who Avery & Greg
where home
when Wednesday afternoon
what snow day



Was it indication enough that something was wrong when Gregory arrived back home just after one in the afternoon? In his suit, he may have passed as almost presentable, if a bit drawn. Colds seemed to be running around the Hill, and, really, eveyone had that same worn-down look. No, in his suit, he faked it just fine. Eyes, red-line and teared up, gave a hint of what was really wrong but as he checked in on Maddie nothing else showed. An easy smile, a question about her day. He suggested that perhaps she could call Rachael from school, that they could go sledding or something. While the weather was icy, it wasn't too cold, and going outside would do her some good. He was careful not to kiss or hug her, but did over her a ruffle of her hair before making a comment about being in his room. Now, some 15 minutes later, in the safe haven of the bedroom, things had taken a turn for the worst. In boxers and a gray "DUKE UNIVERSITY" shirt, he huddled under a mass of covers, shivering but soaked in sweat. The moment he seemed to be drifting off to sleep, he would wake with a coughing fit which ended with him rolling over in bed and spitting into a wastebasket beside it. It wasn't pretty. Hell, it was beyond ugly, seeing a man so powerful reduced to such vulnerability. At least no one had saw it, though, and in that thought he took comfort as he kicked off his sheets and shivered beneath a single, thin layer.

The day had been planned for toiletry issues, Avery had planned to change sheets and replace the heads on everyone's electric toothbrush, vacuuming, changing of waste baskets and general cleaning. Instead, she was charged with looking after Maddie. School had been cancelled and she was, as ever, loathe to abandon the child in front of the television. She hadn't the spine to order homework to be done, so she'd given Maddie half an hour to get ready for snow and taken that time to clean the Senator's room. She had been tucking the corners of the sheets hospital style when Maddie'd appeared, mittened and booted and ready for the icy sort of slush that lay outside. Avery'd followed her, staying, for the most part, on the steps, calling cautionary directions until they'd both slipped multiple times and their cheeks were pink from cold and laughter. Soon enough Maddie was bored and hungry, so they'd gone inside for soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Gregory had returned home by then, and Maddie had retreated to her room, and while Greg shivered in his bed, Avery did the dishes from lunch. Dressed in black leggings and a Marc Jacobs shirtdress, she did not look exactly snow day material, but she was all sympathy and warmth as she approached Greg's room with a tea tray. A small selection of tea bags lay beside a mug of near boiling water, a little dish of honey shining amber next to a spoon as she thumped her foot against the door. "Miers," she called softly. "I'm coming in,"

"Fuckkkkkk." It was a low growl, inaudible to anyone but himself. She shouldn’t see him like this. No one should see him like this. And what if Maddie came in as well? “One moment, please!” Sitting up, however, caused more trouble than it was worth. His cough came hard and chesty, followed by a recht that saw him gasping for air between clenched teeth. He wasn’t going to get sick, not right now. He won the battle, but in the end, lost the war. A new layer of sweat had broken out, another mouthful of phlegm deposited in the bin.
He had been trying to seem better, and now, slouched against the pillow, he looked even worse. “Come on in.” The sentence was said without any of the luster of his previous statement. He gave in completely, sinking back into the bed, half-burying his head into his pillow. Body tensed, he was fighting the shivering that he so wanted to do, but in the end it wasn’t enough. “I need my suit pressed for this evening.” The words, mumbled hoarsely into nothingness, were his last-ditch attempt to save some dignity. Maybe he looked like shit, but at least he had a mind, right? God, he didn’t want to think about that evening, when he’d have to force himself into a cold shower and a new suit, when he’d have to fake it for a few more hours just to please a few people.

Avery pushed the door open with her foot and nearly dropped the tray. "Jesus Christ!" She shoved the door closed with her heel and set the tray on his desk before treading softly to his side, sinking to her knees. "You look terrible," she put the back of her hand against his forehead, feeling for the obvious fever. "Oh no," she stood up again and shook her head, her hands on her hips. "You're not going anywhere," she turned on her heel and went to the desk, flipping through the assortment of teas before ripping one packet open and plunging the bag into the hot water. "You're staying in tonight, you can't possibly go out like this," she swirled the bag, turning to look at him. It was so like Gregory to insist on braving through something like this; if he didn't look so fucking awful, she wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but he looked so completely miserable. She dipped the spoon into the honey and stirred, yanking the tea bag out and returning to Greg's bedside, sitting on the edge of the mattress. "Drink this and try not to spit on me," It was a vitamin c rich tea, and she liked to think it was better than pouring robitussin down his throat. Especially if she was going to keep him home, better to treat rather than subdue the symptoms, so he could get better faster.

