DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Scandal, and make no monetary profit from the publishing of this work.

This has been sitting in my doc manager for a little while, finished, just needed fine tuning. Silly really, took almost no time at all to actually come up with in the first place, one of the fastest pieces I've writen. To my surprise, I'm personally an Abby-Leo fan, particularly after her independence from OPA during Season 4 onwards. I like Rosen, but more for his own arc rather than his history with Abby. Anyway, enjoy! Currently just one piece, I might write more later, so I will leave this open.

SOULLESS MONSTER

Leo Bergen wasn't the most sentimental of men, but he couldn't stop it, he was fiddling with his keys. 'His' keys, really her keys. The reason he had them in his hand was because he had just used it to get in to her apartment, underestimating how late she would be dealing with the aftermath at the White House. The reason he still had them in his hand was because he was slightly worried he would have to hand them back when she got in.

But now that he was twisting them in his fingers, he was struggling to let go of them. He'd only come round to pick up his mouth-guard case. Hadn't he?

When he saw her car pull up outside her house, he knew.

"He's not a soulless monster."

Surprised, Senator Susan Ross looked up at her from the table, where she'd been thinking over her decision. Olivia was in her office on the phone, dealing with other crises, her face looking weary through the glass.

Surprised herself, Abby cleared her throat. "Umm... sorry, I..." And she smiled weakly. "Ignore me."

Susan blinked, looking like she hadn't the faintest idea what just happened. Then she frowned. "No, I'm sorry. That was a harsh thing to say. About Mr Bergen. I take that back. I'm sure... I'm sure he has... err... many fine qualities." The silence ends up speaking for itself; no surety there really.

Abby suddenly couldn't help it; she was enraged. So, ever so calmly... "Leo Bergen is the reason you won your seat in the Senate, ma'am."

Completely taken aback, Susan laughed for an absurd moment, stammered for another. "That's... I don't see how that can be true, he worked for -"

"For Charles Putney, yes," Abby steeled herself, still unable to mention her ex-husband without trauma trembling down her spine. Now there was a soulless monster. "Leo leaked that Chip set up Senator McDonell to the press."

Again, Susan struggled to believe her. "But... why would he -"

"That's not..." Abby interrupted again, but failed to finish. Now was not the time to describe exactly why he sunk Chip's campaign, if there ever was a time. "That's not important. He did it because it was..." And she smiled. "Because it was the right thing to do. You wouldn't be here if he hadn't thought that. So I know he was an ass before, but he hasn't actually been wrong so far. After he got you that interview with Jimmy Kimmel your ringtone doubled its sales in a couple of hours, but in an ironic way. Tomorrow, all you have to do is show up and be yourself. If it hadn't have been for him, tomorrow would be a lot harder."

What do you want me to say?

How should I know, you're the one who's president!

"This is kind of what he meant, isn't it?"

Abby snapped out of remembering Leo shouting in the war room. "What...?"

"When he said 'how should I know'. Is this... he meant the same thing as Olivia, didn't he? That it was up to me what I was going to say," Susan said thoughtfully.

Abby chuckled. "Yeah, I guess, in his own way." They both chuckled at that. Before they returned to silence, Abby input her last. "For what it's worth, I'd trust you with the red button."

With nothing to say other than a quiet, humbled thank you, they both went back to thinking of their own dilemmas.

He hadn't messaged her at all today.

He remembered the first gift he bought for her were two massive teal cushions.

The first time they went to hers they'd lined the hallway to her bedroom with their clothing - one ridiculously high heel here, his socks there, her dress here, his shirt and tie there - and when they finally got to within sight of her bed he couldn't help but laugh a little.

"Oh my god, why in the world do you have so many cushions?"

"What...?"

He let his hands slide away from her ass and threw himself on to her bed, upsetting the balance of her display, and started counting them out aloud. Impatient, trying to prove his point, he gave up. "What is it with women and cushions? I don't understand it. They cost a fortune for essentially a few squares of material and some stuffing, and serve no function whatsoever. I mean, it's not like you use them as a pillow, that's what you have pillows for!"

