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Dan comes storming up to her desk, right arm held stiffly outright in front of him. He tosses the thin piece of plastic on Amy’s desk and raises his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation. She is momentarily speechless. “Did you know about this, Amy?” Before she can answer, he’s turned away, ranting with his hands on top of his head, tugging at his own dark hair. “Fucking shit. Please tell me Selina and Andrew didn’t accidentally make a little brother for Catherine. Because that is pretty much the last thing this fucking campaign needs. Talk about dead in the fucking water.” “It’s not Selina and Andrew’s,” Amy interrupts, her voice hollow. She uses the edge of her clipboard to nudge the used pregnancy test—which bears a pink plus sign for positive, as in yes you absolutely, positively are having a baby, bitch—away from her. Dan, who had been angrily pacing the strip of carpet in front of her desk, freezes. “Fool me once, shame on you,” he says finally, softly. “Fool me twice…” But when he meets her eye, he knows it’s no trick. Silence falls. It’s the first silence Amy can remember between herself and Dan in a long, long time. They’re always at each other’s throats, and even when they’re not…well, things aren’t exactly quiet.
 
(Beg me, Broockheimer. Fucking beg for it.) “Have you told Ed yet?” Dan asks. But that’s not really what he’s asking. Amy tries to buy some time. “I just found out.” “How sure are you?” Typical Dan, questioning her intelligence even now. “About seventy-five dollars worth of home pregnancy tests sure,” Amy answers through gritted teeth. “I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday,” she adds, and Dan is amazed (and almost impressed) that she manages to sound snooty and holier-than-thou even while talking about her unplanned pregnancy. Even though his expression is still reads shocked, Amy sees the hint of a smirk appearing at the corners of Dan’s mouth. “Do you want me to come with you?” “No,” Amy snaps back, a little too quickly.Dan’s smirk fades and his eyes narrow. “How far along do you think you are?” Amy silently curses Dan Egan and the people who made him, the parents who passed on those knowing brown eyes and that crooked grin. She curses the entire Egan line, all the way back to Ireland. And then she gives her answer: “About six weeks.” She can see the wheels spinning in Dan’s head as he quickly does some mental math. After a moment, his smirk reappears wider than ever. “What happened six weeks ago?” he asks rhetorically, tapping his pointer finger against his cheek in mock ignorance. He smiles brightly. “Oh! That’s right!” He puts his hands on her desk and leans towards her. Amy leans back, but not before she catches a whiff of the familiar smell of his breathe (peppermint Altoids and Red Bull) as he whispers “Boise.” *** Make no mistake, there’s nothing romantic about Boise, Idaho. So it makes perfect sense in a horrible kind of way, that that’s where Amy would conceive, bent over an ugly hotel couch, its cheap, rough upholstery scraping against her bare stomach as Dan thrust into her from behind, biting her shoulder and moaning her name (in a tone that was almost angry) as he came. It didn’t occur to either of them until after the deed had been done, and they were peeling their sticky bodies apart, that they hadn’t used a condom. “That’s what I get for letting you get me high,” Amy grumbled, fumbling between the couch cushions, trying to find her lost bra. “I haven’t touched weed since college.” “Please,” Dan laughed, “I don’t believe that you ever smoked in college, square.” Amy responded, “Fuck you,” but didn’t mean it. He reached for her, but she slipped under his grasp and into the bathroom. When she came out again, they were both fully clothed. They didn’t so much as touch for the rest of the trip. *** “Wipe that smirk of your weasely little face,” Amy hisses, eyes darting about nervously. Even though she knows the rest of Selina’s staff is helping to get tomorrow’s fundraising event ready, while she and Dan have been left behind to plan tonight’s speech and toast, she feels paranoid that someone might pop up at any second—Bob, Kent, Jonah, or, God forbid, Leon Fucking West—and learn her terrible secret. “This could ruin my career, and by extension, my life.” Dan’s smile only widens. “Not necessarily.” Amy scowls. “What do you mean?” “Voters love kids,” Dan elaborates, chuckling. “Voters are stupid like that.” Amy glares at him, and he softens a little. “Having a kid could really make people like you. It would make you seem more accessible.” “I’m plenty accessible already,” Amy responds automatically, and Dan quirks his eyebrows suggestively. “Not like that,” she amends with a roll of her eyes. “You’re too type A, too anal,” he says matter-of-factly, almost sitting on the edge of her desk but thinking better of it at the last moment. “Am not,” Amy retorts childishly, furrowing her brow. It’s an expression that makes Dan’s cock twitch, because Amy thinks she actually looks intimidating, when of course she actually looks adorable. He winces slightly. 
Getting aroused during a conversation about pregnancy? You’re officially fucked.

