Scandal 9

An hour before the scheduled press conference, Jess Taylor had been whisked away from her place of employment by her Secret Service detail and ushered into the Residence, under a veil of absolute secrecy. Inside the main living room of The Residence, she looked around to see her mom ushered into the room too, surrounded by her own detail. "What's going on?" Jess asked, worried. "Is it Dad? Oh no, not Nate?"

"I have no idea." Her mother replied, slipping her heels off her feet and making a pot of coffee. Once she had the coffee made, she poured her and her daughter one, fixing it to their mutual liking.

There was a flurry of activity and suddenly, it was just the first family, alone in the room. No Secret Service, no advisors, no staff, no one, but the four of them. "Coffee, darlings?" She asked both men at once.

"This might be more of a liquor moment." Andrew replied, winking at his son, as he went to the bar and poured the whiskey generously over four crystal tumblers. He made sure to pour a healthy dose into Nate's glass. Handing one to each member of the first family, he nodded to his son. "Nate?"

Nathan steeled himself, taking an ample mouthful of the whiskey, he looked at his glass and realised that his father had deliberately given him extra whiskey in his glass to calm his nerves and agitation. "Sit." He directed his family and noticed that the three of them were already seated, waiting for him to begin.

He was nervous. He didn't know where to begin. Sure, the upcoming press conference was a great idea, in theory, both from a political and strategic standpoint, but it had skipped his mind that he needed to come out to his mom and sister beforehand. He didn't want either of them to be hurt by this or get blindsided. He had simply tucked that away in the back of his mind.

Remembering the words he used just ninety minutes ago to his father, in the oval office, Nathan sucked a big breath of air into his lungs. "I'm seeing someone." Nathan admitted. "Have been seeing someone and it is serious." Nathan took his time, breathing in and out, evenly.

The next two points were the harder of the three. They were going to leave a sting between them, he just hoped they could all recover from it. He knew his sister would be most of all hurt by the next two points. They were close. Closer than most siblings that run in political circles. She was six years older than him, and she had taken care of him since the day he was born. They had no choice to be close, especially when both of their parents had been focused on their own agendas.

"Honey, that's great." His mom cooed at him, and Jess grinned reassuringly at him. "Why would we need to be whisked into a secret meeting for that? You could have just brought her to dinner on Sunday night."

"There is a news story breaking, right now and I ... we ... didn't want you to be caught out by it." Nathan managed to choke out. "She ... is not ... a she. She is a ... he."

"And ...?" His mom asked, waiting for the big reveal, as if hearing that her son was seeing a man wasn't the big bombshell it was supposed to be. "Is that all?"

"He and I, we have been together for a while now. This part is going to be painful ... we've been together for ten years."

Nathan's confession was met with an ear-splitting scream of joy. "Yes!" His sister screamed at his mom. "I knew it, pay up!" Jess grinned at him lovingly. "When you were twenty, when you came home on winter break from MIT, I told mom I thought you might be seeing someone. We made a bet and I won."

"What?" Nathan asked, dumbfounded. "How? What?"

"Oh, Baby Brother, I know you better than I know myself, most days." Jess came over and hugged him hard. "I didn't know it was a guy, though." She hastily explained as she pulled back. "You were happy, happier than you usually are, and I just knew. Mom thought that maybe you were just happy to be back in DC, that you missed us. You know around all the political history and stuff. But I know you ..."

"Tell us about him..." His mother encouraged, as she patted the seat on the sofa beside her. "Where did you meet? How did you meet?"

"First start with, are you gay? Bi? Pan? Queer?" Jess grinned at him, before pulling him into a hug and ushering his six-foot-three body into the small space between the ladies. while Andrew sat on the coffee table opposite the sofa.

"Cool it, Jess. I am gay." Nathan grinned at his sister and nudged her with his arm, playfully, like he used to when they were kids, and she was annoying him.

