Midnight Crisis
Rating: PG
Pairing: CJ/Will
Spoilers: Disaster Relief post-ep
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: A crisis of faith…
Author's Note: A response to the LiveJournal tww_words “Faith” challenge that fit in nicely with Mags’s request of me at SG7 to write CJ/Will fic… she wanted them, and a couch and coffee, and I can’t remember what else. But voila.
The cup of coffee that appears on CJ’s
table comes as quite a surprise, but a welcome one. She doesn’t look up when
she says, “Thank you Carol,” because she’s snowed under with work, all the
stuff that she couldn’t look at when she was tramping around
So she’s surprised when a distinctly male voice says, “You know, I thought we’d moved beyond all this hazing, I can’t remember your name except I really can stuff.”
CJ’s head snaps up, her cheeks flaming when she sees Will looking down at her, his amused smile entirely at her expense. “I thought you were Carol,” she tells him dumbly, too caught off guard to say anything else, and he smirks, taking a step back.
“I would hope so,” he tells her dryly. “Or we’re taking major backward steps here.”
She smiles, but she’s still flustered. “How did you know I needed coffee?” she asks, and he shrugs.
“I was passing by a few minutes ago. Saw the face you made when you took a mouthful of that.” He points at the cup on her desk, the cup that she drank from five minutes ago and spewed a mouthful of it over her desk because it was stone cold. The notion of anyone witnessing that sends a fresh wave of heat coursing to her cheeks, and she looks down, taps her pen against the desk awkwardly. “Thought you’d like some more. Although…” He regards her thoughtfully, head tilted, arms crossed across his chest. “I think coffee might be the last thing you need.”
“Coffee’s exactly what I need.” She reaches for the mug and takes a mouthful to illustrate her point, barely able to keep back a blissful sigh, because it’s exactly the way she likes it. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t look convinced, his eyes narrowing just a little more. “You should go home,” he tells her, and she looks up at him in disbelief, spreading her hands to take in the sheer volume of paperwork on the desk.
“Have you seen this?” she asks. “Do you have any idea how long this is going to take to get through?”
Will shrugs. “I know it’s still going to be here in the morning,” he points out, and she laughs, leaning back on her chair, looking up at him.
“Easy for you to say,” she points out.
After all, it’s not his paperwork, not his job, his reputation that’s on the line. Nor is he the one who spent twenty-four hours gallivanting around the country on Air Force One with the President, with no access to a shower or a change of clothes. She’d managed to snatch a quick five minute shower in the locker room that afternoon, had called Carol from the air, getting her to send someone to her place for a change of clothes, but right now, she’d sell her soul for a long, hot bath and a good eight hours in her own bed.
In contrast to her tired and bedraggled state, and even after a long day of working for the Vice-President while dodging Toby’s ire, Will looks completely relaxed, utterly at home in his own skin. His jacket is thrown over the arm of her couch, his sleeves rolled up the elbows, his tie loosened and the top buttons of his shirt undone, and even at this late hour, he’s still radiating youthful and energetic energy.
CJ could hate him for that if she wasn’t so tired.
“CJ-” Her name is a warning on his lips, and she stands up, selecting a number of files, moving to bring them to Carol’s desk for her attention tomorrow morning.
“Will, I appreciate your concern, but I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have,” she tells him, not breaking stride. “And I know my limits.”
He doesn’t say anything, but somehow, delivering a smack down doesn’t have the same effect that it normally would, and CJ stands at Carol’s desk for a moment, her head bowed, her hands resting on the files that she’s just left there. She draws in a deep breath, then another, and after a third, she feels composed enough to go back into her office.
She’d left him standing in the middle of the floor, but when she returns, he’s sitting on his couch, looking towards the door, awaiting her re-entry. His eyes meet hers, and she sighs. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “That was uncalled for.”
She expects him to call her on it, to be angry. Instead he just shrugs. “You’ve put a goat in my office and olives in my pockets,” he reminds her. “This is actually pretty mild.”
She chuckles, as she suspects she was meant to, then drops down onto the couch beside him. She tilts her head back against the cushion, closes her eyes for a moment, but only a moment, because any longer and she’d go asleep right there. “I am so tired,” she murmurs to herself, but he doesn’t know that.
