that? Tell that to the guys out there who keep trying to get me to emulate Mom.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I didn’t like them either. We can work on getting a new staff, Alex, because there’s no way in hell you’re backing out now. I’m right behind you, all the way.”

He nods, but that heavy weight in his stomach still feels like it’s pulling him down. She notices, of course, and she pulls away and stands up. “Take the weekend. On Monday, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

He’s assuming she’s got a new staff person in mind, so when she arrives at the office around noon on Monday, he’s a little shocked to see what she’s got in store for him. Hearing the knock on his office door, he looks up from his very boring pile of budget proposals (hey, running for President doesn’t mean the grind stops in Congress) to see Zahra leaning in.

“Hey, come out here.” He stands, begrudgingly, and meets her in her office to find the person he’s supposed to meet. A short Black woman stands on the center of the carpet, wearing nice black pants, a tan sweater, and a long black peacoat with her hands clasped in front of her. Her colorful earrings swing wildly as she turns to survey him up and down with a raised eyebrow before extending her hand. Her hair is short and gray, cropped close to her head, and she wears round glasses with white frames. “Hello, Alex. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He blinks as he takes her warm hand, confident fingers grasping his palm. He recognizes her…

“Alex, this is Latisha Freedman,” Zahra says from behind him, and he nods in realization. “She was the governor of Massachusetts.”

“Oh,” he nods. “Right.” He’s definitely heard of her. Actually, he’s heard great things about her. Her constituents have been raving about her for years, and they apparently wanted her to break the unofficial two-term limit for the office, but she refused and kept it to eight years, leaving office about seven years ago. She’s brilliant, if Alex remembers right, and if he’s a good judge of character, he’s willing to bet she was damn good at her job.

Latisha gives him another once over, then nods approvingly. “C’mon, grab your jacket.”

“Uh, what?” he stammers.

“I’m taking you to lunch. We’re gonna have a chat.”

Alex stares at Zahra, but she just gives him a cheeky smile and grabs her jacket as well. “C’mon, we’re gonna have fun.”

“You’ve got a driver, right?” Latisha asks, already halfway out the door.

“Uh, yeah,” Alex gets out as he snatches his jacket from his office and dashes out the door to follow her. She’s already halfway down the hall, walking in step with Zahra, chatting along like old buddies. “Jesus,” he mutters to himself, pulling out his phone to summon his driver.

“What’s good around here?” she muses back to him. “Food-wise.”

“Um, Chef Geoff’s?”

Zahra snorts. “Overrated.”

The women are walking faster than him, somehow, and he has to jog a couple steps to catch up. “Any good Mexican around here?” Latisha asks.

It’s his turn to raise an eyebrow. “If you want good Mexican, you’re not gonna find it in DC.”

“Preachin’ to the choir,” she mutters, and Zahra snorts. “I’m a Southern girl, too, relax.”

He sighs. “Mezcalero is good.”

The car ride is a little awkward as Alex wonders what on earth Zahra wants him to talk to Latisha about. But by the time they’re led to a table in the restaurant that’s tucked away in the corner because the hostess recognizes him, she’s observing him again like an appraiser.

“So, how do you know each other?” he asks.

“Undergrad,” Zahra says, glancing down at her menu. “University of New Orleans. We were in a couple classes together.”

“What?” he gapes at her. Of course Zahra would have been friends with a f*cking governor and not told Alex.

“Yep,” she says, popping the last consonant.

“But…” he narrows his eyes at Latisha, trying to figure out if he’s really seen her somewhere before. “You weren’t at her and Shaan's wedding, were you?”

“Ah. Nope,” Latisha shakes her head. “Couldn’t make it. Bad timing. But we kept in touch, you know? She went to DC for her Master’s and I went to UMass Amherst for my PhD, but,” she shrugs. “Friends like that, you don’t really separate.”

He nods, frowning. He’d never really had friends like that in college. He’d had Nora and June, and for the last semester, Henry. And maybe Liam.

She watches him closely as Zahra ponders between the flautas and enchiladas. “You didn’t have friends like that?”

He gapes at her. He hadn’t said that out loud, had he? Zahra smirks without even looking up.

“I’m gonna take that as a ‘no’,” Latisha says.

“Uh, no, not really,” he admits.

“Why?”

He has no idea why he feels so compelled to answer her, but he does. “College was weird. I didn’t make friends very well. Like, everybody wanted to know me, but they didn’t really… know me, I guess.” Jesus Christ, he’s really spilling his guts right now. He looks down at his hands.

Latisha doesn’t laugh at him, but nods along. “Makes sense.” He fiddles with the wrapper of his straw as they order, and resists the urge to start mouthing off.

“So, Alex,” Latisha crosses her legs under the table, shifting in her seat as she does so. Zahra props her chin up in her hands, a mediator of sorts. Alex feels like he’s about to be interrogated. “You’re running for President.”

He nods slowly. “Yep.”

“But you’re having regrets.”

Alex shoots an accusatory look at Zahra, who shrugs as if to say ‘well, what did you want me to do?’ and simply watches him squirm. “Regrets is a strong word.”

“Well,” Latisha leans back and crosses her arms. “Doubts, maybe. But now’s the time to get them out of the way. That’s what Zahra called me for.”

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s what a therapist is for.”

She barks out a laugh. “And will your therapist help you work out your issues inside your campaign? No, I didn’t think so. A therapist can’t relate to you, that’s the problem. You need to talk to someone who’s been where you are.”

“Oh, sorry,” Alex snorts, “Let me just grab a ouija board and call up my old buddies George W. Bush and John Qunicy Adams.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “There’s not really a long list of people who have been where I am.”

“Well, no,” Latisha agrees. “So you’re going to have to settle for me.” He looks up at her, and she’s clearly waiting for permission to go ahead. Zahra keeps her mouth firmly shut, carefully watching as she always does. He nods, and she takes off: “My papa was the mayor of New Orleans, and for the longest time I wanted literally nothing other than to go into politics so I could be just like him. But one day when I was in high school, he sat me down and said that I couldn’t. That I shouldn’t be just like him, because I needed to shoot further, not limit myself with trying to be just like him. I needed to be my own person, have my own legacy, so I moved to Massachusetts, got my doctorate, and ran for governor some thirty years later. And he was right for telling me that.” She leans forward. “Now, Alex, if I know a damned thing about your mother, it’s that I don’t think she’s the type of person to sit you down and tell you to not follow in her footsteps, even if it’s what you need to hear.”

Alex blinks, resisting the rising urge to defend Ellen. Fighting it down, he looks down at the table. “So, what? I should call off the campaign?”

She sighs, shaking her head. “No, I didn’t mean that.”

“But you just said-”

“Alex, you can’t let your mother limit you.”

“She was the President!” Alex protests. “One of the most powerful people in the world. How is being like her going to limit me?”

“You could stay in Congress and still let your mother limit you,” Latisha gestures vaguely. “You could have stayed in the Department of Justice and still let your mother limit you. Hell, you could have removed yourself from the public eye entirely and still let your mother limit you.” She levels him with an intense look that makes Alex squirm in his seat. “It’s not about the office, Alex. It’s about legacy.”

His stomach clenches. He narrows his eyes at her and sips his drink nonchalantly.

“How did I do?” Latisha asks, mimicking him and quirking an eyebrow in his direction. “I’m told I’m very good at reading people.”

He glares at Zahra, who’s kept quiet the whole time. She raises her eyebrow at him. “Right on the money,” he mumbles. It’s all a bit weird, he realizes as their food comes and he picks at it. Zahra sometimes lacks the patience to understand him, not that there’s anything wrong with that. They’re a good team, he knows it, but it’s not uncommon that he feels a bit alone in the rush and chaos of his job because Zahra’s such a naturally work-driven person. Latisha, on the other hand, is probably exactly the kind of person he needs right now: she’s might be the most unbiased person he can talk to when it comes to this whole thing, she’s honest, and she’s been way better at seeing him in the span of a fifteen-minute conversation without even trying. It’s a bit mortifying, honestly.

“You’ve gotta be sure, Alex,” Zahra says firmly, but not unkindly. “Now, I know that you and this campaign have so much potential, but you can’t hesitate. It’s going to be hell, and you need to know that.”

He glares at her. “I know campaigns are hard, Zahra. I’m aware of that, it’s just… everything else.” He doesn’t even really know how to explain it to her, he’s just treading water and trying not to drown in expectations for himself from others, his parents, himself, literally everybody else in the world. How can he possibly articulate that? She doesn’t have those standards for herself, she works behind the scenes for a reason. But he knows, he has those standards. He only ever wanted to help people, to make them proud, to make them happy and safe, but what if he can’t? What if he’s not what everybody thinks he is, not like his parents, not like Raf?

He looks over at Latisha. She’s looking at him with something close to sympathy. Legacy, he thinks, is a bitch.

Zahra looks between them like she’s watching a tennis match with morbid interest. “What’s your take?” she asks Latisha. “I still think a campaign is feasible, but I can’t make it work if he’s not in it.”

Latisha doesn’t look at her, just keeps surveying Alex closely. “Oh, I think he’s in it.”

“I don’t feel in it,” Alex mumbles.

Latisha considers him for another moment, and then nods to herself and leans forward. “You’re not sh*t.”

Alex blinks. “What?” He has a fleeting memory of standing in Dan Davis’ office six years ago, hearing those exact same words growled down on him. His stomach sinks the same way, he feels like balling up on himself.

Latisha shakes her head. “Think about it like this: if you make a mistake, if any one person ends up hating your guts, nobody will be surprised. That should be a comfort.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Alex mutters.

“You’re not perfect, is what I’m trying to say. You’re not the golden boy anymore. Your legacy is your own.” That gets his attention. He looks up at her, and she’s got a little smirk plastered across her face, knowing she’s hit the nail on the head. “I think you’re spending too long getting hung up on what it means for you to be your parents’ child, to live up to their names. But what does it mean for you to be you? People are going to compare you either way. Get over yourself.”

Zahra and Latisha spend the next hour catching up, chatting about people Alex doesn’t know, and people he does. He’s uncharacteristically silent, and Zahra notices, shooting him furtive glances every so often. He’s lost in his own head, and she knows better than to disturb him.

Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be some anonymous person out in the world? In his head, he’s leaning against a linden tree on New Year's Day, but he’s alone this time, the snow underneath his feet pristine and undisturbed, like the footsteps he took to get there don’t exist. The White House glows in the dark night in front of him. He thinks about stepping towards it. Would this be easier if he were a nobody? Or is it really legacy that keeps him back? He can envision heavy chains keeping him against the tree. Would it be sacrilege to break them?

Or is he getting too philosophical about it? Yeah, probably. Sometimes, when he gets like this, his thoughts get so jumbled that he’s not quite sure how he manages to untangle himself, but untangle he does. When he finally surfaces, Latisha winks at him knowingly.

She catches a ride to her hotel and hugs Zahra goodbye before she and Alex head back to the office. He’s still not very talkative in the car, but he’s more attentive as they stride back inside to find everything just as they left it. It feels weirdly surreal.

“And?” Zahra asks quietly as she shuts the door to his office behind her. He slings his coat across the back of his desk chair. She looks nervous, probably wondering if she f*cked him up by bringing Latisha in. “Had any breakthroughs? Are you… are you okay?”

He thinks about the linden tree behind the White House again, and the chains of legacy holding him back, and imagines a tiny, shuffling step forward through the pristine snow, and the chains clattering to the ground. It’s philosophical, bordering on overdramatic.

He looks up at her, feeling like he hasn’t really entered the room just yet. It takes him a second to process what it is that she’s just said, but eventually he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Are you in it now?” She looks like she’s poised for a fight, a racehorse raring to go. “You’re with me?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, I’m in.”

Her shoulders visibly sag with relief. She grips his arm tightly, probably the closest she’d get to actually hugging him. “Good,” she breathes. “Good. Okay.” She nods once more, looking up at him with a renewed fire in her eyes. “Let’s f*cking do this.”

2 weeks later…

“We’re going to have to talk about Dr. Fox, at some point.” Alex looks up from the mountain of paperwork he’s slowly signing his way through to look up at his campaign manager, Jamie, who has his brow furrowed as he scrolls through preliminary polling from the exploratory committee.

“What do you mean?” Alex says as he looks over at Zahra, trying to gauge her reaction, but she doesn’t look surprised at Jamie’s words.

“Well,” Jamie leans back and twiddles a pen in his fingers. “He’s not financially independent from the Crown. I can’t say it’s going to look very good for the campaign if you’re married to an active member of the British royal family. Even if he doesn't officially have titles, he’s still doing occasional appearances and is actively getting funding from British taxpayers.”

“I spoke with an expert already,” Zahra says, and her carefully chosen words make Alex sure she’s talking about Shaan. “It’s easily fixable, if Henry’s amenable to cutting all his funding from the family.”

“Well, since he stepped down, he hasn’t gotten compensated at the same level,” Alex says, frowning. “It’s equivalent to only, like, $50k a year.”

“Appearance-wise, it’s not a good look regardless of how much it is,” Jamie shrugs. “He’s going to be a huge roadblock for a lot of voters. As soon as you announce, whenever that is, there’s going to be uproar over it. You need to have a plan now.”

“I’ll have my expert-” Zahra glares at Alex as he snorts derisively. “I’ll have him talk to some people. I’m sure we’ll make a decision soon. Now,” she shuffles her own stack of papers. “Talk to me about a campaign announcement.”

Jamie pulls up something on his laptop. “Well, the formation of the exploratory committee was fairly underground, so we’re still in the clear, and the fact that we’ve officially filed isn’t publicly available information, but as soon as it gets out that we’ve signed a lease for a space in Austin, there’s going to be a sh*t-ton of speculation. It should be sooner rather than later. I’m thinking,” he spins the laptop around to show a screen of numbers that doesn’t make a lot of sense to Alex. “An announcement video in about a week, schedule an official campaign launch for three days later.”

“What is this?” Alex raises an eyebrow, leaning in towards the screen.

“Oh,” Jamie blinks, “It’s just some survey study done on the most effective forms of campaign announcements. Numbers say that the most effective are videos, but not if they’re corny. Basically-”

Jamie spends the next five minutes rambling on about numbers and sh*t, and Alex feels like he’s talking to Nora, even though she’s all the way in NYC. Actually, he muses, she might be a good person to have on the campaign. That’s not nepotism, is it?

“Jamie,” Zahra groans. “Slow down. Simple words. Explain it to me like I’m three.”

“Raw footage,” Jamie says. “That’s how you should do a campaign announcement. And for us, that will be really effective, since there’s only a limited number of ways we can make you relatable,” he says, gesturing towards Alex. “We can probably get something together in about a week.”

Alex is distracted as his phone starts buzzing on the table. “Sorry, I gotta get this,” he mutters, standing up. “Do the thing. The video.”

Jamie jots something down as Alex ducks out of the room and answers the call. “Hello?”

“Hello,” says a female voice on the other side. “Is this Congressman Claremont-Diaz?”

“It is.”

“This is the office of the President calling,” the nameless woman says shortly. “He would like to see you today at 4 o’clock.”

The President would like to see you, not are you available, not would you please oh pretty please come for a meeting? Alex resists the urge to snort. “I’ll be there,” he says brightly.

He checks his watch as he enters the room again. Zahra looks up. “Who was that?”

“The White House,” Alex mumbles absentmindedly and texts his driver.

“What did you do this time?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Hell if I know.”

He has to listen to Jamie drone on about some numbers from opposition research for another two hours, every so often exchanging texts with Henry about his salary from the Crown, who had no doubt gotten a text from Shaan, who had gotten a text from Zahra, who’s glaring at him for being on his phone like she isn’t a filthy hypocrite.

But by 4 o’clock, he’s waiting patiently by the door to the Oval Office, with the secretary with the gray bob cut looking at him like he’s about as interesting as a blank wall. He’s barely waiting for five minutes before the door swings open and the CIA director Kaleb Ivanson is waving him in. Oh sh*t, he thinks to himself. Maybe I did f*ck something up.

Treacher’s sitting at the Resolute Desk as Alex walks in, clearly deep in thought. His fingers are absentmindedly drumming against the sleek wood, and he’s not really seeing Alex as he stands awkwardly on the clean white rug, right in the center of the intricately printed Great Seal. Off to his right, he sees Jason Arabaugh, Treacher’s Chief of Staff, and one more person he recognizes: the Secretary of State, Antonio Bertelli. Alex’s panic is rising. What. The. f*ck. Is. Happening.

“Thanks for coming,” Ivanson says, shaking Alex’s hand. He spares a glance for Treacher, who looks like he’s only just now noticed that Alex has entered the room. “The President, Secretary Bertelli, and myself were having a conversation and we thought it pertinent to include you.”

Treacher stands and rounds the desk to shake Alex’s hand, and gestures him into a seat in one of the plush-looking, but uncomfortable couches, taking the nice armchair for himself. “Jason tells me the embassies are coming along nicely, and that we have you to thank.”

Alex blinks, kind of surprised. He looks over at Arabaugh, who looks sour, like he’d been forced to say that and didn’t want to admit that he’d been playing his little game with the construction sites not even a month ago. “Thanks for saying that,” Alex says, smiling over at Arabaugh, who glowers back at him like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Treacher doesn’t see it, but gestures over to Bertelli, who’s observing Alex with a raised chin and shrewd eyes. “Now that the construction of the embassies are almost finished, Secretary Bertelli and I are having discussions about a permanent ambassador to Baltonia. Rachel Jadis has done a wonderful job, but she was hired more or less as a placeholder.”

Alex, for the life of him, can’t figure out why he’s being invited to have a discussion about appointing the ambassador to Baltonia. He’s not even on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (even though he’d asked). Sure, he’s been kind of a spokesperson for the project, one of it’s largest defenders, if he’s being honest, but not in an official capacity enough to warrant bringing him into this discussion. He’s missing something, clearly.

“I suggested you,” Bertelli says. His voice is soft and kind of annoyingly high-pitched in a way that grates against Alex’s ears. “Now, Director Ivanson here raised his concerns, so the President insisted on getting your input as well.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex holds up his hand. “You suggested me for what?”

“The ambassadorship. To Baltonia,” Bertelli clarifies. “I know you’re not a career diplomat, and putting up a political appointee from across the aisle is a bit unprecedented, but at this point it’s less about actual skill as an ambassador and more about strengthening the bond between the US and Baltonia. Frankly, you’re the only US politician Onderburg really likes, so we don’t have many other suitable options.”

“Ah,” Alex nods vaguely. He’s totally caught off-guard, but trying really hard not to show it. Bertelli wants to make Alex an ambassador? To Baltonia? The idea is so far out of left field that it’s not really clicking yet. Alex… an ambassador??

Ivanson leans forward and clears his throat. “But I have concerns.”

“Oh?” Alex gets out through his shock.

“For your safety,” Ivanson continues.

“Oh.” Alex blinks and tries to clear his head enough to listen.

“I’ve already told the President and Secretary Bertelli this, but the CIA believes that placing you in Baltonia is a bad idea for multiple reasons. Obviously, you know that Ny Frihet has been something the CIA has put a lot of time and effort into investigating. In that investigation, we have pretty solid intelligence that you’re their essentially Public Enemy No. 1. And that’s due to their intense loyalty to people like Dan Davis and Travis Silson, and due to your actions as the whistleblower on that whole case, and the fact that Pinkley leaked that information, we can predict with a high amount of confidence that not only would your safety be at risk, but the larger relationship between the US and Baltonia would be strained if our ambassador was the subject of an assassination attempt.” Ivanson’s out of breath by the time he finishes, and looks up at Alex. His lack of surprise seems to confuse Ivanson. “How… how much of that did you already know?”

Alex cringes internally. The honest answer is that he knew most of that, thanks to Amy. But he doesn’t really want to throw her under the bus just in case she wasn’t allowed to tell him, so he just vaguely shrugs. “Some of it.” Ivanson frowns.

Treacher leans in. “What is the likelihood that Ny Frihet doesn’t have that kind of power?”

Ivanson shakes his head. “It’s not as simple as that. Ny Frihet itself doesn’t have power in the way you’re thinking of it. But their ideals are closely aligned with that of the Seger Party, which is one of their bigger political parties. If the Seger Party comes into power in the next Baltonian election cycle, and overturns Onderburg and his Samväldet Party, then that’s definitely cause for concern. And putting you,” he gestures to Alex, “over there now would prompt lots of unrest over it. Mr. President, I know you’re not necessarily looking for my advice on an ambassadorial appointment right now, but I would suggest someone of a lower profile.”

“My department can protect you,” Bertelli says to Alex, interrupting as Ivanson opens his mouth again. “And I’m sure Onderburg and his Security Service would do the same. Personally, I don’t think your physical safety is at risk as much as the CIA is making it seem. And, obviously, you’d want some reservations for your husband and daughter, but I can guarantee that they would get equal protection services, if not more if Queen Catherine requests it.”

Bertelli and Ivanson look over at Treacher, who’s still deep in thought. Alex suddenly feels very awkward, because none of them know that in about a week, Alex could be one of Treacher’s biggest political opponents. He’s going to have to come clean.

Treacher shuffles his legs, uncrossing and crossing them again as his fingers start tapping on his own forearm. He’s staring at the opposite wall in dead silence until he levels Alex with an appraising look. “I’m prepared to officially offer you the position. The decision is up to you.”

Alex’s stomach clenches. Well, sh*t. He’s not going to Baltonia, he knows that for damn sure. There is no way in hell he’s dragging Henry and Ellie to Baltonia (in the f*cking Artic Circle, which is cold as sh*t, so no thank you) just for Alex to be the target of assassination attempts, no matter how much protection he would get (he likes living, thanks). He looks over at the Resolute Desk just for kicks and finds his competitive streak, long pushed down and tamed, clawing inside him. Honestly? He’d much rather be President.

“I’m going to be honest with you right now,” Alex says slowly. “And I’m telling you this for full transparency. I can’t accept the ambassadorship… because I filed for candidacy for the presidential election.”

Silence.

Alex is pretty sure a bug just flew into Arabaugh’s open mouth, who’s been sitting in the corner the whole time. Treacher’s eyes are flashing, and Alex suddenly remembers that this man has seen active combat in the Marines, and he’s a little terrified. Ivanson and Bertelli look like someone’s just threatened their jobs, which, considering the fact that they’re both holding positions appointed by the President, isn’t too far from the truth.

“When?” Arabaugh cuts in. “When did you file?”

“Two days ago,” Alex says.

“When will you announce?” Treacher asks.

“In a week.”

Treacher nods slowly, purses his lips, then inhales deeply. “Well, that answers that, then.” He stands up, and everyone else in the room does as well. “Thank you for telling us.” He shakes Alex’s hand, and rounds the Resolute Desk again. “And, again, thank you for all your help. President Onderburg has only good things to say about you.”

Alex just nods wordlessly, and feeling very awkward, leaves the Oval Office.

When he gets home, he doesn’t tell Henry anything that Ivanson had said. It feels simpler, that way.

Politico: Latest and Breaking Political News Today

President Treacher and Secretary of State Antonio Bertelli nominate Tessa Black for Baltonian ambassadorship 6 days ago - by Marshall Wilhelm

Treacher put up a career diplomat, Tessa Black (R-NV), to be confirmed by the Senate in a hearing in the next several weeks before she officially takes up duties in Kiruna, Baltonia. Others are wondering - why not ACD? Because Ny Frihet, apparently.

Special election for Virginia House seat flips from Democrat to Alliance Party 5 days ago - by Nick Bade

The retirement of Democrat Mae Polking after her stroke in January opened a seat that went up for election yesterday, and put up the first affiliated third party candidate from the centrist Alliance Party into Congress - Chris Lance. While third party candidates are gaining more popularity in the aftermath of the passage of the 28th Amendment that implements ranked-choice voting in the presidential elections, many wonder how Treacher will hold up against a multiparty Congress before he even gets to the general election next year.

Silence from the White House as protests from Hawaiian activist movements mount 5 days ago - by Michael Helm

Protests on the Hawaiian island of Molokai mount as Treacher’s administration attempts to increase tourism appeal on the island. The island, mostly undeveloped and the least appealing of the major islands to tourism, stands as an area of cultural preservation, with 82% of the population of about 8,600 being native Hawaiians. Indigenous activist groups want the government to cease their efforts and leave Molokai in the hands of the native population. The White House has not commented on the protests, and does not appear to be pausing the development project.

