FF: Into the City Lights
Title: Into the City Lights
Author: little zigzags
Rating: R
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Diverges from canon after ‘2162 Votes.’
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties
Summary: It’s times like these that she’s almost sure she loves him, strongly and fiercely, and she wonders how they did it, how 8 years of banter and lingering glances and endless, lonely nights were enough. Sure, he’s obnoxious and messy and loud, but here, in his kitchen at dawn, she’s almost sure that the last thing she wants to do is get on a plane and be apart from him.
Sequel to Powerlines in Our Bloodlines.
A/N: I’ve never written nor had any desire to write a sequel, and this one was plagued by bouts of writers block throughout. I figured I should finish this one so I could go start my prompts for sorkin_fest (Go! Claim! Write fic!) Please do let me know if it is any good or complete and utter crap.
For laurenba, who poked and prodded.
The world is in this room
The world is in this room
-ZOX
She awakens seamlessly at 5 AM, her internal clock set forever to White House time, and is not surprised to find him lying on his back beside her, staring softly into space in the blueish morning light.
“Morning,” she says, turning on her side to face him, cold even under his comforter and shyly resisting the urge to tuck her icy feet under his legs.
“Hi.” He gives her that smile, the thin smile and concerned eyes. Her stomach plummets. Oh God, she thinks, I’ve made a mistake, this is all a huge, terrible, ridiculous mistake. She’s plotting ways to get back at CJ when he coughs self-consciously and scratches his chest, and in that moment she realizes that no, he’s just nervous. He’s nervous and she’s nervous and fuck it, she thinks, they can revel in their nervousness together.
She sidles closer to him so that their shoulders are touching and she can feel his warmth, solid and real in the dawn light. “So, the world didn’t end,” she says, smiling at his little intake of breath as she brazenly presses her lips to his jawline.
“I don’t know,” he says roughly. “Something must have blown up. Or stopped rotating on its axis, at least.”
She blushes as scenes from the night before flash through her head; how their careful kisses in his kitchen had turned into something more fiery, his hips pinning her to the counter, teeth branding her neck as her hand lingered on the button fly of his jeans. He would have made love to her right there in his kitchen if she hadn’t mockingly teased him about the unsanitary conditions.
“I thought we would never do this,” he had told her, his voice soft and incredulous, pulling her into an embrace as she stood naked in front of him in his darkened bedroom. Her arms tightened around his neck as he spoke softly into her ear. “I never thought you would come.”
“CJ made me,” she had told him, and he laughed. “Said we were dysfunctional. Danny, too.”
“Danny? He took what, seven years to woo his woman?”
“His woman? Oh, I’m totally telling her you said that.”
“Tattletale.”
She smiles now, wishing for that easiness now as she lies awash with uncertainty beside him.
“Do you have coffee?” He nods and she rises, thankful to find his soft T-shirt close beside the bed, pulling it discretely over her head.
He ambles in just as she has sent his coffee-maker rumbling to life, clad in boxers and a shirt, and she feels a deep pang of tenderness at his boyish, mussed hair. It’s times like these that she’s almost sure she loves him, strongly and fiercely, and she wonders how they did it, how 8 years of banter and lingering glances and endless, lonely nights were enough. Sure, he’s obnoxious and messy and loud, but here, in his kitchen at dawn, she’s almost sure that the last thing she wants to do is get on a plane and be apart from him.
“When does your plane leave?” He says slowly, standing lonesomely in the middle of his kitchen. She’s feeling the familiar need to kiss the worried look off his face, and she busies herself with pouring the coffee, tumbling his sugars in as he rattles in the fridge for some cream.
“Ten.” He sidles up next to her with a carton of half and half. He jiggles it idiotically, nudging her shoulder with his. “Sorry, no non-fat latte.”
She smiles, shrugging.
He’s silent for a beat before speaking. “I think you burned enough calories last night, though.” She turns, mouth open, to stare at his wide grin, suddenly his cocky self. She’s about to smack him, give him some sort of sharp retort when he leans down and presses his mouth to hers, startling her with his incongruity. She reaches up and strokes his cheek briefly before he pulls away, his hand possessively on her hip. They stand closely for a minute before he reaches for his cup. “Want me to call you a cab back to your hotel?
“In a little bit.” She sips her coffee, relishing the cream and the sight of him peering apprehensively at her over his coffee mug.
“I’m-” He stops, runs his hands through his hair. She’s surprised how quickly his veil of self-assurance has dropped, how unsure he seems. How his hands had shaken a little as he cradled her face, how everything had been a question. (“Can I-” “Yes. Oh God, Josh, please.”) She reaches out now to clasp the fine bone of his elbow, running her thumb over his skin. He looks down at her hand with a small smile. “I’m, um, coming to DC in two weeks.” He looks back at her, his eyes serious and careful. “For a conference.” He coughs. “Can I call you?”
“Yea, Josh, you can call me.” They stand like that, close for a minute. She’s so unsure with him, too; she wishes she could have all week to just watch his face, learn him again. Trust them to be as difficult as possible, she thinks. To spend eight years and hundreds of thousands of hours together locked in his office or in a hotel or in the copy room, and not get it together. He’s in Boston and she’s in DC, and she’s finally put herself on the line but somehow nothing has been simplified.
“I should, you know, get my stuff together. Find my pantyhose.” She grins at him, and he blushes a little, adorably. She’s turning to go back upstairs when he places a hand on her arm, pulls her to him. Her heart thunders in her chest and she’s sure he can feel it, all the way through their shirts.
“I’m glad you came,” he says, and kisses her sweetly. It’s okay, she thinks, as she slides her arms around his sides. It’s okay that they don’t talk about anything, because they’re them and they don’t talk about much. Well, actually, they talk about a lot, she talks and he talks, together they chat and they banter and God knows they yell, but the reality is that they don’t talk about this, about them, and it’s okay for now.
Later he scuffs the marble of his front step, still disheveled in his boxers and shirt, hugging his body against the cold. She hesitates, he hesitates; they stand there with the cab spitting exhaust and the meter running before she’s hugging him fiercely, rubbing his goosebumped arms. “See you in two weeks,” she whispers, the space between them already a thick feeling in her throat. She smiles. “You can, uh, stay with me, if you like.” With that, she kisses his cheek warmly, and strides down the steps to her cab, leaving him standing in abject shock, his mouth an open O in the cold morning as he watches her cab disappear down the street.
*
It’s a week later and in Josh’s mind is milling; his thoughts are a little bit memory and a little bit possibility and sometimes when he thinks about what happened he can barely breathe. The vision of her pale, pale skin in the blue light of his bedroom juxtaposes itself with almost a decade of fantasies he’d tried not to have.
