Rating: PG
Spoilers: Everything up to Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
Feedback: Makes my day
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 plans on a Thursday night
Author's Note: Apologies for the delay in posting this - I had a Stargate con to attend and stars to freak out, and then sleep to catch up on!

Coffee is looking very good to me right now, and that's why I make a beeline for the coffeepot as I enter the mess, looking neither to the left nor to the right. It's been a long week, one where I've been working on language for the Helsinki summit, language that for a while, although I wasn't supposed to know it, had a better than excellent chance of never seeing the light of day. Leo told me last night during one of our late night phone chats that there was a problem, that the summit might not be going ahead, although he didn't tell me the reasons why. Nor did I ask; after all, if the President is backing out of an international summit at the eleventh hour, it's not because there's something good on television and he can't work a VCR.

That being said, it's now Thursday afternoon, and no word has come down yet, which means that I guess the summit is still on. Which is good, I suppose, because if I had spent all this time and all this energy working on something that would soon be redundant, I would not be best pleased.

When I fill my mug with steaming nectar of the Gods - which is a better indication of my state of mind than anything; the swill that they insist on feeding us as coffee here is neither nectar nor Godlike - I hear a voice calling my name, and when I turn, I see Donna sitting at a table on her own, coffee and a slice of some sort of cake in front of her. She motions to the chair across from her, lifting an eyebrow, and I don't have to think for very long before I grab a muffin from the hamper and head over to her. "Hey," I say, sinking down into the chair gratefully, smiling at her. "How are you?"

"Don't ask," she says with a groan, rolling her eyes. "The sooner they all go off to Helsinki, the better."

I chuckle. "Is it that bad?"

"Not really," she allows. "Just the usual merriment and hi-jinks that occur prior to an international event of this magnitude." Then she pauses, tilting her head as if something has just occurred to her. "Although I'm just wondering how I'd know the difference…" Her eyes narrow in suspicion, but I can see that laughter is bubbling underneath the surface, and it's much closer to the surface with me.

"You'll be fine," I tell her, peeling the casing off my muffin.

"You know," she continues, peering thoughtfully into the distance. "I can remember when I used to have friends. An actual life outside this place. When interaction was not based upon bills and summits and what utter asses our bosses are being."

I arch an eyebrow, because I'm willing to bet that's not any time since I've been working here. "Really?"

She holds my gaze for a second, then her lower lip sticks out in a pout. "No," she admits, but before long, we're both smiling.

"So, I was talking to Cliff…" I tease, drawing out his name, and I'm rewarded by the slight blush that appears on her cheeks.

"And?" She's not looking at me, running a finger around the rim of her mug, and I fight back a smile.

"And he was telling me that the two of you are seeing one another again?" I haven't talked to Donna about Cliff since their initial date, because I can still see Donna's face when she came to my office to tell me that he'd been transferred to House Government Reform and Oversight. Leo warned me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and he definitely had a point on that one. I knew, both from Cliff and Donna, that they weren't going to see one another again, and I knew from Leo, and from some loose talk around the White House that Josh and Donna weren't getting on as well as they normally did, and I had my own theories as to why.

But then Josh started sniffing around Amy Gardner, and I heard, also on the grapevine, that Donna had herself a lawyer boyfriend that she thought was a really nice guy, and I didn't have to think too hard to consider who it might be. Cliff told me that he didn't want to tell me about it when it was initially happening because of the whole situation with Leo, so they were back together for a while when he came clean to me. I smacked him around the head and told me not to keep me in the dark the next time. He told me that he hoped there wouldn't be a next time.

I'm just wondering if he's told Donna this, which is why I'm having this conversation with her now.

"Maybe." Her voice takes on an evasive quality, and I lean closer across the table.

"Donna, this is me you're talking to," I remind her. "Cliff is my friend; I fixed you two up. What, you think I'm going to start lecturing you about gomers?"

Her lips curve up in a smile. "OK…" Well, that was easier than I thought. "We've been seeing each other since just before the State of the Union."

"And?" That much I knew.

"He's funny, he's sweet, he's nice…after they stopped the hearings, there just didn't seem to be any reason not to see him, you know? So we went out for dinner…and we had a nice time." A blush spreads across her cheeks, and her eyes take on a distinctly dreamy look. "He's a great guy."

