Chapter Text
January
Dr. Dorothy Lloyd blinked several times, and reached for her cup of tea, trying hard not to fall asleep at her desk.
The clock on the wall of the office read 12:42. Dot was no stranger to late nights, having needed to deal with many of them throughout her collegiate career. PhDs weren’t earned on eight hours of sleep. Only very recently had she begun spending her endless waking hours working in politics, and she found the new work to be a lot more draining than what she'd done in college. She hadn't ever pictured herself sitting at a desk, editing a section of a politician's stump speech for their senatorial campaign.
Still, it seemed that she had ended up where she was meant to, given that she had traveled through time to get there.
The date was January 16th, 1952. She sat in the Cannon Building office of Congressman John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the same Kennedy who would eventually become the 35th President of the United States. The same Kennedy who would be assassinated on November 22nd, 1963. The same Kennedy who Dot had spent most of her adult life researching and learning about, having been fascinated by him for as long as she could remember. The same Kennedy who the Federal Bureau of Investigation had sent Dot back in time to conduct an investigation into, to learn for sure why his assassination had taken place, and who had orchestrated it.
The same Kennedy who was currently walking out of the smaller inner office that he occupied, remarkably appearing more awake and aware than Dot felt. She had been at the office for longer than him, but Kennedy had returned from a campaign trip to Massachusetts the day prior. Dot had expected him to look just as weary as she was.
But, no, he seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He even grinned at her as he approached her desk. Dot managed to return the smile, but saw Kennedy's steps falter.
“You're tired,” he observed, and Dot shook her head. She knocked back what remained in her cup and plunked it down on her desk.
“Nope,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “Doing just fine. What's up?”
JFK did not seem convinced by her show of bravado. “You can go home.”
“Nope,” Dot repeated. “What do you need, sir?”
“Well, for one thing, I need you to stop calling me ‘sir.’” He peered at her. “I thought we talked about dropping the formalities?”
He was referencing his request for her to call him Jack, and her own agreement to do so. She had also suggested that he start to call her ‘Dot,’ even though it had taken ages to get him to even refer to her using her correct honorific. The months of “Ms. Lloyd,” instead of “Dr. Lloyd,” had been difficult, as someone who had worked very hard to earn her PhD in American history. Dot had been overjoyed when, after an argument and series of apologies that included him gifting her a pearl necklace (which she wore everyday, because why wouldn’t she?), he’d seemed to figure it out. Since then, they’d been able to treat one another with an equal amount of respect.
It had taken her seeing him naked for him to decide that that respect could become friendship (that had happened a little less than two weeks prior; she was still trying not to think about it), and the invitation to switch from ‘Mr. Kennedy’ to ‘Jack’ had come along with that. Dot however, was still getting used to thinking of him as ‘Jack’. Given that she’d always known him as JFK, or Kennedy, throughout her time in the past and future, when she’d spent her academic career studying him and his life, it was a weird shift.
It was the fact that she had spent her career studying him and his life that had brought her to the past (more accurately, a completely separate timeline from the one that she usually occupied) in the first place, under the request and guidance of the FBI. They’d called her an ‘expert’ on him, and really, with what she’d experienced so far, she wasn’t sure she could argue against that descriptor any longer.
Not that JFK himself was supposed to know all of that. It was bad enough that his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy did, however much Dot had come to appreciate Bobby and the fact he knew where (and when) she was from.
“Still adjusting to that,” Dot said, around a stifled yawn. “The other thing?”
“The other thing is for you to get some sleep,” Kennedy said. Dot groaned, leaning back in her chair, turning her gaze towards the ceiling. “I'm not kidding,” he went on. “Ted told me how much time you've been spending here, recently, how late you stay, and how early you show up.”
“Ted's a tattletale,” Dot grumbled, wondering how to get back at Timothy Reardon, who was technically also her boss and who she would continue working with for the next eleven years. Reardon would follow JFK to the White House, and be on his staff until the day he died. Dot, who had zero intentions of leaving JFK's side until she knew for sure who had planned his death and why, would probably be seeing Ted almost every single day until that happened.
As such, she definitely needed to come up with some sort of plan to retaliate against him for informing Kennedy of her late nights and early mornings. Just to make sure there was an understanding in what their boss did and did not need to know.