That’s the thing, with Donna. He thought for years that sleeping with her would be it: the culmination of their strange, sort of fucked up relationship; the end of his career in politics; the release from the muddled feelings of affection, annoyance, pride, and overwhelming, encompassing desire that had long since settled in the pit of his stomach.
In reality, it’s none of these things. He’s just as confused as ever, and maybe that’s because he’s Josh Lyman and he really doesn’t have a clue about women, but maybe, he thinks, maybe people should just give him some credit because him and Donna, well, that’s the most labyrinthine relationship he’s ever heard of. Hell, he’s pretty sure it’s the most labyrinthine relationship most people have heard of.
He can’t say he’s surprised when he nearly bowls CJ over while striding out of his office for some printer paper. Well, not like he’d actually bowl CJ over; she actually steadies him with two hands on his shoulders.
“CJ! What-” He steps backwards, almost losing his balance before she grabs his arm again.
“Hey there, mon cheri. You okay there, or am I going to have to get you, you know, a walker?” He’s still adjusting to the fact that she’s here, CJ’s here in the hallway of the Political Science building, taller than usual in her four inch Lanvin pumps.
He coughs. “I’m good.”
“Cause you know, Josh, you’re never too young for a broken hip.”
“I’m okay.” He narrows his eyes at her. “CJ, what are you doing here?”
“Wonderful welcome for your former friend there, Joshua.” The corner of her mouth turns up. “I see you haven’t lost any of your finely honed personal skills.”
He grins sheepishly at her. “Sorry.” He pulls her into a hug. “It’s great to see you.” The minute the words are out of his mouth, he knows they’re true. He misses her, sometimes more than anyone else. They’ve all taken too much for granted, he thinks. She may be a ball-buster, she may have gotten his job and never cut any of them any slack, but she’s also CJ; beautiful, whip-smart, fiercely loyal, and some days the only reason why he didn’t lay one on Donna in the middle of the bullpen and ruin both his career and the credibility of the entire administration.
They pull back, and he gestures towards his open office door. “Well, now that we’ve experienced that life-changing exhibition of coordination, do you want to come sit? And really, what exactly are you doing, here?”
She follows him into his office, sits down in his guest chair and places her immaculate designer-clad feet on his desk. He feels a pang of nostalgia.
“I’m here to talk to one of the leading experts on global warming, who’s apparently housed in this very institution.”
He sits down across from her, slumping back in his desk chair. “You gonna fix global warming?” He says, dimples flashing cheekily.
She grins her catlike grin. “Ten billion dollars, baby.”
“Which no doubt will be able to reverse hundreds of years worth of greenhouse gas and ozone depletion.”
She frowns at him. “What are you, now, a republican? Donna was right, you are Deputy Downer.”
He coughs a bit, tries to sound nonchalant. “You’ve talked to Donna?”
“Not since she came out to LA last month.” CJ pauses, her eyes starting to glitter with suspicion. “Why, have you?”
He scratches his hair. “She, uh-” he coughs again, curses himself. “She came to visit. Well, I don’t know if that’s why she came, but she did visit me. At school. Well, at my house, too. But, you know, mostly at school, because that’s where she knew I was, but she also must have known where I lived, which is sort of weird, but I guess not really because Donna has that weird stealth stalker thi-”
“Aha!” CJ points at him, smiling her big toothy grin, eyes alight. “You guys, you, you know-”
He presses his palm into his eyes. “No, I don’t know, CJ.”
“You do!”
“I really don’t.”
“Oh come on, Josh.” She leans back in her chair, triumphant already. “You, Donna, things you probably would have done in your office had she not been smarter than that and had you not been scared shitless of me. I already know what happened, stop hedging.”
He springs upright in his chair. “She told you!”
CJ grins. “No, you just did. Now come on, don’t spare me any details. Okay, well, maybe spare me some details, scratch that, maybe all of them, ‘cause there are some things a girl could live without knowing-”
“CJ.” He looks pointedly at her.
“Yea.” She stretches in her chair, and they sit in silence for a few moments. “Josh?”
He sighs, his head back in his hands. “Yea?”
“Are you going to see her again?” This, here is the CJ he loves, because she can be joking and laughing but really, deep down, she loves him, loves him like crazy.
He looks at her, the line of his mouth solemn and serious. “I’m going down to DC next week.”
CJ starts, because he looks like he did that day when he went to pick her up from her plane from Germany, his eyes large and telling. She nods. “Okay.” Putting her feet down, she reaches forward to cover his hand with hers. “Josh?”
“Yea?”
She half-smiles at him, tilts her head. “Don’t fuck it up.”
*
She’s never done this, never waited in the arrivals terminal for him with nothing but her purse and a smile. Sure, she’s picked him up at the airport dozens of times, but its always with three file folders, a fresh dose of caffeine, and a ten page call sheet for him to start in on as she drives them straight back to the office.
Now she’s here, and he doesn’t know she’s coming, and her hands are empty.
There’s no briefing book for this one.
Her stomach lurches a little as the plane begins to disembark. He’s there, one of the first off, because Josh may ride in the cheap seats in the tail like a punk at the back of the bus but God knows he’s always the first one off. He’s got his backpack slung over his shoulders, his light trench coat already on as he jaunts purposefully toward the exit sign.
He sees her just as he’s about to turn the corner, his eyebrows raising as he changes course.
“Hi,” he says warmly.
“Hey.”
“You picked me up.”
“I did.”
“At the airport.”
“Yes.” He’s starting to smile his obnoxious victory smile, the one where he’s absolutely sure he knows something, and she’s struck by the notion that she can kiss him, she can kiss him hello, him with his narrow hips and frazzled plane hair. She can kiss his sexy grin right off his face but she won’t, because they’re them and they’ve spent almost a decade barely touching each other in airports and restaurants and CJ’s office.
“Well, in my mind, that’s about up there with the bringing of the coffee.”
“There are any number of things going on in your mind that could use with some tempering.”
“You can temper me any time you like.”
She sighs mockingly. “I’m leaving you here.”
He shrugs cockily. “Well, we’re not exactly in the middle of the Serengeti, Donna. There are about sixty cabs out there.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m leaving you here and I’m not telling you where my new apartment is.”
He opens his mouth to speak; closed it again; leans in like he was telling her his inner secrets. “Gee, Donna,” he says, his mouth close to her ear, voice gravelly and private in the middle of the crowded terminal. She curses herself as she flushes, her eyes fluttering closed. “Why cut off your nose to spite your face?” He pulls back, grinning saucily, and saunters off.
She rolls her eyes and follows him.
This really isn’t so different.
*
He fiddles in the passenger seat while she drives, the edge of his anxiety palpable as they drive to Georgetown. She understands it; for once they aren’t driving anywhere. For once there’s no schedule. They’re driving towards nothing and everything and as usual, Josh can’t sit still.
