Two days after accepting the candidacy, John met with his brother within the walls of the Biltmore Hotel. Apparently he and Johnson, a man he had chosen to be his Vice President, had a little altercation concerning the position itself. This would jeopardize his chance at the presidency. His father's dream for a Kennedy in the White House would be ruined because his kid-brother didn't know how to control his goddamn temper.

"Good morning, Evelyn." He nodded to his was leaving the suite whereas he was entering. She put on a smile.

"Good morning, Senator."

John's fine shoes tapped onto the carpet. Once stepping in, he made sure to shut the door. Robert, sitting at a desk, was hunched over paperwork. He looked up when he heard the voices.

"Congratulations."

"God dammit, Bobby!"

Tension thickened the air the brothers shared. John, annoyed. Robert, offended. He jumped up from the uncomfortable chair with a fury building in his cheeks.

"What was I supposed to do? He can't be the VP!"

"Like you can?" John derided. "He was second! He had the largest percentile after me!"

"That means shit!"

Johnson turning the men he influences against him was shit. Him spreading the news that Robert wanted the position himself and warned the party of the neo-Borgia reign soon to come was shit. He would perhaps be the opponent of not only his Republican counterpart, but a more desirable Democrat. That, apparently, was shit as well. The door opened again, and the brothers had to freeze their own altercation as Evelyn grabbed more files and papers before disappearing into the hotel.

"You don't get it, do you? He has to be my second." John's voice calmed but was still bitter.

Robert's cold blue eyes seemed to burn holes through the thick desk, avoiding looking at his brother lest he met the same fate. He, too, calmed himself and blinked several times before meeting John's gaze.

"Why?"

"It's none of your-"

"Why?" He demanded.

Once again, Evelyn had interrupted allowing both the men to collect themselves before portraying the Cold War physically. It gave John to think. His run for the oval office would be compromised. America, as he knew it, would be compromised. He wanted peace. As far as he knew, Nixon would face the reds head-on. All that would be the years to come if he wasn't elected thanks to his brother. He'd have to be extra vigilant in winning the vote if Johnson would ruin him.

"Bobby-"

"Don't 'Bobby' me." Robert left his desk in favor of standing in front of John's person; tall but with soft looks. Robert was the opposite as his eyes began to twist his brother's soul.

"You narrowly won the first ballot." He stiffly began. "It was me who got you the candidancy. Me! I got all the votes from the delegates who would make or break you! Just in the nick of time! I'm also apparently running your campaign..."

He went on, belittling his older brother revealing the vices John was guilty of as means of leverage. They didn't notice the door crack open, and Evelyn listening in.

"That's exactly why I have to make Johnson VP." John tonelessly spoke after Robert had his share of words.

The younger man's brows furrowed.

"Johnson got Director Hoover to dig up my secrets." He solemnly stated. "My affairs, my illnesses and conditions, Jackie and I's misfortune, everything."

Robert didn't have to carefully construct his reply.

"Blackmail...I guess fight fire with fire." He shrugged.

"And how do you suggest I do that?"

"Reveal his own affairs, his physical imperfections, his and Lady Bird's own misfortunes."Evelyn, still hidden, slipped out of the room as the brothers began to turn and wander the suite.

John shook his head.

"He is a saint; I, the sinner."

"Then what are you gonna do about him?"

Before he could speak, Robert interrupted with a finger pointed towards him. "He still can't be VP, especially with all your secrets."

John leaned back, groaning that his brother was still insistent. Did he not just hear what he had said?

"Then what? Convince him? Kill him?"

"That's not what-"

"Oh, let me phone my buddy Sinatra! He has ties with the mob!" He couldn't hold in his frustrations any longer. "Wait a minute, I think I know someone who runs the show in Chicago...that's right! Why don't I phone Giancana?!"

Robert was in awe. He constantly lost his temper but seeing John, so usually calm and agreeable, acting like him was worrying. The race hadn't even begun yet he fretted over it already. To call for murder...

"Listen Jack," He sighed, ", if you can't find a way, just be cautious."

He was cautious of his own brother, only agreeable after yelling and simple hostilities. He shook his head.

"That's what I was going to do in the first place."

No words exchanged after that point proved the resolve of the situation. Both John and Robert only had to look at each other to understand, like twins even with the eight-year gap between them. They were, in fact, the closest in their prestigious family.

"What about Styminton? Or Jackson?" Robert asked.

John would much prefer either one of the men to be at his side. Hell, Robert himself would be perfect if he was qualified and wasn't his brother. Yet that couldn't be. His presidency was already threatened and the election was four months away.

"They aren't dangerous."

"Stevenson?" He continued. "He's a wonderful speaker."

"That's the only good thing about him."

"Humphrey?"

"I don't even know the man."

Evelyn had entered the suite a third time, second in the brothers' minds. But her duties concerning the files and paperwork were temporarily hindered with a request.

"Senator Kennedy, the interviewer had arrived."

A wave of relief washed over the Massachusetts senator knowing he could talk for hours about himself. That's what he's been told anyway: the interview focused solely on the would-be president. Besides, his little glamour would make it an enjoyable time.

