Title: Two Weeks
Author: Claire
Rating: K
Summary: What she does know is that she's spent three hundred dollars on scotch over the past two weeks and there hasn't been a morning where she's woken up without a hangover.
Disclaimer: I own naught.
Author's Note: Took me a while to respond to what's going on, but once I did I couldn't get it out fast enough.
It takes two weeks for her to snap back to life. Two weeks of coming to work every day, meeting with staff she doesn't even know the names of, advising the President, sitting in the Situation room. Two weeks she doesn't remember. She could have advised the President to bomb Mexico for all she knows. She hopes she didn't, but, if the truth is told, she doesn't really care.
What she does know is that she's spent three hundred dollars on scotch over the past two weeks and there hasn't been a morning where she's woken up without a hangover.
She knows that she hates scotch, has always hated scotch and yet somehow it's the only thing she's wanted to drink since that night.
She knows that he tastes like scotch, has always tasted like it, even twenty years ago when they first met and neither of them could afford scotch.
She knows that the first time she woke up with beard burn all over her body and the second-hand taste of scotch in her mouth was the moment she decided that he was good for her. For twenty years, on and off, she relished that first realisation in the morning, of his mark on her. Now she knows that she'll never wake up like that again.
The rest of the world, as represented by her old friends CNN and NBC, has moved on. There are other bigger, more interesting stories. Presidential debates. Unrest in the Middle East. More Hurricanes. An old, disillusioned man going to jail no longer interests them.
Even the White House seems to be running normally, without her participation. She always thought that Margaret was the real one in power, now she knows it.
She refuses to walk past the Communications bullpen, to see someone else in his office. When the others left it was hard, but she had him. She's always had him. They could still face the world together, without Sam, without Josh, without Leo. She doesn't know if she can do it on her own.
What scares her the most, what she does know, is that she'll move on eventually. She'll never fully get over losing him, but she'll move on regardless. She'll find some nice man, move to a nice, sunny city and have a nice, happy life. She'll never buy scotch again. She'll never read his books. And she'll never tell anyone how much she loved him. Still loves him. Will always love him.
Love me. Review.