Rating/Pairing: PG, Leo/Ainsley
Disclaimer: The West Wing is not mine, nor ever will be mine.
Spoilers: Post ep to "Two Cathedrals"
Summary: On his way to the press conference, Leo thinks back on the past few days and the past few months.
Archive:On my site, The Band Gazebo Anywhere else, ask first
Feedback: Yes please!
Author's Notes: Fifteenth 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 and Strong Women and Lucky Men.

I'm glad I'm not driving in this.

The fact that that is the thought that's going through my mind doesn't surprise me, although it should. We've had such a bad couple of weeks, such a horrible day, that there should be any number of things on my mind, and all of them more important than that. But the only thing I'm thinking is that I'm glad it's not me who's driving in this weather. The sky is dark and stormy, and the rain and wind are shaking the car - and do you know how much it takes to shake one of these specially Secret Service fortified cars? It feels like the world is ending.

And it just might be.

I cast a glance to my left as we pass by the National Cathedral, but there's not a flicker of emotion from the man beside me. There hasn't been a flicker of emotion out of him all day and that scares me.

Almost as much as what it is we're about to do.

This Press Conference is going to be a zoo, worse than anything we've ever seen, and, if we're lucky, worse than anything we'll ever see again. And we all know the last time that we were lucky.

You know, sometimes I wonder if Super Tuesday really was all that lucky. Sure, we won, sure it got us where we are today, but with all that's going on right now, you have to ask yourself, was that really such a good thing? Is my life really that much better because I'm the White House Chief of Staff?

And then I think back to this morning, being woken up by an alarm that wasn't my own, the ringing stopping abruptly and being replaced by angry imprecations in a Southern accent. And even though I knew that day that was ahead of me, I couldn't help but smile.

If I hadn't convinced him to run, if we hadn't been lucky on Super Tuesday, if I wasn't White House Chief of Staff, I would never have met her.

My mind goes back to the first time that I saw her. I'd missed Capitol Beat the night that she turned Sam inside out, but I heard all about it after the first five minutes in the office the next morning. Margaret is quite the storyteller. And when the President told me to offer her a job, I will admit that I thought he'd lost his mind. Offer a conservative Republican from North Carolina a job in the White House? In the Counsel's Office? Sam, unsurprisingly enough, was furious. So too was CJ, but she came around surprisingly quickly. The sisterhood and all that. Josh and Toby were sceptical, although Josh in particular had fun ribbing Sam about it. But most people seemed to view the idea with distrust, with contempt. I know that they treated Ainsley accordingly, some more so than others. I never told Sam how glad I was that he fired Joyce and Brookline. I would've done it had he let me, and I would've said a few more choice things to them as well.

My first impressions of Ainsley were something different. Since I was the one who offered her the job, I had more to go on than the rest of them, and it only took me one meeting to find out that she was going to fit in just fine around here, no matter what she or anyone else thought. She stood in my office - literally stood in my office - and argued with me all the reasons why she shouldn't be offered this job. And I told her that the President likes smart people who argue with him.

Right on both counts.

But I never planned on this. If you'd told me that seven months down the line this woman and I would have become friends, that we would be sharing dinner and dessert and secrets with one another, that we'd have become lovers, I would have nodded politely and called the nearest shrink to cart you off in a straitjacket before laughing myself silly. Maybe I wouldn't even have waited to laugh.

The first night that we really talked was when she turned Sam around on that employee fraud thing. When I went down to her office to look for the report, I thought I'd be sticking a note on her desk. I didn't expect to see her there, didn't expect to find myself sitting down and talking to her. Didn't expect to enjoy myself doing it.

And the night my divorce came through, I didn't expect to find myself drinking coffee and eating cheesecake with her. After all, I'd been dodging well-meaning friends who wanted to talk to me, to make sure that I was holding up ok, all day. Why her invitation reached me when all others failed baffled me at the time, although I understand it a little better now. I told her all about Jenny and the divorce, and when she'd listened to me, we talked about work, and swapped non-work stories too. That was the first night, but not the last. Pretty soon, it was a regular occurrence, and we didn't even need to place an order when we walked in.

It was still friendship then. I guess the first time that I knew it went beyond that was Christmas, when we went to Mass together. Seeing her in that church, the look on her face, the way her arm felt in mine as we walked down the street together…yes, I was definitely going over the friendship line then. And when she told me in February all about her family, and I fought the urge to kiss her, only to hug her for an instant too long instead - yes, I was gone then.

It doesn't seem like it was only last week that I kissed her for the first time, after I told her about the MS. It seems to me like we must've been together for longer than that, because I've come to the point where I can't imagine my life without her, where I don't want to imagine my life without her. What did I do before I had her to talk to? Before I had her to get me through the day? What did I do without her?

I didn't sleep in my apartment last night, or the night before. The latter was on a whim, the former planned. I wanted to wait to sleep with her, wait until the time was right. But on Monday night, we both realised that we didn't want to wait any more. Mrs Landingham's death hit us both pretty hard, and we held on to the only thing we could, each other. I got my guy to drop me back at my place yesterday morning so I could change my clothes, and last night, so I could pick up another change before he brought me to Ainsley's. And when I got there, she just held me the minute I got through the door, and it felt like she was the only thing holding me up, and then we made our way to the bedroom.

The thought of her is the only thing that's holding me together today; the knowledge that no matter how today goes, she's going to be waiting for me tonight. That I can let down any barriers that I put up during the day, that I can just be me, and that she'll accept that. More than that, she'll welcome it.

