Rating/Pairing: PG, Leo/Ainsley
Disclaimer: The West Wing is not mine, nor ever will be mine.
Spoilers: Post ep to "Two Cathedrals"
Summary: Ainsley watches the press conference.
Archive:On my site, The Band Gazebo Anywhere else, ask first
Feedback: Yes please!
Author's Notes: Sixteenth in the Stolen Moments series; after Reports, Statistics and Divine Intervention, Of Divorces and Desserts, Cookies and Children's Choirs, Loose Lips, Of Peanuts and Lord Fauntleroy, A Bigger Night, More Than Like,Of Chopsticks and Cheese, Killing Time, Sewn Into The Fabric, The Pieces of My Life,The Other Shoe, Where I Want To Be, Strong Women and Lucky Men, and Watching.....

Mr Babish has a huge office. The kind of office that befits the White House Chief Counsel. It's large and bright and airy and roomy, the kind of office that one doesn’t mind working in day after day, and night after night. A far cry from my little corner of the basement. Although I don't mind it as much as I once did, now that I've redecorated it, made it my own.

But that's really beside the point today. Because most of the time when I meet with Mr Babish, or his predecessor, Lionel Tribbey in this office, there's only me and him, and a couple of other Associate Counsels in the room. Which is how I know that it's large and bright and airy and roomy.

It doesn't feel that way today.

Not with what must be twenty or thirty lawyers in here, some of them with pen and paper in hand, all crowding around the television, struggling to get a closer look at the President's Press Conference. You'd think that there'd be plenty of noise with the crowd and all, but you could literally hear a pin drop. It's been like that since CJ began speaking. Well, since before that if I'm honest.

Speaking of CJ, might I just veer off topic for a moment and speak about what a great job she's doing, both today and in general? CJ was one of the first friendly faces that I met at the White House, one of the first people who didn't treat me like a leper because I was a Republican. I think alleviating her worry about a potential jail term might have been a help there. But my first week here, I met her in the mess, and she sat down beside me for a few minutes with her mug of coffee and she gave me some advice on how to get along with the Senior Staff here, what not to say to various people, or exactly what to say, given the right circumstances. I hadn't laughed so much since I took the job here, and she doesn't know what it meant to me that she took the time to do that. And look at her now. She's barely had any sleep the past few days if Leo's schedule is anything to go by, we had the funeral this morning, she's been in meetings all day, and she's still standing up there fielding question after question, and even though I know she must be falling apart, she's not showing any signs. I'm reminded once again why Leo holds in her such high regard, as do I.

You know, if you'd told me when I agreed to do that Capitol Beat show all those months ago, that I'd end up working at the White House, and admiring the President and the Senior Staff, I would have asked what exactly you'd had in your coffee that morning. I had plans. I knew what I wanted to do. And it wasn't working a Democratic White House and liking it.

And it certainly didn't involve becoming lovers with Leo McGarry.

I'm standing at the back of the office, my back against the wall, ostensibly looking at the Press Conference with my colleagues, and that last thought makes me bite back a smile, lest they see it and misinterpret it as a affront against their leader. Nothing could be further from my mind.

The truth is that I think of Leo and I being lovers and I just want to smile like some giddy teenager.

This shouldn't be happening between us. It shouldn't even be an issue. But it is, and we are, and I'm so happy about it that I hardly care that the world is falling asunder.

It's Wednesday today. We've spent two nights together as lovers. That's all. And yet, it seems like so much longer. We shared a bed on a couple of occasions, just sleeping in each other's arms, but really, we've only been romantically involved for less than two weeks.

It took us so long to get this far, and now that we have, I can't imagine what I did before.

We didn't set out for it to be like this. Things just happened. We began talking to one another at the end of the day. He'd drop down to my office, I'd see him in the mess, or we'd meet at the coffeehouse and talk. And somewhere along the line there, we fell for one another. In amongst all those little stolen moments, we got caught off guard, and by the time either one of us realised what was happening, it was too late to back out.

I don't know if I could've got through today without him. Or yesterday. Or Monday night. When he called to my door, I thought that he was just tired, or that he couldn't wait to see me. Then when I saw him, I thought something had happened with the President. It was only when he spaced out on me, just sitting there and not saying anything that I began to get afraid. And then he looked at me and he told me about Mrs Landingham. And he knew what it was going to be like for me, knew that I loved that woman and he held me as I cried. Or I held him as he cried. Or maybe we just held each other, and in the midst of that embrace, I realised that I didn't want to let him go. That we could dance around this thing between us all we wanted, that we could wait for as long as we wanted, but that life could come along and punish us for that at any time. I think that realisation was what made me kiss him. What made me do more than kiss him.

And afterwards, lying there in bed with him, when he told me that he'd stay forever, I smiled, even after the events of the last few hours, the last few days. Because when I was with him, I felt so contented. So protected and safe. Like I was supposed to be there, in his arms, that it was the most natural thing in the world.