"I told you that." I'm grinning like the cat that got the cream here, because that's much what Cliff told me. He went into more detail, telling me that he did as I told him that day that he asked me to talk to Leo; he called Josh's office to talk to him. When Josh blocked him, he went to Donna, and she talked to him, and then to Josh about the deal that was being offered. I don't like to think about that particular night much, what happened when Leo came home, but I do recall that he mentioned a meeting with Josh, then the President, so I guess that Josh must have talked to him about it. Then of course, the bottom fell out of my world, and Cliff was trying to help me through that, and I didn't get to ask him too many questions about what was said.

"Yes, you did." Her voice interrupts my thoughts, and I realise that I zoned out on her for a moment there. "I owe you a big thank you."

I shrug. "You can buy me dinner sometime."

Her eyes grow wide in mock dismay. "I don't make that much money," she deadpans, and I burst out laughing. She joins me, but she sobers quickly, and it's then I realise that she's giving me what I usually refer to as "the look of friendly concern." Cassie's got it down to a fine art, as does Cliff, but I've never seen it on Donna's face before. "Ainsley, I don't know if it's my place to say…"

Her voice is slow, measured, and I have a good idea where this conversation is heading. "Say it."

"Cliff told me that you were having a hard time…something about a guy?" I swallow hard, nodding, not meeting her gaze. "Look, I know it's none of my business, and you probably don't want to talk about it, but just…you know…if you do…"

"Thanks Donna," I tell her after a second. "There is someone." No harm in admitting that much; I'm just not telling her the name. "We had a bit of a rough time at Christmas…but I think we're getting better now." That's not true. I know that we're getting better. We're talking again, we're sharing confidences, we're getting back to where we were. We're not at the point where we're spending the nights together again yet, but it's getting close, I know it is.

"Where does Sam fit in?" Donna wonders, and I blink at the question. She sees that and instantly gets a look of regret on her face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"It's ok." I sigh, trying to frame an answer. "Sam…Sam's a friend. And a nice guy. He asked me out at a time that I was feeling very upset, and very down…I shouldn't have said yes. I should have explained the situation to him. But I didn't. Not until he arrived to pick me up."

She winces. "How did he take it?"

I shake my head in amazement. "Pretty well actually. He's a great guy." I run my finger around the rim of my cup. "And anyone would be lucky to date him. But he's not the one I'm in love with."

Donna's eyes get huge, and it's then that I realise what I've said. I shrug, trying to affect nonchalance. "Wow," she murmurs. "And you never told me?"

I force a chuckle to the surface, squirming uncomfortably in my seat. I've talked to precisely three people about my relationship with Leo - Cliff, Cassie and Sam. Cliff and Cassie both found out due to circumstances. Sam, on the other hand, has no idea who the man in question is, just that it's serious between us. He didn't ask who it was; I don't think he really wanted to know. I also don't think that Donna would have the same viewpoint. To her, it would be all-important who he is, and there's no way I can tell her, certainly not now and definitely not here. "It's complicated," I tell her, hoping that she'll get the undercurrent in my voice, and bless her, it seems like she does, because her eyes widen slightly in acknowledgement.

"Say no more," she tells me, leaving me breathing a sigh of relief.

"So," I ask her after a second. "What else is going on?"

"Aside from Helsinki, the only other thing we're all talking about is CJ."

I frown. "CJ?" I know that she did the briefing on Monday morning and excoriated Saudi Arabia, I also know that there was some fallout from that, emails and faxes and the like, but I haven't heard about anything specific.

Donna nods, her face sober, troubled, and, I must say, not a little fearful. "She got death threats," she tells me, whispering, and I feel myself blanche.

"Over the press briefing?"

"That's what we thought," Donna shrugs. "But Ron Butterfield says no. The President assigned her Secret Service protection, starting today." She looks from left to right, leaning closer, conspiratorially. "The guy sent photos to her…he's been stalking her, he's been feet away from her."

A shudder runs through me. "Oh my God," I murmur. "Is she ok?"

