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Payton is 51 years old when he becomes the 51st Present of the United States of America, and Khai makes fun of him for being anal about the timing for a whole month. It’s about the only time that year that Payton cracks a smile that isn’t for the cameras.
Payton won by a landslide, but Washington doesn’t care. The country might love him, their rebel victor, but Capitol Hill drag their feet as much as they can and outgoing President Scott Matthews is an endless thorn in his side – if his team could have stolen the paint off the walls before they left the White House they would have. Farrokh and McAfee refuse to let Payton into the Oval Office until they’ve had a chance to make it presentable, and Payton leaves them to it, spending the day wandering long corridors, not sure what he’s looking to find.
River’s in the solarium on the roof, tilting his head up to the light from the setting sun pouring in through the windows, and Payton relaxes the second he sees him. The First Gentleman of the United States of America has white growing at his temples now, giving him a distinguished air that Payton can’t quite manage for himself, but his dimpled smile is still mischievous when he pulls Payton down onto one of the couches.
They make love in the dying sunlight, on the first day of Payton’s first term, and Payton will remember the moment for the rest of his life.
~
Three million, two hundred and fifty-eight thousand minutes later - or six years and two months, or when Payton is halfway through his second term, or when their adopted daughter Amira has just turned nine – River tries to kill himself again. This time, his fifth attempt, he succeeds.
~
River’s not the first one they lose. Payton's been building his road for nearly thirty years, the one that got him all the way to white steps. The faces along it were bound to change. He’s lost supporters – Ezra Kagan passed away a couple of years into Payton’s first term as state senator, and Valerie Montclair, without whom he never would have got Congress approval, she dies in a car accident only six months after Payton’s Governor win. His parents live long enough to see him take the White House, his father from his hospital bed and his mother at his side. He dies from surgery complications, she from cancer, though Georgiana Hobart doesn’t tell him that until the letter she leaves him afterwards, explaining her four-year battle against the disease. And…he loses friends, though not always to death.
Astrid leaves in regret and anger, after Payton puts his Governor seal to a tax bill that pleases his wealthier supporters and does no good at all to anyone else, and tells him he’s become everything she escaped from once and will do so again. And James…Payton has to tell James to go, halfway through the campaign trail to the White House, even knowing that losing his campaign manager at that stage might cost him everything. James spits at his feet and limps out of the room, his shattered kneecap the source of all the bitterness and anger and spite that poisons everything James touches nowadays, and that makes him a liability rather than an asset. One that Payton can no longer afford.
(James’ knee took the bullet that River meant for his own head, on his fourth attempt. And now Payton repays that debt by kicking James off the campaign, eight months before he would have been the White House Chief of Staff. Farrokh takes the position instead. Payton owes a debt there as well.)
Everyone else is still with him though. McAfee is his head of comms and Skye takes Secretary of the Interior, Khai splits his time between his family’s business in Hong Kong and the specially-created position of Chief Technology Advisor, cheerfully ignoring all conflicts of interests. Payton appointed Cassius as Secretary of Defence after General Macpherson stepped down, and he and Ophelia in the State Department basically keep the country running when Payton dissolves in grief.
It’s Alice who keeps Payton running. She and the children move in to the guest rooms, Marceau and Theodora keeping Amira occupied whilst Alice balances the demands of the Treasury with the demands of keeping Payton alive. The Republicans are confident about overturning Democratic control in two years’ time, and as much as they hated River they still back off for a bit in respect, keep the nasty articles to a minimum. That’s all McAfee’s doing, Payton knows – she’s spent the last twenty-five years crafting him and River into a perfect love story that, queer or not, even the Republicans don’t dare to try and throw stones at now.
Payton wonders if she knew it would end like this. Now River is immortalised, young and gorgeous and suffering, and Payton has the glow of tragic loss to bring to any future campaigns.
Alice stares at him when he says this. Payton doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look so shocked.
“You intend to keep campaigning?” she asks. Payton rolls over in the bed, to River’s side, still smelling of campfire-smoke and chocolate.
“What else do I have?” he asks back.
~
The Republican Presidency is a disaster. Only a few months in and Payton feels a terrible stabbing anger in his gut every time they try to dismantle another of the social policies that he and River crafted so carefully: the Fresh Air for Children manifesto; the ion-nanite healthcare trials, the veterans housing bill; the Native Land restoration campaign…it’s so bad even New Fox News does a segment lamenting how the current government is missing "the traditional American integrity of previous administrations”. Payton’s loaned what’s left of the dream team to Charity Okeke’s senate campaign, so he travels up to New Hampshire alone to see Alice, still living on Thad’s family estate with her absolutely terrifying mother-in-law and her own equally intimidating dowager grandmother, who have apparently become firm friends.