“It isn’t a fucking date night, Avery. I have a meeting with the President of the United States. You don’t…” As if his body was protesting his very words, Gregory doubled over in a coughing fit. It would take a few deep breaths before he could speak again. “You don’t just call in sick to one of these cocktail parties.” But he had turned into her cool hand, closing his eyes for a moment at the relief. Sit up. He had to sit up. She had tea. Reluctantly, he pulled himself to sitting. He coughed again, of course, but controlled it more, pausing halfway through with a clench of his jaw to fight off any continuing coughing. When she offered the tea, he took it graciously, a long, slow sip taken of the warm liquid. He never got how hot tea cooled a person off, but if it was good enough for those in the burning climate of the Middle East, it was good enough for him. The steam coming off the tea helped as well, and for a moment, he was tempted to crawl out of bed, put on the hot water, steam up the bathroom and just lay on the floor. It would probably help if nothing else, but at this moment in time, he couldn’t imagine getting up, let alone doing all of that. “Make yourself useful and get me a cold cloth instead of bitching at me like my mother, will you?” Even if there was some of his usual humor in the words, the tone didn’t quite make it, stuck instead in the gravely notes of his cold. The shivering was getting worse, but he was sweating his way through his shirt as they spoke.

She looked at him for a moment before standing up and retreating to his bathroom. Yeah, he had an important job. But the fundamentals of the US government wouldn't crumble around their ears if he took a sick day. She liked to think of their new President as a sweet guy, and she figured he'd understand. Wouldn't he? Maybe she should take a video of this shivering mess who called himself Senator Miers and send it off to the kids in the office, to forward it to whoever Miers was supposed to answer to. Barack was a father, he knew how pitiful sick children could be. She pushed hair out of her face as she leaned down to retrieve a clean face cloth from the cabinet under the sink. His rudeness didn't affect her, she'd bitch at him if he demanded her take a sick day as well, but right now she was the one who still had her head about her and wasn't sweating through the clean sheets. She held the cloth under the cold tap and wrung it out before returning to Gregory, taking a seat next to him on the bed, pressing the cold cloth against his forehead. "You're sick, Greg," she announced. "You're sick and you're going to pass out or throw up on the President's shoes. I'm sure he'd understand and even appreciate it if you stayed at home." She put her hand, cold from the water, against his cheek. "We can blame it on Maddie if you're afraid of looking like a kitty cat,"

While Avery was gone, Gregory had rolled over to pick up his vibrating blackberry. Like hell he was going to ignore it. It meant putting down his tea and slouching further into bed, but it just went to prove his point. He was needed. He couldn’t take a sick day. Like a child about to be caught with a cell phone in class, Gregory sheepishly sat up and discretely put the blackberry back on the table before bringing the tea back up to his lips. When she pressed the cool cloth against his forehead, his face instantly slacked. Shoulders loosened, for a moment, he stopped shivering. It felt beyond amazing. Christ, it was better than sex. He really was sick if he was thinking that, wasn’t he? “If I faint, at least I’ll make the 11 o’clock news. We need something good headlining today, and enough people want my blood that the news a republican biting the floor might be enough to cheer up the country.” With a hard sniff, Gregory leaned over to put the tea on the side table before he started in on another coughing fit.
Of course, the blackberry went off again, and of course he took it up, answering whatever it was that was sent to him while still coughing. It was only once everything was done, the e-mail and the cough, that he slouched back into the pillows. “The party is urging party-line voting on the economic bill. I’m against it, I think its shit. There’s too much…” With that pause came another fit of hard coughing, before he laid back into the bed once more. “pork spending…Ehm. Attaching money that really has nothing to do with the bill so you can help out your district or donors…But. It’s going to get passed anyway. And this country doesn’t need skeptics and party politics right now.” Another cough came, but was stopped short. This time, he took a second before he spoke again. “It needs to see unison.” With a shake of his head, Greg went for his tea. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I really don’t.”

It was times like this that Avery wished she were more sentimental and Greg more receptive to sentiment. But they were not the hug-when-stressed sort of people, they were buckle-down-and-get-it-done sort of people. She would, occasionally, blow things wildly out of proportion when her own performance was lacking, however, it was Gregory, and she was determined to keep him home. She sighed and maneuvered her arm as he moved to pick up the blackberry, keeping the cold cloth against his forehead, knowing it was getting warmer by the moment. "Gregory, your being absent from cocktails will not result in the split of the Union," she chided, taking on a skeptical sort of tone. "There is no modern day Jefferson Davis waiting to congratulate you on your crafty and pre-planned absence." She pulled the cloth from his forehead and folded it in half, returning it to his skin, replacing the cool side against feverish flesh. She didn't think Hatch or Spector would mind Junior Senator Miers not being there. She didn't want to take away from Miers' sense of self-worth or importance, but he wasn't about to sacrifice his health for his job, not on her watch. "Sweetheart," she said very quietly, "I am not letting you out the door when you're sweating like this,"

