Seven days after meeting with Cyrus and Olivia, Mellie formally announces her intent to run for President. She gives her speech in Sacramento to a crowd of almost a thousand people who cheer her on and chant her name, and it is one of the most gratifying moments she's ever had in her career. She exits the stage with every cell in her body buzzing from the enthusiastic reception and a smile that she can't suppress.
Cyrus apparently notices and decides to suppress it for her. "Stop it. You haven't won anything yet."
Mellie shoots him an incredulous look. "Yes, you're right. After I've spent almost two decades of dedicating myself to this, working and sacrificing trying to get to this point in my political career, how dare I enjoy it? Just take me out back and shoot me; end it now."
"Actually, Senator," Cyrus says blithely, "you go ahead and savor this moment, because that back there was the easiest thing you'll do for the next twelve months."
"You're in a mighty fine snit," Fitz remarks as they and a small security detail head to the building's parking garage. "I thought Mellie did great."
Cyrus turns to face them, holding up a single finger in warning. "You do not get complacent. Either of you. Tomorrow is the beginning of your new lives and they're gonna be anything but easy. Don't forget it."
"I don't think there's any danger of that," Mellie replies, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she climbs into the range rover.
Mellie's speech headlines the politics segments of all the news channels the next morning. She listens to the anchors and pundits as she dresses and brushes her teeth, ears peeled for any indication on how the road forward will look. The stations take it upon themselves to run miniature biographies on her and by virtue, Fitz, giving some background on their histories and policies. The PR is good, and it helps to set the stage for introducing herself to America as a whole.
When Mellie comes downstairs, Cyrus is in the living room, but that's nothing new. Until a more permanent venue for her campaign headquarters is arranged, they've taken to working out of her living room, which Cyrus has converted into quite the little operations base over the past few days. Mellie has gotten used to coming downstairs to find Cyrus Beene pacing around the house, negotiating—or arguing—on the phone.
But this morning, he isn't alone. There are three other people with him: two women and one man. All of whom jump to their feet when Mellie enters the room.
One of the women, a young blonde girl with freckles scattered across her crooked nose steps forward with a brilliant, toothy grin and holds out her hand. "Senator Grant! It's a pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure."
Mellie shakes her hand hesitantly, looking around to Cyrus who is, as usual, on his cell. Arguing. "Mr. Beene…?"
Cyrus turns and pauses his tirade long enough to take in the situation and wave his hand. "Underlings."
"I'm Danielle." Mellie returns her attention to the blond, who looks not a jot dejected at Cyrus's cool dismissal. "This is Lucas and Bianca."
Mellie shakes each of their hands in turn. "Nice to meet all of you. You're here to help with the campaign, I take it?"
"Yes, ma'am! And happy to help," Danielle chirps.
Danielle is far too bubbly for eight AM pre-coffee. Mellie thinks she may have to kill her. "Well…good," she finishes articulately, eyeing the three of them and their eager faces. "When did Cyrus hire you?"
The three of them exchange looks with each other before Lucas says, "Mr. Beene didn't hire us. Miss Pope did."
Before Mellie can respond, her house phone rings. Danielle straightens. "Would you like me to get that for you, Senator?"
"That's all right. Just…go back to whatever it is you were doing," Mellie says, moving towards the end table. She's able to resist cringing when Danielle grins and nods like a puppy dog, but it's a near thing.
"Will someone please answer the damn phone?" Cyrus snaps, holding his cell away from his mouth. "Chambers can't hear me yelling at him with that in the background!"
Her house phone is in the middle of its fourth ring by the time Mellie picks it up. "Hello?"
"Good morning, Senator," comes Olivia Pope's voice after a slight delay. "I apologize for calling your house, but I couldn't get Cyrus on his cell."
"That's because he's using it to verbally castrate who I think is Sally Langston's campaign manager," Mellie hedges, watching Cyrus turn more and more red as he stalks around the living room like a bat.
"Good boy. I just wanted to confirm that your first staffers arrived."
