Rating/Pairing: PG, Leo/Ainsley
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine.
Spoilers: Post ep to "The Leadership Breakfast"; also refers to "The White House Pro Am"
Summary: Leo and Ainsley talk about the events of the day.
Archive:On my site, The Band Gazebo Anywhere else, ask first
Feedback: Yes please!
Author's Notes: Fourth in the Stolen Moments series; after Reports, Statistics and Divine Intervention and Of Divorces and Desserts and Cookies and Children's Choirs

I head back to my office, leaving Toby to make his own way out of the Oval Office. I'm sure that he's going to be unbearable to work with over the next few days, and think sympathetically of Bonnie, Ginger, Sam and anyone else who has to work around that bullpen. Ann Stark just burned him good, and he's going to want to get the ground back any way he can.

Mental note to self - batten down the hatches because it's going to get bumpy.

Then I realise that this is the White House, and things are always bumpy here. We just can't seem to catch a break - I remember once the President asked me when the last time we were lucky here. The only time that presented itself was Super Tuesday. Which pretty much says it all about the last couple of years.

I told Margaret to go home before I went to the Oval Office, and I'm tempted to head off myself. But there's at least a dozen reports on my desk that need to be signed off, and if I leave them until tomorrow, there'll be a dozen more on top of those. I move around my desk and realise before I sit down that if I'm going to get through this, I'm going to need some coffee. Out of habit, I open my mouth to call Margaret, then I remember that she's gone, so I head down to the mess myself.

The halls are deserted at this time of night, and I'm sure that the rest of the Senior Staff have probably joined Toby in getting good and drunk after today's disaster. I expect to see the mess deserted as well, but one table in the corner is occupied.

With her laptop in front of her, Ainsley Hayes is working there.

I shouldn't be surprised; after all, we were bound to run into one another sooner or later. But the fact of the matter is, I haven't seen her since Christmas Eve, when I went to church with her. When we went to church together. When she was listening to the music with this look on her face, this look on her face that said she had never heard anything so beautiful. Not to sound like a Hallmark card or anything, but she looked transfigured. She's a good-looking woman, but that night, that night there was something extra. She was so caught up in the music that she didn't see me looking at her, which I guess is a good thing. So I made myself look away, look at the children's artwork above and around the altar. And I don't know what got into me, don't know why I did it, don't even remember doing it, but I reached over and covered her hand with mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her looking at me, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the look on her face meant.

I sure started looking when she moved my hand, thinking that I'd overstepped my bounds somehow, that she was going to haul off and hit me, church be damned. But instead of doing that, she slipped her fingers through mine, lacing them together, and we stayed like that until the music ended.

Our hands stayed joined as I walked her home, and occasionally she reached over with her other hand and gripped my arm when we hit a slippery patch. When we got to her steps, I didn't know what to say or what to do. I made some kind of banal small talk, then she asked me up for coffee.

And we were standing there and we were still hand in hand, and coffee was the last thing on my mind.

All of a sudden, the only thing I could think of was how right this all felt, compared to how wrong it actually was. I was feeling things that I haven't felt in so long, and there was no way that it could ever end good. So I told her that I had to get going, and felt like a heel when her face fell. I couldn't stop myself from telling her that we'd do that another time, and she smiled and agreed.

Then I kissed her on the cheek.

Come on, it was Christmas. It didn't mean anything.

I've told myself that so many times you'd think that I'd believe it by now.

I was ready to open my car door when I heard her call me, and the memory is so clear in my mind that it takes me a couple of seconds to process that the memory isn't in my head, that Ainsley has seen me looking at her and has spoken to me.

"Hey Ainsley." I go over to the coffeepot, hoping that my staring at her wasn't too obvious, although I have the worst feeling that it was. "Steam pipes noisy again?"

She nods. "It's a hundred and four degrees in my office," she tells me. "And it sounds like Metallica and Led Zeppelin are holding a drum-off in the pipes."

I walk over towards her. "Have you requested a move? I'm sure we could find something…" But she's already shaking her head.

"I've been told that that's the only office available. Unless I want to set up shop using a bench in the Sculpture Garden. An idea not without merit when it's so hot down there." She smiles up at me. "I just keep reminding myself that I'm working in the White House. That usually does the trick."

"Don't you mind being so isolated?" I've never understood how she copes with that. Ainsley Hayes is so outgoing and vivacious that I would have thought the lack of human contact would kill her.

"Not at all," she tells me quickly. "Especially on days like today." The coda is so quiet that I could barely hear it, but it was there.

"Things have been bad?" If Toby was still here, he'd be off on a rant about redundant questions. We got screwed over by Republicans today, and here she is, the only Republican working in a Democratic White House. Of course things were bad today.

She grins wryly. "Let's just say I've been keeping my head down." She takes a sip of her coffee. "Ann Stark was up to her old tricks huh?"

This is a surprise to me. "You know Ann?"

A roll of the eyes answers that question. "Everyone knows Ann. Or knows of her."

"I take it you're not enamoured of her."

I never knew that genteel Southern ladies snorted, but there's no other word for the sound that comes from Ainsley then. "Do you remember when I got Sam to take me up to the Hill for those meetings? When I told him that I wanted to learn from the master?"

