Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

*

The fifth generation Boeing 747-400 climbs to cruising altitude from the SE-NW runway at Dulles, bearing north and west, then west-southwest, as CJ does the back of the napkin math in her head. There’d probably been closer to ten thousand briefings than five. Call it nine, roughly, including the campaign. No way to know the incalculable number of press releases, interviews, junkets, and photo ops. Good luck to the brave souls at the National Archives, who’d have both campaigns, two administrations, and the transition from physical, hard-copy media to digital content to navigate in their unenviable mission to catalog the Bartlet years.  

The years reach back, and CJ feels them in her bones. As if the pleasure and the pressures of service have been, by now, seared into her at some intrinsic level, and she’ll never be the same for it. She half feels that if the NIH decided to tap her veins and transcribe the cellular matrix of her DNA, they’d peer down the double barrels of their electron microscopes to find her genetic code made up of the contents of every briefing book she’d ever read, every press room transcript.

There’s a word for that, CJ thinks. The kind of experience that changes you, at a material level. It escapes her. 

The whole of it plays back like one of those old-timey newsreels, soundless against the soothing, oceanic roar of the engines: The biting cold of Manchester, and Cedar Rapids, and Madison; the night of the Illinois primary, when everything changed; the election; her first walk to that podium, and the first question that’d come to her (Katie Witt, ABC); the first hundred days; the sudden arboreal stops; Sam and call girls; Mendoza on the court; Leo’s addiction and honor, both; Charlie and Zoey; Roslyn; Josh, oh, god, Josh; tobacco; the president and MS; the censure on the hill; death threats, stalkers, Simon Donovan; Rob Ritchie, re-election, Abdul Shareef; Sam, moving on; John Hoynes and his ill-fated resignation; Zoey and god, the things that kid had been through; Bob Russell; the Bartlets’ marriage; loneliness; her father, who no longer remembered her name; the Honorable goddamn Chief Justice Evelyn Baker Lang; Gaza; Israel and Hamas at Camp David, and peace, however fragile, for however long it would hold; Leo, and the terrible gift he’d passed to her, had chosen her for…; the last question (Mark O’Donnell, CBS) she’d taken in the job that, even now, is the one she thinks of as hers above all else; the President’s health and the band breaking up; the weight of the world on her awkward and uncertain shoulders; spooks and Kazakhstan; Russia, and China, and the oil and Americans in between; nuclear power; Leo… Leo…; the President-elect and the President. 

Her boys. All of them. Sam. Josh. Toby…

Fresh wounds, there. She’s forgiven him, in a way, but it still hurts. She suspects it is going to hurt, and for a very long time. 

Charlie. Leo. God, Leo…

It all rushes in. 

Jed Bartlet, dying a little more every day, and none of them knowing it, not for years, there. He’d done that. He’d kept that from them. 

The bad dates and the catcalls and the shitty, undercutting comments. Oliver Babish and the audacity. 

It was all so much. She didn’t think…It hadn’t been…

Unexpected friendships: Ainsley Hayes. Kate Harper. Amy Gardner. Nancy McNally. Women who’d walked through fire and bared their teeth at the burns, while the men around them saw the curve of lips, the flash of white, and called it smiling.

Donna. Carol. Margaret. The allies who kept her at first on time and informed, and then functioning and, then, well, basically alive, these last months. 

These last months…

CJ smiles to herself. These longer, harder months, at the very end, which had been both better and worse, somehow, than entire years. 

Her thoughts are muddy and her eyes tired. She’s been staring but not seeing. CJ blinks, turns her head to the window. From thirty-thousand feet, the view is clear. There’s snow and mountains below them. They’re somewhere over the Rockies, now. 

It hits her—She’s back in the West, going home. The home she made for herself, those years ago, clawing her way out of the cold and dark with a scholarship and a jump shot. The home that’s been waiting for her. The one she left, or left her, and the one she’s been waking up to for a few months now. Been wanting for years. Both searching for and actively avoiding, most of her adult life. 

CJ lets her gaze fall to the wide, snowfields below.

She never asked Jed Bartlet what it was like, leaving home, going out to South Bend that first year, armed only with his faith, and searching for purpose. She wonders if he’d felt some kin to the heart-stopping need she’d had, at that age; the hunger to cast off the past and become someone new. There are so many questions she never asked him. Or Leo. She’d never had the time. 

And now it’s gone. It’s over. How? How is that possible?  

“Ma’am?” 

The young woman in the seat beside CJ is looking at her with concern. 

CJ laughs. Or cries. She’s not sure what the sound she makes qualifies as. Both, probably. And neither. 

“Um.” The girl looks at her, a little freaked out. “Are you, like, okay?”  

“Yes. I’m just–” CJ blinks, steeling her jaw against the ache and the euphoria at once, and the million other emotions she can’t even begin to describe, much less put a name to.

She swipes at her eyes. “Just glad to be going home.” 

*

Light pours in from a vaulting nave of glass and steel and sky. 

Until two weeks ago, the concept of after had made her stomach clench. Before there was only work. The job. The glorious burden of the single most important thing she’d ever do. Though, maybe not. Or, not only.  

She shakes her head. Part of her is still astonished, even now. "You're here.”  

Danny grasps her elbows, pulls her in. By the look on his face, curious and searching, she knows his response is going to be a question. That’s him to a fault. Always asking questions. Usually the hardest ones of all.

"Did you doubt me?" He’s playful, but he means it, too. 

CJ’s heart thuds in her chest, an array of responses echoing in her mind. She shakes her head, unable to put the feeling into words. She presses her mouth to his, and only breaks away when the laughter and joy and absurdity of it finally bubbles up out of her. 

Danny pulls her close, brushing the tears from her face. “Welcome home.” 

*

In the half-forgotten house tucked against Runyon Canyon, they share a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and the kind of slow, sweet, nowhere to go, nothing to do, sex she hasn’t had since…god, who can remember? She’s still feeling the effects of it, having her walls deconstructed so thoroughly, and the vulnerability is fairly stunning. 

Danny’s fingers wind soothingly in her hair as she regains her breathing.

CJ is not going to cry. She refuses to cry. Not for this, or for them, or for nine years missed. Not when she did so much, and so did he, and because it’d never have worked, right? Not before now, before the job was done, and she’d seen it all through before choosing this for herself. And yet…

And yet, even knowing that, and knowing it is all true, it still hurts, the maybes. The choices made, and not made.  

Ambien and exhaustion sweep in like an ambush from all sides, and the memories, that maelstrom of feeling that had hit her hours before, somewhere over Colorado, the feeling it was real, properly real, but properly over, too... It’s all... 

What’s a tragedy that turns the corner? 

Maybe just life, if you're lucky enough, CJ thinks, and curls like a question mark into Danny’s shoulder. 

*

CJ falls asleep and wakes twenty hours later. She blinks at the clock, uncomprehending. The display time simply cannot be correct, except her phone indicates otherwise, as does every other timepiece within stumbling distance. Huh. 

She pulls on a feather soft Notre Dame t-shirt—(not hers, but is now)—faintly alarmed by the degree to which her body has gone into force shutdown mode. She also feels… Well, good. Tired, sure, but in the clearing-out-the-mental-cobwebs kind of way, not bone-weary and emotionally spent.

In the bathroom, she smoothes the sleep lines from her face and brushes her teeth, takes in the details of the rooms and walls and fixtures around her. She lived in this house for more than two years—closer to three, really—and even if that was in an entirely different millennium at this point, there are still whole rooms she has almost no memory of. She stretches her neck and wonders if the walls had always been this color...?  

Downstairs, a few boxes that Danny had driven out with the week before are stacked here and there. The floors and windows are bright and clean. Her coat is hung in the closet. There are groceries in the fridge and a to-do list on the counter. 

Out in the yard, from a tinny, AM/FM radio, Renée Montagne chatters away on KCRW, and Danny is here, still here, years later, when everyone else had gone, pulling weeds in the half-wild side garden and coaxing a bougainvillea into order. 

She steps out onto the upper patio, looking out over the hills. The view is mostly south-east, with a little clearing to the west between a copse of trees she doesn’t recall being there, or at least not that high. The sky is clear to the east, dissolving into milky white-pink clouds over the end-of-afternoon ocean. The air smells of woodsmoke and growing things. CJ perches on the steps, chin in hand, just breathing, taking it all in for a moment. 

Danny catches sight of her and brightens. Her stomach does that ridiculous teenage thing it’s been doing since he walked into her life and regularly made it worse before making it exponentially better.

This guy.  

“Danny, what the hell?” she snipes, half-hearted. “You let me sleep for an entire day?”

He throws a trowel aside, brushes off his hands. It should be awkward and out of context—the weekend-casual thing (Tuesday, whatever) he’s got going on, with the blue Pistons T-shirt and battered sneakers instead of suit and tie. Except nothing feels awkward. Of all the madness that has been her life these last weeks, months, years, this never was. Hadn’t been. Not even when it was off-limits, really. Probably what had made it seem both so dangerous and so appealing, back when. 

He tips his head, counters, “Considering you might just be the most sleep deprived human being on the planet, yeah, I made the executive decision to let you rest.” 

“I wanted to celebrate,” she pouts, tipping her chin up, not entirely put off, but some. She’d had plans. Well, the one, anyway.

“No statute of limitations on celebrating,” Danny points out, amused. He sits beside her on the warm stone and obliges her with a kiss. 

“Still,” she sulks, though it’s mostly for show.   

He smooths a hand over her back. "How you feeling?" 

CJ draws a great breath, lets it out. "Halfway human, I think. Kinda hard to remember life before never-ending exhaustion." 

"Had to check if you were still breathing a few times." 

“For the moment you’re still stuck with me.” She noses her way into his space, detecting dirt and sweat and a layer of chlorine. “You’re all sweaty.” 

“Sorry. Cleaning up out here. Your old tenants didn’t really bother with pruning back the hedge.” 

She leans against him, folds her arms across her knees and tilts her head back to the sky as Danny rattles on about things she’d never have known to think of. To care about. They’re so different. And yet...

She silences him the best way she knows how. 

“Enough. Maintenance report later. Take me back to bed, pool boy.”

“Think I can manage that,” he grins. “Pool boy, huh?”

“Yeah,” CJ grins, feeling lazy and turned on and just…happy. Teenage or not, she wants to chase the butterflies. “You've graduated tanks. I'm trusting you with more responsibilities now.”

“Oh yeah? Those got anything to do with your plans?” 

“Exclusively.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he grins, and pulls her to her feet so fast, CJ can only giggle—girlish and buoyant, and god, this feeling is ridiculous—before she lets herself get swept away. 

In that little corner of might-have-beens she does not at all enjoy visiting, she likes to think it would have been like this, years before—all sweet and hot and starry-eyed. But maybe not. There’d have been fear, too. Consequences. It’s still sore to think about, and so mostly she doesn’t. Anyway, there’s no going back, and terrified as she was (is…) really, they’re past the point of escape or extraction. It’s just the cliff ahead. But from the vantage of day two of the rest of her life, it doesn’t seem so awful. 

Maybe falling isn’t so bad, she reasons, Danny's beard scraping across her throat as she pulls him closer, wanting more, wanting everything, and not fighting it. Her heart thuds, and the anxiety is still there, still lingering, but quieter now. 

CJ twines her fingers in his, and, for the moment, gives in to the emotional pull. 

*

"Where is Gail, by the way?" he asks, later. 

"She swam over to the East Wing to offer counsel to Helen Santos' Chief of Staff in life, love, and legislative affairs."

"Who–?"

"Donna Moss."

"Hey! I missed that. Good on her."

"Figured it was time for a change of view. Also, I wasn’t leaving my first-born fish with Josh."

"Sometimes I’m amazed he’s kept himself alive this long.” 

“Also largely Donna’s doing.” She yawns. “Don’t let me sleep.”

She can feel Danny smile against her hair. “I make no promises.” 

“Traitor.” 

*

She sleeps again, but this time he wakes her. It’s just after seven, and full dark. 

“Hey. Boss has me on orders not to let you sleep through the night, even if I think it’s not the worst idea in the world.” 

She rolls over, facing him. Sniffs. “Are you cooking?” 

“I am, in fact.” 

CJ blinks. “You made me dinner?” 

He looks at her, kinda confused by the question. “Yeah…?” 

“Just…” 

For the life of her, CJ cannot remember the last time someone made her dinner. At home. With plates and forks and, like, ingredients. It’s almost hilarious, it’s so domestic. Which is probably a pretty strange reaction.

She sits up. Cracks her neck as she reaches for her t-shirt. “Mentally I’m adding this to your responsibilities.” 

“Noted.” 

They eat and talk while a basketball game plays on the TV (which, yikes, even she knows is old, at this point). She curls into the corner of the couch, also more battered and worse for the wear than she remembers, but functional. Add it to the list things to deal with, eventually. 

CJ takes a bite of risotto, and pokes him in the ribs. She tips her chin at the TV. “You know you’re gonna make life a lot harder for yourself out here as a Celtics fan.” 

Danny scoffs. “I’ll take ‘em over your Lakers any day.” 

“Your funeral,” she teases.  

She curls into his shoulder. Danny toys with her hair. She feels sleepy and sated and half-ready to jump him again, but this is good. Just…being, or something. She doesn’t really have the words. 

The game switches over at half-time. CJ frowns at the chyrons and jerseys. “Wait. I thought the Hornets were Charlotte?” 

“They were. Franchise moved to New Orleans.” 

“Okay,” she continues. “But that doesn’t explain why their jerseys say Oklahoma City.” 

“Hurricane Ines,” he offers by way of explanation. “Stadium damage.”  

Which had only been two full years ago. She makes a face. “Wow. The sheer volume of things I’ve missed is suddenly looming. I think I’m going to need a re-introduction to, well…”

“The twenty-first century?” Danny quips. 

“Parts of it, anyway.” She chews, thoughtful. “What’s the last book you read for fun?” 

He thinks about it. “Sarah Vowell, I think. Assassination Vacation?”

“Shut up, that’s not a real book.” She makes a face of disbelief and sets her empty bowl on the coffee table. “Not unless it’s one you wrote,” she says, thinking of cricket players and covert operations and little knock off Bermudan Vespas.   

“Can’t take credit. Though I’m gonna tell Sarah you said that next time I see her. Essay collection about sites of political violence around the country. It’s funny. You’d like it.”  

“You’re a weird guy.” She means it mostly as a compliment. “Fiction, then.” 

“You want some recommendations?” 

She shrugs, stretching her legs out. “Feels like I should make an effort to re-enter society. Share some bare minimum of common knowledge. Things that aren’t troop deployments and trade bills and labor negotiations.” 

“I’ll make you a list,” Danny says. 

She thinks briefly of Toby’s offer to do the same. She’s still mad at him, still hurt, and still wounded he’d been so blunt with his asshat armchair psychoanalysis of her. Still, the conversation had been a step. Clarifying, even. Nothing to do but give it time (though she hasn’t yet ruled out a frying pan to the side of his head, if it helps move the process along).

“We’ll call it non-required reading for Pop Culture 101.” 

She presses the pads of her left hand fingertips against his right, pushing scar-tissue subjects aside for the time being. Better things. 

“You hear anything from Annenberg yet?” 

“Nah, but only been a few days. I’m sure they have a few candidates.” 

“I should have Cate Marsh give them a call.” 

He gives her a look. “Yeah, I don’t know that I want the Secretary of Education interferin’ on my behalf.” 

“Or Gabe Tillson.” 

He laughs at her. “Governor offering input on a part-time lecturer gig? Yeah. Might seem something like intimidation.” 

“I can be very intimidating.”  

Danny gives her a look that’s equal parts amusement and pride and arousal. “Don’t I know it.”  

The game switches back. The Celtics are up by three against Houston. CJ half-listens, half-watches through the windows: the bounce of the light across the pool, and the sway of falling vines and flowers and the shape of the trees against the neon-soaked dome of downtown. Danny rattles off the kind of stats and numbers that men are perpetually filing away for reasons she’s never understood. There was a time she could have played professional basketball, and she’d never been half so-interested in the metrics of it. Probably something they did to impress each other, like driving trucks and running for office. 

“You like it here?” 

“What, LA?” he replies, and puts his arm around her, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Well, I’ve only been here a week, but so far I’d say it has some endearing qualities.” 

She means more than that, actually, but also feels weird saying it. Talking. Still, in the spirit of facing down cliffs…

“Wanna know something?” 

“Always.” 

She looks up at him. “I missed you.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You missed me after five days?” 

“Didn’t take that long, but yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Danny says, and kisses her hand. “I missed you, too.”

*

“Today, we do things,” CJ implores from the kitchen island.

Morning sunlight’s falling into the kitchen, and there are birds chirping in the trees around the open patio doors. 

“Hey,” Danny defends, sliding eggs and toast over the marble counter to her. “We've been doin’ stuff.” 

“Sex doesn’t count.” 

Danny resists rolling his eyes. Of course she’d put it that way, reducing actual time together to the most basic and impersonal parts. Love of my life right here, he thinks. 

“Okay,” he nods, not rising to it.   

“I’m sayin’, I’m not spending the next six months sitting around, working on my tan. There are things to do. Things that need doing.” 

“Okay, so: What’s on the list?” 

“At the moment?” 

“Yeah.” 

CJ leans on her elbows, hands around her coffee mug and manages to both look entirely composed and utterly at a loss. She nods her head. “I’m working on it.” 

He shakes his head. This one. “Okay.” 

“I have a list. It’s in progress,” CJ insists. “With…things.”  

Danny holds up his hands. “Hey, I’m not arguing. I’m just glad you haven’t been re-deputized. Figured Josh would be ringing you inside of seventy-two hours, and so far, we’ve gone four days without interruption. You didn’t change your number, did you?” 

She sips her coffee. One side of her mouth tips up. “As it happens, I am on Josh's speed dial, I’ll have you know.”

He senses a but. 

She skates her fingers around the counter. “Although, my hand might have slipped, and I might have accidentally entered the number for a diner outside the port of Long Beach.”

“Yeah, but he’s got a cell, right?” 

“Stole his phone,” CJ says around a bite of toast. “Changed it there, too.”  

“Not sure if I should be impressed or a little freaked out that you managed to pull one over on the Chief of Staff, even if it is Josh.” 

CJ waves it off. “If he needs me—really needs me—the switchboard operator will find me. But here's hoping the twelve and half minutes it takes them to track down my details from the NSA or the FBI or whoever is enough for him to solve whatever problem on his own. Training wheels are off, now.”

“Clever girl.”  

“Aren't I just?” She kisses him, tasting of coffee and bitter bits of toasted wheat, and every this will be so much easier, eventually, I promise she ever spoke.  

He breaks away before they get too distracted—the lady had demanded a day for doing things, after all. Whatever that meant. He puts milk and the remaining eggs in the carton away.  

“We still have some of that left?” CJ asks, pointing at the bottle of champagne in the door. 

“Only because someone fell asleep before she finished her share.” 

Her mouth twiddles right to left. CJ flexes the fingers of one hand in his direction. “Gimme.” 

She sloshes a half-glass of bubbles into a glass as Danny tidies up. “What happened to things to do today?” he asks. 

“We’ll get around to them.” She taps her head. “Working on my list. It’s percolating.” 

“You want juice with–?” 

“No!” She slides the glass away. “What’s wrong with you?”

Danny blinks. “I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.” 

“Daniel,” CJ stares at him in horror. “You cannot mix good champagne with orange-flavored sugar water. It’s just wrong.” 

“I can. I have.” 

“You savage. Not in this house, you won't!”

"Guess you're slumming it, now." He grabs her around the middle and presses a kiss to her neck. “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of a control freak?” 

She turns her head to face him, holding her glass away as far away from him as possible. “Anyone ever tell you you’re insane?” 

“Yeah. Usually you.” 

“I stand by it,” she declares, between pecks. “I’m rescuing this from you.” 

Her cell phone rings. 

He almost doesn’t dare to ask. “Speak of the devil, and he shall annoy…?” 

She shakes her head and holds up the display, showing her oldest brother’s name.

“Guess he’s getting the hang of it,” Danny says. 

“Or they’ll soon find his body buried under a mountain of binders,” she says, pressing the button and lifting the phone to her ear. “Caller number twelve! You’ve reached KWCJ, playing the hottest hits of the eighties, nineties, and now…” 

She wanders out through the open doors to the patio, taking her bit and glass of half-flat champagne with her.

Danny watches her go, shaking his head. 

There aren’t many things capable of throwing him off kilter, at this point in his life. Chasing power in all its facets from one corner of the globe to the next for most of his career has pretty much eradicated sentimentality from the way he sees at the world. Even now. 

But hell if he isn’t looking back at the last few years, circling every small move that had led him to this point. A place to where, by some miracle both great and small, he's waking up each morning with the dream girl he’d never gotten over (hadn't even really tried, if he's being honest about it)—the one who'd always been equal parts class president and prom queen and valedictorian and varsity captain, plus a thousand other things she’d decided to be along the way. CJ's ridiculously endearing laughter echoes in his mind, and he's just sucker-punched by the joy of it all, the way events had played out. It’s almost like—

Outside, glass shatters on stone. 

CJ’s hand presses against her neck. 

And, like that, the spell breaks.  

*

Ohio is a cold, sharp shock. 

God, CJ thinks, undone by the velocity of the whiplash. By the unmitigated awkwardness of it all. 

She hasn’t seen Rob in, what, four? Five years? Two, at least, since she’d seen Drew…Definitely before she’d been thrown to the lions as COS. Summer, the year before? Spring? Who could remember. She hasn’t spoken to anyone in her family since a fifteen-minute phone call to her sister-in-law’s cell at Christmas, checking in, reminding them of her existence between laps from the Situation Room to the Oval. CJ’s not even sure if she mentioned going back to LA. She definitely didn’t say anything at the time about a non-boyfriend who has somehow, in the time since, negotiated his way to a position somewhere in between life partner and current tenant, but it’s not like she could have said no, Danny, you can’t come be a comfort during my father's funeral, right? Weddings, funerals…this was the kind of thing people did in actual relationships. Real, proper, grown-up, figure-it-out together, relationships, and it doesn’t matter if she hates feeling this unmoored and anxiety-ridden and has already mentally run through the whole who’s this scenario that’s bound to play out at some point—it’s happening and it’s good (probably…), or at least somewhat healthy, (isn’t it?) and it can be everyone else’s problem if they don’t like it. Package deal. Or something. 

Drew and Laurel had been first to arrive, the day before, from Chicago, which is a relief, since they're actually capable of getting things done. Her stepmother is lost and indecisive. Rob is late, then mostly absent, as is typical, and by the time CJ’s back in her hometown on a freezing, slate-gray Friday afternoon, there’s really not much to be done except get on with it. Thank god for Laurel, who has a list of about a hundred things that need doing in the short-time before Sunday, and doesn’t blink twice at the polite stranger at CJ’s side, who volunteers for whatever without a moment’s hesitation.  

CJ feels bad she sort of abandons Danny to be conscripted into the thousand different things Laurel needs, but figures that a) he both knew what he was signing up for with this and b) and that a guy who made a living outta turning small talk into solid sources of information for years on end can probably handle himself with a few compulsively organized Midwesterners. Course, the downside to his particular finely-honed skill set is also pretty obvious, but she’s (fairly) confident that whatever acerbic comments he may pull out of Rob or paternalistic bullshit he gets from Drew, it’s not gonna do much to sway Danny’s impression of her at this point. Not her own hot-and-coldness over the years, nor her lackluster abilities to perform functional human relationships have been able to do that, which is saying something. 

The one bright spot in the whole awful tableau is that Hogan comes back from Oberlin. She appears at the door to the guest room that had been Drew’s, once upon a time, and beams like a light in the darkness. 

“I’m not intruding, am I?” 

CJ feels a tiny bit of relief, just seeing her, and quickly pulls her into a lingering hug. 

“Oh god, no,” CJ sighs. “Your beautiful face is the best thing I’ve seen all day.” 

“This just sucks… so much.”

“It really, really does.”

“Yeah.” Hogan slumps onto the foot of the bed. She lifts one hand in futility. “I mean, you just left DC. It’s not really fair, is it?” 

“Not much is, kiddo. So it goes,” she says, putting on a brave face and changing the subject. “You just get in?” 

“Last night. Mom’s had me running around to the church and the funeral home, the lawyer’s office, doing whatever.” 

“Luke here, too?” 

Hogan rolls her eyes. “The boy prince has practice or something. He couldn’t possibly miss that,” she says, sarcastic. “We’ll be honored with his presence tomorrow.”

“Important to honor the family tradition.” 

“An irrational commitment to athletic achievement?” Hogan offers. 

“Avoiding situations that call for overt displays of emotion,” CJ says, dry. 

“That, too.” Hogan tips her head to the second carry-on bag in the corner. “Mom said you came with someone.”

Well. That didn’t take long. 

“I did. Danny. You’ll meet him in a little bit.” 

“How long have you…?” 

“Oh, somewhere between a few months and about eight years.” 

“Really?” Hogan asks, curious. 

CJ waves it off, wanting to say more but feeling like it's trivial in the face of everything. Or maybe being defensive about things yet. It’s not like they’ve had much time to talk.

“C’mon," she says. "Let’s make tea. I wanna hear about school.” 

*

Out of all of it, some of which Danny had absolutely anticipated, some of which is a surprise, the thing that’s is hands down, the strangest and most surreal aspect about CJ’s family is how impersonal they all are with one another. 

Her older brothers are nice enough, in a vague and disinterested kind of way. There’s nothing intimidating or threatening in their straightforward hellos and introductions, but he gets the sense that neither really care enough to sketch in the details. He knows they’re both business types—Drew is some kind of consulting exec, whatever that actually means; Rob’s a developer up in the Bay Area. They’re both the kind of guys who do what they’re asked, when they’re asked, but wouldn’t know where to begin if someone wasn’t handing them a set of instructions on how to get from Point A to B. By some mutual and unspoken agreement, Drew’s wife Laurel is the glue that ties everything together, a central communicator and chief operations officer of their unit. And sure, every family has its own roles and dynamics that are as set in stone as it gets, but…none of ‘em seem to talk to each other. The sole exception is her niece, the college junior with the same wry humor as her aunt, who’s the only person who asks CJ an actual question the whole night. 

Since the day he’d first met her, a hundred years ago, in the freezing, former sawmill in downtown Manchester, Danny had it clocked that CJ Cregg was all heart and fire beneath a disarming smile, and the only thing sharper than her wits were her convictions, and it’s weird as hell to him that none of her own family members really seem to know her. 

It’s not like he expects the same level of casual over-investment his sisters have with him and each other. Doesn’t exactly wish it on people, either. Years of weekly if not daily emails with line-by-line edits elucidating the many ways one’s brother, an actual, professional journalist, is being wrong, or incorrect, or lazy about an argument, get old pretty fast. Not that anything but leaving the Post had stopped any of ‘em doing it, stubborn as are. Still, it’s evidence they care. 

So it’s kind of heartbreaking to see. It also might make the most sense of anything he’s ever learned about her. 

Danny follows instructions, and does the only thing he’s ever really been all that good at, which is to listen, and to watch, and occasionally ask a few questions. 

*

When she thinks of her father, back when he still was her father, she pictures him in his office. It’s horrifically cluttered, almost no organization. Books and papers and notebooks, piled on every surface. Eventually they’d need to sort it, clean it out, though her stepmother has pretty much vetoed that for the time being. Regardless, she finds Drew and Rob in there, surveying the landscape of anguish to come. Or something. 

Drew’s thumbing through a hand-labeled folder whose contents she can’t make out. “Thought you might have gone to bed early. Jet lag.”

CJ shrugs one shoulder, looking at a picture on a shelf. Her parents, probably fifty years ago. “Still reeling from the karmic gut punch, I guess.”  

“What’s that mean?” Rob asks. 

“Nothing.” Everything. “I guess…I thought I’d have some time.” 

“Could have come at Christmas,” he says. An old argument. One CJ is not interested in re-litigating.

She gives Rob a warning look. “I really couldn’t.” 

“Would have been nice if you could make it for a day, at least.”  

She turns on him, annoyed. “Well, I couldn’t. What do you want?” 

He shrugs. 

“You think I wanted to spend Christmas talking down a bunch of career military hawks from starting the next forever war?”  

“I think you pretty much always do what it is you want.” 

“What I want!” She laughs, and it sounds bitter even to her. Doing the things she wanted! Imagine.

She scoffs in irony at the concept. "So sorry de-escalating nuclear war kept me from the cookie swap.” 

Rob mumbles something under his breath. 

“Sorry?” 

“I don’t understand what you even do in that situation.” He looks at her in incredulity. “It’s not like you have any experience in military...whatever. Were you really adding any value?” 

“He’s got a point, Cee,” Drew says. “Did you really need to be there every second?” 

CJ turns between the two of them. They were– Did they–?

Men.

Un-fucking-believable. 

She bites the inside of her cheek, tasting copper before she tries for, frankly, unreasonable peace. “I haven’t…” CJ musters, at least trying to face the reality of her choices. “I wasn’t here. I know. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be.” 

“Yeah, we're aware,” Rob bites out. The cutting, mean-gay edge creeps into his voice, snide and dismissive. “You always gotta save the world.” 

She shakes her head. He doesn’t get it. Neither of them will ever understand. 

“Not like you missed anything. Dad was gone a long time ago. So, you know, you don’t need to feign this whole monopoly-on-grief schtick. You didn’t see any of it up close.” 

She hisses at him fury. “No! You don’t get to tell me what I was and wasn’t aware of,” she spits, her voice getting louder. “I talked to him every week for years, while you managed one, maybe two, guilt trips every third summer, and never shut up about getting together in Napa, all ‘next year in Jerusalem’ or whatever. Which was never going to happen.” 

“Forgive me for trying to be positive in his rare moments of lucidity!”

“Congratulations! You want a medal or a cookie for doing the bare minimum?” 

“I’d settle for acknowledging that I showed up, from time to time.” 

“I had a country to run. What’s your excuse?” 

“I think we need to take a beat,” Drew interjects, playing the dutiful patriarch. She wants to beat both of them over the head with a textbook. 

CJ grinds her jaw and summons all the calm and poise she’d needed to dress down the Secretary of Defense, four star generals, members of the Joint Chiefs. 

“Get your heads out of your asses and focus on getting through tomorrow. We will smile. We will deal with it.” She throws out her hands. “And then, if we so choose, we never have to see each other again.” 

*

Danny’s sitting at the desk in the guest room when she storms in, irate and exhausted and annoyed with herself for getting worked up when she knows what to expect.  

“You good?” Danny asks.

“Fine.” 

“Kinda heard a lot of shouting.”

CJ thuds her head against the back of the door a few times. “What’s that expression about unhappy families?” 

“All unhappy in their own way?” 

“That’s the one.” She cracks her neck, playing the scene back again in her head. 

She shakes her head, considers the whole sad situation. She leans against the dresser opposite the desk. It’s full of crafting supplies and her stepmother’s tchotchkes. Feels like there’s nothing really left of her childhood in this place. 

CJ shrugs it off. “It’s just how we communicate.” 

“I figured.” 

“How’s that?” 

Danny shrugs, sincere and totally without guile, and possibly the only person in the entire state who gives a damn about how she’s doing. “Something of a direct relationship between how much you care about someone and how loudly you yell at ‘em.”

She scowls. “No there isn’t!” 

He just gives her that look that says she’s making his point for him. 

She hangs her head in her hands. 

“I don’t know what to say.” She rubs her tired eyes. “I’m supposed to speak tomorrow, and I have no idea what to say.” 

“Might not be much help but, here.” He hands her the legal pad he’s been scribbling on. “Some starting points. You can add your own touches.” He comes over to her side and just is, warm and thoughtful and an ally on her side, which feels both new but also like he always has been, somehow. “Figured you didn’t have much time to think about what to say, yet.”  

CJ scans it. She reads, and so much of the anxiety and tension just…dissipates. 

She looks at him, unable to summon the most obvious, straightforward way to just get out the half a million things in her brain. She can’t say it, not yet. And not like this. God. “It’s there, Danny. I–” 

“CJ. It’s okay.”

She presses a hand to her collarbone, rubbing at her shoulder. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” 

“What was?” 

She doesn’t really know. This week. The last three months? Her entire adult relationship with her family? “Any of it. I dunno.” Her nerves are frayed and her head aches, but she’s wired and on edge after dealing with the assholes downstairs. “I need a walk.” 

“Alone, or you want company?” 

She opens her mouth in the shape of alone, but what comes out instead is, “Come with me?” 

She tugs his hand, and he follows. 

The neighborhood hasn’t changed much since the seventies, a standard Rustbelt suburb, still stuck in the Midwestern mid-century boom years. There’s ice and snow and nothing much to see, which is fine. CJ just wants to move, and to breathe, and pretend for five minutes she’s somewhere else, if it’s cold and miserable. She pushes through a gate to a half-familiar playground. CJ sits on a swing and holds the chains. She didn’t bring gloves when she grabbed her coat.  

“I hated it here. Especially when my mom was sick. I wanted to run away.” She looks up. “And then I did. And I never came back. Not really.”  

“He knew,” Danny says, answering a question she hasn’t asked. He holds out his gloves for her. 

She shakes her head, and looks away. She keeps taking so much away from him. 

“Somewhere. Or, at some point. But he didn’t. Not for a long time. Still hurts.” 

“That’s love. Still helps, too.” 

“How are you so…?” 

He leans against one of the swing set posts and smoothes a hand along her back. “I been there.” 

She leans her head against the cold metal. “There are days that I look at myself, and I really don’t understand why you’re still here.” 

“Told you. Dignity isn’t my strong-” 

“Shut up,” she interrupts, not letting the self-deprecating argument play out again.  “That’s not it. And it’s not fair. It’s not,” she says at the look he gives her. “It’s not fair when you stood up and argued your point to me every day for years.”

“Yeah, but I just didn't have any better way to keep you talking to me.” 

“Why are you here?” 

“Cause you are,” Danny counters, simple as that. “And I don’t plan on leaving until you tell me to.” 

There’s a lot there. None of it a surprise, really. Once, the unspoken implications in a line like that would have sent her running for the hills. Instead, she takes it for what it is—steadiness; an anchor in the storm; a few stars to steer by—leans into him, accepting the comfort by giving something of herself she wanted to hold back. “Do you think it’s weird I can’t seem to cry?” 

“I think you can’t schedule grieving. Doesn’t follow a logical sequence, CJ.” 

“Thought there was that whole order-of-events thing? Denial, anger, bartering with the gods…all that?” 

He shrugs. “Sometimes. Where are you at? What is it you’re feeling?”

She stares up at the clouds. Probably more snow on the way. 

“Nothing,” CJ says. Her breath ghosts between them in the cold. “I feel nothing.” 

*

The service is small—close family and friends only—but wake is crowded with well-wishers, former students and colleagues, extended family. There’s an off-kilter, frenetic energy about it. A weird excitement, and not just because of the crowd. Danny keeps an eye out for press. Not that he actually expects anyone he knows from the national political beat showing up in small town Ohio, but it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. And anyway, it’s something he can do. Unnecessary, as it turns out. There’s a kid from the local paper who snaps a few photos outside, but apart from that, it seems to have gone pretty well under the radar. There’s a war and a new president and the Dow’s been looking at the first cliff in ten years over the last couple days, which shouldn’t be good news, exactly, but for the moment, Danny’s fairly content to let the world go to hell for a while if it means keeping inquiring minds from troubling CJ any more than she already is. 

“So.” A conspiring voice interrupts his thoughts. “Have you sussed out all the dark family secrets yet?” 

He trades a conspicuous look with Hogan. “Why, got any dirt to share?” 

“Probably nothing you haven’t worked out already.” She shrugs. “They’re pretty weird.” 

“It is weird, right?” 

“To say the least,” Hogan agrees. “They talk and talk, and never to each other. Can you keep a secret?” 

“Can, have, do.” 

“She looks terrible. Please make her sleep for, like, a week to two when you get back in LA.” 

He nods in sympathy. “Yeah. I’m working on it.” 

“And, like, leave the house.” Hogan shakes her head. "She looks so pale.” Her nose wrinkles.  “I hate her hair."

"That I will leave to you," Danny says, establishing his boundary.

"C'mon. Admit it: It was prettier before.” 

“See, I’m biased. I always think she’s pretty.” 

“Fine. Good answer, I guess. But trust me, then,” Hogan implores. Danny is warmed by the fact that, thus far, he’s managed to gain the confidence of the only other person who gives a damn a CJ here. Ain't that a win. They chat idly for a bit. Hogan gives him as best a run-down, as best as she can remember, about who’s who in the family, and where from.

Which isn’t many, in this crowd. She looks around at a loss. “There’s a lot of folks here I don’t know at all.” 

CJ makes an identical face as she manages to escape a clutch of elderly women a few moments later, declaring: “I have no idea who most of these people are.” 

“Need anything?” Danny asks. He slips an arm around her, gratified when she takes a moment to lean into him. She can feel the tension in her, like a coil wound and wound and wound...

“Water, coffee, shot of whiskey?” Hogan suggests. “Getaway car?” 

“How about an icepick to the frontal lobe,” CJ says through her teeth, forcing a smile at someone waving across the room. “Oh god…” She glances to the ceiling, summoning resolve. 

Hogan’s eyes narrow. “Is that…?” she asks. 

“Yep.” Danny confirms. “Tom Levine,”  

 “...the governor of Ohio,” Hogan nods, impressed. “Huh.” 

“Turns out I do know some people here.” CJ sighs. “Kill me now.”

“It’s only another…” Hogan glances at her phone in sympathy. “...three hours.” 

CJ catches his eye, and there’s a whole novel of wordless apology in the shifts of her expression. “Icepick,” she emphasizes, gesturing to her temple.  

Danny winks. “Go sweet talk. Hit him up for a donation to Hollis, if you can.” 

She straightens her shoulders and turns on a fake smile.  

Hogan grimaces. “You couldn’t pay me to do her old job.” 

“Not sure they really paid her.” 

Hogan is summoned away, eventually. Danny scans the room, sussing out the crowd, when he catches sight of someone who looks—

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Donna?” 

Donna Moss gives a wan and self-effacing smile. “Wish I were here under different circumstances.” She hugs him tight, her face pinched with sympathy. 

He kind of can’t believe it, though, folks had been underestimating Donna for years. “How’d you get away?” 

“You kidding? I was practically delivered by Marine One. Just me, but I come on behalf of…well, everyone. The Santoses and Josh and Sam, even Kate Harper sends her best. Everyone wanted to reach out. It’s just–” She shakes her head. 

It’s been a week. Less. 

“Course.” 

“Oh, Danny. I just want to give her the biggest hug. I mean, my god, she finally escapes all the insanity of the circus and now…Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you.” She nervous-laughs. “How’s she doing?” 

How? Good question. 

“Well. Know how you’ve all been thriving on caffeine and chaos for the past eight years?” 

“Yeah?” 

He gives her a knowing look. “Think she’d prefer more of that particular brand of chaos, on the whole.” 

“Yeah.” Donna’s eyes cast across the room. “I should go wait to say hi.” 

There’s a crowd of people two, three deep on the far side of the hall, all waiting for a chance to talk to Dayton’s most famous daughter. 

“Do you one better,” Danny says. “I was gonna ask her niece to make up a call and steal her away. She’s been holding it together all day, but she's starting to lose it." 

Donna cranes her head. "How can you tell?" 

"Same way you can tell when Josh is." 

"Fair."

*

Urgent phone call, Hogan whispers, steering her to a back room off the main reception area. For a moment CJ’s heart both sinks and heart lifts to think maybe the President–? But surely he wouldn’t, not…Plus how would he even know? 

She shakes it off. “Who is it?” CJ asks. 

Hogan presses a tumbler of alcohol into her hand, mock scowling. “Drink this. I have orders.”

“From?” 

Hogan’s face dimples. “It’s a conspiracy,” she whispers, a finger to her lips.  

CJ’s mouth starts to form a question, but before she can speak, the answer appears through the door. “Donna?” 

“Hey, there.” Donna beams like a beacon in the cold and the dark. CJ almost laughs at the contrast to, well, everything. Donna pulls her into a hug as the door clicks shut. 

“I hate this. I’m so sorry, CJ. I just hate everything about this,” she says into CJ’s shoulder.

“It’s okay.” 

“Everyone wanted to be here.” 

