Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination.

A/N: Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed. So this chapter isn't based on any episode of the series but It's there to show what kind of struggles they can face working in the White House, Hope you guys will like this.

It had been a few weeks since the black-out in Washington and it was business as usual. Aaron was walking in a little later, Emily having to come in earlier for a new hire. She was sorting out the papers, waiting for the girl to arrive. Only a few minutes later, there was a knock against her door. She smiled and looked at the woman in front of her.

"You must be Nathalie Jenkins."

"Yes Ma'am."

"You can call me Emily." If she could read her correctly, she was maybe a few years older than she was.

"Ok." They smiled at each other. "The person I met the last time couldn't really tell me what position I was going to have here."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I was trapped inside an elevator during the black-out so you met my deputy, she wasn't in the loop." Emily apologized to her. "Our Nathional Security Advisor Aaron Shore is in need of an assistant and my job was to find him someone that is reliable and discrete."

"Absolutely. It's an honour to be able to work here, I won't let you down."

."That's good to hear. Come on, I'll give you the tour until Aaron arrives. He should be here in about thirty minutes." She looked at her watch for confirmation. When she had left his place, he was still in the shower. She girl followed behind her as Emily moved quickly through the halls of the White House and when she was about to make it back to her office, she bumped into Seth.

"Woah Em. Where are you to in a hurry?" He held both her arms to steady her.

"Back to my office. Seth, I'd like you to meet Nathalie Jenkins. Nathalie Jenkins, Seth Wright, Press secretary."

"Nice to meet you Mr Wright." She extended her hand and he shook it.

"Seth is fine." He smiled at her. "She going to be Aaron's new assistant?"

"Yeah." She sighed. "Did you see him yet?" They exchanged a look, Emily begging Seth not to reveal her and Aaron's relationship to a new staffer.

"No, I was actually heading his way." They were actually smack in the middle of the two offices.

"If I find him first, I'll send him your way."

"Thanks Em, see ya." He walked past them and the two women took the few steps seperating them from her office where they found the door closed.

"Em, you forgot." Aaron started but once he saw Emily had some company, he stopped what he was about to say. She was with someone he had never seen before.

"Aaron, we were looking for you." He stood straighter as he stopped scribbling the note he had started for her.

"I just got in." Emily blinked away the desire she had to jump him, seeing him in his suspenders and crisp white shirt. He had a smirk on his lips at her look but it quickly turned serious. "Something you wanted?"

"Yeah. I want you to meet Nathalie Jenkins, she's going to be your new assistant to replace James."

"Aaron Shore, it's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." She smiled sweetly at him.

"I hope you're ready to work hard because we're going to have a busy day." He announced as he took his jacket from Emily's desk and slipped his arms through it. "Did you have something else for her or I can put her to work?"

"All yours." She told him before turning to face Nathalie. "I'm sure you'll fit right in."

"Thanks Emily." Aaron walked past her without adding another word and Nathalie followed closely behind him as he gave her some basic information on how he liked to function. Emily took her personal phone and quickly sent him a message.

As soon as he walked into his office, the phone on his desk dinged. He took a hold of it and saw Emily's message. You are not playing fair Mr Shore. He chuckled and sent his reply before going back to the woman that was in front of him. "So these are the files that are a priority right now." He handed her half a dozen of them to her. "And these we have to go through it together." He pointed to the much larger pile on the small conference table in his office.

"No problem Mr. Shore, I'll get to it right away."

"Listen, Nathalie." She turned around and looked at him. "We're going to have to work closely together, please call me Aaron."

"Ok." She smiled at him and returned to the office that Emily had shown her to be hers. She dropped the files on her desk and pulled her phone out, texting her best friend that was also a staffer here. You will NEVER guess who I was assigned to work with. I'll catch you at lunch if all hell doesn't break lose. She put her phone away and went to work, knowing that if she didn't get the work done she was most likely out of here.

Aaron finished taking care of the most urgent file he had that morning and took a chance to catch Emily at her office. He knocked and entered, finding her hunched over a file, her phone tucked between her ear and shoulder. "I'll be right with you." She said without looking at who had just entered her office. He smirked and took a seat in front of her, waiting for her to acknowledge him. It took about fifteen minutes before she even raised her head.

"Two more minutes." She mouthed and smiled. She was patient in what seemed to be a diffucult phone call. "Get back to me today." She growled as she slammed the phone back down.

"Bad day?"

"Better now." She smiled at him. "Where's Nathalie?"

"Working." He chuckled.

