"It is not titles that honour men, but men who do honour to titles."

"Welcome to the White House, Colonel Caldwell. I'm Lloyd Shepherd, the President's Chief of Staff."

"Thank you, sir." The Air Force officer looked around the room with mild interest; comfortable verging on plush, an attractive secretary outside, a view across lawns and trees and hedges. It was the office of a successful and powerful man. "I remember you from the plane. How are you?"

Theatrically, Shepherd groaned. "Don't ask. I shouldn't even be here; they want to retire me on medical grounds, but the President won't let me go. Says he feels lucky with me around. Take a load off," he added, waving a hand towards two small couches flanking a large coffee table. "I've got some coffee coming – oh, thank you, Jess," he added, as a young woman entered and set a tray down.

Caldwell sat. When the woman had checked the tray and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her, Shepherd took up station on the opposite couch and poured.

"What about you? How's the shoulder?"

Unconsciously Caldwell put his right hand up to his left shoulder. "Much better, sir, thank you. Aches a little in wet weather."

"Probably always will," Shepherd told him morosely, handing him a cup. "The price of getting old, Caldwell."

"Yes, sir. But that's got to be better than the alternative."

As they had both come remarkably close to the alternative only a few months previously the casual remark held a particular resonance for them. It was digested in silence for several moments while each man reflected briefly on the narrowness of the dividing line between life and death, and on those who had crossed it on that occasion.

"How're you coping with the publicity?"

Caldwell sighed, pushing back in his seat and taking a contemplative sip from the coffee cup. "I've been lucky," he said. "So far I've managed to keep a low profile. I have a feeling the President's people have been sheltering me, and if I knew who they were I'd like to thank them."

"You're welcome," Shepherd grinned, signaling to him to continue.

Not particularly surprised to learn that Shepherd had been responsible for his gentle handling by the media, Caldwell began to relax. "Most reporters want to focus on Gibbs and the last few minutes before the President and I left the plane," he went on. "When they find out I can't tell them anything – that I don't remember it – they get disappointed and go away to look for another angle. I think they also find me deeply uninteresting," he laughed. "At least, I hope so."

"So you really prefer staying out of the limelight?" Shepherd summarized. "You'd be looking for an assignment out of the public eye? Only the President has asked me to talk to you about the possibility of coming to work with us here in the White House. You know you could pretty well write your own ticket anywhere in the service after the way you handled yourself back there on the plane, but if you're ready for a change of pace there's a job in my department the President thinks you'd be ideal for. In fact he's refused to even consider appointing anyone else unless you turn it down."

"Oh." The thought obviously came as something of a surprise. Caldwell put his cup back down on the table with hands that suddenly were not quite as steady as they had been, and looked across at Shepherd with a troubled expression in his pale blue eyes. "I'm flattered," he said, "but I don't understand why the President would… would… "

Seeing him floundering, Shepherd stepped in smoothly to bail him out. "You took a bullet for Jim Marshall," he said, softly. "You also saved his life – he says on at least three separate occasions. You also got thirty two people safely off the plane with that idea of yours about the refueling. That means there are at least thirty three families in this country, including the First Family, who would like to see you rewarded – not to mention a few million more around the world who are grateful to you for keeping our President alive. I don't want to hear about it being your job, Caldwell; you did more than just your job."

The officer did not argue the point. "So did you, sir."

"Uh-huh. I've known Jim nearly fifteen years and I know where all his bodies are buried," Shepherd said. "I'm Alice's godfather. You walked in at the last minute because Ted Flanagan was puking his guts in some Moscow hotel bathroom and the doctors decided he shouldn't fly. Ted's a good man, but he couldn't have saved those people. You did that. Would the President be the man you thought was worth saving if he didn't want to find some way of thanking you?"

Put like that, Caldwell had no option but to concede the point. "No, sir, he wouldn't."

"Well, maybe you should give the idea some consideration – but I should warn you, the job we've got in mind for you is a pretty thankless load of crap. You'd be part military adviser, part nanny, part bullet catcher and part gopher. Whatever the President needs, whether it's someone to open a door or carry a bag, or a buddy to watch a football game with, that's what you'd do. There's no proper title, no defined role, no career structure – and anybody who gets that close to the President can regard himself as having a target painted on his back. You've got enemies here already; you'll have a few more if you take the job."

"Enemies?"

"People jealous of your access to the President. Secretary Dean in particular is very much opposed to the idea of bringing you in. He feels that if the President wants to have an Air Force officer around there are half a dozen better candidates – but Jim wants you, and he's putting his foot down with a firm hand," Shepherd ended wryly. "Interested?"

"Yes."

The answer came so quickly Shepherd was taken aback.

"What, no questions? Hours? Pay? Health plan?" An ironic eyebrow quirked in Caldwell's direction was met with a completely deadpan expression. "All right, all right, I should have known you wouldn't have any trouble making up your mind. Let me just take you through a few more formalities, though, Caldwell. Humor the old man, okay?"

Abjuring the obvious comment – that Shepherd was not much different from himself in age – Caldwell nodded and returned his attention to his coffee.

"Okay," Shepherd repeated. "So, your file lists you as Charles Ryan Caldwell. What do your friends call you? Charlie?"

"Ryan." More relaxed now, Caldwell leaned back and watched Shepherd intently. "Sometimes Ry," he added.

"Uh-huh." Shepherd had taken a notebook from a pocket and was making scribbled notes. "Ryan. Not married. Why?"

Caldwell's eyebrows lifted at the bluntness of the question, but he answered without hesitation. "The usual reason, sir."

"Career?"

"No, sir. I'm gay."

The only response from across the room was a slow nodding of the head. "Okay," Shepherd said. "We knew that. The President knew it. Doesn't make an atom of difference around here."

"I know that, sir. The President's views on gays in the military are well known. As long as this isn't some kind of affirmative-action appointment?"

"Oh, it's an affirmative-action thing all right," Shepherd told him blandly. "The President's starting a new program to recruit all single Air Force officers named Caldwell who just happened to save his life recently. He feels they're a misunderstood minority. Got a partner at the moment? Anyone we need to make background checks on?"

"No, sir." Chastened, Caldwell let the matter drop. "My last real relationship ended about two years ago. And I don't… " a tactful pause, then, "I don't visit clubs or engage in casual sex."

"You don't hate women, do you?" The change of direction was somewhat abrupt and Caldwell was momentarily at a loss.