“And you’re drinking coffee? You do know that keeps you awake, right?”
She directs a withering gaze in his direction, but it’s barely half-strength. “I have work to do,” she reminds him, but even she can hear the lack of conviction in her voice.
“CJ, you can barely keep your eyes open.”
“Ergo, coffee.” She’s trying to be blithe, doesn’t think it’s coming off, knows it isn’t when she sees the look he’s giving her. Narrowed eyes, scepticism coming off him in waves, it’s how he looks when Toby says something that he disagrees with, and from observing their disagreements over the last few months, she knows that he’s not going to give up easily.
His question, when it comes, takes her by surprise. “Are you ok CJ?” he asks bluntly, and when she opens her mouth to reply, he cuts her off. “And don’t tell me that you’re tired. Of course you’re tired, you’ve been on the go since yesterday. Are you ok?”
She shifts awkwardly. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she says. Except she does, and he knows it.
“It’s just…” He hesitates, shifts awkwardly. “You haven’t been yourself lately. I can’t explain it…” He pauses, then looks hard at her, and she tries not to draw back under his gaze, doesn’t know how successful she is. “Arguing in the Oval Office for one thing.”
“If you think that’s the first time I’ve voiced a minority opinion-” She tries to keep her voice light, like she’s making a joke, but she knows that it doesn’t come out like that.
“This was different.” He cuts across her in
a firm voice, and she’s suddenly reminded that this is the guy who got a dead
Democrat elected in
She shrugs. “It was about hope,” she said dully, the words ringing hollow in her ears. “We needed the Presidential moment…”
If he notices that those are the same words
she used in the Oval Office, he doesn’t comment on it. He does lean closer to
her though, she can feel the heat of his body, of his leg against hers. “Who
did?
Her head snaps around to meet his eyes, because that was gutsy. He’s never called her out like that before, not once. She wants to deny it, wants to tell him to leave her alone, let her go back to her work, her coffee. But something stops her, makes her sigh, makes her talk to him. “I wanted it to be the way it was,” she says quietly. He tilts his head, narrows his eyes slightly, but says nothing, Will-speak for “Please continue,” and, clasping her hands together on her knees, she does. “You weren’t around when all this began,” she tells him, remembering the fire they would throw around, how watching Jed Bartlet walk into a room, how hearing him address a crowd would lift the organisation, leave them buzzing for days. “The first campaign, the first election… we had so many beliefs, so many plans, so much that we were going to do. And we really believed, you know? We really believed that we could do it.”
One hand reaches out, closes over hers, warm and comforting. “I know.”
“Then all the crap came down. Our numbers tanked. Rosslyn. MS. Qumar. Shareef. Zoey.” She shakes her head, pulls in a deep breath, tries not to notice how the increased pressure of his hand on hers makes it hard to breathe, how it sends the lump in her throat just a little closer to the surface. “It feels like we’re stuck in the mud,” she says. “And the more we try to move, to get some traction, the more we sink.”
“CJ-”
He tries to say something, but she talks right over him. “I saw him in that shelter… talking to those people… and it was just like I remembered it. Aside from having Leo screaming in my ear of course.” She manages a chuckle at that, even if it’s far from funny. “He told me like he felt like he’d done more good in one day than he had in months. And even with Leo and the press and the whole nightmare… I knew what he meant. Because I felt that way too.” She chokes back a sob, but not entirely, and she looks up at the ceiling, because if she looks into his eyes for too much longer, she won’t be able to hold it together. “And then this morning came, and all of a sudden, we weren’t part of the solution anymore. We were part of the problem, stopping these people from getting their lives back.”
“It’s not like you were doing that on purpose.” Will’s voice seems to reach her from very far away. “It was just-”
“That’s not the point.” Even she is surprised by how calm she sounds, because she doesn’t feel calm. “Trying to help, trying to do the right thing, yet end up making it worse… it’s like a metaphor for everything we do around here.”
“That’s not true.”
