The one with The Wizard of Oz.

The run up to Christmas was normally a period of quiet reflection, except for those with young children - little Wes had now grasped the concept that Christmas meant gifts, and he had even pointed out a few choice items to his fathers in Macy's one Sunday afternoon, when they had been there in search of something else. It was not the most expensive items that he pointed out though, as some children are wont to do; he was not a spoilt child, and they both knew that his favourite toy was the little white bear that his Aunt Grace had given him on the day he came into the world. His choices were noted, and most were indeed purchased by Nick on his way home from work over the next couple of days.

That was about all that anyone was doing though to prepare for the holidays, as most of the nation put its plans on hold as the country went into virtual meltdown with the arrival of the Presidential election. The level of vitriol that was coming from the current incumbent's camp had reached toxic amounts. Nick had now taken to leaving earlier and watching the morning news bulletin at work rather that over his breakfast at home, after several expletives were uttered by a Republican spokesman live on Good Morning America, and little Wes had promptly repeated them. The Democrats were not responding in kind as they could just sit back and let their opposition pull themselves apart; they were also paying no attention to the polling numbers, not after the fiasco of 2016, when everything had looked so rosy.

The swing states had been given the usual high level of attention by both parties, the experts had said their piece, and some celebrity endorsements had been made, but far less than in 2016 by the Democrat side. They had instead invited local people to come and speak at their grassroots meetings. At the big events, they invited people that Kennedy had helped as a congressman, the kind of ordinary Americans that the party intended to be there for. They had also galvanised the youth vote, with those affected by such high profile events as the Parkland shooting touring the nation, holding rallies, and doing their level best to ensure that young people went out and actually cast a ballot on polling day.

Then in November, with just days to go, a scandal erupted. A document emerged that had been sent to a voter registration office in a largely Republican area of Ohio, in which instructions were given from a federal source on how to block young people from getting onto the voter register, and how to remove those already on it. The fact that it had been sent on the instruction of a senior member of the President's White House team horrified people, and it was worse as it became clear it had been sent to every state in the land.

Just hours later, a document came to light in one of the swing states, which gave a list of places from which ballots had to be collected on election day, and on close inspection, it was apparent that several polling places in predominantly Democratic areas had been omitted from the list. It had been drawn up to replace the previous instructions by the staff of the pro-Republican office of the deputy governor. With rumours of such flagrant attempts to rig the vote by disenfranchising people, the protests against the incumbent began to grow louder and more voracious, even amongst his own party members. His flippant response in which he suggested that the Russians had been behind it saw him ridiculed across the media, and even the puppets on Fox News looked sick with embarrassment.

Then, the day before the actual poll, one of those puppets broke their strings. In a special report, one of which the co-anchor had clearly not been informed by their expression, a video of the President after one of the channels recent sycophantic interviews was played. Across the nation, jaws dropped as they saw and heard him say that he would win as the rednecks were stupid enough to believe that he actually gave a damn about them; the religious evangelical right were crazy enough to believe he would actually do their bidding; and the NRA were so obsessed with their guns that they would vote for Putin or Kim Jong-Un as President as long as they were able to stay armed. It was a delightful bit of off the record supporter bashing, and it came as no shock the next morning when the final poll of polls indicated that the President would be moving out of the White House in the next few weeks…

Even so, nobody was taking anything for granted this time. The pollsters were suspected of all kind of nefarious tricks by both sides, and no-one was going to celebrate until the result was made official. Nick and Jeff voted early in the day, with half of their friends from the street right behind them in the line; a line which was full of young people, that had been galvanised to go to the polls to change the old order once and for all. In Ohio, Trent and Rory saw the same thing as they helped to get Burt's supporters out, and it was the case in every state of the Union. Seasoned news reporters gave excited reports about high schools across the nation where large numbers of Seniors were absent, of colleges that were empty of their students, classes abandoned as they went out to ensure that they took advantage of their democratic rights. It was clear to everyone that the nation's youth was no longer going to just sit by and do what they were told; they wanted change, and they were voting for it. Fox News initially condemned them for missing class, but as the size of the youth quake became obvious, they stopped. No-one wanted to risk angering the kids anymore.