He stayed with me last night as well, and the memory of the couple of minutes that we lingered in bed after the alarm went off is about the only thing that's keeping me together today. That, and the feel of his presence standing behind me as he zipped up my dress, the way one hand rested on the curve of my hip while the other worked the zipper. The way his touch lingered on my hip, then my shoulder when he was finished. I turned my head and looked up at him, and the look that was in his eyes told me everything that his body had last night.

I wish he was here now.

But he's not, because he can't be. And I know that. Just like I know that he wishes he could be with me now.

I managed to hold myself together during the funeral, just about. It was a beautiful service, and the National Cathedral was awe-inspiring. I'd never sat through a service there before, and concentrating on the splendour of my surroundings kept me from breaking down. When I saw Leo walking up the aisle, it was all I could do not to go to him, not to throw myself into his arms. I clenched my fists at my side to keep myself in check, and when I opened them after he sat down, there were half moon indentations in my palms.

That's when I slipped my hand into my coat pocket and fingered the dollar bill inside. I've been carrying it around with me since yesterday, when I found it in between my couch cushions whilst I was cleaning up before I went to work. I'd removed the two cups of cold coffee that we hadn't touched the night before, mentally reminding myself to scour them later, and I'd been straightening the couch cushions when I spotted it. I didn't know how it got there for a second, then I remembered Leo handing it to me the night that he told me about the President's MS. I remember holding onto it, it being trapped between our joined hands, but it obviously fell during our other activities later on, and I only found it then. And it sounds like such a silly, teenagerish thing to do, but I folded it up neatly and put it in my pocket, that silly smile all the time on my lips.

When I got back to the West Wing after the funeral, I went straight to my office, declining the invitations of my colleagues to go to the mess with them. I couldn't possibly have eaten anything then. I was leaning back in my chair, my eyes closed, half hoping that I'd wake up and that this would all be some awful dream when the phone rang.

And I prayed that I knew who it was, and mercifully, my prayers were answered.

"Hey. It's me."

His voice was soft and low, and filled with caring, and I couldn't help but smile a little. He's got a hundred and one things to do, and he still finds the time to call me. It could be that he's checking up on me, or that he needs to talk to me as much as I need to talk to him. Either way, I found the thought comforting. "Hey…." I replied, relaxing in my chair, letting all the tension seep out of my bones. "How are you?" He looked strained when I saw him earlier, and little wonder.

I don't think he's ever guessed that I worry about him as much as he worries about me.

There was a small sigh on the other end of the phone, and his confusion was obvious when he answered, "As well as can be expected I guess."

What do I say to that? How well can these things ever go, and on a day like today as well? "It was a beautiful service Leo," I told him, and I really meant it. Mrs Landingham would have loved it, all those people turning out to remember her, to honour her. And Charlie - he did so well with that reading; she would have been so proud of him. She always did have a soft spot for him. And, I think, for me as well. She was so nice to me when I first started to work at the White House; like CJ, she went out of her way to talk to me, to make me smile and laugh, to make me feel like less of an outsider. And I thanked her the only way I knew how…by being as charming to her as I knew how to be, never using bad language in or around the Oval Office, and filling her cookie jar at Christmas.

She was one hell of a lady.

"Yeah." Leo agreed with me about the service, and there was a long pause, where I could only presume that he was remembering it too, remembering the woman we were honouring. "I wish I could've been beside you but…"

I cut him off quickly, knowing that I should have been way down his list of priorities that day. The President was facing the worst day of his life and Leo is his best friend. There was no question about where he belonged today. Besides, I can have him tonight. That's the reason that I could tell him, "It's ok. I mean, I wish you could have too, but I understand." And I really did mean that. Just as my concern for the President made me ask the next question. "How's the President?"

"I wish I could tell you. I've known him forty years Ainsley, and I've never seen him like this." He sounded lost, confused. The last time I heard him sound like that was the night that he came to my apartment and told me that the President had MS. I was afraid then, the thought that he'd been drinking flitting through my mind, but that fear wasn't there today, if for no other reason than that Margaret has probably been hovering over him all day.

But there was a question that had to be asked. "Is he going to-?"

"I don't know." It was his turn to interrupt me. "He's in his office now…we're going to have a meeting in a couple of minutes."

My eyebrows lifted. I thought for sure he would have had the rest of the Senior Staff in on this as well, but it didn't sound that way. I couldn't believe that they were really going to do this themselves, with no input from anyone else. "Just the two of you?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yeah."

His voice was flat, and I was amazed at that, because mine was going up into the stratosphere. "Leo the Press conference is in a couple of hours."

"I know."

The way that he said that, the finality in his tone, told me that he wasn't happy with it either. I knew what he wants. He wants the President to stand up there and say that he's going to run again, and he doesn't know if he's going to do that. For the last couple of weeks, all I've been hearing from him is that he'll run, he'll run. But over the last few days, he's been sounding less and less sure. And now that we were almost down to the wire, he still didn't know, but I got the feeling that he was afraid that he might.