"You got one already?" His brother's nose crinkled.

John nodded.

"She was insistent."Robert's expression glowered.

Now he wore a face that looked down upon his elder brother, tight lipped and brows once again furrowed.

"She?" John rolled his eyes with a scoff in his throat.

"Yes Bobby, she."

With a nod to Robert, John left his brother to lose his temper again alone. Evelyn was kind enough to escort him to the small conference room in the hotel. She led the senator to the elevator and with a click of the first floor button, they descended down the many floors. He also guessed that she just wanted him to notice a couple of her buttons undone and the inviting look in her eyes. But John was unable to feel something for his beautiful secretary. He was far too busy and already threatened by past affairs to take the bait she left. The senator merely nodded with one of his stellar smiles. He felt Evelyn's disappointment, but she still wore a now awkward grin.

"What do you think of this, Evelyn?" He blurted.

"I'm sorry?"

"No, I apologize." He chuckled. "I mean about the presidency."

Her mind ran wild. He was actually noticing her, and in a much better sense than the sexual one. John felt that in her, too.

"Well, you're a fine man. Good and honest." She proclaimed.

"Now are you honest?"

"Why of course!" Evelyn exclaimed.

A loud ding alerted both the adults. The metal doors slid open revealing the bustling ground floor of the Biltmore Hotel.

"Now come along, Senator." Evelyn stepped out into the wild rush with John following behind.

Like two days ago for his acceptance speech, he was greeted by men and women who recognized him from that very moment. They wanted to hug him and shake his hand furiously, but John could only manage simple "Hellos." and "Thank yous." Evelyn kept a watchful eye ever so often peaking behind to see if John had been swallowed by the adoring crowd. Luckily, the man was still a man, breathing and pulsating.

"Evelyn, I know nothing of this." He confessed behind closed doors. "I only know that an interviewer was demanding."

His secretary gestured to him to keep walking down the isolated corridor, but she was able to be by his side than to rather lead him.

"Frankly, I'm just as confused. A woman claiming to be a reporter had an appointment I knew nothing about."

"Then why is she here?"

"I...don't know." She whispered. "I know I never talked to her or scheduled anything, but in my head, I did."

"I picked up the phone," Evelyn continued, "and all there was was silence. Then a woman told me that she would be meeting you, and I agreed, thinking it was already scheduled."

John recognized this but never revealed his knowledge to the poor woman wallowing in confusion. It never happened, yet it did for her.

"Do you have the name?" He carefully asked.

Evelyn nodded and John caught it out of the corner of his eye. She was sighing more and more the longer they remained on the topic.

"Janice Quinn, but I checked with everyone and she's a nobody."

The situation was becoming more peculiar the more Evelyn revealed. A nobody, some Janice woman, told his secretary that she would be interviewing him. Even stranger, Evelyn helplessly obeyed.

"Well I'll meet with her." John decided. "But I don't want you near her, you understand?"

"I'll go finish the paperwork." She agreed.

Evelyn then told him that the conference room was just down the hall and to his left before leaving for the suite once again. Now John was alone inching closer and closer to whoever this mysterious interviewer is.

"Ms. Quinn, I apologize for the wait but the crowds were demanding." John entered with a chuckle.

Glancing up, he saw only the woman seated at the vast table. Her long hair was pulled into a loose bun as her body was clothed mostly in black. She wore large, pointed sunglasses that hid the upper part of her face from the world. Admittedly, the senator felt a pang of nervousness strike his nerves. If her appearance worried him, he dreaded what words she would conceive.

"That's something we have in common." She stated.

Janice gestured to the lonely seat beside her. John couldn't tell if she was staring into his soul thanks to her glasses, but he followed her movement. Seated at the vast wooden table glossed to a flawless shine only sat the future president and the mysterious Janice.

"So you wish to interview me?" John inquired.

She was quick to answer with female swagger that surprised the man.

"It's really just talking. The nation and I wish to know the real John Kennedy." She waved her hand.

He nodded. Janice never stepped down from her high stance. She still wore her glasses, sat frigidly, barely moved. John glanced down to see no notepad or pen ready for this "talk".

"Er...?"

"My mind is my greatest tool." Janice noticed the confusion on his voice. "As is yours."

Again, a gesture signified that miscellaneous subjects were no longer acceptable as she sat just a bit straighter; not that she was already a ruler.

"So, senator, tell me about your foreign policy you plan to enact."

Policy? One sentence, she wants his personal life and the next, delving into his possible term as Commander-in-Chief? John grew even more puzzled.

"You said you wanted my personal life? The man behind the candidate?" He tried to put the pieces in place.

"I did, but I have to get this political nonsense out of the way." She sighed.

John thought for a moment. He hadn't exactly conjured up every little tidbit of his presidency. A good thing to ponder over in dreams but he was only voted his party's candidate two days earlier. He hadn't any time from dealing with Johnson and Robert and the press.

"Eisenhower's foreign policy is the problem with that." John explained. "He had a policy that was ridiculous, dull, overly reliant on brinksmanship and massive retaliation, and grossly egotistical."