"So ... ten years, huh?" May asked her son. That confession had hurt her. They had always had an open and honest relationship with their children and to find out that Nate had been keeping this huge secret from her, it had stung. "So, in the last decade you never thought to mention him?" She wasn't angry, per se. She was upset and heartbroken that her son had thought that he couldn't come to her and talk to her. To trust her with his secret.

"My boyfriend is still in the closet ... further in than I have ever been." Nate supplied and he could feel his mother's arms tighten around him. "Some members ... most of his family are homophobic in some way or another." Nathan let out a strange sound. A half chuckle, half cry. "The other half sit on the opposite side of the political divide than us."

"That's ok, Nate." His father reminded him. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Tell us about him, anyway."

"He is nothing like his family. Oh, I haven't personally met his grandmother, but he says his grandmother is cool, like us." Nate smiles, remembering that Penny was ok with her grandson's sexuality and his lifestyle choices. "Remember my roommate from MIT?"

"Oh, Tim." Jess supplied, excitedly. She had met him several times, in passing when the two men had shared a dorm. "I like him. Isn't he supposed to some super-smart genius?"

"He is." Nathan smiled at his Dad. "He is ... my boyfriend, too. Tim McGee is my boyfriend." He admitted and he felt a weight in his chest disappear at his words to his sister and his mom.

"Wait, Tim McGee? As in Penny Langston's grandson? That Tim McGee?" Jess asked, spinning around in her seat to meet her brother in shock. At her family's questioning looks, she explained. "Penny Langston, well McGee really. She changed her name after her husband died. She was my mentor in college and beyond. We were colleagues at NYU. We're friends. This is so cool. She talks about how great her grandson is all the time."

"She doesn't know about us, you can't say a word, Jess. I need you to promise me." Nathan begged, turning deadly serious. His father also wore a look of being serious on his face.

"Of course not, I promise." Jess sighed, dramatically. She would never betray her brother's confidence. Something about the look on her father's face, the look on her brother's face and the looks the two main men in her life were sharing curbed her enthusiasm. Reined it right in. "It's just if Tim is as cool as Penny says he is, I know I am going to love him."

"Sunday night dinner then, you're bringing him." His mother added. She too, had noticed the silent exchanges between her husband and father. Mentally, she made a reminder to discuss this with her husband further.

"Maybe, Mom." Nathan slightly hesitated. "I am not going to force him, especially after I have just been outed on national television."

That gained more of a response than his own coming out to his family and they launched into a heated and fiery discussion about that. Justifiably so, his mom and sister were shocked and outraged. Andrew and Nathan explained their plan of attack and both May and Jess, also planned their own attack to themselves.

Nathan stood tall, dressed in Tim's favourite suit, freshly pressed. His tie was one that Tim had gifted him when he had first been elected to the senate. He was looking like the proud US Senator that he was. There was a dozen camera's pointed at the podium, and an equal number of microphones at the podium. He had held press conferences before, so many times before that it was instinctual, second nature. But this was perhaps more nerve-wrecking than the very first one he had ever held. The consolation at the end of it was, that there would be no questions. This was more of a press statement than a press conference. The lineup was that he would speak, then his father would speak briefly and then it was over. Kyle had limited the number of members of the press that were allowed to attend. He had selected them, based on how well they worked with both Nathan's press team and the Us President's press team.

He smiled to himself and steeled himself, mentally. He hated this. Tim was tucked away at their undisclosed, private hideaway and he was here, facing the music, so to speak. He looked up and his eyes locked on Max Gawn from a distance. Nathan knew that Kyle had invited him a courtesy. Afterall, he had sat on the story as a favour to Leon Vance and lost the story of the year in the process. He knew that the reporter had to have been furious that the scoop of his career had been swept out from underneath his feet, like an expensive rug. It was a good will gesture, inviting Max Gawn to the presser.

