Chapter 6:
As the course of the day wore on, CJ tried to get as much work done as she possibly could. She buried her worries in memos and briefings until she had run out of immediate things to do and could no longer avoid thinking. When her conscious could no longer avoid it, CJ decided to schedule a talk with the President as Abbey had suggested.
"Carol!" CJ called as she set down the last of her memos she had to read on her desk. "Yes?" Carol said politely as she opened the door with her notebook in hand, "I need you to schedule a meeting for me at some point today with the President."
"Should I tell him it's about anything in particular?" Carol asked as she prepared to close the door, "Just tell Charlie that he'll know what it's about."
As Carol left to call Charlie, CJ took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose where they had been resting. So far these past two days had not turned out to be the celebratory victory that one would expect after winning a democratic senate.
To be fair, Toby and Donna were continuously pointing out the benefits of having a congress that was willing to work with them on serious issues, and Sam and Josh were congratulating each other on single handedly dominating the Republican Party.
Yet despite all of these normal reactions to a victory, CJ still felt as if the overwhelming feeling of the past two days had been one of regret and dread. CJ was deep in such thoughts when Carol knocked on her door once again and announced, "The President has an opening at three o'clock in his schedule if that works for you."
"Yeah that's fine" CJ said absentmindedly as her thoughts had already turned to her meeting later that afternoon. She looked down at her watch and saw that it was now eleven a.m., that would give her just enough time to eat a quick lunch, give an afternoon briefing and deal with any world-ending crisis that might arise between now and then.
Four hours later, CJ found herself walking on her way to the Oval Office. She had managed to eat lunch and get some more briefing memos done, but amazingly no new crisis had occurred.
As she walked closer and closer to her meeting with Jed Bartlet, CJ began to strongly resent this fact. She was practically wishing for a note saying that Canada had attacked the U.S. by the time that she reached Charlie's office area.
"Good afternoon CJ" Charlie said cheerily as she approached him. "Hello Charlie" she said with all the voice she could muster given the number of butterflies in her stomach. "Is the President in?"
"He's just finishing up a meeting with Leo in his office, but he said for you to go ahead and go inside and he'll be inside in a minute." Charlie said as he nodded towards the door to the Oval Office and then went back to his paperwork.
Following Charlie's direction, CJ entered the Oval Office to wait. As she looked around the room in all its grandeur, CJ began to wonder how things had come to where they were now.
How had she managed to destroy her comfortable relationship she had once had with this office? Why was she now going to have to leave behind all of this work that she was just starting to truly love? Was she in some way responsible for bringing disgrace to this powerful office?
"CJ!" Bartlet exclaimed in a friendly manner as he walked into the room and startled her from her revere. "How has your day been today?" Bartlet continued in his cordial manner as she motioned for her to sit.
"It's been fine, sir," CJ said uncertainly "and how has yours been?" Answering with typical Jed Bartlet sarcasm, the President said, "Well, my wife won't speak to me today, but other than that…"
"I wish that I could say I had the same problem," CJ said sincerely, "Ah, so you've talked to Abbey" Jed said sympathetically as he sat in the chair across from CJ. "Yes sir, I most definitely have." CJ said with a small laugh.
"I must say though, it gave me quite a scare to find her sitting in my office when I arrived at six-thirty this morning." Shaking his head at the fear that everyone in the Bartlet administration knew Abbey could inflict, Bartlet became more serious and said, "I think that we both know why we're here."
"Yes sir." CJ said with a curt nod, "And I must say CJ, before we get down to the political aspects of the situation, I would like to simply apologize. I realize that this has probably been just as hard, if not harder, on you as on me and I never would have wanted you to have to deal with something like this."
"Thank you sir" CJ said looking Bartlet directly in the eyes for the first time in two days, "I'm also sorry that you are having to deal with so much, I know that it must be hard for you to have Abbey so upset at you over all of this and I'm sorry that I had to be involved in making things so complicated."
"Well, thank you for apologizing as well CJ" Bartlet said kindly, "But you truly have much less to apologize for than I do."
