Madam President

Chapter Nine

"Is it too late for me to save the evening?" Freen asked after a long pause.

The question jarred Rebecca out of her thoughts of how visually appealing the sight of Freen sans jacket with her sleeves rolled up her forearms rather handily.

"How so?" She asked as she lifted her cup to her lips.

"I was telling you how good your address was," Freen responded simply.

"Ah, yes. And that I made no mistakes. If you aren't careful, I'm going to grow too healthy of an ego." Rebecca responded with a quiet little chuckle. The tea felt exquisite on her throat, and it was doing a world of good for her nerves, too.

"That wouldn't be a bad thing." Freen offered, leaning back in her chair as some of the tension she'd been fraught with finally began to fade.

"I mean, your more public persona is all confidence and surety, and then I get you alone and...well. I think you could use a healthy dose of knowing you're a very impressive woman."

"I never said I wasn't impressive," Rebecca argued easily, and the corner of her mouth quirked into an almost-smile as she spoke. "I just don't like to make mistakes. I don't like to give people a chance to find a crack. It's gotten me this far."

Freen could understand that. God, could she understand that. Until now, she hadn't really considered how much they had in common. On the outside of things...not a whole lot.

But the more layers they seemed to peel back, the more obvious it became. At least to Freen.

"And I'm sure it'll get you even farther. But you know, you don't have to keep it up all the time. Like now. Like the way you were a few minutes ago. How you flipped some sort of switch and started worrying about me when I know you must have been scared out of your mind. Anybody would've been scared."

"I was scared for you," Rebecca responded with a shrug. "I felt helpless. You were alone. I knew I wasn't allowed to move or I might distract you. It wasn't my favorite experience. I don't think I'd ever forgive myself if something happened to you."

"Why?" Freen asked, and Rebecca would have scoffed if that question hadn't sounded so utterly genuine. If there hadn't been such a clear look of confused concern on Freen's face.

"Because I care about you," Rebecca responded incredulously. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Because I'm surrounded by dozens and dozens of people every day of my life who only care about Madam President this and ma'am that and the only person I have in my life that wants to know who Rebecca is is you. Isn't it a perfectly human, normal response to not want to lose that?"

Freen couldn't do much aside from blink in response to that. Blink and rest the sides of her thumbs on the edge of her teacup for a moment. A pretty weak time-buyer, really.

And a pretty obvious one, judging by the way Rebecca was looking at her.

"It is." Freen finally acquiesced quietly.

"But the other side of that page is that if I let something happen to you, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Forgiveness would never even be on the table. I don't know when it happened. I don't know when it became more than just my job. Not that this is...your average job, I'll admit. But I care about you, too. And in order to do what I do, I think it's only natural that you would care about the person you're assigned to protect more than you care about yourself."

"But this is your first presidential assignment, not your first security detail. How easy is it to feel that way every single time?" Rebecca was leaning back in her own chair, now. Mirroring Freen.