John's Quest

John's Quest

By: Abra de Winter

Beta By: dot - without her help the story would not be nearly as good as it is. Any mistakes left in the story - all mine

Rating: R

Spoilers: season 5 episodes 15 – "Full Disclosure" and 16 – "Eppur si muove"

Disclaimer: The characters are from the NBC, WB, Bravo, A John Wells Prod., TV show, 'The West Wing'. They are the creation of Aaron Sorkin.

Feedback: yes, please!

Chapter X

“Hoynes?!?! What the hell is she thinking?! How can she… Why would she…” Jed Bartlet was pacing back and forth across the bedroom infuriated. “And you! You! You are too calm. Are you happy with her choice?” He looked accusingly at his wife. “And how could you let them sleep together? Under my roof!”

“Are you done?”

“Not even close! I can’t believe she could do this to me! It’s as though she looked for the person I detest the most in the world. Is she punishing me for something? What did I do to her to make her hate me so much?”

“This may come as a shock, Jed, but I don’t think you were the most reason she chose him.”

“How can you defend her? She is wrong. She’s wrong and I’m right. I’m usually right, but this time I’m so right that even you have to admit it.”

“What exactly bothers you so much about Hoynes? So he ran against you seven years ago. Big deal! He stood by you and helped you win both elections.”

“He leaked confidential information! He was shamed into resigning the Vice Presidency of the United States! He threw it all away for some cheap sex. He made a mockery of the high office that was entrusted to him. He lost his wife, his career. His affair has become a bestseller! He’s too old for her. Too damaged.”

“Don’t be a jackass!” Abbey couldn’t restrain herself any longer. “You don’t really care about all that. You’re still pissed that he made you beg to get him on the ticket the first time. Well, you made him pay for that. For seven years!”

“He’s going to ruin her life.”

“And how do you know that? You have a Nobel Prize in astrology?

“They don’t award Nobel Prizes for astrology.”

“Well maybe they should! You and Ellie are so much alike, you know she’s never going to forgive you if you push her away this time. Think how much courage it took for them to come here and tell us.”

“After sneaking around for a year and a half! How did they get away with that?”

“Jed! Think carefully before you do or say something irreparable. I don’t want to lose my daughter just because you lost your cool.”

“I’ve kept my mouth shut so far, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have. The whole ten seconds you were alone with them.”

“The worst ten seconds of my life,” he said, grouchily

~~~

Ellie leaned against the bathroom door and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, exhaled, then repeated this several times trying to regain some composure. The things that man could do to her! Her legs were still shaking, her pulse racing insanely, and she wanted nothing more than go back into her room and make love to him.

She let her clothes fall onto the floor and her hand ventured between her legs, touching the very spot John’s fingers had caressed less than a minute earlier. She weighed the pros and cons of taking care of business on her own. She decided against it. The situation was already too weird.

He was already dressed when she got back. Her room had never looked as strange as it did with John in it. She knew that the same could be said for her life.

“Third door on the right?” he asked.

Ellie nodded and watched him leave the room. She decided that so far, she liked the way her life was with him in it.

~~~

Ellie had made sure that they had been the first guests to arrive early on Friday, in case her father’s reaction prompted them to leave in a hurry. Another reason was that she wanted to break the news to her family one at a time, not drop the bomb at the barbecue and deal with a stony silence, or a cascade of gasps. Now, she and John were going to greet the others alongside her parents, and hopefully the reactions of the rest of her family would make her father come to terms with the reality of them as a couple.

They went downstairs together, and Ellie’s smile faded when she saw her father watching them. She resisted the urge to reach for John’s hand. That could only make the picture look worse to her father. She had warned John that they had to avoid all public displays of affection for the rest of their stay there, but she hadn’t realized how much she had become dependent on him. This was not the same as grabbing his hand while watching a scary movie, but it was similar. She needed reassurance that he was there for her, that he was going to help her through such situations.