"No, sir, not at all. Why would you ask that?"

Shepherd chuckled easily, not remotely embarrassed or disconcerted by the subject. "As you've probably heard, the Vice President's single again. She's divorcing the useless bastard at long last, so from time to time she may need an escort to official functions. The President feels you'd be the perfect non-threatening choice."

A light, ironic laugh. "I appreciate his confidence, Mr. Shepherd. I'd be proud to escort the Vice President at any time."

"Okay. These are all the right answers, Caldwell, but I'm sure you know that. Now the biggie. What's your feeling about the President himself?"

"Feeling?" The question was so massive in its scope that for a moment Caldwell did not know where to begin answering. There hadn't been a day in the past few months that he hadn't thought about James Marshall; still, whenever he closed his eyes, scenes from a nightmare flashed before him; Marshall clinging by his fingertips to the jump ramp while Caldwell begged for his life; Marshall erupting into the plane's briefing room with one of the terrorists at gunpoint; Marshall wounded and humiliated but still fighting back. "I don't know, sir. I barely know him. We worked together."

"Seamlessly," Shepherd added. "As if you'd done it all your lives."

"Sir, I… "

"I was there, Caldwell, remember? I was in and out of consciousness for a while, but I remember you and the President taking over and flying the plane. You were what he needed back then. I think you could be again. Wouldn't you like the chance to find out?"

"Yes, sir, I would."

"Good." Shepherd cleared his throat abruptly. "If you have no other plans for this evening the President would like you to have dinner with him and watch a movie, just the two of you. He's tired, he just wants to kick back and relax with someone he can talk to. He's been short of a buddy since Jack Doherty was murdered and he wants you for the job. If you've finished your coffee, I can take you up there now. See how you get on this evening and give me your final decision in the morning."

"I… yes, thank you, Mr. Shepherd. I have a free evening." A nervous laugh, and Caldwell ran a hand down the front of his uniform jacket. "As long as the President doesn't mind the way I'm dressed."

"He'll forgive you," Shepherd said. "Come on, now, before you change your mind." He led the way to the door – not the outer one, through which Caldwell had arrived, but an inner door which gave onto another corridor in a less public part of the house. "For what it's worth, Caldwell, I think you and Jim Marshall will make a great team. You worked well together six months ago, and I think you can again. I wasn't sure when you walked in here, but after talking to you I am. Believe me, this is going to work."

Up a staircase, along a corridor with a couple of bewildering twists, past two sets of Secret Service agents who nodded briskly at Shepherd, they came to a plain white-painted door in a quiet dead-end corridor. Shepherd knocked, then opened the door without waiting for a reply.

"Jim? I've brought Ryan Caldwell."

A figure unfolded itself from a comfortable couch in what was apparently an extremely informal sitting room, and advanced towards them. James Hall Marshall, fifty-six years of age, just entering his second term as President, was a tall and vigorous man with brown hair beginning to be flecked with grey, hazel eyes, and the firm mouth and stubborn jawline of a man used to having his own way. He held out a hand by way of greeting.

"Caldwell? Come on in."

"Good evening, Mr. President." Caldwell took the handshake casually, smiled at Marshall's evident awkwardness, and was not really surprised when the grip seemed slightly prolonged and firmer than formality demanded.

"Good to see you again. I'm sorry I couldn't get to the hospital, the campaign kept me pretty busy."

"I understand, sir. Congratulations on your re-election."

"Thanks. You staying for a beer, Shep?"

"I don't think so, Mr. President. If you don't need me any more, I'd like to be getting home. Jeannie's got people coming over to dinner."

"Sure, go ahead. See you in the morning."

"Okay. Good night." Just as if he was a neighbor calling by briefly to do a good deed and just as swift to depart, Lloyd Shepherd disappeared around the door again and left the two men alone together in the room.

"He's a good man," Marshall observed, absently. "I've ordered sandwiches," he said. "They'll be here soon. There's beer in the fridge, and a pile of movies I haven't seen. Pick any one that strikes you, it doesn't much matter. Oh, and make yourself comfortable. Take your jacket off, loosen your tie, whatever."

There was an emptiness behind the hospitable words, however, as though Marshall was just repeating what he knew to be the correct greeting without having any real conception of what it meant. He might as well have been speaking Chinese.

Caldwell discarded his jacket, draping it over the back of a small chair, and hauled his tie low enough to unfasten the top button of his shirt. Marshall himself was in the remnant of a business suit, shirt open at the collar, tie askew, sleeves rolled almost unrecognizably. He had abandoned his shoes somewhere and padded about the carpet in black socks.

"Thank you for the invitation, Mr. President," Caldwell said, his tone soothing. "The job offer, and this evening."

"If you take the job, there'll be plenty of evenings." Marshall had helped himself to a beer – apparently not his first of the evening, Caldwell noted – and slumped down on the old, overstuffed couch. It was a shabby room, deliberately downbeat and friendly after the formal splendor of some of the White House apartments. It was the kind of room a man would retreat to when he was too tired to string two coherent thoughts together and only wanted to drowse in front of some familiar TV show. "Whenever I'm not at some dinner or working my way through a stack of papers, I hide in here. This is where I come to remind myself what it's like to be a regular husband and father. The place I bring my friends."

"Thank you, sir."

"Uh-huh. You swim?"

"Yes, sir. Or at least, I used to. I haven't, for a while."

"I like to go swimming. I'd want you to go with me."

"Yes, sir." Momentarily Caldwell considered the extra weight he was carrying, then discarded vanity altogether. "I'd be happy to."

"What about other sports? You play golf?"

"No, Mr. President."

"Ah. Squash?"

"Badly."

"You'll get better. Tennis?"

"Yes."

"Good. My daughter likes to play, and I don't always have the time to play with her. I'd really appreciate it if you encouraged her as much as you can."

Caldwell nodded. "I'll do my best."

"You watch sports? Like comedies? Science fiction? What?"

"Most sport. I'm not into NASCAR – or science fiction – but I'll watch a good comedy any day."

"Are we going to get on well, do you think?" Marshall asked, bluntly.

"I don't see why not, Mr. President. We always did in the past."

"Sit down." A wave of the hand indicated the unoccupied half of the couch. Caldwell plunked himself down in the space beside Marshall and looked squarely into the man's lined face. "Colonel Caldwell," Marshall mused. "Are you a little nervous? Reminding yourself who I am and what I do for a living?"

