Rating: PG
Spoilers: Everything up to The Black Vera Wang
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: Dinner with honesty for dessert
Author's Note: 22^nd in the Inside the Tornado series - two more to go!

The rain is coming down thick and fast tonight, and I get nicely damp during the short sprint from the sidewalk where my guy drops me off to the front door of my apartment building. Once there, I don't linger long, just long enough to drop my briefcase beside the coat-stand before turning right around and leaving again, although I do stop long enough to grab an umbrella.

Puddles of water pool along the pavement, water splashing around my ankles as I walk, making me shiver, and I'm grateful that it's not a long walk to this coffeehouse; otherwise, I'd be regretting not getting my guy to stop there. As I walk through the rain though, I can't help thinking about another night that I walked here in the rain, although then I'd no umbrella, and I really didn't care. Nor did I care about the water splashing on my trouser legs, in fact, I don't think that I even felt it. After all, I was walking on air.

That was the night that I waited for her at our regular table, the night that when I saw her, I picked her up, swung her around, and kissed her in front of everyone. That was the night that we thought we had the world at our feet, the night that the President announced that he was going to run for re-election, right at the start of our relationship.

Almost a year ago now.

I can't believe all that's changed in a year, or how much has stayed the same.

We're back to where we were, sharing phone calls and conversations, late night meetings at the coffeehouse, which we've long since been referring to as just "The Place". I'm walking her to her car, kissing her on the cheek, maybe pulling her into my arms for a long minute before I watch the taillights of her car disappearing from sight.

I guess that I shouldn't be ungrateful for that; after all, considering where we were a couple of months ago, when she wasn't even looking at me, let alone talking to me, this is a vast improvement. It's just that we've had more than that, much more than that, and I want it back again. I want us back the way that we were. And it's not about sex, or anything like that. It's about being close to her, feeling like there was nothing between us, being able to hold her and watch her sleep. Listening to her turn the air blue when the alarm went off in the morning, watching her as she slept in my arms, noting the way that she'd frown in concentration when she was reading something, not even noticing what she was doing until I'd reach over, with a smile on my face, and try to rub the frown lines away.

It's missing the thousand little things that no-one else but me knows about her.

It's wanting to see those things, to know them first hand again.

Things might be going better between us if it weren't for the fact that the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, worse than normal. Our numbers aren't looking great on the re-election front, and only a couple of weeks ago, we were seriously looking at replacing Hoynes on the ticket. Then we managed to dodge a bullet on the Helsinki summit when it looked as if the President was going to have to cancel. We were so sure that the Russians were giving Iran the bomb, and we were right, and there was no way, under those circumstances, that the President could go. That is, until Sam walked into the Oval Office with the answer in his hands and a smile on his face, and even if I have been harbouring less than friendly thoughts towards him, since the whole Ainsley thing, I have to admit, the boy done good.

That was almost enough to lift our spirits, to make us forget about the death threats against CJ, the fact that she had a Secret Service agent following her around the whole time.

And then this week, we found out something even worse than that. Not only were there death threats being issued against CJ, there was a credible threat against America. Fitz and the National Security team had identified several targets that they thought were at risk, including the White House. I had to talk to the President about the possibility of going down to the bunker, something he was adamant that he wasn't going to do. And I had to tell him that he should get himself into a mental place where he could order any unidentified plane over the White House shot down. I was in and out of the Situation Room, reading briefing memo after briefing memo about the worst case scenarios.

None of those worst case scenarios came close to including what we found out today though. That the attack was planned for the West Coast, that the target was none of the ones that was on our list. That the target was the Golden Gate Bridge. Bad enough that it took getting lucky to find out about it, to foil it, but to know that the Qumari Defence Minister, he who is supposedly our ally, the man who is supposedly helping us to stamp out terrorism, may well have been one of the masterminds of the attack, was a blow far worse than any we might have considered.

Plus, there was this thing about the videotape. The first I heard about it was Sunday night when they got back from Helsinki. Sam, Josh and CJ appeared in my office about it, but they didn't show it to me, just told me that it was out there. I told them to get with Bruno about it, and they did, and that should have been the end of it. I asked Bruno about it when I saw him on Tuesday, and he didn't give me any of the details, save that I didn't want to see it on television.

Twenty-four hours later, that's just what happened.

