It's 6:26 in the morning, Laurel's still half-asleep, and her brother is calling her.

She answers the phone by reflex, but her voice is still bleary as she speaks. "Hello?"

"Laurel," Luke says. "Where are you?"

She's awake and sitting up in a heartbeat, because the answer to that question is funny story, I'm actually in Gareth Ritter's apartment. Before she has a chance to blurt anything incriminating out, though, Luke continues.

"You're late," he says.

Oh — right. She was supposed to come into the office early today. It's an objectively good thing that the government has reopened, she knows, but her headaches-per-day ratio has been on a severe upward trend since the deal was made three months ago. She runs a hand through her hair, trying to steady her heart rate before speaking.

"Yeah, I know, I know," she says.

"Where are you?" he asks again.

"I'll be there in, like, twenty minutes. I promise," she says.

"You better be, or you might as well just stay home for the day," he says by way of valediction, and the line goes dead.

"Brat," she mutters to her phone screen, dropping it on the bedspread and burying her face in her hands. Twenty minutes is the amount of time it takes her to make it to work from her apartment. The Gareth's Apartment-Home-Work commute, which she has become intimately familiar with, takes something more like forty-five minutes on a good day.

In the bathroom, Gareth resumes blow-drying his hair, apparently having had the foresight to stop when her brother called.

Laurel fishes her shirt off the floor, pulls it on, and throws the covers back before padding across the bedroom to join him. He wakes up way before she does on the regular, and she can sleep like a log through his morning routine (witnessing the amount of effort he puts into getting his hair to look like that really should've been the straw that broke the camel's back, and she figures the fact that she's still somehow attracted to him means she's more or less hopeless). She thwacks him on the back of the head as she comes in.

"Ow," he deadpans.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asks, even though it's definitely not his fault.

"I've literally never seen you awake before seven," he says as she turns the shower on and sticks her head into the still-cold stream of water. At her blubbering, indignant gasp, he turns the hair dryer off and sets it down. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Trying to make it look like I had time to shower," she says, wrenching the water off again and grabbing a towel to dry her hair. "Which I don't, because I have to be at work in nineteen minutes."

"Calm down," he says.

"I gotta go," she says, doubling back into the bedroom. Gareth's apartment is sleek and smartly decorated, but approximately the size of a shoe box, so she hardly has to raise her voice to continue the conversation. "I have to go home to get new clothes, or maybe buy something on my way there, and that's gonna take—"

"No, you don't," he interrupts.

"Yes, I do," she says, shaking the blankets out and grabbing her phone. "I can't wear what I wore yesterday. There's only one reason why anyone ever does that."

"You left a dress here a few weeks ago," he says. She pauses her frenetic search. "I had it cleaned. It's in the closet."

Sure enough, one of her work dresses is hanging in his closet, still in the dry-cleaning bag. It's the pinstripe blue one — not her favorite, so its unnoted absence from her own wardrobe is no surprise, but it's better than nothing.

"Were you going to give this back to me?" she asks as she pulls the zipper up. "Or do you lay it out next to you on the sofa when I'm not here?"

He sticks his head out of the bathroom to look her in the eye as he speaks. "You're welcome," he chides, and disappears into the bathroom again. She grabs her purse from the living room and doubles back to the bathroom to make an attempt at fixing her makeup with what's available to her. She has to nudge him aside to make room for herself at the mirror and he rolls his eyes.

"You could leave things here, you know, on purpose," he offers. "If you want to."

She narrows her eyes and focuses very intently on finding the eyeliner she's about fifty percent sure is in this bag somewhere. The stuff discussion isn't one she wants to have right now, or maybe ever. Their whole relationship is based on a very carefully constructed equilibrium, after all, and the slightest change could disrupt it. In her head, leaving stuff around means serious, and serious isn't a word she'd ascribe to an arrangement that they're banking on nobody discovering, ever. (Then again, she'd fallen asleep in the middle of an episode of Game of Thrones last weekend, and he'd carried her to bed without waking her, and then she'd left in the morning without actually having slept with him at all, and none of that really screams "casual sex" either.)

"You're here most nights anyway," he adds, and she wrenches the cap off the eyeliner with a little too much force.

"Sure, whatever," she says, and he leaves her alone in the bathroom to do her makeup.