ACD announces 2040 presidential campaign 3 days ago - by Maya Gardner

Alex Claremont-Diaz announced a presidential campaign with a video released on YouTube this morning. The announcement was called intimate, inspiring, and optimistic, made with source footage and minimal editing, and went viral within minutes, gaining over 1 million views within two hours. A launch event is expected to take place in Austin on Friday.

Buckingham Palace announces Prince Henry’s official departure from all royal duties as ACD presidential campaign kicks off 2 days ago - by Ryan Didgian

Buckingham Palace released an official statement early this morning that announced that Prince Henry would formally leave royal duties such as charity work and public appearances in the light of ACD’s presidential campaign. This also means he will no longer receive a salary paid for by British taxpayers, which was previously a point of concern from ACD’s previous campaigns in Congress, despite no previous evidence of campaign finance fraud.

Uproar over ACD campaign announcement from Democrats and Republicans Yesterday - by Lisa Garrity

Attack ad season comes sooner than expected as former President Pinkley releases a hastily-made but vicious attack ad on ACD’s campaign, calling it childish and dangerous for America. One of President Treacher’s SuperPACs also released an attack ad, saying that ACD is a ‘poor choice’ for America, and boosts Treacher as the more ‘stable’ candidate.

Huge shifts in Democrat and Third-Party presidential candidates in light of ACD’s campaign announcement 9 hours ago - by Paul Oshiro

In the direct aftermath of ACD’s presidential campaign announcement, six Democrats and four Independent candidates dropped out of the race. Political analysts say that the response is expected, and that the higher level of ACD’s already renowned campaign may be threatening for other less competitive candidates.

Minnesota Senator Edward McKinney announces presidential campaign 3 hours ago - by Wyatt Merrell

In a move not many saw coming, Edward McKinney, one of the six Democrat Senators who rejected the passage of the 28th Amendment to implement ranked-choice voting, announced a campaign for the presidency. The announcement, a video released on YouTube, was forceful and painted the current administration as lackluster, while also poking fun at ACD’s lack of experience. Analysts suggest that McKinney could be ACD’s biggest competitor for the Democratic nomination. A launch event is expected to take place tomorrow in Minneapolis.

“f*cking McKinney,” Zahra hisses as she scrolls through the article. She looks up at Alex, and she looks the closest to dejected that he’s seen her in a while. Which, arguably, isn’t very dejected. “We’re going to have to step it up.”

“McKinney’s always ranked in the top five recipients from lobbyists and corporations,” Nora pops up at Alex’s elbow, making him jump. “And his net worth is so big it’s ridiculous. His campaign is going to be pricey.”

“It’ll be fine,” June gets out. She gazes longingly at the table off to her right, piled high with baked goods, always the stress eater. “The strength of a campaign doesn’t come down to price tags.” She doesn’t look any less nervous as she slides the speech she’s written for Alex into his hands, but her eyes are glinting ferociously. “It comes down to the message.”

“And,” Pez slides in and brushes a piece of lint from Alex's perfectly pressed jacket. “You’re not owned by corporations, so we’ve got that going for us.”

“Oh, is this a ‘we’ thing now?” Alex grins at him. “Says the CEO of the multi-million dollar international tech conglomerate. I’m not sure how that means that I’m not owned by corporations.”

“Someone has to keep you in line, darling,” Pez winks and swats at Alex’s ass.

“Hands off my sh*t,” Henry shoves Pez’s hand away, sliding in behind Alex and wrapping his arms around Alex’s middle, effectively pinning his arms to his side.

“No hands on sh*t,” Zahra cuts in, batting them out of their tight circle with her rolled-up event schedule. “Hands off sh*t. You all are supposed to be in the VIP section. Go. Get.”

Alex accepts a swift kiss from Henry before they all take off, hand in hand, and the place at Alex’s side is taken up by Jamie the campaign manager. “Ms. Holleran is right,” Jamie mutters close to Alex’s ear. “You’ve made enemies in the Democratic National Committee in the past couple years. If I know the leadership, I know they’re going to do everything in their power to make sure you don’t win the primaries. You don’t fit the platform anymore.”

Alex just waves Jamie off. It’s not new news, obviously, that the DNC’s not his biggest fan anymore. Being a big-name Democrat and not backing Pinkley would have been social suicide if Raf hadn’t won the popular vote, and then stripping them of the electoral college, which was always a huge advantage for the two-party system, put him on the figurative sh*t-list. They’re not going to let him run away with the nomination if they can help it, because then they would lose control of the White House just as much as they would if a Republican were in office. Because Alex doesn’t like to listen to corrupt organizations, and to him, that includes the DNC.

But June’s right, too, Alex thinks as he flips through her speech. It’s perfect: not too corny, with just the right balance of motivational and critical. Alex is too much of an idealist to let money be his biggest opponent in this race.

“Sir, are you ready for us?” the event coordinator appears at his elbow, the mouthpiece of her headset wobbling. Her clipboard is clutched tight in her hands.

“Let’s do it,” Alex nods to her, and follows as she approaches the curtain that leads out onto the stage. The copy of his speech is pulled out of his hands, and he’s quickly told there’s another copy on the podium already.

“Hold on,” Zahra stops him with a hand on his arm, and gestures for him to face her. She straightens his lapel pin, the gold backing of the tiny American flag gleaming in the sunlight streaking in past the curtain. “Okay.” Then, shockingly, she hugs him. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers in his ear, then shoves him off and fixes her hair with a bit too much gusto to be casual.

“Sorry, what was that?” Alex ribs her.

“Shut the f*ck up,” she snaps, spinning a finger in the air, and he does an abrupt about-face towards the stage, still grinning.

He can hear the roaring of the crowd as the event coordinator mutters something into her mouth piece, and then the roaring gets louder and the marching band drumline kicks it up a notch. “Ladies and gentlemen-” a loud voice on a giant speaker bangs against Alex’s eardrums, and he vaguely wishes he’d brought a pair of earplugs as the curtain is pushed aside and it’s overtaken by the familiar thrill. He spies the podium, fixes a smile onto his face, and steps out into the Texas spring sun.

Part II: March 2040 - December 2040

You are on national television, Alex thinks to himself. You are supposed to be composed. You cannot facepalm in the middle of this debate no matter how much you and everybody else want to. You are running for the highest office in the country. Be. Composed.

“I resent that,” Pinkley protests with a raised finger as the moderator waves a hand and tries desperately to get him to shut up. “I love the queers!”

Alex facepalms.

“Sure you do,” McKinney mutters.

Pinkley leans across his podium to get a better look at McKinney from across Alex. “When I was in office, the rate of queer hate crimes was the lowest it’s ever been!”

“Yeah, you’ve been saying that for four years,” Alex points out, trying desperately not to laugh. “You know how much it actually dropped? One point. And as far as queer people are concerned, that’s the bare minimum.”

“And what would you know about it?” Pinkley hisses at him.

“What would I know about… queer people?” Alex asks, absolutely bewildered. He looks over to his right, and sees McKinney with his face buried in his hands.

“Gentlemen, please,” the moderator begs.

“Why are you still here?” McKinney asks over the moderator, raising a bushy eyebrow in Pinkley’s direction.

Pinkley blusters for a moment, as if indignant that anybody would ask that (everybody’s asking that). “I meet the requirements to be invited here, just like you,” he waves stubby fingers in Alex and McKinney’s directions.

“The 1% polling requirement?” McKinney’s other eyebrow goes up as well.

“Yes, I meet the 1% polling requirement, that’s an idiotic question,” Pinkley insists, looking more and more like a spoiled brat as his face deepens in color.

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Alex says, quite literally unable to stop himself. “He’s at almost double the requirement. A whole 1.9%.”

Through the glare of the spotlights, he spies Zahra giving him a stink eye. But even though he can’t see beyond her, past the first row, he can still hear the shocked laughter from the audience packed into the hall. He can also see a bit of a frown from McKinney, and Alex feels a twinge of satisfaction knowing he’s stolen some of McKinney’s spotlight.

“How dare you-” Pinkley starts, his face deepening even further in a way that makes Alex wonder if there’s a medical team on sight, because that can’t be healthy.

“No, he’s right,” McKinney interjects. “As much as I disagree with my fellow candidate on many topics, we both know that you aren’t here because you’re meeting the level of this debate. It’s because you’re too stubborn to drop out.” Pinkley opens his mouth again, but McKinney keeps going as the audience applauds him along. “We’re a year into this election cycle. It’s the last debate of the Democratic primaries, Super Tuesday is two days away - this is the stuff that’s supposed to weed out the weaker candidates, but you remain too obstinate to admit that you are the weakest link. Everybody’s known you were going to lose since day one, except for you.”

Alex’s stomach clenches as the applause rings loud up onto the stage. McKinney and Alex have been neck-and-neck in the primaries so far, and McKinney’s been putting out zingers all night. If Alex can’t keep up and get in the last word, he’s screwed. McKinney’s the candidate that the DNC wants to win, so naturally, his way to the top of the primary stage was easy. Alex’s, on the other hand, has been hard as hell. He’s always been known (and laughed at) for running “cheap” campaigns (because he tries not to rely on corporate donations), and McKinney’s campaign has been no exception. It’s attack ad after attack ad, followed by dirty news articles that spread rumors, and Fox News doing what Fox News does. But for all McKinney and the DNC’s efforts, Alex has hung in there. Money is money, but the message is what’s important, and you can’t buy word of mouth, which is where Alex has been thriving.

Pinkley pouts like a toddler as the moderator finally gains back control of the debate floor. She sighs, fixing a couple papers on the desk in front of her. “Let’s move on.” She looks up and loudly and clearly asks the next question: “This general election will be the first test for the new voting system implemented by the 28th Amendment. How will you address the concerns over allegations of voter fraud and improper voter representation? Senator McKinney, we’ll start with you.”

McKinney’s scowl is so subtle that Alex almost misses it, but he doesn’t, and it’s a beautiful thing. McKinney hates the amendment. It’s no secret, he was one of the few Democrats who opposed it in the Senate. Obviously, he didn’t get his way, but now he doesn’t have any choice but to defend it. Karma’s a bitch sometimes, ain’t it?

“Let me address voter fraud first,” McKinney says measuredly. “There’s no indication that voter fraud will be at a higher rate now with ranked choice voting than it was when the electoral college was in place. The only thing that’s changed is the ballot.” He looks up towards the audience, clearly steeling himself to say something somewhat controversial. “But let it be known that I disagree with the change in voting systems as a whole. There’s no reason to alter a system that’s worked as intended for 250 years. Voters were represented fine in the electoral college, and the new voting system is going to confuse too many people.”

“Representative Claremont-Diaz, how would you like to respond?” the moderator asks him, and Alex is glad he’s had the forethought to keep his mouth shut for his turn to speak.

“Senator McKinney was correct about there being no sign that voter fraud is going to be an issue come November. Where I disagree is the statement that the electoral college worked as intended. It didn’t work,” he says, slowly and clearly. “President Treacher didn’t win the popular vote four years ago. In my books, and for the majority of voters who didn’t want him as President, that doesn’t sound like the electoral college worked. You can’t possibly say that there’s never been a problem ever just because you’ve been unwilling to look at it for what it is.”

“And what is it?” McKinney snaps back, glaring over at Alex.

Alex resists the urge to sigh. It’s a long battle he’s been fighting, and he’s hoping beyond hope that the election this year won’t disprove everything he’s been saying about his amendment for almost three years. “It’s a form of voter suppression.” He turns back towards the audience. “Think about it like this. The most Republican state you can think of is probably Alabama, so you’d expect any given Republican presidential candidate to win by a mile in any of the elections, right? No, actually, in the past five presidential elections, the Republican candidate only won with about an average of 60% of the popular vote in the state. What about the other 40%? If you were a Democrat living in Alabama, why should your vote not be counted the same just because there’s a slim majority of Republicans in most of your districts? Having a winner-takes-all system like that of the electoral college is like saying that every single Representative from Texas has to be a Republican just because that’s how 52% of the state voted in 2036. And we’ve been structuring our campaigns around only going to swing states, so why should anybody from California, just because it’s a blue state, not have a chance to be persuaded by any candidate just because people like you have deemed that their vote doesn’t matter as much because Democrats win California against a Republican candidate anyways? The amendment was designed to ensure that a candidate’s platform has the approval of the public, not their party affiliation. It’s about making sure that the person a voter supports is someone they actually identify with, someone who’s going to push their wants and needs through into laws because that’s what they want, instead of putting your foot down because it makes winning an election harder for you. Representation of your constituents is the backbone of American politics, but I wouldn’t expect you to get that.”

McKinney’s seething by now. “I wouldn't get that?”

“No,” Alex glares back. “Because even though you fought against the amendment to the end, your state and your constituents were the first ones to ratify it. So no. I have a hard time believing that representing your state was really your highest priority.”

McKinney snorts derisively. “Sometimes, we are called to make decisions at a level above the understanding of our constituents.”

“And sometimes,” Alex retorts, feeling very petty all of a sudden, “the decision of where to place power belongs in the hands of the people who gave it to us.”

The audience breaks out in applause again, and Alex feels another surge of satisfaction knowing it was for him. There’s a substantial amount of cheering, and McKinney sours.

The moderator sighs. “I believe that’s all we have time for. Gentleman, thank you for your participation.” Alex stops listening as the audience breaks out in applause again, and steps back from the podium. Traditionally, there’s a shaking of hands between the candidates, but Pinkley’s turned on his heel and stormed off the stage, and McKinney is avoiding Alex’s eye as he waves to the audience in thanks and steps off the stage as well.

The lack of the spotlights in Alex’s eyes daze him as he strides behind the curtains and finds himself backstage. But he doesn’t need to see Henry clearly to recognize the feel of his hands, and the smell of his cologne. “You were amazing, darling,” Henry murmurs in his ear.

“I thought I might have f*cked up,” Alex says. “Ran my mouth.”

“No, it was good,” Zahra says, tugging him aside by his sleeve and leading him back into the little dressing room they’d used before. She shuts the door behind her, and Alex’s vision finally stops being spotty from the harsh spotlights so he can finally get a good look at them. “We’ll have to debrief on the plane.”

Olympia, Washington is f*cking freezing as Alex’s security team lead him outside to the car, but Alex had been too lazy to grab his winter jacket as the car takes off, heading straight to the airport. The plane is nice and toasty, though, and looking out the dark window to spy the tarmac workers below does not make Alex jealous in the slightest. “Does it count as seasonal depression if it’s winter all the time?” Alex mutters aloud as Zahra slides into the seat across from him, Henry leaning in close to Alex’s side.

More and more of Alex’s staff hurry onto the plane out of the cold. Jamie the campaign manager stomps his feet to regain feeling in them as he slumps into a seat across the aisle from them. Aaron Nguyen, the communications director, is from Maine, so he’s as cheerful as a bug as he grins at them all like the epitome of joy itself. But his deputy, Arianna, is from Miami, and she looks absolutely miserable, with only the top half of her face visible over the scarf she’s wrapped close under her nose.

“So,” Zahra says once the senior staff is all present and the plane starts rolling on the tarmac. “What do we think?” Henry looks over at Alex, as if silently asking if he should excuse himself, but Alex only tightens his grip on his hand in a silent ‘no’.

Santo, the fieldwork coordinator, peers down at his notepad. “The Minnesota primary is on Tuesday, too. I don’t know if we’ll win it, not that there’s many delegates to even win, but I think we should do well on that comment you made about ratifying the amendment. I don’t think we’ll have time to run an approval poll before that, but I can get some people on the ground tomorrow and get unofficial numbers, see how it’s going.”

“I’ll help,” Poppy, head of the rapid response team, looks up from her laptop and raises her hand, yet still manages to type with the other one. “We’re putting out a survey in a couple battleground states, we’ll tack it on.”

“Great,” Zahra nods along, scribbling on her sparse yellow legal pad. She’s nearly writing on the cardboard at this point. “Jodie? Anything to add?”

Jodie the press secretary shakes her head, then seems to consider. She leans in towards Alex and Henry. “If Tuesday goes well, there’s a couple talk shows that want you both on. I wasn’t going to jump the gun and commit to anything yet, but I wanted to give you heads up.”

Zahra’s already nodding. “Pick at least one,” she says to Alex. “I don’t care if it’s f*cking Dr. Phil.”

“We’ll need a séance for that,” Henry points out, and the staff all chuckle.

“Well, the ghost of Dr. Phil was, unfortunately, not one of the talk shows that asked for you,” Jodie says, pulling out a list and handing it over the aisle. “But I’d recommend Trevor Noah, if you think you can handle him, or any of the other ones I haven’t crossed out. Hasan Minhaj offered a recorded interview instead of live, which I could appreciate for security reasons.”

Tommy, promoted to head of security, nods his approval. “I like Hasan Minhaj,” Alex muses as he peers at the list in Henry’s hand. “He’s funny.”

“I liked that piece he did with Obama a while back,” Zahra says, grabbing her thermos as the tilt of the plane taking off threatens to slide it into her lap.

“Or,” Alex raises a finger. “Hear me out. Hot Ones. Call Sean Evans out of retirement.”

“Absolutely not,” Henry smacks his hand down. “You’re welcome to melt your own face off, but I quite like mine.”

“I bet they’re not even that spicy,” Alex insists.

“To you,” Henry mutters.

“So, Hasan Minhaj, yeah?” Jodie jots something down. “Maybe Sean Evans. I’ll put out a feeler.”

“But only after Tuesday,” Zahra checks her. “We’re not going to get overconfident, here.”

“But some confidence is good,” Alex waves her off and grins at his staff. “Like, not to speak too soon, but I think Pinkley’s going bye-bye after Tuesday.”

There’s a chorus of groans. “That’s a no-brainer,” Aaron mutters. “He looked like a baby up there.”

“No, literally,” Arianna tilts her head back and groans. “I can’t believe we ever elected him President.”

The worst thing about Super Tuesday is that you don’t really know the results until the evening. So Alex does a press conference and combs through some opposition research with the politics department with a nervous jump in his leg.

He’s slated to win big in Texas, obviously, along with the handful of other southern states that have their primaries. There’s a huge turnout in Alabama, somehow, and a slew of more votes in Alex’s favor according to some polling workers. He’d won in Iowa, the first Democratic primary, but not enough that it knocked McKinney down a peg. McKinney’s more popular among the northern Democrats, but if the debate was enough to tip him over the edge, maybe he’d have the straight shot at the nomination.

If only the DNC would get out of his sh*t and stop pouring more and more resources into McKinney’s campaign. All the attack ads are getting old, but Alex prides himself in having an incredibly strong communications department. It’s Poppy’s job as head of the rapid response team to squash rumors and respond to lies, and Alex thinks she might just be the best in the business. Despite the fact that Henry being, well, royalty, they’ve had no major bumps in the road, no major leaks, no massive scandals. Alex doesn’t really have any skeletons to hide in the closet, but if he did, he’s sure they’d be so well hidden they would basically be in Narnia.

It’s a quick turnaround from the last Democratic primary debate to Super Tuesday, and Alex is only just getting his bearings as the first of the results start coming in as he slides on his nice coat and peeks out at the footage of the rally outside: what must be several thousand people are packed onto the lawn in the fading sunlight, bearing bright blue signs with nothing but a stylized ACD on them.

He takes a few deep breaths as the TV breaks for commercials. The results from tonight shape the rest of the primaries, and everybody f*cking knows it. By the end of the night, about half of the delegates will be accounted for. By this time next week, almost 60%. He needs 1,990 delegates to win. He’s got 68, hanging behind McKinney at a frustratingly small margin of six delegates, even having won only one of the four contests that have taken place so far. But he’s supposed to take Texas in a landslide, and California packs a hell of a punch. If he can overtake McKinney, he might just have the nomination in the bag.

The DNC can try and f*ck him over all the want. Alex is stubborn as hell. Try me, he thinks as CNN resumes coverage.

The results all come in at once. Arianna of the communications office has literally pulled out a battered scientific calculator, trying to figure out which states have pledged how many delegates, and Aaron is pacing with his eyes glued to the TV like a strange bipedal owl. Jodie looks like she’s praying, and Zahra’s clutching her thermos for dear life.

Maine pledges 25 delegates

Edward McKinney: 61.6% carries 13 delegates

Alex Claremont-Diaz: 28.6% carries 9 delegates

David Pinkley: 2.8% carries 2 delegates

Other: 7%

Utah pledges 29 delegates

Edward McKinney: 54.1% carries 22 delegates

Alex Claremont-Diaz: 43.8% carries 7 delegates

David Pinkley: 0.9% carries 0 delegates

Other: 1.2%

American Samoa pledges 6 delegates

Edward McKinney: 49.9% carries 4 delegates

Alex Claremont-Diaz: 28.9% carries 2 delegates

David Pinkley: 8.5% carries 0 delegates

Other: 12.7%

Alex blows a raspberry. “That’s… not bad,” Zahra says. “I mean, it could be better.”

“It’s only been two states and a territory!” Aaron protests. “We haven’t even hit the good states. This is, like, exactly what we predicted.”

“Did better in Utah than I expected though,” Alex shrugs. “I mean, with the Mormons and all, but still.”

“We’re going to do well in the farming states and in the south, and in California and Texas,” Arianna reminds them all, as if they need reminding that the best is yet to come. “And in the states with open primaries.”

Colorado comes in, and Alex squeaks through with the first win of the night. “That’ll be the Luna independents coming through,” Aaron nods confidently. Alabama comes in next, and like an ironic knight in shining armor, gives them a swift victory with 44 of its 52 delegates. Aaron whoops. “And people say Alabama doesn’t have Democrats,” he gloats as he leans towards Alex for a fist-bump. “That’s all you, man.”

They take less of a beating in Minnesota than Alex had expected. Normally, a candidate’s home state will be biased enough to give them a decisive win, but Alex must have hit the nail on the head at the debate, because McKinney secures a win only by the skin of his teeth.

The rest of the northern states, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island, all hand decisive victories over to McKinney, which is frustrating but not at all surprising. But the south delivers some victories, too: Alex secures wins in Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia. It all just goes to show that even Democratic primaries can be split between the north and south.

The coverage has saved the best for last. The most populous states of the Democratic primaries are always the slowest to count their votes and make an estimate, and this year is no exception. When Texas storms through with a staggering 191 delegates out of 228 for Alex, there’s applause and cheers, and Alex gets slapped on the back so hard he loses his balance several times. Henry’s there, grabbing his hand and beaming, and Zahra has her eyes closed like a wound that’s been open for 20 years has finally closed. It’s not the general, but it’s close enough. Texas still loves her Claremonts.

California’s close, and they know it. It usually never takes this long, but Alex feels a burgeoning flame licking the inner walls of his stomach. It’s mine, he thinks. Oscar Diaz isn’t the state’s longest-serving Senator by a long shot, but he’s won most of his elections by a landslide. Alex isn’t the biggest fan of the political loyalty mindset that makes voters think they have to vote for the same candidate every time regardless of the circ*mstances, but he’d be hard pressed to argue against it if California would only count the votes.

Finally, there it is on the screen, projected with CNN’s Hunter Weaver. The neat, shining infographic displayed behind him has Alex projected to win the California primary with 290 delegates of 415.

Aaron and Poppy are doing a waltz-like happy dance, and Jodie the press secretary has her hands in the air. Santo, head of the fieldwork team, is kissing everybody on the cheeks, and Jamie’s been put into a headlock by Arianna.

Alex’s eyes are fixed firmly on Henry, who’s beaming up at him from his seat on the plush couch, and stands swiftly to press a kiss to Alex’s lips. He nearly gets lost in it before Zahra smacks him across the shoulder with a paper. “You have a rally waiting outside. Go say something.”

“Come on,” Alex says, snatching Henry’s hand. “Come up with me.”

“Okay,” Henry says, slightly breathless and with an air of nervousness, but lets himself be guided outside and onto the stage.

“We’ve got you on the air in ten,” says a news rep, before ushering him onto the stage. “Go ahead.”

