There Goes the Prime Suspect

A pink dawn rises over a cool humid forest. Within it, Ft. Harrison doesn't seem to awaken much; not even a reveille is blown.

Inside, the TV is on. The theme music for Good Morning, Right-Wingers!, a news program, is in progress.

Fitz is in his robe. On the coffee table, he lays out many baskets of bread. They're his wife's recipe. He's prepared them for a VERY special part of his morning routine...

"Alright, Dr. Ghurani," Fitz mutters, eyes half-open, due not not having gotten enough sleep the night before. "Let's see just how well your precious Shiite hide lasts over the barrels of oil that the aircraft carriers of my navy have in store for you, when their JAG puts you on trial. I swear you're gonna pay. Somehow I knew that torturing me would never be good enough for you." He hiccups. "What'd I ever do to you, anyway...besides be an American in your country's precious skies?"

Ms. Ophir comes in, wrapped in a pink towel. She's still wet from her shower.

"Ooh, news!" She creeps forward. Fitz doesn't seem very secure about having her here. "So this is how you do this in North America..."

"Don't get too comfy. This time, I'm doing this because I have to."

"Oh!" She studies him, and fixes her wet hair. "You want to know how this Dr. Ghurani, or whoever he is, is going to last when your DHS asks him about what he did to you at the Grey House!" Beneath her pink towel, she adjusts her rack. "VERY precious memories of that, by the way..."

Fitz scoffs. "I don't doubt. Honestly, though, I think his wife's a more likely suspect."

"His wife?"

"Yeah. Let's just say that while I was his captive, there were periods of my captivity that were MUCH better accommodated-for than others..."

Fitz flashes back. He's younger. He's in the buff. He's sitting in a dark and dim-lit room.

From a wall across from him, multiple jets of water spray all over him. Some of them trickle over his airway. He's cold, and shivers. He hasn't eaten for three days.

Nearby, a gorgeous Persian woman stands. She's in a red cowl. She admires him, as he's tortured. She's Dr. Ghurani's wife...or so Fitz has been told.

Anti-power radiation, in the dim light, makes Fitz incapable of using his gravity-control powers to escape. Right now, Fitz isn't sure he wants to.

In the corner, Mrs. Ghurani fixes her hair. It's long, wavy, and raven. Her lips are big. And underneath her cowl, there's an endless story...

"You're a long way from home, Ensign Grant," she says, in a lovely accent. "You look like you could use better accommodations."

Fitz scoffs. "You'd think?!" He sneezes water. He steadies himself, to stand the least chance at breathing it. "Whatever you have in mind, you can forget it. I seriously doubt that your precious Iran makes it any better than Mama did."

She scoffs. "Mama," she mocks. "North American men are slow evolvers. I got over my mother as soon as I started puberty."

"Really? I thought all puberty did to women was amplify their greed for money...like what the Seven Rings did to the dwarf lords in the prelude to the Lord of the Rings."

She giggles. "You get some interesting inspiration from some unlikely sources, Ensign. Alas, in this case, you're only half-correct. You see, my puberty didn't just amplify my greed for money." She takes off her cowl, and lets it fall on the floor. She expresses all of her assets to near-naked Fitz, trapped in front of the water jets in barely a pair of briefs.

Fitz hiccups...and nearly drowns. He can see Mrs. Ghurani; ALL of her...

"My puberty," she sexually hisses, "amplified my lust...for men. And you look like just the right kind whose nut will crack," she stands on the balls of her feet, and wiggles her upper legs, "if I apply the right amount of pressure to the handles of my nutcracker."

Fitz emits a terrified giggle. "Clearly no one's told you that in North American slang, 'nuts' means a man's seed factories...right?!"

Fitz blinks, and comes back to the present. "So as you can see," he tells Ms. Ophir, "it's possible that my Navy SEALs captured one captive too few."

"Relax," Ms. Ophir drags a finger down Fitz's robe-clad shoulder. "You don't know for a fact it was Dr. Ghurani who attacked you." She bites her lip, and fidgets her legs. "In fact..."