The young people only started to vanish as the polls began to close; they now waited in the hope that their votes would be enough to give them a country with a brighter future; a nation that could begin the job of repairing the damage of the last four years…

On a similar night in 2016, Nick and Jeff had headed to bed in the belief that they would wake up with the first female President in the history of the country in office. Now, even with all of the signs being so hopeful, they made their way to bed early with no conviction that there would be a change at all in the morning. Indeed, the wildest of rumours abounded, including those that the President would declare the election void if he lost, stating that he believed there had been an intervention in the results by an enemy state; that would rule out Russia and North Korea. Others stated that the army had been put on standby so that martial law could be declared as he attempted to hang on to power, and that his first act in office would be to axe the two term only rule…

The two young men had considered staying up to watch the results come in, but Nick still had work in the morning, and Jeff had both a diner shift and a toddler to look after, so they had made the decision to wait and see what the morning would bring. Indeed, as Mike headed home from his show that night, refusing to listen to any sort of politics as he did so, he walked along a street where every window was dark, apart from the glow of the nightlight in little Wes' room; Tina was asleep when he reached his own home, and he climbed more or less straight into bed beside her…

Just after 4am, Nick was woken from his sleep by the sound of his cellphone buzzing away on the bedside table like a demented bee; he attempted to ignore it at first, but whoever it was just kept on ringing back. In the end he grabbed it, groaning at the time when he saw it, and hoping for the sake of the person on the other end of the call that it was a dire emergency. He answered and made a noise which resembled hello…

"Ding, dong, the witch is dead! Which witch? The wicked witch!" came a voice singing on the other end of the line in response.

Nick's brows knit together as the same line of the song was sung over and over again by… "Trent! Are you drunk!? It is 4am, and you are singing songs from the Wizard of Oz to me!"

"I am not drunk, Nicholas, just a little tispy," replied Trent in scandalised tones. "I had to call, because the wicked witch is dead! The dog days are over! He can't win, he has lost… WE WON NICK! WE WON!"

Nick flinched as his friend shouted, then shook his head. He was about to rebuke him for calling again when his tired brain suddenly computed the words… "We won! Please tell me that is true…"

"President Kennedy is on his way to the White House. It is a massive victory; a virtual landslide. Only some of the bible states have stayed Republican Nick. We have a new President, and a female Vice-President. I keep having to pinch myself in case it is all a dream, but I don't wake up. Anyway, if it is all a dream, it is one I want to stay in."

"Who on earth are you talking to, Nicky?" came a sleepy, grumpy voice from beside Nick in the bed.

"Trent my love. He is very drunk - yes, you are Trent - and he is excited about our new President."

"That is nice, but couldn't he… New President! He's gone!" squealed Jeff, before he leapt up and starting jumping about on the bed.

On the other end of the line, Nick could hear Trent laughing as he pictured the scene, and to be honest, he felt like laughing too. "So, Trent, who else have you phoned so far with the good news?"

"Just you so far, but I was thinking I should call Thaddie next as he will be so happy. I did consider Sebastian, but I don't think he would be very polite…"

"That is true, but Thad will be pleased. I will let you go and call him right now…" Nick stopped talking as the call ended abruptly. Suddenly Jeff was on top of him, raining kisses all over his face. He laughed then, and when Jeff stopped for a moment, he said, "Trent hung up on me. He is so, so drunk, but that is understandable in the circumstances. Anyway, he was about to call Thad and share the good news with him…" Jeff giggled as he pictured the Head Warbler's reaction to a call at this time, but then he realised that once he got over the initial reaction, he would be overjoyed that the nightmare was finally over…

In the end, Nick and Jeff decided not to try and go back to sleep; instead, after checking in on Wes, they went downstairs and made themselves a celebratory breakfast of bacon, French toast, fried potatoes and sausage. Nick switched on BBC America first, and smiled at the beaming faces of the London based news anchors as they talked about the results. Just after 5am they switched over to ABC, resisting the temptation to tune into the sad faces on Fox News. If the presenters on the special early edition of the usual show said "Good Morning America!" with a very cheerful tone, almost reminiscent of the late Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, no-one cared. A dark cloud had gone, and soon the light would be shining through again.