*** Initially, Dan had attributed his renewed feelings for ex-fuck Amy Brookheimer as a kind of Stockholm Syndrome—spend enough time with someone who bosses you around and even though she annoys the ever-loving shit out of you, you’ll eventually develop an attraction to her. Sure, it didn’t account for his utter lack of sexual feelings for Selina or Sue (or countless other women he’d worked with), but it helped Dan sleep at night. For awhile, anyway. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Boise, when Amy left his room and he fell into a deep, relaxing post-coital slumber. Later, back in his king-sized bed in DC, he stared at the ceiling and remembered furtively watching her from behind his laptop in that shithole room in Boise. She’d had three glasses of whiskey and shared two joints with him before she pulled out her computer and fired off three important e-mails. He proofread them before she sent them. They were word perfect. He’d never seen anything like it before. Dan found himself thinking that sort of thing a lot when it came to Amy Brookheimer. *** “Come on,” Dan says, taking Amy by the wrist and trying to lead her away from her desk, “Let’s go to Mickey’s. It’ll make you feel better.” Amy groans, dragging her feet. “What’s the point of going to Mickey’s if I can’t have a beer?” “I’ll buy you a burger,” Dan wheedles, in the voice one might use to persuade a pouty child (a voice that might come in handy soon enough.) Amy considers this, and follows him out to the car. *** It’s only much later that night, back at her apartment, after they’ve created a strategy over burgers and Diet Cokes, that Amy brings up something that gives Dan pause. “I can’t believe you’re being so calm about this,” Amy murmurs, curling up on the couch, exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the day. “Because, you know—“ “Because what?” Dan interrupts, half-annoyed, half-amused. “Because I’m douchebag? Because I like fucking around, but I’m agreeing to marry you?” “’Agreeing?’” Amy rolls her eyes yet again. “That part was your idea.” Dan holds up a hand to stop her. “Please. We both know it’s what had to happen to keep you from becoming a total toxic asset.” He’s right. Amy wishes that weren’t the case, because it’s so fucking sexist she can’t stand it, but he’s right. Fucking family values. Her round blue eyes are bright with curiosity. “What’s in it for you?” Dan sighs and puts his arm across the back of the couch, almost (but not quite) around her. “Well, this may come as a surprise to you, Ames,” he says with a sigh, “But lots of people don’t find me, how do I put this…likeable.” He waits for her snickering to subside before he goes on. “But with a baby,” (and you, he doesn’t add) “I wouldn’t be just some incredibly good-looking yuppie who goes out every night looking to pick up chicks. I’d be a family man. Voters can connect to that.” Amy gives him the side-eye. “You’re saying you wouldn’t still try to fuck random girls, after the baby came?” Dan shakes his head. “No. No one else will know that our marriage is politically motivated. They’d all think I was really cheating on you. The last thing I want is to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, like Bill Clinton or Anthony Wiener or any other fuckwit who doesn’t know how to work Twitter.” Amy nods slowly. It makes sense—Dan has always used sex as a tool with which to advance his political career—but she still finds it a little hard to believe. She’d never, ever admit it to him, but he was good at sex.  Very good. “That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Amy begins again, screwing up her courage. “I just meant—you know that there’s still a chance that it’s not yours.” Next to her, Dan stiffens slightly. “So…Ed?” He mutters, finally. “There’s a slim chance, yeah,” Amy admits. Dan’s jaw locks into place. “When?” He asks. “A few nights before we left for Idaho. We used a condom but…you know,” Amy finishes lamely. She remembers Ed serenely rolling a condom down his cock, which was long and thin and pale like he was. Sex with Ed (her boyfriend) was perfectly sweet and lovely, of course. In the morning he made her toast and tea (which she pretended to like, craving black coffee with every sip) and they shared the Wall Street Journal in bed. Sex with Ed was the complete polar opposite of sex with Dan (her ex-fuck or co-worker or whatever). Dan liked dirty talk and biting and hair-pulling and blow jobs—sex that left her feeling like she’d run a fucking marathon.So what did it say about Amy that she (maybe, possibly, definitely) preferred sex with Dan to sex with Ed?Dan’s expression is grim. “Would Ed help you raise another man’s child?”Amy considers this, remembering how Ed had cringed away from the idea of committing to her when she thought she might be out of a job. “No,” she answered finally.“Well, I will,” Dan says, and Amy’s surprised to realize that she believes him. His tone is firm and his body is tense. “On one condition?”“And what’s that?” Amy asks. Dan would be hurt by the suspicion in her voice, but it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise; she doesn’t trust him (yet.)He moves a little closer to her on the couch, and sees her neck muscles undulate as she swallows hard. “You’re going to break things off with Ed Webster,” Dan hisses. There’s a finality to the statement that doesn’t leave room for argument.Amy nods slightly after a moment, a dull pang of heartbreak going through her. She’s not mourning much for her relationship with Ed—Amy’s smart enough to know that he wasn’t exactly the love of her life—but the end of her life as a girl, free from the responsibilities of motherhood and even marriage.Her assent makes Dan relax a little, and he continues to insinuate his body close to hers. His arm wanders from the back of the couch to cover her narrow shoulders, and his long-fingered, freckled hand creeps up her thigh. (She’d had to forgo pantyhose for the past few weeks—even though her stomach had only expanded ever so slightly, they were suddenly unbearably chafing.)“Don’t look so smug,” Amy tells him, turning her face away. “I’m only doing what I have to do.”“Same,” he mumbles into her hair. She sees the tent of his erection pressing against the zipper of his expensive suit pants as his hand slips underneath her skirt.Then Dan’s hand is between Amy’s legs and he laughs softly in her ear. She flushes with arousal, embarrassment, and anger. “Thinking of Ed?” Dan sneers, his fingers brushing across the damp crotch of her sensible underwear.“Yes,” Amy lies half-heartedly, through clenched teeth. His laugh turns to a gasp and then a groan as she reaches over and presses the heel of her hand against his hard-on.Dan leans forward and kisses her hard on the mouth. Their teeth clack together for a moment before they find an angle that’s comfortable. Before Amy knows it, she’s on her back against the armrest, with Dan’s body hovering over hers possessively. He pushes her skirt up and over her thighs. As his fingers hook into the waistband of her underwear, she lays a hand protectively over the curve of her stomach. “Be careful,” she reminds him, unwilling to say more than that.Dan nods and smiles, dragging her panties down her legs. “I’ll be gentle,” he promises. “But not too gentle.”Amy would have responded Good, but he’s already inside of her.***In the end, telling Dan was easier than telling Selina.Luckily, Amy’s always had quick reflexes, so she’s able to duck before the glass the Veep flings at her hits her head. It smashes against the office wall instead.Gary, too obviously giddy with excitement about the news, which Dan has boastfully announced to their whole staff, and Sue, who is mercifully taciturn, as always, save Amy’s bacon by scheduling a dinner for Selina with Catherine that night. A visit from her daughter is the only surefire way to soften the Veep up.Graciously, Selina visits Amy’s apartment after dinner with Catherine to make her apologies. Amy, who has always connected with her boss more than her own mother or older sister, forgives her immediately.Of course the Veep is a little surprise to find that Dan is at the apartment as well, but she goes to speak with him too, leaving Amy alone in the living room with Catherine. The young women smile awkwardly at each other.“Congratulations,” Catherine says finally, twists the hem of her dress in her hands. Even though they see each other all the time, Amy and Catherine rarely converse one-on-one. Catherine can’t help but see the older woman as an usurper of her mother’s attention and affection—and she resents the fact that without Amy to remind her, Selina would probably see even less of her daughter than she already does.“Thank you,” Amy says politely. Her smile is tight. Catherine, with her sweet, sad eyes and perpetual sorrowful expression, is a living reminder of what a career-driven woman can do to her child if she’s not vigilant.“Are you scared?” Catherine asks, before catching herself. “Sorry, stupid question.”Amy shakes her blonde head softly. “It’s not a stupid question. I’m pretty much scared shitless, to be honest.”Catherine tilts her head to one side. “Worried about the affect a kid will have on your career?”“And vice-vera,” Amy responds. At this point, she’s not sure which is the bigger concern.Catherine smiles a little wistfully. “I’m sure you’ll be a great mom.” Amy snorts. “I mean it,” she goes on, eyes widening. “You’ve done a great job taking care of my  mom, after all.”“That’s not the same.”“No, but…” Catherine trails off, and shrugs. “I think it’s cool that you and Dan are going for it.”You and Dan. That’s not something Amy is used to hearing yet. And she could tell Catherine all about the implications of giving a baby up for adoption or having an abortion would have for her political career, but Catherine is a smart girl, and it’s nothing she doesn’t know already, so only Amy nods her appreciation again, feeling lame.***Selina is busy making herself at home in Amy’s kitchen, rooting through her sparely-stocked cabinets to sample the assortment of snacks that Amy keeps on hand to serve as quick bites in between busy days. Dan looks on, amused.“So, this thing between you and Amy—it’s for real?” Selina asks, popping a pretzel into her mouth.Dan’s chest puffs slightly with pride, giving Selina the answer she’s looking for. She refrains from making fun of him for it, just this once. “I guess so,” Dan answers, trying to sound casual but only sounding smug, as usual. “Mike already told me he’d kick my ass if I broke her heart.”Selina laughs out loud at that, but when Dan tells Amy about it later that night, Amy finds herself choking up slightly, as her heart swells with affection for Mike, and Gary, and Sue, all of whom had not only refrained from throwing her under the bus for daring to have an actual life, but were actually actively trying to help makes things easier for her.Dan, picking up on Amy’s pensive mood, tries to lighten things up after Selina and Catherine make their exit. “Just think,” he says, as they clean up the remains of that night’s take-out food together, “POTUS’ team gets back from New York this weekend. Imagine the look on Jonah’s face when we tell him the news. We should tell him at the fundraiser on Saturday.”Amy musters a hollow laugh. “Ed’ll be there too.”Dan frowns and pauses in the clean-up. “You invited him?”Amy sighs. “It’s been on the calendar for ages. You know I like to plan ahead.”Dan gives her a “no duh” look. “So you’ll break up with him then?” He asks, trying to keep his voice even.“I guess,” Amy says absently.“Are you going to tell him why?” Dan presses on.“Well, I’ll have to tell him something.”Dan doesn’t know what to say. It’s an unusual and uncomfortable feeling. “I guess I’d better get back to my place,” he says, finally. He gathers up his things and puts on his coat, all the while waiting for an invitation to spend the night.It never comes.At home, in the shower, he berates himself for being such a pussy, and comes on the tiles with his hand wrapped around his dick and Amy’s name in his mouth.***Friday’s doctor visit confirms what they already knew: Amy is pregnant.Dan goes out and buys cigars for everyone.“Those are for after the baby is born, dumbass,” Amy scolds him, with an epic eye-roll.He only grins at her with his cigar clenched between his teeth. He never lights it—the smoke would be bad for the unborn baby—but he likes the way he looks with the cigar in his mouth.And since Amy hasn’t even touched his hand since the last time they fucked, he has to defy her when he can.***Saturday comes all too soon for Amy’s liking. Of course, for Dan, it can’t come fast enough.They meet at the fundraiser, which is being held at a fancy hotel downtown. It’s the kind of place Amy likes, old-fashioned and classically tasteful. Dan prefers sleek, modern architecture. He books a room upstairs, just in case dumping her stick-in-the-mud boyfriend gets Amy hot and they need a place to be alone.(Hey, it’s worth a shot.)They meet in the banquet hall, since Amy has to get there early to supervise the set up. When Dan strides in, confident in his perfectly tailored tuxedo, she’s up on tip-toe, micromanaging the hanging of a banner.“Three inches up and to the right—I said three inches, not four. Are you blind?”Dan stands back for a moment to admire Amy’s still-lean form, which has been poured into a slinky, elegantly draped plum-colored cocktail dress. Her hair, thicker and more unruly looking than her usual neat cut, is swept away from her graceful neck with a tortoise-shell barrette.His stomach flips, so it’s only fair that he makes her jump when he greets her with the pressure of his hand on her lower back (okay, okay, upper ass.) She gives him a you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “A little eager, aren’t we?” she says in a schoolmarm tone that only makes him want to fuck her more.“You just look so…so…” For once, Dan, DC’s ultimate smooth criminal (at least in his own eyes) is at a loss for words. “Good,” he says finally, and that doesn’t even begin to cover it, of course, but the only real way he can think to answer her question is by grabbing her face and putting his tongue in her mouth, and there are too many hotel staffers and cater-waiters milling about to have a hope of getting away with that one.Dan fetches a glass of champagne for himself and a glass of ginger ale for Amy, and they keep to themselves as the first few guests begin to filter in, mostly because Dan glares down the leering men who wander over to check out Amy. He can’t blame them entirely—Dan, more than anyone, appreciates the lure of Amy’s delectable breasts, framed so perfectly by the wide, square neck of her dress—but that doesn’t stop him from hating each and every one of them. He finds himself having to stomp down the primitive urge to throw Amy’s petite frame over his shoulder and drag her upstairs, away from the admiring stares of their fellow politicians. As amazing as she looked in the dress, he knew she’d look even better without it.Finally, a guest arrives who cannot be deterred by even Dan’s fiercest stare; Jonah comes lumbering up, shooting his gaze directly down Amy’s cleavage. “Some of the guys are saying that he knocked you up,” Jonah tells Amy tactlessly, not bothering with pleasantries. “But that can’t be true, right Amy?”“It’s true,” Dan assures Jonah, wrapping an arm around Amy and tucking her small body into his side. He glances down at her to gauge her reaction but finds her expression curiously unreadable.“I asked Amy,” Jonah insists stubbornly.“It’s true, Jonah,” Amy says, sipping her ginger ale daintily. “I’m pregnant.”Jonah shakes his head in disgust and disbelief. “You could do so much better.”Amy snorts. “In DC? I doubt it.”Dan isn’t sure whether that was a compliment or an insult, so he says nothing.Jonah scowls. “I always thought you and me had a—“Amy doesn’t even let him finish that though. “God, Jonah, I don’t give a shit. Go take some antibiotics or something, just leave us alone.”Jonah slouches off, muttering to himself, as Dan relaxes, he feels Amy go tense. A moment later, he understands why: Ed Webster has just walked in, and is now looking around for Amy. It won’t take him long to find her; he’s head and shoulder over most of the crowd.Amy shrugs off Dan’s arm. “Go get me another soda,” she says, pressing her half-full glass into his hand.“Do you want me there when you tell him?” Dan asks hopefully.She gives him a withering look. “No. Get lost.”“Find me afterwards,” he calls after her as she drifts away. She doesn’t bother to respond.***When Ed finds Amy in the crowd, he leans down and kisses her lips, pressing one of his gentle hands against her soft, rosy cheek.Seeing this, Dan turns down the offer of more champagne and switches to vodka.***Amy doesn’t try to tell Ed right away. She couldn’t even if she wanted to; they’re almost immediately swarmed by Ed’s co-workers, fellow fundraisers for Selina. They’re all so kind and eager to meet her that Amy’s stomach twists painfully with guilt.She can feel the weight of Dan’s gaze from across the ballroom. The guilt intensifies.***Dan watches Amy and Ed schmooze Selina’s guests, arm-in-arm, for a full, unbearable hour before he decides he can’t stand it anymore, and sidles up to them, two plastic glasses of champagne in hand.“Ed! How’s it going?” Dan says, his voice bright and false.