Chapter Text
“Madame Vice President,” I called, hurrying across the crowded room. Her eyes flicked up to me immediately, forcefully, already expecting the worst.
“Valerie,” she said as way of greeting. Short and sharp. “You have news?”
“Yes, and it’s not good.”
The Vice President looked around at the room, filled with her advisors, campaign staff, and several secret service officers posted at the exits.
“Everyone,” she called out in a commanding tone that struck the murmuring babble down at once. “I need the room. Go home to your families, we’ll reconvene in the morning.”
But not me. Not like I had any family to go home to anyway. No parents– dead already– no partner– when would I even have the time?– and not even a cat to miss me. Sometimes I wondered if I had been chosen out of what must have been hundreds of possible candidates to fill the role of her chief of staff for that exact reason. I would always be ready to carry out her every whim.
As the room emptied, I stood stalk still, waiting. Vice President Harris stood at the table in the center, both hands splayed atop its smooth, wooden surface, head bowed, shoulders more tense than I’d ever seen them. Even though I’d only been brought in recently, I had seen enough of the woman before me to know that it took a lot to hunch her shoulders like that.
“You too,” she said to the two remaining men, both secret service agents, hesitating by the door.
“Ma’am, I don’t think–”
“Now, please,” she said, kind, but stern. They both nodded and left, shutting the door behind them. “Valerie.” I stepped forward to stand beside her. “What happened?”
I steeled myself to share the news I’d brought with me. I hated bringing her bad news. When you work in politics, you learn to separate the human part of yourself from the job, makes it easier. But Kamala Harris, the woman, and Vice President Harris, the politician, were the same woman. So different from any other senator or congressperson I’d ever worked for.
“They have detained the family, ma’am. There are plans to deport them immediately. I had Miller stationed outside the ICE facility, he saw them being brought in.”
Silence. Then–
“Those mother fuckers ,” the VP spat, pushing away from the table. “How dare they. I need a phone. Get me–”
“Ma’am, I don’t think that’s the best idea. You are days away from the last debate, we can’t afford–”
“Can’t afford what, Valerie? A little human dignity?” I flinched, I couldn’t help it. The vitriol in her words stung worse than a slap across the face. She seemed to realize, and her anger softened. “I’m sorry. But I can’t just sit here, planning campaign events, while that family's lives are about to be upended.”
I had to concede– her moral streak was extremely refreshing, even if it wasn’t exactly convenient to running a successful campaign. But maybe… Maybe this is what the country needed. No, I knew this is what the country needed, I just had no experience with politicians who didn’t care about their power first, and human lives second. Or third. Or even fourth, perhaps.
“What will you do?” I asked, curious, and wanting to run scenarios in my head before she did whatever it was that was brewing behind her intense brown eyes.
“I’m the Vice President, I’ll do whatever I have to do. Whatever is in my power. We have to stop this.”
She stared into my eyes then, searching me, appraising my humanity. And when she found the shred of it left behind after my fifteen odd years of political experience, she smiled. It was so warm, so disarming, that I forgot, for just a moment, that she was the second most powerful woman in the country.
I brought her the phone.
When the news of the Vice President’s interference hit mainstream media, our campaign center was flooded with more calls than we could ever possibly take. I pitied the poor staffer who would end up having to take, record, and process them all. I did my best to direct the staff, to take the brunt of the weight from the Vice President’s shoulders so that she could continue her campaign, and it often meant being the last person to leave the office.
“Miller, I need you to stay there. Yes, in Arizona. We’re not budging, which means you can’t either. And do me a favor,” I leaned forward at my desk. “Give the family a message if you can. The Vice President is fighting for them.” VP Harris hadn’t asked for this, but I thought it might help them… knowing they had her in their corner. “Thank you, Miller.”
I hung up and lowered my head to the cool desk. Just ten minutes. Close my eyes, rest, get back to it. My mind, as though waiting for this brief moment of reprieve, played back a moment from the VP’s rally that had been on my mind since it happened earlier that day. A child, detaching from his parents, had run up to the future president of the United States, and wrapped his little arms around her legs. She’d smiled down at him, beamed, really, and ruffled his curly hair. As the VP’s chief of staff, I was thrilled by the optics. As a woman, I was… well, my heart felt too small to contain the feeling it was tasked with holding. What a signal of hope, what a beacon of youth and vibrancy and–
“Valerie? Why are you still here?”
I jolted awake, and immediately got to my feet. When my eyes, blurry with sleep, finally focused on the person in front of me, I had to stifle a gasp. The Vice President herself stood before me with tired eyes and a backpack slung over one shoulder. She’d changed into more civilian clothes: a loose-fitting blue t-shirt and jeans. Heading home, I was sure.
“Vice President, ma’am, I’m sorry– I–”
“Enough with the titles, Valerie. My name is Kamala,” she said with a coy smile, holding out her hand to me. I stared at it, bemused, and felt a smile stretch across my own face. I’d been her chief of staff for a few months, we were basically sisters in arms at this point. Or we would have been, if I hadn’t been the one to erect a solid barrier between us. I took her hand in mine.
“Kamala.” She grinned, her eyes crinkling. I looked away, feeling a blush creep up my neck. What was wrong with me? I dropped her hand and moved to organize my desk. I felt her eyes on me, and wondered what she saw.
“Would you like to grab a drink with me?”
I dropped the stack of papers I’d been holding, though luckily the only casualty was a single sheet that floated to my feet. Vice Pres– Kamala stooped to grab it, and we bumped hands.
“So sorry,” I muttered, feeling more embarrassed than I’d been since somewhere around my mid-twenties. What did the intern put in my coffee? Kamala handed me the sheet, but not before glancing across it.
