Daniel woke up with a pounding headache so bad he had to scrunch his eyes closed the minute they touched the light. He was surrounded by plush sheets he recognized not to be his own, and his head sat on a satin pillow case. 

"Shit." He whispered forcefully, willing his eyes to open once again. When they did he found himself in an unfamiliar bedroom. The entire thing had been done over all in white and it was nearly as blinding as the sun streaming in through the open curtains."Shit, shit, shit." 

Daniel rolled off the bed and attempted to stand up, but found his whole body ached all over. If his mother had been there to see him she would have told him that's what he got for drinking so much. 

When Daniel had righted himself he looked around the room again. It was painfully white and clean-- as if it had never been touched. The sheets, which were messed up from Daniel's sleep, were the only thing that sat out of place. The window displayed an outstanding view of the city skyline winking in the morning glow completely detached from Daniel and his mundane problems. 

I'm at my boss's house. Daniel thought to himself. I slept in my boss's bed.

Of course he didn't actually sleep IN his boss's bed, but rather just in a bed that happened to be owned by his boss while his boss slept further away, but regardless it felt ludicrous. Daniel didn't make shitty decisions like that. Daniel did not sacrifice his career for anything, especially not something as painfully dumb as wanting to drink with a bunch of co-workers and not knowing his own limits.

It was childish. He felt like and infant. He was so embarrassed. He'd needed somebody else to tell him when he was too drunk to drive home by himself-- that was the kind of thing Daniel thought you were supposed to grow out of after college. Clearly Daniel wasn't as removed from college as he wanted himself to be.

He's never going to take me seriously again. Daniel cringed.

Aside from making a colossal mistake and sacrificing his entire career, Daniel desperately needed to pee, or throw up... or maybe both. That meant he'd have to exit the room and risk seeing Mr. Palmer-- a risk he would have preferred not to encumber.  

When he'd worked up his courage enough to peak open the door he saw that the hallway appeared to be empty, and pushed from the door. He couldn't quite remember which door the bathroom was behind. Was it the second on the left? Or... the third on the right? But of course, the day prior he'd been coming down the hallway from the opposite direction so he'd have to reverse whatever the direction he'd actually been given was.

Daniel's head throbbed in anger at the thinking he was attempting to do. He wandered slightly, praying that the bathroom door was open so he could see it when he passed. The further down the hallway he got, the closer he approached the opening into the main room where dangers he couldn't see might lay. 

It was quiet, a good quiet. A quiet that indicated that Mr. Palmer was likely still in his bed. Of course he was, Daniel decided--- he was just as drunk as Daniel, and if Daniel was in his own bed and had his own bathroom he never would have gotten up so early in the morning. 

Daniel sighed. If he stepped out into the opening, then he could retrace his steps back to the bathroom, which he was 90% certain would be the second door on the left if he was coming from the main room. In dizziness and reduced mental capacity, however, he didn't have the ability to figure out what that would be in reverse.

"You're up?" A voice called as Daniel entered the main room of the apartment, and he immediately flinched at the sound. There, standing in the kitchen of the apartment, was Mr. Palmer looking overly right and ready for the day. 

The boy scolded himself for assuming the man was human. Certainly Mr. Palmer was too elegant (and too rich) to feel the affects of alcohol and would have no trouble waking up his body at a reasonable hour. 

"Sorry."

"For what?" Mr. Palmer raised an eyebrow. He looked perfectly unaffected and affluent. His hair sat perfectly in place in no way perturbed by alcohol. To bed the man had worn a white tee-shirt and plaid pajama pants along with a soft looking dressing robe overtop. In his hand he held a small white coffee mug, forgotten as he stood and stared at Daniel.

"For staying the night... for being drunk. For being hungover.... and for bothering you this morning."

"You're not bothering me."

"I'm still sorry" Daniel sighed. "Could I... I forgot where the bathroom was again.... could you?"

"Second door on the left."

Daniel freed himself from the awkwardness that hung heavily in the air and hid away in the bathroom. Filled with relief, Daniel splashed water onto his head and internally scolded himself. The day... the last two days.. just continued their march into madness ever getting worse. With a bit of cold water to cleanse his sins, Daniel could look himself head on once again. 

That meant it was time to face his own shortcomings. 

When Daniel returned, he found Mr. Palmer sitting at his dining table with a completely casual disposition--- as if this sort of thing happened daily. He still had his coffee, but had gained a plate of eggs and bacon, as well as a morning newspaper he was reading. Across from him sat a matching plate of food.

