Couldn't I just kill her?

Jane is suspicious the moment that she sees Lizzie again. She has that look again, the starry eyed, imperviousness to sleepiness. The twitching mouth, the smile which she tries to hide, and fails. Jane watches her with narrowed eyes for the first few hours of the day, as Lizzie buzzes around the suite of rooms they are using as offices. She disappears for a while into a meeting with Charlie, and then comes out looking a little more sober. Her game face on, she settles down to work, but when Jane's curiosity finally overcomes her and she brings lunch up to Lizzie, the dreamy look is back.

"So, who he is?"

She looks up suddenly, blinking like she has problems focusing. "How…I mean…" She closes her eyes, and rubs them, before looking at her sister again, who now is sitting opposite her desk, shoes slipped off, feet curled under her. "Who are you talking about?"

Jane snorts and opens her plastic container of salad. "All right," she says slowly. "Did you happen to meet anyone when you were at home?"

Lizzie narrows her eyes. "Why?"

"Just did you?"

"You'd better have brought me lunch too," Lizzie mutters, digging through the bag Jane dropped on her desk, and sighs as she comes across a burger. Slowly, deliberately, she unwraps it, and takes a first delicious bite before realising that not only is Jane still there, but she is still waiting for an answer.

"Lizzie!"

"Oh, right," she says, "anyone in particular?"

Jane rolls her eyes. "I was imagining of the male sex, but if there's something you'd like to tell me."

Lizzie quirks an eyebrow at her, and automatically answers, "no," followed a pause later by, "oh, wait…yes," with a slow smile, and then a sudden bolt of revulsion and, "oh, actually two."

Jane pauses in her salad. "Two?" she asks. "How very cosmopolitan of you." She grins.

"Yeah, well, you know one of them."

Jane frowns. "Really? Who?"

"Bill Collins."

Jane spits a mouthful of lettuce at her younger sister, who grimaces.

"Seriously, does your need to be genteel and ladylike around everyone mean that you have to necessarily be a heinous scummer around me?"

Jane grins and wipes her mouth. "Sorry. But Billy Collins?"

"Yeah. It turns out," she adds, "that ten years has done nothing for him."

"What does he look like?" Jane is enjoying this far more than she really should.

"Exactly as he did ten years ago, but paunchy."

Jane grimaces. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"I had hoped he'd be really hot."

"Yeah, not so much."

Jane grins again. "Oh well. What was he like?"

"Oh, perfectly nice."

Jane narrows her eyes. "Nice? That bad?"

Lizzie smiles slowly. "He meant well. And," she adds, "five hundred miles between us makes him seem more attractive."

Jane snorts just as Charlie walks in, and then proceeds to blush a deep red.

"Hi Lizzie, Jane…" She smiles slowly, emerging out of the beet red glow.

"Hey, anything we can do for you?"

He steps back. "No, no. I was just coming to check that you were settled in and had somewhere to get lunch…but I see that has been taken care of."

Jane blushes again. "Yeah, I just…yeah."

Lizzie watches with delight.

"Good," says Charlie. "Well I think Caroline was saying something rash about a drink later since we have somehow scheduled a night off…you'd both be welcome, I'm sure." He says it to both of them, and yet is locked in Jane's gaze. He stands still for a second, just smiling at her, before stepping, slightly stumblingly, back. "Well, I should be getting back. See you tonight." He walks into the doorframe, spins around grinning foolishly, and then walks off down the hall.

"So, who is he?"

Jane snaps out of the trance she was still in, gazing at the door, and frowns at Lizzie. "Who…? What are you…" Suddenly it dawns on her. "That's not funny."

"What's not funny? That you like Charlie?"

Jane doesn't smile. She looks confused. "It's not just…" she starts, almost whispering. "There's not just me or him to consider, you know?" She shrugs. "He's going to be important and everything he does is a political decision. I don't know…"

Lizzie leans forward. "Wait, you really like him. This isn't some crush or…you really…"

Jane shrugs again. "Yeah."

"Wow."

Silence hangs for a few minutes, and they both eat in the quiet. "OK," says Lizzie as she balls up the burger paper. "Well this has been lovely."