“Uh…I’m ok,” Ed answers warily. Amy is giving Dan a crazy-eyed look of silent fury.“Champagne?”Ed accepts the plastic flute with some trepidation. “It’s not drugged, is it?”Dan only laughs. “Amy, champagne?” he asks, his eyes wide in an imitation of innocence.“No, thank you.” Amy snarls.Ed takes a small sip of the champagne. “You sure, babe?” Dan’s eyebrows shoot upward at the pet name. Amy refuses to make eye contact. “I can drive us home.”Dan has to bite his tongue to keep from telling Ed, she won’t be going home with you, if she’s going home with anyone it’s with me. He’s a practiced liar, though; his face remains pleasantly impassive.“I’m alright,” Amy assures Ed, smiling faintly at him before shooting daggers at Dan. “Dan, may I speak to you? I wanted to go over those changes we were going to make to Selina’s toast.”“Of course,” Dan says, the picture of virtue. “Ed, would you please excuse us?”Ed smiles guilelessly and wanders off to try to bend the Veep’s ear as Amy drags Dan from the ballroom and into a back hallway. Once they’re free of the crowd, Amy releases his wrist and crosses her arms over her chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”“What are you doing,” Dan asks, “With him? You promised me—““I know what I promised,” Amy hisses. “I’ve been in a relationship with him for months, and I haven’t seen him for weeks. I couldn’t just dump him the minute he walked in.”“You could have,” Dan insists mulishly.“You’re being stupid.” Amy peers up into his face. “Oh my God. You’re drunk.”“So?”“I can’t believe you’re drunk at a work function,” Amy says, hands on her hips.“Oh please. We all get drunk at these things,” Dan says, leaning closer to her. His tall frame looms over her, and she sees a familiar spark in his eye.“Don’t even think about it,” Amy says weakly, but his hands are already wandering over her body, sliding around her waist, down her lower back, and settling on her ass. He grabs her, hard, and she can’t bring herself to pull away. Even though she hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol, of course, there’s something intoxicating about the combination of anguish and arousal in his eyes, so much so that Amy finds herself swaying on the spot, clutching at his upper arms for support.Dan drops his head to her neck and Amy can feel his hot breathe on her bare skin as he pants and grinds his crotch against her. Before she can control herself, her pelvis is bucking against his and he’s moaning into her hair. His breath doesn’t smell like Altoids and Red Bull. It only smells like vodka, an acrid scent that burns her nostrils and drags her back to reality.“Stop it,” she whimpers, fisting her hands in his hair. “We’re gonna get caught.”“I don’t care,” Dan growls, his hands coming up to cup her breasts.“I know you don’t care, asshole. I care.”Dan soldiers on, fondling her through the thin material of the dress. He buries his face in her hair at the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and uses his hips to pin her against the wall. When he speaks, his voice is muffled and his words are slurred, but Amy understands.(Amy understands.)“I hated it when he called you ‘babe,’” he whines petulantly, reminding her of his initial reaction when she found out she was dating Ed—in retrospect, that was an incident she probably should have taken more seriously, at the time.“It didn’t mean anything,” she assures him. Not that I owe you anything, she shouts in her head, assuring herself.“Damn straight it didn’t mean anything,” he murmurs against her skin, sucking on her neck. He’s marking his territory, and they both know it. “Please, dump his ass already. I’m tired of waiting.”“Waiting for what?” Before Amy gets an answers, she feels Dan’s hands sliding under the skirt of her dress and up. “Dan…”He pushes her underwear aside. “Say my name again.”“Dan,” she responds automatically. He presses his middle finger into her and she gasps and shudders, eye fluttering shut.Dan hates that. He wants Amy to look at him while he fucks her with his fingers, but he knows that he’s skating on thin ice already so he doesn’t press his luck by adding more commands. Instead he uses his free hand to pinch her nipple through the bodice of her dress, and adds a second finger on his next thrust, satisfied enough just to watch her struggle not to scream. She comes fast and hard, and collapses against him.Amy doesn’t try to return the favor, and Dan doesn’t ask her to. They both know that that was never what this hallway rendez-vous was about.He watches her smooth her dress back into places with trembling hands. Before she re-enters the ballroom (alone), she glances back over her shoulder at him. Her blue eyes are wide and earnest. “What do you want from me, Dan?”He doesn’t have an answer—or at least, not one he’s brave enough to say out—so he doesn’t say anything at all. Amy nods sadly and leaves to find Ed.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Amy breaks things off with Ed, and it’s a little sad, and a lot awkward. Needless to say, she doesn’t fall into Dan’s arms immediately afterward. She catches a cab home, wriggles out of her purple dress, and takes a long shower, imagining that the water is literally washing the night off of her.Dan tries jerking off in the hotel room he’d hoped to share with Amy, but he feels too pathetic to stay hard, so he gives up after a few minutes and watches the Home Shopping Channel until he falls asleep.***When they return to work on Monday, a series of hickeys are clearly visible on the right side of Amy’s neck. She does her best to cover them with her hair, but it doesn’t work. Even though Jonah gapes and Gary spends a lot of time glancing at her and giggling nervously, they have the good sense not to make any comments about it.Dan does not.“Meet me in the second floor bathroom in twenty minutes and I’ll make the left side of your neck match the right,” he whispers in her ear as they squeeze through one of the West Wing’s narrow hallways together. He runs his pointer finger over one of the marks his kiss left behind and she shivers. Dan smirks with satisfaction and Amy scowls.“Stop it, fuckface. We’re at work.”But twenty minutes later, she’s letting Dan press into her against the fancy sink, anyway. She won’t let him count it as a victory though; Amy has the last word.“Do you like it like this?” she sneers between thrusts, “Fucking me and getting to stare at yourself at the same time?”There is a mirror behind her head, so it’s clever. And her eyes were shut, so she couldn’t see that Dan was only looking at her.“Yes,” he grunts, grateful for the insult, and Amy’s ignorance. If he has to choose between people thinking of him as a narcissistic ass or a lovesick puppy-dog, he’ll choose the former.That’s how things work in DC.***They plan to look for an apartment that weekend. Dan pokes around online and makes a long list of two-bedroom places he likes; Amy has a similar plan, but all of her picks have three bedrooms.“Why the fuck do we need three bedrooms?” Dan asks, skimming her list quickly. “Are you having twins?” The question, posed with poorly-disguised nervousness, is only a half-joke; he hasn’t been allowed to any of Amy’s doctor visits yet.“Not that I know of,” Amy says, cringing at the mere thought. “I thought it was obvious: one bedroom for you, one bedroom for me, and one bedroom for the baby.”“Oh.” Dan doesn’t know what to say to that. “I thought we’d, y’know,” he waggles his eyebrows at her, “share.”Amy gives him that familiar, exasperated look. It’s a miracle her face hasn’t yet permanently frozen that way. “I need my space.” She’s trying to cling to this last remnant of her single girl life until the bitter end. Dan opens his mouth to argue, but Amy holds up a hand to stop him. “We can always turn it into a home office,” she suggests, insincere but wanting to placate him, at least temporarily. She’s eager to just find a place and get the whole moving process over with. Amy’s not sure which sounds more nightmarish: trying to unpack while running a campaign, or trying to unpack while looking after a newborn baby.(Or, soon, doing both. At the same time.)It’s hard not to cling to the remains of her single girl life though, especially since she looks in the mirror and imagines herself growing plumper every day. It won’t be long before she starts to show, and her identity in Washington is “the poor girl Dan Egan knocked up” instead of “Selina Meyer’s right-hand woman.” Amy feels a bit sick at the thought.Within moments, she’s kneeling beside her desk, vomiting into the metal trashcan.“Jesus,” Dan muttered, half-heartedly patting her upper back. “I didn’t know the thought of sharing a bed with me was that bad.”Amy makes a sound that’s half-whimper, half-groan. It echoes pitifully in the metal bin. Her morning sickness has begun.***Amy wakes up early on Saturday morning to the sound of rustling plastic and slamming cabinet doors in her kitchen. Suddenly alert, she grabs her dad’s old wooden baseball bat from under her bed and slowly advances down the hallway towards the kitchen, ready to beat the shit out of the intruder—although she doesn’t understand why a thief would be looking for valuables in her pantry.Dan jumps about a foot into the air when she rounds the corner. “Jesus fuck!” he cries, putting both his hands in the air. “Take it easy, Brookheimer.”“Dan?” Amy drops the bat with relief. “Oh, thank Christ. What the hell are you doing here?”“You gave me a spare key, remember?”She does, vaguely. She doesn’t trust any of her neighbors to keep a spare on hand for emergencies, so that left only her co-workers as options. (Amy has always been too career-focused for friendships.) Mike would lose it; Gary would get too excited; and Sue politely declined the request. “Sorry,” she’d said, putting one hand over the receiver of her office phone, “I don’t do that.”(Classic Sue.)That left only Dan as an option. The slow smile he gave her when she’d first handed him that spare key made her want to set him on fire. “You know,” he’d purred, “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble. If you wanted me to come over—“And then she’d kicked him in the shin.“I know I gave you a spare key,” Amy says with a sigh, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”Dan holds out the garbage bag and shows her what’s inside: deli meats, chocolates, wine, coffee, pretty much half the contents of her fridge and pantry. Amy reaches in to try to rescue her tin of Folger’s, but Dan smacks her hand away. Amy groans. “I know what I’m not supposed to eat while I’m pregnant, asshole.” There’s a stack of maternity books on her nightstand; each one marked with color-coded post-it notes, of course. “Don’t you think this is kind of unnecessary?”“You say that now,” Dan says, rooting around on the uppermost shelf to make sure he hasn’t missed anything, “But just wait until your crazy pregnancy cravings kick in. I don’t want my baby to end up warped just because you needed your caffeine fix, junkie.”Another, lesser girl might have found Dan referring to it as his baby attractive. Another girl’s stomach might have done flip-flops at those words.But Amy is not that girl.(Our baby, she corrects him in her head, and somehow that’s even more terrifying.)“Get dressed,” Dan says, ignoring the silence that followed his words. “We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”***Back in her bedroom, Amy examines her dresser drawers and closet, unsure of what to wear. How is one supposed to dress while house hunting with one’s baby daddy?She thinks of Dan’s outfit: a light blue t-shirt that showed off his arms a little too well for it to be an accident, and douche designer jeans that, admittedly, made his ass look very good. Shaking her head with disgust for herself, she picks a soft lilac blouse and her favorite black jeans, careful to avoid anything even remotely in the blue color family—the last thing she needs right now is for their outfits to be matching. That’s a little too domestic, even for this incredibly domestic day.Amy throws a few necessities in her battered leather purse (it’s no Levithan, but she can put books in it, which is a big plus.) “Alright,” she calls out to Dan as she moves towards the kitchen, “I’m ready…”She trails off as her large eyes grow larger with shock—because Dan is down on one knee.***He’d never admit it, even with a gun to his head, but Dan has practiced this moment. Just in case.***“What are you doing?” She says numbly. Before he can answer, she’s already buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please stand up.”“Amy Elizabeth Brookheimer—““Stand up,” Amy shrieks hysterically. “And my middle name is not Elizabeth!”Dan is still down on one knee. “I know. It’s Maude. But you hate the name Maude. So I said Elizabeth instead. I thought it had a nice ring to it.”Amy is aghast. “I can’t believe you’re making puns at a time like this.”Seeing the real fear and shock on her face, Dan stands, pulling the ring box from his back pocket without ceremony. “Look, Amy, you knew this was going to happen sooner or later,” he says in a soothing voice one might use for taming wild horses, “It’s going to make things a lot easier for both of us, in the long run. And easier for the baby, too.”Amy frowns and places a hand on her stomach, as if to cover the baby’s ears. “But why now?” she asks, unable to keep a whiny tone from her voice.“Because,” Dan says, fiddling with the little velvet box, “Our realtor is an older lady and she’s very conservative. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a day free of judgey looks?”Amy makes a face. “Does that mean you’re not going to give me judgey looks?”“I didn’t say that.”After a long pause, Amy mutters “Fine.” She holds out her hand for the ring box, but instead of giving it to her, Dan takes her hand and slides the ring onto her finger.She hadn’t expected it to feel so heavy, so solid (so real.) She’s so thrown off that she doesn’t snatch her hand away once it’s on.Neither of them realizes it, but it’s the first time they’ve ever held hands.“I’m sorry if I…freaked you out,” Dan says haltingly, looking at the ring instead of into her face. Amy can tell that ‘sorry’ isn’t a word he’s had much practice saying. “I just wanted this to be…I don’t know…nice.”“If I wanted nice, I’d still be with Ed Webster,” Amy tells him flatly.Dan drops her hand and turns it away. “You can take it off when we’re done.”Amy nods and twists the ring a little. It fits perfectly.“How did you know my ring size?”“I have my ways.”She snorts. “Creep.”Dan only laughs in response.***Their realtor shows up in a leopard-print blazer and enormous sunglasses. Nothing about her is “conservative.” In fact, she spends much of the day regaling them with stories about the love-nests she’d found for politicians and their mistresses.Amy catches Dan’s eye and he looks away quickly. She knows that she could needle the real reason for the ring out of him if she wanted to, but she finds that she’s frightened of the answer.They finally settle on a spacious loft space with an open floor plan and lots of windows. It’s a little outside their price range, but once they sell all the metal-and-glass furniture from Dan’s cold, futuristic bachelor pad, they should be able to afford it. “Besides,” Amy remarks, “we need to pick a place we really love. Who knows how long we’ll be stuck here?”She ignores the hurt that flickers across Dan’s face at the word “stuck,” as he forces a laugh and wraps an arm around her shoulders, for the realtors benefit. The woman has been giving them curious looks all day.“You two have such a unique energy,” the realtor says abstractly, looking them up and down.They fake-chuckle in eerie unison.***Afterwards, they end up back at Amy’s place with cartons of take-out Chinese food. Dan drives the man taking their order up the wall, insisting that he list every ingredient in every dish they order so that Dan can be sure it’s safe for the baby.Someone less anal than Amy might find Dan’s near-sociopathic attention to detail unbearable. But Amy, being Amy, finds it almostcharming.(Almost.)She doesn’t take her engagement ring off that night.***It’s very late by the time they finish going over the budgeting spreadsheets they’re creating to help plan for the baby’s future; Dan is confident that their child will end up a super-genius, and he wants to start saving for his or her college fund right away. Amy thinks this is a good idea as well, but that doesn’t stop her from shaking her head at him. “You’re going to spoil this kid,” she scolds, “You’re going to make him think the sun shines out of his ass.”“Better than not believing he can do anything,” Dan retorts simply. She’s not sure if that’s a jab at her family, or his own (whom she’s never met.) She lets the issue drop.Amy tells Dan he’s allowed to sleep over, because it seemed like the polite thing to do, and the diamond currently sparkling on her left hand can’t have been cheap. She assumes he’ll crash on the couch, but of course he wanders into her bedroom, clad only in his boxer-briefs, while she’s in the middle of changing.“Get out,” she cries, clutching her pajama top to her naked chest.“Amy, please spare me the theatrics,” Dan sighs, turning down the covers on her bed. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”Of course, that’s true, but it doesn’t stop him from checking out her small, tight ass and smooth thighs when she turns away. It’s not Dan’s fault she looks sofuckingadorable in her little blue pajama set. He’s only seen them once before. “My mother got them for me,” she’d defended herself when he teased her about them. The words weren’t even out of her mouth before her pajama shorts were crumpled on the floor.Dan’s embarrassingly hard at the mere memory of the encounter, and he climbs into her bed and under her covers to conceal his obvious erection. Amy slides in after him, leaving plenty of space in the middle of the bed.They fall asleep facing in opposite directions.***Dan wakes up to a mouthful of blonde hair. Somehow, in the night he and Amy had become entangled. He’s practically on top of her, one muscular arm thrown across her torso, her slender leg pinned between his own. He can feel her hot, moist breath on his bare shoulder. Amy’s still asleep. He’s never spent the night with her before, and he finds the expression of pure relaxation on her face so foreign. It’s rare to see her without her brow furrowed or her bush baby eyes widened or her cupid-bow mouth pinched into a frown.Feeling as though he’s in bed with a stranger, Dan furtively tries to slide away from her. It’s something he’s become quite good at, over the years of extricating himself from the embraces of one-night-stands. But Amy, still asleep, grumbles at the loss and only tucks herself more firmly against him.Dan stares at the wall and thinks about baseball.Finally, he manages to slither out of her bed. He gets his toothbrush from his attaché case—it’s no Levithan, but he spends enough time in strange women’s apartments to know that he should always carry the necessary toiletries with him.Dan goes into Amy’s bathroom and brushes his teeth vigorously. He dresses quickly and leaves.When Amy wakes up half an hour later, he’s already gone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Things at the office don’t change much, which is a comfort. Kent and Ben couldn’t give a shit, as long as they don’t have to pick up anyone else’s slack. Sue really couldn’t give a shit. Mike likes to crack jokes about Dan and Amy not being able to keep their hands off each other, but he doesn’t do it very often, since it makes Dan smirk with self-satisfaction, and gives Amy a cornered-animal look in her eyes.Besides, they are both very career-driven (after all, that’s why they’re having baby, right?) and involved with their work. Amy in particular is eager to prove to Selina that she is still a valuable asset to the team; Selina, who faced career discrimination when she herself was a pregnant woman, is on her side anyway, and Amy is grateful for her support.She hasn’t told her own parents or unbearable sister about the situation yet; her mother will coo endlessly over Dan, and the thought of the “I Told You So” look her sister will sport makes Amy want to hurl. Well into her first trimester now, with just a small, easily concealed belly, everything makes Amy want to hurl.She asks Dan one night if he’s told his parents. “They’re Catholics, Amy,” he says, not looking up from the speech he’s drafting, as if that were answer enough.The only person at work who really gives them a hard time is Jonah. He behaves like the overgrown child he is, complaining about Amy and Dan to any staffer stupid enough to give him a moment’s pause. When Amy was with Ed, he and Dan were allies in jealousy and dislike of her boyfriend, but now he’s turned his efforts back to trash-talking Dan.Amy laughs off Jonah’s pathetic insults with ease—perhaps too much ease, Dan thinks, watching from across the office. Even though he knows that Amy is much to clever to take any of Jonah’s jabbering to heart, it makes his stomach churn, the way overgrown intern’s lumbering, monstrous frame tried to curl around Amy’s small, delicate body. Dan glances at the Secret Service agents who line the walls of Selina’s office and vaguely wonders why none of them are stepping in; but for all his years working for politicians, he still can’t figure out what’s going on behind those black sunglasses, and those stone stares.“Dan,” Ben snaps, “Am I boring you?”Dan’s head snaps around. “Sorry?”The lines on Ben’s forehead turn downward as his face slumps into an exasperated frown. “Jesus Christ, kid,” he says, sounding more tired than angry, “You think this shit is gonna fly at the White House?”Dan resist the urge to slide a hand along his hair, a nervous tic he developed when he started using hair gel in the fourth grade. “Hmm.” He tries to make the noise sound like a scoff, but it comes out like a question instead.Ben rolls his eyes in Amy and Jonah’s direction. “Go act out your little White Knight fantasy, okay? Obviously you’re going to be completely useless until you do.”Dan shoots out of his chair just a little too fast. “Inbox me the details and I’ll take care of, uh…the thing. The thing we were talking about.”Ben smiles sarcastically. If not for his ability to find humor in the idiocy of self-important DC-types like Dan, he’d have keeled over years ago.***“You know,” Jonah whispers confidingly, leaning down (way down) to Amy’s ear, “I read on The Web that he’s infertile. Are you sure the baby’s his?”Amy slowly raises her eyebrows. She looks like she’d strangle Jonah to death, if she weren’t too bored by him to waste the effort. Dan’s chest feels tight when he looks at her. Pregnancy had returned the color to her cheeks that had been robbed by stress, and she had the calm, healthy countenance of a girl in a Dutch oil painting. Girl with the Pearl Earrings, Dan might have thought, if he were a romantic.(But don’t let the proposal fool you. Dan Eagan is not a romantic.)***(Don’t let him fool you.)***Amy’s on the verge of asking Jonah where exactly on “The Web” he’d read that Dan was infertile (Christ, is this Ed’s kid?) when it dawns on her. She knows exactly where he’d read it. Fucking Marie Claire dot fucking com. After her tragic “miscarriage,” Amy had agreed to sit for an interview with the magazine. When Dan waltzed in, being a douchebag—and trying to steal her spotlight—Amy had quickly shut down the idea that he was her dead baby’s father by telling the reporter that he was infertile.Amy feels her heart sink like a stone. She may have unwittingly made things, very, very difficult for herself down the line.The next thing she knows, a strong arm wraps itself around her waste and she is being whisked away from Jonah. The smell of his overpowering cologne is gone and she can breathe again. She doesn't have time to be grateful, though, she didn’t have time to think, before she was out in the back hallway with Dan. He alternately stares at her with a worried expression, brow furrowed and mouth downturned, and paces, his hands on his hips.“You look like my mother,” she says, laughing without thinking. Her mother doesn't know she is pregnant. That was so strange. Her mother doesn't know.Dan stops pacing and lets out a huff of air through his nose, like a frustrated child. “I’m beginning to think that maybe working full-time isn’t a good fit for you right now.”Amy’s face goes white, and then red. If Jonah’s “advice” had triggered vague annoyance and general apathy in her, Dan’s thinly-veiled “suggestion” inspired full-fledged rage. Her mouth opens and closes for a few moments and she struggles to find a voice for her anger.“How dare you?” She hisses, her round blue eyes narrowing dangerously. “How dare you try to tell me what to do just because you’re jealous? You fucking caveman. You backwards, fifties, Don Draper motherfucker.” Amy drives her pointer finger into Dan’s chest to punctuate every syllable.The sensation feels very distant to him.Her jaw is tight, her nostrils flared. “Listen the fuck up,” she mutters, her tone both secretive and stern, “You are not my husband. You are not even my real fiancé. I am the one who has to carry this baby around. I am the one living with the consequences every minute of my life. And I will do what I think is right for my life and the life of my child, and no one else.”Dan seems almost shocked into speechlessness for a moment. Amy’s never seen his eyes that wide, his breathing that shallow, except during—well, never mind. He presses his face into his hands for a brief moment, and when he emerges, his smirk is once again firmly in place.“So this is how it’s gonna be?” Dan says, false enthusiasm ringing in every syllable. “You’re gonna shove me into the background. I’m supposed to just wait in your bed while you fuck half the town?”Amy’s face is rigid with fury. “Our deal was, ‘No more Ed Webster.’”Dan barks a single shout of angry laughter. “And you go running into Jonah’s arms?”“Don’t be disgusting,” Amy hisses, praying no one has heard them, although it’s inevitable that someone has. “I’d sooner fuck Mike.”Dan, still furious, can’t help but let his shoulders drop, ever so slightly. They both know she’s never, in a million years, fuck Mike. Even before he was married. Even before his pet dog was real. Even before he lost most of his hair, and grew that sorry excuse for a mustache.Amy looks like she might cry, except that Dan’s not sure Amy can cry. He doesn’t believe in what he’s never seen.Amy feels like a marionette whose strings have been cut. She folds in on herself, just a little, crossing her arms over her chest. “Isn’t it enough,” she asks, struggling to keep her voice from cracking, “that I’m chained to you?”Her words hit Dan like a physical blow, forcing him to take a step back. Amy tightens her arms around herself and walks away quickly, before she can regret them.She turns back at the last moment. Dan feels hopeful, and hates himself for it. “We have an appointment this afternoon,” Amy reminds him, quietly. “3:00. Don’t be late.”Amy walks away, briskly. Dan feels like he’s spent half his life watching her walk away.***Amy arrives at the OB-GYN’s office at 3:05. Dan is already there. He barely glances up from The Wall Street Journal to look at her. The other young mothers-to-be in the waiting room sneak coy glances at him, blushing every time he looks up from the page.Amy hates everyone, Dan most of all.She checks in with the overly-sweet receptionist and strides purposefully across the waiting room, stepping over scattered blocks and board books laid out for the toddlers with a grimace, before sitting in the firm vinyl chair next to Dan. Without a word of acknowledgement, she pulls the Editorial section from his paper and yanks it open. The gesture makes her engagement ring catch the light and scatter rainbows across the floor where the babies play with the waiting room toys. The other women stare at Amy with envy, and Amy meets their gazes without flinching.Dan allows himself a momentary smile, well-hidden behind the Real Estate listings.They don’t speak while they wait to be called into the examination room, but the flutter and flick of newspaper pages is almost like a conversation.***“Mrs. Brookheimer?” A nurse calls.Dan and Amy follow her down a narrow hallway lined with snapshots of babies and birth announcement.Amy thinks she feels his hand on the small of her back, but how could that be, after all that was said? How could he still want--?(And for that matter, how could anyone want to marry her?)***Things start well enough.“Is this your first ultrasound, Mrs. Brookheimer?” The technician asks, smiling banally.Amy nods vigorously. Her throat is tight.***Dan is the one who notices first.He’s better at reading people. He sees the flicker in the technician’s eyes, the crease that forms between her brows, the growing tightness in her mouth.For the first time in his life, Dan hopes he’s wrong.***“It’s probably nothing.”They repeat the technician’s words as they wander through the parking garage in search of Dan’s car. He had a system for remembering things like parking garage spaces, but he’s forgotten the system.“It’s probably nothing.”“Yeah, it’s probably nothing.”But it might be something. Those words hung in the air between them, unspoken.There was a darkness, a cloudy patch over where the heart should be. It could be a debilitating congenital heart condition. But it was probably nothing.Amy slid into the passenger seat of Dan’s black sedan, as Dan sat down in the driver’s seat, starting the car and quickly flicking off the radio. He turned to her, eyes soft and bright and sad. “Where do you want me to take you?”Amy leans back against the headrest. “My parents’ house,” she answers, surprising herself.Dan doesn’t ask questions. “As you wish,” he respond, putting the car into reverse and turning over his shoulder to check for passing cars.Amy eyes him curiously. “How did you know that I liked The Princess Bride?”Dan makes a scornful noise. “Who doesn’t like The Princess Bride?” He slides the car out of the parking space and into drive. “Besides,” he goes on, grinning in spite of himself “You got drunk one time and said that Jonah was like Andre the Giant minus a soul.”Amy laughs. She doesn’t remember, but she believes him, because it’s true.“And,” Dan chuckles, “You told me it was your favorite movie because of the scene where the princess pushes the man the loves down that big fucking hill, and she has to chase him all the way down.”He’s beaming like a fucking idiot now, and Amy thinks she might be too. She looks down at the bump under her seatbelt, feeling horribly disloyal. Her smile slides off her faces, and she presses a hand to her own heart without meaning to. “It’s a good movie,” she says, and then they are silent for the rest of the ride.***Amy’s childhood home was a modest size and decorated in the traditional New England WASP style, nothing too revolutionary. The Brookheimers had never been rich, though Amy’s mother had come from a family with money, and passed onto her daughters a perpetual hunger for something more than the middle class life to which they were accustomed.The house was tastefully decorated, but visitors and family members alike could never shake the feeling that something was missing from this shelf or that cabinet, though they could never pinpoint exactly what it was. A feeling of discontent permeated. Dan feels it the moment he steps over the threshold. The sensation making him feel uncomfortable and ill at ease, like the summer he was a lifeguard at an Ohio theme park, and he had to stand in cold water all day.It doesn’t seem much better for Amy. She sits on the edge of a beige couch with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, refusing her mother’s offers of coffee, tea, or water. Dan also refuses the offer of coffee; a tremor started in his right hand once they’d left the ultrasound room, and it hasn’t quite yet gone away. He is terrified of spilling something on the pristine eggshell white carpet. He perches on the arm of the couch and sneaks a peek at a framed picture of Amy when she was maybe five years old. Her gaze was solemn, her mouth unsmiling. Maybe she has always been this way.Amy delivers the news of her pregnancy with a bright, false smile that doesn’t seem to throw off her mother, who claps her hands and squeals like a giddy schoolgirl. Amy’s father smiles and nods from his recliner, his eyes flicking to the golf scores on the muted TV. In truth, two grandchildren or three, it made little difference to him. He hadn’t been the same since his health struggles.Mrs. Brookheimer’s hands shoot out to clasp Amy’s left one in what might seem like an affection gesture, if Amy couldn’t feel her mother grasping for the sharp, cold shape of a diamond ring. She yanks Amy’s ring finger to eye level and studies it with the same look of envy in her eyes as the women in the waiting room.Dropping Amy’s hand, Mrs. Brookheimer pulls Dan off the couch and into a tight hug. “Welcome to the family,” she says grandly, as if there were much of a family to speak of. Amy tugs at the hem of her skirt. When Mrs. Brookheimer releases Dan from the embrace, she pats her daughter’s knee. Mr. Brookheimer half-rises from his chair before thinking better of it, offering Dan a hand to shake, and looking shrewder than he has in years.(Once upon a time, Mr. Brookheimer did corporate mergers. Mrs. Brookheimer may have some cougar-ish tendencies, but she’s not the one Amy got her ruthlessness from.)“Isn’t this the part where you give me the ‘Take care of my baby girl speech?’” Dan laughs, his easy charm unusually strained.“I don’t think you need the speech,” Mr. Brookheimer remarks dryly, making it clear that he won’t be elaborating. His gaze settles on the game of golf unfolding silently before him.Dan thinks he sees Amy blushing, out of the corner of his eye. But it may just be a trick of the light.***Determined to have it all out at once, Amy takes a deep breath and an extra-long blink, steeling herself for what’s to come.“There’s something else,” she begins.Mrs. Brookheimer’s eyes widen. “Something else?” She cries, incredulously. “Did you buy a house?” She guesses, optimistically.“It’s probably nothing,” Amy begins, reflexively. “But it might be something.”She lets Dan put a hand on her shoulder.*** They can’t get back to Dan’s car fast enough. Amy doesn’t even bother to put her heels back on (no shoes on the carpet, darling, you know that) but dashes across the lawn in her stocking feet, Dan jogging behind her in his stiff designer dress shoes.It’s only after the car doors are slammed and locked that Amy hunches over herself in the passenger seat, her mother’s shrieks echoing in her head.
This is all your fault, Amy Maude Brookheimer!