When she comes back out, he's put her clothes into the laundry hamper. She wraps her fingers tighter around the strap of her purse reflexively.

"I've gotta go," she says again. "Where are my shoes?"

"Kitchen," he says. "Hey, wait."

He catches her by the elbow as she tries to leave and pecks her on the lips, a gesture so brief and chaste it's barely even a kiss. Still, she feels some of her anxiety and resentment dissolve away, and she hates him for it. Just a little bit.

"I'll see you later?" he asks.

"We work in the same place, so that seems likely," she says, and he laughs.

"Bye," he says.

"Bye," she echoes, already halfway out the door.


Laurel gets to work a little under an hour late, and Scarlett's waiting for her when she gets there, like she has nothing better to do.

She's somehow remained employed in the office, despite the sex scandal and the fact that she's probably literally missing half her brain. Until Laurel comes up with a way to confirm short of forcing her into a CAT scan, though, she'll have to put up with her.

"You wore those shoes yesterday," is the first thing out of Scarlett's mouth (the bugs got the half of her brain that previously prevented her from being a weirdo creep, apparently).

"They're comfortable," Laurel says.

"Uh-huh," she chirps. "Well, you missed the staff meeting." (She's started walking, and Laurel has to rush to keep up.) "Your brother wants to talk to you, and after that—"

"Constituent casework, got it," she says, waving Scarlett off as she approaches her brother's office.

Scarlett gives her a cold, appraising once-over as they stop in front of the door. "Vertical stripes aren't flattering to your figure," she says before turning on her heel and returning to the front office.

So creepy.

Luke is hard at work in his office, which is thankfully flower-free for once. He glances up at her as she comes in. "Glad you turned up," he says.

"I'm really sorry, Luke," she says, sliding into the chair across from his desk. "I slept through my alarm, and—"

"That's the best excuse you can come up with? Really?"

"It's what happened, so," she says, glancing down at her nails.

"Look, I just need to know you're taking this seriously. I know you're going home in two months, but this is a really critical time of year for us, and—what?"

"What, what?" she asks, genuinely baffled by the change of topic.

"You got uncomfortable when I said that you're going home in two months," he says. She doesn't think she did, unless looking out a window counts as being uncomfortable, but she bites her tongue. "You are going to stay, aren't you? Come on, you can't bail on me now."

"Of course I'm going to stay," she snaps back. "I need the money. I just… didn't realize how long it's been already."

Luke flips over into big brother mode immediately, and the change in timbre is palpable. "Aww," he says. "You like it here."

"I do not like it here," she says reflexively.

"You like it here and you don't want to leave."

"Oh my God, shut up," she says, standing up. She doesn't want to stay in DC. She has things to do in LA, and also the last four months have been a surreal nightmare. At least in Hollywood everyone is stupid, self-obsessed, and into fad diets already. She might never have noticed the bug invasion in the first place and she could've remained blissfully unaware.

"I can find you a permanent job on my staff, if you want," Luke offers as she's halfway out the door. She makes a rude gesture in response.


Luckily for her, she's vaulted straight into a long day's worth of constituent complaints, which is like an eight hour power point presentation of compelling arguments for leaving the city as soon as possible.

She's between cases and idly researching someone's unreasonable request on her laptop when she glances over at her phone. Most days she only texts Gareth to tell him whether or not she's coming over that night; texting is vaguely akin to stuff in her mind. It starts small and creeps into full-blown codependence, which she's not about. But right now she's bored and she's got an opener that's ostensibly work-related, and she unlocks her phone screen and taps out a message.

What would someone have to do to change Maryland's state motto? she types.

Constituent? he texts back almost immediately. She responds in the affirmative. What do they want to change it to?

"The Birthplace of Michael Phelps". She's disappointed that she can't fully convey how earnest and enthusiastic this guy was about Michael Phelps in text.

Now there's something our offices can really agree to collaborate on, he replies. She rolls her eyes. As she's trying to think of something suitably witty to say in response, there's a ruckus from the front office, and the conversation gets left by the wayside as she goes to investigate.

Luke has gathered the staff and is partway through explaining the cause for all the excitement: the Republicans have agreed to allow a vote on some topic or other. She missed the set up, but she's not sure it matters in the long run anyway, because—

"It's not like it's going to pass," an intern says. "They still have the majority."

