Nadine and Blake for the prompt: "You did this for me?"

She comes back to the office over the weekend, two days after she has said her goodbyes and turned in her official letter of resignation. Her thought is that the floor will be empty and she'll be able to collect the rest of her things without much fuss. And maybe leave some things behind while she's at it.

Nadine is dressed more casually than she has ever been dressed in this building—worn jeans and flats—but figures she's allowed this now that she no longer represents an entire agency when she's here. She brings two empty cartons up the elevators with her.

It's a ghost town. With the shutdown now in full effect, there's barely a security guard in sight, let alone a staffer, and the quiet is a little eerie. Most of her things had already been cleared from her office, but there are still tchotchkes and folders and loose bits and other things that are still stowed away in various drawers and cabinets, so she sets to work packing some things up and throwing other things away.

She finds five unopened boxes of her favorite Pilot pens in the credenza along with half a dozen blank legal pads, so she walks them over to Matt's office and leaves them all on his desk. Whenever he'd get writer's block, he'd always liked to work out his thoughts long-hand, and loved to use her pens to do it. He'd often steal them from her when he thought it wouldn't make her mad, and then would use them to turn out a speech so brilliant that she couldn't make herself find fault in the dishonesty of his process. Hopefully, if and when he returned to work, he'd make good use of the stash. And then she finds a heavy fountain pen still in its box in the top drawer of her desk—a gift, she thinks, from someone from years ago, though she can't remember now—and she leaves that for Matt, too.

She leaves her bottle of office scotch for Jay, tucked into his desk drawer with a sticky note on it, and her expensive tins of loose leaf teas for Daisy. Daisy had told her once that she thought they were a bit of a fuss for the office, especially when Nadine kept perfectly serviceable tea bags stocked in the break room, but Nadine had simply shrugged and told her that some days warranted the extra fuss. She leaves her a glazed ceramic vase too, one the other woman had openly admired, setting it right on the corner of Daisy's now-cleared desk. In however many weeks it takes for Daisy to return to work, after the furlough and her maternity leave, Nadine will have fresh flowers delivered to go into the vase.

Back in her own office, Nadine is popping the lid on both filled cartons when she hears the faint sound of the elevator chiming. A few moments later, she sees Blake stride past the blinds. He steps inside when he sees that her office isn't empty.

"Unpacking?" he says brightly, without so much as a hello. "You went home, slept on it, and then decided you couldn't possibly leave us, right?"

She chuckles. "Not a chance."

"It was a slim hope."

"What are you doing in today?"

"Looking for Nadine Tolliver two-point-oh," Blake announces. "Once word of your resignation got out, resumes started flying in for the job... I want to get a head start on the search before the applications have a chance to bury me."

"Ah."

"If you'd like to put in for the job, I'll put you on the shortlist," he adds magnanimously.

"How considerate of you."

"My friendship comes with perks."

She grins. "I'm glad I ran into you, actually. I have something for you."

"For me?"

"I was just going to leave it in your desk, but..." She reaches into her jeans pocket and walks over to hand him a small flash drive. "My Rolodex," she explains. "I scanned it for you."

He blinks, holding it in his palm, just staring at it. And then looks up at her with an expression she can't identify. "You did this for me?"

"I did. Don't go spreading it around or anything."

"I thought you... I thought you didn't want it digitalized."

"I didn't, but I'm out of public service now, so..." She shrugs. "Keep it safe. Those files are for your eyes only."

He tucks it safely into his pocket. "Thank you," he says sincerely. "This is… I'm overwhelmed."

"You're very welcome."

"So... you're really not coming back? Not even... not even to consult?"

"I've done my time in public service," is all she says.

"What will you do next?"

"I don't know yet."

"You should teach," he says.

"Maybe," she says noncommittally. The truth is, she hasn't given much thought to what she wants to do now or next. Not when she's still processing this departure.

"I think you would be a great professor," Blake goes on. "I would've loved to have been taught by you. I mean, I have been taught by you... that's how I know I could've used a mentor like you when I was twenty and unsure. Maybe you could have saved me that wasted year in finance." He grins openly.

Nadine laughs. "That's a lot of confidence in my mentorship. I don't know, though, we'll have to see... I think I just want to enjoy being retired for a while."

"I think you'll last about two weeks before retirement starts to drive you insane," he predicts. "And that's a generous estimate."

"You never know. Maybe I'll be good at it."

He snorts. "Sure." He gestures to the boxes. "Are those going home with you?"

"Yes."

He stacks one on the other and lifts the whole thing. "Come on, then. I'll carry them down to your car. Maybe you can take me out to lunch before I start digging into these resumes."