You should have known better.

You should have known better than to do this without talking to a doctor first, Amy.

You’re not like the other women. Your system isn’t the same. Because you were sick.

Because you made yourself sick. Did you tell the doctor?

Have you been eating, Amy?

Have you been throwing up, Amy?

Did you tell the doctor? Did you tell him what you did?

Did you tell your fiancé, Amy?

Amy, how could you. You selfish girl.
***Dan fidgets in the driver’s seat, feeling helpless, as Amy trembles in the seat beside him, running her fingers through her hair and tugging at the root in what he can only imagine is an expression of utter anguish.She hadn’t told him, no. He didn’t blame her, though.I mean, who really tells their significant other the gory details about their teen years? Even under normal circumstances?So Amy was bulimic for three years. So she almost killed herself in the pursuit of perfection.Dan’s not proud to admit it, but it didn’t come as a huge surprise.“Amy,” he says, his voice as gentle as it’s ever been, “Amy, it’s ok.”“It’s not ok,” Amy whispers at her lap.“It will be,” Dan says, reaching out and tentatively laying a hand on the space between her shoulder blades. “Women who’ve had, um, health problems have babies all the time. And…what happened…was a long time ago.”Amy is silent.“Wasn’t it?” he asks, carefully stroking his hand over her smooth blonde bob.For a moment Dan thinks that she’s determined to ignore him, but then he hears it: a low, soft wail. A pitiful little cry of fear and despair that stretches itself into a sob as her bent form shakes and tears drop from her face and onto her sensible gray suit.Without a second thought, Dan pulls Amy into the driver’s seat and into his lap, letting her stain his crisp Brooks Brothers oxford with mascara. He’s never seen her cry before. He doesn’t hold it against her.***After tucking Amy into her bed, Dan crashes on her living room couch. Before drifting off, he checks his inbox. Subject: Welcome to the Executive Branch Dan,If you keep carrying on like you did today, Selina’s going to want to fire one of you. And I’m going to fight for Amy’s job.You want to know what I want you to do? I want you to pull your shit together. This is strike two, Dan.Don’t say I didn’t warn you. --Ben

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“BEDREST?”
 
