X

SATURDAY:

Donna knocked, and breezed in without waiting for a reply. "Morning Josh."

"Mmpgh." Her boss was slumped face down on his bed amidst screwed-up balls of paper, still in his clothes from yesterday.

"See, this is exactly why I told you to pack an extra suit." Donna casually tugged open the curtains, causing Josh to blink and groan in protest.

"The wedding's not for, like, six hours!" he objected, gathering up balls of paper and uncrumpling them to peer at what was written on them.

"You're the best man! You have duties."

"They're gonna take me six hours?"

"Judging by how long it took you to get started on your speech? A whole lot longer than that."

"It's done!" he said defensively. Apparently having found the correct ball of paper, he waved it vaguely at her. It looked... well, rather like it had been screwed up and slept on.

By a very restless elephant. With spikes.

"Want me to type that up for you?" Donna asked pointedly.

He held the paper against his chest defensively. "You can't read it."

"Well, that bodes well for the ceremony," she noted dryly.

"No, it's... I don't want anybody to read it." Josh continued to hold onto it tightly, watching her with suspicious eyes as if she might suddenly leap across the bed and grab it from him.

Donna shrugged. "Whatever," she agreed, rolling her eyes tolerantly, and moved past him to the closet to remove the tuxedo that was hanging up there.

"Hey!" He blinked at her. "You're stealing my clothes."

"You can't wear this," she told him.

"You want me to go naked?"

"Nobody wants that, Josh. You have another suit in there, the extra one I made you bring."

"But I need the tux for the wedding," he objected.

"Which, as you just reminded me, is not for another six hours."

He gave her an injured look. "You think I can ruin a tux in six hours?"

"Josh. You can ruin a tux in six minutes. You can ruin a tie in six minutes, and I didn't even know that was physically possible."

Josh's face - more eloquent than he was at this time in the morning - took on its familiar 'I'm about to say something fairly stupid that I think is witty' aspect. "What is it with you women and this obsession you have with wrinkles?"

"We women?" Donna arched an eyebrow in the international signal for 'This would be a good time to remove your foot from your mouth'.

Josh had never been good at that particular signal.

"Yeah! When was the last time you ever heard a guy say 'Oh no, honey, you can't wear that, it's got creases in'? You know why? 'Cause we're men of the world, and we know that-" He gradually trailed off as he realised Donna had moved close enough to invade his personal space, and looked up at her.

"Josh?"

"Yeah?"

She whapped him soundly across the top of the head.

"Ow!"

"Get dressed." She swept out.

"Abbey?"

"Claudia Jean!" The First Lady smiled brightly at her, and CJ almost second guessed her instinct to report back to her. But no; there was nothing Abigail Bartlet hated more than people deciding for her what she did and didn't need to know.

Abbey read her expression, and immediately pulled her aside for a little privacy. "What is it, CJ?"

"I got a call from the publisher yesterday."

Her jaw tightened, but her voice remained level and pleasantly low as she asked "Release date?"

"Barring complications, we're looking at mid-November."

CJ saw the First Lady's face mirror her own thought processes. A little breathing time... but really, how could any breathing time ever be enough?

Abbey nodded slowly to herself, and met the press secretary's eyes. "Like to offer me the odds on this book fading into the bargain bins unnoticed?"

She let her expression speak for itself.

"Yeah," said Abbey softly, and she briefly concentrated on smoothing out a piece of carpet with her shoe. Then she looked up. "Does he know?"

"I've only spoken to Toby."

She nodded. "Let's keep this between us, okay? Jed doesn't need to know about it until we're back in DC. Let him have today."

"Yeah."

"And keep Toby on a leash," she added pointedly. CJ smiled.

"Don't worry, he's got Andy to do that."

"Yes, I saw her name on the invite list - your handiwork, by any chance?" Abbey asked, beginning to smirk.

CJ tilted her head curiously. "As a matter of fact, I assumed it was yours."

The First Lady raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, interesting... you think he added her himself?"

"Well, unless the president's behind it..." CJ agreed.

Abbey rolled her eyes. "Trust me, CJ, the president is woefully clueless when it comes to spotting undercurrents in relationships."

The comment was lighthearted, but still, it lingered, as both of them were drawn inevitably to wondering if there was perhaps something in his past that had made him that way. They looked at each other.

"Let him have today, CJ," Abbey repeated, and CJ nodded.

She was really beginning to wish she hadn't brought Jeff.

It had seemed like a smart idea at the time. Jeff was exactly the kind of boyfriend her father wouldn't be able to stand; sullen, moody, unimpressed and uncommunicative... she'd selected him specially for this event with those particular qualities in mind.

