Laurel's not dead yet, but it feels like the world is ending anyway.
Brain bugs give a worse hangover than tequila, Ella Pollack has stabbed her brother in the back again and taken his position as minority whip, and maybe worst of all, an unshakeable heatwave has struck DC. It's nine PM and still a muggy eighty-three degrees. Laurel's packing up her office for the second time since she got this job when someone knocks on her door.
Of course it's Gareth.
"I hope you didn't come here to gloat," she says as she packs her books into a cardboard box.
"No," he says, punctuating the statement with a half-hearted laugh. "Not exactly."
She sets her books down and looks over at him. He's ditched his suit jacket and cuffed his shirt sleeves – the latest fashion trend in the Russell building, thanks to the sweltering heat. Laurel can't say she hates it, right at this moment.
Here's the thing, though: she's not sure exactly where she stands with Gareth, because the two days she'd been infected with the bugs are a hazy blur to her. She kind of remembers what happened, and of course Rochelle gave her a comprehensive rundown after she woke up, but there are still some frighteningly long gaps in her mental timeline.
"You all right?" he asks.
So, he knows what happened to her. That much is for sure, since she has a couple fleeting memories of speaking to him yesterday (and for one other reason: something Rochelle told her, which she's having trouble getting her head around). According to Gustav, Gareth's also gotten the total rundown on everything they know about the bugs and infected people. What he thinks of all of it, though? – that's one of the blanks.
"I'm… fine," she says, leaning against the sideboard.
"All clear?" he asks, gesturing vaguely at his own head.
"Yup," she says. "Rochelle had me in the CAT scan for like, six hours. So. Clean bill of health." (Not exactly true – her eardrum's going to take a few months to heal, and it feels weird as shit. But he doesn't need to hear the gory details.)
"Are you good to drink?" he asks, and hoists up the bottle of whiskey she'd already noticed he was holding.
"God. Yes," she says.
That gets a genuine laugh from him, and he kicks her office door closed on the way in. Her sofa's already gone to the new office, where there isn't really room for it, and they end up sitting on the floor behind her desk with their legs stretched out in front of them. Drinking straight bourbon from the bottle makes her feel a little like they're sneaking drinks out of her dad's liquor cabinet, but maybe the occasion calls for it.
"So," Laurel says after her third swig. She presses her hand to her burning mouth as she hands the bottle back to Gareth.
"So?" he asks.
"How are you holding up?" she asks.
"I feel like that should be my line," he says.
"Enough about me," she says, waving him off as he tries to hand the bottle back to her. It ends up on the floor between their knees. "I'm asking about you."
"I'm…" He rotates the bottle idly, rolling its neck between his thumb and forefinger. She can't quite bring herself to look at his face, so her gaze stays steadily fixed on his hands instead. "It's a lot to process."
That's an understatement if she's ever heard one, but she knows the feeling. She had weeks to take it all in and she still had a hard time getting her head around it. "I'm honestly surprised you believe it at all," she says.
He chuckles. "Well, when presented with the facts, I can sometimes draw the logical conclusion."
"A trait in rare supply among Republicans," she quips.
"Hey," he says, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. "We're having a nice drink here."
"Sorry," she says, leaning her head back against the wall. Then, a little tipsy and a lot amused by the whole situation, she adds in a scoffing laugh: "The logical conclusion."
"It's crazy," he agrees.
"It's crazy," she says.
"But some things make a lot more sense now," he adds after a second. "Does that make me crazy too?"
"You're asking the wrong person," she says, and reaches for the bottle again. The alcohol is really hitting her; a heavy heat has settled low in her stomach and her fingertips feel like they're buzzing against the cool surface of the glass bottle. But she still knocks back another mouthful, and it barely burns her throat on its way down.
She'd had her eyes screwed shut, but when she opens them and looks over at him he's watching her with a warm openness in his expression. Not fondness, not exactly, but something very, very close to it.
"What?" she asks.
"Nothing," he says, and then immediately contradicts himself: "I'm glad you're all right. It was touch and go for a little bit, yesterday."
"I don't really remember what happened," she admits.
"Oh?" He's clearly trying for nonchalance, but he doesn't quite pull it off. Instead, he sounds a dangerous mix of disappointed and relieved, like he can't decide whether or not he wants her to remember whatever it is he has in mind.