Amy howls like an animal when the order comes down from their obstetrician. Dan wraps his arms around her from behind, in what’s less a show of support and more an attempt to restrain her from lunging at the good doctor’s throat, bitten-down nails going for the eyes. “Bedrest? I can’t! I can’t! I can’t stay in bed for five fucking months!”
 
Dr. Kelly’s calm half-smile never falters. He slides his glasses from his nose to the dome of his bald head. “We can reassess your health status throughout the rest of your pregnancy, Amy. You may not need to stay on bedrest the entire time. But for the time being, I’m trying to be honest with you about the circumstances.”
 
Amy twists furiously in the circle of Dan’s arms. “I can’t do it! I’ll die!”
 
“That’s exactly the point, Ms. Brookheimer,” Dr. Kelly says firmly, raising his voice slightly. “If you don’t take this seriously, you could die.”
 
Shocked, Dan feels almost dizzy, sagging momentarily against Amy. Amy, who has gone completely rigid, supports him like a post would, unyielding.
 
“Your baby is only in the fifth percentile for his or her weight at the end of the first trimester,” Dr. Kelly explains again. Dan’s tie is strangling him. He can hear Amy breathing through her nose. “If you want him or her to have any chance for a healthy birth, a birth that you both survive, we need to minimize all exposure to potential risk factors. That includes vigorous physical activity, lack of sleep, and stress, three things that I have come to understand are all intrinsic to your job. You may work minimally from your home unless we find that your stress level has not improved. You and I will touch base frequently so that I can ensure you are properly taking care of yourself.
 
“I’m not a little girl,” Amy fumes, shrugging off Dan’s limp embrace.
 
Dr. Kelly doesn’t miss a beat. “I know you’re not, Amy. You’re a grown woman, and that’s why I’m trusting you to do the right thing.”
 
Dan honestly can’t remember the last time doing the right thing has been one of his priorities.
 
***
 
Amy has the hiccups the whole ride home and it sets them both even more on edge. As they march up the stairs to their apartment, Dan flexes his hands, which are stiff and sore from being clenched on the steering wheel.
 
Amy unlocks the door and enters without looking back at him. She throws her purse on the ground with unnecessary force and sheds her trench coach, flinging it on the floor as well. She kicks off her shoes and they the hit the wall with two dull thuds.
 
“Cut it out,” Dan snaps. Amy’s eyes are wide and wild. She lurches through the apartment like a malfunctioning wind up toy, disappearing into the bedroom. Dan yanks the knot of his tie loose and follows her cautiously, like a hunter pursuing a badly wounded animal. 
 
When he rounds the corner, Amy is bending over the bed, arranging stacks of pillows. They have a lot of pillows, because Amy likes to create a buffer in their bed when she’s in a bad mood. She doesn’t look up when he joins her in the bedroom, but a moment later she turns so that her back is to him.
 
“Unzip me,” she says softly.
 
Dan crosses the room to her and wordlessly undoes the zipper on her cotton dress. She steps out of it and goes to her dresser without looking at him, pulling out a pair of pajamas and tugging them on. Dan thinks he should undress as well, but he doesn’t get past unclasping his watch and slipping off his blazer before he finds himself motionlessly staring out their window at the view of the Hill. 
 
Amy goes into their bathroom and Dan snaps out of it and follows her. She’s washing off the last traces of her makeup, and they make eye contact in the mirror. Dan sits in-between the sinks on their Jack and Jill bathroom counter. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
 
Amy shrugs, wetting her toothbrush beneath the faucet and smearing it with toothpaste. 
 
Dan scowls at her. “Why did I even bother to ask,” he grumbles, “You never want to talk about any of it.”
 
Amy’s mouth is a small, tight line. She jams her toothbrush into her mouth and brushes vigorously, eyes straight ahead. 
 
“I’m scared, Amy.” Dan admits hoarsely.
 
Amy doesn’t pause in her task. Up and down, left to right. 
 
Dan snaps. “You could at least acknowledge my existence.” Impulsively he reaches out, taking her by the chin and turning her face towards his. Amy’s eyes lock with his own and she spits the foam of her toothpaste onto his face. Dan reels back, releasing her, and she spits the rest of it into the sink, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
 
“Goddamnit, Amy!” Dan curses, blinking rapidly, “Some of that got in my fucking eye!”
 
“Good,” Amy snarls, storming from the bathroom. Dan rinses his face in the sink and pats it dry on a hand towel, his eyes stinging with mint. He stomps back into the bedroom to find her balanced carefully on the bed, knees propped up on a stack of pillows, upper body reclining and a precise forty-five degree angle. Her hands are folded across the slight hill of her belly. Her eyes are closed, but her expression is tense.
 
Dan swallows hard against his fading anger and manages to calm himself with a few deep breaths. He goes to his side of the bed and turns down the covers, sitting on the edge of the mattress. 
 
When Amy feels the bed shift beneath her, she opens her eyes and looks at Dan. She lets her gaze fall on the back of his neck, where his dark hair fades down into a neat, buzz-cut rectangle. There are a few flecks of silver with the black. He’s not longer a perfect physical specimen and it’s somehow endearing. 
 
Dan feels the weight of her stare and turns over his shoulder to look back. Something almost like an affectionate smile softens Amy’s expression. “You can sleep on the couch tonight,” she instructs, her voice barely above a whisper.
 
He stares at her, incredulous, for a long moment, before snatching up the one pillow that’s been left to him and slamming the door behind him as hard as he can.
 
***
 
Dan wakes in the night to the gentle pressure of a hand on his face. It’s not a familiar sensation, and his eyes snap open as he gasps in surprise.
 
“Shhhhh,” Amy murmurs, sliding her cool palm from his temple to his jaw. “It’s just me.”
 
“Just you,” Dan repeats sleepily.
 
“I’m sorry I kicked you out.”
 
Dan blinks drowsily. “Why are you whispering? It’s just us.”
 
Amy sighs. She’s on her knees next to the couch, and she rocks back on her heels. “I already feel claustrophobic about this whole bedrest situation and I just couldn’t stand having you there…looking at me.”
 
“I like looking at you.”
 
Amy’s brow furrows. “Don’t flirt. I can’t stand it, Dan.”
 
He’s smirking a little. “Well, it’s true.” He reaches out and puts his hand on her waist. 
 
“I know what you’re thinking when you look at me.”
 
“Oh yeah?” He slides his hand from her waist to the small of her back, drawing her closer so that the top half of her body is leaning on the edge of the couch. “Am I that obvious?”
 
Amy’s face is very close to his. She rests her forehead in the crook of his neck. Her words come to him muffled, but no less startling. “You think I’m a bad mother.”
 
Dan frowns and draws back to look into her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 
Amy crosses her arms, leaning on her elbows. Her words come out all at once in a tearful rush. “You’re healthy and I’m not healthy and now the baby’s not healthy so it’s like what’s the x factor? Me. Me. My womb. My baby box. It’s small and shriveled and warped by stress and I am too.”
 
“Sweetheart,” he hears himself say. “Sweetheart.”
 
Amy’s face is white in the moonlight. “I faked a miscarriage two years ago,” she hisses, horrified. “I told them you were the father. Wouldn’t it just be a kick in the teeth if—“
 
Dan doesn’t let her finish he thought. “Stop it,” he says sharply. “That’s not how things work.”
 
Amy is quiet and trembling. 
 
“You don’t know how I feel. You can’t know unless you actually ask me. Okay? Jesus, Amy. I never thought I’d be the one in a relationship saying this but…we have to talk more.”
 
Amy lets out a little bark of a laugh.
 
“And for the record, I think you’re going to be a great mom,” Dan says, pushing a lock of hair behind Amy’s ear. “Because I know that you care.”
 
“Be honest now; am I about to completely derail my career?” she asks.
 
“You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll take care of you.”
 
Amy fixes him with a stony look. “I don’t want that.”
 
Dan takes her hand in his. “We’ll figure out a way for you to work from home. We’ll make it work.” Amy nods slowly. “You look like you don’t believe me.”
 
“I’m trying to believe you,” Amy insists.
 
“When have I ever lied to you?” Dan asks with a knowing, sarcastic smirk that puts them on familiar ground. 
 
“I want to believe you,” Amy amends, lowering her gaze. “But…I’m scared, too.”
 
Dan’s grip one her hand tightens. “You’re scared, I’m scared. I’m more scared.” He tugs her hand closer, pressing it to his chest and holding it there. “Please don’t die and leave me here all alone.”
 
Amy is silent for a long moment, before she pushes against his chest. “Move over.” Dan scoots himself against the back of couch, and Amy shimmies in next to him. 
 
“You can’t sleep the night out here,” Dan says firmly, even as he wraps his arm around her, keeping her from rolling off the edge. “If you fell and hurt yourself by slipping off the couch it would be very anticlimactic.” 
 
“Just for a little bit,” Amy mutters stubbornly, tangling her legs with his. “Then we’ll go back to being responsible.”
 
***
 
They wake up the next morning in their bed, sans pillow barrier.
 
Amy grabbles for her phone on the bedside table and almost weeps from frustration as she scrolls through the fifty-two notifications waiting for her. She twists her legs, knocking the pillows out from under her knees.
 
“Stop kicking,” Dan growls as he wakes up, tossing his arm over his eyes to block the sunlight.
 
Amy quickly sits up and hops out of bed. She dashes to her closet and begins to rummage through her neatly pressed skirt suits.
 
Dan peers out from under his elbow at her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
 
“Bedrest begins tomorrow,” Amy says frantically, tucking a blazer from its hanger and clumsily unbuttoning her pajama top.
 
“No, no, no, no, no,” Dan scolds, climbing out of bed and dragging her back from the closet to the bed. “That’s not what you agreed to yesterday.” He steering her backwards until she was sitting back on the mattress. 
 
