Mellie Grant was dressed in a sleeveless, black wrap dress that hung just above the knee, with a straight hemline. The matching cardigan was currently in her hands, soft cashmere gripped tightly by the First Lady. Her hair was in a chignon, and as she glanced in the mirror, she couldn't help noticing how tied she looked. She supposed burying your 15-year-old son could that to a woman.
It had all happened so fast; Jerry had started coughing and then she'd noticed the sputters of red coming out of his nose and mouth. Fitz had stopped his speech and they'd rushed with the secret service to a hospital in the dark black vehicle that Mellie had grown accustomed to riding in. Karen was crying the whole way there as Jerry passed in and out of consciousness, his head resting in Mellie's lap. Fitz had been frightful, Mellie remembered; after his charismatic and hopeful speech to the American people, his words to his own son had seemed even more strained and frail than they otherwise might've. "You'll be okay, buddy," was what the President had murmured over and over again, his brows furrowed in obvious fear and panic. Then, Jerry had stopped breathing, and though Mellie had performed slightly hysterical CPR, he was already gone. The hospital, once they'd arrived, had proved only useful in suggesting a time of death for Fitzgerald Thomas Grant IV.
Her son was gone, Mellie thought numbly. How could that be? Less than a week ago, they'd had an argument about his lack of support for the political side of his family. He'd called her crazy for continuing to support his father after all he'd done to them, even blaming him for her indiscretions with Uncle Andrew. She'd given him the ultimatum of losing his allowance or attending the rally and putting on a happy face for the cameras. It had felt cheap at the time, but he'd chosen just the way she'd have chosen, and it filled her with a political parent's sort of pride, knowing that if and when the time arose for him to turn to politics he'd do a better job than his father before him. But it seemed that any ambitions for him were irrelevant now.
Mellie draped the cardigan over the back of a wooden chair in the Vermeil Room of the White House, the room she was currently occupying. With a shaky sigh, she reached for the bottle of scotch and the glass tumbler, only allowing herself two fingers of the amber ale. She wouldn't become a drunk; she couldn't do that to Jerry's memory. More than she could say for her husband, she thought bitterly, thinking about how she had scarcely seen Fitz without a drink in the past few days. What made Mellie angriest of all was that she knew that the disappearance of Olivia Pope was affecting Fitz too. Even in the midst of family tragedy and heartbreak, the famous "fixer" was ever-president on the President's mind. And there was nothing Mellie no anyone else had ever been able to change that.
A knock on the door pulled Mellie out of her own head. She set the drink on the coffee table, calling out for the person to enter the room. It was her secretary, Pauline Lawrence. She wore a black skirt-suit with a white blouse; a polite tone down from her usual vibrant reds and pastels in lieu of the death of the President's son.
"Pauline," Mellie began with a sigh, "If there are any more letters of condolence…"
"No, ma'am," Pauline said, shaking her head firmly. "You have a visitor."
Mellie's brows furrowed in confusion; Fitz was off somewhere tossing back doubles of scotch, she was sure of it. And Cyrus would be up to something related to political or military strategy, given the way Fitz was behaving and his escapist mentality. Sally Langston was no longer a member of the White House, though had she been, she would have expressed her sorrow while tying in something about God and peace. Anyone else in the White House would not have the stones to disturb her at a time like this.
The Vice President walked in. Mellie's eyes widened momentarily in shock, her heartbeat quickening ever so slightly. Andrew Nichols was wearing a deep, black suit, double-breasted and with understated lapels. He looked as tired as she felt, and just as sad. Pauline closed the door smartly before either of them could say a word.
"Mellie," Andrew began with a sigh. Every time he'd imagined speaking to Mellie again, it had never been under these circumstances.
"Don't you mean Mrs. Grant?" Mellie said coldly, seeing a shocked and pained expression take hold of Andrew's face. With a sigh of her own, Mellie looked to the ground for a moment, rotating her jaw. "I don't want to argue with you, Andrew. And frankly, I don't want to see you. I'm too exhausted for either. So, thank you for your condolences, and I'm sure Pauline—"
"Condolences?" Andrew snapped incredulously, and when Mellie looked she could see that his face was furious. That normally endearing West Coast, sunshine drawl had tuned red hot as he spoke again. " You think that I've come here to offer you condolences?"
"Well, isn't that—?" Mellie began again, as Andrew took an intimidating step towards her, his eyes on hers.
"Condolences," Andrew spat, " Are for strangers and staff. I am neither."
"You could have fooled me," Mellie muttered, staring straight back at him. She knew it was a low blow, but it had felt beyond her control.
"This isn't about us," Andrew snapped, grabbing her harshly by her shoulders. "This is about the fact that your boy, your boy who I have loved ever since I first laid eyes on him, is gone. It's about the fact that we lost him, and there's nothing we, with all of the power we have, can do to change that." His eyes were glistening now, his voice breaking at the end of his statement. "I didn't come here to offer you condolences, Mellie. I came here to grieve. After all of the years that you've known me, you should know how much I love your kids. And I think the fact that you don't is more hurtful than anything else ever could be."
"Andrew, wait," Mellie called as he turned to leave. Her brows knitted together in pain and shame. He stopped with his hand on the knob and looked to her. She clasped both her hands in front of herself and apologized, "That was rude and petty of me. I do know how much you love…loved Jerry," she smiled in a forced way. "He didn't call you Uncle Andrew for nothing."
There was a moment of silence before Mellie closed the distance between them, throwing her arms over his shoulders and burying her face into the crook of his neck. Without a moment's hesitation, Andrew locked his arms around the First Lady, resting his head on hers. There was some grief, some pain, that could only be stilled little by little and for small moments; and at that, ti could only be stilled by someone who was just as emotionally destroyed as you were. This, Andrew thought, was one of those cases.
