Rating: PG
Pairing: Wesley/Ellie
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: Wesley finds Ellie in the Sculpture Garden.
Author's Note: Companion piece to Eye of the Beholder and set in the same universe as my other stories for this pairing, New Assignment, Almost Close Enough,, The Price of Choice and Between Sisters. For Denise, who knows why.

There are reasons why she hardly ever comes to Washington, why she prefers to stay at Johns Hopkins, and contrary to popular opinion, it has very little to do with her hating her father. She doesn't hate her father, even if she's not quite sure that she knows how to please him, how to get on with him. She loves her father.

But she hates the Presidency.

Make no mistake, she's proud of her father, of everything that he's accomplished in his life. That being said though, if she could go back in time, change anything in her life, it'd be that he'd never won the election in 1998; or that she'd changed the answer she gave when they asked her if she thought he should run in the first place.

She's proud of her father, but she knows now what she didn't know then, that the price they've had to pay is just too high. It's cost her her privacy, on a mild spring evening it very nearly cost her her father, it's cost her the man that she's almost certain she was falling in love with, and a little over a year ago, it cost her even more than that.

There are reasons why she hardly ever comes to Washington, but there are times when those reasons have to be set aside, when she has to do that which she hates the most, dress up, smile prettily and be unfavourably compared with her more beautiful relatives.

Her father's inauguration as President is one such time, so she came down last night, wrapped herself up warm this morning, sat down in between Liz and Zoey and listened to her father redefine American foreign policy, and she's never been more proud of him.

The pride was enough to make her smile through the first of the balls, and the second, possibly the third. Anything after that though, and fatigue was beginning to set in, her smile growing distinctly more forced, and the only thing that made the whole ordeal slightly bearable is the fact that she saw him there.

Not that she danced with him, or talked to him, or had any contact with him whatsoever. But in the few months that he'd been on her detail, when she'd fallen hard for him and he for her, she'd learned that all he had to do was look at her to make her feel better, make her feel safe. There were times when she would catch his eye, see the corners of his lips quirk up in a hint of a smile, and she'd feel as if she was walking on air.

That's the kind of look that he gave her earlier on tonight.

She still feels as if she's walking on air now, just from the memory of it, even though it's late and cold, even though she can see her breath dissipating in frosty white curlicues in front of her, even though her feet are killing her in these distinctly unsensible shoes. She still needs air though, because she can only take so much of being the President's daughter, and the bench in the Sculpture Garden is cool and solid against her back, so she tilts her head back, staring up at the inky black sky, drawing her wrap tighter around her.

She jumps when she hears a voice behind her, a familiar voice, the same one that she's been dreaming about every night for a long time. "You do know it's January, right?" he asks, and she doesn't have to turn to know that he's smiling, which in turn tells her that it's Wesley, rather than Special Agent Davis, talking to her.

"They teach us how to read calendars at Johns Hopkins," she replies, and while she knows that her words are sharp, her tone takes any sting out of them.

"Which explains why you're sitting out here all on your own without a coat," he says, coming around to sit beside her. When she looks over at him, she sees that he's still in his tuxedo, a fact that causes her heart to skip a beat, though he's wearing a black overcoat to keep him warm.

"I have a wrap," she tells him. "It's lined." She holds out the edge of it to demonstrate, and it's doing a good job of keeping the cold at bay, but not as good as when he sits down beside her, close enough to touch. He doesn't touch her though, just sits, and while she knows that that's probably a good thing, she's still not sure that she likes it. The doubt lets some cold creep in, so she pulls the wrap tighter around herself again, looking anywhere but at him.

"It's a good colour on you," she hears him say, and she doesn't think that he says anything after that, not that she could hear it over the roaring in her ears. His tone isn't teasing any more, it's quite a bit more than friendly, and she knows just where she's heard it before, Camp David, over a year ago.

She shrugs, looks down, regretting for the first time that her mother talked her into wearing her hair up, because she really wishes that she could hide behind it right now. "Fine feathers," she mutters, not sure to whom she's saying it, and out of the corner of her eye she sees his head turn sharply to look at her.

"You know that's not true," he says, and a rush of heat floods her body. It starts at her heart and travels in two directions, rising up to her cheeks as well as pooling down somewhere lower. She doesn't know that it's not true, in fact she knows the opposite, but he never believed it, and there were times when he looked at her that she almost believed it too.

"I saw you out there tonight," he continues. "You were the hit of the night… no-one could take their eyes off you."

She chuckles, because this she knows to be a lie. "That's not true."

There's a beat where she waits for him to admit it, but when he speaks, that's not what he does. "OK," he says, emphasising the next word. "I couldn't take my eyes off you."

She couldn't be warmer if he'd reached out and wrapped her in his arms, and this time she doesn't look down, instead looking across to meet his steady gaze. "Thank you," she says quietly, and he just shrugs, doesn't say anything. She waits for a long moment before speaking, before asking "How did you find me here?" Because she purposely came to the one place where she thought no-one would look for her, and she's surprised that he was any different.

"You hate the Sculpture Garden," he reminds her, and the honesty of it makes her grin, because that's exactly why she chose it. "That's why you come here."

"Aren't we the clever one?" she murmurs, looking back up to the sky again, her gaze following the whispery vapours of her words.

She's not looking at him but she hears him sigh, hears the low words she's not sure she was meant to hear. "Not always."

She looks at him slowly, and the pain in his eyes is almost more than she can bear. It's exactly the same kind of pain that she's seen too often in the mirror, and she wishes for the millionth time that her father wasn't the President, that he wasn't a Secret Service agent, that they'd met somewhere completely different.

She stands, still holding her wrap tightly against her body, knowing that she has to leave, and now, because if she stays, she knows she'll burst into tears and tell him everything. "I should go," she manages to choke out, freezing in place when she feels his hand on her arm.

He stands right in front of her, in her personal space, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to step around him if her feet weren't glued to the ground. "You know what I wish Ellie?" he asks quietly, and she doesn't want to look up at him, but she can't look anywhere else. "I was looking at you from across that room…and all I wanted to do was dance with you. Just once."

Tears prick the back of her eyelids, and she battles them back ruthlessly. His eyes, dark and serious, meet hers, and she lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "Nothing stopping you now," she tells him, and she sees his eyes glint in the dim light.

He doesn't say anything else, just steps into her, taking her in his arms. Her arms go around his waist and she leans her head on his shoulder, and they stay that way for a long time, swaying from side to side, dancing without music.