Hillary had been lucky.  For the entirety of her career as an elected politician, she had been in the Senate where they had six-year terms.  That meant that she could spend a good four years governing before she had to start worrying about campaigning all over again.  As long as she’d done her job the way she was supposed to, campaigning was the least of the things she had to devote time to.

                It had occurred to her very quickly that Presidential politics was not going to be the same as Senate politics.  It hadn’t occurred to her that she was going to hear rumblings of a presidential challenger little over a year after coming into office.  It was absurd, it was preposterous, it was—somehow less surprising when she figured out whom the challenger was.

                One broken antique lamp later, she had other problems to contend with.  According to sources she trusted, the New York Times had a story that would ruin her, which meant it was likely a product of their underworked imaginations but was just ludicrous enough to be believable.  The truth was that she didn’t really want to know before it broke. She’d rather be surprised—why invite scandal over for breakfast when it’s not scheduled to come till supper?  Nevertheless, she had to know so that her staff could prepare for the breaking fictional news.

                Here it was: CLINTON CARRIES ON WITH VP (and printed underneath: “Bayh Works Nights”).

                Well, damn, that could do some damage.  She groaned and threw the mock-up aside.  For the last few months, there’d been tension enough between herself and Susan Bayh. This could certainly only escalate things in a negative direction.

                Since her first birthday without Bill, and her first in the White House again, she’d found herself battling against a growing attachment to Evan.  He was so dependable, always at her elbow with a soft word of advice, or a warning when it was needed. Late in the night, after the staff had gone home and the boys were tucked in tight, she was often surprised to see her running mate standing at her door, patiently waiting to garner her attention.  He never came to distract her, only to listen, assist, and advise.  After the worst days she could imagine, he had an ever-ready smile for her.  He’d claimed the desk’s edge for himself and took it every night.

                At one point, she thought he’d come to make sure the grief didn’t kill her.  The first anniversary of Election Day nearly did. She was unbearable even to herself.  She lasted forty-five minutes in the Oval before she quit it.  She ignored a call from her mother, who, if anyone, had to know how hard these kinds of anniversaries could be.  The only call she took was from Chelsea and it was misery for both.  Chelsea was trying to be strong, but just had to relate a story of how a big group of her supporters had gotten together and painted a mural of Bill down in Harlem, where his office used to be.  It was perfect, she’d said.  Hillary asked her to take pictures, then quickly changed her mind.  She’d be down to see it for herself soon.  Chelsea had laughed tearfully, but hadn’t asked how her mother was.  Good thing that, since Hillary hadn’t been sure.  The call ended soon after.

                Evan had been at her side within an hour of her leaving the Oval.  He’d been impeccably dressed as usual and had treated her no differently than he ever had.  Leaning precariously as the Tower of Pisa, he’d whispered in her ear, “I could use a drinking buddy.  You busy?”  At that, Hillary had actually laughed.  A drink was exactly what she wanted just then.  Somehow, it seemed that Evan always knew how to put a dent in the sadness.  He didn’t let her make a martyr out of Bill; the man had still done things unforgivable, but he’d loved her.  Evan never let her forget that either.  He’d made the day a little easier to bear—and at the end of it, he was there with a bottle of genuine moonshine, known as Big Rock.  They’d swilled it straight from the neck while relating the funniest tales of Big Dawg’s they could recall.  They both knew that they’d suffer for it in the morning, but it was a tribute to him and that made it worth it.

                Offhandedly, as she’d fallen deeply asleep on Evan’s shoulder, she wondered if ever a day would come when her entire life wasn’t a tribute to him.

                All the days following that anniversary were holidays and those came with their own set of ghosts.  That was all right, though, Hillary was strong enough to get through New Year’s without more than a tightening in her throat when she saw a picture of her husband.  The grief was lighter; there was a light at the end of any grief attack and she’d learned to lunge for it when the melancholy attempted to pull her under.

