John's Quest

Title: John's Quest

By: Abra de Winter

Pairing: John Hoynes/Ellie Bartlet - Romance

Rating: PG

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!

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. Det. Mike Kellerman is a character from the TV show "Homicide: Life on the Street".

Feedback: yes, please!


Chapter VI

Ellie felt her cheeks growing hot and she knew they must be red, as if her body had caught fire and the flames were showing on her face. He had kissed her. She had wished for it so desperately and it had happened.

She was so deeply embarrassed that she couldn't even look at him. All these months, she had lied to herself that she could keep the attraction under control. She had told herself time and again that she just liked talking to him, nothing more. She had crushed the little voice that kept asking if she would have been so keen to be his friend if she hadn't found him attractive.

She realized where she had made her mistake. She had been able to resist him while he was miles away, but she hadn't stood a chance when they were in the same room. He must have seen through her pretence of innocent flirting and decided to grant her wish. She knew all too well that he liked to please women.

Ellie fought off the discomfiting memory of her earlier dance with John. She had wanted to kiss him so badly that she had felt her lips burning and had kept running her tongue over them, trying to alleviate the pain. She remembered his silence and his stare, which had hardly ever left her mouth all throughout the dance. She had practically begged for the kiss, and when he had tried to avoid her by leaving the party, she had followed him.

She tried to find something to say that wouldn't sound too bad. She saw her agent outside the terrace, standing guard with his back to them. Ellie realized that John Hoynes was probably the only man she knew that could adjust to her lifestyle because he knew first hand what it was like to have a secret service escort everywhere you went. The thought was not at all comforting. At the moment, she didn't need any more reasons why he would be a great guy to date. She needed a way out of the situation.

She had a split second to choose between the dozen replies that popped into her mind. She chose to trust her instinct for self-preservation and looked for a line that would erase what had just happened. None of her options felt safe. She considered briefly the worst possible thing she could say, something that would make the situation even more uncomfortable.

'That was a great kiss' or 'I want some more'?

It had been a great kiss and a part of her yearned for more, but Ellie silenced that side of her.

Should she go for the ever popular 'How about those Yankees?' or the overused 'This was a mistake'?

None of them cared about the Yankees, but she was sure they would both agree it had been a mistake. When in doubt, talk about the weather.

"I think it's going to rain. We should go back inside," she said.

She thought she read relief in his eyes, but only for a second. Ellie hoped he would accept her neutral reply and never mention this again.

"Yes. There's a storm coming."

Had there been a hint of irony? A hidden meaning? She couldn't tell. From the moment he had kissed her, her insight into John Hoynes's psyche had ceased to exist. She had crossed the boundary of attraction and was now blinded by it.

When she left the party she caught a last glimpse of him. He was waiting for the parking attendant to bring over his car. It had started to rain. She saw him run his fingers through his hair. He had never seemed quite so stunning. Ellie closed her eyes, memorizing the image.

________________________________________


He didn't call the next day.

For the first time since he had come to her door, Ellie was consciously wishing he'd call. She was wishing he'd call her as he always did and they'd chat and there wouldn't be any trace of embarrassment and everything would be fine once more.

She picked up the phone ten times to call him and ten times she put it back down.

Ellie tried to remember how she had dealt with her crush on Leo. At first, she had studied for her SATs, then she had gone to college where she had done more studying than partying, because Leo's image had kept away all the boys who tried to date her, and after there had been her demanding residency and after that… Yes, after that she had started talking to John on a regular basis and her crush had finally been shelved. She wondered how long it would take her to put her feelings for John on a similar shelf at the back of her mind.

If he had just been on her mind, she might have handled it OK. He wasn't just on her mind, like some intellectual challenge. He was in her soul. She was missing him as though she had once had him. She considered trying to finish a month's work in one evening in the hope that she might forget how badly she wanted to hear his voice.

With an enormous effort, Ellie managed to focus on her project. She left the lab around nine in the evening, determined to go to sleep early. She always worked hard on Fridays, and she had planned more activity for the next day than ever before. She didn't want to have a minute free to think about Hoynes and why he wasn't calling.
Ellie tossed and turned in bed, but still could not fall asleep. She could not stop thinking about him. She wished she had some video footage from the campaign. She regretted that she hadn't recorded one of their conversations. She couldn't go to sleep without quenching this irrational yearning for some tangible record of him.

She turned on the night lamp and looked at the unopened boxes stacked neatly one on top of the other in the corner of her bedroom. She had moved into the new apartment a year earlier and she still hadn't unpacked everything. What she needed was buried deep inside one of those boxes. Helen Baldwin's tell-all book was there, and it contained details about John, details she would otherwise never know.

Ellie had browsed through it guiltily when she had bought it. She had skipped past the revealed state secrets to get to the private bedroom scenes. Her ears had turned pink and she had shut the book before she had read anything particularly spicy. But she remembered the paragraph she had read. And she remembered which chapters contained the interesting parts.