"Define brinksmanship."

"It's where one pushes dangerous events to the brink of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome." He answered Janice's question before returning to his long explanation. "I worry that after his terms, the State Department would be unable to apply their new global vision. What I want and hope for is to control foreign policy through a young and energetic White House and National Security Council. People like me."

"Young, fresh-faced, clear minded, yes." Janice nodded. "Continue."

"Staffers would make their own approach within the foreign affairs administration. I think that the president and his secretaries had all but ceded the newly emerging states in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the communists."

Chairman Mao, Korea, Vietnam, now Castro and that fascist wall. Poor John had all these to deal with during the aftermath of Eisenhower mobilizing the whole county for war. His future presidency, in translation. Janice looked at him, studying the relatively young man in silence. He was frustrated if his so-called handsome face allowed any negativity to appear on his skin. But there, she saw it. Yet it was something more.

"Do you advocate for war, Senator?" The woman simply asked.

Now he studied her, though he cannot read into her person. She was moving into something more than politics, that's for certain. Maybe this was all a ruse. Perhaps she wants to know if he'd be the red-fearing American or the steadfast patriot unfazed by his opposite's destructive nature? All philosophical and such...

"No," John stated. ", but politics has no room to be defenseless against communism."

Janice didn't like that. She didn't like that one bit. His comment, so second world war, so militant, so similar to the president he condemned moments ago, made Janice arch her brow to impossible heights.

"You could be the president that could spark the end of this Cold War, but I suppose that honor can go to another man."

The senator glanced down with stone eyes.

"Anyway, what's your domestic policy? Mostly concerning those who aren't white men."

Ah yes. He knew, like all the others, that she'd bring up the fight for equality.

"I support civil rights. What kind of question is that?"

"A frustrated one since many, many groups are still berated and murdered for something they cannot choose. Shall I tell you the reason why skin varies? And not because God created abominations." Janice's shoulders slumped and she lounged back into her chair. Behind her tinted shield she continued to read the senator like a book. She leaned in with a whisper aiding her answer.

"Melanin." She revealed. "It was evolutionary. People with dark skin have better at surviving in the sunlight because their skin protects them from the harmful sun rays. People with light skin were historically in places where they don't need protection from sunlight. Simple as that."

Research went into DNA, not skin cells. How on earth could Janice possibly know this?

"I...need an explanation for your own." Her lips barely curved upward into a smirk.

"Science. I was raised around genetics, not that god awful eugenics. I know my stuff."

"How could you possibly know such a thing?"

"I just said-"

"How could someone research such a thing?"

She now understood what the senator was demanding to know. Janice simply shrugged.

"My father was important. He made many important discoveries concerning genetics."

"So how come no one knows of it?"

"My father was a bad man." She plainly stated. "These findings are true or near true, but no one would believe such a horrid man."

John and Janice were silent. They read each other trying to understand the enigma that the other was. John has secrets, and not the documented ones Janice knows about. And for herself, John knew she was no reporter.

"Who are you exactly?"

Wonder flushed over him when she leaned forward even more and removed her sunglasses. Janice had sharp blue eyes that reminded him of his brother, but something seemed off about them.

"Janice Quinn, of course."

""How much do you know about me?"

"Why, everything. Gene Tierney, that Swedish socialite, Giancana's mistress who actually aborted your baby." She couldn't help but smile. "Speaking of babies, you and Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage and had a stillborn daughter."

"You were also injured in the war that still haunts your back severely. Oh, and I know about the disease you and your sister share."

The game was up. John understood Janice's true intentions. He couldn't help but laugh and wear an excited expression.

"Oh, you're good!" He pointed a finger. "Keep your sunglasses off; it's my turn."

The senator slouched over resting his elbows on his knees before initiating his powerful stare. He could truly read the woman now. But what he found was darker than his own secrets.

"I wouldn't dare say anything out loud." He quietly commented. "But I didn't know you were blind."

"Have you seen the memory?" Her newfound eagerness remained intact.

"Unfortunately."

"But," she reassured, "all is well. I have finally found you, John."

The sharpness in her masquerade vanished, washed away with the waters of enlightenment. Janice actually smiled, revealing that the mole just under the corner of her mouth disappeared into the folds in the same area. Her lips were gradually curved up and were tightly pressed together, but this was her truth rather than a forced display.

"I have searched for many like myself besides my parents." She marveled. "I assume your brother is the same?"

John approved of the words.

"Both abilities just like our father."

"I would like us to be friends." She blurted but then froze.

She hadn't meant to be so forthright. Janice had rehearsed this in her head: meet the future president, reveal their shared genes, ally with one another. It just so happened to come out more desperate than hopeful. Janice, unfortunately, hadn't had all the luck being around people her own kind, let alone basic contact with humans.

"It's alright." He reassured her in return.

"I would love being your friend. But I do have to know your real name."

"Then is yours true?"

"I was born John Fitzgerald and I sit here the same person." He declared.

"Then I am Hanne Schmidt." Janice, now open with her German identity and accent, revealed to the man, the next president, who already knew. In fact, he knew ever since she took off her sunglasses.