* * *
Leo was deep in a dream where his two favorite Johns, Hoynes and Marbury, were stuck up a tree, begging for help, and he walked away grinning, knowing it would never come back to bite him. It was a damned fine dream.
Some part of his brain -- a part he would fire in the morning -- informed him a phone was ringing, and that he should pick up. He fumbled around for the receiver. "What do you want?" At the other end, there was silence. "Hello?" he said irritably.
A voice that was barely a squeak came through the receiver. "Leo?" The squeak belonged to Sam.
Shit. Leo sat up too quickly and fought off the rush of dizziness as blood left his head. He shouldn't be holding this phone.
CJ slept on the left side of the bed, he on the right. But tonight, their sexual acrobatics had carried them to opposite sides, too exhausted to switch back, and that's where Leo found himself now: CJ's side of the bed.
CJ slept on the left side of the bed, he on the right. Because the phone was on the left side. Leo had answered CJ's phone at two in the morning. He decided to play it as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on. "What do you want, Sam?"
"I need -- can I talk to CJ, please?" The shock was blatant in Sam's voice, but he would not get into it with Leo at this particular moment.
"Hang on." Leo sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out how to handle this crisis. As he saw it, he had three problems: wake CJ without incurring her wrath; tell her he had answered her phone without incurring her wrath; tell her Sam was on the line, probably in a lot of trouble, without incurring her wrath. Nope, he was pretty well screwed. He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the sleeping press secretary. "CJ?" She stirred but didn't open her eyes. "CJ, wake up. Sam's on the phone."
She reached out sleepily. "OK." She stopped. "You answered my phone? Oh my God, Leo--"
"We will argue about this later, CJ. Right now you need to take this call." He handed her the receiver and went into the bathroom, trying not to think about how much trouble he was in when she got off the phone. He stared at his reflection. What was he doing? Sneaking around like a teenager, worrying about anyone discovering his relationship with a woman he could far too easily give it all up for, if he were the kind of man to do such a thing. They were cordial, perhaps even cool, at work, then came back to someone's apartment and took out their frustrations on each other's willing bodies. Still, in the middle of the night with little else to think about, he could admit they were bound by something so strong they might never be able to break it. The better question, he supposed, was whether they would ever want to.
CJ stood outside the bathroom door. She should knock -- or barge in -- but she was unwilling to break the delicious tension of this moment. Sometimes she still couldn't get over this: Leo McGarry is in my apartment; in my bed; sometimes it was still too much to handle. Right now, he was probably standing in front of the mirror wondering what he'd gotten himself into and damned near giving himself an aneurysm working out what to do about Sam and Josh knowing about their relationship. Honestly, she couldn't care less. He was in her bathroom, and for the half a minute that preceded the world caving in on their heads, that was the only thing that mattered.
But the world crashed on down, and she went back to being the President's Press Secretary, and the man on the other side of the closed door went back to being his Chief of Staff, and two smart men who made each other act very stupid had struck again. "Leo?"
"What did he want?"
"They're in jail."
"What!" He jerked the door open and stared at her. "Both of them?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, that figures." He sighed and put a hand to his neck. "Those two are -- I mean, I really ought to -- and I was going to, but you told me not to." He stared at her counter; nothing on it belonged to him. "What did they do?"
"Drunk and disorderly conduct, I think." She scratched her shoulder.
"You think?"
"Sam was a little..."
"Drunk and disorderly?"
"Yeah."
Shaking his head, Leo came back into the bedroom and grabbed his shirt. "Come on. Let's go rescue their sorry asses."
"Together?" Her eyes widened.
"These two have it coming to them but good, and I want to be the one to give it to them. If anyone asks, we'll say we came from the office." He gave her a wry smile as he pulled on his pants. "The conservationists will be thrilled to learn that the senior staff carpools."
As they stood at the door to the apartment, CJ had an impulse that would not let go. "Hey," she called softly.
He turned. "Yeah?" She caught him up in a kiss that went deeper and lasted longer than she had planned. When he drew back, his eyes sought hers with undisguised bewilderment.
Her eyes traveled his face, memorizing every line in it. "You're a really good friend to go get them."
"Friendship nothing," he scoffed, "I'm covering our asses." But she noted gratitude in his eyes and "aw-shucks" humility at the bottom of his voice.
The Era of Sam and Josh had occasioned a slew of nicknames for the duo: Nick and Nora, Woodward and Bernstein, and once even ham and eggs, and now another struck Leo, a bit peevishly. "Tracy and Hepburn would never have been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct."
She smiled as she dragged him by the sleeve into the hallway. "No. But they would've gone to the jail in the middle of the night to bail out their nitwit friends."
"We are good to them, aren't we?"
"Way too good."
***********
Sam and Josh were in deep denial about the revelation they'd been privy to. They sat in the back seat of the car like they were looking for the first chance to make a break for it, gripping each other's hands as tightly as life jackets. Josh hadn't said a word since Leo and CJ's arrival, and Sam hadn't stopped talking.
