Eli Gold lived in a busy world and liked it that way. The office was buzzing with activity like a politically driven beehive, and Eli was zipping around keeping it all in order.
Externally displaying only a slightly happier version of his normal calm self, inside Eli was so blissfully altitudinal he was pissing with joy on the inhabitants of Cloud 9. The straw poll had gone better than expected, turning Peter from an occasional frontrunner to the star of a one horse race.
Turning from his minions, Eli spotted Alicia walking determinedly in his direction. Despite the fact that bad news seemed to be responsible for most of their interactions thus far, Eli was always happy to see Alicia. The feeling was not going to last.
He'd initiated conversation with a genuine platitude. Her presence was a pleasant surprise, a fact as surprisingly pleasant to Eli as it was true. Cutting him off mid-pleasantry, she dropped the proverbial bombshell: their primary supporter was about to become their sole competition.
Eli worked crosswords in his spare time, had grown up with a complete encyclopedia set, installed literacy promoting games on his omnipresent Blackberry, and held the grammatical command typical of an erudite speaker. He wasn't generally at a loss for words but it seemed to be happening with increasing frequency today: first this morning, and now he was practically babbling as his mind raced to absorb the Maddie Hayward disaster.
He took a steadying breath and narrowed down the situation to a series of bullet points in the time it took to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide, ticking them off for confirmation.
"There's one more thing. She befriended me and we talked." His eyebrows had fought valiantly to stay in place during her explanation. At that point they lost the battle and flung up near his hairline like an off the scale seismograph.
"I shared some things she could possibly use." At that point his mind began whirling through every possible possibility, every conceivable confidence Alicia might've shared, simultaneously weighing its damaging potential and organizing it accordingly. He wondered what he could ask, how much he would have to ask before she told him exactly what had been said.
The prospects reeling through his head were becoming painful, and he knew he had to ask. Striving to sound somewhat dispassionate but realizing the question would probably be marked with the emotion he felt, he lowered his voice (ostensibly to give them privacy but more to mask the tumult he was in) and asked, "About… you and Will?"
"No!" He was struck by the feather of her soft reply, just as quiet as his but slightly breathless in its timbre, and he'd never been so relieved to hear a negative. As she explained further, he felt himself relaxing a bit, even as he mentally girded his loins to tackle the situation. He would get her through this. "Okay. We need to debrief you."
Any other time it would've been a simply delivered command. In this instance he could feel the wrinkles on his forehead and the slight quirk of his eyebrow as he considered the best extrication for all involved. He wanted to help his client of course, but especially the woman standing before him.
They turned as an unplanned cohesive unit to regard Jackie running lines with her newest caretaker. Alicia had crossed her arms, a posture typically thought to be self-comforting, and they simply absorbed the bizarre tableau before returning their attention to each toher. They remained shoulder to shoulder, not looking at each other so much as crossing their gazes at a mutual point between them.
"I need to go to court." His fingers gently touched the elbow of her crossed arms, offering a measure of support while trying to convey the gravity of the situation. "You need to deal with this."
"No, after court." A protest sprung to his lips as she let her gaze return to the flirtatious antics of Jackie and her new assistant. Her sardonic smile retained a touch of sincerity as she stated, "It's in your lap now." Her attention stayed on her simpering mother-in-law as she breezed back out, and so missed the wide-eyed look of pure surprise Eli shot her. It was a shame too, Eli thought. To know she'd stunned him, even momentarily, would have made her day.
Left alone to stew, Eli allowed a small glare of emotion to fly in Jackie's direction. He did this with a partial nod to three reasons. One, his candidate's mother really was a constant source of aggravation, made worse by the strange behavior exhibited since her recovery. Two, he had a general distaste for the situation at large and annoyance with all the recent backstabbing, political and otherwise. Third, it gave him an excuse not to let his gaze linger on Alicia as she walked out the door.
Author's Note: it was about 430 in the morning when I wrote this. I waited to post til I came up with a title. please R& R. Enjoy!