Title: Home
Author: Novi T. Foxtrot - N123TF
Fandom: The West Wing
Parings: CJ/Simon
Set: implied season 6/7, but AU…
Disclaimer: Character rights belong to Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and John Wells Productions.
CHAPTER 4
Later that week, Simon walked with CJ through the main foyer of the West Wing and outside into the autumn sun. "Damn I am already late to this lunch thing. When did Ida say they would be here?"
"They probably got stuck in traffic, Honey. Can you wait five more minutes?"
"Even if they show up, we both know Emma's not going to just let me leave." CJ said resigning herself to the fact that she would not only miss taking her daughter to preschool, as was their routine, but that she wouldn't see her at all. CJ was going to need to have a talk with whoever overscheduled her, as soon as she got back from this luncheon.
"You're probably right." Simon said. "I'm sorry though."
"Sure you are. I bet you're not upset at all that you are getting to spend time with her at my expense." CJ smiled at him, confessing, "It's not your fault that I have to attend this luncheon."
"That's right. Place the blame squarely on the sixty year old women who organized it." Simon said, teasing her.
CJ hit his arm lightly. She glanced at her watch. "I really should be leaving."
"What time do you think you'll be home?" Simon inquired knowing that Emma would want to know.
"In a perfect world," CJ paused, "in time to cook dinner. In reality though, I should be home to partake in the bubbly fun of bathtime."
CJ gave a fleeting glance towards Pennsylvania Avenue, before turning back to her husband, "I do need to go. You can tell me the rest when I get home." She leaned in and placed a chaise kiss on his lips. "Thanks for taking her for me and for what it's worth I enjoyed getting to see you at least," a shy smile graced her lips, her eyes twinkling with affection. Simon opened the door, holding it as his wife climbed in.
CJ saw Simon smile through the tented windows as he shut the door. He patted the doorframe of the black, town car twice signaling the driver that he was clear to leave, sending CJ off to lunch at the Mayflower on Connecticut Avenue. He watched as the car pulled out of the gate and across Pennsylvania Avenue, heading out along the west side of Lafayette Park and on its way to Connecticut.
Walking towards the northwest appointment gate, Simon stopped to talk with a fellow agent.
Simon turned when he heard a familiar voice yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." A blond haired girl ran toward him, her white shoes leaving tiny footprints in the just watered grass.
"That's my cue to get back to work," said the younger agent as Simon bent down to catch his little girl.
"Well if it is not my Emilyn." Simon said picking her up and swinging her around before hosting her onto his hip.
"Daddy, its Emma." She said placing her hands on her hips, "not Emilyn."
Simon did his best job to look saddened and rebuffed, trying with all his might not to laugh at the stern expression on his little girls face. "Well I guess if," Simon started to say.
Emma stretched up to whisper in his ear. "It's okay Daddy. You can call me Emilyn. Everyone else calls me Emma." She said emphasizing her preferential name.
She gave him a kiss on his cheek prompting Simon to set her down, he grabbed her hand and they started walking. Addressing Emma's nanny Simon thanked her for dropping Emma off for lunch. It had been one of those rare weekends where Simon was heading an entire advance site and hadn't been home. While he loved his job, he hated putting his family second.
"I'll take care of getting her to class, CJ had a lunch meeting." He explained as to why he was taking Emma and not his wife as planned.
"No problème, Monsieur Donovan." The older women answered in response. Why CJ insisted on a French nanny, Simon didn't quite understand. "I'll pick her up after."
"Thanks, I should be home around six." Simon said.
"Merci," she turned to the little girl, "au revoir, Emma."
"Au revoir," said the little girl. The words rolling off her tongue effortlessly. She lifted her hand and waved to her nanny who walked out of the gate.
"So Emma, where to for lunch?""
"Hotdogs?" Emma asked voice filled with enthusiasm. "Outside?"
"What do you say?" Simon prompted.
"Please?" Emma said, tilting her head back and smiling at him.
"Yes, you may." God knows her mother never allows her anything but the semi-vegetarian diet that she had been on since trying to shed her pregnancy weight. It used to drive him nuts. They turned around and walked between the West Wing and the OEOB. Walking hand in hand, it was these moments that Simon loved. Working was great, but time with Emma was something else entirely.
Simon was glad they were drawing near the ellipse, he could tell Emma was getting restless and walking in a straight line was 'boring,' as Emma had explained on an occasion before. As they were already starting to learn this was the threes; 'twos with attitude.' At the moment she was half running along, swinging their clasped hands back and forth and she chatted animatedly about going to the Butterfly Exhibit.
Breaking through the trees, he turned to Emma. "I'll race you to the other side of the big circle." Simon said,
"It's not a big circle Daddy. It's the 'lips." Emma said as if calling it a circle was a disgrace to the grass.
"Ellipse," Simon enunciated carefully for her. Simon was about to ask where she learned that from. Before he did though, he knew the answer; her mother or the preschool she insisted on sending Emma to. Emma was enrolled in one of, at least in his opinion, the coolest preschools around. Meeting at the Natural History Museum, Emma attended the Smithsonian Early Enrichment center four days a week. While the kids got to play in the playroom; color, play, or do art projects; typical preschool activities a couple times a week the world unlocked for them. His three year old daughter had visited more museums, than he had having lived in the city for thirteen years. Today they would be going to the Butterfly Gardens. Emma would probably come home completely conversant on metamorphosis and spurting the scientific names for butterflies and many of the plants that sustain them. What she learned never ceased to amaze him.