That notion left me adrift, casting around for something, anything to say, to change the subject. The only thing I could come up with to counteract how crappy his day was, was how crappy my day was. "Mr Babish told us this morning."

"How did that go?"

He sounded concerned again, worried about me, about how the others would look at me, the token Republican, hearing damning news about their Democratic President. I'd stood in that office with the rest of them, in much the same place as I'm standing now, and I'd kept my face carefully neutral. It was easy enough not to show shock, after all, I'd known longer than a lot of the Senior Staff, and I've kept my counsel well. And while some people looked at me as if they were daring me to say something negative about it all, some reaction of superiority on my part, I couldn't do anything like that. The notion sickens me, as does the notion that people I call friends, people in my own party, are going to seize on this as a means to discredit him, as a means of denigrating him whilst elevating themselves. They're going to profit out of this man's illness and the thought repulses me. I could never do that.

Or maybe I could have, if I hadn't worked here, hadn't met him, met his staff.

"People were shocked…upset…" I told him, leaving out how I'd made as hasty a retreat as possible, letting them all have their say amongst themselves, and I hoped he could tell that I meant what I was saying, that I was ok. "A couple of people gave me funny looks, like they were worried about how I was going to react. I'm not sure if my lack of reaction alarmed them or just shocked them."

"Hold on," he told me then, and when I heard him say, "Yeah?", I knew that someone had just come into the room. And since I knew who he was waiting for, it was a pretty good bet that it was Charlie, standing at the door between their two offices, telling Leo that the President was ready to see him. I didn't hear any other voice in the room, but Leo said, "OK. Tell him I'll be just a second"

There was the faint sound of a door closing, then I heard a muffled sigh at the other end of the phone. "You've got to go?" I didn't expect my voice to sound so quiet, didn't know how much comfort I was deriving from the phone call until it was ready to end.

"Yeah, he's ready. Will you be watching?"

As if I'd be anywhere else I wanted to say to him, but I didn't. "Mr Babish will be there. The rest of us are going to watch in his office." There was something I wanted to ask him but wasn't sure if I should, didn't want to add to his worries. Then I decided to do it anyway. "Will you come over when you're done?"

I hated, I absolutely hated how whiny my voice sounded when I said that, and he sounded slightly amused as he warned me, "It'll be late."

"I don't care. It doesn't matter how late it is. Just come. Please?"

I really hate how he can do that to me, but it seemed to work, because he said "OK."

And despite how bad I was feeling, that made me smile too. "OK."

I stopped smiling when I stepped back out into the real world, into a White House where some people were still regarding me with suspicion. I tried not to let it bother me, and went to the mess, my appetite having been restored after talking to Leo. And I spoke with some people, and did some work, and I went back to my office and didn't leave until the time I'd heard that the President was scheduled to leave.

I shouldn't have done it. I know that. But I just wanted to see him once before he left. So I snuck upstairs and found a quiet corner of the bullpen and waited for them. And when I saw them, I knew. Oh, I'm sure that to the outside world, their faces weren't giving anything away. I'm sure that most people could look at them all, Leo in particular, and just see the President and his brothers in arms going off to war.

But I'm not most people. And I could read Leo's face like a book.

And I knew.

The President's not going to run.

That's why I’m looking at CJ with such respect now. She knows, she has to know, and she's standing up there, ever the professional, and she's fielding questions like she does every day. And that's also why I'm standing at the back here, so near to the door, ready to make my escape should the stares become too much for me.

And then CJ looks to the side, and stops talking and I know what's coming next. "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."

Even from the television screen, the explosion of flashbulbs and noise is overwhelming, and I wonder at how he can bear to go in there and stand up in front of those vultures. When he appears on the screen, my carefully neutral face is pressed into action once more, because he looks anything but presidential. He's soaked to the skin, his hair is sticking up all over the place, but he looks confident, assured, as he points into the crowd. "Yes Sandy?"

I expected this question, but I'm more than surprised that CJ didn't tell him to pick a reporter who'd ask a medical question. "Mr. President, can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?" The lights and clamour explode once again, and he seems to be considering the question, looking all around him.

"I'm sorry, Sandy, there was a bit of noise there, could you repeat the question?"

I blink. There's something about his voice, something about the way he looks on the screen…

I haven't known Josiah Bartlet for long. I've met him exactly once, seen many of his speeches, read many of his writings. And this doesn't look like a man on the brink of defeat. This looks like a man who is ready to kick a little tail.

But neither the reporter, nor any of the people in this room, know what I know, what I gleaned from Leo's face earlier, and there's a hush over the room, both here and at the State Department. "Can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?"

He pauses again, obviously considering, knowing that he has the room, the country, in the palm of his hand.

And I look at him, and that's when I know.

I know.

I suck in my breath sharply, and lean forward slightly, my eyes not leaving the President's face as I hold my breath and wait.

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