A/N
Just so you know, this is the last 'cannonish' chapter. There will be pieces of the original story line, but we will be going rogue at this point.
I also want to tell you that I had an entirely different twist than this planned, but the characters in my head insisted this was where we were going.
Poor Aaron.
Aaron Shore's phone woke him up about two hours after he'd passed out on top of his bed. He answered it, rubbing his face a few times before sitting up and immediately regretting it.
"Yeah I'm on my way." He managed to get out before lurching towards the bathroom and throwing up the bowl of cereal he had managed to inhale before falling asleep. He pushed his eyes tightly closed and waited for the room to stop spinning. It slowed enough that he could stagger to the sink, and evaluate his reflection in the mirror.
He looked like hell, from what he could see through his bloodshot eyes. His sharp shards of gelled hair were poking out from his pale face making him look like a cartoon villain. Cupped hand fulls of water and splashed them over his face, smoothing his hands over his head, willing his crisped curls back into place.
He hadn't slept six consecutive nights alone since Emily had gone to Manhattan with the Kirkman's for some work event for Alex. He wondered how long it would take him to get used to it. The very thought of it had him back over the toilet, retching.
…..
Emily Rhodes was pretty sure she had couch marks on her face as she drove back to the White House on autopilot. She'd almost gone the wrong way, forgetting that her apartment was South of Dupont, while Aaron's was North. She swallowed hard, reminding herself this was temporary, this was all temporary
…..
"Hey." Emily breathed looking at Seth with a worried glance.
"Damn it." She paused in her march to the Oval, turning back to Aaron who was fussing with his suit jacket. She blinked at him for a few minutes, something was off.
"Hi" He whispered looking up at her for a second. "No Cufflinks." He sighed shaking his head quickly, his eyebrows wrinkling as he did.
"Use paper clips." Seth added helpfully. Aaron looked at him warily. "Seriously, try it."
"In my purse." Emily whispered softly.
"What?" He whispered.
"Your tungsten cufflinks are in my purse from the Governors' Ball." She repeated. "I'll get them." She gestured to the doorway they were approaching. "After."
"Thanks." He whispered softly, moving aside so she could enter the room first.
Seth looked at him skeptically.
"I'll keep the paperclip thing in mind." He appeased.
"You okay?" He asked softly, Aaron gave him a bewildered expression. "You look like shit."
"Thanks?" Aaron smirked.
…..
He made his way slowly to Emily's office, pausing in the doorway to watch her. She reached across the desk, huffing when she had to move sideways to accomidate her baby bump. His face morphed from a smile to a grimace. She turned slightly.
"Hey." She sighed grabbing for her purse. "They're in here somewhere."
"Em."He whispered softly.
"I started a mental list of people in the situation room with us that night. If you want to go over it and see if I-."
"Emily.." He tried a little louder, feeling the room shift under his feet.
How had he screwed up this badly? How had he thought he could trust Kimble Hookstratten? She had seemed to be on their team, and at the time he had desperately needed someone to be on his team. Managing McLeish's erratic behavior had taken a toll. He had been trying desperately to keep the President's opinions in the room as all eyes were on the rouge VP. Kimball seemed to be on his side. Their side?
"I know they're in here." She was looking in her purse, or she would have seen the way he had to brace himself against the wall before settling into a chair by the door. When she looked up he had his head in his hands. "Here they-."
He wanted to look up at her, but right now he was trying to hard to keep his stomach from rebelling. Emily crossed the room and quickly closed the door.
"Aaron?"
"I'm-." He let out something between a sigh and a sob before carefully raising his head to face her. "I don't know what to do."
"We're going to figure this out." She shook her head at him.
He scoffed, his uneven breathing becoming even more ragged. She reached out and touched his face with the back of her fingers. He raised his hand up and grasped her wrist for just a moment before pushing it aside and grabbing the trash can beside her desk and heaving into it.
Emily was at his side in a second, her hands fluttering from the nape of his neck to his lower back.
"I can't-."
"Breath." She whispered softly. "Slow breaths."
He wanted to tease her, reminding her of all the times that he had held her hair as she puked her guts out during her first trimester, but he couldn't do more than follow her instructions.
"What's going on?" She led him back to the chair, pulling hers in front of it.
"I have to go." He said suddenly, lurching away from her. Hookstratten, he had to talk to Hookstratten.
…..
Emily's fingers tingled as she walked back from the Oval, she could feel the baby move under her ribs, no doubt reacting to her frantic emotions.
She stopped in front of the door and watched him.
"Hey." She called.
"I made you a list." He gestured to his desk.
"Aaron."
"It's fine." He shook his head. "Curtis is your guy for the Senate, and Jamie is for the House. I met with the NSA today, but you should check in with him later he gets jumpy and needs a lot of attention. Denise has has your back on the-."
