THE WORK

This was it. Emily was officially back to work on that day. It was the first time they would leave both girls at daycare, and it was freaking them out. Of course, it wasn't really true, Inez had been at daycare for a year, and they had taken Cami for an adaptation the week before, but it felt like the first time. It was the first time both girls would spend the whole day at daycare, and that they would be busy at work. Surprisingly, Aaron seemed more stressed than Emily, but maybe it was because Emily was glad to be back to a normal rhythm. She was really glad to go back to work. She had wanted to do it like she had done with Inez, and start taking calls and follow a bit what was happening at the White House while still being on maternity leave, but Emily had ended up being much busier with two kids than with one, and she had completely abandoned the possibility of working at home.

So when at 8 a.m, she walked into her office, she sighed.

"Dear office, if you knew how much I missed you…" she said out loud.

Aaron, who was walking just behind her, laughed.

"That much?" he asked.

"You have no idea. I know I sound like a bitch for saying that, I know I am a terrible mother, but it feels so good to be back to work…"

"Stop saying stupid things… You're not a bad mother for saying that." Aaron scolded.

"Whatever, let's just go back to work!" Emily exclaimed.

Emily sat at her desk and sighed again, happy to be here. She spent the morning being filled on the latest by Aaron and their deputies, and then she started taking calls again, and planning meetings. She met with the President during the day, who welcomed her back, and she chatted a little. She met Alex too and took the time to eat lunch with her, just like the good old times when she was working for Kirkman at HUD. Aaron had sighed, he had been hoping he would have the privilege of Emily's first lunch back at work, but he had ended up eating with Seth and Kendra, as he often did when Emily was not there.

"Woah, you didn't even ditch us for Emily's first day back at work?" Seth chucked when he saw Aaron sitting in the cafeteria next to them.

"I thought we were your spare wheel!" Kendra added.

"Can you be my spare wheel for one more day?" Aaron asked, chuckling.

"What happened? Is she already that busy?" Kendra continued.

"She ditched me for the First Lady…" Aaron explained, irritated.

Seth and Kendra laughed, and Lyor joined them along a few other colleagues.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked, sitting with them.

"Aaron got ditched for the First Lady…" Seth explained, still laughing.

"Ha… Well, now you can understand what it feels like to be the spare wheel…" Lyor answered with his usual sarcastic tone.

It had been a recurring joke for years. Everybody knew that Aaron and Emily were always having lunch together when they could, and they didn't see them often at the cafeteria for lunch. It had already been a joke during Emily's first maternity leave and seeing Aaron back to eating with them had been a source for multiple teasing. Aaron didn't mind though, he knew it, he knew he was using them as a spare wheel, everybody knew it and everybody was fine with it. It was just the way it was.

A few hours later, Emily and Aaron were back to their own office. Emily was running here and there, doing this and that. She was just so motivated, so happy, so full of enthusiasm. Aaron could feel she was happy to be back, that she needed that. It had been a while since he had seen such an enthusiasm in her, such a smile. Having two daughters that close in age had definitely worn her out. Sometimes he was feeling bad for her, because he knew that he should have been home more often to help her out, to be the dad he was supposed to be. But work had been crazy the past few weeks, and he even had ended up going to work on Sundays, sometimes coming home in the middle of the night. He knew that now Emily was back to work, it would be less crazy and he would finally be able to take care of the girls, but he also knew that it meant Emily would be the one taking the workload. It was just the way it was. Starting a family and having such crazy jobs in the meantime were two incompatible things, but they had ended up doing it anyway. So here they were, having to manage the unmanageable, and he knew it would be hard for the next three years too. Tom Kirkman had been a real savior though when he had offered Aaron the job of co-chief of staff. It had been a huge relief to be able to share the workload with Emily.

"Em… It's five. Do you want to pick up the girls or do you want me to go?" he asked, knocking at her door.

Emily was writing some things and didn't even bother raising her head to answer…

"Hum. Can you go? I still have so many things to do…"

"Need some help? I still have an hour before daycare closes…" he offered.

"No I'm fine, I'm ok. I don't know when I'll come home but I'm fine."

Aaron didn't answer and leaned on the door frame, looking at Emily, still deep in her work. He smiled slightly, she was just focused on her papers she didn't even notice Aaron had stayed there, staring at her. But then, Aaron's personal phone rang, and it was weird because he had set the "do not disturb" mode, so only very specific people could call him. The phone stopped ringing before he could find it under a stack of paper, and he discovered that daycare had called. It had never happened before, and he started worrying.

"Em, can you check your personal phone. Has daycare called you?" he asked, coming back to her office.

She didn't even react, too deep in her papers.

"Emily… Hello… Em!" he called a bit louder.

"What? Sorry…" she answered, realizing Aaron was still there.

"Has daycare called you? I missed their call but they just did. Were they supposed to call for anything?" he asked again.