I got the whole story from CJ, and again, at a much greater volume, from Bruno. I didn't talk to Sam about it, but then again, I didn't need to. His whole demeanour on Wednesday afternoon and today spoke volumes; quiet, despondent Sam Seaborn, not making eye contact with anyone, is not a sight that's usually seen around the West Wing. Bruno came down on him pretty hard, and after everything that's happened over the last year, he's feeling it more than he otherwise might have.

It's been one hell of a week, and Margaret all but shoved me out the door tonight when it came time to go to my meeting. I wasn't going to go; in case anything came up that would need me in the Situation Room, but she insisted, and I think she might have reminded Charlie, who spoke to the President, because he came into my office, threatening to issue me with a Presidential order if I tried to skip it. Knowing when I was beaten, I headed out to OEOB, having extracted from him a promise that if anything did come up, he'd page me. But nothing did, and the meeting actually did seem to help me, rebalance me in some way. I didn't realise how much I actually needed that right now.

The only thing I need more than that is her.

What with all that's been going on this week, there's no way that I would have got through it were it not for the fact that I had memories of our weekend to keep me sane. Just like memories of our Thanksgiving together, shut off from the world, got me through the build-up to the Congressional hearings more or less intact, memories of the weekend did the same this week.

When I called her last Thursday, I suggested that we get dinner some time last weekend, telling her that since everyone was going to Helsinki that things were bound to be pretty quiet. I expected lightning to strike me for a moment, certainly thought that I'd jinxed things, but to my surprise, we really did have a quiet weekend. The plane left more or less on time, and I was out of the White House early Friday evening. Early for me anyway. I called her, and we met at the coffeehouse, sharing dessert and talking until late. It was then that I reminded her that I'd said we should meet for dinner, wondered if she had plans for the next night. She'd looked down, a small smile hovering around the edges of her lips, a pleased blush on her cheeks.

"I think I'm free," she murmured, and I swear, when she looked up, she literally did bat her eyelashes.

I couldn't fight my grin, and I didn't try very hard. "Well, should I have my people call your people, or you gonna pencil me into your schedule?"

"My place at eight?" she suggested, and I nodded.

"You got any suggestions for where you want to go?" I asked, mentally running through the nicer places that I know; only the best for her. "I'll call somewhere in the morning." Me, as opposed to Margaret, because that would lead to just too many questions.

She looked at me, flushing scarlet before looking back down at the tabletop again. "Actually, I was thinking my place," she said quietly, and I lifted an eyebrow in surprise. She looked up at me from under her lashes again, cheeks calming down to an adorable shade of pink, and bravely continued. "I was thinking that I would cook something, and that you could come over, and that that would be nice."

Somewhere in that narrative, I reached over and covered her hand with mine. "Yeah," I told her, our eyes meeting, both of us smiling. "That'd be nice."

That night I walked her back to her car, and I kissed her on the cheek, and I stood on the sidewalk as her taillights disappeared in the dark, and I walked back home like I was walking on air.

I went into the office the next day, splitting much of my time between Fitz in the Situation Room, seeking updates, and on the phone to Josh, seeking updates from the summit. Luckily, things in Helsinki seemed to be going our way, and Fitz had nothing much for me, so I was able to steal a couple of minutes in the middle of the day to call her. "Hey," was my greeting, and when she replied, I could hear that she was more than a little stressed.

"Leo Thomas McGarry, I swear, if you're calling to cancel on me…"

She got that far before I stopped her with a laugh. "I'm not calling to cancel," I told her. "Why would you think that?"

"Because normally when you are expecting a dinner companion and they call you scant hours beforehand, they're calling to cancel, at a time when the preparations for the meal are already well underway and cannot be undone."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the laughter at bay, because that would not improve the situation in the least. "No, I'm still coming," I reassured her. "That's why I was calling, as a matter of fact. Just to let you know that I wasn't going to cancel on you."

"That's very thoughtful of you Leo" she replied, and it didn't sound as if her mind was entirely on the conversation. "Now, I really should get back to this…"

"You need me to bring anything?" I asked her.

She paused for a moment, and I could almost see her, one hand on her hip, looking around the kitchen with narrow eyes, carrying out a mental inventory. "No, we're fine," she eventually decided. "Just bring yourself."