Amy fixes him with a sardonic look. “What are you going to do,” she laughs, “Tie me to the bed?”
 
Dan grins at her. “You make it sound very tempting.”
 
Amy’s chuckle becomes a groan of frustration, and she rests her forehead on Dan’s chest. “How am I going to survive this?” she moans, pressing her cheek against the cotton undershirt he slept it.
 
Dan stroked her hair idly. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.”
 
“Hmmmm?”
 
“Always so suspicious of me.”
 
“As well I should be.”
 
“Shut up,” Dan laughed, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger. “If you stay here and do whatever Dr. Kelly instructs, I’ll be your slave. I’ll do whatever you say.”
 
Amy looks up at him with a slight lift of her eyebrows. “Mean it?”
 
“Uh huh.” 
 
“How noble of you,” Amy purrs, tracing her fingers under his shirt and up his torso. 
 
“So…” Dan asks with a waggle of his brows and not a hint of subtlety, “What do you want me to do first?”
 
Amy’s voice is low and breathy as she instructs him. “I need you…to arrange a meeting here with Ben, Kent, and Mike. I can’t get anything done until I talk to those bozos.”
 
Dan blinks dumbly down at her and she withdraws her hand from under his shirt. “Right now?”
 
“Uh huh.” Amy slides out from between him and the bed and shrugs her pajama top off. “Chop chop.”
 
“Why are you…undressing?”
 
Amy snorts. “Am I supposed to conduct a staff meeting in my pajamas?”
 
Dan makes a disappointed noise and scratches at his lingering morning wood. “Fucking tease.”
 
Amy smiles at him as she steps out of her pajama bottoms. “If you can get the meeting set up quickly enough, we’ll have time to fuck before everyone gets here.”
 
***
 
They have a very productive morning.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Dan throws himself into his work with renewed vigor. (Dan gets to throw himself into his work; Amy wishes she had that privilege.) There’s plenty to do, with Amy absent, and a string of mostly useless interns hardly doing much to pick up the slack. Their co-workers ask Dan only as many questions as necessary, averting their eyes from his. It seems like they’re shocked that Amy turned out to be human— mortal— after all.

(Dan can relate.)

They reach out in small ways. Mike mopes around Amy’s empty desk like a forlorn shelter dog, his red mustache drooping into a frown; Gay prints out “helpful” pregnancy health articles and leaves them on Dan’s desk— Amy complains about receiving the same through e-mail, “as if I wasn’t already getting enough from my mother.”

“I wish Amy could have laid an egg,” Selina mutters one late night, swirling a glass of red wine, “and left you at home to sit on it.”

Everyone nods and mumbles in assent. Dan laughs weakly. He can feel Ben and Kent’s eyes on the back of his head, like a solemn Statler and Waldorf.

You’re slipping. That’s their refrain, muttered in urgent whispers, barked with a roll of the eyes. You’re slipping, Egan.

And they’re not wrong. Things have fallen through the cracks, here and there. Dan’s effortless, seemingly foolproof charm fails them during important meetings once— then twice.

Selina sighs in frustration and purses her lips at him, lifting her eyebrows scornfully. “Pull it together.”

Dan gulps. “I— I don’t know what you mean— Madame Vice President,” he adds, hastily.

“That fake smile,” Selina imitates Dan’s brittle happy face. “You’re freaking everyone out. You look like you’re about to pull an R. Budd Dwyer.” She rubs a hand across her forehead. “Either figure out a way to smile like a normal fucking person, or don’t bother attending these meetings.”

(Dan’s mother used to wonder why he never sought out a social life.)

***

“What’s wrong with my smile?” Dan asks Amy that night at home, pulling his face into a broad grin.

Amy glances up from the wallpaper samples she’s shuffling through. “That’s not a smile. That’s a grimace.”

Dan groans. “I was afraid of that.”

“Rough day at work?” Amy asks, shrewdly.

He wonders how many texts she’s received from Selina already today, but elects not to ask, feeling vaguely queasy at the idea.

“I just missed you,” he admits, impulsively. Even after everything that’s been going on with the baby, they still don’t talk to each other like this often. Information just seems to slip out.

“Don’t use that paint sample, our basement in Ohio was the same color.”

“Could you buy the kind with some pulp? It’s my favorite.”

“This scar? My brother threw a rock at me when I was in the third grade.”

Amy gives him a strange look, like bugs are crawling out of his ears. She really can’t relate, trapped in the apartment day after day, with only Dan for company in the evenings. She’d spent the whole day pasting up duckling-print wallpaper in the baby’s room and trying not to think of it as The Yellow Wallpaper.

(To say that bedrest doesn’t suit her would be…an understatement.)

“I had a productive day,” she says, blithely changing the subject. “Come see.”

Amy leads Dan down the hallway to the nursery, which is starting to look downright inhabitable. The duckling wallpaper has been meticulously applied to three of the four walls, and yellow curtains hang in the large window. A crib piled with an assortment of linens, baby clothes, and a few strange pieces of equipment Dan can’t identify is pushed against the far wall.

“Looks nice.”

Amy shrugs. “I have to keep working on something to keep myself from going full Bertha Rochester crazy.”

Dan wraps an arm around her shoulders, which are still bony and sharp despite the small, round belly Amy is resting her hand on. Her shoulder blade presses into his side and he slides his fingers down the prominent bones of her spine, making a mental note to check the refrigerator, dishwasher, and garbage can for signs that Amy ate today. He almost asks her, faux-casually, if any of last night’s Thai leftovers are still good, but she shivers at the feeling of his fingers on her back and he thinks better of it, opting instead of press his lips against the place where her shoulder meets her neck.

“My little stay-at-home mom,” he remarks, nuzzling his nose against her and pulling her into a tighter embrace.

He can’t see Amy’s face, but he can hear the eye rolling in her voice. “Don’t get used to it.”

“You say that now…” he trails off, teasingly. Amy squirms in his arms for a moment or two, in a put-on show of exasperation, then relents and turns in his arms. She leans on him and stands on tiptoe for a kiss. He presses one hand to her cheek, and rests the other on the small of her back, holding Amy close to him.

Her phone buzzes in her sweatpants’ pocket, the vibration running through both of them. They pull apart as Amy glances at the screen. “It’s Kent,” she notes. Her brow furrows slight, but uncharacteristically, she puts her phone back in her pocket without responding.

Dan sits on the nursery floor and pulls Amy into his lap. She straddles him, knees on either side of his hips, and he kisses her again as his own phone begins to vibrate. Amy sighs and rests her forehead against his as he struggles to remove his phone from his pants pocket.

“It’s a text from Kent,” Dan reads aloud. “‘Tell Amy to call me.’”

Amy tosses his phone across the room, where it lands on the carpet with a soft thump. “Later.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Amy Brookheimer?”

They make out like teenagers, Amy grinding her clothed crotch against his own, Dan panting heavily against her mouth. Only when Dan rolls him over so that he’s on top, Amy’s back pressed against the nursery floor, does she protest. “We— we can’t. Not here, in the baby’s room.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he promises with a smirk, pushing up paint-flecked t-shirt and fondling her swollen breasts. Dan hadn’t thought he would be into it, the whole pregnancy thing, with the belly and all, but now it’s kind of a turn on— that she looked this way because of him, that her body was changing to accommodate his baby.

(He’d expressed this to Amy, in bed, once before. She called him a caveman and pushed his head back between her legs.)

Dan slips his hand down the front of Amy’s sweatpants to find her wet and ready. “Jesus, Amy.”

“It’s the fucking pregnancy hormones,” Amy whimpers, “I’ve already jerked off like three times today.”

“Jesus, Amy,” Dan repeats uselessly. He yanks off her pants and underwear in one brusque moment and fumbles with his belt buckle. When he (finally) sinks into her, she lets out a sound that’s half gasp of surprise and have sigh of release. The printed ducklings look on as he fucks her, the sound of their phones buzzing covered by Dan’s low grunts and groans. Amy’s eyes are screwed shut and her mouth hangs open in a round “O."

“Harder,” she moans, digging her bare heels into Dan’s back, “Fuck me harder.”

Normally Dan would happily oblige such a request, but he’s all too aware of the little creature currently pressed between them in Amy’s belly, so he pulls her hair and scrapes his teeth against her nipple in the hopes that that will suffice. It must, because a few seconds later she’s coming, her hands curled against the carpet. She writhes against him until Dan finishes too, spilling inside of her with a strangled shout.

Dan rolls onto the floor beside her, resting his head on her bare chest and wrapping an arm around her waist. He watches her large blue eyes flutter open and flick over to her crumpled sweatpants, where her phone vibrates, muffled but audible. It’s probably Kent or someone else from work, and Dan tightens his grip. Get your own Amy, he thinks, childishly, this one’s mine.

The sun is setting, golden light filtering in through the window. Amy’s pale skin seems to glow, almost, and Dan feels like he should say something important, something significant. You’re beautiful. He thinks it a few times, turning the words over in his head, but waits too long to try them out— the moment passes. Amy peels herself off the floor and gathers up her clothes with a sigh. “God, I need a bath."

She wanders out of the nursery and Dan sits up, rubs his face, and tries to collect himself.

Buzz buzz. He grabs her phone. “Ames, you left this—“

He reads the message notification. Kent, of course: “Did you get the folder of candidates I had couriered over?”

Dan lifts an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. Candidates? He was almost sure that Selina’s campaign team had settled on Andrew Doyle as a her potential running mate, and that part of the deal was that they would not be polling other potential running mates. Were Kent and Amy examining other options on the down low?

Dan stands and stretches. He can hear the water running loudly in the master bath, and below that, faintly, Amy singing tunelessly. He could join her; their tub is big enough for two.

(Curiosity killed the cat…)

He slips his pants back on and walks, sock-footed, over to Amy’s desk in their third bedroom, which was rapidly becoming Amy’s home office. Dan wove his way through the maze of half-unpacked cardboard boxes and over to Amy’s desk, which stood facing the window. It was covered in papers and notes of every kind— working from home was, at least for Amy, no joke— but after a few minutes of shuffling through the organized clutter, Dan finds an unmarked manilla folder full of resumes with attached snapshots.

Dan flips the folder open and starts thumbing through the resumes, expecting the likes of Danny Chung, maybe that Senator Laura whats-her-face, but is surprised to find no well-known political figures. These are the resumes of speechwriters, government aids, and former campaign workers.

That’s when Dan realizes that Amy is helping Kent find his replacement.

