"Little Things" series—Nadine/Mike domestic scenes
One. About her ex.
Nadine's personal phone chimes with an incoming text.
She's sitting on one end of the couch, back against the armrest, legs outstretched and tangled in the middle with Mike's. It's a quiet evening; they've been working through their respective briefs in companionable silence.
She reaches over to grab her phone from the coffee table. Mike glances up—Nadine furrows her brow as she hesitantly taps out a reply. She sets the phone on her thigh and returns her attention to her work, halfway. Her eyes keep flitting back to the phone, waiting for a reply.
The screen lights up again, but this time it's a call, and she snatches it up, disentangles her legs from his as she gets off the couch wordlessly. She pads over to the next room before, faintly, Mike hears her answer it.
The exchange is brief—no more than a few minutes—and she laughs a couple times. Not that he's eavesdropping. She returns with the traces of a smile on her face. She retakes her seat, legs curled under her, and picks up her briefing book again. It doesn't seem like she feels inclined to share, but Mike's curiosity gets the better of him and so—
"Who was that?" he asks, casual. At least he hopes it comes across as casual.
Nadine glances at him and smiles before looking down to jot a short note in the margins of the document. "My ex-husband. He's in town for a conference; wanted to see if I had time to catch up over lunch."
Mike straightens up. "I didn't realize you were amicable with your ex-husband."
She simply shrugs. "We're not… close. We almost never speak to each other. But I shared parts of my life with him, so…" she trails off.
He can't say he understands. He's shared plenty with his ex-wife, yet would never dream of even being in the same room as her unless under threat of extreme bodily harm. And from what he's learned of Nadine's relationship with her ex—from the little that she's shared (she doesn't mention him often)—he really is confused.
And she had just come back into the room smiling. What's that about, anyway? But, "I see," is all he says. Even though he doesn't.
Over the tops of her glasses, she examines him. "We always try to make time to see each other whenever we're in the same city," she supplies. "I don't know why. It's just become habit."
"So you are friends." He tries not to sound resentful about it—firstly because he doesn't know yet if he actually is, and secondly because he does know that he has no right to be.
"We… understand each other," she says simply.
What does that even mean? He makes a small, disparaging little noise in the back of his throat by accident and hopes she doesn't notice. No such luck. She raises an eyebrow at him.
He says, "So when are you meeting him?"
Nadine puts her pen down. "Mike," she says carefully, "Are you jealous?"
"Course not," he says, although he's quite certain that he is, and quite certain that she sees right through him. "I just don't really understand the motivation to ever speak to your—" He doesn't complete that sentence because Nadine is tossing aside her work files and crawling into his lap. She winds her arms around his neck, and though there's a little smirk teasing her lips, her gaze is tender.
"Don't be jealous," she murmurs. "We haven't loved each other in that way for years."
"You can speak for yourself," he says a little sullenly, "but with men, you might think that they—"
"He definitely doesn't."
"But how can you be sure—"
"Mike. He's happily married. To someone who isn't me. He has been for... quite some time now."
Oh. Mike relaxes. He guesses that's okay. She's still straddling his lap, and regarding him with bemusement.
She tilts her head to catch his eyes. "Okay?"
He winds an arm around her waist and pulls her closer into him. "Yeah, okay."
"Nothing to worry about." She runs her fingertips through his hair with simple affection.
"Good." He holds her chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Because you're mine now."
She kisses him in agreement.
Two. The abyss.
Nadine stands in the shower and cries.
Thankfully the showerhead muffles the noise well enough; she doesn't want Mike to hear, if he's home by now. If he knows she's hurting, he'll drop everything just to try and make it better and that's not what she needs right now. She just needs to be alone.
Dead children today. In Libya. And no Congressional budget; no support from Defense; no help at all; nothing, nothing they could do. They all fought hard this week, tooth and nail; she called in every favor and pulled every dirty play in the book to push for aid to evacuate the camp. But nothing.
One of the worst weeks since they let those girls in Kyrgyzstan suffocate to death in the truck. They were all hurting like hell.
The Secretary had sealed herself in her office for the rest of the evening. Nadine could swear she saw tears—and Elizabeth McCord never cried. Daisy had dashed half the glassware to the break room floor, shattering them to pieces and practically vibrating with the intensity of her frustration and anger. Jay had left early to be with his daughter. Blake had pulled a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer of his desk and taken it to Matt's office. They were still in there when Nadine had finally left, bottle nearly finished.