"A little, Mr. President," Caldwell conceded.

"All right. Good answer. Shut your eyes a moment." Marshall waited until Caldwell had obeyed, and then said softly, "You're at ten thousand feet in the co-pilot's seat of a 747, sitting beside a man who never flew anything bigger than a Huey. You're in disputed territory, there are six enemy MiGs on the radar and you've just lost countermeasures. Are you nervous now?" The scenario was horribly familiar; they had been through precisely that situation with the 747 designated Air Force One. They had lost the plane in the end, but had brought themselves and a good many other people safely out of a situation which could so easily have been a thousand times worse.

"No, sir."

"'President' is just a job, you know, like high school principal or sanitation engineer. If it helps any, just think of me as a guy who used to be a pilot. You can open your eyes if you like."

Caldwell obeyed, and for the first time since the plane he felt the full intensity of James Marshall's gaze. It was quickly veiled, but for a brief moment they had been back there in the cockpit of that crippled giant sharing the danger and the challenge on an equal basis.

"'The rank is but the guinea's stamp'," Caldwell quoted. The proud but wounded look he received in return told him he had hit the nail on the head. "I'll try, Mr. President."

"Give yourself time. You don't get to be comfortable with a person all at once unless there's a powerful reason. We know where we stand with one another in a pressure situation, but I think we'll have to learn from scratch how to be friends. One step at a time, Caldwell. Ryan."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You want to choose a movie?"

Reaching forward, Caldwell shuffled through the pile. "How about this one?"

Marshall scrutinized the box and shrugged. "Okay." He snapped the tape into the player, punched buttons on the remote control, and slumped back onto the couch. As the screen cleared and the opening sequence of the film began, Caldwell adjusted his position on the couch and turned his head fractionally to sneak a quick glance at the man beside him. Marshall looked tired, desperately tired, and haunted to within an inch of his life, but his face had relaxed and his body language was already looser and more familiar than when Caldwell had first entered the room, as though he had only held himself together for one massive effort and now he could let go. Just like on the plane when he had managed so much more alone than any man should ever be asked to do, he had found renewed energy and greater strength of purpose simply by having a companion who could match him and stay with him and be everywhere he was needed. It was as though Caldwell was a catalyst, and his presence created a chemical reaction enabling James Marshall to give of his very best. As if, even, without the presence of Caldwell, James Marshall was only half himself.

"There must be a con like me in every prison in America," the voice on the screen said as a uniformed waiter came in quietly and set a tray of sandwiches down on the coffee table. "I'm the guy who can get it for you."

* * *

An hour and a half later, by which time Andy Dufresne was advising his friend Red to 'get busy living or get busy dying', the tray of sandwiches had suffered serious depredations and Marshall, having consumed another two beers, had dropped back into the accommodating corner of the couch and closed his eyes. Caldwell had waited several minutes to see whether there was any possibility of further conversation, but in the end he had grabbed the remote and turned the sound down so that it was only just audible and done his best to follow the film with the quiet rhythm of Marshall's breathing providing a reassuring underscore.

In all their previous dealings Marshall had been so dynamic, so physically assertive, that it came as something of a surprise to realize that he was as capable of falling asleep in front of the TV as anyone else. It was not a difficult decision not to wake him, but as the evening drew on and Caldwell began to realize that he didn't know where the nearest bathroom was, and that he was effectively marooned in the middle of a house he knew nothing about and had no idea how to find his way out, he started to wish that Marshall would wake by himself. Not that this was an unfamiliar sensation; being in hostile territory with only James Marshall to cling to seemed so right that it was a long time before Caldwell realized how much he had missed it. When he did, it sent him off into an uncomfortable realm of speculation about Marshall and his own place in the man's life.

He had no place in the man's life, that was the simple answer. Or, at least, he should not have had. So why was he here, lounging on a battered old couch with the most powerful man in the world, watching Marshall sleep? He did not dare to ask himself what it was about this whole scenario that felt so right and so easy. With any other man in the known universe he would have had an answer right away, but this was James Marshall; just a guy who used to be a pilot, certainly, but one who was carrying a massive burden of cultural and emotional baggage.

James Marshall was President of the United States. One simply did not even begin to think of the President of the United States in the way he was afraid he was thinking about James Marshall. Not if one wanted to stay sane, anyway. But in the closing few minutes of the film Marshall's eyes opened and he found Caldwell looking at him, and the grin that spread across his tired face and lighted his eyes was so relaxed and warm and all-embracing that Caldwell could not help himself; he grinned back, and for a long and uncomprehending moment they just lounged there, smiling insanely into one another's eyes from a distance of three or four feet apart, not speaking, just appreciating. It was comfortable, being together. Caldwell did not know how it was possible to be comfortable draped across a couch beside a man he hardly knew, and who could order the life or death of millions if he had a mind to it, but he looked at the warm pleasure in Marshall's grin and knew that it was the same for him too.

"I guess I'd better let you get home," Marshall said, breaking away and getting to his feet. "I'll have to catch the end of that film some other time. Are you going to take the job?"

"Yes." No prevarication or qualification. Caldwell was on his feet now, too, his eyeline a little lower than the President's. They both looked thoroughly disreputable and untidy, and Marshall still had the remains of his now half-sheepish grin.

"I'll get Lloyd Shepherd to call you in the morning," he said. "Pack a bag, we'll find you a room somewhere here. I'll need you to be around most of the time. Shep will fill you in on the details, but make arrangements for your pets and houseplants to be taken care of. It could be a long time before you see your place again."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you for this evening," Marshall added, formally, as if thanking an escort for a date. "I haven't slept as well as that in a while. You've made a great start."

"Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for dinner."

Marshall chuckled. "We can do better than beer and sandwiches," he said. "Well, you'll find out. It's just nice to do something ordinary for a change – isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, it is." Caldwell had picked up his jacket and shrugged into it, and to his astonishment found that he was adjusting his tie whilst speaking to the President. He stopped only when he realized that Marshall was offering him another handshake, warmer than the first, which he took with alacrity.

"I'll get someone to show you out," Marshall said. "You'll soon find your way around the place. I'll see you some time tomorrow. Maybe we can go swimming."

"Yes, sir," Caldwell smiled. "I hope so."