She marched over, a sexy Amazon in just her bra and panties, reminding him that he'd seen her in far less plenty of times by this point, and seized one of the cushions from his hands, cradling it to her chest. "Well... why do men always have darkly coloured sheets? It's not like we don't know what - hey!" He threw one of her cushions at her, sticking his tongue out boyishly when she glared at him. She couldn't help it, her glare faltered, so she covered it up by pummelling him with her cushion, beating him softly into submission, shrieking as he grabbed her, rolled her over on the bed and kissed her breath away. Distracted briefly, she kept hitting him anyway, giggling between his kisses, until she was sufficiently distracted when he pulled her bra strap down with his teeth.

When her cushions arrived, she asked him why in the world he'd bought them for her. "Because usually you're meant to give your girlfriend flowers or overly-fancy chocolates that you say you'll save for a special day and they probably just go off eventually, or something equally useless and unoriginal, so I figured I'd get you something you already had, couldn't possibly need more of, but would probably want them anyway. And they'll last longer than flowers. Or chocolates for that matter."

He kind of knew she'd stopped listening after he said the word 'girlfriend'.

She never told him this, and he never questioned her about it, but he knew she sprayed them with his cologne at some point. What he didn't know was that when he didn't stay round and she missed him she would end up sleeping with the cushions instead of her pillows. Nor did he know that last night, when they still weren't made up and the headlines was still sceptical of Susan Ross, she'd ended up sitting on his side of the bed, his cushions propping her up, watching the news.

She'd thought it was just going to be a one night stand, and snuck out of his house early to go home and get ready for work, refusing to wear the same dress in. She'd left him a note: Thank you for everything, I had a great night. A. She'd thought they'd be on the same page, that whatever chemistry they had would have burnt itself out in climactic fashion by now (really climactic fashion...). It had been a fantastic night; a single, gentle kiss had grown into making out in the press room, taking it in turns to breathe and take another glug of the bourbon, which had lead to the suggestion of going back to his - it was too late by this point to get dinner - more kissing in the back of the taxi, to having sex on his couch. First. Oh... that had been a fantastic night.

But... she was too busy to be dating right now, particularly a political consultant whose lifestyle was just as busy and hectic as hers. At least her job kept her in D.C., his took him all over the country in aid of whichever political player needed him/paid him the most. She wasn't even thinking about it. No way. Nu-huh.

It would have been nice to have had dinner at least... nope, not thinking about it.

Until he showed up at her office, with lunch.

"Usually, when a woman spends the night, I make her breakfast. Doesn't have to be fancy, even if it's just a coffee and some toast or whatever I actually have in the house. You, however, skipped out, so..." And he gestured to the food. "I figured the safest option was a salad, but you're not a rabbit, so it's got bacon on it. You don't strike me as a vegetarian, you're way too feisty to not eat meat."

For the first time, Abby Whelan actually took her lunch break, albeit in her office. Her emails went unanswered - she glanced at them and put them all on the To Do list - her secretary fielded her calls for a bit, having taken the hint, and he spent an hour making her laugh, ignoring his Blackberry. When Reality finally let itself be known - developments on the situation in West Angola on the news - he'd wrangled a dinner date out of her the day after, and when he got up to leave she told him to wait at the door, got up and kissed him. It would have been nice to have wasted another hour on her couch, his thoughts also if his hands navigating south towards her ass were any indication, but they'd have to save that for another time. Or that very night, as it turned out.

And, as it also turned out, like the other day, when Leo finally gave the Senator a break from his relentless questioning. Thank God her office windows had blinds... It took forever to rearrange her desk. Later on she'd have some of the most powerful men and women in America sitting on that couch and she wouldn't be able to look a single one of them in the eye.

He still hadn't messaged her. She had no voicemails. She'd checked with her assistant to see if he'd left a message with her. At one point she'd even scoured her own office to see if he'd left a note or something. It was the first day he hadn't communicated with her in some fashion since March 25th. Even that time when he had to fly out to Los Angeles to deal with some issue he called her from the flight just to tease her, knowing she'd start freaking out that the plane was going to crash because he hadn't switched off his cell phone. She'd picked him up from the airport, which both surprised and visibly moved him, and then she punched him in the arm when they got to the car, yelled at him to never make or take calls again from a plane again, and then yanked him towards her using his tie and kissed the hell out of him, feeling so stupid for feeling so relieved that he was back.

