Michael sat motionless on the edge of the mattress, as Lincoln explained the situation. The tangle of sheets behind him sometimes added a blush to his cheeks when he became aware of it – which was foolish, foolish.

Somehow, his mind could not reconciliate the words that came out of his brother's mouth with reality.

"Abruzzi had his people hack into my phone," Lincoln said, "so he could see the film even as I was filming it. In case I got caught, you know."

Silence stabbed in with every pause he took, so overwhelming, and Sara was so obviously the source, she couldn't have spoken one word of anger that would have been more powerful.

"So I could just delete it and he could have the evidence himself."

"How clever."

While Michael had sat on the motel room bed – had had little choice when his knees started sinking, when he realized just how big, and how ugly, the situation they were in was likely to get – Sara had remained standing. And Michael had to say, he'd never thought how impressive she would look, opposite Lincoln, whose square bulk must amount to at least two of her.

Of course, Sara was tall, taller than a lot of men – that conveniently included Senator Bagwell – and Lincoln's head must only exceed hers by a mere four inches. But that she'd be able to radiate such majesty, right at this moment, with her clothes roughly put on, none of the hairdo and makeup that usually participated to Michael's capacity to tell them apart. Sara-the-woman and Sara-the-politician.

It wasn't until his brother came ominously knocking on the middle of Halloween night, just a couple of weeks before election day, and he witnessed as Sara was caught completely off guard, that Michael realized her awe-inspiring power had nothing artificial.

Part of him wished she had sat down next to him. They should be together in this – they were together in this awful mess his own brother had put them in. There he was, almost before he could realize how – a witness, not just in Sara's life now, but in his own. No television screen between them. If he got up, he could touch her, punch his brother, do as he liked.

Still he sat and watched Sara and Lincoln, facing each other in grandiose battle, the one with coldly curbed ire, the other with a pragmatical air Sara could mistake for indifference – she didn't know Lincoln, didn't know how apologies never communicated to his face.

As if he'd heard the very thoughts as they entered his brother's head, Lincoln said, "I'm sorry." Without particular emphasis or unnecessary feeling. "I didn't know what I'd be doing." Turning to his brother – whom, by all means, he must have trouble looking at in earnest. "I didn't know who she was to you, Mike –"

"And you didn't know you'd be giving John Abruzzi all the right tools to blackmail me into quitting the race?"

Sara's interruption caused Lincoln's eyes to shoot right back at her. Some nameless feeling in Michael's chest burned heavy and red, a red-iron tattoo that told the tale of his impotent shame.

Maybe it was better this way.

"No," Lincoln said. "I knew that."

"Good." Sara sized him up as she spoke, the way you size up spiders when you've decided killing them was cruel.

My brother and my lover. It struck him again, across the face, not so much like a slap than a ninety-mile-an-hour delivery truck, blowing his own brains with what was happening, how huge and irreparable.

My God, he thought. My God.

"How much?" Sara asked. "I've always wanted to know the price people put on this sort of things. How much to follow me around? To violate my privacy? To hide in some building and watch me making love to your brother?"

"Sara –"

"Oh, Michael. You really think anything I can say will make this awkward?"

Her eyes were back on Lincoln, full force, like with Bagwell during the debates.

When his own brother played the part of her adversary, how could Michael be her ally?

Lincoln didn't answer her question, but not out of shame. There was no point, right now, in naming any price – none, however dear to him (or to Michael) could sound worthy.

"There's no way I can justify what I did," he said. "The only thing I can do is warn you, and promise you one day, I will pay my debt to you."

"Considering who you get your money from, I'm not sure I want payment."

Sara released Lincoln from her gaze at last. Oxygen rushed into Michael's lungs, as if he'd been the one standing trial just then.

Sara then moved towards the door, where her purse lay, a couple of feet into the room. Probably, the remembrance of dropping it as she and Michael kissed hungrily was alive and breathing in her brain, as in Michael's, still she didn't blush, didn't look down.

Michael couldn't see how she didn't take part in his shame at all – couldn't understand how a single experience could have caused such a profound split.

But then it struck him, they hadn't been through the same thing at all.

Michael had been betrayed by a brother, and his latest action just came at the top of a tall hill of misconduct.

Sara had been spied on by a stranger even as she was at her most scandalous, and the stakes were the highest in the country – the stakes were the American presidency.

It was only when she motioned towards the door that Michael realized she might actually walk out of here without adding a word. "Sara." He called.

What an idiot.

What a dumb fish pining for a sea queen.

"I have to call Paul," she said.

Yes, Paul.

Paul was the man to call in such a situation.

When you thought about it (as Michael did), Paul was the man who truly shared Sara's life. Surely, she spent more hours with him on the phone in one day than she spent in motel rooms with him in a full week.

Friendship was a starter, but certainly not the main course – Paul was much more important than a friend. He was her problem-solver, her strategy-thinker. The man who trained her when she needed to strengthen her arguments, who bruised her so her skin would toughen up.

Paul could help her make it in this world. Knew his way around it, knew the sharks that needed to be fought to death and those who needed to be won over.

Paul was her man of action.

"Governor –" Lincoln interceded before she could reach the door.

The look Sara gave him was nearly all anger – which was just another reason why she needed to leave, Michael reckoned.

Maybe he didn't know the exact colors of her childhood in all its subtle forms, but he knew enough – knew Sara was too well-used to keeping her emotions in check to tolerate such outbursts within herself.

"I only wanted to say, if I cost you the presidency –"

"You didn't cost me the presidency." Sara didn't flinch, didn't bat an eye. "You dumped one stinky pile of garbage on my red carpet, for sure, but I'll get through that. Senator Bagwell should have spent more time on his own strategy rather than thinking he could blackmail his competition."

Sara added just one more thing before she closed – not quite slamming – the door on her way out.

"I haven't gotten where I am now so some racist pig could manhandle me into backing down."

…

End Notes: I realize some parts of this chapter may have looked unusual to you. When you have a situation in fiction when a man watches as his woman is offended, you usually get more action from the man, but this is precisely one of the things I wanted to tackle. When you think about it, Sara plays the male part in that story, and Michael's stuck with a typically feminine role – he's passive and can't really compete with Sara or protect her, which is the naturally male thing to do.

At first, I believed I was going to write something typical like this, merely out of habit, but in the end, I thought: how much more awful would it be for him to just stand there, helpless, which is what he can only feel in that situation? How much more real?

What interests me about this story is writing a female politician who's not all about love-interests, and a male character who's struggling to play an active role in her world but is ill-equipped for it. Michael will get there, don't worry ;). And he will confront Lincoln about what he did. I just feel this is a story that's been written so many times before, the least I can do is write it differently.

Please share your thoughts on this and on the chapter in general! Best to you all.