"Acting like it's no big deal," Donna reports, with a disapproving purse of her lips. "She wasn't even going to report them. She showed them to me, and then got pissed with me because I called Josh."

"You did the right thing," I tell her, and she nods.

"I know. I just…" She pauses, taking a deep breath and looking away. When she looks back at me, to my great surprise, I see tears in her eyes. "I couldn't take another Rosslyn. You know?"

I wasn't there; I wasn't even working here at that time. But I can easily imagine how that must have affected everyone; no-one as much as Josh and Donna. "Yeah," I whisper. "I know."

Donna visibly shakes herself, smiling too brightly at me. "Anyway. Do you have anything nice planned for the evening? Something that would involve not being in the White House?"

I feel my smile tighten. "Yeah," I say slowly. "My father's girlfriend is in town. She's a high school teacher, and she's one of the chaperones on a field trip here. She called me, wanting to know if we could meet up, so we're going for dinner later."

"Your father's girlfriend?" Donna's shocked tone of voice and amazed expression makes me realise just how that sounds, and I hasten to explain myself.

"My mother died when my sister and I were little," I tell her. "And Daddy's never really dated anyone serious since then. Then he met Clara, and they began to see one another, and he introduced her to the family at Christmas."

Donna's nodding, but even I can hear the strain in my voice when I recall those holiday days. "What's she like?"

"She's terrific," I say honestly. "She's funny, and she's bright, and she's crazy about Daddy. And he's crazy about her."

"But?"

"She's two years older than I am. She was in the same class as Nat - my sister." Donna's jaw drops, and I chuckle. "Nat was furious, couldn't understand how he'd do something like that. We all went out for dinner and it was so uncomfortable…Nat did everything but accuse her of being after my father's money."

"How do you feel about her?"

I would never, because I'm the last person who should, cast aspersions on a woman's choice to go out with a man who is old enough to be her father. Hence, I was more than willing to give Clara a chance. More than that though, I actually did like Clara; I even took her out to lunch after that first dinner.

Which lead to a huge fight with Nat, which we're still recovering from, and the subject of Daddy and Clara is taboo for us. I dread to think what she'll say when she finds out that we're going out tonight.

"I like her," I tell Donna now. "I can't remember the last time I saw my father so happy. And that's more important than anything else."

Donna opens her mouth to speak, but when she does, her lips don't move, and her voice sounds exactly like Josh bellowing "Donnatella Moss!" We both jump in surprise, turning to see Josh standing at the door of the mess, one hand on his hip, glaring at us. Donna holds up her index finger, telling him she'll just be a minute, then she turns back to me. "I've got to go before he blows a gasket," she mutters, but she takes her sweet time clearing the table. "Enjoy your evening."

I give her a smile, but as I watch her walk away, the smile fades from my face. Shaking myself to dislodge any nerves that might be trying to settle, I follow her lead, gathering what remains of my muffin and coffee and head back to my office. There, I work until it's time for me to go to meet Clara.

We spend much of our time with her telling me where she's been ferrying the kids to, and what they've been getting up to, with the obligatory reminiscing of what we were like at that age. Of course, as I remind her, I was never like that, because Gramma would have killed me dead. She asks me what I've been doing with myself, and she tells me all the news from home, and it's then that we get on to the subject of my family. Daddy, she tells me, is fine, not that I expected to hear anything else.

"And how is Natasha?" I ask, and a wry grin appears at the corner of her lips.

"Your sister," she drawls. "Refuses to acknowledge my presence in your father's life. She will not allow my name to be spoken in conversation. She will not listen to him, and tells him so, rather loudly, if he mentions me. The pronoun 'we' sends her blood pressure soaring." Despite the words, her eyes are dancing. "As I'm sure you well know."

"She has intimated such feelings to me," I confess. "I just didn't want to…"

"Hurt my feelings?" Clara shrugs. "It's nothing I haven't heard before. Several hundred times. You weren't the first ones to find out about the two of us Ainsley. Nor was Natasha's reaction the most explosive." She grins at me, but it fades quickly. "One does not get involved with a man considerably older, and not get used to those reactions."

Those words strike a chord with me, and I grimace involuntarily. "I would guess not," I murmur.

My reaction has her narrowing her eyes. "Are you all right Ainsley?"