“Are you going to LA next month?” She queries, hoping to soothe his nerves and the deep feeling of uncertainty brewing in her stomach.
“For Sam’s wedding?”
“Yea.”
“Yep. Couldn’t exactly turn down best man duties.”
“Probably not.”
“Have you met her?” Donna turns slightly to look at Josh’s face. His relationship with Sam has always been a little intangible, even to her. They’re friends but there’s also something else, something deeply loyal.
“Jennifer? Yea. She’s nice. The two of them, they look like the should be on the cover of, I don’t know, one of those things you read.”
“And that would be what, exactly? The Wall Street Journal? The Post? The Times?”
“Point taken.” He looks at her carefully. “Are you going?”
“Of course. It’ll be good to see everyone again.” What she doesn’t say is that it will be nice to see him again. Sure, he’s here and she’s got him for the weekend, but she misses him, misses seeing him eighteen hours a day, misses sharing beers and french fries and all of the victories.
“Yea, it will.” He grins suddenly, excitedly, his face lighting up like a little boy’s. “I wonder if we can get CJ drunk enough to do the Jackal.”
*
He’s close enough that she can feel his warmth behind her as she unlocks the door to her apartment. She’s suddenly filled with need; not only for him but for his approval. It’s sort of fucked up, she thinks, that she still cares what he thinks of her life. But he’s Josh, and beyond everything he’s the one that hired her off the street when she had nothing in the world. She’s got a great job, and decent apartment, a nice life, but she still cares what he thinks of her after all these years.
He ambles in the door behind her, his small bag and backpack dropping with a clunk next to the door. Looking around at the kitchen, the small living room, the homey things that are hers, he smiles to himself. What she doesn’t realize is that the whole apartment smells like her, and that’s enough for him, enough to make him want to hole up and stay for a week, a month, hell, he’d stay with her for years if she would only ask him.
“No cats,” he says, his eyes mirthful.
“Not a one.” She looks at him, strange and incongruous in her new apartment. It’s amazing to her that after so many years they’re still the same people. That the distance it would take to walk over and press her lips to his is not just measured in feet. There are forces acting on them, she thinks, physical forces, the ones that tell them that its wrong, that he shouldn’t put his hands on her, that she shouldn’t think of him sometimes in the dark and the quiet of the evening.
All this, it will take some undoing, she thinks as she closes the distance, curls her hands into the collar of his shirt. His face has grown soft, disbelieving.
“I’m glad you came, Josh.” She says this and kisses him in one motion, before she has the chance to get cold feet, before his odd remnant notions of office propriety cut him off.
His arms tighten around her. She doesn’t want him to leave.
*
“I got a call today.” She twists the phone cord around her pinky, spinning slightly in her revolving chair. They’ve taken to talking-not every day, but enough, on her lunchbreak or his; at home quietly before she goes to bed. She likes it, likes hearing him midday when he’s pumped for an afternoon class or gravelly and soft in the evening.
“Yea?” He takes another bite from his roast beef sandwich. “Anyone interesting?”
“Yes. And don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He swallows. “I wasn’t.”
“Uh huh. You sound like CJ after massive dental work. And you should really be eating a salad.”
“So who-wait, you can tell what I’m eating over the phone?”
“Yes.”
“How in the hell-”
“Former assistant’s ways, Josh. We have mind meld with our boss’ eating habits. Put down the sandwich.”
He grumbles slightly, pushing the paper plate to the side of his desk. “So who called you?”
“Cliff Calley.”
“What is Cliff Calley doing calling you?”
“He wanted to congratulate me on the job.”
“How… bipartisan of him.”
She puts her elbows on her desk, bracing herself. “And to ask me out.”
She winces as she hears a clattering, and the loud chunk of the phone hitting what she can only assume is Josh’s desk. “Josh? Are you okay? Did you brain yourself?”
With a few more muffled sounds he’s back on the phone, sounding slightly out of breath. “A date? What the hell is that obnoxious, miniscule, haughty, M&M seeking dwarf doing asking you out?”
“You know, your voice got really-”
“High, I know. Seriously, Donna what gives?”
She breathes out. “I don’t know, Josh, I just-I wanted to see what you thought.” She covers her eyes with her free hand. “I want to know if you don’t want me to see him.”
“Of course I don’t want you to see him!” he sputters.
“I know you don’t. But, I guess I just wanted to know if you don’t want me to see him or-” she pauses, searching for the right phrasing. “Or if you don't want me to see him.” She knows she sounds ridiculous, but her words seem choked in her throat, and daft as ever, she can only hope that Josh will glean her meaning.
She waits through several beats of silence before he speaks. “Okay, well, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
She laughs in spite of herself. “As always.”
She hears him chuff. Then, quietly, he speaks again. “I thought you were done with him.”
She starts at the vulnerability she hears from him, the smallness of his voice. “I am.”
“Then why-”
“Why induce a massive coronary?” She says lightly, hoping to clear the air a bit. “Because I’m curious.”
“About?”
She puts her hands down on her desk resolutely. “Are you seeing other women, Josh?”
“No!” She’s a little pleased when she hears the indignation in his voice.
“Why?”
There’s silence on the other line, and can almost hear his Harvard-educated brain begin to hone in on her point. “Because I don’t want to,” he says softly.
She smiles softly. “I don’t want to, either.”
“See other women? Oh, but Donna, that might be sort of hot. I guess I see your point, I mean, Cliff’s kind of womanlike, in stature at least-”
“Josh,” she admonishes, but she’s grinning ear to ear at his cocky banter.
“Yea.” She hears him take what she can only assume is a victory bite of his sandwich. “Well, listen, I have to go to my class now, but I’ll rest easy tonight knowing that you’ll be telling Gimli and the rest of the equally enticing gomers to shove it.”
She smiles. “Oh, Josh, there’s only one gomer in my life.”
“You know it.” He says warmly, before the line goes dead.
She hangs up the phone and leans back in her chair, a warm feeling in her stomach. “I do now.”
*
Every bachelor party should have CJ included, he thinks tipsily, taken a swig of his third Heineken.
Sure, she’s not at all a guy and her sixty million foot legs tend to distract them to the point of losing all their money at poker, but she’s also hilarious and quick to laugh, and can tell a dirtier joke than any of them.
It’s not really a bachelor party so much as them crowding a table in one of the empty hotel reception rooms with a deck of cards, a few beers, and a bottle of scotch. Sam, Danny, Toby, CJ, Charlie; he’s pretty sure President Bartlet would have joined them if there wasn’t secret service and an angry Abigail Bartlet involved.
“Give me your money-you too, Daniel, mi amor-c’mon, hand it over,” CJ crows, leaning back victoriously in her chair, pausing to take a puff on the end of Toby’s cigar.