“Maybe,” Kennedy said, and the corner of his mouth had raised in another smile, the one that Dot had decided he had no control over. It was a special smile, rare. The ones he usually gave were well-placed and planned, in order to charm those receiving them. “Even if that's true, though, it doesn't change the fact that the campaign just began, and you're already wearing yourself thin.”
“There's a lot for me to work on,” Dot said, in defense of her choices. “With you gone, Ted and I have a million more things to do.”
“A million?” Kennedy queried, and Dot waved her hand.
“You know what I mean. I have more responsibility than I did, and I don't want to fall behind.” She gestured to her desk, which was littered in tons of loose pieces of paper, all related to different pieces of legislation, or committee meetings, or meet-and-greets being done in Massachusetts for the campaign, or pieces of text that could be used in various speeches. “I - ah - you know, this looks like chaos, but I actually know what everything is for, and it all needs to be taken care of before the end of the week.” She pointed to a particular piece of paper that was covered in red pen markings. “Like this? This is the rewrite of the disabilities bill.” She flipped over another paper. “And this one is the notes from the Education and Labor Committee meeting that you missed.”
“Dr. Lloyd -”
“Plus I'm still trying to get through the edits of the communism portion of your stump speech," she continued, speaking over him as she unearthed a third bit of paper, "and then Ted was saying something about Lodge's remarks on civil rights, and that we probably need something for you, so I wanted to start working on that -”
“Dr. Lloyd.” His hand settled on top of the papers she'd been searching through. Dot relented, leaning back in her chair again, and looking up at him. Kennedy lifted his eyebrows. “You need to go home,” he said.
“I need to finish my work,” Dot retorted, crossing her arms. “I work for you, and I'm going to do what's asked of me.”
“And you clearly are,” Kennedy pointed out, withdrawing his hand so that he could gesture to her desk. “But it doesn't all need to happen tonight.”
Dot stared at him, unwilling to break their eye contact first. She knew that she was overcompensating. It was something she tended to do, when she wanted to be sure that whoever she was working with understood her worth and dedication. In this case, it was very important JFK understood her worth and dedication, because she needed to be able to work with him until the assassination. She needed to have as much access to him and his career and how it impacted those around him as possible, so that she had a better chance of learning who wanted him dead and why. She had a job to do, outside of her current responsibilities as a member of his staff, and the only way she'd be able to do what the FBI had sent her to an alternate timeline to do was if she stayed close to him. In her mind, the best way to do that was by showing she was indispensable. Even if it meant, as he had put it, wearing herself thin.
She'd been through worse, after all. Raising herself from age eleven after her father had died and her mother had basically abandoned her had taught her she could withstand quite a lot.
Still, Kennedy didn't know that. And Dot really didn't think telling him so would help her case. Which meant she'd just need to stare him down until he decided she wasn't worth arguing with.
There was movement from the doorway leading out of the office to the rest of the Cannon Building before either one of them backed down from the staring contest. Dot heard Ted Reardon groan, when he spotted the two of them.
“Are you really doing this again?” he complained, walking over to Dot's desk as well.
“I'm proving a point,” Dot told him, without looking away from Kennedy. “A point I wouldn't have needed to prove if you hadn't said anything.”
“You're worrying me,” Ted argued. “And Mary, too. We're pretty sure you only go home for about four hours every night.”
“Unacceptable,” Kennedy said, under his breath, his eyes still on Dot's.
“I'm fine,” Dot insisted, deciding that the staring contest wasn't accomplishing what she'd wanted it to. She looked at Ted instead, and heard Kennedy's soft huff of victory as she scowled at the older man. He had joined JFK's campaign for the House of Representatives in 1946 after having been Kennedy's elder brother's roommate at Harvard, and fighting in World War II in the Air Force. However, Dot wasn't thinking about Ted's history with the Kennedy family or his military status. She was focused on the fact that he'd broken an unspoken trust between them that JFK did not need to know how much time Dot was spending at the office. Given that JFK was now making a big deal out of it, Dot felt the need to show Ted how unhappy she was with his decision to tell.
“How I spend my time isn't up for debate,” she said. “If I want to be here for twenty hours a day, I will be. I have a key, and a job.”
