Rating/Pairing: PG, Leo/Ainsley
Disclaimer: The West Wing is not mine, nor ever will be mine.
Spoilers: Post ep to "The Fall's Gonna Kill You"
Summary: Ainsley goes to Leo's apartment.
Archive:On my site, The Band Gazebo Anywhere else, ask first
Feedback: Yes please!
Author's Notes: Thirteenth 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 andThe Other Shoe.

I'm almost sure that if my grandmother could see me now - driving through the streets of Washington in the wee small hours of the morning - she'd give me a nice long lecture about safety first, and how the world's not a safe place for a girl my age at this time of night. And if she knew why I was driving this late at night, that I was going to a man's apartment after he'd called me to tell me that he was on his way home, she'd deliver that lecture right before collapsing on the floor from a massive stroke. And if she knew that that man was, in the strictest sense of the word, my boss, and that he was old enough to be my father, and a Democrat to boot, well, you'd think the world was coming to an end.

It's surely strange that my grandmother has been dead for ten years and more, and yet I still judge my actions on what she would think.

And right now, I’m sending an apology to Gramma and I hope she understands, because disapproval, strokes or Armageddon, there is nothing in this world that would stop me from going to Leo's tonight.

Not that this is the first night that I've made this drive. In the past week, I've become an expert at it, and could probably drive it in my sleep. It's become something of a habit with us, that I'll usually be out of the office first, and Leo later. And the last thing he does before he leaves is call me, so that we can figure out if he'll come by my place, or I'll go to his. And since he doesn't want his driver dropping him off at my place - he's pretty sure he can trust the guy, but in the climate we're in at the moment, why take chances?- it's me that goes to him.

The pattern once I get there is pretty routine - we chat about what's happened during the day. He tells me about how hard it is telling the Senior Staff, I tell him about how hard it is pretending not to know what's going on, how hard it is to walk around knowing that the sky is going to fall in on top of us any day now. And then we talk about other stuff, that has nothing to do with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He tells me stories about himself, I recount tales of my life. And then we stop talking.

But not like that.

Although most people, should they find out about us, would surely disbelieve me, Leo has been a perfect gentleman. We've kissed plenty, but gone no further than that, although not for the want of desire on either of our parts. But he wants us to wait, until we're sure if it's what we both want (which I personally am, and I'm pretty sure he is too) and also until we get rid of this weight hanging over us from the President's illness.

I'm gearing myself up for a long wait.

But that's ok, because I know he's worth it.

My thoughts end as I pull up near Leo's apartment, lucking out in that I find a parking space near to the door. I look around me as I walk up the steps, half expecting a photographer to jump out at me any moment. How would that look in the papers tomorrow morning I wonder to myself, before realising yet again that before too long, any discovery of a relationship between Leo and myself will barely make a ripple on the front pages.

When he opens the door, he looks more tired than I think I've ever seen him, and that's really saying something. His suit jacket is gone, as is his tie, and the top couple of buttons of his shirt are undone. He looks rumpled, and not in a good way. I step by him quickly, waiting for him to close the door before I pull him into my arms, burying my head in his chest and feeling his vanish into the crook of my shoulder.

I don't know how long we stand there like that, but when he pulls away, there's a ghost of a smile about his lips, and a hint more life in his eyes. "We should get you a key," he tells me, and I reach up and lay my hand against his cheek, feeling my heart swell at his words, and at what those words imply.

"How was today?"

I feel his sigh against my hand, before he moves his head and kisses the palm, taking my hand in his then. "Pretty brutal," he admits.

Without words, we move into the living room to the couch, where he sits down and I kick off my shoes and throw my coat on the chair opposite before curling my legs up underneath me and snuggling up against him. His arm goes around me and I look up at him. With normal positions resumed, I open the conversation. "CJ spent the day in with Babish." I'm not telling him anything he doesn't already know, and anyway, CJ's reaction to the news was last night's long conversation. I saw her in the halls today as well, and she looked like Babish had dragged her through a hedge backwards, only to stop, reverse course and do it all over again. Several times in fact.

