Fic: Too Close To Call (Will/Kate)
Title: Too Close To Call
Words: 3500ish
Summary: On the night of the election in the Oregon Fourth, Will receives an unexpected visitor. Clearly, this is Will/Kate fluff.
Author's Notes: For strandedinaber, who requested a happy ending for Will and Kate. I'm playing on a theme here I previously touched on in Everything Will Change.
Too Close To Call
It’s supposed to be the night the jump-starts his career as a serious political player on the Hill, and Will Bailey is sitting on the railing of the wooden porch of his house on the ocean outside Bandon, draining the beer Lauren Romano just handed him.
Par on the course, really.
“And you’re sure there’s no new exits?” He asks her, starting to peel the label off the bottle.
“Yes, I’m sure, ADD boy,” she laughs. “Jake!” She yells in the direction of the house, where the rest of the staff are congregated around various phones and televisions. When he bought this house on a whim when moving here, the real-estate agent told him the large room overlooking the pebble beach, with those huge sliding doors opening onto a gorgeous wooden porch, was “a wonderful family room”. He used it to set up a war room for his congressional campaign. He had also used the “home office” overlooking the swing set in the front yard to install three phonebanks, and the walls of the “festive, majestic dining room” are currently covered in maps of the key areas of various counties of his district, with color-coded representations of key demographic variables. “JAKE!” Lauren yells more loudly, perching herself on the porch railing next to him and taking a deep swig of his beer.
Will’s communication director, a scrawny kid barely out of college who thinks wearing black Converse sneakers instead of red ones is showing up to work dressed appropriately, detaches himself from a group of people standing in the open doorway and strolls over to them.
“Dude,” he tells Lauren, wrapping a finger around one of his scraggy curls, and Will wonders why everyone on his staff is about twelve years old. “Chill. When we know something, you will know it too. Also, you owe me a twenty on the California eighth.”
“No cash till the night’s over,” Lauren tells him, eyes gleaming wickedly. “So nothing new?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you mean about this election? Because they called it an hour ago, I just didn’t think you cared.”
“Get out of my sight,” Lauren grins.
“Gladly.” They watch Jake’s shaggy head retreat, and Will feels endowed to say, “Be a little nicer to him, would you?”
“Nah,” Lauren smirks. Then a frown appears on her face as she looks past him towards back the corner of the wraparound porch. “Who’s that?”
Will follows her gaze and nearly drops his beer. Wrapped in a pastel-pink parka that makes her look like his five-year-old niece, hands dug deep in her jeans pockets and sweeping the porch with a searching look, is Kate.
Kate. Wonder Woman of his dreams, his awkward, clumsy love-affair from Washington who he’s been thoroughly unable to forget. Who loves rainy beaches and would love this house. Who is probably massively self-conscious about the parka. Whose hair still puts him mind of awful metaphors containing molten gold and barbecued cornhusks that would make Toby sit down and cry. Who is sweeping the assembled crowd of donors and campaign staff like it’s a battlefield in some third world country, not a cheap party for a cheep congressional election campaign with not that much more going for it than a wing and prayer.
Something clicks into place as the finds him sitting on the banister and their eyes meet.
She’s here.
They haven’t spoken since he moved out here nearly two years ago, and now she’s here.
He’s still coming to terms with her sheer presence as she makes her way through the crowd, eyes turning away from his and darting across faces and the beach like she’s looking for enemy positions or something. Their eyes meet as she’s halfway across the porch. She gives him a nervous little smile, with that crease between her eyes that looks so serious he wants to shake her a little, or maybe make her laugh. He tries to give her a cool grin, but his stomach is churning and his palms are becoming sweaty. She’s here. She’s really, really here. And walking up to him.
“Hi,” she says, softly.
Will just stares. “Hi.”
Lauren quickly asses the situation. “I’m gonna go check on new numbers-” She declares hastily before practically fleeing.
“What are you doing here?” Will breathes, eyes feasting on her, heart pounding.
“Are you sleeping with her?” Kate crosses her arms in front of her chest and glares at him.
Will’s mouth practically falls open. “What?!”
“Are you?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“Oh, my god, you totally are.” Her eyes narrowed. “She’s, like, twelve years old!” She turns away from him, walking a few paces before turning back with a thoroughly unamused smile. “I am such an idiot.”
“Hey!” Will holds up his hands- a part of him wants to grab her, shake her, but he’s still dreading that if he touches her she’ll somehow disappear. “Stop. Rewind. I’m not sleeping with Lauren. Are you out of your mind? She’s like my sister!”
“Oh.” Kate looks down, cheeks flushing. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, she’s really cute. I’d probably sleep with her if given the-”
“I’m not,” he interrupts, trying but failing to get that image out of his mind. “But thanks for the visual, I’m going to have a heck of a time concentrating now.” She laughs, awkwardly, peeks up at him with those brown eyes that he still sometimes sees in the corner of his eye on tired nights, sparkling up at him with hope and humor and something that could have been love, if given the chance. He forces himself to breathe. “What are you doing here?” He repeats.
“I was giving a talk at Reed-”
“At Reed College?” He gapes at her.
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “And I thought I’d drive down to see how the big night is going.”
“You drove down here from Reed College?” He just stares and stares. “That’s a four and half hour drive!”