She rises to greet him in the conservatory, her soft pink dress a perfect complement to her elegant chignon and her blue, blue eyes.
“Payton –” she begins, and then stops when Payton drops to one knee. He doesn’t say anything, just holds out a ring, his mother’s ring.
Alice Marguerite Charles has stood beside two great men, and done even greater work, which history will shamelessly class under their names. Payton has not the slightest doubt about how much more she could achieve on her own.
But name recognition is brand recognition, and they both know this. He sees the considerations flickering in Alice’s eyes as she looks down at the ring. Finally she nods, and takes it from him to slide onto her finger.
They annihilate the Republican re-election campaign and the man departs in humiliation (no one knows at the time, but he’ll be the last Republican leader the country ever has. The world is changing, and not just because of Payton). Alice Marguerite Hobart-Charles is sworn in as the 53rd (and last) President of the United States, Payton at her side, their children behind them and large portraits of River and Thad on the stage. They pledge to carry on the legacies of those who are gone, to dedicate their lives to safeguarding the hopes and dreams of every ordinary American. They are the First Family of the world and the people love them.
McAfee has a field day writing the speeches.
~
Amira grows up hearing stories of her father from everyone but Payton.
Auntie Alice tells her most of them. She tells Amira about how Payton and River were a one true love, how their bond formed at first sight and how perfect their wedding day was, flicking through endless pictures and videos. (Amira admits, it’s a little weird to hear all this from the woman who technically replaced River, but that’s just how their family is). Her stories paint River as a kind, caring man, indulgent of Payton’s flaws and supportive of his dreams, much like Alice herself. Amira knows this is only a half-truth. She can remember the arguments from when she was small, the screaming matches, the way life would drain out of her father whenever Payton fucked up. She knows they weren’t perfect. She doesn’t want perfect.
Her cousin Xanthe, who can normally be relied upon to sneak just about anything out of her mother’s black books, can only find public stories of River’s charities or philanthropic works, which make him sound like a latter-day saint. They find three articles which contradict so badly, River would have had to be in five different soup kitchens across three states in the same day. Amira swipes the files off her vidscreen and rolls her eyes in disgust. She wants the man not the myth.
Uncle Khai tells her stories of how handsome River was, how everyone in the world wanted him but only Payton got him, how he loved Payton (and Amira) more than anyone else, which is all very nice to hear but doesn’t exactly help. Auntie Astrid, on the rare occasions she comes to visit, tells Amira stories of the time River got punched in the face by a woman half his size, the time he smuggled a skunk into a Senate Chamber, the time he and Payton got caught having sex in the Oval Office by the Attorney General. At the time Amira was probably too young for that last one, but at least Auntie Astrid’s stories feel real.
The world tells Amira stories too. There are five authorised biographies of Payton (and fourteen unauthorised ones) and two of River (no unauthorised ones – Payton threatens to sue every time). There’s also two documentaries, and one movie in the works. River and Payton are the epic love story of the 21st century, two souls tragically torn apart, a legacy that lives on in a commitment to make the world a better place.
Auntie McAfee did a brilliant job on that.
Amira asks her dad about her father again and again and he keeps refusing to answer. When she’s sixteen she throws up her hands in frustration and researches their old campaigns meticulously (aided by those twenty-one biographies) and then writes to every single person who ever encountered them. Mostly the people who get back to her are stalkers and star-fuckers, people hungry to get close to the Hobart name. So few people seem to have actually met River. Sometimes she thinks he might actually have been more myth than man.
That’s not to say she doesn’t learn anything. The social worker who processed her adoption writes back, sends Amira her official First Impression report of River Barkley-Hobart – he strikes me as a young man both astute and empathic, with the capacity to be a fair and supportive parent, but there is a strange hollowness to him until he talks about his partner’s work whereupon he lights up extraordinarily. She gets a response from a man called Mike who used to own a bar in New York. He sends her a stack of photos of her dad and his dream team, back during the very first campaigns, her father’s dimpled smile only appearing when he’s looking towards Payton. There’s also a hilarious letter from the grandson of the woman who punched River in the face – Rainier Gold is a Professor of Ethics at Columbia; they agree to meet for coffee and swap stories of growing up in political families. But even with all the responses, she still doesn’t feel like she really knows River Barkley, and she wants to. He’s the one that chose her, loved her, and then left her. He matters.
