Completed: January 2004

******

It was a professional meeting, three colleagues discussing media access to Jai Yung Ahn. Of course under the circumstances the media access wouldn’t be straight forward and it was yet another problem CJ had to deal with. Then as the meeting reached its natural conclusion he had to ask for her opinion.

"Leo tells me you have a strong view on this?" Jed didn’t need Leo to tell him. He’d known CJ for nearly six years and in that time he’d discovered there wasn’t much she didn’t have an opinion on.

For a brief second she had contemplated telling the truth, then dismissed it just as quickly, as they seemed to dismiss anything she had to say of late. "Yes, Sir. For one thing, sending him back would seem to be illegal." Illegal. Immoral, not to mention unworthy of them. Except she couldn’t say that to his face.

"Our hand's not legally forced unless he tells anyone." Leo was trying to be the voice of reason, as ever trying to keep the messy things beyond the President’s desk.

C.J. wanted to scream at them both but instead calmly said, "He's told us. He's asked the President of the United States for asylum. Are we saying he'd have been better off asking some cab driver?"

The President had disappointed her the minute he’d started on the rationale for sending the poor kid back. The man she loved, the man she would have once walked through fire for, was dismissing her.

What CJ didn’t need at that point was Leo’s explanation. She’d read the same briefing papers, knew what they would do if the situation arose. . . Knew what they had done in the past. “Seven North Korean nuclear scientists defected through China last year: We helped pay for it. Are we saying that if this kid were more valuable to us, we'd accept him?"

She watched the President’s eyes. There was something in the deep pools of blue, in those brief moments when he let his guard down, that she could read. If the answer to her question was, if his eyes said, yes she was probably going to be getting drunk sometime soon.

There was something on the President’s face that let her know he was considering her words, maybe that he couldn’t believe what he’d been saying either, then his eyes changed. "But that isn't your real argument."

Sometimes when things when things got tense the President would begin to understand her, understand what she wasn’t saying. There was a non-verbal link that had developed in the first campaign, before all the craziness began, and in rare moments still existed, and he would get close to really getting her. It’s those times she hides behind the Press Secretary façade. But because he really does understand where she’s coming from he shoots down her every argument. It scares her more than she’s willing to admit. Scares her more than her feelings for him, feelings that she’s denied and will continue to deny.

C.J. looked at him and braced herself. "No, Sir, it's not. This young man's asking for freedom. It's what this country was built on. Everybody's from somewhere else, some place less free." It wasn’t perhaps her best argument but then she had to respect the invisible line and not let her emotions get the best of her.

His face changed, a look of silent chastisement appearing fleetingly and she knew she had hit the mark.

C.J. offered sadly, "That's my argument."

Jed thanked them and ended the meeting. He waited until Leo was almost out of the room before he called CJ back, "These negotiations are the real thing. I can't allow this defection. I know you disagree, but that's my decision." He hadn’t meant it to sound quite so cold, just professional.

C.J. glanced at him briefly. "Thank you, Sir." That should have been the end of it she knew but he had sounded so damn uncaring and that wasn’t the man she had helped get elected. "It's not that I disagree. I'm disappointed." She turned and left the room without a backward glance.

Jed watched her go, his heart suddenly heavier in the realization that there was someone else he needed to make things up to. The list seemed to be growing each day. Disappointment wasn’t what he was expecting from CJ, anger, yes, contempt probably. He returned to the present at the sound of Leo’s voice.

“Is CJ okay?” he asked softly.

Leo quietly replied, "I don't know." She was growing further and further away and he wasn’t really sure why. Since Zoey’s kidnapping and the revelations about Qumar, she had changed. Every day he waited for her resignation, knew that his friend would expect him to get her to stay. He wasn’t sure this time any of them would be able to convince her.

******

CJ glanced once more at the computer screen, the two paragraphs taunting her. It was an impulse, disappointment, disillusionment that had made her fingers fly over the keyboard. Now as the words stared back at her she realized it wasn’t such an impulse.

For over a year she had been unhappy, the busy schedule delaying the inevitable. It hadn’t come as any great surprise that they had had a hand in killing Shareef, but once again they had kept her out of the loop when she could have helped. Zoey’s kidnapping had left her emotionally drained. She was the face of the administration. While everyone else hid in offices she went in front of the cameras and tried to hide her pain. She was getting quite good at hiding pain. Simon’s death had made sure of that. This time it had been harder. Zoey was almost family.

The sound of the piano drifted through the hallways, a sadness in the melody mirroring her own loss. She hardly knew the people around her anymore. Abbey had disappeared, Leo was, well he wasn’t the person she respected, and the President seemed to have turned his back on what he believed in. The Administration had taken its toll on all of them but she couldn’t let it take anything more from her.

Her fingers picked up the CD case and she stared at it, not really reading it, wishing she could slip the young Korean a note, slip him out of the building. All he wanted was a chance to be happy and free, all she wanted was to be happy.

Instead she hit print on the keyboard and picked up a pen, signing the single sheet of White House stationary.

Minutes later her eyes welled with tears as the music wafted over her and she watched the young man from the back of the State room, knowing as she did that he was going to return to his home. The envelope in her hand meant she was going home too.

******

The concert had ended a short while ago and Jed knew as he untied his tie and unbuttoned his shirt that the young man would be on his way home before the day was over. The knowledge that he had been instrumental in returning him to the one place he didn’t feel safe was almost too overwhelming.