She looked at the boxes again, fighting the urge to jump out of bed and read the book from cover to cover. She was not going to sink so low as to read that trash! He was her friend and she couldn't peek through the keyhole into his bedroom, no matter how public his bedroom had become.

Oh, but how badly she wanted to know! She wanted to see him, even if she had to use her mind's eye and another woman's memories.

Damn it!

She punched the pillow and got out of bed. Ten seconds later, books were flying around the room as she burrowed towards her goal.

There it was. Helen's book. The physical expression of John's downfall. She scowled at the woman smiling on the back cover, but opened the book nevertheless.

The intimate information jumped out from the page. Ellie clenched her teeth, seething with jealousy and anger, but could not stop reading.

"He was an incredibly attentive lover."

"… he was always careful to please me."

"When he kissed me for the first time my knees turned to jelly and I started shaking. He took me in his arms and did not stop kissing me until I forgot that he was the Vice President of the United States and I responded with the same passion."
Ellie tore up that page, crumpled it and threw it over her shoulder. She did the same with the next few pages, more and more furious.

"That bitch!"

She was not going to read another word!

Ellie went into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of milk, sipped it leisurely, washed the glass thoroughly, then went back into the bedroom, where she had to crawl on her hands and knees to retrieve the torn pages that had landed under the bed. She smoothed them out and started reading again.

"He left the Ambassadors' Dinner after the President's speech and I followed him into a room on the next level where he had asked me to meet him. We were previously acquainted, but I didn't know what to expect from a private meeting. I presumed he wanted me to organize another fund-raiser. We started talking and I lost track of time. We could hear the music from downstairs and he invited me to dance. I remember the tension building up inside me with every second he held me in his arms. We were just dancing, but his presence was so heady that I couldn't think of anything except how much I liked having him close. When he kissed me for the first time…"

Ellie looked up from the piece of paper. She tried to label the feeling rising inside her. It was a mixture of envy, anger, betrayal and, strangest of all, lust.

All of a sudden she decided to do something about it. She got dressed, called one of her best friends, and asked her bodyguard to drive. They stopped to pick up Michelle on their way to the bar.

She wanted to do the one thing that could not remind her of John. She was going to go to a bar with her friend and have a drink.

Michelle Babish came out of the building just as Ellie's car was pulling over.

"You'd better have a good reason for getting me out of the house tonight!" she said, getting into the car.

"That's the famous Babish fighting spirit!"

"I've been here for three months and you want to go out the night before I have my final presentation. And I have plane tickets for Hawaii tomorrow evening."

Ellie felt guilty for ignoring her friend throughout her unusual stay in Baltimore, but if they had met up earlier, Michelle would certainly have found out about John. Michelle Babish worked in advertising and was quite good at making people trust her. Ellie knew that one girls' night out was all her old friend would need to make her feel safe and talk about what was going on in her life. And John Hoynes was the most interesting thing that was going on in Ellie's life.

She decided to avoid the guilt trip.

"Trial honeymoon?" she asked.

"Ellie!"

"Come on, you've been dating for two years. It's a legitimate supposition."

"Actually, I think we're ready for the big step, but Alex is worried about dad's reaction."

"The man with four divorces is your biggest problem?"

"You know, he may well be the only man in America who would be happier to see his daughter live in sin with a man, rather than get married. He got a little marriage-paranoid after his third divorce."

They got out of the car and entered the bar.

"I always liked your father. But I know what you mean. I remember how freaked out my dad was when Liz got engaged. And he liked Doug!" Ellie said, after their Margaritas had arrived.

"Aha! A clue! This is the reason why you don't ever get serious about a guy? You're afraid of daddy's reaction?"

"You want to know what I do at the end of every first date I've had for the past six years? I imagine taking the guy to Camp David to meet my family – just the two of us and them and half the secret service. None of them made me think that I could do that."

"You poor thing! Is this why we're in a bar on a Thursday night? You're having a Sex and the City issue?"

"Yes! I'm almost thirty. Sometimes I'm sorry that Zoey's already got Charlie. It would be so refreshing to date someone dad likes. I wonder if Josh Lyman is dating anyone."

"Ellie, I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't date anyone your parents liked. I think you'd rather dump a guy if you thought your parents liked him."

"You make me sound so dysfunctional!"

"You are. And that's a good thing. Your family has this Brady Bunch feel sometimes. You're the Generation X element."

"I don't think anyone else would compare the Bartlets with the Bradys, but you come from a very broken home. Your parents are doing exemplary work keeping the divorce rate up."

"Are you going to start telling me about this guy or do I have to treat you like a hostile witness? Daddy taught me how to do that!" Michelle threatened her.

"It's… complicated. Almost impossible. It's weird that I even like him."

"What's wrong with him?"

"Everything," Ellie laughed, "and nothing."

"That's intriguing. Give me some details!"

"No. Let's just forget all about it. It's way too messy."

"You're blushing! I don't think I've ever known you to like someone so much. Maybe you should take the risk."

