Rating: PG
Pairing: Leo/Ainsley
Spoilers: Everything up to and including Ways and Means
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: Ainsley's thoughts as Congressman Thomas announces that hearings will be held.
Author's Note: Fifth in the Inside the Tornado series - missing scenes from Ways and Means. Thanks to everyone who's sent feedback on the series thus far. This is for Heidi, for the nagging and the fast typing!

I don't think that anyone even realises that I'm here when all the Senior Staff, assistants, and anyone else who happens to be in the bullpen at this precise moment congregates around the television to watch Congressman Thomas announce that the House of Representatives is going to hold hearings into the MS Cover-up. I'm way off to the side, on the edge of the group, which I suppose is a metaphor for my time in the White House so far. I'm the lone Republican in a Democratic White House; I'm sequestered in the basement, in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue, a place where no-one goes unless they have to. I hardly see daylight and it hardly sees me. And while I'd be lying if I said it doesn't bother me, most times I can handle it. It's really only when I see the rest of the staff hanging around together, laughing, joking, generally being friendly, that I realise what I’m missing.

That sounds horribly self-pitying, I know, and the fact of the matter is that it's not like I'm a total outcast around here. I have friends, people talk to me. But there's not the closeness that I observe all around me; instead there's always been this reserve there, people have always been on their guard around me. That's the people who weren't downright hostile, like the two people who wouldn't listen to me on my first day here and sent me a very nice bouquet of flowers with a thoughtfully hand-written succinct note. Thankfully, there's not much of that.

And I was making progress, really, I was.

And then the announcement happened.

All of a sudden, I was the enemy again.

It's been getting better. It has. I think Mr Babish was a little unhappy about having me on the team still, at least he was if his barbed comments about finding the door during our first meeting after the announcement is any indication. But I held my head high and didn't blink, and I think he respected that. Certainly, he's trusted me so far, and when he told me that he was going to have me in his meetings with CJ about Clem Rollins, I knew that he at least didn't think I was any threat.

Leo laughed at me when I told him how happy I was about that. "Only you Ainsley," he told me. "Would be happy about having to spend time in a meeting with Oliver Babish."

You know, when he puts it like that, I really see what he means.

But the meeting went well, even if CJ did tend to think that Republicans had some kind of secret club that we all knew each other from. And she took even less notice of my opinion that Clem Rollins is a good man. In fact, that seemed to work her up even more.

I didn't know where she'd run off to until Leo talked to me later on that night, on one of our all-too-rare recent forays to our regular meeting place. "You've got CJ all riled up," he told me, a grin on his face, and I was more than a little confused.

"How? And what did I do?"

"She thinks he's too nice," he told me with an off-handed shrug.

"That I got," I replied. "But what…?"

"She thinks that we need to be investigated by someone who, and I quote here, wants to kill us just to watch us die."

"CJ's a Johnny Cash fan?" I asked surprised, waving my hand when he looked at me, mystified. Then I remembered CJ's press conference from that day, where she was so glib with the reporters, so relaxed and at ease, and it hit me. "She's talking about the House of Representatives."

Leo leaned back in his chair, his cake forgotten, a smile on his face, looking for all the world like the cat that got the canary. "Yep."

"She thinks that the Special Prosecutor is too nice…" I marvelled, amazed. "So she's going to goad the House of Representatives into appointing hearings?"

That smile never wavered. "Yep."

"Can she do that?"

He chuckled. "CJ can do anything she puts her mind to Ainsley," he told me. "She's quite the operative."

Not that that was any great news to me. I'd long been an admirer of CJ's since working in the White House; in fact, I remember watching her being inundated with questions at the press conference following the MS announcement. I was in Mr Babish's office and I couldn't imagine having to face all that. Her face was literally leeched of colour by all the flash bulbs going off, and the calls of her name were deafening even over the television. I knew without having to think too hard about it that I could never do her job, and I was amazed that she was holding it together as well as she was.

The next day, when she made that gaffe about the President being relieved, I knew the toll that it would take on her. She's a pro, she knows her stuff, she knew what that was going to play like. And when I heard that Leo benched her for the briefing on Haiti, I was sitting in my office and I winced. Because I know what it's like to be a woman working in a boy's club, and I knew how long it was going to take her to get back the respect that she'd lost in there, and I knew how people were going to take it that Leo had benched her. As an indication that she couldn't do her job, that he didn't have confidence in her.

I thought he was wrong and I told him so. In fact, we had our first cross words over it.

But we made up, and we're fine now.