"Sure." I take a bite of my meal, but it seems to have lost a goodly portion of its flavour. I push another forkful around the plate, concentrating hard on it before I take another bite. Only then do I look up at Clara, to see her eyes still narrowed, a frown on her face.

"You know," she says, almost conversationally. "Your father gets that exact same look on his face when he's not being entirely honest with me." I must look surprised, because she laughs. "He gets that look when I call him on it too." Her mirth is infectious, and I find myself giggling with her. When we both sober, she leans back in her chair, arching an eyebrow. "Might I conclude, from that look on your face, that you would know something of the perils and pitfalls of dating an older man?"

I hesitate for a second before I surprise myself by answering with the truth. "Yes."

Clara's eyes sparkle. "And might I similarly conclude that this is a current experience?"

"You might."

Clara holds my gaze for all of six seconds before she begins to giggle again. "Well, at least I know why you were so supportive of us," she manages. "I take it Jim doesn't know about this?"

My eyes bug out in shock at the mere thought, and I shake my head violently. "No!" I take a sip of water before I continue. "I considered telling him at Christmas, but I rather thought, what with Nat's reaction and all, that he had enough with which to contend. Then after Christmas…" My throat constricts painfully, and I take another sip of water in an attempt to clear it. "We had some problems. We're working our way past them, but it's not easy."

She nods slowly. "It never is."

"Clara, I want to be clear on something…this isn't just a fling. We are serious…it's just…"

"Complicated," she supplies helpfully.

"Yeah," I sigh, as she echoes the very word that I used with Donna earlier. "It's complicated."

"But worth it?" she asks. Her voice is gentle, a smile on her face, and when I look into her eyes, it's understanding that I see there. It makes me wonder what kind of issues she and my father have faced; makes me realise that they're just as serious as Leo and I are.

I told Donna that she makes my father happy, that they're crazy about each other. And no matter how much stuff they've had to put up with, from friends, from family, from people who don't even know them, they're still going strong, no matter how complicated it is. Because to them, it's worth it.

It's worth it to me as well. Leo's worth it. I try to tell Clara as much, but I can't speak past this sudden lump in my throat, so I just nod. She sees that and smiles, reaches across and lays a hand on my arm, grinning at me, then changes the subject to something more innocuous.

When dinner is finished, and we've treated ourselves to coffee and dessert, she stretches slightly in her seat, invites me for a drink back at her hotel. I consider, for a brief moment, saying yes, because I've had a lovely evening, and I don't really want it to end just yet. But then I shake my head, declining the invitation, citing a previous engagement. "There's somewhere I have to be," I tell her, and she smiles in understanding. I put her into a cab, amid hugs and promises to call, and she tells me, with a sly smile, to enjoy the rest of my night.

I know that she thinks I'm off for a night of passion with my boyfriend.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

Instead, I get in my car and drive to a small church on the other side of the city, all but deserted at this time of night. It's a while since I've been here, since just after Christmas as a matter of fact, but when I walk into the room, I remember some of the faces, and I smile at those who nod and smile at me, taking a seat at the back of the group. I thought that I might be late, but I'm in time to hear the chairperson, if that's the correct term, I've never really been sure, read out the Twelve Steps, then announce the topic for tonight's meeting. One by one, people begin to stand up and talk, and I half-listen, my mind wandering slightly.

I first started coming to these meetings in the summer of last year, and I never told Leo about them. He thought that while he was at his "card games" I was working, or hanging out at home, or with friends. He never knew that while he sat in a small room at OEOB, I was sitting in an Al-Anon meeting, listening to stories from other people who were involved in some way with alcoholics. I know that Leo's not drinking any more, but at that point, in the first flush after the MS disclosure, he was going from work to home and doing very little else. He looked like hell, and sometimes I felt that Margaret and I were the only ones keeping his body and soul together. I knew that he wasn't going to fall off the wagon; in my heart and in my soul, I did know that. But there was still a tiny part of me that was very afraid that he might, and I didn't know how to handle him, what I should do, what I should say, to make that less likely.

