Title: More of your things here
Author: Loz
E-Mail: loz06(at)yahoo(dot)com
Rating: PG
Category: CJ/Leo
Series: Stand-alone
Spoilers: Minor thru S3.
Archive (if applicable): The National Library http(colon)(double slash)westwingstories(dot)com(slash)library also at fanfiction(dot)net
Feedback: The good, the bad and the very ugly it's all appreciated.
Summary: This time he intends on going for good.
Author's Notes: -
Disclaimers: "I'm not saying anymore until my lawyer gets here." …Sorry no in all seriousness please don't make me use the services of my overpaid lawyer.
He'd moved out more times than she thought usual for a couple, though she wasn't sure what was a usual number of times for a couple and she wasn't sure if she considered them to be a couple and then there was the fact that technically they'd never lived together.
He'd gravitated to her place because she is comfortable there and he found he came to be able to sleep anywhere as long as it was next to her and each time he moved back in he bought a few more things with him. After the MS announcement he'd moved out because she was pissed, not at him but because he told her and not the President. The atmosphere was heavy with tension and emotion and his only solution was to run.
They had always parted whenever they had a problem as if talk was a luxury neither could afford to spend the time on. So problems that came from work and became personal were put in a drawer till other matters became more important and the next work battle overshadowed the last personal one.
He would come back to her doorstep with another suit to hang in her closet, another magazine to go on the pile and a sharp razor to go in the shower. Each time he came back she would hold him and whisper how much she missed him.
There had been an egg flip when she discovered on a rare Sunday she had eggs she couldn't flip and the coffee table he had seen her circle in the catalogue on her desk.
After Pakistan he'd been gone for a week, even after she'd accepted Toby's apology and he realized how stupid it was because she'd lied to the press thousands of times before. Perhaps it was the magnitude of the lie this time that made them close the doors to her and open the boys club.
It wasn't Danny Concannon because God knows he trusts her and when she thinks he's asleep some nights she whispers I love you and he swears the next morning it looks like she's been crying.
Just because she doesn't say it to his face doesn't make it any less true in his mind.
There's a secret section in the back of her diary where she counts the number of days he's been gone each time and the nights that are spent lonely and sleepless in his absence.
He'd come back with a bathrobe, slippers and a bottle of cologne, the one she can smell when she presses the collar of his shirts to her nose. It had been from the bathroom his moving in had begun, just a few things to make it easier to appear that he hadn't spent the night somewhere else. Slowly encroaching on her life.
Although the key fits perfectly into the lock and opens the door onto her sparsely decorated living space, he finds himself knocking softly instead. This time is bad, it's after their argument in a street of Manchester, it's after he benched her over Haiti. This time there aren't new bathroom products, clothes or a gift in his hands, just two bags to take away everything that has planted itself here.
"Didn't expect to find you on my door step," she says softly once the door has opened, her face reads neither a smile nor a frown.
"Can I come in?" He asks gently holding the bags behind his back. She gives him no answer but opens the door wider to let him pass.
"You loose your key?" She asks lazily eyeing the bags in his hands.
"Something like that." He mumbles heading for the bedroom and praying she doesn't follow.
Reluctantly he stuffs everything into the bags that is his but has been put in a place that could almost be considered theirs. He doesn't worry about crushing the suits or the fact that some of the shaving cream squirts out a little onto his socks.
"You're not staying?" She startles him, standing impressively in the doorway.
"It looks like you're going...for good." She corrects herself but gets no reply from him because he can't conjure anything more eloquent than 'I think it's for the best.'
"You're going for good?" He voice rises this time and unwilling to let himself get caught in her emotive eyes, Leo continues to pack things.
"Look at me." She cries grabbing the bag from in front of him and clinging it to her chest.
"CJ this will never..." He begins shifting his focus to his feet and then the wall beyond her.
"Never what Leo?" Her eyes begging him for an explanation of his behavior.
"How can you not be pissed at me CJ?" He asks the question carefully, he'd fully expected his clothes and personal items to be patch working the sidewalk below her window.
"I am pissed." She says, the words coming from a deep pool of anger inside. "I wanted to put you up there in front of them for a week, I wanted to bring down your career single-handedly, I wanted to destroy you for your family and then I wanted to kick you while you were down."
"I don't know that a punishment of that nature befits the crime." He says softly reaching out to take the bag back from her. "This is the best thing."
"We're you going to say goodbye or were you just going to sneak out and hope that I never noticed or when I did it was too late?" She disappears from his eye line stepping carefully into the doorway.
When he turns having packed the last things he sees the tears that have fallen silently, rolling off the side of her cheek and falling effortlessly and silently to the ground. "I'm sorry."
For a moment it looks like she weakens under the apology and is about to step out of his way, but at arms length she lunges for the bag ripping open the zipper and turning the contents out of the bed. He watches for a moment as she throws his suits at the open closet doors and then jams them closed. With a clutter his toothbrush and razor are thrown the bathroom cupboard, the imitation wooden doors shutting in time to prevent their roll back out again.
"CJ what are you doing?" Leo asks evenly putting neither surprise nor frustration into his voice at the strange behavior.
"You're not leaving." She says firmly throwing more things back into the general vicinity of where they came from. "You're not leaving me."
"CJ I know this, us won't work, and we can't go on like this." Leo says unwavering.
"I love you, that's all I know and it's my first mistake because you have more warning signs than a dangerous cargo transporter, but I can't seem to help the way I feel." For the first time in minutes she stops dead still, his bag idyll in her hands.
"CJ," he says and he's not sure if it's a protest or a thank you.
"You're not leaving my life this easily; you're not leaving at all." She says determined, opening her window the bag Leo bought with him sails to the ground.
"Are you mad?" He asks subdued, his question making no reference to her behavior.
"Yes I am." She asserts folding her arms below her chest, but she can't hold the strong outward exterior for more than a moment as tears fracture her stance. "Despite everything, Haiti and you benching me and keeping me out in the cold I still love you."
"I thought you'd want me gone." Leo confesses taking one step closer.
"I want more of your things here, I want you here more, I don't function without you." Her hands rise looking for a place to go, they end up settling to wrap around her middle.
"I don't want to go." Leo says stepping up into her personal space. "Ever."
"So don't." She replies smiling as he lifts her five fingers, dropping each one back onto her side one at a time. "Stay."
"All right then." He concedes sinking into her open embrace.