Prompt: Elizabeth leaves her office at the State Department for the last time
Elizabeth couldn't believe that it was ending. It seemed like just yesterday she had entered this office for the first time, the desk cleared out for her and surrounded by strangers as she'd stared at the lush carpeting and wondered what the hell she'd gotten herself into. If you'd told the Elizabeth McCord of 2014 that she would be walking out of that office as the president-elect of the United States, she would have laughed- loudly. It would have been a laughable prospect, as the Elizabeth McCord of 2014 had barely been convinced to take that job, let alone the biggest one in the country. She had never had political ambitions, and she still didn't, but that seemed to be the only thing that hadn't changed.
She certainly had. She was different now. Her family was different now. Her marriage was different. Her goals were different.
Though, she thought upon further reflection, there actually were other things that were still the same. She was still an out of the box thinker. She still felt a great sense of duty to her country. She was still a mother who loved her children. She was still a wife who loved her husband. She still liked to scope out the food situation at every function she went to. She was still a disaster in the kitchen.
But she wasn't the same person she'd been at first. She was different now in both good and bad ways, she supposed. That, however, was the course of life. She'd learned that. She'd learned many lessons from her time there in that office, and now as she looked around it was with a bittersweet feeling. Another thing that the Elizabeth of 2014 wouldn't have believed was that the office of Secretary of State would become comfortable and familiar to her, but now that was exactly what had happened. She felt like she knew that place, knew her role there. It was familiar and it was comfortable. The Oval Office, on the other hand...well, she might have been familiar with which seat was the most well-cushioned, but she was far from familiar with all that came with it. It was frightening, the prospect of running the country, and if she was being honest, Elizabeth wasn't really looking forward to it all that much. She knew that she would probably come to love aspects of the job, just as she had this one, but a greater part of her wanted to move back to Virginia with Henry and settle in at the horse farm and leave all the politics of DC in her rearview mirror. Her life had not been the same since she'd taken this job, and it was about to get even crazier.
As Elizabeth put the final possessions in a box on the sofa, she contemplated whether she was ready for that; for her life to get even crazier and for even more responsibility to be resting upon her shoulders. But she looked down at her wedding picture resting in the box and thought of Henry's response when she had voiced those same concerns to him.
"Babe, you're ready," he had said, voice steady as his hands rested on her shoulders. "You may not believe that, at least not yet, but you're ready."
She trusted Henry, and she thought he might be right. She shrugged to herself as she picked up her box and took one last look around.
If she wasn't ready, she was in big trouble, because the time had come regardless.
Outside the office, her staff stood in a line, waiting for her. Elizabeth sighed. She'd been hoping to avoid this, not wanting to become more emotional than she already was. However, she couldn't say that she wasn't glad to see them all standing there. They all had played a vital role in her success of this office, and though they'd had a rocky start, she now found that she couldn't have been more grateful for them.
"Madam Secretary," they chorused, as if they'd rehearsed it, looking like schoolchildren at the end of the year as they stood there before her. Elizabeth smiled at them, meeting the eyes of each of them.
"Got everything cleared out?" Jay asked, with a glance at Blake, who didn't look as though he trusted himself enough to speak.
"Yeah," Elizabeth replied. She sighed as she looked them all over. "I want to thank you all," she said. "I couldn't have done this without you."
"Please don't," Blake begged, and Elizabeth smiled at him as she continued.
"And," she started, "I want you all to know that I'm still in your corner. If you ever need anything, I promise I will do what I can. And I'm sure I'll be seeing you all in some capacity or another."
Elizabeth smiled at them again and took a moment to look around. This was an ending, but it was also a beginning, and she found herself grateful. Grateful for them and for the opportunities the office had brought her and grateful for every step that had led her to this.
"I'm headed home to Henry," she said gently. "Before things get really crazy. You're all coming to the inauguration, right?"
"Yes, ma'am," came the answer in a chorus of familiar voices, and Elizabeth smiled again.
"Thanks, guys," she said, and her simple words carried more weight than they might have in a different situation, more than they had all the times she had spoken them at the end of morning meetings.
And with that, Elizabeth turned and walked away from them, toward the elevator for the last time, barely able to resist one final glance over her shoulder as she headed on to the next office.