He knew he should go to the residence but there was nothing for him there, only emptiness. Abbey was still in New Hampshire, their only conversations revolved around Zoey, and Leo refused to join him there so he would be alone again. In the Oval Office at least there were the sounds of people in the hallways.

He was just getting settled when he caught sight of CJ out of the corner of his eye. He masked his surprise.

"He didn't realize what it was," Jed offered morosely. Maybe he should have tried harder.

C.J. looked at him blankly. She had no idea what he was talking about.

Jed explained blandly, "Freedom."

C.J. took a seat and said flatly, "You could have cancelled the concert."

Jed continued as though he didn’t hear her, "There's a Korean word, han. I looked it up. There is no literal English translation; it's a state of mind -- of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still, there's hope."

There was always hope. It was hope that kept her from dropping the letter on his desk. C.J. choked back a tear as she rose to her feet and began to move towards the door.

Jed’s voice caused her to pause momentarily. “ I got a call from Geneva fifteen minutes ago. The negotiations are on hold. The North Koreans didn't like the size of everyone's flags at the table."

C.J. blinked. It had all been for nothing. The sigh that followed seemed to rack her whole body. She was weary of all this. Shaking her head slightly she barely whispered, "Good night, Sir."

The sound of her skirt swishing against the carpet carried through the hallways as Jed continued to lie on the couch, staring ahead, thoughts colliding in his head.

******

The swish of the fabric against the carpet sounded loud to her ears as she headed back to her office. She hadn’t meant to intrude but his door was open. There were other nights like this when he had invited her in, moments of truce in their conflicts of opinion, that they had sat and talked. Tonight there was an air of defeat.

The dress landed in a pool of fabric as she pondered the President. There were others involved in his decision making she knew, so many other considerations. It was just that her opinions always seemed to be the first to be dismissed. Not that she ever told them “I told you so.“ That wasn’t her style, it wasn’t professional.

CJ kicked off her shoes and pulled on her pants. Tonight she couldn’t leave things the way they were.

It didn’t mean she was changing her mind it was just that. . . Well she was going to talk to him again.

******

She didn’t wait for him to invite her in this time. With carefully measured steps CJ crossed the room and made her way to the side table. As a rule the President rarely drank in his office. The two occasions she was aware of were election night and the night Zoey had disappeared. Tonight he seemed like he needed a drink, maybe even a friend.

“What are you doing?” Jed asked quietly, his eyes following her.

“Ice?”

He stared at her blankly as she shrugged.

CJ handed him the glass and gently lowered herself to perch on the corner of the coffee table. “Don’t get up,” she instructed tenderly as he shifted on the sofa.

“CJ?” Jed raised his brows in confusion.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” Her fingers played with the hem of her sweater as she avoided his eyes. She was disappointed in him even though she knew it wasn’t his fault.

“Really?” Jed allowed himself the slightest of smiles. For one CJ didn’t apologize, especially when she was right, and secondly her body language was telling a whole different story. “You seemed quite . . .resolute earlier.”

“That was earlier.”

He wasn’t about to be dissuaded from his curiosity. “CJ?”

“Don’t worry about it.” The fact was she would be awake most of the night, torn between her disappointment and the knowledge that he had bigger worries on his mind. She hadn’t missed the icy atmosphere between the first couple or the fact she wasn’t on the First Lady’s speed dial anymore. No-one on the senior staff had.

“I do worry about it.” He also wanted to fix it. There wasn’t much else he could fix. His marriage was going to hell in a hand basket. His daughter was struggling with her own demons and his best friend was trying to keep his Presidency going while he, himself wallowed. “Seems to me I spend most of my life disappointing the people I care about.”

“Sir?” The line was getting closer, the line they could overstep between professional and friends.

“Don’t you think I would have sent him home if I could, if I’d had the luxury of hindsight?”

His words came with passion and for a brief moment she saw the man she had chosen to get elected, the man who had been hidden since the fateful May night his daughter had been taken.

CJ leaned forward to rest her folded hands against her knee. “Yes.” Her hand brushed his and there was an unmistakeable shot of energy. The non-verbal connection more intense than ever before.

Jed tilted his head and without thinking, his brain not making the connection to what he was doing, he moved closer. His lips brushed hers gently at first, wary of her reaction, trying to remember what it was like for the first time with someone new.

Then he kissed her again, harder, with more passion, before pulling back.

CJ shuddered at the sudden gulf between them. There was a sudden moment of intensity and now nothing. She bit her lip and stared up at him, her eyes widening. It had been the last thing on her mind when she had entered the office, hell she had never thought about him in that way.

“I’m sorry, CJ.” Jed was, not for kissing her, but for putting her in that position again. He knew it would happen again, and he wasn’t sure he just meant the disappointment.

“I should go.” And she meant more than just leaving the room except it wasn’t that easy.

Jed watched her go again, a sudden feeling of loss in his heart. He wanted to go after her, to say all the things running through his mind but he couldn’t. More than that he wasn’t sure what would happen. For now he had to live with her disappointment and hope it wasn’t too late to make it up to her.

******

CJ picked up her briefcase and switched off the lights. It had been a long day but then with each disappointment the days seemed longer. All she really wanted to do was go home and fall into bed. She grabbed the door handle and moved to leave.

After a second’s hesitation she walked back to her desk and picked up the simple white envelope, tucking it into her case.

There it would stay until the next time, and there would be a next time. For now though she would stay and watch his back, and hope that things would get back to normal, that they would again treat her as a voice of the administration and not just its face.

It wasn’t the first time that he, they, had let her down. She knew it wouldn’t be the last. But she had hope. And sometimes hope was all it took.

The End