Just a little one shot paying homage to the blue Armani that CJ wears during the episode Galileo and then again in Han. As always, this fic is CJ/Jed.

Sapphire

The first time she'd worn this dress was when he dragged her along to the Kennedy Center for that concert—if it could be said that he dragged her anywhere in a dress like this. He remembered it vividly, the color simply too rich to be lost in the vastness of time and space. The skirt was of a deep sapphire blue that he might have drowned in although it would have been more like sinking into the Mediterranean than anything.

She moved so gracefully in it. The pleasure of just watching her glide toward him was not nearly enough to appease the inexplicable surge of something that sprang forth when he arrived at the center. The color made a striking contrast with her hair and when she asked if he'd like to know why Sam was hiding from Mallory he deliberately refused because he couldn't focus on anything else other than her irrefutable elegance.

He had to keep his eyes on the stars on the portico that evening, with his hands firmly planted in his pockets. She was wearing the matching satin shawl around her. They talked about Galileo Five and she made a point about the broader theme for the classroom event he was going to do. All he wanted was to stroke the satin, feel it give way until he reached the satin of her bare skin but alas he was doomed to eternal abnegation. He listened to the rustling hem of her skirt while she returned inside the building. Meanwhile, he stared at the night sky pondering its similarity to the hue of her evening gown.


He thought it amazing how context could completely change one's outlook. He was lying on the couch in the Oval when she ambled in, skirts brushing the floor in a way that made him think of a line by TS Eliot. What was it? In the room women come and go, talking of Michelangelo… He thought of dying and the dying fall and the bit about music from a farther room and never has he felt art imitating life so excruciatingly.

She sits, a haze of stark cobalt in his peripheral vision. He is unsure so he trains his eyes on the ceiling. He knows she is disappointed, she plainly admitted so earlier and sure he may have faced the wrath of his wife an immeasurable amount of times, the chastisement of Leo McGarry but her disappointment is something that affects the very core of things he needs to be right. Shades of cerulean, perhaps the fabric has faded along with her respect for him. He has always been able to sense it, when it waned as well as when it was so unbearably full that nothing could possibly be wrong if she was smiling like that.

But now as he lies on the sofa silently, her disappointment is almost palpable. It eats at him without any sort of heated discussion between them. The absence of one makes her resigned 'good night' sting that much more. She's chosen to let it go, as she departs he feels the tide of self recrimination engulfing him quietly like the rustling of her azure skirts.