Who: Mark and Layla What: Layla seeks Mark out after Glenn Beck's 'I Have A Scheme' speech When: Saturday afternoon Where: Washington DC Warnings: None
It wasn't hard to find Mark when he stayed down in DC. He'd been holding onto the same apartment since the early 1900s and anyone who'd spent any time with him in the city had probably seen it. Layla was no exception to the rule, having known it intimately during the entirety of the 1960s. Even she wouldn't eat off his kitchen table anymore, not after what they'd repeatedly done on it.
To say that she'd been angry over the past week would have been an understatement. It didn't take much to get her to that point with her son's father. There was little in between with them when it came to their relationship as Party and Issue. She'd oft tried to separate that relationship from their relationship as two normal human beings who happened to have a child, but that never worked. They were a Party and an Issue and theirs was a particularly volatile combination. Layla had always suspected that it was because Mark had been on such extreme sides of the issue she represented. He'd been a slave owner for nearly as long as he'd been a staunch and vocal civil rights supporter. She reviled him for one while she loved and adored him for the other, and for some reason that was just the way they continued to interact with each other. He could do the tiniest thing and it would set her off to the extreme, while an act of contrition or activism would melt her heart.
Watching Mark lead a group of protestors that afternoon at Glenn Beck's great 'I Have a Scheme' speech (or, as others had dubbed it, The 'Beckopolypse' and 'The Beckoning') that afternoon, with his sleeves rolled up as he yelled into a megaphone and an ugly tie knotted loosely around his neck, Layla suddenly found that change of heart she was so used to happening. Mark had still done something wrong. There was no changing the word that had come out of his mouth on national television, or the series of that same word that he'd allowed to air for the entire audience to hear. Layla wasn't ready to necessarily forgive him out right for it and she wanted an apology, but what she'd done hadn't been any better.
“I had no right to tell Thomas about your past,” she said said in a rush, no sooner than Mark had opened the door of his DC apartment. He was in the same clothing he'd been wearing out on the Mall, and his gray hair was still matted down to his forehead with sweat. The television was on low, turned to the channel that paid his bills. He hadn't been home long. “I'm sorry.”
Mark seemed to hesitate, almost as if he was wondering if she was sincere. “Do you want to come in?”
She nodded, noting as she crossed over the threshold that the place no longer smelled like her and Malcolm. Instead, she caught a strong whiff of her brother. But he was nursing his anger in Hawaii. Layla stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Instinctively, she put her purse down on the same side table she always had. “You were good today.”
“Thank you.” He reached up to lock the door. “I didn't feel you out there.”
“There were a lot of people out there. Your little sister's supporters are a hard group to wade through when it comes to finding immortals. I didn't feel you so much as hear you,” she said, gesturing to the megaphone that had obviously been thrown haphazardly onto an antique couch that had probably belonged to Columbia at some point. “I wasn't going to bother you while you were in your element.” And Mark in his element was truly a spectacular thing to watch. When she wasn't angry with him it was all she could do to not look in awe at the man who'd fought so hard for her.
When he opened his mouth to say something but didn't, Layla spoke again. “I said I was sorry.”
Mark nodded. “I heard you. Thanks. I guess.” It sounded about as grudging as Malcolm often did. “Thomas wasn't ready to find out. He's not old enough, and I still don't think he gets it.”
“So you talked?”
“Yeah, before I left to come down here. You think I was just going to let that sit?”
Well, it wouldn't have been entirely out of the question, not if one looked at how he'd dealt with Johnny for so many years. But Layla wouldn't point that out. “No. I just-- the only thing I can tell you is that I'm sorry. I overstepped.”
“Understatement.”
“You never make this easy.”
“Neither do you,” Mark replied easily. He sat down on the couch and nodded to the space next to him. It wasn't until she joined him, stting down and crossing her legs, that he continued. “I wasn't trying to piss you off. Or Glibt, for that matter.”
“You never are,” Layla pointed out. “But you did. And here we are.”