The four of them took their places around the table set in the backyard trying to pretend that there was nothing out of the ordinary. Ellie felt as though there was a pink elephant standing on one leg in the middle of the garden and no-one was allowed to speak about it.

They were saved from the awkwardness of trivial conversation by the arrival of Ellie’s elder sister and her family. Liz and Doug’s reaction to the news was one of politely hidden surprise, quickly followed by formal congratulations. Annie, Elizabeth’s daughter, had wriggled out of the boring family occasion, and was spending the Fourth of July with her friends. Seven-year-old Gus didn’t really care who his Aunt Ellie was going to marry. He was more preoccupied with going to the stables to visit the horse his grandfather had given him last birthday. He dragged her father away, thus earning Ellie’s secret gratitude.

Liz and Doug retired to their room to change, leaving the three of them alone to await the next guests. Zoey and Charlie were the next to arrive.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side!” They heard Zoey’s voice from the house.

“All I said was that he made a fair point,” Charlie replied.

“Really? Then how…”

Zoey stopped when she saw Hoynes, who was standing up to greet them along with Ellie and her mother.

“Oh, my God, it’s you!” she exclaimed, before Ellie could stop her. “I had the feeling that Ellie was dating someone, and now I see why she was so damn secretive! Dad must have had a cow!”

“Zoey!” Abbey reacted instinctively. “What kind of language is that?”

But Zoey took no notice.

“You must be crazy to be here,” she told John, who was obviously amused. “Man, Ellie, you don’t do stupid things often, but when you do… How did she get you to come here?” she addressed John again.

“We came to announce our engagement,” John said.

Charlie, who was shaking John’s hand, had on his poker face, although it wasn’t much help to him when he bluffed, nor was it helpful now to hide his emotions. He had been worried about his first visit to the Bartlets as Zoey’s boyfriend, but he had nothing to worry about in comparison. Charlie knew the President’s opinion of John Hoynes almost as well as Leo did, and he knew the pressure was going to be off him and on Hoynes. He wasn’t going to be the target of any “should have built a dungeon” type jokes now. Hoynes was going to be on the receiving end of most of the President’s aggravation.

Abbey decided to take them to their rooms, in an attempt to make Zoey stop giggling and making fun of Ellie, who was already turning white.

“See? It wasn’t all that bad,” John said, once they were alone.

“You realize they’re all talking about it now? How much longer do we have to stay?”

He checked his watch.

“About thirty six hours.”

“Oh, God!” she exclaimed. “I’ll never make it. When they’re all here… it’s going to be crazy. What would be a good excuse for getting out of lunch?”

“You shouldn’t use the one about feeling ill. Your father might doubt my word that you’re not pregnant if you keep going to the bathroom.”

“He asked you that? I can’t believe it!”

The outrage brought the color back to her cheeks. It was short-lived, because a moment later she became very pale when she heard Leo McGarry’s voice.

“I thought I heard voices out here,” Leo said, coming out of the house with a woman Ellie had never seen before.

The image of John holding Ellie’s hand stopped him dead in his tracks. The bits of rumor he had heard and discarded as tabloid wet dreams buzzed in his head.

“Hello, Leo,” John said and extended his hand.

It seemed to take ages for Leo to accept it. He turned on the auto-pilot and introduced his date, Jordan Kendall.

“So, John, what brings you here?” Leo asked, still unwilling to believe the rumors he had heard.

“They’re engaged to be married,” Jed informed him, coming back with his grandson.

Leo turned around, and tried to guess how his friend was feeling. He wasn’t glad about it, that was sure, but not even Leo could figure out just how mad he was.

“Let me show you to your rooms,” Jed offered.

Ellie and John were left alone once again. She was shaking and John took her in his arms, rocking her gently. Ellie’s first instinct was to protest, worried that someone might come back and see them, but the sensation of safety made her keep quiet and enjoy the comfort of his embrace.

