Long-form Summary:
Addy Blair is a thirty-something political operative with her foot in the door- a brand new job at the White House. There's just one snag. For years she'd allowed herself to fixate on an unattainable politician to keep her heart occupied and avoid screwing up her career trajectory... but he works there, too. When bad luck leads her to admit the crush less than a week after her first day, she is sure that her passion for speech writing will never get a chance to flourish.
Toby Ziegler is captivated the instant he observes his accidental visitor's reaction to seeing Leo McGarry. The beautiful Ms. Blair has a clever wit and bad taste in men, which he doesn't recognize is a threat until he's several weeks into a crush of his own. That's all it can be, of course, because he could lose his job in about ten different ways if he so much as touches her.
All it takes is one weak moment. One weak moment and one well-meaning secret service agent who can't help but leak the blurry footage of how romantic that moment was, sparking an unexpected firestorm of media coverage to find out exactly who the White House's star-crossed lovers are...
Notes: This story has been burning a hole in my document files for a few years, honestly, and I'd love to read it in an 'official' format where I don't have to worry that I'll accidentally delete some of it by having it loaded up. I'm proud of it, don't get me wrong, but I think once I post this it'll be the only Toby/OC story on the archive- so I will totally understand if it gets completely ignored.
However, if you liked the West Wing and Toby Ziegler at all, give the story a try? It's a fun exploration of a convoluted happy ever after for my favorite curmudgeon, with loving depictions of the show's characters during the ride.
The plan is to post a chapter around every other Tuesday, slow and steady.
Chapter One
In the grand scheme of things, being in your mid-thirties and in love with a politician twice your age wasn't the worst of life decisions, but it was close. Especially if you'd never actually met the guy.
During most of her work as a political operative, Addy Blair's feelings for Leo McGarry had been an asset, not a liability. Throughout her career, she'd moved from place to place, writing speeches and doing public relations work for various candidates. That kind of nomadic existence wasn't conducive to forming a meaningful relationship. Being attached to someone unattainable had meant that she wasn't seeking a connection somewhere inconvenient, with someone inconvenient. Her heart was already engaged.
Her new job turned all of that upside down. She wasn't working for a campaign this time, but at the heart of the government. At Leo McGarry's workplace.
There was almost no chance she'd see or talk to him, so she had nothing to worry about, really. Her first week on the job had gone as expected, involving things so far beneath Chief of Staff Leo McGarry's purview that she'd be lucky to see more than the back of his head a few times over the next two years.
Day one of week two put that prediction to the test. Part of why Addy applied for the job at all was the encouragement of her former colleague Joey Lucas. They'd worked together multiple times in California, and when their candidate had lost his election, Addy had moved back to D.C. to find work. Getting the callback had been a dream come true, even with The McGarry Issue.
Now, she was dealing with the Lucas Complication: Over the weekend, Joey had sent no less than three emails adding to a message she'd asked Addy to deliver to her friend on Monday. Her friend Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman. No sweat, right?
Not five minutes after sitting down at her desk and firing up her computer, Addy received a fourth email. At least this time Joey hadn't added anything new to the proposed message. She'd just questioned Addy's fitness for a job in such an august workplace if she found herself too nervous to deliver the message in the first place. It was a low blow, and worse, it was working.
"Joey Lucas, you are a bully!" Addy groaned aloud.
A woman walking past Addy's desk with a stack of papers paused, saying, "There's a name I recognize." She had dark hair and a sweet smile.
"Glad to hear it, she's great," Addy said. "The 'bully' comment is because she's pressuring me to deliver a message to someone I'm definitely not authorized to breathe near," she laughed.
"Oh, don't worry, it's not that kind of White House! I'm Carol Fitzpatrick, I work with C.J.," the woman said, stretching out a hand in greeting.
Addy got up and reciprocated the introduction, holding up the folded piece of paper she'd written Joey's message onto. "I don't suppose you'd-"
"If that's for who I think it is, the point is to make you walk around," Fitzpatrick said, backing away.
"Yeah, yeah," Addy conceded. "I just wish I knew whether that's something I could get fired for."
"Nah." Fitzpatrick shook her head. "Keep your head up, look like you have a reason to be there, and you'll be fine. If you want bonus points, you could bring a few green bean facts."
Fitzpatrick's playful expression told Addy this was questionable career advice. Thankfully the other woman didn't press the issue, going on to explain the best route to Lyman's office. She even added that now was a good time to find him there, since he wasn't often scheduled for Monday morning meetings. The implication seemed to be that Lyman was neither a Monday nor a morning person.
Addy mentally girded herself for battle by picturing the ways she'd revenge herself on Joey Lucas for demanding this gauntlet in the first place.