“Three hours, ten minutes,” she grins, looking like a loopy-smiled tomboyish teenager, and he thinks he’s going to go crazy if he doesn’t kiss her, soon.
“You were speeding,” he points out.
“I beat traffic.”
“Plus you were speeding.”
Kate shrugs, studies him, uncrossing her arms and burying her hands in the pockets of her parka. There’s a snarky comment about he practicality of North Face and predictability of pink pastel dangling on his lips, but he swallows it, knowing his tendency to wise-ass tends to drive her up a wall. Just as a hugely awkward silence threatens to settle, she gestures towards the house. “This is a pretty strange location for campaign headquarters.”
“Oh,” he replies, trying to sound suave, but internally panicking that they’ve, apparently, gotten to that part of the conversation already. And he doesn’t even know if she’s single. “This is- well- I kind of live here?”
Kate’s mouth forms a perfect little “oh”, and those lips, Jesus, he’s going to blow an aneurysm. This is pathetic, he hadn’t even realized he had been missing her this much. “You… live here.”
“Yeah. It’s a little big but-”
“It’s a little big?” She repeats, eyes widening, then quickly transforming her expression from hopeful apprehension to supreme unconcern. “So it’s just you? Living here? Just… you?”
This is exactly like they’ve always been: awkward, awkward, and oh-so-wonderful. He grins at her nervously, wanting to dive in this, head first, because he wants to be really bad at this together with her for a very long time, possibly for ever. “Yes, it’s just me.”
“Oh, thank god,” she mutters, then hastily covering her mouth. “I mean, yeah, it’s really big for just one person. I mean, unless, you wanted to move in with someone…”
“You,” he blurts out before he can help himself.
“What?!”
“Never mind,” Will backpedals, hastily. “I misspoke- I just meant, how are you? What have you been up to? I heard you scored a book deal, that’s fantastic.”
“You think so?” She smiles at him, maybe a little too pleased, and his heart soars at that, hoping she missed his very close slip-up. “Thanks,” she tells him, softly. Then, with a laugh, “We’ll if you’ve heard about the book, you know what I’ve been up to. That.”
“The job in the White House didn’t work out?”
Kate shrugs. “Not really. I felt obsolete, since I wasn’t with the NSA, and the thing is, Josh Lyman-”
“… not the easiest guy to work with,” he finishes for her. “I know.”
“So I quit,” she continues. “Rented a house on the shore for the whole year and got writing. Oh, and I got a dog.”
“Really?” He raises his eyebrows.
Kate nods, eagerly. “His name’s George Washington, but I call him Georgie.”
Will starts to laugh, and after a second, she joins in. Their eyes meet, and their laughter dies down almost immediately as they look at each other. “Can I ask?” Will starts, his voice low and still a little sad. “What happened between us?”
Kate looks down, sadly. “I really don’t know.”
“Me neither,” Will offers, carefully. “And I find that really upsetting because, I felt like -I feel like- we were… “ He pauses to search for better words, using the right word has possibly never been more important, including every ghostwriting gig he’s ever done. But just as he thinks it’s coming to him, Lauren -Shelby, this time- rushes over to them, breathless and giddy: “Will! Will, I think they’re about to call it, come on!”
They glance at each other. Kate blushes. “I should go.”
“No,” he says, imploringly, turning to face her even as he’s walking towards the family-slash-campaign-war-room. “Stay. Please.”
“I-”
He holds out his hand to her. “C’mon.”
She takes his hand. His fingers close around hers, and that simple gesture is enough to drive two truths home: first, he’s about as close to getting over her as he was when he moved here a year and a half ago. Second, this time, he isn’t letting go. They weave through the throng of people crowding through the screen doors, and he feels her grip tighten as he’s accosted by donors, strategists and Laurens and dragged inside the room. He plops himself down on the large table (made for family dinners, used for campaign strategy sessions, door-to-door planning meetings and bagel hockey tournaments), and in a moment of sheer brilliance he not only helps her sit next to her but actually sneaks his arm around her, pulling her closely to his side without letting go of her hand.
She looks up at him with a soft, vaguely-amused smile, but anything she could possibly want to say right now is drowned as Jake turns up the volume on the flat screen in front of them. He stares at her lips, trying to guess the words they were just beginning to form, before remembering that tonight is about him being elected to the United States House of Representatives, and turns his attention back to the television.
He wants this. He does. He wants to be a Congressman, and he wants to win this election, represent these people, and not just because he wants to crush the other guy with the fury of a meteorite crashing into earth. He wants to serve the people he’s met over the past year, in Eugene and Coos Bay, unpretentious, grounded people so much like the trees they love and live off, who live in towns named Drain and Julia after the pioneers that founded them two centuries ago. He wants to bring tourism here, show the whole world these rainy beaches and lush, green woods. He wants this.
And, he thinks, closing his fingers around Kate’s and feeling her squeeze back, he doesn’t want to do it alone.
“… MSNBC is now ready to call the Michigan governatorial race for former Democratic Senator Allison Bogan.” The red-haired, strong-shouldered image of Allie Bogan flashes across the screen amongst cat-calls and applause from the Bailey campaign. Kate grins at him excitedly, eyes wide like a little kid on Christmas morning, and again, Will has to remind himself that he genuinely does care about the outcome of this race. “Further out West the map remains wide open” Keith Olbermann continues. “The most hotly contested races, including the Nevada senatorial race and former White House Communications Director Will Bailey’s bid for the Congressional Seat of Oregon’s Fourth District, which we had expected to call at this time, are still, too close to call.” An exasperated groan runs through the room as Olbermann turns towards one of his pundits to analyze the night so far.