What she'd apparently forgotten somewhere in her planning was the fact that bringing Jeff would involve, well, having to spend time with Jeff. And truth to tell, after spending entirely too much time over the last forty-eight hours with him, Ellie was beginning to see her father's point.

"This sucks." Her 'boyfriend' kicked moodily at the edge of the flowerbeds. "You promised me a good time, El. All we've done is sit around a stupid hotel all day."

She hated being called "El". But apparently that hadn't sunk in the first four or five times she'd politely brought it up.

"Listen, I don't like it any more than you do," she said, affecting a shrug. "I didn't know my mom was gonna decide to keep me on a baby harness."

"So let's blow this place," he scowled.

"I would, but-" she indicted over her shoulder. "Secret Service?"

"Can't you ditch them?" Jeff snapped.

Well, gee, buddy, that's an original thought. Certainly nothing I would have thought of on my own at any point in the last five years.

Her internal voice of sarcasm had a strong tendency to sound a lot like her mother.

"Yeah, but then I get totally bitched out 'cause my dad thinks I'm gonna get shot if I cross the street on my own." In theory, anyway. Ditching her protection detail, while rather a recurring fantasy, was not something she was actually stupid enough to try and do. Especially not after what had happened at Rosslyn.

She'd had nightmares, after the news footage and the panicked exchange of phonecalls with her mother. Months and months of waking up with images of the president's assassination on CNN. If she'd been any of the other Bartlet daughters, she'd have gone running straight to daddy and have him kiss it better. But she was Eleanor Emily, and she never went running to daddy with anything. Why should she? He never cared enough to come running to her when she needed anything.

So she faced her nightmares on her own.

Jeff snorted loudly. "Ah, who'd want to shoot you?" he snickered. And even if he was technically just following her lead, it still stung. Who would want to shoot her? She was just plain old Ellie, the middle daughter. The bland one, the nothing one. Don't bother shooting her, her daddy wouldn't even miss her.

Speak of the old devil. Here he came now. He smiled for her, but she didn't miss the way his face tightened momentarily before he did.

Oh, why even bother, if you're just gonna fake it?

"Ellie, hi." He came over and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which she neither shrank from or leaned in to. She'd never been as much of a one for physical contact as he was.

"Hi, dad."

"And you must be Jeff Coleridge."

"Yeah."

In the moment when it came down to it, she wasn't sure whether to be proud of her selection of Jeff or cringe-worthily embarrassed. He took the arrival of his country's leader with an aura of indifference bordering on contempt.

Her father was obviously less than thrilled, but he made an effort to contain it. His voice was deceptively pleasant as he said "I'm sorry, son, would you mind giving us a couple of moments...?"

"Sure, whatever. See you later, Els." He casually slouched off without a backward glance.

Ellie slipped her hands into her pockets and looked at the ground. There was an awkward silence.

"He's your boyfriend?" her father said after a moment. Trying not to sound judgemental, and definitely not succeeding.

She shrugged, still hiding behind the curtain of her hair. "He's a guy I know."

"Oh, he's 'a guy you know'?" Her father's tone was rising, the way it always seemed to no matter how he tried to contain it. "You brought him to your sister's wedding, but he's just 'a guy you know'?"

"Mom said I could bring somebody."

"What, so you just dragged him in off the street somewhere?"

"I just brought him, okay?" she said, passive-aggressively. "I'm sorry if he doesn't come up to your incredibly exacting standards."

"My standards are the same standards as the rest of civilised society," he said, and damn, she hated it when he blew himself up like a pompous windbag. "Eleanor, look at me. Look up at me."

Oh, this again. She reluctantly dragged her gaze up. He was always so intense, always staring at her, like she was some kind of alien species he had to study.

He had that same look he always did. "Eleanor, did you bring this boy specifically to cause a ruckus?" he demanded.

Ruckus. Ruckus; who the hell used words like 'ruckus'? Ellie scowled. "Dad-"

"Eleanor, the boy barely even acknowledged you're alive. If that's your idea of a good boyfriend, then-"

"Oh, not everything is about you, okay?" she snapped. "Could you maybe just accept that sometimes, sometimes I actually do things that don't have anything to do with trying to get at you?"

Of course, that annoying little voice of conscience pointed out that this had been preplanned, but still, she thought she owed herself a little righteous indignation for all the times it hadn't been.

Wrenching her gaze away from his made it easier to stomp away.

"Ellie-"

She heard the plaintive note as he said her name, but she carried on walking anyway. She knew he wouldn't come chasing after her.

He never did.