Two minutes later she was in the press room, clearly all turned around.
"Help you with something?" a friendly male voice asked. The bearded, ginger haired reporter was someone Addy recognized.
"Thanks, Mr. Concannon. I think I took a wrong turn, I was looking for Mr. Lyman's office? I have a message to deliver," she hastened to say.
"First week?" Concannon guessed with a broad smile.
"Second, but barely."
"I promise we won't bite if you use first names, but I understand the instinct. Helps us find the new kids," he teased. After a clarification of her original directions, the journalist sent her on her way.
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Toby Ziegler was a few seconds away from nominating green beans for a commemorative stamp when there was a knock on his door. That it wasn't immediately accompanied by someone barging in told him that the knocker was lost.
"What?" he said. Despite his tone, anything that put off that morning's nonsense was fine with him. If he seemed busy enough, Josh might have to take care of the stamp crap by himself.
The woman who opened the door and stepped into his office wasn't someone he recognized. She was pert and pretty, wearing the standard White House garb of a sensible skirt suit in a subdued color, her straight auburn hair attractively styled to frame her face. Her lack of trepidation on encountering him told Toby she was indeed new, but her lack of immediate deference implied she wasn't new congressional staff. It was a few weeks too early for those, anyway.
"Oh, I'm sorry. You're not Mr. Lyman," she said apologetically, taking an unhappy step back.
"Neither is Josh at least half the time," Toby said wryly. "What do you need?"
"My well-meaning friend has a message for him, but I half expected Mr. Concannon to-"
"Did he tell you to call him that?" Tony interrupted, amused. New hires always did afford everyone a little too much dignity, but he wouldn't put it past Danny to haze this woman. Her brown eyes were very expressive.
"No, he didn't. I recognized him, but familiarity can lead to sloppiness, and that's a fast track to a scoop," she said seriously, raising Toby's mental assessment of her by a few levels. Concannon was a master of exploiting weaknesses in human nature, which was part of why his publication assigned him to the White House in the first place.
Before he could commend her, she was chased farther into the room when Bonnie breezed in with a stack of forms and the dreaded gel-ink pen.
"Don't give me that look, it's just your initials!" Bonnie said as soon as he opened his mouth.
"I still need to read it," he retorted, enjoying the huff of frustration she let out. Luckily, the document was only a page long. Right after he finished, Donna Moss stomped in and locked arms with Bonnie as if in solidarity. She immediately launched into a tirade about how long it'd taken for the government to honor outstanding citizens with commemorative stamps.
Toby pasted on the expected scowl and looked for the woman who had a message for Josh. Thanks to the positioning of the other White House aides, she'd ended up over by his messy bookcase instead of the small couch area.
"Donna," he interrupted, "If I can guess the ridiculous suggestion you're about to make, will you go away and let me work?"
The blonde's eyes lit up, but just as his had been earlier, her response was precluded by another visitor. He had half a mind to get up and see whether there was some kind of sign put up above the damned door. This time the interloper was Leo, and his action of backing up to give the assistants space to vacate had herded Toby's unnamed visitor even farther into the corner of the office.
Toby shifted his gaze over to her to ensure she wasn't at risk of toppling any of his precarious book stacks, only to see the expression on her face change when she saw Leo.
The joyous delight that crossed her face was there for only a few seconds, but it was transformative as much as it was informative, even more so given how quickly she schooled it away. That look was full of affection, of adoration.
Toby's day just got a lot less boring.
Once the other women had left the room and pulled the door shut behind them, Leo's eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
"Ask Donna about stamps later, I'm all tied up here," Toby said with a perfectly straight face.
"Nice try," Leo said, his deep tone conveying courtly contempt. "You'd think the staff at the hotel would be able to muster the same level of courtesy, but at least two of them have come up to me to propose legislation! If I'd known I would end up staying there after the divorce, I would have pushed Brandice to go less political with his waiter hires, that's for sure."
At the mention of the word 'divorce,' Toby's visitor actually jumped in shock, palpable dismay written on every line of her body. He watched as she turned toward his disorganized shelves and grabbed the largest book she could find, pulling it free with an audible thump that had the benefit of revealing her presence to the object of her obvious affections.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," Leo said. His left hand dropped to his side and started to twitch, a nervous tic that told Toby he was concerned.
"I'm the one who should be apologizing!" the woman said, clearly mortified. "I'll just be on my-"
Her escape toward the door was halted when McGarry stepped into her path. "Are you one of C.J.'s new hires?" Knowing Leo, this was likely to suss out the chance that he'd need to instruct her on keeping private the conversation she'd accidentally overheard. The divorce was an open secret on the hill, but the press knew to avoid it unless there was some kind of story to put it into some wider context.