Daniel frowned to himself and sat down next to Mr. Palmer, rather than across. He was sure, almost certain, that the food was for him, but too timid to sit down and eat. Such a day was sure to reward them with a third person in the apartment whose food Daniel might accidentally ruin. 

Mr. Palmer gave him a strange look and gestured to the food. Daniel was grateful and pulled the meal over to his place at the table. The man eyed him from the side of the paper with an inquisitive look that suggested he had expected Daniel to move seats, but not one that held anger. 

"I really want to apologize for my behavior last night and this morning... I really hope, I mean I would like it if you wouldn't let yesterday and today color your opinion of me." 

"Consider it forgotten." 

"Thank you... really, that means a lot to me. I mean everything you've done means a lot to me.... I'm just very grateful to you." Daniel explained.

Mr. Palmer offered no further reaction, so Daniel looked down at his food again in embarrassment. If Mr. Palmer said it was forgotten, then Daniel had no reason to believe it wasn't, but still his heart pounded and his nerves were deeply agitated. 

Mr. Palmer casually turned the page of the paper and continued reading in silence. 

"Do you read the New York Sun in the mornings? Don't you get all the information as an editor?" Daniel asked after a moment of silence. When the man looked up he nearly regretted opening his mouth at all. 

"This is the Washington Chronicle, not the New York Sun." 

"The Washington Chronicle?" Daniel asked in surprise. "I would have thought you'd hate all competition, not bolster fledgling paper sales by purchasing your own copy."

"The Washington Chronicle is our largest East coast competitor. I need to be aware of their stories. I need to be sure they haven't caught anything we've missed. Mostly I need to be sure they haven't gotten the upper hand."

"And have they?" Daniel asked curiously. 

"I don't rightly know that much." Mr. Palmer frowned. "What did your family read back at home in South Carolina?"

"The Chronicle." Daniel mumbled ashamedly. "But most of the Southern states do. It's closer to us, seeing as it comes right down from Virginia. Plus... you're yankees."

Mr. Palmer's lips tugged at a smile. 

"Yes.. yankees." 

"I had--- well have--- an online subscription to the Sun... and one for the Los Angelos Gazette too, just so I always know what's going on. I suppose I ought to have one to the Chronicle now that I can't borrow my parents papers, but it's just strange to think that the CEO of the Sun sits at  his kitchen table and reads the Gazette."

"The power of the press trumps all." He shrugged. "Even if the press isn't quite physical anymore. Nothing wrong with a digital paper, but I still like to have the real thing..." Mr. Palmer paused to clear his throat. "You don't need to pay for a subscription to the Sun now that you're an employee. I'll get you the code on Monday. As for you folks, maybe you ought to get them a subscription to the Sun instead of the Post."

"Oh no." Daniel frowned. "My father would never read the Sun. He's angry enough already that I'm working here-- no way he'd go that far into enemy lines. The post is a slightly more conservative publication. The Sun is a more liberal paper. My dad would never."

"The Sun is a bipartisan paper."

"No it isn't." Daniel argued, before clasping his hand over his mouth. "I'm sorry sir.... I just mean to say I don't see anything bi-partisan about it. It's everywhere down to the writers we chose, and the articles we publish-- or shelf. Bias is everywhere-- we publish pro-democrat ads for months before the elections, we sugar coat their scandals, and we dive in to Republican missteps. The Post does the same just in reverse. We can no more rid bias from a paper than we can rid it from human nature. It's just life."

"Now, we work to verify all the statements we make."

"Of course we do. But we speaking the truth does abolish bias. We can be right and still be biased towards something. The Sun has always been a liberal paper, it's just recently that we've tried to lie about it.It's an interesting phenomenon... No newspaper is truly bipartisan, and they aren't supposed to be. Under Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson you had clear Federalist papers and clear Democratic-Republican papers--- nobody hid it, nobody was ashamed. Everybody knew they weren't trying to be unbiased and everybody was okay with that. You knew what you were reading was a 'perspective.' We've lost that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that each news site presents their biased studies as indisputable facts and accuses all others of speeding falsehoods. Falsehoods in a subjective matter of opinions. People read that, then they read all this crap about being unbiased and bi-partisan and they think, gee this must be the complete and total truth with no ulterior motive or matter of opinion. Imagine if everyone was just aware they were reading articles written by humans who carry natural human biases and took everything with a grain of salt, knowing they had to look to many places for verification before taking anything at face value? It'd be a world with much less false information allowed to fly under the radar." Daniel explained. 

"Hmm." Mr. Palmer sounded. 

"Hmm?" 

"I disagree with everything you've just said."