Old Habit, New Reason

Pairing: Leo/Ainsley

Rating: PG

Word Count: 452

Notes: For the LiveJournal multifandom1000 “secret marriage” challenge.

 

Sometimes, in times of stress and agitation – and in the White House, that is more often than not – Leo reverts to an old habit.

 

Not to the old habit that everyone worries about. Not for him the booze and the pills of a decade ago.

 

But when Leo is stressed, or agitated, or when he is ruminating on a complicated issue, sometimes, he will find himself with his right thumb and forefinger on the fourth finger of his left hand, twisting his wedding ring.

 

Most of the time, he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. Only when he catches someone looking at him, at his hands, does he stop, folding his arms over his chest, using every trick he knows to keep a guilty blush from creeping up his cheeks.

 

He sees the questions in other’s eyes, know that when they catch him in the act, they are reminded that he and Jenny are long since divorced, that Jenny has remarried, that there is no hope of them ever reconciling. He knows they wonder why he still wears his wedding ring.

 

They don’t know it’s not Jenny’s ring.

 

They don’t know that every time he touches it, he remembers a small wedding chapel in suburban Maryland, just him and Ainsley and a couple of strangers for witnesses. He remembers thinking that she deserved better than that, that she should have the wedding every little girl dreams of, and he remembers how she squeezed his hand on the way there, told him that she just wanted him.

 

He remembers the simple white dress, how her diamond engagement ring – usually kept on a chain around her neck – caught the light. He remembers how small her hand was in his, how it shook when she slid the ring on his finger, and he remembers how they drove back to Washington, how they dance in his hotel suite.

 

He thinks of their life together, spent in secret, nights split between his suite and her apartment. How difficult it is to lie to everyone around them, yet how they both know that it’s necessary, because even if she doesn’t work for him any more, even if she’s left the White House, the last thing the Bartlet Administration needs now is any sense of scandal.

 

And he thinks of the day that they’ll be able to share their secret, the day he’ll be able to announce to the world that Ainsley is his wife, the day that they’ll be able to do something as simple as walk down the street hand in hand, without worrying about secrecy and prying eyes.

 

He waits for that day, and he knows that she agrees with him – it can’t come soon enough.