5:00 am.

Emily could hear her alarm going off in the distance, but she couldn't move. Her bed was extra warm this morning. They weren't touching, but she could feel the heat Aaron gave off. She felt Aaron get out of bed, and heard him turn off the alarm, but she couldn't open her eyes or move. She had spent the majority of the night tossing and turning. Luckily, Aaron had slept through it.

She feel back asleep for a minutes until she felt warmth on her shoulder.

"Em, you gotta wake up," Aaron whispered softly in her ear as he gently shook her. "Here's some coffee." Upon hearing coffee, Emily finally responded. She opened her eyes and groaned as she sat up, taking the cup.

"Mind if I take a shower?" Aaron asked. His hand lingered on her shoulder. "Then I'll drive you to work."

Emily shook her head as she took a sip of coffee and rested her aching head on the head board. She could get used to this, coffee in bed in the morning. It definitely helped to get her moving. She actually didn't want him to drive her to work. What would people think? But she was too tired to worry about it now.

6:30 am.

Aaron walked with Emily to her office. It wasn't necessary, but Emily liked having him there. He made her feel comfortable. He also smelled great.

Aaron closed the door behind him.

"You can't laugh, Emily," he said seriously as he grabbed her hand. "Kirkman won't believe us if you start laughing." Emily pretended to be insulted, "I don't know what you're talking about! I'm not going to laugh …. I'm not going to look at you either." Emily smiled innocently.

Aaron bent his head and kissed her slowly. "Alright then, I'll see you in a little bit," Aaron's voice was husky. Emily wished that they had this moment last night as she watched Aaron walk out of her office. She turned her attention to the stack of files on her desk, double checking them, all wrong, again. Emily audibly sighed. She was hoping they would be correct like yesterday.

7:30 am.

Aaron walked into the Oval Office and sat down on the opposite side of the couch from Emily. "Good morning, Mr. President...Emily." Aaron's tone was icy when he said her name, and Emily instinctively flinched. She hoped she never heard Aaron say her name like that for real.

"There's a border dispute with Mexico again." Aaron spoke quickly, giving the president the details. The same details he had already told Emily last night. "I've set up a meeting with the ambassador for later this morning, and there's a meeting with the Senate counsel this afternoon."

"I think you need to include Secretary Moss," Emily's voice was just as icy as Aaron's. "He is the Secretary of State. I'll bring him in." Emily's tone was condescending, and she hated it.

8:30 am.

The morning security briefing had gone longer than scheduled, and Emily was late to her next meeting. She promptly left the president's office without speaking directly to Aaron. She wanted to keep her personal life separate from her work life, and she wanted that to be clear to the president. This job, the president's job, was much bigger than them, and there was no room for Emily's personal life. She asked her deputy to pull the file on the Mexican ambassador. It was one file. He should be able to handle it.

She walked into Seth's office, where he was reading the Washington Post. "Sorry today's memo is late," Emily said apologetically handing Seth his talking points for the day. "No worries, how are things?"

"Busy," Emily replied, "but no crisis yet." There hadn't been a crisis in a couple of days, and Emily was getting antsy. She felt like something was going to happen soon.

"That's not what I meant, Emily. You look like you haven't slept, and your eyes were all vampire-y yesterday."

Emily rolled her eyes at his comment and turned to leave. "Thanks, Seth. Thanks a lot," she said sarcastically.

10:00 am.

The president was meeting with a Noble Peace Prize winner. Emily had to admit there were interesting aspects of the job. If she was just the chief of staff of HUD, she never would have been able to meet some amazing and inspiring people. They usually made her feel like she wasn't doing enough. There were so many wrongs in the world, but the president could only do so much, and Congress only wanted to do so much.

Her phone buzzed, and she briefly looked at it. It was from Aaron.

"Lunch meeting?"

He was so thoughtful, and he always went out of his way to let Emily know he cared. Emily really didn't deserve him. She should probably step up her game.

12:30 pm.

Emily walked into Aaron's office. She had told him she would be late, but she would meet him for lunch. She expected him to still be working on paperwork, but he wasn't there, so she started walking to her own office.

When she got there, Aaron was coming out.

"Hey, ready for lunch?" he asked. He looked….nervous.

"Yeah," Emily replied giving him a questioning look, "what were you doing in my office?"

"I was just coming back from the Oval Office to drop off some files and stopped by, thought you would be here."

Emily had no problem with Aaron being in her office. His security clearance was just as high as hers, and everything with high security was locked in a filing cabinet anyway. Aaron, however, was acting weird. Was he staring at her nose when he was talking to her?

Emily pushed it out of her mind. She was hungry, and although she wasn't looking forward to the White House mess food. It would have to do. She really should start bringing lunch, but she didn't have time to go grocery shopping or make it.

1:00 pm.

Aaron had walked her back to her office. She had a call with a governor over federal funding, or lack thereof. She sat at her desk, but didn't notice anything unusual. Nothing had changed or been moved since this morning, except for the stack of files for tomorrow's meeting that her deputy had put on her desk. She had started requesting them by noon, so she had time to redo them.

She dialed the governor's number, and picked up the top file. One for one. Her deputy got the first file right. She continued to go through the files while waiting for the governor to join the call.

All good. Emily let out a sigh of relief. Maybe, just maybe, the poor kid was learning.

She heard a faint buzzing and picked up her work work phone, but it was her personal. She spent a few minutes digging through her bag for it. She made a note to call her mother.

Two messages from Aaron. Emily cringed as she realized she never opened his message from the other day. She opened today's message.

"I miss you already. Dinner tonight?" He was sweet. Emily wasn't used to this kind of treatment from guys, but she was loving it. She prided herself on being a feminist, and she usually inserted that into her relationships, but she knew Aaron had an ulterior motive. Aaron knew that if she got off work late or had to get into the office early one morning, she wouldn't eat. Left to her own defenses, she would just chug coffee and grab something quick when she could literally feel herself shaking from low blood sugar. It wasn't that she couldn't take care of herself, but Aaron cared enough about her to make sure she took the time to do it.

"Absolutely. Miss you too." Emily opened the first message. It was simply a winky face emoji that caused her to laugh out loud. It was these little moments during the day that helped her make it through the week.