Rating: PG
Pairing: Leo/Ainsley
Spoilers: Everything up to the end of season 4 to be safe.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Leo thinks about the losses suffered in the White House.
Author's Note: For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Loss" challenge.

He's enjoyed the last eight years in the White House, though when he thinks about it now, he thinks most about the losses.

He lost his wife early in the first term, though he's the first to admit that he lost her a lot earlier than that, widowed her from when he took over the campaign.

He lost his anonymity when Lillienfield and his cronies had him out himself as an alcoholic; he damn near lost his job then too.

They lost votes to Republicans, lost a Vice-President. They nearly lost Josh, they did lose Mrs Landingham. They lost Sam, so innocent when he first joined the campaign, so jaded when, after losing in the California 47^th, he refused to come back to Washington, deciding that he wanted to do something different with his life.

They came close to losing the Presidency during the MS scandal, and he'd been so sure that he was going to lose the respect of everyone in Washington when he had to testify before Congress.

He'd dodged a bullet on that one, but he'd been shot through the heart at the time anyway, by a certain redheaded lawyer he'd hired. They'd had dinner on Christmas Eve, but nothing had come of it, not until he approached her for counsel after the Shareef assassination. That's when they started dating, and she spent the second Election Night on the couch in his office, dancing with him when he was free, but she broke up with him not long after that because she told him that she didn't feel like she had his whole heart.

He tried to argue with her, but he knew that she was right. It's just that unlike Jenny, work hadn't taken him away.

He couldn't give Jordan his heart because he'd already lost it, to a young blonde Republican lawyer, who'd blown into his life like a hurricane, leaving him floundering in its wake. She'd intrigued him in the interview with her strange conversational style, and she'd further intrigued him as they'd talked on her first day, and when he helped her find her office. He hadn't gone out of his way to talk to her, but fate seemed to have had other ideas, because he'd kept running into her, and he's not sure when she stole his heart, but it happened without him even knowing it.

It surprised the hell out of him when she fell for him too, but they both knew the score, both knew that they couldn't tell anyone what they were doing, that they couldn't take their relationship public. That was fine with him, and he'd thought that it was fine with her too, until the day, in the summer before the second election, that she left him, left town, without a word, only a "Dear Leo" letter.

From what he'd heard around the office, she'd accepted a partnership in Raleigh, near where she'd grown up, and was doing well there. She asked him, in her letter, not to contact her, saying it was better that way, and he respected her wishes.

It didn't mean he liked it though.

He did his best to put her out of his mind, but it didn't work, though he didn't think that anything would come of it until the last day of the administration, when Donna came into his office, pink-cheeked, mumbling something about how she shouldn't be doing this, and she'd probably be in big trouble for it, but that she knew in her heart it was the right thing to do.

When she'd left, he looked at the piece of paper she'd given him, and his heart had skipped a beat at the name and Raleigh address.

He got on the first plane that he could find on the first day of the rest of his life, and that's what brings him here, to this small suburban house with its neatly kept garden. It's why he knocks on the door with a shaking hand, and when she opens it, looking just as she did the last day he saw her, he doesn't know what to say.

"Leo!" she says, just as shocked as he. "How did you-?"

"Donna," he replies simply, cutting her off. "You look good Ainsley." She throws a look over her shoulder, and he's afraid for a moment that she has company, that Donna overstepped her bounds after all, and before she can say anything, he asks, "Can I come in?"

She's about to answer, but something disturbs her, and when he looks down, his heart stops beating. He's looking into Mallory's eyes in a young boy's face, with Ainsley's blonde hair and his smile. Realisation breaks over him like a wave, and he looks at Ainsley, her horrified face, and he can't speak.

She can. "Thomas, run inside and play," she tells the child, and his heart lurches to life at the name.

Only when the child is gone can he speak. "How old?" he asks, though he already knows the answer.

She just about manages to get the word "Four" out before she's in his arms, holding him tightly, just like he's holding her. She's whispering apologies, telling him that she did what she thought was best, and there are tears in his eyes, in his throat, choking off his voice, because he wants to tell her that he understood what she did, and why, and that as far as he's concerned, there's nothing to forgive.

He doesn't say that now though, just pulls away from her, walks into the house with her, and closes the door behind them, and he's not thinking about what he's lost any more. He's thinking about what he's gained, her, and their son, and about the rest of the lives stretching before them.

And when his son smiles a crooked smile at him, he smiles right back.