Dust surrounded the small table where the slim brunette was seated. Then again, dust encapsulated the whole place, so the area around the table was not made special by the dirtiness of it, but rather the feeling that was in the air, put off by the brunette. She didn't belong in the dirty bar, not just because she was clearly too young, but because she felt too high-class. But she didn't seem to mind, as she downed her third Fireball of the night, glanced around, and settled back in her seat to scroll through her social media.
The motions of the brunette seemed calm, normal to the naked eye, but if one looked closer, her fingers shook slightly as she slid them along the bright screen, and her eyes darted about the place every few seconds. Then again, no individual at The One-Eyed Pirate cared enough to look.
Another hour passed, and the brunette had not changed her routine, when she dropped her phone in her back pocket, threw a few bills on the table, and stood up to leave. She stepped delicately onto a street nearly as dirty as the spot she had just vacated. There weren't many souls out at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night, except for a few young teenagers who had clearly snuck out. As the brunette passed the group, slightly drunk and a little ignorant, one girl glanced up, gasped, and snapped a grainy cell phone video. The brunette, in her ignorance, paid the girl no mind, at least at that moment. Instead, she slipped into a seedy motel, paid fifty bucks for a room for the night, and laid down to sleep off the whiskey.
In another part of town, four hours later, Mellie Grant awoke to the incessant banging of one Olivia Pope. She rolled over, pulling the covers up to her chin, and throwing a pillow over her head. Apparently now that the two were friends, Olivia just couldn't get enough of Mellie's company, because the banging was not stopping.
"Mellie, I know you're in there. Open the door."
"Olivia, it is too early. I have two days off of the campaign trail, and I plan to spend them in bed until at least ten a.m. every morning, so go away!"
"Mellie, this is more important than your bed." Olivia's tone changed slightly, becoming deeper and more insistent, but Mellie refused to notice.
"Nothing is more important than bed," Mellie mumbled, not nearly loud enough for Liv to hear.
"Mellie, it's Charlotte."
That was more important than bed. It took Mellie all of two seconds to open the door to a stoic Olivia, look down on her, and, with a slow intensity, say, "What about Charlotte?"
"I think we should sit down." Olivia made a move to enter Mellie's apartment, something she'd done a million times before, but Mellie stopped her.
"What. About. Charlotte. Liv?" A porcelain hand entrenched itself in Olivia's arm, and the blue eyes betrayed an emotion Olivia had never seen in Mellie's expressive eyes before, and she wasn't quite sure what to call it.
"Mellie, we are going to go inside, and we are going to sit down. I will pour us two cups of coffee, and I will explain the situation to you, with no interruptions. But I am telling you right now, you will be sitting, because I do not need you to lose your head over this. " Mellie cocked her head defiantly, but turned on her heel and planted herself on the couch. If this was what she needed to do to get information out of Liv, fine, she'd do it. All she wanted right now was to know that her daughter was okay.
Liv gently set two cups of black coffee on the end table, sat next to Mellie, and opened her phone to a grainy video of a slim, tall brunette, with smeared mascara, stumbling into a cheap motel. Mellie took the phone, with wide eyes, and replayed the video three times. She kept praying she'd see something different, that the video would suddenly switch to cats playing piano, but each time, it was the same girl, the same walk, the same motel. Mellie sighed, shook her head, and rubbed her temple with her right hand.
"Where is she?"
"Here." Mellie looked up at Olivia, confused.
"How? She's supposed to be in Pennsylvania, at school. There are guards, security, Secret Service! How is she here?" Mellie tried to stop the anger from spilling out of her. It was just like her eldest daughter to do something like this, something so stupid and careless. Right at a prime time in her campaign. A presidential hopeful's, not to mention the president himself's, underage daughter, wandering about D.C., drunk off her ass. Just perfect.
"Mellie, calm down, we need to look at this rationally. I'm not the only one who's seen this video. Quinn pulled it off Twitter, so we don't know how many people watched it. We need to be delicate, spin this story so you come out on top." Olivia was already typing on her phone, trying to find out from Quinn how many people had seen the video, if it could be taken down. But Mellie was in no mood to remain calm.
"You have your people find my daughter and bring her to me, so we can have a nice chat about responsibility." Mellie focused on a photo on her mantel, of her and Charlotte at Charlotte's high school graduation. Two years ago, Mellie thought she had the perfect daughter. Now, she wasn't so sure.
"I don't think we need Huck to find her. Abby just texted. Charlotte's in Fitz's office."