"Yes, sir. Addy Blair, former communications director for Lionel Hart's campaign. I worked for a few state reps as well." She lifted the book and did a cute little shrug. It was so large she had to hold it with both hands, which Toby suspected was the point: she couldn't shake hands if they were full. Clever woman.
Even from behind, he could see Leo's body language loosen in relief. Hart was a good guy who ran a tight ship. "Good to hear," he said, turning back toward the desk. Behind him, Addy Blair let out a quick breath, bit her lip, and scattered, taking the giant tome with her.
"The first thing she said to me was about keeping Concannon at bay," Toby said to Leo. McGarry nodded and launched into the real reason he'd dropped by. When he left twenty minutes later, Toby asked him to leave the door open. Ms. Blair didn't seem like the type who would knock on the door with the edge of the large book she'd taken with her.
Sure enough, she reappeared not long after.
"Very sorry about that, may I replace this?"
"You may," he told her, getting up. Crossing to the door, he watched her work out how to put the book back exactly as she'd found it, even replacing the folded piece of paper that had been on top of the unruly pile. He backed up against the door, pushing it closed with his weight. It was time to get some answers about her odd reaction to Leo.
To her credit, Ms. Blair squared her shoulders and took a deep, fortifying breath. "I apologize for having taken your book in a panic. It was inappropriate, and I really have nothing to say for myself." Toby inclined his head but didn't move, watching her realize that he wasn't waiting for an apology. "Excuse me, please?" she asked, gesturing to the door.
"In a minute," Toby told her. "What's your relationship to Leo McGarry?"
"There is none."
Toby's eyebrows practically lifted themselves.
"He's a former cabinet member! I can't be starstruck?"
"Is that what that was?" Toby put a wealth of skepticism into his tone, and her resolve crumbled.
"I made it a whole six days!" she sighed. "I promise it's not as bad as it looks."
"It looks like you're either a poorly trained assassin or a very charming stalker!" The words left his mouth before he had a chance to vet them, but she didn't seem to catch the compliment.
"A stalker would have known he was divorced," she said with a sad smile. "I was an intern at Labor when he was the secretary, that's all. Hero worship." Blair lifted her hand to trace the neat braid that crowned half of her brow. Toby waited to hear more explanation, but she folded her hands in front of her again and took a single step forward, as if expecting him to move out of the way.
Behind them, someone knocked on the door. He grabbed the doorknob to stop them from turning it, and said, "Busy!"
"No problem," Ginger said on the other side of the door.
"You are not busy!" Addy Blair hissed at him. "You are clearly important and I am manifestly not important enough to be disrupting your work!"
A beautiful woman who used the word 'manifestly' in anger was dangerously close to Toby's type. He played it off as best he could, though. He had a mystery to solve, and a friend/colleague to protect, if necessary.
"If you think I'm so busy, answer my questions clearly and concisely." At his desk, the phone rang, probably the phone call that Ginger was about to remind him about. Instead of walking over to answer it, he crossed one leg over the other as he rested against the door, the picture of relaxation. Blair's eyes widened in shock. They looked at each other for four excruciating rings until the sound stopped.
"It really is nothing-"
"Then explain it away, Miss Blair," Toby interrupted. "Thrill me, bore me, or get used to the sound of my time being wasted."
"Fine," she said, a fire of retribution in her eyes. "I'm in love with him. Now will you move out of the way?"
Absolute sincerity rang from her tone and demeanor, so much so that Toby straightened in surprise. That wasn't what he was expecting to hear at all. There was another knock. Without his hand on the knob or his weight holding the door closed, Bonnie successfully got the door open. He stepped aside out of habit, and Addy Blair snuck away in the midst of the fallout from his few minutes of mutiny.
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By some miracle, Addy didn't get lost on the way back to her desk. When she got there, she didn't know whether to start packing up her things, have a reasonably-sized panic attack, or buckle back down to start the assignment she found waiting for her there. She chose the third option, with a side of the second. As always, her productivity thrived in a crisis, and she whipped through the various assignments, picking back up with the position paper reading that counted as her 'downtime' assignment.
She was leaning over and digging into the strange pile of objects in her desk's biggest drawer when she heard a man clear his throat beside her. Straightening, she turned to see that it was the same man whose office she'd unfortunately invaded twice earlier that day. His suit jacket was unbuttoned now, and his harried demeanor was magnified.
"Our conversation wasn't over," he said without preamble.
That was confusing, but Addy supposed it wasn't as if he could call. Her phone line wasn't set up yet. "Oh. I answered your question, didn't I?"
"You most certainly did not. I got less than Trebek gives as a clue for the final answer!" He started walking away.