“Your money is my money, toots,” Danny quips, but slides his chips towards her.
“Hey, hey with the nickname! How does he get my name?” Josh says, mock hurt in his voice.
“Changing times, pal-o-mine. Changing terms of endearment,” she says, sculpting her winnings into a high tower. “Besides,” she says, eyes glinting, “you have another leading lady to call you any name you want, and she’s here in just a few hours.”
The room erupts in a shower of crowing. “Donna?” Sam exclaims with his huge mega-watt grin. “You and Donna? Thats incredible, Josh!”
“I don’t know why you all are, you know, having kittens about this,” Toby mumbles dourly, prying his cigar back from CJ. “With those two a crappy day and a stiff shot of bourbon away from, I don’t know, doing each other in the Oval Office for six years.”
“Or any other office, for that matter,” says Charlie dryly, reshuffling the deck.
“Hey, hey!” Josh yells, throwing his hands up. “There was no doing of anyone in the Oval.”
“Not by you, anyway. What happened when the First Lady came into town after a long trip is anyone’s guess.”
*
She’s exhausted by the time she gets in, her feet shuffling on the carpet in the hallway of her floor.
She pauses by his door. Being insistent and really rather frightening when plagued with exhaustion had allowed her to get access to his room number; but now she stands, seemingly frozen, her hands wringing at her sides.
They’ve had sex in his house and her apartment; had dozens of quiet, intimate phone calls between now and her strange, wondrous visit to Boston weeks ago. She’s certainly woken him up before.
But it’s different now. She doesn’t want to talk or have sex or argue about polling numbers. She wants to knock on his door and see him, feel his presence. She’s felt the urge so many times before, on campaign stops or on presidential trips or simply in the middle of the night, lonesome in her Georgetown apartment. She can act on it now.
She feels like she has reason enough to indulge herself.
She knocks on the door sharply, hears a quiet rustling of footsteps. She’s faintly relieved to find him suitably clad in a t-shirt and boxers, rather than face first on the carpet wearing his suit and a heavy cloud of Jack Daniels.
He smiles at her, his face warming. She stands idiotically in the hallway, her gaze mirroring his own until he tugs her into the room, his arm snug and proprietary around her waist. He shuts the door behind them, and she strokes her hand fondly through his hair. “No red lace panties?”
“’Fraid not. You’re just going to have to provide them this time,” he murmurs, voice gravelly and a little bit slurred. He kisses her then, and she’s astounded by the intimacy of it, that she’s really alone with him in the middle of the night, his warm, pajama clad body, and hell, she doesn’t even have to worry about how it will look when she leaves.
She pulls back, dropping her head to his shoulder with a fake snoring sound.
“Tired?” He says unnecessarily, running his hands through her hair.
“You have no idea. Who invented time-zone changes, anyway?”
“Um, England, I think?”
She sighs, pulling off her suit jacket. “I wish Ambassador Marbury was still, you know, an ambassador. We could talk to him.”
“Any excuse to be in the presence of Lord Prancypants.” He says, watching her fish her toothbrush out of her bag and amble to the bathroom. He looks at her carefully, his voice losing its mirthful quality. “Are you staying? Here, I mean?”
She looks at him. “Is that okay?”
He smiles, his eyes warm. “Yea.” He lands with a sprawling whump on the bed, tugging the covers around his legs. “As long as you don’t mind me passing out on you.”
“Chances are I’ll be unconscious before you are.” She brushes her teeth and tugs on her pajamas. Pulling back the covers, she slides into bed, sidling close to him and sliding one long leg over his. It’s amazing, she thinks, how far they’ve come. Not just in the past few weeks but the whole eight years of them, so many evolutions. She’s been with him most of her adult life and yet can count on two hands the number of times she’s had sex with him; kissed him; held his hand.
None of that matters, she thinks. They’re here, now.
“Hey,” he says, his voice soft and already sleep addled.
“Hey, yourself.” She tucks her head under his. They sleep.
*
It’s big-time litigation and it’s politics and it’s LA, so Sam Seaborn’s wedding is what you’d expect: large, opulent, and picture perfect.
She’s amazed that Josh is able to talk Sam down, given that he’s more jittery than the bride.
She’s danced with Danny, Sam, Charlie, and someone she’s pretty sure she’s seen on television lately.
Josh and President Bartlet have made their toasts, the former managing not to set himself on fire; the latter managing to only quote Emerson once.
She has yet to speak two words to Josh, having slipped to her room to get ready for the day, because God knows if she’d stayed they might have missed the whole wedding.
She finds him outside in the smoggy LA air, hands in his pockets, his only company being two agents from the President’s detail, standing watch by the door to the reception. “I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d made off with the bride,” she says, and he turns, trim and dapper as always in his tux.
“I’m a good best man that way.”
“What are you doing out here?” She asks, but knows there won’t really be an answer. He’s always like this, at the outskirts of the party, looking in. It fits in more ways than one. She thinks that’s why he’s so smart; he’s always on the outside, observing. Never really taking part.
“Thinking,” he says simply, and she doesn’t press. “C’mere.”
She looks at him, her head tilted in question.
He gestures to her. “Dance with me, Donnatella.”
She smiles as he takes her hand in his, gives her a silly little spin before pulling her in. The music wafts faintly from inside, but she’s sure they look ridiculous. It wouldn’t be the first time, she thinks, so she sways with him.
“I got an offer, tonight.”
“Hmm?” She’s got her face in the crook of his neck, everything has gone muffled, soft, even the lights of the city.
“I got a job offer.”
Her stomach lurches. “In Washington?”
He pulls back, his eyes lilting sadly. “New York. Chairman of the DNC. I-I never thought I would get it, I'll really have some pull the next time around with the candidates. It’s not as close as I wanted, but its closer, and, I don’t know, I could see if I could commute from DC on the shuttle-” he trails off as he catches her amused glance, and he looks suddenly like a deer caught in the headlights. “What, too soon?”
“No,” she smiles broadly, warmth spreading to her fingertips. “My boss talked to me about a new job yesterday.”
His look of anxiety changes to one of dawning comprehension. “Doing what?”
“Heading their new office.”
He’s starting to smile; she can see the dimples forming on his cheeks. “Where?”
“New York. I wasn’t going to take it, but now-”
He laughs, full and outright into the night, wrapping his arms around her. She laughs along with him, her feet leaving the ground just a little in his embrace. It’s amazing, she thinks. To have the whole world it seemed conspiring to keep them apart for so long, and then to get just this little ounce of serendipity. She stays in his arms for several long minutes before he speaks.
“So you’ll take it, right?”
He laughs again as he fends off her blows.