He sounds so sure, so convinced of his argument, and even when she levels him with the gaze that has press reporters quailing in their shoes, he doesn’t flinch. “Then why did you jump ship?” she demands. “If you believe so strongly in us, in what we’re doing, why did you go to Russell?”
“Because I do believe in what we’re doing here,” he replies instantly. “And when the President’s term is up, I want to know that there’s a strong person to carry on what we’re doing here. And the best way to do that is to advise him from the start, let him know what the President wants, let the President know what he wants. The party’s been too fragmented over the last few years CJ… the only way we’re going to keep the White House in three years is if Russell is strong now.” When he finishes, she just stares at him, and he frowns, looks nervously from side to side. “What?”
“You really believe that?” Her tone is soft, amazed, and he looks down, once more squeezing her hand with his.
“I really do,” he tells her. “And what’s more, you know I’m right.”
She smiles, but doesn’t reply. Her mind’s not on the future anyway, more on the past. “I used to have that kind of faith,” she murmurs, more to herself than him, but he answers anyway.
“You still do,” he tells her. “It’s just bruised a little, that’s all.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “It feels terminal.”
“It always does,” he counters, with one of those easy shrugs of his. “But faith’s no good unless you question it every now and again… blind faith is what’s dangerous.” The words have the ring of the familiar, and she must look as if she’s trying to place them, because he shrugs again. “One of my dad’s favourite sayings,” he tells her. “Not sure where he picked it up.”
She grins, looks into his concerned eyes, and feeling a momentary surge of connection, all too foreign lately. Then the moment passes, and she sighs. “It’s just… before we came here? We were good people.”
“You still are.” The words might be expected, but they ring with sincerity, and his free hand closing over their joined ones is a nice surprise. “This is a phase CJ… a midnight crisis… a dark teatime of the soul.” His final turn of phrase makes her sputter with laughter, as she knows it was supposed to, because he’s trying to turn her on to the absurd humour of Douglas Adams, with very little success. “You’re a good person CJ,” he concludes, moving one hand up to cup her cheek, forcing her to look at him before leaning closer to her, bringing his lips to hers. “You are.”
She knows that this is a bad idea, knows that they shouldn’t be doing this here. They’ve been discreet, they’ve been careful, and so far, no talk of their relationship has invaded the halls of the West Wing. All of which are good reasons why they shouldn’t be kissing on her couch, where anyone could walk in, but it is almost midnight and most people have gone home and she needs this, so she closes her eyes and kisses him back.
When he breaks the kiss, she is disappointed, but the smile on his lips as he rests his forehead against hers almost makes up for it. “We shouldn’t do this here,” he tells her, echoing her earlier thoughts, and she nods, one hand moving to his tie, smoothing it down.
“I know,” she whispers.
“So come home with me.” His hand is wound through hers and she wants nothing more than to let him lead her out of here, away from this, but there is still a pile of work on her desk that she needs to get through. She glances over at it, just in case it has miraculously vanished and his expression is disapproving when he sees where she’s looking. “There’s always tomorrow,” he reminds her, and she looks for one moment longer at the desk, then at him, nodding once.
“OK.” The look on his face – a flash of a smile, quickly smothered – is enough to make her acquiescence worthwhile, and he stands up with her, their hands still entwined. “Just so you know,” she tells him, a smile slowly coming to her own face. “I’ve been drinking lots of coffee today. I’m not so sure I’ll be able to go to sleep right away.”
She is teasing, throwing out the comment just for the pleasure of his reaction, and she’s not disappointed. He lobs a return right back, “Who says I want you to sleep?”, and she feels a laugh bubbling up inside her, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him into a hug.
His hands on her back make her feel safe and protected, and the feeling doesn’t go away when he steps back, leaves her office, tells her that he’ll see her at his place. Nor does it go away when he vanishes from sight, or when she closes up the files on her desk, gulping down her coffee as she does.
Only when her hand goes to the light switch does she pause, look back at her desk, her office, what her life has become.
“There’s always tomorrow,” she reminds herself, borrowing Will’s phrase, hoping that with it will come the faith she will need to sustain her through the days and weeks and months that are to come.
She’s not sure that it will, but it’s better than nothing.