Falling Short
Rating: PG
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: Leo/Ainsley
Spoilers: Up to the end of season six.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Years after she left the West Wing, Ainsley calls Leo.
“How could you?”
Any and all sense of pleasure he might have felt at hearing her voice vanished when he heard her voice; high, vibrating with unmistakable anger. He paused for a moment, expecting her to continue – after all, when had Ainsley Hayes ever confined herself to a three word diatribe? – but to his surprise, all he could hear after the initial outburst was a slight crackle on the line.
“How could I what?” he asked, discarding the thousand other comments that he’d imagined himself using over the last four years. She didn’t exactly sound like she was in the mood for pleasantries.
“You know what you did.”
“Humour me.”
There was a long pause – well, long by Ainsley’s standards anyway – where he could hear her breathing, could picture her face, her lips pressed into a thin line, brows knit together in a frown, nose wrinkled somewhat adorably. The image made him smile, though he banished it from his face as quickly as he could, sure that she’d be able to hear it in his voice when next he spoke. Ainsley had always been able to read him well, too well sometimes.
“You know what you did Leo,” she told him eventually, and when she spoke, any impulse he had to smile vanished completely. She didn’t sound angry any more, just hurt, her voice almost a whisper. “You sent Josh to vet me.”
“Josh?” It took a second for the penny to drop, and when it did, Leo’s reaction was instant. “Oh, I’m gonna kill him.”
Ainsley either didn’t hear him, or chose not to. “You thought I’d sell my story? Use it to discredit you, hurt you in the election? Leo, how could you? How could you think so little of me after everything…”
Her voice trailed off, a sure sign of how upset she was, because Ainsley never lost ground in an argument, ever. It was one of the things that had fascinated him about her. Instead of wondering over this new development though, he used it to his advantage. “I never thought that Ainsley. I would never think that.”
He meant every word, hoped her ability to read him remained as sharp as ever, and when she spoke again, there was hope warring with hurt in her voice. “Then why did Josh…”
“I told Josh about us, yes.” And he was actually surprised that more people hadn’t found out purely from the volume of the younger man’s reaction. “I told him in case someone, somewhere had seen us, or knew about us, and the story came out somewhere… we need to be prepared for that.” But as far as he’s aware, only three people know about the relationship, and those three people have kept bigger secrets in the past. “But I never told him to track you down… and I absolutely never told him to go see you.” A second’s pause, allowing her to process all that. “I know you Ainsley… I know you’d never do that.” Another pause, during which he hears her sniff. “Do you believe me?”
The voice is very quiet, but the whispered, “Yes,” makes him smile. Another sniff, then she speaks again, in a voice closer to her normal tone. “I thought about calling you… when I heard the news… and when you were in the hospital…”
Her voice trails off again, and he closes his eyes. “The flowers were beautiful,” he tells her, though he can’t remember what they looked like, just one in a sea of arrangements. He remembers the card though, remembers glancing through the stack that Margaret gave him, feeling as if his heart had stopped again when he saw her name. He’d wanted to call her too, but he’d had no number, no address, no way of getting in touch with her.
Is that why he told Josh, he wonders now, as some way of forcing the issue, knowing that Josh would want to talk to her?
Ainsley’s sigh on the other end of the line brings him back to reality. “I just… I wanted to let you know… that I was thinking of you.” She giggles then, a high, false sound. “I think you’d make a good Vice-President… I may even vote for you.”
He knows she’s trying to inject some normality into the conversation, but, for him at least, the effort falls considerably short. “I miss you,” he sighs, and he knows it was the wrong thing to say when she breathes in sharply.
“I… I miss…” She stops abruptly, and he can picture her shaking her head sharply, cutting off the thought before it’s completed. She did that a lot in her last conversation with him. “I… I need to go.”
The click of the receiver is so loud it’s actually painful, and the dial tone rings in his ear for a long time before he hangs up.
It’s not lost on him that, just like last time, she never said goodbye.