“That’s kind. And I know. Give them my thanks. It’s…” Nothing really comes to mind. “It’s over.” 

“Yeah,” Donna says, brightly. “I saw Danny’s here.” she tries, taking a seat. 

CJ sinks beside her into a chair. “Yeah. Really seeing the family scars up close. I’m sure his regrets are forming rapidly."

“Stop,” Donna chides. “I’m sure he gets it. Part of the whole Irish Catholic thing, isn't it. Being hardwired to respond to grief with the pettier angels of our nature?” 

“Doesn’t stop at grief, I’ll tell ya that,” CJ says, sincerely doubting that sweet, level-headed Danny’s family—or Donna’s, for that matter—could top anything the Creggs brought to the dysfunction table.  “At least we’re all present and accounted for; that's something of a unified front. Not always a given with my brothers.” 

Donna reaches for her hand. “Josh wanted to be here, CJ. He wanted to be here so much.” 

CJ shrugs one shoulder. “It’s okay. I know what the job is.” 

“He really did.” 

She squeezes Donna’s hand. “I know.”

Donna leaves for the airport after an hour, and the remainder of the afternoon is a blur.

CJ smiles and nods and shakes hands and offers the kinds of tidy platitudes that make her teeth ache with insincerity, thanks people she’s supposed to know and is certain she’s never met, and plays her part, armor in place, until long after Drew and Rob have disappeared, until Laurel takes her elbow and says kindly, “Honey. There’s nothing else to do. It’s time to go.” 

*

That night, CJ glances at the caller ID and is almost relieved as she steps out onto the porch into the cold and presses Play. Almost. 

“Tell me a nuclear warhead is coming my way.” 

“‘fraid not.” 

“Shame. Received your emissary.” 

“Figured a wholesome, Midwestern farm girl would be a nice consolation prize if you couldn’t get my own fine self,” Josh replies. “Can’t sleep?” 

“On the contrary, I slept for whole days already, this week. Full charge. Probably good for a few months at this point.” 

“Nice. Hook me up with your dealer.” 

CJ grins. “Think he’s operating on a one-to-one basis. Keeps muttering about the virtues of partnership in healthy adult relationships."

Josh scoffs. “Who needs those, right? We’re thriving.” 

“Absolutely.” 

Down the line, Josh is quiet. She can picture him, and the scene: The low light. The curtains he won’t have changed, yet. The desk that will never be his, or hers. Not to them, anyway.

“I wish I’d been there today,” he says.  

He really is the sweetest, sometimes. 

“It’s okay.” 

“It’s gonna really suck, just so you know. For a while there.” 

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she sighs. “He was already gone, Josh. Had been for a long time.” 

“It’s still gonna hurt. Just do me a favor, alright? Don’t…dwell in it. Yanno? This is coming from a guy with a bad heart, so. I know what I’m talking about,” he jokes, trying to make light. “Don’t let it, you know, calcify. Harden you. Not when you still have a lot left to care about.” 

“Not sure I’ve ever been really good at that.” 

"Yeah, you’re the worst, actually. I dunno what I’m even doing talking to you.” 

She smiles, hearing the smile in his voice. 

“Hey.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m really sorry.” 

“Thanks.”

“You’re gonna be okay, CJ. Promise.” 

“So are you.” 

He sighs. She can picture him craning his neck back, looking up. Looking for something. “Jury’s out on that.” 

“I have faith.”

“Good. I could use it.” He sniffs, and she can see him right himself. Refocus. “Okay. Put Danny on, will ya? Gotta chew him out a little, running off into the sunset with the West Wing’s Most Wanted. Or at least pretend to chew him out, anyway.” 

“Think that’s my job, mister.” 

“As I seem to recall, you don’t have a job,” Josh quips.   

“Yeah, cause the last one almost killed me.”  

She swings off the porch and steps inside, handing her phone to Danny, who’s been reading the Sunday Plain Dealer and pretending like he hasn’t been half-listening, all along. 

She bends down to kiss his cheek. “The Grand Vizier would like an audience.” 

She goes upstairs to pack and feels…

What? 

It’s not better. Not really…but. Well. Maybe, better. 

Something. 

*

“You know, this is where I’d normally make a joke about how far gone you are,” Josh muses. “But that wouldn’t be anything new, would it?” 

“Not for a while now, no.” 

“Already in over your head when you bought her a goldfish…”

Danny rolls his eyes. “You know, not for nothing, a little disambiguation would’ve been nice there.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have Gail here.” 

“Thought she ended up with Donna?” 

“She is. I was given firm instructions to make sure she was fed this evening. She says hi, by the way.”

Danny smiles at the absurdity of their shared delusion and dedication. “Thanks for looking out for her.” 

“Danny…” Something in Josh’s voice has shifted. The breeziness has gone out of it. 

"Yeah?" 

"This–It shouldn't...I mean, not that anyone cares, least of all–" He breaks off, laughing, nervous. “She’d kill me, actually…Probably. Maybe not. I dunno.”

Danny’s not following. Josh sounds tired, more than usual, which probably isn’t uncalled for, given it's the end of his first week in the actual worst job in the world. Coming down from being amped-up about something, or else, given the time and the circumstances, on the edge of one of his too-long looks into the yesterdays instead of the tomorrows. 

“This is coming out wrong.” A familiar sigh echoes over the line and down through all the years they’d known one another. A lot, by now. "What I’m trying to say is: CJ’s my sister, and I'm glad it's you. I'm glad you're there, and I’m glad you’re with her. That’s all I’m trying to say."

A swell of unexpected affection runs through him. "That makes two of us. And thanks, Josh."

“I mean it.” 

“I know. It means a lot.” 

“Take care, Danny. And, yanno. Take care of her. She’s pretty bad at it.”

“Reminds me of someone else I know.”

“Yeah.” 

“Night, Josh.” 

“Night.” 

*

She holds out her phone for him to read the text from Donna, now back in DC and imploring that CJ should call whenever. 

“You part of this little operation?” CJ asks, accusing. She scowls at him and leans back against the guest room headboard. 

“I was not, and frankly, I’m feeling left out,” Danny teases, sliding next to her.  

“Thought you might have been in the know.” 

“Not that clever. I’m no Donna Moss, sneaking in under cover of snowfall.” 

"She's sweet.” She tucks her head into his neck. “It was good to have someone I actually know there. Wish I could have seen all of them."

He strokes her hair, wanting to be gentle, but also wanting to make the kind of big, emphatic and loyal gesture Donna had by walking out of the White House less than a week into her massively important new job just so she could hug her old friend. “They wanted you to know how much they love you.” 

Her arms come around him. 

“They just wanna be here for you, Ceej,” he says into her hair. 

He can feel the tension in her, still, but she’s not pushing back, and that’s something. 

After a moment, sits up, fixing those byzantine eyes fix on him. “And you know this because you’re so wise and discerning?” 

Danny knocks his shoulder against hers. Playful. Gentle. No sudden moves. “Something like that.” 

A funny look crosses her face. It takes a moment, but he realizes it's reluctance. Shyness. CJ. 

“Thank you. For…” She looks up, embarrassed and overwhelmed and depleted of all her inner brightness. “Everything, I guess.” 

“Anytime.” 

*

CJ falls asleep. He brings her cold tea to the kitchen. There’s a light on in the room that was once her father’s office. He finds Drew looking through some old photos. 

Drew nods a hey man, considering Danny for the first time all weekend. “Your parents around?” 

“My mom’s in Ann Arbor. Dad died while back.” 

Drew nods, looking back at the photos. He takes a sip of a tumbler of whiskey on the desk. 

“You know, a few months after our mom died, the cops brought Cee home one night. She’d been at the basketball court, shooting hoops till after midnight. It was December. Probably twenty degrees out, and she stayed there for hours, practicing. I guess someone finally called it in, cause a squad car picked her up and brought her home." Drew's eyes tick up. "You can probably guess how that went.” 

Danny imagines a teenage CJ and has a fairly good sense of how enraged she’d be. “Meekly apologetic?” he jokes. 

“Yeah,” Drew scoffs. “Cursed up a storm about a free country and the right to assemble in a public places, etcetera.” 

Drew slides over a shot of CJ in a Cal jersey, looking straight at the camera, confident as hell. Nineteen, maybe twenty, Danny figures. Old enough that she'd already had the act down. Her mask fixed in place.   

“I wasn’t here. Rob and I were at college, but my dad—he talked about it for years. Became this whole origin story. Cee, fighting the power.” He rocks his hand into a fist, holds it up. 

“It wasn’t till Hogan and Luke were born that I wondered why, in all the times I heard that story, told that story, how come I never asked Why didn’t she come home?"  

He looks at Danny, clueless. “What kind of fucked up father of a teenager doesn’t lose his mind when his little girl isn’t home after dark in the dead of winter?” 

Danny just listens, letting silence do the work of questions. He doesn't have any answers, but Drew might. 

“We ditched her. I mean, we were idiots. No idea how to talk to each other or deal with it. But we just left her behind, to fend for herself and for my dad, who just…wasn’t there. Not in the way he needed to be. He couldn’t talk about it. Everyone always said she was fine. So mature. So capable. She’d take care of herself. And she did.” 

He studies another photo, one Danny can’t see. 

“She got good at hiding it, but she was so unhappy for a long time.” 

“Must have been hard for everyone. All of you," Danny offers.  

“Yeah.” Drew leaves the photos out on the desk. It's more past than CJ’s ever shared about what was probably one of the worst parts of her life, and Danny feels like he’s invading her privacy just being here. 

“Anyway,” Drew says. “Just thought you should know that story, I guess.”

Danny looks at him, uncertain. "Why's that?" 

Drew finishes his whiskey, shrugs. "Figure it might make it easier for you to understand, you know, when she eventually decides it's too much, and cuts you out."

He gives Danny a sympathetic look. "It's not personal. She just doesn't trust anyone." 

*

CJ says goodbye to her brothers, and it’s cordial and whatever, and they’ll probably go another six months without talking and forget all of it. Fine. 

She knows it’s not over, won’t be over until someday they have to pack up whatever is left of this house, whatever isn’t slowly disappeared over time by her stepmother. But that’s a problem for later. And honestly, Drew and Laurel did the production for the funeral and CJ had managed the run of show. Rob could really step it up. Not that he would. God. 

She just wants to go home. Home, and be warm, and get back to her life. She digs her thumbs into her forehead, wondering what normal, functional, families must be like. Danny and his twenty-seven sisters probably like each other. Which just fills her with more dread and anxiety. 

She’s on edge all day: airport, flight, everything. Can’t settle. Can’t sit still. Can’t even imagine what tomorrow looks like, either. There’s no work to distract her, just these bare walls of her own mind to scratch at, and Danny’s too-soft, too-searching eyes on her. She needs a goddamn break from emotional excoriation. 

When she finally walks through the door, she lets out a long, jagged breath she hadn't realized she'd even been holding. And before Danny can ask a goddamn thing about how she's feeling, she holds up a finger. "No, I told you—you’re driving me insane. GO AWAY," she hisses. "I need ten, precious minutes to myself before I can try to be a person in your world again."  

"Ah-kay!" 

She storms through the kitchen, sits on the back patio. It's almost six, and already dark. She breathes deeply.

Thing is, she knows her MO, here. She’s being so bitchy and unfair. But, it's also different. Not the usual ah! panic! whole emotional inquisition freak-out. She feels burned through. Like she can’t take a full breath. It's not personal, it's environmental.

Right?  

The patio door opens. Footsteps on the stone behind her.  

"Danny, I swear to god–" She growls a warning. 

A tap on her shoulder. Danny gestures with his cell phone. He’s gentle about it, but firm: “You’re gonna want to take this.” 

She makes a face. Looks at it. 

“Hello?” 

“Claudia Jean.”

Her head snaps up. “Mr. President.” 

“Your father died,” Jed Bartlet says with infinite compassion. “CJ. I’m so sorry.” 

“Thank you, sir. It’s– ” She fumbles. “He’d been sick. A long time.” 

“He was a teacher, wasn’t he?” 

“Yes, sir. He was a math teacher.” 

“‘Are all here apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do not all of them work miracles?’”

Her eyes burn. Her throat aches. Phone pressed to her ear, she reaches out blindly with one hand and it’s only a moment before she feels the warm, rough scrape of Danny’s palms around hers. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I wish I could have been there.” 

“It’s okay. No, I understand.” 

“Charlie sent me the obituary,” he says, which meant he knew the extent of it. 

“Your father loved you so much. His mind was unbound to our time, terrible though that must have been to endure. Impossible, even. But I gotta tell you, CJ: In some small, irrational corner of this old and foolish heart, a part of me cannot imagine a better end to my life than to turn back the wheels of time to those early years when my family was young. I don’t think I had ever known joy that profound. That I was so capable of it. I hope he lived in those same memories, treasures that they are.” 

CJ bites her lip. Tears splash down her cheeks. 

“I do so love you, Claudia Jean. I have three daughters by blood, but you came to me by battle. And I will never forget that.” 

Her throat aches with unspoken grief, with too-much, too-big, indefinite and overwhelming feeling. She says nothing. Just tries and fails to keep the tears from slipping out. 

“I hope you’ll forgive me, if I’m romanticizing things.” 

She swallows the hurt, leans into that old familiar defense mechanism. “You, sir? I’m shocked.” 

A smile blooms in his voice. “There’s that sass.” 

Her voice is thin, but she tries for banter anyway. “I’m told it’s one of my best features.” 

He laughs. 

CJ presses her fingers to her mouth. 

“I can’t give you back time with your father, CJ,” Jed Bartlet says, soft and kind, and sounding so much older than he had even two years before. “But I want you to know this: Not for one moment have I overlooked all that you gave up for me. I know what it is you sacrificed, and what it cost. And for as long as I live, you will have a father’s deepest love and gratitude. You are my family. For always.” 

“Thank you, sir.”  

“Be well, CJ.” 

She hangs up the phone, puts her face in her hands. 

Finally, she cries. 

*

Chapter Text

*

She leans into Danny’s shoulder, depleted. The emotional outpouring—tonight, this weekend, insert time period from the last decade here—has stolen the last of her resolve to keep it together. CJ is so tired of exhaustion. She used to do things, used to have energy and optimism, used to embrace whatever ass-kicking insanity she had to deal with each morning, and with flair. 

She wipes her face with the heel of her hand. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” 

“I got your shirt all wet.” 

“Be a tough fight, but think I might live.” He smooths his hand along her back. 

She shakes her head. “It’s all hitting me. It’s over. Everything we did, and it’s…gone, now. I chose that over everything else. I don't get that back.”

I know, he says without words. 

CJ turns her head to look at him. “Do you think part of the reason I’m an obsessive workaholic nutcase is because I’ve projected everything about the emotional train wreck that is my family and my dad being sick on to my work? On to the president?” 

“Well, I’m not a psychiatrist, so I don’t know that I’d call it that exactly.” 

“What would you call it?” 

Danny shrugs. “Being human,” he answers. “Wanting control over what’s in front of ya. Trying to change what you can, instead of dwelling on what you can’t. Sounds fairly reasonable to me.”

“What’d you do when your dad died?” 

“Nothing.” 

She's confused by that. “How do you mean?” 

“I mean I didn’t know. For almost two weeks. Missed the funeral and everything.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I was in Lebanon, after the First Intifada started and Karami was assassinated. Was in the mountains for a week with one of the factions. Didn’t know until Dave Berman from BBC told me my editor had been calling around for days trying to find me.”

“What happened?” 

He draws a hand across his beard, gestures vaguely. “Pulmonary embolism. Died in his sleep, after forty-some odd years of marriage, five kids, grandkids…I dunno. I think that’s a pretty good life. Abrupt as it was, it was also hard to be mad about it, you know?” 

“Certainly beats some of the alternatives,” she says. Such as the slow-decline into dementia followed by viral pneumonia. 

“My mom and sisters had already planned everything by the time I got through to them. I’d already missed most of it. And they understood. Still really sucked. The hardest part for me was that it wasn’t real for a while. Not the way things are when you get to be part of it, go through the steps. Rituals have meaning for a reason. I actually forgot about it a few times…I’d forget he wasn’t around." 

That’s…pretty awful, actually. At least she’d gotten to process it, some.  

“It’s over, maybe. But none of it’s gone, CJ. It’s history. Yours. Everyone’s.”

She hugs her knees to her chest, watching the dirty-snow dome of night over downtown, the slow-blinking red lights of cell towers to the east, in the San Gabriel mountains. The breeze carries the scent of invasive eucalyptus, the rhythmic swell of indiscriminate music from the Hollywood Bowl on the far side of the canyon. 

Something occurs to CJ. “How does the president have your phone number?” 

“First Lady, I’m guessing. Maybe Charlie.” He leans chin in hand, unconcerned. “Could be any of ‘em. The Bartlet women can, and do, know how to find me,” he teases. 

You are family.

She doesn’t know how much he overheard. 

“Wasn’t trying to listen in," Danny says, answering her question. 

“I don’t mind,” CJ sniffs. She surprises herself by meaning it. 

“I’m actually more curious how he knew to call me," Danny ventures, angling for something. 

CJ looks at him. “Because I told him.” 

“You did?” 

“Yeah,” she says. A corner of her mouth ticks up. “That surprises you?” 

“I–” He’s at a loss for words, and it's just a tiny bit amusing, seeing Danny Concannon flummoxed. Tiny bit.

“A few nights before the inauguration. End of the day in the Oval, he did a whole schtick about new opportunities, which was his way of trying to get the scoop on Frank Hollis.” She smiles. “We had a drink and he badgered me about going back to LA.”

“You’re staying in DC?” 

“No, sir. I’m going back to California.”

“California! And here I thought we rescued you from that end of the continent.” 

“Not all of us are quite so enamored of winter as you are.”

“Bite your tongue, Claudia Jean.”  

“More than that, it’s time to get away from all this. Also,” she said slowly, twiddling her fingers against the glass tumbler in her hand. “I have been seeing someone and…” She took a breath, reminding herself she was a grown and, for the moment, fairly important woman, and not a teenager in the principal’s office. “Actually, it’s Danny. I’ve been seeing Danny. For a while.”

“Danny?” The President repeated. “Our Danny?” 

“Our…?” 

He took off his glasses. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been dating Daniel Concannon, he of the Washington Post, my wife’s biography, and one-time shining star in the constellation of talent that is the White House press corp? That Danny? ”

She grinned at the floor, warmed by the endearment, and by what it implied. “That Danny, yes,” she said, lifting her gaze. 

“CJ!” 

“He, uh, left the Post. We’re moving to LA. Together.” 

“CJ.” Jed Bartlet said, taken aback. “I had no idea this was…” He shook his head, for once at a loss for words. “I had no idea.”

“Well, I like to cultivate an air of mystery.” 

“Yeah, cuz that’s it, not my fifty thousand other things to worry about,” the President quipped. “You’ll have to come up to the farm. Both of you.” 

“I’d like that. I know he would.” CJ tipped her head in warning as a thought came to her. “Not anytime soon, though, right?”

“You'll be there, young lady, and you'll be grateful.” 

"I’m asking, cuz I'm burning my winter coat before I skip town."

"Just as long as you don't do it in the building."

She smiles at the memory. 

“I told him it was time to get outta Dodge. About you. And that I wanted to give this the attention it has deserved. He was happy. For what it’s worth.” 

“It’s worth a lot. Quite the honor.”

Wind rustles in the trees. The pool lights wash the patio in silver blue. She can feel some of the tension unspooling, just being here. 

“So,” she says, sighing. “Not much of a first week, huh?”  

“I dunno. Started out great. Took a turn. Just happy I got to be there for someone I’m pretty fond of, when she needed it.” 

She exhales, rolling her neck and shoulders. 

“C’mon.” He tugs at her elbow.  

“We’re moving?” 

Danny pulls her to her feet. “You’re gonna go shower and change. Take a beat. Eat an actual meal. And most importantly,” he says, with great conviction. “You’re gonna share whatever gossip you have about how the hell Josh and Donna finally figured themselves out. Because, I gotta tell you, I used to be pretty good at reading between the lines, but I’ve been a bit distracted the last few months, so I got no idea when the hell that finally happened.” 

CJ manages a smile and follows him in. 

*

She's late. 

She's late, or, or, or she’s missed something. Something is wrong. She shoves through the doors, but there is only another set of doors. The lights dim [red black; satellite maps and topographic overlays of the Pamirs, Keyhole passes and–] The lights flash white. An ambulance bay, a fluorescence-flooded disaster facility, a stage, lit by seven networks and–

She gasps awake, already reaching for her phone. 

Her vision adjusts.

4:41am, the clock reads. 

Her heart pounds. The dream-terror dissipates. Doesn’t disperse altogether. 

CJ lays back and turns on her side, her heart racing. Her mind, too. She thinks of the day that’s already begun in DC.  

*

CJ goes back to California, the place she first made herself into the person she always believed (wanted to believe) she could be. 

After the gray gutter snow, the lashing cold, lake-effect winds of mid-winter Ohio, LA is too bright. Hyperreal. A soundstage city. Already the previous week feels like another age. She can feel herself regressing back into a ball of nerves and agitation and overthinking. 

The condolence cards and greetings begin to pour in from far and wide. While most are innocuous enough, she does have to wonder where the Ugandan Ambassador, or the President of the European Union, or the Chinese Foreign Minister got her address. Isn't entirely sure she wants to know the answer.

Sam sends her an email that is so sweetly, sunnily, Sam-ily Samuel, she wants to curl up and live inside his well-intentioned cheer. He reminds her of a night, years before, when an email she’d been writing to her father inspired him to do the same. It makes her smile, remembering Howard Stackhouse and his great demonstration of grandfatherly defiance; the first of many family birthdays she had missed; her run-in with ancient cat deities and the wrath of the White House protocol office. 

And this, you’ll remember, was back when I wasn’t quite over discovering that my dad had been an unmitigated jackass and a liar for the previous twenty-odd years, Sam writes. Still, it had started a regular exchange, and a healthier one, Sam says in as many words. Longform was good for them. You had to be thoughtful. Consider what you wanted to say. It sat with you, the way texts or phone calls did not. It is something they still do, to this day. Her relationship with her dad had moved Sam to a better one with his, he tells her. 

Tears pinprick her eyes. And that's before she even gets to the sweet parts. 

I don't know how you did it, CJ, he says about his new position as deputy, about watching Josh wrangle with everything it takes to be CoS.  

But, for what it's worth, as with everything, you made it look easy. Like the lady said, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire could, just backwards and in heels.” 

Asking as a guy who is, at present, in completely over his head: Do you have any Jimmy Choos in my size, and can I borrow them?

She laughs. 

I’m so sorry about your dad, CJ. I think about you, about all of us, back then, every day. I know the president wanted you here, and Josh. But much as I wish you were, I’m glad you’re not. You deserve every beam of sunshine, every whispering palm, every moment of respite you can get, for as long as you can keep it. 

Though, if you’re ever feeling bored, and if Nancy McNally still takes your calls, I wouldn't mind if one of these days you had Josh renditioned to Guam as, like, I dunno, an early birthday present, or something. Just a thought. 

(Actually, I take that back: They'd give me his job.)

Miss you. 

Sam

But seriously—Rendition me to Guam...

Danny slides a cup of coffee over. She spins the screen so he can read it. She leans against him as he scans over her shoulder, trying to remember what it felt like to not constantly be on the verge of tears. 

When he’s done, he squeezes her shoulder gently. 

“Miss it yet?” He’s joking, but in that way that hides a real question. He’s annoying, like that. 

A tightness in her chest. The brief, molten longing for the consuming, full-court press of it all: the no-time-to-think, no-moment-to-spare urgency. It was a kind of surrender, giving yourself over to that life. There was only managing one day to the next, from moment to moment, no space to breathe, let alone panic about all that lay ahead. 

"No," CJ lies, and sips her coffee. "Not even a little." 

*

January sways into February, gentle as a breeze, and CJ sleeps, though not well. She is restless. Reads the newspaper before the sun is over the hill, has the radio and news channels playing at all times. She’s backseat driving on second, third-hand information, and can’t seem to quit spiraling. 

More than once wakes up in a panic, certain she’s somewhere else. She never says what’s in her head, if it’s nightmares or weird dreams or what. She just gasps until her breathing slows, and pretends to fall asleep again. 

*

There’s a dead bird on the upper patio, outside the kitchen doors. CJ considers it, making a face.  

“Have I made new enemies I don’t know about?” 

“Possibly,” Danny calls.  

“Hey!” 

“Not everyone knows that when you’re mocking people to their face, or calling ‘em by lightly derogatory nicknames, it means you’re just caring loudly.” 

“I don’t do that!” 

“Coupla hundred briefing transcripts would suggest otherwise.” 

CJ ignores him. Nimrod. 

“There’s another dead bird out here,” she says. “Starting to feel like I pissed off Vito Corleone.” 

“Your neighbor’s cat. Seen her skulking around out there a few times. Seems to have it out for the mourning doves.” 

CJ makes a face at him. “What are those?”  

Danny makes a face back. 

“What?” she defends. “I don’t know.” 

“‘Cept, yeah, you do.” 

He grabs a plastic bag from a cabinet (When–?) and collects the mess of feathers from the flagstones. She follows him around the back pathway to the bins. 

“I don't. Why do you think I know birds?” 

“Cause I know what kinda ungodly hour of morning you used to get up and start saving the world, a time at which I used to hear ‘em, so I know you have.” 

CJ rolls her eyes at both the blatant flattery and real-time fact checking. “Please. Only bird I know is…” 

She pauses. 

Danny looks over, waiting. 

She shakes her head, feeling…

“Nothing,” she breezes past the weird tangle of nostalgia. She hasn’t thought about it in a long time. “I was gonna say flamingo.” 

Danny gives her a look that transports her back seven years ago. “You do know that one.” 

She leans against the stone retaining wall below the upper patio. “Did you know they changed my secret service name again?”

“Figures they would, I guess.” 

“New gig, new codename.” 

She drags a finger along the silty stone, thoughts drawn to the ridiculous and silly. Flashy, in a retro-kitsch kind of way. Bright, fun, laid-back… 

“CJ?"

"Hmm?” 

"What was it?"

CJ rolls her neck, lifting her face to the sky. “Kestrel.” 

Danny mulls it over. “Huh.” 

“I'm told it is a bird of prey. So, you know, there’s two for the bingo card, I s’pose.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Wanna know a secret?” 

“Always, said the recovering reporter.” 

“I liked flamingo better. I don’t like being seen as…” 

“Awe-inspiring? Magnificent?" Danny suggests, and, somehow isn’t kidding. 

She shakes her head. “Ruthless.” 

“You’re not.”

She’s not even looking at him, but she can hear the softness in his expression by the way his voice shifts.

He doesn’t get it. Or maybe he does. She was pretty awful there to him, too, at times. Refusing to return calls. Ignoring emails. The whole Liz and Doug Westin mess. She leans back on the wall, facing up to the harsh reality of the last few years. She doesn’t have to like it, but it was necessary. It got the job done. The job she had to do, or else, what had it all been for? 

CJ shakes her head. “I am. I was. I had to be.” She lifts one shoulder, remembering how much she’d had to excise from every interaction in order to cut her day down to the bare essentials. To shape minimum effort to maximum effect. “There wasn’t time to be anything else.” 

“Nah,” Danny says, and, who, possessing actual human skills, has picked up on the way her mood has darkened. “You got bad luck, with the bird theme, is all. Though–” He tips his head, considering. “I suppose I see now why you never wore pink.”

She kicks her bare foot at him. This idiot. 

“Don’t laugh,” she warns. “You had one at the end there, too, buddy.” 

“Bullshit.” He scoffs. “I did not.” 

She nods. “Yeah. You did. Standard protocol for all–”

“The Chief of Staff’s many booty calls?” he quips.

“Just the persistent ones,” CJ maintains, one corner of her mouth lifting.

“You gonna tell me?” 

She smirks. “Guess.” 

He squints into the distance, thinking. “Hemingway.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Keep dreaming. You didn’t escape the animal theme, either.” 

“What was it?” 

Her mouth twitches. “I liked it.” 

Danny cocks his head, eyes narrowing. “Why is that somehow less than reassuring?” 

“It was cute.” 

“Little bit worried now…” 

“So cute.” 

He makes a yikes face. “Alright, give it to me.”

“Simba.”

He makes a strangled noise. “It was not,” Danny sputters. 

“It was!” 

“It was not.” He steps forward and grabs her by the waist. “You bold-faced, lying liar.” 

“One thousand percent, Danny. I about fell out of my chair the first time I heard Mike say it.” She wraps her arms around his shoulders, smug. 

Danny groans. He looks nonplussed, but rolls his eyes in defeat and acceptance. “Well, as long as my failure of dignity keeps on makin’ you happy…” 

“It really kinda does.” 

*

One of the few physical letters she has the energy or interest to open is a beautiful blue envelope, postmarked from New Hampshire.

In Abbey Bartlet’s lovely, looping hand are words that are moving, and thoughtful, and evocative of a time that feels like a lifetime ago, now. They haven't been close in a long time. Another relationship foiled by conflicting interests. 

Kate Harper calls, a week, week and a half after the funeral. It’s nice to hear a familiar voice. Who knows, they might even end up friends, after all this. Wouldn’t that be something?

Carol does the same, after getting back from a much-delayed vacation and finds out from Ginger, who’d arranged flowers on behalf of the old Communications staff. It’s good hearing Carol’s voice. They catch up a little, but it’s still too strange, too new a paradigm shift for either of them to have gotten used to, so they part ways with a tentative plan to get lunch or drinks when CJ’s back in DC in May. CJ doesn’t say anything about Danny, even though Carol must certainly know (Margaret was discreet, but if word had gotten around to even Toby of all people...), and CJ doesn’t really know how to feel about that. 

Will Bailey sends a message that manages to be thoughtful and lovely and somehow funny? It's enough to make her regret how often she put him through the wringer, even if she does still mostly see him as an opportunist, methodically working his way up the ladder. Still. She can't go around punishing everyone who wasn't there at the beginning.

Can't go around punishing everyone who was, either, says a little voice in the back of her mind that is beginning to sound frighteningly familiar. 

Toby emails.

She leaves it unread in her inbox for now. 

*

When Danny first told people he was getting outta politics and moving to Los Angeles, most of his friends and colleagues were fairly shocked. They were East Coast, traditional media nerds, or think-tankers; one brand of consummate Beltway insider or another, and to their eyes, LA was a place you started out, then left for New York or Washington or London. It was provincial, way they saw it. For the most part, he had too. 

LA had always seemed to him like the kinda town where the stories all revolved around entertainment, which was code for unimportant. The whole of it, to his uninformed eye, wasn’t much more than your regular industry town, albeit one dressed up by Hollywood. It was celebrity cult of personality, luxury shopping, valet everything. It was perpetual sunshine and mudslides and traffic on the 405. 

Maybe it’s the skeptic in him, the contrarian who went to Sunday school and a Catholic college without ever putting all that much stock in religion, capital R, that makes him refuse to give up on the place out of hand. Southern California might not have been the exact card he’d have chosen (Though, when did that ever happen?), but after years abroad with nothing but his editors, satellite CNN, and American pop songs sending word from home, he’s more than happy to devote time to figuring out how to play this hand out. 

So, he treats it like he does any investigation, and goes back to the beginning. He reads the histories: In Drake, there is speculation and suspicion, and the early specter of endless native injustices. In the journals of Junípero Serra, the age-old forces of faith and power that built the missions of Alta California and first shaped the foundations for all that came after. In Powell, there is the spirit of adventure along the Colorado, the river that would shape the future of the American West.  

Curiosity and meaning spiral from there: sociology, economics, culture. And fiction. 

In Jack London and John Steinbeck, he charts the long path of outlandish possibility that the West has always offered to generation after generation. From Joan Didion he gleans a sense of all the uncertain centers, its frayed and forgotten edges. In Kerouac and Ferlinghetti, there are the dreams of the hopeful and hopeless. In Mosley, and Robinson, and Butler, he finds the vast imagined multitudes, the possible futures of this gold coast genius loci. In Chandler, there are glimpses of the darkness. In Muir, there is its peace. 

Days slip past, and words of interest pile on, arranging themselves into neat and ordered categories: read and unwritten; spoken and unsaid. 

*

The moving company said four to five weeks for the contents of her old place to arrive—she’s betting on five, maybe six, the way shipping containers are moving out of the ports, what she remembers from the rate of rail transfers from the Q4 commerce report. In the meantime, there is much for her to attend. Repairs, renovations (eventually?), perhaps. CJ takes to her tasks like a soldier to war.

She has some hazy memories of hastily packing up most of what she owned, of shoving boxes in the crawl space, the garage, the pool house shed. The former tenants—first it was the talent agent, and, later, briefly, the Scandinavian music producer—seem to have left a fair amount of detritus of their own, as well, which she’s even less interested to deal with.  

“Honestly, I have no idea what’s in most of these,” she says. "I should just toss it all." 

“You know, you don’t need to throw away everything you used to own as some kind of spring cleaning exorcism.” Danny, for all his cool, level headedness, seems a bit unsettled by the ease with which she feels compelled to just slash and burn. The one thing that seems simple, straightforward, and he’s weirded out by it. Figures.

“If I wanted criticism and commentary I’d ask for it,” CJ cautions. “You can help, or you can get lost. Take your pick.” 

Danny sighs in that non-confrontational confrontational way of his, ah-kay. 

She wants to throw something at him, like a lemon, or a laptop, possibly an MIM-72 Chaparral missile. 

“Hand me another box,” CJ says, and pretends the look her gives her isn’t pity. 

*

The worst part of the indeterminate holding pattern until the movers arrive is this: CJ wants her car. 

She wants her one, grand vanity, the only piece of her once and future Left Coast lifestyle that she’d stubbornly refused to let go of, impractical though it was. She wants her beautiful, irrational, baby blue Mustang with the vintage details and the unreasonable mileage. She wants the thing that makes her feel like the best and truest version of herself, like, no matter what’s on her plate, she’s only ever half a second away from grabbing her keys and taking off for some dark desert highway, and leaving it all behind.  

Of course, that fantasy is currently lost somewhere in vehicle shipping purgatory, a dimensionless black hole from which, no matter how many times she calls or emails the help hotline, information will not escape. So CJ fumes, waiting with fleeting patience while quietly fantasizing about calling the Commissioner of the IRS to have the company audited.

And not-so-quietly going stir-crazy. 

“God, what can’t you tell me these things?” she snipes. 

“CJ.”

“You make–” She bites each word out. “–me crazy.”

Danny just stares at her, impassive. “CJ?” 

“What?!” 

He looks up at her, patience at its edge. “Gonna yell at me all day, or you plan to pencil in a break at some point?” 

She flails a hand in the air, and storms out to the backyard, condemned to spending another day combing through the dust and detritus of whoever the hell she used to be, a million years ago. She seethes. She cannot deal with this idiotic, emotionally overbearing Opie chewing on her last nerve. She reaches for the combination lock, and wants to smash her face into the door—the code is under a magnet on the refrigerator. 

She glares back at the house, unable to bring herself back inside for another round of bickering before Danny takes off for whatever dumbass research project he has planned. That he did not mention. 

She’s fairly sure. 

CJ sinks to the ground, leaning back against the locked door in temporary defeat. She pulls her knees to her chest, and tries to release some of the tension in her jaw. 

Down the pool deck, a slim black cat emerges from the shrubs. It slinks along the low retaining wall, pausing to sit atop the cornerstone, considering her like a small and shiny statue. 

CJ eyes it with suspicion. "Are you the homicidal maniac that's been leaving dead birds for me to find?" 

The cat stares, impassive. 

“I bet you are. In fact, I know you are. Cats, you don't like me.” She waves a finger at it. “None of you like me." 

She sighs, remembering Sam’s email the other week, and the curse of Bast from a thousand and one years ago. She thunks her head back against the pool house door. "Though, in fairness, I did piss off your supreme feline goddess, that one time." 

The cat slowly blinks. 

"I fixed it!” CJ says in self-defense. “I made an effort to fix it, anyway. Don't give me that look. It was an accident, it wasn't personal."

She still hasn’t heard Danny’s car leave. She grits her teeth, forcing herself to be patient. Or something vaguely like it, though how she’s supposed to do this for the next X many weeks, months (years?!) with this happy-go-lucky halfwit chirping away with relentless optimism all the time–

She digs her fingers into her eyes. 

Unfair. That’s the word. 

The cat hops to the ground, flopping down next to her in a puddle of sunshine. It stretches itself out lazily. 

CJ dares to give it a little scratch behind one of its soft-looking ears. It's sorta cute, she supposes. She tugs at the collar so she can read it. "Desdemona? That's a pretty self-important name for someone who probably eats garbage." 

The cat flops over, cranes her fuzzy little neck back. Looks at CJ like, So can I get a massage here or what? 

CJ waffles, but the thing is pretty sweet-ish, and lying there all cute and fuzzy–

Cat slashes at her hand with her retractable, military-grade razors. 

“Ow! The hell!?" CJ jerks her hand back. Three neat, pink-ish slices through the uppermost layer of skin on the back of her hand. One pinpricks with blood.

"What was that for, you little beast?” CJ hisses at it, shaking her hand. “You show up here, make like you want attention, then lash out at the first person to show some interest?"

CJ sucks on the back of her hand, fuming. 

Evil cat wiggles around in the sun again. She knocks her soft little face against CJs knee. 

"I see what you're doing," CJ accuses. "Think you're so clever...And by the way? The whole come here, but don't act? Yeah—I invented that, so. I know your schtick, here, goddess or otherwise." 

She’s being so mean and bitchy and unfair. And she’s annoyed! At herself, at Danny, at shipping logistics managers and this asshole cat. She contains multitudes of annoyance; her annoyance is legion. 

"You talking to me?" Danny calls. 

She closes her eyes and grits her teeth, wanting to strangle something. “I thought you were leaving!”

"Ah-kay, I'm leaving!" 

She grits her teeth, waiting till she can hear his car start and pull away. As usual, he's taking his damn time, being all methodical and patient…

Demon cat bops her thigh again. Teasing her victims. 

“No,” CJ tells it, climbing to her feet. “You were rude, and now you get nothing." 

Whatever lady, the she-devil transmits, flicking her tail around. 

She summons a breath and stands. Staring at the lock, willing herself to remember the four digit combination. 487...something? She thinks? Might as well try. 

She spins the first three numbers into place, repeating the number over in her head. It's so close...

The cat lifts its head, considering her. It sits up into its little perch-y, judge-y position. Flicks its tail twice. 

4872, CJ thinks. She spins the number wheel into place. The lock clicks open. 

Hmm. 

"Thanks," she says, glancing at her imperious little animal familiar, here. 

Danny finally leaves and CJ drags box after box the producer guy has basically abandoned. She’s emailed him four times and left a half a dozen messages, which at this point she’s taking as tacit permission to chuck it all. 

The cat roams around the pool deck, jumping at insects and stalking things. Twice she has to yell at it not to eat a hummingbird. Not that she cares—circle of life, or whatever—but she doesn't feel thrilled at the idea of collecting the bloody remains of little miss murder’s morning fun. 

In one far corner, she sees a set of boxes with her own hand writing on the side. She frowns, pulls it down. Doesn’t remember leaving anything specific in here…

She opens one. Ah. Well. 

CJ sighs. Closes the box again. 

Not today. There’s already a would-be demon goddess or whatever complicating her persistent nightmares and the general bad juju haunting her every step. 

No sense in adding a ghost to the mix. 

Hours go by. She drags everything out of the pool house and organizes it in neat piles. Wipes down shelves and sweeps up dead leaves and dust and brittle round pills that look like suspiciously like ecstasy tablets. Which—honest to god—are music producers really that cliché? She tolerates the presence of the demon cat, which evidently has decided to become her shadow. It at least has the decency to kill a few spiders in the process. 

Strange, CJ thinks, smooshing more than a few herself. She used to be terrified of insects. How nice it would be nice if a few other fears would vanish into thin air, as well. 

Sometime after one, one-thirty, she cracks her neck and takes a break. Scrounges herself something to eat from the fridge. A bowl of chicken salad has appeared from leftovers. She makes herself a sandwich that she eats out on the patio like she's in some kind of self-imposed exile, or penance, or both. 

She throws the demon cat a couple little morsels. Call it payment for spider services rendered. 

