Chapter Text
She wishes someone would just hit her. It would hurt less than this and be over so much faster. But she can’t say that the map isn’t what she expected. Its four am, and the vote are finally counted, enough to call it anyway. She didn’t win. She ends the night at 232. Owen Callister, president elect with 306. The last thirty seconds of her life feel as if they happened in slow motion. She watched her staff all night each slowly losing their confidence. The biggest competition she will ever get to compete in, and she will have to lead them through the loss. Comfort them through the loss. Because it is their loss as much as it is hers.
“It’s time to make the call.” Mike is more dejected than she’s ever seen him. There’s no Mike B show tonight, just an exhausted campaign manager of a client he believed in, who couldn’t win. Because she was never going to win. There’s a big block of red including, Ohio and Pennsylvania and Arizona. She should’ve won those, the previous Dalton strongholds that now belong to Owen Callister. Even Virginia was shaky for a while and that hurt more than any of the rest.
“Someone get him on the phone.” She takes a look at Henry, who’s dutifully waiting to comfort her. She can tell by the way his hands are in his pockets so he doesn’t reach out to her. He knows that she has a job to do for the next few hours. And she can’t fall apart yet and certainly not in public. There should never be a sore loser when the voters have spoken.
Blake hands her a cellphone, she doesn’t know whose. But she notices that he doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Congratulations, Mr. President Elect.” She’s never been more thankful for her diplomatic prowess. If there is one thing she knows how to do, it’s be nice. In fact all women know how to be nice. Especially women who were raised like her. Who grew up rich in the south, which sounds like it wouldn’t be a problem, but there’s a cultural problem with it. She thanks the universe for Aunt Joan. She wouldn’t have wanted to live with her if her parents never died, but she was grateful to be able to live with a powerful second wave feminist. She helped her to unlearn damaging things she had picked up from her parents.
“Why, thank you madam secretary.” His words slur slightly. The celebration champagne must be flowing over in Kentucky. “It was one hell of a fight you put up I have to say.” In his gloating he’s trying to give her something. She doesn’t know how she feels about that.
“As did you.” More diplomacy. “Well I won’t keep you, you have a speech to make. Congratulations, again.” She wants the call to be over. She wants this night to be over. She wants to crawl into bed with her husband and cry in his arms. Or maybe she wants to let him fuck her brains out, until she can’t feel this disappointment any longer. Either way she doesn’t want to be here anymore. This place that was supposed to be a place of celebration with her own champagne bottles popping. With her own victory speech that she wrote the night she decided to run. That was too soon to write it, she knows that now. And the paper copy will live with the list she wrote at fifteen. The list she never showed anyone. The list of things she was going to do in office. But the call is over and now it’s Daisy who won’t meet her eyes.
“Gather everyone, please.” She gives the order, because the sooner she does this, the sooner she can go home. Home to the farm, not the Georgetown Brownstone. She doesn’t want to be in DC tonight. But the farm is an empty nest, her kids will not be going back with her. That kills her in a new way that the red map didn’t. So, now she is broken in all of the ways that she can currently count.
The staffers gather around her, like she asked them to, but now, she not sure she was ready for them to. But here goes nothing.
“I want to thank each and every one of you.” A good start. And something she’s said before. She thanks her staff a lot. She likes to recognize talent. She looks around, but Jay is the only one who meets her eyes. Because Jay is a good soldier. It’s not that the rest of them aren’t. It’s just they can’t hide their disappointment, but Jay’s pride for her outweighs his disappointment of her.
“The dedication you all put into your work for me, will forever leave me stunned.” It’s not a lie, she is stunned that this many people believed in her. And if her quick math of population densities verses electoral vote, she knows the majority of American did believe in her. They wanted her. And she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to trust Callister with this ship.
She goes one for five minutes, but doesn’t really know what she’s saying. But she gets a few laughs, which she thinks is good, and by the end, the lump in her throat won’t go away. But her staff is looking at her again, and that will have to be enough of a win.
Her kids and Henry wait with her while people clear. She gives hug where appropriate, Blake, Daisy, Kat. And then Jay and Mike. She takes a call from Russell and then Conrad. And surprisingly Nadine. Her brother calls and so does Isabelle. But its six am now, and she’s alone with her family. The beautiful people she loves more than anything. And she can’t stop the tears this time. She’s exhausted, she’s been exhausted for years. Henry wraps her up in his arms but he doesn’t say anything, no one says anything.
“I’ve never been prouder to be your son.” It’s Jason who breaks the silence. She looks at him, and sees glimpses of his father, she raised a good man. That’s what he is now, man. She is in awe of her children. They are proud of her, they are disappointed of her, but rather for her. She looks at Henry again and his face bare the same love for her it always has. And he hugs her again.
“I’m so proud of you.” She lets the sentence be. Realizing that even getting here took all of her might and all of her heart. And she tried, and she fought. And that has to be enough.