Rating: PG
Pairing: Leo/Ainsley
Spoilers: None
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Leo's angry…
Author's Note: Written for the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Colours" challenge.

Leo knew, as he stormed down the hall and into his office, slamming the door shut as he went, that the word was already going around the West Wing. That people were whispering to one another that under no circumstances should they go near the Chief of Staff's office, because something had Leo McGarry seeing red.

Not that Leo would have considered that a problem per se. After all, red was one of his favourite colours.

His wife was a redhead when he first met her, her striking tresses the first thing about Jenny that caught his attention. When Mallory was born and he saw that she had the same colouring as her mother, he was thrilled. Even Jordan, while not the brilliant red of Mallory, or Jenny in her youth, had a tinge of red in her hair. And he'd be lying if he said that Margaret's hair colour hadn't been helpful in him remembering her, the fiery red staying in his mind long after the interviews were over.

Red was a colour he loved in all its forms, but it was the one colour that neither his wife, nor his daughter ever wore. Margaret wore it from time to time, but that's Margaret. Jordan never wore red, not in all the time he was dating her.

He was always told, by the various women in his life, that redheads shouldn't wear red.

He'd heard the same thing about blondes, but that wasn't something that Ainsley believed in.

He remembered seeing her on a cold November night, when he was just coming back from Andrews, seeing the President off, and she was carrying among other things, a fan and a bag of ice, because the heating was blasting in her office. She was wearing red then, her hair caught up somehow, but he remembers noting at the time the contrast between her pale skin and the vibrant red, remembers it as striking, as striking as Jenny's hair the first day he met her.

He'd seen her a thousand times since then, and red was one of the best colours on her, though he knew he shouldn't think like that, and he knew why. He shouldn't be so interested in her, for a variety of reasons, and it didn't matter a damn that she was interested in him too, that she made that quite clear to him.

He knew that nothing could come of it, and when he called her, when he took her out to dinner on their one and only date, if it could even be called that, he told her so.

She argued with him, no surprise there. Told him she didn't care about age, about politics, about what people would say. She liked him, and she wanted to see where things might lead with them.

But he held firm, and when she walked out of the restaurant, her cheeks stained red with anger and frustration, the same red as the suit she was wearing, he found himself wondering if he'd done the right thing, before ruthlessly crushing the notion, telling himself that he had.

He'd continued thinking like that, right up until the previous night, at the State Dinner for the Irish Prime Minister. He'd been working the room, roaming hither and yon when he'd seen her. She was wearing red, a vibrant shade thereof, a stark contrast to her long blonde hair, left loose, and the way she moved, the way she smiled, made her stand out from the crowd, to his eyes anyway.

It was a good minute before he realised that Ainsley hadn't been on the guest list that he'd seen, and that realisation was the only thing that made him tear his eyes away from Ainsley, to look at the man who was on her arm.

When he realised who it was, he'd seen red in a whole other way than to do with the dress.

Ainsley was there with Congressman Fairmont.

A Democrat.

A Democrat who disagreed with every political ideal Ainsley had ever expressed, not to mention quite a few of Leo's.

A Democrat who was seven years older than Leo himself.

He knew instantly what she was doing, and why. Because people were looking at them, people were talking, and she was smiling blithely, as if she didn't have a care in the world.

Because she'd told him that she didn't care what people said about her and now here she was, proving her point.

He'd swallowed his anger, not so easy to do, and he'd tried to get her alone, tried to talk to her, but she'd avoided him at every turn.

He'd tried calling her at home later that night, but got her machine every time, and he hoped that meant that she just wasn't picking up because she was playing hard to get.

He hoped that was all it was.

The bare notion that she might be involved with Fairmont had come to him in the wee small hours of the morning, had banished any thoughts of sleep and contributed to his bad mood as he stormed through the halls of the White House.

When he slammed the door behind him, he knew that Margaret wouldn't come near him for as long as it took her to go down to the mess and find coffee, to soothe the savage beast. So he knew he had time to do what he had to do. Picking up the phone, he dialled her extension, and when she picked up, speaking her name, he didn't beat around the bush.

"It's me," he said. "Can I take you to dinner?"

There's a long pause before a slow Southern drawl fills his ear. "Why Leo," she all but purrs, and he can imagine those red lips of hers curling up in a smile. "I thought you'd never ask."