Failing That, Get Scrappy
"Hey, Addy."
It was Danny Concannon, and he seemed to have been waiting to intercept her on her way into work. There was something unnerving about that, given that they were still a block from the White House; it meant he knew her routine- but why was he speaking to her here, instead of inside?
"What do you want?" she frowned. Even though everything he'd said in his article was complimentary, the rest of it had been pure unfounded accusation, and she thought he was above that sort of thing.
He opened up his briefcase and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "I wanted to give you a heads-up about a story that's coming. It's from my paper, but it's not my byline."
Addy wondered if Toby was wearing off on her, because her instinct was to stand there and stare at him like he'd grown a second head.
Danny stood quiet under her scrutiny for a moment before taking on a wheedling tone. "Come on, Addy, you knew I figured it out! This isn't about that, I promise."
"I can't imagine there's a story more relevant to me than that one, so why are you-"
"CJ's pissed at me, probably more than you are. Not to mention, I owed you one." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Look, this is a human interest story. It's not about who you think," Danny said cryptically, his expression shuttered. He fastened up his briefcase and held out the folded page. "The source is solid, believe me."
"Danny, I can almost hear the weekend mystery miniseries music," Addy protested, taking the paper without looking at it. She hoped to hell it wasn't a leak about a possible Presidential apology.
"Take it, read it. Don't let anyone get upset. I'm almost certain it's not going to land the way they'll think it will."
"You're saying that now? After you've practically turned it into a Scarlet Letter?" Addy realized she was treating him like a friend who'd betrayed them, but that wasn't the reality. "I know you didn't have to do this," she told him awkwardly. "Do you need us to keep your involvement quiet?"
"I'm fine, but thank you," he said pleasantly. "See ya."
She stood still and watched him leave, which was not toward the White House, but back the way he'd come. Addy started for the building, the paper hot in her hand. At what point would looking down at it not look guilty? Was that why Danny had brought it to her? To see if she looked anxious, and therefore confirm that there was something they were hiding? Just in case, she waited until she got to the short security line and furtively unfolded the page.
The story wasn't about the apology discourse. It was about a possible relationship between two White House staffers and, just as Danny had said, there was a source.
Someone had seen them, that second day.
88888888
Toby had barely been in the office for a half hour when an anxious-sounding CJ called him.
"Can you come down to my office right now, please? Bring Sam."
He looked up at Sam, who had paused speaking to let him answer the phone. "It's CJ. Sounds upset, wants us down there."
"Any idea what it's about?"
"Nope."
They walked down together, finding Addy and Josh already there.
"Danny gave us a heads-up about a staff-related story that'll run this evening," CJ began.
"If this is that stupid Grace Notes thing I will start testing to see if the custodial staff floats!" Toby exploded.
"I can see the headline now," Sam was already joking. "'Witch Hunt Follows Witch Hunt at the White House.' They could even do a big W and H and pile up the words around it, for effect."
Josh leaned over as if to whisper in his friend's ear. "You're not helping."
CJ held up both hands. "If you want to bite someone's head off, start with the reporter saying there's a secret relationship between White House staffers!" Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her. "It's supposed to be sweet, not sordid, if you can believe that," she added, crossing her arms.
Toby started chanting between breaths to keep his anxious heart rate down, but he fisted his hands in his pockets. This is nothing, they have nothing, there's no scandal because hardly anything happened. This is nothing, they have nothing…
Josh snorted. "Let me get this straight: at the same time that everyone's losing their minds about a secret-"
"Including us," Sam interjected.
"Including us, fine," Josh allowed. "Everyone's losing their minds about our failure to divulge a secret, and this story's about another secret at the White House? And it's supposed to be a feel-good story?"
"Somehow, yes," CJ said.
Addy was in Toby's direct line of sight, sitting ramrod straight in the chair right in front of CJ's desk, unmoving.
"I call bullshit," Josh said, sounding withering. "Who's the source?"
"It doesn't say," Addy said quietly. "But the implication is Secret Service."
Sam and Josh started arguing over whether that was likely, and if it was, what to do about it. Raising his voice, Toby said, "Someone gave it to us early? Who?"
"Danny Concannon," CJ told him. "Just read it," she said to Addy.