"Didn't you say you were having a big day?" She questionned as she walked around her desk to lean on it and face him.

"I figured I'd come see if you were up for lunch?"

"I don't have a lot of time but I can swing something quick at the cafeteria."

"I missed you this morning." The silence that followed pushed him to sit up in the seat, his right hand hovering over her knee.

"I know but I had to get to Nathalie." She closed her eyes as his hand made contact with the skin right above her knee. "She didn't even know." She trailed off, her train of thought interupted by the fire that was going through her body.

"Didn't know what?" He knew that he was taking advantage of the effect he had on her but for a rare moment in the day, they were alone.

"I don't remember." She exhaled deeply. "How about we bring lunch back to this office instead, have a little more privacy?"

"The thought did cross my mind."

"Hey Em." Their moment was broken by Seth's sudden intrusion in her office.

"Yeah?' She tried recomposing herself as he was oblivious to her present state. Aaron simply smirked and turned in his seat to look at Seth.

"Anything we can help you with?" He said.

"This is a matter for our Chief of Staff. I need your eyes for something."

"I'll be right there." She smiled at him.

"Thanks Em, Aaron." Aaron gave him a nod and Seth left as fast as he came.

"I'm going to take care of this. Meet me here at noon?"

"Yeah." He let her walk out, knowing that the door was open and that they were at work. He left her a message on her desk and returned to his own office where he found Nathalie leaning against his desk, a file in hand. "What do you have there?" He took a seat and took the file that she was handing him the file."

"Well I was going through the first pile you gave me this morning and this caught my eyes." She pointed at a paragraph.

"Alright, I'll take care of this." He stood and walked around her, looking at his watch. "I'll let you keep at it and you can head on to lunch soon, I'll be gone for a while." He left her there and marched towards the oval office, needing to speak with the President.

Nathalie sighed as her tactic didn't work and she returned to her own desk to keep working a bit. Her phone dinged and she quickly finished what she was doing before heading out and going to meet her best friend Jenny in the staff room. "Hey, how's your day so far?" She laughed as they both sat down.

"It's chaos in comms, you? How is it working with Aaron Shore? I heard he's super tough."

"I haven't stopped all morning but damn, he's totally hot." Nathalie whispered, looking aorund to make sure that no one was listening.

"I know but too bad he's taken." Jenny told him in the same hushed tone.

"It can't hurt to flirt." She winked and took a bite of food.

"Don't say that too loud Nat, he's dating Emily Rhodes."

"That would certainly explain the look this morning." Her mind was going in overdrive.

"Don't do anything stupid Nat." Jenny warned her friend. She was a good person and a hard worker but sometimes, she had ways of getting into trouble.

Emily walked back from Seth's office after having to brainstorm over a press crisis and found a note on her desk and messages on her phone. She pulled on the paper between her fingers while she pressed on the buttons on her phone with the other hand, a smile forming on her lips.

Meet me back here for a lunch date around one, I'll bring the food. A

She scribbled a few things on a paper as she took her messages and she looked at her watch to realize it was almost one and Aaron hadn't shown his face yet. She finished taking her message just in time for him to walk into her office with two boxes stacked together and two bottles of water. "Right on time, I just saw your note."

"Everything ok with Seth?" He wondered as she took the two bottles from his hand and set them on her desk before going to close the door to give them more privacy.

"Yeah. It's just this thing that popped online and Seth needed help in dealing wth it."

"Ok." If he knew one thing was that Emily Rhodes was always on top of it.

"Are we still on for dinner tonight?" He took a seat on her couch, Emily plopping down next to him.

"If nothing goes wrong, yes." She opened her box and inhaled it's contents. "Oh god thanks for this, I didn't realise I was so hungry."

"Gotta keep you going for the rest of the day." He chuckled. Aaron ran his evening plan by her as she ate, nodding at him. They hadn't really gone out since the whole media fiasco and it was making her excited. They were interrupted by Nathalie this time.

"Sorry to disturb your lunch but President Kirkman wants to see you both." They exchanged a look and left their lunches to make it to the oval office. The meeting wasn't very long but Aaron was pulled aside to get to command ops, Emily having a million things on her plate still.

It took about another hour before Aaron came back up for air and he was starting to get frustrated. He loosened his tie and sighed as he walked into his office. He found Nathalie hunched over his desk, her back to him. He eyed her and took a seat at his desk. "Tell me you have some kind of good news."

"Sorry." Nathalie turned the file so he could look at it. She walked around his office and made it to the pile on his table, ready to attack it. She sat on the table and crossed her legs as she picked the one on top.