                If only the light hadn’t been so inviting, they might not be having this problem.  If only she hadn’t had to win an incredible victory and suffer a terrible loss on the same day, she might be a different president than she was.  If only Evan hadn’t been someone so easy to lean on, there might not be a scandal at all.  But he was, and there was—and she was at fault.

                Shortly after Hillary had begun to mediate an especially tense peace conference between Iran and Israel, she had begun to receive threats.  Naturally, being the polarizing figure she’d been much of her public life, that was to be expected but these threats were both detailed and credible.  The letters and communiqués detailing the threats of violence were chock full of references to the inner-workings of the White House and the many places to which the President retreated for sanctuary.  It spooked the Secret Service enough for them to urgently advise her to back out of the role of mediator. She had no intentions of being cowed by extremists of any stripe and refused.  For the first time, her chief lieutenant dissented.

                He’d come to her, late as usual, to the Oval to meet with her.  The casual air that usually permeated their harmless rendezvous was gone.  He stood with his hands tucked deep in his pockets; she could see the bundles of his fists through the fabric.  She could tell just from listening to him breathe that he was angry.  This wasn’t the impatient frustration he directed at the press for their lack of insight, as well as their inability to be on the same page as the administration at any given point.  This was a raw, emotion-tinged fury.  She noted, too, that he kept his distance.  Instead of taking his regular spot, he lingered near the door to the outer-office like someone who’d never been here, who didn’t belong.

                “Why don’t you want to live?” was her introduction to the kind of night she was going to have.

                She put down her pen—not the pen, but a nice one she’d been given by Jacques & Bernadette Chirac in congratulations of her win—and looked up to see what had her lifelong friend so agitated.  “What makes you think I don’t?”

                “Simple,” he grunted through audibly gritting teeth.  “Your Secret Service detail tells you that there are credible—not incredible, or ludicrous, or even simply fantastical—threats to your life, and that you should back out of these talks lest you be killed.  What do you do?  If you are the Leader of the Free World, the first female President, the former First Lady of the United States, and a former U.S. Senator, what do you do?  Do you stand your ground and die?”  He spit the word out like it was bile that had crawled out from the pit of his stomach.  “Or do you back down from mediating talks that don’t concern us and live to fight another day?”  He was now an angry crimson about the neck and visibly trembling.

                Hillary had a great deal of empathy for him, but she was firm in this.  “I do not bow down to extremism.  I don’t care who they are or what their threats are towards me.    They only want to promote fear in this place, in this Office—and I won’t allow that. The Presidency doesn’t die if they kill me.  It goes on.  It will continue on with you and I know you’re a more than adequate replacement for me.  So, the answer is plain: I stand my ground and, if it is my time, I die.”

                He looked at her, pained, and backed away in surrender.  “I don’t accept that you would do that to the people who love you.  Thousands of people have battered their entire lives to see you in this place and you would throw your life into cross-hairs to prove a point?!?”  He was fairly yelling at this point and the consequence was…not unexpected.

                Doors slammed in from several directions around the ellipsoidal room and the only thing either politician could do was hold their hands up high to keep them damned visible.  The better part of a dozen agents poured into the room, pointing 9-millimeters every which way and shouting into their wrist mikes, seeking a perpetrator that didn’t exist.

                “Madame President, are you all right?” the lead agent asked, her face a mask of earnest concern and staunch propriety.  She had been a fast friend to the former First Lady, and the concern went beyond just her physical safety.

                Hillary nodded, gingerly waving off her guards.  “Everything’s all right.  The Vice-President and I were just engaging in a lively debate about the peace talks.  You know, we can both get a bit…exercised.”

                The lead agent, Alegre Michaud, wasn’t nearly convinced at the time or since, but she nodded promptly and signaled for her subordinates to depart, then followed them out.

                When the Oval had emptied of its noisy intruders, Evan was left looking fairly deflated and duly chastised.  Hillary herself was angrier than she’d been in the first place.  It was bad enough to be lectured by a friend, but to have it be overheard to some extent by so many was really too much.