Alex takes the stage and raises his right hand, his left tightly wound with Henry’s. The crowd outside must be several thousand people, most of them with I voted stickers plastered onto their shirts. There are signs everywhere, with the sleek ACD campaign logo stamped across stark blue. There are American flags waving everywhere, and even a few pride flags. The sound of the cheering threatens to burst his eardrums, and Henry’s hand tightens in his, but doesn’t let go as Alex steps up to the podium.

The role of a political spouse is weird, he thinks fleetingly as he puts on a smile and waits for a lull in the cheering to say something. Normally, a politician’s spouse would take a step back, and allow the candidate to be the one in the spotlight. Alex thinks that would be dumb, though, as Henry hovers a mere inch from his left shoulder. It’s not like anyone’s forgotten who’s running for president, though, as the crowd takes up a chant: “A-C-D! A-C-D! A-C-D!”

“I heard you guys caused some seismic activity,” Alex says, leaning into the microphone, and the cheers just get louder, drowning out most of his sentence. A rush fills his stomach as he spares a glance to his left, and sees Henry laughing over at him. He just shakes his head, equally bewildered.

“I want to thank every single one of you across the entire country who went to the polls today-” he says, and he’s basically yelling at this point to be heard. “I know you’ve heard people say that we can’t have victories without the voters, but I’ll tell you there wouldn't even be a campaign if it weren’t for you.” He has to break again as the crowd breaks out in cheers once more.

“There’s another important person in my life,” he says. “Obviously, Henry here needs no introduction-” there’s another wave of cheers as Henry bows his head modestly before Alex starts talking again and it quiets. “But I want to tell you about someone else who couldn’t make it tonight. See, my sister June is a wonderful speech writer.” The crowd erupts again, and Alex wonders if somewhere June is groaning at her screen and cursing him out for bringing her up. “When we first started this campaign, some people were worried. Our competitors have a lot of money, and some people thought we wouldn’t stand a chance. But June wrote me the speech that I gave at the start of this road, and I’ll never forget what she said. She said ‘the strength of a campaign doesn’t come down to price tags, it comes down to the message’.”

The rally goes nuts again, and the chant starts up once more. Alex talks over it, raising his voice even further. “They doubted us because we didn’t have the money. But if you have proven anything today, it’s that money doesn't win victories. People do. Your voice is the most powerful thing you have, and you’ve used it tonight. We’re going to bring this- you and your families and and your dreams for a better America- all the way to the end of the primaries, right into the general election, all the way to the end of the campaign road and straight to the White House! Come November, mark my words, we’ll win, and they’re going to wonder how we did it. But you’ll know that it was you, and your voice, and your vote that made history time and time again!”

There’s uproar once again, and Alex spies more than one person in tears. He looks behind him, to the other crowd of people up on the stage for appearances sake, and sees them all beaming at him. They really believe in him. It’s almost overwhelming, but Alex lets a genuine smile take over his face, and looks back at Henry to see the crinkles on his nose. It’s real, he thinks. It’s all real, and it matters.

“Thank you,” he says into the microphone. “God bless America. We’ll see y’all in November.”

March 7, 2040

Politico - Maria Shelby

A decisive victory on Super Tuesday for the ACD campaign

Last night's election results showed the American public exactly what it means to have an effective campaign that doesn’t rely on money. As ACD said in his closing remarks at his Austin-based rally, ‘price tags don’t win campaigns’. Are we looking at a new era of campaigns that don't rely on money? Clearly, it’s possible.

ACD’s campaign has heavily relied on what is called ‘word of mouth’ campaigning, says a representative from the head strategy office, run by Alizabeth Greenom, who is a notorious campaign finance reform advocate. This new ‘word of mouth’ campaigning style targets a specific group of people who are high up on the ‘influence ladder’, and are able to spread messages in a way that gets other people to do the same. No, this doesn’t mean campaigning through social media influencers, says the representative, ‘…it means getting people talking about the candidate in their everyday spaces’.

Getting potential voters to think critically about the candidates is one of the greatest weapons of this campaign style, and Greenom’s office believes that pushing ACD’s qualities as a candidate to becoming a ‘dinner-table topic’ is how they delivered such a decisive victory in the primaries last night. Obviously, ACD’s been a household name for close to 24 years, but getting people to see him as a potential president is where the work is.

After the final votes are tallied, many are starting to believe that ACD is going to be the Democratic presumptive nominee from this point forward. With McKinney’s campaign getting smacked down in the south and only scraping by with measly victories in the north, many believe the rest of the primaries won’t give him enough victories to sustain a campaign until the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for August 13-16 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plus, with Pinkley’s frankly pathetic showout (many suspect his rally being held tonight will include a suspension of his campaign - a long time coming), ACD has risen in the ranks faster than many thought he would. But, be honest, are you really that surprised?

Excerpt from Comedian Jordan Prock’s standup routine

Richmond, March 26, 2040

So, you all saw Hasan Minhaj’s interview with ACD and Prince Henry, right? I- sorry, I guess we’re supposed to call him ‘Dr. Fox’ now, but who gives a f*ck, right? I just think they want us to forget that our possible future president is literally married to British royalty. But can I be honest? I don’t actually care. First of all, good on ACD for pulling royalty. Every six-year-old girl’s dream. Of all the things I could give a sh*t about, though, of all the countries I would be worried about the president having close family ties to, I probably wouldn’t pick the UK. What’s he gonna do, give the colonies back to the Queen for Mother’s Day?

Anyways, if you saw the interview, it’s funny. Who would have guessed, they picked a comedian. But, like, ACD and Prince Henry start talking about how the main thing they argue over is what to name their dogs, since they name them after queer icons. Apparently, Prince Henry is more in favor of using the first name, instead of the last name, which says basically all you need to know about him. Exhibit A: Who the f*ck names their dog David when Bowie is right there?! But what I think they need to do is name their next dog after Edward McKinney, since we all know he’s been sucking the DNC’s dick for decades, and that right there is iconic.

Let me talk about Treacher for a second. Listen, I know you all think he’s quaking in his boots at the idea of facing ACD in the general, but I kinda think he’s vibing with it. I’m gonna backtrack. I have this friend, and she got really into astrology recently. Now, I don’t love astrology, I think it’s for people who don't have any sense of personal agency. So, like, teenage girls, people who run Etsy pages… and Treacher. Listen, you boo me for that, but be so real with me. Have you ever seen that man have an original thought? I’m pretty sure the only time I ever saw him have a personality was in that one general debate and he ranted against Pinkley for, like, thirty seconds. But that was it. But, you know, he’s a big fan of automation in factories and robots and sh*t, apparently, so maybe he’s projecting. Ladies and gentlemen, they’ve done it. They’ve finally put a robot in the Oval Office.

Anyways, please vote in this election. It actually counts this time, right? I mean, I know it sounds like I’m on a soapbox right now, but we’ll all be on soapboxes when sea levels rise. But you should vote for ACD, and I’ll tell you why. We could have the hottest president. Move over, Macron. I’m not even kidding, I’ll watch the State of the Union address if ACD’s the one giving it. I might not agree with all his policies, but I like looking at him.

Alex cackles as he watches the standup routine from last night. June had sent it to him, saying that Ellen had found it funny, as well. He supposes he should hope that people took more out of the interview than what they name their dogs, but he’ll get over it.

There’s a rhythmic knock on the clear glass of the door, and he hastily puts his phone down before he realizes it’s Henry, slightly flushed from the first warm day of the year in Texas, relishing in the fact that he’s here, finally, after weeks of planning around Ellie’s school schedule. “Hey, baby,” Alex grins, putting his chin in his hand and giving Henry a thorough once-over. There’s just something about Henry’s forearms, exposed as the crew neck he’s wearing (Alex’s well-worn gray Georgetown alumni one) has the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Or maybe it’s the jeans, hugging his thighs just so. Or the way his hair falls. Or his fingers, grasping-

“Oh, my God, you got me flowers?”

Henry just grins, rounding the desk as Alex pushes back and stands up, and shows them. They’re beautiful, placed neatly already in a crystal vase, with goldenrod and baby’s breath and yellow marigolds. “Couldn’t find yellow roses,” Henry says, placing the vase on the desk before cupping Alex’s jaw and pressing the f*cking swooniest kiss onto his cheek. “But I made do.”

“Yeah, you did,” Alex says, smiling like a lovestruck idiot. One hand finds Henry’s waist. “I am so unbelievably attracted to you right now.”

“Is it the flowers?”

“Maybe,” Alex breathes, and he swears his lips are two f*cking centimeters away from Henry’s. “Also- forearms.”

“Mhm.”

How is it that Alex never knew he was attracted to men before the ripe age of 21? Because there’s also something about the deep rumble of Henry’s voice, and the firmness of his chest, and the strength of his fingers against Alex’s jaw that make him feel like he’s closer to a gooey cookie than a human. Also, for some reason, the fact that Henry’s taller than him and Alex has to tilt his head back for a kiss is, like, really hot.

“Happy birthday,” Henry murmurs.

“Oh, sh*t,” Alex realizes.

Henry laughs. “You forgot?”

“Yep,” Alex nods sheepishly. “Actually, the flowers make more sense, now that I think about it.”

Henry just rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “So. Forearms?”

“Oh, yeah,” Alex nods vigorously. “Like, you said you liked mine, and I didn’t get it at first, right? I get it now.”

“Well, I’m glad we’ve finally reached this momentous occasion in your journey of sexual exploration. Lunch?”

“Sure.”

Alex resists the urge to slip his hand into the back pocket of Henry’s jeans as they step out of the office and make for the exit of the campaign headquarters. They pass the communications bullpen on the way, some members waving, or wishing him a happy birthday. He just waves back as well, enjoying the upbeat attitude that accompanies the first day of true pre-summer weather.

“Alex!” He turns to see Zahra striding towards them, the thin heels of her shoes clicking on the ground at a satisfying pace. She looks windswept, but satisfied. “I have to tell you something.” She pulls them both over to the corner by a water stand and potted plant that looks like it's on its last legs. Clearly, she doesn't care if Henry hears either. “Listen. I just got a call from Roberts.”

“McKinney’s campaign chair?” Alex asks, wondering what would get her so excited about a phone call from a guy he knows she despises.

“Yes. He called. And,” she does the closest thing to a happy dance he’d ever dare attach to Zahra, “McKinney’s going to suspend.”
Alex is pretty sure his eyes have bugged out of his head. “He’s going to suspend… his campaign? He’s done? He’s dropping out?”

“Yes,” Zahra nods wildly. “After the primaries next week. April 2nd.”

“What- that’s New York, Delaware, Wisconsin…”

“And Connecticut.”

“But he was supposed to do decently well in those states,” Alex shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

“He must have done some polling and realized he wasn’t going to do well enough to make up enough ground. You’re already slated to do well in New York, so that’s about another 200 delegates for you. It’s not worth it for his campaign to keep trying. They think they’ve already lost.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Have they? Already lost?”

“I don’t have the numbers to say,” Zahra shrugs happily. “Roberts says they’re announcing the suspension after those primaries are over.”

Alex gapes for another minute. “Well, I guess it makes sense. Delaware, Wisconsin, and Connecticut combined have the same amount of delegates as New York, and there’s not even a 100% guarantee he’d win all three of those contests… I bet the DNC loves that he’s giving up,” he mutters sarcastically.

“Do you hear me, Alex?” Zahra snaps her fingers in front of his face. “This is good news! You’re going to the general! You’re the presumptive nominee!”

He grins. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool as sh*t. Happy birthday to me.” He looks over at Henry. “I’m in the general.”

“I know, darling, I have ears,” Henry says, shaking his head, but also smiling widely, then tugs Alex’s hand in his. “Come on.”

“Where are you going?” Zahra asks.

“Birthday lunch,” Henry says as they start walking towards the door.

“Oh,” Zahra nods.

“You forgot?” Alex raises an eyebrow at her as Henry pushes open the door and signals to the driver outside. He’s joking, obviously, but she blows a piece of graying hair out of her face.

“Of course not. There’s cupcakes coming at four o’clock. Aaron wants to order pizza.”

“I knew you loved me,” Alex grins at her, and opens an arm to hug her, but she backs out of the way.

“Absolutely the f*ck not. Go.”

“She loves me,” Alex insists as Henry opens the door to the car for him. “She wouldn’t admit it under threat of torture, but she loves me.”

“Of course she does. Shaan told me she placed the order for the cupcakes two months ago.”

Exactly as McKinney’s campaign promised, he dropped out of the campaign on the 4th of April. Nobody is particularly surprised, as Alex has been sweeping in the primary elections since Super Tuesday with little difficulty. Pinkley, too, had dropped out, and had apparently taken to angrily golfing on his private land in Illinois as spring weather settled over the country.

Alex, in the meantime, directs his campaign towards larger pursuits. Even though 19 more territories and states have yet to hold primaries, the ACD for America campaign is focusing on the general election in November.

“Lara Kim’s been doing well in the polls,” Alex mutters to Oscar as they take a walk in the early morning close to the Capitol building. Alex is in DC on business, and having resigned from his seat in the House to run his campaign, doesn’t have much else to do. Oscar isn’t running any campaigns at the moment either, as he’s in his final stretch in the Senate. “Raf’s running mate, you remember.”

Oscar hums. “She’ll do well, I think. Not enough to win, not against both you and an incumbent president, but enough to spoil. With the ranked choice voting, it’s highly likely it’ll go to the last round.”

“Yeah,” Alex nods quietly, the cold mist settling on his cheeks and making him shiver.

“Raf’s bored,” Oscar says after a moment’s silence. “I think he wants back in.”

“I can’t make him a Secretary, Dad,” Alex groans. “That’s, like, the textbook definition of nepotism. And besides, I think you’re wrong. He’s not bored, he’s lonely.”

“He was going to appoint you the Secretary of State,” Oscar points out, completely ignoring the second half of Alex’s statement.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t going to win the election, so nobody cared,” Alex says. “And if you’re going to suggest making him my VP nominee-”

“Hm, no,” Oscar hums, “one queer candidate is one too many for some people.”

Alex sighs. “If he wants to move back to DC, he can.”

“He will if you win.”

“He said that?”

“He didn’t have to.” They take another turn so they’re looking at the side of the Capitol building from below a couple flights of white marble stairs. They both pause. “I knew you were never going to stop at Congress,” Oscar says quietly. “Too much like your mom.” He looks at Alex long and hard. “She let it limit her. Being a woman. She always held herself back a bit, because she knew she would be accused of being a bitch, or something. Or too feminine. She let it stop her.”

“Dad, what are you-”

“I’m trying to tell you… don’t let it stop you.”

“I never have.”

“No. I know that. But the future is something else entirely. Alex, if you do win…” Oscar sighs. “They love you because you work so hard to please them, to help them. Winning the general, becoming president, it could be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. You want to please them so much, mijo, but you can’t let that stop you. What pleases them won’t always be what’s good for the country. There’s a balance, and sometimes I’m afraid you haven’t found it yet.”

Alex casts his eyes to the ground rather than look at the wrinkles that mark Oscar’s face. “You don’t think I’ll find it?”

“No, I do think you’ll find it. But I’m worried about what it will take for you to find it.”

It’s May, and everybody knows Alex is the presumptive Democratic nominee. And the DNC is not happy about it. Alex is very happy about it. Well, he was happy, but now he’s frustrated.

“Tell them to stop following me home,” he mutters to Zahra. “The press. I’m going nuts.”

“That would be the tabloids following you home, and I can’t do anything about that, because neither of your houses are in gated communities,” she says.

“Can I get a cease and desist?” Alex asks hopefully, looking up at her from the millions of papers she’s just shoved in his arms, his homework for the weekend since he’s heading back to Virginia.

Yeah, the campaign is based in Austin, but Henry and Ellie still live in Virginia because that’s where Ellie goes to school, and Alex wants to tear his own hair out because he’s had to end up doing exactly what he didn’t want to do when they moved to Virginia for Alex to be in Congress in the first place. So every week since last fall he’s been splitting his time between the headquarters in Austin and with Henry and Ellie in Virginia. Thankfully, Ellie’s summer break is coming soon and they’re set to join him at their house in Austin for the whole three months.

“Well, to get a cease and desist, you’d have to figure out which tabloid is following you home,” Zahra shrugs. “And to do that, you’d have to talk to them.”

Alex groans. “I don’t want to.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Zahra shoos him out the door. “Get out of here. You’re Henry’s problem for the weekend.”

Alex gestures to Tommy that he’s leaving as he shoves the papers in his messenger bag. Tommy adjusts his sunglasses and fidgets with his belt as he stands from his post outside Alex’s door to join him in walking down the maze of hallways past the bullpens and whatnot. “Bring the car around,” he says into the radio wire pinned to his jacket, adjusting it ever-so-slightly so his concealed firearm isn’t visible.

So, Alex has never been what some might consider to be paranoid, specifically. But there've been a couple incidents and threats, which is to be expected as a queer person of color running for president. Either way, Zahra had asked that he up the security, so Tommy, as head of Alex’s security team, had invested a bit more into radios and so on. Technically, he could ask for a Secret Service detail since he’s the presumptive nominee, but Tommy’s always been good about being on the down-low, and Alex isn't keen to be followed by four people instead of just one for the foreseeable future. Hence, he’s putting off the detail request until he has to, which wouldn’t be until July.

Alex checks that his weekend bag is tucked under the seat on the drivers’ side as he climbs into the car, Tommy taking the passenger seat straight ahead of him. Alex can’t see his face, but that hardly matters. “What did you think about that gaffe from Treacher last night?” Tommy says to him as the driver (Seb for the weekend) pulls the car out of the firelane in front of the building and weaves through the streets of Austin.

Alex grins. “I do not seek reelection to win against my opponent, that one? Yeah, I’m guessing he said something after that, but who knows.”

Seb snorts. “What does that even mean?”

“Not a f*cking clue.” Tommy looks over his shoulder to look at Alex. “You don’t have too many gaffes out there, do you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t think so? I mean,” he laughs to himself as he remembers the one that’s burned itself into his gray matter. “There was that one time I said Senator Will Johnson was a ‘she’ instead of ‘he’. But I’d argue that that's a bit more excusable, because there’s a woman in the House with the same last name.”

“Hopefully Johnson doesn’t mind,” Tommy smirks.

Alex laughs. “I don’t think he did. And neither did she.”

The Austin-Bergstrom International airport is about a 20 minute drive from the campaign headquarters, and Alex sends a short text to Henry that he’s on his way. Can’t wait, Henry texts back, and Alex’s stomach flips like a lovestruck pancake.

“What are you up to this weekend?” Seb asks. Tommy already knows (he knows Alex’s schedule like the back of his hand, but he keeps his mouth shut).

“Ellie wants me to take her to Wolf Trap,” Alex says, shaking his head and smiling.

“The open air theater?” Seb asks.

“Yeah. One of her friends' parents got a VIP lounge for a film concert, I can’t remember which one.”

“I love when you do half my job for me,” Seb grins. “My wife used to go to the ones they did for the Harry Potter movies.”

Seb and Tommy chat back and forth as the car travels through the city at what feels like a snail’s pace. Alex looks out the passenger-side window to see the other cars carrying work-weary drivers home for the weekend. He spies a restaurant he used to go to a lot, and one he’s been meaning to try, and one he knows isn’t worth it. He sees his favorite taco truck, the movie theater he went to as a kid, and the people milling along the sidewalks, looking for the best bars, ready to forget the week.

He sees the traffic budge up as the light ahead turns green, and Seb nudges the car forward past the intersection.

It’s a wide intersection.

He sees it out of the corner of his eye, the flash of a headlight, but only just.

It’s odd. That car is going much too fast-

It hurts.

His head, it hurts.

It reminds him of the time he’d gotten a concussion when he was playing lacrosse his junior year of high school. His mom hadn’t been there to hold his hand in the emergency room, she’d been in DC. It was June who’d dropped everything to be with him.

His head still hurts.

He pulls his eyes open, but his vision is blurry, swimming, and everything sounds like it’s underwater.

“Alex!” It’s too quiet, but he recognizes it as his name. There’s a figure moving ahead of him. Where is he? Oh, the car. Right.

Headlights. Coming towards them. He’d seen it to his right, through the window. Someone crashed into them.

The effort it takes to that simple conclusion should be worrying, right?

Alex’s vision is still blurry, but he picks up his head (that hurts, too) to see Seb turned in his seat, calling for him. “Alex!”

“Huh.” It’s not even a full word, just a low groan of acknowledgement. He tries to nod, he’s alright, but that just sends a fresh wave of pain radiating down from his head to every other part of his body.

The cool breeze is fresh on Alex’s face. He looks up, and sees the door on the passenger side open, and Tommy’s seat is empty. Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear the sounds of a scuffle and yelling, lots of yelling.

“Alex, I need you to-” Seb starts, but he’s cut off by distant banging.

Alex looks up. The banging isn’t distant at all. It’s someone on the other side of the car, looking through the driver’s side window into the back of the car, straight at Alex, banging on the window with something in the palm of their hand. He can’t even make out their face, because the window is cracked. “Oh, no you f*cking don’t,” Seb growls before he opens the door, climbs out, and tackles the person to the ground.

What the f*ck is going on?

Alex looks at the window to his right - it barely exists anymore, reduced to a mesh of broken glass held together only by sheer force of will. The side of the car closest to him is caved in. Through the fogginess in his mind, he realizes that it’s a complete and utter miracle he’s not a mass of broken bones right now.

“Alex!” Seb calls again through the open door to the driver’s seat. Alex can’t see him, he’s kneeling on the ground and holding something -someone- down, pushing them into the ground. That’s weird, Alex thinks, but he doesn't have the mental capacity to question it.

“Yeah,” Alex says, and he meant to say it louder, it’s much too quiet for Seb to have heard him. “Yeah!”

“Can you move? I need you to tell me if you can move.”

Alex surveys his body. His arms are unharmed, it looks like, and so is his left leg. His right leg is stuck between the passenger’s seat and the caved in door, though. Actually, that hurts, too. It’s like he’s only just feeling it, but his right leg, near his ankle, hurts like a bitch. He can feel blood being absorbed into his sock.

“Hang on,” Alex tries to yell back, but yelling hurts his head, so he gives up. With a very painful tug, he manages to free his foot. “f*ck,” he groans as the pain washes over his entire leg, radiating up from what must be a pretty nasty cut. He spies a sharp piece of broken plastic that must be the culprit. “Yeah,” he nods towards Seb. God, nodding hurts too. “Yeah, I can move now.”

“Okay,” Seb says loudly, still kneeling and holding the someone down. “Okay, move towards this side of the car, can you do that?” Alex does so, and reaches for the handle of the door that hopefully still opens, but Seb yells for him to stop. “Don’t open it! Don’t open it, okay? We’re in the middle of an intersection.”

“Okay,” Alex nods, and presses his forehead to the cool plastic of the door. He looks down at his foot. Yeah, that’s bleeding. sh*t.

He sees someone else approach the car, a middle-aged woman clutching her phone in her hand. She’s looking down at whoever Seb’s holding against the ground, and timidly says that she’s called an ambulance, and the dispatcher is still on the phone. “Yes,” Seb nods to her. “Yes. And we need police.”

The sounds of sirens block most of Alex’s cognizant thought as he lets himself sag against the car door, feeling like his entire body is one massive bruise. Everything hurts. He vaguely registers Seb and Tommy communicating with each other from opposite sides of the car. He closes his eyes.

“Hey! Alex!” Seb calls. “Eyes open.”

“Oh, my god,” the woman gasps and tries to peer through the tinted window. “Is there someone else in there?”

“Ma’am, take two steps away from the car,” Seb snaps at her. The sirens are getting louder. Someone else approaches, holding up a phone and taking a video. “Put that away,” he hears Seb growl. “For f*ck’s sake, have some awareness.”

His head is throbbing. He feels like his brain is pulsing. And not in a fun way. Is there a fun way for that to happen? Whatever. His leg really hurts. Everything really hurts. He feels faint, like he might pass out. Or vomit. Hopefully those don’t happen at the same time, that would be really unfortunate.

