When Michael got the call from Sara, somewhere past 5 a.m., he hadn't been sleeping. For the past two months, Michael had rediscovered life at its core, stripped of the structure of work and social relations – he did not go even to the center anymore. It turned out that things such as getting seven hours a night and eating three meals a day was completely artificial. On most nights, Michael found he was fine with four hours, sometimes five, and ate only when the connections in his brain seemed under a black haze.

Anyone who'd take a glimpse at his dim near-empty apartment might call it an unhealthy lifestyle, but Michael knew better now than to trust such labels. All that mattered was, so far, this was working for him and carrying him through to where he wanted to go.

Each day, the young man absorbed hundreds of pages on law and justice – how to apply it and how to make a mess of it, which was far too frequent for Michael's liking.

Of course, Michael's self-teaching wasn't perfect. There were times of frustration, when he would sink his nails into his thighs, trying to remember the precise wording of this or that law. But considering he'd concentrated years of learning into an intense couple of months, he wasn't doing bad at all. Starting last week, Michael had decided to follow major trials, not only on television but in person, and had been part of the audience when the state of Illinois arraigned one David Apolskis for grand theft. Already, in the first session, Michael had found himself making a mental list of all he would do different, if he were the one representing the kid –

Looking at young David standing trial was hard, as Michael had expected.

There were reasons why he had veered away from the path of action so long ago, why he naturally preferred to hide in the shade than for the sunlight to beam on every wrong and ill of society, on the faces of all of those that slipped through the cracks and toppled into the abyss. As he sat there, among the audience, silent, Michael could feel the pain of David Apolskis, like it were his own.

Empathy, to the degree that Michael experienced it, was like a curse, would have been enough to make him renounce society altogether, if he hadn't learned to temper it with time. There was no saving the world, or saving everyone. Michael used to think he would have wanted to do a job like this one, something with meaning. He'd clung to the idea until he was eleven years old, when he had one nightmare still fresh enough in his mind, he remembered it perfectly.

In the dream, young Michael was standing on the deck of a boat, outside of which the waves of a stormy sea stared into his eyes. A hundred hands leapt up and broke the surface of the water. Masses of drowning people reached out for the boat, and the multitude sent his mind into wild loops of helpless vertigo, as Michael could not focus enough to choose who to offer his hand first, could only watch as that ocean of drowned clamored for their lives.

Recently, he hadn't only been thinking of this dream but having it – all over again.

"You care too much," he said to himself, during a short break from his law book, as he got water boiling for some coffee.

So many ills in this country would make any attentive onlooker want to tear out their eyes, but the plight of illegal immigrants and refugees was to Michael particularly sensitive – who were the authorities of this country to deny shelter to those who suffered?

Maybe also because of all the gilded coating of the American dream, this one lie was the most heart-rending.

"Give me your tired, your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Michael recited in a breath. "Lady Liberty, what a great disappointment you are."

No sooner had he spoken these words than his cell phone began to ring. In a blink, Michael swiveled to glance at the countertop that stood between his kitchen and living room, where his phone had lain forgotten throughout the night. Some ten seconds passed. The chime of the telephone got lost in the soaring whistle of the kettle.

Call Michael old-fashioned, but he liked those kettles that sang like ululating wolves, or the horns of a great boat setting sail.

People still called Michael, of course, but not past five a.m.

Recently, he'd been in contact with a lawyer whose latest cases he had watched closely, hoping that giving him free advice would annoy him only for some time before he curbed his pride and took the assistance he needed.

The caller ID was of no help, announcing an unknown caller.

As Michael's fingers hovered over the surface of the vibrating phone, he thought, It's her calling, and tried to deny knowledge of it at the same time, to brace himself for the coming disillusion.

"Hello?"

"Hi."

Her voice blasted into his ribcage like an icepick, blowing flames into his chest, red and breathing and more alive than anything he had felt since last November, when he'd touched her, and the taste of her on his tongue, the smell of her on his clothes, teased his senses until even the most tenacious ghost-traces had washed away.

Michael, in his current way of life, was like a man turned vampire – living indiscriminately in the solitary darkness, a wanderer astray from humankind, with only one purpose to keep him from disintegrating into an endless midnight.

The sound of her, even over the phone, even in the span of a single syllable, penetrated the dead carapace that had built over his sensitive heart.

"Sara."

Michael brought his knuckles to his forehead and turned away from the living room, as if the dim lamp whose soft radiance had been barely enough to read suddenly burnt his eyes.

"Morning, stranger."

Oh, that playful tone, and he could picture her smile, deadly in his mind as it would be in real life.

"It's been a while."

"Strangers, are we?" He said.

Could not keep up with her perennial ease – could not pretend this did not matter, that he wasn't like an alcoholic presented with a glass of wine. Or a vampire, undead for months, suddenly tasting human blood and life.

Silence on her side was grave with understanding.

Good. She should know, what she was doing to him. No pride tempted him to conceal it.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm having a strange night."

"I figured."

Michael secured himself, leaning against the countertop. At least, I won't fall, won't be thunderstruck and drop to my knees right where I'm standing.

"How's Washington? And the White House?"

"I hate it."

"Sensible of you. I'm not surprised."

"You've ever seen pictures of the Master Bedroom? It's horrid, all that show of wealth. I'm nervous to touch anything, like I might turn to gold."

"It's a far cry from our motel rooms, is it?"

He felt a woeful smile playing about his lips, refusing to settle for sure – if he looked in a glass, he was sure his face would be an ever-changing image, incapable to freeze into one clear emotion.

Sara was silent.

