Privilege to Protect
CJ/Danny
Rating Late Teen –
Spoilers through end of series
Feedback and criticism always welcomed
Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul
October 3, 2015; early evening; Santa Monica, CA
"You should go, CJ, you really should. The kids would be no problem," Diana Muñoz said as she got up from the table.
CJ turned around in her chair to face the other table and noticed her friend heading toward the back of the bar.
"You say that, but you're walking away," she laughed. "That bodes well for my kids."
"I have to pee, and at our age, I can't hold it in waiting for the end of the argument," Diana called back over her shoulder.
"Seriously, CJ," Frank interjected, "you need to go. Look at Danny, he's trying very hard to look non-committal, to have you make the decision on your own, but he's salivating at the idea of having you all to himself for a few days. Hell, all of us are. Not you, personally," Frank hastened to add, "our own wives. You can take our bunch the next week and I can take Diana up to Carmel. We all need second honeymoons."
The other men (and some of the women) nodded in agreement.
Earlier in the day, at 11:30, everyone had attended the wedding of Drew Robbins and his fiancée Becca up in Santa Clarita. The reception immediately followed and had ended in time for the newlyweds to catch an early evening departure to Trinidad for their honeymoon. At the same time, Ken and Laura left for their getaway to Big Sur and the Ventana. Ken told the others that after all the hassle of helping the kids and Becca's mom with the wedding, Laura deserved a second honeymoon of her own. ("Actually, it's my sixth or seventh," Laura told the group. "I'm blessed with a very romantic and considerate man.") Desirous of taking advantage of the baby sitters and not wanting the festivities to end, the gang from the block ended up at Harry's and took over three tables at the back of the bar. Harry and his employees kept the drinks and the appetizer plates coming, knowing that when the group finally was ready to leave, there would be a mild argument among the men, each of them trying to grab the bill, before they would end up throwing down enough twenties to cover the tab and provide a generous tip for the wait staff.
The wedding had been advertized as semi-formal, so there was a pile of suit coats and ties in the cars parked outside the bar along with a bunch of heels. (All the women had changed into flip-flops.) There were even some brassieres tucked into some of the purses on the barroom floor.
Danny would be participating in a symposium in Chicago on the 13th; he had since found out that many of his Notre Dame classmates would be at South Bend for the following weekend and wanted to join them, but didn't want CJ to feel "abandoned". It was Jessica that first suggested that she join her husband.
"Go! Go! You could spend some time with Danny's cousins on Mackinac. Autumn is so beautiful in the upper Midwest," she sighed, remembering the days of her childhood and young adulthood with Rusty.
It could work, CJ thought to herself. She had some a pile of resumés to review, but all she needed for that was her netbook and her Wi-Fi. Diana was coming back from the rest room.
"Are you sure it wouldn't be a bother, Diana? I mean, I know that Paddy sleeps over with Maggie all the time, but Caitlin as well?"
"We could put her with Carmen, I'm sure she wouldn't mind," Frank answered for his wife.
"And we could always take her," Steve interjected. "Pammy's been talking about a brother or a sister." Steve smiled over at Hank. Hank was waiting to find out if the latest attempt with the surrogate was successful.
Suddenly, everyone was making plans, pairing up, and discussing options for their own little adults-only breaks. The travel and tourism industry needed to send Ken Robbins a big "thank you".
"If you want my body and you think I'm sexy."
The ringtone on Steve's phone interrupted the group.
"Well, be careful, Jill, and we'll leave a light on if we hit the sack before you get in. And, of course, if you change your mind, call and let us know so we don't worry. And if you need help, for any reason, you call, young lady."
Ken and Laura had arranged with the guys for Jill, who was home from school for the wedding, to stay with them tonight before heading back to Arizona. However, Ken had told the men that if Jill "had other plans", he didn't want to know about it. ("I'm sure that she and the guy she's dating at Tempe are sleeping together. I would hope that my daughter isn't hopping from bed to bed, and I don't know if there was anyone here with whom she was intimate while she was in high school – that's something I went out of my way to avoid learning.")
There was a shuffle of chairs. Nancy, who looked every bit of being six months' pregnant, was tired out and wanted to get home. After counting heads and spaces in cars, Jessica said she would go with them, but Joel said that they could just cram "someone on someone's lap" for the short trip up the hill when it was time to leave. One of the advantages of sending a kid off to college, Joel explained to Jessica, was not having to plan your social life around said kid.