“Hello,” someone says, and their voice sounds far off. It’s a young woman, looking at him from the front, kneeling on the driver’s seat to get a good look at him. She looks shocked for a moment, then quickly recovers. “Hello, sir, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he says, and hopes it’s loud enough that she’s heard him.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Alex,” he gets out through another wave of pain in his head. The bright neon yellow of her jacket is hurting his eyes.

“Hi, Alex, I’m Kate, I’m a medic. My partner and I are going to get you out of here and to the hospital, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, and it’s closer to a whisper than he’d like.

There’s lots of flashing lights around as the door is pulled open and Kate, along with another tall, muscly medic, can get a look at him. She’s asking him what feels like too many questions, where it hurts, if he’s having any difficulty breathing, and all the while her partner is touching his wrists, his neck, his head.

He looks past them to see police milling about, some doing crowd control and pushing bystanders from the street corner along, others talking to Seb and Tommy, others shoving people into the back of their patrol cars. Yeah, that’s weird.

Something’s definitely up by the time he’s finally pulled out of the car and onto the rolling stretcher. Seb’s arguing with a police officer as Tommy jogs over to accompany Alex into the back of the ambulance, hoping beyond hope that nobody on the street corner has a camera with good enough quality to get a picture of him in the cervical collar that Kate’s partner has strapped around his neck despite his weak protests.

“You’re not going to tell anyone how stupid I look in this thing, right?” Alex tries to joke to Kate, who’s climbed into the back of the rig with him and cut open his shirt to stick electrodes to his arms and calves, before running her gloved fingers along the spaces between his ribs to place the others.

She smiles calmly. “Can’t, remember? Patient confidentiality. But,” she clicks a couple buttons on the monitor as the ambulance starts rolling and the sound of the siren is slightly dampened from inside. “When you’re elected President, we’ll remember each other, how does that sound?”

She slips an oxygen mask over his face and starts fussing around with his ankle. He doesn’t have the energy to look down and see how bad it is. “Is your husband here?” she asks him, then looks towards Tommy. “Does he have family around here?”

“Henry’s in Virginia,” Alex mutters. “June-”

“I’m going to call Zahra,” Tommy says, and pulls out his phone.

“Okay,” Alex mutters, and leans his head back against the thin pillow of the stretcher. Per request, he fights to keep his eyes open through the pain and exhaustion that overtakes him, and doesn’t bother keeping up as Kate continues to ask Tommy questions, eventually grabbing a tablet and typing something down.

Either he passes out, or the next hour is a blur. It could honestly be either. Tommy refuses to leave his side as he’s wheeled from the ambulance into the hospital through a bright white emergency room and into what’s apparently a trauma assessment room, with even brighter lights and way too many people as he’s moved from the stretcher onto a different table.

Kate gives her report to a nurse, and Alex is almost sad to see her go as he’s carted off and moved into a different room, with fewer people and dimmer lights. The cervical collar is taken off after he’s whisked through an x-ray and cleared from any substantial damage, and then he’s left alone with Tommy.

Already, the events it had taken to get into the room were fading from his mind. He’s losing the memories like sand from a sieve. A nurse comes in after a little while and says that that’s normal for a concussion, and that a doctor is coming in soon to do some stitches on his leg.

He finally gets Henry on the phone, who’s very worried and is trying to get to the airport as fast as he can, but Alex is having a hard time grasping the conversation very well. He just wants to close his eyes. He’s too concussed to be anxious, really, and is about to drop off when his nurse comes in and takes his vitals again.

Zahra storms in as the doctor is halfway through putting in the stitches in his leg. It’s a nasty, but shallow six-inch long laceration, and he hadn’t looked until it had been cleaned, but Zahra doesn’t bat an eye as she enters the room and firmly shuts the door behind her, but not before Alex sees the nurses at the station trying to get a look into the room.

“Thank you,” she says shortly to the doctor as he finishes the last stitch, the eleventh, and stands up.

“We’ll keep him for the next couple hours for observation, but he can be monitored from home for the next couple days,” the doctor says, nodding down to Alex who hasn't really been paying any attention. “And you’ll need to come back to take the stitches out in about a week.” If this doctor gives a singular sh*t who Alex is, he doesn’t show it, which Alex appreciates. Once again, the door opens and the nurses stare, but then it closes again and it’s like they were never there.

“We’ve gotta get you out of here,” Zahra mutters, mostly to herself as she turns the light off and takes Alex’s phone away. “In the dead of f*cking night. The place is crawling with the press.” She turns to Tommy and mutters quietly, “Is there a private exit? Did you ask?”

Tommy shakes his head. “I asked if they’d let us use the ambulance lane, but they said no.”

The darkness is so nice, though, so rather than keep listening, Alex closes his eyes and drops off to sleep almost immediately.

He’s roused at about 2 in the morning and given a fresh set of clothes from a very apologetic Seb, who’s spent the last several hours at the police station, but he won’t say why yet. “You’re cleared,” the nurse says, handing him the discharge papers and a pen. Alex signs them as Tommy explains the plan, how they’re going to get out of the building without attracting the press.

It goes only moderately well. The flashing of the cameras most certainly does not help Alex’s throbbing head, and he’s walking at a limp, and people keep yelling questions that he doesn’t even feel like he has the energy to answer.

He dozes on the ride home, Zahra’s phone screen the only thing lighting up the interior of the car. She keeps shooting worried glances at him, and he knows he’s being uncharacteristically quiet, but the cool of the window glass is so cool against his forehead and he’s just so f*cking tired. That’ll be the concussion, probably. He knows he should also be more freaked out about the fact that he was just in a car accident, but that feels like a nonissue as the car finally pulls into the driveway of his house and Henry’s already waiting in the driveway. So much for his weekend in Virginia.

“Come on, love,” Henry says gently, pulling the door open and gathering a truly exhausted Alex into his arms. Alex ends up putting more weight on Henry’s arm than he meant to as the painkillers he’d been given in the hospital start to wear off and his ankle starts killing him again, but Henry just squeezes him tighter and helps him up to the house and up the stairs with so much care it makes Alex want to cry with gratitude.

“Ellie wanted to stay up until you got here,” Henry explains as he helps Alex into sweats and a ratty old t-shirt. “But she fell asleep at ten o’clock.”

“She’ll miss her thing.”

“She doesn’t care.” Henry pulls back the duvet and Alex carefully gets in the bed, taking extra care of his bandaged leg and then collapsing back on the pillows with a groan and hands pressed over his eyes.

Henry’s arms wrap around him and pull Alex to his chest, and if Alex wasn’t so tired he might cry.

“Stupid driver,” Henry murmurs, and Alex realizes he’s the first person to have said something like that all day. In fact, nobody has really mentioned what happened to the drivers of the car that crashed into his. It’s like everyone’s been avoiding it, but it’s not like Alex can really recollect it well enough anymore to sh*t on some idiot teenager, so he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” he murmurs as Henry’s fingers start rubbing circles into his back. He looks up at Henry’s face and catches the worry there, set plain as day in the crease of his mouth, the furrow of his brow. “You okay?”

“Of course,” Henry says quietly, pressing a kiss to Alex’s cheek and pausing there, relishing in the closeness. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He leans back and traces Alex’s features with a faint finger. “I couldn’t watch the news, or anything, they were all talking about you. I couldn’t listen anymore, they made it sound like you were going to die.”

“Hey,” Alex takes Henry’s hand and squeezes tight. “I’m okay.” He tries to grin. “Leave it to the press to catastrophize. They’re all bored of the primaries by now, it’s like feeding wild dogs.”

Henry just nods wordlessly, and presses his body to plaster across Alex’s. “Go to sleep,” he murmurs, and Alex doesn’t have to be told twice, because he’s already drifting off.

He’s pretty sure he spends the first several days after the accident just sleeping. Apparently, the whole thing that says that people who have had concussions should be woken up frequently is a complete lie. Alex isn’t complaining - except for the fact that his coffee privileges have been revoked. Henry refuses to make him any after noon, it’s very annoying.

“You’re the bane of my existence,” Alex mutters darkly as Henry hands him, not coffee, but some decaf herbal tea. He winces as shifting his position twinges the cut on his ankle, and Henry swiftly hands him several Tylenol.

“And the light of your life, don’t forget,” he says brightly, kissing Alex on the cheek and adjusting his book in his lap so he doesn’t spill the tea on it.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters.

It’s day three of recovery, and Alex is already getting restless. He keeps insisting to Zahra that he can go back to work, but she stubbornly refuses to let him go back to the office for the rest of the week, at least until his stitches come out. The campaign is going fine without him, she says, which sounds counterintuitive considering he’s the candidate, which he tells her, but she just rolls her eyes and hands him the newest polling data as a compromise.

His approval numbers have gone way up, for some reason, and if Zahra notices that it’s strange, she doesn’t say why. “I guess there’s something people like about being in a car accident,” Alex guesses as Henry finally lets him turn on the TV to watch some trashy dating show.

Ellen and Leo stop by, and Alex is pretty sure he’ll never have to cook again in his life with how many meals people have been bringing over. There’s, like, an insane amount of flowers around the house, and Ellen says they’re basically spilling out of the garage at this point.

Everybody’s acting a bit strange, though. Alex notices Ellen and Zahra speaking in hushed tones downstairs when he pokes his head out of the master bedroom. Leo’s smiles are curated and clean, and Oscar, when he comes to visit, is unusually tense and keeps avoiding talking about the news.

Alex hasn’t bothered looking at the news recently, he can guess what it’s about. It’s either going to be people catastrophizing and thinking he’s comatose because he’s been MIA for the last couple days, or some asshole Republican who thinks he must be a terrible driver for getting T-boned (which, again, seems counterintuitive). But Zahra has deleted all the news apps from his phone, and apparently asked Henry to not turn on CNN or anything, which he finds a bit strange, but he doesn’t bother questioning it until he hobbles downstairs on day five to find Zahra and Ellen with their heads pressed together around a laptop. As soon as Zahra spies him, she slams the top down.

“You’re hiding something,” he says plainly. It’s not accusatory, not necessarily angry, but a statement of fact. “Tell me.”

“Baby,” Ellen sighs, standing up from the counter. “Listen-” Alex hears Henry coming down the stairs, and Ellen cuts off as he enters the room.

He surveys them all with wide eyes, and catches Alex’s face. He understands in a second. “What’s going on?” he says, but not to Alex; he’s looking towards Zahra and Ellen with the same tone of voice as Alex.

“We didn’t want to worry you-” Zahra starts, but Henry interrupts.

“I’ve been worried for the last five days, Zahra,” he says, frowning. “I’ll be worried for the rest of my life if he wins this election. You tell me what you know right now, or the next several years are going to be very awkward for all of us.” Alex blinks. Henry’s clearly angry, but Alex can’t really figure out why. He can only guess that he’s really missed some important detail, and Henry’s been paying more attention than Alex has.

Ellen sighs and rubs her forehead. “C’mon, sit down,” she says, gesturing them both into seats on the other side of the kitchen island. She places her elbows firmly on the counter and clasps her hands, and Alex sees President Claremont for just a moment. “I received a security briefing from the CIA this morning, and it confirmed some things I’ve been guessing for the last couple days. Zahra and I didn’t want to tell you anything without firm facts, and, well, you’re concussed. There’s no telling how you’d take this.”

Alex feels his brow furrow. Before, he’d been curious. Now, he’s just confused, and that’s not the concussion talking. “Security brief from the CIA? What are you talking about?”

“Alex,” Zahra sighs, and she looks sad for a minute. “The accident… Well, it wasn't an accident.” Alex shakes his head, still not completely understanding, but Henry has leaned back in his seat and Alex hears his breaths shake. “It was on purpose,” Zahra clarifies for him.

“I don’t-” Alex starts, but he looks over towards Henry, who won’t meet his eyes, staring at the sleek countertop before him. He tries for a laugh, which might have been in poor taste. “What- you’re not saying it was, like, an assassination attempt, are you?”

Nobody says anything, and the house is dead silent aside from the chirping of the birds outside. Alex looks at Zahra, who’s biting her lips, and Ellen, who has that look on her face like she has to give someone grave news. Henry’s looking up at the ceiling.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Zahra nods shortly.

It makes a bit more sense, now, though. The smallest bits and pieces he can remember of everything that happened after the accident - someone banging against the window to get to him, Seb tackling them, Tommy on the other side of the car holding someone else down, the offenders being shoved in the backs of cop cars. That one piece of knowledge actually makes the whole thing make more sense, like someone’s rearranged a painting in his brain so he’s finally looking at it right.

“Okay,” he says slowly, and holds up his hands. “But, seriously,” he leans in towards Ellen. “I’ve been getting death threats since I was seventeen, Mom, this isn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility, right? You’ve had people try to kill you, this isn’t new. It was bound to happen at some-”

“Don’t,” Henry says sharply.

“Seriously,” Alex protests. “Look at me! I’m openly queer, half Mexican, running for president, married to you! This isn’t something we didn’t see coming, this is why we hired security-”

“That doesn’t mean I’m supposed to gloss over it like it’s nothing!” Henry bites back, and his eyes are shining as they meet Alex’s. “This isn’t something we just move on from!”

“You just- what?” Alex snaps at Zahra as he sees her hold up a hand to stop him.

“There’s more,” she says, and her voice is much too soft, and it sets Alex’s alarm bells ringing.

Henry makes a sound like an exasperated laugh, and Alex wants to leave the conversation. “The CIA took the guys who did it, and questioned them. Turns out, they wouldn't speak any English. Only…” she swallows. “Only Swedish.”

Ah.

It’s like someone’s stolen all the breath out of his lungs. The sound of the bird outside is drowned out by echoing, cavernous silence. He’s not in his own body. It’s like he’s seeing the room from the other side of a camera, removed and helpless.

He can feel his heart beating in his chest. His next inhale catches in his throat.

“Alex?” Ellen’s voice sounds like it’s coming from a deep tunnel.

He doesn’t respond, but wordlessly pushes back from the counter and strides out of the kitchen. Going up the stairs is a blur. The pain in his leg, the distant headache he’s had for the last several days, is inconsequential, unimportant. Why is it getting harder to breathe?

He supposes he should have seen it coming. There had been signs, hadn’t there? 1. Someone had been following him home. That, apparently, hadn’t been the press. 2. There had always been trouble, hadn’t there? There had been signs. 3.

3.

3… what if Henry had been in the car? God, what if Ellie had been there? Have people been following them in Virginia, too?

He jumps when Henry enters the room with an unusual amount of vigor and slams the door behind him. “What’s going on?” he says, and his eyes are flashing. Alex knows, he knows how much Henry hates being kept in the dark, but the light is blinding, too. “Why would someone in Sweden be trying to-to hurt you?”

“Not from Sweden,” Alex gets out in between shaky exhales. He stands across their bedroom, and he’s not quite sure if Henry notices the signs of the impending panic attack yet.

“What-”

“They speak Swedish in Baltonia, too.” He swallows around the rising bile in this throat. “It’s- it’s Ny Frihet.”

“Wha- a terrorist group?” Henry scoffs and throws his hands up in the air in a way that sends guilt twisting through Alex’s stomach like a ball python, constricting his esophagus, squeezing around his middle. “Christ, Alex. What did you do this time?”

Some kind of sound escapes Alex, halfway between a broken inhale and a stuttered apology, mixed with the beginnings of hyperventilation. He sinks onto the edge of the bed, clasping his hands together like that’s going to make them stop shaking. “It’s- it’s… They hate me, I guess. I’m, like, on the top of their sh*t list.”

Henry steps forward, closer to the bed. “What are you talking about?” His voice is softer, less angry, but more scared, and that makes it harder for Alex to get the stuttered words out in between shaking breaths.

“Amy told me, a couple years ago. Ny Frihet, they hate us. Americans, everything we touch, how much influence we have. I mean, I-I can’t say they’re wrong in some cases, but… but they love Travis Silson, for, you know, all the money he gave them, and Dan Davis is like a martyr to them. They al-already hated me for getting him thrown in prison for life, but when Pinkley told everyone that I was the one who had turned him in in the first place ‘cause he was mad I didn’t endorse him in the election, apparently that-that, I don’t know, did it for them. They’ve hated me for years, and Treacher and the CIA said that there was a chance that something like this might happen, when they tried to appoint me ambassador, but-”

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Henry interrupts his rambling, voice raised, and it sounds like he’s begging for an answer, his eyes shining. “Why did you keep it to yourself?”

Alex is only vaguely aware of the wetness on his cheeks and his heavy breathing as Henry hovers next to him on the bed. “I don’t know,” he shakes his head. His next inhale is closer to a gasp. “I don’t know- I’m sorry-”

“Hey,” Henry cups his face, anger forgotten for the moment. “Breathe, Alex. You’re okay. It’s alright.”

It all devolves very quickly. Alex’s shoulders are trembling, he squeezes his eyes tight shut, Henry’s arms hold him so tightly that the strangled sobs escape him in giant heaves. He can’t breathe. He’s shaking violently. “You’re okay,” Henry whispers. Alex can’t hear him.

He can’t breathe.

“Breathe.”

In.

Hold.

Out.

Hold.

“You’re okay.”

In.

Hold.

Out.

Hold.

There’s a hand in his hair, brushing softly. The texture of Henry’s shirt under his cheek is uncomfortable.

He’s freezing.

“Here,” Henry murmurs and drags a blanket over him. Alex accepts it gratefully and tucks it under his chin, pressing his nose deeper into Henry’s chest. He’s not sure how long it’s been, but he cracks his eyes open and the room is unchanged. His next inhale is shaky, but deep, filling his lungs like he’s just resurfaced from under water. “There we are,” Henry says softly, and Alex feels a kiss pressed into his hair. “I’m sorry.”

This silence isn’t quite so loud. Henry lets the apology hover for another moment. “I shouldn’t have pushed you, not when you were already having a hard time of it.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you,” Alex croaks into Henry’s shirt. His throat is scratchy and dry. “I was… I was scared.” It’s harder to admit than he’d thought it would be. For years, he’s been carrying this thing around, this choking weight around his neck, this bloody target on his back. But he’s been carrying it for so long alone that he’s acclimated to it, gotten used to the detriment. He’s fine with carrying it. He should be fine with carrying it, but it’s a hell of a lot harder than he’d thought.

“It’s okay to be scared, you’re human,” Henry says, like this is a thing he’s been saying for years. Maybe he has. “I just… I don’t want you to be scared alone.” Alex sits up slowly. Henry’s arms slip away from around his shoulders and in his hair, and it looks like he doesn’t want to let go. “I meant what I told your mum,” he continues, drawing Alex’s hands towards him and wrapping them in his own, like the touch is just as grounding for him as it is for Alex. It probably is. “I’ll always worry about you, and if you win the election, you’d best believe I’m going to keep worrying about you. So please, for the love of God,” he cracks a smile as Alex laughs tremulously, “don’t leave me in the dark. I’m not sure I can do it again.”

“I know,” Alex mumbles. He should have known better. Henry hates being kept away from something, it puts him right back in the dusty halls of Buckingham, right back in those hours in Kensington all those years ago, alone and shut out. Helpless.

“Don’t do that, either,” Henry says, releasing one of his hands from around Alex’s to brush a loose curl away from his face. “Don’t punish yourself. What’s done is done. We’ve apologized and now we just… we move on.”

Alex nods and leans in as Henry cups his cheek. He brings Henry’s other hand and kisses the knuckles there, like it can say everything that’s buzzing around in his mind. It never can, but Henry smiles like it’s enough.

Admittedly, they’re both still a bit too pissed at Zahra and Ellen for not telling them sooner, so they avoid going downstairs again at all costs until their stomachs are rumbling, which is precisely when Oscar swoops in to the rescue with a greasy bag of burgers and fries, and two massive Diet co*kes.

“f*ck, yes,” Alex, feeling slightly more normal, makes grabby hands from the little sofa in the master bedroom where he’s been under Henry’s arm for the last couple hours, elevating his leg and trying to read but not really taking in any of it.

“Your mother is pissed at you,” Oscar says, withholding the bag until Alex glares at him enough. “She told me everything. She didn’t know you knew about all… this.”’

Alex groans and Henry a ‘uh oh’ sound. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I do,” Oscar frowns, suddenly serious. “How long have you known? Who have you told?”

“Nobody,” Henry interrupts, and Alex thinks it’s so he doesn’t have to explain himself again. “He didn’t tell anybody. Except Amy, but she was the one who told him, so she doesn’t really count.”

“You don’t think being Public Enemy No. 1 of a terrorist group is something you should tell people?” Oscar snaps at Alex. “No, it has to get to the point where we all find out after they tried to kill you- with a car!”

Henry clears his throat loudly, and while Alex can’t see him fully, he’s guessing he’s shaking his head. He starts feeling the telltale sinking in his stomach, and he rubs his face vigorously. “Okay,” Oscar shakes his head. “Fine.” He sets the food and drinks on the coffee table and turns on his heel, leaving the room with the fastest pace he can manage, but stops at the door. “Maybe you need to do some reevaluating,” he says towards Alex, then closes the door with a bit more force than necessary.

Alex sinks back into the couch, suddenly not hungry anymore, the emptiness in his stomach suddenly replaced by roiling guilt again.

“Reevaluating?” Henry asks skeptically.

Alex groans. “We had a talk a couple months ago. He was basically saying that I like to please people, and if I expect to be President at some point, I’m going to have to find the balance between pleasing people and doing sh*t right, I guess.”

Henry hums thoughtfully as he leans forward to inspect the bag of burgers. Alex bites his lip as Henry takes one out and peers at the label of toppings, before setting it aside and handing the other one to him. When Alex doesn’t take it, he looks up, curious. “Wha-”

“I’d drop out, if you asked,” Alex blurts out. “The campaign. I’d suspend my candidacy.”
Henry just blinks, surprised. “What?”

“I mean, I know I said that when we first got started, but it’s not too late,” Alex says. “I’m just saying, there’s precedent, I could still drop out, and honestly people might not question it after everything that’s happened. I don’t know, if you think this is going to be too much-”

Henry shakes his head firmly. “No. I’m not going to do that.” He grabs Alex’s hands again, and looks at him deeply and thoughtfully for a long moment. “Sometimes, I wonder if you don’t see it. How much they love you. How much they believe in you.” He shakes his head slightly. “I’d ask you to end it if I thought it would solve anything. But-” he shrugs. “It wouldn’t. Whether or not you win the election, you’re not finished yet, and we both know it. What we are finished with is you not telling me the things that scare you.”

Alex nods, and casts his eyes down, but Henry brings his chin back up with a finger, and drops a kiss onto his lips, short and chaste, even as Alex chases it. Henry smiles. “My love. You are not alone in this.”

He’s still walking at a slight limp by Monday, but he’s gotten so restless in the last week that he literally had no more sh*ts to give. Henry sends him off to work with a kiss, smoothing his tie down. “I wish you could stay,” Alex says into his neck. He’s not mentally ready to say goodbye again, knowing Henry has to go back to Virginia for Ellie.

“I know,” Henry murmurs. “Three more weeks, then I’m here all summer.” Henry leaves first, a car taking him to the airport, and Alex pouts as he watches the car drive away.

The car he’d been in when the accident happened had been totaled, but the sleek new one with that freshly-detailed smell sits in the driveway, ready to take him to work. Goosebumps crawl up his arms.

He gets in the backseat on the passenger side, right behind Tommy again, and determinedly scrolls on his phone as the car rumbles along the road. The sliding glass partition is up, separating him from the front seat - he doesn’t really feel like talking.

It’s not that he’s claustrophobic, or anything, but the interior of the car seems much smaller than it normally does. He feels like he might be running out of air. It’s uncomfortably hot. He looks up to check what temp the car is set at, and sees that it’s a measly 69 degrees. He shouldn’t be hot. He runs a finger underneath his collar. Maybe that’s why he’s having a hard time breathing.

He can see out the window in his periphery, and they’re sliding into the increasingly busy streets of Austin. There’s absolutely nothing to-

“sh*t!”

He’d seen it, just there. Out of the corner of his eye, the car speeding towards them, almost ready to hit them-

He nearly breaks his neck with how fast he snaps his head to look out the window. No, there was no car.

Had he imagined it?