"I'm not his only victim, you know. He's had others before me. Most of them only screwed up as much as merely flying into Irani airspace with less than an Irani roundel on their aircraft. Even if he didn't try to kill me at the Grey House, he deserves to have his ass chucked in Jahannam for the entirety of our grandchildren's lives...and then the entirety of our grandchildren's grandchildren's lives, on top of that."

Ms. Ophir arches her brows. "OUR grandchildren's grandchildren?!"

"Well...you know what I mean. We...are members of the same generation, aren't we, Ms. Ophir?"

"And now," a voiceover on the TV announces, "with the first of this morning's news: here's Aaron O'Reilly, the Vietnamese bastard son of the nationwide-famous Bill O'Reilly, who's way too cold-footed to work on this show!"

A beaming, scrawny, half-Vietnamese boy/man appears on the screen. He's here, clearly, to announce the first of Good Morning, Right-Wingers!'s morning news...

"Well," he says, smiling. "Good morning, Right-Wingers..." He bursts out laughing. He takes a moment to regain his respiratory balance. "Good morning, Right-Wingers..." He laughs again. As usual, he's having a VERY hard time keeping it together on this morning. "Good morning, Right-Wingers..." He laughs again.

"Wow," Ms. Ophir admits, adjusting her drying hair. "This is intense."

"I put up with this every morning," Fitz admits. He makes a disgusted face. "My wife thinks he's cute!"

They keep watching. Aaron O'Reilly keeps laughing while barely reporting the first of the day's news.

"You," Ms. Ophir asks, "want me to try to find another news program?"

"No, please," Fitz calms her remote-reaching hand with his. "This is part of my morning exercise routine. I like to lose control, and throw my wife's cooking at him." He gestures to all the baking on the coffee table. "That's what I make these for."

"In today's news," Mr. O'Reilly reports, between laughs, "we have many interesting stories to address. But first, we're going to address the one you've probably all been wondering about for over a week now." He laughs again. Fitz reaches for one of his wife's over-baked dinner rolls...

"We're," Mr. O'Reilly laughs again, "we're going to bring to you live coverage, of the trial of," he laughs again, "a certain Irani physician that our precious country knows," he laughs again, "as Dr. Ghurani: the historic captor of none other than our nation's great president, Fitzgerald Grant." He laughs. "I keep wanting to say Grant II for some reason, but," he laughs again, "his father's name isn't even Fitzgerald!" He laughs louder. "It's Jerry!"

"Jerry," Ms. Ophir mocks. "Funny; I never saw you as the product of a Jerry's balls."

"Ah, for once," Fitz puts away the roll, "the bastard son of Bill O'Reilly doesn't beat around the bush before getting to the news that his favorite customer's husband cares most about! Way to go, Aaron! I'm almost considering nominating you for Grey House press secretary! I'm sure my wife would love that, even if I'd consider you a pox!"

"Okay," Mr. O'Reilly gasps from laughter, "so without further ado, here's..." He hesitates, and listens to his ear. He gawks, and loses control of a subtle chuckle, as he re-addresses his audience. "Never mind! We don't have to give you live coverage! The Navy JAG," he laughs again, "has just issued a verdict for Dr. Ghurani!"

"Well, it's about damn time!" Fitz stands, rolls up the sleeves on his robes, and throws a few punches, to relieve tension. "I'd like to see that man executed by SEAL Team Six's firing squad! In fact, I'd order it, if I wasn't worried that one of his minions was being paid to trace the call and kill me in his stead!"

"So," Mr. O'Reilly keeps laughing, "here's the scoop. The doctor," he laughs again, "the Doctor has denied everything!"

"Well of course he has," Fitz shouts. "That's all villains are good at...besides torturing dutiful naval aviators caught in their airspace, and fire RPGs through presidents' windows, trying to assassinate them, like they don't have better business in Old Persia!"

"And the Navy JAG has confirmed," Mr. O'Reilly keeps laughing, "that his alibi checks out!" He laughs even harder, losing more control than ever. "He was," he gasps, "he was giving somebody therapy in Quetta," he keeps laughing, "many, many, MANY hundreds of miles away from the front Grey House lawn," he laughs more, "when the RPG was fired through the President's window," he laughs again, "right under the secret service's noses!" He howls with laughter, losing control.