"Me? Uh, okay." Addy cleared her throat, her voice thready and nervous as she read the title of the piece, gaining confidence as she continued on. " 'Hope Blooms for White House Pair Amidst Chaos in the West Wing. According to a source at the White House, two staff members have found solace in each other as pressure mounts to hold the administration accountable for concealing President Bartlet's medical condition.'"
"Give me a break!" Josh half-shouted.
"Keep going," Sam said.
"There's a paragraph recap of the MS stuff, I'm skipping it," Addy said. "It goes on, 'Our source tells us that during the President's first campaign event visit to his farmhouse Manchester residence-' Okay, seriously, it took me how long to get a job I like this much, and this person gets to have their badly written article read aloud to the senior staff?"
Despite the tension in the room, nearly everyone chuckled at that.
"Give it here," Josh said, reaching out his hand. "Okay, let me see, scandal, scandal, lies- ah." He read quietly for a bit, wincing. "Yeah, she wasn't kidding. 'It was a long day,' our source said, '-but in the surveillance footage the two of them were just heartwarming, like something out of a Hallmark movie. It was clear they had a lot of respect for each other, but passion won out in the end-'"
"That should be and," Sam interrupted. "'And passion won out in the end.' The respect doesn't preclude the passion, it adds to it!" He quickly said, "I mean, Addy's right, it's bad writing, but I wasn't there, I wouldn't know." Sam cleared his throat. "Go on, Josh."
"You sure? 'Cause this is way more fun," Josh grinned.
"Not universally," Toby spoke up.
"Yeah, okay," Josh said, sniffing as he picked back up again. "'It really reminded me that these people are real people with hopes and dreams.' When asked the motivation to share this story, our source said, 'I keep seeing articles saying that the administration needs a win, and that's what this is. Life goes on. People fall in love, they do their jobs the best they can, and some of those people work in the White House.' Oh, give me a break, why is this even a thing? I'm going back to work," he said, walking over to CJ's desk. Josh tried to throw the article down, but it was printed on a single page which caught the updraft from his arm movement and blew off of the desk onto the floor.
Toby wholeheartedly agreed, but through the prickling horror of feeling exposed, he knew there was something deeper to be concerned about. He flew through his mental recollection of that night. Where was the camera? How much had been seen?
"Josh," CJ said.
"Come on! We're worried about this?"
"Not about the subject," Sam said quietly.
"Someone's talking, someone who was with us in Manchester. If they'll talk about this, what else did they overhear?" Toby said, his voice gruff with phlegm. He cleared his throat, noting that Addy hadn't turned around at all. "You'll get this to Leo so he can talk to the head of the Secret Service?"
CJ nodded.
"I still think it's stupid," Josh said, but with less vehemence and more fear. He walked slowly over to the seat beside Addy and collapsed into it. "What do we do?"
"We can't refute it. It's nothing much, but if we push that it never happened, whoever this is might try to prove it with more insider knowledge," CJ said.
"That's why Danny brought it over, you think?" Sam asked her.
"Guaranteed."
88888888
Addy was on edge as they walked back to their desks. The conversation about the article had mostly centered around the leak itself, not the act it was revealing, but it was still stressful. It was one thing for the President to have walked in on them, but she hadn't expected there to have been cameras. Much less a subset of people who would watch them and draw their own conclusions! That was violating enough, but now?
If someone had asked her to come up with something worse than being caught kissing your boss by the President of the United States, she never would have picked 'we were seen by someone else who went to the press' out of a hundred jumbled up answers.
"Addy?"
Sam was looking at her expectantly, and behind them, Toby cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry, I'm really distracted, say that again?"
"He asked what you thought Danny meant by 'it's not about who you think it is,'" Toby said before pushing past them to head into his office.
Sam followed Toby, so Addy followed Sam, closing the door behind her.
"Donna and Josh," she said, on the heels of a resigned sigh.
"Yeah," Sam said.
"You think that's why Josh was so het up in there?"
"Yeah," Toby said.
"There's nothing going on there, though!" Addy said carefully. It wasn't a lie as far as she was aware, but the sparks that flew between Donna and Josh seemed to be obvious to everyone but the two of them.
"Not like we'd know the difference if there was," Sam said wryly, walking over to trace his finger across the titles of some of the books on Toby's shelf. "She'd tell you, wouldn't she? You two are close," he added.
