One
Blake rushed to collect the most important documents from the table so he could rush out of the room. He'd been helping Jay and Matt put together a plan, any plan, for getting China back on board before the whole deal, and likely the country they were in, blew up around them.
The world was on a hair trigger.
They'd pulled an all nighter, somehow ended up with the guys sequestered in one room with Nadine and Daisy working from another. Their boss had rotated between video calls and physically finding Chen in person and bodily halting his departure so they could talk. Blake had already heard about that particular moment from Keith from detail.
Now, they were racing through the halls, determined to get to the conference area in time to hand over the revised-for-the-sixteenth-time plans, plus the speech that Matt had nearly yanked his hair out to finish. The speech had gone through roughly four revisions for every treaty change, eventually Matt had thrown his pencil across the room and dug in to help Jay just get things done, citing no point on bothering with the speech until there was something to speak about.
Skidding around the corner into the hall that led to the right room, they nearly collided with Daisy. "We have a problem."
"No, no, no problems." Jay panted, holding his side. "No more problems. Treaty, speech, bed. That order. No problems."
"Treaty? Maybe. Speech? Not happening. Bed?" She made a pained noise.
"What? Wait! Why no speech?" Jay was clearly trying to catch up.
"No sleep, no breakfast."
They all squinted, trying to follow.
"Dinner?" Matt wondered; he couldn't remember when any of them last ate.
Daisy shrugged. "Nadine's with her, trying to assess the severity." The men suddenly realized they were missing their Chief of Staff. "No speech."
"There has to be a speech."
"Where are they." Jay interrupted Matt from saying more.
"This way." She rushed through the growing crowds, taking them to a small room tucked out of the way, Nadine standing at the door.
"We need to do better." The older woman stated by way of greeting, her voice pitched low. "How did none of us catch over twenty-four hours without eating?" They all exchanged looks and she sighed. "It's a problem."
"How much of a problem?" Jay pressed.
"We might be able to get her through the signing without incident, but standing up for a speech? She's lightheaded and feels like her heart is racing. I have serious concerns that she'll drop like a hot rock up there."
"So, what do we do?"
They all watched her debate. "We could lie." She glanced back into the room. "I mean, she looks bad enough to convince Chen and the others she's taken ill."
"What will that change? As far as all of this?" Blake couldn't help but ask.
"I can sign on her behalf, Jay can do the speech."
"I can start talking to contacts about getting this to blow over quietly." Daisy offered. "'Came down sick' is much more boring and will blow over faster than 'didn't remember to eat or sleep'."
"Go do that. Matt, help her. Jay and I'll go deal with Chen and everyone else. We need all the luck we can get."
"And, what about me?" Blake waved his hand a bit.
"See what you can do to fix this and then come up with ideas of how to make it not happen again." She huffed.
Blake sat in the desk chair and waited patiently. Once the attendees had filed into the ballroom, he'd carefully helped Elizabeth up to their rooms, she'd swayed dangerously when he'd gotten her to her feet. Now, he sat and watched her curled up on the bed while he waited for room service to turn up. Searching the desk, he found blank paper and jotted down some notes, thinking of the types of snacks his boss liked, quick and easy things to eat, he'd work on buying them and keeping them on hand.
By the time room service arrived, he had multiple lists made from research he'd done on his phone. Rearranging the tray, he collected orange juice first and took it to the bedside, giving her arm a shake to wake her up. "Ma'am. I have some juice."
"I'm not sure I can drink anything right now."
"It will make you feel better."
She blinked her eyes open before squeezing them back shut. "In a minute."
He frowned, mentally reviewing what he'd read online. Steeling himself, he tried to make his voice sound authoritative. "I need you to sit up and drink this. Now. The alternate is something more is wrong, and we need to make a trip to the hospital, which there will be coverage of, and the news will spin it that you are weak." His words seemed to work, she pushed herself up so she was leaning against the headboard.
"Give."
He passed her the glass and waited. "I ordered food as well."
"Well?" Nadine asked as soon as the door opened, looking up at him expectantly.
Blake huffed. "Give me a second." He stepped back into the room to tell Elizabeth he'd be back, snatched the key card, and then stepped into the hall. "I got her to drink a full glass of orange juice; was a little worried it wouldn't stay, but eventually she started picking on the food as well."
"That's good." Her lips pressed together as she considered. "I feel like this is our fault somehow. I know, our schedules are so crazy that remembering what time it is gets hard." She drew in a deep breath. "We should have seen it."