His heart is pounding, and his fingers fumble with the seat belt lock. It slides off him, and he hurriedly scoots over on the bench to sit on the driver's side. He doesn’t really know why he’d done it, but it brings him some sense of peace knowing he can’t see out the window as well from here. His mind can’t conjure up images of terrorists driving a ton of heavy metal straight towards him- stop it. Breathe. In. Hold. Out. Hold.

Tommy can’t hear him gasping for air, the partition is up. He’s fine. Everything’s okay.

His hands are shaking by the time they arrive at the campaign headquarters. If Tommy thinks it’s weird that he’s switched sides in the middle of the car ride, he doesn’t mention it.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” Alex mutters, smoothing his sweaty hands on his jacket. “I’m fine.”

Tommy nods. “Okay.”

His first day back is a blur. He’s met with applause as he enters the building, which he quickly waves off. Aaron and Arianna of the communications department have piled mountains and mountains of flowers and cards from constituents and well-wishers outside his office door, and everyone’s gushing over him like he’s some kind of martyr.

He picks up a stack of construction-paper cards from a kindergarten class in Dallas, and a three-page handwritten missive from an old lady in Oklahoma who tells him that he’s strong, and a piece of artwork from a college student in Boston that makes him look like nothing short of a hero. There’s even a couple cards from kids in the UK that all address him as ‘Prince Alex’.

He knows he’s not going to get through the whole pile, especially when Aaron drops another massive stack at his desk from just today. But the one at the top of the new stack catches his eye.

I’m glad the bad guys didn’t kill you is written on construction paper with the hand of a child in bright green crayon. There’s a stick figure of a superhero with curly brown hair, wearing the American flag as a cape, and Alex feels sick to his stomach.

“That got out, did it?” he asks Zahra when she stops by, holding up the card.

She sighs. “People have ears, Alex. It got out that the CIA had questioned the guys, and that they were from Baltonia, and, well… they did the math.” She moves an expensive care basket from the chair across his desk, sits in it, and levels him with a heavy stare. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

He nods, and she leaves him alone to stare at the card. What kind of world is he leading these kids into?

He works slower than he’d like to, even as Aaron tells him to give himself some slack. But by the end of the day, he’s growing increasingly frustrated with how he can’t seem to concentrate, and that his head is pounding for how long he’s been looking at screens and tiny printed letters. He rubs his forehead angrily as he sets his pen down. He thinks it should just be the concussion, but that should be mostly healed by now. What’s wrong with him?

The sun is hanging low in the sky by the time he feels like he’s done for the day. The office is eerily muffled, most of the staff have left. They all have families to go home to. Alex has an empty house.

The phone rings just as he’s trying to shove the last of his sh*t in his bag. He eyes it curiously. Mandy, his secretary, has left for the night, too. He might as well…

“Hello?”

“This is the White House. Please hold for the President.”

Alex feels like he’s been slapped across the face. “Ah. Okay.”

The nameless person disappears, then there’s the sound of the phone being picked up again. “Good evening, Congressman,” Treacher says.

“Hello, sir,” Alex says, still slightly reeling.

“I hear you’re back at work today. How are you?”

“Oh- I’m good,” Alex gets out through his shock.

Treacher pauses for a second. “I’d like to apologize for what happened to you. Director Ivanson wants to extend his personal apology, but I admit, I wanted to speak with you myself. It’s regrettable that it’s escalated to this point.”

Alex bites back a snarky comment, something like isn’t that your partially fault? Thankfully, he’s self-aware enough to not do it. “Well, I can only hope we come up with a solution, soon,” is what he says instead. Hopefully that’s good enough, and that Treacher doesn’t catch the subtext that Alex is the one raring to do it himself.

“Quite,” Treacher mutters, and Alex wonders if he was really paying attention. “Regardless, the extradition treaty hasn’t gone into effect, so those criminals are still in the country.”

Alex’s brow furrows. The US and Baltonia signed an extradition treaty some time last year that ensures that both countries will hand over criminals who have gone from one country to commit a crime in the other. Given, the treaty probably won’t go into effect until some time next year, so there’s technically no reason Treacher can’t hold the Ny Frihet guys for as long as he wants until he hits that deadline. Unless, of course, one head of state requests it. So that begs the question… “Has Onderburg asked for extradition?”

“Well, yes, but like I said, the treaty hasn’t entered into force. We’ll detain them for as long as we deem necessary.” Treacher’s tone is short, like the matter isn’t up for discussion.

Alex bites his tongue as he remembers who he’s talking to, swallowing down a gripe about following the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it. He hasn’t seen the guys who tried to kill him, hasn’t even looked at pictures of them, and maybe that’s why he feels okay with sending them back to Baltonia. Maybe he’d have felt otherwise if the circ*mstances were different. “Understood.” If Treacher notices his voice coming off colder than usual, Alex hopes he knows it’s intentional.

Treacher sighs. “With that in mind, I wanted to recommend that you apply for Secret Service protection. Regardless of political boundaries, I know you’ve done a lot for this country, and I can think of quite a few people who would have been very upset if the attempt on your life had been successful.”

Alex resists the urge to sigh. He should apply, and he knows it, but is it so much to ask to not be followed around all day, every day? He likes Tommy because there are boundaries, he has privacy. With the Secret Service, even when he had Cash and Amy, they were always there. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“I’d encourage you to think about it,” Treacher says. “I hope you have a good night.”

“You too, sir,” Alex says, and the call cuts.

Alex stretches his legs to the point of trembling. He’s pretty sure he has horrendous creases on his cheeks from the way his face has been mashed into the pillow, but he doesn’t think he could give a sh*t as the sheets tangle around his bare legs.

The curtain is drifting in the balmy wind from the open window, the air of mid-June still cool in the early hours of the morning. He feels the most well-rested he’s been in months.

Blindly, he searches for the warmth of the body next to him, pressing close, intertwining their legs. Henry, still half-asleep, slings an arm around Alex’s shoulders and holds him tight.

He splays his fingers across the smooth expanse of Henry’s bare back, finding the moles and dips and crevices, the ridges of his spine, and the swell of his ass. His hand slides lower, over the coarse hairs of Henry’s thigh (God, his thighs) and dips his fingers in the curve of his knee to slide Henry’s leg around his hips. He feels, more than hears, the huff of amusem*nt as he shifts their hips closer together, but Alex grins as he notes Henry’s definite interest.

Henry’s hand ghosts along Alex’s side, settling on his hip, urging him on. “What are you doing?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know, before pressing closer to leave what’s going to be a nasty hickey on his nape.

“Well, my husband is very sexy, what did you expect?” Alex grins, gasping slightly as Henry’s hot, wet mouth finds the sensitive spot on his jaw. He digs his fingers into Henry’s thighs, tugging his waist closer with his other hand, feeling very pleased with himself when Henry makes an addictive little noise as his hips jerk forward of their own accord. “Forgive me,” Alex continues with a bite of sarcasm, “if the love of my life is f*cking beautiful,” he accentuates the statement with a long grind of his hips that has Henry groaning and blindly searching for the lube, “and I am very horny.” He leaves a trail of kisses along Henry’s neck, their shoulders trembling with silenced laughter, right alongside his sweet nothings.

“Alex.”

“What? Too much? Shut up now?”

“No,” Henry breathes, his mouth two millimeters away from Alex’s. “Don’t stop.”

Alex grins as he surges to meet Henry’s mouth, and it devolves very quickly into a mess of teeth, spit, lube, and hands that leaves them both panting, and Henry giggling.

“I love you,” Alex murmurs into Henry’s neck. He feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest and he can’t help but grin helplessly as Henry raises one of Alex’s hands to his mouth and kisses it. “So f*cking much.”

“I love you, too,” Henry says quietly, tangling their fingers together. He cranes to look at the bedside analog clock. 5:54 blinks back at them. Henry looks back down at Alex, his mouth twisting into a little smile. “Want to go to our spot?”

Alex grins. “Yeah.”

“Go shower.” Alex sits up, raising a suggestive eyebrow, but Henry snorts and shoves him off as he sits up. “No. We’ll miss it.”

Alex takes a quick shower, and switches with Henry. Downstairs, he makes one big thermos of coffee, and one of tea, just the way Henry likes.

“I’ll drive,” he says, grabbing the keys to the car as Henry comes downstairs with damp hair.

Henry grabs a mysterious bag, and scribbles a little note for Ellie just in case she wakes up before they get back. “I don’t know if you should leave a nine-year-old at home alone,” he pouts as Alex teases him.

“She’s almost ten, that’s good enough, right?”

“But what if-”

“Oh, my God,” Alex groans, even as he smiles and kisses him. “Come on. We’ll only be gone for an hour.”

They’re driving in the next five minutes, Alex splitting the road on the way up towards the hill. It’s something they used to do a lot as newlyweds, going up to this secluded little area to catch the sunrise, terrible sleepers as they are. They haven’t done it in a while, considering they live in Virginia more often than not, and now that they have Ellie, they don’t get quiet moments together as much.

Alex’s hand is tight on the bottom of the wheel. Being in cars still makes him nervous, but he feels better when he drives, being in control. But the passenger side window is attracting his eye like a moth to a flame, and he feels the overwhelming urge to look over at it to make sure nothing’s there. It happens more often than not, imagining the accident again like it’s happening, like he’s about to be bowled over a ton and half of steel moving at fifty miles per hour.

But as he gives in, and spares a glance to his right, he only sees Henry.

He’s kept his promise - no more secrets. Every time he has one of those flashbacks, every time he nearly has a panic attack just from the thought of sitting on the passenger side of the car again, he tells Henry. It’s against his gut reaction, still, to keep his problems to himself and be stubborn and independent, but, well, it does feel nice to know Henry always has his back.

Henry’s hand slides onto his forearm that’s relaxed on the armrest, and Alex twists his wrist to slide their fingers together, raising them to his mouth and kissing the knuckles there. Henry laughs softly, and Alex looks over again to see Henry holding up his phone, taking a picture.

“You’re posting that?” Alex asks, grinning.

“I have to,” Henry says matter-of-factly. “If I don’t, people will think we’re getting a divorce.” He examines the picture closer. “And you look very good.”

Alex’s phone buzzes in his pocket a couple minutes later, probably notifying him that he’s been tagged in a post. He doesn’t check it, though - they’re almost at their spot.

A few turns of the car later, and they’re parked at the top of a small, secluded lookout that peers over a field of hills and trees. The sunrise is only just starting to show, the tiniest of slivers of bright orange light illuminating the half-dark.

Alex clambors up onto the hood of the car, and Henry does the same, carrying with him the bag he’d brought from the house. He opens it, and inside is several fresh pears, a couple containers of blackberries from their favorite farmers market, half a baguette, and some softened honey butter.

Alex grins. “You spoil me.”

“Oh, no this is all for me,” Henry teases him, even as he sets out two of the tupperware container lids as makeshift plates and starts slicing the pears with expert precision. “You should have brought your own if you wanted any.”

“What a shame,” Alex sighs, popping a perfectly sweet and crisp blackberry in his mouth. Henry’s eyes are squinty and smiley, and Alex places a firm hand on the hood of the car to lean over and kiss him thoroughly. “Happy anniversary,” he murmurs, the taste on his tongue lingering with the remnants of pears and blackberries and something that’s uniquely Henry.

“Fifteen years,” Henry muses aloud. “I’m surprised we made it this long.”

“No, you’re not,” Alex pokes him.

Henry laughs, his eyes never leaving Alex’s. “No, I’m not.”

The sun rises within ten minutes, by the end of which the food has been reduced to scraps and they’re leaning against the windshield of the car, legs intertwined and running absentminded thumbs across whatever skin they can reach.

“I’m going to miss this,” Henry murmurs idly. Alex knows exactly what he means.

Their Secret Service detail starts next week. The paperwork is all filed, both of their houses surveyed and examined and noted with an inch of their lives, all their friends and family have gotten background checks. Even Ellie’s school in Virginia has been a part of the process, despite the fact that they’re hoping that her detail will be much more low-key.

But still… they won’t get moments like this anymore, no more sweet mornings by themselves without awkward by-watchers, always a third ear listening in on their conversations unless the door is literally locked, so on and so forth.

But they’re both used to it. It’s an adjustment, but they’ll manage.

“I love you,” Henry murmurs, and kisses him one more time after they slide off the hood of the car and clean up. Alex presses his nose into Henry’s shoulder and breathes in, relishing in the quiet stillness for just one more moment.

“I am so jetlagged it’s not even funny,” Alex groans, rubbing his eyes, wincing as he blinks away sweat. Henry snorts, but Alex looks over to see him yawning too, cheeks flushed in the heat of midsummer Ahmedabad, India.

He looks over the balcony to see the careening city below them, a tawny-colored temple sticking out against the skyline. He sips his chilled champagne, feeling the cold seep into his body before the alcohol does. God, he wishes he didn’t have to wear a suit.

“You know, boys,” Bea teases them, looking quite content with herself as her green dress flies in the breeze, “you could just take the jackets off.”

“I would rather die,” Philip grouses, wiping his sweaty forehead in a way that makes his thinning hair stick up at an odd angle. Martha has mercy on him, gently patting it down, looking very content in her blue dress and large hat.

Alex considers for a moment, then opts for a different route as he simply takes off his tie and shoves it in his pocket before unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. He winks at Henry, who looks a bit more flushed than he did before.

“Dad, you’ll get heatstroke.” Alex turns to grin at his eldest niece, Francesca, Philip and Martha’s firstborn. Now that she’s finally turned 18, she’s started apparently begging to attend more appearances like this one: the 2040 summer Olympics opening ceremony. It seems fitting, though, considering she’s the future Queen.

“Now, Frank,” Alex teasingly chides even as Francesca nearly breaks character at the usage of the familiar nickname, “if there’s one thing I learned a long time ago, it’s that your dear pops over here only learns by experience. For instance, have I ever told you the story with the racehorse-”

“Oh, you’d better not-” Philip starts, even as Alex grins mischievously.

“-that everyone said spooked easily, but he didn’t believe them until the horse stepped on his foot when his phone rang?”

Henry pinches his lips between his teeth in an attempt to not laugh at his brother’s expense (and broken toe), whereas Bea openly snickers and Francesca looks like she’s feeling bad for laughing.

“How was I supposed to know my phone would ring?” Philip harrumphs, and Martha lays a consoling hand on his arm.

Bea opens her mouth to retort, but falls short as Catherine comes over. Nearing eighty years old next month, she doesn't move as fast as she used to, and clasps Alex’s arm as she approaches. But her grip is firm, and she squeezes a little just to tease him. “The box is open,” she says to them, gesturing them along and snagging a sip of Alex’s champagne. “Where did your tie go?”

Alex rolls his eyes fondly as she ribs him and walk together over to the door that leads to one of the VIP boxes of the newly-constructed Olympic Stadium. The glare of the setting sun against the glass disappears as they step inside, flanked by Secret Service and PPOs.

The President of India, a short woman wearing a sari of a bright jewel green and gold, approaches them and bows. Alex is 90% sure he knows her name: Sangita Patnaik. “We are so pleased to have you here,” she said, raising her chin proudly, “for our first Games.”

“Thank you for having us,” Catherine nods her head slightly in acknowledgement. “It’s a beautiful city, you must be sick of my saying it.” She gestures to Alex. “You haven’t met my son-in-law, have you?”

Alex resists the urge to laugh. Even though he’s running for president, Catherine never fails to introduce him as her son-in-law. He imagines it must have something to do with clearly delineating when he’s on Royal Business™ and when he’s doing something on the American side.

Sangita Patnaik has definitely heard of him, though, and shakes his hand firmly. “I have been hearing good things about you,” she says, smiling slightly. “You are Treacher’s opponent in November, yes?”

Alex nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

He supposes she’s supposed to remain neutral about the whole thing, considering she’s also a head of state, but she winks at him and tells him she’s looking forward to the election, and hopes to see him again soon, and Catherine smiles down at the stadium floor like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Mum,” Henry mutters as he approaches. “People are going to think you’re overstepping.”

“I am not overstepping,” she says simply. “Nobody said I can’t introduce my son-in-law to people he might be working closely with for the next several years.”

“Kinda have to win the election first,” Alex shrugs.

“Kinda have to pick a running mate, first,” Henry prods.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Alex waves him off. The DNC is next week. He does, actually, have to pick a running mate. Well, he has to announce one. He’s technically already picked.

They take their seats as the opening ceremony begins, with performers and dancers and singers on moving platforms and hanging from suspended silks. There’s proud displays of culture and stories, and Francesca’s eating it up, gasping and ‘oohing’ from her seat next to Alex (he’s her favorite uncle, even if she won’t admit it).

The parade of the athletes begins before too long, each presented in Hindi alphabetical order. Alex has been mildly chatting with Henry and his family for most of the time, before Philip taps him on the shoulder from the row of seats behind him and points over to a newcomer in the box, a thin woman, probably a little older than Alex, with perfectly styled brown hair and a sensible purple sundress. The First Lady, Dr. Heather Treacher. “Hello, Your Highness,” she says, shaking Philip’s hand as he approaches.

Alex smooths his hands out on his jacket and approaches as well, knowing it would honestly be more awkward if he didn’t. She spies him immediately, and grins. “So you’re the guy my husband’s losing sleep over.” Alex’s bark of laughter is so loud that it pulls the attention away from the parading athletes and towards him. “Heather,” she says, extending a hand, and Alex shakes it. “Or Dr. Treacher, whatever strikes your fancy.”

“Alex. Or Congressman Claremont-Diaz, but I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” He’s never actually met the First Lady, only ever seen her in passing. But as she sits next to him as part of their ragtag delegation from the US, he’s starting to regret that - she’s hilarious, throwing out jabs at heads of state as they flash across the giant jumbotron from other VIP boxes when the athletes from their country are announced. Apparently, the Prime Minister of Canada had flirted with her relentlessly at their recent State Dinner, and the First Gentleman of Brazil had about thrown a temper tantrum over some issue at Blair House years ago and still can’t look her in the eye. They get along really well, which Alex finds mildly surprising, considering she’s Treacher’s wife, and he can’t actually imagine how they ended up married, but he doesn’t question it.

“So, what is it you do?” Henry asks, leaning over.

“I’m a graduate professor at George Washington’s environmental science program,” she says quickly, and when Henry looks confused, she takes pity on him. “I’m an ecologist.”

Francesca perks up, immediately interested. She’s slated to attend Oxford to study English, but everyone can tell she’s not thrilled about it. Privately, she’d confided in Alex that she’s much more interested in the Human Sciences program. “What kinds of things do you study?”

“Well, my dissertation was on human interactions with the environment,” she shrugs. “Basically, the planet is dying and climate change is our fault.”

“You sound like a Democrat,” Alex jokes, peering down at the Angolans, who are happily waving and dancing on the parade walk around the stadium. He nearly misses Heather’s look of pure panic. But he doesn’t, and catches it before Heather cleanly wipes it off her face. “Oh, my God.” She shakes her head vigorously, even as he starts laughing. “You are! You’re a Democrat? You, married to the Republican President, are a raging liberal.”

“Noooo,” she groans, covering her face.

“You’re lying,” Alex grins.

She peeks out from between her fingers, and her cheeks are flushed pink. “I’m not a registered Democrat, that would be social suicide,” she mutters weakly.

“But you lean left,” he confirms.

She nods, sighing and laughing at herself. “Yeah. I mean, you do the research I’ve done and tell me that we shouldn’t be doing more to fix it. But I don’t talk about my political beliefs, and my work has literally nothing to do with policy, so nobody really knows that.”

“Except me,” Alex flaunts.

She sighs, shaking her head. “Yes, now my husband’s political opponent knows of my dastardly fraudulence. If this gets out,” she raises a menacing finger in his face, charade broken only by the grin that’s creeping across her face, “we’re going to have problems.”

“Of course not,” Alex laughs. “We wouldn’t want that.” He sees Henry raise a lone eyebrow at him from his seat, as if silently asking ‘what are you getting up to now?’. Alex winks at him, before stealing a glance back at Heather, who’s still looking flushed in the cheeks, avoiding his eye and sipping her champagne. “So, where is your hoodwinked husband tonight?”

She looks a little shocked for some reason, glancing up at him, before relaxing her shoulders. “He was going to come, but his legal counsel held him up for something in Cuba. I don’t know,” she flaps a hand. “He’s going to try and make it for the closing ceremony, but you’ll be gone by then, I imagine. The DNC is… next week, right?”

Alex nods. “Yep.” The Democratic Nominating Convention, not the Democratic National Committee. But both are pains in the ass. Still, he has to go, put on a good face, accept the nomination, make a couple speeches, and officially name his running mate.

He’s about to open his mouth again, before the woman on the microphone who’s been translating the names of the countries into English with an overly chipper voice comes on: “Baltonia!”

Alex looks up at the several large screens that are hung across the stadium to see the athletes: it’s only women, probably all from a single team, bouncing around and dancing to the music with just as much vigor as the rest of the athletes. The person at the front is waving their flag around: a dark cobalt with a stripe of cool green across the middle that has a bit of wiggle to it. It almost looks like the aurora borealis, and Alex has a brief, flashing thought of Onderburg expressing his love for the lights before the man himself appears on the screen, waving a flag in miniature along to the music, smiling broadly.

“Wha-” Alex gapes, looking around. Sure enough, President Erik Onderburg is standing just on the other side of the VIP box, surrounded by security guys, but clearly enjoying himself.

“Oh, he’s here?” Heather asks, and her voice sounds skeptical and judgemental.

Alex frowns. “He’s actually very kind.”

Her eyes widen. “You’ve met him?”

He nods. “Yeah, when Henry won his Nobel, we went and he was there for one of the banquet dinners. Haven’t really seen him since, it’s been two and half years, but… I didn’t even know there were going to be Baltonian athletes here.”

She suddenly looks embarrassed. “Oh, I don't- I’ve never met him, actually. Simon just complains about him a lot.”

Alex is willing to be so much money that Treacher does in fact complain about people who are really just doing their jobs. “Excuse me,” he says to Heather, and leaves her to answer Francesca’s five million questions about her degree. He double checks that Onderburg is off the large screens before making his way over. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he says once he’s closer, and Onderburg looks up to meet his gaze.

Onderburg has more visible wrinkles than he did when they met almost three years ago, but what must be mild summer months in Baltonia give him a fair bit more color. His smile makes him look younger as he clocks Alex, stepping out of his security detail and clasping Alex’s hand firmly. “Ah, hello,” he says warmly, clapping Alex on the shoulder. “How have you been?”

“Good,” Alex nods, returning the smile. “And yourself?”

Onderburg’s smile fades for a split second before he neutralizes it. “Oh, you know how the presidency is. Not easy,” he says, before giving Alex a meaningful look. His smile creeps back. “Or, you will know.” He touches Alex’s arm with the back of his hand. “I must say, I was surprised to see you had announced a candidacy. But, well, I was very pleased.”

“Yeah,” Alex grins, shaking his head and flushing a bit at the compliment. “Well, I didn’t see it coming either.”

Onderburg laughs. “My presidency was a surprise as well. We are… how do you say it? In the same boat.”

Alex nods along. He knows the story, anybody with ears does. When the Swedish civil war started, it was a group of angry people and a lot of needless violence. Onderburg was the one who gave them a voice, gave them purpose and a home, and turned the rabble into a cohesive voice, all the while campaigning for peace between the warring countries. Historians still say it’s one of the only times in history a civil war has ended with so few civilian deaths and a reasonably good outcome on both sides. So, the civil war ended with independence, even if that wasn’t something Onderburg had ever dreamed he’d get, and the people had begged him to be president. He’s, like, the George Washington of Baltonia. And Alex respects it immensely.

Onderburg isn’t married, so apparently he’s there all alone aside from his security team and is very glad for the company as Catherine spies them talking and insists Onderburg join them.

He’s quite a good conversationalist - as is Alex, so they end up going from congratulating each other on the successful construction of both embassies all the way to some random book they’d both read. Alex barely realizes how long they’ve been chatting until the announcer is all the way into the end of the alphabet, which is nearly a full two hours later.