"That I can do," I told her, saying goodbye and hanging up, and at eight o'clock on the dot, I was standing at her front door, ringing the bell, lamenting the fact that I no longer had a key.

That thought, along with all others, disappeared when the door opened.

The smile on her face might have been because she was happy to see me. It might have been because of the box of handmade chocolates (Margaret's favourites - I do listen to her every now and again) in one hand and the bunch of wildflowers (Ainsley's favourites - I listen to everything she says) in the other. Hell, maybe it was just because my arrival meant that dinner could be served.

I felt a smile coming to my face too, and I knew why it was, and it was because of her. Not only was she smiling her brightest smile, but she looked amazing. Her hair was down, falling around her shoulders and cascading down her back, just the way I like it. She wasn't overly dressed up, wearing a casual green strappy sundress, one that I'd seen her in during the summer months. But on her wrist when she held the door open was a gold bracelet that caught the light, one that looked very familiar to me, and when I bent to kiss her cheek hello, in her ears were a pair of emerald earrings, also familiar. Momentarily I flashed back to hiding the tiny box in her bag when she was going home for Christmas, and I heard the tenderness in her voice when she called me to thank me on Christmas Eve, and that's when I forced by mind back to the present. I didn't want to think about Christmas; not then.

Thankfully, Ainsley didn't notice my lapse in concentration, accepting with a grin the flowers, and with considerably more delight, the chocolates. "You look lovely," I told her, understating the matter quite a bit, and she blushed again.

"Thank you," she replied, excusing herself to put the flowers in water, and I followed her into the kitchen, mouth watering at the delicious smells that greeted me. As befits a woman who loves food as much as she does, Ainsley is a phenomenal cook, and one of the things that I loved when we were together was mealtimes with her. More often than not they consisted of something quick and easy to do, but she has a gift for making even the most simple dishes taste special, and on the rare occasions where she had time to prepare something from scratch, it was never anything less than a feast. Like her, I love food, and I love to eat out, but I've never tasted anything, even in the best restaurants in Washington, that compares to what she serves up, and that night was no exception. She told me what it was, but I was hardly listening, just taking in that it was something to do with chicken and spices and vegetables, and after the first mouthful, I was beyond caring. Dessert was homemade cheesecake, and between us, we finished off rather a lot of it, taking our time, making this oasis of solitude last as long as possible.

But it came to an end, as all good things must, and I drained the last of my coffee, arching my back in the chair. "That was delicious Ainsley," I told her.

She shrugged, trying not to let me see how pleased she was at my praise. "Well, there's half a cheesecake left," she told me, a twinkle in her eyes. "You'll have to come over some time and help me finish it."

I nodded slowly, trying not to let her see how pleased I was at her invitation. "I think I can manage that," I told her, meeting her smile with one of my own.

"Good." She stood up, picking up the plates and moving over to the sink, standing over it for a second, considering something before shaking her head. "Forget it," she muttered, turning back towards me. "I'll do them tomorrow."

I didn't take my eyes off her as she moved, but when she began to walk back towards me, I stood, fingers tapping against the table. "I should probably make a move," I told her, although it was the last thing in the world that I actually wanted to do.

Her face fell slightly, but she recovered quickly. "It's still early," she pointed out tentatively, coming up beside me and placing a hand on my arm, looking up at me, all innocence and pleading. "You could stay a while."

I lifted her hand from where she'd placed it, holding it in both of mine tightly. "Yeah," I whispered, having trouble finding my voice. "I guess I could."

We just stood there for a long moment like that, just looking at one another, then she half-turned, leading the way into the living room. Once there, she released my hand, moving over to the stereo, while I sat down on the couch. She didn't take long in choosing a CD, and the ghostly strains of the Moonlight Sonata filled the room. She smiled as she came towards me, but her expression changed to one of curiosity when she saw that I was struggling to keep from laughing. "What?" she asked, stopping feet from the couch, hands on her hips, laughter and mild irritation mingling in her tone.

"Nothing." Because I didn't want to ruin the mood, I tried to play it off; however the way that she was looking at me told me that the mood was already pretty much broken. She didn't move an inch, just stared me down, and I relented. "When Mallory was younger, she used to take piano lessons. This is one of the pieces that she had to learn." A smile of remembrance tugs at the corner of my mouth. "All hours of the day and night, you'd hear this piece in the house, her trying to get it right, me and Jenny trying to be enthusiastic about hearing the same wrong notes over and over again…" She was giggling by the time I got to that part of the story, and her mirth helped to release mine. "Every time I hear that music, that's what I think of," I told her.