For example, on a beautiful day earlier in the spring, Emma was outside playing with Ron who had stopped over to drop off some paperwork and couldn't say no to Emma's pleas to go outside. Emma, he had been told, had pointed up and said "Uncle Ron, we have in that tree a robin's nest. Robins are Oviparous." Ron just stared at her. "That means," Emma continued, "they lay eggs." Emma loved to learn and Simon accounted it to her preschool.
Emma had originally attended the day care in the OEOB, not just for its convenient location and flexible hours but because Simon had insisted; it maintained a level of security that was nearly impossible anywhere else. Emma's birth had been covered extensively in the press and just hours before CJ was to come back part-time from maternity leave, Carol had opened the first letter from Jeffery Davis. Carol had frantically called Simon and the letter was turned over to the secret service for investigation, without CJ's knowledge. Simon's job did hold some perks.
The First Lady and an in flight Army doctor, delivered Emmalie Lynn Donovan-Cregg two and a half weeks early, nevertheless completely healthy, aboard Air Force One, on a flight back from Europe.
In addition to the fact that forty members of the press had essentially been in the waiting room, eager to hear the announcement, as it was an interesting human interest story. Deemed a present to the new mother and probably hoping to earn points with the Press Secretary, announcements explaining the very unique circumstances of Emma's birth followed in every major US report, including several international publications. When one reporter posed the question of the media darling's citizenship status, press frenzy erupted.
A couple weeks later CJ's maternity leave was interrupted, when she was called in for a meeting with Leo a week before she was scheduled to return. Simon was securing a location for a Presidential function later in the evening and had been unable to leave work. With CJ unwilling to leave the two and a half week old infant at home with the new nanny, Emma made her first of many appearances in the White House. The President who was running late for an oval office meeting with Admiral Fitzwallace and Nancy McNally refused to hand the little girl back to her mother. Instead he reassured her taking the baby into a national security briefing and sending a concerned CJ off to her meeting next door with Leo.
Twenty minutes later, Leo and CJ entered the oval office to see the Commander and Chief of the United States sitting in his customary chair, cradling a sleeping infant, and listening to a report on increasing tensions in Asia. Seeing Leo and CJ enter, the president ended the already finished meeting. "You know Abby told me this morning that the press is still debating whether it is legitimately possible for her to obtain this office," Jed said.
"Well you're already sharing with her state secrets so I would say she has a leg up over the other possible candidates." Leo joked with him.
"She was born on Air Force One, US government property by the way, into the waiting hands of the First Lady of the United States of America. If anyone is preordained as the first woman president elected to this room, it's my newest granddaughter." Jed said.
"I think we should give our granddaughter a chance to master reading, writing, and arithmetic, maybe even attend college, before we start placing the expectation of world peace on her." Leo responded.
CJ stood watching as the two most powerful people in the world, cooed over her little girl. It was more like two old men cooing over their self-proclaimed granddaughter. The latter thought held a bitter sweet feeling.
"Now are you going to share, or do you need to be sent to kindergarten too?" asked Leo rhetorically.
While the members of National Security Advisor's and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs' respective staffs had already left, Nancy, Fitz and the few others who remained chuckled at the two grown men fighting like children. CJ on the other hand burst out laughing, the President and Leo following.
"Daddy!" Emma giggle filled voice yelled over her shoulder already a few paces in front of him. "I said go."
Simon smiled and ran after her. She clearly beat him to the path on the other side of the field. Taking Emma's hand they crossed 15th Street to the hot dog vender across from the National Aquarium. Simon bought two hot dogs and two apple juices. While CJ drank her diet, caffeine free coke, Simon wasn't a big fan of soda.
"'emember only ketchup." Emma called up to her father, stressing the word only.
"How could I ever forget?" he called back to her.
Emma carried the apple juice while Simon carried their hotdogs; one with only ketchup, one with mustard and onions; to a bench on the mall.
She carefully placed the apple juices on the bench, in the process of bending down her sunglasses fell to the ground. "Oops," she said. Picking them up and placing them back over her eyes.
Simon laughed to himself. Emma had climbed onto the bench, her arms crossed over her yellow sundress, her sunglasses firmly in place, surveying the mall to either side of her. His little agent he thought to himself. Grabbing a napkin he tucked it into her collar to protect her dress and placed the hotdog in her outstretched hands. "What were you looking for?" Simon asked, curious to the inter-workings of his daughters mind.
"The TV says it 'pose to be a 'code red' day and I was helping look for the secret."
"They meant the weather, sweetie, that it would be very hot today." The fact that his little girl even knew what a code-red was, scared the hell out of him. They had never hid the dangers of their jobs from her, but since Emma had never known anything different, they never felt the need to frighten their baby with things they couldn't change.
The confusion already present on Emma's face, intensified for a moment. Before it scrunched up, evidence she was thinking real hard. "Oh." Content with the answer, she picked up the hotdog with both hands and took a big bite. "Yumm," she said her mouth full, content too with the hotdog.
Simon's face broke out in a grin; a smile his wife loved and his daughter shared.
Twenty minutes later he walked down the stairs leading to D Street and headed the six blocks back to work. If you had told him five years ago, let alone that first day he had sat on the barstool with Ron that he would meet a woman, a beautiful, confident, sexy woman and fall head over heals in love with her and they would have Emma, a testament of their love, he never would have believed you. But, Simon thanked God everyday that he had.