Alex notices that they’re both avoiding a certain topic, though: the accident. He can tell Onderburg is thinking about it, though, by the way he keeps stealing glances at how Alex is shifting weight off his right leg - while the stitches are healed, sometimes the pain flares up, and today is one of those days. It is, admittedly, a bit of a weird topic to breach. Alex finds it so easy, being friendly with Onderburg that he doesn’t want to talk about how two Baltonian citizens had tried to kill him. Given, they’d talked about Ny Frihet in the past, but at much more of an arm's length.

Heather had introduced herself to Onderburg a little while ago, and is now hanging back with someone in her own entourage rather than mingle. She keeps shooting Onderburg looks that Alex can’t quite read, with furrowed brows and a pinched mouth. Onderburg, likewise, keeps glancing at her, but distractedly, like there’s something on his mind.

Right as the president of the International Olympic Committee is finishing his speech, Onderburg realizes he’s been caught. Alex, for a moment, thinks he must be looking for Treacher to be standing beside Heather. “She said he was dealing with something in Cuba,” he says absentmindedly.

For some reason, Onderburg sours again, just as he had when Alex had first approached him. “Yes, I’d imagine so.”

Well, that’s an… odd thing to say. Alex’s confusion must be evident, because Onderburg suddenly looks sad. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s genuine. “For what happened to you. It was a terrible thing. I wish I could have prevented it.” He sighs, and crosses his arms before observing Alex for a long moment. “Do you know, truly, why Ny Frihet dislikes Americans so much?”

Alex shrugs. “I mean… they don’t like the sheer amount of influence we have over everything. They don’t like that we’re the self-appointed world-police, they hate our consumerist culture, materialism, militarization, you name it. They think we’re entitled hypocrites. And,” he looks at Onderburg, who’s nodding along like a professor watching a student going down the right track. “You know, they’re not necessarily wrong, some of those are pitfalls that any American will openly admit to. But that’s not all we are.” He shrugs. “I dunno, what do you think?”

“Why do I think they hate you?” Onderburg snorts derisively. “They just do. They like hating you. It’s easy.” He observes the mass of athletes below, the crowds of people waving their flags and cheering as a singer takes the stage. “You’ll never be able to prove them wrong, not because you can do what is right, but because you’ll never change their minds.” He laughs to himself. “I think it’s funny, you know? You, Alex, are exceedingly self-aware about the failures of your own country, you know what is wrong with it, and yet they hate you most of all, regardless of the fact that, sometimes, you agree with them.” He shrugs. “It’s ironic.”

“It’s politics,” Alex realizes.

Onderburg laughs, but it’s cold and distant. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” The singer continues, and it’s in Hindi so Alex doesn’t understand the words, but some of the people in the stadium are singing along to the somewhat haunting tune. “But you must know by now that there are truly hypocrites among you. American politicians who say that they want nothing more than to protect and defend, but when it comes down to it, they lie, cheat, and steal to stay on top and succeed. There are moments when your ‘American Dream’ turns into a weapon against everybody else. The ‘America first’ ideology.”

“Yes,” Alex admits. The US does have a dark and bloody history, and has never been able to fully wash her hands clean before getting them bloody again. She’s not innocent, but no country truly is. But Alex, personally, is tired of the blood. He’d much rather have his hand be covered in the dirt of the earth, and spend his time cultivating new life rather than destroying it. But how does he get everyone else to see that before it’s too late?

“I need you to know something,” Onderburg says conspiratorially, leaning in closer as the song continues, his voice low. “Do you know what President Treacher is doing in Cuba that has made him unavailable to come with his wife?” Alex shakes his head. “Think. What’s in Cuba?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know. There are plenty of things he could be doing in Cuba.”

Onderburg’s look at him is startling and forceful. “You know Treacher and I signed an extradition treaty that hasn’t gone into effect yet. As such, Treacher has no legal incentive to turn over the Ny Frihet operatives that tried to kill you. I asked for them to be returned, but I was refused.”
Alex is so confused. “What does this have to do with Cuba? I don’t-”

And then it dawns on him.

Even the people who hate you are sometimes right about you. And if there was any moment in American history that the US has been a massive f*cking hypocrite, it’s the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba.

Alex manages to pick his jaw up from the floor. “He didn’t.”

Onderburg nods. “He did.”

Treacher moved the Ny Frihet operatives to f*cking Gitmo. The massive, gaping black hole of humanitarian law.

Here’s the story: in 2001, just after the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon that killed almost 3,000 Americans, President George W. Bush declared a ‘war on terror’ and invaded Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom, targeting al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban military centers. In 2002, at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a detention camp colloquially known as Gitmo was set up to detain and question suspected terrorists. 779 people were detained there. By the time the War on Terrorism ended in 2021 during President Ellen Claremont’s administration, 30 were left, the rest having been transferred to other countries, released, or died.

It’s considered one of the US’s biggest violations of international humanitarian law, as well as the US Constitution. Because the prisoners weren’t held on American soil, they were denied the right to due process and only a select few were allowed to go through the notoriously slow military courts, and they weren’t protected under the Geneva Conventions as prisoners of war for the sole reason that they weren’t called ‘prisoners of war’.

Also, and probably most importantly, this: it essentially allowed the torture and abuse of detainees, for information or otherwise. Countries across the world, including the Red Cross, protested the camp as a human rights violation.

But the camp remains open, despite all that. Ellen had tried her hardest to close the camp for good by the time she left office in early 2025, but had faced quite a bit of backlash from Congress and hadn’t managed it. Every president since had failed as well - none of them, not Jacinto, not Dreckard, and certainly not Pinkley, had managed to fully close the camp. But Alex realizes that he’s not actually sure if any of them tried.

And now? Treacher’s putting people in again.

“Jesus f*cking Christ,” Alex mutters, rubbing his forhead as the Olympic flag is paraded around the stadium, held by six people he doesn’t recognize. “f*ck. That’s why he’s meeting with legal counsel, he’s trying to keep it under wraps, probably. At least until after the election.”

Onderburg nods. “Most likely.”

Alex scowls. “Two-faced f*cktard. That gherkin-dick motherf*cker.” He pauses, trying to come up with another creative insult, but falls short. Onderburg is looking at him curiously, and Alex has a feeling he knows why. How often is someone pissed that their would-be killers ended up in a prison with notoriously poor conditions? What kind of person protests the torture of their enemies?

Alex frowns to himself. Wouldn’t anybody else rejoice that the people who tried to kill them are being thoroughly punished? So, why doesn’t he feel that way? After 9/11, nobody cared that suspected terrorists ended up in Gitmo, so long as they were behind bars. Not many Americans cared that the detainees were, first and foremost, people when the allegations of torture were brought up, regardless of decades of humanitarian law that condemned it.

Maybe it’s all still too compartmentalized, Alex thinks to himself as he watches as the Olympic flag with the five colored rings is raised. He’s been all for closing the camp since he knew what it was. Naturally, he would be against putting more people in, when they’ve been trying to move people out since 2008. And yet…

He doesn’t even know their names. The Ny Frihet operatives are simply faceless shadows in his mind, just one part of a many-cogged machine lurking in the background noise of his life. Maybe that’s why it’s easy for Alex to still protest the camp, because the people who really tried to hurt him aren’t in there, they’re in Baltonia.

He’s not sure if that’s a good thing. Maybe it is, it means he’s still somewhat impartial when it comes down to closing the camp, which he’ll still try to do if he does end up in the presidency. Maybe it isn’t, though, if it could mean trouble if he does end up going head-to-head with Ny Frihet and he still can’t put a singular face to it.

He remains lost in thought all the way through the Olympic torch relay, with several athletes running the course of the parade and holding the ornately designed torch aloft.

“I take it,” Onderburg says softly, as the crowd quiets in reverence as the last runner approaches the Olympic Cauldron to light the last flame, “you’re having a bit of an existential crisis.”

Alex laughs half-heartedly, bowing his head. “You could say that.” He looks over at Onderburg, who’s watching as the flame takes and the cauldron lights with a whooshing sound, and the audience erupts again, the moment of quiet broken. He wonders if he’ll ever reach that - Onderburg’s level of peace and strength when it comes down to it all. Through all of Pinkley and Treacher’s shenanigans, through the Swedish civil war, and everything else, Onderburg never faltered. He’s so confident, and it drives Alex to a twinge of jealousy. If power corrupts people, Onderburg is the exception.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to add an extra burden on you. It’s not a directive, just information I thought you should have,” Onderburg says, eyeing Alex again. “And… thank you.”
Alex co*cks his head. “For what?”

Onderburg laughs, as if the answer is obvious. “Oh, all of it, I suppose. I dare not be specific, I’d probably miss something.” He nods to his security team as they give him a signal that it’s time to go. He stands, and Alex does as well, shaking his hand one more time. “I probably won’t see you again before November, so good luck in the election.”

Alex nods, grinning as he remembers that Onderburg is up for his own reelection in April of next year. “You, too, si-.”

“Please, kompis,” Onderburg holds up a hand and interrupts him, and Alex has no idea what ‘kompis’ means but he rolls with it. “Just Erik.”

Alex nods his assent and watches as Onderburg leaves, thinking that this might just be the weirdest friendship he’s ever had.

The next morning, he’s woken up at 6 o’clock not by his alarm, but by his phone buzzing incessantly with a call from Zahra.

“Ugh,” he groans, answering the call and extricating himself from Henry’s body and the bed that’s become stiflingly hot with their shared body heat. Henry grumbles awake as Alex excuses himself into the separate sitting area. “What?” His voice is groggy, but he can hear the background noises of the campaign headquarters. He doesn't know how big of a time difference there is between where he is in India and Austin, but he’s guessing it’s still within working hours for Zahra, which is always.

“You f*cked up,” she says shortly. “And are also extremely lucky. It astounds me that those two things coexist.”

He huffs tiredly. “What did I do this time?”

“Your buddy John Pewett, you remember him?” That sounds like Aaron, head of communications.

“Yeah. At NPR.” He groans, wondering what kind of headline news he might have made at the ceremony yesterday.

“Well, he came to us and said he has it from someone that the Enquirer has pictures of you flirting with the First Lady.” He can almost hear Zahra scowling. “Now, you better tell me that they’re lying and there are no such pictures, or I swear to God, I’ll have to find a way to replace you with a robot before November.”

“I wasn’t-” Alex racks his brain. He hadn’t been flirting with Heather, had he? He’s f*cking married to the love of his life, why the f*ck would he do that? But now that he really thinks about it, she had been blushing quite a bit. “We were friendly, but I don’t think that constitutes flirting.”

“Nobody can tell with you,” Zahra seethes. “All I’m saying is that, whether or not those pictures are legit and the Enquirer can actually cook something up with this, we need to shut this down, and fast. We gotta find something to blow this out of the news cycle.”

Alex considers for a minute. “Well, I did see Onderburg yesterday, too.” Zahra forgets her anger for a moment and makes a sound of interest. Alex tells her about everything - the Ny Frihet operatives, and Treacher holding them in Guantanamo Bay.

Zahra makes a sound of disgust as he tells her his theory that Treacher is trying to keep it under wraps until after the election. “Listen, I’m not saying that this isn’t something we should blow out of the water if we get the chance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for that, and I’m glad you’re on board, too. But…” she trails off.

“Yeah,” Alex mutters.

“Well,” Aaron muses aloud, “dropping this thing right now might not be the best idea if we want to drown out a potential story with the First Lady. We want the news to revolve around you, but something positive, you know? My thought-”

“Announce his running mate pick,” Zahra finishes. “Yeah, that’s good. I think it’s time. What do you think, Alex?”

“Yeah,” he checks his watch. “But I think we should wait until I’m at least on my way back.”

“So, tomorrow morning,” Aaron says, and Alex can hear him scribbling something down. “Say, 10 o’clock?”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Tell John. Let him get his hands on it first.”

“Okay,” Zahra says. “I’ll go ahead and set everything up, make sure she’s ready.”

The call ends, and Alex shoots a couple texts off before he plugs his phone back in and crawls back into bed.

“You know,” Henry murmurs, and Alex starts, not having realized he was awake. “And I know I’ve been saying this for two decades, but if you ever did want to take a woman to bed-”

Alex groans, and Henry starts laughing. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m serious,” Henry says, but Alex can hear the smile in his voice. “Is it really cheating if it’s with my knowledge and consent?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Alex threatens without much heat. He punches his pillow a couple times and grumply slings an arm over Henry’s body that’s trembling with stifled laughter.

“All I ask-” Henry starts, turning slightly in the bed so Alex can see his sh*t-eating grin. “Is that if you do take me up on that offer, it’s not with Heather Treacher.”

“You’re a little sh*t, you know that?”

“Says my husband, who openly flirts with women he’s not married to,” Henry muses aloud, looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

“Oh, come on,” Alex groans. “I wasn’t doing it intentionally.”

“No,” Henry says as his smile softens. “I don’t think you realize you’re doing it.” He’s quiet for a minute, before the sad*stic grin takes over his face again. “And this is why you didn’t have your bisexual awakening until you were 21-”

“Shut the f*ck up,” Alex groans, shoving a pillow over Henry’s face to muffle his laughter. “You’re the literal worst.”

Alex is restless for most of the plane ride home - a long 16 hours. He should be sleeping, he knows, by the time his internal clock hits late evening, but it’s coming soon. He knows it. Finally, in the tenth hour of the flight, his phone buzzes with the notification:

July 19, 2040

NPR - John Pewett

ACD picks Latisha Freedman as his running mate

Alex Claremont-Diaz selected former Masssechusetts governor Latisha Freedman as his running mate, rounding out the ticket with an experienced, well-liked Democrat. In response to the social media announcement released this morning, Freedman shared that she was ‘beyond honored at the offer and ready to get to work with the campaign’.

Supporters reacted generally positively to the news, and analysts think that selecting Freedman was the best choice. She will be the first Black woman to be slated as the running mate for any major party, and if elected, the first of either to be Vice President.

In selecting Freedman, ACD is most likely hoping to gain a more secure vote from northern Democrats, a demographic that he has struggled with in the primaries up until now. While former Senator Edward McKinney was the more popular of the candidates in the early elections, many are already saying that they prefer Freedman over McKinney, and are very pleased with the selection. The move was also strategic on the front of the women’s vote: many expected ACD to pick a woman as a running mate, considering his mother, so it’s safe to say this was expected.

Freedman, who boasts eight years and two full terms in the Massachusetts governorship, was known for being both forceful and compromising when necessary, and was renowned in her time in office as one of the state’s best recent governors, having high approval ratings throughout both terms and winning both elections in landslides.

While many previously thought that ACD may pick someone more liberal than he is, as he’s considered to be somewhat moderate given his relationships with independents and Republicans alike, Freedman rounds out the ticket with her ideologies and background in political economics. While a shortlist was never released, the pair were spotted in a restaurant together at the very beginning of ACD’s campaign, so rumors have been floating around for a while, even if other suggestions for the list (Tobias Ingrid, Josephine Handler, or former presidential candidate and independent Rafael Luna) remained unspoken.

The Claremont-Diaz/Freedman ticket will go to a head against the Treacher/Tipper ticket, and the independent Lara Kim (you might know her as Rafael Luna’s running mate back in 2036) and her own running mate, Evan Desina. The pair is expected to make at least one appearance before the Democratic Nominating Convention next week.

“I’m just saying,” Aaron muses as he leans forward to type something into the laptop on the coffee table. “We could up your sex appeal, if we wanted.”

“I hope you don’t mean me,” Latisha says, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

Alex laughs, momentarily distracted from the papers chock-full of their latest polling numbers he’s supposed to be reading. “No,” he says to her, still grinning as he tries to process the raw numbers, regardless of the fact that he’s been handed a perfectly polished report to go along with it. “He’s been trying to convince me that the next time we see a dunk tank or any water-based game at an event that I’m conveniently wearing a white shirt at, I should… you know, up the sex appeal.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Latisha shrugs, probably only half-joking. “It worked for JFK.”

“JFK didn’t make it to the end of his first term,” Aaron points out. “Like a watermelon…” he mutters under his breath, shaking his head with a thousand-yard stare.

“And the affairs,” Alex adds, deciding that maybe Aaron got a bit too curious on the internet and could do with a good therapist. “Generally, he was a jackass, wasn’t he? The only reason people seem to love him so much was because, well, he was murdered.”

The three of them are virtually alone in the little blocked off-room of the hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the Democratic Nominating Convention well underway. Latisha’s enjoying herself, Alex can tell, now that she’s back in the game after a few years on the sidelines. He hasn’t really seen her in action yet, but she’s allegedly a master fundraiser and, well, he could use that.

Someone knocks on the door and comes in without waiting for a response, which would have been problematic if it had been anybody other than Zahra. She pokes her head in and addresses, not Alex, but Latisha. “They’re here.”

“Great,” Latisha says, standing up. Zahra’s head disappears and the door opens wider to reveal a bunch of people Alex doesn’t recognize. At the front of the pack is a tall, broad man wearing a baseball cap that poorly conceals his complete and utter lack of hair, but Alex thinks he balances it well with a nicely trimmed beard and a frankly immaculate sense of style. “Hey, babe!” The guy smiles widely, entering the room at a confident swagger and smacks a kiss on Latisha’s lips. Husband, Alex’s brain supplies as he stands slowly and looks at the rest of the people who have entered - probably Latisha’s children. “And you,” Latisha’s husband says suddenly, turning to look at Alex as Latisha hugs her kids. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He extends his hand. “I’m Marcus.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alex says, nodding and smiling as politely as he can. Marcus’ hand is huge, completely engulfing his own and nearly sends Alex flying with the force of it as it lands on his shoulder.

“Alright, shut it!” Latisha calls to her children as they all start clamoring over each other. She pulls Alex to her side with a firm hand and points to each of the newcomers. “Okay, you’ve met Marcus, that’s my husband. Then there are the boys - wave, boys, c’mon - there’s Terrence, Darius, and Javon. That’s Charelle, Terrence’s wife, and their kids Ezekiel and Rebekah, and that’s Darius’ fiancée, Mya.”

Alex spies little Rebekah, who must be no older than two weeks, judging by how tiny she looks in Terrence’s arms. “Okay, I’m actually great with names, so if I forget, feel free to roast me on a pike. She’s adorable, by the way.” Terrence beams proudly.

Zahra saunters back in. “Thanks for coming. All of you except for Marcus - when you’re ready, there’s a couple cars that can take you to the VIP entrance at the venue. You’ll be sitting with Alex’s family.”

“You are under no obligation to let my mother talk your ear off,” Alex tells them, and that earns him a laugh. “Approach at your own risk.”

There’s a couple more hugs from Latisha to her kids, and an exceptionally tight one to the two-year-old Ezekiel, before they’re all corralled out of the room. Zahra checks her watch. “Where’s Henry?”

“Um, he went to go drop Ellie off with June,” Alex says, checking his watch.

Speak of the devil, after not even another thirty seconds, the door opens again and Henry slides in. “Oh, good,” Zahra nods, and fires off another text as she leaves the room again, throwing over her shoulder: “Drivers are almost ready for you.”

Henry nods wordlessly, knowing she’s long gone. “Hi,” Marcus says, extending his hand as well. “I’m Marcus.”

“Ah. Latisha’s husband,” Henry confirms and introduces himself, shaking Marcus’ hand with his customary little polite smile that doesn’t quite crinkle enough to ease the twinge of anxiety in Alex’s stomach. The bags and shadows under his eyes are nothing but an indication that it’s been a long week since their return from India, and it’s not just the jetlag that’s disturbing his sleep schedule. Alex wants to drag him back to bed, muss up his hair, and give him a couple good org*sms if it’ll help him.

He’s dragged back into the conversation as Henry asks Marcus what he does. “I’m a pastor,” Marcus says, and Alex freezes. The corner of Henry’s mouth creases instantaneously, and Alex hears Aaron stop typing abruptly.

It’s not that Alex has anything against pastors in general. They just make him nervous sometimes. He grew up in the South, surrounded by religion, Catholic himself (to a degree - it’s a work in progress). The biggest hom*ophobes he’s ever met in his life were Christians, and he’ll never erase some of the things that he’s heard Bible-bashers say about him from his brain. You’d think they’d be nicer, all things considered. The point is, whenever he meets a pastor, he never knows what they’re actively thinking about him. Is it disgust? Hate? Apathy?

Alex, frankly, had no idea that Marcus was a pastor, but he’s quite literally praying that this isn’t going to be a problem. Henry recovers from his brief moment of surprise and observes Marcus suspiciously - US hom*ophobia is a whole different animal than it is in the UK in no short order because of the evangelical right, and Henry has a special kind of hate for it, always ready to jump on defense. Even Aaron slowly resumes his typing, but Alex knows he’s listening. Aaron is gay, too, and has spent most of his long and prolific career in communications as a speechwriter for queer rights causes - it’s one of the main reasons Alex wanted him on his staff.

Marcus, if he realizes he’s said something mildly shocking, doesn’t falter. “He’s the head pastor at our church up near Boston,” Latisha supplies, and Alex sees it for what it is - she’s vouching for him, telling them in no small part that Marcus isn’t… well, isn’t an asshole.

“Ah,” Henry nods. “I’ve been to Boston, but it felt a bit too much like London, so I try not to make it a habit.” Marcus laughs loudly and Alex feels his shoulders relax a bit, hearing Aaron resume typing at his normal speed (Mach 10). The conversation picks up from its lull again, Marcus complementing Henry on Postscript and making a joke about his Nobel Prize before they’re summoned downstairs to the cars.

“Okay, I have to know,” Marcus says, shaking his head and laughing at himself as they enter the elevator. Henry’s brow quirks up, a nervous tick that says plainly that he doesn’t know what kind of question Marcus is going to ask. “Have you ever had soul food? I hear horror stories about the food over in the UK and if you ever need a good recommendation-”

“Marcus,” Latisha scolds, and Henry’s smile crinkles enough that Alex feels a soothing relief accompanied by a skip in his heartbeat.

“Yes, but I maintain the merits of traditional English food,” Henry says defensively, still smiling softly.

“Oh, you mean jellied eels?” Alex interrupts, and Henry groans aloud, tipping his head back and banging it on the wall of the elevator.

Latisha pulls a face. “Is that-”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Alex nods. “He says it’s a delicacy, but I don’t know how to feel about him now that I know he’s eaten eels in gelatin.”

“Isn’t there a Mexican dish with cow eyes in it?” Henry shoots back, his eyes lighting up at the challenge.

“Yes, and it’s f*cking delicious,” Alex retorts. “It’s not a taste thing, it’s texture. Look me in the eye right now and tell me that you liked eating jellied eels.” He could make a great joke about other questionable textures if they were alone in the elevator, but he bites his tongue with an extreme amount of effort as Henry rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Admit it. Your Gran made you eat them and you resent her for it. Among other things.”

Henry laughs, this time, and something in Alex purrs at his success. If he could have any mission in life, it would be to bring that sound into the world as much as possible. He presses a fleeting kiss to Henry’s jaw, the closest skin he can reach that’s socially acceptable, before the elevator opens and they’re ushered to the cars. Latisha and Marcus go in one, Alex and Henry in the other.

When they’re alone, Alex pulls Henry’s hand into his. “Are you okay?” he murmurs, making sure the partition between them and the driver is up.

Henry nods. “Yeah.”

“Baby,” Alex murmurs, rubbing an intentional thumb over Henry’s knuckles. “Talk to me.”
Henry surveys him with piercing eyes, his face softening. “It’s… it’s all just feeling very real all of a sudden.”

Alex nods. He gets it. The election is one big thing, but it’s only a single step forward in terms of the next couple years. If he wins, and that’s not a given, he might spend the next four, maybe eight years, at the beck and call of the world. It’s a lot to take in, a lot to handle, a lot to ask.

“I worry for you,” Henry says softly.

“Do you trust me?” Alex asks after a few moments, and he already knows the answer even before Henry nods his head, a firm and sure yes. “We’ll be okay.”

We. Us. You and I. Not alone in this. Never have been, never will be, even as Alex ascends the stage at the DNC and sticks it to the man by accepting the Democratic nomination with a sh*t-eating grin, even as the committee looks on in their failure. Not even as McKinney accepts his loss with a humble smile that still reeks of entitlement, not even as Latisha stands beside him with her shoulders pushed back and her head held high. There must be company, he thinks as he takes Henry’s hand in his and waves to the masses of the crowds, even at the top of the world.