As Marshall opened the door and handed him over to the care of a Secret Service agent, Caldwell glanced back and smiled over his shoulder. He was leaving behind a shambling figure with rumpled hair and no shoes, who shuffled about in the untidy sitting room returning 'The Shawshank Redemption' to its box and picking at a dried-up sandwich snatched from the littered table, and his heart was filled with an extraordinary fondness for the man.

Well, he wouldn't be the only one. A lot of people were fond of Marshall. A lot of people loved him. Very few of those, however, had known the privilege of watching him wake up and seen that magnificent, confident smile – and very few of them, he supposed, were unattached gay men in the President's own age bracket and with many of the same interests. If he wasn't careful he was going to find himself falling in love with James Marshall – assuming he hadn't already – and that was going to leave him in far greater danger than any mere half dozen MiGs in an enemy sky.

The trouble was, as far as this particular man was concerned, Ryan Caldwell knew he was completely without countermeasures of any kind. The damage was probably going to be phenomenal, and there was nothing whatsoever he could do but sit tight and wait for the explosion. It was not a comforting thought, but on the other hand he had Andy Dufresne's sensible maxim spinning around in his head and he thought that for the time being at least he might as well follow it.

"Get busy living, or get busy dying."

Living, even alongside President James Marshall, had to be a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

* * *

The next few weeks were confusing, to say the least. Renewing his brief acquaintance with Grace and Alice Marshall, the President's wife and daughter, Caldwell found himself being thrown more and more into the company of Alice until he was tempted to wonder whether he was just a very highly-paid baby-sitter. On the other hand she was an intelligent child who relished the fact that he always told her the truth, a tactic her family seemed to approve. He played tennis with her, and on two or three early morning occasions escorted her to a riding school well out of town and hacked several miles across country with her before breakfast.

He also had one day at the side of the Vice President, traveling to open a school and take lunch at a retirement home and returning by way of a new hospital wing. The day started uncomfortably, but after two hours sitting side by side in the limousine they had begun to discover a shared sense of humor; Kathryn Bennett was a lively and decisive woman, and as soon as they began to relax in one another's company it was apparent that they would have no difficulty becoming friends. She even said that she looked forward to spending more time with him, a concept which frankly astonished him.

With the President, however, there was very little awkwardness right from the start. Lloyd Shepherd's telephone call confirming his appointment had included instructions to be at the White House by three that afternoon and bring whatever he usually wore to go swimming. He'd turned up to find the President just leaving a meeting late and with only fifty-five minutes to spare before the next one, and had been hustled into an elevator and down to the basement pool and sauna complex before he had time to draw breath. The Secret Service escort remained outside the door of what appeared to be an ordinary locker room set up with a bank of standard gym lockers and benches giving onto a white-tiled room with shower-heads along two sides.

"There's a separate changing room," Marshall muttered, ripping off his jacket and hanging it on a hook, "but I can't be bothered. I usually change in here. Bother you?"

"No sir." Being in the military communal facilities had never troubled Caldwell in the slightest; even changing and showering next to a senior officer held no terrors. He merely shucked out of his clothes and into black shorts, ducked his head briefly under a permanently-running shower and lifted his gaze in time to hear Marshall call out 'this way'.

"They keep it clear for me for a couple of hours every afternoon," the President explained. "I don't always manage to get down here, but… " He shrugged once, then his whole body convulsed and he sprang easily into the water, a shallow dive which took him halfway up the pool before he surfaced. "Race?" he asked.

"No contest." Caldwell managed the dive with an elegance that almost matched the President's, but when Marshall cut away from him with an easy, relaxed stroke he found that he was struggling to keep up. After two lengths he was half a length down and had to pause for breath, getting his feet underneath him with difficulty. "Out of condition," he gasped.

"Huh. Getting a bullet through your shoulder wouldn't have helped." Marshall approached, pushing dripping hair out of his eyes, and cast an appraising glance over the scarred upper torso. "Ouch," he said. "Now I can see why you were in the hospital all that time. It must hurt like crazy."

"It's not so bad," was the dismissive response. Then, taking advantage of the calm intimacy that seemed to have grown between them, Caldwell said, "Mr. President, could you answer a question for me?"

Caution registered behind the older man's hazel eyes. "Depends," he said, his mouth twisting.

"Sir, I really need to know… The media keep telling me I got you out of the plane on the tether. Did I hit my head or something? Because I don't remember anything from the moment Gibbs turned the gun on you until I woke up in the hospital forty-eight hours later. Just some vague impressions of being transported somewhere on a stretcher and trying to ask how you were."

Marshall looked away, then looked back. There was an uncharacteristically irresolute expression on his face.

"Ryan," he said, with gentle emphasis, "I'm not ready to answer that question yet. I know I owe you an answer, and you'll get it, but you need to give me a little more time. Can you live with that for now?"

"Yes sir, I can."

"You know the whole media circus is focused on me the whole time. They want to know what I had for breakfast and where I buy my underwear. There's stuff about the plane I'm not ready to have made public just yet – no, I don't think you're going to talk to anyone, it isn't that." A wave of the hand forestalled the incipient protest. "Christ, you know I trust you; you've seen that I trust you – with my own life and my family's. But part of the way I'm dealing with this situation is by not discussing it with anyone, not even Grace. I need to manage the way the information is released. Korshunov wasn't working alone, you know. He had backers, friends, political and military masters, allies. We just cut one limb off the octopus; that still leaves seven more, and they're all holding weapons."

In the tranquil atmosphere of the pool, with its subtle hint of background music, gentle lighting and the soothing lap of the water, thoughts of international terrorism seemed completely surreal. Caldwell held the President's gaze for a moment, then let his eyes drop.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You're right. You're never off duty, are you?"

"Not as much as I'd like." The now-familiar one-sided grin returned. "I have to go out of town for a couple of days. Come and watch a movie with me on Friday evening."

"Thank you, Mr. President. I'll do that."

"We'll see if we can't do a little better than pastrami sandwiches," Marshall teased, sinking back into the water and beginning a lazy backstroke to the far end of the pool. "Maybe I'll send out for pizza."

That was how it continued; an hour in the pool, a couple of hours in the sitting room with a videotape and a snack supper, tennis with Alice, coffee with the Vice President, a shopping trip with Mrs. Marshall, calm afternoons with Lloyd Shepherd. Detached from the world, Caldwell accomplished whatever duties were assigned to him and spent his free time making friends on the staff and getting to know his way around the building. The Secret Service already knew who he was before he walked in through the door, and although he didn't find them particularly friendly in the sense of being as open and gossipy as the secretarial staff there was certainly no hostility and from time to time he got a smile and a word of greeting from one or another of them. They became used to him, and he to them.