Let’s take a step outside
Cause me and you got something we should hide
Author: little zigzags
Rating: R
Pairing: J/D
Spoilers: Diverges from canon after ‘2162 Votes.’
Disclaimer: No money from these beauties
Summary: It’s times like these that she’s almost sure she loves him, strongly and fiercely, and she wonders how they did it, how 8 years of banter and lingering glances and endless, lonely nights were enough. Sure, he’s obnoxious and messy and loud, but here, in his kitchen at dawn, she’s almost sure that the last thing she wants to do is get on a plane and be apart from him.
Sequel to Powerlines in Our Bloodlines.
A/N: I’ve never written nor had any desire to write a sequel, and this one was plagued by bouts of writers block throughout. I figured I should finish this one so I could go start my prompts for sorkin_fest (Go! Claim! Write fic!) Please do let me know if it is any good or complete and utter crap.
For laurenba, who poked and prodded.
The world is in this room
The world is in this room
-ZOX
She awakens seamlessly at 5 AM, her internal clock set forever to White House time, and is not surprised to find him lying on his back beside her, staring softly into space in the blueish morning light.
“Morning,” she says, turning on her side to face him, cold even under his comforter and shyly resisting the urge to tuck her icy feet under his legs.
“Hi.” He gives her that smile, the thin smile and concerned eyes. Her stomach plummets. Oh God, she thinks, I’ve made a mistake, this is all a huge, terrible, ridiculous mistake. She’s plotting ways to get back at CJ when he coughs self-consciously and scratches his chest, and in that moment she realizes that no, he’s just nervous. He’s nervous and she’s nervous and fuck it, she thinks, they can revel in their nervousness together.
She sidles closer to him so that their shoulders are touching and she can feel his warmth, solid and real in the dawn light. “So, the world didn’t end,” she says, smiling at his little intake of breath as she brazenly presses her lips to his jawline.
“I don’t know,” he says roughly. “Something must have blown up. Or stopped rotating on its axis, at least.”
She blushes as scenes from the night before flash through her head; how their careful kisses in his kitchen had turned into something more fiery, his hips pinning her to the counter, teeth branding her neck as her hand lingered on the button fly of his jeans. He would have made love to her right there in his kitchen if she hadn’t mockingly teased him about the unsanitary conditions.
“I thought we would never do this,” he had told her, his voice soft and incredulous, pulling her into an embrace as she stood naked in front of him in his darkened bedroom. Her arms tightened around his neck as he spoke softly into her ear. “I never thought you would come.”
“CJ made me,” she had told him, and he laughed. “Said we were dysfunctional. Danny, too.”
“Danny? He took what, seven years to woo his woman?”
“His woman? Oh, I’m totally telling her you said that.”
“Tattletale.”
She smiles now, wishing for that easiness now as she lies awash with uncertainty beside him.
“Do you have coffee?” He nods and she rises, thankful to find his soft T-shirt close beside the bed, pulling it discretely over her head.
He ambles in just as she has sent his coffee-maker rumbling to life, clad in boxers and a shirt, and she feels a deep pang of tenderness at his boyish, mussed hair. It’s times like these that she’s almost sure she loves him, strongly and fiercely, and she wonders how they did it, how 8 years of banter and lingering glances and endless, lonely nights were enough. Sure, he’s obnoxious and messy and loud, but here, in his kitchen at dawn, she’s almost sure that the last thing she wants to do is get on a plane and be apart from him.
“When does your plane leave?” He says slowly, standing lonesomely in the middle of his kitchen. She’s feeling the familiar need to kiss the worried look off his face, and she busies herself with pouring the coffee, tumbling his sugars in as he rattles in the fridge for some cream.
“Ten.” He sidles up next to her with a carton of half and half. He jiggles it idiotically, nudging her shoulder with his. “Sorry, no non-fat latte.”
She smiles, shrugging.
He’s silent for a beat before speaking. “I think you burned enough calories last night, though.” She turns, mouth open, to stare at his wide grin, suddenly his cocky self. She’s about to smack him, give him some sort of sharp retort when he leans down and presses his mouth to hers, startling her with his incongruity. She reaches up and strokes his cheek briefly before he pulls away, his hand possessively on her hip. They stand closely for a minute before he reaches for his cup. “Want me to call you a cab back to your hotel?
“In a little bit.” She sips her coffee, relishing the cream and the sight of him peering apprehensively at her over his coffee mug.
“I’m-” He stops, runs his hands through his hair. She’s surprised how quickly his veil of self-assurance has dropped, how unsure he seems. How his hands had shaken a little as he cradled her face, how everything had been a question. (“Can I-” “Yes. Oh God, Josh, please.”) She reaches out now to clasp the fine bone of his elbow, running her thumb over his skin. He looks down at her hand with a small smile. “I’m, um, coming to DC in two weeks.” He looks back at her, his eyes serious and careful. “For a conference.” He coughs. “Can I call you?”
“Yea, Josh, you can call me.” They stand like that, close for a minute. She’s so unsure with him, too; she wishes she could have all week to just watch his face, learn him again. Trust them to be as difficult as possible, she thinks. To spend eight years and hundreds of thousands of hours together locked in his office or in a hotel or in the copy room, and not get it together. He’s in Boston and she’s in DC, and she’s finally put herself on the line but somehow nothing has been simplified.
“I should, you know, get my stuff together. Find my pantyhose.” She grins at him, and he blushes a little, adorably. She’s turning to go back upstairs when he places a hand on her arm, pulls her to him. Her heart thunders in her chest and she’s sure he can feel it, all the way through their shirts.
“I’m glad you came,” he says, and kisses her sweetly. It’s okay, she thinks, as she slides her arms around his sides. It’s okay that they don’t talk about anything, because they’re them and they don’t talk about much. Well, actually, they talk about a lot, she talks and he talks, together they chat and they banter and God knows they yell, but the reality is that they don’t talk about this, about them, and it’s okay for now.
Later he scuffs the marble of his front step, still disheveled in his boxers and shirt, hugging his body against the cold. She hesitates, he hesitates; they stand there with the cab spitting exhaust and the meter running before she’s hugging him fiercely, rubbing his goosebumped arms. “See you in two weeks,” she whispers, the space between them already a thick feeling in her throat. She smiles. “You can, uh, stay with me, if you like.” With that, she kisses his cheek warmly, and strides down the steps to her cab, leaving him standing in abject shock, his mouth an open O in the cold morning as he watches her cab disappear down the street.
*
It’s a week later and in Josh’s mind is milling; his thoughts are a little bit memory and a little bit possibility and sometimes when he thinks about what happened he can barely breathe. The vision of her pale, pale skin in the blue light of his bedroom juxtaposes itself with almost a decade of fantasies he’d tried not to have.