“Take her key away,” Ted said to Kennedy, who was smiling again. Dot would have been infuriated by it, had the expression not been so damn charming.
“No,” he said, “that would be worse.” He met Dot's eyes again. “I'm speaking to you as your employer, now, and nothing else. Are you listening?”
Dot refrained from rolling her eyes. “Yes.”
“Good.” Kennedy straightened his shoulders. “We're running for a seat in the Senate against a two-term incumbent.”
“He's not,” Dot mumbled, feeling petty. “There was a break from 1944 to 1947.”
There was the tiniest of twitches at the corner of JFK's mouth. “Regardless,” he said, “the race is going to be tight. Everyone who's helping run the campaign needs to be working at full capacity as much as possible.” He fixed her with a look. “Are you currently able to work at full capacity?”
“Yes!” Dot exclaimed, throwing out her arms, and managing to knock over her empty cup with her hand in the process. It toppled to the floor. She winced, and looked at Kennedy again. “Ignore the fact that that happened.”
Next to Kennedy, Ted shook his head, and JFK raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“You get a half-hour,” he decided, “and then you’re leaving.”
“That's not enough time!” Dot argued, rising from her chair. She bent down to pick up her cup, and set it on the desk again, before she waved her hands at the desktop. “Look at everything I need to do!”
“You don't have to do it all tonight,” Kennedy told her, firmly. He then looked at Ted. “Why are you still here?”
“I was meeting with George,” Ted explained, probably referencing George Smathers, a friend of Kennedy’s who represented the state of Florida. Ted reached into his pocket, and withdrew a slip of paper, handing it over to Kennedy. “Some of Lodge's remarks from this week. George wanted to talk to me about something he said about the situation in Florida.”
Dot did roll her eyes at that. “Lodge is an idiot,” she muttered, then relented. It probably wasn’t fair of her to say things like that, given she only knew what she knew of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. from secondary sources that she’d read. “Sorry.”
“Why apologize? He isn’t in the room with us.” She glanced at Kennedy, and smiled a bit, appreciative of his acknowledgment. He smiled back, and looked at Ted again. “What about his voting record? Find anything interesting there?”
“1949, voted against two different amendments tied to civil rights,” Ted replied. He grimaced. “Given that, he has no real way to support the position on civil rights that he’s been giving in his stump speeches.”
“So he colors in the gaps with things that are made up,” Kennedy guessed, then shook his head. “Which is what we won’t do. Dot?”
She sat up a bit straighter. “Sir?”
Kennedy met her gaze, eyebrows raised, and Dot glanced away to gain control of her features, amusement glittering through her exhaustion. “Sorry,” she said, looking back at him. “Yes, Jack?”
JFK dropped his shoulders, smiling again. “We need to get that piece for the stump speech on civil rights written sooner rather than later.” He glanced at the wall clock. “Probably… won’t be tonight, though.”
“No, I can stay, if you want to get started on it,” Dot told him.
“Oh, don’t say something like that,” Ted warned, under his breath. “He’ll have you here all night.”
“I will not,” Kennedy retorted. “Wasn’t I just on your side in trying to get her home?” Ted held up his hands, and JFK’s eyes found hers again. They were serious, now, the sparkle in them dimmed, and the bluish-green color they typically were had darkened to something closer in shade to gray. “I’ve been putting off getting our position on civil rights written up. It should’ve been the first thing we wrote, but everyone wants to hear about everything else. Now that Lodge is talking about it, though, I need to be able to as well.”
Dot nodded. “I agree,” she said, and reached for a blank sheet of paper, getting it set up in the typewriter. She heard Ted sigh, and felt a silent exchange pass between the two men in the room with her. She didn’t glance up to read whatever it was.
After a moment, Ted said, “Just try not to say past two. And Dot, if I see you back here earlier than eight, I’m going to have some words.”
Dot looked up at him, and smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Ted didn’t bother returning it.
“I’ll see you two tomorrow,” he grumbled, heading for the door again.
“Night, Ted,” Kennedy called after him, and they both watched as he left the outer office, letting the door swing shut behind him. Dot then turned her attention back to her typewriter.
“Okay,” she began, “I think we should… we should just go ahead and open with your honest opinion, and see where we go from there.”