"I don't think so, but let me check." she rummaged through her purse. "Yeah… They called too… 3 minutes ago…"

"Ok, I'm calling back." Aaron said.

He walked back to his office to let Emily work, but now she was worried. So she stood up and waited on the doorway between their offices to know what was going on. Apparently something was going on with Inez, but she couldn't clearly understand what and she was waiting impatiently, tapping her foot on the floor. She could see Aaron frown, which meant something had happened, and she didn't like that.

"What is going on?" she asked even before he had time to hung up the phone.

"Inez fell, or she was pushed by another kid, I don't know. But whatever, she knocked her head against a table and her eyebrow arch is bleeding… They say it's probably nothing too important, but they are worried she needs stitches."

"What? Oh my gosh! How did that happen?" she exclaimed, worried and angry at the same time.

"I don't know. But I need to pick her up to take her to the hospital." he said.

"We need to change daycare. This cannot happen again." Emily said sharply, annoyed.

"Em… It could have happened at home too… It just happens…" Aaron answered, trying to calm down his wife.

"Well, let's go then. I'll come with you. You cannot deal with Inez and Cami at the hospital…" Emily started saying.

But just at that time, her professional phone started ringing, and she was called down to command ops.

"Damnit. Crisis after crisis…" she murmured

"Go… Don't worry, I can deal the two of them. Even at the hospital…"

"But… What if…"

"Go down to the command ops. I'll be fine. I promise… And we don't have the choice anyway. Go…"

"You sure?"

"Yes. Kiss me goodbye and go."

Emily did as told but couldn't help worrying. Her mind was not on the case when she was going down to the PEOC, and she was just really hoping to be back home soon. Unfortunately, as soon as she was updated on the case, she understood that her first day back at work wouldn't be short. She was okay with that, she had needed some kind of action, but knowing that Aaron was on his way to the hospital with the girls was freaking her out. She was frustrated not to be able to console Inez and be with Aaron to take care of her. She was worried that Aaron wouldn't handle both girls at the hospital. As the meeting was continuing in the command ops, her mind was wandering elsewhere, even if she knew she needed to be concentrated on what was happening on the screens right now.

Aaron was worried too. When he arrived at daycare, Inez was still crying and had a band aid on her head and he could see the blood starting to run down her temple because the band aid was not thick enough. The vision made him freak out and he ran to hug his baby girl who finally started to calm down when his dad hugged her tight. He soon picked up Cami too, and he left for the hospital with Inez desperate for more attention and Cami crying because her sister was crying. He really needed to calm Inez down to be able to calm Cami down, and he wasn't sure how he would do it. Fortunately, he was strong enough to carry Cami in her baby car seat and have Inez in his other arm, so it didn't take long for Inez to go back to her normal self after she was out of the car. Cami started crying again at one point too, and it took him all the courage in the world not to freak out at the idea to put Inez down for a few seconds to take Cami out of her car seat. He had been in the waiting area for about half an hour, and he was already starting to be annoyed at the time it was taking for them to be taken care of. He just needed Inez to be checked, and he really wanted to be home soon so that they could all be in peace. Cami was whimpering from time to time, and he was pacing around the room with both girls in his arms. He walked back to the front desk twice, asking when it would be time for them to be taken care of, but there was always an emergency before them. He got it, he could understand that more important things had happened than a baby hurting her head, but it was just irritating him that he had to wait that long. Plus, he could see time flying, and he knew Cami would need her bottle very soon, and he really didn't want to deal with that in the middle of a waiting room. Fortunately, it took only another fifteen minutes before someone called him, and after Inez was checked and the doctor made sure she didn't have any kind of concussion, he put some surgical glue on her injury. She cried some more as it was hard to hold her in place when the doctor tried to touch her, but he finally made it after she was sat on Aaron's lap.

In the end, they came home a little bit after 7 p.m. As planned, Cami had started being hungry, and she had cried all the way back home, which had of course made Inez cry. Aaron loved his daughters very dearly, but having them cry for fifteen minutes at the back of the car was making his head pound. As he had imagined, Emily was not back home yet, and he ran in the kitchen to prepare Cami's bottle and Inez's dinner. He didn't even take the time to take off his shoes and started giving them food right away, a spoon in one hand for Inez's baby food, holding Cami and giving her the bottle in the other. Suddenly, he could understand why Emily had been so happy to come back to work in the morning, and he realized how much of a challenge all of that would be for the next few of years.

Emily managed to come home a little bit after midnight, relieved after seeing Aaron's text saying everything was okay, but frustrated that she had not been able to help him out. She walked to Inez's bedroom to check on her, and was sad to see her bruised face even in the dark of the room. It made her heart break and she almost let a tear fall on her cheek to know how much her baby girl must have suffered. Aaron was already sleeping, and she was ready to do the same when she heard Cami starting to cry. She chuckled, wondering when her day would end, and as she walked to her room with a bottle, she realized that no matter how hard this could be, she wouldn't trade it for the world.