Addy did not want to know whether Toby was looking at her, but in an awful way, it was in their best interest to be vague, to deflect suspicion onto the pair. She said, "It wouldn't be my secret to share, Sam!" He couldn't know that she'd been struggling with how to keep her own secret from Donna for this very reason. "I mean, it's against the regulations, isn't it? Firing offense? Maybe even something federal?" The President had certainly implied that it was.
"Probably," Sam said, his brows furrowing. "Though I gotta tell you, no way am I looking that up. Pin a target right on my back."
"It'll be the most common search in the whole of DC by tonight," Toby said. Without sitting down, he drained the last out of his to-go coffee cup and pulled out a napkin from one of his drawers, slipping it into the cup before throwing it in the garbage. He didn't seem fastidious to her, so that was a surprise.
"Smells less that way," Sam explained when he saw her expression.
"He complains less that way," Toby rolled his eyes.
Addy found the dynamic between the two men amusing, but they wouldn't appreciate her saying that, so instead she asked, "Maybe I should have given Donna a heads-up. She's got enough stress with the document collation she's been up to, and then to be blindsided by this-"
"She probably already knows," Sam interrupted. "If not from reading it herself, then from Josh. He's strung so tight he'll be permanently out of tune pretty soon here," Sam pointed out. "We need him."
"We need everybody," Toby said lightly.
Sam nodded. He squeezed Toby's shoulder on the way out, pulling the door shut.
"Note to self: no impulsive gestures that could make an already fraught situation worse," Toby said, looking a little lost as he stood in the middle of his office.
"I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm personally glad you were impulsive," Addy said. "I know what you mean, though. We're all under a microscope now."
"Yeah. I really need to know what Danny was alluding to. If he'd given this to anyone else I'd tell them to chase him for it, but…"
They looked at each other with equally dire expressions. Danny was one of the most perceptive reporters assigned to the White House beat. No way did they want to give him a reason to examine the two of them more closely.
"How much did the source see or hear, is the question," Toby mused, walking toward her. He glanced over his shoulder on the way, clearly checking the blinds that covered his windows. They were completely closed. Addy felt a little thrill run up her spine.
"Well, they got the 'romantic' part right," she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Toby muttered something she couldn't hear and stopped a foot away from her, his hands buried into his pockets. The warmth in his eyes was enough to make her blush, and Addy's breath caught as he traced his gaze admiringly over her features, pausing on her lips. "The timing couldn't be worse, though. All it takes is one nosy investigator during the grand jury interviews…" he trailed off.
"You think they'd ask about this?"
"Why not? It's a secret, and now we're the ones who keep those!" Toby gritted out, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I took back an apology once, but I owe you another one. I need to tell you-"
Before he could finish that sentence, there was a quick knock on the door before it opened right away.
Josh came in, his eyes a little wild. "I went to talk with Leo about the relationship thing. None of us should deny being involved."
"Makes sense," Addy said, mind racing to shine a light on all the possible reasons. "I mean, if someone cared enough to tally up who denied it versus 'no comment,' that would narrow it down, even if it is a nothing story."
"I guess." He still sounded worried.
"Everyone was off in twos and threes. Hell, Sam says he stood and talked to Connie in the moonlight for a half hour. Don't worry about it," Toby said, shuffling a few of the folders on his desk next to Addy. She dropped her hand to her side and was rewarded by a quick brush of Toby's knuckles against hers before he walked around to sit down.
"You're right, it's just- I'm always worried about that, you know? She's young and pretty and opinionated and I don't think I could do any of this anywhere near as well without her," Josh said, scrubbing a hand through his hair for the second time since he walked in.
"Normally I'd say you should tell her that, but maybe now isn't the greatest-" Addy started, only to be rewarded by a thwack on the back of her head with the stapled report Josh rolled up to hit her with. "Okay, I deserved that, but you really shouldn't worry. It's probably just a twisted telephone rumor, someone misconstruing something."
"That's the problem, isn't it? I was drunk coming back from the bar the first night. I walked back with her," Josh said, throwing himself onto Toby's couch. "What if that's all it took?"
"Josh, Addy and I walked back together, you don't see me pulling out my hair, do you?"
Addy brought the hand he'd brushed against up to her lips, and tried to look contemplative. Behind her, she heard something tip over and dump on Toby's desk, to the accompaniment of some muttering on his part.