“Not bad, huh?” She chews slowly, half watching, half replaying back the fight she’d absolutely instigated. “See what happens when you’re nice? You don’t lash out at people for being pleasant to you?” 

Cat slinks against her shins. 

CJ rolls her eyes. “You’re not subtle. Message received. Or, self-reflection accomplished.” 

It hops up onto the step beside her, giving her those big green eyes. 

CJ shakes her head. “I know. I know. I get it. I’m the worst. I’m working on it, okay?” She finishes her lunch, offering the last little crumbs to her new and possibly only companion. "Am I forgiven now?" she asks. 

The cat sweeps past her legs a few times, purring. 

CJ takes that as a yes. At the very least, a maybe. 

Honestly, some help from higher power probably couldn't hurt. 

(Also—oh, my god—she really needs to get out of this house.)

*

The traffic report on NPR says the traffic is worse than usual, so it’s no surprise that it’s after seven when she finally hears the wheels in the driveway. 

“Hello, honey,” CJ sings out, hoping the irony is self-evident. “How was your day?”  

Danny gives her a skeptical look. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, off the bat, wanting to break the ice of hostility she created in the first place. “I'm sorry, and I'm bad at this, and, I'm sorry.” 

“Anything in particular, or is this a blanket apology?” 

“For being a high-strung headcase. For snapping and sniping and being–” She starts over. “Look. Neither of us have all that much in the way of experience with this–” 

“Well, sure. Apart from my ex-wives.” 

She balks. Stares at him. “What?!”

His mouth ticks up to one side. “Just messin’.” Danny chirps, eyes bright with amusement at provoking her. “Wanted to see if you were listening. You know, on the off chance you actually needed me to participate in this conversation, or if you had it covered, like with the yelling this morning?” 

CJ throws her hands out. “Which I’m trying to apologize for!” 

He holds his palms up. “I’m not stopping you!”

“Just interrupting,” she growls. “Having a grand old time, needling me, when I’m over here, in the middle–” 

He gives her a warning look. 

She sighs. “Fine: Participating. Contributing. As you have a right to. Okay? As I was saying.” She presses her palms together. Takes a breath, letting the annoyance and the day’s self-recrimination go. “I am sorry. I haven’t been sleeping, and I...I dunno. I took it out on you.” She leans back against the counter opposite him. “I was the worst. I am the worst. And I’m sorry. Again.”  

He reaches out, tugs her over to him.

“You're not the worst. Hey. C'mon.”

“I was lashing out. I don’t know why, I just was. It was mean and not good.”

“All I needed to hear,” he says, being a bigger, better, overall nicer person than she is. Danny slips his arms around her waist. “What else you get up to, besides punishing yourself?” 

“Well, in between cataloging my own irrational behavior, I cleared out all the junk that the producer guy left. There's some audio equipment in there. You should take a look. Some microphones and recording gear. If it’s nothing you want, figured we could donate it to a school or something. What do you think, radio nerd?” 

“Hey, there.” He pinches her lightly on both sides. “You pronounced distinguished audio visual specialist wrong.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure I said it right the first time.” 

He sways her side to side a little. Tips his head in agreement. “Sounds like a good idea. What else?” 

“Wrote a few emails. Got back to Sam. Triaged another unholy mountain of condolence cards that I haven't read.” She drapes an arm around his shoulders. “It's also possible that I was visited by the avatar of an ancient Egyptian cat goddess, forgiven for past offenses, and that a seven-year old curse upon me has finally been lifted.” 

"So, normal Friday?" Danny shrugs.

"Normal Friday,” CJ nods.

“I'm sensing there's a story here.” 

“Quite the spidey-sense there, Clark Kent. You could do this for a living.”

"Just outta curiosity, have you even read a comic book before…?"

"Bettin’ nowhere near as many as the distinguished members of the Ann Arbor Central AV Club."

“Where do you think all my Wonder Woman fantasies started?" He waggles his eyebrows, which makes her snort. "Cat goddess, huh?" 

She holds up the back of her scratched palm. "She demanded a blood sacrifice, but we're tight now." 

He drops a kiss on it, and something in her that’s been balled up and tense and hurting dissipates. 

“I'm sorry I was being unreasonable. I am a work in never-ending-progress, and the only way I’ve learned anything in the last eight hundred years is by being thrown into the deep end and figuring it out as I go. I learn by doing. Badly, at first, usually. I wouldn't be here, trying, if I didn't want this.” 

“I believe you, CJ."

She smiles, about to pulls him in–

"For now.” 

CJ frowns. Can feel the line creasing into her forehead. She pulls back. "What’s that mean?" 

Danny sighs. Looks her in the eye, gentle, but serious. The listen to me, I mean it, look she’s seen on his face a thousand times, usually in very different contexts. 

"It means I think you do want this. At the moment. But–” He hesitates. “Just promise me this. Be honest. With yourself, and with me. Because if you get to a point where this isn't working for you, even with the trying and the effort? That's something we both deserve to know. Okay?"

That…really stings to hear, coming from him. Hurts, more than a little bit. Makes her feel defensive. Chastened, even. But, thing is, it’s not at all unfair. 

CJ traces the curve of his shoulder with her index finger. Sometimes she really wishes he would be more unfair. Be even a tiny bit unreasonable. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like such a bitch by comparison. Which really goes to show how much of a mess she is. 

Nevertheless. New things…  

She nods. "Okay. But I wanna be clear, on record, okay? That's not what's happening here.” 

She presses a swift kiss to his mouth, trying to lighten the tone. Shift the track of this conversation to more promising pastures. 

“But I promise. In the event I get tired of having a live-in therapist, personal chef, sexually gratifying pool boy, personally curating my re-introduction to modern society, I will be honest.” 

Danny leans in. “I want the cat story.” 

She sticks her tongue into her cheek. She can’t even believe she’s gonna tell him about this, but...

"Oh god. In fair Cairo we begin our tale…"

*

For a while after the investigation, she dreamed of not being able to breathe, of being buried alive, clawing her way up, out, and seeing Toby there (or sometimes Jed Bartlet, or Oliver Babish) and asking for help. Begging, desperately reaching out for help. 

None ever came. The walls came down on her and she would wake up gasping like she’d just run the four-hundred meters, filled by such hurt, by so much anger and shock, and there was no line, none at all, between the unfairness she felt at his actions in the dream and the real world cruelty Toby had shown her. 

Which is probably why she keeps his email in her inbox, unread. 

*

By mid-February, CJ’s ready to just hire someone to do all the cleaning out for her. 

Which makes Danny just roll his eyes every time she comes in looking for a distraction from whatever she doesn’t want to deal with. At which point he’ll whistle over his laptop or notes and sing at her something pointed and playful: "She's a rich girl, she don't try to hide it, she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes.” 

At which point she’ll throw something at him and try to lure him into distraction. (Which, sure, sometimes works. He's not a saint.) 

But she does actually stick with it, her targeted operation to organize and discard everything she’s deemed unnecessary. 

And there are some hilarious finds in the course of excavating her stuff from the garage and the crawl space under the laundry room: her old Cal jersey and some photos from the year they’d won the national invitational. Her master’s thesis, which Danny is one hundred percent going to steal, as soon as possible.

Most of it she just glances at for thirty seconds before adding it to either the for donation or toss pile and moving on. Even the Tuccio for New York ‘90 sweatshirt, which he knows for a fact is the campaign where she met Toby Ziegler. 

“You sure about this?”  

“Vinyl is useless,” she says, not really listening.  

“Yeah, not talking about your Fleetwood Mac albums, Stevie.” He holds up the sweatshirt. “Still vintage.” 

She blinks. “Nick Tuccio lost that race.” 

“It’s a memento.” 

“It’s probably riddled with mold,” she gives him an accusing look. “You’re bad at decluttering.” 

“Notre Dame got kicked in the teeth all last season. Haven’t burned anything in effigy just yet.”

"Might be time to try. They could stand the help,” she quips. “You gonna be this sentimental when we clean your place out in May?”

“Nah. Don’t have all that much.” 

“Yes you do. You have…” She flutters her hand in the air. “...photos. Pictures. Frame-y things.” 

“Yeah, but that’s just to make it easier to remember I’m not waking up in a hotel room somewhere.” 

CJ considers him. For a second he thinks she’s about to ask him something, but she just stands, turns away, and takes another box of life before Bartlet away, ready to discard it without a second thought. 

In retrospect, Danny figures, it’s probably one of the worst things she could do with her time.

*

Here’s the thing. Thing is. Living with a guy is like…It’s a lot. Usually at the same time.

Danny’s thereness is alternately steadying, and wonderful and good. Just, so, so good. And also annoying and irritating and up-close in a way that makes her feel endlessly self-conscious. He always seems to know what to do. What needs doing, and also how to do it. He’s direct when he needs to be and also gentle about really any of her freak-out areas, and it’s starting to make her insane how persistently bad she is at cohabitating with another human being. She’s inventing projects and tasks and micromanaging his, and she can see herself being cold, callous, and hates it, but can’t stop herself from saying one thing after another. 

And night after night, she tries to make up for it, for the awful bitchiness that’s invaded and embedded down into her personality. The sex is good, but intense. Too much, at times, and she has to hide her eyes against the emotional weight of it. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? She can’t use any of her usual tactics, here. He knows her too well to be lulled into some false sense of security. It makes her heart shatter in her chest and panic spin her mind, more nights than not. 

Which shouldn’t be what love is, right? Love’s that thing in his expression, the affection, the patience, the supportive, giving-everything-up-for-you part of partnership. 

Still. Night after night, Danny will pull her close, and stroke her back and whisper Sleep wells that hide I love yous, and every time he does, some small part of the droning anxiety and fear spinning inside her relaxes, just a fraction. Unspools a tiny bit. And CJ remembers why she could never quite get over this. 

*

He reaches for her, but her side of the bed is empty. 

It’s blue morning, pre-dawn, but just barely. The east sky is flooded with pink clouds, streaking through the bowl of fleeting night. 

She’s curled in the corner of the couch, a glass of water on the coffee table. CJ stares, still and silent. 

“Hey.” He remembers this expression. She’s lost in her head and stuck on some puzzle of what to do and how to do it. “Everything okay?” 

She half turns, not looking at him. “Thinking.”

“You’re very good at it. ‘Bout any one thing in particular?” 

“I got up to get a glass of water. There are historic lows in the Colorado River watershed. NOAA sent a report over last November. All of California's glaciers are projected to melt in the next fifteen years. Twenty, tops. The rest will have vanished by 2050. Hydroelectric powers most of the Southwest, where one sixth of our entire annual energy expenditure is used on air conditioning in seven states. The most rapidly developing part of the country, and we’ll have no way to power it. Even if we could, the U.S. electric grid hasn’t been retrofitted in twenty years. It’s one of our biggest domestic security vulnerabilities. They’re still running off software systems from the early 90s, and hardware from, oh, two, three decades before. That’s what I’d target. Energy grid and the water supply. Power. Who needs personnel intelligence if you’ve got an army of kids who grew up on the internet playing mercenary, war-mongering video games. That’s what I’d do, if I was running the Politburo's Ministry of State Security or the SVR. That’s what I’d do right, now, to distract a superpower trying to get in the way of my main energy interests…” 

There’s a low, hypnotic note to her voice.  

Danny runs his thumb across her wrist. Tryna bring her back from whatever informational abyss she's stuck on. "All that has been in your head for the last few hours?"

She looks at him with those ocean-depth eyes. Blinks, like she’s only just now seeing him. 

"That,” CJ says. “Is what has been in my head for the last five minutes."

* 

Once, she dreams she is back in her office. But it’s not her office. Either of them. It’s the Oval, and she is alone. The eagle stares up at her, arrows locked in both talons. The halls are empty, and there’s only her left. There is a swimming pool in the press room. She falls and falls and wakes up with a scream that can’t escape her throat, reaching out for something she cannot grasp. 

She collapses back to the pillow. Tosses and turns until moody blue light cracks the sky.

*

She walks in the door one evening with a plan. Part of a plan. 

“They want that audio gear?” Danny calls from the kitchen. 

“Yeah. Media studies program said they’d take it,” CJ says. 

“Good.” 

“Bought a couple joints off some skater kids in the parking lot.” 

He blinks a few times. “Say that again?” 

“You heard me," she says. 

“Okay. Followup question.” 

“Proceed.” 

“Why?” 

“Because, Danny. Because. I need to relax. If I could, I’d do a self-lobotomy right now. I’d remove my brain from my skull, place it in a little bowl of clear, spring water and set it aside for as long as possible. I’d stop obsessing. I wanna get high and I wanna fool around and laugh. I used to laugh all the time. Even during the twenty hour days…I–"

She leans her palms against the counter, and feeling old and tired and defensive. 

CJ shrugs. Looks up at him, not knowing how to put it. "I used to laugh, Danny.” 

Honestly, weed wasn’t really her thing, not even as a kid, reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X beside Strawberry Creek and joining anti-apartheid demonstrations on Sproul Plaza, but she had a youth once, and it was full of youthful things that made her feel alive.  

Danny wisely doesn’t push it. Just smirks and goes back to making dinner and says over his shoulder. “Want me to get out my guitar?” 

“No,” she warns, but with a note of amusement in voice. “I do not need to hear Wonderwall. I need to stop thinking.” 

He just lifts his chin and lift eyebrows. We'll see…

It doesn’t really work. She wants blissed-out and giggly, the kind of high that makes everything feel sweet and connected. Instead her chest feels tight and her mind just spins and spins and spins.

“Danny.”

She’s lying on the patio lounge with her head in his lap. She whispers at the sky and the sparkle and everything so close, but far away. Unfeeling. “I think I might be losing my mind.” 

“That’s okay,” he says, unfazed. “I’ll hold on to it for you.” 

*

In the morning, she turns over, feeling bleary and sheepish. 

“Well that didn’t work.” She exhales, mouth dry and eyes red. 

“Might be for the best.” 

She presses her hands to her face, groaning in agreement. Lets them drop away. “How are you not a wreck?” 

“It’s a mystery,” he chirps, entirely too chipper. 

“I’m calling Josh,” she shouts after him. “Gonna dig up the dirt on you!” 

“Good luck with that!” 

*

Her father sits in his study and he is young again. He turns pages in a book she dreads, one full of dusty old Greeks who'd rather exile themselves to solving their lonely riddles and theorems with only the darkness of their caves for company, instead of drinking wine and writing epic odes, instead telling great stories or fighting for glory. 

His voice is stronger than she remembers in life. She does not follow his logic. She doesn't see the world as he does, and when he speaks of coordinate planes and circles in circles, of lines that cross and never meet again, of ones that run parallel and never meet at all, she thinks of cascading IV tubes and wedding rings; of the lengthening distance between two points; of the curving arc of a ball, released from her hands.

Her father can recite pi to the hundredth digit. Euler's number, and the golden mean. 

The square root of two is irrational, he tells her, and when he lifts them from his old boring book, eyes crinkling, her father asks, as he always, does: 

What say thee, Hypatia?  

The words are still locked up in her throat when CJ wakes to a new morning, and—

again, again, again…

—feels the press of grief that blocks out the sun. 

*

“You gonna tell me what you’re writing about?” CJ asks, around her toothbrush. 

They’ve made it another couple days without fighting over idiot things, which she’s going to call a win. Maybe they’re (re: she’s) getting better at this. 

Danny’s reading a ridiculously massive non-fiction book that makes her brain hurt just to look at it. He’s been working on a freelance project since Ohio. Gone up to Pasadena a few times and has had long phone interviews and met with a few sources, presumably. It’s something science-y, which is weird for him, but she still hasn’t heard more than the odd offhand remark since he started. It feels oddly personal. She wants to show interest—is actually interested—doesn’t know how much she's allowed to press.  

“Sure thing,” he answers. “Soon as I figure it out.” 

Still playing it cool, then. She decides not to push it. 

She spits toothpaste and rinses the sink. “Just be sure to tell me before the next National Book Award or Pulitzer Ceremony, will ya?” 

“Eh, those don’t really matter.” 

CJ snorts. “Ha! Tell that to your editor in chief.”  

“I just did,” he says, turning a page. “Hopefully you’re not as concerned with return on investment as the last one.”

“Not many complaints so far." She slides into bed next to him. 

Danny gives her a look like, hmm, yeah, right. But continues with what he’d been saying. “Know why none of those awards matter?” 

“Why? 

“Cuz the last piece is never going to write the next one.” 

She rolls her eyes. "You sound like Sam and Toby." 

"Then I'm in good company." 

"Hey. They're in yours, buddy,” she argues, defensive on his behalf.  

“Only because they don’t give out medals for speechwriting.” 

CJ leans over his shoulder. “What are you reading?” 

He turns back the cover so she can read it. 

“Annals of the former world,” she reads, curious. “Past life mysticism, Nostradamus?” 

“Not quite,” he says. “It’s about geology.” 

CJ winces. “Ugh, seriously? Why?” 

“Research.” 

“Hope this isn’t on my recommended reading list.” 

“No, those are over there.” He gestures to a short stack of books on her end table that she hadn’t noticed, makes room for her to scootch closer to him. “I like it. Gives me perspective.” 

“On?” 

“Time.” 

“Time? ” CJ repeats. 

“Yeah. Time. What’s a long time, in the grand scheme of things.” 

CJ tips her head up, smirking. “You’re really something, know that?” 

“So my sources say.” He skates his fingers along her knee with one hand, turns a few pages with another. “I also like the author. Met him once. He’s a sharp guy.” 

“Who is he?” she asks. 

“John McPhee. Been at the New Yorker for about a million years. Kind of an old timer, but an absolute legend. Any time I think I got a certain skill flair–” 

“Anytime you think?” she chides, poking him in the ribs.  

He exhales with appreciation. “This guy can write.” 

“Listen to this–” He lifts an arm for her to slide under. “Guy gets it in his mind he’s gonna compose a four-volume, twelve-hundred-page tectonic history of North America–”

She takes it from his hands for a moment, gives it a little heft. “God, you could bench press with this thing.” 

“–which he does, and it wins a mountain of awards, including the Pulitzer for Nonfiction–”

“Which is where…?”

“Yeah, yeah yeah, which is where I met him,” Danny confirms, waving it off.

“Little fanboy moment, nerding out with your writer crush,” she teases. 

“How well you know me.” 

“Indeed, I do.” She lays her head on his shoulder.  

“So he wins for nonfiction, and gets about a thousand other awards. And the reason he does, is because in these twelve-hundred pages, of a million-some-odds words, detailing the fullness of planetary history, of geologic time, with all its forces and pressures and chemistry that works in millennia instead’a minutes, he has the audacity to say this:

“‘If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.’”

He whistles, impressed, absorbed by it, struck by the magnitudes made small. 

“That’s it. A thousand pages, down to one line. Oceans rise, mountains fall, and the only constant in any of it is that things’ll change, steadily, surely, slowly but…change will happen.” He shakes his head, maybe puzzling out some narrative logic or mulling over some simile, thinking about how best to apply it to the still-unrevealed story he’s so clearly already working on. “Doesn’t that just stop your heart?"

CJ hides her smile in his shoulder. She appreciates his appreciation, and the metaphorical power it holds, whether that was intentional or otherwise. She doesn’t really care—at least not about old rocks or forces that are more theory than knowledge, but she likes that he does.

CJ settles closer against him. “Keep reading, Simba.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Cause, see, the thing is: I like hearing your voice.” 

He nudges her, acknowledging her acknowledgement of that gut punching argument they’d had in DC, the one they’d survived, somehow, despite all her fucked-up-ness and emotional landmines scattered in every direction, still are, mostly, and she listens to the boring book about the whatever rocks, and it’s kind of perfect. 

For the first time since that first week, CJ falls asleep, and stays there.

She does not dream. 

*

Can’t think, like this, with her. Still. Still.

Her face is pinched. A line cutting deep across her forehead. Her eyes pressed tightly shut. Closed off, away. Hiding. He hates when she does it. 

“Where'd you go? Honey?” 

She blinks. Focusing. Scratches her nails and kisses him, trying to distract. So good, but. She pushes him away, and there's the fear again, too much, too soon. Pulling away. Leaving. 

Not leaving. She slides over him, settling. She takes his hands and presses them to her breasts. Slides them along the willowy basket of her rib cage. Along her long, leanness, all her sharpness, her edges. Tear tracks on her face. 

See? She says without words. I’m here. I'm with you.  

She leans down into the circle of his arms. He holds her. She kisses his neck, cheeks, presses one palm to his face as her fingers card his hair. Breath shivering and so much. 

He holds on. Never let go. Not once. 

*

Chapter Text

*

CJ hangs up the phone and lets her head fall into her hands. “Kill me, now.” 

After a moment, she stands and stalks down the hall to the garage. “Am I a bad person?” 

Danny’s messing around under the hood of her Mustang. Affirming his manly manliness by asserting dominance over machinery, or something. Though, it could just be a Michigan thing. 

He glances over his shoulder as she steps through the doorway. “Any news?” 

“What have I done in my life that warrants this kind of bad karma?” 

“What’d they say?” His hands are smudged with grease and motor oil. 

CJ leans over his shoulder at his side, surveying…whatever it is he’s doing. “Well, the good news is, they’ve located the shipping container with, you know, most of my worldly possessions.” 

“Sensing a ‘but’…” 

She sits against her hands by the wheel well, shooting a Get this... look over her right shoulder. “It’s currently sitting at U.S. Customs and Border Control in Sweet Grass, Montana.” 

“Seriously?” She can practically see the line of questions forming. 

“As a heart attack. It gets better,” she grouses, cracking her neck back. “Would you like to know why most everything I own is sitting in a warehouse outside Sweet Grass, Montana?” 

A look of knowing disbelief. “I mean, it can’t be they–” 

“Oh, it can.” 

“They confused California for Canada?”

She throws a hand up, irritated at just the thought. “Some logistic, bar-coded, scanning thing got tagged incorrectly.”

“Wow. That’s bad.”

“Yeah.” 

“Shouldn’t there be paperwork with it?” 

“Well, obviously not the right kind, which is how, you know, they figured out it wasn’t supposed to be going to Alberta, I guess.” She heaves a sigh. “If ever there was a metaphor for falling into complete and utter powerlessness...”

“Well, at least this made it.” He gestures at her beautiful, baby blue Mustang convertible. “Slightly more useful these days than your collection of couture.”

She narrows her eyes. “Never besmirch my dresses. There’s, like, twenty grand worth of gowns in there. Valentino. Schaparelli. Alexander McQueen!” 

“You look good in all of ‘em. But not quite as many occasions to wear ‘em, these days.” 

Not wrong there. 

CJ turns around to watch him adjust some valve-y thingamajig. “How do you know so much about cars?” 

“I’m from Michigan,” Danny says, breezily, as if that actually explains it.  

"I didn’t realize it was part of the common core curriculum.”

He checks something she thinks is the starter plug. Or, possibly, not the starter plug. “Eh, more or less.” 

“Math, English, auto parts, social studies...”  

“My dad liked ‘em. Used to work at the Chrysler plant, summers, when the school year was done. Maggie’s the real nut though.” 

“Your dad was a teacher?” 

“History. My mom taught English. Detroit public school system.” 

Huh. Add that to the list, she figures. 

She folds her arms across her chest, pulling up her mental file on the many sisters whose names she can’t possibly remember. “Maggie’s the oldest, right?” 

“Yep.” 

“Maggie, Maura, Caroline, and Jill,” she recites. “District Attorney with a car hobby. She sounds like a tough lady.” 

“Not as tough as she likes people to think.” 

“Who is?” CJ answers, longing, just a little, for the days when people used to fear her. “Bet I’d like her. I liked Caroline.” 

“Caro liked you.” He gives her a little glance that manages to be gentle and encouraging and also somewhat unnerving; there are hazy implications between the words, and while she doesn’t mind them as much as she might have a few months ago, it’s still a lot.   

She steps back as he lowers the hood and heads inside to wash his hands. CJ follows. She collects the pile of annoying documentation and phone numbers and information she’d wrestled out of the goddamn logistics company that morning, sticks it behind a magnet on the fridge, scowling. Woe betide their customer service representatives. 

“Question for you,” Danny says. 

He’s hovering at the sink, soaping his hands without letting the water run because he’s the kinda guy who pays attention to things like drought conditions and water rationing; who knows the local ordinances around invasive garden species, and sorts trash from recyclables. 

Nerd, CJ thinks, fondly. 

She snaps her fingers back and forth a few times. “Hit me.” 

He looks around the kitchen, bright with late-morning light. “Why’d you keep this place, when Bartlet won?” 

CJ shrugs. “Seemed like the easiest thing to do, rent it while I was living in DC. Supplement my meager government wages of bad coffee and daily suffering, wait out whatever came after. I guess part of me always figured I’d come back here.” She hesitates. “Also…” 

Danny waits, not pushing, not interrupting. It’s a trick of the trade, she suspects. Letting the silence stretch out, till the human need to fill it takes over.

“Someone said something to me, once. I think, Sam.” 

She reaches back, trying to remember when it had been. “It was the first year. Summer. I was complaining about the humidity, missing LA. Sam waved it off. He said something like, ‘Enjoy the seasonal cadence intrinsic to the passage of East Coast time while you can, CJ,’” she paraphrases, doing her loftiest Sam Seaborn impersonation; Danny’s mouth ticks up at the imitation. “‘It's not like you’ll be here forever.’” 

She tosses him a dish towel to dry his hands. 

“No one said it, but they all thought I'd jump ship first. They didn’t think I was in it for the long run. Back to LA and all the fun and frivolity. ‘Don't count on CJ—she’s just here for the spotlight and the snacks.’” 

She forgets about that, sometimes. The second-guessing from her last job in the White House tends to overshadow all the second-guessing she’d done in her first. 

“Jake Lawlor lasted a year.” 

Her nose scrunches. “Who?” 

“Lassiter’s second press secretary,” Danny explains. “After him was Bryan Gillen, I think. Lasted two years. Marshall did ‘bout eighteen months.” 

She hops up on a stool at the island, cupping a mug of coffee she’s not going to finish. “Well, they were all weak little mama’s boys, weren’t they?” she says over the rim. 

“To say nothing of how they looked in heels.” 

She smirks. 

“None of ‘em had what you had. I looked it up, once. You got the record for longest serving press secretary. A job which, I might add, you didn’t exactly leave. Kinda got forcibly promoted out of that gig, if I recall.”

It’s a little thing, as stuff for the history books goes, but it’s something. 

She leans her chin on her hand over the counter. “What, you filing away factoids for your next book?” 

Danny makes a face like a cheerful version of regret. “Much as I’d like to, kinda goes against journalistic ethics. Not that it wouldn’t be fascinating.”

“If she can’t be your ticket to the National Book Awards, what’s even the point? Cut her loose,” CJ teases.  

“I’ll try to console myself, missing out on the writer-subject relationship for this one. How ever will I manage?” 

“There’s always a follow-up. You did the dichotomy between Abbey Bartlet, First Lady of the newest Hampshire, and Dr. Bartlet, renowned thoracic surgeon and medical professional,” CJ suggests. “Whole lotta story in the DC years.” 

“To say the least,” Danny says. “‘Cept first I’d have to ask her, and I’d like to live a little while longer.”  

Well, there is that. Shotgun to the head would be less painful. 

 “Get the sense Abbey’s looking forward to a very, very long break from the subject of life in the White House. Think I’ll give it some time before I start barking up that tree,” Danny says.

He’s not wrong. And CJ can’t exactly blame Abbey for it. “Yeah.” 

“You heard from her?” 

“Ah…” She drops her gaze, fumbles around for an answer. “She sent a card, few weeks back.” It’s in a drawer, somewhere around here. “A note. It was nice.” 

Danny, being the annoyingly astute student of human nature that he is, clocks her unease. 

CJ lifts one shoulder, facing up to it. “Things were awkward between us, at the end.” 

“How so?” 

“Well, for starters, one of us wanted to keep her husband alive and healthy, the other wanted the chief executive and democracy functioning. So, you know, classic catfight.”

Danny offers a placating smile, though it isn’t actually very funny. “Yeah.” 

“I should reach out, at some point. Try to mend some fences.” 

“You should.” 

“Maybe.” 

A little mewl sings out from the open patio doors. 

“Hey there ‘Mona,” Danny beams. He goes over to the doorway, lifts her up with one hand, cradles her like a child as he scratches her belly. 

The wretched beast actually purrs. 

“Highness.” CJ says coolly, genuflecting. “So much for lifting that curse on me. And after I fed you. Give the goddess an offering, and next she wants a temple.” 

She fixes the cat with the same stare she used to reserve for Miles Hutchinson, when he was being a pain in the ass. 

“At least you’ve stopped eating my birds. I take offense to that, I’ll have you know.” 

Danny shakes his head at the whole bit.  

The cat blinks sleepily. He sets her down on the pavers; she scampers off into the side yard.

“Well, your car is good to go. Should probably take it out today or tomorrow. Give the engine a workout.”

She reaches for the key ring across the marble counter, dangles ‘em in the air. “You wanna drive?”

His expression brightens. “Yeah?” 

She tosses the keys his way. “You’ve earned your keep this week.” 

*

Sunset Boulevard in all its mid-century, Golden Age glory. Like a time capsule. Danny scans through the radio stations, landing on some upbeat, rhythmic guitar riff CJ’s never heard, not once. 

“Who is this?” 

“What?” 

“This band.” 

“The Strokes?” 

“Never heard of them.” 

“Well, that’s on you. Maybe you shoulda given Rolling Stone a press pass.”  

“This is what I’m talking about,” she exclaims, gesturing broadly. “This is just like that TV show you like, with the plane crash survivors? I have no idea what’s going on.”

“I mean, it kinda sounds like you do…” 

“You know what I mean. I’m like an alien observer, or a stranded time traveler. All my pop culture references belong to another century. I can tell you the ins and outs of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but I don’t know what songs are on the Billboard Top Ten.”

“To be fair, don't think that's so different from most overworked, over-extended forty-somethings.” 

“Well, probably most of them have kids monopolizing their time. What’s my excuse? I have terabytes of information trapped in my brain, and somehow, I know nothing.” 

“Okay, let’s fix that.” 

She lets her head fall back, dramatically. “How?” 

“When’s the last time you, I dunno, went to a movie? Went to a concert that didn’t double as a campaign rally, or was Yo-Yo Ma in the Mural Room? What was the last thing you read that was fiction, for fun? Noticed you haven’t cracked any of those books I left you, by the way.” 

She groans, knowing it’s true. “I’m getting there. I will, eventually.” 

“I know you’re riveted by sub-Saharan post-colonial history at the moment, but you’re on winter break. Frank Hollis isn’t gonna expect a term paper the first week of July, you know. No homework assignments currently pending.” 

She thinks back. “We played a bunch of Gilbert and Sullivan songs for one of the White House counsels, once.” 

“What?” 

“I’m trying to recall one of the last non-required musical interludes in my life. That’s the best I can come up with. Isn’t that tragic?” 

“Yeah, but not for the reason you think.” 

She scowls at him through her sunglasses. “Meaning what?” 

“You realize we live in the twenty-first century United States, right?” 

“Somehow.” 

“You wouldn’t know it, between you and Sam and the rest of ‘em. Never met a group of people more devoted to Victorian pageantry who weren’t also peers of the realm.” 

“Whatever, Springsteen. They’re nice. They’re about duty.” 

He’s wearing sunglasses but she can feel Danny rolling his eyes. “So is Saving Private Ryan. Like a regional theater company doubling as policy wonks.”

“Well, maybe if Tom Hanks did a little song and dance, I’d have seen it.” 

*

They pull off at a taco truck next to one of the state beaches off Malibu, tucked between the Topanga sandstone cliffs and wild Pacific coast. From a picnic table, CJ breathes the spray and salt air, listening to the hum of cars on the 1, watching the scatter of activity: dogs and kids, college students in Pepperdine shirts playing beach volleyball. Waves crash. She lets it soak in. 

She feels more like herself than she has in ages, like this, back in the world. It makes something abate. Lifts some part of the invisible weight she wakes up crushed by, every morning. Some fault line cracks up from that core of black grief and hurt and longing, reaching for the surface. 

“Hey, I heard from USC.”

“Yeah?”

“Meeting with the department chair first week of April.”

She breaks a chip, thinking about painfully slow timeline. “Not sure if I should be heartened by the fact that academia moves at the same glacial pace as government.”

“Eh,” Danny says, giving her a flirtatious look. “Plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.”

“You finally gonna tell me what you’re writing?” she asks around a mouthful of fish taco. 

“Hip-hop album.” 

“Daniel.” 

“Screenplay about the manipulation of LA’s most essential municipal resource by a shadowy cartel of scheming oligarchs.” 

She shakes her head. “Chinatown for the age of social media? Forget it, Jake.” 

“Think you can get me a pitch meeting?” 

She steals a few of his chips. “I don’t know why I expected you’d irritate me less if we were in a relationship.” 

“Part of my charm,” he says. “And I’m still figuring it out.” 

“I think you’re purposefully making this out like it’s some mysterious mystery.” 

“You can’t will the muse to appear. She’s elusive. Gotta work for it,” he says, eyes bright under his Tigers baseball hat. 

“Please. You used to cobble together eight hundred words inside two hours, then spend the rest of the evening hanging around my office.”  

“I was in service to a different mistress back then. She was pretty demanding.” 

“Lady liberty?” CJ ventures, raising one eyebrow.  

“My editor.” 

She snorts, taking another chip. 

“Daily political beat is a different animal from longform. I don’t have any deadlines anymore; I got time to be choosy. Also, your office was more fun than the press room, ‘course I wanted to hang out back there.”

“Lies.” 

“Had to make sure Gail was fed,” he reasons. 

“A job currently filled by Miranda Santos.” She smiles at the thought. It’s pretty cute. 

“Really?” 

She nods. “Donna sent me a picture; I’ll show you at home. She takes it very seriously, apparently. There is a schedule. She has a clipboard,” CJ says with great severity.

Danny smiles at the notion. “Sounds like our fish is in good hands.”

“You’re still not gonna tell me?” 

“I don’t know,” he exclaims, laughing. “I’m not lying to ya—I got a sense of where I could go with it, but I haven’t landed on any one direction. Got a couple more interviews to line up, then I’ll have a better picture.” 

“Alright, fine. Keep your secrets.” She chews for a moment. “You think the Post will want right of first refusal?” 

“Nah, thinking of expanding my horizons.” 

“Where?” 

“New Yorker, probably. The Times Magazine, maybe. We’ll see.” 

“This how I used to sound when I ‘couldn’t talk about it’?” 

“Nah.” He winks. “That was sexy. This is just process.” 

CJ rolls her eyes and throws her balled up napkin at him. She pops to her feet, goes to grab a bottle of water from the guy in the window and another paper cup of salsa while she’s there. 

“You sell this in IVs?” she asks. She’s half convinced she’d eat her own hand covered in decent salsa verde. 

The guy grins. “Fifty bucks, you can have as many as you like.” 

“Tell you what, after eight years of stomaching the pitiful attempts at Mexican on the East Coast, I’d pay it.” 

“Yeah, that’s not for me,” the guy agrees, making her change. “Worked in New York for a while but couldn’t last. Missed it too much. Food. Sun. Ocean…” 

“Can’t beat it.” 

He passes her a buck and change. “That what brought you back?” 

“Yeah, I–” She pauses. Beams a smile. “Actually, I just got out of prison.” 

She thanks him and drops some cash in the tip jar.  

*

CJ surveys the house a few days later, studying the bare walls, taking in cracks in the paint and fixtures that look out of date. Announces, “We should redecorate.” 

“We could do that,” Danny offers, not sounding all that concerned about it one way or the other. He’s measuring things out. Cooking things and ingredients are scattered across the counter, the island.  

“Like, I dunno, paint and replace furniture and things. People do that, right?” 

“Yeah, people do that,” he agrees, glancing up. “Might also be good for you to have a project.” 

CJ makes a face. “What’s that mean?” 

“I mean, most mornings you’re up before seven, and when I come down, you’ve got CNN or MSNBC on mute, three newspapers spread out, your laptop open to ten different tabs, and Morning Edition rattling off the next disaster of the day. You’re wired on caffeine and adrenaline, and ‘cause you got nothing else to do, a lotta the time you start on search-and-destroy mode.” 

Her mouth pulls down. Yeesh. That’s hard to deny. 

“Sounds kinda bad, when you put it like that.” 

“I don’t think it’s great. Lot else you could be doing.”

“Such as?” 

He hesitates. 

“Ye-es?” she prompts, looking at him, nodding her head. Say what you mean. 

“Look, I’m not tryna tell ya what to do,” Danny says, with caution.  

She folds her hands diplomatically. “We’ll call it a suggestion.” 

“Okay. Well for one, instead of the fantasy foreign policy you’re playing twenty-four seven in your head–” He tips his chin at the TV that’s been on mute for hours, showing the latest details from Zhezkazgan. “–I think a slightly more productive use of your time might be to write down some of the stuff that’s in there.” 

“You think I should…write a book?” 

It’s not like it’s a wildly out-there suggestion—the public policy to publishing pipeline was an established DC tradition. Still, it hadn’t really occurred to her. 

“Not necessarily.” 

“So what, a memoir? I’m not done with my career, Danny. I’m pivoting, or whatever the guys in Silicon Valley call it whenever they get bored of the last thing they tried.” 

“Well, yeah, of course you’re not done done. And I’m not saying you try to write for any reason. Sure, maybe you do wanna write a memoir someday, eventually. Be good to have a record of the details when they’re fresh. Or maybe you just wanna process a tiny fraction of what the last ten years have been like. Nice thing is, writing’s pretty easy. Nothing much you need for it. Just takes time. Which you got.” 

“Yeah, but…”

“But?” 

“But I’m not really a writer.” 

“Tragic, isn’t it?” He sucks in a breath, wincing. “Really could have made something of yourself there, if you’d only been a better communicator.” 

“Shut up. I should shove you in the pool right now.” A smile blooms, despite her antipathy. “Maybe. Shouldn’t I…I dunno, try to create some distance?” 

Danny shrugs one shoulder. “Getting the experience down on paper, building the logic behind it…Narrative itself can be a kind of distance. Putting things in the past and looking back at ‘em. Create room for reflection.” 

He shrugs, affably. Just an idea. 

She smacks an aggressive kiss on his cheek. “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of annoyingly perceptive?” 

“It’s come up, once or twice.” 

*

She starts with the biggest, most recent crises. The things that are seared in her mind, still keep her up at night: the ongoing oil crisis in Kazakhstan. The nuclear mishap at San Andreo. Oliver Babish and his intent to crucify during his investigation into the leak. 

She makes a list, bullet points for episodes that stand out in her mind. The things that mean the most, looking back: Her personal conflicts about selling arms to Qumar. Billy Price, dead on her watch. The self-doubt and missteps of managing the MS announcement. Rosslyn. 

Even without any flair or descriptive elements, muddling through her own recollection and reactions is a struggle. It giving her a precise appreciation for the art of it all. At least in theory. Competitor that she is, can’t help but compare her own mediocre attempts to a master at his craft. 

Danny, effortless about it, reads in huge volumes of time, clatters away at his keyboard in furious fits, has long, rambling conversations with unseen sources that CJ half-strains to hear, but mostly ducks from, wanting the reveal in his own words. The story drawn out, from some anecdote of inspiration he's bound to have. 

And so, day after day, she returns to her incomplete list, one darker and full of troubling anecdotes than she’d like. 

But it’s somewhere to start from, to whatever end.  

*

CJ’s looking at him like she’s not sure if she should laugh or bludgeon him. She points at the paint samples he’s spread across the patio table, aghast.

“Mint? she says in disbelief. “Mint?”

“What’s wrong with mint?” 

“Oh my god.” She presses her face into her palm. “Get out of my house, Laura Ashley.” 

Danny ignores her, defending his choice of color swatches. “It’s nice!”

“It’s not, actually,” CJ declares. “Man, alive. Out of curiosity, were you born this aggravating, or did you hone it finely, over time?” 

“Trained for it, baby doll,” he says, sarcastic.   

“Indeed,” she growls. “Do you have your phone on you?”  

“Yes?” 

“Give it here.” She holds her palm out. "No sage. No pistachio. No pastels!” 

“It’s neutral!” he insists, reaching into his back pocket. 

“Well, then, no to Switzerland, too!” 

“Why’d you want–” Danny asks, handing her his phone. 