Kennedy didn’t respond, and Dot lifted her gaze to look at him. He was watching her, a soft thoughtfulness on his face. The expression startled her, a little; she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen it on him, at least not directed at her.
“What is it?” she asked, and JFK blinked a few times, before humming, quietly.
“Nothing,” he said. “Do you mind lugging that into my office?” He gestured to the typewriter, and Dot immediately reached beneath it to pick it up. Kennedy smiled a little, and led the way into the inner office, making space for the typewriter on the edge of it that wasn’t occupied by his personal effects. That placed her on the shorter edge of the desk, and closer to where he’d end up sitting, but Dot wasn’t bothered. She quietly pulled one of the spare chair he had in the room around the desk so that it faced the machine, and sat down. Kennedy did the same, in his own chair behind the desk.
“What were you saying?” he asked.
“That we should start with your honest thoughts,” Dot said, “and go from there.”
“Right.” Kennedy leaned back in his chair, his gaze on her. “Dr. Lloyd -”
“Dot,” she corrected.
“Dot.” He let out a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. Dot frowned a bit, watching as he seemed to debate with himself for a moment, before he inhaled. “I know it’s late, but I’ve been… I’ve been thinking about you recently, and about how I don’t know much about you beyond…” He waved his hand.
Dot cocked her head, wondering why he was choosing to bring up the topic of her at that moment. She hoped it wasn’t because he was trying to avoid thinking about civil rights, but supposed it was possible. He’d been wishy-washy on it until he’d had no choice not to be, in the main timeline. There was no reason he’d be different in the alternate one.
“You’ve never really asked,” she pointed out. Even if they did need to get a position written on civil rights, she also didn’t want to seem closed-off, not so soon into their fledgling friendship. “And you’ve never had a real reason to ask, either. But if you’re curious -”
“I am,” he said. He smiled again. Dot willed the butterflies in her belly to drown in stomach acid as quickly as possible. They’d been showing up more and more frequently with him around. She’d thought by now her nerves about being in close proximity to him would have died down, given how much time had passed, and how she knew him a bit better. Apparently, the awe would never truly go away.
Kennedy put down the pen he’d been holding, and sat up a bit, as though to show he was fully focused on what she’d say next. “Tell me about your family,” he invited.
Ah, yes. There the butterflies went, as her stomach flip-flopped, threatening to make her vomit. She knew her smile faltered, as a result, and she saw his do the same.
“No?” he asked, and she swallowed as best as she could, wincing against the burn of bile in her throat. She huffed out a sigh, annoyed with herself for having such a physical reaction to being asked about her family. The topic hadn’t really arisen, since she’d arrived in the past, and she’d started to think that maybe she wouldn’t need to talk about either her estranged relationship with her mother, or her much-too-short relationship with her father. The last thing she wanted was to have another outburst about how her father had died, and her mother had essentially died with him, leaving Dot alone at eleven. Having to tell a White House staffer that those things had happened in order to get him to back away from trying to pursue her romantically had been bad enough. Kennedy’s brother Bobby knew, too, but given how much else he knew, it seemed like small change.
Still, here John F. Kennedy was, sitting in a chair across a desk from her, a crease between his eyebrows as he watched her, waiting for her to say something. She supposed that, given his own familial ties, a question about her own being the first thing he asked made sense. Dot didn’t know why she hadn’t expected it.
“Sorry,” she said, quietly, and Kennedy settled back in his chair a little, tilting his head to one side, a silent invitation for her to continue. She shook her head. “There isn’t much to say, that's all.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, and Dot glanced up at him. He raised an eyebrow. “It seemed a little bit more like the idea of talking about it makes you unhappy.” Dot immediately dropped her gaze, and he sighed. “I’m sorry for asking, in that case. I should have realized there’s a reason you don’t talk about them unprompted.”
Dot fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of the sweater she wore. She’d updated her 1950s wardrobe at the beginning of the new year, and she’d already snagged the sleeve on the edge of her desk more than once.
“I mean, it is true that there isn’t much to say,” she admitted. “I have no siblings, and my father died when I was eleven.”