That’s the thing, with Donna. He thought for years that sleeping with her would be it: the culmination of their strange, sort of fucked up relationship; the end of his career in politics; the release from the muddled feelings of affection, annoyance, pride, and overwhelming, encompassing desire that had long since settled in the pit of his stomach.
In reality, it’s none of these things. He’s just as confused as ever, and maybe that’s because he’s Josh Lyman and he really doesn’t have a clue about women, but maybe, he thinks, maybe people should just give him some credit because him and Donna, well, that’s the most labyrinthine relationship he’s ever heard of. Hell, he’s pretty sure it’s the most labyrinthine relationship most people have heard of.
He can’t say he’s surprised when he nearly bowls CJ over while striding out of his office for some printer paper. Well, not like he’d actually bowl CJ over; she actually steadies him with two hands on his shoulders.
“CJ! What-” He steps backwards, almost losing his balance before she grabs his arm again.
“Hey there, mon cheri. You okay there, or am I going to have to get you, you know, a walker?” He’s still adjusting to the fact that she’s here, CJ’s here in the hallway of the Political Science building, taller than usual in her four inch Lanvin pumps.
He coughs. “I’m good.”
“Cause you know, Josh, you’re never too young for a broken hip.”
“I’m okay.” He narrows his eyes at her. “CJ, what are you doing here?”
“Wonderful welcome for your former friend there, Joshua.” The corner of her mouth turns up. “I see you haven’t lost any of your finely honed personal skills.”
He grins sheepishly at her. “Sorry.” He pulls her into a hug. “It’s great to see you.” The minute the words are out of his mouth, he knows they’re true. He misses her, sometimes more than anyone else. They’ve all taken too much for granted, he thinks. She may be a ball-buster, she may have gotten his job and never cut any of them any slack, but she’s also CJ; beautiful, whip-smart, fiercely loyal, and some days the only reason why he didn’t lay one on Donna in the middle of the bullpen and ruin both his career and the credibility of the entire administration.
They pull back, and he gestures towards his open office door. “Well, now that we’ve experienced that life-changing exhibition of coordination, do you want to come sit? And really, what exactly are you doing, here?”
She follows him into his office, sits down in his guest chair and places her immaculate designer-clad feet on his desk. He feels a pang of nostalgia.
“I’m here to talk to one of the leading experts on global warming, who’s apparently housed in this very institution.”
He sits down across from her, slumping back in his desk chair. “You gonna fix global warming?” He says, dimples flashing cheekily.
She grins her catlike grin. “Ten billion dollars, baby.”
“Which no doubt will be able to reverse hundreds of years worth of greenhouse gas and ozone depletion.”
She frowns at him. “What are you, now, a republican? Donna was right, you are Deputy Downer.”
He coughs a bit, tries to sound nonchalant. “You’ve talked to Donna?”
“Not since she came out to LA last month.” CJ pauses, her eyes starting to glitter with suspicion. “Why, have you?”
He scratches his hair. “She, uh-” he coughs again, curses himself. “She came to visit. Well, I don’t know if that’s why she came, but she did visit me. At school. Well, at my house, too. But, you know, mostly at school, because that’s where she knew I was, but she also must have known where I lived, which is sort of weird, but I guess not really because Donna has that weird stealth stalker thi-”
“Aha!” CJ points at him, smiling her big toothy grin, eyes alight. “You guys, you, you know-”
He presses his palm into his eyes. “No, I don’t know, CJ.”
“You do!”
“I really don’t.”
“Oh come on, Josh.” She leans back in her chair, triumphant already. “You, Donna, things you probably would have done in your office had she not been smarter than that and had you not been scared shitless of me. I already know what happened, stop hedging.”
He springs upright in his chair. “She told you!”
CJ grins. “No, you just did. Now come on, don’t spare me any details. Okay, well, maybe spare me some details, scratch that, maybe all of them, ‘cause there are some things a girl could live without knowing-”
“CJ.” He looks pointedly at her.
“Yea.” She stretches in her chair, and they sit in silence for a few moments. “Josh?”
He sighs, his head back in his hands. “Yea?”
“Are you going to see her again?” This, here is the CJ he loves, because she can be joking and laughing but really, deep down, she loves him, loves him like crazy.
He looks at her, the line of his mouth solemn and serious. “I’m going down to DC next week.”
CJ starts, because he looks like he did that day when he went to pick her up from her plane from Germany, his eyes large and telling. She nods. “Okay.” Putting her feet down, she reaches forward to cover his hand with hers. “Josh?”
“Yea?”
She half-smiles at him, tilts her head. “Don’t fuck it up.”
*
She’s never done this, never waited in the arrivals terminal for him with nothing but her purse and a smile. Sure, she’s picked him up at the airport dozens of times, but its always with three file folders, a fresh dose of caffeine, and a ten page call sheet for him to start in on as she drives them straight back to the office.
Now she’s here, and he doesn’t know she’s coming, and her hands are empty.
There’s no briefing book for this one.
Her stomach lurches a little as the plane begins to disembark. He’s there, one of the first off, because Josh may ride in the cheap seats in the tail like a punk at the back of the bus but God knows he’s always the first one off. He’s got his backpack slung over his shoulders, his light trench coat already on as he jaunts purposefully toward the exit sign.
He sees her just as he’s about to turn the corner, his eyebrows raising as he changes course.
“Hi,” he says warmly.
“Hey.”
“You picked me up.”
“I did.”
“At the airport.”
“Yes.” He’s starting to smile his obnoxious victory smile, the one where he’s absolutely sure he knows something, and she’s struck by the notion that she can kiss him, she can kiss him hello, him with his narrow hips and frazzled plane hair. She can kiss his sexy grin right off his face but she won’t, because they’re them and they’ve spent almost a decade barely touching each other in airports and restaurants and CJ’s office.
“Well, in my mind, that’s about up there with the bringing of the coffee.”
“There are any number of things going on in your mind that could use with some tempering.”
“You can temper me any time you like.”
She sighs mockingly. “I’m leaving you here.”
He shrugs cockily. “Well, we’re not exactly in the middle of the Serengeti, Donna. There are about sixty cabs out there.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m leaving you here and I’m not telling you where my new apartment is.”
He opens his mouth to speak; closed it again; leans in like he was telling her his inner secrets. “Gee, Donna,” he says, his mouth close to her ear, voice gravelly and private in the middle of the crowded terminal. She curses herself as she flushes, her eyes fluttering closed. “Why cut off your nose to spite your face?” He pulls back, grinning saucily, and saunters off.
She rolls her eyes and follows him.
This really isn’t so different.
*
He fiddles in the passenger seat while she drives, the edge of his anxiety palpable as they drive to Georgetown. She understands it; for once they aren’t driving anywhere. For once there’s no schedule. They’re driving towards nothing and everything and as usual, Josh can’t sit still.