September 22, 2040

Excerpt: Remarks from President Erik Onderburg Before the 95th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

United Nations Headquarters

New York, New York

11:08 A.M. EST

President Onderburg: Thank you.

Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow leaders, you have witnessed here the last few days the great scope of which this body is capable. You have ended wars, healed pandemics, and brought justice to the billions of people on this earth. For that, I am grateful to you, and am honored to have been a member for the seven years of independence my country has celebrated.

As such, I stand here today to speak on the injustices my country and I observe in the world, and resolve to put my foot down when possible, for that is what all of us here are called to do. Our own controversial affairs are not excused from scrutiny for the sake or preservation of our own self-importance.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me this: peace is priceless. Human life is untouchable, and honesty is not a bygone, but a guarantee we must make for those who come after us, just as it was one given to us from our predecessors.

This is why, as I have and will for the rest of my life, I will work to tear down those structures of terror that reside within my own country, for they do not belong there under my watch. Ny Frihet, that radical group, does not represent my interests, nor those of my people in Baltonia. I will not, nor have I ever, rest knowing that such terrorists reside in my country.

But this body was created so we may not resist terror alone. My government and I have received prayers, funding, and encouragement from all of you in this struggle, for which I am, again, grateful. If I may assume, it is not alone that I now say this: the struggle of one is not the strength of another.

However, earlier this year, it became obvious to me that the United States lacks respect for that assumption. Please, bear with me.

In May, two Ny Frihet operatives went to the United States and attempted to murder an American politician.

[a pause - President of the General Assembly calls the audience to order]

The operatives were arrested, and I requested that, if not under the letter of the law, then under the spirit of it, that President Treacher respect the Extradition Treaty that we agreed to last year, and that they be returned to the territory of Baltonia. I was refused every time. As I found out several months ago, the operatives have been moved to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, where their rights as humans have been stripped.

[a pause - President of the GA calls everyone to order again]

My fellow leaders, I tell you this not as an expectation that you will raise your fists, but that you will open your eyes. We are here to keep each other accountable, and even the greatest and largest among us is not exempt. There must be checks, and there must be balances.

If we cannot respect the law, why should those who break it respect us? The Geneva Conventions have been the pinnacle of humanitarian law since they were conceived. If that great charter is a bygone, wherein lies the binding agent that keeps us all together?

It is out of respect for our fellow humans that brought this body together the first time and every year since. We cannot let it be the thing that divides us. [read more here]

“What’d you think of it?” Zahra asks quietly as the video ends with Onderburg exiting the stage at the UN General Assembly.

Alex has already watched it since it dropped a couple hours ago. Multiple times. “It was a damn good speech,” he says.

“It’s going to get asked about,” Aaron mutters, not looking up from his laptop. Alex thinks he would do well with some blue light glasses, considering how much he’s looking at the damn thing. “I wish we’d had more time to prep for this. You might just have to wing some of it.”

“I know.”

It’s the night of the first presidential debate. Somewhere in this building, Treacher and his staff are doing some last-minute prep work in response to the speech, probably scrambling to find their way around the fact that he just got dragged through the mud in front of the entire UN General Assembly. And the fact that the entire world now knows about his shenanigans at Guantanamo Bay. Alex, for one, is looking forward to what he’s cooked up.

“The moderator will probably save Baltonia for last,” Aaron advises him as an aide pokes her head in to give him the five-minutes heads up. “It’s going to get rowdy, so they’ll probably save a decent amount of time for it.”

Alex could have guessed that. He just nods and tries not to crinkle the plastic water bottle in his hands. He’s not nervous, per say. It’s more just knowing that the next ninety minutes of his life might make or break the entire campaign. Candidates have crashed and burned on less (looking at you, Howard Dean).

“You’ll be fine,” Zahra mutters, squeezing his arm and following Aaron as he dips out, still typing, but on his phone this time. “Henry, coming?”

“In a moment.” Henry waits until the door is closed to stand from his position on the stool in the corner, where he’s been sitting quietly, watching Alex get in the zone. Alex doesn’t look away from his face as Henry’s fingers carefully straighten his knot and adjust his flag tie pin. Neither of them say anything as the pocket square gets tucked back in neatly, and an imaginary piece of lint is picked off Alex’s shoulder.

Alex breaks the silence with a grin. “You’re nitpicking.”

“Oh, you know,” Henry smiles softly, “better dress you up before I feed you to the vultures.” He leans in and presses a short kiss onto Alex’s lips, but doesn’t back up too far. Alex can feel Henry’s breath on his cheeks. “Kick his ass.”

“You f*cking know it.”

Henry leaves after another short kiss, and then Alex is led by an aide all the way up to a short walkway that leads to the stage. Carefully set behind a curtain, he can’t see much besides a tiny sliver of the audience, obscured in shadow, but he can hear the moderator speaking to the camera, explaining the rules of the debate: 90 minutes total, six 15 minute segments, with two minutes of uninterrupted response from both candidates before open debate.

“We ask that the audience remain quiet for the entirety of the debate, except for now, as we introduce the candidates,” the moderator says, his voice kicking up a notch as he introduces them: “The Democrat candidate for president, Representative Alex Claremont-Diaz, and the Republican candidate, President Simon Treacher!”

Go time. Alex raises his chin and strides out onto the stage to meet the applause. He gives a little wave to the audience and sees Henry with the rest of his primary staff in the front row and gives him a private smile, as private as it can be.

He quickly shakes hands with Treacher, who looks dour as ever with growing bags under his eyes, before he approaches the moderator to shake his hand. He’s some talk show host, one Alex has seen clips of, but never really bothered to pay much attention to. His name is Barry, he reminds himself. God, that would be a gaffe if he’s ever had one.

He spies the somewhat awkward spacing of the podiums - they’re much closer together than he would have anticipated, like someone moved them at the last minute. Well, he figures as he adjusts the blank pad of paper on the podium and fiddles with the pen, they probably did. Lara Kim, who’s been campaigning as an independent candidate on Raf’s coattails from the ‘36 election, has been doing pretty well in the polls thus far. Good enough, in fact, that the Commision on Presidential Debates had been prepared to give her a spot in the debate tonight if she could hit the 15% polling requirement. Alas, she fell just short.

The first question is one about education reform, and Alex rattles off an answer he’s kept in his back pocket about capping out-of-state tuition. Treacher, of course, comes back with the typical Republican answer about money, or something, and they end up going back and forth for a while.

“Listen,” Alex ends up interrupting as Treacher starts droning on and on about it all, “I’m not saying that I don’t understand why out-of-state tuition is higher. I’m aware, thank you. All I’m saying is that, first of all, there’s no way that a student in California really pays the equivalent of the extra $8,000 in taxes per year that a student from Florida is paying at the same school per semester. There’s no reason that discrepancy is so excessive. And, second of all, I know you’re against federal student debt forgiveness, but if you really take a moment to think about the implications of decreasing student debt by decreasing exorbitant tuition fees, you end up with, in most projections, a much more productive and higher educated workforce.”

The moderator holds up a finger to signal that his time is almost up, and Alex keeps rolling along even as Treacher begins to open his mouth. “I know Democrats have campaigned for years on federal student debt forgiveness, but let’s not forget the why of it all. Doing so would improve the strength of the economy and the vitality of the workforce, not to mention the fact that people don’t like having to live in debt just so they can have a degree to get a job that pays only well enough to make ends meet. This has been an ongoing issue for several decades now, and I don’t see you or anyone in your party offering a semblance of a coherent plan. The problem of it all doesn’t go away just because the most obvious solution is one you have chosen to ignore.” He nods back to the moderator that he’s finished, and Treacher sharply shuts his mouth before he looks unprofessional.

Alex spies Zahra giving him an approving nod, and he lets himself relax into it a bit more. It’s not unlike the primary debates he thinks as the moderator asks another question about environmental policies and he racks up a standard response in his head as Treacher answers. These things are supposed to test the candidate on how quickly they think on their feet to opposition and expose the audience to their unfiltered opinion. Blessedly, Alex is a master arguer, thanks to his years as a lawyer. Treacher, on the other hand, fumbles through his answer and can’t seem to find anything positive to say about the policies he had (or rather, hadn’t) put into place in the last four years, carrying through with the stiff rigidity and monotone voice from his years as a Master Sergeant. Alex supposes that the Marines just don’t train their privates to argue, but he’s not complaining so long as it works in his favor.

Alex can see Treacher sweating under the hot spotlights, but his fingers are still as stone on the podium. Rigid, as always.

“Alright,” Barry says, flipping a page in his binder. “Last question. President Treacher, we’ll start with you.” He reads the question before looking up towards them. Alex holds his breath. Here it is. The big one. “At the General Debate at the UN General Assembly earlier today, the president of Baltonia Erik Onderburg critiqued you, Mr. President, for placing two Ny Frihet operatives in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp rather than extradite them back to Baltonia. To both of you, how would you like to respond, and how do you see this affecting your time in office should you be elected?”

Treacher licks his lips and clears his throat, idly scratching his forehead to save himself from saying anything as he frantically swipes through the papers on his podium. Alex resists the urge to snort derisively - notes at a debate is bad form, everyone knows it. He must be desperate to put on a good face. Alex lets himself raise an eyebrow as the only sign of his distaste, and keeps his mouth shut. Best let Treacher f*ck this one up all by himself.

Treacher ends up talking himself in circles, defending himself and so on and so forth. “Frankly, this issue is between President Onderburg and myself,” he says towards the end. “There is no reason it should have been brought before the entire UN General Assembly.”

Alex barely waits for the moderator to gesture to him to start talking. “That’s what the UN General Assembly is for. Clearly, President Onderburg felt that the issue was deserving of a wider audience because of a-” he holds up a finger, “your refusal to cooperate and respect the Extradition Treaty that you signed and b-” he holds up another, “Guantanamo Bay is in violation of multiple humanitarian laws, including but not limited to the Geneva Conventions and every ruling the International Court of Justice. If that’s not deserving of the attention of the UN and literally the whole world, I don’t know what is.”

Treacher scowls. “Your naivete does you no favors, Congressman.”

Alex scoffs. “I’m sorry, wanting to adhere to humanitarian law makes me naive? Tell that to any group that’s been subject to war crimes, or anybody who’s been denied due process, which I don’t need to remind you, is a Constitutional right that you’ve apparently decided shouldn’t apply to anybody you don’t like. I know well enough that President Onderburg would give the Ny Frihet operatives the trial they deserve, but you, in your high and mighty wisdom, have decided that you know better?” He stops for a moment and lets that hang for a bit. He spies Zahra in the front row, staring straight at him with fire in her eyes. “‘If we cannot respect the law, why should those who break it respect us?’” He looks over at Treacher, knowing his time is up.

Treacher narrows his eyes, and Alex can see that he’s raring. “I was in America’s Battalion during Operation Enduring Freedom, you know. I saw active combat. I don’t think you really want to tell me that criminals deserve respect.”

Alex raises his chin. “I was the Associate Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice in Texas. I saw criminals in court, I defended some of them. I don’t think you want to tell me who the law doesn't apply to.”

Treacher glares at him. “I’d have thought you of all people would agree with me.” Aha. There it is. Treacher’s trying to get Alex to break, to say something bad about the operatives, or to at least agree with him on some front. Well, it’s not going to work.

Alex makes sure to keep his face neutral. “My personal feelings on the subject aside, I think it would be a dangerous mistake to ignore the decisions of courts across the world that all say that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay should be given fair trials. And, since you’re so interested in my personal feelings on the subject, I trust President Onderburg to exercise the rights of his own criminal justice system, with which I would gladly cooperate with if I am elected.”

“This isn’t a question of cooperation with President Onderburg-”

“Isn’t it?” Alex snaps back. “If this were any other country, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. At every turn, you have been given chance after chance to be amicable with him, to foster a relationship, but you’ve failed in all the same ways as Pinkley. First, it was the embassies, which were meant to be an olive branch. But you treated it like a carrot on a stick and made everyone involved, including me, chase after any semblance of progress. And now? Now you’re faced with a human rights violation, which is easily solved if only you’d find it within yourself to admit when somebody else is right and you’ve made a mistake. Either you do that, or I’d imagine you’re looking at spending a lot of time in The Hague.”

Barry the moderator speaks up before Treacher can get a word in. “Are we to assume that, if you are elected, you would release the Ny Frihet operatives that tried to kill you?”

Alex looks Treacher dead in the eye. “I would extradite them to Baltonia, where they would be given a fair trial under the Baltonian criminal justice system. As is their right.”

The debate ends without anybody splitting a knuckle, regardless of how much Alex wants to nail Treacher in the mouth for another couple things he’d said towards the end. Alex sighs as he exits the stage and finds Zahra and Henry and his senior staff waiting there for him. “That was a f*cking nightmare. I don’t want to do that two more times,” he mutters privately to Zahra as his Secret Service detail bustles him off to the caravan to go to the hotel for the night.

“You were great,” she says consolingly, as consoling as Zahra can appear. “You looked damn more presidential than Treacher did.”

“That’s not hard,” Aaron points out, which makes Alex laugh. He leans into Henry’s side a bit more as they step outside, watching Treacher’s forty-five vehicle motorcade speed him off to the airport, where Air Force One is waiting to take him back to the White House.

They don’t stop for press, thank God because Alex doesn’t have the brain power for that right now. He huddles into the back of his own measly four-care motorcade and squeezes Henry’s fingers in his own and goes over Zahra’s notes for the fifteen minute car ride.

Their flight back to Austin the next morning is early, so Alex crashes on the bed of the hotel room as soon as the door closes behind him and groans into the plush duvet. He rolls over onto his back and sits up to see Henry watching him quietly, slowly taking off his jacket. “What’s wrong?” Alex murmurs, scooching to the edge of the bed. “You’ve been quiet.”

Henry approaches slowly, and Alex loops his arms around his thighs, looking up and pressing his chin to Henry’s belly, pressing a kiss to the soft pudge there that Henry hates but Alex finds attractive beyond human reason. He feels Henry’s fingers in his hair. “Don’t freak out.”

“That’s not a very good way to get me to not freak out,” Alex says cautiously.

Henry smiles softly, and a little sadly. “The date.”

Alex ponders for a second. “The date? It’s September 25th. What do you-” Realization crashes into him like a freight train. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Alex’s stomach sinks like a falling weight - fast, and damaging. Twenty years ago, exactly. The emails, their hearts ripped open and displayed like a freak show. And he hadn’t even realized it until just now-

“f*ck. Baby, you should have said something. I went the whole day- God, with the speech and the UN, and the debate, I forgot. f*ck, I didn’t-”

“Hey,” Henry interrupts him. “I forgot, too.”

Alex pauses. “You did?”

“Yeah. Until Treacher-” Henry breaks off, and laughs, which makes Alex shake his head, bewildered. “The way you were talking to him, it reminded me of the way you spoke to Richards at that charity gala of Pez’s a couple years ago. And that’s when I remembered.”

“Ah.” Alex considers for a moment. “Well, at least we didn’t go the whole day thinking about it. Normally, I remember. I guess I was just busy today.” He presses his face into Henry’s stomach again, and his voice comes out muffled: “Should we have said something? To the press?”

“No need,” Henry says. “Wouldn’t have accomplished anything, I think. We’ve moved on. It’s time for them to as well.”

“Hm.” Alex squeezes Henry’s thighs, running them up and down in nonsensical paths that make Henry’s gaze sharpen. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I know that,” Henry smirks down at him. “Why do you sound surprised?”

“I’m not surprised, what are you talking about?” Alex grins. “Of course you’re right, you’re the smartest, most beautiful person I’ve ever met-”

“Are you coming on to me?” Henry asks, tilting his head to the side and tightening his fingers in Alex’s hair.

“I don’t know what that means, must be one of your ‘Britishisms’,” Alex shoots back, his hands meandering their way up Henry’s legs. “But, I mean I can ‘come on to you’, if that’s what you really want-”

“God, do shut up,” Henry rolls his eyes, before kissing Alex thoroughly and pushing him onto the bed. “You cretin.”

“You love me,” Alex taunts.

“Yes,” Henry says, shaking his head like it’s something he can’t quite wrap his mind around. “Yes, I do love you. Can you believe that?”

“You’d find there are harder things to believe.”

Alex takes a deep breath as he looks down at the ballot, resisting the urge to bite a hole on the inside of his cheek.

President and Vice President of the United States

1: FIRST CHOICE

Treacher, Simon R.

Tipper, Paul T.

Republican

Claremont-Diaz, Alexander G.

Freedman, Latisha A.

Democratic

Greene, William J.

Thompson, Olivia L.

Libertarian

Reynolds, Christopher M.

Patel, Benjamin R.

Green

Kim, Larissa N.

Desena, Evan P.

Independent

He smirks as the stylus hovers over his own name. But wouldn’t it be funny if he voted for Lara? Nobody would know. It probably wouldn’t even matter in the long run. Ah well. Best to not test his luck. He selects the oval next to his and Latisha’s names, and the machine takes him to the next page to make his second choice, where he firmly selects Lara’s ticket. Then his third, fourth, and fifth choices (yes, Treacher was his lowest ranking, he’s not an idiot enough to do anything else), and then he’s done.

Emerging from the booth, he’s met with applause and the flashing of some cameras. He waves politely, and lets Zahra herd him in front of a couple reporters, where Henry’s waiting. “You voted for me, right?” Alex taunts Henry, who shakes his head.

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

“Hah, hah,” Alex grins, then faces the press. The woman in the front gets to it first.

“Sir, what do you have to say for your first time voting under the 28th Amendment?”

“It was easy, I don’t know what McKinney was talking about,” Alex snarks, which earns him a laugh. “Seriously, though, it’s a step forward into creating a system that will better represent the voices of the American people, and if I lose tonight because of it, I won’t regret a thing. Thank you,” he nods firmly, then steps away.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Zahra groans. “‘If I lose tonight’? Don’t test God, he’s a petty motherf*cker.”

They’d managed to steal an hour away from the event center in Austin to put in their votes and put on a good face for the press, but Alex is antsy beyond all human reason. Well, actually, it does make perfect sense. It’s election day, of course he’s antsy.

The grass isn’t fully trodden around the event center, but it’s getting there as he waves at a group of newcomers who are all decked out in yellow ‘History, huh?’ shirts. The person at the front has decked themselves out in rainbow for the occasion and is toting a massive sign with the campaign logo. It’s November, but it looks like June has come early.

“People are still wearing those?” Alex calls over to the group as they pass by. All gasping and smiling wildly, they press up against the rope line, and Alex’s security detail press in a bit further before he waves them off.

“It’s iconic!” says the person in the front, the one who looks like a rainbow has projectile vomited joy all over them, easily the most confident of the bunch. “Will you sign them? Both of you?”

“Are you sure?” Alex grins back, even as he takes the offered sharpie pen and waves it around. “These are antiques. Vintage items.”

“I will literally preserve this shirt in resin if I have to,” someone begs. “It will be my family heirloom. My descendants will make sacrifices to it.”

Alex gives in, and tries his best to sign the shirts without f*cking it up. Henry refuses the sharpie as Alex tries to hand it to him (some weird royal protocol rule), but he tugs Henry in for a selfie before the group all trudges up towards the stage crowd and the entourage heads into the building.

He’d wanted to have the election night rally at Zilker Park, where his mom had held her first election night back in 2016, but the Secret Service had shot that down. So he’s looking out the window of the events center, the newly constructed Lone Star Pavilion, where he can see the stage below him, and the slowly amassing crown beyond, the skyline of Austin illuminated in the setting sun.

He huffs as he turns around to face the room at large, with his family, friends, and closest allies milling around. “We won’t know tonight,” Alex mutters as Oscar approaches, holding two whiskeys in hand and giving Alex one. “It’s going to go to the second choice votes. I don’t think either Treacher or I are going to hit 50% tonight.”

“Yeah, probably,” Oscar shrugs. “But that’s how it’s supposed to work. Don’t take that as a failure.”

Alex nods without really meaning to do it, and resists the urge to chug his drink all at once to soothe the nerves. He looks up at the big screen on the closest wall to see the results:

Estimated: 42% reporting (~65.5 million)

Treacher/Tipper: 39.5%

Claremont-Diaz/Freedman: 38.1%

Kim/Desena: 13.5%

Greene/Thompson: 5.4%

Reynolds/Patel: 3.5%

“We’re not going to know tonight,” Alex repeats himself weakly. “They’ll only count the first round votes tonight. We won’t know who won for, like, another month.”

“Calm down, mijo,” Oscar clasps his arm and shakes it firmly, grinning as Alex shoots him a glare.

“Easy for you to say,” Alex grumbles. “You’re not the one waiting for election results.”

Oscar smiles again. “What can I say? Kam Mandfelt’s got my sh*t covered. Retirement is nice.”

“I’ll say!” Alex turns to see Raf striding towards them, his shirt collar tastefully open, looking handsome as ever.

“What are you doing here?” Alex asks, not bothering with a ‘hello’ (he never has). “I thought you’d be in Richmond with Lara.”

“Lara doesn’t need me,” Raf scoffs. “She’s never needed me, and she’d be offended if I ever suggested it.”

“Well, I don’t need you either,” Alex protests, but accepts a hug regardless.

Raf raises an eyebrow, silently challenging that assumption, but he shrugs it off. “I dunno, I was bored. Wanted to see your crew.” He looks around and points at Aaron. “Is he single?”

“Aaron?” Alex’s brow furrows. “Um, I don’t know.”

Raf snorts. “Hell of a wingman, you are.”

The news agencies kind of hate his guts right now, he thinks as he watches the CNN stream for a little longer. It’s much less interesting, now that states don’t carry electoral votes, but they make up for it by pandering on majorities in counties when they get the chance.

Alex mills around and chats with random people, shoves a sandwich in his mouth at 8 o’clock, pops out to the rally a couple times, and forces June and Nora to listen to his nervous ramblings. Pez shows up at 9, having just flown in from Nigeria and severely jetlagged, but ever the life of the party. Ellen has to tell Alex to sit down a couple times or he’s going to pass out, because apparently he’d been locking his knees. Latisha, just as amped-up as he is, hands him her granddaughter, the baby Rebekah and tells him to ‘shut up and calm down’. Shockingly, the baby helps more than anything else has. A photographer snaps a picture of him and Henry cooing over her and her tiny fists. “sh*t, you gotta take her away from me. The baby fever is real,” Alex grins as he hands Rebekah back to Marcus.

“Oh, we’re way past that,” Henry mutters, and Alex huffs a laugh, shaking his head.

Henry splits off not long after, finding some reason to go join Pez in a conversation with some rich old lady beneficiary, and Alex is left alone for a hot second before he spies two newcomers heading straight for him. “Hey!” he grins as Liam and Spencer approach, hugging them each in turn.

“Sorry we’re late,” Liam says, sounding slightly breathless. “The reserved parking was all full.”

“Should have told me,” Alex chides him, “there’s VIP parking, I could have gotten you in.”

“Well-” Liam starts to protest, but Spencer elbows him sharply. “I’ll remember that for next time.” He looks up at the stream. “How’s it going?”

“We won’t know tonight,” Alex says for the five millionth time since this morning. There’s been little to no change across the board, now reporting 68%, and neither Treacher nor himself are any closer to 50% than they were before. “I love Lara, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a spoiler.”

“That’s all he’s been saying for the last six hours,” June says loudly, appearing at his elbow and grabbing Liam in what looks like a rib-crushing hug. “How have you been? How’s the new teaching job?”

Liam starts rambling on about the new job he’s taken at a magnet high school. He’s obviously very excited, and the way Spencer’s looking at him makes Alex wonder if that’s how he looks at Henry.

Everyone is just as antsy as he is by the time the time rolls around to 11 o’clock. Both Alex and Treacher’s tickets are still lagging in the high 30% range, with Lara’s ticket trailing behind at about 13%, but Alex keeps having to remind himself that this is how it’s supposed to work.

“How’s it going?” he stage-whispers to Zahra as she passes by, looking frazzled. Shaan is watching her work from across the room, idly chatting with Henry, but Alex knows they’ve both been stealing glances over at them for the last hour.