Abby sighed, accepted that she wasn't going to make any progress on her work tonight, that at least something good had happened today - Susan Ross was now the Vice President of the United States. Time to go home.

The number of hits the clips on Youtube had been getting were slowing down a little, but they were still there. For a moment, the number one question was 'where were you when Susan Ross did that laugh on live TV?' Well, Leo could remember perfectly.

"... I could go on and on, but I'll simply end with this: she is just what this country needs. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to the next Vice President of the United States, Senator Susan Ross..."

"Turn that up!"

Assistants had scrambled to do their boss' bidding, and several other screens around the office were muted. Leo came out of his private office and walked closer to the screen where the tiny Senator of Virginia - the same who he'd campaigned against not all that long ago - walked over to stand behind the podium that the President had looked so tall behind, and that only served to make her look even shorter. This would be interesting.

"Thank you, Mr President, for that wonderful introduction. Now, as President Grant said, I don't have a long history in government, but what I do have is an abiding passion to solve problems, and a fresh outlook on what Americans want from their government today. As the only single mother in Congress, I have a unique perspective on what it is really like out there for millions of hard-working families, and as a tenured academic I have the tools to analyse..."

"Well, I'll be damned," Leo said, possibly to himself, possibly to his team who'd also stopped what they were doing to watch this potentially monumental move. "She's doing pretty well. Good job, Abby."

"... as my daughter Cassie once told me..."

As the Senator came to stop, mouth open like a fish out of water, he thought perhaps he'd spoken too soon. As the Senator struggled to keep going, the team around him started staring at each other, amazed. God, if this had been their client...

It got worse.

"A little odd, isn't it? That I'm going to tell you a cute, little story about my daughter, when really - I mean, she's a great kid, my Cassie - but... we're talking about the entire government of the United States of America, and this is..."

"Oh Jesus..."

"... real, and I'm standing here talking to you, and I just -" And then Senator Susan Ross gave the single greatest, oddest, most bewilderingly absurd laugh Leo had ever heard come out of anyone's mouth, let alone on live broadcast, be it on the radio or the television. He had to grit his teeth to stop himself from laughing, and thank Christ that he did, because otherwise he'd have missed what followed it.

"... err, well, err... Anyhoo, so that happened..."

The entire office burst out laughing, or if not they just finally breathed, choking on held breaths. No one in history would remember what poor Susan Ross said after this moment. When they'd all finally calmed down, everyone absolutely relieved that this woman wasn't their case, and all the other news stories were back on (although in a few minutes all of them would be about what they had just witnessed), Leo picked up his cell and used it to point at his assistant. "Pull out the files on this next VP, I think I'm going to need them." And savouring the look of confusion and dawning horror on his assistant's face, he marched back into his office, shut the door behind him, and called back his last call.

"Hey..." Abby answered quietly. He smiled instantly at her voice, as always. "Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"Leo..."

"Yeah, I saw it. Everyone saw it. Or they certainly will have by the end of the day."

"Was it that bad?" She sounded so weary, like she already knew what the answer was going to be.

"Err..." He debated whether to lie, tell her it wasn't that bad, but then she'd only ask whether something was wrong with him, or whether to just give it to her straight, completely blunt, nothing held back. Much better option. "I give the Internet three minutes before someone turns that laugh into a gif. Ten minutes before Youtube does a remix."

"Oh God..."

"Shame really, she was doing good until... well, I don't think the English language has a way of describing what happened there. Although I give it fifteen minutes to come up with something." Abby groaned down the phone. "So you're going to have a fun day."

"Oh God..." She said again, and he heard the unmistakable sound of her hand slapping against her own forehead.

"It'll be fine, I'm sure Cyrus is already on the phone to Olivia, it'll all be blown over by the end of the week."

There was a marked silence. "Yeah... yeah, I'm sure."

Leo's ears pricked. That was interestingly less than sure. Play it cool...

"I've got to go, Leo, I have to... handle this."

"Okay. I'll bring wine over tonight."

