A few days after the Labor Day celebration, Annabeth found herself sitting at a table in Union Station, clutching an overpriced coffee she'd picked up from Blue Bottle, picking over the remains of an orange-cherry scone. She checked her watch— six o'clock. She was early, yes, but that didn't stop her from tapping her fingers on the table in irritation as though the person she was meeting was late.

Finally, in a flurry of Marc Jacobs perfume and pink blazer, Drew Tanaka swept her way into the station, swinging around the corner like she'd come from Au Bon Pain and the rideshare dropoff stands, instead of the escalator up from the Metro. She reached into her bag and fished out a truly enormous mint-green tumbler, taking a sip out of it before setting that and her cell phone on the table across from Annabeth.

"No cameras," said Annabeth by way of greeting.

"Annabeth Chase. A pleasure to see you outside of the hallowed halls of power." Drew folded her hands in front of her, almond-shaped nails glittering in the flat light of the station.

"Listen. This is off the record. Anything we say here— the fact that I'm here meeting you at all— is completely off the record."

"I'm intrigued." Drew took another sip from her tumbler. "And sure."

The woman across the desk from Percy was nearly a foot shorter than he was, slim, and wearing a mousy sweater that hung loose on her tiny frame. But the firearm strapped to her hip and the impressive credentials he'd been handed made it very clear— she was not to be messed with. The nameplate on her desk was deceptively corporate: Bianca di Angelo, Private Investigator.

"Nice to meet you," Bianca cracked a smile. "And please tell Reyna I was pleased to hear from her."

"You served together, right?" Percy asked.

"We did. Academy and two tours." Bianca gestured to a framed photo on her desk— her, Thalia Grace, and Reyna, shoulder-to-shoulder. Reyna and Bianca were both in dress uniform, their hair pulled back into regulation buns and their double-breasted coats gleaming with newly-added medals. Thalia and Reyna were holding hands, beaming out at the camera from where the three of them stood next to a small airplane.

"It's an honor." Percy inclined his head.

"We're not here to reminisce." Bianca clasped her hands together. "You know what I need from you, right?"

Percy nodded and slid a yellow manilla envelope across the desk to her. "Cash, photo, and the dossier we put together on him when he joined the team. Opposition research, we thought. Plus what my colleague and I were able to dig up. A start on a paper trail, I guess."

"Opposition research is still true, just… the other kind, now." Bianca took the envelope, thumbing through its contents. "You know the Secret Service could have done this for you."

"We'd rather this not be traced back directly to us. They're good, but there's bureaucracy."

"And you'd rather they not have a record of putting a tail on a sitting Congressman without a specific charge to raise against him." Bianca noted. "Sure. You're not keeping this from them, though, I hope? These are pretty serious charges."

"They know I'm here, but it's not their investigation. As far as they know, I'm a member of the President's staff, out running an errand to see my boss's sister-in-law's old friend for a visit."

"Oh, good." Bianca smiled again— less cheerful, more predatory. "Discretion is my specialty."

"Drew, I mean it. You're not here because I want to leak to you that the President's wearing a different brand of cologne or decided that he doesn't like wearing Adidas socks or something."

Drew cocked her head to the side, shiny curled hair shining honey-and-wine. "Does the President have something against Adidas?"

"Drew."

Something in Annabeth's voice must have registered to Drew, because the snarky half-smile disappeared from the reporter's lips. She sat back in her chair. "I'm listening. I am."

"You've done a lot of work for the Post over the years." Annabeth poked at the crumbs of what used to be her scone. "Off and on, anyway."

"You haven't liked anything I've written for the Post," Drew pointed out.

"Not much, no." Annabeth smiled tightly. "But you've always had a source. Every rumor, every 'who wore it better,' every mean thing you've ever written about Reyna's pantsuits."

"She really should stop wearing those double-breasted coats. They do nothing for her body type. I'm not wrong." Drew held up a hand, examining her fingernails. "But yes, always a source. I may be a bitch, but I'm never a bitch who says something without the ability to back it up."

"Why?" Annabeth asked. "I mean, not to be a jerk, but. It's a fashion column. With occasional gossip."

"Aside from basic journalistic integrity?" Drew arched an eyebrow. "It's only worth something if it's true."

"Right." Annabeth picked up her coffee cup and turned it in her fingers, setting it down without taking a sip.