                “You know, you’re free to air your grievances with me, Evan. I don’t mind that.  You’re my chief advisor and closest friend; if anyone in the world gets to be frank with me, it’s you.  However, I feel the need to make something exceedingly clear to you.” She stood calmly and padded gracefully to the front of her desk, against which she leaned and folded her hands on her lap.  “I am the President of the United States.  I was duly elected to be the Head-of-State in this country and I am acting in that role.  I am also your superior.  You serve at my pleasure, not to interfere with me fulfilling the duties the People have bestowed upon me,” she nodded emphatically with each word.  “If you have a problem with the way I do my job, you are free to leave.  I will most certainly miss you—and it’ll be damned lonely here without you—but I’ll make do.  I’m sure Nancy would be ecstatic to be second in line.”

                Evan stared agog at Hillary for a moment before nodding somberly and turning to leave. Her voice gave him pause.

                “Don’t misunderstand me, Evan.  I love having you at my side—you’re brilliant.  I know you try your damndest to protect me, but that isn’t what I need from you.  You aren’t my father and you aren’t my husband.”

                “I know,” he conceded thickly, “but I tried to be.”  Briefly, alarm suffused his expression, as though he’d said something unintended.  He dropped his eyes from hers, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps overwhelmed.  “Is that all, Madame President?”

                Hillary suffered a minor heartbreak watching him retreat into the shell of his Constitutionally-assured title.  There had gone her friend—and she’d let him go.  Still, she stood up tall and nodded, dismissing him with a wave.  “By all means, Mr. Vice-President, it’s a free country.”

                He didn’t take her on her humor, just darted out of the recently ajar door on long legs and was quickly gone.

                Sitting without company in the seat of power, Hillary was reintroduced to the silence of those first few days.  It was like living at Chappaqua from November to January.  It had been a special kind of hell for someone so used, even as she was, to being alone since she knew that her part-time companion wouldn’t be coming back this time.  Watching Evan leave her had been that way, like watching a beloved one choose the light instead of you—again.  She supposed it would have always come to that.

                Oddly enough, it was the times of discontent that fueled the rumors more than the days when things were rosy.  Once it had become apparent that a rift was appearing in the topmost tier of government, the pundits couldn’t get enough of it.  They were vicious with their contention that it was Hillary’s insanity—either a product of her widowhood or a defect of being born a woman, according to Chris Matthews—that had caused the previously sterling working bond to take a turn for the icy.

“Insiders” contended that it was a lover’s spat of some kind; that she had propositioned him and he had refused.  She’d thrown another antique lamp the first time she heard that.  There were so many insults in the story that she couldn’t bother to be outraged by all of it, but some parts were more than enough to elevate her blood pressure.  She was embarrassed to be sure, but she had to go out in front of the American public and address them about any number of issues before the close of the work week.  This would be the story and the questions would be about this.  Nothing she and Evan had slaved over in the previous weeks was going to matter a wit.  That was what pissed her off.

Now that she and Evan seemed to be seriously on the outs, there was no one for her to vent to.  Chelsea had her own concerns to contend with back in New York.  Her mom was enjoying her age with a distinguished gentleman who used to serve as a police sergeant in Chappaqua.  Hillary had had the Secret Service do a background check on him.  He seemed decent and he made her mother smile; after more than a decade alone, her mother deserved to fall in love.  When they’d last spoken on the matter, Dorothy had asked Hillary when she’d allowed herself the same luxury.  Hillary hadn’t had an answer.  To fall in love once in a lifetime was such a gift, Hillary couldn’t see herself getting that lucky another time.  Besides, it was too soon—she knew deep down it was.

Naturally, government life trundled on even the President’s life was in shambles. The peace talks carried on with her in the center.  The threats increased—exponentially, reports would eventually say.  Evan no longer graced her with his company in the evenings and she saw much less of him than she once had throughout the day.  By and large, her daily life had become half as interesting, and frankly, half as productive.  Without her partner to conspire with, she didn’t feel as though she was burning on all cylinders.  Evan Bayh had effectively become half of her brain.  Unfortunately for most everyone, it was the half she needed.