“Oh, God, Dot,” JFK murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged one shoulder, and continued, “After he died, it was like my mother did too, in a way. She…” Dot trailed off, having never been able to accurately explain how her mother had deteriorated in the aftermath of her father’s death. She shrugged again. “It wasn’t pleasant, afterwards. Growing up around her.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Part of her hoped they would leave it at that, but a different part, a larger part that had recently begun to separate him from the JFK she knew from history, wanted him to ask more, to want to learn more about her, to maybe offer some reassuring words. To tell her that who she was as a person in no way reflected a shitty childhood.
In truth, she wanted him to know her. And that… was not good. She understood that. She had a job, while in the past, and she’d already told herself that she could not let herself get attached to him. The fact that she tried not to get attached to anyone had been part of the reason the FBI had picked her to go into the past.
But when she glanced up at him, and saw he was still looking at her, her heart thudded an interesting rhythm against her ribs. She desperately wanted him to speak, to tell her that it was fine, that she was fine. She wanted him to know her, and still want her around. She rarely allowed anyone to do so, because she knew most people would prefer not having her around, with her endless trauma and tendencies to keep them at arms’ length.
But she’d been learning that he was different than most people, and a large part of her hoped that meant maybe his attitude towards her trauma would be different, too.
“You don’t need to tell me more, if it upsets you,” he began. “But… if you want to talk about it, or need to, I’ll listen. Without judgment.” He made a face that only barely hinted at his disgust. “With the exception of whatever you have to say about your mother, and what she may have done. I can’t promise I’ll sit quietly if you start to tell me something terrible.”
Dot, shocking herself, actually managed a laugh. “That wasn’t really the problem,” she said. “There was no abuse, or anything along those lines. It was more that she didn’t do enough.” She glanced down at the keyboard of the typewriter, to avoid seeing any pity that might appear on his face. She hated being pitied. “When Dad died, she decided it’d be easiest to ignore me, as much as she could. I started taking care of myself. She would disappear for hours at a time. Some days I didn’t see her at all. She… I guess she’d worked out it was hard enough to support herself, and she couldn’t afford to add me into it as well.”
She made herself look up at Kennedy, despite not wanting to. She saw no pity in her expression, but there was sympathy there, and also a hint of anger in the way his eyes were narrowed.
“I hate that that happened to you,” he said, stiffly.
Dot, to disguise her pleasure in this suppressed rage he felt towards her mother, a woman he’d never even met and never would meet, shook her head again.
“I think, in a way, it was for the best,” she said.
“No, don’t say that,” he said, at once. “Don’t even think it. It wasn’t fair. I know you might paint it as a good thing, because you were able to learn independence early on, how to care for yourself, but you shouldn't have needed to. Your mother never should have abandoned you in her grief.”
To her surprise, he reached for her hand, where she’d rested it back on the desk. He held it tightly in his, holding her gaze as well. Dot felt the exact moment she stopped breathing, as she waited for him to say whatever it was he wanted to tell her.
“Dorothy,” he began, which was also astonishing and unexpected, “as long as you have me in your life, I promise that you’ll never need to be alone again, unless you choose to be.”
A moment of silence. Dot tried to remember how to breathe. JFK continued to hold her hand, and he smiled again, after a few seconds.
“Have I really shocked you that badly?” he asked. “You must know by now that I care for you. Despite… earlier interactions we’ve had.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Only… I just wanted to ensure that you know I’m here for you. It doesn’t need to be a one-sided relationship where you do everything I ask, and receive nothing in return.”
“But you’re my employer,” Dot managed, and saw the tiniest bit of light go out of his eyes.
“Yes,” he conceded, “but I… Well. I’d thought we were getting to be friends, too. It’s no secret I find friendships with those who work for me.”
True, but when things change, you drop them, even if they were your friend, first.
Dot’s mind flooded with all examples of such figures in his life, the one she’d experienced personally having been Billy Sutton, and she fought back a wince. JFK must have seen something on her face, however, because his grip on her hand loosened.
“I’ve said something I shouldn’t have,” he decided.
“No!” Dot said, quickly. Probably too quickly, in retrospect, but that didn’t matter. It was confusing, but there was a delicate balance of doing what she did with most people, by keeping him at arms’ length, and staying close to him that she needed to maintain, in order to successfully complete her investigation.
She set her shoulders, and looked at him. “I just don’t ever want to be a burden.”
Kennedy frowned at her. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Having people look out for me,” Dot started, after taking a moment to phrase it in her mind. “It feels wrong. Since I know I can look after myself.”