"I mean, I remember a little, but it's all kind of foggy…" She presses her hand to her temple like that might help her force her memories into focus. "I remember waking up covered in bugs and flipping out. And I remember the first time Rochelle put me into the CAT scan. I was so scared I thought I'd throw up." Her hand drops to her mouth and she chews her thumbnail as she contemplates the memory. She'd been able to hear the bugs when they were inside her head, a high pitched warbling sound that had been awful and dissonant against the low hum of the CAT machine. But she can't bring herself to put the sound to words, so she moves on. "Luke punched a wall at some point. Don't remember where. And I think Gustav put bacon in my ears, but luckily I have some context for that."
"It's how they draw out screwworms in Central America," he says, unfazed.
"You took notes," she says.
"Mhmm," he says through a mouthful of whiskey.
And then, because he's obviously still waiting for her to bring it up (or not bring it up, as the case may be), she bites the bullet. "And I remember you were at my apartment for some reason," she says.
"Your friends called me," he supplies.
"Right. I told them to. Because…" Because Red had temporarily pulled the CDC's funding, and Luke hadn't been able to get anywhere from his end. So she'd told Rochelle and Gustav to call Gareth for help. Rochelle had explained this all to her, but even though it's coming back to her in earnest, it all seems a little unbelievable, so she ignores it. "Anyway. I was sitting on my sofa, and you were talking to Rochelle and Gustav in the kitchen. I couldn't see you, but I could hear them explaining everything. And I remember thinking, I wouldn't buy this, if I were him. I'd think it was all some stupid joke."
He laughs. "That actually never crossed my mind."
"Maybe you are crazy," she says.
"You looked awful when I showed up," he says, setting the bottle down again. "If you hadn't been that freaked out, I might've thought it was a joke, or a trick, or something. But I could tell something was wrong the second I saw you."
"Usually I'd try to act offended," she says. "But I guess I should thank you."
He just shakes his head. He has his mouth half-open, like he might be about to say something, so she moves on as quickly as she can.
"And then right after you left, they took me to the CDC," she says. "That's all I remember."
"That's everything?" he asks.
"Yup," she confirms.
"Are you sure?" he pushes.
She knows she should, but she just can't bring herself to rise above taking the bait. She'll blame the whiskey. "Why?" she asks. "Did something else happen?"
"You tried to kiss me," he says, and an indignant bark of laughter escapes her throat before she can convince herself to play it cool.
"I did not," she says.
"You did."
She buries her burning face in her hands then, because – on prompting – she does remember it happening. It's more like a movie scene than an actual memory, since she has no idea what she was thinking at the time. Nothing rational, that's for sure. But she'd beaten Rochelle to the door when he'd knocked, and she'd opened it without even checking to see who was there, and – honestly – he was being generous when he said she tried to kiss him, because she's absolutely sure contact was made before he came to his senses and got her at arm's length.
"Oh my God," she says into her hands.
"See? You do remember," he says, and she doesn't have to see him to imagine the smirk he's wearing.
"Okay, look," she begins, looking over at him although she keeps her hands pressed to her cheeks. "I thought my head was going to explode at any given second. I was probably so hopped up on adrenaline that I didn't even recognize you."
"You don't have to make excuses," he teases. She smacks him across the shoulder, and he laughs before continuing. "Like I said. You were clearly not in your right mind."
There's nothing actually self-deprecating in his words. He's just offering her an easy out. We were joking. You were crazy. It's all kind of the same in the end.
"I have to pack my stuff up," she says, because it's the most abrupt topic change she can manage naturally, and the conversation sorely needs one.
But the give-or-take four drinks are hitting her even harder than she expected them to, and standing up is a slow and risky endeavor. She teeters as she gets on her feet, and has to brace herself on her desk for a second before proceeding back to the sideboard, which gives him time to cap the bottle and beat her there.
She hands him a folded cardboard box, which he quickly assembles with the dexterity of a much more sober man. As she finishes up with her books, he begins packing away her knick-knacks. But eventually his drinks catch up with him, too, and he starts to examine each item individually before putting it into the box.
"This looks important," he says as he picks up a trophy and turns it over in his hands to read the inscription. She resists the urge to grab it away from him. "Laurel Healy. Honorable mention," he continues, over-impressed.
"It's for my senior thesis," she says, shuffling the books around. She's determined to make them fit. She's barely been here two months. She can't possibly have more than three boxes worth of stuff in the office. "It was just a student film."
"Real film festival, though," he says, running his thumb over the engraving. "AFI."
"Yeah, I know what it says."
He finally puts the trophy into the box. "So you were already winning awards when you were still in school. Why haven't you finished anything since then?"
"Bad habit of mine," she says, jamming the last book into a space it's too big to fit into. "I don't finish things."
"I struck a nerve," he says.
"Little bit," she says.
Funny thing about near-death experiences: they can really make you re-evaluate your life. Laurel's not a finisher. She has commitment issues. These are preventative measures towards not getting hurt, and she's always, always been too afraid to move out of her comfort zone.