She threw a glance back at the stereo, and I could see her cataloguing her collection. "I can put something else on," she offered, but this time when I shook my head, I held out my hand to her.

"Nah," I said. "Come sit instead."

She paused, considering for the briefest of instants, then she looked down and smiled up at me through her lashes, stretching out her hand and placing it in mine. Closing the rest of the distance between us, she sat down beside me on the couch, and automatically, we settled into our regular sitting positions, her head nestling on my shoulder, my arm around her. We didn't talk, didn't do anything but sit there together, as the music of Beethoven floated around us.

The President is a great fan of classical music, moreover, of classical music trivia. He can tell you the story behind any piece of music that you care to mention. Once, he was spouting off about Beethoven, and Beethoven's great works, and I really wasn't listening that much. I must have been listening more than I thought however, because that night, sitting there with Ainsley, I was reminded of something that he said about this piece of music. He told me that it was about love. "Not romantic love, where everything is wonderful and perfect and shiny and new," he said. "But real love, the kind where you've been through hell and back together, and would go back there again if needs be. The kind of love that's been tested and put upon, but still holds up under scrutiny." He'd gone on to point out that it was the kind of love that he and Abbey shared, and that Jenny and I shared, and I nodded and smiled and never thought of it again.

Not until that night with Ainsley.

I knew then for the first time what he was talking about, what he meant. What the music meant. Holding her like that, I knew it was something that I'd never get tired of doing, something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

When I realised that I was falling asleep, I nudged her gently, only to find that she'd dozed off. My movement, slight as it was, was enough to have her stirring, and I waited until she was blinking sleepily at me before I spoke. "It's late," I told her, speaking quietly. "I should go."

She nodded, but there was a shadow in her eyes. "You could stay," she whispered doubtfully.

There was nothing more I wanted to do than to say yes. But instead, I reached out, caressing her cheek with one hand. "I want to. More than you know."

"But you're not going to."

"I told you Ainsley," I reminded her. "We're going to take this slow. No more mistakes, no more rushing. We've got plenty of time."

She chuckled slightly. "We seem to have had this conversation before," she murmured, and I knew that she was thinking back to last year, of the many times that we'd wanted to kiss, but hadn't. And when we had kissed, there had been many nights that we'd kissed on the couch long into the night, or shared a bed, just holding one another.

"We were right before," I told her, and she nodded, because that first night that we did sleep together, we'd both been waiting for it so long, wanted it for so long, it somehow meant more to us. "And we're right now."

"I know," she sighed, leaning forward and pressing her lips to mine. It was a quick kiss, gentle, chaste, and when she pulled away, she stood up, taking my hand in hers and walking me to the door.

That was Saturday night, and on Sunday, I didn't get a chance to go over to her place, or even meet her at the place, because of the President returning from Helsinki. Much of the nights over the intervening days have been taken up with covert meetings in the Situation Room, relegating her to late night phone calls and wishings that she were with me.

Tonight though, I want to see her, and rain or no rain, we're meeting at the coffeehouse.

I've been sitting a while by the time I see her coming through the window, and when she walks in the door, comes towards our table, she leaves a trail of water in her wake. She lays her umbrella on the floor, peels the soaking overcoat from her body and sits down on the chair, a sardonic smile on her face. "It's a good job I love you Leo McGarry," is her opening salvo, and it brings a smile to my face. "Otherwise, I would not be coming out on an evening such as this."

"Hey, you get chocolate cake, and the pleasure of my company," I point out. "A little water's not going to kill you."

She arches an eyebrow. "If I get pneumonia, I'll remind you that you said that," she mutters, smiling at something over my shoulder, and I know that our girl has the order coming. Sure enough, two steaming mugs of coffee are placed in front of us, as well as two huge slices of cake, and she smiles down at us before going on our way again. Ainsley smiles up at her, then immediately reaches for her fork, spearing a slice of chocolate cake and chewing it slowly. When she swallows, she leans back in her chair, a satisfied smile on her face. "Oh, I needed that," she says.