"Oh they're here. And keen," she adds, watching Danielle's fingers as they fly across the keyboard of her laptop. "What exactly did you hire them to do?"
"I brought Bianca in for the creative team, mostly visual communications. Lucas is going to do some of the field work and Danielle is a media consultant. I've worked with each of them before; they're good people."
"I'll take your word for it."
"I've been cycling through the news channels. Your announcement has been well-received, almost unusually so. So it's important for you to not—"
"Get complacent, yes," Mellie interrupts without bothering to hide her exasperation. She wonders what she'll have to do to warrant heartfelt congratulations from Olivia and Cyrus.
"I've scheduled a couple of TV interviews for you—local California channels, nothing too fancy. I emailed you and Cyrus the itinerary. The questions you get will be simple, basic, but Danielle's gonna rehearse with you before you go on the air."
"I have given interviews before, you know," Mellie points out, chagrined.
"Different game, different rules," Olivia replies. "By the way, I think I've found us a place to set up our campaign headquarters in. I've sent the details to Cyrus and CCed you as well, just in case you wanted a look. Also, if there's anybody from your previous campaigns that you want on staff, make a list of their names for Cyrus."
Almost wistfully, Mellie thinks of Kenneth and Bobby, even though she knows that Cyrus would eat them both alive if he had half a chance. "Are you still in Iceland?" she inquires instead.
"Yes. I will be until the day after Christmas. Just in time for Iowa."
Mellie nods even though Olivia can't see her. She'd wondered how it would work, Olivia helping organize a campaign from a different country. She isn't exactly sure how Olivia and Cyrus divvy up the duties, but she does know that they're off and running. It's good enough for her.
"I want you to start thinking about your platform—key talking points, issues we're going to start to touch upon," Olivia continues. "And we need to get you out of California and out on the road."
"I thought starting out here might give us a hometown advantage."
"It would, but it's more important for you to distance yourself from your husband's legacy there. Carve out your own path. And the rest of the country needs to know who you are."
"Son of a bitch!" Mellie whips around to see Cyrus throwing his phone into the cushion of her sofa.
"I'm guessing that's Cyrus." Olivia sounds wry.
"You heard that?" she says into the phone, watching as Cyrus, grinding out choked curses between clenched teeth, stalks towards said sofa. He almost runs into Bianca, who squeaks and barely manages to sidestep him.
"I think people in Beijing heard it. Billy Chambers generally has that effect on people."
Cyrus is now sending a text, thumbs angrily bashing the keyboard of his Blackberry, muttering under his breath. Mellie lowers her voice when she speaks next. "Whatever place you've found for headquarters, close the deal. I can't have crazy men terrorizing my living space."
"Healthy attitude to have when you're trying to move into the White House," smarms Olivia. "Work on your platform. Email me your ideas. Try to keep Cyrus from swallowing his tongue."
Olivia hangs up and Mellie lowers the phone back into its stand. Cyrus has planted himself in the middle of Mellie's rather spacious couch while the three staffers have huddled together on the loveseat, laptops and all, giving Cyrus a wide berth. It would be funny if it weren't so damn sad.
Deciding coffee just isn't going to cut it this morning, Mellie sighs and takes up the armchair Fitz usually sits in. "That was Miss Pope on the phone."
"I hope she's enjoying her vacation on that glorified ice cube."
"I was under the impression that she was working."
"I'm working," Cyrus mutters, still texting viciously. "This is work: politics, government, running the world. Olivia's idea of work is holding the hands of rich, privileged assholes while they whine about the trouble their own stupidity got them into. Don't get me wrong, she's good at what she does. The best. But her penchant for putting a band-aid on all the world's problems and her obsession with 'doing the right thing'," he adds snidely with actual finger quotes, "is holding her back. And it certainly has no place in politics."
Cyrus may treat cynicism like an Olympic sport, but Mellie can't disagree with him there. She's seen enough in her twenty years to know that if you aren't at least occasionally willing to get your hands dirty, to stretch your morals and push the envelope, you get nowhere fast. It's a damn shame, but it's the game. People like Olivia—and Fitz—are incredibly rare.
