Percy sighed at the pile of work on his desk and checked his watch. 8:02 am, and he'd already been here for two hours. He'd been used to keeping ungodly work schedules back in New York, but the White House was really something else entirely. He shuffled one pile of paper over to the other side of his desk, picked up a stack of firearms legislation paperwork, and dumped it back into the binder he'd dragged it out from. Finally, he looked down at the pile of folders and binders he'd requested from Jason on his first day, which consisted of everything President Brunner had ever written.

Well, everything the man had written in the last two years.

The rest of it was in a stack of boxes that filled Percy's entire storage closet, top to bottom, and spilled out into the back corner of his office.

Percy flipped his favorite pen around his fingers a few times, spinning it around his thumb in a trick he'd learned to pass the time back in middle school debate club.

Finally, he shook his head. Coffee. He needed coffee.

He stood up and walked to his cracked-open office door. "Gwen?"

"Yes? Oh, hi, Percy." Like magic, the blonde secretary appeared, balancing a cell phone between her shoulder and her ear, carrying a stack of papers, and holding a coffee carrier with four full Starbucks cups at her side.

Percy's eyes widened. "Oh, nope, do not let me distract you. My thing can wait."

"Okay, but do me a favor and take that top stack of papers, the women's caucus sent them over and Jason asked me to ask you to take a crack at including some of the language in the next couple of policy initiatives if you can." Gwen tipped her chin towards the stack of paper in her arms.

"Yeah, sure," Percy agreed, lifting the folder with the blue tabs and flipping it open. "Oh, this is doable, just as long as no one minds it sounding a little bit like we're sucking up to the women's caucus and the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt."

"We are sucking up to the women's caucus and the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt," Jason said, appearing from around the corner. "Good, you got the folder."

"Yeah." Percy turned to head back to his office, then wheeled around again. "Oh, hey. You just came from that meeting downstairs, right? With the joint chiefs?"

Jason's eyebrows lifted. "Yes. And I'm supposed to go golfing with the General this afternoon. Do you know what five hours of my day spent with military folks feels like?"

"Jason, you're a military folk," Percy said with an eye roll. "Everyone here knows you went to West Point. Honestly, I'm more surprised that you golf."

"Yeah, whatever. Did you have a question, or do you just want to make fun of me?"

Percy started to answer, but Reyna poked her head into their bullpen from the hallway that led to her office. "The answer is always to make fun of you. Also, go Navy."

Percy blinked. "Family rivalry?"

"No, she just can't get over the fact that we've won every game in every sport but football in the last five years. Including golf, for which I take partial responsibility, I'll have you know." Jason crossed his arms and stared down his sister-in-law.

Reyna chuckled. "Hah. I just got you to admit to playing golf for the Army. Your resume just says student-athlete and sports captain, plus lieutenant. Little do they know it was for golf."

"It's a noble sport," Jason scowled. "Which ensures a strong and beneficial relationship with our joint Chiefs of Staff, thank you very much. Percy, your question?"

"Yeah, I was just going to check if there was any leftover coffee down in the Mural Room." Percy glanced down at the pile of paper in his arms, and then over at the many stacks on his desk. "I know I've barely got time to go down there, but…"

"But they always bring in the good stuff and use the proper thermoses when the Chiefs are here," Reyna nodded. "I should know, I'm the one who approves that particular order."

"And I'm the one who knows what kind of coffee they like," Jason said with a frown. "Because I do things like play golf with them. Because I am a professional who understands how to network."

"Heh. Golf." Reyna shook her head. "Hey, I'll walk you down there, Percy, I've got a meeting over in the press room anyway."

"Sure," Percy agreed. "Just let me dump this on my desk first."

Reyna was mostly quiet on the way down to the Mural Room. Eventually, though, they hit a quiet stretch of hallway with most of the cubicles empty. There, Reyna slowed her walk so she could turn and face Percy. "Okay, so I'm going to throw a bunch of extra responsibilities your way in the next week, and I'm sorry about it, but the work has to get done. I'm pawning a good bit of it off onto Jason, too, so don't think you're just getting special treatment because you're new."

"Okay." Percy nodded. "Does this have to do with whatever that meeting is in the press room?"

"Yes, but I can't tell you what's going on with that either." Someone entered the hallway ahead of them, and Reyna started walking faster again. "Oh, and Annabeth's going to be a little busy, too, so don't go bothering her for help wrangling Congress."

"Sure," Percy agreed. "If I do need help wrangling Congress…"

"Then figure it out, Percy, I hired you for a reason." Reyna's phone buzzed, and she glanced down at the screen. "Okay, I have to take this. I'll email over the new agendas this afternoon."

Percy resisted the urge to smack his head into the nearest wall as Reyna walked away.

Fortunately, there was indeed still coffee in the mural room, kept hot in warm metal canisters, with a stack of insulated paper cups on the side. Percy filled a mug, then started poking around the pastry tray to see if there was anything there.