" I don't know what I'm going to do," Mellie started, her bottom lip quivering as she pulled away. Admitting defeat or uncertainty was not something Mellie Grant did often, and not to everyone. She hadn't admitted it to her own husband in God knew how long, so the fact that she had done such with Andrew must've said something about how much trust she could easily put into him. "I can't cry anymore; I want to, I need to, but every drop of water inside of one human being has already been cried out over the past two days. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't do anything. I worry about Karen, about her mental and physical state well-being after this. Teddy, thank heavens, is too young to understand what's going on. Fitz…well, he's beyond my ability to console or help or coddle, and on top of that…we get letters every single day from hundreds of thousands of well-meaning Americans who want to help with kind words but it doesn't help because they didn't lose their son." Mellie paused, casting her eyes up at Andrew, "It doesn't help because my son is dead. And my life is over. And I don't know what I'm going to do. "She paused, pleased that he didn't attempt to speak but only stroked he back softly. She lowered her voice; as if fearful her next words might be overheard. "And I am angry. I am furious with Fitz."
"Fitz?" This surprised Andrew and he pulled his face away to get a good look at her. Mellie's eyes and jaw were hard and he knew what that face meant; it meant that she was not only angry, but resentful and hateful and bitter even. But Mellie, logical and poised as she was, always had a reason. And Andrew Nichols prided himself on being the person she could explain such things to.
Mellie moved away from Andrew, drinking the scotch she'd set aside upon his entrance. The liquid was rancid and bitter, but not nearly as much as the words she was about to say.
"In the years that we have been married, I have lost more than I can ever hope to gain again. I have lost my self-esteem with the way he treats my opinions, political or otherwise; the way he views me as," she pauses, a mirthless smile on her face, "What was it he said? Ah, yes: 'Ornamental, not functional'." Andrew winced at the words, but Mellie went on. "I have lost my pride and dignity with his childlike attachment to his whore, his sweet, angelic, immaculate Olivia Pope. The way I had to pretend that disgusting audio footage of the two of them was me and my philandering husband; the way I had to conceive my Teddy as a political ploy, not as an act of love. And the fact that every single day, she still isn't out of our lives because he will always run back to her, and that even when she is gone, he still isn't mine. He will never be mine." She tightened her right hand into a fist. "I lost myself the night Big Jerry forced himself onto me, the night I sold my soul and every part of me worth a damn for Fitz's political career. All so that I could be this," Mellie threw out her hands for effect. "So that I, with all my years of college and practical experience, could be ornamental. Not functional." She lowered her eyes to the ground. "I lost you right after I found you again. Because of his warped sense of loyalty and possessive jealousy. Because he's the only one allowed to fall in love outside of this God-forsaken marriage." She looked up again, tears stinging her eyes. "And now I've lost my son. Because of the office which President Grant holds, because of things that have nothing to do with Jerry or Karen or even, in Fitz's opinion, me. And the way I see it, the ship that is my life has been sinking ever since I hitched to the SS Fitzgerald Grant the Third. And I hate him for it, I loathe him. And I wish…" Mellie looked down, hating herself for her dark thoughts. She began sobbing, the shame and rage and grief consuming her. " I wish it had been him and not Jerry who'd died."
Andrew was fiercely loyal to Fitz, or at least he had been. It was this loyalty that had all but handed him the vice-presidency, and thus it had been this loyalty that had teased him with Mellie Grant's proximity before yanking it away again. Andrew could agree with Fitz on the fact that someone taking Mellie away from him would cause outrage and jealousy, but for Fitz the emotion had not come from the right place. He didn't want Mellie for himself; he didn't want her for anyone. He'd taken her to be cruel, to assert his Presidential Power. And to add insult to injury, he'd made his own mistress do the dirty work of ending the affair. That was not the Fitzgerald Grant Andrew had befriended all those years ago, and it was the Fitzgerald Grant Andrew wanted to know. Yet he could not dissuade every ounce of loyalty within him enough to openly badmouth the President of the United States, even to the woman he loved.
"Fitz is not perfect," Andrew began carefully, pulling Mellie down onto the plush, red sofa with him; she was bawling into the left shoulder of his suit. "But no man is. And despite his faults, he is probably feeling just as angry ad disgusted with himself as you are right now."
"I wouldn't bet on that," Mellie muttered, causing Andrew to laugh for the first tie in days. It was a strange and foreign sound to both of them, and so they let it hang in the room for a moment.
"Still," Andrew went on, pushing a lock of escaped hair behind Mellie's ear and pulling her face up to look at his. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she was still undoubtedly beautiful. "His intentions, for the most part, were not malicious. As much as he is to blame, he also isn't. Fate plays a large hand in most things without us even knowing."
"Andrew, if I wanted the Lord's Will and 'Good Christian Values' brought into this, I'd have phoned Sally," Mellie complained, moving a hand to rest on his thigh.
"Mock me if you like," Andrew persisted, leaning his head back so he could look at all of the paintings on the wall in front of him. They were of the First Ladies, who were not to be touched; he wondered if they were as forbidden from his fingertips as the one that was curled up in his arms at that moment. He kept his eyes forward and concluded with a chill in his vice. "But I'll stand by my belief. And my belief is that the Presidency is a cursed office."
"I don't believe in curses, "Mellie told him immediately, though his words had made her bones go cold.
"Think about it," Andrew wondered, looking down with her. "Name one President who was happy, Mellie?"
"Name one person who is, Andrew," was all she said in response.