Drew's eyes widened. "Oh. That's what this is about. I'm guessing it's true, then? Not that hard a reach, really. You and Castellan were always pretty cozy on those early press tours."

"Frankly, that's not the point."

Of all the places where Piper could have met with her father's PR agent, a hospital cafeteria really wouldn't have been what she expected. But Naomi Solace was one of the best in the business, at least according to her father. She looked entirely out of place in the unflattering fluorescent brights that lit the entirety of Sibley General— all cascading strawberry-blonde curls and perfectly tailored Burberry now that a whisper of autumn had started to crisp the D.C. air at the edges.

They'd already exchanged all of the pleasantries, and now they sat across from one another, each with a muffin and a cup of coffee— a cup weak enough that it looked more like tea than coffee in front of Piper, one nearly too dark to drink and clearly mixed with the sludgy residue from the bottom of the pot in front of Naomi.

"You have more than enough of a case to sue for defamation if that's the route you'd like to go,"Naomi told Piper, taking a sip of the coffee. "Blegh. Hospital coffee's never good, is it? Sorry that we're meeting here, by the way."

"It's all right," Piper demurred. "My dad said you're visiting someone here? I didn't want to impose…"

"Yes." Naomi smiled, teeth glinting perfect white. "My son. He's a surgeon, and he's been working odd hours… I'm literally staying in his spare room, but the only way to actually see him this week has been to drop in when he's working and hope that he's able to take time for a few coffee breaks or lunch."

"And I thought the White House schedule was bad," Piper said with a small laugh. "That's impressive, getting work as a surgeon here."

"It is," Naomi nodded. "I'm very proud of him, even if I worry about his schedule."

"Well, thank you for setting aside the time to talk with me. I know you're not really working while you're here, so I really appreciate…" Piper stalled to a halt at the look on Naomi's face.

"Piper, please." Naomi crossed her arms. "Your father's been a client for a while, and even if he wasn't, he's a friend. Of course I've got the time for you. And if I can offer a bit of advice? Apologizing for your every move, or for taking up people's time, isn't going to help you very much if you're planning on fighting for your image. The world dislikes women with too much ambition, yes. But it finds a special sort of disdain for women who let themselves be pushed around, too— and you're better than that."

Piper didn't know what to say to that.

"Now, please. Start from the beginning. Tell me as much as you're comfortable— but more importantly, tell me what anyone who might want to affect your image could plausibly prove. Then, we'll talk strategy."

Piper stirred the milky, too-pale coffee in front of her. The addition of sugar hadn't made it more appetizing. "And then… you'll be able to make it go away?"

Naomi shrugged. "If that's what you want, probably. I know a few people who could help out with that. But to a certain extent, the rumors are out there already— whether they're about you or your friend. It's less a question of making them go away and more one of you figuring out how you want to react to it. Once you know that, I can coach you through it."

"Okay." Piper swallowed her sip of 'coffee,' grimacing at the flavor and the texture alike. "Well, Jason and I already signed paperwork. So, the effective start date of our relationship and the conditions it occurred under… that's all written down concretely, even if it's just in Reyna's office. The Secret Service has access, but so does anyone with access to the White House personnel files."

"Admittedly, that's a pretty small number of people," Naomi noted.

"But it's not zero, and I have to assume that I don't know all of them," Piper pointed out. "So the information's out there, and there is proof."

"Okay." Naomi leveled her gaze at Piper. "So what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know," Piper admitted, voice small.

"Think about it," Naomi said. "It all really comes down to this— what do you want?"

Drew flicked a strand of hair over her shoulder. "Okay. You want to know if I know the source? Because…"

"Journalistic integrity," Annabeth waved a hand in the air. "No, I know that if you did know, you wouldn't tell me. But I don't think you know, and that's not why we're having this conversation."

"You're not authorized to be here," Drew realized, eyes widening slightly. "This isn't just off the books for me, it is for you, too. You're protecting someone— not yourself, apparently, you'd never be so obvious about it if it was just you."

Annabeth sighed. "You already said it. You're a bitch, but you're a bitch who likes the rules."

"And I really don't like it when someone else breaks them, particularly when they scoop me out of a story in the process," Drew agreed. "Someone's leaking stories and not sharing, and they're not bothering to prove it, even to an editor."

Annabeth's voice remained steady, but her gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?"

