Notes: The title and song belong to Remy Zero.
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The last great Hollywood high
After it shows, who knows
Where it will go?
She felt a shiver run through her, and she knew that it was not just from the wet clothes. She could feel his eyes on her in the dimly lit room, and she busied herself with setting down her work things, finding somewhere to drape her towel, searching for clean clothes. They were mindless domestic tasks, and she found herself getting distracted, picking up the same shirts and putting them down again repeatedly.
Finally, she met his eyes, feeling an unfamiliar nervousness run through her. She hadn�t seen him since he married, and she could see now that it agreed with him, or something else did, because he looked better than he had in years, better than the last time she had seen him. She felt her cheeks burn a little at the memory of that night, and she tore her eyes away again, turning to hit the lightswitch and bathe the room in unnatural light.
�Why are you here?� she asked, and the question might as well have been rhetorical, because he had already explained himself out by the pool. He answered anyway.
�I�m here on behalf of Bartlet for America,� he said, and the irony in his voice made her mouth twitch in a tiny smile. She knew he wasn�t, not really, and he knew she knew, but it was easier this way, so she played along.
�What makes you think I�m just going to pack up everything and head across the country to join the campaign of a man who is just going to lose spectacularly to John Hoynes in a few months?� she asked, and even though she sounded demanding, it was a genuine question, and he knew it.
�Because he�s the real thing,� he said simply, and really after that nothing more had to be said. She nodded once and left him standing there in the living room as she stepped into her bedroom to change. She left the door open, and she could hear him pacing, his shoes padding dully on the carpet.
�You�re coming, aren�t you?� His voice floated in through the doorway, and she smirked a little at the confidence she heard there, the easy understanding of her as a person and as a professional.
�Do you really have to ask that?� she returned, emerging from the bedroom still buttoning her shirt. She glanced up at him seriously, despite her teasing tone, and looked into his eyes. �You believe in this guy. You�ve spent your entire career fighting uphill battles for hopeless candidates, and now I can see in your eyes that you actually think this one might have a chance in hell. I�ve never seen that in you before, and it�s enough for me.�
He shook his head. �We could still lose,� he said, and she wondered if he was warning her or trying to convince himself.
�Us?� she asked, grinning. �Never.� And there was a sadness in his smile when he turned to face her, because they both knew that they had already lost so much over the years, lost each other in every way that mattered. But he was here, and that meant something, at least, so she tried to push that sad little smile out of her mind as she settled down on the couch and wondered if she was crazy for even considering this.
They boarded a plane the next morning, because somewhere in that long night of whispered conversation and uneasy dreams, she had discovered that she wasn�t crazy, just impulsive, and that was something that would never change. So she had slipped off the couch at one point and booked them a flight, and then returned to the safe warmth of the blanket and his arms. Nothing had happened between them, because they were not the same people they had been in years past, and the guilt from their last encounter was just beginning to fade, but she had fallen asleep there as they talked, and woke with her head on his chest and his arms wrapped around her, keeping her from tipping off the couch in her sleep.
She wondered if there would ever be a day when they didn�t have to keep each other from falling.
As she shifted around in the uncomfortable airplane seat, trying in vain to find somewhere to keep her impossible legs, she realized that it was the first time they had ever flown anywhere together. In the past, they had been each other�s destination. This time he was along for the journey with her, and she found that oddly comforting. She noticed his fingers tighten ever so slightly around the armrests as they took off, and saw the tension in his eyes as he stared resolutely ahead, and she marveled at the fact that even after all this time there were still things about him that she didn�t know.
They talked about the campaign a little, just to fill the silence, and she wondered what had ever happened to those days when they didn�t need to say anything, when silence was comfortable and not something to be warded off with idle conversation. She missed those days in a way that was nearly painful, but at the same time she recognized this as a new beginning. Because he was still a married man, and he was about to become her boss, and suddenly all the old rules had to be thrown out the window.
When they stopped talking, she turned to stare out the window and wonder why it had been so easy for her to leave LA. There had been nothing holding her there, and it made her sad to think that she wouldn�t miss that existence at all. It seemed almost like her time there had just been a brief moment of waiting, a pause before the next important stage of her life found her. She had made no connections, no lasting friendships, and she doubted that anyone would even miss her. She eyed a man across the aisle who was tapping busily away at this laptop, one of those rumpled salesmen who looked like he hadn�t had a week in the past ten years when he hadn�t been on a plane. When she had been younger, in college, she had wondered how those people survived, the ones who had nothing but their work.
�When did I become one of those people?� she asked aloud, and she didn�t really expect an answer, because she thought he was sleeping, but he cracked an eye open and rolled his head to look at her.
�What people?� he asked, and she felt stupid, because she hadn�t really wanted to explain.
�Him,� she replied anyway, nodding at the guy across the aisle.
He watched the man for a minute or two, and the guy didn�t notice, just kept typing away in the slow pecking way of a man who is used to having a secretary or a wife do his typing for him. �You�re not him,� he decided, and seemed content to leave it at that, but she wasn�t.
�Why not?� she pressed, and he sighed a little, stretching his legs out under the seat in front of him.
�Because.� He closed his eyes again. �Yesterday I came to your house and I said, hey, why don�t you drop everything and fly across the country with me and put this guy that you�ve never met into the White House? And you said ok. Can you see him doing something like that?� He waved a hand carelessly in the direction of the salesman. �You�re not him. I wouldn�t be here now if you were.�
He stopped talking, and she knew better than to continue the conversation, because he had said all there was to say, and he wanted to sleep. So she let him, and turned her head away from him to lean it against the cool glass of the window, waiting for Manchester to arrive.
Part Eight: And Your Whole Life's Wasted