It was the night before the final day of the peace talks before she decided that she had to reconcile with her Vice-President.  She passed through the sparsely-filled West Wing en route to OEOB—the Old Executive Office Building where the Presidential offices used to be located and where the Vice-President now spent most of his days.  There were more guards afoot as she navigated the familiar passage that would take her out of the White House.  For good reason, too.  In a shocking compromise, both nations’ leaders had consented to having their talks in the White House.  In doing so, they had virtually assented to the U.S’s superior standing over them, and by extension, Hillary’s.  Hillary had been gratified, Evan had been worried.  So far, no disaster, but she wasn’t counting on the final day being as successful.  Now, they were talking religion.

Her guards completely stopped traffic to allow her to pass.  She spied both the awed and jaded faces of motorists waiting for her to go on her way.  Some were used to seeing the President in the street; for others, it was a new experience.  She laughed a little to herself at both.

A few lights were still burning at OEOB.  She hoped that meant that Evan was still in.  Word on the ground was that he still worked late despite not doing so with her.  She thought he stayed late just to concoct ways not to meet her in person the next day.  They certainly hadn’t met face-to-face in well over two weeks.  If he wanted to continue on that way, so be it, but no one would be able to say that she didn’t try for unity this time either.

The bullpen in the Vice-President’s inner sanctum was even more deserted than the West Wing.  There was a lowly aide left typing notes from a notepad at a rickety desk shoved in a corner.  Hillary thought it was a little pitiful, but her desk was built out of prime timber from the HMS Resolute, so she was probably biased where quality was concerned.  Another desk came into view and it was surprisingly unoccupied.  The desk commonly manned by Evan’s body man, Clark, was desolate as a tomb.  None of the pictures that had been there before, none of the tchotchkes.  It was free of dust, but also free of an employee—that, she was fairly sure of.  No one worked that seat anymore and that was very odd.

In addition to being an oddity, the vacancy meant that there was no one to announce her presence to Evan.  Good, because he couldn’t refuse to see her as he might if given the chance.  Bad, because there could be no take-backs.  She wouldn’t be able to turn back once she opened the door and saw his mood. If he was irritable, she’d have to stick it out and hope it wasn’t something she’d done.  Either that or she’d have to argue with him.  On second thought, she wasn’t totally sure she was up to this.

She let out a mournful sigh and stepped to the door.  She was about to knock when she heard…something odd.  It sounded human, vaguely—happy?  She couldn’t be sure about that, but it definitely wasn’t talking.  On impulse she pushed up her sleeve to check her watch.  Nine.  Not especially late, so those probably weren’t sleep sounds from Evan.  Right then, she heard something that was unmistakably a pleasured moan.  She took a fast step away from the door, shocked.

                “Oh!”  She couldn’t even muster a good swear word for the occasion.  She had not expected this.  Maybe him in a meeting, maybe him sleeping, drinking, eating, but no, not him doing…whatever it was he was up to in there.  Suddenly, she really didn’t want to know.  She just hoped there weren’t any interns involved.

                She spun on her heels and marched—see ran—towards the elevators with her agents in tow.  She knew she’d alarmed the poor aide who’d been doing a fair job at looking disinterested in her presence before, but was outright gaping at her hasty exit now.  She didn’t care.  All employees of the OEOB and the White House knew that discretion was at least one crafty aspect of the job they did.  Learn it or leave.  Unbeknownst to Hillary, that rickety desk she’d so downgraded would, too, be unoccupied by closing tomorrow.

                Traffic stopped again, but the motorists had a very different reaction to seeing their President fairly sprinting across the crosswalk from the Vice-President’s office like there was a demon in her shadow.  Some panicked and called their priests.  Others called the newspapers since everyone had them on speed dial in D.C.  When Hillary Clinton was upset, there had to be a story in it. And if there wasn’t, they’d make one.