“So it wouldn’t break.” 

“Why’s my phone–” 

Without missing a beat, CJ shoves him backward into the pool. She walks back to the house. “End of song!”  

Love of my life, Danny reminds himself. 

*

CJ sits at the island, scowling at her email. “God help us all.”

“Josh?” Danny asks, finishing the sports section of the LA Times.  

“Another of his free association emails.”

“What quick answer is he looking for this time?” 

“I’m not even sure there’s a question in here. I think he just wants to vent via Blackberry,” she gripes. “Ah. One from Sam. Swear to god, the two of them running this show... At least he has the decency to use punctuation when he comes calling for advice. You know, I could have used some of this problem-solving initiative the last few years. This is the thanks I get for sticking around to clean up the party after all the cool kids left.” 

“They trust you. Also, you don’t have to answer.”

“Blind leading the blind,” she says, tapping away. “Even if it is vaguely gratifying.” 

“How you mean?” Danny asks, turning the A1 over to international news. 

“A better person probably wouldn’t revel so much at the Ivy League wonder twins coming to Susie State School for help,” CJ says. “Once a week, one or both of them would call me stupid, just ‘cause I don’t care who won this year’s Head of the Charles, or whatever.” 

She clicks away at her email. “Daily Show, no... 60 Minutes, ugh, no. Sorry, Marcus.” 

For whatever reason, she keeps declining invites to Face the Nation and Capital Beat, which he can sorta understand, but she’s even shot down NPR interviews and PBS Newshour, turning up her nose like it was Sally Jesse or Geraldo reaching out. CJ begs off, claiming it’s some kind of  cold turkey thing, as if she’s in a self-imposed political rehab. It probably is good for her, on some level. But the lack of work is clearly driving her nuts. 

“Your fellow vultures want to pick apart my carcass for the entertainment of the masses.” 

Danny resists rolling his eyes. They really don’t, but he’s not about to make that argument right now. He turns to Katie’s wire piece about a trilateral summit next month in Japan and asks, “What happened to controlling the narrative?” 

“What narrative? I’m not a story.” 

First female Chief of Staff and longest serving alumna of the Bartlet White House, getting ready to spin up a massive development initiative? Nooo, definitely no story there. He bites his tongue and ignores CJ’s commitment to the practice of self-deception. 

“They all seem to think I’ve got something to say.”

“Yeah, I wonder where they got that idea…” 

CJ jabs at her keyboard. “Do you want to go to the Met Gala?” she asks apropos of nothing, and without interest.

“Sorry?” 

“Vogue wants to know if I’d like to attend this year’s Met Gala,” she says. “Must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they’ve gotten to me.” 

“Weren’t you named Washington’s best dressed, like, seven years in a row?” 

“Three,” she corrects. “And best dressed in Washington really isn’t the compliment you think it is.” 

“Think the real question is, do you want to go?” 

“Eh. It's a whole thing. You interested?”  

“What's the theme?”

She turns to consider him with surprise. How do you–? 

“Post has a Style section,” Danny reasons. “Been known to read it.” 

She considers her email, scanning the invite. “It's an ode to a 19th century Parisian fashion house.” 

“Sounds kinda insider-y. Maybe not for the mere dilettantes among us.” 

CJ’s mouth turns up in that grin that’s been so rare to find, lately.

“What’s that look for?” he asks. 

“I’m mentally passing off your lackluster feedback to Anna Wintour.” Her lips quirk in amusement. “Her cause céleb, derided by a guy who owns multiple pairs of thematic suspenders.”

“Retired those, I think you’ll recall.”  

CJ leans her chin in hand, smirking back at her email. “You do amuse me so, Daniel Webster.” 

“Patrick. And glad to hear it.” And he is. By the time he’s up most mornings, she’s already in a dark mood, mouth a thin line and weighed down by worry. Least he’s coaxed a smile out of her today. 

“Starting to get a newfound appreciation for your aesthetic sensibilities. I’m assuming the suspenders were ironic?”

“This newfound appreciation enough to make you consider–”

“NO PASTELS!” 

“Ah-akay.” No sense in winning the battle, but losing the war, he figures.

“Oh boy,” CJ mutters, a bit later. “Berkeley’s inviting me to do this year’s commencement speech."

He tosses the paper into the recycling bin, goes to stand behind her chair and read over her shoulder. “Sounds fun. Gonna do it?” 

“Ugh. I dunno…” she groans. “I’m not sure how inspirational I can be.”  

“Hey, now,” he says, kissing the side of her neck. “You’ve inspired me plenty.” 

“Not sure that’s the kind of inspiration they’re looking for,” she quips, but he can hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll be expected to be clothed.”  

“That’s their loss. Hey, if only you knew a professional speechwriter who might have some free time and owe you a favor.” 

She scowls over her shoulder. “I’m not asking Toby.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because.” She fishes for an answer. “He should be spending time with his kids. Reveling in freedom. Whatever it is you do with a new lease on life.”

“Lot to be said about making the most of second chances.” 

“Danny–” 

“Look, I know he’s been your friend for a long time. And maybe mending fences isn’t the worst thing in the world. Kinda speaking from experience, here.”

CJ makes a dubious face at him. “We’re not on our second chance. We’re on like, I dunno, the sixth or seventh at this point.” 

“I’m not counting, as long as it sticks this time.” 

She hums something like, we’ll see about that, though it comes across more like contentment than threat. 

Something occurs to him. “Why Berkeley?” he asks. 

“Hmm?” 

“I’m asking, why California? Guessing you had some options.” 

CJ sighs. She drums her fingers along his wrist, goes all quiet for a moment, thinking. She shrugs one shoulder and says in that unenthused these-are-the-hard-facts kinda way she gets, sometimes, when she’s telling a truth she wishes maybe wasn’t. 

“Because it was far, far away.” 

*

After the third or fourth debate, which has somehow expanded to include disagreements on furniture and lighting, CJ throws up her hands and tries to tap out.  

“We should just hire a decorator.”

Danny shakes his head. “We’re not hiring a decorator.” 

“Why?”

“‘Cause it’s dumb, is why.”

“It’s not dumb.” 

“It’s dumb, and not only that, it’s also self-defeating.” 

“People do this for a living.” 

“And that's fantastic, don’t get me wrong,” he defends, in that you might be rational but you’re still wrong way of his. “If you’ve got a loft designed by Frank Gehry and a bank account on par with the operating budget of Travis County.”  

“We’re fine. I’ve seen your tech stock portfolio, pal.” 

“Just saying, it’s weird to outsource something so personal to someone who doesn’t know you from Adam, and is more interested in what’s trendy this season instead of how to navigate combining tastes and interests and history.” 

Well, he had a point there, sort of. Most of a point, anyway. 

“That's not how it works,” she reasons. “There’s expertise. And they don’t just do it on a whim. It's not stupid.”

“I’m unconvinced.” 

“It was hard to tell.” 

“Make your case, and I’ll listen,” Danny needles. “Till then, I’m vetoing.”

“This is my house,” CJ laughs.  

“Call it a symbolic veto. Unless you can change my mind.” 

“No. I’m done arguing. I made my point, you shot it down, and now I’m here, and I’m done. Which, actually, now that I think about it, is another reason we should just hire someone.” 

“The hell kind of circular logic is that?” 

“The kind where I don't care that much anymore, and someone should!” CJ barks. 

For half a second, a flash of hurt flickers across his expression, there and gone; he’s got a decent poker face, but disappointment is always his tell. Just as quickly, it’s replaced by a firm resolve and the determination to overlook it. 

CJ regrets her choice of words pretty much immediately. 

She shakes her head. “That's not what I meant.” 

God, she is awful at this whole… feelings thing. 

“Okay.”

“I'm not resisting this...I guess I just don't feel so invested here.”

Some muscle in his jaw ticks, but Danny doesn’t say anything in response. He just runs a hand down his face, turns and leaves the room. 

Okay, well, that probably wasn’t any better. 

*

His mouth presses hard against hers as she arches into his touch, dizzied by him just as she was the first time, not so long ago, in the heavy fallout of election night when the questions stemmed ten-fold from the head of every answer, and the grief of it all, the sheer aloneness she had felt, brought her to the only person she had left.

She gulps huge, silent breaths when he shudders, gasping fast against her collarbone. She peppers kisses along his brow, clinging to him, running her hands against his back, the smooth, sweat-slicked curve of his neck. She knows the meaning his every touch conveys.She shifts, pressing against him, warm and solid and here. She can feel the beat of his heart. 

CJ closes her eyes, her breathing evening out. 

Sleep doesn’t come. 

For hours, she keeps bouncing from thought to thought, wondering what a hundred things mean, where the fallout will land. 

The Russians cutting off gas to Poland, and what that’ll force the EU into. 

TV producers and would-be agents, who all want to commoditize some part of her life, slap a graphic on it, and crank up the house lights. 

How to do the whole feelings thing. Which, yeah, are there—of course they’re there—but talking about it is a whole other matter and she just– If she tries and can’t– She'll say it and it'll be out there, and Danny will keep waiting for her to be better, to change, to live up to the promise. And what if she can’t? What then? What will any of it be for?  

Stop, a voice in her head cautions. Some weird amalgamation of Donna and Margaret, and even Kate Harper, a tiny bit. Abbey, too. 

She slinks out of bed around four, feeling restless, agitated. If she was back in DC, this is when she’d drag herself to the gym and spend a good hour running intervals at the treadmill, trying to brute force the endorphins out of her brain stem till she could plaster her face with mascara and the shadow of a smile.

Without a plan, she grabs her keys and a jacket. 

Full dark. No moon. Dawn still a few hours off. The neon-washed streets off the canyon snake down to West Hollywood, the palms trembling like tall green shadows. 

Not for the first time in the last few weeks, she wonders what in the hell made her want to live so far up, away from everything. 

If there's one thing she misses about the East Coast (and there isn't much) it's coffee carts and corner shops at the end of each city block. Newspaper stands at the Metro station. Bike lanes and walking paths, free flowing, chaotic life. Colonial cove molding. Cherry blossom petals in her hair. The taste of Yuengling. The Post on her doormat, reliable as a reckoning. 

She drives without aim or destination, top up, windows down. 

Up the hyperspace highway lanes along the 101 north, till the road splits north of the valley. She turns east for no other reason than she’s already in that lane, takes the 14 up through Soledad Pass. 

Headlights flash in the opposite directions. Spotlights trained on her, then gone. Ahead, tail lights blink on and off the road, cameras rolling. Go for three, two…

Signs flash on the right. Monolith. Mojave. Tehachapi. 

Ever since she was a kid, finding her place out here, she’s always loved the names scattered across the map of California. Words taste different than they do back East, in the Euro-centric, classically planned Rustbelt counties that she’d escaped, full of its Londons, New Parises, Veronas. 

Here, the syllables roll off the tongue, musical as prayer. Temescal. Larkspur. Bolinas. 

City lights fall away. 

Above, the dome of desert sky smooths from midnight to pale blue. Some niggling sense of guilt begins to make itself known. She should have left a note. Texted Danny’s phone. She glances at the passenger seat, realizing with mild panic she hasn’t even brought hers. She needs to head back.

God. 

She pulls off onto a wide turnout in the shoulder. She’s still feeling off-kilter, but more awake now, calmed in some ineffable way by the focused hum of tires on asphalt. 

She gets out to stretch her legs a moment, sitting on the hood of the car. A cold wind sweeps over the dust and desert scrub. 

What am I doing?

She folds her arms across her chest, runs her hands to her shoulders, fighting the chill. Pearly fingers of dawn break out from clouds hovering on the endless horizon. 

From out of nowhere there’s a flap and rush of wind. 

She ducks her head, throwing an arm up.  

A beady-eyed, brownish-white bird perches on the passenger side mirror. Its hooked beak and sharp talons right there. 

It lifts its wings, turning those black liquid eyes on her. 

CJ stares. 

The bird just looks at her. It's all...hawkish. It chirps, louder than she would have expected. She leans back from it, vaguely alarmed.

Not moving from her spot on the hood, CJ swallows. “Can I help you, or…?” 

It chirps a whole lot louder, lifting its wings and flexing its mean-looking claws, like a handfuls of knives.  

“Okay, okay!” she says. “God!” She hops off the hood of the car and steps away. “Fine—I’m leaving. Alright?” 

She moves slowly toward the driver’s door. Her fingers find the handle; CJ cracks it open, sliding inside. Her hand pauses on the key. 

She looks through the passenger side window at its fierce, fine beaky face. “What, did the cat send you?” 

Swear to god, it actually looks at her. 

CJ nods. “Okay. Well. Message received.”

The bird flies off, whatever it was. Hawk. Falcon. 

Kestrel, she thinks. 

CJ stares at the wheel for a long moment, wondering if that really happened, or if she’s well and truly lost her mind.

“Normal things happen to me,” she says. “It's fine. It's allll …fine.” 

She throws the shift into gear and does a U-turn, heading back to the city before the sun fully rises.

*

By the line of his shoulders and stony expression, she can see the argument coming before he’s opened his mouth. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Danny shouts. 

“Good morning to you, too, sunshine.” 

“CJ…” he warns. 

“I couldn’t sleep.” She breezes past him in the hall. Follows the scent of coffee to the kitchen. “I went for a drive.” 

“At three in the morning?” 

“Well, four, but yes.” 

“I couldn’t find you.” 

“Danny, it’s not the first time I’ve absconded in the early hours.” 

“Which was acceptable when you had a Secret Service detail and were on call every second of the day. You–” he tries. “Did you stop to think for a minute to let me know where you'd gone? Offer some kind of an explanation? Two lines on a post-it? ‘I’m fine, back in a few hours?’ And why the hell did you leave your phone?” 

“I forgot it, okay?” Her own guilt needles her toward defensiveness. “I don’t have to defend my actions here. I’m a grown woman, and I don’t answer to you. If I want to clear my head and go for a drive, I can.” 

“That’s fine,” Danny growls. “Do whatever you want. Just give me a reason not to panic when I find you’ve vanished in the middle of the night. CJ! Don’t you get it?”

She sputters a response. “What?!” 

“I’m worried about you,” he exclaims. “Half the time you seem fine, like you’re figuring it out. Then you’re up all night, stuck in your head. You won’t make any decisions about what the hell we’re doing here. You’re buying weed off teenagers? Picking fights with the sun for shining?” 

Fuck this. Irritation sweeps through her like poison. She wants to break something. 

“Forgive me for taking more time than you’ve allotted for getting over the most important thing I’ll ever do. Here, let me just sweep aside the sadness and grief and self-recrimination so you can get back to playing house.” 

“One, I don’t care how long it takes. I’m trying to help. Don’t belittle my part in this ‘cause you’re feeling thrown and on the defensive. And two, baby, I got news for you: You’re not sad about any of this.” 

“Don’t ‘baby’ me!” she hisses. “I am forty-four years old, jackass.” 

“You ain’t sad,” he says, stepping close. “You’re angry.” 

Oh whatever. She rolls her eyes and turns her head. “I’m not angry. I’m flailing here. It’s barely been six, seven weeks, Danny. Give me a fucking break.” 

Another step. “You are so angry.” 

“I’m really not!” 

He cocks his head, looking at her like he’d always done when he was damn-well sure of his sources and could argue his point in any direction. “You are so angry, and have been for so long, you don’t even see it as anger anymore.” 

“I don’t–” She shakes her head. “That’s not– What exactly is it you think I have to be pissed about?” 

Danny sighs. And like that, she can see the present-most point of contention shifting into a wholly different, bigger, longer argument altogether. 

Wasn’t that just the whole of it, with them. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

“I think you’re angry at everyone who left. Who bailed on you, when they thought you’d be the first out the door. At Sam and Josh, who ditched you, just like your brothers ditched you when you were a kid.” 

Oh my god. Not this again. “Please. Spare me the psychoanalysis.” 

“That’s how your brother sees it. One side of the story.” 

That ’s a knife to the back. 

“No!” CJ stabs a finger at him. “You don’t get to treat me like one of your goddamn investigations. You don’t go digging up dirt on me. You don’t get to do that.” 

He throws his arms out. “Digging up dirt? That’s what you call having a conversation with one of the people closest to you? Your family?” 

She looks away. She doesn’t need this. 

“I didn’t go lookin’ for skeletons in your closets. I talked to Drew, ‘cause he opened the door to that big, meaningful, unspoken past that you never talk about.”

“I don’t–” She shakes her head, not even sure what it is she’s defending against anymore. “I share things with you. You live in my house, Danny. What more do you want from me?”

He ignores her, goes on pressing his case. “You’re pissed at Toby for letting it all fall on you, when there wasn’t anyone left to trust. For the fact that he gave up, too. That had to hurt.” 

She grinds her teeth together. Keys are still in her pocket. She doesn’t have to listen. She doesn’t need any of this. 

“I think you’re pissed at Leo, for believing in you, and for having the nerve to be right about it. For driving that wedge between you and everyone else. Especially Josh. Cause that was it, wasn’t it? The thing that made him head for sunnier pastures?”

She stabs her tongue in her cheek, arms hugged to her chest, and looks at the floor. He doesn’t–

“I think you’re angry at Jed Bartlet. But that– I’m not sure why. For lying to the country, and to you, about MS. For running again, after he finally came clean? For asking everything of you, when he could barely do the job at the end, and maybe shouldn’t have?” 

She clenches her jaw. If she opens her mouth, she’ll say things she can’t take back. Drive someone else away, too. 

"I think on some level, you're probably angry at me, too."

She laughs, bitter. “You think?”

Danny stands in front of her. Wary, but firm. Standing up to her, as ever. “But mostly I think you’re pissed at yourself.” 

She glares at him. “Why?” 

“Because. You made some hard choices. They had very real costs.” 

Without trying or even wanting to, CJ thinks of her brothers. Her dad. Every desperate attempt at a relationship for eight years. Friendships that have disappeared into the ether, since. 

“You learned to do everything the hard way, and it sucked. But you did it. Proved to yourself, and pretty much the entire planet what you’re capable of.” 

Danny shakes his head, locking eyes on her. I’ve got your number here, and you know I’m right. “But you’re back down with the mere mortals, doing average, everyday human things. And you’re not doing so hot right now.” 

“I don’t need you to–” 

"CJ, I’m trying to take care of you.” 

“I don’t need that.” 

He gives her those sad eyes, full of hurt, pity. Most of the time she likes the way he looks at her, but she never wants him to look at her like that. 

“Yeah. You do.”

She opens her mouth to shout back. Danny touches her upper arms, traces circles against the fabric of her t-shirt.

“Is it so bad that someone who cares about you is paying attention?" 

She turns her face up, away, summoning the will to…something. Closes her eyes against the tight ball of hurt and shame. The heat begins to go out of her. 

“Of course not. I just...I don’t know how to handle it.”

“You’re so laser focused on looking back on the last eight years, hell, the last eight months, that you can’t change up your perspective. You’re stalled out. I’m trying to help you move forward, CJ.” 

She winces at the tenderness in his voice. She hates feeling this confused and ridiculous and complicated. Shakes her head. “How do you do that? See all that?” 

“Time was, I used to be highly valued for my observational and analytical abilities,” he says, the shadow of a joke in there. “Like to think I’m valued for other reasons these days, but observation’s still part of it.” 

She dares to face him. "I’m not mad at you. I’m not.”

“Okay, well. I’m pretty mad at you.” 

“I’m getting that,” she sighs. It’s a fair response, all things considered. She looks him in the eye. “I wasn’t actively trying to be hurtful. I guess I didn’t realize that you’d care.” She shakes her head; not entirely true. She did know. “Not till I’d left, anyway.”   

“I know. But I did. I do.”

Yeah. 

She licks her lip, nods. “I’m sorry. Again. I mean it.” 

“Apology accepted,” Danny says, somehow managing to be magnanimous about it. She supposes he’s had the practice. 

“So, here’s what’s gonna happen.” He steps back, leans against the island counter behind him. “I’m gonna go up to Portland tomorrow. There’s some folks I wanna interview up there. Gonna take a couple days, do some research.” 

CJ balks, feeling thrown. She doesn’t really know what to say to that. “I don’t really know what to say to that.” 

He gives her those look, see, I’m so understanding eyes. “I think it might be good for you to have some space.” 

“Me, or you?” 

“CJ,” he cautions. 

“This been in the cards, or you just decide to skip town this morning? ‘Let’s give CJ a taste of her own medicine’?” 

Another look: See what I’m talking about?  

God. When did freak-out animosity become her default reaction to everything? 

“Okay. There may be something to your whole–” She waves a hand at the ceiling, conceding the point. “–anger thing.” 

“Yeah.”

*

She can’t stop thinking about what he said: That she’s stuck in rearview, secretly raging against everything she’s been claiming was the privilege and joy of her lifetime. The senior staffer protesteth too much, or whatever.  

She sits cross-legged against the headboard, reading one of the books in the stack he’d placed on her end table. Some mid-century, historical fiction thing she didn’t expect to enjoy, but is. Not bad, given she’d taken the title as a sign. Pick me. 

“Which one you reading?” 

“Atonement.” She holds up the cover. “Was hoping it was a how-to.” 

He makes an inscrutable face in reaction. Something between good choice and hmm…

She puts one of the paint swatches between the pages as a bookmark: Forest. Well, that one she could get behind. 

She folds her knees up and hugs them to her chest. “Who’re you meeting with in Oregon?” 

“Local school board guy. Soil scientist. A county planner. And a woman in charge of the USGS regional office.” 

She triangulates the overlap between those areas of expertise. “So you’re looking at disaster response. Natural disaster, I’m guessing, given the region, and your whole weird rocks phase.” She glances at the dog-eared, mostly-finished pseudo-textbook on his end table. “Emergency management policy, and coordination?” 

“Swish! Got it in one.” Danny gives her a little smirk, adding a long-sleeved shirt to his backpack. “Not bad. You could go pro.”

“I do know a few people in that area. In case you were looking for more sources, subjects, whatever.” 

“Such as?” 

“Guy named Nathan Decker comes to mind.” 

One eyebrow arches. “The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency?” 

“Might know a thing or two.” 

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard of him.” He gives her a little half-nod, appreciating the gesture. “Thanks, but once upon a time I was pretty good at getting information outta people. Let me run these down, see where I land on my own merits and reputation.” 

Out from the mud of recent memory drift Liz Bartlet Westin’s words about her lying, cheater of a husband’s deservingly ill-fated campaign for the New Hampshire House. 

So. On his own merits? 

CJ shoves the thought away, disliking the comparison. 

“You’re packed?” 

“Yeah.” 

She idly traces her thumbnail with her index finger. “Are you going because you’re angry at me?” 

“Hey. No. It’s not…punishment, or anything. This is a pause. Time to think. Reflect a little. The last few months have been a lot.” 

Panic bubbles up when he says it like that. Sure, it has been an emotional sine curve of sorts, but also it’s been good. Weird and hard and messy, but overwhelmingly a good thing. He knows that, right? 

How would he? she thinks, and—oh goddddddd—hates how glaringly obvious and simple it would be to make that clear. How easy it would be to just come out and say it. 

Except she can’t, not now. Now when it’d look like the only reason she’s doing it is because she feels guilty (which she does) or doesn’t want him to high-tail it outta town (which she doesn’t). 

It’d be under duress, and he’d probably see through her and feel bad, like he’d forced her into it. Worst of all, she worries he’d see it as manipulative. Something she’s only pulling out because she needs a high card. The upper hand. 

She traces the spine of the book. 

“You’re right. I am upset. Angry, on some level. Levels, I guess.” She doesn’t really want to get into it, the whys, the different degrees of outrage. CJ looks up, meets his eyes. “You’re right. You do see me. And that scares me more than, oh, really, anything.”  

Danny doesn’t protest. Doesn’t tote out that whole scary? who, me? thing he’s tried before. He just nods, says, “For what it’s worth, you’re pretty terrifying, too.” 

CJ swallows. Like a coward, she ducks into humor, angles for some emotional distance. “What for? Just your average out of touch nutcase, these days. I’ve been stripped of all my world-bending political powers. Can’t even get my party dresses  FedEx-ed on time. ”   

“That may be. But your awesome political powers were never all that much of a factor in the equation.” Danny just glances at her over his backpack. “And they’ve never been the reason you scare me.” 

*

Portland is the antithesis of LA: damp, chilly, all cool clouds and haunted evergreens. Small, instead of sprawling; self-contained and earthy after bright and break-neck Los Angeles. It’d be a welcome respite, if Danny could manage to feel even the slightest bit better about it. 

CJ’d been quiet that morning, still coiled in on herself after they’d blown up at each other yesterday. But she’d made an effort, dropped him at the airport and been oddly sweet, in her awkward and insecure way. 

He likes to think he’s got a vague sense of what’s going on in her head, most of the time, but after nearly ten years of trying to figure her out, hell if he’s got any real idea. 

For the first time since she showed up at his apartment in January, after that bitter exchange that wasn’t so much a fight as it was a revelation of how misaligned their perspectives really were (though, at least they’d actually managed to talk that particular mishap through, and navigate their way out of an almost-ending), he’s feeling a bit lost about what comes next. 

Time to face the facts. Outline the directions, factors, motivations.

One very real, very possible, hard truth to consider: maybe she doesn’t actually feel the same as he does. The meaner, more wounded part of him that he’d like to pretend doesn’t actually exist can imagine maybe it’s just about the attention. Some kinda reaction to seeing the time and the years and the choices—did I project this all into my work?—disappear into the yesterdays. That this thing wasn’t actually about right person, finally, at the right time, at long last, but anyone, at all.  That she’s just going along with this because it’s there; that he’d offered a hand when she was adrift, and inertia was easier than the alternative. It hurts to imagine. Makes him feel defeated and lost, just thinking about it. 

He considers the fact that, maybe this isn’t some stepping stone to that lifetime of partnership that had looked so possible, just weeks before. Maybe second, or third, or seventh chances are a fiction, some imagined idea that you could get back a lost piece of yourself, or reverse the old hurts of missed chances, fill the wasted years, end unnecessary pain. 

He doesn’t want to believe that. 

For all the protests, the rationalizing, the lists of why we can’t she’d offered, there is still something there that had never quit. Years had gone by, and it stuck. Some little ember of something, sparking every time their paths crossed. And anyway—he knows CJ knows how to say no. Hell, she had for years. She turned down Matt Santos and another chance to keep saving the world. She chose this. And she hasn’t walked out yet. 

He remembers his argument to her, back in January: she’d need a lot of training on how to be a partner, but that they’d figure it out together. She hadn’t thought it was possible, that they could make it work. That she was capable of it. As if there’s anything on this planet, save maybe skiing (and honestly, given time and effort, he’s got his doubts about that) that she couldn’t do. 

CJ’s worst, most dogged and meanest critic has always been CJ. Worth remembering, that. 

Danny shakes it off. He’s got work to do. 

He puts the rental Escape in drive, steers it out of the warren of muddy airport roads, heading west toward the 5. 

For a moment, the primeval evergreens and mist and rush of big water soothes the soreness of old aches. A reminder that there was life before CJ, and whole stretches since where he’d been fine without her in his life. 

‘Course, just like the present moment, they’d also been a whole lot less colorful, too. Flatter, sadder, more about the work than anything else. Empty. 

North of the service road, just outside the city, the Pacific Northwest beckons. The wide, rushing Columbia River pours east from the confluence of the Willamette.

Wasn’t anything to do now, Danny reasons, except stay the course, and see where the current would lead. 

*

She debates for twenty minutes before she actually calls. Reads the words over and over, rationalizing to herself that the number was included with intention. Was there for a reason. 

Here goes nothing. 

“Bartlet House of Pancakes and Public Policy,” a wry voice answers from down a long line. “What’s your poison, Claudia Jean?” 

She smiles into her phone. “How about some waffles and a side of federal banking regulation?” 

Abbey Bartlet chuckles. “CJ. It’s good to hear your voice. How you doing?” 

CJ makes a little sound like you know, getting by haha aren’t we all but comes off as fake, forced. “Oh, just peachy.” 

The defeat must read like radar, because Abbey picks it up from three thousand miles away. “I was so sorry about your father, CJ. I wish we could have been there, you know.”

“It’s okay,” CJ says.

“It doesn’t feel right, we weren’t there.” 

A mortar of grief hits her out of a blind spot. She never sees them coming. “Thank you, but– It happened fast. And right after the inauguration, so. It wasn’t the right time.” 

“Still. I wish we had been.” 

CJ can’t seem to form a next thought; can’t frame a question, or even understand what answers she’s trying to find. She folds herself into the corner of the couch, hugging the blanket on her lap. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Her throat is tight. “I don’t know, Abbey. Everything.” 

Tears prick at her eyes, the bad idea klaxons firing in her head. 

Her throat aches. “I’m sorry,” she stumbles, voice thick. She tries to fake her way out of it. “I shouldn’t– Yeah. Know what? I’m gonna–” 

“CJ. Talk to me.”

She doesn’t really know what to say. How to say it. If she should. 

Abbey senses her unease, her hesitation, and reaches out with an olive branch. “I was so hard on you, these last years. I’m sorry for that.” 

Viscerally, she remembers the burdens the president chose to bear; burdens he was chosen for. Remembers the force of Abbey’s wrath, as her husband grew sicker. How much of a struggle it became, in the end. 

“We both wanted to protect him,” CJ says. She feels so alone. 

“You had a job to do, and I punished you for it. When you were the last one left standing. I didn’t realize, not till it was all over, what that must have felt like. How alone you must have been, at the end.” 

“That's politics.”

“Suppose it’s life, too. People come and go. Change your life of an afternoon.” 

CJ thinks of Leo, then. She misses him. He’d know what to say. Probably even more so than Abbey. 

Tough it out, kid. Leave it all on the court, else what business do you have trying to play for keeps? This is where it happens. 

“Tell me about California. Must be an improvement on Washington. Or New Hampshire, for that matter,” Abbey offers. “Soaking up all the sunshine…Getting all that vitamin D…” 

CJ sputters a laugh, pleasantly shocked by the way she says it: somehow both totally innocuous and not at all subtle. 

A hundred different memories rush in: times Abbey had poked and teased and made cheerfully suggestive little hints about who exactly CJ should be dating, and why. Reminds her that this is (still) the woman who spent years telling her to show off a bit more skin, to tart it up for the hell of it, as if everyone was blessed with a rack like hers…

Abbey snickers. “Not what I meant, though there’s that, too. Congratulations, by the way. How is my erstwhile biographer?” 

She sighs. “Amazing. Wonderful. I…" 

What to say, except the truth? 

"I think I’m disappointing him. Not sure the reality quite matches up with what he imagined.” 

Abbey scoffs. “No.” 

“Feels like.” 

“That scruffy fool waited nearly ten years of his life to be with you. It might not be smooth seas right now, but I’d bet the moon he’d call it the polar opposite. What’s he doing, you’re feeling like this?" 

“He’s in Portland. Reporting trip. Got a freelance piece he's working on.” 

“I wondered what he’d be up to.” 

“One Pulitzer for investigation, one for public service...Think he's going for a hat trick with features.”

“Thought maybe another book. Half expected him to come knocking on my door one of these days.”

“Abbey… How do you do it? Go back to business as usual? I sit here and every minute of every hour of the day, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Oh, honey.” 

“I don’t know how to be this steady, present person. Feels like I’m screwing everything up.” 

“You’ve forgotten who you are, CJ. But I haven’t.” 

“What’s that, ma’am?” 

“A woman of action.” 

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You’re not screwing anything up. You need this time. What you don’t need is to dilly-dally. Squander it. You need projects, CJ. Big, small, whatever it takes. Something to occupy your brain, and body. Something to put your mind to, let it spin without running the motor.” 

What that means, CJ has no real idea. 

“Don’t give up hope. Not yet,” Abbey says. “When you’re at your wits’ end, remember this, sweet thing: When it comes to people, love is a verb, not a noun. It’s what you do, not something you are."

She tugs at an errant thread. Something you do. 

“Come up for Memorial Day. Both of you. Charlie and Zoey will be here.” 

It’s tempting, and yet, that last meeting with Liz, the whole awkward knowledge of Doug’s lechery…

“Liz and the kids won’t be here this year,” Abbey says, as if reading her mind. “So there’s plenty of room.” 

“That sounds nice, ma’am,” she says. And it does. “I’d like that.” 

“Oh, for the love of–! Enough of this ma’am business,” Abbey scolds. “I’m not the boss’s wife anymore. The hell, CJ!” 

She grins, despite herself. “I suppose not.” 

A warm, familiar silence settles. “You are so loved, Claudia Jean. I wish you’d be as good to yourself as you are to others.” 

“Doing my best.” 

“Trust yourself, CJ. Everyone else already does.” 

*

Something you do, CJ thinks, alone, properly alone, for the first time in weeks, months.

She paces around her empty, ridiculous house, high in the Hills, looking out over the lights and life of Greater Los Angeles. Disconnected from the world that Danny has been out in, for the past however-many years. Is out exploring right now, puzzling out some hows and whys. Trying to help people understand.  

Something you do, she repeats to herself. Not something you are.

*

He half expects her to go radio silent on him, freeze him out while she’s licking her wounds, like it’s four years ago all over again. 

Instead, he gets a running commentary of texts each day. Taking a page out of Josh’s free association emailing, apparently. Thoughts on the book she’s reading. Threats she’d like to levy on the moving company. Complaints about how hard it actually is to write, and what kinda delusional nutcase would willingly do this for a living? 

There’s even a picture of the neighbor’s cat sprawled on the patio lounge. 

By the time Saturday rolls around, he feels a bit less apprehensive. Less so still when CJ meets him at the airport, in some long, pretty dress he’s never seen and a smile he has, though not for a while.   

“Meriwether Lewis,” she says, trying for cool and wry and charming. “How’d the expedition fare?” 

“I’d call it a success,” Danny answers. 

She puts on a saccharine war-bride voice, kissing his cheek. “I wrote you every day.” 

“You did, actually. Good thing I have unlimited texting.” 

“Yeah, well, it was that or the unending torture of being alone with my thoughts,” CJ quips. “No one needs that.” 

“You wanna grab dinner?” he asks on the way home. 

“I do not.” CJ’s lips tick up. 

“Oh?” 

“Ask why.” 

“Why?” 

"Because I made dinner.” 

He tries not to laugh, and mostly fails. “Really? You?”

She smacks his arm. "You know, Alice Waters I may not be, but I have managed to make it this far in my adult life without, you know, dying of botulism or starvation."

“Yet.” 

She pulls the car in and leads them up through the gate by the pool. She’s put up a bunch of cascading lights over the patio. Some jazzy old CDs playing from a speaker in the window. 

“You got a date coming by, or…? 

“Shut up,” CJ defends. “You’ve been gone all week. I wanted to do something nice. It’s, you know, a thing I was, at one point, once capable of. Thought I’d try it out again.” She hooks a finger around his thumb, tugs him over. “I don’t want you to think I’m not trying.” 

Ah, CJ. 

“I don’t think that.” 

“Good. I missed you.” 

“C’mere.” He pulls her into a hug, and stays there. Music soft and low. 

“You danced with me before, once,” CJ says into his shoulder. “When was that?” 

“First inaugural. Not the second.” 

“Well, I was annoyed with you then. You were being your usual dogged, vaguely principled self.” 

“Stop, I’m blushing.” 

“Woulda, shoulda, coulda.” 

“Got time now,” he reminds her. “No prying eyes, either.”

“So: Speak to me of grave Oregonian disasters,” she says, swaying them slowly, and trying (badly, at first) not to lead. 

He catches her up properly. Finally starts to explain a bit about where he’s thinking this story will go. What he’s starting to narrow in on, what he’ll need next.  

Leonard Cohen’s growling his gravel-voiced poetry when CJ leans back, looking him in the eye. “I wanna ask you something, but I don’t want to be…presumptuous, I suppose.” 

“Okay.” 

“I’m saying, the answer can be no. I won’t be offended or anything. Okay?” 

Not knowing what else to say to that, he just nods in agreement. “Okay. Shoot.”

“When you wanted to…” She looks up, searching for a word. “...do this. You know, give up your job, and the place you’ve lived most of your adult life, and chuck it all to come out to Strip Mall City, USA, to try and make a go of it with the most avoidant woman in America…”

She tips her head, studies him. “Are you doing this because you’re in love with me?”

He has to laugh, because she’s gotta…Is she kidding with this question? 

“CJ!” He laughs, looking at her dumbfounded. “Was that not clear?” 

She waits him out, serious as a sniper. 

“Guess not,” Danny says, more amused than maybe the situation calls for, because the answer’s about as obvious as a house fire. He has been, and for a while now. Maybe since the beginning, if he’s being honest about it. It ain’t a recent development, that’s for sure. God, even Josh knows that. 

“Yes,” he says, happy to say it, plain as day, if that’s what she needs to hear. If that’s what she’s ready to hear. “I’m in love with you.” 

She traces shapes and symbols into the fabric of his shirt. “I know. I do. I mean– It’s…” She gestures vaguely at herself before considering him with profound disbelief. “It’s just that, sometimes, I can’t figure it out.” 

“Well…How you mean?” 

“Well, bearing in mind we both know I’m not about to win any awards for self-awareness here, but it does not escape me how difficult I can be. Have been. To you, especially. Then. Now.

“So, why would you do that to yourself? When I'm…” She struggles to get it out, making Danny think of that night, less than six months ago, somehow, when she’d called herself a career freak automaton. When she said that’s not who she wanted to be. 

“I guess–” She inhales, glancing up, getting anxious and exasperated with herself. “Why would you do that, when I’m so emotionally defective?” A line pinches in her forehead. CJ looks about as far from her usual confident, Category Five whirlwind and world-wonder as he’s ever seen her. 

Why?   

Easy. Impossible. 

Fact is, he’s never really tried to map out the why's of it before, exactly. Didn’t have to. Why would you fall for CJ Cregg? belongs to a category of question that Danny’s tried to avoid most of his adult life: The ones whose answers are so obvious, they barely need articulating. Why does the sun rise in the east? Does this graph need more adverbs? Does power corrupt, and what draws narcissists to elected office? 

“I break you?” she asks. 

“Shh,” he tells her. “I’m thinking.” 

“Yikes. That hard, huh?” 

He turns her in a spin, pulls her back against him, her back to his front, arms around her waist. “I’m usually on the other side of these kinds’a questions, so you’ll forgive me not being quite so ready with an eloquent answer.” 

“Fair, I guess.” 

“And this is one I’d like to get out right, so hush up for a sec, will ya?” 

“I make no promises,” she says, lofty; an attempt to mask her nerves. 

He leans his chin on her shoulder, feeling the soft tickle of her hair against his face. She smells like Prada perfume d’Iris, lavender fabric softener, and something that’s her alone. 

“After Walken, I think you’ll remember I was persona non grata there for a while. Wasn’t like I was blacklisted or anything, but weren't many folks in the Bartlet administration who wanted to take my phone call.” 

“Yeah,” CJ says. “That’s why you left? Again?” 

“One of the reasons, yeah.” 

He threads the fingers of his right hand through hers, thinking back. 

“After a few months in the penalty box, Alice Kaufman offers me a gig as foreign correspondent. And I take off, figure it'll be something like before: six months, a year. It was probably closer to two when I started working on this story about dark money. Shell companies, hidden accounts, all the usual fraud anyone with a couple hundred million and a decent corporate tax lawyer has set up in Panama or Grand Cayman.” 

The memory of it comes back. 

“Wasn’t much fun, if I’m being honest about it. Probably one of the first clues that it might be time to find something else to do with my life. Bounced around a lot. Geneva one week and Riyahd the next. Dubai, Tel Aviv, Baku, Doha…The puzzle usually makes the legwork worth it, but this time, felt like I was coming up empty.” 

Just thinking about it, now, feels like a lifetime ago. It was, in a lotta ways. 

“I get back to my hotel one night. I dunno—London, Zurich. Somewhere. I'm about to start going through a mountain of research my assistant emailed. I’m tired. Burning out, wondering what any of it’s for, really. These guys, they dodge everything. They’re like teflon: nothing sticks. What’s the point? Why am I even doing this?”

He squeezes her a little tighter. 

“Then, suddenly, in the depths of my misery: There’s you.” 

She leans her head against his, thoughtful. He can feel the wrinkle in her brow against his temple. 

