**********

CJ sat in the darkened theater, shifting incessantly in her seat. Every so often, Leo put his hand over hers, but it wasn’t nerves that had her twitching. This was their first night out in public together, and he had been sweating buckets since about four this afternoon, but CJ wasn’t worried. If they were spotted, they were spotted. She wasn’t going to let worrying about it ruin her romantic evening.

Her new dress was another matter. She fell in love with it the instant she saw it; it was shimmering and lavender and had a neckline she should’ve been ashamed to wear in public. Not buying the dress had never been an option. But somehow the saleswoman convinced her to get one size down from what she normally wore. The woman told her it would look sexier. To CJ, it looked like a dress that was a size too small. And so she sat in the dark, squirming beside Leo, whom she bought this infernal garment to impress, and who now thought she was either panicked about being seen with him or infested with some sort of tiny crawling insects.

She didn’t even particularly care for this play. Sean O’Casey’s The Shadow of a Gunman. Leo adored O’Casey, despite O’Casey having been a Protestant, but CJ found his plays bleak. She loved tragedies, but O’Casey’s landscapes were so brown and gray she could barely find herself afterwards. And this one in particular — something about the title, perhaps — reminded her too much of Rosslyn and the endless hours of Josh’s surgery. But Leo wanted to see the play, and if he was willing to go out into the world on a real date with her, she was willing to sit through an evening of grim theater in a dress that didn’t fit.

As the house lights rose at the end of the long first act, CJ and Leo drifted into the lobby. Leo went in search of something to drink, leaving CJ to idly contemplate the other patrons. She was overdressed compared to the rest of the audience, but then she hadn’t dressed for them. Leo made his way back towards her, smiling softly. She smiled back and marveled for about the millionth time in the past month at the amazing fortune that had brought this man into her orbit.

CJ peered into her glass. “What am I drinking, barkeep?”

“Sparkling white grape juice.”

“Perfect. Thank you.” CJ had barely drunk any alcohol since she got involved with Leo. She was amazed how little she missed it. She resumed her observation of the crowd, praying Leo wouldn’t ask her what she thought of the play.

She gasped and stiffened.

“CJ? What’s wrong?” He put his hand on her arm, which was shaking. “CJ!”

Her eyes riveted about halfway across the lobby, she hissed, “God, Leo, hide me!”

“What?”

“Ann Stark.”

“What?” He scanned the mob frantically, trying to spot CJ’s sparring partner, but he couldn’t find her. “Where?”

“Right there,” CJ said, pointing ahead. “By the aspidistra.”

Leo eyed her skeptically. “OK, that would be a lot more helpful if I knew what the hell an aspidistra was.”

She gestured again, a bit more frantically. “The big house-plant thing.”

“Ah. Better.” He craned his neck to look. Yup. That was Ann Stark, all right. “OK, CJ. The thing to do is not panic.”

“Who’s panicking? I’m not panicking. Are you panicking?”

“Not at all.” Leo hid the smile he was having at her expense. He looked at Ann Stark again. “Huh. You know, her dress looks a lot like yours.”

CJ looked at her adversary, then her eyes widened and she groaned. “That’s because it’s the same dress.”

Leo couldn’t hide his smile any longer. He’d pay for it, but CJ Cregg and Ann Stark in the same dress at the same theater performance was really too much. “Oh, CJ—“

“Shut up, Leo.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a one-of-a-kind, was it?” He remembered how touchy Jenny had been about those kinds of things.

“Not one-of-a-kind, no, but there were supposed to be, like, six, on the entire eastern seaboard.”

“I guess Ann Stark has one of the others.”

“I hate you. I hate you so much, I could just...you know...hate you.”

He smiled and kissed her cheek. “I can live with that. Come on. Let’s go back to our seats.” She hung back; he tugged on her hand. “I promise to shield you from the evil Ann Stark.”

“Leo, look,” she said, her voice hushed with awe.

He turned. “Now what am I loo—“ His voice dropped off. “Holy...”

“Shit,” CJ finished. There was a man at Ann Stark’s elbow, guiding her back toward the house. A balding dark-haired man in a wrinkled suit and the posture of a man always on the defensive.

“Huh,” Leo said. “I guess he didn’t misunderstand his relationship with her as badly as he thought.”

“Leo! I don’t think you fully appreciate the magnitude of this...this fuck-up of judgement. It’s Toby. On a date with Ann Stark.”

“No, I think I got that part. Thanks, though.”

“Leo!”

“CJ, he’s a grown man. He can see whomever he chooses.”

“Not the Senate Majority Leader’s Chief of Staff!”

He grinned fiendishly. “How about the President’s Chief of Staff?”

She rolled her eyes and wrapped her hands around his arm. “He’s taken. At present.”

“Was that some sort of threat, Ms Cregg?”

She batted her eyelashes. “Beat up Ann Stark for me.”

“I most certainly will not!”

“Beat up Toby?”

“CJ!”

“Then it was indeed a threat, Mr McGarry.”

Leo looked up as the house lights blinked. “We have to get back to our seats.”

“Will you beat them up after the second act?”

He stopped and looked at her until she had to return his stare. “CJ, listen to me. Toby’s love life is his business, just as our love life is our business. If you feel like you have to confront them, be my guest, but you will lose, because for once in your lives he is right and you are wrong, on top of which your making a scene in the middle of a crowded theater will pretty much blow the cover on the two of us.”

“Leo, we’re standing in the middle of a crowded theater. You don’t think the cover’s blown already?”

“Are we going back to our seats?”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

“And are you going to stop this nonsense about beating up Ann and Toby?”

“I suppose, if I must...”

He sighed, though he wasn’t upset. “You must.”

“All right. You see the things I do for you, Leo?”

As they walked into the house, he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I see the things you do for me. I just hope someday I can find a way to let you know how much they mean to me.”

CJ blinked. “See, there you go; getting me totally pissed at you, then saying something sweet like that so I can’t be mad anymore. I hate you.”

“It’s part of my charm.” He stood aside while she slid down the row to their seats. As she sat down, he touched her arm. “Oh, and, CJ?”

She paused. “Yeah?”

“That dress looks much better on you than it does on Ann Stark.”

She beamed at him. “Why, Mr McGarry, I do believe you’ve just bought your way out of the doghouse.” The house lights dimmed, and CJ kept on grinning. Who cared if Sean O’Casey’s world was gray? There was more than enough color in her own.