“Why do you keep coming back?”
“Well, the man-child with dreads who comes over and eats all my food is one reason.” Her slight smile faded before she spoke again. “We don't have to talk about reason two.”
But he did know what she was talking about and she watched as he sighed, rolling his eyes. “Layla, we're more than a Party and Issue.” It sounded like that wasn't the first time he'd said that that week. His brow wrinkled in what was far too much frustration to be just at her. “And I didn't mean just you.”
She sighed. “As much as you like to push it to the side, we are what we are and--” Her words were cut off when Mark's face showed up on CNN, over the shoulder of a fellow CNN reporter.
“Our very own Mark Harden was there, leading a small group of protestors who eventually joined with the Reverend Al Sharpton's peaceful march to the site of the new Martin Luther King memorial. ”
When she glanced over at Mark his gaze had turned from her to the image on the screen. He'd found her, marching towards the front with the reverend. “You were in the front.”
“Well, yes,” Layla answered, as if it should have been obvious. And really, it should have. “It was nice to see you protest something and not hog the spotlight. It's a day that should have been, and should forever be, about Martin. Not you, me, Al, Glenn... no one. I can't believe he's marred it like this.”
“It's only marred if you give him the attention he's craving. If you actually take him seriously.” Mark looked away from the television again before slipping an arm around her shoulder. “I'm sorry.”
Mark didn't apologise to people very often. Layla knew this from years of personal experience. She also didn't know exactly what he was apologising for. Was it for what Glenn Beck had done or for what he had done? Both stung, though one more than the other right now. It was easiest to assume that he was apologising for both and then rest her head tentatively on his shoulder. She found it impossible to recapture her anger from just a few days before. When he rubbed his hand up and down her arm she relaxed and let herself lean full on him. “You gonna say that to someone else too?”
There was a pause before Mark answered and Layla watched his face as he went through the motions of thinking. “He's in Hawaii.” He hesitated. “But... yeah. He-- I. Yes.”
Layla tilted her head to the side to press her lips against Mark's cheek. “Good boy.”
His arm tightened around her, pulling her closer. “I don't treat the two of you any better than--”
“No, you don't, and it's not just the two of us you treat like that.” She shrugged just slightly. “But we can take it, as long as you realise when you're wrong and you admit it, we can take it. Do you know what the alternative is?” Mark didn't answer and Layla simply went on. “Your brother. Or your little sister who may even have a better heart than you, but doesn't have the power to do a thing. You're our champion, Mark. We love you, you're just... very much a white male sometimes.”
“Thanks,” he answered her dryly.
“Well you are,” she shrugged against him again. “You said that word and the only thing you had to say for yourself afterward was 'well, that doesn't taste very good'.”
“It didn't.”
“Yeah, there's a reason it didn't.”
Another pause. CNN went on softly in the background.
“Were you flying home? Later tonight, I mean.”
“I was playing it by ear.”
“My jet's leaving whenever I want it to. I was going to take a shower and then head out to Dulles. Do you want to...?”
When he trailed off, leaving his question rather open ended, Layla could only smile and raise an eyebrow. “Marcus, I'd finish that sentence if I were you. Are we showering, or are we flying?”
“Uh-- I--” She liked the fact that she could still make him blush, just a little. “Flying.”
“Half hour?”
“Sure.” Mark turned his head and returned the kiss on the cheek before pushing himself up from the couch and stretching. The blush was only just fading from his face. “So you think Glibt will--”
“Yes.” And if she looked the slightest bit disappointed at that, it wasn't entirely her own fault. Being an issue was a bitch sometimes. “Go shower. I'll be ready when you are.”
When they arrived back in New York later that evening Layla stayed long enough to eat dinner and take a shower of her own before going back to Newark. She left Mark with a hug and a brief running of her fingers through his hair as their foreheads and noses touched. He pulled back, always responsible, before she could push any further. Wasn't he in enough trouble already?