"Wait, you said there were two."

"Did I?"

"That innocent expression doesn't work on me." Jane says, eyes narrowed. "Who was the other one?"

"What other one?"

"Seriously Lizzie!" She throws her empty plastic container onto the desk. "The one that has had you mooning around here all day!"

"Actually mooning? As far as I remember, I have at no time removed my…"

"You know what I meant."

Lizzie grins. "Yes. But it's fun to annoy you."

"Hilarious," Jane dead pans. "Come on!"

Lizzie gives her a long look, and then sighs. "Fine. His name is George Wickham. He's a journalist, and he was interviewing me about working on this campaign."

"Really? And was he hot?"

"Jane!"

Jane shrugs. "Well was he?"

Lizzie glowers at her for a second, and then finally rolls her eyes, and smiles slightly. "Yes. He was gorgeous."

Jane grins. "Good. And was he 'nice'?" she asks, complete with air quotes.

Lizzie shifts, a little uncomfortable to be discussing her love life. "Yes?" She sighs. "He was really nice."

"Good." Jane stands up, and retrieves the papers and cartons. "Well then, I'll let you get back to work. Try not to be too distracted by the thoughts of hot reporters…" With that she waltzes out the door and back to her desk, smirking.

"I think Caroline wants to kill me."

She has one of the those backs that is as expressive as her face. She's standing at the bar, and I just know that she's mentally stabbing a voodoo doll. Of me. In the head. Except it isn't working because I feel great.

"Can't think why," says Will, dryly, as he simultaneously scrolls through websites on his laptop, and checks his messages on his Blackberry.

I shrug. "You'd think she'd know better. If I die, what happens to this campaign?"

Will looks up, thoughtful. "I don't know. Maybe it has to end?" He rolls his eyes and goes back to work.

"You're not as clever or funny as you think you are."

"You don't know how clever and funny I think I am."

He is in a good mood, why, I have no idea. It is, however, reasonably tortuous. He raises his eyebrows, abandons his Blackberry for a minute, and turns to the laptop. "Stackhouse is creating again."

I lean over. "About what?"

"The health bill."

I roll my eyes. "Again."

"Yeah." He continues scrolling through. "And Lou Thornton appears to be suffering from foot-in-mouth."

"Did you just say…?"

He gives me a sardonic look. "Foot in mouth, Charles, not 'and'."

"Oh." I lean back and sigh. "I sure hope that Jane and Lizzie turn up, and soon."

Will follows my gaze to Caroline's back at the bar. "Because otherwise Caroline will be in a bad mood all night, for no apparent reason, and she can't be mean to Jane, and by extension, Elizabeth, because you have fantasies about marrying her?"

I whip round and consider firing him. Except he's right. Damn it. I sigh. "Why does she hate them so much?"

Will's face is so smug that for a moment, it is blinding. He shrugs. "They're pretty, they're nice…I don't know how women's minds work. Maybe they're competition?"

"Nice?" I say. "Nice? She's…" I pause, trying to find the word. I should be able to. Words are my thing, and yet, they fail me. "I don't know what she is."

Will rolls his eyes, clearly trying to ignore me, and scrolling through more news items. I ignore him. This is too important.

"She's lovely, and so…lovely."

"Wow. Great choice of words." Will isn't even looking at me. He's smirking as he types something.

"You're unbearable when you're in this kind of mood," I say, and shake my head.

Will offers up a rare grin. "Good." He turns back to the laptop, and rubs his hair as he scrolls down another page.

"I'm just saying…be wary. You wouldn't want something to accidentally drop on your head."

He raises an eyebrow, and grins again. "OK." His gaze drifts behind me, and he sighs, heavily. "Caroline's anger was justified after all," he says, and nods to the door, where Jane and Lizzie have just appeared. What with imminent revenge on Will, and Jane now walking towards me, smiling, this evening is looking up.