"Yes, but they've been alienating moderates for months. Figure out who else is tired of Wheatus and this is our chance to flip the tables," Luke says. "You know, back to their original position."

"Full three-sixty," Laurel comments dryly from the back of the room.

"Laurel! Good, you're here. You're still in contact with Wheatus's Chief of Staff, right?" Luke asks.

Her first, totally irrational response is: oh my God, he knows. But of course that's stupid; he's just canvassing for useful connections, and if he really did think something was up, he wouldn't have mentioned it in front of the entire office. There's nothing incriminating about the question whatsoever. In fact, it's so normal that the longer she doesn't string together a coherent answer, the weirder it'll seem to everyone else.

Say something, idiot, her brain thinks at her. "Uhhh," she says, twisting a strand of hair around her fingers. "Yeah. Why?"

Stupid.

"Can you go talk to him?" Luke prompts, clearly suspicious.

"Sure," she says, too quickly. "Yeah, of course."

The staff meeting proceeds as usual, but Luke follows her into her office afterwards.

"Can I help you?" she asks, shutting her laptop as he crosses the room to her desk.

"Are you good to talk to Ritter?" he asks, apropos of nothing.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asks.

"I know you guys had a thing," Luke says.

"We did not," she says. "Have a thing."

"I thought you went out with him," Luke says.

"Yeah," she says, picking her phone up and clutching it between her hands as she speaks. "Like, twice. Once because you told me to, and the other time to piss off Dad. And it worked, by the way," she says.

"Yeah," he laughs, taking a moment to savor the memory. "Well, if it's going to be awkward for you, I can send someone else."

"It's not going to be awkward," she says. Her phone buzzes in her hand. She presses it to her chest surreptitiously.

"Okay," Luke says, seemingly ready to go.

"Okay," she smiles back.

Once he's gone, she checks her phone. Gareth's forwarded her an opinion piece from a feminist blog that protests the current Maryland state motto as being sexist. He likes to bait her into arguments; it's one of his favorite pastimes. She should really know better than to take the bait, but she hadn't actually known the official state motto before, and the blogger has a point, and before she know it she's composing a response.


She puts off actually going to talk to him for another few hours, and by the time she can't put it off any more it's somehow still only half past noon. This is why she never comes into work early.

The walk up to Gareth's office is route to her by this point, and the first inkling she has that something's different is when she notices that the hallway outside is eerily silent. When she pushes the door open, the front office is totally empty.

Warily, she makes her way to Gareth's office. He's there; hunched over his computer and over-focused, as evidenced by the worry lines on his brow. He hears her come in, though, and smiles when he sees her. This isn't just a private occurrence; it happens every time he sees her, maybe involuntarily, and it's not discreet. Secretly, she's kind of tickled by it.

"Hey," he says.

"Where is everyone?" she asks, gesturing back to the front office.

"Red took them out to lunch," he says.

"You didn't go with them?"

"Uh, no," he says, closing his laptop and leaning back in his chair. "They went to some kind of raw food vegan juice bar."

"Juice Forever," she says with a solemn nod.

"Oh, you've read the book?" he quips.

"You know, it's been on my to-do list," she says, approaching his desk. "So… nobody's here?" she asks, gesturing to Red's office.

"Nope," he says, folding his hands in front of him. She sidles around the desk, putting herself between him and his computer. "What are you doing?" he asks, although he doesn't seem opposed to it.

"Luke sent me up here to seduce you for information," she says.

"No, he didn't," Gareth counters.

"No, he didn't," she agrees. "But nobody's here, so I thought I'd give a shot."

She sits down on his lap, and when he laughs she feels his breath against her neck. When she lays her hand on his chest, his hand finds her waist to keep her from losing her balance.

"Come on. The door's open," he says, which is maybe the least convincing argument she's ever heard come out of his mouth.

"Mhmm," she hums in agreement before closing the small distance between them. As they kiss, his other hand slides up her thigh, momentarily halted by the hem of her dress—and she's at real risk of letting herself get carried away, here, so she breaks away for air.

"Did you actually come up here for information?" he asks.