When she’s just about given up hope, she gets a letter in the post, with an old-fashioned usb stick included. The note is short.
Amira,
I am not the person who can, or should, tell you about River Barkley. There’s only one person who can do that and from your letter I guess he’s not talking. But if you want to understand River, then you don’t need to ask about him – River loved Payton. That’s it, that’s the sum of it, that’s all you need to know. You want to know about River? Watch these videos of your dad. Keep them to yourself, (McAfee will kill me if they’re leaked, he’s quite drunk in a few of them) but you’ll see what Payton Hobart – the most powerful and influential man on the planet – is like, when he doesn’t have his beloved soulmate at his side, and that’ll tell you everything you need to know about how special River Barkley was.
-JS
Amira watches the videos over and over again. For the rest of her life she’ll know the words to ‘If I had a River’, to “Vienna”, to “Walking After You” to “Higher and Higher”, to all the other songs that chart the relationship of Payton Hobart and River Barkley. Those videos are also the only time she sees Payton play. Alice tells her that after River died Payton never touched a piano again.
Amira asks Auntie Astrid to buy her one for her eighteenth birthday. Auntie Astrid tells her that Payton Hobart is definitely the sort of man who would reintroduce the death penalty just to get revenge on someone and if Astrid is going down then Amira is too – but she buys the piano, and helps smuggle it into the White House basement. Amira practices every day till her hands cramp and bleed.
On the tenth anniversary of River’s death, she takes her dad by the hand and leads him to sit next to her on the stool, and plays ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’. After the second chorus Payton’s hands join hers, tears dripping from his cheeks onto the keys. When they’re done he puts his head down and cries and cries and cries and Amira is only nineteen and her dad is sobbing like he’s dying and she doesn’t know what to do and –
There’s a hand on the back of her neck, warm and firm and loving, and oh, she’d forgotten what that felt like. Her dad lifts his head like he’s been lost in the dessert and just spotted water, a look on his face that she’s never seen before.
“River?”
The hand squeezes slightly and fades, leaving behind a feeling that Amira can only describe as loved. Her dad is sniffling and wiping at his eyes and then runs a hand over the keys. Music spills from his fingertips, effortless.
“Shall we get this moved up to your room?”
“Yeah,” Amira says. “Will you play with me sometimes?”
Payton Hobart, President of the newly created United Northern Region, nods in agreement. The piano gets moved to his room instead and Amira listens to it echo through the White House every night.
Alice never tells her stories about River again, but Amira understands. She’s learnt what she needed to know anyway.
~
Sometimes, Payton takes out the note that River left behind. The paper is thick and strong, the words printed carefully – River knew Payton would need this to last. He always knew what Payton needed.
Don’t forget to watch the sunsets, it says, and then further down.
I’ll wait for you in the white place.
It takes Payton a long time to forgive River for that second line, that second line that is the only thing that made Payton keep going, that stopped him from following River immediately: River’s promise to him that he’d wait and then they’d go the rest of the way together. With a promise like that in writing, how can Payton duck out early?
But he can’t forgive River for a long time because that second line? That’s not what Payton needs. That second line is for the world, because the world needs Payton and River knew that line would be the only thing that would make Payton stay.
It’s the only time River ever chooses someone else over Payton.
So, yeah. A long time.
~
Return of the Dynasty?
After the fall of the old United States, the United Northern Region’s constitution declared its founding principles to be fairness, equality and meritocracy. Many believe that the fossil fuel period came to an end in part to the consolidation of power in the hands of a few surnames – Bush, Kennedy, Daley, to name a few – and that the same mistake should be avoided at all costs. But yesterday the region looked on in approval as Amira Georgiana Hobart was sworn in as the South-Western District Director. Support for young Amira following in her father’s footsteps is one thing, until you recall that her older step-siblings hold influential positions in the Central Court and her various ‘cousins’ are scattered around the upper political echelons of the Region, and suddenly the position starts to look quite different. The Hobart name was the source of those principles of fairness, equality and meritocracy, and whilst many view Amira Hobart’s rise as a reassurance that the family that has fought so long and hard for the people has not yet abandoned us, others are beginning to ask: have we appointed a Director in the service of the people, or is this the beginning of a new dynasty, nay, a monarchy, that will rule over us for years to come? Only time will tell.
~
It feels like the world is on fire.
There are Neo-Human revolts in 17 different Regions. The United Northern Region is the worst, and Payton knows that’s his fault. The ion-nanite research was encouraged by his governments, approved and funded – it saved lives, it saved millions, at the time it seemed like a dream. No one imagined that twenty years later all those kids who’d been cured would have upgraded into something like this. 7% of the Region’s population is neo-human, almost double any other. Those kids, those kids that Payton created, they’ve grown up and they’re hurting and outcast and angry.