"No, I really shouldn't. Trust me. It's better if I don't do anything."

"I think you should seduce him."

This was the typical sort of suggestion that came from Michelle's uninhibited reasoning. Ellie shivered at the mere thought of seducing John Hoynes, but concealed the depth of her reaction.

"I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. You know damn well I could never do that. Let's just finish our drinks."

"If the guy is off limits, try someone else. Don't look now, but there's a striking young man at the bar who hasn't stopped looking at you since we came in."

"Maybe he recognized me."

"It's not that sort of look, Ellie. Trust me. Look! He's going to the bathroom. Isn't he gorgeous?"

Ellie had to admit it. He was rather handsome.

"I'm going to leave now and when he comes back he'll see you alone, he'll come over, and you're going to have a very nice and much needed ego-boosting conversation. I'll talk to your agent on my way out and tell him to give you some privacy"

"This must be the nicest way I've ever been left alone in a bar."

"Is there a yes somewhere in there?"

"Yes, all right, go get ready for your meeting in the morning and honeymoon in the evening."

"I'm doing you a favor, don't pout!"

Ellie watched her friend leave, then ordered another Margarita and asked for the check. She was sprinkling salt on her hand when her admirer came back. He caught her glance and Ellie didn't look away. She licked the salt and tossed down her drink, holding the stranger's gaze. He walked intently towards her and Ellie smiled, thinking that she had the courage to let him approach her only because a well-trained secret service agent was five feet away.

Just as Michelle had predicted, the stranger came to her table. He introduced himself as Mike Kellerman and Ellie felt a little silly not giving her family name, but she was in no mood to be a First Daughter.

The three Margaritas she had had that evening had an enormous effect on her natural shyness. She discovered that flirting wasn't as difficult as she had grown to believe. They hit a bit of a dark spot when Ellie asked him about his job. It turned out that Kellerman was a homicide detective in the Baltimore Police Department and he had recently dealt with a disturbing case that had gotten to him even after his years of experience. She changed the subject with surprising dexterity.

Ellie slipped discreetly into the role of the listener, trying to understand what she wanted from that evening. She had left the house to avoid thinking about Hoynes and Helen Baldwin's revelations regarding him. She regretted kissing him and she hated that she had liked it so much. Until she had read Helen's book, Ellie had been sure that her relationship with John was special. She knew about his infidelities, but she had talked herself into believing that their friendship was different, that she wasn't just another woman in his long line of conquests. Reading that John had kissed Helen for the fist time in the same room where he had engaged her in their first conversation as friends made her question the very nature of their relationship. To read that their first kiss had followed their first dance, just as it had happened for her, had been too much to bear. She did not want to be a replacement. She did not want to be second best in his life. She could not be a substitute for his wife or for Helen Baldwin. When she articulated this thought, Ellie realized for the first time on her part that John was not a surrogate for Leo, or for her father. She had been falling in love with him for months.

Outwardly, Ellie laughed at Mike's joke. She wished they had met a few months earlier.

It was drawing close to midnight when Ellie decided to leave. The memory of John and the image of him kissing Helen had haunted her all through this unexpected date. She wanted revenge against the pain of his betrayal. She knew it was unreasonable to feel betrayed for something that had happened before they had even met, but that didn't make it any easier to bear. She also needed to level the terrain of her soul after the earthquake provoked by John's kiss.

As Mike walked her to her car, Ellie decided she would kiss him. She stopped and looked into his eyes. He was not as tall as John, but Ellie noticed the same shade of despondency in his eyes. She moved her palm in a long, slow, sensual caress over his arm, his shoulder, and his neck, settling in his hair. She pulled his head down toward her lips. Mike leaned avidly into the kiss.

When his tongue touched her lips, Ellie's first reaction was to pull away. She resisted the urge to run. Instead, she opened her mouth, allowing him entrance. She liked his patient exploration, but most of all, she savored the taste of whisky, a taste that could not remind her of the abstinent John Hoynes.

The kiss fell short of perfection because of a shadow. John's absence was as intense as his presence had been the night before.

"That was an amazing kiss," she said.

Ellie sighed, wishing she were free to pursue an affair with him. She relished the momentary comfort of his embrace, while understanding that she could not connect with another man until her she had sorted out her feelings for John. He seemed to guess her thoughts and held her tighter for a moment before he let go.

"Why do I get the feeling that this is the last time I'm going to see you?" he asked.

Ellie smiled, grateful as much for his understanding as for his mere presence.

"You very perceptive. You should be a detective," she joked.

Mike smiled back and brought her hand to his lips.

"It was a pleasure to meet you."

"It certainly was, Detective Kellerman."


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A/N

When CJ needed 24 hours protection, her escort was composed of several agents who worked in shifts. I assume the First Daughters also have permanent escort, so she has more than one agent assigned to her. I'm going to use two names from now on: Jackson (Delroy Lindo) and O'Reilly (Holly Hunter)– they were two angels with the mission to make Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor to fall in love in A Life Less Ordinary)