***

Amy dozes off in her warm bath and wakes to find the water freezing cold. Shivering, she pulls herself from the tub and grabs her fluffy robe, wrapping it around her body as quickly as she can. The tub drains with a low gurgle. She pulls her damp hair into a messy bun, revealing a smattering of purple hickies along the slope of her neck. Amy catches herself smiling in the mirror and gives her reflection a stern look. “Stop it.”

She finds Dan nursing a beer in their living room. He’s sitting in his favorite armchair, watching CNN with a curiously blank expression.

Amy watches a bead of condensation slide down the neck of his beer bottle. Ugh, a beer sounded so delicious after nearly six months without one. “I fell asleep in the tub,” she yawns, sitting on the arm of his chair. Dan doesn’t respond. His jaw looks tight. “Spare me the lecture about accidental drowning,” she half-jokes, knocking her elbow against his upper arm.

No response.

Amy feels lonely, all of a sudden. It’s not fun, being home alone all day. Dan once offered to get her dog, but she told him that the last thing she needed was more responsibility. “The only kind of dog I want,” she’d told him, “is the kind Mike had.” And they’d both laughed, then.

She slides into Dan’s lap and leans back against his chest, but there’s no give, no adjustment on his part— it’s like sitting on a statue’s knee. She runs a fingertip along the label of his beer bottle, but he jerks it out of her reach. “Okay, sourpuss,” Amy teases, tugging on his dark hair playfully, “Did I tire you out, earlier?”

Dan blinks. She can see CNN reflected in his eyes. There’s a birthmark on the side of his chin that she wants to press her lips against, like dotting an “i.”

When he finally speaks, his words are slow and deliberate, but slurred, and Amy realizes sinkingly that this beer isn’t the first one Dan’s had tonight— not by a long shot. “When were you planning on telling me that I’m going to be fired?”

Amy freezes. “You’re not fired,” she stammers.

Dan’s look is dark and anguished. “But I’m going to be.”

“No!” Amy assures him hastily.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Lies of ommission count,” he growls with a glare.

Amy fidgeted with the tie of her robe. “It’s not a lie. It’s not.” She sighs. “You’re not fired, you’re not going to be fired.” Amy hesitates before elaborating: “But you’re on thin ice. You’re distracted these days, sloppy. They’re looking for a potential replacement— just in case.”

Dan covers his eyes with his hand. Amy rests a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off roughly. She carefully clambers off his lap. “Where you going to warn me, or just let me get blindsided?”

Amy’s lips tremble slightly. “I promised Kent and Ben I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Does Selina know?”

Amy can’t meet his eye, and Dan knows that that means that she does— and she approves. His stomach lurches painfully, and the room spins. It could be all the beer, or another panic attack, or he could be dying of a broken heart.

(Probably the latter.)

His hands are shaking as he clasps them tightly in his lap. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me. Promise aside. I thought we told each other everything.”

That’s something we say but we never follow through on, Amy thinks, chewing her bottom lip anxiously. “My personal feelings for you aside— I have to do my job to the best of my ability. It’s about integrity, being a team player—“

“Save it,” Dan spits, lurching from his chair into a standing position. He towers over Amy. “And what are your personal feelings for me?”

Amy sputters helplessly “Well, we’re— we’re having a baby together.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Amy shrugs, and crosses her arms tightly across her chest. “I don’t know what to say.”

Dan stares her down, his eyes bright and his face very, very pale. “When we got into this whole mess, we agreed that we would use it for our political gain. And now you can’t even be bothered to notify me when my very ability to help support the child we are about to have is endangered!”

“You could get another job,” Amy insists, stubbornly. “You’re very talented.” But Dan only turns away from her with a look of disgust.

Frustrated, Amy continues. “I’ve already spoken out on your behalf, probably more times than I ever should have! I don’t want to be known as a woman who’s blinded by wifely devotion. If your position with Selina’s administration is on shaky ground, all the more reason for me to keep my job situation secure. Especially with the baby coming.” She finds herself blinking back tears. “It means a lot to me. To keep working, in spite of the whole bedrest situation. I can’t rock the boat right now. They’ll think I’m being insincere, anyway.”

Dan remains still, with his back to Amy. Amy fights the urge to stomp her feet, pull out her hair, to fling his empty beer bottle at him from across the room. When she finally goes on, her voice trembles slightly. “You can’t stand it,” she snarls, “You can’t stand that I didn’t fall madly in love with you just because you knocked me up. You’ve been waiting for me to collapse into your arms, to sink to my knees at your feet— well, it’s not going to happen.” Amy’s throat feels tight with unshed tears. “I’m sick of being the bad guy just for not pretending that this situation is normal. It’s not normal!”

Dan crosses to the door and grabs his jacket, throwing it on over his rumpled white dress shirt. “I won’t apologize for doing my job,” Amy cries, her voice cracking painfully. Dan grabs his briefcase and rummages through it until he finds his keys in an exterior pocket. Amy feels a surge of panic rising in her chest. “Where are you going?”

The only response is the slam of their front door as Dan exits through it. Amy rushes across the living room to their front window, and watches as he stumbles drunkenly down the street. Once he’s wandered out of sight, Amy returns to their— her? their?— bedroom, where she carefully arranges the pillows to keep herself propped up and off the baby through the night. She turns off the lights, sets an alarm on her phone, and crawls beneath the covers. She’s never spent the night in their bed alone. Even when Dan comes home late and crashes on the couch, she can hear the faint wheeze of his almost snore, and she knows that he’s there.

Amy finds herself wishing for the soft warmth of a dog or a cat after all. She closes her eyes tightly and promises herself that when she wakes up in the morning and rolls over in bed, Dan will be there.

But when the sun rises, and her alarm rings cheerfully, Dan’s side of the bed is still empty.

***

Amy jams her feet into her slippers and shuffles into the kitchen to find, to her surprise, Dan making a pot of coffee. A stack of toast, still steaming slightly, rested on the kitchen’s island counter. Amy pulled up a stool and helped herself to a piece of toast, dry (it helped immensely with the morning sickness.)

For a few minutes, the only sound to be heard is the crunching of the toast. The coffee maker dings and Dan pours them each a cup. “It’s decaf,” he explains flatly, sliding a mug across the counter to her. She wraps her hands around the warm mug.

“Where did you stay last night?”

“My brother, Elliott’s.”

Amy pauses mid-sip. “I didn’t know you had family in town.”

“Well.” Dan shrugs. “We don’t really get along.”

Amy nods and takes a large swallow of coffee. It’s too hot, and it scalds her tongue, but it drowns all the words on the tip of her tongue. Her gaze falls on Dan’s large hands, which are resting flat on the countertop, and she remembers what it felt like when he combed through her hair, clutched at her breasts.

(But it’s weak, isn’t it? To admit that you feel want? That you need food, and sleep, and love, just like everyone else?)

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Dan admits, taking a useless swallow of decaf. “But I thought a lot about what you said.”

“Oh?” Amy manages, bravely.

“It’s not easy to come to terms with,” Dan said, deliberately. “But…I think you were right.”

Amy’s spirits lift slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Dan meets her eye briefly, then looks away. “It wasn’t fair of me to put pressure on you to protect my job just because you’re my fiancé. I apologize.”

“Okay,” Amy accepts, warily, feeling like another shoe is about to drop.

“I’m going to fight to keep my job on Selina’s team,” Dan said, “And if need be, I’ll search for another job. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“Uh-huh…”

“And…” Dan hesitates, put presses on. “And it wasn’t fair of me to twist your arm into this whole marriage thing either.”

Amy lifts her brows slightly. “Oh.”

“It is kind of weird to just up and marry your co-worker-slash-fuck-buddy, maybe.” Dan won’t meet her eye, now. “I mean, we don’t really know each other.”

(Your parents' basement is painted a sickly teal. Your brother gave you that scar on your arm when he threw a rock at you in the third grade.)

“You’re right. We don’t.”

Dan nods a few times, as if that had answered a question he hadn’t really asked. “I don’t expect you to give back the ring. That’s yours. Keep it. Sell it. Do whatever you want with it.”

Amy blinks, startled. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

Dan pinches off a corner of the toast’s crust and crumbles it between his fingers. “I’ll stay with Elliott and his wife until I find a suitable place. I’ll have my lawyer draft up some sort of a contract to cover custody and child support, so we can have it all figured out by the time the baby arrives.” He looked up at her. “I don’t want to fight.”

Of course you don’t want to fight, Amy though viciously. Of course you duck out when things get hard. She’d watched him slide effortlessly from politician to politician as their fortunes changed, seen him bounce from one live-in girlfriend to another. Why was she even surprised? Why had she expected anything different?

But she won’t beg him to say. She will not cry in front of him. Amy only wraps her arms tightly around herself and nods. She doesn’t trust herself to speak.

He nods back in reply, and shuffles off to their bedroom with an empty duffle bag to fill. Amy puts the remaining toast down the garbage disposal, and listening to the sickly grinding, churning sound as her baby does flips in her stomach. “Fuckweasel,” Amy mutters, pressing her hand to her belly and fighting the urge to vomit down the sink.

Dan emerges a few minutes later with his packed bag in hand. He anxiously moves the bag’s straps from hand to hand. Amy stands between him and the closed front door. She moves out of the way, staring at the ground— but as he reaches for the door knob, he feels the slight pressure of her small hand on his arm. Dan turns, and sees that Amy’s clear blue eyes are filled with tears.

Without a second thought, he pulls her into a tight embrace. Amy hides her face against his chest, and Dan takes the opportunity— this one last opportunity— to smell her hair. “We got engaged for the right reasons, he tells her in the calmest tone he can manage, “And we’re splitting for the right reasons too. Everything will be okay.”

They break apart and Dan all but bolts for the door. He closes it gently behind him, and the quiet click sounds ten times worse than the loud slam it made last night.

“Fuckweasel,” Amy repeats at the closed door, snatching at a dishtowel to wipe up the tears slipping, unbidden, down her face.

***

“You need a tissue, man?” The Uber driver asks, holding out a box of Kleenex.

“No, it’s fine,” Dan muttered, wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeve and turning slightly red. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, dude,” the driver said, sagely. “Customers cry in my car all the time. DC— it’s tough out there.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees hollowly. “DC.”

“Those politicians can be heartless, man.”

Dan laughs at that remark. Then his laugh sounds less like a laugh, and more like a sob.

The Uber driver tosses the box of tissues into the back seat without another word. Dan takes one, after all.