“I bet that if I stuck a needle in you, you wouldn’t even bleed,” he said.

“What?” she asked, absent-mindedly.

“You’re so tense.”

“Yes, I am. And I don’t understand why you aren’t. How can you be so calm? I feel like there’s a storm gathering in the house and it’s going to come out and blow me away.”

“I’ve been through worse. At least this time I have something amazing to look forward to.”

“You’re amazing,” she said.

“No, you are.”

He kissed her tenderly on the temple. Ellie sighed and disentangled herself from his embrace. There was no point in getting too comfortable since the others were bound to come back any minute. She didn’t want to be caught with her guard down.

~~~

Half an hour later, the Bartlets and their friends had gathered in the backyard. They were all trying hard to act like it was a regular get-together. Ellie thought of the pink elephant again. Maybe some good could come from having a repressed New England family like hers after all. She was less likely to have to deal with screaming matches, shouted insults and slammed doors.

After her mother’s warning, Zoey had tried to resist taunting her favorite sister. She talked about the weather as long as she could, but her patience soon ran out, and the conversation turned to tennis.

“You owe me a rematch,” Zoey reminded Ellie.

“Why you keep insisting, I’ll never know. You haven’t won a match since that time I played left-handed.”

“Hey, I’ve been practicing a lot lately. Unlike you, locked up in your little lab, with your little microscopes and things. What, are you scared?”

“Puh-lease!” Ellie waved her hand, dismissively.

“Suit up, then!”

“Fine! Tennis court, five minutes.”

They both ran into the house to get changed, and by the time they arrived at the tennis court, the whole family had assembled there.

~~~

‘I can do this,’ John had told himself when he saw Ellie. ‘I lasted for six months, I can stand another weekend.’ He tried to talk himself back to sanity. ‘Bartlet’s right there looking at me like he’s one phone call away from having me put down like a rabid animal. And why the hell is Leo so damn sulky? I kind of counted on him to be supportive through this. How long has it been this time?’ He checked his watch. He hadn’t looked at Ellie’s ass in thirty seconds. He gripped his iced tea and tried to focus his attention on the match, not on the way her short skirt revealed almost as much of her body as he had seen in the privacy of her apartment.

‘At least Zoey doesn’t play that well.’ He was trying to find something to cling onto. ‘Another twenty-thirty minutes or so and the game will be over. This is not the sort of problem I envisioned having this weekend. I really wish Bartlet would say something nasty already! Usually you can’t get a word in edgeways. He should really have started screaming by now! I need something to get my mind off her and her short, painfully short, skirt.’

He remembered Ellie’s sporting tales; he knew that she had played soccer and she had had a choice between tennis camp and a trip through Europe at the age of sixteen; he had listened to her stories on their dates, and they had created the picture of a tomboy that he had never truly reconciled with the sweet, delicately sensual Ellie he knew. But now, now, he understood.

Leo’s pager beeped, attracting everyone’s disapproving gaze. He went inside to make the call, and returned a few minutes later, to call Jed away. John relaxed a little and went back to the torture of the tennis match.

“That was good! You have practiced,” Ellie smiled, after her sister won a hard-fought point.

“A-ha, the student becomes the teacher, Obi Wan!” Zoey screamed before her serve.

However, Ellie won the next point almost effortlessly. She hadn’t played tennis in a long time, but she was in peak physical condition. She had tried to exhaust the frustration accumulated during her dates with John by frequent visits to the gym. She snuck a peek at John, who was talking to Doug, and nearly missed a volley. God, she had to find a way out of their not-before-the-wedding understanding!