And mercifully, when she'd gotten home, it was empty. Mike wasn't home yet, and she wasn't ready to talk about it. She'd stripped out of her clothes, leaving them in a careless heap on the floor, and gotten into the shower, heating the water as hot as she could stand it.
She stands under the spray now, and heaves deep sobs, from the chest. She's tired of fighting this same kind of fight. Tired of losing it.
There's a brief knock on the bathroom door and then it opens in the next second. "Nadine, I was looking for my shoe polish and I can't seem to—hey. Hey, what's wrong?"
Apparently, he doesn't even have to see her face to know that something isn't right. And now the jig is up, so Nadine doesn't even bother to hide the fact that she's crying so hard that it makes her entire body convulse. She presses one hand against her mouth desperately, using the other to brace herself against the tiled wall.
Mike approaches with an expression of grave concern and what is possibly low-grade panic; he's never seen her cry before, let alone like this. She can't even form words. Without hesitation, he opens the glass door and steps in behind her, fully-clothed and all. He wraps strong arms around her waist and pulls her back against him and she cries even harder.
"It's okay," he says in her ear, even though he couldn't possibly know what's wrong. He presses comforting kisses across her shoulder, the back of her neck. "It'll be okay." And he holds onto her so, so tight; as if his heart is breaking with hers.
Three. Meeting his son.
Nadine is elbow-deep in sudsy dishwater when Mike comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. She startles a little, but allows him to kiss her cheek.
"You don't have to do this you know," he says, reaching down to roll up her left shirtsleeve, which is in danger of unraveling right into the water. "You don't even eat breakfast. These aren't even your dishes." He kisses the back of her neck.
"I don't mind." She'd gotten back from work at a reasonable hour for once, and had the time. She hasn't even changed yet—she's still in her work clothes, although she'd yanked out her shirttails and pushed up her sleeves.
Mike begins to rummage around the kitchen, pulling out various food items for dinner and setting up a cutting board on the island. He's still in his work clothes too, with tie and jacket discarded, and rolls his sleeves up his forearms. He pulled out a bottle of Chardonnay from the wine refrigerator too, and removes the cork and pours out two generous glasses.
Nadine finishes stacking the clean dishes on the drying rack and towels her hands dry as he hands her a glass. "Go relax. I'll get dinner started."
Just as she's about to head upstairs, there is a light but insistent knocking on the door. She hesitates, and looks back toward the kitchen. Mike is making a racket; she doubts he even heard. "There's—" she begins, but changes her mind; it's most probably a solicitor. She pads over to the front door herself and opens it.
There's a sullen looking teenager standing on the porch, but he doesn't look like he's selling anything. He looks at Nadine and furrows his brow. "Uh… hi," he says uncertainly. "Is my dad here?"
Oh. Oh, Nadine was not prepared for this. She wasn't prepped for this, either. Automatically, she steps aside to let him in, saying, "Of course; he's in the—"
"Nadine, who's at the door?" Mike calls from the kitchen.
She doesn't take her eyes off of the boy, who is still rooted to the porch and hasn't budged. "I believe it's your son," she calls back. Mike's son is still staring at her baldly, like he has no idea who she is or what she's doing there, and she can't blame him. Muffled, she hears Mike curse to himself. He rushes out and skids to a halt beside her in the foyer on socked feet.
"I forgot to tell you Theo is joining us for dinner," he says with a weak smile. "I'm sorry."
And also forgot to tell him I was? Nadine wants to ask, but she can already discern the answer to this question from Theodore Barnow's clueless face.
The boy steps inside, and gives Gordon a pat when the canine comes up to greet him. "Who's she?" he mutters to his father, even though Nadine is quite within earshot. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder in her direction.
"She's my—"
Nadine cuts in. "Nadine Tolliver, how do you do." She extends her hand, and Theo reluctantly shakes it with a weak grip. "I'm his colleague." She gives Mike a raised eyebrow. They'll discuss this later.
Sorry, he mouths.
"Guess he didn't mention he had a kid, huh?"
"Oh, he did—"
"So then, just not that I was showing up tonight."