He noticed that it was always the same two or three men who took turns standing outside the pool complex when he and the President took their afternoon dip. Gradually he learned their names. More gradually still, he made friends. One agent in particular, Agent Patrick Craig – known generally as 'Buzz Lightyear' owing to the size of his chin – seemed to be around more often than the others; he was always a welcome sight on those days when there was no time in the President's schedule for swimming.

Seven and a half weeks after his arrival Caldwell received an invitation to attend, as a guest of the First Family, a small party to celebrate Alice Marshall's thirteenth birthday. After making inquiries of Mrs. Marshall's secretary about an appropriate gift he turned up at the appointed time bearing what seemed to him a highly technical book about dressage ponies together with an obscenely large box of candy and presented them to Alice along with a respectful kiss on the cheek and an expression of good wishes. He looked up from her grinning face to find the President and Mrs. Marshall watching him from a short distance away, approval in both their expressions. He had obviously done something right, but he was very far from sure what it might be.

"Good start," Lloyd Shepherd said, putting a glass of champagne into his hand. The bright room was full of senior staff and their children, some of whom attended school with Alice. The music was a compromise between adult and teenage taste, bland enough for neither side to actively hate it.

"Thanks." It was impossible to keep the puzzled tone out of his voice.

"What? It's so difficult for you to accept that they like you?"

"That anybody does," was the unguarded response. "I mean… "

"You mean, you're just a guy doing a job and you don't expect anybody to notice? You made yourself conspicuous on the plane, Ryan. I don't think you can just creep back into your shell and hide now, even if you wanted to. How's it going with the President?" It was a question he had asked before, but never with the President in the same room. He watched the way Caldwell's eyes sought out the dark-clad figure of Marshall, away on the far side of the room acting the devoted father, before he replied.

"Very well."

"Feel like you've known him for years?"

"Yes."

Shepherd laughed. "Jim has that effect on people. He's an easy guy to be around, once you get past what he does for a living. And he won't always be President. He's got the days counted off until he leaves office. You ask him some time, he'll tell you exactly how many he has left."

"What do you think he'll do then? Retire altogether? Or stay in public life?"

"He'll only be sixty," Shepherd mused. "He's talking about building a house, doing the work himself. Any guy who can hot-wire a 747 with a table knife probably has most of the practical skills he needs. Alice will be in England studying, and Grace is talking about running for office on her own account. She could do it, too. He'd probably want to manage her campaign, but he's going to need other interests. That's a man who doesn't know how to be idle."

Caldwell's brow furrowed. The James Marshall he knew had learned the precious art of enjoying his leisure time; there were evenings in front of the television when they barely spoke six words to one another, slumped at separate ends of the couch snacking on junk food and letting some mindlessly trivial entertainment wash over them.

"Oh, he knows how to relax," he protested, without thinking exactly what he was saying. When he met Shepherd's gaze, he found that the man had a mildly amused expression on his face.

"Fond of him?" Shepherd asked.

"Yes. Aren't you?"

"Always was," the other man conceded. "Just glad to hear you are, too."

"I don't know what to say." Feeling he had been caught out in some guilty revelation, but not sure what it might be, Caldwell gulped champagne awkwardly.

"Don't say a thing," Shepherd advised in a low tone. "The First Lady's on her way over here and I have a feeling she wants to talk to you. Excuse me, I think I'll go get some more finger food."

Opening his mouth to protest, Caldwell just managed to turn his anguished expression into a smile of welcome as Grace Marshall drew close.

"Colonel Caldwell, I'm glad you could make it to our little event," she told him, and he did not for one second doubt her sincerity. "My daughter thinks the world of you, and she loved the gift you gave her. As a matter of fact," drawing him aside conspiratorially, "she's asked me if she can start calling you 'Uncle Ryan'. I said it was up to you."

"Oh." Taken aback, he summoned up as much tact as he could muster and said carefully, "If you and the President don't object… "

"No objection in the world. You've taken good care of her, and Kath Bennett speaks highly of you too. I feel it's time you and I got to know one another a little better. Take a walk with me?"

"Now?"

She indicated the pair of French doors that gave onto a small enclosed rose garden. One or two fond fathers, their lungs aching for the warm comfort of cigarette smoke, had wandered out there already. With a bemused expression on his face, Caldwell allowed her to lead him across the room and out into an unseasonably warm late afternoon.

"You may have a little trouble with Alice," Grace Marshall said gently, drinking in the fresh warm air. "I'm afraid she's got a crush on you. You are the man who saved her daddy's life, after all."

The words made Caldwell feel distinctly uncomfortable. "To be perfectly honest, Mrs. Marshall, I don't think I did half what I'm accused of. It was a very confused situation; we all just did the best we could. The President should take most of the credit."

"I don't know that he sees it that way." Her tone was very soft, and she toyed with the stem and base of her champagne glass. They had paused by an empty fountain and she glanced morosely into its dry depths. "It's been two months since you joined us. I know that, I know it exactly, because for the past two months my husband has been sleeping soundly. He was having nightmares before you came; now, he doesn't have them any more."

"I don't understand."

"Nor do I," she confided. "Or at least, only part of it. It wasn't all the deaths, or nearly getting thrown out of the airplane, or the thought of what might have happened if the plane had crashed anywhere else or with him still on board. He was having repeated nightmares about the tether parting and the two of you falling into the sea. We've discussed it over and over and we both felt that if you were around all the time and he could see you, it might eventually register with his subconscious that the tether held and you both made it to Liberty alive. It seems to have worked," she added, smiling.

"I'm glad." Not knowing what else to say, he fiddled nervously with his almost empty glass. "I don't remember anything about it," he said. "It's all blank, and I can't get the President to discuss it. Now I know why."

"It's a sensitive subject with him," the First Lady told him. "Your memory may come back, but if it doesn't, believe me, it's no loss. Tell me, Ryan, do you think you're going to be happy with us?"

The use of his given name was something of a surprise. Alice's impatience with formality was one thing, but her mother was always scrupulously correct and had made his life a lot easier by adhering to the letter of protocol.

