secret service au
Greta Salpeter was the first lady. Then her husband made a re-election campaign stop in some little town in Maine and a whackjob with a cabin and a handwritten manifesto shot him twice. Maja, the Swedish Ambassador's wife and her best friend (which is a not-great idea, socially, because the Ivarssons are scandalous! He's thirty years older and they are rumoured to be unfaithful!), comes right up to the White House and holds her hand. "I'm going to stay here with you for the next two weeks and we're going to drink champagne and you can cry with me, okay?" Spencer, Greta's aide, keeps everyone at arm's length and carefully controls the information that gets to her. He doesn't want her to be upset further! After the funeral (for which Maja picked the outfit with loud interjection from Frank, the third on her Secret Service detail) because she knows how iconic those sorts of pictures can be), she packs up her staff that wants to go, Spencer and Ryan, her social secretary, as well as Alex Suarez, White House sous-chef, and her Secret Service detail, and moves back to Illinois.
Ray Toro is the head of her Secret Service detail. Which makes it totally awkward that he has a crush on her. He thought she was beautiful and interesting and sweet. And then her husband got shot. Twice. Then it's just wrong when he has inappropriate dreams about her. But he packs up his life and he and Frank and Bob move to the Chicago suburbs. Greta has an estate out there with a guesthouse that becomes Secret Service Central.
Four months after the "day", as everyone refers to it, Greta is scheduled to present Veteran's Honors in Washington. She has never missed it and she doesn't intend to miss it this year. It's been long enough that she thinks she can do it. They choose her outfit and everyone goes off to Washington. She walks onto the stage and there's a ten minute standing ovation. She starts crying when she sees that people in the audience are crying. Somehow, at some point, she became a national treasure.
This idea sticks in the back of her mind until Maja's birthday. Maja's celebration is in New York, so Greta's heading there. She overhears Ray and Bob talking on the plane about how Bob's going to take the day after the party off to go visit Gerard in Jersey. "Is he any better?" Ray asks. "Not really," Bob says.
Greta butts in to the conversation. "I thought he was discharged from the hospital." Gerard was the agent on her husband's left side on the "day." He put himself in front of the gun, took two shots to the chest and arm and fell. The next two hit the president. In hushed tones, Ray tells her about how as soon as he left the hospital, he was discharged by the Director. His job was to protect the President, and he failed. Greta's horrified. She can see wanting someone to blame for the President's death, but Gerard took two bullets for him. He clearly would have made the ultimate sacrifice. Ray understands that the reason the shooter got so close is because something fell through the cracks, something wasn't secured, something wasn't swept, and that road points higher up the food chain. Gerard was their scapegoat, and now he's living in Mikey's basement, not seeing his shrink because they took away his benefits and spending his savings on Percocet and vodka. Greta's in tears by the time the plane touches down. She and Spencer start making phone calls as soon as they check into the hotel and when Bob goes out to see Gerard, he's got a proposition. Greta has found this doctor in Illinois, Ryland Blackinton, who comes very highly recommended. He handles PTSD, substance abuse, the works, and he's part of an in-patient clinic that will also see to Gerard's medical care. Ryland has agreed to do the intake screening over the phone, if Gerard's willing to make a change. Gerard can see Mikey's big eyes pleading with him from the corner, so he does it.
Ryland's super cool. Gerard thought he was going to be all stuffy and awful, asking Gerard about his relationship with his father or something, but they just chat about Illinois and how it sort of sucks in the winter, but not as bad as Jersey. He wants Gerard to come out for a while, turn things around, and says that the bill is being picked up by a friend. Bob won't divulge, and it doesn't really occur to Gerard that the First Lady wouldn't blame him too. Not until his second week at the facility when Ryland takes him over for tea at Greta's. She asks such gentle, hesitant questions that he suddenly realizes that it's her. She blushes when he thanks her. "It's really not me. I'm just handling things for a little while, until the Service gets their act together."
"They won't," he says, averting his eyes, but Greta knows otherwise. She showed up at Director Leto's office spitting mad. If he didn't reinstate Gerard and his benefits, retroactive to the date of discharge, she was going to be forced to throw him a fundraiser and make a speech about the service he's done to his country and the fate that has befallen him. He stares her down, but knows that her threats are never, ever empty. When Gerard gets the letter at the clinic that his pension has kicked in and his discharge status has been changed to "Honorable - Wounded in the Line of Duty", he cries.
Also, during Greta and Gerard's twice-monthly teas, Ryland sits in the kitchen and flirts with her chef.
Also also, Greta eventually kisses Ray during one of their late-night conversations, and he is so flustered that she pretty much falls in love.