"You're, yeah, okay. Scandal-obsessed media and all that," Josh said, sighing as he dragged himself to his feet and over to the door.
"Danny's been wrong before, Josh," Toby called after him. Josh's hurrumph of disagreement told them he wasn't comforted much.
"Back to work, I guess," Addy said, turning around to face Toby. He was picking up individual pieces of thin pencil lead that appeared to have dumped out of a plastic container. "Need help?"
"You've done enough, thank you," he said. The tone of his voice was like a caress, and Addy bit her lip, wishing there was a way she could show him exactly how it made her feel.
Instead, she just nodded and made for the door. Pausing there, she pulled in a deep breath to bolster her confidence, and leaned over to where the pull for the blinds were. Feeling Toby's eyes on her, Addy turned the rod that changed them from fully opaque to half open.
"Safer that way, I think," she said, heading out of the office with her head high, not looking back. She'd been hoping Toby would kiss her again before Josh had barged right in, even with their conversation about impulsivity, even with the article they'd been speaking about! Her sense of danger needed some serious recalibration, she realized.
Despite those sensible thoughts, she felt more than a little defensive. Someone was directly meddling in this new exciting development in her life, and if they did it too much, she could lose her job and her reputation. Just like Sam had said, now wasn't the time to go looking for advice on that kind of situation, either, not with the press snooping around.
That thought gave her an idea.
"Ginger, by any chance is there a database or list somewhere of the articles written about the White House or the administration?"
Ginger made a face. "I can't imagine trying to get funding for something like that! There might be a way to search the internet?"
Addy nodded, getting up to follow through on her hunch directly at the source. She remembered reading something during the last Presidential term that had her feeling defensive on behalf of the White House staff. If her hunch was right, that might help them now.
88888888
Toby had already planned to lurk in the back of the next press conference to see if any reporters had picked up the paper Rollins had co-written with Babish during his time as the head of the Yale Law Review. He was pleased to hear questions about that. CJ handled them expertly, taking time to direct more high praise for the fairness of the Special Counsel. Then, the thing he was worried about happened.
"CJ, any comment regarding the article that suggests there's a hidden romance among the White House Staff?"
Every muscle in his body tensed, but Toby stayed still to listen.
"We've been so busy lately that I'm not really the person to notice, Ann. I can tell you that one of my coworkers likes me enough to have done a quick internet search. It seems that a story like this pops up and fizzles out about once every eighteen months. That's it for now, thanks everyone."
He made his way back to CJ's office, offering her a congratulatory nod when she walked in. "Nice one, but I could have done without the 'fizzles' part," Toby told her.
"Really? You think there's something to it?" she breezed, tossing a couple of things into a file cabinet and settling into her chair.
"I don't want to challenge this person to keep it from fizzling, is all," he shrugged. "Good instinct to imply camaraderie."
"Addy's the one who brought me the search," CJ said. Her demeanor changed from pleased to concerned. "You're not being stupid about her, are you?"
Toby looked at her sharply. "What?"
"The switchover to my department again. That's about the campaign, right?"
"Of course," he waved, heading for the door to cut off any more conversation on that subject. "Keep pushing the cooperation angle about Rollins."
Once outside, he frowned. He was used to Knowing Things, things he Needed To Keep Quiet, whether it be coming legislation, a policy change he'd helped bring about, or some national security issue they hoped wouldn't go public before it was sorted. Now he had a personal secret that could be twisted into 'the public's interest,' and Toby needed to behave that way, even with his coworkers, or things could go very sour.
Mens rea, that's what this was called. It would be easier to weather if he had the benefit of an actual relationship, something to make up for the heart rate spikes when people got too close to the truths he was hiding.
Toby walked past Addy's desk and into his office, unable to hide the sudden smile on his face. She was wearing black stockings with a dark seam up the back of her leg, something that completely negated the conformity of her gray skirt suit. It reminded him that he hadn't set boundaries, nor had he spoken to Addy about where hers were.
One thing was certain, though, he trusted her judgment, current indiscretions notwithstanding. She wasn't the sort of person to have gone along with him because of his position; Addy hadn't ever seemed cowed by his authority, and she always spoke her mind, albeit diplomatically. Still, they needed to have that conversation. He didn't want to stand in the way of her career, because if there was one thing Toby was starting to understand, it was this: the truth will out.
