[indent][b][u]M A R C Y  B U R K E[/u][/b][/indent]
Four months and twelve days.

Four months, and twelve days.

Second longest amount of time Marlene Burke had been clean. 

The first had been a successful, solid half year; but at least that time had been her choice. In retrospect, it was a stupid attempt. She had been set on chasing a fantasy that everyone knew would never come true. Everyone except for her. Marcy really thought she could change. For him. For herself. Dark lips for a prim pink pout. Short skirts for an A-line. Crystal that she would actually wear on her ears and not around her nostrils.

She was young and in love and most dangerously of all, she wanted to prove a point. Why was it so hard to understand that she could quit any time she wanted? This - the drugs, the partying - this wasn't going to be her entire life. It was just a phase, and she would outgrow it. 

And she did, for a time. She proved her point. For herself. For him.

And then he fucking left.

Fast forward thirteen years: he was now the President of the United States, and there she was, leaning against the windowpane of her discharge room on the fifteenth floor of St. Elizabeth's hospital. 

Since the dawning of the realization that Nate wasn't going to come back for her, that he really was serious about the campaign bullshit, Marcy had thrown herself back onto the familiar cushion of that lifestyle. It welcomed her like a warm blanket, filling her up the way only he used to be able to, once upon a time. With her parents' money she dove headfirst into a blur of needles and men and blissful ignorance.

It didn't help that his face was everywhere. His face, and the face of his wife. Somewhere deep down, she knew it wasn't meant so, but it felt like a harsh [i]Fuck you, Marcy![/i] every time the TV plastered the two across its screen. The anger (or whatever the hell it was that she felt towards him) would flare up, and she would sink right back under the influence. But then the high would waver to an end, and the cycle would begin all over again.

It wasn't until four months and twelve days ago, when the campaigns were starting up again, that Marlene decided she'd had enough. Anger, real anger this time, told her it would be a great idea to make the five hour train ride down to her ex's big fancy house, knock on his door, and give him a thousand pieces of her mind. It would be years and definitely a lifetime too late, but at least she'd win.

However, aggressively screaming and clawing at the police officer who'd asked her to open her purse for inspection upon arrival landed her a room in the hospital's mental ward, postponing her winning blow until the bastard agreed to come down to see her himself.

Withdrawal this time around seemed much, much worse. Her temper and tear ducts had gone haywire without warning, resulting in countless nights handcuffed to her bed with a dirty mouth and sore throat. Of course, the irony wasn't lost on her; handcuffs, a dirty mouth, and a sore throat, attributes that once had been a nightly routine between she and him, twisted into a weird recovery story, all for the sake of seeing him face to face.

Finally, the day of judgement had arrived. She could only wait and see whether or not Alan had delivered on her demands.

They had given her back her belongings, minus the drugs from her satchel purse. She was wearing the clothes she had arrived in: an oversized, plain grey knit sweater, tight jeans that had old paint stains all over, and some worn out black Keds. Her arms were folded across her chest as her piercing blue eyes absentmindedly drifted around the landscape of the side of the hospital. Strawberry blonde hair fell to the middle of her back, tucked behind her ears to keep it out of her face, which, aside from looking tired and thinner than normal, looked pretty much the same as it did when she was clean.

There was the knock...

"Marcy?"

The woman bit down on her lower lip. Media wouldn't let her forget his voice, which had changed over the years, but somehow, in those two syllables, it sounded exactly the same as it did in his dorm room.

She didn't turn around. Not yet, anyway. Truth be told, she half expected his strong hands to slide around her midsection and pull her body into his. She was 5'7", almost a whole head shorter than him, but it was hard to forget how they had fit together like puzzle pieces. 

There were a few more beats of silence, during which Marcy was telling her inner monologues to shut the hell up and let her concentrate on keeping her cool. She'd had months to prepare this encounter, but she wasn't expecting how weak the mere sound of her name in his voice was going to make her. Even after all this time, and her grudges...

She turned around to face him. Her gaze immediately found his face, the one she'd seen so much in the past four years. Marcy knew it would probably be strange to see hers after all this time, and she waited for a flicker in his expression to say so. Eventually a small ghost of a smirk would creep across her mouth.

"Hey, Nate." Then she caught herself, shaking her head slightly before she spoke again, although there was a definite hint of sarcasm in her tone. "Or, uh, is it Mr. President now, I guess?"

"Congratulations, by the way."