[IC] |A National Anthem|

[Kaycey]

It was difficult to grasp – remembering how full and how significant, how deeply you felt in a moment, but yet your memory served you so poorly in returning the details to you. Nathan never wanted to forget anything, but as her younger image faded, he forced himself to return to the road where his foot had relaxed off the right pedal.

Sure, she was clean while she was locked up, but for how long before that? Hours? You have to know someone to get locked up in a spot like St. Elizabeth’s. It’s where politicians hid their kids to live out their DUI or minor in possession offences, away from public eye.

“They Hay-Adams has a nice restaurant, I’ll send for room service,” Perhaps if he delivered the news so casually she would overlook her offense at it. He was married. And the president. If she really thought she would even be allowed to stay in the White House, even if he were to desire that, she was heart-breakingly mistaken. Nathan was never going to open up his home or livelihood to a drug addict that gave good head fifteen years ago. He wouldn't let someone have that kind of hold on him.

Anyone.

CNN played minutely in the background, the anchor mumbling something about a throwback to the January State of the Union Address, and Nate turned it up to delay her response.

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans:

"We are fifteen years into this new century. Fifteen years that dawned with terror touching our shores; that unfolded with a new generation fighting two long and costly wars; that saw a vicious recession spread across our nation and the world. It has been, and still is, a hard time for many.

"But tonight, we turn the page.

"Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis. More of our kids are graduating than ever before; more of our people are insured than ever before; we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we've been in almost 30 years.

"Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over. Six years ago, nearly 180,000 American troops served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, fewer than 15,000 remain. And we salute the courage and sacrifice of every man and woman in this 9/11 Generation who has served to keep us safe. We are humbled and grateful for your service.

"America, for all that we've endured; for all the grit and hard work required to come back; for all the tasks that lie ahead, know this:
The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong…” It never became normal, hearing himself on video, seeing humorous pictures comparing his attractiveness level to every other president.

“You know,” he spoke. “I was voted most attractive politician, over JFK.” He felt sure that that was the right thing to say, his bravado having been stroked since thinking back on the relationship they shared in college.

[corneredbliss]

“They Hay-Adams has a nice restaurant, I’ll send for room service.”

What Nathan was actually saying didn't register with her right away. Marcy simply nodded her head, too busy chasing around various food cravings in her head, trying to pin down which she would ask the President's private personal chef to whip up for her. Obviously she didn't know much about what actually goes on in the White House, and even worse, she'd had the past couple months to develop illusions of grandeur.

And then...

"Wait... What?"

But by then, he had already turned up the volume on his Address, effectively delaying her very frustrated response by drowning her out, as well as making her speechlessly upset that it actually worked. As his voice filled the tight car, dripping with essence of polished politician, Marlene glared at him, lips parted in disbelief. She stayed there for a good portion of the Address, not wanting to accept that he had grown the balls to actually leave her, drop her off in some hotel room like she was a kid at a daycare.

At the same time, there was a tiny voice in the back of her head, the one she rarely listened to, that murmured, Well, what did you expect? She had been gone from his life for nearly fifteen years, and then she decides to show up, demand to be taken in, and for what? Did she really think Nathaniel, President of the States, was actually going to allow her to stay with him? Drop everything and take care of her? She, the raging addict, the fuck-up? No. She would always be a blemish, and he had a reputation to keep.

Finally she snapped, lunging forward to turn the damned volume knob all the way down, so that they were thrown back into silence. Then he spoke up.

"Oh, wow. Congratu-fucking-lations, Nate. Really. I'm proud of you." Her tone was sarcastic as all hell. Feeling like that wasn't enough, yet, Marcy sat up and turned her whole body towards him, a funny modern version of David and Goliath. "You're shitting me right? I come all the way down here to pay you a visit and you're just gonna ditch me like this?"

[Kaycey]

Nate felt the overwhelming need for a drawn-out eye roll. Really? She was going to pull this? Of course. The woman who could have done anything with her life with the parents she was blessed with, who threw everything away, blames him for not inviting her into his home? Quite frankly, he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, and despite her beauty and the nostalgic feeling she aroused within him, his mind was on the practical: the logical.

“Marlene, what the fuck do you want? I haven’t seen you in years!” he knew this had ultimately been his decision, but he didn’t regret it. He made the right choice to pursue his aspirations. She always would have held him back, and when he began to see himself as so much better than her, as so much more noteworthy and top-drawer, she began to lose the hold she had over him. Was that supposed to change fifteen years later when she decided his resources were useful to her?

Why did he come? He knew she hadn’t changed. The only reason she wasn’t right back where she was the day she got locked up was because he wasn’t allowing it. “All of a sudden you want me to bail you out and you want to tongue lash me in the process. I’ve got priorities now, Marcy. You aren’t the center of my world. Eventually I had to fucking grow up and take care of shit. Work hard and make something out of what I had. While I busted my ass, you partied. We made our choices and it’s not my fault you’re just now realizing yours were the wrong ones.” Nate was harsh, but she really needed to hear it. She was a royal but loyal fuck up and they both knew it. And it was way too late for her to change.

