Disclaimer: I don't own Scandal.
Author's Note: Better late than never. For those still interested in reading this, it's definitely in progress with 14 chapters altogether. So we're slowly getting there.
Reviews are wonderful feedback as always, positive or negative. I hope you guys continue to enjoy reading this.
Fata Morgana
'Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind.'
Helen Keller
The sunshine blinds your eyes as you exit the car, and when your eyes finally, painfully adjust to it, you see an angel with a burning halo staring directly at you. You can't see the expression on her face – with the sun behind her, she's nothing more than a halo of a holy, pure yellow fire surrounding her the top of her silhouette, but she's staring at you and you don't know why. Your initial assumption (presumption) that the little girl sidekick to Mellie Grant had the hots for you was palpably untrue. You know that now. You'd have known that the first time you'd met her if you'd actually paid attention to her. It means that now, you have no idea why she's staring at you.
You hear clicks behind you – the roads are full of hot, dead dust, there's a desert full of sand around here and Mellie Grant still chooses to wear her ridiculous heels. You feel her presence behind you and then Mellie Grant, wearing said heels, walks around you towards the girl with the burning yellow hair.
She's been ignoring you since yesterday, since the car journey and the question and the half smile (more of an eighth at best, really). But she turns around and stares at you and it takes a second (a second too long) for you to realise that she's waiting for you to move.
Her hair is too dark to look like a halo of any sort, she has far too much weight to look gamine and her figure's too curvaceous to look angelic. Her silhouette is a womanly one and it's far more appealing than the silhouette of a gamine angel with a golden halo. Far too childlike and reminds you horribly, horribly of your father (and sister) but the thoughts are pushed away, like always.
She's in a bad mood today. Not that her mood is ever sunny, but there's been not the teeny tiniest hint of a real smile today, not an eighth, not even a sixteenth. You understand, though. In some distant, dusty part of your heart, you think you may even sympathise. Empathy is beyond your scope, sympathy is just within it.
It's been just the one meeting today, with the not-quite-head of security here (a known mass murderer) and the not-quite-head of country here (acknowledged in political circles as the puppeteer to the puppet that officially runs this country, or destroys it, according to Mellie Grant's harsh whispers to her most trusted (and blondest) side kick).
It wasn't pleasant.
They didn't blink an eye when the numbers of deaths and murders were recounted. Nor when the number of rapes and orphans, of child soldiers and breaches of human rights were listed. The blinks came when the little child-like blonde side-kick shifted, and the blinks were directed to her legs, her breasts, lips were licked too. The only other blinks came when Mellie Grant herself shifted, squeezing her legs shut tightly because she refused to give these perverted bastards anything extra to masturbate over. But they had nevertheless eyed her up and down, openly licked their lips, rubbed their hands over their thighs (but not quite their penises). She's understandably livid by the end of it.
'When is my husband coming, indeed,' she snarls under her breath so that only the little blonde girl can hear. You just read her lips. She's livid over her lack of power, which you understand. She seems completely unfussed by the creeps that have undressed her and will no doubt masturbate thinking about her (or maybe fuck one of their mistresses or whores or wives, imagining her body and her screams). She hasn't mentioned that at all, not acknowledged it. It's not PTSD – you've seen enough poor sods with that to know that this isn't it. But why, then, is she ignoring her own sexual objectification?
It doesn't matter. Her bad mood has destroyed the mood of all those around her, except yourself. You don't have a mood that could worsen, not since you've left Washington (and Olivia) behind. Everyone's acting stifled, stiff and unnatural, in the simmering sun. Everyone's subdued as they making their ways back to their rooms. And Mellie Grant isn't even bothering with a fake smile.
The uncomfortable thought crosses your mind. Are there cameras in Mellie Grant's chambers here? Cameras that watch her dress and undress for less than professional reasons? Should you have a look around there, ensure there's nothing? When will you get the chance to do this when you're equally busy making sure Fitz hasn't hired someone to kill his wife?
You follow the President's wife as quietly as the rest of her entourage do, the blonde little girl's gaze very skittish. You keep looking at her directly, even as you use your peripheral vision to ensure Mellie Grant isn't dying today. You do wonder if this is getting on her nerves. She's been so very careful to not look at you unless demanding something, like your movement. Careful to maybe look at your face but never into your eyes that maybe staring at her is bugging her. You hope it is. Assassins turned bodyguards can get bored on the job. Rather easily, actually, and nothing wrong with annoying the object of your protection, is there?
That's how you find yourself, just shy of midnight, when all of the little President's wife's minions are in bed and fast asleep, knocking on her door. Repeatedly, because the first set didn't seem to have any effect. So you knock a second time, a second set. You shift ever so slightly, getting restive and the skinniest tendrils of anxiety making an appearance. You're on to your fourth set of increasingly loud knocks when the door is yanked open and you see the sleep deprived, tousled, make-up free, angry face of Mellie Grant.
