AN: So this episode got me thinking…Aaron and Emily seem awfully comfortable with each other these days. And I started to wonder…what if.
The Secret
The clock on the bedside table read 2:35am when her phone rang.
Forcibly repressing a groan, she reached out a hand and grabbed the buzzing device.
"Emily Rhodes," she said, voice hoarse. It took a colossal effort to make herself listen. Her brain, still mostly asleep, took a second to process what she was hearing, and then another second to figure out a solution to the problem.
The person on the other end of the line was basically the night watch for her office. He was a young guy, a little dramatic and easily excitable. In her estimation, this phone call could have waited for her in the form of a post-it on her desk.
She gave instructions, quickly, then ended the call with a sigh before flopping face-first back to her pillow.
In another second, she heard sheets rustling and a warm body pressed against hers.
"Everything okay?" Aaron asked, running his fingertips down her bare back.
She made a noncommittal noise, but turned into him. He opened his arms, letting her burrow closer, then rolled to his back.
"I miss you being chief of staff a lot," she confessed, "but never more than in the middle of the night, when all of this would be your problem."
He chuckled, and she felt the vibrations under her ear. "I admit, I miss it, too, but I have to say that it's amazing, being able to sleep for more than two hours every night."
In the darkness, she closed her eyes, hooking a knee over his legs under the covers. He was warm, and smelled good, and she was just so tired, and there were many worse places to sleep than Aaron Shore's chest.
From the odd state in between sleeping and awake, she felt his lips touch her hair, felt herself smile in response.
She was glad she was getting used to this.
The first night had been…well. It wasn't like they had gotten much sleep.
It had been after they had met for drinks to discuss the vice presidency. One scotch had led to another had led to one more, had led to Aaron walking her to her door because he said he wasn't convinced she could make it there on her own.
Had led to grabbing his tie and dragging him down for a kiss. Not that he'd fought her. At all.
Had led to fumbling for keys, desperately trying to unlock the door, which was impossibly difficult with his lips on her neck.
Had led to literally ripping buttons off of his shirt, shoving him against the wall and standing on her toes to reach him better.
Had led to him throwing her over his shoulder and making for the bedroom, regardless of the fact that he had no idea where he was going.
Had led to feeling Aaron shiver under her hands, a burn mark from his stubble on the inside of one of her thighs, and the visceral pleasure of his weight on her.
She had fallen asleep on him after, had half expected him to be gone when she woke.
He wasn't.
He was sound asleep, an arm curled around her waist, breathing deep and even.
A phone call had made her run out of her apartment the next morning. There had been no time to be awkward about what had passed between them.
Without asking, Aaron had brought her coffee as she'd hastily done her makeup, barefoot, with shirt unbuttoned, hair falling over his forehead.
He had looked so impossibly sexy that she'd had to fight the urge to push him back into her bed and utterly have her way. She had a strong suspicion he would have let her.
Instead, she'd made due with a quick kiss on her way out the door, handing him her apartment key.
"Lock the door behind you," she instructed, shrugging on her jacket.
He'd smiled, then had kissed her again.
Chaos was the order of the day at work, and as much as she would have simply liked to relive every moment of the night before, she just didn't have time. Memories caught her at unexpected moments throughout the morning, though.
While her assistant was giving her messages, she was thinking about the exact way Aaron breathed when he was trying to control himself.
She was on a conference call with the State Department, remembering how his curls had brushed her skin when he'd kissed her stomach.
She was trying to have a conversation with a member of the House Oversight Committee when she abruptly recalled how he had smiled against her skin when she'd cried out his name.
By noon, she had done a million different things, but couldn't remember a damn one of them.
Her phone buzzed.
Lunch? he wrote. I think I have something that belongs to you.
Apartment key. Of course. Was she going to be able to have a normal discussion with him ever again?
Sure. What are you thinking?
Casual. Be cool. Pretend like what had happened wasn't totally consuming her.
She waited with bated breath for his answer.
That diner next to that book store you made me go to once? An hour?
She smiled. She remembered. Aaron tended to think her choice of food was outrageous.
Sounds good. See you soon.
His reply was unexpected. And very much welcome.
Not soon enough.
He handed her the key back with a wink, fingers lingering against hers. And then he'd smiled, and she knew it was going to be okay.
That had been the first day of their unofficially official relationship.
Their first real date had been two days later. They had been keeping a very low profile. DC was a place that loved gossip, and so they had tried to avoid venues where someone would see them and report them to Politico.
That had already happened once or twice, according to her mother who read Playbook like it was the Bible, but it was easily chalked up to being a business meeting between the White House and the House.
They had never talked about what made him leave the West Wing in the first place. Had never talked about their first failed attempt at a relationship. It was coming, she knew that, but until then, she just wanted to continue to exist in this bubble.