“Are you going to LA next month?” She queries, hoping to soothe his nerves and the deep feeling of uncertainty brewing in her stomach.
“For Sam’s wedding?”
“Yea.”
“Yep. Couldn’t exactly turn down best man duties.”
“Probably not.”
“Have you met her?” Donna turns slightly to look at Josh’s face. His relationship with Sam has always been a little intangible, even to her. They’re friends but there’s also something else, something deeply loyal.
“Jennifer? Yea. She’s nice. The two of them, they look like the should be on the cover of, I don’t know, one of those things you read.”
“And that would be what, exactly? The Wall Street Journal? The Post? The Times?”
“Point taken.” He looks at her carefully. “Are you going?”
“Of course. It’ll be good to see everyone again.” What she doesn’t say is that it will be nice to see him again. Sure, he’s here and she’s got him for the weekend, but she misses him, misses seeing him eighteen hours a day, misses sharing beers and french fries and all of the victories.
“Yea, it will.” He grins suddenly, excitedly, his face lighting up like a little boy’s. “I wonder if we can get CJ drunk enough to do the Jackal.”
*
He’s close enough that she can feel his warmth behind her as she unlocks the door to her apartment. She’s suddenly filled with need; not only for him but for his approval. It’s sort of fucked up, she thinks, that she still cares what he thinks of her life. But he’s Josh, and beyond everything he’s the one that hired her off the street when she had nothing in the world. She’s got a great job, and decent apartment, a nice life, but she still cares what he thinks of her after all these years.
He ambles in the door behind her, his small bag and backpack dropping with a clunk next to the door. Looking around at the kitchen, the small living room, the homey things that are hers, he smiles to himself. What she doesn’t realize is that the whole apartment smells like her, and that’s enough for him, enough to make him want to hole up and stay for a week, a month, hell, he’d stay with her for years if she would only ask him.
“No cats,” he says, his eyes mirthful.
“Not a one.” She looks at him, strange and incongruous in her new apartment. It’s amazing to her that after so many years they’re still the same people. That the distance it would take to walk over and press her lips to his is not just measured in feet. There are forces acting on them, she thinks, physical forces, the ones that tell them that its wrong, that he shouldn’t put his hands on her, that she shouldn’t think of him sometimes in the dark and the quiet of the evening.
All this, it will take some undoing, she thinks as she closes the distance, curls her hands into the collar of his shirt. His face has grown soft, disbelieving.
“I’m glad you came, Josh.” She says this and kisses him in one motion, before she has the chance to get cold feet, before his odd remnant notions of office propriety cut him off.
His arms tighten around her. She doesn’t want him to leave.
*
“I got a call today.” She twists the phone cord around her pinky, spinning slightly in her revolving chair. They’ve taken to talking-not every day, but enough, on her lunchbreak or his; at home quietly before she goes to bed. She likes it, likes hearing him midday when he’s pumped for an afternoon class or gravelly and soft in the evening.
“Yea?” He takes another bite from his roast beef sandwich. “Anyone interesting?”
“Yes. And don’t talk with your mouth full.”
He swallows. “I wasn’t.”
“Uh huh. You sound like CJ after massive dental work. And you should really be eating a salad.”
“So who-wait, you can tell what I’m eating over the phone?”
“Yes.”
“How in the hell-”
“Former assistant’s ways, Josh. We have mind meld with our boss’ eating habits. Put down the sandwich.”
He grumbles slightly, pushing the paper plate to the side of his desk. “So who called you?”
“Cliff Calley.”
“What is Cliff Calley doing calling you?”
“He wanted to congratulate me on the job.”
“How… bipartisan of him.”
She puts her elbows on her desk, bracing herself. “And to ask me out.”
She winces as she hears a clattering, and the loud chunk of the phone hitting what she can only assume is Josh’s desk. “Josh? Are you okay? Did you brain yourself?”
With a few more muffled sounds he’s back on the phone, sounding slightly out of breath. “A date? What the hell is that obnoxious, miniscule, haughty, M&M seeking dwarf doing asking you out?”
“You know, your voice got really-”
“High, I know. Seriously, Donna what gives?”
She breathes out. “I don’t know, Josh, I just-I wanted to see what you thought.” She covers her eyes with her free hand. “I want to know if you don’t want me to see him.”
“Of course I don’t want you to see him!” he sputters.
“I know you don’t. But, I guess I just wanted to know if you don’t want me to see him or-” she pauses, searching for the right phrasing. “Or if you don't want me to see him.” She knows she sounds ridiculous, but her words seem choked in her throat, and daft as ever, she can only hope that Josh will glean her meaning.
She waits through several beats of silence before he speaks. “Okay, well, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
She laughs in spite of herself. “As always.”
She hears him chuff. Then, quietly, he speaks again. “I thought you were done with him.”
She starts at the vulnerability she hears from him, the smallness of his voice. “I am.”
“Then why-”
“Why induce a massive coronary?” She says lightly, hoping to clear the air a bit. “Because I’m curious.”
“About?”
She puts her hands down on her desk resolutely. “Are you seeing other women, Josh?”
“No!” She’s a little pleased when she hears the indignation in his voice.
“Why?”
There’s silence on the other line, and can almost hear his Harvard-educated brain begin to hone in on her point. “Because I don’t want to,” he says softly.
She smiles softly. “I don’t want to, either.”
“See other women? Oh, but Donna, that might be sort of hot. I guess I see your point, I mean, Cliff’s kind of womanlike, in stature at least-”
“Josh,” she admonishes, but she’s grinning ear to ear at his cocky banter.
“Yea.” She hears him take what she can only assume is a victory bite of his sandwich. “Well, listen, I have to go to my class now, but I’ll rest easy tonight knowing that you’ll be telling Gimli and the rest of the equally enticing gomers to shove it.”
She smiles. “Oh, Josh, there’s only one gomer in my life.”
“You know it.” He says warmly, before the line goes dead.
She hangs up the phone and leans back in her chair, a warm feeling in her stomach. “I do now.”
*
Every bachelor party should have CJ included, he thinks tipsily, taken a swig of his third Heineken.
Sure, she’s not at all a guy and her sixty million foot legs tend to distract them to the point of losing all their money at poker, but she’s also hilarious and quick to laugh, and can tell a dirtier joke than any of them.
It’s not really a bachelor party so much as them crowding a table in one of the empty hotel reception rooms with a deck of cards, a few beers, and a bottle of scotch. Sam, Danny, Toby, CJ, Charlie; he’s pretty sure President Bartlet would have joined them if there wasn’t secret service and an angry Abigail Bartlet involved.
“Give me your money-you too, Daniel, mi amor-c’mon, hand it over,” CJ crows, leaning back victoriously in her chair, pausing to take a puff on the end of Toby’s cigar.