“But you don’t have to. Not always.” He let go of her hand completely, and sat back in his chair again. Dot did the same, setting her hand in her lap instead, trying not to think about the phantom sensation of his own around it. Kennedy gestured, vaguely. “I just wanted to make sure you knew I’m here,” he told her.
“I do,” Dot said. She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.”
“Jack,” he reminded, gently, with another smile, smaller than the ones before, and sat up a bit. “So, civil rights. You said we should start with my opinion, right off the bat?”
“Yes, I think… I think it would be best,” Dot agreed, and lowered her own eyes to the typewriter before her, listening as he settled back into his own seat. She understood that the conversation hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted it to. She wasn’t very happy with the way it had ended either, really. It had been a time of vulnerability, and as usual, she’d shut it down as quickly as possible.
She wanted to reach over and take his hand again, tell him she appreciated what he’d said, but that it wasn’t a promise he could keep. She wanted to tell him that not only did she try to never depend on anyone, she definitely couldn’t depend on him because he was supposed to die. She wanted to tell him that she was hesitant to let him get too close, because she was horrified by the idea of losing anyone else she cared for. She wanted to tell him that she was horrified that she was starting to care for him.
She wanted to tell him that, because of all those things, she really needed to make sure they kept some distance from one another.
She wanted to tell him that she had no desire to be distant from him.
She wanted to tell him these things. But she couldn’t. The moment of vulnerability had passed, and it was back to work.
***
“We don’t know your birthday!”
Dot, who had been quietly reading through a few edits that Kennedy wanted to make to his stump speech, looked up in surprise at Mary Davis’s exclamation. The older woman, JFK’s secretary (at least while he remained a House Representative), was shooting an accusatory look in Dot’s direction. Dot frowned back.
“Yes you do,” she said. “I gave you a copy of my birth certificate for my employee file.”
“I don’t go in and read those,” Mary said, with a wave of her hand. “Why haven’t you told us when your birthday is?”
“Because… there hasn’t been a reason to?” Dot asked, confused, and also hesitant, because her birthday, January 31st, was approaching. “Why are you all of a sudden thinking about it?”
“Because I realized that you’ve been working with us for over a year, and we never celebrated it,” Mary complained, getting up from her desk and going over to the cabinet where Dot knew the employee files were kept. She pulled open the drawer, and began poking through the folders inside it, clearly searching for Dot’s. “I don’t know why you never said anything.”
“Maybe it’s because I don’t want to make my birthday a big deal,” Dot suggested, standing up as well, and, maybe a little too quickly, moving over to the cabinet. “I don’t think -”
“Ah, here you are,” Mary said, pulling a folder out of the drawer. She turned around, setting it down on her desk, and flipped it open. Dot’s faux-birth certificate, which put her birth year at 1924 (when in reality she’d been born in 1986, in the main timeline), sat on top of the thin collection of papers inside of it.
“January 31st?” Mary demanded, looking up at her. “That’s two days from now!”
Dot crossed her arms, and raised her shoulders. “So?”
“So, how are we supposed to plan a party for you?” Mary asked, annoyed. She flipped the folder closed again, and returned it to the cabinet, frowning at Dot the whole time. “Cake, and a gift -”
“I don’t want a gift,” Dot told her. “I don’t want a cake, either. I don’t need anything. I’m only twenty-seven.”
She was already twenty-seven, had been since first coming to the past a year-and-a-half earlier, but she wouldn’t actually age for another year. Time passed much more quickly in the alternate timeline than the timeline she was from, and her own body chemistry was still adjusting to the new speed. On January 31st, 1953, she’d turn twenty-eight.
It was weird, but she’d known that for a while, and had made her peace with it.
What she did not want to make peace with was the idea of celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday (for a third time) with the rest of JFK’s staff. Especially since they were so busy.
She said as much to Mary, who scoffed dismissively. “We need a reason to take a break, even if it’s just a little one,” the secretary decided. “Cake, at least, but if you really don’t want a gift -”
“I don’t,” Dot insisted.
“- then that gives us one less thing to worry about,” Mary concluded, clapping her hands together in a brisk, ‘that’s the final word on the matter’ manner. “Two days. Honestly, Dot?”