Now it's my turn to lift an eyebrow. "That kind of day?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes. "Let's just say that a certain tape stirred up Republican/Democrat lines," she says dryly, and there's really nothing more that needs to be said. I remember that she caught hell after the Leadership Breakfast thing, and again when the President announced that he had MS, and there's no reason to think that today would have been any different.

"Ah," I nod simply.

"Indeed." Another forkful of cake disappears. When she speaks again, her large green eyes are worried. "How's Sam doing?" she asks.

I fight to quell the surge of jealousy that takes me by surprise at her innocent question. No matter what may or may not have gone on between them, Sam is her friend, and of course she's going to be concerned about him. "Not so good," I tell her frankly. "Bruno went off on him pretty good, and he's been holed up in his office all day."

"I know," she tells me. "I called him, and he told me that he was too busy to talk. And when I went into the bullpen, Ginger intercepted me and warned me away. Told me that he didn't want to see anyone."

I take a slow sip of coffee before I speak in haste. "You went to see him?"

She shrugs. "It may not have been wise, being as I am a Republican, but I wanted to let him know that, as a friend, I'm there for him if he needs to talk, and that in my opinion, someone leaking information that you confided as a friend is the worst form of duplicity and…" She stops talking abruptly, tilting her head and staring at me as if she's suddenly been struck by lightning. "Oh my goodness."

I frown, concerned. "What?"

"Oh my goodness…you're jealous," she announces in amazement, and I shake my head in denial.

"I'm not." My voice is flat, and I'm not looking at her. Because let's face it, I'm jealous as hell, and my only hope of keeping it at bay is that I don't look at her.

"You are." Her voice is amused at first, but as I keep silent, keep looking down at the table, studiously avoiding her gaze, I hear her breathe in sharply. "Leo, look at me." Her voice is quiet at first, but then she repeats herself, more forcefully. "Leo, look at me."

It's not the change in tone that has me obeying her; rather it's the way that she lays her hand over mine. I look up slowly, meeting her eyes, and I don't see laughter there anymore; I just see concern, and not a little hurt. "All right, I'm jealous," I admit.

"Leo…"

She tries to interrupt, but I won't let her. "I've known since we first started this…hell, since before we started this, that he's got a thing for you. People have been taking bets for months on when the two of you were going to get it together; we all thought it was only a matter of time. I was expecting it for a long time Ainsley, even after I had a good idea how I felt about you. I told myself that with the age difference, with the fact that I hired you, my drinking, my past…I told myself that you deserved better than me. And that sooner or later, you'd come to the realisation that that was Sam."

"I was never-"

"And then!" Once more, I don't let her get a word in. "Then you did something totally unexpected… you kissed me. You told me that I was a good man, and for the first time in a long time, I began to believe it. You let me get close to you, you let me fall in love with you, let me need you, and I didn't know how to handle it." Those may be the most honest words I've ever spoken to her. "Then I screwed up. And I lost you. And what's the first thing I hear? That you're going out on a date with Sam." I shake my head. "So yes, I am jealous."

She takes a deep breath, then another, swallows hard before she speaks. "There's no need," she whispers thickly. "Sam's my friend Leo. He's always going to be my friend. But I love you."

"And I love you," I tell her, finding my own voice just as thick.

She smiles brightly at me, eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and then, out of nowhere, she begins to laugh, peals of giggles that have the tears spilling down her cheeks. I join in with her, hardly aware that I'm doing it, and it takes a good five minutes before we're able to speak again. "Oh Leo," she sighs, wiping her eyes with the back of her free hand. "What are we like?"

"I don't know," I admit, bringing our joined hands up to my lips. "But I think I like it."

"I know I do," she replied, cheeks pleasantly flushed. "So, I was thinking…would you like to come over for dinner some night next week?"

Work permitting, there's nothing I'd like more. But I should be able to clear some time for her. "Barring disaster you mean?" I ask, and she nods.

"Barring disaster," she repeats, and there's a look in her eye that I don't pretend to understand, but the knowledge strikes me that should the world be falling down, I won't miss this dinner. "How's Tuesday for you?"

I mentally count ahead, and I know there's something about that date that's significant, but I can't quite place it. Still, there's nothing scheduled that I know of; no reason I can't get out of the West Wing early. So I nod, squeezing her hand again. "Tuesday it is."

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