I do remember that. I remember Sam all puffed up like a peacock over that compliment, and telling him to get out of my office, yet smiling when over the whole affair when no-one could see me. I remember sitting in her office and her covering her scarlet face in her hands when I told her I knew about it. "Yeah," I say, wondering where she's going with this.

"When I found out you knew about it, I was mortified. Because I didn't want you to think that I was one of those women."

"Who uses your body to get what you want." I nod, and she does too, with a grim expression on her face.

"Ann Stark is one of those women." She leans back in her chair a little, a questioning look on her face. "I'm presuming, of course, that it wasn't CJ she hoodwinked."

"Toby," I confirm and she nods again.

"Ann Stark is the kind of woman who gives all of us a bad name."

"We're pretty sure her boss is going to run for president." I sigh, the words out before I can stop them. "She's got her eye on my office."

Another snort from Ainsley. "Now there's a surprise."

"We should've known better." I'm barely aware that there's someone sitting across from me at this point, lost in the events of the day.

"CJ did well at the briefing."

There's a worried tone in Ainsley's voice, almost tentative, but I hardly give that a second thought before I keep going. "But still…we gave them ammunition, we gave them a platform to work from, we gave them a springboard…we've got another two years left here and they're already coming after us…" I shake my head, willing myself to get off that train of thought. Toby and I already started down that path tonight and we'll be walking further down it soon enough. No sense rushing.

It's then that I realise that Ainsley hasn't said anything in response, and I look at her, really look at her, and realise that I'm in trouble. Her face is pale, and her wide eyes are unmistakably hurt. "Them? Us?" she finally says, and I feel my heart drop somewhere around the region of my shoes.

"Ainsley…" I begin, before my words desert me. This is the second time this week that I've talked myself into trouble, and this time there's no question of deputising Josh to apologise for me. Especially not after the way that the last time went. But this isn't the result of a joke gone bad, the result of an ill-thought out remark about a woman's shoes. This time, I didn't even think when I spoke, and I unwittingly hit on the very topic that would hurt her most. She's had to put up with talk like that ever since she began to work here, and I know that even though she's been here a couple of months, it still goes on. People don't trust her just because of her beliefs, and today's events aren't going to have helped matters.

I mentally kick myself for being such an idiot.

"Has it slipped your mind Leo," she begins, hurt and anger in equal measure in her voice. "That I am one of them? That I believe in the same things that they believe in? That I've worked with a lot of the people in the Majority Whip's office and that several of them are my friends?" She breaks off shaking her head, and I seize the opportunity to jump in.

"Ainsley, I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't." Her voice is quiet, but I can tell that she's hurt. That I've hurt her. "I put up with crap like that all the time Leo. I thought you were different." She must see a speck of something on the table, because she looks down and rubs the same spot with her finger.

Sighing I lean closer to her across the table, resting my arms on top of it. "Ainsley, I'm sorry." The words, which were impossible to say to Karen Cahill, roll of my tongue here. "That was thoughtless of me." I pause, considering what to say next, and she doesn't seem inclined to help me out. "I've spent the last week going back and forth over this breakfast, the guidelines, what we'll talk about, what we won't, what changes will be made and which ones won't…it's supposed to be a bipartisan effort to bring us closer together, and in the planning all it seemed to do was remind me how far apart the two parties are." She finally looks at me sometime in the middle of that, and her eyebrow arches, and I realise that it didn't exactly help my cause any. "What I suppose I'm trying to tell you is that earlier this week, I could cheerfully have strangled the next Republican I spoke to." She looks heavenward, and I have the distinct feeling that she's trying not to cry, as if my opinion really matters to her. "But I don't think of you as a Republican. Is what I'm trying to say."

I'm not sure how she's going to react to that, not sure if my point got across, but the harsh laugh that comes from her lips doesn't sound good. "So what exactly am I then?" she asks, with more bitterness than I've ever heard coming from her.

I shrug, not sure what to say, and then it hits me. It's so simple I don't understand why I didn't see it sooner. "You're just Ainsley." I shrug. "My friend, Ainsley."

She stares at me, and if she was trying to keep her tears back, she doesn't try hard enough because one makes its way down her cheek. I resist the urge to wipe it away with some difficulty.

She sits for what seems like an eternity, not moving, just staring at me before finally nodding, and I take that as a measure of forgiveness. "OK," she finally whispers.

"Yeah?" I'm slightly doubtful, yet hopeful too.

"Yeah." Shaking herself, she shuts off her computer. "It's pretty late. I should get going."

I look around me, remembering the pile of reports on my desk, feeling less like reading them now than I did before I came down here. "You want to go get a coffee?" It's an offer that I've made several times since the first time we went to that little café, but this time she shakes her head. It's the first time she's ever done that, and I can only hope that I haven't set our friendship back months.

"I think I'll just head home. But thank you."

I nod, lifting up my half-empty coffee cup, walking over to the machine, filling it up again. I'm at the door when her voice stops me.

"Leo?"

I turn. "Yeah?"

She looks as if she's going to say something, and I'm fighting off a sense of déjà vu when she shakes her head and says, "Nothing. Just…see you tomorrow."

I smile at her. "See you tomorrow."

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