Title: Enough
Author: flamebrain
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: West Wing & all its characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, NBC, Bravo, etc. I am making no money from this endeavor.
Notes: To the usual suspects.
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Warmth surrounds her. Her lover slips into bed, later for once than she. Never a snuggler, she immediately presses back, seeking comfort, giving and receiving.
She wonders, some days, how they ended up together. Looking at them, no one would guess; no one see commonalities. She deals in words, her lover in silence.
She deals in half-truths, ducking and dodging the verbal bullets, sparring and jiving that's broadcast to every town in America. Her lover's repartee is heavier, behind closed doors, as she tries to keep them all out of the path of real bullets.
She rolls over, dipping her head forward to press a soft kiss to lips that she now realizes are trembling. It's been a blessing, this summer, to collapse in this woman's arms at the end of the day.
She'd found her, the early morning after Simon was killed, sitting on the floor of her office, staring into the darkness. She had been picked up, taken home, and tucked into bed. She'd awoken the next morning to find breakfast cooking, and a no nonsense voice telling her to get up and get over it. She had been lectured about relationships forming under extreme stress and told she should mourn Simon and remember him, but not wallow in grief. They hadn't been in love, her not-yet lover had snorted, merely in lust. Wanting to stop the brutal words she knew to be truth, she had leaned forward and kissed the other woman.
It had snowballed from there as her lover took control and then took her to bed. The other woman had been her rock and now it was her turn.
"What's wrong?" she asks, her words shattering the stillness of the night. She immediately bites her lip, knowing it is a foolish question. Her lover will not be able to answer.
"Just be with me?" her lover pleads.
Arm wrapping around a waist, another along a back, twining in thick hair. Pressing tightly together, thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-chest, foreheads leaning together. It is a relief, she thinks distantly, and not for the first time, to for once be with someone as tall as herself.
Frightened, because this woman is the strongest she knows.
"If it all goes to hell you'll find out soon enough," her lover rasps.
She senses the unspoken thought, the worry that she will leave in anger. They have butted heads often in the past, and she knows they will in the future, professionally if not personally. She also knows, although maybe nobody will believe it, that this woman has gotten under her skin. She knows, with the slightest inkling of dread, that no matter what tomorrow brings, she will not be able to leave.
And she realizes deep inside, as her lips feather across moist eyelids, that it doesn't matter. Maybe no one will guess but neither will her friends care. They will be happy that she is happy as long as it doesn't impact them. It doesn't matter that they come from two disparate worlds. All that matters is how she feels when they are together, how she feels when their eyes meet across a room, how she feels in her lover's arms. She dares to whisper words she hasn't uttered in years, knowing they will irrevocably bind her to this woman, but unable to fear the commitment. "I love you."
And come political mud slinging or federal prison, her lover is happy.
For this night, for both of them, it is enough.
Author: flamebrain
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: West Wing & all its characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, NBC, Bravo, etc. I am making no money from this endeavor.
Notes: To the usual suspects.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------
Warmth surrounds her. Her lover slips into bed, later for once than she. Never a snuggler, she immediately presses back, seeking comfort, giving and receiving.
She wonders, some days, how they ended up together. Looking at them, no one would guess; no one see commonalities. She deals in words, her lover in silence.
She deals in half-truths, ducking and dodging the verbal bullets, sparring and jiving that's broadcast to every town in America. Her lover's repartee is heavier, behind closed doors, as she tries to keep them all out of the path of real bullets.
She rolls over, dipping her head forward to press a soft kiss to lips that she now realizes are trembling. It's been a blessing, this summer, to collapse in this woman's arms at the end of the day.
She'd found her, the early morning after Simon was killed, sitting on the floor of her office, staring into the darkness. She had been picked up, taken home, and tucked into bed. She'd awoken the next morning to find breakfast cooking, and a no nonsense voice telling her to get up and get over it. She had been lectured about relationships forming under extreme stress and told she should mourn Simon and remember him, but not wallow in grief. They hadn't been in love, her not-yet lover had snorted, merely in lust. Wanting to stop the brutal words she knew to be truth, she had leaned forward and kissed the other woman.
It had snowballed from there as her lover took control and then took her to bed. The other woman had been her rock and now it was her turn.
"What's wrong?" she asks, her words shattering the stillness of the night. She immediately bites her lip, knowing it is a foolish question. Her lover will not be able to answer.
"Just be with me?" her lover pleads.
Arm wrapping around a waist, another along a back, twining in thick hair. Pressing tightly together, thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-chest, foreheads leaning together. It is a relief, she thinks distantly, and not for the first time, to for once be with someone as tall as herself.
Frightened, because this woman is the strongest she knows.
"If it all goes to hell you'll find out soon enough," her lover rasps.
She senses the unspoken thought, the worry that she will leave in anger. They have butted heads often in the past, and she knows they will in the future, professionally if not personally. She also knows, although maybe nobody will believe it, that this woman has gotten under her skin. She knows, with the slightest inkling of dread, that no matter what tomorrow brings, she will not be able to leave.
And she realizes deep inside, as her lips feather across moist eyelids, that it doesn't matter. Maybe no one will guess but neither will her friends care. They will be happy that she is happy as long as it doesn't impact them. It doesn't matter that they come from two disparate worlds. All that matters is how she feels when they are together, how she feels when their eyes meet across a room, how she feels in her lover's arms. She dares to whisper words she hasn't uttered in years, knowing they will irrevocably bind her to this woman, but unable to fear the commitment. "I love you."
And come political mud slinging or federal prison, her lover is happy.
For this night, for both of them, it is enough.