I take a few minutes to compose myself before entering the mess. By the time I walk through the door everyone has gone back to their lunches. Bonnie, Ginger, Margaret and Carol have their heads together and are whispering fiercely. I take the opportunity to slip through the line and get a salad.

When I arrive at the table and say "Hey Girls" their heads all snap up and they grin like maniacs. Ginger lets out a wolf-like whistle and everyone in the mess looks over at us. I turn red again. Margaret looks around and shakes her head.

"Grab your salads, girls. This isn't going to work. We need some privacy."

We all follow Margaret out of the mess and down the hall toward the bullpen. She leads us into a small empty office. I'm a bit surprised. When I was here there was never an empty West Wing office for long. But I guess with the Administration winding down not all jobs are getting filled and people don't want to move offices for just a few weeks.

We sit down and they all look at me expectantly. I'm not sure where to start. Finally, Ginger says-

"So were you sleeping together all along or not?!"

Well I guess we are jumping to the chase. Ginger always has been the blunt one.

"NOT!" I laugh. "I've told you that before!" I've answered that question somewhere between 2 and a dozen times every year of the Bartlet Administration.

"I know but if you were having a secret affair you couldn't have told us." Bonnie says practically.
"And since it doesn't seem to be a secret now- you could tell us if you were then."

"Well I knew they weren't" Margaret says.

"There was way too much sexual tension between the two of them. We would have known if they had acted on it. Just look at them. They are both practically glowing now."

I keep looking around at all of them. It feels like they've been having this conversation for years and I'm not sure I even need to be a part of it now. I use the opportunity to eat a few bites of my salad before I decide to contribute to the conversation and remind them that a. I"m still here and b. I haven't actually told them anything yet.

"I'll be sure to tell Josh you said he's glowing. He'll love that." I say it a bit sarcastically to maintain Josh's image but truthfully, he actually will love it. He's happy that people can tell he's happy.

"Well I'm just glad you waited until you left the White House." Carol says. "CJ and I had some spin strategy sessions over the years and there were times we were really concerned about the optics."

I take another bite and contemplate that for a minute. It was such a weird thing. We weren't the main focus of the administration but from the sound of it we provided more gossip than we were aware of. How did all these people think that they knew what we were thinking, when honestly there were times I wasn't sure myself how I felt.

"So" Bonnie says "tell us what happened. You were pretty pissed at Josh when you quit."

"Well, I needed to not be his assistant any more. It was a barrier between us. Just too many things we couldn't say while I was his direct subordinate. We finally had those conversations."

"You are too polite," Ginger says. "What you mean is you finally screwed."

I ignore her. Sometimes her crassness is cute and sometimes its just rude.

"We needed to be apart to see how much we really missed each other and in what capacity. We realized that we can both do our jobs without each other but we can't live without each other."

I pull the album out and lay it on the table. And then I open it to my favorite picture and look pointedly at Ginger.

"We didn't just screw. We got married."

Ginger, Carol and Bonnie gasp, while Margaret smirks and winks at me. I guess she is a better secret keeper than we ever knew.

"Oh my god!" Ginger exclaims "All the details! Right. now."

"Let's just say we got back to being friends on the campaign trial. The excitement and tension finally lead to our first romantic kiss then it took a couple more weeks for the sexual tension to explode and then a week later we eloped."

"You eloped after only a week?" Bonnie marvels.

"No" Carol says "they eloped after spending 9 years getting to know each other. This has to be the slowest spontaneous elopement ever."

I smile at her. Carol got it exactly right. It's nice to be understood.

"I want to hear about the sex!" Ginger whines.

I bush again. After all these years, Ginger should know I really don't kiss and tell. I've never said more about a date than it was good or bad. I look at her for a long minute then I say-

"It's good. Very good."