“Jake! 50 bucks on my girl Allison, now!” Lauren yells through the room. Everyone starts to move at once, gravitating towards phone banks, television sets, more food, more beer.
Will and Kate remain where they are. Too close to call.
The night rambles on. New exits, new numbers. Andi Wyatt wins the Maryland Senate Seat, Will gives a five-minute interview for local news, and a 60 second soundbite for Fox. When he turns away from the cameras, makes his way back to the porch, he finds her leaning against the railing with her back to him, staring at the pitch-black ocean.
“Hey,” he says quietly, lightly touching her back, and unable to resist the urge of letting his hand linger there, right there.
“Hi,” she smiles, eyes roaming over the beach. “Will, this place…” She shakes her head. “It’s amazing.”
Will nods. “I’m glad you think so.” They glance at each other, then quickly look away, Will’s eyes lingering on her profile, hers darting across the house before coming to rest on the tiny dot of light from the lighthouse on the the side of the bay.
“This is your fault, you know,” he says, conversationally.
She turns, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, it is,” he smiles. “This was your idea, remember.”
She frowns, a crease appearing between her eyes as she stares harder at the distant speck of light across the dark ocean, and there’s a sadness in her eyes that shocks him. “Don’t… I wish you wouldn’t think that,” she mumbles.
He offers a smile, and reaches out a hand to turn her face towards his. The gesture is so intimate, and comes so naturally, her skin feels so smooth under his fingers- all he can think is: this is right. “But it was,” he half-teases. “You told me it was the right thing to do and everything. Pulled out the big public service gun, you know I’m a sucker for that.” It takes him a second to realize she isn’t smiling.
“Stop it,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Kate?” Eyes wide, suddenly fearful, confusion and panic taken over as he stares at eyes sparkling not with vivacity but, he realizes with horror, tears. He didn’t mean to make her cry.
“It’s just…” She rubs her eyes impatiently with her sleeve, “telling you to move away was kind of the stupidest idea I ever had.”
“You didn’t- that’s not what I- Kate, damnit, look at me!”
She raises her head, stares at him. “I was kidding,” he tries.
“No,” she interrupts, “no, you really weren’t. I was- I was such a bitch to you, and you didn’t even bother calling me on it-” When he offers his mouth in protest, she holds up a hand, and continues to talk, her voice pressed and hurried like she’s trying to say as much as possible before knowing-better catches up with her. “No, don’t argue. I was. I got scared and I froze and I pushed you away, to freaking Oregon for crying out loud, but Jesus, Will, why didn’t you call me on it? Why didn’t you try a little harder?”
He stares at her. She covers her mouth, her fingers maybe trying to get back those words, stop more thoughts like them from escaping. Will feels sick. “I didn’t think you wanted me to,” he admits.
“I did.”
The words hang in the air. He wishes he knew what to do -would it be okay to kiss her, now? Tell her about the house, the view of the rainy bay on a morning that she would find truly magical, and how he bought it all with her in mind, would that be okay right now?- but suddenly, he’s shy, dreadfully shy.
Mercifully, or maybe not, there’s a huge shout of “WILL!” from the house behind them. On instinct, he turns, and finds Lauren Romano running towards him full-speed. “You won!” She shrieks, skidding to a halt mere inches before him, eyes wide, an incredulous but gleeful grin spreading over her face. “You won!”
“I-” He stares at her, mouth hanging open, and intuitively reaches for Kate’s hand. She takes it without comment. “Really? Are you sure? I mean-”
“COME ON!” Lauren beams, dragging him across the porch and into the house. He stares at a very auspiciously lit picture of himself self-consciously smiling back at him from three television screens.
“It was a hotly contested battle, but once again, we are calling the Oregon fourth for former White House Aid Will Bailey- a seat that will cushion the Democratic margin nicely and help President Santos push through-” The rest of Olbermann’s blather is lost to a persistent ringing in Will’s ears.
“Oh, my god,” he mutters. “Oh, my god. I’m a US Congressman.”
“Will?” Kate’s fingers press against his as Lauren shoots him a look. “Will, are you okay?”
He stares at them, both Laurens, Jake, his red-haired assistant Clemmy, all beaming at him. “We won.”
Lauren Romano laughs. “So we did.” All around him, people are applauding and catcalling, clinking beer bottles, high-fiving and hugging. Jake swaggers over to them, and after a heartfelt shoulder-clap from Will, he turns to Lauren and presses a kiss on her lips.
Will turns away from them, amused, and finds himself face-to-face with Kate. “Congratulations,” she offers, with a growing smile.
He beams back at her. “Thanks.” He hesitates, then decides that tonight, he might actually be in luck. “Give me a second, okay?” He climbs on the table and makes a little speech, thanking everyone for their effort, telling them what a great job they did, and finishing with a “We’ve got a meeting tomorrow at nine!” that isn’t really a joke, though everyone laughs as he says it.
He clambers down from the table, and gives her a look. “Come with me.”
She follows him through the thinning crowd of celebrators, and up the wooden staircase.
