"I'm sorry, but where the hell is the file on North Dakota?" Annabeth Chase snapped as she stomped through the lines of desks and stacks of papers and briefings and folders. Even before 8am, the wing was full and bustling as everyone got to work over their second cups of coffee. "I have to get to the Hill in five minutes, and I'm running on two cappuccinos and a pack of fruit snacks, so—"
"I left a bagel on your desk, and don't forget about senior staff at two, I heard we're finally getting a new guy in the communications office." Piper's dark hair popped up from behind a nearby cubicle partition.
Annabeth wheeled around, nearly tripping over a loose bit of carpet in her heels. "You left me a bagel?"
"Well, half a bagel," Piper admitted. "But still! It's food, so eat it on the way, okay? You can handle Republicans or you can handle being hangry, but it's a fool's errand to try both at the same time."
Annabeth grimaced, knowing her friend was right. "Fine. Thank you."
"You mean, oh, you're amazing and the best friend-slash-secretary-slash-speechwriter ever!" Piper called after her.
"You have enough of an ego without me giving you more compliments," Annabeth pointed out, ducking into her office just long enough to grab the half of a bagel that was indeed sitting on her desk.
"It's true, I'm amazing!" Piper chirped over a stack of paperwork nearly as tall as she was.
Thanks to the bagel and the whole twenty quiet minutes she'd gotten to herself that morning, Annabeth was in a surprisingly half-decent mood by the time she made her way to the entrance hall of the West Wing. She hadn't bothered to properly button her coat, so it billowed out behind her as she made her way down the steps and out to the street. She let out a sigh and reached into her bag to pull out a pair of tennis shoes.
A brisk not-quite-warm-enough-to-be-spring walk later, she switched the shoes back and walked into a meeting with the House majority. Senators Octavian Smith and Ethan Nakamura from South Dakota and Arizona, respectively, wanted more money for farming subsidies and more tax cuts for local business moguls. The White House, as Annabeth informed them crisply, was unlikely to stand for such a setup.
"What if we go up only three percent instead of five?" Smith asked. "And maybe in return, you can say something about the bathroom bill—"
"I'm not saying anything about the bathroom bill," Annabeth groaned, "and neither is the President. Look, are we going to have to haggle even more over this, or can we find an agreement about corn farming? There's already a structure in place to get them to switch to green energy—"
"If you increase the subsidy by five, as agreed, then I'll push for the switch to reallocate it all to solar and wind." Nakamura agreed.
Annabeth stopped short. "Wait, what was that?"
"If you can keep the subsidy at five—"
"Yeah, no, I heard you. You're actually good with it?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow.
"I'll talk to the other members of the committee," Nakamura said, extending a hand.
Annabeth shook it firmly. "Excellent, thank you. We appreciate your cooperation."
"But what about the tax cuts- isn't that going to be an issue for you in the midterms?" Smith cut in.
"It's really not," Nakamura sighed. "C'mon, Senator, they weren't going to budge on that or the bathroom bills, and at least this way our farmers get the extra money on something that will actually sell. We all know that corn didn't do great this season anyway, and the weather predictions for next are even worse."
"Yeah, yeah, because climate change, like that's fuckin' real," Smith grumbled. "Whatever."
Nakamura shot Annabeth a look over his open laptop. "I'll talk to them."
"Thank you." Annabeth glanced down at her watch. "You'll have to excuse me, gentlemen, I need to run."
"Oh, that's right, you're bringing on someone new in the chief's office to replace Luke, aren't you?" Nakamura asked. "Any word on who it is?"
"Honestly, I haven't met the guy yet. But Reyna's pretty consistent with who she hires," Annabeth shrugged. "Y'all take care, I'll see you at the next one."
She waited until she was in the stairwell to switch from heels to tennis shoes for the walk back to the White House. She didn't really have time to stop for lunch, but she'd learned the hard way over the last six months or so that afternoon senior staff meetings tended to go poorly on an empty stomach. Not as poorly as meeting with Republicans, but even so.
She dialed Reyna's number as she walked.
"Yeah?" Reyna answered. Annabeth could hear the clicking of her computer keys as her boss typed something quickly and loudly in the background.
"We've got the green energy swap, but they're making us keep the subsidy at five." Annabeth didn't break her stride, moving as quickly as she could across crosswalks, sidewalks, and every shortcut she knew.
"Who switched? Not Smith, surely," Reyna asked, sounding slightly distracted.
"Nakamura," Annabeth told her. "Hey, you never told me. The new guy, what's his name?"
A long pause. Reyna's typing halted. "The new guy?"
"Yeah, in our office. To replace Luke." Annabeth glanced from side to side, making sure the road was clear as she stepped out across the street to her favorite sandwich shop. "Bastard."
"He's not exactly replacing Luke, technically you did that when we promoted you to his old job. Besides, it's not like it was a surprise that Luke was leaving, he's a Castellan and a seat opened up in the House— we knew he'd run for it. Hell, we backed him."
"Okay, so he's the new me, whatever," Annabeth said, typing her usual sandwich specifications into the little tablets for quick-ordering at the front of the shop.
"Yeah. Actually, hey, you two probably know each other, I think the two of you might have overlapped in law school…"
Annabeth paused, her fingertip hovering above the touch screen. "What."
"Yeah, you graduated in 2016, right?" Reyna asked. "He was 2017, but you'd have started at the same time, he took a leave of absence—"
"To go to the damn Olympics. Reyna, I swear to God, you did not hire Percy Jackson to have my old job." If she'd been in a less conspicuous, less public place, Annabeth would have tipped her head back and let out a scream. "Why would you want to do that?"
"Because he's an excellent lawyer with a good human rights track record, a half-decent speechwriter, and he's good at fighting for the underdogs. We need one of those here, especially since you're… you know, off wrangling senators and not sitting here with me and the communications office on a daily basis," Reyna pointed out. "Also, the President specifically requested it."
"Oh, my god. You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding." Annabeth swiped her credit card and moved to the line for order pickups.
"I'm really not. And you're going to have to put aside any of the… whatever from way-back-when." Reyna sighed. "After all, if I can be here working with Jason in Communications…"
"Yeah, yeah. You know, having a Chief of Staff and a Chief of Communications who used to date and are on amicable terms working together is really annoying for the rest of us," Annabeth grumbled.
"So Piper keeps telling me," Reyna said, already distracted again. "Look, good work with Nakamura and Smith. Come on back for senior staff, be ready for a briefing on some court appointments and a push for some hate crime bills that are about to come through."
Annabeth shoved her phone back in her pocket, just in time for the sandwich counter to call her name. She walked back to her office with what felt like a black cloud hanging over her head, appetite suddenly gone.
Well. Working with Percy Jackson. Dear God, this was going to be interesting.
Hello all, and welcome back (or to new readers: welcome)! Per popular request, I'm writing PJO fanfic once again! In this case, we're going a little bit political. If this is not your jam, I will not be offended- grab a bagel on the way out and enjoy it! However, if you liked West Wing, liked Red White and Royal Blue, and appreciate a good legal drama, this may indeed be for you.
I can't promise regular updates- I'm two months away from finishing a master's degree, and I make a partial living publishing books (see author page for that), so you can imagine the schedule gets hectic. But I'm hoping that this and the two in-progress HP fics can be stress relief and a sort of alternate-universe-escapism-thing for both myself and y'all.
As always, you're more than welcome to say hi in the reviews, PM me with questions/comments/etc, and feel free to introduce yourselves and let me know what you think!
~GT
