PLEASE REVEW! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

As her security detail left her at the door to the Oval Office, she grimaced as she remembered how she used to pause a minute before entering the President's office. She would pull her suit jacket straight, maybe even button it. She'd mentally prepare herself for either a confrontation or offering her opinion. Normally there was rebuttal from someone – whether Sterling or Russell or even Conrad himself. So she had to be prepared. Not go in looking like she'd run over from the State department like she normally did.

Not today.

She couldn't care less what whoever was in that room would think about her coat hanging open, her bloodshot eyes with dark circles underneath them, and her face that reacted to everything with the same numbness she swam in constantly.

She knew that no person in that room could pull her out of that numbness. No world threat or political party game could penetrate the grief encasing her entire being.

Opening the door, she could see Russell standing over Conrad at the desk, some news story playing from the screen on the desk.

"Bess." Conrad acknowledged her from behind his desk as he stood up. The pity in his voice would have turned her stomach a month ago – instead, she just stood there.

She noticed the two other people in the room – both of whom would've made her spine stiffen at any other time in her political career. Sterling stood in front of the desk, turning and looking at her like she was some special exhibit at the zoo.

And Lydia sat on the couch facing her. Lydia was the last person she thought she'd see here in the Oval Office today – the first day she'd entered the office since the funeral.

The first time they'd been in the same room since her daughter's funeral.

Bess knew she should feel shame – confronted with the wife of the man she'd slept with years before. The woman who knew that she was the other woman once upon a time. The woman whose life had been turned upside down with the public revelation and analysis of her husband's infidelity. Bess knew she should say something – apologize – or at least attempt to seem penitent. Especially because Lydia just stared her down, the smeared on face of a politician that Bess had learned to distinguish anger from – the tight lipped, glare that could be taken either way in front of a camera.

Bess felt nothing.

Instead she stuck her hands into her coat, and turned her attention to where Conrad was saying something.

"It's really good to see you." He said, obviously being gentle towards who he saw as a weak woman.

Unable to address the patronizing tone he was using with her, she turned to the one person she knew would shoot straight with her. And she was glad to ignore Conrad.

"Russell, you said there was some development from the investigators on the ground in Iran?" Even Bess was impressed with how her voice sounded so emotionless.

Russell did a double take, glancing at Conrad for a second to see if the President would address the obvious slight Bess lobbed. When Conrad just nodded to Russell, the straight forward chief-of-staff gave it to her, "We thought we could eventually follow the signal to where…"

Bess just motioned him past the part that he'd reference the place where Emma had been murdered.

"… but when we sent Seal Teams in, we found nothing…"

"And by nothing you mean…" Bess questioned, now looking at Sterling.

He cleared his throat, "No evidence of any violent crime happening there, no terrorist traces around…"

She walked over and grabbed the back of the couch, and said, "Did you send in forensics? Seal teams aren't medical for…"

"Bess…" Conrad gently attempted to calm her as he walked toward her.

Bess ignored him, glaring across at Sterling. "I worked on the ground. There you're working on not getting caught. The details sometimes aren't the first…"

Sterling said, "Elizabeth, we found…"

"I want you to send in professional forensics teams to scrub everything down, I want agents on the ground questioning everyone in the area about who has been in the area in the last year!" Her voice escalated, "No stone left unturned, no witness who could remember one detail about who has done this!"

Conrad's tone was loud and fast, snapping her tirade in half. "ELIZABETH!"

She looked down at her hands clamping down on the couch as she listened to him, "They lead us to a place that wasn't the sight of the murder. They led us to a shopping center. They hid their location and directed us to wrong locations. We don't know where it happened."

She locked her jaw, and felt again like she came up against the wall. The wall she wanted to tear down brick by brick. That wall that every lead directed them to. Every single bit of evidence led them nowhere. She could do nothing. She had been helpless that day, and she was now.

Then she felt something on her shoulder.

And she looked over her shoulder and saw it was Conrad's hand.

"Bess, I'm so sorry for your loss…" Pity. Fake.

If it wasn't for him – if he'd told her about the threats, she'd have known. They could've put a security detail on her daughter.

None of this.

None of it would've happened.

Emma would be in school.

Would've been there when Bess got home from school.

"I wish I could make it better."

He'd said the same thing that night in Baghdad as she sat, mourning what she thought was the loss of her marriage over her fourth or fifth glass of whiskey. And he'd ordered more.

"It's hard to see you in pain like this."

He'd said that before telling her he could help with her pain that night.

And now her daughter was gone. All because of his image. All because he didn't want the American people to find out about what had happened.

His hand suddenly felt like a hot iron on her skin.

And her spy training took over. As she hissed, "It's your fault."

And with speed she didn't know she still hand, both her hands clamped around his wrist while her hip jutted to the side into his torso. She leveraged her elbow back like a pulley. Using her body weight, she effortlessly flipped him through the air, and pushed down hard as he landed on the ground on his back.

Looking up at her, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him – Bess could see his wide eyes – fear.

She looked down at him, feeling completely numb. Staring at him while Russell and Sterling ran over to Conrad – and Secret Service surrounded the President. She was pushed aside.

She knew she should feel something. Whether anger. Or even fear over throwing the leader of the Free World to the ground in his office. Vindication.

Nothing. Instead she just stood there – watching.

And she heard a voice from beside her. And she heard Lydia's passive, snake-like voice that caustically said, "Maybe you two should've thought about this before you fucked."