He's got her there. "Well…"
"My mistake," Mike supplies. "I got the dates flipped."
Suspiciously, Theo's eyes narrow and dart between them. "Did I ruin date night or something?"
"Of course not," Mike says, rolling his eyes. "Don't be difficult, Theo. Come on—come help me in the kitchen."
They all head back to the kitchen, where there is an explosion of vegetables on the counter and an open pot on the stove. Theo makes a beeline for the back cabinet—where the wine glasses are kept—and grabs the open bottle of Chardonnay off the island before either Mike or Nadine can blink. But Mike smoothly pulls it out of his hands before he can self-pour, like he's had to do this several times before.
Mike tops off his own glass and Nadine's, before giving his son a pointed look and re-corking the wine and placing it in the fridge. When the water on the stove begins to boil, Mike pours in a box of pasta, and Nadine sets her glass down and grabs up the produce. She takes them to the sink so that she can rinse them off.
Theo leans against the island and scrutinizes them both. He drums his fingers on the granite countertop. "So dad," he begins. "Do you invite all of your colleagues home for dinner, or just the ones you plan to f—"
"Don't be crass." Mike says sharply. His tone brooks no argument. Nadine sighs inwardly—it's going to be a very long evening.
Theo shrugs easily, with the temperament of a teenager trying to determine which buttons are best to push and when. And while Nadine is a little out of practice with teenagers, she remembers this well. Roman hadn't exactly been the easiest person to raise, either.
Theo turns to Nadine. "Does my mom know about you?"
She raises an eyebrow. "I doubt it."
Mike pulls the zucchini out of her hands and places them on a cutting board in front of his son. "Chop." Theo rolls his eyes, but begins to cut. As Mike passes by her again, he slides his hand over her waist briefly, as if in reassurance, and she flashes him a smile because he's probably the one who needs the reassurance more. She swears can feel Theo's eyes boring into the back of their heads.
It's going to be a very long evening, indeed.
Four. Running late.
"Damn it. Mike, have you seen my shirt?"
Nadine runs around his bedroom in a panicked flurry, hooking earrings into her ears as she tries to locate her missing blouse. She's sure Mike would help, except that she's wearing nothing more than a pencil skirt and bra and he's probably enjoying the view too much to move.
"Where's the last place you saw it?" he suggests from the bed, rather uselessly. Nadine wonders if anyone has ever been less helpful.
"I should be asking you that," she says, rolling her eyes, "seeing as you're the one who practically ripped it off of me last night and flung it god-knows-where." Nadine crouches down, getting on her knees so that she can look under the bed. Not there.
"You know, maybe you should start keeping some things here," Mike says casually, and she nearly hits her head on the bed frame with the rapidity that she pops up to look at him.
"What?"
"I mean—you spend so much time here anyway. And then, you know, you wouldn't have to panic the next time you're running late." His tone is reasonable.
Gordon comes bounding into the bedroom, a length of black chiffon trailing from his mouth. He drops it by Nadine's feet and paws at the ground excitedly. "There it is!" Nadine exclaims, and picks it up and gives it a shake. She turns and glares at Mike. "Your dog is more helpful than you are."
"Gordon's a good boy," he agrees, dangling his hand off the edge of the bed. Gordon pads over to him and Mike scratches him behind the ears.
Nadine swipes a bit of dog saliva from the cuff of the sleeve with distaste before pulling it on. She walks in front of the mirror as she buttons up and tucks in her shirt, checking to make sure it's still presentable. She thinks it'll do.
She pauses for a second. "Damn it—shoes," she mutters.
"In the foyer," Mike supplies. "Did you want your jewelry?"
"My—"
He leans over and scoops them up from the bedside table.
"Oh, yes. Thank you." Nadine fastens her necklaces and her watch. She regards Mike with some hesitation. "I really have to go, but we can talk about the…"
"You leaving your things here."
"Yes, that. We'll discuss it later, okay?"
"Okay," Mike says easily.
She walks over, leans down to kiss him. "I'll call you tonight." She walks out of the bedroom.
"Nadine."
She turns around.
"Your skirt is still unzipped in the back."
She curses, yanking the zipper up as she makes her way down the stairs.
From his room, she can hear Mike shout, "Have a good day!"