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

Warnings:

Character death *sobs*, or at least the discovery of the body. series deals with nonconsensual sex

Note:

Hoynes lovers should probably be hitting delete right about now.

"Abbey says Danny doesn't want the Rose Garden. You want to do this inside?"

She sprang to her feet, bumping the desk so that the goldfish's water sloshed in its glass bowl.

"Mr. President!"

"Sit down," he told her, coming to sit on her couch. "Why so jumpy? Second thoughts?"

"No. Not about Danny, just about all the brouhaha."

"Brouhaha?"

"Are you mocking me, sir?"

"Absolutely."

"Did you have a big wedding?"

"Yeah, but I married the belle of the Chesapeake. I thought for a while we were going to have to invite everyone on the eastern seaboard."

C.J. shuddered.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You'll look good in a wedding gown, you know. Have you thought about what you'll wear?"

"Not going to work."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You think because I like clothes you can distract me by talking about a wedding gown, and it won't work."

"Worked with Liz."

"I'm not your daughter."

"I should be so lucky."

"Thank you."

"You miss your dad?"

"I wish he'd lived to see it."

"He'll be there."

"Yeah. You'd have made a good priest, you know."

"Nah. Not meant to be."

"I'm not sure this wedding is, either. I don't know where to start."

"You already did. You've got the guy. You have a date yet?"

"After the midterms, but before the presidential campaign heats up. Maybe around New Year's? I'll have to talk to Danny."

"If you're set on indoors, we could clear out the Formal Dining Room for the ceremony, and then have the reception in the East Room."

"You really expect me to get married in the White House?"

"Damned right. It may be my only chance to pitch a White House wedding."

"You don't get to pitch this one!"

"The hell I don't!"

"You...."

"Live with it! We'll make it a new tradition: senior staff get White House weddings."

"You're not kidding."

"Not in the least. Tell Toby to tell Andi."

"It won't make a difference."

"Which proves my point: you may be my only chance, so get used to the idea!"

"Hello, again."

Charlie looked up at the familiar temp.

"You still here?"

"Yeah, but my boss yelled at me."

"I can't imagine Danny yelling at anybody."

"Not him. Her. She said I was insensitive."

"Well, you were."

"Well, I'm sorry."

He sorted the paperwork into piles: urgent, critical, life-threatening, and a couple he didn't have names for yet that were even worse. The girl didn't move.

"I really wanted to know, you know. I mean, how could he not know?"

Charlie looked at her, at the mousey brown hair, the freckles, the eyes deciding if they wanted to be green or hazel. This was a spy. This was the enemy.

This was a kid, probably nineteen.

Charlie got angry all over again at whomever was exploiting the girl.

"If something like that happened to you," he said, "would you tell?"

"Of course not!" she said, a little too quickly.

"Neither did anybody else, till Hoynes started talking about a book."

"He was an idiot."

"Yeah. It's all right, you know."

"What is?"

"To tell. It's all right to tell."

"So when did you find it?" Danny asked the detective as the car was pulled from the pond.

"Fisherman thought he was hung on a log, and drug in a hubcap trying to get his lure back. He said he felt it break away from something, so we sent a diver down just in case."

"Doesn't look like it's been there long."

"Nope. Your party been missing a while?"

"We don't know that she's missing at all, but yeah, she's been gone a few weeks. There's a woman in there, for sure?"

"There's a body. It may not be pretty."

"That's why I want to make sure before anybody else has to look."

"Well, if you're sure, come on over."

He trudged after the detective toward the car, and then stopped.

"It's not her," he said.

"You sure? How?"

Danny pointed at the black plastic card dangling on its chain from the rear view mirror.

"There's something written on it," said the detective. "big white letters."

"AJC," said Danny. "Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It's a press pass."