"Well there is definitely blame to share, but no matter whose fault all of this is, we need to figure out what we are going to do to keep it from ruining us and becoming a major news story." CJ said while managing to fit both a meaningful statement and a political agenda into the same sentence.
"Yes, you're right" Bartlet said in his typical 'what's next' tone. "If you've spoken to Abbey today as you said you have CJ, then you know that she is strongly opposed to the idea of you handing in your resignation."
"Yes sir, I do know that" CJ said with a nod, "But we have to take into account that while the First Lady may be idealistic, that doesn't necessarily make her right. I think that, for all that I would greatly miss working with all of you in this place, there is something to be said for Leo's idea of resignation upon the leak of the story."
"Even though I refused your resignation the first time, I think that maybe you're right and we do need to at least look into the possibility of Leo's solution." For all that CJ knew this was the correct answer to be said, a part of her had been hoping that the President would flat out refuse to accept her resignation.
"As I'm sure Leo told you, the advantages of the idea are simple, by not having me resign before the story is released it doesn't clue anyone in that there is a story to find in the first place. By giving my resignation when the story breaks, it also diverts a lot of the attention from you to me and thereby makes your negative press lessened."
"Yes CJ, Leo did tell me all of that." Bartlet said as he then paused to let out a sigh, "And I know that we need to consider this as a major possibility, but I think that we definitely need to explore all of our options. You are an amazingly talented Press Secretary, and more than that you are the only one of us who can manage to keep the boys on our staff under control. You are an essential member of this team and I don't know how we can function without you. So until the day comes when we run out of alternatives, we are going to look into every possible option."
"I think that that is a very noble idea sir" CJ said feeling both touched by his kind words and saddened by the fact that she knew they would find no better alternatives, "But I think that if it is alright with you, the first thing we should do is to have a meeting with the Senior Staff and see what they think we ought to do."
"Yes, that is definitely what we need to do as our first political move." Bartlet said as he nodded his head slowly and then suddenly yelled out, "Charlie! I need you to get all of the senior staff in my office as soon as they are available."
"Yes sir" Charlie said quickly as he stepped out of the room to call all of the various members of the staff.
Once Charlie had gone, Bartlet and CJ sat quietly for a minute before the President said softly, "CJ, do you think Abbey will ever forgive me?" Caught off-guard by the bluntness of his question, CJ took a moment before answering, "Yes sir, I think that she will."
"What makes you think that?" Bartlet asked, far more as a friend than as a boss, "I know that she will, because that is what people who truly love each other do. They forgive each other's mistakes." Smiling sadly Bartlet whispered, "Thank you for believing that."
When they had been silent for a minute longer, CJ broke the quiet by saying, "Sir, I'd like to talk to you about one more thing before the others arrive." Looking up at her as though he was coming out of some sort of trance, Bartlet said, "Yes? What do you want to talk to me about?"
"Well Sir," CJ said nervously as she began to speak, "I can't believe I'm about to ask this in the Oval Office…" "I think we past that point of shock a little while back CJ" Bartlet said with a laugh.
"Well yes sir" CJ said as she realized just how odd their entire conversation must have been by Oval Office standards, "But what I wanted to ask was…well Abbey reminded me of it when we were talking this morning, and I told her that I honestly couldn't remember the answer."
"What couldn't you remember the answer to CJ?" Looking down at her shoes CJ said, "Well she asked how stupid we really were that night, she wanted to know if we had used any form of protection, and I really couldn't remember."
Looking slightly confused for a moment and then letting realization dawn on him, Bartlet said, "I don't know, I can't seem to recall much from that night. You don't think…" "I have no idea" CJ said honestly, I just wanted to see if you knew for sure whether or not we did, but for now we need to put that issue on the shelf and focus on the political repercussions."
"CJ, I…" Bartlet said feeling a deep sense of guilt over the entire situation, and then as if on cue, Charlie interrupted them by stating that Toby, Sam and Josh were on their way and Leo opened the door from his office to join CJ and the President shortly thereafter.