“I look up, and CNN International’s running this bizarro story about a group of congressmen who pulled a fast one on the House majority. They cut video packages longer for satellite broadcast; aren’t as many ads. Gives ‘em space to edit, can run more background filler between segments, that kinda thing. One of the video guys caught Art Leeds asking you about the sleepover stunt on the Hill. And you…”

Even now, he can hear it.

“You just laughed. That was it. This long moment of you, laughing in the East Portico. I’d know that laugh anywhere in the world. And for those three perfect seconds, I wasn’t living out of a suitcase. Wasn’t making enemies in the Saudi Foreign Ministry or getting shot down over and over by the PR guys at Deutsche Bank. I heard your voice and for a moment…it just felt like I was home.

“I’m in love with you, CJ,” he says in her ear. “Because you are brilliant, and principled, and passionate, and because you've got an unreasonably fantastic sense of humor for someone who’s been held hostage in national politics for as long as you have.” 

“I’m in love with you, because you’ve seen enough of the darkness there is in the world to be a little bit broken by it, and it still hasn’t made you a cynic.

“I’m in love with you, because you have more courage, and more tenacity, and more strength than anyone I’ve ever met.

“And if you weren’t all those things, you and that laugh would still be home to me anyway. That's why.”

CJ pulls away, turns to face him. And if her face isn’t the picture of astonishment, he doesn’t know what astonishment is. 

She wraps her arms around him and for a long moment, just holds him. He can feel the too-thin basket of her rib cage and the tension in her shoulders, shaking. Can feel her affection and fear and the effort of trying to change without knowing just into what, exactly, or how. She is trying, she is, he reminds himself. And he'll take that as long as he can get it. He believes in her. 

After a moment, she pulls back and swipes at her eyes. Sniffles, and swallows a few watery breaths. She twiddles her mouth, then blinks those stormcloud eyes. 

“Okay, those are some pretty good reasons.” 

Danny jostles her gently, with affection. “You make a strong argument for persistence.” 

 She licks her lip. “Although…”

“Yes?” 

A corner of her mouth pulls up. “You left out the bit about how great I look in really slutty, expensive lingerie.”

He laughs. Course she’d argue. They might be more defined by the interest than the conflict these days, but hell if there wasn’t always something to keep them bickering. 

“Kinda goes without saying.” He squeezes her tight against him. “Though, to be fair, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen you in really slutty, expensive lingerie…”   

“Well, we can fix that.” 

 “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she says, all the nerves and fear gone out of her, for the moment. She bites her lip, smiling. Laughing to herself. She looks happier than she has in a long time. Or, maybe not happier, but lighter. Relieved. Some invisible tension he couldn’t name or define seems like it’s missing. All the better. 

“Hey, Danny?” 

“Hmm?” He’s looking at her mouth, in its perfect arc of amusement. 

“What’s that rule there is, about writing? Something about the dangers of too much exposition instead of demonstrating meaningful, revealing actions?” 

She tugs the hair on the back of his head a little, forcing him to look at her. 

He’s confused for a moment, cause it’s kinda hard to think, well, pretty much always when she’s smiling all sultry like that. So it takes a second, but he clocks it. 

He presses his mouth to her collarbone, stifling a laugh. 

This one. 

God help him. 

“I believe you mean show, don’t tell.”

“Yeah,” CJ says into his mouth. The lights catch her eyes, and sparkle. “That’s the one.” 

*

“Need you.” She shimmies up onto the counter. “Missed you.” One arm around his neck, the other snaking under his t-shirt, nails scratching along his back.

“I can tell.”

“Stop talking.”

“That so? You usually like what I do with my mouth.” 

“Later,” she orders. “Inside me." She nips at his neck. Her teeth graze his earlobe, and that’s – hell. Some kinda lightning. “Now.” 

“Be patient,” he chides.  

“You left the state,” she growls. “I've been patient.”

He has to stop, take a moment. It’s too much, her, and her scent and her voice and, god –

Her fingers slide in his hair. He pulls her hips forward. Wider, hitching up around his waist. She curses at the change in pressure. 

Pushes back, and they’re there; at the push-and-pull, the wordless conversation on seventeen levels that it feels like, has always felt like; no different from when she’s looking him in the eye and standing closer than people do, when it’s like the words they’re saying are one thing and the real exchange is somewhere else, on some whole other level, something they don't even quite know how to say, but they are, and it is. 

It's CJ, and it’s deeper, indefinite but all-encompassing, is everything, and he’s had to know, since the first time, he’d never really get over this. First time he saw her; heard her laugh; felt her anger, betrayal; touched her; kissed her; saw her break into pieces; held her in sleep; watched her walk away—it was never going to be enough. 

Her thumbs ghost over his cheekbones. She presses her face to his. 

How could it ever be enough? 

*

“I have an idea,” CJ says, later, out on the patio lounge, after dinner (not a train wreck, by any stretch) and caught up on how they’ve spent their last few days (him: trekking around the PNW with various nerds and subject matter experts; her: staring at her laptop screen, dreaming up literally anything better to do when she wasn’t actively bloodletting into the keyboard, trying to get some of the Bartlet years out of her head). 

“Running away to join the circus?” Danny asks, stroking her shoulder. 

She elbows him lightly. “I could.” 

“You’re quite the contortionist,” he flirts.  

“More like the lion tamer,” she tosses back, without a beat. 

Well, he set himself up for that one.  

She leans against him and gestures broadly with her wine glass. 

“This house is pink.” 

Okay…?

“It's terra cotta,” he clarifies, hoping this doesn’t turn into another six-round bout on the demerits of pastels. 

“Pink,” she insists. “This house makes no sense.” 

“How so?” 

“For us, I mean. That’s why I don’t feel invested in it. It’s a relic of another life. Plus it’s way up here.” She flings one hand at the sparkling glow of boxy houses scattered across the hillsides. “You know, back in January, I told Margaret I’d walk more out here and she made fun of me.” 

Now that he quite simply cannot imagine. “Margaret?!” 

“She sensed my waning authority,” CJ sighs. She sets her wine glass down, turns to face him. “So let’s sell it. Find something else.” 

That’s…kind of a shock. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” She nods. “Really.” 

“You okay with that?” 

“It’s not like it means all that much. Was a place I lived for a little while, a long time ago. I’m not that person anymore; why hang on to it?” She shrugs. “Maybe it’s a sign most of what I own is lost in transit. Maybe we’re not supposed to get comfortable here. Settling back in the same place, just to figure out it’s not a good fit? I like the idea of somewhere new. Something we figure out together.” 

She looks at him, insecurity creeping back into her voice. “Do I sound crazy?” 

“Not so crazy, no.” 

“He’s not like a leading authority or anything, and frankly his track record is a little suspect, especially lately, but this one guy I know says the whole togetherness thing is a pretty key part of a good relationship.”

“Sounds like a wise and discerning individual.”

“So far, he checks out.” She leans back against his shoulder. “New things, right?”

Never count CJ out. She’ll surprise you every time. 

“New things,” Danny says, smile taking over every muscle in his face.  

She beams back. “Okay.”

“Though, you know,” he offers, just facing facts. “We’re still gonna argue like cats and dogs over paint samples and, like, ten thousand other things, wherever we end up.” 

CJ snorts. “Oh, believe me: I'm well aware. And of your pending advantage in this whole scheme. And yet, here I am, volunteering anyway. You know how lucky you are?” 

Yes, he thinks. I do.   

“What’s my pending advantage?” he asks. 

“In a tragic blow to my supreme leadership, this will be something we do as partners, Woodward.” 

"Suppose so, Bernstein.” 

“Won't just be my name on the deed, this time, thus rendering my fearsome executive powers moot. It’ll be ours.” 

Love of my life, Danny thinks. 

“Sounds nice.”

“Know what?” CJ smiles, leaning in. “It really does.”

*

He checks the front door, turns off the light over the stairs. 

The bedroom window is half open. A breeze drifts in from the canyon, riffing the canary palms and the live oak. 

CJ’s curled on her side of the bed, facing the middle where she’ll end up in a few hours anyway, because she’s a restless sleeper without the Ambien she claims she’s had enough of. At some point she assumed ownership of a Notre Dame t-shirt he’s had for the better part of thirty years. It looks the part, a hole in one shoulder, the gray fabric threadbare and almost worn through in some places. Her book is propped open next to her elbow. 

In the nine plus years he’s known her, he’s seen CJ in ball gowns, designer suits, and day-old sweaters. In baseball caps and bloodstains. She’d scowl at him if he said it, but she’s never more beautiful than like this, her guard down, those decades of carefully constructed armor set aside. 

Getting sentimental in old age, he chides himself. Though, that’s an exaggeration. Even back when he was kidding himself that it was just a crush—a chance for some fun with the new girl in town; a challenge he had no real hope of winning—he’d been as much a goner then as now. 

He reaches over; moves her book to the night stand, flicks off the light, curls his arm around her. CJ shifts in her sleep, and settles against him, warm and—for the moment, at least—untroubled. 

Change is slow. But sometimes, once in a rare while, under the right circumstances, the biggest, most transformative shifts can happen all at once. 

*

Chapter Text

*

This was a dream.

Her dad bounced the ball to her across the top of the key. She pivoted and dribbled once, sinking a jump shot with ease.

What’s it gonna be, Cee?

Poli sci, her teenage self answered.

He nodded. Good choice.

Is it?

They talked around things, mostly, but school, academics, that’s where her father had been most involved in her life. Most interested. She had never played basketball with him. With Robb and Drew, sure. Mostly to prove to them (herself) she could keep up, keep pace. Never her father.

For you? I think so. 

In the unreal golden hour of a twilight that never was, his eyes were bright and kind.

Why?

You never liked the easy answer. That’s why you hate math.

Math isn’t easy, she shot back. 

Math is rules, her father answered. 

He was tall and whole as he took the scenic route to a point. She had hated that, as a kid. It had always made her antsy and impatient. 

Solutions are a matter of course. Follow the steps, derive the outcome. It’s cold-blooded. Lifeless. That’s what you think.

I don’t think that.

You do.

She bounced the ball once, twice. I’m really mad. I know why. And I don’t.

Well, be angry. But do something with it, will you?

Her childhood basketball court was gone, as was the younger version of herself. They stood in her office, the one with the door off the Oval. The White House. A place her father had never seen.

You chose this, Claudia. 

An endless series of snapshots lined the walls. Flashes of memories. Victories and disasters. In every triumph, faces and smiles mirrored her own. In every failure, she was alone.

It doesn’t add up perfectly. Sometimes a good solution is half the outcome you wanted. Irrationality rules the day. 

A hand fell on her shoulder. Even in the structure and context of the unreal dream-logic, she knew she’d never feel that hand or weight again. 

Remember, Hypatia: Whenever human beings enter the equation, things go non-linear. That's why calculus is easy, and politics is hard.

*

CJ blinks, coming awake.

Pale, pre-dawn light slips through blinds. Somehow it is April. The light is growing now. The days are longer, brighter. 

She draws a long breath, swallowing the lump of emotion sitting hard and firm in her throat. The remnants of her dream are already fading, but she is unsettled by it.

Most days she wakes to half-remembered snippets of textbook tropes that speak to clear and universal longing for control; for the ability to turn back time; to make different choices, with fewer missteps. They are muddled thoughts and feelings, old uncertainties played out over hyper-real fears. Usually. 

They haven’t been this stark. This narrative. That’s what’s throwing her. 

An unreal conversation she’d never had with her father…It scratches at wounds that had been closing. There is nothing for it, she knows. There’s only going forward from here. Getting on with it. It hadn’t been for nothing, even if she has to live with the consequences. 

Tidy sums and ordered outcomes, when had that ever been her life?

Non-linear. She almost smiles.

CJ turns on her side.

Danny is still asleep, his presence, by now, warm and steady and familiar. She scoots over and curls into him, stealing a corner of his pillow, her chin atop his head. His hair has more silver gray mixed in with the copper, but it still catches the light in ways that make her stop and marvel a little, at times. He always stood out in a crowd.

This thing between them—it is both new and old at once. It is solid. It can bear weight, pressure. It has, she reminds herself. Good foundations do that.

She draws random, shapeless patterns against his skin, skates her fingers in that calming, gentle way he does when she’s restless and on edge. 

It shakes her, this fierce and overwhelming shockwave of affection. For nearly all the time they’ve known each other, it’s been tangled up with a hundred other emotions—stress and worry; aggravation and longing; bitterness and frustration—and even if those complicating factors aren’t part of the equation anymore, there is the echo of those guilts and fears. The potential for disappointment. Her own, the least of it. 

In her individual political philosophy, the best defense had always been a good offense, and the work of de-tangling the whole The Art of War-approach from her personal life is still something she’s working at. To struggle for does not always mean against; and to be challenged is not always to be attacked.

Danny’s breathing shifts.

He’s such a good guy, she thinks, not for the tenth or hundredth time. Even when he’s being an annoyance, he’s pushy for mostly the right reasons. She can’t remember ever having felt so central to someone’s whole world; a fixed point around which everything else revolved. Well, Carol and Margaret, but it’d been the job, the office, not her. Not entirely, anyway. They’d been her allies at the front, but with their own reasons for being there.

(Again, the adversarial metaphor. Yeesh.)

She strokes his hair, feeling a twisted-up pang of protectiveness for him.  

Her job used to be damage control for an entire bureaucracy, where she spent nine years trying to shelter her friends and colleagues from criticism, fair and unfair. Surely she’s capable of protecting one person, right? This is a thing she can do. Especially when you consider that, more often than not, the force responsible for inflicting the most harm is her. 

The morning light grows stronger. Downstairs there will be coffee, the LA Times already on her doorstep, the Post, in an hour or so. Her phone is sitting on the counter, where she’s been leaving it each night for the last week, trying to break the habit. Small steps.

Something in her is dissolving, slow but sure. She can feel it, like two years of winter ice, breaking up. The crushing glacial pressure is relenting, running off, bit by bit, and more each day. It hadn’t been an instantaneous thing, carried out by some self-realized epiphany. People, she supposes, don’t really change like that. Or grow, or learn. It's a steady accumulation, over time. It’s the grain of sand swept away; the drop of water in a groove, again and again, ad infinitum, that brings the mountain down.

She smiles to herself, realizing the source of her idle, sleep-tinged metaphors. 

Nerd. She kisses Danny’s hairline, content to listen to his slow, steady breathing, unmoved to start the day just yet. She combs her hands through his hair, wishing there was some way to go back to those years she’d frozen it all out; take back all the sharpest words, even the ones she stands by.

Her actions (probably…) wouldn’t have changed. There wasn’t anything for it, then. But she wishes she hadn’t been so hurtful. She presses her face into his ridiculously endearing curls, feeling small and sad but also enormously grateful.

They weren’t here, now, because of her, that’s for sure.

Still half-asleep, Danny reaches for her hip, slides a hand along her thigh.

“I like this alarm clock,” he rasps.

“Shhh,” she says. “No alarms. Not time to get up.”

He turns toward her. His mouth brushes across her collarbone. Goosebumps pebble her skin. CJ slinks her leg over his waist. She can feel him smile against her shoulder in a way that sends a shiver of anticipation down her spine.

“If we must.” His hand slips under her t-shirt, and it’s not long before his is on the floor beside hers.

She likes this, the playful bits, when she can be the needy, desperate one, and he gets to call the shots and be in control. Not quite role reversal, but a different shade of the power imbalance that colored their relationship for so long. It’s camp, and therefore fun and lighthearted, even with the inverted, real-life resemblance. This, she can do. This, and the kind of reckless and aggressive, wow-okay-we're-good-at-this sexual abandon is so much easier to give in to.

It had been the other times she had to look away from it all, before. When, in the face of that look in his eyes, the one she’d seen glimpses of for years, the one that that said volumes about tenderness and vulnerability, she’d tried to brute force some emotional distance from. It was too much. Especially at the beginning, just after the election. So intense, it was like looking at the sun. She couldn’t handle it back then. Couldn’t accept the intensity of sex and adoration and love all at once. She always ended up trying to avert her eyes, divert her attention; wrangle on top, or turn her face into his neck and whisper breathy encouragements to avoid confronting it, head on.

She doesn’t want to turn away anymore. It’s there. It’s always been there, some potential, anyway.

She wants to fall, like she started to let herself, before.

She doesn’t want to be afraid.

*

Mid-afternoon, CJ disappears on a run.

She’s been running the trails along the canyon lately, trying to reclaim some of her old habits. Things she didn’t have the time or the energy for, working eighteen to twenty-hour days, and pulling the occasional all-nighter. It’s a good thing, Danny thinks. For all she’d done as the most powerful non-elected woman—person, really—on the planet, the transformation hadn’t been for the best.

He thinks back to that first (bad, bad) dinner in October. He’d been startled by her: Thinner and more drawn than in all the time he’d known her, brutal, but expected—No one with more than ten minutes experience in Beltway politics thought being White House Chief of Staff was a cushy desk job. But it was the way she was darker in personality, in spirit, that had surprised him. The quickness with which she lashed out, antagonistic and defensive. That had hurt to see. There’d been a physical dimension to it, almost. Something with mass, dragging her down. Weight of the world would do that.

Not that she hadn’t always had some of that quality about her all along; something that said she was putting on a bit of a show, trying hard at the misdirection, and mostly succeeding. That had been there from the beginning, once he’d started watching closer than he should, and for reasons that were far from professional. Glimmers were there, some darkness that gave the brightness of her personality texture, and depth. He’d chalked it up to insecurity, fear, the whole only woman in a man’s world, till we change it, right ladies? kind of thing.

He’d been half right. Half, not even close.

CJ had changed in the years since he’d been in her press room, in ways big, and small, all adding up to someone he’s been figuring out since. Wasn’t just the pressure, or the hours that had done it, either. It was years of disappointments and cutting words and being underestimated. Being harassed and hunted and cut down to size. It’s those things, and, he thinks, it’s having lived through ‘em all without someone in her corner who wasn’t being paid to be there.

All her guys love her—he knows that. He’d seen it firsthand. But they had been there for Jed Bartlet, and for big ticket words, writ large in capital letters. They weren’t there for her. They hadn’t been there for her. All those die-hard idealists, and only one of ‘em had stuck it out, been loyal to the end.

Danny wishes someone had been. Almost wishes that he had. But, he’d have been one more person, asking more than she could give. It wouldn’t have worked. CJ doesn’t do anything by halves.

He realized early on, back when it was just flirting and banter and the part-time job of getting her to just admit she liked him, too, that whatever was or wasn’t or would happen between them had to be on her terms. He could advocate and argue, but he couldn’t push her, or she’d throw up her walls, freeze him out. He’d learned that the hard way, and more than once.

The chains of habit are hard to break, and she’d been bound by them so long, she doesn’t even see them anymore. And yet, times change. Administrations end. 

Loyal to the end…Danny thinks.

Could be some upsides there.

*

He’s been working in the afternoon shade on the back patio for a few hours when CJ materializes, showered and bearing a bottle of water, one of the books on her self-assigned reading lists.

At this point, the details of his article have started to overwhelm the shape of the piece, and he’s trying to step back and zoom out on how it’ll flow from section to section.

Danny can all but hear her smirking. “What are you doing?”

He cracks one eye. “Writing,” he says, not entirely lying. Couldn’t force it, inspiration requiring patience, and all. Inspiration, and stubborn, opinionated women.

She tosses the book on the coffee table and sits beside him. “Isn’t that, I dunno, traditionally done with little squiggles on paper? Bits on screens?”

He waves a hand, closing his eyes again. “I got a process.”

She makes a dubious sound. “You got a nap.”

“If I did, it’s only ‘cause some crazy woman woke me up this morning before she’s supposed to.”

“I don’t recall you complaining much at the time.”

Fair.

He sets his laptop aside. “Heads up, I’m going to interview some folks in Seattle in a few weeks.”

CJ sips her water. “More disaster types?”

“Disaster adjacent,” he offers.

“The mysterious mystery continues. You’re sure David Remnick wants this?”

“Well, he can always hand out a kill fee if he doesn’t like it. But for the moment, he says he does. And he will.”

He’s not too worried. It’s coming together. Some holes still, but he’s got a few leads on how to fill them. A few more conversations, a trip to Seattle, maybe the AGU in San Francisco.

CJ reaches for a section of the Post she’d skipped that morning. “Sound pretty confident of yourself there, mister.”

“I have a little experience to lean on,” Danny quips.

“I suppose, if the daily humiliations of political commentary even count.”

“Wow, you really did lose touch, didn’t you?” Danny teases. “Wasn’t opinion articles I was writing.”

“You certainly had a few.” 

“Sure, but I didn’t print ‘em. Getting out of the way of your own biases, journalism 101.”

“Put that in your syllabus.”

He pinches her thigh, making her yelp.

“The hell!”

He gives her a warning look. “Don’t jinx it.”

“Please.”

“I’m just sayin’, nothing’s decided.”

CJ rolls her eyes, muttering something about superstitious old women under her breath. She folds open the paper instead of her book, leaning into his side like she’d been doing it every day for a year, or ten, or twenty, and making some small, tender bit of his old cynic’s heart miss a beat. 

Even at their most adversarial, she’d always gone just a little further out of her way than was necessary to touch him. A bit of lint on his jacket. Adjusting his scarf. Straightening his tie. She’d done the same with Mark and Steve and a half dozen of the old guard, but she always asked them first. Not him, though—she’d just invited herself into his personal space on a regular basis like it was hers to claim. Not that he minded, at the time. Or now. He doesn’t even think she realizes she’s doing it, most of the time.

He drops an arm around her shoulder. All the fanfare of the White House years had been thrilling, frustrating, difficult in the deeply satisfying way that doing good, hard work could be. But there isn’t any amount of access, not for anything or anyone in the world, that he’d take over moments like this.

She makes a little sound of displeasure, scanning the financial headlines: The week before, some third-tier brokerage had tried a novel new scam using shady viral marketing tactics, and sent the Dow into a reactionary panic.

“You know what my problem with these guys is?” CJ asks, in a way that’s not actually asking.

This should be fun. He’s starting to enjoy getting his daily dose of current events through the lens of The CJ Cregg Show.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“A failure of imagination.”

Definitely going to be good. “Say more.”

“These finance guys, they’re all the same. They make themselves out to be these brilliant, creative, outside-the-box geniuses who’ve discerned some secret signal from the noise, something that no one else has seen. And all they’re doing is shilling out their penny stocks and telling you to buy them under misleading pretenses. It's not rocket science.

“Meanwhile, when the SEC finally clues in on these clowns, they subpoena their chats and emails and maybe surreptitiously record some private conversations where—Wow! What a shock!—the self-proclaimed genius turns out to have said things like ‘I love doing crime’ and ‘look at me doing all these crimes’ and ‘this stuff I am doing is market manipulation, a crime’ and ‘crime crime crime crime crime crime.’”

“Except with more swearing.”

“Indeed.” She turns the page viciously. “They’re con artists with a bunch of idiots following them on Twitter. Hardly masterminds. They deserve time in a labor camp, not a country club, low-security compound in Connecticut.”

“Wonder Woman, suddenly longing for a higher caliber of nemesis…”

“Please. I’m just sayin’, they think so highly of themselves, and for what?”

There really is nothing more fun than watching CJ get fired up on a rant about something. Well, provided it isn’t reasons you’re annoying me right now, Daniel.

“Money and ego tend to go hand in hand,” he offers.

“As do men and ego, in general.” She eyes him. “You’re not gonna turn into some alt-verse version of yourself one of these days, are you?”

“Alt-verse?” Danny laughs.

“Not gonna join some media start-up on me, right? Start doing TED Talks about the interconnectedness of humanity via micro blogging, or whatever?”

He gives her a look. “It’s unlikely.”

She narrows her eyes. “You better not.”

“Unfortunately, you’re stuck with an aging hack. Think the most unlikely career flex I make would be writing that screenplay.”

“Well, you’ve pretty much swept the journalism hardware department. Maybe it’s time to make a play for the Oscars.”

Now that’s a thought. “Ever hear of David Simon?”

She shakes her head, thinking. “No?”

“Guy used to write for the Baltimore Sun, ‘bout ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Wrote a book, turned it into a TV series. Got another on HBO.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Maybe I should write a television show about the extraordinary lives of people working in the White House.”

“Ha!” CJ scoffs. She turns the pages of her paper and folds her knees against his lap. “Good luck pitching that.”

Her hair’s getting lighter in the sun these days, Danny notices. The softer brown roots are showing. He half wonders if she’ll keep the darker color or change it again. “I dunno, might be something to it.”

CJ tosses her tried and true look of disbelieving amusement at him. “Because the crazy-making process of policy creation was so sexy?”

“Yeah.”

Bullshit, her expression says. “It really wasn’t.”

“Everything’s sexy when you do it.”

CJ pretends she’s not charmed, but her mouth turns up, just a fraction. “Blatant bias...”

“I’m allowed to be now. All day, every day, baby.”

“Please. Like anyone would watch this monstrosity. They’d die of boredom before the first commercial break.”

“Eh, policy’d just be details. It’d be about bigger things.”

“How to make enemies in Washington D.C. without really trying?” CJ ventures. 

“Loyalty. Purpose. Honor. Torrid love affairs…”

Skeptical look. “Not sure a couple makeouts in my office were all that torrid, back when.”

“Talking ‘bout Sam.”

CJ laughs, in spite of herself.

“You’re freakish.” She grins at him and shakes her head. “Well, I’d watch it, such is the extent of my fidelity, even if it made me break out in hives for the flashbacks.”

Danny smirks, dropping the pretense of it. Fiction’s not really his thing, fun as it is to imagine. He might not know what’ll be the next big project after this article is wrapped, but there’s time.

“Don’t worry. Not in the cards just yet. Fiction needs to be tidy. Get a nice narrative bow for everyone. Not really my thing.”

CJ tips her head just so, a funny, appreciating expression crossing her face. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Surprises me, I guess.” She nudges him with her elbow. “You of all people, in artistic resistance to the happy ending.”

“Terms and conditions usually apply,” Danny points out.

“Sometimes you get lucky.”

He hesitates just long enough for her to notice.

CJ’s brows knit up, waiting.

Danny shrugs one shoulder. “Here’s hoping.”

*

A sea of bank statements, tax returns, 401(k) and sundry important documents are spread out across the island counter. Mortgage applications, at this point, are more a matter of show money, get money, but CJ figures they might as well make the most of it and drag all their various financial details into the light. Probably something people in healthy, trust-based relationships do, or whatever.

“What’s this one?” CJ says, peering over her glasses. It makes sense and also it does not make sense.

Danny glances up from the form he’s filling out on his laptop. He leans over her shoulder. “That’s the advance and sales for my book.”

CJ flails the statement page at another, different statement page for another, different account. “I thought that was your savings.”

“It is.”

She frowns, not getting the point of it. “Why do you have two separate accounts?”

He shrugs, unaffected. “Wasn’t all that often five figure checks fell in my lap. Wanted to set it aside.”

“What for?”

“For whatever. Down payment on my reclusive writing hermitage, or if I ever had a kid, be a nice start to a college fund,” he offers. Like it’s nothing.

“Seriously?” she asks, a weird note creeping into her voice. “You have a college fund?”

He picks up on it. “Well, no. I have a savings account.”

Except, not really.

“I–”

“CJ,” Danny says, slow and even, meeting her eye. “Take a breath.”

Yes. Right. That. With the breathing.

“Yes. I am.”

She feels suddenly wildly off balance, thrown in a way that not even the pile of tech stock shares sitting in his Merrill Lynch account had managed to accomplish. Insecurity creeps in, and something else; something like fear, but worse. More like shame.

She bites her lip. Reminds herself that Danny’s only ever asked her for one thing, outright: to talk to him.

CJ musters what little diplomatic reserve she has and says, “I didn’t realize that’s something you wanted.”

“Hey,” Danny warns. He pushes back, but is gentle about it. “Don’t put words in my mouth. That’s not what I said.”

“Okay.”

“I set that up almost ten years ago, CJ. Think of it as hedging my bets.” He gestures broadly. “Being open to possibility. And it’s not like I had other big designs for it. Chaotic as my life and schedule was—which I think you’ll remember—I wasn’t exactly lookin’ to put down roots in Silver Spring. Nor did I have a pressing need for quite so many Oscar de la Rentas in my corner of town.”

The joke reassures her. There’s a little sparkle in his eye as he reaches with humor. 

Okay there?

I’m okay.

“Shame,” she says, after a moment. “Think of all the suspenders you coulda had.”

He smiles, seeing she’s stepped back from the knife edge of panic.

“Don’t read too much into it, CJ. It’s a rainy day fund. We can put it toward the down payment.”

She waves it off. “Leave it. It’s fine.” She returns to her survey. “Who knows? You need it for next year’s Met Gala, if I still make the low-priority guest list.”

Good, then. Crisis avert–

“But, you know, since you mentioned kids– ”

She sputters in astonishment. “I mentioned it? You have tuition for non-existent children!” she accuses, flapping the papers at him.

“Once again, I really don’t.” He rolls his eyes. “Did you ever want kids?”

She swallows. Okay, wow. So, they’re doing this conversation.

CJ thinks about it. There’s a lot to that question, and she honestly hasn’t grappled with any part of it in…Well. Wasn’t much need to when you weren’t even getting laid on a year over year basis, let alone trying to sort out the potential for a long-term, big-investments type of relationship. The kind she’d wanted/feared/fought for about as long as she’d been trying to fit herself into one.

She sits back, hugs her knees to her chest, trying to find the right way to put it.

“Want isn’t the right word.” She looks over at him. “But for a while there I thought about it a lot.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She nods and makes a half-hearted shrug with one shoulder. “But…then I got this. Two roads diverged and I–” she paraphrases, gesturing at the whatever of it all. “I like my life. I’m proud of what I did. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something on my mind a lot, about ten, fifteen years ago. I had this idea…”

Danny shifts the laptop aside, focusing on her. Waiting. Listening. 

“This is–” She looks up, struggling for the words. “It’s gonna sound, I dunno—Out there, I guess.” She shouldn’t, she knows, but it’s hard not to feel sheepish and more than a little embarrassed by something so specifically personal. 

Danny’s eyes are alert and encouraging. 

I just want to talk.

CJ takes a breath and meets his gaze. “I had this idea that it’d be this last way of knowing something about my mom.”

He tips his head, curious. ”How so?”

CJ draws nothing symbols and shapes on the granite counter. She doesn’t often think about her mother, at least not in concrete terms. She thinks about how she was graceful under pressure, and could turn the mood of an icy room around; charm the most acid, judgmental neighbors; had boundless energy. Until she didn’t.

She doesn’t think about her mother, because to think about her is to think about the person she loved the best, and to think about that is to think about how she’s gone, and all she missed. It’s an old, old hurt, and bound up in a thousand other hurts that had grown up in the absence that came after.

“I thought I’d know what she felt like. What it meant, to be a parent. Be a mom.” She smiles, but it’s just to hide the not-smile she can feel, threatening. “One of the last things she said to me, maybe a week or so before she died was how proud she was of me. And that she was–” Her voice gets small, tight. A painful ache sits in her throat. She forces an awkward, stilted breath. “–that she was so glad she got to be my mother.”

She blinks, furious at herself and the spiky pinprick of tears. She looks up, away. Trying to keep them from slipping out. “I think about that, still. It means something different now, you know, since…” Her mouth twists against the bittersweetness of those old, half-dissolved memories. Some hurts never really stop hurting, even long after they close up and scar over. “But it’s just something I think about, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” he offers, understanding.  

Danny takes her hand, squeezes it gently. There’s a thank you and I’m sorry and a hundred other unspoken things in that touch. 

She nods back. Then, with a quick exhale, she sits up straight, casting off the emotional heaviness. “Anyway.” 

She tides the statement piles and tucks them into their neatly labeled folders. 

“CJ?” There’s an odd look on his face. Danny rarely holds back, but she can tell from the line in his brow that he’s thinking about the fact that, despite all documents to the contrary, they’re still wandering a kind of no-man’s land at the moment, caught somewhere between figuring it out and forever.

But Danny also knows when and how to ask the hard questions. He’d spent more than enough time making her life harder for it. And she knows exactly what is on his mind.

“You don’t want to…find out? If it’s possible?”

“Oh, Danny,” she sighs. “Hard as this may be for you to understand–” She shakes her head.

It’d be too much, seeing the concrete evidence of all her choices, added up to one small set of unlikelihoods. For all her talent for masochism, she has no appetite for that kind of plain, heartbreaking clarity.

She shrugs and turns back to the task at hand.

“There are some questions I have no interest in hearing the answers to.”

*

The long-ignored box in the pool house has been on her mind for almost a week by the time CJ works up the courage to pull it out.

The whole conversation with Danny—about kids and not kids and decisions with consequences, and the emotional, gut-punch dreams that come and go still…It all leaves her feeling strange and wary in ways that are hard to define, old issues tied up with current ones.

God, CJ thinks. She really should have been in therapy years ago.

For days after that first tentative conversation, held largely through the safer, more concrete prism of money stuff, she keeps coming back to something Danny said in that nasty fight a few weeks back, something still rings awful and true: That she never talks about any of the things that happened when she was kid: about how her mom died and left behind a set of people who didn’t know how to talk to each other without her. Who never really had. About a loving but somewhat absentee father, who moved through his grief like he hadn’t felt it to begin with. About siblings so distant, it was like each of them had been an only child in the same family.

Her original and biggest ongoing sin—Failure of communication. Oh, how the ironies did abound.

There’s probably something she can do about that.

*

“Hey!” she calls out from the dining room. Weird, since there’s almost nothing in there, and they never use it. “You have a sec?”

“Yeah?” 

Danny turns down the heat on the stove, wipes his hands on a dishtowel and follows her voice. “What’s up?”

She takes a deep breath. “A mysterious mystery.” 

CJ’s got a box open sitting on its cover on the table. Looks pretty battered, creased at the middle, where it’s been moved and bent in transit, here and there, and is covered in dust streaks. On the side, in her handwriting is a single word. Home.

She tips her head, gesturing. “C’mere. Wanna show you something.”

CJ pushes aside some newspaper, pulls out a framed photo of a slender, smirking woman with a tow-headed toddler on her hip. She’s got light brown hair and a wry, fine I’ll smile but just know that I hate this kind of look on her face. He’s seen one specific version of that expression, oh, only about a thousand times, at this point.

“See where you get your looks from,” he quips.

“Lies. She was a lot prettier.”

Danny elbows her lightly. “Hey! I take offense to that.”

She shrugs, making what she will of it.

“What was her name?”

“Cathleen,” she says. “Everyone called her Cat.”

“You look like her.” 

She does, too. It’s the eyes, the mouth, mostly. But also the angle of her shoulders, the sharpness. Something about her expression says sassy as all get-out. He believes it, too.

CJ scoffs. “Hardly.”

“You do,” he defends.

“I really don’t.”

“I can see it. That’s the look you get when you’re absolutely not in the mood to put up with anyone, but you gotta do it anyway. Something I’m kind of an expert in, as a matter of fact.”

She sighs, but doesn’t argue further. Instead, she pulls out a bunch of old photo albums and pieces of family history.

In all the time he had known her, CJ only had three pictures of her family on display: A photo of her with her brothers when they were very little; picture with her dad, sometime years before; and various copies of Hogan and Luke’s school pictures, changing as the years went on. He’s never seen one of her mother before.

“How old were you?”

“I had just turned fifteen. She died two weeks after my birthday.” She looks up, makes a face like, you’re not gonna believe this. “The next year my dad took me out for ice cream and said he was getting remarried.”

He winces, stung on her behalf. Ouch didn’t even begin to cover it. 

Danny shakes his head.“Guess that explains why we never did cake for your birthday.”

She glances up, a fleeting little smirk crossing her mouth. How do you even remember that, you absolute weirdo?

CJ pulls out a few more pictures from when she was a bit older, nine or ten, all freckles and toothy smiles. In all of ‘em, little CJ—still just Cee, at that point, apparently—is at her mom’s side.

CJ strokes the edge of a frame. Some beach vacation, long ago. “She was my favorite person in the whole world.”

“Tell me about her.”

So she does. Just talks. About how her mom grew up pretty much dirt poor in Western Pennsylvania, in some hamlet halfway to nowhere outside Pittsburgh. How she hitchhiked to her way to Cincinnati when she was nineteen, waiting tables and going to teaching school. How she had perfect pitch, could sing anything, and taught herself to play piano because it seemed like fun. How she could read a room and turn your whole mood around, make the world seem right as rain.

CJ taps her chin. “I used to think, whenever I was in a tough spot, nothing I ever did would be as hard as going through what she went through. And she never complained.”

Really not true, in Danny’s opinion, but he gets what she means. “She sounds like a badass.”

CJ shrugs. “She wouldn’t see it that way. It was just survival. What she had to do to get by.” 

She puts the photo down.

“She got sick when I was about fourteen. Except, she didn’t. She got sick a lot earlier, but we didn’t know. I didn’t know. I just saw she was really tired. She stopped singing and being that person I always knew. And by the time my parents told us…” She shrugs. Wiggles her nose, and blinks rapidly. “By then it was too late. Y’know?”

He puts a hand between her shoulder blades.

“I sometimes wish–” Her voice breaks. Her jaw ticks. “It wouldn’t have been easier, you know? But it wouldn’t have been the shock it was. I’d have had more time to deal with it. Prepare, maybe.”

“I don’t think you really can,” he says. “Not really.”

“Anyway.” She sighs a long breath. “She died three months later. And there were a thousand little things I never realized were my last times. Last time we’d watch West Side Story or paint our nails. Run some irrelevant errand and laugh about nothing. Listen to Dolly Parton songs on the radio. Last time she came to see one of my games…”

CJ lifts her gaze. Looks at him. “The other day, you said I was angry at the President, but you didn’t know why?”

“Yeah?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

Danny frowns, line creasing his brow. “Tell you–?”

“MS. Before he announced he was sick. He told Josh and Sam and Toby, but he had Leo tell me. I don’t–” She stops, pressing her lips together. Her brow furrows. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Oh, CJ. 

He rubs little circles on the back of her neck.

“Maybe you should ask him,” Danny says.

*

“Y’know what I never realized about LA before?” Danny offers.  

“What?” CJ asks back, tapping the steering wheel to some meaningless little tune. The traffic is miraculously not terrible at this hour, and even if they’re still pretty much striking out with the open houses, it’s a nice day to be out in the sun. She’s probably gotten more sun exposure in the last week than the whole of 2006. 

“Most of the places you think are towns, like Hollywood, for instance, are actually just neighborhoods. And you got all these places that sound like neighborhoods, but are actually their own municipalities. Like West Hollywood.” 

CJ glances over. “Well-spotted.”

It’s the third time they’ve looked at neighborhoods and checked out some open houses, but nothing’s really sold either of them.

“So, where are we at?” CJ prompts.

“Well, I liked Silver Lake. I liked Echo Park.”

 “You liked all of them,” she grouses. “Useless to me.”

“I did not like Studio City.”

“Well, Studio City was just to see if you passed the litmus test.”

“For?”

“Sound judgment.”

“Hey!”

“Entirely too easy-going about this. You’re really happy anywhere, aren’t you?”

“S’long as it’s got heat and hot water, I’m good. Though I guess I don’t need to worry about the heat, these days.” Danny looks up, and clocks a sign. “Hey, take the next exit. The 110,” he gestures.

She shifts lanes. “Why?”

“I wanna check out this place in San Marino–”

“We’re not living in San Marino!” CJ objects.

“Why?”

“Because anything east of Glendale might as well be Phoenix.”

“Okay, well, good thing I’m not talking about a house then.”

The museum is a verdant stretch of gardens and galleries, and a library notable for its vast and varied collection: a first edition Gutenberg Bible, a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, Newton’s Principia Mathematica, the Ellesmere Chaucer. A large portion of the Founding Fathers papers are there, Lincoln’s. First editions of Thoreau are there, and Twain, as well as works by later writers like Jack London and Charles Bukowski.

It’s quiet, midweek. Mostly tourists and a group of high schoolers on a field trip. Pretty gardens and grounds make for aimless wandering, especially on a warm, early spring day.

The Japanese gardens bring to mind the trilateral summit, and, invariably Josh’s most recent email.

“Is he bugging you to come sit in on some dignitary visit again?” Danny asks.

CJ groans. “Wanted me to tag along for the summit in Kyoto. I ignored him. Think he’ll take the hint?”

“Wouldn’t count on it.”