They were both listening in awe to the size of the vote swing in some states when they heard a frenzied knocking at the back door; a glance showed them Seth and Skylar, in their night clothes, bouncing up and down as if they had just consumed all the sugar in the world. As Jeff went to let them in, Nick heard a knocking on the front door upstairs; he ran up, and the moment he opened the door, he had an Ethan wrapped around him. "This is real… Please tell me it is real," Ethan whispered in Nick's ear.

"It is real, and Trent is very, very drunk," replied Nick, and he laughed as Ethan nodded in agreement.

"He is, and I intend to get the same way myself tonight; after all, I have work, although I think personally that today should be declared a national holiday."

"It will be Thanksgiving soon enough," replied Nick, "and this year, most of the country will have one thing that they can agree on being really thankful for…"

It would turn out to be the strangest of days for all of those in New York. The majority of the populace were acting as if they had just won the lottery, and nothing was going to get them down. When Nick arrived at the subway on his way to work that morning to discover that the northbound trains to Times Square were not running due to a signal fault, he did not curse as usual under his breath; he just thought 'Oh well…' and headed for the 'L' Train to Union Square, where he managed to squeeze himself into an overcrowded '4' Train. As the train headed north, and Nick tried to hold on in the tight mass of humanity, he found himself humming Zippity Doo Dah and worse, everyone around him seemed to be joining in. Then, as he strolled along from Grand Central to the UN Building, he realised that the usual blaring of horns on the crowded thoroughfares was absent; drivers were showing so much courtesy to each other that the traffic was actually worse than ever…

Inside the UN itself, ever an impartial place, no-one mentioned the result itself, but Nick did notice that as the person that President Trump had appointed to represent the country in the UN walked past him and down the corridor that morning, it was to the sound of blown raspberries and the occasional "Ha! Ha!" He pretended not to notice that there was a poster up asking for donations to their leaving gift, and suggestions as to what it should be; he also pretended not to laugh at the fact that bolt cutters and orange jumpsuit were at the top of the list. In any case, nothing would change here until after the inauguration of the new President in January - and right now, the delay between the vote and the taking up of office did seem stupid. On his own floor, there was a display of cake and candy just as you entered the department, with a notice telling people to help themselves. Everyone seemed to be smiling too…

Similar scenes were taking place in Flint and Ethan's offices; Beats was startled to discover that there was an ice bucket with bottles of champagne in it next to the water cooler at the MTA. At the Spotlight, never the home of politics, Michelle ran the special on cheesecake she had intended, and served everyone with her usual smile, whether they had backed the winner or the loser in the race. Many of the latter she suspected were secretly glad that they had lost and that he would be going, as it would allow them to rebuild their party…

By lunchtime though, the euphoria had begun to die down; after all, he was still technically the President for another ten weeks or so, and a lot of damage could be done in that time. Many suspected that he would start to issue decree after decree, repealing years of hard fought for legislation from before his own period of office, making sure that there would be time wasted re-enacting it in the first months of the new presidency. To that end, the Democrats in both Congress and the Senate made proposals that allowed a veto to be placed on all such decrees from the White House for the next two months. To the relief of everyone, the majority of the Republicans in both houses agreed, including many that had lost their seats in the other votes held on the previous day.

The President, when he was informed that such legislation had been passed, sent out a string of nasty tweets, promising all sorts of retribution to those that had dared to take his rightful powers away. He threatened them with the nation's courts, but even there he found that he had been stymied at the first hurdle. The unanimous verdict of the judges in the Supreme Court was in favour of the political wishes of the lawmakers elected to the Capitol, and against the whims of one man. Having made that pronouncement, the nation then watched as Congress announced that they had instigated the first motions of an investigation into the affairs of the President at the White House since he took office in January 2017. The motion called for the seizure of all documents, electronic and physical, and placed a prohibition on the destruction of any item. The two Congressional representatives that stood side by side on the podium to make that motion where from opposite sides of the political divide, but did both represent seats in Ohio…

Rory had been the one to pass the finished document to Burt and Sue; he and Trent had drawn it up together prior to the election, but his husband was not in the office that day; his tolerance to alcohol was much lower. As the moment came, Trent was just waking up at home, his head pounding. He groaned as he saw the time, and then the note from Rory, telling him to get some rest, next to the box of Advil and the flask of coffee…