"I don't know when I've been happier," he confessed. "I get to meet interesting people, spend time with you and Alice and sometimes even the President, I have access to the best of everything and I'm getting paid – and all because Colonel Flanagan had food poisoning and I took his place. One bowl of rancid borscht and suddenly I'm living in the White House. The President's not the only one having nightmares, Mrs. Marshall. I wake up screaming because I'm afraid it'll all come to an end."

"Well, I believe it was actually fish stew rather than borscht," she corrected, mildly, "and my name is 'Grace'. This is a family occasion; Jim and I consider you a friend of our family. In fact, I have a favor to ask you. You know that I'm planning to do some volunteer work at a refugee camp next month? Alice will be in Florida with her grandparents and I'd really like you to visit her there if you can."

"Yes. Of course," he nodded, already thinking of the kind of gift he could take down with him. What did you bring a precocious, smitten thirteen year old who already had everything money could buy? Hopefully Grace's secretary would have a few more bright ideas. "I'd be happy to."

"But more than that," Grace Marshall went on regardless, "I want you to take care of my husband for me. He gets lonely when we're away, and that's when he works too hard. He needs someone around to remind him how to have fun. He enjoys those evenings you have together, even when you only watch TV. The world is making more demands on him than ever, Ryan. You need to encourage him to spend a little time being himself."

"If I can, Mrs… Grace."

"Let him beat you at squash," she continued with a wicked grin.

Caldwell chuckled. "That won't be difficult. I haven't managed to take a point off him yet. He's eight years older than me and he's the fittest man I know. I feel like I should be buying exercise tapes and working out in my room or something."

"Jim's always been an over-achiever," Grace Marshall grinned. "Don't let him intimidate you."

"No, ma'am."

Her laughing face stilled. "I'm serious. You're good for him. It's like a weight's lifted off his shoulders since you've been here. He gets something from his relationship with you that he can't get from me, and if… " she paused, then seemed to change tack. "Sometimes a wife can't be everything her husband wants her to be. You have a lot of qualities… attributes… that I lack. Jim needs… He needs a close male friend, and I'm glad he chose you. Just carry on doing whatever it is you're doing, Ryan. I can't tell you how much we all appreciate it."

He shook his head in bewilderment, her words too oblique for immediate comprehension. "Whatever it is," he said softly, "I don't know I'm doing it. Just playing squash and swimming and watching movies seems a strange way of earning a living."

"You can… "

Whatever the First Lady had been about to say was cut off abruptly by the sound of the President's voice. "Caldwell?"

He got to his feet smartly and stepped towards the house. "Sir?"

Marshall was there in the doorway, a drink in one hand and the usual lop-sided smile on his face.

"Quit plotting against me and come and dance with my daughter, will you?" he asked loudly. "I think I've eaten too much birthday cake."

"Yes, Mr. President." Throwing back the last mouthful of champagne Caldwell crossed to where the President held the door open, and stepped through it without apparently noticing that the usual courtesy had been reversed. James Marshall paused long enough to exchange an almost unreadable look with his wife, then turned away and re-entered the party and left her outside, in the winter rose garden, staring at an empty fountain and wondering whether, in wrapping up an unsubtle message with polite euphemism, she had been so subtle that Caldwell had completely failed to understand her.

* * *

For two weeks of the First Lady's absence the routine continued much as before. Then the President and Walter Dean, his Defense Secretary, flew to Madrid for the first of a series of strategic meetings with European premiers. Caldwell took advantage of the opportunity to fit in the promised visit to Alice Marshall and her grandparents, finding Grace's parents to be a sprightly silver-haired couple with a house full of dogs and grandchildren and an open-hearted welcome for visitors. Dragging Alice's regular Secret Service protection along with them – suitably attired – Alice and her 'Uncle Ryan' hit one of the local theme parks and spent more time than he would have liked on white knuckle rides of various descriptions. He stayed for dinner with the assembled family afterwards, took a quiet drink with Alice's grandfather and heard his memories of service in Korea, and then returned to his hotel room for the night. Before lunch the next day he was already back at National, linking up with a White House pool car and driver for the short journey to the building he had already begun to think of as home. Not, he amended, that it could really be home if its guiding spirit was absent; tourists thronged the public rooms, cleaners and caretakers were busy everywhere else, and the secretaries were taking advantage of the hiatus to deep-clean their in-trays and bring outstanding paperwork up to date.

Lloyd Shepherd, turning up for work in the informality of an open-necked shirt and complaining that his secretary seemed to be spring-cleaning, parked himself in the private sitting room and worked there with the windows wide open and a cool breeze blowing through the room. Caldwell found him there on his return from Florida.

"How are you, Ryan? Good trip? How was Alice?"

"She was great." Caldwell helped himself to coffee and sat down in his usual place. "They're a fine couple, the Fenners."

"The finest. The old guy give you some of his war memories?"

"Certainly did. He's had a fascinating life."

"True. Did Alice make you go on that damn Death Ride thing?"

"Yes." A sip of his coffee, and then Caldwell found himself laughing gently. "Wouldn't you think that being aboard the plane was enough excitement for one lifetime?"

"Huh? Well, maybe she was trying to get it out of her system. Or maybe she just feels safer with you around. I know her father does." Shepherd had not really been concentrating on what he was saying. Now he paused in contemplation of the document he had open on his knee and threw an amused look in Caldwell's direction. "I know, bizarre. We have a Medal of Honor winning President who brought down a terrorist cell with his own hands – but who sometimes gets scared. It's why you're here. He looks up and sees you, he knows everything's going to be okay. You just have that effect on him."

"He… " Incautiously Caldwell began to speak, then stopped himself.

"…has the same effect on you?" Shepherd surmised. "I'd noticed." A pause, and then the tone of Shepherd's voice altered subtly and he set aside the papers he was working on. "Ryan, let me tell you something about our President. Something that may surprise you."

"No." Firmly, Caldwell put a lid down on the conversation.

"What?"

"I know what you're going to say, and I don't want to hear it. I was in Vietnam too and I know how people got through out there. It was usually booze or drugs or corruption or sex, and the way you're talking… well, it wasn't booze or drugs or corruption, was it?"

"No. It wasn't."

Caldwell nodded. "He must have been very discreet; I've never heard a whisper against him."

