A/N: inspired by another day at #askacn

She didn't expect anyone to be here quite so late. It was late enough for her to have retreated to using her glasses and wearing her oversized grey sweater that she left here for these late night work occasions. She was in simple white t-shirt and jeans, shoes off, just reading the latest economic data fresh from the Fed.

So when Sloan Sabbith heard the sound of something falling over, she decided to investigate. She popped out of her office to see what was going on. She leaned over the railing from her second floor vantage point to see who was out there and what was going on. To her, what she saw seemed surreal.

A very casually dressed Leona Lansing was rummaging through the top drawers of some of the desks in the bullpen. Sloan squinted and it looked like she was wearing a man's button up shirt and tattered jean shorts. "Mrs. Lansing?" Sloan called from the railing.

Leona turned up. "Doesn't anybody in this damned place smoke anymore? There was a time that cigarettes rained from the sky. You were hard pressed to know someone who didn't smoke. Real newsmen smoke, you know? My media empire for a lighter and cigarettes, Sabbith!"

"Will smokes. But let me come down there, okay?" Sloan started to head downstairs. Leona threw her hands up the air. "Of course, WILL. He's a real newsman." Leona made her way through the maze of desks and burst into Will's office.

When Sloan pushed the office door, Leona already located a cigarette lit it and made herself at home, sitting in Will's office chair. "Mrs. Lansing?"

"Please, call me Leona. I feel like, twenty times better. Have a seat. Welcome to my office. What's up buttercup?"

"This is Will's office."

"Every office is my office. Why are you here so late?"

"I was working."

Leona leaned as far back as she could in Will's chair. "Ahhhh. Thank god for Will being a grumpy old man. I was ready to do just about anything to keep me from having to ask Charlie for a cigarette."

"Why not ask Charlie?" Sloan immediately asked. "Wait, Charlie doesn't smoke."

"Charlie doesn't smoke anymore, but I know he has some on hand for guests. That was going to be a last resort. If I couldn't find anything here I was ready to hit up the security guards before groveling to Charlie. I've been trying to stay out of his way."

"Why?"

"Charlie doesn't like it when I'm high. Really pisses him off."

"Wait, you're high right now?"

"Like you cannot believe Sabbith. I'll probably go back upstairs to my suite and play some records really loud and pretend the world doesn't exist until I pass out from exhaustion. Wanna join me? We can talk about whatever you want; you just don't get the privilege of telling anyone."

"Can I ask one question and then we can go?"

"Sure." Leona said.

"Do I need my shoes?"

They were sitting on the floor now, backs against the white leather sofa that was in Leona's suite. It was like a hotel room, sitting area in front of a fireplace with a coffee table and matching chairs. Somewhere in the darkness of the room was a dining area and bed, but the only light was from the roaring fire. It was fine, they didn't need anymore.

On the table in front of them was their stolen booty, a handful of cigarettes, Will's ashtray and matching lighter. There was a bottle of red wine and glasses for each of them, the remnants of a cheese and fruit plate and a few brownies. They really hadn't said much to each other, Sloan was smoking a cigarette even though Leona offered more than the nicotine. They had a discussion about the Beatles and Abbey Road. They had moved on to the White Album after that and then had drifted to a nice silence while listening to Let it Be.

Sloan found the remote for the sound system and dropped the volume a few notches. "Why does Charlie hate to see you high?"

Leona finished the cigarette she was working on, grinding it out. "He thinks it's his fault I have to do it. He doesn't acknowledge it's a choice."

Sloan turns a little so that she's looking a Leona a little more directly. "Why do you do it?"

"Chronic pain mostly. Once in a while recreationally, but it's usually for the pain."

Sloan's confused and she just asks the question. "Why would Charlie blame himself for that? What kind of pain?"

"Foot pain. Charlie blames himself for things that he can't be blamed for."

"I don't understand." Sloan decides that she's done smoking and extinguishes her cigarette.

"How much do you know about Charlie's past Sabbith?"

Sloan rolls this around in her mind for a few moments. "Not as much as I suddenly think I should."

Leona nods. "Fair enough. I'll tell you what I can without getting in trouble. I don't want to be accused of putting words in his mouth." Leona pauses long enough to start a new cigarette. "He was a freelance GI reporter back in the day, running all over Cambodia and Vietnam. He was doing good work, being Charlie. He had been in the Marines for a number of years, seen combat. Got in trouble somehow, he never did tell me, but ended up getting discharged. He then became a reporter and because he could charm anybody. He often got to hitch rides with Marine units. Gave him a chance to get places other reporters couldn't always get to. Anyway," Leona continues, "He meets a blonde from AFP," Leona thumbs at herself "and said blonde convinces him to take her out on a story."

"Something happened." Sloan finishes.

"Yes indeed, something happened. All you need to know is that I came out of it fine and he blames himself for not taking care of me even though I was there willingly."

"Did you stay out there after that? I mean, you just decided you could keep going?"

"There was no question in my mind I was exactly right where I wanted to be doing exactly what it was I was doing. I did it as long as I could before my family caught up with me."

"Your family?" Sloan asks. She pauses for a moment as the wheels in her head turn as she went thought everything she knew financially about Atlantis World Media. "Your dad."

"You're pretty astute. I was my father's only child and while he resented my entire life that I was, in fact, a woman, he was more stuck on keeping this company in the family. Anyway, he didn't approve what I was doing, frankly because I never asked him and I learned later that he had a bounty of sorts on my head. Someone told him where I was and I was unwillingly brought home."

They were quiet for a few moments.

"I suppose everything worked out in the end," Leona says. "I admit I have days, like today, where I can't help but think that I work three floors away from the life I wanted instead of the life I have."

Sloan finishes her wine and can sense that this strange evening paring is coming to an end. "Did you ever find out who sold you out?"

"Nah," Leona said. "Whomever it was never bothered to cash the check. Believe me, I tried to find out, but I am afraid that was the one secret my father took to his grave."

It wasn't much later when they said their goodbyes, a hug, an offer to do this again some other time passed between them, if that offer were to ever come to pass, neither could have told you for sure.

Sloan left the forty fourth floor heading three floors down. As she suspected, Charlie was still there, working, in his office, reading something, relaxed. She walked to the door and watched him for a while before she spoke. "Hey Charlie."

"Christ almighty MoneySkirt! What the hell are you still doing here?" He was startled less by the interruption and more by who startled him.

"Had a meeting with Leona."

Charlie is taken aback, stopping what he was doing, leaning back in his chair. "Really? How'd that go?"

Sloan considers it a moment. "Good, learned a lot. Just wanted to stop by and give you something." She walked into the office and to Charlie's side, planting a gentle kiss on forehead.

"What was that for?" Charlie asked.

"For taking care of people you care about." Sloan smiles and retreats from his office to the elevators to go back down several floors to the newsroom. She left her shoes in her office and decided that it was indeed time for her to go home for the night.