Andi manoeuvred with some difficulty through her office door while carrying a cup of coffee, clutching her briefcase under her arm and trying to hold the Post at an angle that enabled her to read the front page.
"Congresswoman!" Andi thanked God for Starbucks travel lids as her chief of staff popped out from behind the door she'd just pushed open. Jake Peters had a brilliant political mind, which very nearly made up for that fact that he had the unfortunate habit of lurking behind doors and under desks waiting to jump out at Andi with lists of things she needed to do or stacks of papers that required her signature.
Jake managed, in the space of about thirteen seconds, to relieve Andi of her newspaper and briefcase, berate her for buying her own coffee when they had perfectly good interns to do that, remove her coat, brush some invisible lint off her back and start running through her itinerary for the day. Sometimes Andi thought that having Jake as her chief of staff must be very similar to having a wife.
"Then you have a vote on the floor-"
"That's the Strickman bill, that's never going to pass."
"No," Jake agreed, taking Andi's cardboard cup, pouring the coffee into a blue mug with the words 'Wyatt for Congress' emblazoned on it and handing the drink back to her. "It's not going to pass because you're going to go down to the floor and vote against it."
"Me and eighty-three other people, what else?"
"Foreign relations committee, you have a meeting with Toby at the White House about the blue ribbon commission, and the Surgeon General wants to see you."
"The Surgeon General?" Andi racked her brain trying to remember if there was a health bill that the Surgeon General could be lobbying Congress about. She couldn't recall one but that didn't mean there wasn't one, "give her an appointment."
"Actually, Congresswoman, she wants you to go to her."
Andi sighed, "It'll have to wait, Toby could go on about social security for hours, and he probably will."
"Okay," Jake agreed cheerfully, flipping through a pile of folders, "anyway from what I hear Millicent Griffith won't be the Surgeon General for much longer, maybe you won't have to meet with her after all."
"Is she resigning, I hadn't heard that?"
"The White House is probably firing her after she said marijuana should be legalised."
Andi's head snapped up, "when did this happen?"
"Last night," Jake stopped his puttering around the office, "she was doing an on-line Q & A about one a.m, it's all over the hill already and it'll be in the second edition of the Post and the..."
Jake trailed off, Andi was already pulling on her coat and heading out of the door.
"Tell her office I'm coming over."
----
Andi looked up when the aide who'd greeted her cleared her throat, the Surgeon General had emerged from her office. Andi had only met her once, at the Presidents inauguration, and she had forgotten what a small woman she was, the fitted black suit she was wearing making her look even smaller. She stood and held out her hand to shake Doctor Griffith's.
"Congresswoman Wyatt, is it okay if I call you Andrea?"
"You can call me Andi if you like," Andi offered, half joking, as she followed the Doctor into her office.
"Have a seat, Andi, I suppose you've heard what happened last night?"
"I read a transcript on my way over, I imagine the White House is hysterical, have they sent Toby over to growl at you yet?"
"They sent Josh, to ask for my resignation."
"Listen, Doctor Griffith-"
"Millicent, or Millie if you'd prefer."
"Millicent, I sympathise, and I think the White House is overreacting. But I'm not sure what any of this has to do with me."
"I like being Surgeon General, and I don't plan on resigning for telling the truth. Plus, I know you agree with me."
Andi leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, this was starting to get interesting, "and how do you know that?"
Millicent picked up a piece of paper from her desk, "'It is ridiculous that tobacco companies are allowed to target children in their marketing when youngsters who have done nothing more wrong that smoke marijuana are denied collage aid or incarcerated.' It was part of a speech you gave during your last campaign."
"I think my point was that there should be tighter restrictions on tobacco. How did you get a hold of that?"
"I had my staff google for you," Millicent replied.
"I have mine use wikipedia when we need some information on short notice. Did they find anything interesting?"
"They wrote down the salient details for me," Millicent cleared her throat and began reading from a piece of paper, "Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt of Maryland, liberal democrat who has railed against mandatory minimums, the war on drugs and abstinence only, divorced from White House senior staffer Toby Ziegler, possibly a lesbian."
"That last one is a surprise."
"That someone on the internet thinks you might be a lesbian?"
"No," Andi replied, "that someone on your staff thought it was a salient detail."
Andi looked at her watch and stood up, "I have a vote. Good luck with Leo."
Millicent stood and shook Andi's hand again, "I can hold my own. But if they threaten to fire me?"
"You'll have my support. Not that the support of a junior congresswoman from Maryland will do you much good."
"I'll take what I can get."
----
Andi had been involved Washington politics long enough to know that as many deals were made in bars and restaurants as were made in meetings. So she hadn't been surprised when Millicent had called to ask her for drinks, they'd been planning to meet in the bar of the Hilton, but Millicent had phoned back and asked if she wouldn't mind meeting somewhere with a few less reporters. Which was why Andi found herself in a car on her way to the Surgeon General's house.