October 13; 9:20 AM CDT; Chicago, IL
Her eyes still closed, CJ stretched tentatively under the comforting weight of the down-filled comforter and reached out to the pillow beside her. But instead of finding the soft curls of her husband's head, her hand touched a scratchy piece of paper and something softer, slightly moister, somewhat cooler. Eyes open, she saw the note paper, along with one of the flowers from the bouquet that had been sent by the sponsors of Danny's symposium.
"You were a bit grumpy when I tried to kiss you good-bye, so I decided to let you sleep. I'll try calling at one of the breaks. The weather guy says rain until mid-afternoon. I set up the coffee pot; you just need to start it. Get yourself some room service and stay warm and dry. Love you."
CJ smiled as she read the note and stretched again in the bed. The mattress was firm, with a feather bed on top. Hopefully, she and Danny would put it to better use today than they had last night.
But then, again, when you arrive at your hotel two hours later than expected because your plane was in a holding pattern over Illinois due to ground delays caused by dense fog, perhaps the best use of any bed was consumption of a cup of hot soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, a glass of milk, and two white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies, followed by a short call to children two time zones behind you, a couple of warm slurpy kisses exchanged with the father of said children, and deep, restful, sleep filled only with pleasant dreams.
The dream seemed so real.
She was back in Dayton; it was the winter after her mother had died. An Alberta Clipper ripping through southwestern Ohio combined with a squirrel chewing into a transformer combined to throw their neighborhood into frigid darkness the previous evening. Her father had gathered the four of them into the living room with their sleeping bags, blankets, and mattresses and had built a fire to stave off the cold. He had sent Mitch outside to cut some twigs; roasted hotdogs had comprised their supper, with toasted marshmallows for dessert. Then, bundled up against the frigid wind, her father had gone outside to the porch to use the Coleman camp stove to heat up water for cocoa.
Waking the next morning, she had seen her father shivering as he built up the fire that had died down overnight. He must have heard her stirring because he came to her side. In her dream, it was her father's face she saw, her father's hand she felt stroking her hair; for some reason, it did not seem out of the ordinary that the voice, visible as white puffs in the chill of the room, was Danny's.
"Stay under the covers, baby. It's cold in here. Wait until I get it warmed up for you."
It was so good to see her father again in his prime, his mind not yet shredded by the ravages of Alzheimer's. It was so good to be a little girl again, to know that whatever was wrong, Daddy was there to take care of it, all would be well. Daddy would fix the broken lace in her right skate. And Daddy would hold and comfort her when the pain of missing her Mommy became too much to bear. It was only later that she realized that her father hid his own heart-rending anguish in order to be strong for her brothers and her. It was good to see that Daddy again, and not the one who forgot that she worked for the President, who forgot what month it was, who urinated in his clothing, who forgot that he had a daughter named Claudia Jean. It was good to see that Daddy again, if only in a dream.
While it seemed right in the dream that it was Danny's voice, it longer no longer seemed so now. She and Danny certainly did not have the sort of marriage where one or the other of them confused spouse with parent. Granted, there were times when Danny was sick that she cosseted him as she did the kids, but that wasn't mothering, that was nursing. There were times, usually when she had perhaps bitten off more than she could chew, times when she felt she needed to be superwoman, when Danny would gently but insistently pull her back to terra firma, (and, of course, he had his Neanderthal ideas about her and transportation), but that wasn't Danny being a father, that was Danny reverting to innate hunter-protector mode. No, they were not like some of the couples at church, referring to each other as "Mother" and "Dad" long after the kids had left the house.
About an hour later, CJ was clothed in fleecy sweats, drinking coffee, eating room service bacon, and reading the latest group of resumés that had been emailed from prospective CFOs for the foundation. A burst of rain hit the window panes behind the closed drapes and she shivered a bit (although the room was quite warm) and, thinking of her dream, CJ wished that she and Danny had sprung for one of the suites with a fireplace. Ah, well, the storm was expected to sink southeast later today and they should have clear weather tonight for dinner on the town and for tomorrow when they flew to Traverse City to visit with Siobhan and Liam. And with luck, the weather would be nice in South Bend for the weekend.
The strains of "A Londonderry Air" breached the silence and smiling at the obvious ringtone she had assigned to Danny's mobile, CJ reached for her own phone.
"Hi, honey. How's it going?"
October 15, 2015; 2:15 PM EDT; Mackinac Island, MI
"Oh, God, Danny! Look, how gorgeous!"
CJ applied the brakes on her bike and gestured toward the view.
The island did not have any really high hills, but from this particular position on the trail near the fort, the trees parted to form a clearing with a spectacular view down to the water. The sky was a brilliant azure blue, with just one of two wispy clouds. The early morning fog had burned away by 9:30 and you could see not only the hotels near the dock, but across Lake Huron to Round and Bois Blanc islands.