The heat is stifling, there's an elephant in the room, and she's a little bit terrified. But maybe she came out of this brain-bug thing a little braver than she was before.
They're standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the sideboard, with everything packed away now. He's assembling the box lids, and they're so close together she can feel his bare forearm occasionally brush hers as he goes about his work.
"There's something else I remember about yesterday," she says at length.
"What?" he asks.
"You did us a favor," she says. "So we could get into the CDC."
He just hums in agreement.
"How'd you manage it?"
"It's not important," he says, handing her a box lid. She fits it onto the book box, but it doesn't quite fit.
"Luke couldn't get Red to move an inch," she presses, rotating the box lid like it might go on if she tries it the other way.
"I know," Gareth says. "And I knew he wouldn't listen to me, so…" She hazards a glance over at him when he pauses, and his brow is furrowed almost comically. "I just went behind his back and got it done." Yeah – that's the thing that Rochelle told her that she thought was so unbelievable. But he admits it like it's no big deal. "Luckily, it played well, especially after his publicity stunt with Corporal Middleton and his daughter. So it'd be a gaff for him to reverse the decision or call me out on what I did."
"But he fired you," she half-says, half-asks.
"He's going to," Gareth says. "In a week or two."
She rests her hands on the box lid, still askew atop the books. It feels like she's got something caught in her throat, and her drunken buzz has abruptly disappeared. "You'll land on your feet," she says.
"Red might not make all the details public, but he'll make sure it's not easy for me to find another job," Gareth says.
"Well, I can put in a good word for you with Amarant," she says. "Do you think you can stand working for the Moderate Rebellion?"
"I think it might be a nice change of pace, actually," he admits. "Anyone with half a brain can see Red's gone nuts."
She snorts in a very un-cute way.
"Sorry," he laughs. "Bad choice of words."
"Yeah," she says, and an intensely awkward gap opens in the conversation. It's not romantic or flirty, the banter they've just exchanged, but she's turned towards him and he's turned towards her, and suddenly it seems like they're standing way too close together. "I'm sorry," she says, and that breaks the spell. He shakes his head.
"You don't have to be," he says.
"You lost your job because of me," she says.
"I lost my job because my boss is being unreasonable," he says. "And maybe it is because he's sick, but not everyone that's following his lead is. If you're going to have any level of integrity there needs to be some line you won't cross. Letting people die just to make a point is way past my line. I got into politics because I wanted to help people, not use them as bargaining chips."
She can't help the smile that's tugging at the corner of her mouth. "That sounds like idealism, Gareth."
"If that's what it is, that's what it is," he says, rubbing the back of his neck.
"And here I just thought you had a crush on me," she says.
"A crush?" he laughs. "What is this, the second grade?"
"You like me," she maintains. The veneer of humor makes everything easier and less awkward, and she reaches across him to put the second lid on the knick-knack box, which puts them even closer together than they were in that tense moment a few seconds ago.
But of course, that's when he decides to be serious again, and he fixes her with a look that freezes her in place. "The fact that it was you…" he begins. (One last errant memory comes back to her: right before he'd left her apartment, he'd knelt in front of her while she sat on the sofa. She'd been staring into the distance, somewhere over his shoulder, and he'd held her head in his hands as he told her to hang in a little while longer.) "Might have impacted my judgment a little," he admits, and she kisses him.
She kisses him for real, the way she'd started to kiss him at the bar before holding herself back. And just like every time she's made a risky leap of faith in her life, she can't help but immediately wonder what she was so scared of in the first place.
"No take backs," is the first thing he says after she breaks away from him, and leave it to him to crack a joke at her expense while still sounding a little dazed. She laughs despite herself.
"You want to pinky swear?" she offers, running her hand down his arm as she steps away from him.
"I can take your word for it," he says. It takes a few seconds for him to gather his wits about him, but the physical space she puts between them seems to help a little. "What do we do now?"
She doesn't know if he's asking for philosophical reasons or looking for some immediate instructions, but first things first. "Well, this all has to go down to the new office," she says. "And then I think we better find you a new job."
"Something moderate and reasonable, I hope," he says.
"We'll be the most mild-mannered rebellion of all time," she agrees, stacking the boxes on top of each other.
"And then?" he asks, and now she's sure he's looking for a little confirmation, if not outright propositioning her.
She glances him up and down before replying, and his responding smirk is almost an answer in and of itself. "I don't know," she says. "I guess we'll have to wait and see."
And even though everything is still going to shit around them and there are no sure things, for once she isn't scared at all.