Andi whistled softly as she stepped out of the car, "I guess my mother was right when she said I should have become a doctor." Andi's condo could have fit into Millicent's house several times over.
"Andi," Millicent greeted her at the door, she already had a drink in hand, "can I get you something to drink?"
"Whatever you're having," Andi followed Millicent through her house, which was no less impressive inside than it had been outside, Millicent poured out another glass of expensive looking scotch and handed it to Andi.
"I'm afraid you've had a bit of a wasted trip," Millicent said sitting on the couch, "I've decided to resign," she slumped back looking defeated.
"Is this because of the quote Ellie Bartlet gave?" Andi asked, sitting down.
"'My father won't fire the Surgeon General, he would never do that,'" Millicent quoted.
"I don't think I've ever heard a quote from Ellie before, I only met her once, she seemed pretty shy," Andi took a long sip of her scotch, one didn't live with Toby Ziegler for years without learning how to drink.
"She is, poor kid, I just hope I haven't caused more problems between her and her father. Can I get you another drink?"
Andi nodded enthusiastically, there was only so much about the intimate workings of the first family that she was comfortable knowing.
"Your staff was right, you know," Andi said over the top of her fourth, or perhaps fifth glass of scotch. The bottle had been moved from the liquor cabinet to the coffee table and Andi had kicked off her heels and was lounging next to Millicent on her couch.
"Right about what?"
"There being websites that say I'm a lesbian."
"Why do they say that?"
"There doesn't appear to be a consensus, some of them say I must be gay because I married Toby, others say that's why I divorced him."
"The internet is a strange place," Millicent said, drunk enough to state the obvious with complete seriousness.
"True, I'm told there is an entire website devoted to the Josh Lyman fantasy date," Andi stretched out her legs, her feet met Millicent's, the Surgeon General had also kicked her shoes off. Andi momentarily considered moving but she was comfortable, and then Millicent's ankles hooked around hers and she decided to stay where she was.
"So is there any truth to it?" Millicent asked, raising an eyebrow over her glass.
"They're internet rumours, Millie," Andi answered dryly.
"I'm not asking if they're literally true, I'm asking if where there's smoke there's fire."
Andi swirled her glass, "Well, I'm not a lesbian, I'm more...flexible," she wasn't sure if the Surgeon General and close personal friend of the president had just run her foot up her calf or if she was just more drunk than she'd thought.
"Flexible, is that what they're calling it now?" Millicent nodded towards a photograph on the mantle of a young Millicent Griffith and Abbey Bartlet wearing graduation robes, "back in medical school Abbey and I called it being open minded."
If Andi had had one or two less drinks she would have wondered how drunk Millicent was that she was telling a member of congress about her collegiate lesbian affair with the first lady. If she had been less distracted by Millicent's foot running up and down her calf she might have been cared about Abbey Bartlet's youthful indiscretions.
----
"I've always liked women in uniform," Andi said, wrapping the sheet around herself and swiping one of her long red hairs from Millicent's pillow.
Millicent pulled her uniform jacket on and rolled her eyes at Andi, "I'm about to go and hand in my resignation to the President of the United States and you think this is the time to talk about women in uniform."
"Yes," Andi said, sitting up and holding the sheet loosely over her breasts, "because you're going to hand in your notice wearing a very sexy vice admirals uniform. Do they just hand those out when they make you Surgeon General?"
"It's just one of the many perks I'll miss," Millicent sat on the bed and played with the sheet next to Andi's thigh, "I suppose it's time to go and throw myself on my sword."
"I think that uniform's gone to your head, using military metaphors."
"I'm just using them before I have to return the uniform," Millicent tipped forward slightly, head tilting to the side, she paused just short of kissing Andi.
"Now or never," Andi whispered.
"Yeah," Millicent pulled away and stood up, carefully picking up the envelope that contained her resignation.
"Do you want me to lock the door on my way out?"
"Just post the key back through the door," Millicent took an obvious step back, seemingly struck by the fact that there was a naked congresswoman and virtual stranger in her bed, "Your shoes are downstairs, and your coat."
"And my shirt and bra as far as I remember," Andi joked, trying to break the tension.
----
Jake wasn't lurking behind Andi's office door waiting to jump out at her the next morning, instead he was waiting by her desk clutching a pile of post-its, "phone messages."
"Who from?"
"Seth Gillette, Toby Ziegler, Amy Gardner, the surgeon general-"
"What did Millicent say?"
Jake raised an eyebrow at Andi's sudden familiarity with the Surgeon General. Andi ignored him, whatever Jake thought he was not her wife or her mother.
Jake riffled through the messages until he reached the right one, "'He's not firing me, thanks for everything – Millie.'"