He shouldn't have brought up the motel rooms, but she had started, telling him about her own bedroom, so all he could do was picture her there. Sleepless, lightly dressed, with that large double bed she'd tossed and turned in. It helped a little when Michael focused on the White House, its overwhelming luxury a distraction from Sara herself. It really was no wonder she should hate it. Probably, she'd have sooner led the free world from her apartment in Chicago, rather than be forced to move into what must feel like a palace –

Oh, we like to think monarchy's over, Michael thought, but there's still that same gulf between ordinary people and those who have power, incredible wealth on the one side and on the other, the blackness of the abyss – that abyss where all the drowning people reached out for him in his dream.

"How are you?" She asked.

The playfulness had drained from her tone, and it was a relief, to hear her so serious.

Though the intoxicating smell of her red hair still teased his senses and sanity, at least, she shared his suffering – some of it, to some degree.

He didn't suspect he'd ever gotten under her skin the way she'd gotten into his.

Like a blasting conquering wind, from that very first smile as he saw her in the flesh, at the center, no longer an incarnation of all his ideals on night shows, but something more, unexpected. Love had planted its flag on Michael's body and mind before she'd even said hello.

Thoughts of the origami rose he had crafted for her what seemed so long ago flashed through Michael's brain.

In his hands, the immortal flower had felt a perfect symbol for their romance, and lost, it was all the more adequate.

"Is it safe to talk?" He asked, to deflect from answering her question.

He could picture her shrug. "That phone is supposed to be safe enough to talk about state secrets. I'd say it's safe enough for us. Michael, please – are you okay?"

"How could we be, either of us? This country is sick, Sara – sick with divisions and prejudice, and the pain of innocent people. After we've taken it upon ourselves to do something, how can we be fine, how can it even enter the picture?"

"You can't do this to yourself," she said.

Nails sinking into his palms as he closed his eyes, tried to permeate his soul against the softness of her voice. What point was there in kindling anew the fire in his chest, when he couldn't have her, when he could only wait for her and go insane or take his own shot at changing the world –

Pain hovered over her plea, like a black storm.

He could feel how it hurt her, that they were talking for the first time in months, and he could only talk to her about all that was wrong – oh, he could go on for hours about social ills and divisions, the tensions between the police and ethnic minorities rising to razorblade sharpness, the suffering of poor people, when the term poverty now seemed a word dirtier even than racism in the mouths of politicians.

What he couldn't talk about was her, and the wounds she had unknowingly inflicted during their time together – wounds of pride but also of sentiment; less red and showy, but longer to heal, harder to discover.

Better we talk of what I've done to myself, he thought, than what she's done to us.

He had said he'd wait for her, because that was his only option – she hadn't asked if he would face this battle with her as a partner, into the light. To herself, she might think she was protecting him, but he knew better, knew he had shared her from the beginning with a second lover – more like a husband, to whom she was pledged by duty and a tenacious love that had weathered the numerous blows of time and circumstance.

This was the only way Michael could describe Sara's relationship with politics.

So that, from the beginning, he could never be more than a lover – forbidden and invisible.

He might have loved her with the sort of epic love that is immortal, forever remembered and enshrined like a fine jewel in the lasting crown of imagination. Guinevere and Lancelot – he was a lover, also. But that love had been confined to the shade and fringes, had been consummated a few hours a week in motel rooms, had never gotten the shine and glory it probably deserved.

I would have come with you, he thought, the words that would burn his mouth if he spoke them out loud. If you had asked me to follow you into this world of danger and lies, I would have come, Sara, and we wouldn't be where we are now.

"Why not?" He answered after some time. Better to disappoint her, to let her feel his distance, than for her to know. "What difference does it make? How do you take it?"

"It's different for me."

Michael managed to restrain his amusement to an inaudible smile. He knew how much she hated to say this sort of thing.

"The people placed a huge responsibility on me when they voted me into power. It's not the sort of burden everyone that's aware of all that's wrong in this country ought to carry."

"But you chose to carry it. You ran for president. You fought like hell for it."

"I did."

Her voice grew stiffer.

Now, she's wondering if that's all I ever saw in her – the future American president. To her, I'm lost in a maze, living in a layer above reality, lost in Right and Wrong as some people get lost in drugs or other stimulants.

But you don't love someone based only on abstract ideals the way he'd loved her. Abstractions are things you can't touch, and he had loved her only from the moment that he'd seen her, there, in his reach – not as a beautiful face on television.

"So, you understand why I would do it – fight for what matters."

She was silent.

Resented him, still, for making this about the world.

Was he punishing her, he wondered, unconsciously trying to make her taste the bitterness of her own medicine?

When Lincoln had shattered them, in that motel room, on Halloween, and the threat of scandal had started looming, it was the world she had cared about – not what this had done to them, privately.

And the damage had been severe.

Michael had lost much more that day than an origami flower.

"I shouldn't have called," she said.

Not to hurt him, or get him back for hurting her, but he felt the cut of her words, deep in his flesh, where the warmth of her voice had recalled feeling to life.

"I'm happy you did," he said.

The walls fell between them. Michael could feel her getting closer, and closer, until her mind was a heartbeat away, ever intangible.

"Michael –"

"Tell me about it," he asked. "The White House."

Though there was no plea in his voice, she must have sensed his need, because she did as he asked. Told him about the place rather than the people in it (she still had secrets to guard), spoke of things strictly impersonal. God only knew how long until they would speak again, and what would be the harm, now, in such random talk – in only hearing each other's voices, and pretending the world around them wasn't falling apart?

End Notes: This has been a very intense chapter for me to write. Naturally I'm eager to know your thoughts and theories. Don't be strangers. You make this story alive ;)