"Bourbon. Make it bourbon."

He chuckled down the phone in farewell.

Low and behold, less than half an hour later, his phone rang again, just as he'd finished reacquainting himself with his notes from the Putney case. "Hello, Cy, how's your lovely morning been?"

The perks of dating the Press Secretary: your name reached the top of the list of go-to people. Then again, the perks for her was that if she asked him to take on the ultimate under-dog, the zero-chancer, the biggest loser on the face of the planet and try and make this person the mayor of No-One-Knows-And-No-One-Caresville... he'd never be able to say no. He knew that. So did she.

As she drove home, Abby checked her phone again at every red light, just in case she'd missed a call. No, nothing. Maybe... maybe she'd been right. Maybe she had kind of broke up with Leo when she fired him.

But... she hadn't... that wasn't supposed to... she hadn't meant to. She... God damn it!

She pulled over for a second, breathed. Checked her phone again. Tried not to cry this time.

She kept thinking about what Cyrus had said. You date him, really Red, that turns you on? Well... yes, actually. Not that it was any of his business (as the White House Chief of Staff, undoubtedly he'd argue it was, but anyway).

She'd been really happy, much to her surprise. Much to many people's surprise, in fact. She still remembered telling everyone at OPA, and the reactions the Gladiators had given her. Quinn had looked at her like she was thinking really, you go for that?. Huck had blinked a couple of times, as though he was more surprised that he was being told this at all. Jake had just gone "oh..." and awkwardly changed the subject, having nothing to contribute to the matter of her sex life. The worst of course had been David, in that awful deposition that he had so genially walked into and been so devastated by. He'd never really forgiven her for that. Olivia had been best of all. Liv's eyes had narrowed for a moment, staring right into her, as though searching for something that told her that this was just a rebound, or some issue to do with her ex-husband. And then the corner of her mouth curled upwards, looking satisfied, and said, "okay". When Abby asked her what she meant by that, Olivia smiled genuinely: "I think he's man enough for you. If he's anything less, dump him."

That had been thought-provoking, to say the least, and now, finally, staring at her silent cell phone, Abby understood what she meant.

Leo was never afraid to tell her when he disagreed. In fact, it wasn't even disagreement, he'd just flatly state that he thought she was wrong. But he was never afraid to listen to her tell him why she thought she was right. He was never afraid of arguing with her, because God damn it sometimes, like with Susan Ross, it was just fun. And the make-up sex was awesome.

She should have argued over Susan's resignation earlier that night. She shouldn't have sat on it, stewing, getting more and more irate, and should have just yelled at him in the White House the second that the senator was out the door. He hadn't been annoyed with her about that argument because of the argument itself; he'd seen it coming a mile off. If they'd had that argument earlier, even an exact replica of it where she called him a bully and he'd called Susan Ross unfit for the job and she'd fired him... they could have fought some more, around a table with polls stats and strategy notes, not over different sides of her bed. She'd been right to fire him - he had been a bully! - but... not like that. She'd had no right to do that just as they were about to go to sleep and think that that ended the argument. Of course that did not end the argument. He'd been right to pull her up on her lack of faith with him.

Because, in his way, he'd have been right too. She knew him too well, she knew how he worked. He would have let the senator go home, have a cry, have a break, pee, sleep on it... and then he'd have gone back, sickly-sweetly apologised for being hard on her, and then told her his own version of what Susan Ross needed to do. He would have told her that she needed to decide what kind of Vice President she wanted to be should Fate and Duty call it, that he'd done his job and removed the questions, that it was up to her now. He would have said that politics is theatre half the time, that was his very business, that was what he'd been hired for. What she was being hired for was the other side, the side that actually makes a difference, the side that writes policies and declares war and peace, the side that ultimately matters. He'd tell her that he had no illusions over the fact that should that day come when she had the red button under her hand she'd have it way harder than just him yelling at her, she'd have all of Congress and the Senate yelling at her, the entire country, and that she should have no illusions about that either. So... what kind of President would she be?