When Liam drove them from Traverse City to the ferry yesterday, there had been a chill in the air, but once they were on the island, the temperature was at least fifteen degrees warmer.
"It takes the entire summer for Huron to warm up, but it's slower to cool, so we have warmer autumns that you might expect," Siobhan had explained last night, when the four of them were sitting outside at 10:00 PM. Liam had laid a fire in the pit, but hadn't yet lit it; the stars were bright in the inky black sky, with only a sliver of a moon, and they were loath to disturb the darkness.
"Well, I did expect it to be colder, but I wish I had put on a heavier sweater," CJ had said, pulling the sides of her cardigan tighter around her breasts."
Danny had slipped off his zip up hoodie to drape around her shoulders. He was wearing a rugby jersey under it and besides, he was Michigan born and bred, a good 300 miles north of Dayton, which, when you think of it, was only 50 miles or so from the Kentucky line. It was practically in the South.
"Thank you, honey," CJ had smiled at him.
"I think it's time for the fire," Liam had said and expertly flamed the kindling and tinder. In a few minutes, the flames were leaping skyward and CJ slipped the hoodie from her shoulders. Donning the garment once again, but noticing that CJ stilled shivered slightly, Danny had spread his legs to either side of the chaise on which he sat.
"Come," Danny had gently ordered, holding out his hand. Seating CJ in front of him, facing away, he had pulled her back against his chest and shielded her with his body. And so the four of them sat in the October air, drinking Irish Mist and exchanging tales of the extended Concannon family. When they finally went to bed, they were tired, but not too tired to make sweet love with each other.
After lunch earlier today, Liam made a trip to the mainland for supplies. There were no paying guests right now, but there were several couples coming in on Friday. Siobhan needed to work some sourdough for the waffles planned for Saturday's breakfast. Laughingly refusing their help, Danny's cousin sent the two of them off on a trip on the island trails, giving them some cookies, a thermos of coffee, a bottle of water, and a blanket for their picnic.
As they were admiring the view in front of them, a cardinal flew past and Danny turned to the right at the flash of color.
"Look this way, CJ."
The tree branches were spaced to provide a perfect frame for the bridge across the straits between Lakes Michigan and Huron. The leaves were a sumptuous mix of crimson and gold, the sky was the same gorgeous blue, and the sun glistened on the green cables and on the golden towers.
The two of them admired the view. Then, CJ turned to face him. Reaching up, she pulled his head toward hers, clamped her mouth on his, and kissed him.
The effect was instantaneous. He wanted her. They had made up for Monday night on Tuesday afternoon, after Danny's symposium; they had made love again after their dinner and night on Chi-town. They had made love last night, and again this morning. But he wanted her again.
They were both old enough to join AARP.
They had made love twice within the past fifteen hours.
They had a very comfortable bed waiting for them two miles away at Liam and Siobhan's bed and breakfast.
But, oh, God, how he wanted her.
His rock hardness strained against his jeans. He could feel the teeth of the zipper pressing into him. There was no way he would be able to sit, let alone pedal a bicycle, without relief.
He kissed her again, searching for the right words to ask.
Suddenly, he was moving. He was being pushed backward. Turning around, he saw a low copse of trees and brush.
From somewhere, he found the strength to stop her.
"Are you sure?"
CJ pushed harder.
"Well, let's take the bikes with us. If someone else comes along. Plus, there's the blanket."
Twenty-five minutes later, after helping CJ put on her panties and jeans, easing the legs over her sneakers, he reached for the food. They fed each other cookie pieces and took turns sipping coffee from the thermos lid. When sounds of another group reached them, they sat still and waiting for the people to pass. After packing up, Danny peeped through the leaves and seeing that no one else was on the trail, signaled to CJ that it was safe to leave the little glade.
Saturday, October 17, 2015; early morning; South Bend, IN
Danny eased himself into bed, taking care to not wake his wife. He lay there quietly, waiting for his head to stop its spinning. Hopefully, his headache would not be too bad tomorrow morning (well, later this morning). Five minutes ago, when he walked into the room and then into the bath, there was a big glass of orange juice and three extra-strength aspirin sitting on the counter. Just in case, there was a big paper note on his pillow directing him to the bath and CJ's surefire ("as surefire as you can get") prescription to ward off some of the effects of consuming too much alcohol.
Danny turned on his side (and again waited for the world to stop spinning) and pushed himself up against CJ's warm back. Holding onto her seemed to steady the vortex and he thought to himself that it was quite the metaphor for the role she played in his life.