“I’m fine.” He would have tried to wriggle away from her grasp like a stubborn child, but the renewed cloth felt too cold. “It’s just a cough. No one has ever actually died from one. I’ll just take a cold shower before I go.” He had gotten through work that morning after all, hadn’t he? But she was right. He felt like shit, the world wasn’t going to end. “It’s not until 8. I’ll see how I feel after I take a nap, okay?” As if the blackberry constantly going off was going to actually ever let him do that, but maybe he’d turn it off for a little while. The shivering was worsening, and with a frustrated sigh, Greg stripped off his shirt, let it slip to the floor and reached out for more covers. It wasn’t going to do him any good to sit there in a soaked shirt, after all, and while his first layer of sheets weren’t helping, there wasn’t as much he could do about that. Not without getting out of bed, anyway.
Readjusted, Gregory finally lay back down, eyes, dulled from the fever, glancing up at her. “You didn’t tell me what you think I should do.” He never asked for her advice, ever. But right now? Stressed out over what he should do, with a stomach ulcer and a cold? Well, the fever was high enough that he dared actually ask the question and show to someone besides himself that he didn’t always know exactly what he was doing.

Avery stared at him. Alright, she knew he was sick, but THIS sick? She pulled her gaze from her face and pressed the cloth against his forehead so it would stick. Hands set about pulling covers over his naked chest, tucking him in. She wasn't yet fully confident in her own political ability, which was why she wanted to stick so close to his daily dealings. "You should stay home," she said firmly. "You should tell whoever is still in your office that you can't make it, that there's a family emergency. You should ask someone to go in your place and take down meticulous notes. People are sick all over the place, people need to take days off of work." She plucked the cloth from his forehead and turned it over again. "It's unreasonable to expect you there like this. You've earned a sick day, and if this is just going to be about kissing ass and pretending to represent bipartisanship, then you really don't need to be there," she sat back and looked at him, sighing. "The average person on the corner doesn't care what you do with your days, Greg. They care about their paychecks, and the Senate passed the bill without your support. Things are going to get done without you. And they're not always going to be good things. But the show of bipartisanship, that's bullshit. That's bullshit, sweetie. Drink your tea," she pointed at the cup. "You need to stay home."

“The house passed the bill. We haven’t gone to a vote yet.” He actually prickled at that. There was a difference, Goddamn it! And then she wanted to go on about how people didn’t care? That nothing he did mattered? Well fuck her. The fever made his temper quicker than usual, and if his throat didn’t hurt so damn much, she may have been on the receiving end of one of his tirades. “And if what I do doesn’t matter, why the fuck are you trying to get into the game?” Oh, he wasn’t stupid, after all. Miffed, Gregory turned his back on her, sinking deeper into the sheets and ignoring the tea on the stand. For a moment, he stayed silent, closing his eyes and taking a few breaths before they opened again.
“I wasn’t kidding about needing that suit pressed. I expect it to be immaculate by this evening. And please call Rachael Belega’s parents and set up a play date for Maddie sometime this afternoon or this weekend.” He was coughing again, but really didn’t give a damn at this point. A half-hearted effort was made to cover his mouth before he continued. “I expect her to be at dinner, though, so don’t make it too late.” After another pause, he shut his eyes. “That will be all, Avery.” Without really thinking about it, Gregory twisted his wedding band around on his ring finger before finally abandoning that as well and relaxing into the bed for his attempt at sleep.

Excuse her for having a fucking child to look after and not being able to pour all her energy into the news stations, most of which, by the way, were more concerned about Blagojevich's toupee than what actually went on behind the scenes. If she was his actual assistant, if she could accompany him to work instead of scrub his dishes, then she might know what the fuck what going on, but no. She was having ice thrown at her on snow days, she was making grilled cheese sandwiches. Goddamnit if she didn't love her job, but Miers could be a real asshole sometimes. She slid off the bed, standing up and smoothing out her shirtdress. Avery desperately wanted to yell at him, but it wasn't her place, and she really did love her job to hell and back again. "Right away, Senator," she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone, pressing a few buttons before putting it between her ear and her shoulder. She went to his closet and rifled through it, pulling out the suit in question, draping it over one arm before she reached for the tea tray. "Hi, Mrs. Belega, it's Avery Campbell," she nudged the door open with her foot and went out into the hall, leaving Gregory to whatever sleep he thought he could get in such a state. She would put away the tea and then take Maddie to Rachel's before dropping the suit off at the cleaners, after which she would stop by the drug store to pick up extra strength cold medicines so Greg could get through the night without dying. And he would thank her tomorrow, she was sure of it, and everything would be worth it eventually.