"I had a thought." He glanced toward the closed door. "I was doing research while I waited and made some lists, would it be crazy for me to just pack snacks?"
"I don't think that sounds crazy."
He pulled out his phone. "I have a list I found for quick sugar boost, one for things to avoid normally; there was a lot of information, I wrote down some notes on symptoms to watch out for."
"What about a list of comfort foods? I don't know about you, but some days I just need a bowl of tomato soup."
"But that varies for everybody. I wouldn't even know where to start."
"Ask her?" He balked but she carried on. "She was raised in Virginia, that'll give you some clues. But we can just ask questions in conversation and I'm sure she'd answer without really realizing."
"Okay. I had one other thing? How fast do you think I would get fired if I took it upon myself to make her eat?"
"Not fast at all, if you do it right. If you think it'll help avoid another today, I'm all in favor, I'm sure the others will be too."
After they'd arrived back in DC, Nadine swept through and asked them to all join her for a drink after work. They assembled later at a pub. "So." She started. "I think this was one of the most worrisome trips ever. It's a big deal that we have her, untested in the political area, young, woman, she can't have another event like this. We need to pay better attention." Matt started to say something, judging by his face, it was going to be an objection of some sort. Nadine cut him off. "It is our job, because we are the senior staff. Now. Blake put in a lot of work coming up with ideas, but one he mentioned I think we all can pitch in on. Having food on hand."
"Like, snacks?" Matt finally got out.
"Snacks. Meals. Look, I asked around and I can handle bringing morning pastries into the office. I stop for coffee most days anyway. A few times I've met her at the elevator with one of her own or a muffin of some kind when I had an update she needed. We can make that a thing?" Blake questioned.
"How do we keep track?" Daisy asked.
"Blake had a plan for that too. Literally add notes to the calendar of when to fit in every meal, when to take food through. It'll be his job as the gatekeeper, but we have to figure out an unobtrusive way to make sure we don't lose track of time."
"What about code?" Jay set down his glass. "An asterisk for mealtimes, maybe an octothorpe for something else?" Everyone stared at him. "What?"
"What's an octothorpe?" Matt asked what they all were thinking.
"A- uh, it's a pound sign. A number sign, you know?"
"I did not know it had a name." Daisy shook her head.
"Well, see. Learned something."
"Am I making symbols of the schedule then?" Blake went back to the topic at hand.
They all agreed.
Two
Jay stood, hands folded in front of himself, and waited as the ceremony continued. The staff was turned out for a Fourth of July event, given issues the administration had been having recently, it was decided that a little publicity from the country's favorite diplomat couldn't hurt. When the first mortars for the fireworks display began to go off, he caught the way his boss flinched. Another mortar and she tensed visibly. He'd seen it before, during his time in and after the military, fireworks were a big trigger sometimes for vets. The next mortar went off and she gasped, spurring him into motion. "Ma'am." He touched her arm and she jolted. "This way."
Jay looked for a private space, only finding a temporarily closed off eating area, it didn't do a whole lot for blocking the noise though of the fireworks display. "Here." He dug his phone out and unwound the headphones. "Put them on." He scrolled the screen, looking for anything that could drown out the sounds. "You're safe." He pulled another chair over so he could sit close. "You're safe."
It didn't take too many minutes before Blake stuck his head in, Jay waved at him to keep quiet as he stood and moved to the side to join him. From the chair, Elizabeth was now making a humming sound, as an attempt to distract herself further or to try and manage the stress response, he wasn't sure. "The fireworks." He offered as explanation.
"Oh. That makes sense, I guess."
"I had my headphones, pulled up my relaxing playlist." Jay sucked in a breath and let it gust out. "I've seen it before, in vets, it's brutal. Not that she'll ever admit it, but the best thing is to avoid triggers. I mean, therapy is tantamount, but avoidance is important. Otherwise you're just thrown back into that moment over and over again."
"I- Maybe I should have said something? Last week we had that reenactment and she seemed to get really anxious about that." He thought hard. "She gets the same way when Russell barges into her office too."
"Yeah, well, that's not surprising. I think we need to sit down together and see if anyone else has seen anything." Jay crossed his arms and looked back to where Elizabeth sat, eyes shut. "I know anxiety and PTSD can be separate beasts, but they can also be tied up together."
They were in a different pub this time, the holiday making their usual haunt too crowded. It was Jay who started them off, looping the other three fully into things before asking for ideas.
"We can't prevent every trigger." Matt pointed out. "Someone drops a glass, how to we stop that?"
