Title: Relicts
Author: chinesebakery
Summary: Mimi finds out about the fate of Washington DC.
Characters: Stanley, Mimi
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 1x07, Long Live The Mayor
Disclaimer: Not my toys.
A/N: Thanks to thebeckert for her help.

"I have some bad news," he had said. She should have known right there by the grave look on his face, but somehow hadn't seen it coming. Or didn't want to see it coming. She listened to the words, but it took a few moments to actually process them.

Bad news. Understatement of the freaking millennium.

She had made a neat little pile with the cards and quietly went upstairs, leaving Stanley still lingering at the front door, his helpless starelocked on her retreating back.

Washington DC was no more. Everyone was dead.

Her next door neighbor and her annoying little poodle: dead. The cute guy from Starbucks who always seemed to conveniently forget to charge her for her morning muffin: dead. The boring attorney she had reluctantly dated for a while the year before: dead. Clare, Susan, Mandy; all her girlfriends: dead, dead, dead. And her mother… Oh God.

The condo she had spent months redecorating in her head and everything in it were now a little pile of radioactive ashes. Her favorite CDs, her childhood pictures. Her fancy kitchen utensils, her pricy jewelry. The letters from her high-school sweetheart, the souvenirs of her late father. Everything was gone. Her whole life had been blown up and now, it all felt very real.

She should be crying, she idly noted, but the tears wouldn't come. Instead, she was clutching to a pillow for dear life, her hands shaking around the fabric and every muscle in her body taut, making a never-ending list of everything she had lost. But she wasn't crying.

She had no idea how long she had sat there in shock when she heard him knock timidly. She turned a little to face the opposite wall, deciding to ignore him until he went away, but the knocking only grew steadier. Well, of course. Why would Stanley Richmond choose now to start showing her some sensitivity?

The knocking stopped and she heard the door creak open behind her, before feeling the bed shift under his weight as he sat at the other end.

"You okay?" he quietly inquired, his voice neutral and careful.

"What do you think?" Mimi barked, fighting to reign on her nerves.

"I'm… really sorry."

"Yeah," she said before letting out a puff of air, wishing she could make him go away with the force of her foul mood alone.

"Do you want to talk or-"

"No. I really don't."

"Okay."

He kept quiet then, but his silent presence was disturbing her mental inventory and soon enough, her anger was rising again.

"You're still here."

"Yep."

She let out a shaky breath and the next second, Stanley scooted to her side, awkwardly wrapping both arms around her body.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she snapped, outraged, as she pushed him away as forcibly as she could.

"I, err…"

"I'm a grown up, Stanley! A hug isn't going to make this go away."

"I know, I just-"

"Please leave me alone," she pleaded again, wanting nothing more than to be left to her misery and the memories of everything she'd never see again.

"No."

"No?"

"No," he repeated firmly. "I'll just sit here. You can ignore me all you want, I don't mind."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Feel free to start ignoring me anytime," he replied with a pointed look.

But before she could think of a clever come back, a dam burst in her chest and an uncontrollable torrent of tears started pouring out of her. True to his word, Stanley remained still and quiet as she cried herself to exhaustion. When she laid down and curled into a ball, falling asleep.

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Mimi woke up with a start much earlier than she usually did, feeling nauseated and on edge. As she started pacing around, she debated for a moment whether she should leave her room at all. She didn't want to feel Stanley's sorry eyes on her, or see Bonnie's disapproving glare. On the other hand, she was going to quickly drive herself crazy if she stayed on her own all day.

Getting drunk at Bailey's on whatever questionable liquor she was pouring these days didn't hold much appeal. She could still offer to work on the farm, preferably in a remote area, but she didn't want to give either of the siblings the satisfaction of winning that battle.

No, what she needed, she decided as she started to search through her business briefcase, was to keep herself busy doing what she knew best. Something comforting and familiar, something she mastered completely, at last.

There was nothing as soothing as long lines of reliable figures and reckoners, she mused as she invested the patio with her current audit files. Her office might be gone, her laptop out of battery, but her cautiously filed hard copies were still there, a tangible proof her former world had once existed. She started reading carefully the relicts of her old life.

But after an hour lost idly skimming through her audit files, she had to acknowledge that maybe the bombs had reached her brain. She couldn't remember anything. What was written in front of her in black and white made enough sense, but she just couldn't fill in the blanks. The worthlessness of what she was doing was getting more obvious by the minute.

So she did the second thing she knew best: lash out her anger and despair on Stanley, before resuming her crying fit, feeling useless and ridiculous.

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Stanley Richmond considered himself to be a straight-forward man. He was used to speaking his mind, sometimes a little more bluntly than necessary, and nothing made him as uncomfortable as awkward silences dragging by. Sitting quietly in front of a woman who seemed decided to pour her heart out in complete silence was definitely outside his comfort zone.

"You're not big on apologies, are you?" he wondered aloud with before engulfing another cracker, shooting her a quick, meaningful glance.

"You just figured that out now?" she offered with a timid smile that earned her a chuckle.

"Yeah. I guess your outrageous gratefulness got me confused." He paused before adding, "I meant what I said. I'm here to help. If you want."

"I know," Mimi nodded. "And I meant what I said too. You don't owe me anything. You don't owe the government anything. You don't have to keep me here-"

"I'm not letting you stay here to pay off my debt."

"No?"

"No. Even if I had, I think I'll be keeping you around anyway, since you're such a delight in the morning."

"Okay," she replied warmly with a soft smirk, finding comfort in his large, benevolent grin.

Their eyes locked for a moment and when Stanley's smile dissipated, she rose to her feet and headed for the stairs.

"Stanley?" she called back as she climbed the first steps. "Thank you," she enunciated carefully before chuckling at his mock-astonished face. "Thank you," she repeated softly before turning back to climb upstairs.

"You're welcome," he muttered to himself as his eyes followed her until she disappeared.

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