“We’re holding, but not enough. And the exit polling is structured like we’re still using the electoral college, so it’s all sorts of f*cked up. Nobody’s used to this yet.” Seeing his face, she rolls her eyes. “Relax. They’ll have to call it quits before too long.”

He checks out some exit polling in California. Looking good. Wisconsin? Not so good. But the House elections are staggering for the Democrats, which Alex had fully expected. But they’d picked up a couple governorships, and they’re on the right track to win back the Senate, so it’s not the end of the world. Henry rubs his shoulders as the clock starts ticking down, and the number of counted votes keeps climbing.

“Honestly, I think this is more nerve-wracking than the electoral college,” Ellen oh-so-helpfully interjects.

Alex glares at her. “Thanks, Ma. That really makes me feel a lot better.”

Hunter Weaver appears on the screen some thirty minutes later. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is CNN coming to you live.”

“Huh,” Aaron miraculously appears at Alex’s elbow and checks his watch. “I thought it would be at least another hour before they called it quits. Something’s up.”

“We have it here that this election has reached a record high voter turnout in modern American history of 71%,” Hunter Weaver continues, and Alex feels nothing short of a surge of pride as everyone in the room whoops and cheers. “However, this means that our estimated reporting value was incorrect, and CNN is projecting that only about 65% of the votes have been counted thus far, roughly 114 million. That means that about 60 million votes have not yet been counted, and President Treacher, currently leading with 39.8% and 45.6 million votes, is not projected to win enough of the uncounted votes to secure a second term. This is CNN coming to you first: we’re going to the runoff votes.”

“Better save that phone call, Alex!” someone yells at him. “No concession for you!” The room laughs and applauds again as Alex accepts a couple more slaps on the back.

“Not yet, at least,” he mumbles as Zahra ushers him towards the stage downstairs. “Dammit, I could have told them three days ago this was going to happen-”

“Jesus Christ,” Zahra groans, “shut the f*ck up and go say something. Yes, you were right, do you want a medal or something?”

“I’d take a medal, honestly,” Alex says, grinning, but she gives him a dead-eye glare and shoves him out in front of the crowd.

The crowd is absolutely humongous, larger even than it was at his announcement rally, or on Super Tuesday. Even though they all know that this sh*t might go on for another month and it’s nearing midnight, they’re all yelling loud enough that he’s truly worried for the structural integrity of his eardrums. He raises a hand, approaching the podium, blinking rapidly in the shockingly bright stage lights.

“Good evening!” he has to say quite loudly to be sure he’s heard. The noise dies down after a minute, and he lets himself relax into it a bit more, shaking out his shoulders and letting some of the stress of the day melt away. In a sense, it’s a relief that today is over, even if the election isn’t. “Thank you all for showing out tonight. You know I hate to keep you all waiting.” The answering cheer is loud, with chants of ‘U-S-A!’ drumming against his brain. “You all heard what they’re saying. This is the highest voter turnout we’ve ever had in an election, and you have only yourselves to thank!”

He looks out onto the sea of bodies, and spies more than thirty pride flags waving in the air, outnumbered by the American flags many times over, but that just bolsters him even more. “This is the first time we’ve done this, and it means so much to me and everyone else how much faith you’ve had in the amendment that made our elections fairer. But I hope you don’t fault me for all this taking a bit longer than anticipated-” the cheering of the answering crowd is enough of an answer, as he lets himself laugh a little.

“I believe that if I have no regrets about something, then I must have done it right. And I have no regrets right now, so I can tell you all, with full confidence, that we did this right!” It’s almost impossible to hear himself again over the sound of the crowd. “This is not over!”

He riffs for a bit longer, cracks a couple jokes and sticks in a few policy advancements when he gets the chance, then waves the crowd goodnight and heads back inside. Zahra immediately drags him over into a makeshift huddle in the corner of the room with the senior staff and Latisha.

“So, what’s the plan?” Aaron asks him, the group at large snapping to attention as he approaches.

“There’s one month until the final vote tally, when we’ll know for sure who won,” Alex says, feeling like it’s the fiftieth time he’s said it today. “And then another month before the inauguration. So, if we win, there’s only a month to do all the sh*t we’d normally have two months to do for the transition.”

“Honestly, I think we should proceed under the assumption that we’re taking the White House in January,” Letisha says confidently. “That’s what Treacher will be doing. Get a head start on finalizing cabinet appointees and legislative agendas, and whatnot.”

“I’ll get a hold of Treacher’s transition committee,” Jamie offers, “and put them in touch with ours, see if they can’t iron out some kinks.”

“We didn’t expect this would go smoothly,” Zahra nods along. “There’s a first time for everything.” She raises an eyebrow at Alex, clearly waiting for him to say something inspiring as some sort of team leader. Ironically, he doesn’t feel like one, but who knows? In a month, he might be the next president. He better start acting like it, rather than that one person in a group project who delegates to everyone else.

“We’re setting precedents,” he says, trying to keep his voice level and confident. “And we will for the next four - eight years if I have anything to say about it. I guess all I have to say is…” He laughs at himself, knowing how corny what he’s about to say is: “Let’s go make some history.”

“So, I’ve been talking to the PPSCPT,” Jamie starts as soon as Alex sinks into a chair, fresh off the phone with a prospective cabinet secretary.

“Bless you.” Alex grins as Jamie blinks owlishly up at him. Zahra silently glares at him from across the conference table, without pausing her rapid typing on the laptop in front of her that’s slowly whirring and clearly overheating. “Sorry. What’s the… PSPTC… thing?”

“PPSCPT,” Jamie corrects him, shifting in the chair opposite the sparse table. Two weeks after the election, the headquarters of the campaign are a ghost-town. Volunteer services no longer needed, pollsters and media teams taking a well-deserved break. From now until December 18th, they’re in pre-prep mode. “The Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transitions.”

Alex resists the urge to laugh. “You know, we used to be really good at acronyms. Like, whoever came up with NASA deserved a pay raise.”

Jamie makes a ‘touché’ face, and looks back down to his notes. “It’s a nonpartisan organization, they specialize in, like, boosting the younger generations in the federal government, and they’ve kept meticulous records about presidential transitions over the years. They’re pretty much experts in anything that could make a transition fumble.” Alex nods in understanding, and Jamie continues. “Basically, we’ve got lots of support from the GSA, that’s the General Services Administration, but they can’t legally offer you office space unless you’re the president-elect, which, obviously you aren’t yet, and you can’t get national security briefings yet either, so they said housekeeping should be our biggest priority outside of our legislative agenda and close to 4,000 political appointees.”

“Housekeeping as in…?” Alex prods, and Jamie pulls out a sheaf of papers.

“I mean, you’ve heard the phrase ‘measuring the curtains’, right?” Alex nods. It’s the term used for when a candidate gets too confident of their victory, too presumptive. “Well, this list takes care of everything short of literally measuring the curtains.” He looks down at the list, and crosses something out. “Already discussed selling one of your houses and security measures on your private devices… but there’s some other stuff on here you can tell me about. Your daughter’s Secret Service detail?”

Alex shakes his head. “Henry and I don’t want to change it. She already hates it, why change it at all?” He shakes his head. “Trust a middle-school girl to get self-conscious about a couple of security guys tailing her all day.”

Jamie nods and scribbles something down. “Okay… The Secret Service might want to prematurely increase your security. Should I-”

Alex frowns deeply, but he spies Zahra looking up at him again, eyes narrowed. He huffs. “I don’t really want to…”

“You should,” Zahra says. “I know you don’t get security briefings yet, but if the Secret Service thinks you need it, you need it.”

Alex tries not to pout, but he knows she’s right. Something similar to this mess happened in 2000, when the election results between George W. Bush and Al Gore were so close in Florida that the results weren’t verified until mid-December when the states officially finalized the electoral votes in Bush’s favor. It was (apparently - Alex was only 2 years old, so he wasn’t really a witness, per say) the shoddiest presidential transition since the late 1800’s, and some people say that 9/11 happened in part due to the fact that Bush wasn’t receiving national security briefings until a month before the inauguration. Whether or not that’s actually true, the implication does make Alex nervous. What if he really is missing something important because the election was too close? What if, if he does win, there’s some terrible tragedy that he’s wildly unprepared for, all because he got too confident three whiskeys deep with Phil Bridgers a couple years ago?

Okay, so that last one might not necessarily be the best thought he could have at this moment, but the point remains. Either the inauguration date needs to be pushed back on occasions like this, or they need to find a way for the states to finalize results faster. Something’s gotta give, because Alex doesn’t want to take any chances.

“Fine,” he concedes. “What else?”

“Uh… media training for Dr. Fox?” Alex laughs. Even Zahra snorts. Jamie looks taken aback. “What is it?”

“Henry has more media training than I do,” Alex says, tamping down his grin.

“Oh,” Jamie frowns, crossing that off the list. “They said it was very beneficial for Mrs. Pinkley.”

“Well, that’s because Mrs. Pinkley desperately needed it,” Zahra rolls her eyes, and checks the clock. “Jamie, you’ll miss your flight.”

Jamie looks up at the clock and gapes. “Oh, sh*t.” In record time, he cleans up the papers and makes to shove them in his bag before Alex snags the list from the department with the absurdly long acronym name off the top and slides it into his own bag. “Have a good Thanksgiving,” he waves to them, and dashes out of the room. Alex, of no mind to keep working, scribbles down some final notes and packs up as well.

Thanksgiving, for all its usual pitfalls, goes well this year. Better than it did two years ago, Alex thinks to himself as he fixes some drinks. But the campaign has run its course. The final counting of the ballots is out of his hands now, but that doesn't make it less strange to think about the fact that in the span of the two years since the idea of the presidency first wormed its way into his ear, things have come quite a long way since. But even as he looks over at Ellie, reading her book in the armchair Alex usually claims for himself, he still wonders if he’s going down the right path.

The plans he and Henry had made to adopt a child and tabled some time ago have tucked themselves away in the back corner of his mind. Even when he spares a thought for it, for that child that might have made a home with him, and Henry, and Ellie, it becomes too heavy to hold. It burns at his fingers, the sadness of that forgotten plan becoming some relic that’s too bittersweet to admire anymore. The heaviness of that sorrow, guilt even, feels like someone has hung a dumbbell from his diaphragm, dragging him down and constricting his lungs even as he keeps his chin high for the crowds. The table sits in the corner of the kitchen, the fourth chair unused.

“Earth to Alex.”

Alex looks up to see Henry rounding the kitchen island towards him, wearing a tawny sweater that makes him look like a very soft, very sexy teddy bear. Alex huffs bemusedly as Henry presses in close behind him, wrapping his arms around Alex’s middle and pinning him to the island he’d been leaning against. They’re both silent for a moment, watching Ellie flip a page as the dogs snuff around the carpet, and through the window they can see Raf on a phone call on the front porch, raising an arm in a wave as a car pulls up into the driveway.

“That’ll be Zahra and Shaan and the boys,” Alex says softly, but Henry makes no moves to pull away.

“I was thinking about Thanksgiving two years ago,” Henry murmurs close to Alex’s ear.

Alex laughs. “You know, I was just thinking the same thing.” They watch through the window as Zahra and Shaan exit the car, their three teenage boys in tow. Raf finishes his phone call and saunters out to the car to help them bring their stuff inside.

The solidness of Henry’s chest expands against Alex’s back with each deep, satisfied inhale. Alex’s brain feels heavy in his head as Henry presses a kiss to his temple. Then, unwrapping his arms around Alex’s middle and leaving him feeling cold and vulnerable, steps away.

But before Henry can make to open the door, Alex feels a surge of what can only be described as selfishness, and tugs Henry’s hand back towards him. “What’s wrong?” Henry asks immediately.

Alex isn’t even sure he knows. It’s a heavy something burrowed deep into his chest, throwing him off balance. The empty chair at the table draws his eye. “Just…” He takes a deep breath, noticing with sharp clarity how shaky it is. “Jesus, I don’t know.” He tries to drop Henry’s hand, but Henry refuses, tangling their fingers closer together and stepping in towards him again.

“Tell me anyways?”

Alex looks up at him, knowing his time is running out as their guests approach the front door. “If… If I win the election-” he shakes his head wildly, feeling like he’s scrambling for words. “I-... I don’t want to miss you. Or her.” He nods over to Ellie. “Or-”

The unspoken addition lingers between them. The empty chair, the unfiled adoption papers. The little boy that exists with them only in their imaginations. Henry nods in understanding, pulling Alex in and enveloping him, covering him in a shroud that might not necessarily protect him, but comforts him more than a thousand Secret Service agents could. It’s like he’s waiting, with his hands outstretched, praying into the void ‘give me the burden’. And Henry has his arms wrapped around Alex’s middle, holding him up and saying ‘give me yours’.

“We’ll be okay,” Henry says lowly in his ear as the door creaks open and Ellie closes her book with a snap. “All of us.”

Alex is pretty sure that if this was his TV at home, the CNN logo would be burned into the bottom corner of the screen. Hunter Weaver is going to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.

It’s December 18. The big day. The real one, this time.

On election day a month ago, Alex had been a nervous wreck, pacing and agonizing over details, things he could have done better. Today? He feels cool, calm, and collected, straight-backed as he keeps his eyes on the prize.

The rest of his staff, too, have their game-faces on. Raf, who has taken up recreational flirting with Aaron every chance he gets, knows better than to interfere, but is chatting with Oscar and Leo in the corner. Catching Alex looking over at him, he gives him a wink of solidarity.

Latisha is cruising through the room, completely at ease. They work well together, all of Alex’s neuroses and quirks balanced by Latisha’s ease and stability. And as she’s told Alex, she always tended to lack in the idealism he seems to ooze. Even if they lose, Alex thinks, he’ll keep her around. She pats him on the shoulder as she passes by.

He looks around to find the others, besides his senior staff. He spies Cash and Amy, catching up after a long few years without seeing each other, and Shaan and Zahra engaged in what looks like a lively debate with two of Latisha’s kids. Over at a few nearby table, disinterestedly watching the broadcasters droning, are June, Nora, Pez, Henry, Liam and Spencer, and Bea, who had managed to make the trip over the Atlantic, but was trying to keep a low profile as to not appear political in any way (a royal protocol Henry and his family have long since abandoned when it comes to Alex).

The venue for today is basically a glorified tent, set up on the outskirts of Zilker Park, where he’d finally gotten Secret Service approval to have the event. The rally outside is slowly massing, but Alex will only go out at the end to make a speech, whether it be one of concession or victory.

“How are you doing, sugar?” Ellen’s Texas drawl coats him as she approaches, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

“Fine,” Alex mutters.

She nods, although she clearly doesn’t believe him. “I remember something like this, 24 years ago.” He glances over at her, but she’s looking out into space. “I remember thinking ‘how will I measure up?’. ‘Will I be good enough?’. I remember wondering what kinds of challenges I’d face, if I’d succeed… how I’d change.” She looks back at him, long and hard. “I can’t answer those questions, nobody can. But…” she smiles, and grabs his arm. “You’ll be alright.”

“You sound confident,” Alex snarks, but Ellen just shrugs.

“Force of habit.”

He meanders for a bit longer before he finds a seat next to Henry, and tangles their fingers together as they wait for the real show to begin. They’ve never done this before, with ranked-choice voting, so Alex is partially excited, and partially nervous to see how it’s been set up. Setting precedents is mostly just trial and error, though, so if it royally f*cks up, at least they have a running list of what not do to.

Supposedly, the states have spent all day today finalizing the votes. Each state has sent one delegate to Washington, D.C., where they’ll share the results as one body, one round at a time. Broadcasting networks across the country will all be streaming C-SPAN simultaneously, waiting together for the results.

Finally, finally, the broadcast starts. The stream shows a large, semicircular room. Alex recognizes it, from the red carpet and drapes over the top podium: the Old Senate Chamber in the Capitol building. 50 of the chairs are filled with people, with their name and state printed on a card facing the podium. Alex can see that each delegate has a piece of paper with their state’s votes, and an electronic tablet to enter it, with a TV set up at the front to present the results.

Even the rally outside is quiet, hushed as one of the many clerks at the front starts reading off a script. The Speaker of the House, Tobias Rhimes, is sitting at the top desk, twiddling his thumbs - he’s been reelected into the House, but the Republicans now have majority, so he’ll be replaced in less than a month. This is one of his last acts as Speaker.

Alex finds himself in the center of a tight circle - Henry on one side, June on the other, and Ellen behind him, with her hands on his shoulders. Oscar, across the table, and Raf next to him. Latisha on Raf’s other side, her leg jumping, rustling the tablecloth.

“Delegates, please submit your first round votes,” the clerk says, mic'd up so the broadcast can pick up her voice, and the delegates all bow their heads to input the results.

The first thing to flash across the screen is the total number of votes. Alex had known the number was coming, but the size of it punched some air out of his lungs.

Round 1

Total votes: 176,435,742

Required to win (50%): 88,217,871

“Jesus,” someone mutters nearby. “That’s… so many votes.”

“Well, that’s what you get when people realize their vote actually counts,” Raf grins, and reaches across the table to slap Alex’s hand. “Only got one person to thank for that. Or, well, two, but who counts Phil Bridgers?”

“Pretty sure you should count Phil Bridgers,” Alex shakes his head, smiling. “He was literally half-”

“Shut up, please,” June waves a hand in front of them, and Alex does so, turning back to the TV.

After another second, the distributions flash across the screen:

Alex is pretty sure his eye just twitched. “Oh.”

“That’s lower than I thought it would be,” June frowns, looking worried. “Second place by nine million votes?”

“Hush,” Nora shakes her head. “Treacher hasn’t won yet. He still has to make up 18 million votes to get 50%.”

“But we have to make up 27 million,” June groans into her hands.

“Oh, my God, relax” Zahra snaps at them, looking very much not relaxed, given how tightly she’s gripping Shaan’s hand on top of the table. “Look, they’re eliminating Reynold’s first choice votes now, and that’s another ten million votes that will probably sway to us.”

Sure enough, the clerk calls for the delegates to do just that: eliminate all first choice votes given to the Green Party candidate, Christopher Reynolds, and distribute his voters’ second choice votes instead.

The Green Party is left-leaning, no matter how much they like to reject the typical wing structure, so Alex feels semi-confident as the new results flash across the screen, and the sound of the rally outside swells as their vote tally jumps up by almost eight million votes.

Round 2

Total votes: 175,787,765

Required to win (50%): 87,893,883

“That’s more like it,” Ellen says, squeezing Alex’s shoulders.

He’s still nervous, though, as the clerk instructs the delegates to redistribute the votes for the Libertarian Party candidate, William Greene. Libertarians are socially left-leaning, but fiscally conservative usually, so he expects it when Treacher lunges forward again as, a couple minutes later, the distribution fluctuates again.

Round 3

Total votes: 175,300,440

Required to win (50%): 87,650,220

A disappointed groan fills the room as Alex’s ticket falls back behind Treacher by an additional three million votes. Alex feels like he’s going to vomit. He’s known for the past, like, two years that this was going to happen - Lara Kim’s ticket is out, and now it’s down to Alex and Treacher.

“C’mon,” Raf mutters into his hand.

Lara Kim’s voter base is basically the same as from when she was Raf’s running mate from four years ago. She’s benefitted from that success greatly, and is centrist enough that her legislative agenda appeals to a huge range of people. Obviously, since she’s made it this far, to the semifinals of the general election, her ticket carries a punch.

Alex looks down at his phone, where it’s just buzzed on the table. He forgets his mounting stress as he grins at the text he’s just received from none other than Lara Kim herself: Official concession call incoming. Good luck.

“You should think about a cabinet position for her,” Ellen mutters from behind him as she reads the text from over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I was thinking about it,” Alex admits.

“You two are getting very confident,” Oscar gripes at them. His fingers are tapping incessantly on the tabletop, until Raf raises a hand to smack them away.

On the broadcast, the clerk instructs the delegates to redistribute Lara Kim’s votes. The next five minutes of waiting for the new distribution are some of the most stressful of Alex’s life. He’s pretty sure his hands are shaking, but Henry’s grasp around them is so tight that he’s not sure. June might be leaving fingernail marks through his suit, and Ellen is squeezing his shoulder so tight it’s a wonder she hasn’t broken his collarbones.

The screen shifts to show the first screen. Somebody is at 50%. The question is who.

Round 4

Total votes: 174,045,234

Required to win (50%): 87,022,617

“Oh, sh*t.” Alex mutters under his breath as he swallows heavily. “Oh, sh*t.”

“I can’t watch,” June moans, her forehead pressed into the tablecloth.

“I’m gonna vomit,” Nora says, peeking between her fingers.

“Come on,” Raf slaps the table. “C’mon, Lara. Show up.”

Alex’s heart is practically beating out of his chest. His entire body is shaking like a leaf. His last thought before the final results come up is that he’s glad he’s sitting down. He’s positive his legs would have buckled by now if he was standing.

Alex barely has time to register that his name has switched to the left column before the room practically explodes.

“Oh, f*ck,” is all he gets out before he’s swarmed.

“Yes!” Ellen is practically screaming, jumping and waving her hands in the air, sparing a moment to throw her arms around Alex’s neck and nearly chokes him in the process. June is a sobbing disaster, her mascara coming down in jet-black rivulets as she presses her forehead to Alex’s temple. Oscar rounds the table at lightning speed, pulling a still-shaky Alex to his feet and wringing the life out of him in a bear hug that makes his ribs creak. He can barely hear for how loud everyone is yelling, cheering and clapping, and Nora slaps him on the arm as she makes a pass in her victory lap around the room. Pez grabs his head with both hands and plants a sloppy kiss onto his forehead, and Bea, laughing and jumping for joy, swings him into a hug with surprising strength. Cash, Amy, Shaan, Liam, and Spencer are all basically dancing, some pop song now blaring from the speakers. The rally outside is screaming, and the broadcast on CNN has plastered his face across every single screen, heralding him as the 50th President of the United States.

But as the noise eases down, Alex finds Henry’s wet eyes, crinkled with the width and strength of his smile. “C’mere,” Henry murmurs, or at least Alex thinks he does, because it’s all still too loud, but he goes anyway, and Henry pulls him into a kiss that feels like it’s too big to describe, cupping his chin with all the strength and surety he can muster. Alex, feeling it all swell inside his rib cage, can’t do anything to smother his sh*t-eating grin besides tucking his face into Henry’s shoulder as he tugs him closer.

The balloons are released, bright blue, and strobe lights are cascading across the tent wall from the rally outside, that hasn’t abated for a second.

Zahra finds him, and has to peel him off of Henry so she can press a phone into his hand. “It’s Treacher,” she explains quickly, but even taking Treacher’s concession call can’t wipe the smile off her face. Alex scoops her into a hug, and she’s definitely crying as she pats his back. “Go!”

Alex steps out of the mass of bodies and rushes to the corner of the room before raising the phone, sticking a finger in his other ear so he can hear better. “Hello?”

There is clearly no victory crowd on Treacher’s line. Alex hears no voices, nothing except the quiet rustle of the broadcast announcing Alex as the President-elect. Treacher sounds exhausted as he finally speaks: “Mr. President.” The use of the title feels like a lightning bolt up Alex’s spine as Treacher continues, probably reading off a script, because the words feel sterile and inorganic. “I want to congratulate you on a race well run. The American people have spoken, and they have chosen you to lead them. It was an honor to be your opponent, though now I wish to proceed as your peer and confidant. I leave this country to your competent hands.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alex says, because he has to. He falters for a moment as he tries to figure out what to say next. “Thank you for your service to this country.”

“Thank you,” Treacher says quietly. “Have a good night.”

“You as well,” Alex says, and the call cuts as Treacher hangs up. He looks back at the room, feeling… a little heavier as he watches his family and friends celebrate together.

Latisha is the one who approaches first, practically glowing. Alex grins at her. “Madam Vice President.”

She smiles wider, flaunting for a moment before sombering a little bit. “Mr. President.” It’s less of a shock to hear it this time, but he’s ready for it, for the extra weight. “Victory speech in twenty. You ready?”

He feels the ground under his feet, centers himself. Sees Henry watching him from among their family. He looks back at Latisha, his newest partner in crime, and nods. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Part III: December 2040 - April 2041