He nods, his hand finding mine and threading our fingers together. "I talked to her. Briefly. He slapped her around good."

There's not much I can say to that - it was written all over her face when I saw her. "Does everyone else know?"

"I told Sam tonight." He closes his eyes at the memory, and I don't blame him one bit. I can imagine all too well the look that would have been on Sam's face when he was told. "I felt like I was driving another nail into him…what with the drop-in in the GDC speech, then his father, now this…" He shakes his head. "Toby was waiting for him afterwards."

"Good old Toby."

"Yeah."

I look down at our joined hands, wondering if he's even aware of his thumb running over my knuckles. "What are you going to do?"

"Josh talked to Joey Lucas. She's a pollster…"

"That works out of California. I know her work…she's good."

"Yeah." He takes a deep breath. "That's what scares me." He looks down at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since we've sat down, and I can see the fear there. "They're going to be bad."

"You don't know that." But he does, and I do, and he knows that as well as I do. But I feel like I should do something, say something. My words, as ineffectual as I feared they might be, have the effect of making him smile slightly, yet sadly.

"You know better than that. But thank you for trying."

I'm sure that my own smile is just as sad as his, which once would have surprised the hell out of me, that I would feel sadness over the imminent demise of a Democratic administration. But while I might not agree with the policies that they put forth, I know these people. I work with them every day, and I consider them my friends. And Jed Bartlet is a man I've come to admire, and his Senior Staff have, miracle of miracles, become quite dear to me.

One more than others.

"I heard that the First Lady is back too." I know that I've said something wrong when he closes his eyes and tips his head back. "What?"

"Abbey didn't know about this. About telling the staff, Zoey's form, the poll - none of it. Jed didn't tell her."

My eyes get very wide. "When did she find out?"

"It might have been earlier today." I wait during the next pause, knowing that there's more to come. "When I was talking to her on the phone and let it slip."

"Oh Leo…" I'm half-amused and half-horrified and I bury my head in his shoulder while I bring myself under control, listening to him justify himself.

"I didn't know that Jed hadn't told her about the application form. And when I realised that, I didn't tell her anything else, but Abbey's pretty sharp. She knew that something was up and she came straight back here."

"Where fireworks ensued."

"Where fireworks ensued." Leo grins briefly as if a thought has occurred to him. "She and Babish go back a ways…under any other circumstances, I'd've loved to be a fly on the wall for that one."

"But not today."

"No. Not today." He sighs again, a deep sigh from the depths of his soul before the arm that's around my shoulders squeezes momentarily. "And how was your day?"

Now it's my turn to shake my head and sigh, because to tell the truth, my day was pretty ordinary. "Nothing much happened," I tell him. "I read briefs, summarised them, talked to a few people. It was like any other day."

"That used to be good didn't it?"

I recognise the sarcasm in his words, and can't help but agree with him. Time was, having an uninterrupted day in my office where I could do my paperwork without anyone bothering me, where the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue stayed at a temperate climate and where I didn't have to fend off slurs about being the Republican in the basement used to be a good day for me. "It was surreal," I tell Leo now. "Everyone is walking around, going about their day to day business, and I'm wondering how they can't see that the sky's about to fall on them."

I'm not sure if I'm looking for reassurance, but there's none to be found. "The sky's already fallen. They just don't know it yet."

My head drops back on to his shoulder again and I close my eyes, concentrating on the feeling of his hand tracing idle patterns on my shoulder and back. "We're going to be ok you know," I manage to murmur.

"Are we?"

I don't know if he's talking about the White House in general, or about us in particular, but I know which one I mean. "Yes," I tell him, my hand reaching up to cup his cheek, as it had when I first came through the front door tonight. "We are."

