Author: Regency
Title: Tomorrow
Pairing: Charlie/Zoey, implied Zoey/Jean-Paul
Category: AU
Rating: G
Spoilers: Commencement,
Twenty-Five; the beginning of season five.
Word count:
Summary: Charlie
makes a different decision tonight and it makes all the difference for tomorrow.
Author’s Notes: Wrote this some years ago, but just
found it again. Hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable
as being from The West Wing. They are the property of their respective producers,
writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money
was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~~~
She laughs when as checks his watch again. He’s done it seventeen times in the last hour and she giggles because
she hasn’t looked at hers once. She knows she’s got somewhere she promised to be, but it’s easier to ask
forgiveness than to ask permission. She’ll have CJ issue a statement in
the morning.
He glares as she giggles even though he likes to hear her laugh. She has an incredible laugh; it’s high and sounds
like Christmas bells. He likes when she laughs and is glad she chose to stay here with him. But he can’t get off his
mind that there’s somewhere else she promised to be.
She tells him not to worry and moves closer to him to lay her head on his shoulder.
She’s where she wants to be despite her promise. She lets him know that she won’t go to France in the morning.
And that it’s not because of him. It’s because her father asked her nicely. Also,
she wants to take up surfing.
He goes into hysterics when he hears surfing and he almost suffocates from a lack of oxygen. He can’t imagine
her on a surfboard for more than ten seconds.
She smacks him in the chest and huffs, making a vain attempt to storm off. Having drunk a third of the wine, she can’t
find her feet and he pulls her back down. She lands in his arms, exactly where she’s wanted.
Tonight, he will take her home with him; invisible to the world and they will talk and watch their favorite movies,
and laugh until dawn. Then, she will slip back to the White House with her hovering, pestering agents and her watchful, knowing
parents and she will let CJ make her excuses. She’ll have no apologies because she won’t be sorry.
In the morning, she will have a headache and a sad face for this unfortunate occasion. She will write Jean-Paul a letter,
maybe an e-mail and she will go back to her old life, to the life that included him. It will be scandalous and her virtue
will be blatantly questioned. She will not care, she does not care now.
She will be safe in her bed and her dreams of him. She will be safe in her future, her father just down the hall, grudgingly
accepting that his child is grown and more than certainly in love. Between he and his loving wife, he will approve. Outwardly,
he will prod Charlie and tease him, because he can and he always has.
Tomorrow, she will not be missing and her face will go unbruised. Her family will not be shattered and fractured into
two sides and the love she has always looked up to will remain intact. The world will continue to turn, everyone will take
their next breath uninhibited and without fear, and one hundred terrorists will continue to age in their prison cells as intended
Zoey broke her word and, so, saved herself from one of the worst traumas of her life.
Charlie put appearances last and so saved them all from its aftermath.
Tomorrow—today—is better for it.