Not that that lasted me long. The service today was beautiful, but emotionally wrenching, and the meetings that preceded it were hell. The ride back to the White House was spent like this one, in silence, and I didn't know what the hell he was thinking. He asked me for a couple of minutes, so I went into my office. There were a thousand things that I could have done, a hundred papers that I could have read, dozens of people - Congressmen, Senators, staff- that I could have talked to.

But only one I wanted to.

She answered on the first ring, and I leaned back in my chair, relieved that she was back. "Hey. It's me."

"Hey…." There was a slight smile in her voice, and I imagined her leaning back in her own chair, unknowingly copying my body language. But I could hear the worry in her voice as well, and furrowed the brow of my mental picture of her. "How are you?"

I sighed at the question, and wondered not for the first time how the hell I was. "As well as can be expected I guess."

She didn't seem to know what to say to that, and I wished for a moment that we were face to face. "It was a beautiful service Leo."

"Yeah." The National Cathedral was packed with people who knew Mrs Landingham, people who worked with her and while I knew that Ainsley was going with some of the other people from the Counsel's Office, I hadn't seen her there. There had just been too many people, too much sadness. But what the rest of them didn't know was that Ainsley and Mrs Landingham got along very well, that Mrs Landingham reminded Ainsley of her grandmother, and that it was Ainsley who had filled Mrs Landingham's cookie jar at Christmas with her own homemade cookies. They don't know how Ainsley sobbed in my arms when I told her, didn't see the tears in her eyes this morning as I zipped up her black dress. "I wish I could've been beside you," I told her, "But…"

"It's ok." Her answer quickly cut me off. "I mean, I wish you could have too, but I understand. How's the President?"

Ah. Now there was a question and a half. "I wish I could tell you. I've known him forty years Ainsley, and I've never seen him like this."

"Is he going to-?"

She sounded as perplexed as I felt. "I don't know. He's in his office now…we're going to have a meeting in a couple of minutes."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yeah."

"Leo, the Press conference is in a couple of hours." Her voice rose with each word, and she sounded more worried than ever.

"I know."

There was a long pause before she evidently decided to change the subject. "Mr Babish told us this morning."

I'd been wondering all week when he'd get around to doing that - nothing like leaving it to the last minute, but that's Oliver. "How did that go?" And then I really did wish that I were there with her, so that I could see her face when she answered this question. She's good at keeping most of her emotions out of her voice when she has to, but she can't keep them out of her eyes, not when she's talking to me at any rate. I've been worried about how her co-workers will treat her when the news comes out- will they continue to be her friends, to trust her? Or will the relationships that she's worked so hard to build up come crashing down around her ears?

"People were shocked…upset…" Pretty much par for the course I thought idly. "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." She didn't sound upset, more amused than anything else. I tilted my head to the side, remembering her reaction when I told her, contrasting it with those of the Senior Staff. She took it better than any of them - there's irony in there somewhere.

My train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Hold on," I told her, before calling, "Yeah?" The call wasn't necessary I realised as the door between mine and the Oval Office opened to reveal Charlie standing there. He inclined his head slightly, not saying a word. "OK. Tell him I'll be just a second." Charlie nodded and left, pulling the door behind him.

I turned my attention back to the phone, and her voice was almost a whisper when she spoke. "You've got to go?"

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

"Mr Babish will be there." But I'd known that already. "The rest of us are going to watch in his office." I nodded as she paused, and I was able to hear her considering her next question. "Will you come over when you're done?"

Her tone was beseeching, and I wanted to laugh, wanted to tell her that there was no way I'd be able to stay away. "It'll be late," I warned her.

"I don't care. It doesn't matter. Just come. Please?"

Her voice was even more pleading then, and there was no way that I could say no to her, even if I'd wanted to. "OK."

"OK." The smile was back in her voice when she hung up, and I found myself smiling too. An inclination that disappeared the moment I reached out my hand to open the door between our offices, and hasn't yet reappeared.

Because we sat and we talked and we hammered out every option.

And he made his decision.

He's not going to run.

Ever since he said the word, ever since I made it official by calling Josh to tell him to come to my office, there's been this sick feeling in my stomach, this feeling of impending doom. The weather isn't helping, the dark skies and bone-deep chill finding their way straight into my soul. All I want to do is hold her.

Two more years in the White House and then we're done. But what we can accomplish in two years, especially two years in which we're a lame duck administration? We've had precious little success as it is, and it's only going to get worse.

But I have Ainsley. And that's something.

My train of thought comes to a halt as we arrive at the State Department. We get another soaking on the way in, and I can already hear the din of reporters clamouring to ask CJ a question. He takes the podium, and I find myself standing beside Toby, looking at a TV screen. Across the room, I can see Sam and CJ and Josh standing beside each other, and know that somewhere in the room Donna and Margaret are here too. The flashbulbs are popping like crazy, and the noise like nothing I've ever heard as he looks out into the crowd, ready to pick out Lawrence Altman.

"Yes Sandy?"

Beside me, I feel Toby tense, knowing that this wasn't in the script. I can't even find it in me to be surprised any more. I haven't known what he's been thinking all day, so why should I expect him to do what we planned now.

The question is the one we expected. "Mr. President, can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?" More flashbulbs and clamour ensue, and I wait for him to give the answer that will seal all our fates, my gaze never wavering from the monitor.

"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…

But Sandy doesn't have the benefit of forty years of friendship, and nor do any of the others in the room. A hush falls as she repeats her question "Can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?"

He pauses again, obviously considering.

And that's when I know.

I know.

I suck in my breath sharply, and turn to face him, my oldest friend. He's looking into the crowd, who are hanging on his every word, and I know. This is what he was born to do. This is where he belongs. "Watch this," I tell Toby, and I lean forward slightly, my eyes not leaving the President's face as I hold my breath and wait.

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