VI

"Okay, that's pretty much everything." Josh closed the folder and stood up. Ash shook his hand again as he threaded his way around the table. "The president's kinda busy today, but if you can come back tomorrow at half eleven-"

Ash halted, abruptly, in the doorway. "Wait a minute, you want me to-?"

Josh was amused. "You are totally clear on what I'm interviewing you for here?"

"Yeah, I mean, I-" He held his forehead, as if suddenly beset by head pains. "I guess I kind of assumed there would be, uh, some sort of... The president? Tomorrow?"

"At half past eleven." Josh patted him on the shoulder cheerfully. "Don't worry, he doesn't bite. Well, not literally, anyway."

"Uh..."

"You'll be fine," Josh assured him casually. "Donna'll see you out. Donna!" The bellow conspicuously failed to produce his assistant. "Or maybe I will," he conceded. He led Ash in the direction of the lobby.

"Should I- I mean, is there anything I should-?"

"Just be yourself," he said, steering the younger man with a hand on his shoulder. "That's what he wants to see."

"And if he doesn't like me?" Ash asked nervously.

"Oh, he won't." Josh grinned at his expression. "But don't take it personally. He never likes new people. If he still hates you in six months, then you should probably worry. But on the plus side, at least by then he'll probably know your name."

His interviewee was looking greener by the second. "Okay, I'm not totally sure I-"

"Sam!" Josh waved and beckoned him over. Sam came jogging up, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Hey. Listen, we're about to go do the thing-"

"Yeah, I was just finishing up here." He gestured to Ash. "This is Ashley Bowers."

"Hi." Sam flashed one of those dazzling beams he was so good at, and shook his hand. "I'm-"

"The Deputy Communications Director," Ash knew already. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Seaborn."

"Sam," the two of them corrected in stereo.

"He's polite," Josh explained.

"We'll train it out of him." Sam turned back to Josh. "Ted Hobson still wants us to make those changes to the section on healthcare."

"He's got a lot of support for that," Josh frowned.

"I know."

"What are you going to do about it?" If they let every group with a quibble cut out everything they wanted to, they'd be left with a State of the Union address you could fit on a postcard.

"We're pursuing a strategy of selective engagement."

"Huh?"

"We run away whenever we see him coming," Sam said wryly.

"How's that working for you so far?"

"Fine. Apart from the time I tripped over the printer cable. I exhibited grace," he insisted quickly.

"Under fire?" Josh raised an eyebrow.

"Under printer paper, mostly," he conceded. "I'll see you at the runthrough?"

"Yeah." Josh returned to guiding Ash as Sam moved away, and smiled at his befuddled expression. "Not like your old job?" he guessed.

"Not even close," he said, with feeling.

His daughter was waiting for him in his office when he got back to it.

"You know, Margaret's supposed to stop people doing this," Leo grumbled resignedly as he walked in.

"She wasn't at her desk, so I let myself in."

"Well, I'm fairly sure that's breaking at least one security protocol, so-"

"Dad, you can't stop me bringing Brandon to the State of the Union!" Mallory launched back into their phone argument without further preamble.

"Actually I can, because it's my job," he said, lowering his eyebrows. "Thursday night is about making the president look good, and Brandon Foxton being there will not be helping to make the president look good."

"Because he devoted one section of his radio show to the Vice President's adultery?"

"Yes!"

She glared at him. "I don't think disapproving of the Vice President of the United States cheating on his wife is a particularly unreasonable opinion!"

"It's not," he agreed, "and he's welcome to expound on it in absolutely any forum that is not the State of the Union!"

"Oh, come on, dad-"

There was a tentative knock, and Donna's rather anxious face appeared in the doorway. "Leo? They're getting ready to do the runthrough."

"Okay, thanks, Donna," he nodded. "Tell Josh I won't be a minute."

"Okay." She gratefully withdrew.

Mallory placed her hands on her hips. "Dad-"

"Mallory, I can't talk about this now," Leo said exasperatedly.

"This argument is not over," she warned.

He sighed faintly. "I didn't for a minute think it was."

"You can't stop me bringing him," she called after him, as he started to depart.

"Tell that to the Secret Service, if I order a security alert."

"Dad!" Her indignant cry followed him down the hallway.

"CJ? The president's ready now."

"Okay. Thanks, Charlie." She acknowledged him distractedly, obviously preoccupied. "I won't be a minute."

"News from Lubbock County?" he guessed gravely.

"Some vulture of a local news organisation managed to get hold of the Rossiter family," she frowned, rubbing her forehead. "It'll be all over the national news in a few hours; the transcript's bad enough. The father's out for heads, he says it was nothing but cold-blooded murder, and the mother spent the whole interview repeating that John was a good boy, never did a wrong thing in his life... She keeps talking about him in the present tense," she added softly, after a moment.

There wasn't anything he could have said to that, and certainly nothing he wanted to, so he stayed silent. After a moment she shook herself out of it, and stood up with a sigh. "Okay. Thank you, Charlie," she repeated more firmly, as she headed off to the meeting.

Carol snagged him as he made to follow her. "Hey. How'd the interview go?" she asked curiously.

"Huh?" For a moment, he had no clue what she was talking about. "Oh, you mean-?"

"That was Ashley Bowers, right? Margaret saw him with Josh. She said he looks young."

"Not that young," Charlie admitted pensively. He'd been only twenty-one himself when he first took this job. Strange to realise that it hadn't really been a million years ago.

"So what's he like?" she enquired eagerly. "Will he get the job?"

"I guess, if the president okays it." Despite the fact that Ash had seemed perfectly unobjectionable during their brief conversation earlier, Charlie couldn't help an uncharitable hope that he would somehow manage to screw up so badly the president would reject him outright.

"That should make everything a lot easier on you." Carol interrupted his distinctly ambiguous train of thought.

"Yeah," he agreed unenthusiastically. She gave him a knowing look, and after a moment, he cracked. "It's just that..."

"The president's yours, and you don't want to share him?"

He hesitated for a beat. "Well, that sounds... disturbing and vaguely stalkerish."

"Yup. But I get it."

He eyed her sideways. "Yeah?"

She smiled aggressively. "You see anybody taking CJ away from me without a fight?"

Charlie had to chuckle. "Yeah." He leaned back against the wall and sighed. "I know, I know. This is a good thing, I guess..."

"Time off," Carol offered.

"Somebody else to send into the lion's den." That was one duty he certainly wouldn't mind being able to delegate - especially when the president was with the First Lady.

"You get to boss this guy about," she reminded him.

"True." He grinned. "Yeah." Maybe there would be some good sides to this, after all.