"Are you ok?" Andrew asked softly, as he approached his son. He had been watching his son going through the motions in the lead up to the press conference and he had been able to see past the tough facade that his son had slipped on. He could see that his son was nervous, and he couldn't remember a time when he had ever seen his son more nervous.

"Yeah, just gathering my thoughts." Nathan muttered, pulling out his phone and looking at the screen. He felt his father put a comforting hand on his shoulder, much the same way that Gibbs did to Tim. The way that Gibbs had done to him, as he left Tim to go and take care of this mess. He looked up at his dad and noticed that everyone seemed to be busy, not just milling around behind the scenes, but actually focused on their job and not the father-son duo. "Want to see a picture?"

Andrew Taylor grinned at his son. It was a wide, genuine smile. The kind that he didn't use in public. The kind that he had reserved for only his family and his closest friends, the one that people never see on the man, except a select few. One he had never used for the press or on the campaign trail. "Of course." And he meant what he said. He was keen as mustard to see a photo of his son and his boyfriend together.

He watched as his son unlocked his cell, tapped a series of commands and codes into his phone. Suddenly, there was a whole folder of photos. Photos of just his son, photos of Tim. Photos of the two men, together. "This one is my favourite." Nathan said, breaking the silence, as he tapped an image halfway down the folder. The image depicted the two men, laying side by side in a double hammock. Both men wearing their ratty old MIT tees, swim shorts and bare feet. Their legs intertwined together. Each man with a book in their hand, the covers obscured. Shoulders touching and they looked comfortable in each other's personal space. The view beyond the hammock was a soft sandy shoreline and crystal blue water that glistened in the sunlight and sparkled in the background of the candid shot. "Mark snapped that photo. We were both so relaxed and Mark had been walking in, coming on duty. He held his phone up, the silent code Mark uses to ask with me if I want a photo taken. I gave him a nod and he snapped the picture."

"You look happy ... both of you." His father told him, letting his face show his son that he was ok with his son's lifestyle.

"We are ready for you." Kyle muttered, interrupting the father-son moment. He hadn't wanted to intrude on what had been clearly a special moment for the pair but this time it was duty calling. Not only as a sitting member of the senate, but as the First Son of the President of the United States, also.

Nathan headed across the room, stopping momentarily to check himself in the mirror that hung on the wall in the back room, before walking through the door into the press room and stepping up to the podium. He gave himself a moment, before looking up, directly into the lights and the cameras, seeing the microphones in his lower vision. He steeled himself mentally and took a deep breath, before he began to speak.

"Good evening.

My partner and I have been together for a long time, now. As many of you have already read, we've struggled everyday with what this means for our families, our country and our futures. And while neither of us is naive about what it means for me to be politician, we never imagined our most private and intimate thoughts, fears and truths would become fodder for public examination.

What was taken from us today, was our right to determine for ourselves how and when we should share our relationship and queer identities with the world.

The truth is every queer person has the right to come out on their own terms, and on their own timeline. They also have the right to choose not to come out at all. The forced conformity of the closet cannot be answered with the forced conformity in coming out of it.

This isn't about shame. This is about privacy and the fundamental right of self-determination, which are exactly the principles on which the struggle for queer liberation has always been fought.

But there is another truth that is much simpler: I fell in love with a person who happens to be a man and that man happens to be my soulmate. He has captured my heart and made my life immeasurably better.

I love him deeply. I hope one day we'll have the opportunity to be public about our relationship on our own terms.

Thank-you."

Andrew Taylor had discreetly stepped inside the press room, just as his son had been begun speaking, against his advisor's advice. He had wanted it noted that he had been there to support his son. Not just make a public statement, in reference to the gross injustice of what had happened to a fellow politician. He wanted to show the world that he was a loving and supportive father to his son. that his son had the love and support of his family.

As Nathan stepped down off the podium, Andrew stepped towards him and brought his son into a bone-crushing embrace. "I'm proud of you." Andrew whispered into his son's ear, as the two men hugged. "So proud of you. So is your mom and Jess."