Up on this floor, he hasn’t rededicated any rooms. There’s the master bedroom, which is, well, his bedroom; a study stacked to the ceiling with books and speech drafts; and, behind a firmly closed door, a bedroom that remains empty except for a cardboard box containing a few faded stuffed animals and pale-blue romper suits that were once his own, picked up from his parents attic when they moved back from Brussels, and a gorgeous antique rocking chair he saw at a fair a few months ago and couldn’t resist buying. But he’s not about to show her that. Not tonight. Soon. Maybe. Hopefully.
He doesn’t lead her into the bedroom, of course not, he’d never, ever have that kind of nerve, not even as a newly-elected US Congressman with, or so he caught in the few minutes he had a chance to listen to the TV tonight, a solid 52 of the Oregon Fourth electorate behind him. Instead, he pushes open a small door and leads her up a narrow spiral staircase, through a dormer window -the latch catches, and he fumbles with it for a second and feels incredibly embarrassed about it- and onto, well. The roof.
He knows this door is supposed to be just for maintenance, when after the spring storms you need to clean leaves and branches and, after a particularly bad one in March, drift wood and two dead seagulls, off the flat roof, but this is probably his favorite part about this house.
And she seems to agree. “Wow,” she breathes, softly, clambering out of the window and sitting down next to him. Stars above in a small opening in the cloudy sky, people still hugging and laughing victoriously below, the calm crushing of waves on the bay, and most of all, her. Her eyes, her soft smile as she looks at him carefully, color rising, as both of them remember what she said just before they called they election.
“I feel like owe you an apology,” he offers, finally. “I should have tried harder. I really should have, because- well- I-” He falters, looks at her. “You know what I want to say, right?”
“Yeah,” Kate says, taking his hand, tracing his fingers with hers, callous but soft around the tips, and he wants to stop this moment, freeze it forever. “But could you maybe…?”
“Oh.” He pauses. “No, sure. I can think of something.” He shakes his head. “That came out wrong. I meant, I can think of the words- just give me a second?”
She laughs. “Sure.”
“Maybe I could just kiss you?”
“Oh.” She colors. “I guess…”
“No, no. I get it.” He takes a deep breath. Of course he can’t think of anything now. He remembers an old bit of wisdom Toby used to cite at three AM in the bullpen, when they were in dire need of inspiration. Start with the truth, he used to say, draining his scotch and crumpling up a piece of yellow paper. Start with the truth, and then make it sound better. “When I bought this house,” he starts, cautiously, “I kinda hoped we’d- I mean I picked it because I thought you’d like it. Because- well, I know it’s stupid now, but I still, when I picture my life a year from now or five or ten, I’m never alone- you’re always there. And we’re together. Really together. And now that you’re here, if it’s alright with you, I’d kind of like to see if we can make that real. I mean, if you want it. But I think you do, right? And I think we could be really good together.” Make it sound better, he reminds himself. “You’ve been here for like three hours and already I feel happier than I have for a year and a half- not just happier, but you know. Right. Like I’m doing the right thing. So I think it’d be great if you’d give us a chance this time, and if you don’t want to right now, well- this time I’m going to fight for you.”
She just goggles at him, and then a single tear runs down her cheek. “I never got over you,” she whispers hoarsely.
“Me either.”
“I just…”
“Kate?”He cuts her off.
“Hm?”
“Maybe if I kissed you now?”
Kate giggles, smiles up at him. “That’d be nice.”
Cautiously, savoring the surreality of the moment, he cups her face in his hands, and kisses her. And it feels like- like turning the last corner of the gravel road and seeing the festively-lit and wonderfully familiar outline of his grandparents’ house appear in front of him as a kid, and knowing Christmas is about to start. Like waking up in her bedroom in DC two years ago and, after months of being haunted by not-knowing where he was until after coffee, an occupational hazard of the campaign trail, knowing exactly where he was the moment his eyes flew open.
It’s coming home. And her lips are as soft and inviting as he remembers them to be, and she gives a little sigh as she wraps her arms around him, and nothing exists except the two of them and, looming in the distance, biding its time, the chance, the future they’re giving each other.
After a second, he feels her squirm under him and pulls away, smiling at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just…” She hesitates, blushes. “Can we maybe get off the roof. The height’s kind of making me nervous.”
“Oh!” He exclaims, blushing too. “Sorry, I didn’t realize-”
“No, it’s just-”
They look at each other, and burst out laughing. “We’re still really bad at this,” Kate surmises with a grin.
“Yup. But we’ll get better.” He follows her down the narrow staircase, never letting go of her hand and barely remembering to breathe. “Kate?”
She turns, long hair slightly ruffled, about to open the door. “Yeah?”
“I love you.” Really? Out loud? Now? Start with the truth, then make it sound better. “I… sorry, I didn’t mean to… did I freak you out?” That sounds more like backpedaling, so he stops, lamely.
“I’m not freaked out,” she says, slowly, and then the corners of her mouth turn up and her eyes widen, until she’s beaming at him. “I’m happy,” she says, sounding dazed. He wraps her into his arms and leans into kiss her, but she holds up two fingers between her lips. “I love you too,” she says, still sounding like she can hardly believe it herself.
His arms encircle her as their lips meet, as he kisses her properly, scooping up her familiar taste.
She’s not getting rid of him again. This time, it’s forever.