Although I did almost throw things at him when I got home from doing my latest stint on Capitol Beat. I went back to his place that night, letting myself in, and found him on the couch, his legs propped up on the table, pages and pages of briefing memos on his lap. When he heard me coming, he didn't move, but he looked up and took his glasses off and smiled up at me. "Hey," he says. "Nice performance."

I felt myself turning red, but a pleased shade of red. "You saw it?" I asked, sitting down beside him and leaning over to kiss him quickly.

"Wouldn't miss it. And-" He gestured to the VCR. "I taped it for you."

"Thank you."

"No problem. I'm sure your oh-so-Republican father will be thrilled to see his oh-so-Republican daughter espousing the White House position and baiting the House of Representatives live on air."

I closed my eyes and groaned, because Lord indeed knows what Daddy will make of this when he sees it, or hears about it. Maybe I just won't tell him. "You're getting way too much fun out of this," I told him, and he laughed, setting his papers down on the table and putting his arm around me.

"I take my fun where I can get it," he told me, and I swatted his chest playfully before resting my head on his shoulder and curling my legs up underneath me.

"You really think that we can pull this off?" I asked him quietly.

"Us? Or the House of Representatives?"

"The House." Because we're good, and there's no need to talk about that.

"After your performance tonight? I think we're going to be just fine," he told me.

And he was right. That's why we're all here now after all. CJ's plan worked to perfection, and I feel pretty damn good that she trusted me to help her, that I was able to do something constructive instead of just reading memos and dishing whatever dirt I'd picked up in my secret Republican club. We watch the conclusion of the press conference and as everyone is breaking up and going along their way, I see a familiar face, someone I want to talk to.

"Donna, hey." Is it my imagination or does she look a little less than happy to see me right now? "How did it go?"

It's definitely not my imagination. Her eyes dart from left to right nervously and she wraps her arms around her middle. "Not here," she says to me.

"My office?"

"Five minutes."

I head straight down to my basement, wondering what could possibly have gone wrong. I didn't plan to fix Donna up with Cliff. Well, I did, but it wasn't something that I've been planning for months or anything like that. The idea actually came to me when Cliff and I met for dinner one night last week. We try to do that once a month; after all, we've known each other for years. We met at Harvard when he and I were paired for mock trial, and we've been friends ever since. Not anything more than that, although my ex-fiancé, Simon the Jackass, occasionally made other insinuations. He really was a jackass. Cliff hated him, just as much as my college room-mate Cassie. They bonded over their mutual hatred of him, and that really should have been my first hint that the man with whom I was pledged to spend the rest of my life might not have been the man for me.

Anyway, my point was that Cliff and I are friends. Great friends, nothing more. We were at his place, working our way through a bag of takeout from our favourite Thai place - although it must be pointed out that as per usual, I was working harder than he was - when he asked me the question. "So, spill the beans. Who is he?"

I was chewing on a mouthful of chicken at the time and I may have choked on it, thus subverting the impact of my wide-eyed and innocent look. "Pardon me?" I managed to choke out, hoping against hope that he'd put the redness of my cheeks down to my coughing fit and oxygen deprivation.

Although, I must say from the way that he was laughing at my predicament, he might not even have noticed. "Who is he? The guy that you've been mooning over the last couple of months."

"I have not been mooning," I protested, although I don't know why I bothered. Cliff knows me far too well, and he can see through me like glass. He's seen me at my best, and he's also seen me at my worst, mainly when I was devastated over my break-up with Simon the Jackass. Let's not forget that this is the man who actually ran out to the store to buy me a box of tissues because I'd gone through an entire box and there was no end in sight to my sobbing. He wouldn't even take the money for them from me when he came back, and he'd bought two pints of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream with him too.

Is that not the mark of a true friend?

So believe me when I say that this is a man who knows me inside and out. He knows when I'm seeing someone and when I'm not. And besides, I kinda had been mooning, so that was a bit of a moot point.

"You have too," he told me, wagging his finger at me. "And I want to know who he is."

"There's no-one," I told him again, and I knew that he didn't believe me. And Cliff being Cliff, he didn't give up, and Cliff being Cliff he hit partial paydirt on the very next question. I just have that kind of luck.

"He's not a Democrat is he?" My face must have registered my disbelief and shock, because his jaw dropped open, and then he began to laugh. "He is!"

I let him laugh. And laugh. I considered throwing something at him, but since the only thing near to me was Thai food that was frankly too good to waste, I settled for trying to talk him around. "Are you going to sit there and laugh at me all night?"