"Mood killer," she comments, although that might've been the point. "And yes, but it doesn't matter. I'll just tell him I gave it the old college try and you wouldn't say anything and he'll move on."

"What did you want to know?" he asks. He's still playing with the hem of her skirt, and she can't help but feel like this whole seduction script is getting flipped on her.

"I'm not going to tell you," she says. "Because you're not going to tell me, so I'll just be giving you information by asking."

"How do you know I'm not going to tell you anything?" he asks.

"Shut up," she says, and kisses him again.

They make it approximately half as long as they did the first time before he pulls away from her.

"Langdon," he says.

"What?"

"The moderate," he says. She sighs, and moves his hand off her leg, because she's not going to talk about crusty old Republican senators with his hand up her skirt.

"I didn't ask," she says.

"You didn't have to," he says. "And Langdon's going to flip no matter what you do, so there's no harm in telling you."

"You couldn't just let me believe that using my body actually worked?" she says.

"It was a point in your favor," he says, clearly distracted.

They don't get a chance to go at it again, though, because the front door of the office slams. Laurel just about jumps off his lap, which sends his desk chair rolling into the wall with a loud thud. She's tugging her skirt down and he's opening his laptop when his assistant wanders into the room.

"So you can just email me that, uhm, proposal," Laurel says, trying to sound like they've been talking.

"Yeah, I'll do that," he agrees without looking up from his laptop screen.

His assistant looks a little bewildered, and Laurel takes the opportunity to bail before she can ask any questions. On her way out, she can just hear the assistant ask "What proposal?". She doesn't get the chance to hear Gareth try to save face because she's out the door, but she's sure whatever he says won't be super convincing.


"It's Langdon," Laurel relays to Luke as soon as she gets back to his office.

"He told you that?" Luke asks.

"Yup," Laurel says, turning her phone over in her hands as she hovers by the doorway.

"How'd you get him to tell you?"

"I'm wily," Laurel deadpans.

"I don't trust it," Luke says.

"Then why'd you send me up there in the first place?" she asks.

"If he's trying to feed us bad information, that can be useful too, right?"

"I don't think it's bad information," she says. "He said it's inevitable, so it didn't matter if he told me or not."

"And you trust him?" Luke asks, a clearly rhetorical question. She tries not to let her response get stuck in her throat.

"No," she ekes out in three syllables.

"No," Luke agrees. "No, if he wants us to talk to Langdon, we should talk to someone else. Someone like… O'Shea," he concludes.

"What am I even doing here?" she ponders to the empty air. Luke kisses her head as he passes her on his way out.


But, of course, O'Shea and Langdon are not good friends, and her brother's attempts at deal-making somehow manage to offend both of them, and the whole thing snowballs into a nonsensical stalemate of nothingness. They're probably lucky the government didn't implode, again.

"How is that my fault?" Gareth says in response to her complaints as he shuffles the contents of his fridge around to make room for the leftovers from their take-out dinner.

"I don't know. But it is, somehow," she replies, flopping down on his sofa. She's been here three nights in a row now, and she's doubly out of clothes. She's going to have to get up early again tomorrow to go home, she notes bitterly.

"Did you know," he says, and she moves her feet out of the way so he can sit down. Once he's seated she puts her feet on his leg. "That competitive rock-paper-scissors players have to get, like, seventeen steps ahead of each other?"

"There's no such thing as competitive rock-paper-scissors," she scoffs.

He raises his eyebrows. "You'd be surprised."

"I don't blame Luke for being a step behind you, anyway," she says. "He doesn't have all the facts. I tried to warn him, but he was just like, why should we trust this guy? Which is fair."

"You could've told him we're seeing each other," he says, and she is suddenly very aware of the tactile sensation of his hand curled loosely around her ankle. "All this sneaking around is going to get us in trouble eventually."

"You know what's a hundred percent guaranteed to get us in way more trouble immediately? Telling people," she says.

"He's your brother, he's not going to rat us out," he says.

"Come on," she says. "You don't actually want me to tell my brother."

He's silent for a long moment, but she is absolutely determined to call his bluff. "You're right," he says at length, squeezing her ankle.

"Ha," she responds. "You have to be careful or someday you're going to think I'm ten steps ahead when I'm actually only at nine."

"Yeah," he agrees. "That would definitely be bad."