And Senator Susan Ross would still have come up with what she said at her hearings. And Leo undoubtedly would have told her that it was his plan all along, including Susan Ross quitting, just to put her faith and resolve to the test. The Senator would have had a moment - a much needed moment - when she had to really consider whether she was right for the job, in a mindset where she wasn't overwhelmed with the honour of being asked. Overnight she would have reassessed her decision on her own, and been ready to start afresh with a stronger, less naive resolve. She'd have been ready to make smart, informed and thoughtful decisions.

Now, Abby on the other hand...

No. No, she'd been right. He didn't have to treat that poor woman like that, or play it that way. He should have shown more respect for the Senator - a smart, strong woman capable to making her own decisions without being handled into them - and not underestimated her. He should have had more respect for her feedback at the time when he was frazzling Susan. He should have... he should have not left that night, and carried on arguing with her so they could have eventually yelled themselves out, had angry sex that would have left them both too exhausted to argue anymore, and gone back to work the next day to find a solution. Together. A team. Partners...

Shit. She really had broken up with him when she fired him, hadn't she? All over... She sighed in her car, put the car back into gear, and continued on home alone.

He should have messaged to say he was coming over. It had been weird for the last couple of days, returning to his office and yelling directly at his associates instead of on the phone, sleeping in his own bed alone. The only times when he slept alone these days, anywhere, was when he was away from D.C. on business. It was weird watching the Senate hearing on a screen in his office alone, silently critiquing how well spoken the Senator was now that she'd pulled herself together again. It had Olivia Pope stamped all over it - who else would they have turned to after Abby fired him? - but it was good work. Never underestimate your competitors, his mentor had once taught him. Well, he never did, that's why he was one of the best. And he could admire good theatre when he saw it, and praise the director.

It hadn't been a good couple of days though. He hadn't slept well, in his house that now felt empty. And, in cliche He's Just Not That Into You fashion, he was checking his phone every five minutes. Every time it rang his heart leapt into his throat and his stomach started doing somersaults in his chest, but it was always, always about work. One call had given him hope; it was from the White House switchboard, except it was Cyrus.

"If this is some kind of lovers' spat, then you need to get your ass back where it's being paid to be! I do not care if you have to kiss and make up, or break up, I could not emphasise more how much I do not care, just do the job that you were hired to do -"

He hadn't really been in the mood to explain to the White House Chief of Staff that his Press Secretary had made her decision. He hadn't been in the mood to do much really. He'd pretty much been signed off for the next few days because they'd all assumed that he'd be at the White House, so his associates had gotten on with their own cases with only the occasional report in for guidance. Except they were all trying to minimise that, even though he was only a few feet away, as the closed door to his office gave a rather clear sign: go away.

He hadn't felt this shitty since March 24th, when he'd strode into the White House, feeling victorious. It had been late, which meant nothing of course in the West Wing, but he was feeling so awesome he'd completely skipped past the Chief of Staff's office, to whom he should have been reporting his happy news to first, but the light was on in the Press Secretary's office, so he'd decided to bug his favourite redhead instead first. Besides, he had a feeling that secretly she was gunning against her ex-husband (why was none of his business). Before he knocked he noted the tiredness under her eyes, worried briefly about why she looked so strained lately. But again, none of his business.

"I'd have thought you'd have left."

"I came back."

"Fair enough. The thing I've learned in this business is that everybody has something. Usually it's obvious; did I know that Lewis McDonell liked to sign Cocamona in his diaper, no I did not, but I knew there was something wrong about that guy. Susan Ross: super smart, mother-of-the-decade, a sad widow, what could be wrong other than a passing resemblance to Yosemite Sam? Well, it turns out she's not a sad widow after all, she's not even a widow, Susan Ross... wasn't married to the dead dad of little Cassie Ross. Yahtzee!"

She'd put down her papers and stared at him. "Did you just say 'yahtzee'?"

He nodded, for a brief moment abashed. "I did."

"That saddens me," she'd said sardonically. "Is anyone really going to care about the fact that that she isn't a widow?"

"Oh, I think some people are going to care, and those people are called... Republicans, Abby; she's amoral, a sinner, a liar. And since she's also an ugly egg-head they didn't want to vote for anyway, now they don't have to. Susan Ross is going to lose, Olivia Pope is going to lose, and our guy, Charles Putney, is going to win. That's worth a 'yahtzee'.