He ended up leaving with a full cup of coffee, as well as a paper plate loaded up with two blueberry donut holes and half a bagel spread thick with cream cheese. He ate one of the donut holes on his way back to his desk.

He was almost back to his office when he saw Jason storming out into the hallway. "Woah, boss. What's going on?"

"I need to find Reyna," Jason said, his normally perfectly-controlled voice rough at the edges. "I need to find her now."

"She's down in the press room," Percy answered. "And she said something about extra work, do you know what's—"

"Not the time, Percy. We'll talk at— I don't know when we'll talk." Jason stopped, smoothed down his tie, and ran a hand over his too-short-for-his-fingers-to-make-a-difference hair. "I'm sorry. This is unprofessional. Of me, I mean. I just need a minute. And to find Reyna. We'll talk about the extra work situation later, okay?"

"Okay," Percy said doubtfully. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Jason sighed. "Don't worry about it. Hey, can you finish the copy on that radio address for next week?"

"The one where we're sucking up to the women's caucus?"

"Yeah," Jason affirmed. "You've been here long enough, you have copies of everything the President's ever written, the gloves are off. All you."

"I…" Percy thought through the ways he could probably protest against doing this on his own, but decided against it. It was just a radio address, after all. "Okay, sure. Thanks."

"You got it." Jason strode down the hall. "You said she's in the press room?"

"Guess so," Percy said. With a shrug, he began going over the radio address with a red pen while he ate his pilfered bagel.

A minute later, his phone buzzed.

First a text: I got your number from your curly-haired friend from California. Hoped you wouldn't mind if I said hi.

Then a picture: the redheaded bartender from the gala a few nights ago, only now she was dressed down in a flowing white shirt dotted with specks of paint.

Another text: The name's Rachel, by the way.

Percy chewed his bagel contemplatively. Then, after a minute or so, he replied.

Hi, Rachel. I'm Percy.

Instantaneously: oh, I know.

Percy drained the rest of his coffee. So, what do you do when you're not bartending at the White House? How does someone even get a bartending gig at the White House?

Pays to have connections, came the nonchalant reply.

Percy ate his last remaining donut hole, shook his head, and went back to work. Now, with coffee and food in his system, and without more interruptions, he was finally able to focus. He didn't look up from the papers on his desk until almost 1:00pm, at which point his watch buzzed with a reminder to send some papers over to Annabeth. He glanced out through his office window to see Gwen typing furiously away at her laptop while also talking at top speed on the phone and adding color-coded sticky tabs to the communications calendar she kept above her desk, and decided that he probably shouldn't add even more to her workload. Besides, a walk would be good, even if he did end up receiving the usual verbal ear-boxing from Annabeth. Maybe some witty repartee would be good for waking up the part of his brain that was supposed to be good at writing jokes for the President.

Weirdly, Piper wasn't at her usual post in front of Annabeth's office. Oh, well, it was just about lunchtime, so maybe that wasn't all that weird. Percy approached her door, with the little brass plaque declaring her the Deputy Chief of Staff. He was about to knock when he heard voices coming from behind it.

"And if they ask any further questions about it, I'll say that he was a close friend, my father was his advisor, and so we spent time together when I was learning my way around D.C." That voice was Annabeth for sure, but a tone Percy hadn't heard since law school— sharp and short, but just a little watery at the edges. Confident enough to sell an answer, but still nervous that it might be the wrong one.

"No, that won't do it," another voice cut through, kind but very firm. "You're leaving them too much wiggle room— too much of a gray area. If you tell them that you spent time together, they'll ask about late nights. If you decline to answer, they'll construe. If you give them room to construe…"

"I know, I know," Annabeth responded, annoyed. "But what the hell do I do about the parts of it that are true? If I flatly deny it, then the second they can catch me in a lie—"

"You're sunk, I know," the second voice agreed. "Listen, Annabeth, I'm not trying to shut you down here. I'm on your side. But you've got to know how to handle it if they try to spin it-"

"I know." Annabeth said. "Okay, fine. Let's start over. Drill it until I can't get them wrong."

Percy backed away from Annabeth's office door, leaving the papers he'd brought with a nearby secretary.

Back at his desk, he ate the somewhat lackluster grilled chicken salad that someone, presumably Gwen, had ordered for him. He worked while he ate, but he couldn't seem to stop his thoughts from returning to the sheer weirdness of the day. Harried Jason, too-busy Reyna, mysterious meetings for Annabeth… none of those pieces was inherently out of the ordinary, but with all of them put together… Percy couldn't put his finger on it, but something was definitely going on.

He shook his head and got back to work. If it was important, he was sure he'd hear about it soon enough.

Hello all! My apologies for the delay on this chapter- it turns out finishing a Master's thesis and prepping for graduation is time-consuming! The next couple of weeks might be a little spotty, between moving and graduation, but hopefully after that we'll be back to our regularly scheduled White House chaos.

To any of you who are finishing a school year or graduating- congratulations! Much love ~ GC