I know he understands my meaning when his lips curve into a smile, as he bends his head to mine, and I meet him halfway. It's a chaste kiss at first, as it always is, but it doesn't stay like that, as it never does. And when he finally pulls away first, as he always does, we're both breathing heavily, as we always are.

He smiles at me for a second, before he moves to stand, and I frown, kneeling up on the couch to see what he's doing. "I've got something for you," he tells me.

This is interesting. This is new. I've hardly ever seen Leo enter his kitchen before. "Do you even have a kitchen in there?" I ask him. I know there's a coffeepot, but the rest is up for grabs.

"Funny," he shouts back into me, and I can hear doors and drawers open and close. When he comes back, he's carrying two plates and two forks, with a small box balanced on the plates. "I don’t have your decaf mocha latte," he tells me, putting his load down on the coffee table. "But I do have this."

He lets me open the box, and I can't help but gasp in surprise when I do. I'd recognise what's inside anywhere…one slice of cheesecake and one slice of chocolate cake, from the coffeehouse that we go to a couple of blocks away from here. We go there all the time, although not this week for obvious reasons, and they know us so well that we don't even have to order any more. The same waitress waits on us all the time, and she just comes down to take the order as a matter of courtesy I think.

I'm so surprised that he did this that I actually can't speak, but I'm thinking that my reaction is reward enough for him, because he grins, then shrugs, as if this is no big deal. "I hope it's ok," he tells me. "It's been in the freezer for a while…and I took it out this morning, left it in the fridge."

I spear a piece of chocolate cake, not even bothering with the plate, and I swear, it tastes better than I remember it, freezer or no. "It's fine," I say, understating the matter somewhat as I take up another piece and hold it out to him. "Try it."

He takes the cake from my outstretched fork, and I can't help but remember the first time we went to that coffeehouse, where I flat-out refused to share my dessert with him, but didn't think twice about helping him finish his. We've come such a long way since then.

Between the two of us, the cake doesn't last long, and in between bites, we talk about anything but the White House, anything but the disaster that's about to befall us all. And then we curl up on the couch and talk, and don't talk, some more.

That lasts until I yawn, and look down at my watch. "I should go," I tell him reluctantly.

He nods, all traces of jocularity gone from his face. "Yeah." I squeeze his hand before rising, and my coat is in my hands, my back to him, when he speaks. "Or you could stay."

I whirl around in surprise, sure that my mind is playing tricks on me. There's no way that he just said what I think he just said. Leo's been a gentleman ever since this…. whatever this is…began.

He holds up a hand, evidently realising how that must have sounded, and the thoughts going through my mind. "Look, it's late. You're tired…you shouldn't be driving. And we both have to be up again in-" He checks his watch. "-Three hours anyway. Stay with me. Just to sleep." The last is added hurriedly, as if he's afraid that I've got the wrong idea.

I can feel a big goofy grin coming on to my face, and there's this big lump in my throat that means it's quite hard to speak. But I don't have to think twice about my answer. And even if I'd got the wrong idea from what he said, I still wouldn't have thought twice. I mentally address my grandmother, sending her the latest in a long line of apologies for what her granddaughter's about to do. "Do you have a T-shirt or something that I can wear?"

He doesn't speak, just holds out his hand in response and we go into the bedroom together. He leaves me sitting there as he goes into the spare room, coming back with a lady's nightshirt, freshly pressed and laundered. I raise an eyebrow as he hands it to me, and he only needs one word to explain himself. "Mallory."

"Ah."

I go into the bathroom to change, and when I come back out, he's already in bed. I slide in beside him, trying not to blush as I cross the room, and failing utterly. He takes me in his arms, just as he did when we were on the couch, and his hands brush my hair back away from my face and smooth it down my back. I feel him kiss the top of my head, and I smile to myself as I settle down to sleep. And I realise that I don't care if the sky falls in on top of us, or if it already has.

Because I'm right where I want to be.

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