She said she’d come to see him? As in, before St. Elizabeth’s? It mattered little now… Obviously fate had used him to get her some help.

[corneredbliss]

That was it. He did not get to talk to her like that. He did not have the right to reprimand her like a child. How was he the one upset right now when he was the one who decided to leave? Practically pushing her into the only lifestyle she knew because he didn't want to play with her anymore? How was that fair? She'd come to get back what she might have been able to have had he given her a goddamn chance, and he did not get to wave his pristine life and his right choices in her face.

Marlene didn't notice, but in the time he'd been lecturing her, she'd started crying. Not ugly sobbing - no. These were tears of anger. And just like that, the anger flared through her body, surging through her arm as it shot out towards the steering wheel. "Fuck you, Nate!" she screamed as her fingers grasped the leather and pulled it hard to the right, towards her.

The car swerved hard into the next lane, narrowly missing an oncoming vehicle as it rushed past, practically brushing the Beamer's bumper. Whatever Nathan tried to do to correct the situation, it was too late. The car ran straight off the road and slid uncontrollably down the incline it was on, pushed around by the scattered tree trunks as if it were a mere pinball in a machine.

To Marcy, this was right. This was what had to happen. She had reached over and grabbed hold of the fabric of Nate's hoodie sleeve, clutching it as if it were his hand. Her heart rate was racing. Everything was a blur of green and brown, until it was all black.

[Kaycey]

Of course she did – Marlene couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without creating a scene or being damn sure no one forgot her participation in anything… Nathan always despised that of her because he saw the need to leave an impression on someone as a weakness. He usually liked to float by, doing whatever he pleased and never missing oppurtunities. But everyone in his life could either support him and stay out of his way – or shove it. And Marcy had had the fortuitous chance to experience both ends of Nathan’s tolerance spectrum.

He came to, recognizing the surroundings after a few flutters of his eyelids. The calculated beep of the IV machine promised him the consequences of his actions. It reminded him of when he used to come home late, as high as could be, sneaking upstairs. He knew that as soon as he made it into that room and shut the door, he was in the clear. Nate would pray for the voyage up the stairs, carefully out of the path of his parents, to be an uninterrupted one. After an undetected entrance into the house, as he stepped through the door of his room, he knew there would be no consequences for his actions. But this was the opposite of what came to his mind in the present, as he registered the emotion on Alina’s face. When those red and blue lights flashed behind him, reflected in his rearview mirror, the silver being displayed in between, his heartbeat increased to match the speed of the lights’ flash. What was the pattern? Blue, red, silver? Red, blue, silver? No, neither, the lights were all flashing together. The car reeked, but what was he going to do? Drive away? Hope the trooper wouldn’t catch up? Right.
Consequences, a racing heart, red and blue lights whose fear had now been morphed into the wrath of a woman, what had changed?

Mad? No, worried? No, confused? Maybe?

“He’s awake,” her contrived voice murmured. He knew if Marcy were in his head, she’d be questioning how contrived Alina’s orgasms were, too.
Nate wanted to say her name: Marcy. But her memory, her scent was ruined by Alina’s interference. The two’s existence in his life never mingled, and they never would. Until now it wasn’t even a realization that the two women existed in the same century, the same lifetime.
Maybe because he had been so many different people all his life, and they had experienced different somebodies.

Nate turned to his left, and in the bed beside him was a bruised little girl. But her life-detecting machine beeped half a second off from his. He wondered if it was a half a second before or half a second behind… Save the president or his unknown company first? He fumbled, searching for the remote to raise the bed up into a sitting position but he saw double and just felt the thin air.

“What happened?” Perhaps that was the most expected and neutral thing to say. Nathan had become quite efficient at not incriminating himself and he wasn’t in the right mind to think on his feet. Besides, he didn’t know how much she knew.

What was she going to do, divorce him? Like her mother would allow that. He heard them on the phone quite often, remotely of course, he had her calls recorded.

“He’s so distant sometimes, mom.”

“He’s a man, Ali. Just keep him happy and try not to seek him out too much. Let him come to you.”

“What, when he wants sex?”

“Well, yeah. You pay a price to have power. Sometimes that’s giving up things women really want like attention. Just accept it. Make him feel like he’s in control.”

Nate tried, he really did. To make her feel like more than an A-line in pearl earrings. Sometimes he felt she was more than that, and he appreciated her for all she’d beaten out of him. Her judgmental silence morphed him into the boring, mannerly leader he was today.

“Babe?” he mouthed with a soft pass of air on his lips as he reached for her. It would tender her, knock her from the pedestal she’d put herself on during the time he’d been knocked out. ‘I’m a good wife’. She’d probably told herself. ‘He’s lucky to have me. I support and understand him.’