CJ just hums in response. Oh if wishing made it so…

“You could go, you know.” Danny says. “If you wanted.”

“I don’t want.”

“You sure?”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “Why, you looking to get rid of me?”

Danny shakes his head, pulls her toward a wing of European art that’s all very art-y and impressive in ways she can’t remember how to describe. Modern? Contemporary? Something.

CJ pushes past it. “No. I have no desire to wade into those diplomatic waters again. Besides, it’ll be a fool's errand at this point in the game.”

“How so?”

She spins her hands in the air, gesturing at all the moving pieces of it.

“Russian’s aren’t going to budge anytime soon. In fact, they’re making inroads with India and Pakistan. That’ll be the next stage of this mess. We need regional containment before they start cutting oil deals with two more nuclear superpowers. For the moment, our best bet is keeping them sanctioned to the teeth. Maybe if the ruling oligarchy can’t get at their Kensington mansions and Swiss dachas, they’ll think twice before sending another convoy of teenage conscripts into a mountain war.”

Danny clicks his teeth. “You think they’da learned something from screwing around in the graves of empire in Afghanistan thirty years ago.”

If only, CJ thinks. Of course: “It’s not like we have either. Though, at least we’ve managed not to completely sell our souls down the river, for the moment. Not sure you can say democracy is truly thriving in the age of Citizens United and school shootings every five minutes, but at least we’re doing marginally better than the post-Soviet political machine, for what little it’s worth.”

“At least you can count on China to hold steady.”

She follows into another gallery, crossing her arms in reflection. “You think?”

He shrugs. “I think they’ve got the market cornered on Western tech manufacturing for the whole of the foreseeable future. Apple’s got every software engineer and middle-management wannabe sold on the idea that a new phone’s somehow gonna manifest the next digital revolution. And, despite that tidy little rah-rah made in Cupertino stamp, each one of those flashy, thirty-two gig hand computers are gonna be assembled by some exhausted kid who hasn’t slept in a week, at a FoxConn subsidiary in the Special Economic Zone outside Shenzhen.”

“Add in the geopolitical beauty pageant that is the Beijing Olympics next year…” CJ muses.

“There you go. They’ve spent the last generation bankrolling a vision of China as the aspirational and economic powerhouse of the twenty-first century. They’re not gonna jeopardize their chance to project their PR campaign into a few billion living rooms and across YouTube.”

“‘Your American dream is financial, not ethical,’” she quotes, thinking back to a conversation months before with the Chinese ambassador.

“More than that, it’s marketing. Becoming more mythical by the day.”

It should not be alluring, a back-and-forth about escalating tensions and foreign policy. And yet…

She links her arm in his, drumming her fingers along his arm.

Danny throws her a suspicious look. “What?”

CJ smirks. “Nothing.”

“What?”

She glances at him. “Just you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

Danny narrows his eyes. “What’s that mean?”

“You’re fun, is all. I like hearing you rant. Reminds me sometimes, of an occasion, you happen to be fairly insightful.”

“‘Of an occasion,’” he parrots. “I’ll take what I can get.”

She grins. “It’s stimulating.”

“Well, that part I know.”

CJ swats at his arm. “Freak boy.”

Their footsteps echo in the mostly empty galleries.

CJ sighs. “I don’t want to be there. I really don’t. But I do wonder how they’ll keep this uneasy truce, and for how long. How do you avoid this getting bogged down into the next forever war? Where does this play out, so that we’re in for eighteen months not eight years, down the line? Russians are stuck in the past. China’s seizing the moment. Where’s the next generation of power players coming in? Where do you build the blueprint for that?”

“You know where.”

“I do?”

“Russian state’s too corrupt to maintain their stranglehold on oil and gas. You’re already sanctioning people, next is gonna be energy. China’s looking over the horizon to the developing world, but they’re doing it outside East Asia. They’ve been funding development initiatives in the global south for years. Especially all over–”

“–Africa.” CJ sighs. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

*

In one of the galleries, there’s a painting on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts—a familiar set of arching limestone cliffs. Different artist, and series, but same locale as the one that had been on loan from d’Orsay, years before.

CJ turns to Danny. “You ever meet Bernard Thatch?”

“I don’t think so. Who’s he?”

“Art historian in the Visitors office.” She grins. “I loved that snobby old queen. What a high-minded relic he was. He always managed to insult me in the poshest ways.”

“Such as?”

“What was it…” She thinks back. “He once described my jewelry as a monument to bourgeois taste.”

“Guess he disagreed with Mirabella.”

She shrugs. “At least there was a shadow of civility to it. Swear to god, the whole first year was just Josh and Toby looking at me like you’re wearing that?”

“Really?”

“You didn’t notice the hard left I took toward school principal about ten months in? Guess there are limits to those observational abilities.”

He smirks in a vaguely worrying way.

“What?”

“Something Katie Witt once said.”

“What’s that?”

“That Leo campaigned the pinup, but governed in clothes.”

She snorts. Please.

“How is Katie?” CJ asks.

“I dunno, actually. Haven’t talked to her in a bit.”

“You don’t keep in touch?”

“Emails, here and there. Sometimes looking for advice on a source or contact details.”

She thinks of Steve Inskeep, catching her as she left the White House that last time. One last question. Funny. She’d always thought it’d be Danny, there bugging her to the end.

Though, she supposes, he did. Is.

“We should catch up with a few of them next month. Get drinks or something. It’d be nice.”

“Really?” He sounds surprised.

She folds her arms across her chest. “They’re friends of yours, right?”

“Well, sure.”

“And, one assumes, happy for you? Hopefully there was some good ribbing…What?”

Danny’s giving her a really odd look. “You really think I told any of my old press corps colleagues—reporters—anything about you?”

CJ stops in her tracks. “Seriously? You haven’t told them? Still?”

“They know I’m out here. Just not about us.”

It shouldn’t be surprising, maybe. But it is. Huh.

He gestures at her. “You like your privacy, CJ.”

That’s hard to argue.

“Yeah.” She feels disappointed somehow.

Danny tugs at her, pulling her close. “Hey. I’m not hiding anything. Obviously. But given how much you’ve derided reporters since, you know, the ninth of forever—I figured this was still growing on you. So, yeah. It’s a small set of known knowns. My sisters, Josh, Donna. I imagine a few others in your inner circle.”

She thinks of Carol, and feels a wave of guilt. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details, either.

Danny gives her a playful but reassuring look. “I’m guessing word might get around at some point, but it’s not because I’m broadcasting it over the airwaves.”

“You could,” CJ says.

He shrugs. “In time.”

“No, I’m saying, ‘cause with all your little AV nerd qualifications...”

Danny narrows his eyes. “You know, one of these days, I’m making photocopies of your high school musical photos.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she threatens.

“Gonna send ‘em to every agency and embassy I can think of…”

She imagines Georg Klein and Maureen O’Grady and Aya Matsuki reading diplomatic cables filled with black and white photocopies of the Dayton Central High production of Guys & Dolls, and has to work to hide her grin.

“Idle threats,” she scoffs.

“Idle hands,” he returns, “are the Devil’s something.”

“Plaything?”

“Well, now that you mention…”

CJ laughs. “Get away from me!”

*

It’s all long, late afternoon shadows by the time they pull back into the driveway. Across the narrow street, an older couple raise their hands in greeting. Danny shouts a greeting.

CJ waves, feeling awkward. Normal people probably know their neighbors’ names.

“You’ve been here a month. How do you know the neighbors already?” she asks, voice low as she follows him to the side gate.

“One, it’s been three months. And two, this might shock you, but I had the audacity to have a conversation once or twice.”

“A conversation?” she repeats, dubious. 

Danny turns, facing her as he walks backward and holding the gate for her. “You know, a participatory exchange? Back and forth dialogue between two parties? Doesn’t always end in one person ordering the other around?”

“I’m unfamiliar with the concept,” she says, dry. 

“They were not fans of the last tenant, by the way.”

“Considering all the crap he left, I’m not much a fan either.”

“Think my general air of civility and poise has ‘em mollified, for the moment. But you should probably march on over one of these days and wage one of your CJ Cregg charm offensives.”

“Oh, should I?” She grins, squaring off. The audacity, she thinks, and wonders what it says about her that she likes this guy so much. “Really holding power to account there, fish boy.”

“Thought I was the pool boy,” Danny challenges.

“No.”

Look of mock outrage. He presses a hand to his chest. “What? I’m not pool boy anymore?”

CJ tips her chin up. “You are not. You got demoted for being snippy.”

“Snippy!”

“Yes, snippy. You snipped. Briefly, you even sniped.”

“All day, a Bataan death march around–”

“Death march!” She exclaims in outrage and no small bit of amusement. “Get over here…” She tugs him by his belt loops and pulls him in for a hot, very promising open mouthed kiss.

“Well, okay. Demotion ain’t so bad.”

“Shut up. I keep forgetting that I find it hot when you think you’re in charge,” CJ says, and slides her arms around his shoulders.

*

Danny reads it for the fourth or fifth time. It’s only a few lines, but the email sitting in his inbox is…curious.

It’s a little too casual. Skirting at something he can sort out a vague idea of. He can see some of the fingerprints on it, too. Sam Seaborn, maybe. Also…

Danny shoots a reply back, suggesting a chat when he’s in town, in May.

Interesting. Very interesting.

*

Such is his distraction, he seems oblivious to what she’s wearing. Or not, such as it were.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Notice anything?”

He glances up and suddenly takes in the fact that CJ is very much not wearing her usual t-shirt and shorts pajamas.

“Ooh, hel-lo.”

This one.

“What was that, about your observational skills…?” she teases. “Might need a refresh. Let’s start here.” 

He tosses the tie he’d been about to put in the closet to the floor.

CJ gets an idea.

“Actually, bring that over here.”

“What?”

“Your tie,” she says, impatient.

He looks at her askance. “Serious?”

“C’mon. Tie me up. I wanna try it.”

“Really?” 

“I can be spicy!” CJ implores. “I can improvise! New things, or whatever. Now get over here, mister!”

“For the record, I’m fine with–”

She blinks, settles back on the bed. “I’m kinda losing my patience here, Danny…”

“Kinda demanding here,” he says, skeptically looping the length of silky material around her hands and the headboard. 

“Whatever, you love it,” CJ says, dismissive.

“You certainly put an interesting spin on this dynamic,” he says, wry, and looking at her with some combination of amusement and desire.

“Shut up. Kiss me.”

“Bossy words coming from a woman who’s been pretty bratty to me in recent memory.”

CJ pretends the twinkle in his eye isn’t slightly disconcerting, given the situation.

“I have not!”

Well…

“Shutting down all my helpful suggestions…”

He kisses her collarbone.

“Pushes me in a pool. The abuse I take…”

He kisses across her collarbone.

“Gotta inspect your work up close,” she manages.

He curls two fingers inside her. Slow…

“More,” she demands, needy and a little desperate against his lips.

“Patience."

“Oh, fuck you,” she huffs, flushed and breathless.

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah,” she breathes. So close.

He stops. Smacks a quick kiss on her cheek and hops off the bed.

Her eyes fly open at the shocking loss of stimulation. She lifts her head up. The hell?! “Wha–?”

Danny waves. “See ya.”

“Hey!”

He makes a T with his hands, like some rabble-rousing referee. “Time out.”

“Get. Back. Here,” she growls.

He winks and disappears through the doorway.

“Danny!” she shouts. “This is not funny!”

“It’s a little funny!” he calls back, voice fading down the hallway.

“Fucking asshole.”

She yanks her hands, but no go. She’s stuck.

He’s a goddamned kayak whatever-ing, boat guy who probably knows a hundred stupid ways to secure a rope, tie, whatever.

She’s gonna kill him.

*

Twenty minutes later:

“Oh, hey. Are you still here?”

“Go away.” She refuses to open her eyes. “I’m in the middle of a vivid fantasy.”

“About my sexual prowess?”

“About your murder.”

He sits at the edge of the mattress. She kicks at him. Jerk that he is, he just catches her ankle and starts doing really soft, fluttery things to it with his thumb.

CJ huffs in frustration. “You’re an ass.”

“Slow your roll there, princess. Turnabout’s fair play. And I’ll remind you this was your idea, not mine. But since we’re at it, I’m not above having a little fun. See, you ran a benevolent dictatorship for a while there, and I seem to recall someone toying around with me, once or twice.”

She fumes, thinking of that stupid copy room stunt, which, sure, sure, was kinda petty (okay, a lot petty), and a bit mean, but it was also years ago and she’s half naked and aroused and they fucking live together now, so get over it, buddy. God!

She grits her teeth. “So this is a little revenge? That’s what this is?”

“Revenge is a strong word. Accurate, but strong.”

“Your evil, long con revenge plan.”

“Not evil. I can be nice.”

“If you were nice, you’d untie me.”

“No deal,” he smirks. “Maybe if I was being nice, I’d go down on you for a while, see how worked up you are.”

“I’m going to strangle you with your own suspenders, that’s how worked up I am.”

“Suspenders? When you got my tie right there in your hands?”

“Danny–”

“Oh, wait, it’s right there around your hands, isn’t it?”

“Murder,” she emphasizes. “Slowly and carefully.”

His fingertips graze across her abdomen, which does things to her and he goddamn well knows it. “Mmm, somehow I doubt it...”

“Wanna bet?”

He stands up to leave. “Ah-kay, so I’m gonna go…”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she whines.

Danny throws her that smug as hell look she’s seen a million times by now. Got what I wanted, thank you, Claudia Jean. “Glad we could come to an agreement.”

“God, you’re such an ass.” 

“Ooh, give me more of that sweet talk, baby.” 

And then she can't really form words for a while, because—Jesus!—he’s good at that. She’s already keyed up and throbbing. 

He rucks her nightie up. She didn’t mind not being able to touch him before but now...She whines, frustrated but also not wanting to give in and let him win. Fortunately, he seems to be on the same page.

“Untie this now?”

“Yeah,” she gasps.

He tugs at one end of the tie, and yes! The whole thing somehow dissolves into a pile of wool and silk. Genius. 

They are so good at this.

She's instantly reaching for him, hands at his hair, nails raking across his shoulders, able to reach out and touch and feel after the restraint. (And, hoo boy, was that something she’d have to unpack later: having to give up control, enjoying someone else in charge, etc.)

“Better…” he manages.

This was so smart. She’s so smart. Him, too, in a fashion. Mostly her. 

She smiles into his mouth, already feeling the pressure build from a steady rhythm that’s driving her out of her mind. It’s good. Like, just…so, so good. And after, when she comes down off the high of it, laying back, trying to catch her breath, wrists still a teensy bit sore, that’s when the absurdity hits her full on: a little chuckle at first, one that turns into a fit of giggles, till she’s crying laughing from the joy of it.

Ridiculous, she thinks. We are ridiculous.

She curls on her side, still shaking with laughter. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Notre Dame outdoor club.”

“Man. The things I missed out on in Catholic school.” She rolls over and starfishes around him, smoothing his wild sex hair. “I begrudgingly admit, that was very hot.” 

He blinks one eye open. “Good.”

“Hope you got your kicks.” She bites his ear. “Jackass.”

“Yeah,” Danny laughs, grinning. “I love you, too.” He pulls her against him, one arm snaking around her back, the other in her hair.

CJ beams. The thought doesn’t make her panic anymore. Not at all. She just smiles against his mouth, giggling like a smitten teenager, and makes a note to learn how to do some of those stupid knots one of these days.

*

She glances at the caller ID, and grits her teeth.

“Oh, for the love of…” She presses the button. “Stop calling.”

“How you doin’?” Josh asks. “Feeling bored yet?”

“I believe I explained exactly how I was feeling. Several times.”

“And yet, you answered.”

“Ridiculous of me to imagine you might actually be calling on a Saturday because you want to know how I’m doing. Or Danny, for that matter.”

“Still doing your ill-conceived Montagues-and-Capulets screwball comedy thing, one presumes. Though, without the dying young part, I guess. For obvious reasons.”

“Josh–”

“‘Cause that ship’s sailed.”

CJ grinds her teeth. “We’re marvelous, thanks. It’s all sunsets and starry-eyed sex.”

“Really making the most of your post-White House livelihood, huh,” Josh says, sounding like a constipated schoolmarm. 

“It boggles the mind the way you can both ask for help, and be so condescending in the same breath.”

“I'm a talented guy,” Josh says.

“I can think of another word for it…”

“And I’m a busy guy, so I won’t beleaguer either of us with another round of pleading. Say yes.”

“No!”

“C’mon, CJ!” he pleads, then explains, “Glen Landis is staying in DC to coordinate with Defense. We need someone who knows the players here.”

“I'm not going.”

“It’s three days. Three days, with two leaders you know very well. You orchestrated this foreign policy! You were there. Don’t you want to be part of ensuring we can wind this down?”

“You don’t get to guilt trip me here, bitsy. I’m not going to be manipulated into holding your hand. You’re a big boy. You wanted this job. Go do it.”

“This is part of it. Fielding my team.”

“You know how long it’s taken me to sleep through the night? To not lurch awake, waiting for my five am wake up call or expect to be paged into the Situation Room? My blood pressure is just beginning to come down,” CJ all but shouts. “For years I have been trained to jump into action. And before that, it was attacking everyone else before they could attack us. That doesn’t go away overnight. And I finally have my time in the sun with a guy who adores me, who is smart and patient, who knows how to handle my crazy, and is more than willing to put in the time and effort–”

“Ah lalalalalala,” Josh drones.

“Shut up. So no, I don’t want to be read in. I don’t want to hop along on the jaunt to Kyoto. You have a State Department, use it! Barring that, call any one of the dozens of former NSC guys who still have clearance. In fact, call Kate Harper.”

“She and Glen don’t really see eye to eye.”

“You just said Glen wasn’t going.”

She can see that stupid face he makes when he’s realizing he’s working it out. “So I did…”

“So, what’s the problem?”

He sighs. “This is disappointing. I’m disappointed.”

“Believe it or not, I can live with your disappointment. You sure as hell could live with mine.”

“That’s…fair.”

There’s a long silence.

CJ almost wishes he was here, if only so could could smack him upside the head. “This is the part where you attempt to be a human being and ask how I’m doing. But, like, you know, actually mean it?”

“How you doin’?”

“I’m great.”

“Great.”

CJ rolls her eyes. “We’re buying a house.”

“I thought you had a house.”

“I do. We are.”

“Ah. Big steps.”

“Getting there.” She reaches for something else. Safe ground. “I’m giving a commencement speech next month.”

“The Los Angeles Academy of Sunbathing and the Sartorial Arts?” he throws out, playful. 

“The University of California at Berkeley,” she corrects. 

“Same difference.”

“Jackass.”

“Joshua, actually.”

“Same difference,” she parrots. “We’ll be in DC, after,” CJ offers. “If you promise not to recruit me for any more of your international hijinks, it’d be nice to see your face for five minutes.”

“Can I bother you about other things?”

“If you bring Donna, yes. I’ll give you ten minutes on any subject you want.”

“That’d be nice. Even without the abridged tutorial, I mean.”

Idiot, she thinks, but affectionately. “Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“I know he’s yours, but he’s not my guy.”

“Yeah.”

“I never wanted the job, but the president asked, and Leo…”

Down the long line, Josh says, quietly, “Yeah.”

“I’m just sayin’, I did my time. And then some. Let someone else take it from here.”

*

Danny’s been down at Scripps Oceanographic Institute for some reason or another. He’s been gone most of the day, and won’t be back till after nine. She’s gotten used to his voice, teasing and pushing and generally aggravating her, so it’s weird, without him. Gives her too much time to think.

She stares at the words on her computer screen for a long time before reaching for her phone.

“Where’s your article?” she demands once the line picks up.

“What?” Toby asks, confused.

“Typos in the Constitution. Tom Merrill, con law, and you, the antediluvian grammar geek…”

There’s a brief pause. “Out for review. I’m–” She can see the tick in his jaw as he says it. “–soliciting feedback. Which, obviously, is just, oh, my favorite part of the academic process.”

“So it goes with peer review.”

“Peer review presumes I have peers.”

“Spoken like a man humble before the law.”

“Know what, Mary Contrary, two hundred plus years and no one else noticed, so I’m feeling pretty good about my legal acumen right now.”

CJ grins. Whatever. “How’s Andy?”

“Well,” Toby sighs, contemplative. “She yells at me every day now, instead of every other week, so...”

“Sounds promising.”

“I live in hope.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Danny?” Toby asks. “Weird, not seeing his byline.”

“He’s waiting on a lecturer gig at Annenberg J-school.”

“Well, that should take them about five minutes for them to offer.”

“Slow spin the wheels of academic bureaucracy,” she counters. “Been working on a story the last few weeks.”

“Thought he was done with political reporting?”

“So he says, but who’s ever really done, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Got the greenlight from David Remnick. Been researching rocks.”

“Rocks?”

“It’s a whole geology…thing.” She doesn’t quite have a sense of the storyline so leaves it at the broader science whatever of it.

Toby laughs in that delighted way he gets when he’s surprised by his ability to still be surprised. “He’s writing about geology? For the New Yorker? With John McPhee, veritable grandaddy of natural history writing, still on staff?”

“Dignity isn’t his forte.”

“Confidence, however… What’s next? Book about astronomy? Twelve part series for PBS? Step aside Carl Sagan?”

“Well, Carl Sagan’s been dead for ten years,” CJ counters. “Probably wouldn't be as intimidating.”

“Imagine not much is. Starting to understand why you ended up with him, out of, you know, all human men.”

“Irrational, dogged persistence?”

“Frankly astounding bravery,” Toby offers. 

Silence settles. Not the old, comfortable one, worn in over years and time. It’s a relative, of sorts; though, one who has been away too long to be completely familiar anymore.

“I was sorry about your dad,” Toby says, quiet.

“There’s some relief in it being over. I dunno. A lot of things. Regret. I didn’t spend much time with him these last few years.”

“He would understand.”

“Would he?”

“Yeah. If it were Molly, me. I would understand.”

She sniffs, ready to steel her jaw, but the wave of grief doesn’t hit quite so hard, this time. Time and wounds, she supposes.

“I’m giving the commencement speech at Berkeley next month.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Might need some pointers. You know, if you’ve still got a window in the calendar.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Since, you know, you can’t be trusted to string two words together…”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Know what you’re going to talk about?”

“I think so.”

“What’s that?”

CJ turns her face to the window. The sky is the kind of end-of-day pink-orange, flanked by ink-dark clouds.

“Mistakes,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Toby…?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I kill myself in my job because I couldn’t help my dad?”

“No,” his voice is low, and soft. The voice of her innermost critic, at times, and her staunchest ally, once. She’s missed it. Raged at it. And it’s almost unbearable to hear. 

“You killed yourself for the job, because you couldn’t do anything else but.”

*

One shining afternoon, CJ closes her laptop, unable to take more grief and genocide and corruption from the State Department fact books on the DCR and Rwanda and Kundu. There are a thousand open questions in her research file she’s been putting together, and looking for the answer to a single one invariably leads her to dozens more. What she really needs is a regional expert on hand… 

She wanders out to the mailbox, looking for a distraction.

There are a few pieces of mail for her, even more for Danny. It still catches her by surprise, seeing his name there, next to something of hers, the same address on each. It’s a little thing, mundane, but sweetly thrilling, too.

A few magazines: this week’s Atlantic, Economist. Her quarterly Cal alumni magazine.

As she turns, she notices a FedEx box leaning against the house. No sender, just a random Alexandria, Virginia address that doesn’t ring any bells. Both their names on it. Huh. 

She sets the mail aside, flips through the alumni magazine, in search of inspiration, or something like it. She scans through an article about the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, where she’d spent zero time at all, apart from hiking up Cyclotron Road to get drunk with her friends. It’s important research, heady, world-changing stuff, which will alter the nature of the universe, or at least how people think about it, probably. 

For the life of her, CJ can never bring herself to care. Like with Danny’s rocks and foundations of geomorphic whatever, it’s dry as dust. Cold and lifeless. Except when it wasn’t. 

Oppenheimer, after all, had been head of the physics faculty before he took the world by the hand into the age of nuclear annihilation. 

She turns the page. There’s a sidebar piece about an exhibit of women in science at Berkeley in the Bancroft Museum. It ends with a poem by Adrienne Rich, who CJ vaguely remembers as a scholar in residence during her student organizing days: A writer and poet who’d been spoken about with reverence by the more ferocious feminists and activists in her social circles.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:

she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness

her body bombarded for years by the element

she had purified

It seems she denied to the end

the source of the cataracts on her eyes

the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends

till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

Words like scalpels—sharp in their precise, specific pain. She thinks of her mother, born into a coal-county superfund site that had hollowed out her bones and left malignant, scar-tissue holes in her absence. Of invisible damage that erased memory, and stole time.  

She died a famous woman denying

her wounds

denying

her wounds came from the same source as her power.

CJ thinks of black lungs and poisoned wells. She thinks of oil and blood; of energy and isolation; of power and the assurance of self-destruction.

She’s still thinking, much later, lost in thought looking through the windows over the canyon, facing the light, when she hears Danny’s footsteps from the garage.

“How did it go?” she calls out, shaking some of the introspection off.

He appears moments later. “Good.”

“Say more,” CJ challenges, turning one of his own little phrases against him.

Danny clocks it and gives her a look: I see what you did there. “Feeling pretty confident about it.”

“You’re feeling confident before you get out of bed in the morning.”

He kisses her cheek. “Most mornings lately, I got a reason to be.”

“They give you an offer?”

“Pending final department review, which I think is about as solid an implication as they’re legally allowed to make.”

A smile pulls across her face. She beams at him. “C’mere.” She envelops him into the fullest hug she can manage. Says into his ear: “I can still make threats. Get them to speed this along. Just say the word.”

“Save it for tenure, if it ever comes to that.”

“If I must.” Bolstered by his good news, feeling the swift, uplifting rush of adoration and pride, CJ pulls back and makes grabby hands at his collar. “Gonna get you a little bow-tie…” she says with affection. 

“Bow-tie?” He says, lifting a brow. 

“Bow-tie,” she nods. “I know how much you enjoy dressing like you’re in a look book from the Truman administration.”

“Some of us can’t afford haute couture,” he flirts.

“Yeah, and I’m one of ‘em, now. Why you think I was so particular about making sure all my dress boxes were undamaged when we went to the storage place?” She gives him a pointed look. “My salad days of fat cat, half a mil income are behind me. I am living in a non-profit world, and I am a non-profit girl.”

“Yeah, however will you get by?” His eyes flash. “Penniless in Prada,” he mocks. “The tragic story of CJ Cregg, after the White House.”

“What’d you get up to?”

“Searching for inspiration.” She tosses her Cal alumni magazine across the table for him to see. “Wanna know a fun fact?” she asks. “If you win a Nobel Prize as faculty at Berkeley, guess what the Regents of the University of California bestow upon you?”

“Joan Baez box set and a Che Guevara poster?”

“A parking space. How’s that for America?” She shakes her head. “Reveal some fundamental truths about the nature of the universe, never need to ride BART again.”

“Beats biking up Telegraph, though.” He studies her face. “What’s up?” he asks, looking at her with concern.

“I'm just...ruminating. How being in certain environments changes you.”

“How so?”

She opens her mouth, but doesn’t want to bring down the moment. She waves a hand. “Nothing, I’m just being contemplative, I guess.”

Danny studies her for a moment. “You are different. And it did change you,” he says, as if reading her mind.

She shrugs. It won’t really help, going into the specifics.

“I mean, bear in mind I’m not an expert on stress–”

Her mouth tips up. “You’re certainly an expert on my stress…” she says, trying for levity she doesn’t quite feel yet.

“It’s pronounced orgasmic happiness, actually,” Danny throws back.

“Yeah yeah yeah…”

He pushes on. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it the kind of thing that affects, like, epigenetic memory or anything–”

A flash of memory from some vague half-question, weeks (months?) before. She grips his arm in affirmation. “That’s the word!” She snaps her fingers. 

“But it did make you a lot harder. Tougher. It wasn’t hard to see that. Or easy, to be honest.”

“Yeah.” CJ sighs. She nudges him playfully. “How is it you’ve managed to trip so blithely through life, unscathed?”

“I’m really not.”

“No?”

“Nope,” he says. “I think I’m a lot more cynical about institutions. But maybe more optimistic about people. I dunno. Some of ‘em, anyway.”

Hmm. She doesn’t quite know what to say to that. Danny seems to take it in stride, and picks up the FedEx box, curious.

He turns the box over. “What’s this?” 

CJ shrugs. “Dunno, it’s addressed to both of us. Figured I’d wait for you before taking a chance with mail fraud.”

He tears it open, pulls out an envelope. Inside is a stack of eight by ten glossy photos in an envelope with the White House photographer’s name and contact details in the corner. A notecard in a familiar, looping hand reads:

CJ & Danny,

The end is where you start from.

Memorial Day plans TK…

Love,

Jed & Abbey

“TK?”

“Placeholder copy,” he explains. “Quote ‘to come,’ or whatever.”

They move over to the couch, spreading out the photos as they go through them.

She laughs. “Oh my god…”

There’s one of her rolling her eyes, with a gaggle of reporters around her out of focus in the foreground. Danny’s center right, leaning over his notebook and glancing up at her, a half smile on his face, like he’s just riled her about something.

“How did…?”

There’s dozens of them. At least fifty, probably more. Everything from the campaign through the end.

“Guessing you broke the ice with Abbey?” Danny asks. 

“I called her,” CJ says, turning one photo so the frame goes vertical. Their one and only dance, at the first inaugural. She holds it up for him to see. “Remember when…?”

He catches her eye. “That was a nice dress.”

There’s one of them standing with Josh and Donna, drinks in hand, Toby and Ed out of focus in the background. Danny is making a face at Donna like I’ve heard this before. Some holiday or celebration in the first year. Outside, so spring, or summer.

There are a few others mixed in: Sam’s unchanged, objectionably youthful face.

Donna and Carol, looking like absolute children.

But most are them, over the years, all of them. The White House and various foreign and domestic trips. Oslo, Hanoi, Seattle, Boston, London. Sitting with Katie Witt and Mark O’Donnell at Camp David, sometime around the second year.

The last one, at Leo’s funeral, some half-note of amusement flickering on both their faces between moments of trying to figure out what the hell came next, and when that would be…

CJ laughs, because what else could you do, except laugh in the face of all that earlier fear and nerves and uncertainty?

Danny holds one up, entirely delighted. “This one we’re absolutely framing.”

It’s definitely sometime after the second election. They’re both standing in a hallway off the press room. CJ’s arms are wide—I gave you what I have, what do you want from me?—and Danny’s glaring daggers, stabbing one finger in her direction—Don’t mess me around on this, CJ! She can practically hear the argument; can hear a hundred others exactly like it.

She shakes her head at everything. 

“What?” Danny asks. 

“It was…fun.” She shakes her head. “I know that sounds objectively insane. We were all overworked, underpaid, running purely on fumes and optimism. And the optimism ran out, pretty quick. But looking back…”

She turns through all the faces, places, years.

Danny wraps an arm around her. “...you had the time of your life.”

“Yeah.”

“I know.”

She hands him one of her and Leo, year two or three. She’s half bowled over in laughter at something, and Leo’s got his head thrown back, howling at a joke now lost to time.

She studies the joyful expression on her younger self’s face. When did she become so unfamiliar? “Wish I could get some of that back.”

“What do you mean?”

Some of her dark, reflective mood earlier creeps back in. The cold shoulder. Cruel words. Sharpness. All the edges she’s cut herself down into.

“I used to laugh more. I used to be…better. Kinder. Joyful.” She swallows. “The last few years, I’ve become someone I don’t like very much, most of the time.” She exhales. “I’m not a very nice person anymore.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” She sets the photo down and collapses back. “I bulldoze straight through emotions. I’m careless about feelings. Yours, mostly,” she says, glancing over.

“Stop,” Danny says. “It’s an adjustment.”

“We used to flirt,” CJ says, quietly, looking at the memories scattered across the coffee table. She thinks of the dream she had, a few weeks back, and feels a bit weird to see the same scattering of snapshots echoing right here, in front of her.

“We still flirt,” Danny objects.

“No,” CJ corrects. “We have sex and you gaze into my eyes until I’m overcome by the sheer force of your emotional Jedi lightning.”

“Emotional Jedi lightning!” Danny crows. His eyes crinkle with delight.

“It is.”

“Hang on, I’m writing that down.”

She hits him with a throw pillow. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m being vulnerable, you jackass.”

“I know. And I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing.” He kisses her shoulder.

She studies the smiling, energetic woman in the photos. It hadn’t all been slam dunks, that was for certain. There’d been many, many days of self-doubt, feeling like all she was doing was fucking up, left and right. But she’d been hungry to prove herself capable, to do more. To make it count. 

And she’d had her boys, her idiot brothers in arms.

“I wish I could be like her again. I used to be...different. I’ve become so…” She searches for the courage to let the truth of it show. “So selfish. So impersonal. I’m cold. Hurtful. Like the other day. I’m no fun.”

“Hey. Stop it.”

She still can’t really understand it, why someone so generous with his affection has bothered to stick around so long. Yes, she does, rationally, and emotionally, most of the time. But still, others…it eludes her.

“CJ, you did a job that maybe ten people on this planet can do. One that nobody ever prepared you for or expected you could step into. And you were exceptional at it. But experiences like that, they’re like atomic energy.”

He gestures back to the magazine she’d been flipping through. “You expose yourself to that, day in, day out, for long enough time. It takes a toll.” He brushes a lock of hair off her face. “It’s not forever though.”

“Power as toxicity,” she sniffs. “Little reductive for a metaphor.”

“Well, lyricism was never my strength. I'm more a facts-on-the-ground kinda guy.”

She drops her head to his shoulder. “Stop. You’re a really good writer.”

“I know,” he winds a hand in her hair. “You first started to like me for my writing.”

“I first started to like you because you were cute and you annoyed me marginally less than other reporters. Not that that lasted.”

“That too. But it helped you liked what I had to say.”

“Occasionally,” she teases, as if there isn’t still a Google Alert set up on her personal computer for one journalist, and one journalist alone, who ever sat in her press room.

“Can I tell you something?”

She sits up, nods. 

“I’ve known you almost ten years now. You’ve driven me out of my mind crazy—both ways—pissed me off, made me sick with fear, and bruised my weak and covetous, all-too-human heart more times than I can count. You had me charmed me to the teeth since day one, and sent me off searching the darkest corners of this planet just so I didn’t have to sit in the same room as you, day after hopeless day, wishing the world was different from how it is.”

CJ presses her mouth tight, trying to keep the old notes of regret at bay. They have no place here.

Danny takes her hand. He runs circles around the inside of her wrist with his thumb. 

“And through all that, at every point, no matter what continent I was on, or what hellish job you were doing, you’ve always been my favorite person in the whole world.”

She blinks quickly, feeling a tightness in her chest that is near to bursting, but doesn’t hurt. This isn’t hurting. Not anymore.

“I know you’re feeling a lot. The good, the bad; the impossible weight of something you’re still figuring out how to process, that you won't be able to for a while, or the sudden separation from it. But you’re still that brilliant, take-no-prisoners, world-class knockout I met in New Hampshire a thousand years ago. And of all the high-stakes, life-and-death remarkable things you have done, the very least of them is this: You're the woman who changed my life.”

She takes a moment to find her voice. Till she can trust it. “You really have to stop with these perfect, poetic speeches.”

“No deal.”

She swallows, lifting her head to look at him. “I’m your favorite person?”

Danny’s eyes are soft and sweet. “It’s always been you, CJ.”

Words kind of…dissipate, for a second. CJ swallows the rock of unspoken emotion in her throat. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”

Danny shrugs it off, steady and self-assured. “Give me time. I’ll do better.”

She shakes her head, letting her forehead press against his. This guy. What was she ever thinking?  

CJ bites her lip a moment, smiling to herself before she pulls back. “Well, nimrod. I guess that’s part of the reason.”

His chin tips, confusion in his expression. “For?”

She threads her fingers in his, watching the weave and flex and fit. He’d held her hand the first time he kissed her. He’d offered to hold it through this horrible fall, to whatever end. The rocks, or the rapids, the ride off into the sunset.

CJ turns her face up. “For why I am so ridiculously in love with you.”

The expressions flicker, quicksilver instances that flash and change, like the surface of a wave in motion: Joy, and hope, and adoration. And love, just love. Open and unafraid, like she could be. Will be. Like she is, in actual fact. 

Danny beams at her. “See? Not so scary.”

“Terrifying,” CJ laughs in protest. Her voice comes out small, throat tight. She feels lightheaded from the relief of it. Her vision fractures a little through the pinpricking of tears and the emotional rush.

“But you were brave. You did it. Someone once told me she believed hard things were worth doing.”

“Sounds like a basketcase,” she jokes.

“Nah,” Danny replies, looking at her with such pride, she can’t help but wonder if that’s what he’d have looked like from his seat in the fourth row, when the president stood up and named her Leo’s successor. 

He hadn’t been there, then. But he is now.

“CJ the lionheart,” he says, marveling. “My girl’s not afraid of nothin'.”

*

On her side of the bed, CJ sits up suddenly. She turns and glares at him. 

“What the hell, Daniel!” She hits him with her book. “What the actual hell!?”

Danny blinks, looks at her like yes?

“She lied?!” CJ says. “She's a lying liar who told naught but lies? That's what you made me read?”

“Made? ”

“This book is a lie! Ugh! What have you done to me, you sappy, goddamn romantic.”

“Hey!”

“No!” She hits him in the chest with the stupid copy of Atonement he’d told her was good. He’s a liar too! “You are.”

“Get it right, or not at all,” Danny defends. “I'm a sappy, goddamn romantic who believes in the power of narrative.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he gestures at the book. “That tellin’ a story matters.”

“What does that mean?”

“Did you like it?”

“I did. Until the final page, when you stole my faith in the universe,” CJ grouses.

“Well, bear in mind I didn’t write it,” he laughs.

“I hate it. It makes me sad. Don't give me that look. You know why.”

He turns his hands up. “I kinda don’t, here.”

“Missed chances? Delayed love affairs? Never getting the happy ending?”

He shakes his head. “It’s just a good story.”

She flops back, deflated. “It’s awful. My heart hurts. Make it better,” she pouts.

“How you want me to do that?”

CJ sighs, aggrieved and despairing. She rolls over and bats her eyes. “Couple orgasms oughta do it.”

He rolls his eyes, but seems determined enough until: “Ah, dammit.”

“What?”

He holds up the empty box of condoms from the nightstand.

CJ considers it. She shrugs. “It’s fine. We might as well stop using them anyway.”

Danny just kind of…stops.

She snaps her fingers. “Hello?”

“Sorry, I’m kinda processing,” he says. “To clarify, you wanna stop…?”

She arches an eyebrow at him, pretty sure she was clear on that one, all things considered. “Yes.”

“It–I just…Really?”

“You object?”

“I–” Danny struggles to respond, which, honestly, is kind of gratifying. The rare occasion when he doesn’t have an equally smartass yet emotionally well-rounded answer on hand.

Ha! She mean laughs, internally.

“It’s intimate,” she explains, feeling more than a little pleased with herself.

“I’ll say!” he scoffs.

“Shut up. It’s symbolic, ” she says. “It’s about trust and certainty and psychological safety—to say nothing of actual, physical safety—and all those things you’ve been harping on me about.”

His mouth ticks up. “I harp?”

“Yes,” she kisses his stupid face in annoyance. “Among other things. Look, I’m not right about a lot of things when it comes to–” She gestures in frustration back and forth between them. “–but I’m right about this. It changes things. Right?”

“No, you are.”

“I am. Also–” She traces the lines of his shoulders, feeling awkward and trying to deflect a bit. “It’s not something I’ve done with anyone in…Well, actually, ever, I guess. But I want that. With you. For reasons.”

“I like your reasons. And I don’t object. But, at the risk of being obvious, isn’t there another reason we been bein’ careful?”

She shakes her head. “Think that ship has sailed, buddy.”

“You suddenly have a medical degree?”

“You suddenly have a lifetime of experience with being female?”

“Not so much the lived experience, but I’m familiar with anatomical details, and I’m pretty sure there’s no on-off switch, far as I know.”

CJ narrows her eyes. “Are you seriously trying to explain to me–”

“Okay, okay,” he concedes, holding up both hands. “Then as a pure hypothetical, what happens if this particular ship has not, in fact, sailed, and is still, in fact, taking on passengers?”

