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It had been three weeks since their break-up. Two weeks since they started being able to be in a room together without feeling awkward, or hostile, or anything but sad. One week since they started being able to be alone in a room together at all.

Still they did not seek each other out, as they once had, before. CJ didn’t turn to Leo when no one was listening to her and the press was being a gang of total morons. Leo did not look for CJ when he needed a new perspective on his many problems of the day.

“We were friends before,” they had said. How long was it going to take to be friends again?

It took Oliver Babish and Nicki Rhyland, of all people, to make things right. In their own screwed up way.

“Mr President?” CJ stood in the doorway of the Oval Office. “You wanted to see me?”

“CJ.” The President looked up from the file he was reading and slipped off his glasses. “Come in.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You talked to Oliver Babish today.”

“Oh, yes, sir; that I did.” She was trying to put the memory from her mind.

“And then you talked to my wife.”

Her eyes widened. “Sir, how did you—”

“What’s the point of the being President if you can’t know everything that goes on around here?” CJ cringed, thinking of things that had happened right next door to this office that she would never want the President to know about. “Seriously, CJ; Abbey said you seemed pretty run-down.”

“’Run over’ might be a batter word for it, sir. Oliver Babish is...how should I put this...?”

“A bastard?”

“Well, yes.”

He nodded. “There’s bad blood there. Oliver and Abbey are enemies from way back. Leo wanted him as counsel from the beginning, but Abbey, well, she didn’t put her foot down, exactly, but...she let it known she wouldn’t be pleased. Not that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel with Solomon, but I think Oliver bears a grudge.”

“Ya think?” CJ’s shoulders slumped. “I…I’m sorry, sir. There was no call—“

“Go home, CJ.”

“I’d love to, sir. Really I would love nothing better. But I have—“

“It’ll keep. Go home,” he repeated forcefully.

She nodded. “Good night, sir.”

“Good night, CJ.”

When the President told her to go home, she didn’t do that, exactly. OK, so she didn’t do it at all. She could go home to that empty apartment and drown her sorrows in a bottle of bad Chardonnay, trying not to think about the sheer volume of things that had gone wrong this week and how much she’d been hurt by the revelation of Bartlet’s betrayal. Or she could go to Leo’s office. She should go home. Really.

She was going to Leo’s office.

First, though, there was something in her own office she needed. As she crossed the bullpen, she thought she heard feet scrabbling around her desk. Now I’ve got you! she thought triumphantly. She’d suspected they had mice for weeks, but she’d never seen one. “Come on out, you little vermin!” she hissed.

“CJ, I am so sorry.”

Definitely not a mouse.

CJ’s eyes bugged, stupefied, as Nicki Rhyland climbed out from under her desk. “Nicki?”

“Hey, CJ,” Nicki said, and the words poured from her in a rush. “I was just…Toby told me to put a draft of tomorrow’s speech on your desk – which I did, but then I heard you coming, and I didn’t want a big confrontation, so I thought I’d just…you know, hide.”

“Under my own desk?”

Nicki hung her head and shuffled her feet. “I never said it was a good plan.”

CJ couldn’t help laughing. “Same old Nick,” she murmured. Then froze. It wasn’t the same old Nick. Hell, it wasn’t the anything Nick. The anger bubbled up in her again, and she didn’t want to fight it.

Nicki sensed this and crossed to the door. “I’m gonna…I’m just going to get out of here before Toby kills me. The speech is on your desk.” CJ nodded. Nicki paused in front of her. “CJ?”

No. Let’s not do this again.

“I wanted to say what a fantastic job you do. You handle the press and” she waved around the offices, “this gang of nitwits. I mean, I’ve known Toby as long as I’ve known you, but I never realized ‘til I started working with him what a pain in the ass he can be. You treat him like he’s nothing more than a misbehaved puppy, and I am in awe of that. So I wanted…I wanted to – that’s something I thought you should know.”

The old anger was fading into something that felt suspiciously like gratitude. CJ couldn’t resist touching her old lover’s shoulder. “We’re not going to talk about...the other thing?”

Nicki tugged her left earlobe. CJ recognized that gesture; it was the one Nicki made when she was scared, like she thought getting hearing back in her bad ear would make her less vulnerable. “We’ve talked about it so many times…you gave me the courage to be who I am, but I ended up hurting you to do it. I never meant to do that, and I will never stop atoning for it any way I can. But there’s nothing to be gained by forcing ourselves to relive it.”

The press secretary squeezed the other woman’s shoulder. “Thank you, Nicki,” she whispered.

Nicki nodded and slipped outside, her voice ringing across the bullpen as she started another round with Toby. CJ raced as quickly as she could to Leo’s office. “Leo?”

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. She still did that to him. “I hear you had a bad day.”

“That man...and then Nicki…I don’t know how — you chose Babish.”

“He’s a good lawyer.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“He’s a good lawyer, CJ.”

“So are you. So is Sam. You didn’t have to hire Attila the Hun as chief White House counsel!”

He stared at her. “CJ. How are you?”

All the energy that had been holding her up left her. Her body sagged. “I’m running on fumes, Leo. Babish took me apart, and then Nicki – I may end up not hating her by the time this is over. Hell, I may end up liking her by the election. And that is something I do not want.”

“She’s good for the campaign, CJ.”

“She was something stable in my life, Leo. The President was an honest man; you and I were together; I hated Nicki. If she turns out to be okay, what do I have left?” Her body trembled in long waves.

He stepped forward. “Hey.” Her shoulders were slumped so far forward she was suddenly not that much taller than he was. It didn’t take much stretching on his part or leaning on hers to touch their foreheads together, as they had always done. “CJ,” he began.

She shook her head. “Leo, please. Can we just...shit, I don’t know.”

“CJ,” he said softly, “You’re not going to like this at all, but...you have to get over it. Oliver, the cover-up, Nicki — I know you feel betrayed, but we have this job to do. We don’t have time for anything superfluous.”

She stiffed and drew herself back to full height, pulling away from him. “I see,” she said, taking another step backward and folding her hands primly, protectively, across her abdomen.

“CJ, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean — I didn’t mean us.”

She shook her head, shaking away tears. “It can’t be everything but us, Leo. I think we learned that the hard way last time.”

“Last time it was everything and us,” he said sadly.

They stared at each other. CJ felt strangely touched by this admission on Leo’s part. Finally, she sighed, smoothed her hair, and turned from him. “I’m going home.”

“Is everything—”

“Not even close. But the President yelled at me, so...I guess I should go.”

“CJ?” She paused, turned. “I’m sorry I can’t...I’m sorry I can’t be the comfort you want.”

She stared at him. “Leo, how can you say that? You are exactly the comfort I need. Not always the comfort I want, but I could go to Donna or Josh for that. I come to you because you’ll always tell me the truth.”

A ghost of a smile played across his face. “That I will, Claudia Jean. That I will.”

She left his office feeling like she might live. Just a little. But, God, she missed him. Missed holding him, kissing those smirking lips, and hiding from his damned morning cheer. She missed being able to go to him to cry, or complain, or sit in dead, exhausted silence without worrying that he would think less of her for it. Most of all, she missed the way that, when he said it, her name sounded like redemption.

Leo stayed in his office far into the night, staring at a spot on the ceiling, trying to remember what he’d wanted from his life. He was pretty sure this wasn’t it, but it was all he knew anymore. Except CJ. For an all-too-brief moment, that had been something he knew, as well, and now, hard as he tried, he couldn’t unlearn it. He shook his head, thinking of the way things had ended between them. Maybe he hadn’t really learned it at all.