A/N: This takes place after Season 2 and before Season 3. This is an accompanying piece to my other story 'A News Day' which is a compilation of news, magazine, and web articles of events in Madam Secretary. This will also be uploaded there as part of the Season 3 chapter.
I got some lines from Tea's old interviews. Let's see if you can spot them.
Disclaimer: I do not own Madam Secretaryor any of its characters and lines used in this story. What is written here is for entertainment purposes only. I do not make any profits from it.
Elizabeth McCord on Sex Life, Horses, and Captain America: Civil War
by Erica James
A security detail greets me when I get off the cab. Men in black shades, black tie, black coat—they frisk me, search my purse, scan my devices for anything suspicious, and then make me write my name down on the guest list.
They aren't gruff about it. In fact, they give me an apologetic smile and say, "protocol, ma'am."
I understand. Meeting America's head diplomat and the person who is fourth in line to the presidency in her own private residence for an exclusive interview merited a security search.
One of the agents escorts me inside and stands beside me as we wait for my host.
The house isn't ostentatious as one would expect of a politician. I expected ornaments from the secretary's travels all over the world to be on display. But instead, there are picture frames and a key bowl on the surface of the table to my right. To my left is what I assume to be an office. There's a book shelf against the wall stacked with academic papers, journals, and reference books. Dozens more are on the two desks present and there are framed photos there as well. It seems the secretary loves to surround herself with memories of her family and the academia.
My first interaction with Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord was with a letter signed from her office, detailing the Presidential Pardon she granted me and my status as an innocent civilian and journalist reinstated.
But now as I see her approach, I can immediately tell that I am to have another kind of interaction. She is wearing an apron and is hurrying out of the kitchen. After apologizing for making me wait and then dismissing the agent, she holds out a hand for me to shake.
She's still wearing an oven mitt.
She laughs and whips it off along with her apron, and then proceeds to greet me properly.
When I call her by her formal title and thank her for the Presidential Pardon, she waves it off, asking me to call her by her first name and revealing that I actually have her youngest son, Jason, to thank. He had written his essay on modern day heroes about me since I chose not to reveal my sources. He put my name on her radar.
Elizabeth does away with the formalities inside the house; she does not look an inch like the images we see in the papers or like the videos we see in the news. Her blond hair is in a messy bun, small strands have escaped by the nape of her neck. She's in jeans, wearing slip on sneakers and the sweater she has on says 'HARVARD LAW' and in fine print right under it 'just kidding.'
She is warm and bubbly, her voice raspy and breathy but pleasant-sounding all the same. She leads me to the living room while explaining that she was busy with the casserole in the oven which she ruined.
"You bake?" I ask her, ready to note it down as one of her skills.
She sheepishly shakes her head. "My eldest daughter made it for me with specific instructions to pop it in the oven. But I suck at cooking which is why I'm glad I ordered Chinese as back up." She says that it is her husband, Henry, and the three children who cook the meals in the house while they leave the dishes to her.
"I can cook up a scheme to save secret operations but I can't stir fry vegetables."
We finally settle on the sofa and cups of tea and cookies are within reach on the coffee table.
"I have to say that your term as Secretary of State is the first one that everyday Americans are really bothering to keep up with," I begin. "Ever since you were appointed, the words 'McCord' and the 'State Department' have been one of the top searches in the country. State is starting to be seen and heard and it's because of you."
She blushes and attributes it all to her crack team.
I go on to tell her that this is the first interview she is doing that has nothing to do with politics and more of showing the world the other side of her.
There is also a personal reason as to why I am doing the piece on her; I am intrigued as to what kind of person Elizabeth McCord is to have chosen to set me free.
"You must get this question a lot, but I have to ask. How has being the Secretary of State changed your personal life? I'm talking relationships within the family, family time, carpool schedules."
She sips her tea before answering. "I think the better question is how has it not changed me?"
"Okay. Let's go with that."
"Well, for one thing, it hasn't changed my sex life at all," she said, grinning. "Okay. Maybe it did for about the first two months, but then Henry and I managed to adjust and adapt to the new hours and the commitments." Then she eyes me and jokingly asks if this was going to be the headline of the article.
I pull out a magazine from my purse, flip it open, and show her a photo of her and her husband on a park bench; she was seated on his lap and holding an ice cream in her hand while his hands were entwined together around her waist.
"That's cute," she comments and then asks if she could keep it.
I nod and tell her that the photo was part of an article entitled Celebrity Relationship Goals.
She guffaws, flipping to find the first page of the article. "What can I say? This is just how we are inside and outside the house." She puts the magazine down. "Whenever our friends come over and we talk about the old times, Henry and I will pick a spot and then we just glue our bodies together so that everybody just wants a relationship like ours."
She is kidding, of course, and that's what's so likable about Elizabeth McCord; you always know by the sound of her voice and the twinkle in her eye that she's teasing or being serious about something.
She went back to the question and says that her kids still continue to drive her mad. "My son is a self-proclaimed anarchist. I mean, you'd think having a mother work for the government would change that but nope. The fact that I can't discuss my work at home only means I have conspiracy theories for breakfast."
"Does he ever get anything right?"
"That's classified." She winks. "But I do start off my morning very entertained."
She also reveals that she still finds herself arguing with principals, going to PTA meetings, and scolding her children for the antics they get themselves into.
She then turns somber and says that one thing that haschanged is the amount of time she spends with her horses. The McCords own a horse farm and used to live in one in Virginia. Elizabeth, herself, is an equestrienne.