"I've known you for five minutes and yet somehow, I'm unsurprised to find out you watch Jeopardy," she muttered as she watched him leave. Her new coworkers were playing off their obvious interest in their conversation. Addy was at a distinct advantage since still didn't know who the man was. All she knew was that he was obviously important if Leo had stopped by for a casual chat.
From the doorway, the man called out, "Another thing you should have picked up on is that I expect you to, you know, listen when I tell you to do something?"
"You didn't say to-" she started to protest, but his scathing look had Addy scrambling to her feet in the realization that he'd expected her to go with him. When he saw that she was headed his way, he turned and started back along the route that would presumably lead to his office. Once she was caught up, Addy whispered, "You kind of skipped the part where you introduce-"
"You were in my office. It's not my fault you don't know whose it is," he interrupted in full voice. His route to the office took a path she didn't recognize, and Addy didn't miss that the bullpen around that cluster of officers was full of people craning their necks to watch him march through the doorway to his office with her in tow.
"Your name's not on the door!" she said when she got inside, pointing back over her shoulder.
"Would you have knocked if it was?" he countered. "You were looking for Josh." He led her to the couch, but walked over and sat on the front edge of his desk. "All right, explain to me how you consider yourself in love with someone you've clearly never met formally before. Someone you were afraid to even shake hands with."
Anyone standing near enough to the open door would have heard those words.
Her face white with shock, Addy popped up from her seat to shut the door. When she turned around, the man lifted his eyebrows. Addy took a deep, fortifying breath, and then smiled, walked forward, and thrust her hand out.
"Addy Blair, very low level staffer, nice to meet you."
The man stood, tipped his head to the side to regard her for a second, and then smiled faintly. Taking her hand, he said, "Toby Ziegler, White House Communications Director, nice to meet you."
"You're-" she whispered, voice faltering as she pulled back from the handshake. Ziegler was a notorious curmudgeon. A brilliant notorious curmudgeon, one that she'd looked up to for years. His speeches were incisive, nerdy, and poetic, perfectly matched to President Bartlet.
"I didn't give you a chance to grab the book this time," Ziegler said, clearly amused. "Consider this your secondary job interview."
Subdued by the hash she'd made out of this first impression, Addy said, "What do you want to know, sir?"
"That you're not a stalker. Your background check was spotless; Georgetown, multiple congressional campaigns- I think I remember one of the speeches you wrote for Hart. It's a shame he didn't get in early enough to win." Ziegler settled back on the edge of his desk, but she stayed standing for a few seconds until he waved her down.
"Thank you," she said stiffly. This meeting could go one of many ways, and most of them didn't lead to her keeping her job.
"You said you interned at Labor for the years Leo was there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Go on," Ziegler said, sounding deeply irritated.
"I'm sorry, you're right, you're not a dentist," Addy hastened to say. His lip twitched up at that, but she rushed on. "It was a crush at Labor. I nurtured it. I was too busy for anything real, and my… preoccupation seemed like a convenient roadblock to a messier real relationship. He's got a daughter older than me. He's got a marriage older than that!"
"Which is no longer accruing." His direct gaze was intimidating.
"Right," she winced.
"You didn't know."
"No."
"Would you have taken the job if you had known?"
Addy stood. "Mr. Ziegler, I have no intentions of-"
"Oh, sit down," he said, finally sounding as grumpy as she knew his reputation to be. He walked around the desk and threw himself into his chair. "You're not a stalker. I think you loved the idea of the unattainable, exemplary statesman you thought he was."
Addy opened her mouth to defend either Leo or herself, but Ziegler's hard expression softened. "Don't fret, I'm not going to fire you. I've been stuck on something, and ferreting out your bizarre reaction was a welcome diversion."
She wasn't sure she believed that, but the experience of interacting with him was valuable in and of itself. He was simultaneously moody and engaging, and she imagined it would be an invigorating job to keep up with him on a daily basis.
"In that case, sir, thank you for a unique day. It was nice to meet you." Addy moved toward the door swiftly, only stopped by his challenging tone.
"You're going to quit, then?"
It was bait, but she whirled around. "Absolutely not! I already love it here. They say everyone has their White House Moment, and this was certainly a unique one." A thought occurred to her, and Addy closed her eyes for a second, shaking her head in self-exasperation. "Joey was probably trying to get me to be more assertive. I was probably supposed to tell her to deliver the message herself. Lesson learned, I guess."
"Tell her to shepherd her chicks on her own time, will you?" Ziegler said, flipping open a folder on his desk, all but ignoring her.
Hoping she was guessing right, Addy said, "Tell her yourself."
Ziegler looked up, his dark brown eyes twinkling ever so slightly, at odds with his serious expression. "Well done. Now, get out."
"Yes, sir."
