Who: Mark and Mia What: Just going through some business. When: Sunday morning, 7ish Where: Washington DC Warnings: None
"Your hair," Mia said as she slipped into the town car. "You're not gray. You're very… salt and pepper, but with a lot more pepper!"
It was a very self conscious Mark that reached up and ran his fingers through his newly darkened hair. "Is it that noticeable?" he asked her.
"Well, considering that you've been almost completely gray since Bush was sworn into office that second time around and the housing bubble started to burst, I'd say, yeah, it's pretty noticeable. Not in a bad way," she added hastily, glancing up from her Blackberry. "But, I mean, it's a change. You look younger."
"I do?"
She nodded. "It definitely took a few years off." At that she went back to staring at the phone's screen, scrolling through whatever messages she'd missed as they'd been walking from the Amtrak Station to the car. It was seven thirty on Sunday morning and their day had begun at sometime around four am when they'd gotten on the train for their bi-weekly sojurn to DC so that Mark could do the Sunday morning pundit shows. Mia came when he needed her too, generally making herself useful in the car by reading aloud from the latest AP stories coming through over the wires, things that might come up during his thirty minutes on television.
The driver pulled the car into the busy traffic and Mark leaned back in his seat while he listened to Mia tic off his schedule for the day. Meet The Press was at ten-thirty, and he had a meeting with Rahm after that, a chance to nap at some point around two, and an event to attend that evening where he would no doubt have to be in the mood to small talk and network. All in all, not a horribly busy day, still, he wished he'd been able to stay back in New York. He knew Glibt had something to do that night (what it was, he couldn't remember), but at least they might have had the afternoon.
"…and Newt Gingrich says we're surrounded by paganism."
"Huh?" Mark tilted his head towards Mia. He hadn't been paying attention.
"I said Newt Gingrich says that Americans are surrounded by paganism."
"Oh, so I heard you right the first time?"
"Unfortunately."
"Somehow I don't think David Gregory'll be bringing that up."
"Maybe not, but it's hilarious," Mia smirked and tapped something on the phone. "Anyway, did you want to me run through Monday and Tuesday with you?"
He shrugged and nodded. "Go ahead."
"Okay. So, Monday… Ten AM meeting with the 360 producers, noon lunch with Bloomberg—you asked me to se that one up. Then at three you're getting fitted for new suits, which you can't argue about because you keep spilling things on or losing the jackets to the ones you have. At six you're doing dinner with the trustees flying over from Barkleys. Then, of course, you've got to be at work for the show at nine. Um, you have something about drinks with Anderson written in for one in the morning, but I'm going to play mom here, and take that off, because that's stupid and you both need to go home and sleep, or, in Anderson's case, watch Real Housewives of New Jersey. So you're sleeping until eight the next morning, because you're doing brunch at nine thirty with some CNN trustees—"
"Skip to the part where I have free time," Mark interrupted.
There was a long block of silence as Mia searched for a point in that week's schedule where that request existed. "Um… you have fifteen minutes on Friday."
"Use your magic and make that ninety minutes somehow." He stared out the window, watching DC pass by. "My brother's in town and until we decide we hate each other again and we're actually serious about it, I want to try and see him once a week."
"You have a brother?"
Mark nodded again. "Yeah. Younger."
"Oh," his assistant said. Her fingers clicked away at Blackberry buttons, furiously trying to accomplish what he wanted with his time. "I thought you had a younger sister."
"Yeah, this is him. He was her," he answered without completely thinking through the implications of what he was saying. "He just got back."
"Oh. Oh!" Mia bit her lip, looking a bit shocked as she looked up at him from the phone's screen. "Oh, like—right. Right! That's, I mean… it's great that he could do that. I know it can be hard to make that decision—well, I don't know personally, but I'm guessing it would be? It's really cool she-- he could go through with it. Did he, uh, just transition? Completely?"
For his part, Mark looked back at her completely confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I know there's some sort of psychological requirement transgenders have to meet before they'll do the surgery and everything. So has he had it, or is he just, um, living like a man in preparation?"
Because Mia had no idea what Mark really was, or what his brother/sister really was, she had absolutely no idea why, a few long seconds after she'd spoken, Mark burst out laughing. Tears spilled down his face. He didn't stop until they'd reached the NBC Washington Bureau, an even then it was a good ten minutes before he could drag himself from the car.