"What," Fitz exclaimed. "You mean he didn't do it?!"

"He didn't do it," Mr. O'Reilly repeats. "And to think that he was the most likely suspect!" He laughs more. "And it looks like the DHS is back to square one on the mysterious case of," he laughs again, "the RPG that made a boob sandwich out of President Grant's face!"

He laughs even more. This time, it looks like he's really lost control.

Fitz sighs, and turns off the TV. He bows his head, and sighs again.

Subtly, Ms. Ophir tries one of his wife's rolls. She makes a gross face, and smuggles the bite she took out of her mouth...

"He was the only suspect," Fitz whispers. "And the guy who did it is still out there, trying to kill me..."

"Mr. Grant," Ms. Ophir tries to tell him, "there's something I really should..." She hesitates, and puts a pendant, that she's wearing around her neck, to her ear. It seems unusual that she wears such an intricate piece of jewelry when she's taking a shower...

Fitz raises his head. "Yes? Something you should what?"

She shakes her head. "Never mind. Excuse me." She flees through the room, in a bit of a hurry.

Fitz chuckles, and shakes his head. "One moment, she's trying to seduce me," he mutters, "and the next, she's trying to avoid me. Is this the stock Afroasia always elects to be its presidents?!"

An elephant shrew leaps on Fitz's knee. A yellow light on its collar is blinking.

"Ah, well," Fitz grins, and takes the elephant shrew behind a secret panel in the wall. "THIS should be refreshing."

In the lab, he sets the shrew on a desk. He takes off its collar. He removes the tag on the collar. He puts the tag under a microscope, and looks into the microscope.

The tag flashes a message to Fitz. It says, in phrases at a time:

OLIVIA POPE IS HERE. NOT WHAT YOU THINK. DON'T WORRY. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE. SHE CAME IN THE NIGHT. WE DIDN'T SEE HER AT FIRST. SHE'S A LITTLE SCARED. BUT SHE'S CALMER NOW, THAT WE CAN TELL.

Fitz shakes his head. He's confused...

LOOK IN THE SPICE CABINET, IN THE KITCHEN. CHECK A JAR, LABELLED..."EBONY BLEND." P.S.: DON'T FREAK OUT WHEN YOU SEE WHAT'S INSIDE.

The messages stop flashing. The tag gives Fitz permission to reconnect it to the shew's collar. Fitz does. Still confused, he leaves the lab, and checks the spice cabinet...as the tag instructs.

He opens it. He has to dig around for it, but he finds it. He narrows his eyes, confused. The jar looks empty...

He takes it out, and holds it to the light. It looks like there's something small inside. From here, it looks like a seasoning seed. He's tempted to shake the jar...until he acknowledges a big "DO NOT SHAKE" sticker that's wrapped around the bottle's neck.

On second glance...it looks like a bug. Fitz takes an even closer look...

It's a woman. She's pressed her back up against the glass. She's in nothing but revealing white lingerie. She seems scared. Hesitantly, she raises her hand, and waves back at him. She shrugs, and voices the word, "hi?"

Fitz shakes his head, still confused. "Liv?!"

She bites her lip, and nods. She moves her finger in a circle, and shrugs.

"Mr. Grant," Ms. Ophir calls, "where do you keep the plastic bags? I want to feed your wife's cooking to the birds. I've been told that the bird watching in this area is a tourists' paradise."

Fitz quickly hides the spice jar behind his ass, and faces Ms. Ophir. He tells her where the bags are.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Fitz warns her. "My secret servants have complained about not being able to get the grackles in the Target parking lot to eat it."

Ms. Ophir shrugs. "The wild is even more destitute than they are. Maybe they won't notice how bad it tastes." With that, she takes a box of bags, and leaves.

When she's gone, Fitz sighs with relief, and then sighs again, with stress. Not only is someone still trying to kill him, but the love of his life is in a tight spot that he's not sure how to get her out of.

But then, as long as she IS in this tight spot, then... Fitz HAS once said that he's had fantasies about Liv being his little black slave girl...