Some second honeymoon he was giving her, Danny thought to himself. Granted, they weren't teenagers, but two nights out of six not making love to her? Yes, there was good reason Monday night. Yes, they had made up for that on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and this (that is, yesterday) morning. And, when it came down to it, yes, there was a good reason for this latest incident.
But still, CJ deserved so much better.
When he and his former suitemates made plans for this weekend, Danny knew it would be rough. There had been several times over the years when one or another of them had not been able to make it back to Notre Dame for the selected weekend.
But this would be the first time that one of them would not be there because his ashes were sitting in a niche at his parish's columbarium wall.
This was not the first "contemporary" death Danny had experienced; this was not even the first Notre Dame classmate to leave this earthly life. But the memories of those years were special and Phil's death hit all five of them particularly hard.
Although the three other wives understood, it was CJ who took charge in the hotel bar. It was CJ that smoothed over things with the bartender when Danny brought out the special bottle of MacDonald scotch, telling the woman that a) there was only one bottle and b) the men would certainly need a lot more alcohol than that one fifth to properly wake their departed suitemate. Then she gave the woman five twenties "in case they forget to tip at the end of the night". It was CJ that insisted that everyone turn over their car keys to their wives (CJ took Tim's as well as Danny's). It was CJ that arranged for several bottles of wine and liqueurs, along with snacks, to be sent to their suite and invited the other women to spend the next few hours with the latest chick flicks on the in-room pay-per-view. And it was CJ that gave the bartender a room number to call if the guys got too obnoxious or made any effort to get out of the hotel by cab or by duping a willing fellow customer.
Later this morning, at 10:30, Tim would say a special Mass for Phil in the chapel. Then they would walk over to the stadium for the game with the Trojans. Win or lose, Danny would suffer the same kind of ribbing Tim experienced when the opponent was Boston College. Later tonight, they would dine and wine, reliving again those wonderful years of the early 80's.
CJ pushed her butt back against Danny's stomach; the warmth and the pressure of her body steadied his gut. As he drifted off to sleep, he thought once again that although he in no way deserved to have her in his life, he thanked God everyday that she was there.
Sunday, October 18, 2015; somewhere over Colorado
Hearing the light snores, Danny put down his journal and turned toward CJ. Her reading glasses had slipped to the end of her nose and her head was listing toward her right knee.
Danny reached over to close her netbook. He slipped the glasses from her face and put the tray table back in place. He draped his jacket across CJ's upper torso and, after reclining his seat back slightly to make the transition from seat to shoulder level, lifted the arm rest and pulled her against his side. A strand of CJ's hair strayed up to his mouth and as he moved it away from his lips, he lightly tousled with the locks on the top of her head. It reminded him of the way he had touched her hair earlier in the week.
By the time their plane had landed at O'Hare Monday night, their luggage retrieved, and a cab caught, it had been ridiculously late and they barely had enough energy to eat the light room service meal before they collapsed in the bed.
Chicago was two hours earlier than Santa Monica, but Danny woke early on Tuesday morning, about ten minutes before his alarm was set to buzz. Slipping out of bed, Danny realized that the weather had changed dramatically overnight, because the room was freezing. And yet the air conditioner was pulsing away. He hurried into the bath and turned on the ceiling heat lamp with which it was thankfully equipped and stayed in the steaming hot shower until the heat of the water penetrated his chilled body.
Danny was able, with the help of a penlight, to change the thermostat from A/C to heat and by the time he was ready to leave for breakfast and the symposium at the University, the room had lost some of its chill.
Danny had done his best to keep from making too much noise and CJ slept through everything. Danny wrote her a note, took one of the flowers from the arrangement on the credenza, and set it on the pillow. Bending down, he whispered, "That's okay, stay under the covers, babe."
Normally, when looking at his son in his bed, Danny's reaction was how much Paddy looked like his mother. For some reason, this morning, seeing CJ's head poking out from the comforter, the reversed thought – "Wow, she really looks like Paddy!" – filled his brain (probably aided by the fact that CJ's mumbled "Love you, Danny" sounded an awful lot like "Love you, Daddy") and he ruffled her hair before kissing her forehead. Quietly gathering his things, he had put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and left the room.
Now, winging back to California, Danny once again caressed the auburn brown locks and gently kissed his wife. She murmured something unintelligible and put her arm around his waist.