Those two immediate needs dealt with, Trent checked his phone, blushing at the message from Thad that he forgave him for calling him at 4am given the circumstances, but that he would not be responsible for his actions if he ever heard Trent singing that song from The Wizard of Oz ever again…

It was as Trent was eating his way through a pack of cookies that he heard the mail box go, and he got up slowly to head and see what the mailman had delivered for them. To his surprise though, it was not actual post in the box; instead it was a handwritten note in a blank envelope, which stated Storage Units K28 to K33, 605 S Ball Street, Arlington, Virginia will catch fire tonight. Your congressman needs to know and see it is stopped. A friend.

Trent looked at those words in confusion for a few moments, and then his befogged brain computed, and it hit him. The documents from the White House had to be stored off site somewhere, and the public state facilities were the repository they were supposed to be in; but what if they were not the actual papers? What if the stuff placed in there on a more or less daily basis was something else? Did anyone actually check what was being put in the archives, other than the White House itself? If not, then it could all just be reams of blank paper…

His headache was suddenly gone, and he grabbed his phone to call Rory. This information had to be got to the FBI, the CIA and the new President Elect. They had to stop a fire breaking out in Virginia, and they had to check what was in both the official repository and those storage units. Time was of the essence; any delay could potentially mean that the cause of justice might not be served…

It would later become known as one of the greatest scandals in the world's political history; how a President of the United States tried to destroy all of the physical documentation of his entire four year term. Which staffer in the White House had decided that they could not sit by in all good conscience and allow it to happen would never be known, but they were one of the unknown heroes of justice. They would remain unknown thanks to Burt; when he and Rory arrived at Trent's home having received his call, the congressman's first action was to take the note and hand it to Rory, and instruct him to type up a copy on the PC, which he then printed off.

"If we give this note to the authorities, they will be able to use it to identify the whistle blower. If there is a lot of damaging stuff in those lockers, then they will become a target for every nut job that thinks Trump was the best President ever. They will also be targeted by the new administration, and I don't think any of us here would wish that to happen to them. This person has been forced to do the bidding of that man, and that they should lose their job for telling the truth would be unfair. It is better for them if we help them remain anonymous," said Burt, and although it seemed a little wrong, the two younger men took his point.

They finished just in time; moments later the representatives of both the CIA and the FBI arrived, and after reading the note, they despatched units post haste to the address in Virginia, there to stake out the storage facility. The next few hours were ones of tense waiting to see if the actual attempt would go ahead, but eventually the phone call came to Burt that they had all been awaiting; a group of four people, carrying all the necessary equipment for a spot of fire raising, had been apprehended at the facility. They had the keys to the lockers, and when they were opened, they were found to contain all of the papers that should have been placed in the state repository, each unit containing the documents for a separate year of the presidency. As Trent had also surmised, when the papers in the actual repository were checked, after a lot of protests from those in charge of the facility over breach of confidentiality, the files there were found to consist of a covering front page, and then page after page of blank copier paper. At a stroke, the mystery of the Trump administrations sky high stationery bills had also been resolved…

The three people who had alerted the authorities were sworn to the strictest of secrecy at first; Burt was not even allowed to tell Carole what was going on until such time as the incoming President and his team had been informed fully of developments, and the miscreants had been caught. The President Elect was horrified, and decided that it would be best to check what all parts of the offices of government had done with their documentation under the Trump administration. The office of every Trump appointee was thus searched…

That was how Nick became aware of the growing scandal first; he was just about to leave the office that Friday night, having stayed a little later than usual, when he found himself stopped by Miss Worthington. "Well, we have a final act in the freak show that has been the Trump administration, Nick. The Secretary General has just given special permission for the FBI to enter the building and seize all the paperwork from the offices of the US Legation here, from the start of his presidency onwards. They are downstairs right now, and the ambassador is not best pleased; screaming about diplomatic immunity, violation of international laws, and being illegally on foreign soil to them. From what I have just been told by a source, the first three files they have opened contain nothing but blank paper, and they are know seeking an arrest warrant for the ambassador and their staff."