You have to choke back laughter. Her hair is HUGE – the sixties would have been proud. Her skin looks pale, the shadows under her eyes appear dark and her lips look dried and chapped.
You don't laugh, though, because she looks ready to punch you. Olivia was gifted at using words as her weapons, and Mellie Grant doesn't come close to that but she is still fairly articulate, but she is also far more physical. Her fists are at her side, ready to be utilised and you don't think she'll hesitate if you dare to laugh.
It's common sense, to speed up the entire plan for the night, you tell yourself. You secretly wonder if it was self preservation at work instead.
'I told you, not until the end of this trip,' she snarls.
'That's not why I'm here.' Shit. You hadn't thought of that interpretation of your actions, and double shit, you've never actually denied her stupid allegations, have you? Pretty bad time to realise this. You're starting to think that your current sleep deprivation might be impacting you. Or more likely your mood – you've definitely gone longer without sleep with no impact on your abilities.
'What is this?' Mellie demands rather than asks, as always. 'What are you doing here?'
"I wanted to check your room for cameras.'
She literally stares at you open-mouthed. You've heard of the phrase but you'd genuinely never seen it before now.
'No,' she says at all.
'No?' You ask, incredulity marring the word.
'No. No, you cannot come into my chambers, in the middle of the god-damned night, to look for bloody cameras. So, no.'
She really has an eye for dramatics, you muse as you watch her wildly moving arms. She's lethal and she's lethal unintentionally. Those arms could seriously knock out the eyes of some poor unsuspecting bastard.
You sigh, audibly and deeply and full of rich, creamy frustration. 'Look, I don't know what you think you know or what you think your rights are, but there could be a camera in there, one that watches you dress and undress and it's not going to be professional people looking at those videos.'
'You honestly think I haven't already had someone look through that room before sleeping in it?'
When she says it like that, with the southern drawl so accentuated, she does make it sound really stupid. 'You mean by one of those guys, who follow you around because you're the President's wife, not because they give a shit about you?' Shit, you really need to get some sleep. You hurry on with your words, speaking louder because louder means more convincing, more conviction. Right? 'One of the guys on your husband's payroll? One of the guys that is literally your husband's guys, not your own?'
She stares at you. In silence. In an unnerving, increasingly awkward silence. And then her answer is a single syllable word. 'Yup.' And she crosses her arms for added cinematic effect.
What the fuck is wrong with this woman? You yourself love Olivia, so you've definitely understood why Fitz would fall in love with her. Now you're starting to get how easily he could fall out of love with Mellie Grant.
'You realise there might be some perverted guy out there, watching you dress and undress, probably almost certainly touching himself watch you dress and undress?'
'You mean the guys that already mentally undressed me and wanked over me? Yup.'
Now you stare at her. At least she's not utterly and beyond stupidly oblivious but that indifference has to be a façade. No decent, self-respecting woman would be that uncaring about being objectified!
'And you're okay with it?'
'Why shouldn't I be?' She retorts, eyes narrowed and her voice so full of derision and fuck this, fuck her, you've had it with her attitude.
'Because no decent, self-respecting woman would be this uncaring about being objectified.' Your voice is just as derisive.
Her mouth is hanging open again and the part of you that's feeling guilty is far outweighed by the part of you that's relieved she's finally shut up. Until she starts speaking again, her pitch higher and far more painful than before.
'Decent, self-respecting woman? You mean like Olivia?' The syllables roll off her tongue like the taste of rotten eggs or spoilt milk.
'I never said Olivia,' you counter, not quite lying. You'd been thinking about her but had never verbally made that comparison.
'You think her tight-fitting fashionable clothes doesn't help a little with her success? You think her nice, big well-rounded breasts and tight ass don't get her something a little extra, even unconsciously given? You think my husband's handsome face and charming smile didn't help more than his mediocre IQ and absence of political savvy? You think your height doesn't help? You know the god damned statistics. You know appearances help. You know good looks help. You know people are that disgustingly shallow and that the world is that disgustingly unjust. I don't support it occurred to you that whether they see me undress or not, they'll do it mentally and masturbate anyway. And if they do see me naked, so fucking what? Is that going to physically hurt me? Emotionally? Make me worth less than I am right now? What's the actual consequence if they are watching me?' Her breathing is laboured, she's all but panting from self-righteous wrath and fuming fury.
'So am I an indecent woman with no self-respect or am I just honest about what the world is like and what those stupid twisted perverts will be doing and thinking regardless?' There a second of complete silence that suffocates you. It's then punctuated by the slam of her doors in your face. And for the second time this week, Mellie Grant leaves you stunned into silence.