Caroline is sitting there, and looks like she has been sucking lemons. Seriously. Lemons. She looks all pinched and sour and her nostrils are flared, in that angry, controlled breathing kind of way. Will appears to be enjoying it though. So much so, that he has finally deigned to put away his laptop after an hour of badgering by Charlie. He insists that tonight is a rare night off, and therefore we should make the most of it. Will hasn't looked very convinced of that fact yet, but no doubt he will come round. He has at least put away the computer and had a drink. The guy is actually quite attractive when he doesn't look to uptight. His tie loosened and his hair is all scruffy, the way it only can be after hours of work and involuntarily running hands through it. His hands I mean. Not mine. Because that would be weird. In the extreme. Not only do I have eyes for another, but that other hates Will's breathing guts. In fact, I still feel a bit uneasy about Will. Mr Honesty himself is keeping this massive secret. Or is he? I mean, if I asked him about it, what would he say? Would his honesty compel him to tell me all about it in its full Technicolor idiocy? Part of me thinks that he might. A much larger part of me thinks that he'd probably tell me resentfully, and would be angry. Fuming even. And a big part of me is simultaneously annoyed that he would, in turn, be annoyed, and yet, also pleased that he would be that honest. This is ridiculous. I don't care. I already knew that he was an ass. An honest, great politically-minded, ass. And I am happy to maintain that picture of him.

There is something ludicrous about a night off, wherein you don't just feel compelled, but actually want to stay up late and savour it, staying up much later than you would on other days. Somehow ending up at two AM in the hotel conference room, it had all started earlier, when the conversation turned to the White House.

"What's it like?" asked Jane. "You worked there for a while, didn't you?"

Charlie had glowed. "Uh…yes. I was there for six weeks to help with the State of the Union."

She leaned forward. "What is it like? I mean, you go on the tour, but they never let you see everything."

"I didn't see much whilst I was there."

Will raised an eyebrow. "I distinctly remember you calling me at, what, three AM, to tell me that you had just seen the inside of the President's bedroom."

The group at the table, now augmented by other members of the team, let out a shout of catcalls and whistles.

"Yeah, OK," said Charlie, grinning. "It was only briefly, and I was dragged there by Josh Lyman to talk about some issue or other."

"In his bedroom?" asked Jaime, shaking her head in wonderment.

"Yeah. It was a bit surreal."

Jane leaned back. "I can't imagine what it would be like to work there, you know?"

Will had, at this point, narrowed his eyes. "That wasn't a…?"

Charlie rolled his eyes. "No, Will, she was not angering the whatever from high atop the thing. It was speculation, not planning." He cast Jane a smile as she had looked, momentarily, worried.

Will was still looking suspicious. "Really?"

"White House Acclimatising Evenings were just as bad."

"Yeah, well I was never quite happy about that…"

Charlie laughed. "Will! Seriously. You need to lighten up."

"What are White House Acclimatising Evenings?" asked Caroline, looking bored before the answer came.

Charlie had glanced at Will, grinned as he shrugged, resigned, and then clapped his hands. "Oh, people. They were good. An evening not unlike this one, we realised that while we had both seen parts of the White House, little mister Washington-nerd more than most, we hadn't seen much."

Will had the grace to smile slightly.

"Anyway, we thought that we should get used to the possible idea of working there, plus, it's really fun realising which bits are common knowledge and which definitely aren't."

"The President's bedroom for one?" asked Lizzie, taking a sip of her drink.

"Exactly. So we began a programme of watching Presidential movies to acclimatise ourselves to the distant but very slightly possible possibility of our running the West Wing one day."

Will acquired a murderous expression. "You should go and appease…"

"If I should, so should you for all the WHAEs."

Will looked for a second like he was genuinely thinking about getting up and appeasing the whatever but then sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, well…" he muttered, half heartedly.

Jane smiled. "How many are there?"

"Loads," said Charlie, spreading out his hands. "You know, Independence Day, Dave, The American President, Primary Colours, Nixon…"

Will grimaced. "Not to mention First Daughter and Chasing Liberty."

Charlie had grinned. "I'll admit, that was a bad night."

Viv choked on her drink. "You watched them as a double bill?"

Will had the look of someone who had witnessed a terrible murder. "It was horrible," he said, and shuddered.

"How long did this go on?" Jane asked, and Will glowered at Charlie.

"A long time," he said, as Charlie grinned.