At precisely ten o'clock in the morning, Reyna called a meeting of the senior staff (Annabeth, Jason, Silena, Percy, and one of the President's personal secretaries) in the Oval Office. The meeting itself wasn't abnormal, but the time was, and so was the fact that not a single one of the staff knew why Reyna was calling the meeting.

"You can all sit," President Brunner informed them all when they filed into the Oval Office looking a bit more intimidated by its splendor than normal. He offered what was probably supposed to look like a hapless shrug. "After all, I can't stand— so don't worry about the whole no-sitting-while-the-President-stands bit of decorum."

"Sir," Jason said a bit stiffly, "you're doing the thing where you attempt a bit of folksy charm."

"Is it not working?" The President asked.

"Mr. President," Annabeth supplied. "You have two PhDs and you're the President of the United States. Folksy charm isn't particularly convincing coming from you."

"And we wonder why we keep losing voters from small-town middle America," Reyna added dryly. "Thank you all for coming. The President said it, please do sit down."

They did, settling onto the couches and chairs where they'd held countless meetings before.

"Listen up, everyone," Reyna announced. "Someone's accidentally let something slip to the press in the last couple of days. Not sure how, not sure who, but someone's let it out that the President doesn't like Brussels sprouts."

"Absolutely hate them." Brunner nodded. "The un-American name aside, I don't like the flavor and I don't like that they're served at so many state events. I'd genuinely consider throwing my support behind a tariff on American-grown produce if it meant I never had to eat them again."

"That's the kind of rumor that could really hurt our polling in… Percy, where the hell do Brussels sprouts grow?" Annabeth threw up her hands.

"I'm from New York City, why do you assume I know anything about agricultural zones?" Percy grumbled but answered anyway. "On a commercial level, it's the California part of the fog belt in the Pacific Northwest, with some east coast production in Long Island."

"Right. We're going to run into issues with our polling in the Pacific Northwest when that gets out," Annabeth finished. "Silena, you hear anything about this already?"

"Yeah, it's definitely not great," Silena added. "And no, it's not likely— the California Ag Enquirer hardly has a regular seat at my press conferences, so no one's asked anything about it yet. But yes, I'll be sure to let you know if all of a sudden I'm fielding questions from the Sacramento Bee or the LA Times about why the President suddenly hates American production of local produce."

"I mean, how likely do you really think that is?" Jason asked. "Given that we've got the education bill in play, we just hosted the Fall Ball… surely, they have other things to talk about."

Silena shot him a scathing look. "If the President of the United States has what they could consider an un-American tendency of any kind, including feelings about US-grown produce? They might have other things to talk about, but I bet I can tell you which ones they'll choose to focus on."

"You'll all monitor headlines and bylines and pay attention to which reporters are asking you— or anyone— what kinds of questions," Reyna ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," they all replied.

"That's all. Thank you." She gestured them all out the door.

Only Jason followed Reyna out through the door that connected her office to the President's office suite instead of through the main door with the rest of their colleagues.

When it was just the two of them, he turned to his sister-in-law. "Rey. The President doesn't have anything against Brussels sprouts, last I checked. Didn't he specifically ask for them to be on the menu at last year's Thanksgiving lunch?"

Reyna shook her head. "Hush. The rumor hasn't actually gotten out to anyone yet, either. That's why I just fed it to the lot of you"

"It's a test," Jason realized. "Really? You think the leak is one of us?"

"It doesn't hurt to be careful." Reyna pursed her lips. "Despite all the things Silena just said— which are probably true, for what it's worth— it's a relatively innocuous piece of information to get out."

"Compared to?" Jason crossed his arms.

"Compared to anything that might get out that we can't control." Reyna made a shooing motion at Jason. "Now go on, I've got a meeting on the Hill at noon and ten thousand stacks of papers to get through before then. Go write a speech or something."

Drew leaned forwards, voice lowering. "I really shouldn't… ah, fuck it. This meeting's off the books anyway. I'm not just a gossip reporter for the Post. You know that, right?"

"You run a fashion editorial column," Annabeth recited. "I know."

Drew shook her head. "Technically, I'm an associate editor, not a reporter. That means I'm on the red team for most of the bigger pieces that come through."
Annabeth looked at her blankly.

"The red team. It's my job to poke holes in other people's stories. Find places where their sources don't back them up properly, or where there might be a problem," Drew explained.

"And you were on the red team for this piece?"

