Terra Incognita
Author: Oro
Rating: PG-13 (for no particular reason other than habit)
Disclaimer: Sorkin's people.
Notes: Thank you Mia for saying that the baby should live. Thank you BJ for being a good little parameter. Thank you Tahlia for the title; Terra Incognita means unknown ground in Latin.
She takes his hand in hers and walks with him along the Potomac. The river shines in the sunlight, like her hair when she stops, turns to him and tells him he has to stop asking her to marry him because she never will: not going to happen are her exact words. And he is free, and he doesn't know what to do with his freedom so he asks her again, though in vain, in an attempt to bind himself again. Because being free is a hell of a lot scarier than anything else; even after they split up the first time he didn't dare to consider himself released from married life. The look in her eyes pleads him to go away and he doesn't have the energy to confront what is already there.
And the Potomac river will always look like it did that day, when he truly gave up on his failed marriage, on Andi, on being that person he knew he wasn't really but tried so desperately to become. He is bound to remember driving aimlessly, stopping only for a quick drink at a local bar, where he sits alone, not making contact with anyone but the bartender and being fine with that strangeness: fine with anything as long as it would make him forget, which it refuses to do: and a quick drink can be refilled over and over again.
Free to be with CJ. If ever she shall accept him; because he's let her down too many times, because he's carrying remains of his former life in Andi's womb, because he doesn't know how to begin, say what's on his mind. He's worked with words his entire career, but when it comes right down to it he is worthless, which is the difference between him and his deputy.
So he slumps into her apartment with drunken fearlessness, for it's the only way he seems to be able to, and she welcomes him despite of what he is and because of it, the fifteen years of knowing each other even if they sometimes hated the fact that they did, and that they were friends. Which is why she doesn't say no as all he does is wrap his arms around her and pull her into a kiss.
Even if she hasn't been waiting for him, it's what she's been wanting, and she isn't going to stop him over petty issues like circumstances, or the fact that he is drunk, or the fact that he's only doing it because he's drunk. They'll work it all out later, bit by little bit. Maybe he doesn't, or maybe he does love her after all. Maybe she does love him. So yeah: bit by little bit.