"True. But we can prevent the things that we know will be triggers. There's another event tomorrow, we can have a reason we have to leave before the fireworks start." Jay responded. "We just need to pay attention. When we're scheduling appearances, we have to ask the questions about pyrotechnics, fireworks… Military displays. The music helped today, some people use noise cancelling headphones."
"I have no problem downloading music to my phone." Daisy offered. "Or we could have something that's just music."
"You know." Nadine finally joined in after much contemplation. "If we're going to do this- we've talked before about food issues and now we're talking about managing these symptoms, are there any others? Wouldn't it be more expedient if we hashed out what needs done to stop all of the anxiety and stress? The stuff we can manage anyway."
"Like… protocols at the office?" Daisy condensed.
"Something like that, yeah."
"Well." Blake thought out loud. "We came up with how to prevent fainting from not eating, which I think we've kept up on wonderfully." They'd been at it over a year and, so far, there hadn't been any further incidents. "So that's one. Avoiding loud, surprise noises would be two. I'll do better at heading off Russell Jackson. I have some other ideas, based on my own comings and goings, of what we could watch out for or manage. Sleep is a big one; I know we sometimes pull all nighters, but we still need to pay attention to her getting rest."
"That sounds do-able. I mean, letting her get pushed to the point of exhaustion, she wouldn't be able to do her job." Nadine agreed.
"What about the list?" Daisy looked between them, surprised when the men seemed confused. "Really, guys? Are you trying to tell me you don't know about the list?"
"I thought that list was a myth!" Matt raised his hands defensively. "There's really a list of which men women need to avoid?"
"I think it's at a size where it's classified as a document." Nadine filled in. "I'm aware of it, without OCR doing their job, it's the best we can do to stay safe."
"Suddenly I'm highly disgusted with men." Jay show his head. "So, do we tell her about the list?"
"Either she knows and feels it can't impact her work, or she doesn't know. But she can't exactly avoid those people without reason. Which means, some of them anyway, will get their chance with her eventually."
"So, what do we do if we know there's a problem?" Matt picked back up.
They all exchanged looks. "Well." Nadine shrugged one shoulder. "We can make a list and tell one another when we see a problem. Just like the protocols for everything else. Our own, internal, protocols."
"And call them what?" Daisy leaned in.
"We need a code word." Matt picked at the food between them.
"Blue." Jay offered. "Diplomatic Security code named her Bluebird, we could take from that and call them Blue. And we have, what, three or four now?"
"Uhh… four." Nadine helped.
"So we do just like the official ones, we give each issue a number. If more things come up, they just tack onto the list."
"Should I be writing this down?" Matt wondered aloud.
"No." Blake jumped back in. "Nothing written. It's got to stay secret. One is food, two is… the loud or sudden noises, the triggers, three is the sleep thing. We stay aware, we plan ahead, we research how to mitigate."
"Four is the list." Daisy pointed out.
"Right. Four is keeping an eye on the men that I'm sure Daisy and Nadine will share with us. If she has to interact with any of them, we'll just find an excuse for it to be a supervised interaction."
"You know, there's another one we should add. As a father, I think it might be a good balance." Jay rested his arms on the table. "Family time. Have you noticed how she gets when she's away a few days? It's hard being away from your family, your kids. I think sometimes if we could just get them on the phone or maybe make sure she doesn't miss something; it would be good."
"So, if she looks sad, we get her family?" Daisy asked. When he started to elaborate, she nodded and waved. "No, I get what you mean. If she's missing them or worried about them, it's a distraction. That shouldn't be hard to fix."
Three
"Blake!"
He rushed from his desk to the doorway. "Ma'am?"
She sank back into her seat with a heavy sigh. "We have to go to the White House."
"We? Ma'am?"
"Yeah. Can you find Jay." She rubbed her eyes roughly, making him wince. "I need to know if this plan to strongarm Russia is going to work or not."
"You-" He hesitated, glancing out as if he would be able to see Jay through the walls. "You mean China? Ma'am?"
"Yeah… What'd I say?"
"Russia."
"Oh." She yawned. "Either way, can you ask him about… it?"
Blake knew exactly where Jay was, flat on his back in his office. Asleep. The same place he'd been for the last two hours. "And why are we headed to the White House?"
"I'm needed in the sitroom. This crisis is starting to explode and if we can't reign Russia in, it's going to be war by morning."
He frowned at the repeat of the error. "Reign China in?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
"They need you to advise on a response to China? Now?"
She pressed both hands flat on her desk and stood. "Kinda the job, Blake."