By tacit agreement, CJ and Leo had never discussed how they would handle people -- people not known for their ability to keep secrets -- uncovering what they'd worked so hard to conceal. Their drive to the courthouse had been pleasant enough, despite lack of sleep, but the ride back was excruciating; neither said a word either to draw Josh out or break Sam's barrage of inanity. By the time they pulled up in front of Josh and Sam's apartment, everyone was ready to flee to the furthest corners of the Earth, but CJ idled the engine and turned to their captives in the back seat. "Josh, Sam," she began, but Sam waved her off as he dove to unfasten his seat belt and escape the car. CJ pushed the child safety lock; now only she could unlock the rear doors. "We need to talk about what happened tonight."
Sam held up a hand. "It's taken care of, CJ. Somehow there were no reporters--"
"That's damned good to hear," Leo interrupted, "but we're talking about the other thing."
"The other thing?" Sam asked bravely. "Forgotten already, Leo."
"Sam," Leo said quietly. Sam fell uncomfortably silent and gazed out the window. "I answered CJ's phone when you called. We showed up to get you together, in one car, at two in the morning. So what are we going to do?"
Sam, at last, had nothing to say. Josh cleared his throat and forced his eyes to meet Leo's. "CJ was the first person to figure out Sam and me. She didn't say a word to anybody, not even us." His gaze flicked to her in measureless gratitude, then he looked back at Leo. "I intend to do the same for you."
A moment hung in the car somewhere between awkward and grateful. Leo nodded. "Thank you, Josh." He briefly touched Josh's knee, the only part of his deputy he could reach. Twisting further in his seat, he faced Sam. "Sam?" He looks like he just found out about Santa Claus.
Sam stared at Leo. "You were..."
Suddenly Leo understood, and he was furious. Sam put him on the same pedestal as his father and the President. His father fell beneath the weight of 28 years of infidelity, Bartlet beneath a lie of monumental proportions, but somehow Leo had stayed aloft, despite his addictions. And this did him in in Sam's eyes? How dare he -- this was his and CJ's personal life. Leo bit back words he'd regret later, but CJ's face flushed and her hands clenched. "You have no right, Sam. No right."
Sam was too shocked and exhausted to see what explosive territory he'd wandered onto. "He was -- you both were--"
She hit the safety lock again. "Get out," she ordered through clenched teeth.
"CJ--" Josh started.
"Get him out of here, Josh."
Josh touched Sam's arm. "Come on, Sam. Let's go home." They climbed out of the car and walked toward the building without a backward glance.
CJ dropped her head against the seatback. "Christ."
Leo tapped his fingers on the armrest. "Yeah."
"So Drunk and Disorderly know about us. I mean, they'd suspected since Mal's party, but now they know for sure."
"And we know about them."
"Plenty of people know about them. The President knows. They live together, forchrissake. It's hardly sufficient to ensure their silence."
He turned his entire body toward her. "You think Josh is gonna break his word? 'Cause Josh is not the kind of guy--"
"Of course he's not, and neither is Sam." She gripped the steering wheel, let it go; gripped the steering wheel, let it go. "But didn't you feel the tension in here? They're uncomfortable around us now. They'll act funny at work, and someone will notice."
"Who? Toby? The President? CJ, these people are running a country. They aren't paying attention to our private lives."
Against all reason, CJ started to laugh. She pressed her head into the seatback and laughed uproariously. "What?" Leo asked. "What's so funny?"
"We are," she sighed, wiping away a tear and chuckling again. "This is the exact opposite of how it always works. I'm the one who says we don't have to be so cautious; no one's going to find out, and you're the one who runs around locking doors and triple-checking to make sure no one's around. Now I'm panicking and you're cool."
He nodded. "There is some irony there, yes."
"The question stands: what are we going to do about Sam and Josh?"
"What's to do, Claude?" He hated himself when he got like this; he wanted to feel, to give CJ the empathy she needed, but his pragmatism smothered his emotions. "They know. They'll tell someone or they won't; they'll act the same around us or differently. We'll deal with those things when they happen. In the meantime, it's 2:30, and we should try to get some sleep so we're ready for another grueling day doing what we do."
She sat unmoving for a minute, then nodded and turned the key in the ignition. "Yeah." She backed away from the courthouse, then slammed on the brakes and threw the car into park. "Leo?" she asked, her voice heavy with fear.
"CJ, what's wrong?"
"Are we still -- I mean, are you and I--"
Dear God, how he wanted to hold this woman and tell her everything would turn out all right, and what a lie that would be. He stroked her hair lightly. "I can't make any promises, Claude. I wish I could, but...all I can say with any certainty is that I'm not going to walk away from this because of Josh and Sam."
CJ nodded and put the car in drive. Leo pulled his hand away as she drove back toward her apartment. She wanted so much more from Leo, so many more assurances, but they would've been hollow, and the thing she appreciated more than anything from this man was his honesty. And so she would accept this, because it was all he could give her.
END