Ellie won two games in thirty-five minutes, and headed for the bathroom upstairs to shower. She wished she could jump into John’s arms, but she had to settle for his smile as he accompanied her back to the house.

~~~

Getting out of the shower, she was feeling squeaky clean, and energized to the maximum. Her excitement took on a brand new connotation when she came back to the room to see John lying on her bed.

“That was a good game, wasn’t it?” she asked. “I had forgotten how good it feels to play tennis!”

“I was wondering,” he said, walking past her. “Why do you have a lock on your door?”

He finished his question by turning the key in the lock. His back was to her and she couldn’t see his expression. Ellie’s previously cheerful mood turned into anxious expectation. What was he going to do? All the tension released during the match was building up again, rapidly. Was he going to… No. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Would he?

“I, I…” she tried to find something to say, suddenly very aware that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her bathrobe.

“I might have a good use for it.”

‘Oh, God, yes, no, he isn’t, he wouldn’t dare.’

“You see, it just hit me that I have never seen you naked.” He walked calmly toward her. “And I was thinking this would be about as good a time as any. Since there are no secret service agents outside to think dirty things about us.”

Ellie took a half a step backwards and tripped over his suitcase. John pushed it casually under her bed and took another step closer to her. Ellie’s hands had fallen limp by her sides, and she felt utterly unable to react in any way. She was hypnotized by his stare. He maintained eye contact until their bodies touched. When his hands sneaked beneath her bathrobe and rested lightly on her shoulders, Ellie closed her eyes and braced herself for the inevitable.

She felt John’s hands trembling as they slid over her chest and wondered whether his self-control was as fragile as her own. His breath hissed between her teeth as he cupped her breasts for a long moment before resuming his journey. His hands stopped on her hips. She didn’t dare to open her eyes.

“Ellie.”

His voice sounded hoarse as though he was making efforts to keep it under control.

“Ellie,” he called again. “Look at me.”

She did. His usually crystal clear blue gaze was now hazy. But then again, her head was spinning so fast that she could hardly see him at all.

“Yes,” she answered in a voice every bit as throaty as his.

He didn’t say anything, just slid the bathrobe off her. She closed her eyes again, and barely managed to keep standing.

“Let me promise you something,” he said, while his hands gently squeezed her breasts. “On Monday morning, you will still be able to swear in a court of law that we did not have sexual relations.”

The meaning of his words reached her brain a lot later than the sound of his voice.

“What?” she said, opening her eyes.

“Trust me.” He captured her mouth in a kiss. “I’m a lawyer.”

The whole situation was making less and less sense, but Ellie had stopped thinking. She hung on to his shoulders as his hand slipped between her thighs. He supported her back with his left arm and lowered her slowly onto the bed. She felt as though she was floating until the weight of his body pressed her hard into the mattress. He held her prisoner in a long, drugging kiss for what seemed like hours, giving her time to get used to the feel of him on top of her.

Ellie nearly screamed when he ended the kiss and stood up. She didn’t have time to react in any way because he had already spread her legs and knelt between them at the side of the bed.

“Oh, God, John, no! Stop!” Ellie begged, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to be quiet if he went on.

“Or what?” he asked, while he continued to caress her inner thighs, unruffled.

“Or I might scream,” she whispered, clutching at the sheets.

“I don’t think you should do that,” he said, and he trailed upwards with his fingers until he reached Ellie’s hot core once again.

She did her best to stifle a whimper when he began to explore her. God, he knew what he was doing! He seemed to be able to guess what she liked, and somehow managed to go beyond it, teaching her new sensations.

He started to sprinkle kisses in a spiral towards her center, and Ellie’s ragged breathing became an almost painful attempt to keep silent. When he dipped his tongue into her for the first time, Ellie’s neck muscles contracted in a soundless cry.

He took pity on her and he did not delay her climax for too long, although he could probably have kept her on the edge for hours. He applied the right amount of pressure, he kept the rhythm of his lapping steady, and soon felt her tremble uncontrollably under his magic.

“You’ve been a very good girl,” he said, getting up. “I’m sure we’ll do this again soon. Now it’s my turn to hit the shower,” he said, grabbing the bathrobe and towel he had prepared before her arrival and left the room, keeping them carefully over his groin.