Words: 3500ish
Summary: On the night of the election in the Oregon Fourth, Will receives an unexpected visitor. Clearly, this is Will/Kate fluff.
Author's Notes: For strandedinaber, who requested a happy ending for Will and Kate. I'm playing on a theme here I previously touched on in Everything Will Change.
Too Close To Call
It’s supposed to be the night the jump-starts his career as a serious political player on the Hill, and Will Bailey is sitting on the railing of the wooden porch of his house on the ocean outside Bandon, draining the beer Lauren Romano just handed him.
Par on the course, really.
“And you’re sure there’s no new exits?” He asks her, starting to peel the label off the bottle.
“Yes, I’m sure, ADD boy,” she laughs. “Jake!” She yells in the direction of the house, where the rest of the staff are congregated around various phones and televisions. When he bought this house on a whim when moving here, the real-estate agent told him the large room overlooking the pebble beach, with those huge sliding doors opening onto a gorgeous wooden porch, was “a wonderful family room”. He used it to set up a war room for his congressional campaign. He had also used the “home office” overlooking the swing set in the front yard to install three phonebanks, and the walls of the “festive, majestic dining room” are currently covered in maps of the key areas of various counties of his district, with color-coded representations of key demographic variables. “JAKE!” Lauren yells more loudly, perching herself on the porch railing next to him and taking a deep swig of his beer.
Will’s communication director, a scrawny kid barely out of college who thinks wearing black Converse sneakers instead of red ones is showing up to work dressed appropriately, detaches himself from a group of people standing in the open doorway and strolls over to them.
“Dude,” he tells Lauren, wrapping a finger around one of his scraggy curls, and Will wonders why everyone on his staff is about twelve years old. “Chill. When we know something, you will know it too. Also, you owe me a twenty on the California eighth.”
“No cash till the night’s over,” Lauren tells him, eyes gleaming wickedly. “So nothing new?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you mean about this election? Because they called it an hour ago, I just didn’t think you cared.”
“Get out of my sight,” Lauren grins.
“Gladly.” They watch Jake’s shaggy head retreat, and Will feels endowed to say, “Be a little nicer to him, would you?”
“Nah,” Lauren smirks. Then a frown appears on her face as she looks past him towards back the corner of the wraparound porch. “Who’s that?”
Will follows her gaze and nearly drops his beer. Wrapped in a pastel-pink parka that makes her look like his five-year-old niece, hands dug deep in her jeans pockets and sweeping the porch with a searching look, is Kate.
Kate. Wonder Woman of his dreams, his awkward, clumsy love-affair from Washington who he’s been thoroughly unable to forget. Who loves rainy beaches and would love this house. Who is probably massively self-conscious about the parka. Whose hair still puts him mind of awful metaphors containing molten gold and barbecued cornhusks that would make Toby sit down and cry. Who is sweeping the assembled crowd of donors and campaign staff like it’s a battlefield in some third world country, not a cheap party for a cheep congressional election campaign with not that much more going for it than a wing and prayer.
Something clicks into place as the finds him sitting on the banister and their eyes meet.
She’s here.
They haven’t spoken since he moved out here nearly two years ago, and now she’s here.
He’s still coming to terms with her sheer presence as she makes her way through the crowd, eyes turning away from his and darting across faces and the beach like she’s looking for enemy positions or something. Their eyes meet as she’s halfway across the porch. She gives him a nervous little smile, with that crease between her eyes that looks so serious he wants to shake her a little, or maybe make her laugh. He tries to give her a cool grin, but his stomach is churning and his palms are becoming sweaty. She’s here. She’s really, really here. And walking up to him.
“Hi,” she says, softly.
Will just stares. “Hi.”
Lauren quickly asses the situation. “I’m gonna go check on new numbers-” She declares hastily before practically fleeing.
“What are you doing here?” Will breathes, eyes feasting on her, heart pounding.
“Are you sleeping with her?” Kate crosses her arms in front of her chest and glares at him.
Will’s mouth practically falls open. “What?!”
“Are you?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“Oh, my god, you totally are.” Her eyes narrowed. “She’s, like, twelve years old!” She turns away from him, walking a few paces before turning back with a thoroughly unamused smile. “I am such an idiot.”
“Hey!” Will holds up his hands- a part of him wants to grab her, shake her, but he’s still dreading that if he touches her she’ll somehow disappear. “Stop. Rewind. I’m not sleeping with Lauren. Are you out of your mind? She’s like my sister!”
“Oh.” Kate looks down, cheeks flushing. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, she’s really cute. I’d probably sleep with her if given the-”
“I’m not,” he interrupts, trying but failing to get that image out of his mind. “But thanks for the visual, I’m going to have a heck of a time concentrating now.” She laughs, awkwardly, peeks up at him with those brown eyes that he still sometimes sees in the corner of his eye on tired nights, sparkling up at him with hope and humor and something that could have been love, if given the chance. He forces himself to breathe. “What are you doing here?” He repeats.
“I was giving a talk at Reed-”
“At Reed College?” He gapes at her.
“Yeah,” she shrugs. “And I thought I’d drive down to see how the big night is going.”
“You drove down here from Reed College?” He just stares and stares. “That’s a four and half hour drive!”