Payton is 87 years old. He’s been retired from politics for six years now, stepping down from the Regional Presidency at the end of his third, uncontested, term. He watches the marches on the vid-screen, the fighting and the pain. Police brutality hasn’t changed much over the years, even with the Central Court holding the reins. Next to him Alice is twisting her hands in her lap.
Marceau’s son Sebastian, who goes by Seb-Ema, is a neo-human.
The March for Neo-Human rights is twenty miles out from Washington DC when it hits the barricade of security forces, 400,000 desperate people against 10,000 heavily armed ones, the District Director sending their most formidable troops to stop the march from progressing any further. Payton carefully climbs off the back of Jiang Zhi’s hoverbike – he suspect’s Khai’s grandson may not technically have a licence for this Region, but that’s the least of his problems right now – and hobbles towards the back of the police cordon. Officers startle away from him as they recognise him, some of them snapping quick salutes and gesturing in acknowledgement.
“Mr President.”
“Your Honour.”
“Sir.”
“Blessings on you sir.”
“Mr President.”
Payton makes it through to the front few rows before someone with enough rank or enough guts finally stops him.
“Um, President Hobart sir. I’m afraid I can’t let you through here. This is a designated –”
Payton straightens up, which makes very little difference because this woman is at least half a foot taller than him. But there’s a whole generation who grew up watching him square his shoulders and he feels everyone around him take a step back.
“If you don’t mind,” he says quietly. “I’d like to speak to the marchers.”
They let him through.
There’s a twenty-foot wide strip of land between the two groups. The neo-humans stopped at the sight of the sonic guns but Payton can feel their momentum building up again. A lot of them are young, with ion-nanite etchings around their eyes, but there’s others too, parents or siblings or friends, the people who love them. Payton steps out into no man’s land.
Seven thousand news channels, their fly drones hovering like a mist around him, record him walking across.
The charismatic Olanto Yitko, who goes by Ola-Mra, stands just ahead of their march. Payton has heard Ola-Mra described as a rabble-rouser, a firestarter, and many more far less complimentary names. They’ve served time in Rehabilitation, probably less time than they deserve for the crimes they’ve committed (there’s at least half a dozen outstanding warrants for ion disruptor crimes that have their name attached) and they’ve got a restless untameable energy that makes their speeches incredibly effective. They rather remind Payton of Skye.
God, he hasn’t thought about Skye in years.
“Ola-Mra.” He says, making the gesture of acknowledgement. Ola-Mra returns it. They’re trying to play it cool but Payton can see a hint of a blush under the blue ion tint.
“President Hobart. Such a surprise to see you today. Have you come along to join us, or try to sweet talk us all into going home like good little subordinate citizens?”
There’s a murmur in the crowd at Ola-Mra’s rudeness. Most of the people here have never lived in a world that a Hobart wasn’t in charge of. The human companions are looking shocked, the neo-humans…less so. Neo-humans are dangerous, that’s what Payton’s heard, they have processors instead of hearts and ion-trails instead of souls – and other things. When he looks over the crowd, he can see anger and bitterness in so many of their faces.
“Actually I was wondering if you had a spare sign I could hold?” Payton says, because looking at those faces he can see the fear too. He’s never been able to understand people’s hearts, to share their emotions in the way that River could, (in the way that eventually overwhelmed him). But he knows what it’s like to be hated because of an unchangeable fact about himself, to feel like he could lose the people he loves because of it. He doesn’t understand this struggle fully, but he understands it enough.
Payton isn’t a good man, but he’s finally learnt to do good deeds.
Ola-Mra looks at him for a long moment and then hands him a sign, and Payton falls into place at their shoulder as the march starts moving again. Payton has two Nobel Peace Prizes, has stood at the head of the country and then the Region for four decades, shepherded a Continent from the Fossil Fuel age to the Ion Era and has the stories of his rise and fall and loves on every bookshelf and vidscreen in the world.
The soldiers lower their guns and the march moves forward. Payton is eighty-seven years old and can’t move very fast, but the tall young captain offers him her elbow and they walk side by side the rest of the way.
~
Payton is having routine heart surgery on the day that Astrid Sloan dies, quietly and without much notice in a small house in Second Chicago. He won’t find out for another six months but the news won’t come as a shock. They had to stop his heart briefly during the surgery and that’s when he felt it – a quick kick to the shin and a flash of white light.
