Fandom:

The West Wing AU

Pairing:

C.J./Danny

Rating:

PG-13 for topic

Distribution:

How much do I owe you for hauling it off?

Spoilers:

Up to and including Full Disclosure, from which the series follows on

Email:

exfilia at livejournal dot com

Disclaimer:

if I owned them, they'd have a lot more fun

Warning:

mentions nonconsensual sex

Note:

Hoynes lovers should probably be hitting delete right about now.

"Leo wants you," Carol told C.J. when she came back in. "Something about the briefing."

"What about it? Who briefed?"

"I did."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"Nothing. I mean, less than I expected. I was expecting Mitch Kowalsky to be all over me. We were talking just before the briefing, and I thought he was going to give me a hard time, but it was like he was a thousand miles away."

"Get me the tape, and tell Leo I'll be there as soon as I've seen it."

"You're here?"

"I'm your wife, John. Where would I be?"

"Usually Manhatten."

"What's wrong?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're not yourself," she said.

"How would you know?"

"Is everything all right, John?"

"I'm not sure any more. Angie, is there anything that a person could do that would be unforgiveable?"

"It depends what's at stake." She came and put her arms around him for the first time in a long while. "For the sake of a good marriage, one could forgive almost anything."

"You have a strange definition of good, Evangeline."

"We could work on that, if you wanted."

"I'm in the middle of a presidential campaign."

"I noticed. You're making a proper cock-up of it, too."

"Those would be the words, yes."

"Would you like to talk about it? Come on, it'll do you good."

Leo sat in the residence with the Bartlets until C.J. came upstairs. Charlie pulled the door to behind her, and she stopped and took a deep breath.

"Does he have it?" the president asked.

"He's got something," C.J. told him. "Danny says he's not all that bright, but...."

"If he were bright," said Leo, "he would have had it a week ago."

"What's he going to do about it?" asked Abbey.

"Look for confirmation, first," said C.J., "and then some background, and...."

"Oh, God, how we need that plastered all over the pages of Time again."

"But it's still just speculation," said Bartlet.

"If I'm asked directly, I can't lie. It'd doom the campaign from the start."

"Don't a lot of people deny that they're interested at first?" asked Abbey. "I mean, if you play it right, you can probably make it look like this Mitch gave you the idea."

"It'll happen too fast," C.J. said. "Time comes out on Mondays. He won't make this week's issue, and maybe not next week. Then it's New Year's and after that the wedding...."

"...And after that," said Leo, "he can print and be damned."

"He's going to be running around asking questions in the meantime, though," said the president. "Pennies are going to start to drop."

"So what do we do?" asked Abbey.

"Wait," C.J. told her. "We wait for Mitch to make the next move."