For almost nine years, he had given her the comfort and security of his arm around her shoulders. For almost nine years, she had come to him for those things, to lay her head on his chest when she needed solace, consoling, or the occasional loving reproof. It had been his privilege for almost nine years; it had been his right and his duty, since they exchanged vows over eight years ago, to take care of her.
Danny relished the task. No, he did not want to put restraints or bounds on her; he was not a Neanderthal. (Well, except for traveling; his Celtic genes kept telling him that he was in danger of losing someone he loved deeply to the perils of travel and there was no one he loved more deeply than CJ.) He was proud of her achievements, her Nobel, her intellect. Be it the White House press room, the palace in Oslo, or the hall of St. Monica's, he loved watching her give her passions to her causes. But he was glad that, since the night after Leo McGarry passed, she had come to him when it became just a bit too much to bear.
Danny only wished that she had done so some six or seven years earlier. Had she not been so insistent about the conflict of interest, he could have been there for her when she needed him. There had to have been many times over the course of eight years in the service of Josiah Bartlet that she could have used a chest against which to sigh or cry, a strong arm around her shoulders, burdened as they were with the weight of the world. She surely could, at times, have benefited from someone pulling up the covers over the exhausted body that housed her exhausted mind. There were plenty of times when others had caused her pain and he could have soothed with a kiss on a furrowed brow. (It might have been difficult when he himself was the cause of that pain, but Danny was willing to let that little bit of schizophrenia slide for the moment. Perhaps he would have subconsciously held back. Perhaps he would have not taken that fateful trip to Bermuda, not struck up the conversation with the cricket player, not pursued the Sharif story.)
Danny let himself daydream of a universe in which CJ had said "yes" to the request for dates at the turn of the century, a year into the President's first term. It would have taken a little bit of time, maybe two months, to seduce her into his bed, but seduce her he would. By the time of the MS revelation, they would have been married and awaiting their first child – perhaps a "seven month preemie" – and he could have stood up to Oliver Babish and the House when they questioned his wife's integrity.
When the stalker threatened her life, Danny could have made common cause with Simon Donovan to shield her. And absent any attraction for CJ (or at least attraction on which he could act), the Secret Service agent might not have run his fatal errand to the convenient store.
Would Jed Bartlet have asked a wife and mother to jump off a cliff for him? Perhaps not; having seen the job destroy one marriage, the President might have been leery of risking another one. Perhaps; CJ would still have been CJ, the only one among senior staff capable of rising to the occasion. In that case, Danny knew that unlike Jenny McGarry, he would have been able to accept the reality of the situation, becoming not only Mr. Mom to their by then three children but also the male version of someone married to a Navy officer, someone whose spouse was away for months at a time in service to country. When Toby Ziegler betrayed her, hc would have kissed away the tears that in real life she had to shed in private. He would have patiently bided time until late April 2006, when he would have once again impregnated his wife, and for January 20, 2007, when he would have gently told her that it was her time to kick back, to enjoy being mother to their four (at least, maybe there had been a set of twins) children.
Kids. During the three and a half months of their engagement, they each revealed that in their twenties, they had each wanted a lot of kids, political correctness and population explosion be damned. Then as they each had aged, the dream became that of being the cool aunt, the neat uncle.
Ah, Danny-boy, he told himself, as he had so many times in the past eight years, be grateful for what you do have.
They had talked of adopting, but knew that given their ages, the US agencies would not have let them. They could have gone overseas, but as it was, they would be seventy before Paddy and Caitlin were established in life; that was old enough. True, they could have adopted older children, but even then, the agencies would have questioned the lifestyle.
And as far as shielding CJ from the slings and arrows of the world, there was still plenty of that to do. Danny frowned, remembering the phone call he had received from Mark ten days ago.
"That asshole Bill Rush is planning an exposé on Democratic politicians who betrayed their wives, Danny. He says that will all the stuff coming out about Republicans, turnabout is fair play. Of course, it happens, but the Democrats aren't the ones preaching `morality and values' while abusing them on the side. Anyway, he's really looking at Hoynes and concentrating on the years in the Senate. To my knowledge, the stuff is still buried, but you never know. I wouldn't say anything to CJ if I were you, but you may want to be prepared. You may have different sources than I do, than Steve or Katie."
Danny had thanked Mark for the heads up and, pulling his investigative reporter hat out of the deep retirement in which it had been buried, had circuitously checked out what the right-wingnut was doing, what he was pursuing. Danny's assessment was the same as Mark's – that the events of almost eighteen years ago were still buried – but it was good to be prepared.
The plane shook slightly as they hit a patch of rough air. CJ whimpered and Danny pulled her slightly tighter.
"It's okay, baby. Danny's here."