Hazel Levesque's first impression of Thalia Grace was that she was shorter, but not in the least bit less intimidating than she'd expected.
They met in the downstairs lobby of the D.C. headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union. Hazel clutched her coffee in one hand— from Panera, which at least had a workers' union, rather than Starbucks— and shook Thalia's hand with the other.

"Ms. Grace, it's an honor to meet you," she stumbled over the words a little bit.

"And a pleasure to meet you," Thalia's grip was strong, the motion of her handshake confident. "I've heard excellent things from Percy, whose taste in people is usually good as far as I can tell."

"He's a good friend." A quick flush rose over Hazel's cheeks. "I must confess— I'm a little surprised you reached out to me at all. I didn't know the ACLU even hired people without law degrees."

Thalia shrugged. "Every now and then, something opens up. Like right now, we need some in-house expertise and we need a spokesperson who's just as good with human interest as they are legal jargon."

"Surely, you have someone like that on staff." Hazel's gaze drifted to the doorway of the building, where she'd just noticed a man in a black suit with a small Bluetooth earpiece standing so still that he practically blended in with the potted plants in their large concrete urns— an impressive feat, considering that the man in question was at least six feet tall and heavily muscled.

Thalia followed her gaze. "Oh, don't mind Zhang. One of the odds and ends that comes along with my wife's position in the government— I get a security detail most days."

"Right." Hazel felt her cheeks get warm again, her eyes lingering on the officer— Agent Zhang— a little longer than was necessary. She forced her attention back to Thalia. "I've got a paper copy of my resume with me, and I sent you the two writing samples. You wanted to talk about the work I've done yelling at local councilmen to care about DACA kids, right?"

"Percy told me you were direct," Thalia said with a grin. "Fuckin' love it when he's right about people. Come on into my office, Hazel Levesque. Let's chat— I've just got a gut feeling about you; I think this interview's going to be a good one."

"There wasn't a red team for that piece." Drew flexed her manicured fingers, "Your leak is high enough up that they and their story were considered indisputable. Also, you should know: we don't have anyone on staff named Bob Smalls. Your leak might be writing under a pseudonym directly to someone who outranks me— someone unimpeachable."

Annabeth looked across the table at Drew, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying…" Drew glanced around furtively, as though someone in the station might be listening. "You should take a look at who has what levels of security clearance in the West Wing— in your little circle of senior staff, even. Someone's doing something deeply unethical, and they're doing it at a high enough level that they're not using a single middleman as far as I can tell."

"Oh my god," Annabeth's hand flew to her mouth. "You think the leak's one of us."

"I don't just think so, I'm certain of it." Drew looked Annabeth dead in the eye. "The lack of paper trail speaks for itself. Take a good long look at the people you share an office with— someone there isn't to be trusted."

Across the city, on the other side of Capitol Hill, Representative Luke Castellan from Tennessee strode through the lobby of the most expensive hotel in Adams Morgan. He walked straight to the bar in the back— no one stopped him, though he wasn't exactly a regular. Between the tailored cut of his suit and the metal sheen of his watch, he blended in fine.

It wasn't yet noon, but no one blinked when he ordered an espresso martini. It wasn't the kind of place where anyone might think worse of him for alcohol before noon, nor where anyone might voice an opinion about the twist of his mouth as he winked and called the bartender "sweetheart." Just southern charm, some might say, thought he'd lived in New York and D.C. for most of his adult life.

A few minutes later, someone else joined him at the bar, careful to keep their back to any security cameras and their face angled away from the light.

"I shouldn't be here," they said, voice low.

"But you are," Castellan asserted.

"Yes."

"I'm just checking up on what we discussed. Making sure you're not getting cold feet." He smiled, reached into his pocket for a folded piece of paper. "You and your fiancé… it'd be a shame if something happened at an event he was working. If he was implicated in anything."

"What are you implying, exactly?"

"Oh, sweetheart. Don't act like you don't know." Castellan's smile widened, not quite reaching his eyes. He reached out and offered a sympathetic shoulder pat. "Just pass along those files like we discussed, and you won't have a thing to worry about."

He tipped up his glass to drain it, set a crisp twenty-dollar bill on the bar, and left.

Thanks all for reading- and many, many thanks for your patience! Between the AO3 outage and some work insanity, it's been A Few Hefty weeks ("oh man, it's been that kind of week," I say, knowing perfectly well that I chose an industry that does not seem to have any other kind).

Anyway- I did promise that it'd be a slow-burn kind of plot, but some... somewhat explosive action is coming up soon. ~GT