Dot let her shoulders fall in defeat. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and Mary shook her head, going back to her chair and sitting down again.
Dot, not knowing what else to do, went back to her own desk. She stepped around it, and started to sit down as well, but froze halfway through the motion when the door to the outer office opened, and she looked up in time to see John F. Kennedy walk through it, with David Powers trailing after him.
“Oh, sir,” Mary said, warmly. “I didn’t know you’d be back today.”
“Change of plans,” Kennedy replied, sounding sour. He and Dave must have both come from outside, because their cheeks were pink from the cold. Neither of them was wearing an overcoat, which Dot had to smile about. Coats and Kennedy did not mix, and never had, she supposed. Poor Dave had probably been dragged into not wearing one of his own. Dot imagined he had to be used to things like that, though, having been working with Kennedy since 1946.
“One of the venues for a meet-and-greet was overbooked,” Dave explained, cupping his hands in front of his mouth and blowing into them to warm them up. “We’re all pissed about it. I thought Bobby was going to go through the roof.”
“Couldn’t reschedule?” Dot asked, and Kennedy rolled his eyes, while Dave smiled at her, with a touch of sympathy.
“After they pulled that crap?” JFK scoffed. “Definitely not.”
Dot felt a brief wave of shame, because obviously he wouldn’t have wanted to work with the place again. She rubbed at her elbow.
“Right,” she agreed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t take offense, Doctor,” Dave told her. “Jack’s just as pissed as Bobby, he’s just doing a better job at not screaming about it.”
Dot glanced at Kennedy again, and saw that the furious glint in his eyes had been replaced by something softer as he looked at her.
“I didn’t mean to use that tone,” he said, quietly. “I apologize.”
Dot shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said. “I know it wasn’t aimed at me.”
There was a moment of silence, as they looked at one another, and Dot felt something pass between the two of them not unlike what had happened during their conversation earlier on in the month. Something urged her to step towards him, but she remained where she was at her desk, and made herself break eye contact first.
“Perhaps it will improve your mood, Mr. Kennedy, to know that we will be celebrating a birthday on Thursday,” Mary said, in Dot’s opinion taking much too long to speak up.
“Is that so?” JFK asked, and Dot glanced up again, seeing he’d turned away from her, and towards his secretary instead. “Who’s the victim this time?”
“Our very own Dr. Lloyd,” Mary said, gesturing towards her, and causing Kennedy’s gaze to switch back to her.
“Really?” he queried, a small smile gracing his features, and Dot sighed.
“Yes,” she said. “Please don’t ask how old I’ll be.”
Dave laughed at that, and Kennedy’s smile grew, while Mary tsked, as though Dot were making a big deal out of nothing. Dot merely had no desire to lie about her age, which she felt she would be doing if she said she was turning twenty-seven.
“I think that’s a wish we can respect,” Kennedy said, and Dot relaxed a little. He looked at Mary again. “Surely we’ll be getting her a gift, though?”
“She’s insisting that we don’t have to,” Mary replied, sending another disapproving look in Dot’s direction.
“I don’t need anything,” Dot told them.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t get you things, though, does it?” Mary asked.
Dot looked at JFK, hoping to remind him of their conversation about her parents, and thus her childhood, through her expression. She’d never gotten birthday presents growing up, and receiving them as an adult felt strange, out-of-place. It was enough that he had bought her not only a pearl necklace, but an electric tea kettle for the office, while she’d been working for him. Probably too much, actually, given that both gifts had come after arguments. She did not want a birthday present from anyone in the office, and she hoped that, as their boss, he’d set his foot down and ensure they wouldn’t come.
Kennedy gazed at her for a moment, before he smiled again, more gently, and nodded to her. Dot felt her shoulders relax as he turned to Mary.
“If she doesn’t want a gift, we won’t get her one,” he said. “Birthdays aren’t about going against the person’s wishes.”
Mary sighed, in a defeatist sort of way, but put up her hands in acceptance. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m bringing a cake.”
“Well, that’ll just be for the rest of us, if Dr. Lloyd would rather not partake,” Kennedy replied, sending a wink in Dot’s direction.