"You mean there weren't any headlines saying Marshall's sympathetic towards gays in the military because he used to be one? No, there weren't. Maybe that's because a lot of his political enemies have closets of their own," Shepherd told him. "I happen to know that since he met Grace he's been exclusively heterosexual, but I also know that if ever the right man came along he might have trouble staying heterosexual. He's a passionate guy. The right pair of blue eyes could be all the temptation he needs."

Shepherd's barely-veiled comments were uttered in the most reasonable of tones, not judgmental in the least – he could have been talking about the weather or the price of pork bellies – but they produced in Caldwell a sickening sense of insecurity as though his ties to this job and this house were being cut one by one. "Are you telling me I should leave?"

"Are you kidding? After all the trouble I went to to get you here? Jeez, Ryan, I know we don't always see eye to eye but I'm not your enemy. Dean's the one you need to watch out for; he'll stab you in the back any chance he gets. But just look how the Marshall and Fenner families are closing in around you and making you part of the set-up. They don't do that unless you're pretty important to them. All of them."

"The President included?"

"The President in particular."

"God. What should I do?"

The question seemed to amuse Shepherd. "Assuming you don't hate the idea of being the great man's plaything, that is? Do what you're doing. If he's going to make a move, he'll make it. Otherwise you have a job and a home and a number of friends here, and you and he get to be around one another in socially acceptable situations. Couldn't that be enough?"

Caldwell nodded, slowly. "Yes. Yes, it could." He paused for a long moment, taking stock of the situation he found himself in, then said, "Mr. Shepherd, did you set out to procure me for the President?"

Shepherd contemplated the choice of words before answering. "I guess that's what I did," he conceded. "First and only time in all the years I've known Jim Marshall that he's asked anything even remotely like it. And you can be sure it was with the full knowledge and approval of his wife. Didn't she tell you that herself?"

"She did. She also said…" Caldwell dredged through his memory and found Grace Marshall's exact words. "'Take care of my husband', 'encourage him to be himself' and 'carry on doing what you're doing'."

"So what do you need, an engraved invitation? No-one's asking you to throw yourself at the man, but can I take it you won't run away screaming like some frightened virgin if he comes on to you? You don't find him repulsive or anything?"

"God, no!" The response was so quick and so heartfelt as to seem to set a seal on the discussion.

"He'd've taken you to Madrid with him," Shepherd went on, "if there'd been any free time at all built into the schedule. As it is, it's all meetings and formalities. He'll be home tomorrow and he'll want to spend time with you, I guarantee it. I don't know if he really understands what he's doing with this," he added, sympathetically, "but he's my friend and I want him to be happy. At the moment, Ryan, you're what he needs to make him happy. I don't have a problem with that. I hope you don't."

"No." Stunned, Caldwell returned his attention to his coffee cup. It was empty, and he had no idea how it came to be in that condition. "No problem," he repeated, hearing his own voice small and distant and wondering whether any of this was really happening or whether he was going completely mad and hallucinating it. Since there was absolutely no way of telling, he decided to wait and see what happened when the President came back. It would either be bad or it would be worse, and whichever it was he would just have to get on and deal with it when the time came.

The first Caldwell knew of the President's return the following afternoon was a call that came through on the internal telephone to the private sitting room.

"Ryan? I'm back."

"Mr. President. How was your trip?"

"Pretty dull. You up for a game of squash?"

"Right now?"

"Yes right now. You have some other engagement?"

"No, sir."

"Meet me down there."

Marshall was already changed and waiting on the squash court by the time Caldwell arrived. He paused to change his shoes before opening the door to the court, and received a downbeat greeting.

"Hey." There was anger, or possibly frustration, in Marshall's expression.

"Hey," Caldwell responded automatically. "Good flight back?"

"A bit uneven," Marshall admitted, "but I slept. One thing I've learned about flying is that however bad you think it is, it can get a hell of a lot worse."

"You mean you can cope with any emergency," Caldwell amended.

"Yeah, that too. I hear you went to see Alice."

"Yes. Mrs. Marshall asked me to."

"I know. I spoke to Alice on the phone. She said Uncle Ryan went on the Death Ride with her three times. Three, Ryan, that's insane!"

"She dared me, Mr. President. What was I supposed to do?"

"Call her bluff, I guess. Which of you went green first?"

"Uh – it was a close run thing. But we were both able to eat dinner afterwards, so there's no harm done."

"You're a brave man. Has it done anything for your squash game?"

"Not a thing, Mr. President," Caldwell admitted cheerfully, and went on to lavish abundant proof on the point over the next half hour.

Afterwards they showered as usual, paying little attention to one another, with no movement that was not essential and perfectly businesslike. Over the weeks it had scarcely seemed important where either one of them stood; sometimes, like today, they were side by side; sometimes there was the whole length of the room between them. All that mattered was that Caldwell had learned to relax and forget that he was naked and the President was naked; they had gradually become comfortable enough around one another that if anyone had seen fit to be surprised at their showering together they would have considered it a bizarre over-reaction.

"Damn, do you have any shampoo?" Marshall asked in an exasperated tone. "I left mine in my locker."

"Uh-huh." Caldwell thrust out a hand holding a green bottle and it was taken from his fingers.

"Thanks." A pause while Marshall soaped his hair and massaged his scalp vigorously. Caldwell was busy trying to get knots out of his shoulder, wheeling his arm around like the sail of a windmill. "Still hurt?"

"Sometimes," the younger man conceded. "Usually when some over-achiever decides to whip my butt at squash."

"Sorry." Marshall ducked his head under the spray, rinsing the shampoo away.

"No, you're not, Mr. President," Caldwell grinned. "You're competitive. You ought to get someone in who can actually play the game; that way it might be more of a challenge for you. I'm no match."

"You're getting better," was the mild comment. "Losing weight, too," Marshall added, approvingly. "Still, next time I want to whip your butt I'll find some way to do it that doesn't involve aggravating that old wound."

"Thank you," Caldwell told him, with a laugh. "I'd appreciate it." But at the same time he winced again, lowering the arm and rubbing the shoulder with his other hand.

Marshall stepped across the space between the two jets and took hold of the other man's shoulders. "Here," he said, unthinkingly, "let me." Without waiting for a response of any kind, assuming that he already had consent for what he did, he began a firm and assured massage of the scarred shoulder. "You still going to physical therapy for this?"

"Yes." The answer was as minimal as it could possibly be.