CJ fights the desire to roll her eyes (she’s getting better at it), but it’s just dumb the way they’re both dancing around it, words like future and plans and what’s our course of action if you get knocked up here? They’re just words, and even if they do functionally mean things like forever and always, well, then, whatever! They’re not spells or part of some weird, all-powerful incantation, capable of magicking anything into being. It’s stupid, is what it is.

Course, she’s also not about to go ahead and tempt Fate by saying it first, so…

CJ does, however, shrug, for the most part unbothered by the idea of a conversation that has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.

“Well, then we’d talk about what to do. Because that’s what people in relationships do. Right?”

He nods. “Right.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She tugs at the curling hair at the back of his neck. “You gonna man up and fuck me now?”

 “Be still my tender heart,” Danny sighs, and most definitely does not resist the desire to roll his eyes at her.

CJ kinda loves him for it.

(Fine: She really loves him for it.)

*

The park is loud with light and life as the stage lights come up for intermission.

The actors scatter to the wings, taking their props and set pieces with them. A projector flashes LA’s Independent Shakespeare Co. emblem across the curtain.

“Not that I’m objecting,” CJ says, reaching across the picnic blanket and popping a grape into her mouth. “But Much Ado About Nothing was written like five hundred years ago.”

“And you’re more a 19th century girl, I know,” Danny replies, swirling the wine in his paper cup.

“Just sayin’, this isn’t going to do much for my education in pop culture.”

“Eh,” Danny reasons. “It’s a modern setting. I’m easing you in.”

A group of college theater kids, from the look of it, are sitting on blankets and beach towels a couple yards in front of them. One pretty, dark-haired girl is chatting away about something. The guy sitting next to her just leans in and kisses her on the mouth, short and sweet. By the look of shock on her face, this is a new development. She goes completely still for a few long seconds, then her whole face cracks into a smile. She shoves him playfully, then goes straight back into whatever she was talking about. Their friends ooooh and whisper amongst themselves, seeming to approve this development.

CJ’s watching with even more interest than she has the play. She glances up and winks at him.

Personally, he has absolutely no desire to be that age again, but it’s still kind of adorable and heart-warming to see. Gives you hope for the future, and all that.

CJ shakes her head. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

She presses her face into her hands. “I wa–” CJ sobs.

His brows shoot up as her whole body starts trembling.

And then he realizes.

She’s not crying, she’s laughing.

“I walked into a door. ”

CJ throws her head back, roaring with laughter, and the sound echoes bright across the canyon. It’s a sound like a silver line. One that snares him by the heart and reels him in, every time.

“Danny!” she hiccups. “Do you remember?”

“One of the best nights of my life?” He smiles. “Yeah, I recall a few details.”

“Best nights? Please.”

“One of ‘em, yeah.”

“That’s sad! You can do better than that.” She shoots him a knowing look, arches one eyebrow. “And have.”

“Nah. That's staying on the list.”

“Why?” She shakes her head, looking at him like he’s ridiculous and grinning all the same.

The stage lights flash and dim. People return to their spots. 

“Because,” he explains. “Despite all your list-making and rules, you wanted to kiss me.”

“I sure did.”

“I was making progress.”

She smiles, a bit more rueful this time, like she’s looking at the various points in the progression of their relationship, and all the time in between. But she laughs to herself again and mutters, “Can’t believe I walked into a door…”

One of the more serious-looking theater kids turns and glares at them.

They glance at one another, and crack up laughing.

“Can’t take you anywhere, Beatrice,” he jokes.

“Shhh,” she tries to answer, but ends up mostly giggling.

Danny nudges her with his knee. “Hey, you hear that?”

She takes a swig of her wine. “What?”

“Someone’s laughing…”

“Yeah.” CJ leans her head on his shoulder, curling up against him like a cat. “How ‘bout that.”

*

They look for houses and talk and CJ sleeps in and writes about the White House years and Danny accepts a guest lecturing position for the fall and is nearly done with his article, and by the time April is almost over, CJ has chipped away enough at the commencement speech draft to want Toby’s thoughts on it.

It’s a mix of personal reflection and practicality, a few anecdotes from the Bartlet administration. But mostly it’s a collection of what she’d like to have heard from someone older (if not all that much wiser) a hundred years ago, back when she was sitting in Memorial Stadium, so certain of what she wanted, but not confident of how to do it, yet.

She sends the rough draft to Toby, who, in typical Toby fashion, has it back in her inbox inside of eight hours, marked up, and whole parts moved around, and entire paragraphs deleted outright. For the most part, his edits are clever and insightful. She can see the way his changes make the narrative stronger, the language sharper. Make the stories more powerful.

Good start, Toby writes. Keep going.

CJ scans the text. He’s changed the structure a little. Added a few turns of phrase that are particularly him. They’ll sound like her, but she can see his fingerprints all over it: The parallelisms. The rhythm. The this thing is not like the last.

Interestingly, he’s altered some of the details of an anecdote from the campaign. The strokes and the point of it remain true, but the characters have been swapped out.

Afterwards, I recounted the events to a guy who wasn’t my husband at the time, but will be, soon…

“Oh Tobus,” CJ sighs.

She changes it back, which he had to know she would do. Of course he did. But the subtext of it, the encouragement, the support, the half-acknowledged blessing it is, lingers. She presses her hand to her collarbone.

She still wants to throttle him, in so many ways. Still feels the sting of his betrayal. But he’s been her friend for a thousand years. A friend who's seen her at her worst, who knows her better than almost anyone. And the thing is–

That flutter of anxiety that’s not so much fear anymore as…something else altogether. Something bigger, brighter. Something that feels closer to that day he’d shown up and said Leo McGarry was drafting her into the big leagues.

She can—has, will—say a lot about Toby Ziegler, but even looking at what he’d done, knowing it wasn’t right…

CJ reads his edited version again, hearing the sound of it, test driving the words in her head.

Thing is: He isn’t wrong.

*

Chapter Text

*

“You done reading this?”

“Hmm?” 

Danny holds up a week-old copy of WIRED. 

CJ frowns. “I wasn’t reading that.” 

He opens to a page with her handwriting in the margins. 

CJ nods. “I might have been reading that.” 

Danny gives her a wry look. “Gonna ask Frank Hollis to teach you to code?” 

She rolls her eyes and waves him off with a non-committal sound. The truth is she has no idea why she keeps fixating on these kinds of things, lately. 

Microchip processing. Rare earth mineral and fossil fuel producers. Hell, she’d read an entire academic case study about the generational leaps in technological capabilities in the Indian telecom market, ‘cause who needs a landline in the age of the cell phone and social media? There’s a whole stack of articles and magazines and tabs on her computer, full of these things. She’s even hoping to grab some time with the director of the tech and innovation programs when they’re up at Berkeley. 

She tells herself it’s because, although most of her role will be fundraising and networking and relationship-building with development partners and local officials, and being a public face for the organization, there will absolutely be a technological component as well, and that’s where she’s most out of her depth. 

Still. She has this odd, persistent feeling like she’s missing something, here. Something maybe not obvious, but important. Could be important. Something maybe not on the table yet, but could (would? should?) be…

CJ clears her throat, shaking the feeling off. “Just trying to soak up as much as I can.” 

“You’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah…” she replies, feeling uncertain in some inexplicable way. 

“He knows what he’s getting in this deal. He doesn’t expect a PhD in engineering or anything, you know.”   

“I suppose not, but I’ll settle for a sense of core competency.”

Danny shrugs. “Eh, that’s what you’ll outsource. Hire consultants. Contractors. Find your trusted experts for the due diligence.”  

She drums her fingers, supposing that’s true. “You know, this is the problem with no longer having a staff of hundreds whose entire job is to summarize the key points and paths forward. No one to make the answers stark and clear and easy for me.” 

He squeezes her knee. “Patience. Soon you’ll have free rein over your own kingdom again, and can get back to torturing folks for their typos and bad spelling.”

This makes her smile. “That reminds me: I gotta call her. I have a plan.”

“You have a plan? For Carol?” 

CJ arches an eyebrow. “Said the man with surprise. Haven’t you figured that I always have a plan?” 

He tips his chin up. “What’s your plan?” 

“Simple stuff, Simba: Lure her away from all those nonsense efforts contributing to the public good, get her out here to the land of sin and sunshine.” 

“Hate to break it to you, Your Majesty: Mighta missed your window.” 

She makes a face. “You think?” 

“Message might have landed a little better in January, when it was about seven degrees in DC.” 

Fair point. “Well, here’s hoping the humidity helps make my case.”

“And if not?” 

“Age old fallback.” 

“Which is?” 

“Throw a sack of money at her.” 

“Ah.” 

*

He’s chopping up vegetables at the island counter. She keeps stealing little bites when he’s not paying attention. Danny swats at her hand with a dish towel. “Hands off.”

“Where’d you learn to cook?” 

He shrugs. “Just picked it up. I like doing something with my hands when I’m stuck on something.” 

“Tactile.” She waggles her eyebrows, which makes him grin. It’s good, seeing her flirty. “I’ve noticed.” 

He tips his head toward the patio. “Why I like working out in the yard and messing with cars. Tinkering. Gives you something to do while something else is sitting on the backburner. Like you and running.” 

“Need it, given I have my very own Julia Child on hand lately.” 

He’s internally rolling his eyes at the idea that she needs to do anything fitness-related, not with genetics like that, when she bursts out laughing. 

“I miss something?” Danny asks, at a loss but not really minding. 

CJ shakes her head, holding the back of her hand to her mouth. “I just–” She laughs again. 

Every time he hears that ridiculous snort and peal of giggles, he figures he falls a little more for this insane and bewitching weirdo. Probably evidence that he’s lost a few screws himself. 

“Just making a note for the whole, you know, White House stories thing you got me started on. I was just thinking of how–” Her face scrunches up, cracking with delight. “–Toby once told me he used to watch cooking shows as a kid.” 

Honestly, he’s not sure what’s harder to imagine: Toby Ziegler watching The French Chef or Toby Ziegler as a child. He liked to think they were professional friends, of a sort, but the guy had the air of someone who’d been born at the age of forty-five. 

“Well who didn’t enjoy quality time with the lovely Miss Julia?” 

“This explains a lot.” She swipes another bit of carrot, and he’s about to ask more about Toby, and if she’s planning to catch up with him in DC. But, before he can get a word in, she changes the subject. “So you’re back, when? Saturday?” 

“Tuesday after. Bit longer than I wanted, but holidays, school vacation, hard to make all the schedules fit without doing another trip. Which I’d rather not.”

“What happened to the intrepid international reporter, chasing the story, wherever it leads?” 

“He got domesticated, and is much happier for it.” 

“Wait, Tues…that’s ten days.” Her eyebrows lift. 

“Yeah.” He makes a face. Sorry. 

“Wow.” She chews slowly. “Must really have some work to do.” 

“Yeah. I wanna make the last two days of the AGU conference.”

“All Geeks Unite?” CJ speculates. 

“American Geophysical Union,” he clarifies. 

“You say po-tay-toe, I say whatever.” 

“After this, I’ll mostly be done. Draft one, anyway. Imagine there will be several re-writes.”

“Man, ten days. What am I gonna do with myself.” 

“Not starve, I hope.” 

She throws a carrot at him. 

*

Later, CNN’s on mute in the living room, and CJ’s staring out at nothing, lost in thought, laptop and a pile of books and binders spread out in front of her. He reaches for her shoulders, massaging some of the line of tension in them until her shoulder blades curl and relax. 

She rolls her neck, looking back at him. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Of course.”  

“Is this enough? For you? Professionally?” 

He doesn’t follow. “How you mean?”

“You’re a great reporter. You dropped it all, cold turkey, for the whole domestic goddess routine. Don’t you miss it?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Really?” 

He sits at her side, looking her in the eye. “No.” 

“But you’re so good at it.” 

“There’s things I miss, sure.” 

“So why–?” She shakes her head, not getting it. 

Funny. He figured she’d understood, all this time. 

“I spent something like twelve years, dashing in and out and around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And it was great, don’t get me wrong. I miss the people a lot. You don’t spend whole years of your life jockeying for charging outlets in bad motels and the overnight flight to Helsinki without coming across a few kindred spirits along the way.  

“And maybe the thing I miss most, the thing I’ll keep chasing, eventually, is that feeling of working alongside all those guys, Steve, Jesse, Arthur, Katie. That feeling of history being manufactured, right there, in the room. Even when it was chaos. Especially when it was chaos, there was always that energy, this furious focus when people are really doing their jobs.”

“I know what you mean.” 

“Figured.” He nudges her shoulder. “Course, it could also be hell. Especially when this one particular spitfire was always looking to battle it out with me for having the audacity to do my job.” 

“This, coming from the longtime war reporter.” 

He shakes his head. “Nah, nah, nah. Not a war reporter.” 

“Okay,” she says in a tone that means the opposite.  

“I’m not.” 

“Danny, you’ve spent time in Belfast, Lebanon, and Bosnia. You’ve mucked around the edges of half a dozen conflict zones, for god knows why.” 

“True. I’m still not a war reporter.” 

“How you figure?” 

“Well, for one, I wouldn’t be here if I was.” 

CJ makes a skeptical face. Sure, okay, buddy. Whatever you say. 

“Trust me. They're a different breed. Known a few in my time, and they can’t sit still. There’s something else driving ‘em. I like a good story, but a lotta those folks, the ones who make a mission out of it, the ones who really go in for it, it’s not a job, it’s a calling, and I’m not sure a good one.” 

Still. Who was he to judge? He’d resigned himself to his own moments of quasi-martyrdom over the years. 

CJ clearly doesn’t believe him, but lets it go. “Take your word for it.” A line in her brow pinches. He has the urge to smooth it out, kiss it away. 

“This work’s different. Slower, but I like it. I like turning the ideas over, trying different ideas out. New things.”

Plus, there’s still the sense he’s in on the ground floor of watching history be made, but that’s just being in proximity to his own personal Wonder Woman. He doubts that will ever change.   

She turns her face up. “Good.” 

“You worryin’ about me?” 

“Yeah. I want that for you.” She kisses him, soft and slow, breaking away with a small sigh. “It’s unfair.” 

“What is?” 

She shakes her head. “The way my job, the way I—what I wanted, what I needed—always came first. Was the deciding factor. I don’t like that.” 

“Did it? Never noticed.” 

She tugs the hair at the back of his neck. “You know what I mean.” 

“I do.” 

“This is a weird time for you, too. I know you’ve got things you’re doing. Teaching. Projects.” She gestures at the table where his laptop, notes, books are piled up.  “Rocks, and whatever.”

“Not just rocks.” 

“Okay, but. I just want it all to…be enough. To add up to something you deserve. Because you deserve so much, Danny. Don’t look at me like that. You do. And not just because I love your stupid face. Because you’re talented and brilliant in your own right. You deserve to move forward.” 

“I am. Think so, anyway.” He folds her fingers in his. “Gotta feeling I am.” 

“You’d tell me though? If it's not enough? If you wanted to go back to reporting? Back to Washington or wherever?” 

“I don’t. Not the kind I was doing. But yeah. I’d tell ya.” He catches her eye. “You can trust me here, CJ. I’m not going to throw you any curveballs.” 

“Okay, then.” A half smile. “I know.”  

She kisses him again, with a little more purpose. “Down girl. Good things come to those who wait.” 

“So bossy,” she accuses ironically, throwing his standard line back at him.   

“You love it.” 

She snorts but smiles, and goes back to humming to herself while he tidies up his research. 

This is the CJ he remembers. Shifting gears from clever and coy to wide-eyed and faux innocent. Playful. And hell if it isn't a downright joy excavating these pieces of her personality, at long last. It’s like she’s finally come out of it in the last month or so. Shed that heavy, hardened Chief of Staff skin, and let go of (some of) the worries, the habits. 

He loves the mirth in her eyes, again. The wry, half-there, half-not Mona Lisa curl to her mouth. She’s been a revelation lately. Unveiling a whole set of moods that go waaaaay beyond what she’d had to offer in those heady, if half-exhausting nights between the election and the new administration. There hadn't been enough time for it then. 

She’s already carving up tracts of work for the foundation, even months out. Working on the final edits to her speech. Has a couple stories top of mind, every day, usually something from one of the years he’d been out of D.C., but sometimes not. Sometimes some little piece of a story he’d been around for, but wasn’t in the scenes. 

Most nights, she curls around him and gives her thoughts on whatever she’s reading now, ends up taking him by the hair and bossing him around in ways he’s happy to oblige. Sometimes, when she's in the mood, she even likes being bossed around, a bit. He really doesn't think he'll ever stop being surprised by her.

It’s evidence the shell-shock's wearing off, and Danny holds onto every scrap. Bit by bit, he's catching glimpses of the woman he knew, years before, and the person he’s always known the real CJ to be, underneath all the trappings of her glorious, elevating, exhausting once and former office. 

It’s fun, and joyful. Silly, and sexy, and he never gets over it. Not any part. Not the banter or the bickering. Not blinking out of sleep, feeling her hair tickling his nose, arm across his chest and one leg slipped between his. Not a kick in the shin, or her breath on his neck. 

It’s like she’s coming back…not to life. That’s not it. Back to herself, maybe, and over tables and walks and hands held and debates and antics and the kind of kisses that only half make him mourn the lost years in small, private ways now, he’s catching that more vibrant, technicolor version of her slipping through, the way he used to catch the odd smile, the rare laugh through the crowd at a press gaggle. 

The ice is gone. The pressure is relenting. There’s room for more of her, for all of her, maybe, now. 

* 

On the day Danny’s set to head up to Seattle, she finds herself up early, making breakfast and singing over the morning news on NPR, feeling wistful, and also silly because of how she’s feeling wistful. Which, you know, is dumb, and trite, and ridiculous. Guy’s gonna be outta town for a week and a half, not on long-term assignment in Balochistan, or something. 

Danny skates a hand along her back, reaching for coffee while she pokes at scrambled eggs. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey.” 

“Know what I was just thinking?” CJ asks.

“That I’m the love of your life and you’ll pine away for me terribly while I’m gone?” Danny jokes, pouring coffee.

She freezes, mouth in an O of surprise. She can feel her ears getting red. “No.” 

Danny’s eyes light up. “Really?” he laughs, astonished.  

Idiot. 

“That’s not what I was going to say.” She grits her teeth.  

Danny gawps. “You are a bad liar. Wow!” 

“Shut up.” 

“This is amazing information!”  

She holds her head high. “Actually I was going to tell you I’m running away with the Sultan of Brunei. I have a long-standing proposal and I’m cashing in.” 

“I’m sure you’ll make a lovely fourth or fifth wife,” Danny taunts. 

“Good night and good luck, pal. It’s been a laugh.”  

“Very demure. Not at all used to the spotlight or getting your way.” 

“Shut up.” She throws her spoon aside and smacks a kiss on his jaw, slips her arms around his waist, groaning into his shoulder. “Ten days.” 

“You realize I’m not leaving the time zone?” 

She ignores him and hums a few notes to herself. 

“Kiss me and smile for me,” she sings, giving up the act. She’s still feeling playful and bittersweet and only slightly embarrassed. The things she does for this guy just because she’s in love with him. Honestly, it’s appalling. 

“Tell me that you’ll wait for me. Hold me like you’ll never let me gooooo.” 

“You have a nice voice.” 

“I know.” 

“I like it.” 

“I know that, too. When is your flight?” 

“Noon.” 

“Good.” 

*

Breakfast ends up burned and in the end, it’s cutting it a little close, actually, but CJ figures she made being late worth the additional stress. She parks at the departure terminal, throws the flashers on, and joins him at the curb. 

“Goodbye, nimrod. Try not to uncover any nefarious scientific conspiracies while, you know, you’re literally digging up dirt.” 

“How long have you been working on that one?” 

“Thought of it on the drive.” 

“It’s a good one,” he says, kissing her. 

“I know. Call me later.” 

“Why?” 

“Why?” she repeats, amused.  

“Yeah. You gonna miss me or something?” 

“Shut up.” 

He presses a hand to his heart. “Stop, it’s too much…” 

She grins, rolling her eyes. Some things never change. “Get lost, you maddening freak.” 

He waves a hand, turning to leave. 

Though, when she darts back over and kisses him one last time, because she can, and because she wants to, she thinks it might never actually get old, being able to laugh and snark and grab her self-appointed idiot-in-residence by the collar and make out with him like they’re skipping third period French. 

“Call you,” he promises.  

“See that you do.”  

Watching him go, she feels that big, overwhelming rush of joy and sweet-tinged sadness. Such a sucker, she thinks, happily.  

Someone blares on a horn. “Hey! Move it, lady!” 

“Oh, alright, calm down,” CJ yells back. 

Well, that moment’s over.

*

In the morning she texts a quick good luck for whatever interview and reporting thing he has planned. Something to do with an ecologist at the University of Washington.

Have fun with the nerds

A few minutes later, he replies: 

You know it, baby

She rolls her eyes, one side of her mouth curling up. For all the nicknames she has on hand, she hates being called baby or sweetie. Pet names are, as a rule, cutesy and ridiculous, and should only be employed tactically to make grown men feel like children. 

Except she somehow doesn’t hate when he sidles up and whispers something cloying and dumb in an ironic tone, especially when she’s thinking out loud or ranting about something. 

And every time he does, he says it like it's part joke (because who actually says things like that?) but also partly in self-aware acknowledgement of the fact that they’re here, actually, properly here, doing this thing. Plus, for whatever reason, Danny’s as nuts as she is, and he gets the whys and hows of it when she’s fixated on something. 

And because he’s Danny and permanently attuned to her frequency of madness, he seems to find it alluring. So, he leans into the absurdity, looks at her like they’re kids, not two recovering workaholics with almost a century between them (and god, isn't that depressing?) but it works. Like, really works, somehow. It loosens the stiffness and agitation. It makes arousal pool in her belly. Makes her wanna hear him try to say that without his voice breaking... 

She sinks back into the cushion on the patio chair, tosses her phone aside, reminding herself she’s an accomplished, highly-regarded forty-something woman, not a swoony teenage girl. 

Mostly. 

Little swooning. 

Maybe. 

A slinky black figure pops out of the tidy bushes along the patio. CJ tips her head in acknowledgement. “Hello, beastie.” 

The cat ignores her, as per usual. 

“You know, you act all cool, but you’ll miss me when I’m not around to make offerings and seek appeasement from the gods.” 

The cat wanders around the back of the couch opposite her, then hops across to the arm of her chair, and onto her cushion, sniffing at her phone, probably pissed at the lack of small, weak creatures to bat around. 

“No claws today? You’ve stopped murdering my birds, too. Kinda like you’re getting socialized or something.” 

The cat slow-blinks, and flicks her tail before turning around twice and curling up in CJ’s lap. It yawns once. 

“Yeah,” she says, scratching its ears. She feels the sun on her skin, and the ice all but melted. 

“Me, too.”  

*

She’s got some time to kill before the open house, so wanders toward the boardwalk off Playa del Rey, making a phone call. 

“Katherine Harper,” she says to the voice that answers.  

A beat stretches out for one confused moment. “Is not my name.” 

“What's Kate short for?” CJ asks.  

“Nothing.” 

“Your parents named you Kate?” CJ objects. “Just Kate?” 

“Sure, it’s hard to compete with the Claudias of the world, but a girl learns to get by.” 

“Heard you got drafted by the away team. How was Kyoto?” 

“A welcome change, if you can believe it.” 

“That sounds grim.” 

The morning is cool, a lick of fog hanging off the hills to the north. 

Kate speaks and CJ listens. She can see it with perfect clarity—the rooms, the negotiations, the pageantry and headaches and discussions. Can feel the secondhand struggling over the magnitude of what happens in those spaces. That familiar feeling, or the memory thereof. It’s the same response as a lick of curiosity, a bolt of arousal, a rush of blood, a whirl of thoughts, a tension seeded in the mind...

A foghorn sounds from out past the breakers. Maersk container ship, making north for the Port of Oakland.

She can see it all, stark as the path of that ship. Can see just how easy it’d have been to nudge off-course from the here and the now. Can feel the wrinkle of her brow and the weirdly focusing light-headedness that came from a blood sugar crash. The choices not made. The paths not taken.
 

Kate heaves a sigh that CJ can hear with her entire body, and goes on to ramble about the Raytheon contract that’s been less than thrilling. A reminder that not everyone ended up with the golden parachute.

“Gonna be in town in a few weeks,” CJ offers.  

“You’re not coming back coming back…right?” Kate asks, wary. 

“Noooo,” she confirms. “Danny sublet his place to a guy at the Post till June. Packing up some of his stuff.”

“Ah,” Kate pronounces with the wisdom of a woman who has lived with partners. “An insurance policy.”

“Trial period, so to speak. See if we’d kill each other in the process.” 

“Which you didn’t…” 

“We have not.”

 “It took then.” 

“Against all odds. And my very worst habits. ” 

“Congrats. Really. I know how that goes.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You forget I’ve been married. And divorced. Twice.” 

“Forget? Please: I’m hoping I’ll get the post-mortem analysis from you. Couple months, and it feels like I’m only just beginning to regain my own humanity, and barely. I need all the help I can get to keep this thing going.” 

“Well, you live in the same country, in the same state even, so that’s already a step in the right direction.” 

“I’d imagine.” 

“Makes it less tempting to sleep with other people.” 

“They did not!” 

“Oh yeah. One of ‘em, anyway.”

“You have him killed?” 

“Oh, if black ops-ing made it so.” 

“You’d think they’d know better.” 

“Problem with getting involved with fellow members of the intelligence community. They tend to disappear for long periods of time, and claim oh no national security when you start asking questions about what they’ve been up to.” 

“Yikes.” 

“Anyway. Helps if you actually look at each other, day to day. And have sex. With each other. Not other people.” 

“Kaitlyn Harper!” she laughs. 

“Really not my name.”

“Well we’ve got that much covered, so you’re no help.” 

“It’s more than you think. And just…talk. Which you’re good at. You’ll be fine.” 

“Pithy one liners and deflection I can do. Beyond that the record gets iffy.”

“Yeah, but if it wasn’t worth it, you probably wouldn’t be trying.” 

That is true. CJ takes a breath and does deflect, a little. She’s been hogging the conversation. 

“What about you?” 

“What about me?” 

“Anyone in the picture?” 

“Actually…” Kate starts. 

“Say more…” CJ encourages.

“It’s a thing. A good thing, I think. For now. But uncertain.” 

“What is?” 

“No, it's okay. Makes it sorta…finite, in a way. Not in a rush to make it more than it is. Which is nice. Can enjoy it without trying to fit any labels.” Kate says. “One of the few virtues of failure is learning from the experience enough not to do it the same way again.”

The virtues of failure…CJ thinks, and mentally files it away to jot down later. 

Kate gives a little groan. “Hey, I gotta go. Text me the dates you’re in town. We’ll get coffee or something.” 

“Put me off now, and you can look forward to being interrogated later.” 

“Sure, just remember.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I can hold up under polygraph.” 

She jots Kate’s words down in her phone, thinking back on the last few years when Kate had come into the picture. CJ had been an idealist when she was young and hungry, bouncing from Berkeley to low-level gigs in the Oakland mayor’s office and the California state assembly before graduating to Congressional campaigns. For most of her life she’d traveled in largely liberal, do-gooder circles, and it’s been one of the most unexpected gifts of the Bartlet administration that she’d gotten to know people she’d never have been close with, otherwise. Had they not been thrown together at the White House, she’d never have seen how, beyond Kate Harper’s regimented military upbringing and all that buttoned-up, secret-agent stuff, she’s also snarky and funny and blindingly smart. They’d never have been friends. Not in any circumstance but this. 

A plane takes off from LAX, too close, too loud. CJ scowls, mentally crosses anything south of Venice off her list as she dials another number for another old friend. 

“Oh god. Someone turn me into the grammar police?” 

“For crimes against my sanity.” 

Carol laughs. They banter a bit back and forth, about her new position at Energy and saving the planet and everything. It’s easy, and fun, and makes CJ regret putting it off for so long. 

“So, I’m gonna be in town after the holiday. We need to catch up.” 

“Yes, we do!” 

“Coffee?” 

“Absolutely not,” Carol demands. “We’re getting drinks, and you’re gonna spill about life in LA. Have you been to Frank Hollis’s house yet?’ 

“I haven’t, actually.” 

“Pity he’s married. huh. You coulda landed yourself an island.”

Well, there’s as easy a conversational onramp as it gets. Too easy.

“As it happens, I'm off the market.” 

“Interesting…” Carol says, in no way playing it cool. 

“It’s really not,” CJ defends. “I’m yesterday’s news.” 

“Interesting choice of words,” Carol scoffs. “Keep telling yourself that. So. Anyone I know of?” 

“Maybe…” 

“Oh?” 

“Carol, I know you know it’s Danny. You are not subtle.” 

“Finally!” Carol groans in relief. “God! I’ve been dying to hear about this! For months. Months, CJ! Before you ditched town and left me to fend for myself.” 

“I was a little bit busy at the time,” she defends. 

“Not too busy…”

“Hey!” 

“I’m just saying, you clearly had some to spare…” 

“Barely. And you better not have heard this from Margaret!”

“No, I just assumed it was a complete coincidence Danny shows up hanging around the White House five minutes before you’re no longer on opposite sides of a very stupid non-conflict of non-interest.” 

“Not non-interest, I’ll tell ya that much.” 

“Spill it, sister. Give me the good stuff. I’m a busy woman.” 

“Crazy woman.” 

“Probably picked it up from this one boss I used to have.” 

“Rude!” CJ says, but she’s grinning.  

“Whatever. You miss me, CJ. I can tell. Even if you have cruelly denied me exceptionally good gossip for months now, I will persevere like the professional I am and drag it out of you.”  

CJ just laughs, and figure both she and Carol deserve a little low-stakes girl talk. Especially since Carol’s one of the rare few original staffers, one who’s had CJ’s back for so long. “I do miss you. I have no one to pretend to be my friend anymore.” 

“Oh, please.” 

“Tragic, but true.” 

“Whatever, moneybags. Hey, I gotta go.”

“Why, you got a job or something?” 

“Email me whatever date is good. I’ll make it work.” 

“Not gonna piss off your new boss lady, the Secretary? I’m told women are tough to work for.” 

“I’ll just do the same thing I always did with you,” Carol says.  

“What’s that?” 

“Change her schedule around till it works for me.” 

CJ laughs. 

*

His phone rings. 

“I’m picking up your bad habits, I’ll have you know,” CJ accuses.  

“How’s that?” 

“I’ve discovered I’m starting to write down the things people say to me.” 

“Slippery slope. Pretty soon you might start asking questions.” 

She gives a quick run down of her chats with Carol and Kate. He fills her in on the scientists he interviewed, and where. Broad strokes, but he’s pretty close to sending the first draft in for an edit. Once he’s gotten the first, most brutal round of edits back, he’ll let her have a look. 

“Saw another place,” CJ sighs. 

From her tone, he figures it wasn’t a winner, but asks anyway.  “Any promise?” 

“I was unimpressed,” she sighs. “The search continues.” 

“It takes time. We’ll find something.” 

“Hope so. They’re kicking me outta the house to do staging photos for the next few days. Susan from the place says they’re gonna do showings while we’re out of town.” 

“That’s good.” 

“Progress. Of a sort.” 

“It’s a step. You having second thoughts?” 

“No! I guess I’m just anxious to start…” 

She trails off, and the line goes quiet for a moment. 

“CJ?” 

“I’m anxious to get settled, I guess. We’ve been in kind of a holding pattern, haven’t we? With your place in DC, still…” 

“Yeah?” 

“It was kind of an insurance policy. An exit strategy. Wasn’t it?” 

“I suppose you could see it that way. Not really how I do,” Danny says.  

“No?” 

“Nah. For one, I think it’d have been a bit overwhelming, cutting all the ties right away. Lotta pressure, all at once.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Also, it's not like we had a lot of lead time to make plans once you figured out you needed to skip town, lest the White House try to rope you back in, bit by bit.” 

“A fair point.” 

“For what it’s worth, I’d like to get settled, too. And we will. This is just one of those new things we’re gonna figure out how to navigate.”

“How did you get so emotionally intelligent?”

“Ah, my sisters beat it into me.”

She snorts. “Good on ‘em.”

*

While Danny’s out of town, she digs into her research and a draft of high level, multiphase goals for the foundation. It’ll be a starting point, but better than showing up on day one entirely unprepared. 

There’s a development project framework she has in mind as a kind of working template, cobbled from USAID and private venture projects, and no doubt it’ll need to change a hundred times over in the next year to eighteen months. The first program will be the hardest to get started, no matter which country they target. In some ways the where of it won’t really matter. The challenges will be massive, and complex, regardless.  

And behind it all, there’s still that lingering sense there’s something she’s not seeing. It’s a weird feeling; something like when she thought someone might be sitting on information, withholding some vital piece of the bigger picture. It’s…odd. And she can’t figure out how to untangle it. She wants to talk to the president about it. For want of a nail, something something...

She pushes the unsettling, tricksy feeling out of mind for the moment. There’s another idea she’s been thinking about for a while now, one much more concrete. 

CJ picks up the phone. 

“Hi, I need a meeting with Steve Laussen. Anytime the week of Memorial Day.” 

She pauses, waiting for whatever time the oh-so earnest director of Refugee Rights Alliance is available. 

“Yeah, he’s going to want to take this meeting.” 

*

They talk most evenings, and he tells her a bit about each conversation and field visit. 

CJ is wry and flirty and jokey—all good things, he thinks. Lately, it feels like he’s been with the CJ he knew, before. The woman who’d been on the front lines all those years. Not the public figure, who truly is a different persona, and has to be, but the CJ who’d have a drink with them on the campaign or Air Force One, would toast to weddings and babies and birthdays, win every unofficial pun-off. 

He tells her about the grove of long-dead cedars he’d gone out to see with an ecologist from UW. They’d kayaked out from the estuary, among these huge ancient trees that rose up from the sunken forest floor like tombstones.

Down the line, he can hear her yawn. “Keep talking.” 

“You falling asleep on me?” 

He can hear the smile in her voice by now, too. “I am. I’ve gotten used to your bedtime natural history lectures.” 

“Glad they seem to be working, even if that's a nice way of calling me boring. You sleep an almost normal amount these days.” 

“It’s good practice. For you. For teaching.” She yawns again. “Though, maybe not.”  

“Might be.” 

“You should test drive some of these lectures on the president next week. Compare notes.” 

“I don’t think there’s a person been born yet who can out-lecture Jed Bartlet.” 

“No mere mortal, anyway.” 

*

Two days before Danny gets back, she drives down from the Hills with another address for an open house the real estate agent sent. She doesn’t know the neighborhood, or Santa Monica much at all except for vague memories of restaurants, oh, what ten plus years ago? She’s not expecting much, so the feeling, when it hits, catches her off-guard. 

The house is a Craftsman, two blocks off Wiltshire. There’s a little privacy hedge, side yard of lemon trees that spills into a back patio. A guest house and little grass lawn stretching back to the edge of the property. Inside it’s full of big high ceilings and windows, skylights and weathered old-wood floors. 

Even full of the stock hotel-lobby furniture and charmless stand-ins for personal details, it’s a version of that nervy, bubbly feeling she got in her stomach, months ago, back in October, sitting across a table from an old friend, a guy who made her edgy and nervous and have to think fast on her feet. Who didn’t seem willing to give up on her, despite all the reasons she’d given him to get lost over the years. 

It feels like possibility. 

*

He’s at his desk in the hotel room, going through notes and transcribing an interview, trying to find the anecdote he needs for the lede, when she calls. 

“Danny,” she says. “I found it.” 

“What?” 

“Our place. Swear to god, this is it. It’s…I don’t even know. It’s just it.” 

She hits the beats, the bed and bathrooms, the space, the light, the kitchen (important). The little guest cottage that could be a writing space, or an office, a place for friends and family to stay. 

It does sound nice. 

“I’ll find the link, there’s pictures on the realtor’s site probably, and–” 

“CJ,” he interrupts. “I trust you.” 

“Okay.” He can hear the smile in her voice. 

“Go for it.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. Go back to work. Write me a story, Simba.” 

“If you buy me a house.” 

“Los Angeles real estate. Finally, a test worthy of my negotiation skills. Talk later. Love you,” she breezes, and even if he can tell she’s already gone, already ended the call, has already switched gears and turned her focus to getting what she wants—doesn’t matter. 

She said it reflexive. Like she hadn’t had to think about it for a second. 

Hadn’t hesitated at all.  

* 

Slow, just, agonizingly slow. 

“You don’t know what that does to me,” he struggles to say. 

CJ smirks through half-mast eyes. “I know exactly what that does to you.”  

After, she curls herself around him, smug and sweet. “We are good at this.” She sighs. 

“I gotta go outta town more often,” he manages, running a hand through his hair.  

“I’d prefer if you didn't.” 

“I dunno. Welcome back like that is pretty strong evidence against.”

CJ hums happily. “Nice, the upside to debilitating sexual chemistry.” 

His brain’s not entirely online yet, so he just reaches for her and repeats, “Debilitating?”

“Walked into a door once on your account, I think you'll recall.”

He laughs and strokes her hair. “You did walk into a door once.” 

She hovers over him and nips at his mouth. “Y’see what I’m saying?”

He massages the back of her head, thinking of how tightly he’d been clutching at her hair. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” 

“That was–” She lets out an emphatic breath. “I gotta tell ya: that was hot.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah!” she nods. “Intense and aggressive sex is very hot when it's with someone you trust enough not to, you know, actually hurt you.” 

“Noted.” 

She’s in a playful mood, grinning and mischievous.  “Plus you know how I get when you think you can boss me around…”

“Ridiculous concept, obviously.” 

“Sure, but it’s fun to roleplay.”

He brushes a falling lock off her cheek. “It looks nice, by the way.” 

The dark brown is lighter now, a bit closer to the soft, streaky color it’d been a few years ago. 

“Time for a ch-ch-changes,” CJ sings. 

“Rock on, Bowie.” 

He traces the long line of her collarbone. “Still no word on the offer?” 

“Nope, but I have cause for optimism.” 

“Yeah?” 

“A little tactic known as the CJ Cregg Charm Offensive.” 

“Worked on me.” 

“Only in the long run.”

He looks at her, skeptical. “You saying you’da liked me more if I bent to your will and dropped everything, straight away, every time you wanted me to?” 

She nods her head once. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

He rolls his eyes. “No way.”  

“Very much, actual way, thank you.”  

“Lies. Know what I think?” 

“Rarely, if ever?” 

“I think you wouldn’t have liked me at all,” he teases, chin held high. 

“Because it's such a turn-off to me when men blindly do my bidding?” 

“Because it's a turn-off to you when people don’t have much in the way a’principles.”  

She’s about to throw something back, but her mouth opens and closes, the words stalled out on her tongue. 

“I break you?” 

“Be silent,” she says, eyes narrowing, but it’s all a pretense. Her tone is soft as she snuggles closer. “I find it irritating how well you actually know me.”

“Irritating isn’t the word you’re looking for.” 

“It is.” He can feel her smile into his shoulder. 

“It’s not.” 

“No.” Her sly, cat eyes sparkle. “It’s not.” 

On the end table, her phone buzzes. CJ reaches for it. 

And when she glances over at him, she bites her lip and beams. 

*

“You gonna tell me where we're going?” 

“You’ll see. God, Danny! Are you incapable of not asking questions?”  

“Sure, when I got the answers in front of me.” 

“You know, this plea for complete transparency would carry a lot more weight if you had been a bit more forthcoming about your article over the last few months.” 

“Alright…” 

“Tiny bit less, with the mysterious mystery,” she snipes. “No questions!”

“Why?” 

“Because patience, princess,” she mimics.  

The exact municipal limits aren’t something he’s got a handle on yet, but a parking sign for the City of Santa Monica is enough of a context clue. 

It’s an actual neighborhood, which is a helluva thing to find around here. A couple blocks off of a main street with coffee shops and restaurants, cocktail bars, a bookshop and Trader Joes. Parks. School and fields nearby. The street leads due west, which means it probably ends at the beach by the amusement park and the pier. 

CJ parks on a palm-lined side street. Winks at him. “C’mon. Time for all your fearless questions.” 

The real estate lady lets them in as she takes a call in the front garden leaving them to it. 