“I love cake,” Dave put in, which gave everyone a reason to laugh, and Dot felt a little bit better. She appreciated JFK’s willingness to go along with her request, and wondered if maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that she’d bared her soul to him the way that she had, by talking about her family.
Maybe letting people know her, and why she was the way she was, wasn’t always a terrible choice.
***
Two days later, Mary made good on her threat and brought a beautifully decorated chocolate with strawberry cream and icing cake to the office. Dot was pleased that it in no way indicated it was a birthday cake for her, and was merely painted in icing flowers and vines. When Mary pulled the cover off of it, to reveal it to the staff, and Dot saw as much, she sent an appreciative smile in the secretary’s direction. Mary’s response was a wink, and Dot guessed she had forgiven her for not telling about her birthday.
The cake was delicious, and afterwards everyone did seem to be in a much better mood. Dave, who’d been hanging around the office the past two days, was back to discussing JFK’s next trip to Massachusetts, and the major Democrats he’d be meeting with while there, while Ted Reardon nodded along and made a few suggestions. Mary had also brought her small radio to the office, and had tuned into 97.1 WASH, which was a reliable source of music throughout most of the working day.
Dot wasn’t sure she’d seen the office so relaxed since the campaign had begun at the start of the month. Everyone had clearly needed a break. She supposed that, since no one had tried to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, she could be all right with having her birthday be the reason for said break.
After a time, Kennedy came over to her desk, having been locked away in the inner office for most of the day, apart from his brief appearance for cake.
“Am I allowed to say it?” he asked, and Dot sighed, leaning back in her chair.
“If you must.”
Kennedy smiled. “Happy birthday, Dot,” he said. He then reached into one of the front pockets on his pants, and withdrew a small, nicely wrapped present. Dot immediately scowled.
“I thought we agreed -”
“We agreed that the staff wouldn’t be getting you a gift,” Kennedy interrupted, holding the tiny thing over her desk towards her. “We never said that us as individuals wouldn’t.”
Dot frowned at him for another five seconds, before giving in, and snatching the box from his hand. She listened to Kennedy chuckle as she undid the paper and bow around it, then lifted the lid. She sighed a little, seeing what was inside of it, then looked up at him.
“Really?” she asked, taking the campaign pin from the box and holding it up to show him.
“I noticed you haven’t been wearing one,” he explained.
“There’s a bowl of them on Mary’s desk,” Dot pointed out, and JFK tilted his head.
“Making the question of why you haven’t been wearing one all the more relevant,” he concluded.
Dot, despite herself, laughed, and shook her head. “Because I don’t really go anywhere but home and the office, and even then, there’s no one here in D.C. who can vote for you in the senatorial election?”
“Then maybe you should wear it in Massachusetts,” Kennedy suggested.
Amused, Dot took a moment to put the pin in place, just over her heart. She then looked at him again, raising her eyebrows.
“If I forget to take it off before I wash this dress, I’m blaming you,” she informed him.
“I’ll take full responsibility,” he agreed, cheerfully. “I wouldn’t mind buying you a new dress.”
Dot blinked at him, then frowned again. “Is that because you don’t like the ones I already have?”
“No,” Kennedy replied. “Call it a… a personal desire to see you in something that I picked out.”
The immediate rush of heat in her face had to have been clear in her cheeks as a blush. Dot quickly bowed her head, stunned. “Mr. Kennedy -”
“It’s Jack, Doctor,” JFK said, gently. “Please.” He then let out an exhale, before Dot could say anything else, and continued, “I need to get back to work, unfortunately. Enjoy the rest of your day, even if you don’t want to claim it as yours.”
“Thank you,” Dot said, softly, unsure if he heard her, given he walked away almost immediately after he’d finished speaking. She glanced up in time to see him pause to say something to Dave and Ted where they were at Ted’s desk, before he retreated back into the inner office.
Dot made herself exhale a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, then briefly rested her head in her hands, wondering if she had completely misread the conversation, or if, in fact, John F. Kennedy had flirted with her. He hadn’t done so since she’d met him, and Dot had thought they were beyond that sort of thing.
Apparently, however, now that they were able to use one another’s first names, anything was on the table.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
No, that wasn’t accurate.
She was… she was frightened that, if she thought about it too much, she might realize that she wanted to wear something that John F. Kennedy had picked out for her.
And that was definitely not okay.