And then she said things that he genuinely never wanted to hear come out of her mouth, or any woman's mouth.

"My jaw was wired shut for six weeks, and... I still have a pin in it that gets me a sympathetic look from the lady manning the X-Ray every time I go through Security at an airport. Two of my front teeth are fake, and my collarbone hurts whenever it's going to rain. Charles did that to me. So yeah, you won. Yahtzee!"

And then she turned back to her paperwork, as though they'd just been discussing the weather.

He... he was stunned. Genuinely, completely, wildly unable to respond. The silence had dragged on, becoming heavier and heavier, on both of them. He finally sat forward in his chair, his head bowed, staring at his hands uncertainly. When he looked up again he could see she wasn't reading at all, that her hands shook ever so slightly, that her entire frame had tensed up. "Abby, I -"

"Just..." And she sighed, dropped the papers on her desk, given up, and started gathering her things to go home. "Just... don't."

So he left, went back to his own office, and stared hollowly at the whiteboards posted up everywhere with stratagems to get Charles 'Chip' Putney elected as the Senator of Virginia. It was sickening, sitting in his office, behind his desk, from which he had planned to advance the causes of someone who... It did not sit well.

Leo had no qualms with having contradictory or conflicting moral judgements. The world was full of them. For instance, thou shalt not kill, but the United States had one of the biggest militaries in the world in order to defend the liberties of people throughout the world; literally they had a whole body of people trained to kill other people. So right there and then, realising he'd had no qualms about serving a woman who murdered her husband in a fit of rage but was now sick to the stomach with a man who beat the crap out of his wife, Leo felt no twist of conscience. Half of morality wasn't based on reason, logic and rationality, it was guttural, emotionally charged and empowered thus. His gut told him this wasn't right. His gut had told him that too when he realised Sally had killed her husband, but not quite this loudly. His gut got over that one pretty quickly. This... not so much.

He made a call to a number he didn't have written down or recorded anywhere, and left a voicemail message. He went home, tried to sleep, finally passed out from exhaustion when his mind no longer had the stamina to repeat Abby's words back, over and over. He woke up at dawn, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and looked out the window to the postbox at the end of the path. Seconds later he was retrieving a package that he left sealed until he was back in his home, and he emptied the contents over his desk in his study. It was a series of medical reports of a woman who'd been brought into A&E with severe bodily injuries a few years ago. It contained copies of X-Rays of broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, notes on bruises and a massive black-eye. There was a report from a MRI scan that came back reporting a concussion but no other problems presenting. The patient was released nearly two months later into the care of Ms Olivia Pope. The patient's name was Mrs Abigail Putney.

Included with the medical file were all the correct legal forms applying for the divorce of Mr and Mrs Charles Putney to be kept out of the public domain, and various notes describing how difficult it had been to obtain anything included in the package. Olivia Pope had done an excellent job keeping her friend's divorce and reasons for it out of the papers, and ensuring no one could ever stumble upon it if they decided to dig. But Leo's guy was good, very good. He was also discreet.

It only took one more phone call.

She was still over-thinking things. It had gotten worse, now she was thinking about David.

Silly really. It hadn't been the first time she'd compared her relationship with Leo to hers with David. And a part of her was always surprised when things added up in Leo's favour.

Olivia, of course, had been right. Leo never said 'okay, dear' even when he completely disagreed with her, but didn't want to start a fight. Not that David did either, but the compulsion to do so always looked a bit too obvious. And she always resented him for it.

There were other things. It was always inevitable that at some point one or the other would end up being several hours late for dates, or having to postpone entirely at the last minute. That ended up happening more and more towards the end of her relationship with David, as he scoured through the B613 files. Leo had had his fair share of calls telling him that she was going to have to postpone in order to deal with some crisis in the White House, and half the time he'd already figured that out just by watching the news that she wasn't going to be available anymore. Leo had had to do the same with her, except in these cases most of the time she would have no forewarning. But he always called her first as shit started to hit the fan; he never delegated that to an assistant. And yes, it always annoyed her when he did have to cancel on her, but after she gave him a spare key he started ordering take-out at her place and stay up watching news channels until she got home, making sure there was food left for her, knowing how unlikely it was that she would have eaten anything of substance at all that day. Not that David never did that, or that he ever got an assistant to cancel on her, but by the time she'd finally had enough she would have preferred it if he had.