Astrid dies without much notice, having lived a good life.
~
“Have you heard the news?” Alice asks. Payton opens his eyes slowly. Nowadays he likes to sit on the porch each afternoon and tilt his face up to the sun, let the warmth ease the ache in his bones. He smiles when he sees Alice, her grey hair in a neat bun and the coil of genetically-sustainable Alicia pearls he got her around her neck. His beautiful Alice, elegant as always.
“What news?” He asks. Alice holds out the tablet. There’s a smile dancing around the corner of her mouth.
“Neilos-Ara is running for Class President.”
Payton thinks of his youngest granddaughter, full of laughter and love, with Amira’s caring and Rainier’s intuition. She’s a delight to watch, something intangible about her that’s difficult to put into words – like there’s always a light shining on her, on the steps she takes. Something that draws the eye.
Payton thinks of the world, full of fractures and fighting. Xanthe Westbrook still sends him regular reports, classified things from the upper levels of world government that she probably shouldn’t, but who’s going to challenge a Westbrook? Things are quiet now, but he gives it a decade before the Metapsychic lobbyists make another push for reclassification, and after that they’ll be heading straight into another Continental war unless someone can bridge the gap between the different Regions. Payton only just averted the last one but it was a plaster, not a cure. The world needs someone who can feel the hearts of both sides, and find what unites them.
But…sometimes just someone isn’t enough.
“Amira also says she’s gotten very attached to a new classmate, a transfer from the Southern Continent called Evander-Ker. He’s a very determined young man by all accounts. Amira says he seems like the type to forge his own path.”
Payton leans back against the porch seat and closes his eyes again. There’s a warmth in his chest that isn’t from the sun.
“We should invite them both for dinner,” he murmurs, knowing Alice will have already sent out the invitations. “And maybe the rest of the younger generation as well. It always helps if you know your dream team from the very beginning.”
~
On the 16th day of 3rd month in the year 2104, Neilos-Ara p’Hobart formally announced the creation of the new World Elect Alliance Chamber, with representatives from all Continents and Meta Groups in equal status for the first time. Her life partner Evander-Ker p’Hobart, Commander of the United Planetary Defence System, formally presented his ceremonial sword at the ceremony that unified military bodies on Earth forever…
~
Khai passes in a blaze of glory, having ordered that his ashes be put into old-fashioned fireworks and set off over the Victoria Harbour Dome. Payton and Alice giggle themselves silly watching the ridiculous display as the world says farewell to the man who revolutionized the Ion-Core technology and could eat five bagels in one sitting.
Apart from them, he was the last one left.
~
In the end, Payton spends 36 years with River, and then 51 years without. That’s twenty-six million, eight hundred and fifteen thousand and six hundred and forty-two minutes.
~
When Payton goes, he goes alone.
The grandchildren and great-grandchildren are in the new world capital for the Alliance Day festival. Amira and Rainier tried to persuade him to go, but Payton doesn’t like the celebrations without Alice at his side. He’s been without her for nearly three years now, ever since the doctors and meta-healers apologetically told them there was nothing further they could do. That was the last big party they had, gathering all the family back together when she drank the Blue Drink and went on her way. Little Mirielle-Nev had only been a few days old, Neilos discharging herself from the hospital to make it in time. They’ve only visited on a few occasions since and Payton misses them all terribly, but he understands.
They’ve got a world to change.
So he’s alone on his last evening, puttering around the house as quickly as his tired old joints will allow. It’s a beautiful sunset, gold and red streaks flowing across the horizon as though Apollo of old is riding his chariot across the sky, pulling the sun to bed behind him. Payton pulls a blanket out of the airing cupboard and thinks that he might just sit and watch it for a bit, take in the beauty of the world. He settles down on the porch chair, wraps the blanket around his shoulders. It really is cold tonight. The seasons must be changing.
Payton feels very tired. The wood of the porch chair is hard against his bones. He rubs over the scar on his fingertips.
He really is very tired.
He hopes they’ll all be okay.
~
The white light is soft and beautiful. Payton can feel his heart swelling as he spins around, his body young again and free and full of joy, searching, yearning –
There’s no one here. He’s alone in the place with the white light, there’s no one here waiting for him and he’s alone and it was all a lie it was all a goddamn fucking lie, he’s alone and god and god and damn him for lying, he said he would wait, he said he would be waiting but it was a lie the whole time Payton kept living for nothing, there’s no one waiting he’s alone –
~
“Hey Payton.”
~
“River.”
~
Where their hands touch, the white light grows brighter, and when they go, they go together.