"Nathalie, can you?" He turned his head to look her at her and found her sitting on his table, her long legs on full display.

"What do you need?" She looked up from her file and smiled at him.

"Not on the table please." He said as he looked her in the eye. "Get me Seth please." She hopped down and walked past him and smiled while she walked out of his office. What she was doing was working. She bumped into her friend Jenny.

"What are you smiling about? She eyed her suspiciously.

"I caught a certain someone eying me." She smirked at they made their way down the hall.

"Nath, I told you to cut that crap." Jenny hissed. "You're risking your career on the Hill by pulling this."

"Don't worry, no one will catch me." Jenny simply sighed as they both walked into Seth's office. "Aaron needs to see you for something."

"What about?"

"He didn't say."

"Ok I'll be right there." She winked at Jenny as she walked out, Seth not too far behind her.

"Seth, I need you to take a look at his." Seth looked at it and cursed under his breath.

"We got to take care of this right now before it hits the news." Seth and Aaron looked at each other and Seth left the office, knowing what he had to do.

"What exactly just happened?" Nathalie asked as she looked at Seth who had just eleft the room.

"Seth will handle it, we got a lot more work to do."

Emily spent the better part of the afternoon stopping fires around the White House and the fact that she and Aaron hadn't finished their lunch had her begging for a bit of a break to catch some food. The sun was finally coming down when she managed to make a pit stop in the cafeteria area. It was still loaded with people even if it wasn't quite dinner time. She moved through the people and grabbed a few things to snack on until she and Aaron left for dinner. All the voices sounded like chaos but some of them Were clear as day through that same chaos.

"Did you guys hear? Aaron Shore's new assistant is hitting on him, and all that under Emily's nose." One said.

"It's her first day for crying out loud." Said another. Emily shook her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe what she was hearing right now.

"I was walking past his office and she was flirting with him big time. Doesn't she know that he's dating Emily Rhodes?" Another questionned. Emily's anger was steadily growing right now.

She was fuming as she left the break area. She couldn't believe that this was happening right now. She had hired and put to work that woman only hours before in a position that anyone sane would DIE FOR right now. Her phone dinged and what she saw on her screen made her fume even more. She walked faster in direction of Seth's office to try to diffuse the next media crisis that was set to hit them if they couldn't get this under control. She sent Aaron a text that she had to cancel dinner and made a b-line for Seth's office.

Aaron picked up his phone as it dinged and slammed it against his desk when he saw Emily's text that she was cancelling dinner to head to Seth's office to take care of the exact same file he had given him to take care of earlier.

"Is something wrong Aaron?" Nathalie asked as she put the file she had in her hands down on the table.

"That file you gave me earlier, it just became dynamite. Seth and Emily are working on it as we speak to take care of the situation before it explodes." He said, hoping Emily and Sean would be able to fix it before the day was over and things hit the fan. Nathalie, on the other hand, saw this as her opportunity to put her plan in motion.

Emily smiled as Seth gave her his phone to see. One of his contacts came through for them and they could finally bury the story. She grabbed the file from his hands and turned around to leave. "Thanks Seth, you're a real saviour."

"Anytime. Tell Aaron that he owes me one."

"Will do." She smiled as she left in direction of Aaron's office. It was late but she was hoping that they could at least grab a drink somewhere to unwind before going back to her place. She stopped dead in her tracks when she made it to his open office door. What she saw was making her blood boil. Both Nathalie and Aaron were at his conference table working. She was sitting on the table, her legs crossed and shoeless and Aaron was standing next to her, no longer wearing a tie, his first two shirt buttons opened and his sleeves rolled up. She watched the scene unfold in front of her eyes.

Nathalie leaned to the side a bit and pointed at something on the paper, her hand brushing against Aaron's and suddenly the voices from the cafeteria were deafening. Of course they angered her when she had heard them but she couldn't believe that they could be true until now. It was clear as day what Nathalie was doing and although Aaron wasn't engaging with her, he wasn't exactly pushing her away or telling her off for her actions but that only fueled her anger even more.

"Emily." He smiled when he noticed her close to the table but his smile disappeared when he saw the anger written on her face. She slammed the papers on the table and stormed out under Aaron's calls.

"What the hell?" He cursed under his breath before he ran after her. "Emily stop." He called after her but she slammed the door in his face.

"Go away." She yelled from behind the door.

"I'm not doing that." He pushed the door open and walked through it.

"You have some balls showing up here Aaron."