Sometimes she wondered how she ever got together with David. It made for such an unimpressive story. Sometimes she wondered why she'd gone for it. David was a good guy; highly principled, moral, and above all he was... well, he was a nice guy. But he wasn't built of the same stuff as her. He wasn't weak by any means, but only because he hadn't had that many things happen to him to weaken him. After her traumas, her strength had had a long way to grow. Relationships always limp a little when one person's stronger than the other.

With Leo things were remarkably simple. He wasn't built on trauma either, but his toughness was solid, hard-earned, well-crafted. And she'd never once doubted that he wanted her, right from that moment visiting Joan Reston in prison.

"Do you have any advice that doesn't involve insulting me?"

"... No."

Or that smouldering look he gave her as the Youtube clip of Reston threatening his wife played on her phone. Whoo... remembering it still sent shivers down her spine, sexy shivers. He never did contradict her when she said she was smarter than him. Footage of them arguing against each other for the election played like foreplay sometimes. And then of course he hadn't held anything back when he walked brazenly into her office after her ex-husband reappeared. And even then, when he knew everything, knew the worst of her, the bits that made her ashamed most days, he hadn't been deterred. He got rid of Chip for her, and spent every day since making her feel... feel...

Like she was the sexiest, strongest goddess that walked the Earth.

She thought back of the woman she'd been when she'd been with David. She hadn't been weak exactly... but she was so negative, so lost in a way. She'd been so angry with Liv for leaving them all behind, but actually... Abby would never have left OPA and joined the White House if Olivia had stayed in D.C. And that had been the start of the making of her. She started standing up for herself after that.

She wondered what would have happened if none of that had happened before the McDonnell scandal, if she hadn't have been who she was now before Chip appeared. She dreaded to think. But she did think that, despite being the most principled and judgemental of all the White Hats, David would not have had it in him to rise to the occasion, like Leo had.

Leo had once asked her if he shouldn't have sabotaged her ex-husband, if somehow by doing that he'd taken away a chance to get even with Chip herself, robbed her of a chance to be an ultimate feminist warrior or something. She'd loved him for asking that, for assuming that she was strong enough to face up to her ex-husband like that. Even when he asked at the time she'd adored him for even thinking it, let alone asking; for questioning whether she, as a woman, needed him, as a man, to fight her battles for her. Who would have thought it? Leo Bergen, a feminist.

It hadn't taken very long to realise that Leo, despite half the things he told his clients to say, was considerably more liberal than the Core, that Core that had freaky, intolerant tea-parties. He was about the least discriminatory man she'd ever encountered; his client list spanned gender, race and sexuality, the same in his private life amongst those he classed his friends. In another life, he'd once said, if he hadn't have become so cynical, he would have made an awesome activist for women's rights, gay rights, ethnic rights, rights of anyone. She was inclined to agree. But he was cynical, so he was better off getting people who might go on to make a small difference to any of these causes elected into positions where they might. You can't beat the Core, he told her. You can manipulate them like puppets to your tune, but they'll only dance if they like your tune.

She'd had so much fun disagreeing with him about that, until she realised how daft it was to argue over manipulating the general public to win votes (that's what election campaigns were all about after all). She loved disagreeing with him so much anyway. Sometimes it was just fun to play devil's advocate until he realised she was winding him up; he did the same to her as well. It was all foreplay to them. And oh my... the play itself... that put a grin on Abby's face on even the bluest of days. Even right there and then, in her car outside her house, stalling before going in to cook for one.

That wasn't even the issue, cooking for one. Singledom she could handle fine, having no complications or commitments or compromises. She was tough, like she'd just been reminding herself. But she'd miss him. She'd miss yelling at him. She'd even miss being yelled back at. She'd miss feeling like she had an equal. She'd miss the sex. Oh boy... she'd definitely miss the sex.

She was so distracted by her own thoughts she didn't notice his car parked a little further down the street.