She talks of her love of the animals and Buttercup, her recently deceased horse. She recalls fond memories of him and speaks as if he is her fourth child. When I tell her so, she beams with pride and says that Buttercup is family.
The front door opens and the rest of her human family come into the view of the living room.
Elizabeth introduces them to me, ruffling the hair of the young anarchist who only swats her hand away gently in the manner most kids do when their parent embarrasses them. He gapes at me and enthusiastically shakes my hand, calling me his hero. I deflect it, of course, and say it is his mother who is and I thank him for the role he played in the Presidential Pardon.
They brought the Chinese food with them, emphasizing its greasiness which is apparently something Elizabeth seeks in the meal.
While the children move to the kitchen, her husband sits on the armchair beside us. She catches him up on the interview and when he hears the bit about their sex life and relationship goals, he moves to join us on the sofa, pulling her to his lap just like in the picture.
The kids enter with the takeout, making fake retching sounds as they sit on the floor around the table and pass us the takeout boxes.
"Sometimes, they make out and forget you're in the room with them," cringes Alison who got her father's dark, black hair.
The interview with Elizabeth McCord then turns into an interview with the entire family or Team McCord as they like to call themselves.
While we eat the food, the children share embarrassing stories about their mother.
"She hit an old lady once with a golf club," shares Alison, while Elizabeth cries out in defense, "It slipped 'cause it was raining!"
"She bought my boyfriend boots while dad tried to teach him football. And they had only met him once," supplies Stevie, the eldest and who is starting to take after her mother in looks.
"I still don't see what's wrong with buying him boots." Elizabeth turns to me and says, "That's not weird, right?"
"It's weird," says all three children in unison.
I nod, agreeing with them.
Jason also states that their mom plays video games, although she's not very good.
Elizabeth shrugs saying, "I have to bond with you any way I can."
Henry squeezes his wife's shoulders in support of her.
"What else do you want to know about me? Oh! I can't sing. According to these two," she points to the two younger children, "I am part of the 2% of the population that is tone deaf."
"She's actually lying. She kills it everytime in the shower." Henry places a kiss on her cheek and I begin to understand what Alison meant earlier. But it is not that the McCord couple forgets there are people with them in the room, it is more like they do not mind to show people how much love and care they have for one another. They are proud of it, of their love that has produced three wonderful children and a beautiful relationship.
I move on to the next question which I address to the other family members as well. Do they know that there is a McCord for President campaign on Tumblr?
Elizabeth's forehead wrinkles in confusion and Alison explains the blog site to her.
Elizabeth laughs, saying, "There are so many websites and accounts now that either support me, parody me, or insult me. It's something I'm still getting used to."
When I ask her of whether she plans to run in the elections this year, she bites her lip but neither confirms nor denies it. She places the small takeout box on the coffee table and says, "I love my job, which is something I didn't think I would say two years ago when I first accepted it. And I have these people to thank." She gestures to her family. "They told me that I have a duty to my country, I can make a difference and change the way things are done. Jason even said that he wouldn't mind having a famous mother. That one really made the argument for me."
They all chuckled.
"I can't say that I won't run in the future, neither can I say that I will, only that I don't decide anything alone if it affects my family. They have a say too."
I end the interview with my last question, one people most voted for in an online poll.
"Pop culture question."
"Shoot."
"If the events in Captain America: Civil War were real, as Secretary of State how would you have handled the Sokovia Accords?
She lets out a breathy laugh while the rest of her family oohs.
"I thought you weren't going to talk about work!"
"I'm not! Like I said, it's a pop culture question."
"You mean it's disguised as a pop culture question." Elizabeth grows quiet in thought. "Of course there needs to be a Sokovia Accords! You can't have a bunch of handsome individuals running around without any form of accountability. I agree with Secretary Ross there but I would've handled things a little bit differently. Anyway, all I can think about at the moment is how I don't think I can look at Steve Rogers and arrest him when he's so cute."
Her husband nudges her with a "Hey!"
"All I've revealed unfortunately is that I'm Team Iron Man in principle, but Team Cap in looks. But listen; there are just so many things I can say about the whole thing." And then she starts off dissecting the movie, which characters are at fault and their levels of accountability according to ethical and moral laws.
"Technically Bucky Barnes is not at fault because the action needs to be voluntary and always an act of reason. On the other hand, Tony Stark, who acted out in anger, is partly at fault. He was fully conscious and his attack on Steve and Bucky was an act of reason; it was voluntary. But if you consider the circumstances surrounding the action, you also start to see that he was clouded with emotions and rage at Steve's lie and knowledge of his parents' death." She closes her eyes and curls her fists, shaking them in the air. "I love my ethics class in college! Henry can tell you more about this because he's the ethics professor. Go on, babe"
By the time she and her husband are finished, she has convinced me of her side of things and I realize that I have been on the receiving end of her famous outside-of-the-box thinking. I wonder if this is how she gets diplomats to listen to her.
I leave her house with a newfound appreciation of my liberation.
It may have been Secretary McCord who signed the Presidential Pardon, but it was Elizabeth the mother, Elizabeth the ethical, and Elizabeth the horse owner, who thought to grant it.
A/N: I guess I just revealed that I'm Team Iron Man. But honestly, I would've loved to see Bess and not General Ross as the Secretary of State in Civil War. Who spotted the line I borrowed from one of Tea's old interviews?