“Are those the poll numbers? No– forget I asked, I’m off the clock, and so are you.” She grabbed the stack of papers from my hands and set them down on my desk. “Let me buy you a drink.”
How could I possibly refuse?
When the Vice President of the United States said “drink,” I didn’t think she meant at a bar. Certainly not a bar like this– filled with blue collar workers, fresh off whatever late shift they’d been working, tired-eyed but smiling wide, trading stories and commiserating over whatever was on tap.
“Do you come here often?” I asked after we’d retrieved our second round of drinks. I registered how that sounded immediately, but I couldn’t correct myself before she laughed and shook her head.
“No, but I ask around. The interns say this is the best bar if you want a laid back–”
“The interns?” I asked, laughing. She joined in, and my spirits rose as she threw back her head.
“Our most valuable resource! Some of them are from around here. See how I can just sit over here with my extremely capable chief of staff, and not be bothered? They were dead on.”
“You can call me Val,” I said, smirking at her. Two could play the name game.
“Val,” she repeated. I found I quite liked the way it rolled off her tongue. She always called me Valerie, and, I realized, I’d always liked the way her mouth formed the vowels.
Conversation ranged from the campaign to professional past, very standard topics of conversation when you were in the kind of career we were. She hadn’t shared much that I didn’t already know, and I found myself wanting… more. We had two more rounds, and by the time we’d finished the fourth, the bartender announced the last call.
“That should be our cue,” Kamala sighed, leaning back in the booth we’d been sequestered in. Disappointment spread across my limbs slowly– I didn’t want the night to end. It had been the most fun I’d had in… years.
“ Should be?” I called out her phrasing.
“Well, maybe… no, another time. We both should get some sleep.” She looked as disappointed as I felt.
“Of course.”
Kamala looked at me then, and something in her gaze made the noise of the disgruntled bar patrons go quiet. Whether it was the fact that I’d only had four hours of sleep in the last few days, or the alcohol, but I could swear I saw– hunger. The kind that turned limbs to jelly and thoughts to wind.
But it disappeared as she rose. I took another moment to gather myself, and joined her at the bar. When I took my card from my wallet, she pushed my hand away.
“Allow me, Val,” she grinned at me, and winked as she handed the bartender a crisp bill that would cover our drinks and then some. My hand burned where she’d touched it. “I’ll drop you at your hotel.”
The car ride was quiet. I could tell she was lost in thought, the way she stared out of the window of the black SUV. The most I could see of her face were her high cheekbones, straight nose, and a mouth that begged some sort of question. She twisted a ring around her pinky finger, and I wondered why she wore it. Looks? Did it have some kind of meaning to her? Was it given to her by a friend? Parent? Lover? I wasn’t far gone enough to ask.
When I looked away from her hands, I saw that she was staring right back at me. When she caught my eye, she smiled again, so warmly that I felt the heat in my chest.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, repositioning so that her body was angled towards mine. The distance between us seemed shorter than it probably was.
“I was looking at that ring,” I nodded down at her hand. “Why do you wear it?”
“A friend of mine gave it to me,” she said easily, twisting it around again. “Was I playing with it again?”
“You were. Nervous habit?”
“Habit. I don’t know about nervous,” she bit her lip as she stared at the ring. “When you’ve been a district attorney, a senator, and now a vice president, nervous doesn’t really factor into the equation. Most of my life has been lived in full view of the public. I don’t know,” she added, laughing quietly and shaking her head. “Maybe it is a nervous habit, maybe I’m just nervous all the time now.”
“You don’t seem nervous all the time,” I noted. I shifted my own weight, positioning my arm across the back of the seat. “You are–” I only realized where my tongue was taking me in the split second before I uttered the words– “Amazing. I’ve never worked for someone like you.”
Kamala’s lips turned up at the corners as she looked at me. A smile that hid more. That begged more.
“That’s quite the compliment from Valerie Wright. Your reputation precedes you, you know. My advisors were reluctant about hiring you.” I swallowed, and waited for her to go on, paying rapt attention. “They were worried that you would snuff our campaign, but I wasn’t. And so far, I’ve been right. Will I continue to be right, Val?”
Kamala positioned her own arm so that it was laying across the back of the seats as well, her fingertips inches from my own. Her legs were crossed, the foot on top tapping out some kind of rhythm as she waited for my answer. Patiently. With a knowing smirk.
“Yes, ma’am.” My voice was strong, despite the layer of fog obscuring my higher functions.
“Good!” She was genuine. It baffled me. Intrigued me.
We were nearing my hotel now. The familiar landscape beyond Kamala’s window signaled an end to this most interesting car ride. The SUV jostled dramatically over the rough road I recognized all too well, and I found myself gripping the Vice President’s hand on the back of the seats.
“Damn! Maybe I should divert a few thousand to Wilmington’s infrastructure,” she joked, tightening her fingers around mine. Our eyes met again, and there was a moment– just a millisecond– when I saw that hunger again.
And then she was pulling away. Talking with the driver.
We pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, and I slid from the seat into the chilly fall air.
“Wait,” Kamala called. She slid to my vacated seat, and leaned out of the SUV. “The Ortegas. Have you heard anything new?” Concern, real and true, settled on Kamala’s brow. I found myself wishing I could smooth it away, and hated that all my information would do was maintain its position.
“I have Miller on it. We will get them out,” I vowed. Kamala’s brow did not smooth, but her lips formed a smile, and that was enough– for now.
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, Val. Thank you for having a drink with me.”
“Any time, Kamala.”