For her part, she found it incredible, how easy this was. They were technically rivals at work, and sometimes it followed them home, but never to their detriment. In fact, she had discovered a very good way to get Aaron to compromise on policy approaches was to bargain in the bedroom. He very rarely told her no while undressed, and absolutely never when she happened to be doing something he particularly enjoyed.
One day, flowers appeared on her kitchen table.
Another time, she found a bag of chocolate kisses in her briefcase.
Aaron Shore was a romantic soul. Who would have thought?
She thought Seth probably suspected they were together, but Seth knew them both very well. In point of fact, he was also the only one who ever actually saw them in the same place at the same time. He never asked, probably because he never wanted to have to answer a reporter's question about them.
It was important that no one did find out, at least for now, not while they were trying to get Hookstraten as VP. The optics on that would be awful. No one wanted the speculation that the only reason she was selected was that her chief strategist happened to be sleeping with the White House Chief of Staff.
She desperately hoped they could get Hookstraten, for a lot of reasons. Some noble, some entirely selfish. She would be an excellent VP. She truly had the country's best interest at heart, and had already shown that she had the mettle to rally her own party. And, selfishly, it meant Aaron around.
If she was being honest, she wanted him back as Chief of Staff for POTUS. She was good at this job, she knew that, but he was better. She was excellent at being a special assistant. She and Aaron together were one hell of a team. There had even been op-ed articles written about how well they ran the White House. It was hard, trying to do both of their jobs.
Fortunately, at least, she now had a wonderful method of stress relief, in the form of a wildly attractive Hispanic man who could make sinfully good chicken fajitas. His mother's recipe, he said.
Her phone rang again. God, she was going to need some of that stress relief if this kept up.
"Emily Rhodes."
This time, it was the President. She sat up, one hand braced on Aaron's chest.
"Yes, sir. As soon as I can."
She shook her head to clear it, then reluctantly rolled out of bed.
"What?" Aaron asked.
She shrugged, flipping on the light to her closet. "I don't know yet, but it can't be good. If your phone starts ringing, we'll know it was bad enough that he called in Hookstraten."
Hastily she tossed outfits onto the bed. Aaron said nothing, just watched her with his arms folded behind his head. She was half dressed when his phone buzzed.
"Alright," he said, reaching for it. "We're going with 'extra bad.'"
He wasn't wrong.
Two hours later she was seated beside him in the Roosevelt Room, along with the President, the Speaker, and several members of Homeland Security and the FBI.
It was going to be a monstrously long day.
Around eight the next morning, Aaron appeared in her doorway with a massive cup of coffee. She put her pen down with an audible thump.
"Thank you," she said emphatically, taking the cup from him. "If we weren't at work, I'd kiss you."
He smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners, though he looked as tired as she felt. "I'm pretty sure you've kissed me at work before," he said. "In fact," he continued, looking over at the furniture, "I'm pretty sure it was right over there."
She tossed a wadded up memo at him, then sipped her drink with the air of someone who has been granted a reprieve from death row.
"Any progress?" he asked, settling himself in a chair.
She sighed. "Nope. Hannah Wells is still missing. Vanished. There's still mole in the White House. And the guy that tried to kill the president is still alive. It's just been a great day."
He smiled without humor. "Cheer up," he told her. "It's still early. A lot more could go wrong."
"Thank you, Aaron, for your optimism," she deadpanned.
It was another day where she very much wanted him back as Chief of Staff. But she straightened her shoulders and got to work, regardless.
By the time night fell, the ache between her shoulder blades had moved to her temples. She could feel them throbbing. All she wanted was to bury her face in Aaron's neck and fall asleep.
But the President was still working, so she needed to be as well.
He ordered her home just before midnight.
Aaron answered on the first ring.
"Come here," he said quietly. "Door's open."
His place was no further from work than her's was, just in the opposite direction. As promised, the door was unlocked.
It was dark, but she knew her way.
Exhausted, she toed off her shoes, then padded down the hall. Not bothering to change her clothes, she crawled into bed, into Aaron's waiting arms.
She took a breath, head on his chest. "That's totally unfair," she said.
"What is?" he asked, taken aback.
"You still smell good," she said, annoyed. "I swear, men's cologne could go through the apocalypse and be fine. Meanwhile, my perfume wears off by the time I leave my apartment."
He laughed. She took a second to appreciate the feel of the muscles beneath his t-shirt. God, when did he find time to work out? She couldn't even find time to eat or sleep.
She realized her thoughts were a mess. She needed to shut down for a while.
"Tell me it'll be okay," she murmured, eyes squeezed shut.
One of his hands curved around the back of her head. "It will be," he whispered.
And even though he had no way of keeping that promise, it made her feel superficially better.
"Go to sleep," he told her hair.
Little by little, she relaxed. At the end of the day, she would rather be in this bed with him, even with the insanity that made up her life, than anywhere else without him. She had wanted her job to matter - well, it certainly did now.
With her last burst of energy, she pressed a sleepy kiss against his jaw, and his arms tightened in response.
"Sleep," he said again.
She did.