"If you disagree with her approach, why did you ask her to help?" Mellie inquires.
Cyrus pinches the bridge of his nose. "You ever heard that you attract more bees with honey rather than vinegar?"
"So Miss Pope is the honey and you're the vinegar."
"I'm the three gallon tub of Raid," Cyrus replies dryly. "No matter how charmed or distracted they are, live bees can still sting you. I prefer my bees dead."
"How pleasant," Mellie drawls. She'd always thought that making allies out of enemies was the best tactic, although she wasn't above manipulating them within an inch of their life to get them to see her side of things.
"I asked her on because no matter her methods, she's the best," Cyrus repeats finally.
It's enough for Mellie. For now, at least. "She mentioned something about finding a possible place for our headquarters. She's sent emails."
Cyrus perks up at this. He leans forward and motions towards Danielle. "Laptop." Danielle willingly passes it over and Cyrus sets it on the coffee table in front of him while Mellie waits for the verdict.
Meanwhile, Danielle takes it upon herself to start cleaning up the room a bit, organizing all the printouts and gathering up the few crumpled pieces of paper on the table. When she reaches for a half-eaten bag of sunflower seeds, Cyrus's hand shoots out to catch her wrist before she can touch the package.
"Uh-uh. They're the only thing keeping me from setting this house on fire. Leave them be."
Danielle nods rapidly and distances herself from the bag. Mellie looks at it, then at Cyrus. "Sunflower seeds?"
"I took up chewing them when I quit smoking. My—the person I'm dating doesn't like cigarette smoke." Mellie arches an eyebrow, finding it a little hard to believe that Cyrus would change something about himself for the sake of keeping a relationship, but she lets it go. Cyrus's eyes fly across the screen. "Yeah, this looks good. Enough room, nice location, reasonable cost. Want to look it over?"
Mellie shakes her head. In truth, a circus tent would be superb as long as it isn't in her living room. "I trust your judgment, and Olivia's." Cyrus arches an eyebrow of his own. "She also said that it was time to think about ideas for a platform."
"I suppose it is. Well," Cyrus says, rubbing his hands together, "all right, then. Let's do some brainstorming."
Cyrus has done his homework; they retrace every key issue that Mellie has tackled over the course of her career, comb through policy decisions. He's nearly memorized her voting record, which he has no problem picking apart like a vulture attacking an animal carcass. Every suggestion Mellie makes Cyrus offers up a counter argument for. Issues that are most important to Mellie—fiscal policy and foreign policy—get sidelined almost immediately.
"We can't lead with any of this," Cyrus says, dropping his notepad onto the coffee table. "You've gone too far left on these issues."
"I need to stand out from the other Republican candidates, don't I?"
"You need to prove that you actually are one of them first. Our message needs to be rooted in traditional conservatism."
"Traditional conservatism hasn't gotten the party anywhere in the last ten years," Mellie snaps. "We've stagnated. There's nothing new to us anymore. Meanwhile the Democrats race forward, change with the times and progress. Old conservatism is dying, Mr. Beene. We need to change."
"Change," Cyrus repeats, looking at her blankly.
"That message got me to the state house and then to the Senate!" argues Mellie. "Would party reform really be such a bad idea at this point?"
"Oh sweet Jesus," mutters Cyrus, running a hand over his face. "I'm living in Neverland."
"It could work." Cyrus peeks through his fingers to look at Danielle. The three staffers have been listening avidly for the last hour or so, but none of them have spoken until now. "It could," Danielle says a little more strongly, looking to Mellie. "We could sell it as…breathing new life into the party. We could transform Senator Grant into the face of change for the Republicans, catch the swing voters, maybe even entice a few Democrats."
Cyrus drops his hand. "None of this makes any difference if the party doesn't put her forward first."