“Your money is my money, toots,” Danny quips, but slides his chips towards her.
“Hey, hey with the nickname! How does he get my name?” Josh says, mock hurt in his voice.
“Changing times, pal-o-mine. Changing terms of endearment,” she says, sculpting her winnings into a high tower. “Besides,” she says, eyes glinting, “you have another leading lady to call you any name you want, and she’s here in just a few hours.”
The room erupts in a shower of crowing. “Donna?” Sam exclaims with his huge mega-watt grin. “You and Donna? Thats incredible, Josh!”
“I don’t know why you all are, you know, having kittens about this,” Toby mumbles dourly, prying his cigar back from CJ. “With those two a crappy day and a stiff shot of bourbon away from, I don’t know, doing each other in the Oval Office for six years.”
“Or any other office, for that matter,” says Charlie dryly, reshuffling the deck.
“Hey, hey!” Josh yells, throwing his hands up. “There was no doing of anyone in the Oval.”
“Not by you, anyway. What happened when the First Lady came into town after a long trip is anyone’s guess.”
*
She’s exhausted by the time she gets in, her feet shuffling on the carpet in the hallway of her floor.
She pauses by his door. Being insistent and really rather frightening when plagued with exhaustion had allowed her to get access to his room number; but now she stands, seemingly frozen, her hands wringing at her sides.
They’ve had sex in his house and her apartment; had dozens of quiet, intimate phone calls between now and her strange, wondrous visit to Boston weeks ago. She’s certainly woken him up before.
But it’s different now. She doesn’t want to talk or have sex or argue about polling numbers. She wants to knock on his door and see him, feel his presence. She’s felt the urge so many times before, on campaign stops or on presidential trips or simply in the middle of the night, lonesome in her Georgetown apartment. She can act on it now.
She feels like she has reason enough to indulge herself.
She knocks on the door sharply, hears a quiet rustling of footsteps. She’s faintly relieved to find him suitably clad in a t-shirt and boxers, rather than face first on the carpet wearing his suit and a heavy cloud of Jack Daniels.
He smiles at her, his face warming. She stands idiotically in the hallway, her gaze mirroring his own until he tugs her into the room, his arm snug and proprietary around her waist. He shuts the door behind them, and she strokes her hand fondly through his hair. “No red lace panties?”
“’Fraid not. You’re just going to have to provide them this time,” he murmurs, voice gravelly and a little bit slurred. He kisses her then, and she’s astounded by the intimacy of it, that she’s really alone with him in the middle of the night, his warm, pajama clad body, and hell, she doesn’t even have to worry about how it will look when she leaves.
She pulls back, dropping her head to his shoulder with a fake snoring sound.
“Tired?” He says unnecessarily, running his hands through her hair.
“You have no idea. Who invented time-zone changes, anyway?”
“Um, England, I think?”
She sighs, pulling off her suit jacket. “I wish Ambassador Marbury was still, you know, an ambassador. We could talk to him.”
“Any excuse to be in the presence of Lord Prancypants.” He says, watching her fish her toothbrush out of her bag and amble to the bathroom. He looks at her carefully, his voice losing its mirthful quality. “Are you staying? Here, I mean?”
She looks at him. “Is that okay?”
He smiles, his eyes warm. “Yea.” He lands with a sprawling whump on the bed, tugging the covers around his legs. “As long as you don’t mind me passing out on you.”
“Chances are I’ll be unconscious before you are.” She brushes her teeth and tugs on her pajamas. Pulling back the covers, she slides into bed, sidling close to him and sliding one long leg over his. It’s amazing, she thinks, how far they’ve come. Not just in the past few weeks but the whole eight years of them, so many evolutions. She’s been with him most of her adult life and yet can count on two hands the number of times she’s had sex with him; kissed him; held his hand.
None of that matters, she thinks. They’re here, now.
“Hey,” he says, his voice soft and already sleep addled.
“Hey, yourself.” She tucks her head under his. They sleep.
*
It’s big-time litigation and it’s politics and it’s LA, so Sam Seaborn’s wedding is what you’d expect: large, opulent, and picture perfect.
She’s amazed that Josh is able to talk Sam down, given that he’s more jittery than the bride.
She’s danced with Danny, Sam, Charlie, and someone she’s pretty sure she’s seen on television lately.
Josh and President Bartlet have made their toasts, the former managing not to set himself on fire; the latter managing to only quote Emerson once.
She has yet to speak two words to Josh, having slipped to her room to get ready for the day, because God knows if she’d stayed they might have missed the whole wedding.
She finds him outside in the smoggy LA air, hands in his pockets, his only company being two agents from the President’s detail, standing watch by the door to the reception. “I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d made off with the bride,” she says, and he turns, trim and dapper as always in his tux.
“I’m a good best man that way.”
“What are you doing out here?” She asks, but knows there won’t really be an answer. He’s always like this, at the outskirts of the party, looking in. It fits in more ways than one. She thinks that’s why he’s so smart; he’s always on the outside, observing. Never really taking part.
“Thinking,” he says simply, and she doesn’t press. “C’mere.”
She looks at him, her head tilted in question.
He gestures to her. “Dance with me, Donnatella.”
She smiles as he takes her hand in his, gives her a silly little spin before pulling her in. The music wafts faintly from inside, but she’s sure they look ridiculous. It wouldn’t be the first time, she thinks, so she sways with him.
“I got an offer, tonight.”
“Hmm?” She’s got her face in the crook of his neck, everything has gone muffled, soft, even the lights of the city.
“I got a job offer.”
Her stomach lurches. “In Washington?”
He pulls back, his eyes lilting sadly. “New York. Chairman of the DNC. I-I never thought I would get it, I'll really have some pull the next time around with the candidates. It’s not as close as I wanted, but its closer, and, I don’t know, I could see if I could commute from DC on the shuttle-” he trails off as he catches her amused glance, and he looks suddenly like a deer caught in the headlights. “What, too soon?”
“No,” she smiles broadly, warmth spreading to her fingertips. “My boss talked to me about a new job yesterday.”
His look of anxiety changes to one of dawning comprehension. “Doing what?”
“Heading their new office.”
He’s starting to smile; she can see the dimples forming on his cheeks. “Where?”
“New York. I wasn’t going to take it, but now-”
He laughs, full and outright into the night, wrapping his arms around her. She laughs along with him, her feet leaving the ground just a little in his embrace. It’s amazing, she thinks. To have the whole world it seemed conspiring to keep them apart for so long, and then to get just this little ounce of serendipity. She stays in his arms for several long minutes before he speaks.
“So you’ll take it, right?”
He laughs again as he fends off her blows.
Let’s take a step outside
Cause me and you got something we should hide