“Three hours, ten minutes,” she grins, looking like a loopy-smiled tomboyish teenager, and he thinks he’s going to go crazy if he doesn’t kiss her, soon.
“You were speeding,” he points out.
“I beat traffic.”
“Plus you were speeding.”
Kate shrugs, studies him, uncrossing her arms and burying her hands in the pockets of her parka. There’s a snarky comment about he practicality of North Face and predictability of pink pastel dangling on his lips, but he swallows it, knowing his tendency to wise-ass tends to drive her up a wall. Just as a hugely awkward silence threatens to settle, she gestures towards the house. “This is a pretty strange location for campaign headquarters.”
“Oh,” he replies, trying to sound suave, but internally panicking that they’ve, apparently, gotten to that part of the conversation already. And he doesn’t even know if she’s single. “This is- well- I kind of live here?”
Kate’s mouth forms a perfect little “oh”, and those lips, Jesus, he’s going to blow an aneurysm. This is pathetic, he hadn’t even realized he had been missing her this much. “You… live here.”
“Yeah. It’s a little big but-”
“It’s a little big?” She repeats, eyes widening, then quickly transforming her expression from hopeful apprehension to supreme unconcern. “So it’s just you? Living here? Just… you?”
This is exactly like they’ve always been: awkward, awkward, and oh-so-wonderful. He grins at her nervously, wanting to dive in this, head first, because he wants to be really bad at this together with her for a very long time, possibly for ever. “Yes, it’s just me.”
“Oh, thank god,” she mutters, then hastily covering her mouth. “I mean, yeah, it’s really big for just one person. I mean, unless, you wanted to move in with someone…”
“You,” he blurts out before he can help himself.
“What?!”
“Never mind,” Will backpedals, hastily. “I misspoke- I just meant, how are you? What have you been up to? I heard you scored a book deal, that’s fantastic.”
“You think so?” She smiles at him, maybe a little too pleased, and his heart soars at that, hoping she missed his very close slip-up. “Thanks,” she tells him, softly. Then, with a laugh, “We’ll if you’ve heard about the book, you know what I’ve been up to. That.”
“The job in the White House didn’t work out?”
Kate shrugs. “Not really. I felt obsolete, since I wasn’t with the NSA, and the thing is, Josh Lyman-”
“… not the easiest guy to work with,” he finishes for her. “I know.”
“So I quit,” she continues. “Rented a house on the shore for the whole year and got writing. Oh, and I got a dog.”
“Really?” He raises his eyebrows.
Kate nods, eagerly. “His name’s George Washington, but I call him Georgie.”
Will starts to laugh, and after a second, she joins in. Their eyes meet, and their laughter dies down almost immediately as they look at each other. “Can I ask?” Will starts, his voice low and still a little sad. “What happened between us?”
Kate looks down, sadly. “I really don’t know.”
“Me neither,” Will offers, carefully. “And I find that really upsetting because, I felt like -I feel like- we were… “ He pauses to search for better words, using the right word has possibly never been more important, including every ghostwriting gig he’s ever done. But just as he thinks it’s coming to him, Lauren -Shelby, this time- rushes over to them, breathless and giddy: “Will! Will, I think they’re about to call it, come on!”
They glance at each other. Kate blushes. “I should go.”
“No,” he says, imploringly, turning to face her even as he’s walking towards the family-slash-campaign-war-room. “Stay. Please.”
“I-”
He holds out his hand to her. “C’mon.”
She takes his hand. His fingers close around hers, and that simple gesture is enough to drive two truths home: first, he’s about as close to getting over her as he was when he moved here a year and a half ago. Second, this time, he isn’t letting go. They weave through the throng of people crowding through the screen doors, and he feels her grip tighten as he’s accosted by donors, strategists and Laurens and dragged inside the room. He plops himself down on the large table (made for family dinners, used for campaign strategy sessions, door-to-door planning meetings and bagel hockey tournaments), and in a moment of sheer brilliance he not only helps her sit next to her but actually sneaks his arm around her, pulling her closely to his side without letting go of her hand.
She looks up at him with a soft, vaguely-amused smile, but anything she could possibly want to say right now is drowned as Jake turns up the volume on the flat screen in front of them. He stares at her lips, trying to guess the words they were just beginning to form, before remembering that tonight is about him being elected to the United States House of Representatives, and turns his attention back to the television.
He wants this. He does. He wants to be a Congressman, and he wants to win this election, represent these people, and not just because he wants to crush the other guy with the fury of a meteorite crashing into earth. He wants to serve the people he’s met over the past year, in Eugene and Coos Bay, unpretentious, grounded people so much like the trees they love and live off, who live in towns named Drain and Julia after the pioneers that founded them two centuries ago. He wants to bring tourism here, show the whole world these rainy beaches and lush, green woods. He wants this.
And, he thinks, closing his fingers around Kate’s and feeling her squeeze back, he doesn’t want to do it alone.
“… MSNBC is now ready to call the Michigan governatorial race for former Democratic Senator Allison Bogan.” The red-haired, strong-shouldered image of Allie Bogan flashes across the screen amongst cat-calls and applause from the Bailey campaign. Kate grins at him excitedly, eyes wide like a little kid on Christmas morning, and again, Will has to remind himself that he genuinely does care about the outcome of this race. “Further out West the map remains wide open” Keith Olbermann continues. “The most hotly contested races, including the Nevada senatorial race and former White House Communications Director Will Bailey’s bid for the Congressional Seat of Oregon’s Fourth District, which we had expected to call at this time, are still, too close to call.” An exasperated groan runs through the room as Olbermann turns towards one of his pundits to analyze the night so far.