Leo frowned, watching. Why wasn't she getting out of her car? It was just making him nervous now. Leo Bergen did not do nervous.

His keys were still in his hand.

Finally she got out, but she sighed as she closed her car door and locked it, and she looked tired and weary as she turned and slowly walked up the steps to the front door. Her heels echoed on the stairs. And when she rounded the corner he saw that split second between seeing how exhausted she looked to steeled when she saw him.

"Hey."

Immediately he was on his guard as well. They were going to have another fight, he could tell. "Hey."

She put her files down on her favourite chair, turned round to face him again. Yeah, she was going to argue with him again; she hadn't kicked off her heels yet, and she always preferred feeling tall if she was going to yell at him. "If you're looking for your mouth-guard case, it's umm... I put it in the dishwasher; it was gross, so..."

"Abby," he started, not wanting to talk about his mouth-guard. He grimaced as she interrupted.

"I fired you. I was right to fire you, and if you can't handle that, if you can't handle me doing my job, having some power -" Wait, that's what she thought this was about, that that was why he walked out?

God, she was magnificent.

"- if dating a woman who's one of the big dogs is too hard for you then I'm fine being dumped, you can get your pouty ass out of my -"

Consider his interruption his answer: his pouty ass wasn't going anywhere.

"Do it again."

She stared at him, her lips swollen. "What?" She said breathlessly.

"Fire me, only this time put on those high-heeled boots I saw in the back of your closet," he told her huskily, both kidding and really not kidding.

She giggled. "You're disgusting," she said teasingly. It was tempting though.

He grinned. "I know."

The tightness in his chest that he'd felt since he walked out evaporated. He loved being a schmuck. He raised his hand hesitantly to her cheek, relieved that she didn't flinch or move away. She chewed her lip nervously, feeling vulnerable under his gaze. God, he loved this woman, this feisty, warrior of a woman who was still so delicate, who would be any man's undoing should they underestimate her. And he was hers. God, he was a lucky bastard.

One of her favourite pastimes: stroking that line on Leo's chest where his chest hair started.

"Leo?"

"Hmm?" He murmured sleepily. "Can't I get some sleep now? You've worn me out, woman."

She giggled. "No stamina..." she teased.

He opened one eye, glared down at her. "Don't test me..."

She met his gaze, daring him. She shrieked as he rolled them over, depositing her amongst her cushions, kissed her until she was moaning rather than giggling. Then he slowed down, coming up for breath with a kiss on her nose. "Yes?"

She frowned up at him, her fingers loosening their grip in his hair. "What?"

He grinned victoriously. "You were going to say something before you questioned my stamina."

"Oh... yeah..." and she shrank into herself a little, turning Leo's grin off instantly. "I'm sorry for... y'know..."

"For what, firing me?" He looked down at her incredulously, and plonked himself at her side, wrapping his arm round her, remaining chest to chest. "Abs... I'm not going to say you were right to fire me, but you did have a right to. I didn't walk out because of that."

"I know," she said. She wrapped her arm round his belly, sighed quietly when he ran the tips of his fingers down her spine. "I know. I'm sorry I didn't trust you, like you said, to get Susan over the finish line. You were right; you would have, you were almost there. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to prove that."

He was quiet for a moment, stared at her guardedly. Under such scrutiny she fidgeted, buried her head into his chest again. He stroked her hair, thinking.

"No... no, you were right. I underestimated Susan, I shouldn't have done that. Olivia did a good job."

She looked back up at him, nudged him with her chin. "So did you."

"Damn right I did." And they both chuckled. Modesty was never Leo's strongest suit. He closed his eyes, sighed contentedly, tucked the duvet around their bodies a little tighter.

"Leo?"

"Hmm?"

"Please don't walk out next time." He opened his eyes again, wide awake. He cupped her cheek and raised her head from her chest so he could fully stare straight into her eyes, so she couldn't look away. She didn't flinch. "Just... just stay and yell at me more. Don't walk out."

He smiled gently, nodded, kissed her tenderly, sincerely. "Okay. I promise." Kissed her again. "Can't promise it won't get ugly."

She grinned even as she kissed him back. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

And finally, they got a decent night's sleep.