Although she had initially put up a fight about him riding with her to the hospital, she didn't complain when he'd slid into the backseat of the SUV.
She was quiet in the car, but after the day they'd had, the quiet that may have usually made him a bit uneasy had him settling back against the leather seat— the rain softly puttering down against the roof of the car only proved to lull his mind into a state of further calm because at some point his eyelids must have fluttered closed.
He wasn't sure if sleep had actually come, but if it did, not much time had passed from when he had nodded off to her soft words waking him from the light sleep.
"Did she say anything to you?"
He blinks his eyes open. "Ma'am?" He'd more than half missed what she'd said.
"Stevie," she mutters. "Did she say anything to you?"
He swallows.
She's so still, so… quiet as she sits watching out the window.
"When?" He asks because she'd said a lot, but he wasn't sure how much, if any, to share.
She turns her head. "On her way out."
'You know, we spend all this time wondering whether we're good enough to even be around her. But what if we're better?'
"Nothing with any context," he tells her.
She gives a slow nod, and usually he would say something, maybe prompt another question, but he's been getting good at knowing when she needed to talk, wanted to talk, but just needed a moment to think through the words.
"I—" He's not surprised she stutters; she looks flustered. "Sometimes I think she's right about the things she says about me."
His lips part— she couldn't know about what Stevie had said before getting on the elevator. Had she said something earlier? Said something that morning? Or maybe she was referring to the comments that he was sure had been made over the years.
"Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
She looks to the two men in the front seat.
"Look at me," he says. By now he knew nothing they said ever left the car. He knew she knew that too.
Instead of meeting his eyes her gaze falls on her lap. Her fingers fiddle with the edge of her skirt, and— "I signed off on enhanced interrogation." She swallows. "And not just once or twice."
And suddenly it all makes sense— Stevie's comment. The Secretary's mood.
"Okay," he says.
She looks up.
"Okay?" She questions. "That— That doesn't bother you?"
He has his own personal opinion, everyone does, but not everyone is in her shoes… Not everyone has worked in this line of profession; not everyone's days consist of reading, watching, listening as a nightmare played out right in front of their own two eyes. He couldn't even begin to imagine the emotional toll that could have possibly taken on her.
"You're a good person. Please try to remember that," he tells her. "And whatever Stevie said—" he shakes his head. "—says" he corrects. God knows it will happen again. "Whatever she says to you remember that she's a still a child."
She turns away from him, facing the window.
"She is a child," She says.
And he can't miss the lone tear she swipes away with her knuckle.
"And the others?"
She could be referring to anyone. The rest of her family? Her staff? The over the top critics?
"The ones you'll want beside you will stay beside you."
"You're so sure," she whispers.
"Tonight, I'll be sure for the both of us," he says as the car comes to a stop.
Fred steps out of the car, but she makes no move to do the same.
"You don't have to go in there you know," he tells her.
She takes a breath.
"I know," she says as she opens the door.