“Jake! 50 bucks on my girl Allison, now!” Lauren yells through the room. Everyone starts to move at once, gravitating towards phone banks, television sets, more food, more beer.
Will and Kate remain where they are. Too close to call.
The night rambles on. New exits, new numbers. Andi Wyatt wins the Maryland Senate Seat, Will gives a five-minute interview for local news, and a 60 second soundbite for Fox. When he turns away from the cameras, makes his way back to the porch, he finds her leaning against the railing with her back to him, staring at the pitch-black ocean.
“Hey,” he says quietly, lightly touching her back, and unable to resist the urge of letting his hand linger there, right there.
“Hi,” she smiles, eyes roaming over the beach. “Will, this place…” She shakes her head. “It’s amazing.”
Will nods. “I’m glad you think so.” They glance at each other, then quickly look away, Will’s eyes lingering on her profile, hers darting across the house before coming to rest on the tiny dot of light from the lighthouse on the the side of the bay.
“This is your fault, you know,” he says, conversationally.
She turns, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, it is,” he smiles. “This was your idea, remember.”
She frowns, a crease appearing between her eyes as she stares harder at the distant speck of light across the dark ocean, and there’s a sadness in her eyes that shocks him. “Don’t… I wish you wouldn’t think that,” she mumbles.
He offers a smile, and reaches out a hand to turn her face towards his. The gesture is so intimate, and comes so naturally, her skin feels so smooth under his fingers- all he can think is: this is right. “But it was,” he half-teases. “You told me it was the right thing to do and everything. Pulled out the big public service gun, you know I’m a sucker for that.” It takes him a second to realize she isn’t smiling.
“Stop it,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Kate?” Eyes wide, suddenly fearful, confusion and panic taken over as he stares at eyes sparkling not with vivacity but, he realizes with horror, tears. He didn’t mean to make her cry.
“It’s just…” She rubs her eyes impatiently with her sleeve, “telling you to move away was kind of the stupidest idea I ever had.”
“You didn’t- that’s not what I- Kate, damnit, look at me!”
She raises her head, stares at him. “I was kidding,” he tries.
“No,” she interrupts, “no, you really weren’t. I was- I was such a bitch to you, and you didn’t even bother calling me on it-” When he offers his mouth in protest, she holds up a hand, and continues to talk, her voice pressed and hurried like she’s trying to say as much as possible before knowing-better catches up with her. “No, don’t argue. I was. I got scared and I froze and I pushed you away, to freaking Oregon for crying out loud, but Jesus, Will, why didn’t you call me on it? Why didn’t you try a little harder?”
He stares at her. She covers her mouth, her fingers maybe trying to get back those words, stop more thoughts like them from escaping. Will feels sick. “I didn’t think you wanted me to,” he admits.
“I did.”
The words hang in the air. He wishes he knew what to do -would it be okay to kiss her, now? Tell her about the house, the view of the rainy bay on a morning that she would find truly magical, and how he bought it all with her in mind, would that be okay right now?- but suddenly, he’s shy, dreadfully shy.
Mercifully, or maybe not, there’s a huge shout of “WILL!” from the house behind them. On instinct, he turns, and finds Lauren Romano running towards him full-speed. “You won!” She shrieks, skidding to a halt mere inches before him, eyes wide, an incredulous but gleeful grin spreading over her face. “You won!”
“I-” He stares at her, mouth hanging open, and intuitively reaches for Kate’s hand. She takes it without comment. “Really? Are you sure? I mean-”
“COME ON!” Lauren beams, dragging him across the porch and into the house. He stares at a very auspiciously lit picture of himself self-consciously smiling back at him from three television screens.
“It was a hotly contested battle, but once again, we are calling the Oregon fourth for former White House Aid Will Bailey- a seat that will cushion the Democratic margin nicely and help President Santos push through-” The rest of Olbermann’s blather is lost to a persistent ringing in Will’s ears.
“Oh, my god,” he mutters. “Oh, my god. I’m a US Congressman.”
“Will?” Kate’s fingers press against his as Lauren shoots him a look. “Will, are you okay?”
He stares at them, both Laurens, Jake, his red-haired assistant Clemmy, all beaming at him. “We won.”
Lauren Romano laughs. “So we did.” All around him, people are applauding and catcalling, clinking beer bottles, high-fiving and hugging. Jake swaggers over to them, and after a heartfelt shoulder-clap from Will, he turns to Lauren and presses a kiss on her lips.
Will turns away from them, amused, and finds himself face-to-face with Kate. “Congratulations,” she offers, with a growing smile.
He beams back at her. “Thanks.” He hesitates, then decides that tonight, he might actually be in luck. “Give me a second, okay?” He climbs on the table and makes a little speech, thanking everyone for their effort, telling them what a great job they did, and finishing with a “We’ve got a meeting tomorrow at nine!” that isn’t really a joke, though everyone laughs as he says it.
He clambers down from the table, and gives her a look. “Come with me.”
She follows him through the thinning crowd of celebrators, and up the wooden staircase.