"Stay here, I'll grab Jay." He rushed through the hall, shaking his friend awake. "You are needed in the sitroom."
"Me?" He asked while dutifully following Jay back. "Why me?"
"Because MSec is so exhausted she keeps saying Russia instead of China. She wanted your advice, but you need to help me convince her that you have to go in her place." He led the way back into the inner office. "Ma'am?"
"Jay, just the guy. Can you look this over quickly and see if you think it will work?" She held out a sheet of paper. "Things are heating up; this may be our last chance to cool them down."
"Sure." He took a seat, Blake took the other, and looked over the form. "You typed this up yourself?"
"Yeah."
Jay frowned and then held the sheet over so Blake could see it. It wasn't as cohesive as usual. "I could make some quick changes and then run over to the White House. Overall, I don't see there being an issue with getting this agreed on though."
"Why would you go?"
The men exchanged a look. "Frankly, Ma'am, you're not in any condition right now to be advising on a hot situation like this."
"Excuse me?"
"You need sleep, Ma'am. Your abilities are taking a hit, judgement, processing… You need to stay here." He watched her round the desk to object, bumping a cup, making it teeter dangerously until Jay lunged out to stop it from spilling. With one hand, Blake slipped his phone out of his pocket, Nadine was still in the building as well, hopefully she was close by. 'blue protocol three.' He typed before shooting Jay a look.
Four
'Blue four' popped up on Blake's phone. He and Jay were out to lunch attempted to convince a tech exec to release information to help them negotiate with Korea. He looked up in time to see Jay checking his as well. "Is Matt there?"
"Uh." Jay squinted as he thought. "I think he had that thing today, the writers symposium." He glanced back down at Nadine's message and texted back 'who?'
Three dots appeared only a second before a reply popped up. 'Federmore. Already on 7.'
Both men stood together, thanking the exec for his time before rushing back to Jay's car. "Why is Federmore at State?" He asked Blake.
"I have no idea. He wasn't on the schedule." Blake took over texting Nadine and reading her replies. "She says he turned up unannounced. She was in room B with the Ventin family and saw him come in. MSec wasn't in her office at first, he sat in wait. Just went in."
Jay pulled into the garage, stopping at the elevators. "You go up, I'll park and follow."
Blake nodded, darting out and to the bank of doors. Once the elevator opened onto seven, he tried to look like he wasn't running as he rushed to his desk, drew a calming breath, then picked up a black folder and moved to the door. "Madam Secretary." He spoke as the door pulled open. "There's an urgent situation…" He trailed off as if he hadn't realized he was interrupting. "I'm so sorry." He looked between his boss and Federmore. Both were on the sofa, Blake could tell by the body language alone that Federmore was living up to the rumors Nadine had heard. "You're needed at the White House, Ma'am."
She gave him a confused look and stood, moving to behind her desk casually, though Blake thought it looked more like evasion. She put her hand out for the folder. Blake swallowed, hoping she would simply understand. "Let's see what they need now. Have you called down to my detail?"
"Yes, Ma'am." He nervously handed over the folder and watched her open it, staring at what he knew was a sheet of blank white paper before bringing her eyes up to meet his. He glanced toward Federmore before giving her a nearly imperceptible nod. Before either of them could speak, Jay materialized in the doorway and she snapped the folder shut, passing it back.
"Good, Jay, Blake already filled you in I see. Thank you for getting back so quickly. You're going to have to come as well." She was around the desk again and headed for where he stood. "Mister Federmore, I'm so sorry, duty calls. If you give Blake your information, he'll schedule you a time when you can come back." Jay had stepped aside and fell in line beside her.
"Downstairs, Ma'am?" Jay whispered. "Detail is on standby."
"Let's go." She didn't speak again until they were safely in the elevator. "Weren't you and Blake having lunch with that CEO?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
She turned and studied him until the doors opened on the lower level. "Then how did you know Federmore turned up? He wasn't on the schedule."
"Ma'am." He gave her a knowing smile and shook his head as they climbed into the SUV and waited.
"And how did you know what he was going to do?"
"Do? Ma'am?"
"You're been exceptionally evasive you know."
He sighed and started to answer, but the door popped open again and Blake climbed in, shutting the door and making them crowd together.
"Blake?"
"Yes?" He turned his best doe eyes at her.
Suspicion and amusement washed over her face. "Explain yourself."
"It's classified." He exchanged a brief look with Jay.
"Classified?"
"Yes." His phone pinged. "The coast is clear; we can go back up." Desperate to avoid questions, he bolted from the SUV.