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“Come on, get your coat on” Mike’s head pops in her office door. Some minutes of urging her to hang up on some Post reporter who has run a story about Selina’s extravagant shoe shopping spree and insistent persuasion finally get Amy out Einsenhower Building.“This is what we did last time you showed up to work looking like you witness a murder.” Amy just looks at him, over the edge of the menu. “You sleep in your chair with your eyes open, staring at a vague point… I thought I had the monopoly of that move at the office”. Mike chances a smile, but Amy doesn’t change her expression. “Seriously Ames, the interns are afraid you are going to kill them.”“I am not going to kill anyone on the staff. Well, at least not the interns”. When she is about to give her order to the waitress, this one suddenly appears holding two milkshakes and a plate of fries. It was the same stuff Mike had ordered the first time he brought her here, a few years back.“Do I have to threaten to kill him like last time?” Mike breaks the silence and brings her back to the present. “I’ll admit I’ll enjoy it more this time, being more familiar with his smug face and all”.Amy laughs genuinely for the first time in days. Sipping her milkshake, she is once more taken back to early years working for Selina, when Mike had forced her out in the middle of the morning for some comfort food. He hadn’t asked much, just offered to kill the bastard who had broken her heart. “DC is full of self absorbed frat boys turned advisors, maxing out their credit card on Hugo Boss suits. He is gonna come back, I’ll guarantee, and I’ll thrive in watching you crush him”. She had left that day with the epiphany that a guy like Dan Egan wasn’t worth her wasting a day’s work, and the realization that there was more to Mike McLintock than just a mediocre communication director.And here they were again, back to square one.She had done the rage phase, the drunken outrage with her co-workers (her friends?). She had sulked, and bitched, and took it out on anyone around her, especially Ed. Finally he had surrender and gave her “some time to work through it”, in which all she did was eat noodles out of a cup and try to reorganize her closet, to no avail (she had found one of Dan’s old Duke shirts that she thought she had thrown out, so yeah, very productive.) She hated that everything in her life was so out of control; her career, her love life, her mess of an apartment.And then had come the tears. Not a crying fest, listening to Alanis Morissette like a depressing after school special. Just quiet, angry tears. Ones she only let herself see, and wasn’t that hard enough? She hated letting her guard down even when she was by herself, let alone admit to the world how big of a failure she felt. She was mad at herself for letting this get to her, for letting it cut way to deep.“This is not just because of a job, right Ames?” Mike’s voice suddenly brings her back. “I don’t think you were so sure you wanted that position so bad”. And Amy remembers why after all his fuck-ups, Mike still has his job. If she had to guess, she would say it had something to do with being good at reading people. “It was a shitty move, I’ll give you that” He adds, when he realizes she isn’t ready to talk yet. “But you can only expect shit from the turd itself”.Amy doesn’t know if he is just saying it, or if he is subtlety reminding her that she knew who Dan was. And what he usually did.“Still…” she says outlout, in spite of herself “I just thought…. I know is silly, I know he’d do anything to get what he wants, is just… it’s too messed up.”Mike doesn’t say a thing. He reckons it is better to let her do the talking now, to let her hear her thoughts out loud. They quietly eat the now cold fries, sharing a comfortable silence that only comes after years of long bus rides and late nights working at the office. Mike was like an older brother to Amy. A dorky, clueless, sometimes fucking annoying brother, that pushed her buttons to an extreme. They were like a dysfunctional family. He, Gary, Sue, Ben, Kent… and Dan. Shit, she had to see his face every single fucking day.“Ugggh I have to actually work for him now, do you realize it?” She whimpers. “And you too, you get that, right?”Mike just laughs along with her, until she goes back to idly staring, fixing on a point over his shoulder. “It’s not what he did, you know? I probably would have jumped at the opportunity too. Is just…” She hesitates. Not because she doesn’t want to speak in front of Mike, but because she knows she is about to say what she had been trying to avoid all week. “…is just… that he did it to me. He didn’t doubt a moment to fuck me over, to humiliate me, to take away everything he knows I’ve worked my ass for. He just doesn’t care. He didn’t all those years ago, and he doesn’t now”“I hate that I care. I really do. I thought that after years of seeing how this works, how everyone in DC fluffs you over then fucks you over and would sell their first-borns for a seat in the house, I was certain that I’d learnt something. That backstabbing is the common thing. That human decency is virtually impossible. I just…. I never thought it would be my back”.“I’m thinking this is more about whose knife we are talking about” Mike looks straight into her eyes.“What?”“Whose knife… whose back”. He looks confused again. “Is not bad to admit you expected more from him. Is actually good. Shows you still got a heart.”“My heart has nothing to do here.” Amy frowns like a little bratty child. And then she slowly gives in. It’s Mike, after all. “This is about my weakness. Which goes to show you, Selina took the right choice. She doesn’t need a campaign manager who’s weak, she needs someone focused. Someone ruthless –“- someone who would fuck over the only person he cares about”.She remains silent for a second. Then recovers.“I don’t think he cares about anyone but him. His definition of “we” is him and his dick”. She sips on the last of her milkshake, hoping for the first time in the afternoon that the large glass contained in fact whiskey.“Now here is the thing, I think he does. Maybe he doesn’t know he does, but he certainly does does, even thought he acts like he does not do.”Amy stares at him like he just recited Finland’s constitution, in finish.“Never mind.” Mike says. “You are probably better off this way. We can make fun of him and watch him crash and burn. Have more time for yourself, let him single handily manage any crisis while we get drunk at fancy fundraisings.” Amy smiles and nods, even though they both know she is incapable of sitting in the back seat and watching the campaign go down in ruins, letting him destroy everything Selina and she had accomplished. “You can go on more dates with Ed, and actually remember your anniversaries”.Amy looks away. Yes, that should sound appealing and she makes a note to bring it up next time both of them have free time. Dining, wining, and maybe catching a movie. She can’t remember last time she saw a film in an actual theater instead of in a small airplane screen. She’ll play little house on DC while Dan fucks interns in their own office. She chooses to think the twist her stomach makes is just an overeating of French fries.She doesn’t feel well and maybe she won’t for a long time –at least until her ego recovers. But she is certainly in a better place than where she was this morning, with her sugar levels up again and the shoulder of a good friend to cry on. She smiles at Mike and he calls for the check.As they are leaving she looks at him and says “I really hope you and Wendy get to have that kid. You’d make a great father.”Mike looks at her fondly “you know, my offer of killing him while looking at his smug face is still on the table”.