"Have you told your father?" he asked me, when he could talk again, and I shook my head, the thought of what my father would say to me almost making me lose my appetite, not to mention whatever too-good-to-waste Thai food I'd just consumed. And I guess Cliff must have seen that because he stopped laughing and leaned over, putting his hand on top of mine. "Ainsley, I'm sorry."

"It's ok," I told him, smiling as brightly as I could. "Really, I'm fine."

"Are you?" he asked me, and I couldn't look at him. "This isn't going to be like Simon the Jackass is it?"

Despite myself, I laughed. Cliff was the one who came up with that nickname one Saturday night with too much tequila when Cassie was in town for a visit. She'd encouraged him, and between them, they'd come up with several plans of revenge against him. The amount of planned blood spillage was directly proportional to the amount of tequila consumed. "It won't be Cliff. I mean, it's early days … but he's a nice guy…a good man."

Cliff nodded. "Yeah…well. He'd better be."

I knew from the tone of his voice that that would be the end of that line of questioning, so I judged that it was my turn to pump him for information. "Heard from Susan lately?"

He grinned ruefully at that. "It's over Ainse," he told me. "You know that."

"And there's no hope?"

"Not according to her new boyfriend."

"Ah." And that's when the idea hit me.

Cliff was a little sceptical when I suggested it to him at first. "Just because you're discovering the joys of bipartisan dating doesn't mean that I should too," he told me.

Of course, he reckoned without my persuasive charms. "She's a nice girl Cliff, you'll love her. She's sweet, and kind and smart, she's pretty…I think you'd be good together."

It took a while, but I got him to agree to let me talk to Donna on his behalf. I'd arranged to meet Leo at the place that night, and told him all about Cliff and my plan to fix him up with Donna. Imagine my surprise when he wasn't sure if it was a good idea either. "You're fixing Donna up with a Republican?" he asked.

"No, I'm fixing Donna up with Cliff."

"You think they'll get along?"

"I think they'll get along great. Cliff's a terrific guy Leo. And Donna deserves more in life than to go from her apartment to work and back again, pining over a guy who's totally oblivious to her."

There was a slight smile hovering around the edge of his lips. "I don't think he's oblivious."

"Me either," I agreed. "But she's his assistant. Nothing can come of it."

He sighed. "I know."

"You think they'll ever figure it out?"

"Part of me hopes they do. Donna's a good kid; she's good for Josh. And God knows, he deserves some happiness after all he's been through. The rest of me…" His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

"Knows that it's a disaster waiting to happen," I finished, reaching across the table to take his hand.

"Yeah."

I tried not to think of what would happen if people found out about us, about the press column inches that that would generate, but I didn't do so well, and from the look on his face, I had a pretty good idea that his thoughts were heading in the same direction. "Hey," I said, squeezing his hand to get his attention. "It'll all work out."

He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I know. It's just… be careful, ok?"

"It's just a date Leo," I told him. "Cliff's a great person, Donna's a great person, they're both free and single … what could possibly go wrong?"

His lips turned up into a funny little smile. "Just remember what they say about the road to hell."

Maybe it's just the surroundings now that has my stomach twisting as I remember the look on his face as he said those words. It's easy to be optimistic when we're in that coffeehouse where we've spent so many nights, when we're at my place or his, when I'm wrapped in his arms. When I'm away from him, when my worst fears are given time to run rampant through my mind, when all I can see is the look of worry on his face and the look of dread on Donna's, it's a different story.

I'm so lost in thought that I just when there's a knock on my door and Donna slides in. I force a smile to my face. "Well? How'd it go?"

I expect her to sit down, but she doesn't, instead pacing restlessly. "Great. You were right about him Ainsley. He's funny and he's smart and he's cute and he listens…"

"Where's the catch?" Did Josh Lyman suddenly get a clue?

"You didn't tell me where he works."

I frown. "I did. For the Republican Majority, on Ways and Means."

Donna shakes her head, looking stricken. "Not any more. Not after this week." I still have no idea what she's talking about, so she elaborates. "Ainsley, he's being transferred. To House Government Reform and Oversight."

My stomach heaves violently as the words sink in. I can't imagine why Cliff didn't mention this to me. Maybe he didn't know when I first fixed him up with Donna. Maybe he never made the connection. And after all, why should he? As far as he was concerned, the White House was under investigation by an independent Special Prosecutor. He wasn't to know that CJ and I were working behind the scenes to ensure that the House got a crack at us, wasn't to know that we welcomed a bloodletting. The image of Congressman Thomas standing in front of the press promising just that comes to my mind, and I have to close my eyes.

And when I'm able to think again, my first thought is to wonder how and what I'm going to tell Leo.

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