"Aaron!" She waited until he had turned around, arching her eyebrows at him. "Are we going to talk about it?" She saw his lip twitch up towards his cheek for just a second.
"I think it's better right now if we don't." He whispered. "You should probably just…"
"Aaron." Her voice was more pleading than she wanted it to be.
"Good Luck." He smiled his million dollar politician smile at her, his eyes hollow and detached. So far from the quivering mess he'd been hours before. She watched him walk away before making his way back to his desk and settling in behind it.
Her hands shook as she pressed them against the cool oak top, her eyes falling on a framed picture of her. He'd taken it in September, just before she realized she was pregnant. Her hair was falling in her face, her perfectly manicured fingers reaching up to brush it away. He'd loved her smile, she remembered him telling her when she'd groaned at the photo. It was unscripted, totally her, that's why he loved it so much.
They'd spent the day on the Mall, acting like tourists. He'd told her he loved her for the first time that day.
Emily let her eyes skim across his desk to her ultrasound photo. Still in the pink cardboard 'It's a girl' frame that they'd brought it home in. There was a small photo of him and some of the other West Wingers from Richmond's era, all of them gone now. All of them but Aaron.
"Hey." She looked up at Seth, standing in the doorway. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Did you see him before he left?"
"Yeah he looks awful. I think this was the right call." Seth took a deep breath and walked all the way in.
"Yeah." She thought about telling Seth about his minor melt down in her office this morning, but stopped short.
"Look Emily I don't know what's going on between the two of you right now, but I know that the most important thing to him is you and the baby." Seth watched her for a second, her lips pressed tightly together. He set a water bottle on the desk. "He left me a case of these. So-."
Emily let her eyes drift shut, feeling the tears slip from the corners. When she opened them again, Wright was gone. She took a drink from the bottle, her hand drifting to her abdomen, moving her fingers over it in long slow strokes.
…..
Aaron shore was fairly certain he was never going to meet his daughter.
He clasped his hands tightly before releasing them again. He stared at the tape, watching the blueprint of the Capital disintegrate into the ground. Langdon was alive, Langdon had reached out to him. Langdon had ordered him to retrieve the document. They were trailing him though, not Langdon. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He shouldn't speak, he should get a lawyer. He was going to prison, or Guantanamo, or worse.
He tried to remember the feeling of Emily's fingers on the back of his neck this morning. He tried to hold onto the feeling of the last time he'd pressed his mouth to hers or held his hand against the gentle ripples of his baby's movements.
He met the FBI agents eyes and took a slow steady breath.
"I'll answer whatever questions you need me to."
It was six hours before he was told he was free to go. Just like that.
"It's nothing personal just protocol." Agent Wells tells him. Like she is apologizing for giving him poor customer service at the bank.
"Right. It just feels that way. I mean a whole lot of things make sense to me now that didn't make sense to me yesterday, My President, and the person I thought knew me better than anyone else, think I'm capable of treason."
"These are dangerous times Mr. Shore." Aaron regarded her for a moment., trying to put himself in Emily's place. He couldn't imagine anything that would make him believe that she had done the things he had been suspected of.
…..
Seth hugged him. It felt both awkward and nice.
"How's Emily?"
"Personally?
"No-." He couldn't take personally, not now. "Professionally."
He watched Seth's eyes as he spoke, searching for the proof that this right answer, the only answer. This is how it was supposed to be. This was right. She belonged at Kirkman's side. He trusted her, in a way he was never going to trust him. Kirkman would take care of her.
"Will you do something for me?" He asked, pulling the envelope out of his coat and handing it to the one true ally he had left.
With that, Aaron Shore sealed his fate.
…..
"Were you going to leave without saying anything?"
Aaron paused the pen for a second before finishing relinquishing his credentials. He turned slowly to face her.
"I don't know what to say to you right now." Aaron's voice was low.
"Aaron.." He shook his head.
"I'll call you when I get myself figured out." He looked at her. "You have an appointment next week." She nodded, biting her lip.
"I'll do my best to do this job as well as you did." Her voice shook when she spoke.
"No." He leaned towards her and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. "Do it better."
She felt the breeze of the door as he left and she opened her eyes to watch him walk away.
She made her way back to the Oval, slipping through the doors. Kirkman turned to face her, sighing when he saw her face.
"Aaron just left." She whispered.
"I'm sorry Emily." He was Tom for a moment, and she sunk onto the couch across from him and soaked it in. "I let him down."
"We both did." She breathed. "I'm afraid I might have done a little more damage."
"You should talk to him."
"He's not ready. He could barely look at me." He voice broke in the middle of the sentence and Emily lifted her hand to her mouth.
"Well he can't go too far." Tom smiled looking at her middle.
There was a quick knock on the door and before Emily had a chance to disagree Tom was President Kirkman again and the room was full of people who needed her to lead.