"It will if we sell it right and catch enough attention," Bianca pipes up. "If we make your record work for us rather than against us, Senator."
Mellie nods, shifting her focus to Cyrus, who looks at the four of them like they're insane.
"Are you trying to be President, or trying to reform the Republican party?" Cyrus asks baldly. "Because only one is doable from where I'm sitting."
"Well, sit somewhere else," Mellie bites out. "I don't think the two are mutually exclusive."
"Of course you don't," Cyrus says under his breath. He sighs and leans forward, holding out his hands. "It isn't an…unsound strategy," he settles on delicately. "But it's irrelevant unless we get the nomination. Right now, we are literally nobodies in the game so before we go reaching for the moon, you need to swallow your pride and wrap yourself up in a pretty red bow for the right."
As mid-morning draws on, Mellie's house phone begins to ring. Cyrus holds up a hand and stalls Mellie from rising. "Media snoops looking for a sound bite. You don't answer phones anymore," he says, flicking his fingers towards Danielle who jumps to.
"Grant for President," is the greeting she gives when she answers the phone, and it's the most surreal thing Mellie has ever heard. Danielle politely directs whoever it is on the phone to her office on Capitol Hill, where Cyrus has designated all campaign-related questions to go until their headquarters is set up. Mellie says a prayer for her secretary as Danielle hangs up the phone.
They break in the afternoon for a quick lunch of Thai food that Cyrus sends Lucas out to get for them, and then get right back to it. Ideas are suggested and then discarded with such a quickness that it makes Mellie dizzy. By four, Cyrus's bag of sunflower seeds is almost empty and Mellie thinks they have a decent enough outline for her platform: education reform. It's something she's fairly passionate about and her voting record supports it, and Cyrus is pleased as punch by the way it plays into her image as a parent with two young children.
Mellie feels like nothing more than a political soccer mom, but lets it go, because it is a solid plan and she's tired of arguing with Cyrus. She leaves the four of them to planning the execution and moves to the downstairs study to unwind, and continue her work on the Senate's latest budget draft.
At half past eight, a sound of a clearing throat makes Mellie look up. Fitz is hovering in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
"Do you know that there are three teenagers in our dining room sharing a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream and arguing about your hair?" Fitz asks, casually leaning against the door frame.
"They're old enough to vote," Mellie responds. When the rest of Fitz's statement catches up to her, she blinks. "My hair?"
"Something about t-shirt designs, I think. The blonde girl seemed to think it was too big. I'm gonna guess they're not you're people."
"Olivia Pope hired them."
"Is she back?"
"No, not until after the holidays. She's proficient, I'll give her that." And although Mellie had been a bit hesitant about her three new staffers, they've proven to be resourceful and highly intelligent over the course of the day. Danielle even held her own with Cyrus damn near yelling at her. Mellie's impressed, with their work and with Olivia's eye for support.
"She'd have to be for Cyrus to speak so highly of her." Fitz's eyes seem to shine in the lamplight. "Between the two of them, I think you actually have a chance at winning this thing."
The statement raises gooseflesh along Mellie's skin, but she isn't sure exactly why. She leans back from her desk and looks up at her husband. "I'm glad you called Cyrus," she says, hoping Fitz hears the implicit thank you underneath her words. "Even though he's a tremendous pain the ass."
He offers her a lopsided smile and steps further into the room. "Your announcement was all I heard at work today. Everyone in the capitol is proud of you."
And Mellie lets herself pretend that that's his way of saying that he is, too. She rises from her chair and stretches, pulling out a kink in her back. "Dinner? There's leftover Thai. The kids could probably be persuaded to share some of their ice cream." Mellie thinks about Cyrus, then smiles. "There might even be some sunflower seeds left."
She laughs at the look Fitz gives her and for a moment, Mellie can almost make believe that she and Fitz are happy together again.
A/N: The sunflower seeds as a crutch for quitting smoking comes not from "Holes", but from personal experience. And I feel like Cyrus Beene has put away several cartons of Camels over the course of his life.
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