Up on this floor, he hasn’t rededicated any rooms. There’s the master bedroom, which is, well, his bedroom; a study stacked to the ceiling with books and speech drafts; and, behind a firmly closed door, a bedroom that remains empty except for a cardboard box containing a few faded stuffed animals and pale-blue romper suits that were once his own, picked up from his parents attic when they moved back from Brussels, and a gorgeous antique rocking chair he saw at a fair a few months ago and couldn’t resist buying. But he’s not about to show her that. Not tonight. Soon. Maybe. Hopefully.
He doesn’t lead her into the bedroom, of course not, he’d never, ever have that kind of nerve, not even as a newly-elected US Congressman with, or so he caught in the few minutes he had a chance to listen to the TV tonight, a solid 52 of the Oregon Fourth electorate behind him. Instead, he pushes open a small door and leads her up a narrow spiral staircase, through a dormer window -the latch catches, and he fumbles with it for a second and feels incredibly embarrassed about it- and onto, well. The roof.
He knows this door is supposed to be just for maintenance, when after the spring storms you need to clean leaves and branches and, after a particularly bad one in March, drift wood and two dead seagulls, off the flat roof, but this is probably his favorite part about this house.
And she seems to agree. “Wow,” she breathes, softly, clambering out of the window and sitting down next to him. Stars above in a small opening in the cloudy sky, people still hugging and laughing victoriously below, the calm crushing of waves on the bay, and most of all, her. Her eyes, her soft smile as she looks at him carefully, color rising, as both of them remember what she said just before they called they election.
“I feel like owe you an apology,” he offers, finally. “I should have tried harder. I really should have, because- well- I-” He falters, looks at her. “You know what I want to say, right?”
“Yeah,” Kate says, taking his hand, tracing his fingers with hers, callous but soft around the tips, and he wants to stop this moment, freeze it forever. “But could you maybe…?”
“Oh.” He pauses. “No, sure. I can think of something.” He shakes his head. “That came out wrong. I meant, I can think of the words- just give me a second?”
She laughs. “Sure.”
“Maybe I could just kiss you?”
“Oh.” She colors. “I guess…”
“No, no. I get it.” He takes a deep breath. Of course he can’t think of anything now. He remembers an old bit of wisdom Toby used to cite at three AM in the bullpen, when they were in dire need of inspiration. Start with the truth, he used to say, draining his scotch and crumpling up a piece of yellow paper. Start with the truth, and then make it sound better. “When I bought this house,” he starts, cautiously, “I kinda hoped we’d- I mean I picked it because I thought you’d like it. Because- well, I know it’s stupid now, but I still, when I picture my life a year from now or five or ten, I’m never alone- you’re always there. And we’re together. Really together. And now that you’re here, if it’s alright with you, I’d kind of like to see if we can make that real. I mean, if you want it. But I think you do, right? And I think we could be really good together.” Make it sound better, he reminds himself. “You’ve been here for like three hours and already I feel happier than I have for a year and a half- not just happier, but you know. Right. Like I’m doing the right thing. So I think it’d be great if you’d give us a chance this time, and if you don’t want to right now, well- this time I’m going to fight for you.”
She just goggles at him, and then a single tear runs down her cheek. “I never got over you,” she whispers hoarsely.
“Me either.”
“I just…”
“Kate?”He cuts her off.
“Hm?”
“Maybe if I kissed you now?”
Kate giggles, smiles up at him. “That’d be nice.”
Cautiously, savoring the surreality of the moment, he cups her face in his hands, and kisses her. And it feels like- like turning the last corner of the gravel road and seeing the festively-lit and wonderfully familiar outline of his grandparents’ house appear in front of him as a kid, and knowing Christmas is about to start. Like waking up in her bedroom in DC two years ago and, after months of being haunted by not-knowing where he was until after coffee, an occupational hazard of the campaign trail, knowing exactly where he was the moment his eyes flew open.
It’s coming home. And her lips are as soft and inviting as he remembers them to be, and she gives a little sigh as she wraps her arms around him, and nothing exists except the two of them and, looming in the distance, biding its time, the chance, the future they’re giving each other.
After a second, he feels her squirm under him and pulls away, smiling at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just…” She hesitates, blushes. “Can we maybe get off the roof. The height’s kind of making me nervous.”
“Oh!” He exclaims, blushing too. “Sorry, I didn’t realize-”
“No, it’s just-”
They look at each other, and burst out laughing. “We’re still really bad at this,” Kate surmises with a grin.
“Yup. But we’ll get better.” He follows her down the narrow staircase, never letting go of her hand and barely remembering to breathe. “Kate?”
She turns, long hair slightly ruffled, about to open the door. “Yeah?”
“I love you.” Really? Out loud? Now? Start with the truth, then make it sound better. “I… sorry, I didn’t mean to… did I freak you out?” That sounds more like backpedaling, so he stops, lamely.
“I’m not freaked out,” she says, slowly, and then the corners of her mouth turn up and her eyes widen, until she’s beaming at him. “I’m happy,” she says, sounding dazed. He wraps her into his arms and leans into kiss her, but she holds up two fingers between her lips. “I love you too,” she says, still sounding like she can hardly believe it herself.
His arms encircle her as their lips meet, as he kisses her properly, scooping up her familiar taste.
She’s not getting rid of him again. This time, it’s forever.