VIII
"Charlie!"
"Mr. President," he nodded.
"None of that now," the president chided, coming around the desk to capture him in a hug that was loose only out of respect for his recently broken ribs.
"We're at work, sir," Charlie reminded him. During his time in the hospital and subsequent stay in the Residence - the president had insisted, albeit on the strict proviso that Zoey not be left alone with him (apparently, being too battered to comfortably sit up wasn't quite enough to allay the president's suspicions) - lines had been blurred. In a fog of painkillers and the concern of his fiance's family, it had been surprisingly easy to slip into calling his future father-in-law 'dad', as he was frequently ordered to.
But now he was back at work, and aiming for something towards his original hours instead of the occasional part days he'd worked during his recovery. And those lines between professional and personal had to be redrawn, as much for pragmatic reasons as decorum. He knew full well, whatever the president might say, that he now had to be very, very careful about the image he represented. There could be no hints that the president's future son-in-law was kept employed for any reason other than being extremely good at his job.
Predictably, the president waved it off. "Yeah, yeah. Are you sure you're up to this, Charlie?" he asked. "If you want to take it slowly, give it a few more days-"
"I'm fine," he nodded, heading back to his desk. Despite the relatively long gap in his employment, the daily tasks were so ingrained that he could run through them without even thinking about it.
The president continued to hover. "You don't want a more comfortable chair? 'Cause you know, the chair in my office is pretty-"
Charlie grinned. "I don't think I'm allowed to sit on that one, Mr. President."
"Well, can I have somebody get you something to drink? How about a-"
"Sir." He gave his boss a look. "This whole 'personal aide' thing doesn't really work if you spend the whole day clucking over me like a mother hen."
The president narrowed his eyes. "A mother hen?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"I assume that was said with the appropriate amount of respect?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, okay then. I'll be in my office if you need anything." The president gestured over his shoulder, as if Charlie needed to be told where that was. He hesitated in leaving, and then planted a quick, affectionately paternal kiss on Charlie's cheek. "Don't push yourself too hard, son."
He glanced around the area quickly to make sure nobody had seen. That definitely didn't come under the banner of discreet professionalism.
But he kinda liked it anyway.
Once, Andrea Wyatt had been very much in love with Toby Ziegler.
Immediately before and during their divorce, she had alternated between being very much in love with Toby Ziegler and being prepared to kill him, with occasional periods of both at the same time.
After their divorce, that love had not so much faded as mutated, becoming a mix of respect and wistful affection, and something that couldn't quite stretch itself from broken romance into friendship. She couldn't live with Toby anymore, but in many ways she still adored him.
None of that, however, precluded her from the more than occasional strong desire to brain him with something blunt and heavy.
The political argument had proceeded to much the same state their debates usually did. She sat with her feet up on the edge of his desk, looking up at the ceiling. "Compromise. Compromise. Compromise. Compromise." She varied the tone of her chant to break the monotony.
"Could you possibly... stop saying that?" Toby asked her, chin resting on his linked hands in that hangdog way he had.
"Could you possibly learn to do it?" She already knew the answer to that one. It was how she'd ended up divorced in the first place.
Rather than answer her, Toby went off at yet another tangent. "The United States foreign aid budget-"
"Sucks."
He gave her a look, and damn, she wished he didn't have such familiar eyes. "Is that Congressional terminology?"
"It's the truth."
"Obviously not, then."
"Score one for Pokey!"
He gave her an injured look, and then followed up with a put-upon sigh. "Could we... turn to the proposal on-?"
"Your proposal stinks, Toby."
"It would increase the overseas aid budget."
"By a paltry twenty-five percent," she objected.
"Congress-"
"I'm part of Congress," Andy reminded him.
"Ah, the multitudinous liberal Democratic part," he shot back. Score two for Pokey, not that she'd admit as much. "Congress," he repeated, "has consistently shot down any attempt to increase the budget allocated to foreign aid."
"Oh, I see, we're blaming Congress for the defeat before we've even tried?"
"It usually saves time," Toby said dryly.
"Congress consistently votes this government's proposals down because it knows damn well that this government won't back them up with anything more than talk. You need to be decisive, you need to be radical, and you need to increase the foreign aid budget by at least five hundred percent before it's anything more than a joke!"
"I don't think it's a joke to the thousands of people who are helped by the eight billion we pour into other countries every year."
"Oh, but the ones who aren't getting the forty billion you don't send are laughing," she said sharply. She folded her arms and glared, and for a moment there was an impasse.
At which point they both remembered there was actually somebody else in the room.
"Lord Marbury?" Toby inquired. The Englishman raised his chin from the hand it had been resting on as he regarded them both intently.
"Oh, do carry on, old man. I assure you, I'm finding you both perfectly fascinating."
He smiled brightly.
"Hey, Charlie!" CJ smiled brightly at the president's young aide. "How're you feeling?"
"Like a lot of people keep asking me that." He glanced at the papers she was reading. "The president was just wondering if you had the report on-" She nodded at it. "Thanks." He noticed the photographs piled beside it. "Hey, is that the president?"
"I'm reading his biography," she explained.
He nodded, glancing through the pictures and smirking at the one of Bartlet as a moody teen. "Is it interesting?"
"I'll let you know when I've got past the fifteen page introduction telling me how great the author is."
There was a knock, and Abigail Bartlet appeared in the doorway. "CJ," she nodded, and her smile widened. "And Charlie!"
"Oh no," he said under his breath.
"I heard that. Okay, come here, stand up straight, and let me look at you," she ordered.
"I'm really fine now," he told, complying.
"Sure you are. Breathe in, breathe out; good. Does this hurt?"
"Ow!"
"I thought so. You've got to be careful," she chided, "those ribs are still tender. You have to watch you don't try too much."
"I think I just have to watch people don't come up to me and poke me in the ribs," he said wryly.
"Are you starting something with me, Charlie?" she challenged playfully.
"No, ma'am."
"And don't call me ma'am."
In a remarkable display of quick thinking, Charlie redirected her attention to the photographs. She picked them up and leafed through them with a fond smile of recollection. "What are these in aid of, Claudia Jean?"
"I'm reading a biography... uh, Jed: Portrait of a Future President."
"Boy, that must be a thrill a minute," said the First Lady dryly.
CJ hesitated, and then asked. "Ma'am... did your husband do anything particularly embarrassing in his college years I should know about?"
"Well, he once lost a bet and had to do an Elvis impersonation in front of an audience."
"Elvis?" CJ was mostly unsuccessful at hiding her smirk; Charlie didn't even try.
"Oh, he was actually doing pretty well until he fell off the stage," Abbey noted.
"Is there photographic evidence?"
"Sadly not." The First Lady smiled to herself. "Although the mental picture definitely lingers." CJ grinned in response.
When the others were gone, CJ turned back to her reading in a more cheerful state of mind. If the president said there was nothing and the First Lady said there was nothing... well, whatever rumours Katie thought she'd heard, they surely had to be something benign.