Which is why one day I found myself hunting through the phone book, looking up a number, finding a nice, understanding voice at the other end, who told me when the next meeting was. I didn't go to that one, but I screwed up my courage and went to the one after that, not sure of what to expect. I walked into this very room feeling scared and out of my depth, but when I walked out, I knew that there were other people who were feeling the same way I was, who were in the same position that I was, and that there were people I could turn to for help, if I needed it.

Those meetings became important to me that long summer, and even more so in the winter, when he had that meeting with Adam Adamley, and began to wake up in the middle of the night, full of memories that he couldn't tell me about. And again when the news of when he'd have to testify came, and he was so worried. I knew that there was something eating at him, but it took until Christmas Eve to find out what it was. I was so worried with him all over Christmas, and went to my last meeting a couple of days before he told me about what happened on Christmas Eve between him and Jordan Kendall.

This is the first night I've been back here since then.

Just like the first night, when I walked in, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it help me? Would I hear something that made sense to me, that spoke to me?

Midway through the meeting, a woman stands up. I've never seen her before, but there are tears on her face, and her eyes are red. She talks about what her life was like before her husband stopped drinking, and what it's like now. "Sometimes," she says, "It's harder than it was when he was drinking. Then I'd know what to expect. Something was bothering him, he'd crawl into a bottle, and that's how he'd deal with things. And I would shout, or scream, or cry, or try not to scare the kids. I lived with that for so long that now when there's something bothering him, I almost don't know how to talk to him. And there are times when he doesn't know how to talk to me either. So neither of us talk about what we're feeling, and there are these long silences…and it kills me, because there are times when I feel like we're getting so close to one another…and then there are times when it seems like we're further apart than ever."

By the time she reaches that point, I'm staring at her, eyes wide, and I can feel tears rising up in my throat. Because that could be me that's talking up there. It's what Leo and I are going through exactly.

"There are times when I wonder what we're doing," she continues. "If maybe we shouldn't have called it quits a long time ago. But I love him, and I want it to work. So I talk to him, or I try to get him to talk to me. And it's not easy, but we're working on it. And I know we're going to get there."

She sits down then, and I run her words through my mind before standing up and leaving the hall, knowing that there's somewhere else that I need to be.

It's late when I get home, and the red light is blinking on my answering machine. There's one from Daddy, just calling to chat, another clipped one from Nat, and I'm guessing that she's had a chat with Daddy. The next one is from Leo. "Ainsley, it's me. Just calling to see if you were home. I'll talk to you later." Then a click, and he's gone.

I feel a smile come to my face as I pick up the phone, pressing a button and listening to the dial tone. I kick off my shoes, curling up on the couch as the phone rings, and when he answers, I feel a slow knot of tension begin to unfurl in the pit of my stomach, floating away like cigarette smoke. "Hey," I say. "How are you?"

"Good," he says, and I can tell that he's smiling too. "You were out late. Dinner must've gone well then?"

"Clara's really great," I tell him, choosing to let him keep believing that that's who I was with all night. "We had a nice time."

There's a chuckle on the other end of the line. "How's Nat going to take that?"

I groan, rolling my eyes for good measure. "There was a message on my machine from her when I got home," I say. "I rather think that perhaps Daddy might have let something slip to her."

"Now that's a conversation I don't want any part of," he teases, and I chuckle.

"You and me both." I stretch my legs out on the cushions, flexing my toes, my feet killing me after a long day. "How did things go with Jake Kimball today?" I know that his old friend was coming to the White House today, to talk about the problem with his company, and I know that Leo's been stressing all week on how best to handle it. We've talked round and round in circles on the best thing to do, and Leo had a deal to take to the President.

"The President wouldn't guarantee the loan," Leo tells me, and I can feel my heart sink.

"Oh, babe…"

"He went one better. Told Jake that he could keep his government contract. There are conditions of course; he can't make any more contributions, and there are issues with spin that we have to work out, but it's the best we can do."

"I'm glad for you," I tell him, because I know how much that meant to him. "How are preparations for the summit going?"

"Sam saved the day," he tells me. "They're heading out at seven p.m. tomorrow, so things should be quiet around here this weekend. Maybe we can meet for dinner?"

A full-blown beaming smile spreads across my face, and I don't hesitate before answering. "I'd love to."

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