He takes it in. The wide open living room. An office. Fireplace. Sprawling kitchen that opens onto a back patio. 

“They’re good with our offer, but I wanted you to see it before we pony up our last pennies.” 

“Nicely negotiated,” he acknowledges. 

CJ folds her arms. “Well, you know. Had some practice bartering over real estate recently.”  

She pulls him from room to room, making her case, gesturing widely. 

“And look, there’s this whole separate guest house for if your sisters or your mom visit? Or Hogan or Luke, I guess. God willing, maybe one day we’ll actually lure some of our friends out here...”

Danny wanders, following her from room to room. It’s great. Beautiful. He gets it.  

“Look! Look. This kitchen! I mean, I don’t even care about kitchens and I know this is great. Right?” 

“It is.” 

“You know the Society of Professional Journalists conference is here in LA this year? We could see some of the guys from the press corps when they’re in town. Have a dinner party, or something. Katie and Steve and Chris. Even that annoying guy from the PBS Newshour who took over for Arthur, what’s his face?” 

It’s a picture of what the future looks like, and how it’d work. How he fits in. How they fit together. It could be a cabin in Alaska (granted, he’s pretty glad it’s not a cabin in Alaska) and there’ll only ever be one answer he's got for her. Danny leans against the doorframe, listening to her. 

She spins around to face him. “You’re not talking. Why aren’t you talking?” Her shoulders sink. “Oh, god. You hate it, don’t you?”

“CJ?” 

“Yeah?”

She looks scared, excited, hopeful. 

“Where do we sign?”

*

That night, she can’t quite relax, too keyed up, high on endorphins and excitement. Danny can sense the tension, even if it's the good kind. He curls an arm around her waist, rambling quietly about something to do with property easements and a public records search he’s done, when a single thought rings through her mind, clear as a bell. 

Man alive—I’m gonna marry this idiot.

*

The Friday before Commencement Saturday, and in the East Bay the air is cool and fine, the sunlight strong, coloring everything with hyperreality. The sweet, enveloping scent of eucalyptus, of jasmine and rosemary fill the air. A swell of nostalgia hits her. 

“You ever been here before?” 

“San Francisco and Oakland, plenty of times. Not up to campus, though.” 

“Wanna know a fun fact?” She tips her head at the Campanile, a three hundred foot ivory clocktower nestled against the steep, wild Berkeley Hills. “They keep dinosaur bones from the La Brea tar pits in there.” 

Danny gives her a skeptical look. “No way.” 

She holds up her hands. “Ask a docent. Better yet, ask the Chancellor tomorrow.” 

“Why?” 

“I dunno. Something about the limestone.” 

She has a meeting with the commencement organizing committee, and, not one to miss out on a chance to bother people with better things to do, Danny heads off to the north side of campus, where he has something lined up in the Department of Earth Sciences and an old friend to harangue at the Graduate School of Journalism. 

After making the kind of tiresome but simple small talk and getting the run-down for the morning activities—the whole rigmarole of where to get picked up at the hotel down on Shattuck and what the order of speakers will be—she has a bit of time to kill, and spends it wandering among the palms and the young redwoods and live oak of her old stomping grounds, wondering how she could ever have been as young as these kids look. Like fourth graders, not college students. 

Near California Hall, she wanders down from the Memorial Glade, with its sprawling, green lawn, and the Bancroft Library, toward Dwinelle Hall, discovering a wide plaza that has been refinished since she was a student.  

The renovations include flagstones inscribed with snippets of speeches, songs, text that are central to the campus legend and mythology: There’s a Bob Dylan lyric and a line from Mario Savio. Words attributed to other well-known alumni, professors, and assorted other California Golden Bears throughout the school’s long history: Earl Warren, Jack London, Joan Didion, Ai Weiwei.

From one blue-gray slab, edged in brass, a familiar name stands out under a passage that’s longer than the others, catching her eye: 

Within two miles of the Pacific rounding 

this long bay, sheening the light for miles 

inland, floating its fog through redwood rifts and over 

strawberry and artichoke fields, its bottomless mind 

returning always to the same rocks, the same cliffs, with 

ever-changing words, always the same language 

—this is where I live now. If you had known me 

once, you'd still know me now though in a different 

light and life. This is no place you ever knew me.

- Adrienne Rich, An Atlas of the Difficult World

Strawberry Creek murmurs softly below the gleaming, liberty green arch of Sather Gate, with the motto of the University of California inscribed into the delicate bronze Beaux Arts lattice. 

Maybe it’s age, or time, or the place she is in her life right now—looking back at the years, comparing her many selves, adding up the things she’s managed to accomplish, and what it’s all amounted to—but it resonates in some deep, indefinite and diffuse way. Reaches back to the teenage version of her, leaving home for the first time; and forward to the older, worn-down woman, saying goodbye to her own hard-won familiarity, to her own deeply loved and difficult, difficult world. 

“No place you ever knew me,” CJ says. 

*

Early evening shimmers over the bay. Directly due west, the graceful span of the Golden Gate Bridge reaches from Marin to the Presidio, gleaming in the warm night. Tucked beside it, San Francisco is a dreaming city of sparkling spires. The great, dark and sweeping shoulder of Mt. Tamalpais bookends the city lights, north, across the Bay, past Angel Island. Along the water, below the Berkeley Hills and the heights of Grizzly Peak, the East Bay shimmers and shine-shine-shines. 

She leans back against the hood of the rental car, arms folded across her chest, smiling out at the view, and at what the years have added to it. It’s still magic to her. Like something out of the movie-version of a life. So gorgeous, it doesn’t seem real.  

She nudges Danny’s shoulder. “I used to bring my boyfriends up here to fool around. Or my girlfriends and I would hike up with a couple bottles of wine, get tipsy, laugh, let loose a little.”

Good memories, but they make her a little sad, too. She’s lost touch with a lot of those friends over the years. Not all, but the bonds aren’t what they used to be. Not a lot is. 

She hugs her arms to her chest. “This is the first place I really felt like myself. Like the person I wanted to be.” 

“Starting to see why.” Danny’s fairly quiet, you know, for him. He seems content to let her take the lead. Share what she wants to share. Not to push for too much. 

She kisses his neck, slips an arm around him. “Thank you. For being here.” 

“My pleasure.” 

“Not just here here.” 

“I know.” 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

“What?” 

He just smiles, shakes his head, happy to simply be here. This guy, she thinks, and her stomach does that swoony teenage thing again. 

Below, the rocky ledges spill down into Strawberry Canyon. From somewhere beyond, past the Botanical Gardens and the Lawrence Berkeley Lab—the miracles of life and the wonders of the universe, tucked against these green hills, side by side—there are cheers and laughter. Music drifting up from the start of an off-campus party. 

As earlier, she feels the ghost of her younger self close at hand, like a little sibling, or cousin, like her niece, even. Someone precious and dear, and who she wants to tell so much to. She hopes what she has to say is enough for all those kids who will be listening tomorrow. 

It’ll be okay, trust me, she wants to tell them. Most things will be fine, and even the things that aren’t, you’ll survive anyway. 

“Fool around, huh?” Danny says. 

“Oh yeah. What, you think I dragged you up here for the view?” 

“Far be it from me to argue with tradition…” 

*

She paces, reading through the lines a few final times. Mouthing the words, trying to rehearse her way through any potential missteps, anticipate any tongue-twisters. 

“Got your speech down?” Danny asks, sitting on the couch and tapping away at his laptop, as ever. 

“Yeah. Think so.” 

“Nervous?” He tilts his head up. 

“I have a little experience with public speaking.” 

“Do you?” he teases. 

“Tiny bit, here and there.” She drops her folio with the final version printed out beside him on the cushion. “Any last edits, make ‘em now or forever hold your peace.” 

She pours a glass of water, waiting patiently as Danny scans the lines quietly, thinking, nodding. 

He looks up. “This didn’t happen.” 

Ah. That bit. 

CJ feels a little sheepish, but holds her ground. “I know.” 

“Unless you have another secret boyfriend I don’t know about.” 

“It was Josh, actually.” 

“Your secret boyfriend?” 

She makes a strangled sound. “No, god! Never say that again.” 

“Why’d you–?” He tips his palms up in question. 

She almost tells him what Toby had originally written, but decides against it. Eventually. 

Instead she just shrugs, says it as plainly as she can without explaining the whole backstory. “I wanted to include you. So it’s a little fib, in service of inspiration.” 

“That’s nice of you.” 

“I can be nice.” 

“I know. You gave me a whole tour.” He looks over. “When was the last time you were up here?” 

She lets a long breath out, pursing her lips and thinking. “Years. Not since I worked in the mayor’s office in Oakland.” 

“When was that?”

“On and off, from ohh…’86 to ’91? Between assembly work in Sacramento, congressional races in Oakland and Cupertino. Then I did Nick Tuccio’s Senate campaign in New York. After which–”

He smirks. “You decided you liked money?” 

She nods, unapologetic. “I do like having money, a thing, which, you know, allows you things like food and shelter, financial freedom and economic opportunity.” 

“Right on, sister.” 

“Can I tell you something kinda embarrassing?” 

“Always.” 

“A few years ago I tried dating my college boyfriend again.” 

“Really?” 

“Why?” 

“Why do we do anything? I was lonely. He’d moved to DC. We were happy and good together when we were kids. I wanted that feeling again. Of something I could trust.”

She cranes her head back to meet his eye. “Turns out you’re a slightly different person at forty-one than at twenty-one.” 

“That does tend to happen.” He nods. “Any regrets there?" 

“No. We were different people, plus the work…” She waves a hand, lets it fall. “You can’t go home again.” 

“Maybe not,” he says. “But I like to think you can find it anyway.” 

She curls up next to him, feeling as she had the other day, thinking about how much of their non-relationship relationship had revolved around her desires. She glances over. 

“So, you?”

“Me, what?” 

“Have any actual, non-flirtation relationships in the last few years?” 

“Well,” he says, stroking his beard and mulling the question. “There was one woman.” He gives her a pained look. “Is if I’m being honest.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. We met at the Correspondents Dinner a few years ago. Smartest woman in the room, and a class act. Lady has talent. She’s going places.” 

“This someone in DC?” CJ asks, wary. She does not like the extremely specific way that she does not like this conversation. She does not want to be having this conversation. Still, she started it, so…

Danny waves it off. “Nah. Her show shoots in New York, so we don't see each other. But every now and then, I'll run into her and…” He presses a hand to his heart. “It all kinda comes back.”

A pang of jealousy and unease hits her in the gut. At once, CJ is aware of—and shockingly, shockingly grateful for—the thousands of miles between LA and Manhattan. She swallows her fear and discomfort. “This someone I know?”

“Yeah.” 

“Who?”  

“Rachel,” he says with great longing. “Rachel Maddow.” 

“Oh my god!” She slaps his shoulder in rage.

Danny’s shoulders shake with laughter. 

She climbs into his lap and reaches both her hands around his neck. “You’re such an ass,” she shouts at him, and smacks his shoulder again. “This! This is why I'm emotionally stunted!” 

“Ow!” he laughs. “C’mon. You think anyone held a candle to you?” 

She bares her teeth and shakes him. “You are cruel. Toying with my hard won affection, you scruffy, ginger jerk.” 

Honestly. She could kill him, he’s so pleased with himself. 

He smooths a hand along her thigh, grinning like the idiot he very much is. “Nah, baby. Nothing serious, ‘cept you.” 

“Don’t you ‘baby’ me, you misinformation-peddling, tall-tale telling charlatan,” she grouses, and wraps her arms around his neck, still debating whether to kiss him or strangle him. 

“God, you say the sweetest things,” he breathes, stealing a kiss. “Rachel's great, and I do love her, but tragically she won't have me.”

“No kidding,” CJ snipes against his lips. “Because she's gayer than a picnic." 

His eyes light up and he’s obviously going to make a quip about that stupid blind item in some gossip column a while back saying she was secretly gay herself. 

She slaps a hand over his mouth, his beard all pleasantly scratchy and distracting.

“Oh, don't even attempt. I'm anticipating all the jokes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Shut up.” 

Danny pulls her hand away, eyes sparkling. “I can always add corrections to your Wikipedia page, if you want.” 

She looks at him in confusion. “You can do that?”

Danny looks at her, mystified. “You really don’t spend much time on the internet, do you?” 

“Ugh.” 

*

“Does this look okay?” She fidgets with the robe and stole nervously.

“You look great.”

“I don’t want it to wrinkle,” she fusses as they’re driven up the hilly campus paths. CJ shifts nervously on the golf cart seat. “I should have just worn a suit. Dress. Not the whole regalia thing.” 

“It sends a message. You’re not just a high-powered badass, you’re one of ‘em.” 

“Does it?” she worries. 

“It does. You’re fine. Trust me?”

“I don’t, actually. You’re biased. And crazy. You’re crazy-biased.” 

Crazy something, that’s for sure. Danny grins and ignores her. She’s just worrying to spin her wheels on something. 

The giggling, groaning voices from a group of young women are loud as the golf cart pauses for traffic beside the law school. They all look as though they’ve had a very long night before their early morning.

CJ clocks their bleary eyes and hoarse, excited voices. “Good party?” 

The faces in the group glance at her, at first politely, then one by one, start to recognize her. Start whispering CJ! Oh wow, it’s CJ! 

“Just the sight of you is giving me flashbacks right now,” she laughs, looking each of them over. “I was so hungover at my graduation, I threw up behind the Faculty Club.” 

“Did you?” Danny asks. 

“I sure did. Wasn’t pretty.” 

“Thanks for coming, CJ!” one young woman exclaims. 

“You’re amazing!” another calls to her. “I’m so glad you’re speaking, not, like, some old tech dude!”

She laughs. “Thank you, my little Golden Bears!” She winks at them all as the golf cart rolls into gear again. “Now, do me a favor: Go out there and kick some ass, ladies!” 

They shout and hold their arms high, striking celebratory poses, thrilled, ecstatic. High on their own accomplishment, and the brief, exciting encounter. 

Danny squeezes her hand encouragingly. He isn’t surprised. He’s seen men fall over themselves trying to get her attention. But these girls look at her different: It’s a sight to see—their young, pretty faces bright with a different quality of adoration. Not like they’re looking to get anything from her, but like they want to be her. It makes his heart swell with pride. And something a bit like longing, too. 

CJ smirks. “Checking out the co-eds, are you?”

“Yeah, but just the hottest one.” 

“Misinformation-peddling, tall-tale telling…” she huffs in disbelief. 

He tips his head back at the gaggle of excited twenty-something new graduates. “They get it, you know.” 

“Get what?” 

“You.”  

“Me?” 

“Yeah, CJ. You.” He shakes his head. “They adore you. They look at you like Beyoncé just walked in the room.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Hate to break it to you, Wonder Woman. You’re kind of a role model.” 

“That’s vaguely terrifying.” 

She takes a shaky breath as the golf cart stops at the VIP-area entrance to California Memorial Stadium. Security escorts them to the stairs and the ceremonial stage beyond. 

A sea of caps and gowns and sunglasses and gold and blue stretches out across the field and stands. It’s a new vantage. Get used to it, some small, wry voice says in the back of his mind.  

“You got this.” 

“Yeah.” CJ glances over. “Not in the fourth row anymore, Dorothy.” 

“Think I can live with that.” 

“Can you?” 

“Yeah.” He kisses her cheek. “Rather have your back.” 

“Wish me luck?” 

He shakes his head, backpedaling toward the side-stage seats. “You don’t need it.”

*

“Good morning. Chancellor Birgenau, distinguished faculty, family and friends, and most of all, graduates of the University of California, Berkeley, thank you for inviting me to share this day with you. It is such a privilege for me to be here. You have worked incredibly hard to get here, and I hope that you’re taking a moment to let the full weight of your accomplishment sink in. Revel in it.

“And to the parents of the graduates, you have to feel an enormous sense of pride and sheer joy in what your child has achieved. So congratulations to all the moms and dads as well!

“I’ve been so thrilled and excited about the opportunity to talk with you today. But as the date grew closer, I began to get a little anxious about what I would talk about. This is a big moment for you, and I wanted any message I had to be commensurate with the occasion.

“So I went back and read the letter of invitation I received from your class marshals. And let me tell you, they write one hell of a letter. They told me that for over a hundred and thirty years, graduates of this school have been changing the trajectory of our country and, in truth, the world. From both ends of the political spectrum and all points in between, you have graduated activists, Supreme Court justices, foreign leaders, academics, CEOs, journalists and Attorneys General of the United States. Some are household names, and others are known only to the people whose lives they have forever changed. And now you follow in their footsteps.

“The letter of invitation from your class marshals said that this is the last opportunity for you to receive the wisdom and advice from someone at this university before you embark on your careers around the world.

“So I thought back on my past twenty years, since I was sitting out there where you all are today. For me, being the voice of, and, later, the chief of staff at, the White House was not just a job, not just what I did, it was one of the biggest parts of who I was, and who I am today. And that’s because I believe so strongly in the mission of public service, the privilege of public service, and both the opportunity and responsibility to try to move this world a little closer towards the more just—the more perfect—world that we all long for it to be.

“And as I thought back over those years, I came to realize that I envy you. I envy that you’re on the front end of this wonderful, challenging, rewarding, yes, sometimes gut-wrenching, and sometimes uplifting adventure of making your mark on the world.

“And so, I thought I would share with you a few observations and lessons that I’ve learned over the years about what my work has taught me about life and our country. And I will start with this: We are all better than our worst moment, but sometimes we are not as good as we think we are either.

“As bright, talented, and driven as you all are now, you need to give yourself the space to develop into great doctors, or great lawyers, or great entrepreneurs, or great teachers. You weren’t born one. And as rigorous as your education was here, there are still more dimensions of yourself to develop. There is so much more for you to learn that you will never get from a book, or from a classroom. 

“I learned this the hard way a few years after I was out of graduate school. I was working on a big campaign, the biggest of my life so far, at the time. I was new at something of this size and scope, and I wanted so badly to wow everyone. One afternoon, it fell to me and one other staffer to do a quick briefing of our candidate’s plans for the day. 

“One of the reporters that day was a heavily drawling, old school guy, who chain smoked through his every waking hour. Now, I’ve held my own over the years, and against some formidable figures, but that day I was off my game and somehow made incredibly nervous by the tone and aggression of his questions, which was not helped by the fact that, throughout the entire meeting, he was literally, not just figuratively, blowing smoke in my face. And I have to admit to you, I did a miserable job. I’m not sure that I made a single point.

“That night, the staffer I was with decided that this would be a good time to critique my performance. We were sitting both in the campaign bus across from each other, and he looked at me, and in excruciating detail for the entire ride, told me and everyone else there, just how much I had totally screwed the thing up.

“Later that evening, in some long-forgotten hotel bar, with my head in hands, I recounted the events to a guy who wasn’t my boyfriend at the time, but is now, telling him how completely I had blown it. ‘I thought I could do this!’ I lamented.

“‘You’ll get better,’ he told me. And he was right. It was not the last mistake. In fact it was the first of oh, just so many. But I got better at it. And thankfully, that miserable briefing didn’t define my career. I was better than that bad moment, though not as good as I thought I would be. 

“That’s going to happen to you, too. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to have mediocre moments and some outright blunders. You’re going to be disappointed in your performance. While I’m not suggesting that is something to aspire to, give yourself the space for that; to learn from it, and not be limited by it.

CJ holds her head high, scanning the field. A rapt, intense silence has fallen across the whole stadium, one made by an audience of captivated listeners. She feels much as she did that night in November, nine years before: As though the eyes of history may not be trained on her directly, not now, but they have surely glanced in her direction.

“The motto of this great university: Fiat lux. Let there be light.

“You will make mistakes. Events in your life will be hard, and difficult, and may even be shattering. Cracks will form in your very deepest foundations, against all your plans and hopes and schemes. Let them. Feel them out, as they do. There is a reason we use the phrase trial and error instead of trial and triumph. Mistakes reveal different ways forward, diverging opportunities, and they do this when we shine our eyes upon them and see with a clarity born of light, and not from heat.

“In our errors we are at our most human. When we are able to see there are more choices before us than one or two. Sometimes there are ten, twenty, a hundred different ways to go, so many bound to be wrong, and it is the richness of those choices—in the shimmering constellations of possibilities—that present situations capable of lifting us onto totally new paths. Give us new cause for consideration. Lead to new options. New chances. New lives, even. 

“You’ll make mistakes, and in doing so you’ll go through that old, time-tested process called exploration, which is based on our own deeply human fallibility. If we had only a single center in our brains, capable of responding only when a correct decision was to be made, instead of the jumble of different, credulous, easily-conned clusters of neurons that can be flung off into false starts and blind alleys, up trees, down dead ends, out into blue sky, along all manner of wrong turnings…Well. We would only ever stay the way we are today. Trapped by our own success. Stuck in an infinite, unaltered, and unchallenging rut. 

“We would not change.

“We would not grow. 

“We would not ever know what we are capable of. 

“As you go forth from today, into your lives and careers, there will be many words of advice passed on to you. Many will involve some version of that old adage: Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.

“My former boss and mentor was fond of the old Irish story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in. St. Peter says, ‘Of course. Show me your scars.’ The man answers, ‘Scars? I have no scars.’ St. Peter replies, ‘Pity. Was there nothing worth fighting for?’

“I offer you this: Find what it is you are willing to fight for. Discover your values, and do your very best to amplify them in the world, whatever that may mean to you. In your family, your community, or across this beautiful, burning planet. 

“And as you do, surround yourself with the people who will fight for those same values, who will love and trust you through the missteps. Who’ll have your back. Who’ll earn their own scars at your side, and in the service of what you believe in. You will need these people. Just as often, they will need you. 

“It has been said that in its course, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. As you seek out your own truths, and as you build toward your dreams, I ask you to remember this: While the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice in its long and, at times, imperceptible curve, it doesn’t bend that way on its own. I urge you to grab hold of that arc, to gather others to the cause, and don’t let go. 

“Fiat lux. Follow the light. Face your future with the courage you may not feel, not at this moment, but that you will find, both in yourselves and those around you. And never forget: You are, now, forever, golden.”

CJ closes her folio, looking up and out to the light.

“Congratulations to the class of 2007.”

*

Chapter Text

*

From the top of the farmhouse stairs, Jed Bartlet calls out: “Claudia Jean, I don’t believe we invited the press.”

CJ slams the rental car door. “I believe we’ve met those conditions, sir,” she calls back.

“Then who is this bedraggled member of the print media tagging along with you there?” 

Danny grins, shaking his head. 

“I think you’ll find I’ve cured Danny of some of his more annoying qualities, like asking questions and recording everything you say.”  

“Oh? How did you manage that?”

“Well, mostly I just make out with him till he forgets, sir.”

“Get it, girl,” Abbey laughs as they climb the stairs. 

“Danny!” Jed Bartlet says, clasping his arm. He whispers surreptitiously as Abbey and CJ hug. “Well done. I’ve been rooting for you.” 

“You have?” Danny asks, pleasantly surprised. 

“Yes!” 

“A word edgewise, one or two or six years ago might have been helpful, sir,” he whispers back.  

Jed Bartlet rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because I didn’t have enough to do.” 

“Ma’am,” Danny says as CJ greets Jed, heckling him over something or other. 

“Oh, stop,” Abbey demurs, kissing his cheek. “Abbey.”

“Danny, actually. We’ve met.” 

She links her arm in his, dragging him inside. “It’s that wit that gets the girls, isn’t it?” 

“That and my rugged good looks.” 

CJ rolls her eyes. “Do not feed his ego.”

“My ego?” Danny throws back, glancing back at her. “Sorry, who was the one dispensing the words of wisdom to the impressionable youth of America yesterday morning?” 

“How’d it go?” Jed asks, following them through the door.

“The dharma bums were pleased,” CJ says. “Or possibly just stoned out of their gourds.” 

“Thunderous applause,” Danny tells them. “It was something.” 

“Must have been a helluva homecoming,” Abbey says. 

She leads them through the house to the back porch, with its sweeping views of the Bartlet farm and surrounding woodlands.  

CJ sinks into an Adirondack chair. “Strange, but good strange.” 

Over tall glasses of iced tea, Abbey and Jed pepper them with questions, about USC, about when CJ’s starting work, about the house, which gives the president a chance to deploy some unmasked snobbery about Southern California versus New England. 

“Speaking of which...” Jed rises, crooks his finger at Danny. “C’mon. Something I wanna show you.” He heads down the steps. 

“Sure.” He glances at CJ. “Are you…?”

CJ and Abbey both shake their head vehemently. No way. 

“Heh.” Abbey twiddles her fingers without sympathy. “Have fun!” 

“Why do I get to be the lamb led to the lecture!?” Danny quietly objects, glancing back at the stairs. 

“Well, because you haven’t had the pleasure, of course,” Abbey says brightly.  

“I definitely have.”  

“Not by comparison,” CJ points out. “Tough luck, toots. I worked for him.”

“I married him,” Abbey adds. “Charlie and Zoey are out. And Vic won’t be here till tomorrow.” 

“Think of it as a reunion,” CJ teases. “You can get all misty-eyed about Rudy, make voodoo dolls of Michigan players…” 

“You know,” Danny says airily, accepting his sacrificial fate. “Stanford beat Cal in the last four Big Games.” 

CJ scoffs, waving him away. “Whatever. They can take their Mexican resort of higher education and shove it. Never invoke those punkass bird-lovers to me!” 

“Daniel!” Jed calls. 

“Go Irish!” she beams sunnily. 

Love of my life, Danny thinks at her in exasperation. 

He falls in step beside the President and follows him toward the barn. 

Jed claps his shoulder again. “I need to pretend to interrogate you about your intentions.”  

“Pretend?” 

“I don’t actually need to.” He taps his temple. “My powers of perception are honed, Danny. Finely honed.”

He pulls open a creaking door. Inside, a long, wooden table takes up the center of the room, surrounded by very old cabinets, work tables, and cupboards full of tools and detritus. 

“Oh wow...” 

Along each wall above the workshop area, hanging on faded pegboard, are old broadsheets, pressed and framed, bearing beautiful old typeface, and all tracking the accomplishments of various Bartlet forebears. They go all the way back to one yellow-tinged page from the New Hampshire Gazette, recounting the first Josiah Bartlet’s participation at the Second Continental Congress, held in the Philadelphia State House during the first week of July of 1776.

“Figured a student of history would appreciate some of these.” 

Danny scans through the many carefully mounted and preserved documents. “These aren’t in the archives?” 

“They are. Most of these are copies, actually,” Jed explains. He leans back on a stool against a workbench that may well be older than the Union. “I was always fond of that saying, ‘journalism is the first draft of history.’”

“It’s a nice phrase. Except for the fact that, you know, first drafts tend to be pretty bad.” 

“Yeah, but I wasn’t gonna mention that. I’m nice that way,” Jed points out. “I gotta admit, it’s strange not reading you in the Post anymore.” 

“Time for a change,” Danny says.  

“You didn’t want to stay on as a columnist? Feature writer?” 

“Could have, but you can only work a beat so long. I wanted new things.” 

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re not the kinda guy to hold on to old attachments, nooo. Not at all…” The corners of Jed’s eyes crinkle. 

No sense in denying it. “Don’t let it get around, will ya?” 

“No such luck. After all the say you’ve had, you’re talking to the wrong guy, mister. Hey! There’s an idea. Perhaps I’ll take over your old column, return a few favors to my many and loudspoken critics over the years.” 

“Think you’re a bit overqualified for the corrections page.” 

Jed presses hand to heart. “Ah, but isn’t love enough?” 

There’s a teasing and a lightness to the words, but Danny’s been around enough political doublespeak to clock the real meaning at hand, even cloaked in a couple layers of jest or rage or irony. 

“Sir, if you’re wondering if I’m going to ask CJ to marry me, then the answer is yes.” 

Jed Bartlet laughs. “Nah, you’re not.” 

Danny frowns. 

“Relax. I’m on your side.” He wanders around the room, looking to the floor, and back into memory. “It grieves me, at times, knowing what they all gave for me. What they dealt with. CJ. Josh. Sam. Charlie. Le–”

His voice breaks off. Danny puts a hand on his shoulder. Jed takes a breath, composing himself. He reaches up to touch Danny’s wrist in gratitude. 

There’s an oldness in him, now, Danny thinks, as the man nods his thanks. Time is catching up with Josiah Bartlet. 

“All of them. You too,” Jed Bartlet says, pointed. “You belonged to a different tribe in those days, but you joined us around the fire more nights than not. Don't think I don't remember. And look where it got you. Pulitzer. Peabody. Goldsmith Prize.” 

Danny puts his hands in his pockets, shrugs. “Pretty sure Harvard just wanted an excuse to shake me down for unpaid library fees.”

Jed chuckles to himself. “Someday soon, I'm going to stand up at your wedding and raise a glass to you. I couldn't have done it without her. Especially at the end. I know the toll it takes. More than one long-lasting relationship has crumbled beneath the weight of that world. Yours didn't even get a chance to begin.”

Yes, and no. “Something did. Enough to take a chance on.” 

“When you were studying post-war political history at Notre Dame, did you ever read about the young revolutionaries of Latin America?” 

Danny’s not sure where this is leading. “Some, but not much. Why do you ask?”

“There's this poem by Pablo Neruda. Abbey was dating some other guy at the time, and like a million other love-struck young men, I read it and, oh, how I agonized– 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me…

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

“Tell you what,” Jed Barlet says, letting out a rush of breath. “Neruda was a piece of work, but man, could he write.”

Danny nods in agreement. “Probably why they gave him the Nobel Prize for Literature.” 

“Tending to the better part of a century’s worth of broken hearts, he might just deserve it.” Jed leans back against the workbench. “I’m proud of her. And you. It couldn’t have been easy. In fact, I know it was inhumanely hard, at times.” 

“Well, things worth doing usually are.” 

“Damn straight. All that being said, you’re not going to ask my brave and beautiful girl to marry you, Danny.” 

Danny holds the man’s gaze. He cares about, respects, Jed Bartlet, for all he’s done. He knows CJ loves him deeply. He levels the former leader of the free world, Commander in Chief—the closest thing CJ has left to a father—with a determined look and vows: “Sir, say what you will, but I promise you: I am.”

Jed Barlet smirks. “Yeah, but that's just what you think.” His eyes sparkle. “Fact is, she’s gonna ask you.” 

“Sir–” 

He holds up his hands. “Pax. Give her time. It’s been a hell of a year and she might need another to balance it out, in the end. But once she's made up her mind, that's the ballgame. She loves forever. And it is very clear, even amidst all this grief and adjustment, how she feels about you. I can tell. Hell, I could tell six months ago.” 

“Prescient,” Danny quips. 

“Well, I'm really quite something, Daniel,” Jed says loftily. “Perhaps you’ve heard.” 

Danny sighs, holding back more than he’d like, but he figures the man has earned his say. 

Jed Bartlet puts his hand to his heart. “As a father of daughters, Danny, I ask you this… Trust me.” 

Danny doesn’t know what to say to that. 

“It makes me happy, knowing she is. I do love her, very much. I know you know that. Same as I know you love her, and have, and will.” Jed tips his chin at him. “You coulda stayed in Washington and picked up another dozen or so accolades, become reporter emeritus of the nation’s foremost political news operation…and all those stories would have ever amounted to is page after page, all written in the saddest lines.” 

“You’re not wrong,” he says. Awards are nice, but they don’t laugh, or sing, or joke, and they were never the reason he got up to start the endless day, or why he’d looked forward to work every morning. 

Jed laughs to himself. “Father of daughters, Danny: I am always wrong. But not about this.” He winks, secure in his wise all-knowingness, and leans on the shop table as though it were a lectern. “You’ll see." 

*

Abbey pours CJ a glass of wine, dusk beginning to fall over the long fields of the farm, the edge of Blackbriar Woods. 

“So: How you doing, Claudia Jean?” By her tone, CJ takes her to mean since they last spoke in March, after the nasty fight she and Danny had had. 

“Better,” she says, and means it. “Thank you, by the way. The photos Dave Driscoll sent were a hit.” 

“I’m glad. He had some file sharing thing set up for us. I had a peek around and thought it might help. Remind you of something good that came from all those long years. Something that stuck. Y’know?” 

“Yeah.”  

“You look good. You look happy.” 

“Wanna know something crazy?” 

“What’s that?” 

She looks over at Abbey. “I am.” 

Abbey chuckles. “Nice, isn’t it?” 

“It is,” CJ sighs. Head back against the chair, turning her face up to the slow-coming starry sky, feeling the warmth of the porch-top firepit and the chill in the evening air. She breathes deep, letting eyes close. “I could do this forever.” 

“No, you couldn’t.” Abbey affectionately rubs her knee. “But it's good that you think so.” 

They laugh and chat until a pair of footsteps sound at the porch door. Zoey steps out with Charlie in tow; both offer hugs and hellos. 

“No Liz?” CJ asks. 

“Annie has a soccer tournament in Boston,” Abbey explains. 

Divorce lawyer, Zoey mouths as Jed and Danny reappear. 

“You missed the penny tour!” Jed objects. 

“I’m familiar,” Charlie points out.  

“I live here?” Zoey adds. 

“Not for long,” Jed sighs.

Danny greets them both. “How you been, Charlie?” 

“You know what’s good, Danny?”

“What’s that?” 

“Vacation. Man, I am so good at vacationing.” 

Jed and Abbey disappear inside, sorting out various dinner-related things as Charlie and Zoey recount their last month traveling through Southeast Asia—Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia. Making the most of life with a significantly lighter detail, and getting away from the media spotlight for the first time in years. 

“He’s terrible at it, actually,” Zoey smirks. “Never wants to sit by the beach and get drunk. ‘Let’s snorkel, let’s scuba, let’s spend every single minute of every single day exploring.’” 

Charlie will not be shamed. “It’s a big world, and I plan to see a lot more of it now.” 

“Said the incoming 1L who’ll have his nose in the books for the next three years,” Zoey throws back.  

“Semesters end.” 

“Internships. Law review. Clerkships!” Zoey accuses. “I know you: You’re gonna work yourself into the ground just like the rest of your brethren.” 

“My brethren?” Charlie rolls his eyes. “Okay.”  

“What happened to working for me?” CJ asks. 

They both turn to look at her. 

“Really?” Charlie asks. 

“Was kinda counting on it here. Assuming you’re still interested,” CJ shrugs. “Save me having to write a letter of recommendation.” 

Charlie looks at her, brow furrowed. “What, really? For Hollis?”

“Really, really. The next year to eighteen months will be a lot of proposals and research, relationship-building, laying the groundwork for a pilot project. But eventually there’ll be travel, and I’d rather not do all of it. You can be a summer associate or whatever till you finish law school. Something not as insulting as intern for, you know, a guy who used to have free rein of the Oval Office.” 

“CJ…”

 CJ flicks her wrist. “Swish!” 

Charlie’s eyes dart left to right, uncertain. “Did you just…cast a spell on me?” 

“That was me using my witchy ways, friend. You’re hired. Will be. We’ll figure it out.”

“Well, okay.”

“Why do you sound surprised? I trust you, Charlie. The offer stands.” 

“High praise,” Danny offers. CJ rolls her eyes at him. “What? Just sayin’, took me years.” 

“Yeah, well, you could've gotten there sooner if you weren’t so beholden to your dumbass job.” 

He turns to face her. “Phrase coming to mind right about now. Something about pots and kettles?” 

“Go bother someone about rocks, will you?”  

“I think I made it very clear I was more than happy to offer my integrity up for examination.” 

“Can think of a couple things you should have examined, Daniel Patrick Crazymaker.” 

“Wow,” Zoey says, looking between them. “It’s uncanny.” 

“It is,” Charlie agrees. 

“What?” CJ asks.

Charlie holds his palms up. “Nothing.” 

“What?”  

“Just wondering how long you’ve been practicing your old married couple sketch comedy act.” Zoey grins. “You could pass for my parents.” 

Danny runs a hand warmly along her back. “Really?” CJ asks. “You think Lorne Michaels would go for it? I got some free time left. I could do a bit. Live from New Hampshire…” 

*

After dinner, Zoey’s washing dishes in the low-lit kitchen. CJ grabs a dish towel and stands at her side, helping dry. 

“Haven’t heard what you’re up to this summer, Zo. More adventures?” 

She always felt for Zoey, being thrown into so much, at such a young age. 

“Yeah…I wanted to talk to you, actually.” Zoey’s face is still, but a thin line forms in her brow. CJ thinks she’s probably gotten quite good at holding that expression. “There’s an organization I’m going to work for. Really junior position. Research, mostly. But–” She draws a deep breath, looking up. “–I’m excited.” 

“What’s the place?” 

“The Electronic Civil Liberties Project?” 

Huh. “Okay.” 

“Have you heard of them?” 

“I haven’t, but that’s not saying much. I’ve missed a lot over the years. Still trying to figure out what’s going on with Lost.” 

“Oh, no one knows what’s going on with Lost. You’ve missed nothing.” She grins over at CJ, handing her a baking dish. “They look at tech policy issues and the internet. That kind of thing.”

“Seems like an interesting if maddening space to be in, these days. Can I ask why…?”

Zoey looks her way. “Why the famously unserious Zoey Bartlet would want to work for an obscure and wonky tech non-profit?” 

“Not how I would put it. But yeah. Why’d this appeal?” 

Zoey swishes soap around a plate. Choosing her words carefully. “There are pictures of me. On the internet.” 

CJ puts the dish aside, listening. 

“Someone got a hold of my file. The FBI file.” 

“What kind of…?”

“There’s all these sites where people have photoshopped me into–” Zoey closes her eyes. “Such horrible things.” She laughs through it, the horribleness. “You can’t imagine. Or why–?” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“It does. Zoey.” 

“No, it does. But thing is, as messed up and horrible as they are, they’re also a fiction. A really, properly, fucked-up fiction, sure. And I’d like to burn them and every server they’re stored on to the ground. Throw everyone who manipulated me at the worst moment of my life into looking like some glassy-eyed sex slave. But there are so many women—people—who that happens to every day. And it's not faked. Their private information gets leaked, or stolen, or maliciously shared by people they trusted.” 

CJ remembers the vague, ever-present fear of being sent death threats. Of faxes and emails and letters sent, describing the horrible things that would happen to her, and how. Still, it’s nothing like this, and even if she was an extremely public figure at one point, her notoriety was limited to inside the Beltway. Life as America’s most famous college kid, the fun and flighty youngest daughter of the President of the United States, was an exponentially different thing. 

God, everything this kid has gone through. The hell of it was almost none of it had anything to do with Zoey as a person, as a girl figuring out who she was and who she wanted to be. So much of her life has been decided for her based on her friends, her boyfriend, her parents. 

“And this organization…?” 

“They're trying to pass legislation to fight it. Or create processes and accountability for people affected by it.” 

“Wow. That’s amazing, Zoey.” 

Zoey nods. “I think it’ll be good for me. Might hit you up for some advice on…I don’t know, pitching stories and media campaigns. Get the word out. That kind of thing.” 

“My door is always open. Especially for you. Especially for this.” 

She smiles without mirth at the sink. “Funny, never thought I’d be interested in policy.” 

“Life’s weird, you know.” 

“Something like that.” 

*

“What was it tonight?” CJ asks, later. She leans back against the headboard of a sleigh bed in one of the house’s many guest rooms. “National parks? Crusades? The half-life of plutonium 238?” She looks up from the copy of Cloud Atlas he’d given her. “Hey! You shoulda talked to him about your rocks!” 

“Missed the chance, I guess.” Danny pulls a t-shirt on and grabs a book he’d been reading on the flight. “The Love Song of J. Edward Bartlet,” he says, without going into much detail. 

“Really? Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of that one.” 

“Not sure I’d call it that. But it had supportive notes. Think he approves of my intentions.”

“And what are those?” 

He feigns innocence, opening his book. “Oh, you know. Feed the fish. Take care of the pool. Remind you to eat.” 

“Two weeks, and we won’t have a pool anymore. Miranda Santos feeds our fish,” CJ points out.  

“It's a short list.”

“Hmm,” she says, suspecting, but with a cheery, teasing quality to it. Like she’s not particularly in the dark, or resistant, or unhappy about it. Not in any way at all. 

“Never stayed here before,” Danny says, deflecting. “Been up here enough times.” 

“I tried to resign in the barn once,” CJ tells him.  

That’s fairly surprising. “Really?”