Clarisse let out a long breath. "That's… a lot."
"Well, that's everything." Silena hiccuped. "I was a mole. The mole. A complete failure when it comes to the integrity of my job. And now Charlie— it's my fault. All of it."
Clarisse reached out and gripped Silena's arm. "Not all."
"I… what?" Silena blinked, wide blue eyes rimmed with red. "I just told you that I've been leaking information to the press for months. Because the opposition party told me to. And that those leaks— one of those leaks— they wouldn't have known how to position— they wouldn't have had a clear line of sight on the President or the staff or any of it— even if I hadn't leaked anything else, even if all I'd done was let slip his schedule for one speaking event, that'd be enough."
"Enough for what?" Clarisse shook her head and passed Silena a cup of water. "Never mind. I get it. But I'm not convinced it was your fault if it's something you were blackmailed into."
"Blackmail or not." Silena took a sip and swallowed hard. "I had a choice. I can tell myself otherwise all I want, I had a choice, and I made the wrong one, and if it's cost me everything then that's just something I'm going to have to live with."
"Okay, so you had a choice." Clarisse threw her hands up in the air. "You made a bad call. You think that's something none of them are going to understand?"
"Yeah, actually, I do," Silena snapped. "Dirt on me or not, I let them down. I betrayed them. I had my chance to turn him in, and I didn't. And I was giving things up, letting things slip, before he even— I was doing it voluntarily before he ever started with the threats."
"He's a charming bastard." Clarisse passed her friend a tissue. "You're not exactly to blame for that. But…"
"But I need a lawyer. I know." Silena glanced at the American flag pinned to the HUD Secretary's lapel. "I really thought you'd be more pissed."
"Oh, I am." Clarisse flexed a hand, then formed it into a fist. She looked down at her clenched knuckles for a moment, then rapped them on the top of Silena's desk. "I think what you did was awful, and betrayed a lot of ideals I hold pretty damn close. But I love you, and I'm more pissed at Castellan and his cronies than I am at you. We'll have words, I'm sure, but not like this."
"Technically I am a crony." Silena hiccuped again. "Or, was, I guess."
"Do you want me to stay?" Clarisse looked meaningfully at the phone on Silena's desk.
"I don't think I can ask you to do that." Silena bit her lower lip. "You'd be… there would be indictments or something. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. But you probably shouldn't stay."
"Okay. I'm going to ask Chris if he knows any good lawyers who handle legal stuff." " Clarisse stood up and slipped her hands into her pockets. "Discreetly," she added with an eye roll. "And then I'm going to order from Rasika and get them to deliver to your place. That weird crispy spinach thing you like will be waiting with your doorman by the time you get home."
"You're going to yell at me if I tell you that that's more kindness than I deserve," Silena said. "So I'll settle for just saying thank you."
When the door closed behind Clarisse, Silena pressed one of the only two shortcut buttons programmed into her phone at all. She let it ring, and ring, and ring—
And three rings was all it took before Reyna picked up. "Silena. How are you doing?"
The sympathy in the Chief of Staff's voice nearly broke Silena then and there. "Reyna, I have to tell you something."
"What's going on?" Reyna paused. "Why are you working? You know personal bereavement days— they might not be encouraged, exactly, but they're in your contract."
"Reyna, I might not be coming back to work at all after what I'm about to say." Silena's hand trembled. "I just need you to let me say it, or I'm afraid I won't be able to at all."
"Okay." Reyna let out a long breath on the other end of the line, and Silena imagined her sitting down at a desk, straightening her cuffs, all the usual tics and tells that Silena had spent months learning.
"I've been informing on White House activities, confidential and otherwise, to the benefit of the opposition party, and to the detriment of the safety of the President. I'm going to leave my badge and my credentials on my desk on the way out, along with the resignation letter I haven't written yet." Silena picked at a barely-visible chip in her nail, digging into the gel polish the way every manicurist she'd ever been to had always told her she shouldn't.
"Luke Castellan." Reyna said, the words a curse as much as an explanation.
"I could tell you all the things he did. That he had a fake paper trail that looked real enough to fool anyone, that made it look like I took bribes, or that he was trying to get me to leave Charlie and be with him and that that started all the way back when Annabeth started working here, I could tell you all sorts of things and they'd all be true. But the fact of the matter is, very simply, that I did it. And I do not deserve to hold my office." A single tear fell from one eye. "I will hand over every document or receipt I had. I'll do anything I can to put him away."
A long pause on the other end of the line. "Did you actually take the bribes?"
"No." The word startled its way out of Silena's mouth. "No, I didn't."
"Okay." Reyna sighed. "If you're really set on resigning, I am aware that I can't stop you. But if there's a case— and if you have documents or receipts or anything else, there will be a case…"
"I know." Silena's posture drooped even further. "I'm already looking for a lawyer. And I know the general counsel's office can't help."
"Get a lawyer who has nothing to do with the White House, and call… well, normally I'd say to call Annabeth." Something beeped in the background behind Reyna. Of course. She was still at the hospital. Because that was how this horrendous day had begun.
All of the reasons she couldn't call Annabeth ran through Silena's mind, starting with the fact that she'd have to admit to the pressure to leave her own now-dead fiancé for the man who Annabeth had been romantically entangled with for most of her career in Washington and ending with the fact that Annabeth herself was hooked up to all manner of machinery fighting for her life for all Silena knew.
"I know," was all Silena said.
"Silena." There was a note of warning in Reyna's voice now. "Do you think you have enough on him to get him out of office?"
A broken laugh sprang from Silena's throat past the lump lodged in her throat. "I have enough to get him behind bars."
"You don't sound like that will solve all your problems here." Reyna cleared her throat.
"No," Silena agreed, suddenly serene, a cool flash of clarity sliding over the chaos roiling inside of her. "Nothing could solve all my problems now, because nothing can bring Charlie back. But aside from that, I don't think it was just Luke."
"You think that if we put him behind bars, it doesn't stop?" Reyna asked.
"Who do you mean by 'we'?" Silena countered.
Two hours after Silena hung up the phone, placed her credentials and her resignation letter on her desk, and left through the Rose Garden colonnade for the last time as the White House Press Secretary, Reyna's phone rang again.
"What?" Reyna asked sharply, drained after hours in the hospital and more worn out than she'd have liked to admit from her call with Silena.
"Please don't hang up," said the voice on the other end. "I'm going to tell you something that I've never told another soul, and I need your help."
"You have ten seconds before I give this phone to the nearest Secret Service agent and ask them to destroy it," Reyna said, already pinching the phone between two fingers like it might detonate at any second.
"My name is Ethan Nakamura."
"Rep from Arizona," Reyna recognized the name.
"Please don't say that too loudly, wherever you are," Nakamura pled. "No one knows I'm calling you. I'm stepping down from my government seat today. When I leave the building, I'm not coming back. I have information on the Majority Speaker, who has been blackmailing me and multiple other members of Congress into voting against our party. I need protection."
Reyna pinched the bridge of her nose. "Believe it or not, you're not the first to— wait a minute. The Majority Speaker?"
"Yes. John Kronos. I can't say anything more than that, and I'm afraid I've already said too much. Is there anything you can do?"
"How did you even get this number?" Reyna asked. "Never mind. Just… I'll talk to some people. If you get abducted by a few guys in black suits, make them show you their badges but it's probably fine."
Apologies for the delay.
That said, in weirdly relevant news I did spend yesterday and today reading Chalice of the Gods and Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson back-to-back, which feels somehow relevant to this fic...