"I don't even know what you're talking about." The only thing he knew was that she had cancelled dinner because they were swamped and the next she was mad as hell for something that he didn't know anything about. "What happened in Seth's office?" He questionned her as she threw things inside her purse.

"What happened in Seth's office?" She finally looked up at him, fire in her eyes. "You mean what happened in YOUR office." She walked past him and headed towards her door but he stopped her with only two strides and his hand around her wrist, turning her around to face him.

"What the hell happened in my office?" She couldn't believe how he didn't know what he was talking about while it had happened right under her nose.

"I saw the way she was leaning towards you, her hand brushing against yours. I was such an IDIOT."

"It didn't exactly look that way from where I was standing." She hissed. If he thought he was going to get a free pass he was mistaken. She tried getting out of his grip to walk away but she couldn't, his hand holding firmly around her wrist. "Let go of me Aaron." When he realized the way he was holding her, he loosened his grip and let her go.

"What can I do to fix this?"

"Nothing, we're done Aaron." That's when it snapped in him.

"Like hell we are." The second later his lips were on hers and her back was against the door. He kissed her senseless, his body pressing into hers. When they parted for some much needed air, they looked into each other's eyes and one moment later, Emily slapped him across the face. He was stunned by her action but he understood it under the circumstances but that wasn't going to stop him. He pressed his lips to hers in another hungry kiss, his hand running up against her leg and under her pencil skirt.

Her arms came to wrap around his neck as he raised her leg higher against his own. She lost her battle for dominance as he deepened the kiss. "Aaron, we can't." She said breathlessly.

"Everyone is gone." He trailed kisses down her neck, making her moan.

"Maybe, we should." She lost all coherent thought when he sunk his teeth gently on her neck and hiked her skirt even higher.

"Maybe we should what? He smirked as he took in her appearance.

"Take this somewhere else."

"Your place?" He suggested. "I have a request." He whispered against her lips.

"Yeah, let's get out of here." She grabbed her purse and they left through the exit giving on the parking lot, leaving Nathalie where she was, an afterthought to the two of them. The drive to her place was short and as soon as they were out of the car, his lips were back on hers. How they managed to make it inside was beyond them.

Aaron closed the door with his foot as Emily pushed his suspenders off his shoulders and un-tucked his shirt. They were both already out of breath and as they kissed, Emily bumped into the kitchen table. Aaron lifted her easily and sat her on it, kissing her again, his hands cupping her cheeks.

"Aaron." He pulled away and took her all in. Her lips were swollen from the kiss and her eyes full of lust, making him smile.

"Em." He licked his lips, his eyes on her.

"Make me forget." He didn't need an explanation but he simply let his body do the talking. He gave her lips a kiss with each button of her shirt that he opened. He pulled it out of the confines of her skirt and pushed it down her shoulders, leaving her clad in her lacy, cream coloured bra.

"God I'm lucky." He breathed heavily.

"I'm the lucky one when you look at me like that." She pulled him to her in a kiss. Her fingers undid his shirt buttons and pushed it off his shoulders, his six pack on full display. "Sometimes I just want to lock us in from the rest of the world so I can keep you all to myself."

"You have me all to yourself until morning." He smiled softly at her.

"Let's not waste any time then." They proceeded in removing the rest of their clothes and Aaron picked her up, Emily wrappping her legs around his waist. She giggled as his lips found the skin between her ear and shoulder. He laid her down gently on her bed and they made love well into the night "Make up sex should be a thing all the time." She closed her eyes as his hand ran against her lower back, his lips on her shoulder.

"Without the fighting. I'm sorry about before."

"I don't want to talk about before." She whispered. "I'll just say this. I'll take care of the situation in the morning."

"What about my request?" He kissed her shoulder again.

"What will it be?" She propped her head against her hand, smiling."

"Please forgive me." She rolled on her side and swung her legs over the bed. She found Aaron's shirt and slipped it on her shoulders, buttoning two of them and heading for the piano. He slipped into his boxers and a pair of sweats and followed close behind her. She smiled at him and simply started playing, the Bryan Adam's melody bouncing off the walls of her living room. It never ceased to amaze him how she knew any and all kind of songs on the piano. Her fluid motions loosened the remaining tense muscles in her shoulders under Aaron's watchful eyes. He couldn't help the smile on his lips, his girl was amazing and he was going to do everything in his pouwer to keep her.

AN:Fiou, I FINALLY MADE IT! I have been working on this chapter for a little bit but only because my finger has been acting up some days, making typing harder. Please, take a few minutes to read and review before you go, your thoughts mean the world - Sarra