Lizzie had at this point discovered an evil streak in herself. "There must be some you missed…" she said, speculatively.

Will had spun round, and glared at her. "No. Really none. We watched them all," he insisted, desperately determined to assure her.

"No," said Lizzie slowly. "Forrest Gump?"

"Yes."

"All the President's Men?"

"Yes." Will's answers were swift and decisive, leaving no room for Charlie's speculation.

"National Treasure?"

Will smirked slightly. "Yeah. Both of them."

"Wow," said Jane, "you did watch a lot."

Will had rolled his eyes at this. "This is what happens when Charlie decides that you are working too hard. He creates enforced distractions."

Lizzie was still frowning in thought. "Wait…Murder at 1600?"

"Yep" said Charlie. "We really did watch loads."

"And come to think of it, we should be terrified at the prospect of the White House," mused Will, swirling his Whiskey between the ice cubes. "I mean," he continued, in a rare loquacious moment, "a lot of them are about death or things blowing up, or conspiracies, or…"

"Aliens?" put in Matt as he pulled up a chair next to Viv.

Will smirked. "Well, yeah."

"Sum of All Fears?"

"Yes," said Will. "Seriously. I doubt there are any we didn't watch."

"What about Annie?"

Everyone at the table, at this, had turned to Jane. She blushed. "Well, I mean, they do visit FDR and sing…"

Charlie had a slightly manic look in his eyes. "…and sing the reprise of Tomorrow! Jane you're a genius!"

"Oh no," muttered Will.

"Yes! I am going to find a DVD player and some way of getting Annie here." With that Charlie bounded away from the table like a spring lamb, and the rest, except Caroline who was so far past caring, turned accusingly at Jane.

"What have you done?" asked Will, more in sorrow than in anger.

Jane suddenly looked nervous. "I…I'm sorry…I…"

Will was now grimacing. "We're going to have to watch Annie?" He rubbed his forehead, and then slumped, and smiled slowly. "I got away with it for so long…"

"You knew?"

He glanced at Lizzie. "Oh yeah. When it all started I found myself a list of films set in the White House, and then carefully avoided conversations which may in anyway lead Charles to orphans, or American Idol, or..."

"Why American Idol?"

Will grimaced. "We have so far avoided American Dreamz."

"Really?" Lizzie grinned.

"I'm not kidding when I say that if you tell him, I will fire you so fast." He nodded assuredly. "Seriously."

"Fine" Lizzie said, and just for a second Will caught her eye and smiled.

So now, an hour later finds them all in the conference room, the projector now beaming the little orphan Annie onto the screen which normally sees presentations and the occasional laser pointer. Finally sans Caroline the atmosphere is friendlier, and Will, leaning back in the swivel chair, his feet up on the table, is, for once, totally relaxed.

"Is this really a kids' film?" he mutters to Lizzie who happens to be sitting near him.

"Allegedly."

Will scoffs. "It's not exactly suitable."

Lizzie smiles slightly. "The combination of Tim Curry and Carol Burnett is alarming."

Sitting by them, Jaime, her legs curled under her, swivels round. "Hey, Lizzie, this isn't the one where Annie never leaves Daddy Warbuck's house is it?"

Lizzie shakes her head. "No, that was on stage, and I think a Disney one. Very censored. Nothing like as scary."

Will raises an eye at the drunk Miss Hannigan, pouring herself a bath of gin. "Or as inebriated?"

"Well, no."

They settle back into silence for a few minutes. Will's gaze is occasionally drawn by the sight of Charles and Jane sitting further forward, their heads bent towards each other, chatting quietly. Part of him is pleased for Charles. A much bigger part is setting off alarm bells. He watches them for a second more, then shakes it off, and turns back to the film, before a minute later leaning over to Lizzie.

"How exactly does the White House come into this?"

"Wait and see."

"Does she become President?"

Lizzie turns to look at him, and is smiling. "Wait and see!" she says again, and then turns back to the screen.

Will finds himself smiling slightly back at her, before his gaze is wrenched by the lovely Boylan sisters, and he sighs.

Again, thank you for the reviews. If it's any incentive, it really does remind me to post.