Guts And Glory

ACT III: CHAPTER EIGHT: CAUGHT

ACT III: CENTRE STAGE

CHAPTER EIGHT: CAUGHT

Chase and Harriet are the first to arrive.

Piper is loath to remember that today is out of her hands, she must rely on the public to see sense and vote for her to rule the country. Eric is self-assured that all of the work he put in designing campaign merchandise and drafting the waffle Piper has had to spend three months repeating to every simpleton repeating the same questions—swearing her loyalty to Britain, her dedication to taking them out of the corruption she has faced, righting the wrongs of the wealthy, and returning that helping hand to the poor—have led up to this, the day where her act can end.

Finn, darling Finn—whom is so eager to show off his skills as a host by organising day long celebrations before the results have come in at her flat—has had to spend many a time listening to Piper in fits of rage, snarling of how if she has to be asked the same stupid questions one more time, she will hurt someone and laugh whilst doing so. In response, ever the level head he has proven to be in the five months of their relationship, he will place his hands on her shoulders, drop to her height and look her right in the face, pouty lips—of which she knows the feel of—parting to wax off poetic nonsense of how it doesn't matter how pissed she gets blinking into camera lenses with microphones pushed into her face, and there is no direct correlation to the number of times Annie will storm the flat in anger, hair crackling, eyes blazing, of how this whole process is the biggest crock of bullshit she's ever known—the act must continue.

But Piper is prepared to kill the act today. If anything, the excitement which causes her to open the front door, let Chase and Harriet enter her flat, with a grin on her face for both of them, is due to the fact that the girl-next-door, so selfless act can be put to rest. The smiles are hurting her cheeks, the feigned interests into caring about the wellbeing of others has gotten boring, and Piper is done.

Piper is ready to step back into her old skin, put back on the mask that she has wielded so well over the years, and become Piper again. Finn had been hesitant to the idea of Piper changing so much to sway public opinion, but a reminder from Eric of how the real-Piper isn't a welcoming-Piper had put that conversation to bed. Soon, she knows, taking the cheap alcohol Chase had insisted on bringing round—supermarket, 9%, metal lid—the country will be hers and she won't have to filter her language or her feelings or her actions to appease the many, when the few that matter will be benefitting so richly from the system she will soon put in place.

Chase isn't any less intolerable with Harriet serving as a buffer between him and Finn—the day of planning doing very little in terms of making Finn any less icy towards him, though today, Piper has made him swear to not be purposefully rude or hostile to Chase—by carefully wording conversation starters directed towards things they all have found they have in common: a love for cars.

Finn insists Piper crack open the first bottle of champagne before the clock has even reached eleven o'clock. Piper blinks at this, still in a black satin dressing gown, understanding that Finn is excited—if she couldn't tell by the smile on his face then she's been doing something wrong for the past five months—so she understands, she gets it, but the idea of turning to alcohol so early in the morning, before she's even had any breakfast is not a sensible idea. To save Finn from embarrassment, she summons him to the bedroom with her, with half-lies on her tongue to not raise suspicion with Chase or Harriet—the former of which has recently become infatuated with the brightness of the latter's hair.