"Blank paper!" exclaimed Nick. "They obviously did not want a record left of all of their wrongdoing. I just hope that they manage to find the originals…"

"I am sure that they will," Miss Worthington began, and then stopped as her phone buzzed with a message. She shook her head sadly, then said, "Well, well, it gets more interesting by the minute. Rumours of an attempt to burn down several storage units full of White House papers in Virginia… Seems that there was a tip off to a Democrat congressman's assistant, who just happened to be off work as luck would have it, due to a severe hangover." Nick nodded, and suddenly he wondered if that could have been Trent…

It was Sunday that saw the big reveal to the public take place, in an exclusive shared by the Washington Post and New York Times. Even in the era of digital news, both journals had increased their print run to offer a special, no supplements edition, which along with the normal editions sold out rapidly across the country, leaving them with no hesitation in ordering a bigger run of the Monday editions, in which further revelations would be forthcoming. Across the nation, people pored over their Sunday newspapers in a way that had not been witnessed for more than a decade. The plot to burn down the lockers at Arlington had only been the start, with other smaller storage places set to have been destroyed over the coming weeks, in an attempt to erase all of the evidence…

The papers from Arlington were now being studied by the staff of the CIA and FBI, all only too happy to give up their weekend to nail the administration that had bad mouthed them so constantly, and which as a consequence most of them hated with a passion. An order had already been issued which banned all of the key players from leaving the country, and in some cases, even Washington DC. Some felt that order had only been issued by someone that was fed up of the President heading out of town every weekend to play golf in Florida, not that he could have this weekend anyway; his resort was being searched, and some papers had already been found…

Nick was intrigued as he read the papers to find confirmation of what Miss Worthington had said about the congressman's assistant, but still no name attached. Telling Jeff that he needed to go out and purchase more cinnamon, as he had an urge to make buns, one of his husbands favourite's, Nick found himself a quiet corner on his way to the store, and called his friend. When he answered, Nick said "Thank goodness you were hung over…"

There was a silence, then Trent replied, "You can't tell anyone, not even Jeff! But yes, it was lucky. If I hadn't been at home, then by the time we returned from the office to find the note, all of the evidence would have been destroyed. As it is, people here are only saying one word…"

"Watergate," whispered Nick.

"Exactly, but this is much, much worse. From what I can gather, the aftershocks from this will last years…"

The remainder of November saw the media dominated by news of fresh scandals from the papers that the administration had tried to hide and had failed in so doing. There was no great attempt made to seek out the source of the tip off in the White House that had saved the day, but the contents of the waste paper baskets had been checked, and shredded papers were carefully put back together. The hard drives of all of the computers in the building were checked by the best tech experts from around the nation to see if any encrypted data was lurking - Nick and David pretended not to see each other one morning at the UN as the latter headed to check the systems at the UN legation. The investigation also entered the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue…

Nick said nothing to anyone about Trent being the aide that had managed to kick the whole process off, and the young man in question had returned to work with his usual mission of ensuring that the speeches that were delivered by Burt Hummel were some of the most anticipated not only in Congress, but amongst the media pack. A mark of this came when Burt was invited to appear by CBS to appear on Face the Nation; he was uncertain about making an appearance, but eventually he accepted on the proviso that it was not broadcast live, and that he was allowed to check the final edit before it was broadcast. On the day in question, Carole made sure that Burt was very smartly turned out, with final judgement handed to Kurt; and then he was joined at the studios by Trent and Rory, who had been given the list of questions in advance, and had prepared some notes for him. They were then taken to the studio, which was empty apart from the presenter, Margaret Brennan. That was when the bombshell that none of them had been expecting was delivered…

She turned to Trent after Burt had made the introductions, and whispered "Rumour has it that you are the young man that had the most fortunate hangover in history…" Trent went scarlet, and nodded slightly. "I think I speak on behalf of the majority of the nation and most of the press when I say thank you very much. Fox News might have a different opinion, but thanks to you, justice is being done. I am just glad that your generation has seized the opportunity and is getting more powerful; that is how it should be. I shall be watching your progress here in the political world of Washington."

She took his hand, and shook it warmly as Burt and Rory looked on in shock. Trent was smiling, but he could not help but worry; if she knew who he was, then how long would it remain secret from the rest of the world?