"Uh-huh." Concentrating on what he was doing, Marshall took absolutely no notice of the increased intimacy of their position. "Well," he said, "it's healed better than I ever thought it would. I really thought Gibbs'd killed you." The remark had a conversational lightness that betrayed the fact that it was almost the first time they'd discussed this.

"I thought he had, too."

"You didn't know me, we'd hardly met, but you took a bullet for me."

Caldwell didn't answer. Nor did he look up. Marshall's fingers went on digging into the wasted muscle, driving out aches and pains accumulated not only during the squash game but also during the months since the hijacking.

"Mr. President, once and for all, will you tell me how I got onto the Hercules?" Caldwell asked, all in a rush.

Marshall sighed. This was one conversation he had not particularly looked forward to having, yet he knew it could not be postponed for ever.

"I put you there," he admitted quietly.

"I guessed that much," was the reply. "How? How did you get me off Air Force One and over to the Hercules with only one tether?"

Marshall tilted his head back in a gesture of surrender. Warm water streamed down over his face and neck. He was standing too close to this man and was too naked, both physically and metaphorically, to be capable of any more dissimulation.

"I had a harness on, and the tether clipped onto my waist," he said, shakily.

"Uh-huh?"

"And then… I just held you… like this." One arm slid slowly and delicately around Caldwell's waist, the other around his back, and he pulled the other man tight against him under the spray of the shower so that no daylight would have been visible between them from collar-bone to knee. In that position Caldwell's head tucked neatly against Marshall's neck, and Marshall's chin came easily to rest on the other man's shoulder.

"All the way?" An unsteadiness had crept into Caldwell's voice. On the ground it would have been a short journey, a mere few seconds, but they had been in mid-air and escaping a crashing plane.

"All the way."

"No wonder you had nightmares about us falling into the sea."

"Grace tell you that?"

"Yes."

Marshall took another deep, ragged breath. "Not us, Ryan. You. I was afraid you'd regain consciousness and try to break away from me. But then maybe if you'd been conscious you could have… I don't know … put your arms around me and held on."

It was a very long way from subtle, but Caldwell got the message loud and clear. His arms went slowly, hesitantly, around the President's body, his hands sliding across Marshall's broad back as he settled into what was now more obviously an embrace. He wondered for a moment whether he had really been expecting this to happen, despite Lloyd Shepherd's warning, and then why he wasn't surprised that it had. Marshall had been in his dreams for months, after all; if he himself had been in Marshall's it seemed only fair.

"Jim?" he asked softly, tentatively, from somewhere near the man's collar-bone.

"Uh-huh?"

"Are you telling me the truth? The tether was clipped to your waist, not mine?"

A deep laugh, which Caldwell felt throughout his whole body. "I was the one with friction burns from the damned thing," Marshall said. "It was attached to me. Promise."

"Good." An almost imperceptible snuggling closer, an almost impossible tightening of the embrace. "I'd hate to think you'd lost your mind completely. It's not just me you're important to."

"I know."

Water still streamed from the spigot above them. The locker room was filled with steam and the clock ticked on mercilessly as time passed, but the President remained absolutely still, merely holding this man in his arms, hardly speaking a word.

"I couldn't have done any of it without you," he said at length. "You're my daughter's favorite person in all the world, did you know that? And my wife… She's very perceptive. I swear if she came home one day and found us sharing a bed she'd turn right around and fix us both breakfast. I know you're gay."

"And I know you're bisexual," Caldwell told him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Grace thinks I should seduce you," was the unexpected response. "So do I. As a matter of fact I like to think I had the idea first," he added, with a chuckle.

"When?"

"What?"

"When did you have the idea?"

"Oh god," Marshall groaned. "You're really going to make me say this, aren't you? Okay. I had you in my arms and I looked down at you and I thought; 'I could be happy like this, just holding him close'."

"On the tether?"

"On the Hercules. I couldn't bear to let you go. They virtually had to break both my arms to get me away from you. That's how Grace and Alice know I care about you. You'd started to mean a lot to me in a very short space of time and I didn't even know your name. The crew had to tell me who you were."

"We were introduced," Caldwell chuckled, "but I could see you weren't really listening. Too much on your mind. You'd just come back from the refugee camp."

"Jack Doherty brought you along and said you'd be taking Ted Flanagan's place. That I remember."

"And fifteen minutes later the hijackers had taken over the plane," Caldwell completed.

"Yeah. Good job Ted wasn't there. He wouldn't have been half as much use in a fight, and I think I'd've had trouble getting my arms around his waist."

"Good. I don't like to think of you doing this with anyone but me."

"Getting territorial?"

"You bet. God, Jim," he whispered, quietly relishing the fact that he was at last calling this man by his own familiar name, "have you thought about what you're risking here?"

"Thought about it?" the President repeated numbly. "Yeah, I've thought about it. But I don't think I can let go of you just yet, so don't ask me to. Some nights I still hear you pleading for my life... feel you holding my hand on the jump ramp. You were all I had. I don't want to forget that."

"I love you," Caldwell told him suddenly, almost without premeditation. "I think I did then, too."

"I know you did. I saw it in your eyes. Do you have any idea how you look at me, Ryan?"

Numbly Caldwell shook his head. "Does it embarrass you?"

"What do you think?" A pause, and then Marshall drew so far back that Caldwell fought to hang on to him, afraid of losing this precious physical contact so soon; afraid that this would prove to have been just one more deluded fantasy about the ultimate in unobtainable men. After a moment, though, Marshall's intention became clear. "I really want to kiss you," he said simply. "Do you mind?"

"Mind? God, Jim, are you crazy? Of course not!" In a thousand daydream scenarios it had never once crossed his mind that Marshall would ask permission to kiss him. Not that he had bought the myth of the strong and dynamic world leader, precisely, but he had been close enough to the man to know that he was anything but indecisive. The mere thought of Marshall needing his permission for anything was almost too bizarre to assimilate.

And then there was no capacity for thought, just awareness of the mouth that touched his very lightly, tentatively, touched almost without touching at all. Skin brushed skin, lips brushed lips; gentle fingertips brushed Caldwell's cheek and he was being kissed properly, deeply, with passion. His body yielded to the sensation, let it happen, let the power of Marshall's personality overwhelm him. He stopped caring that this man was loved by half the world and hated by the other half and that anyone who came into close proximity with him would sooner or later end up the same. He concentrated instead on wanting and loving him with every ounce of strength he possessed, conscious not of what he would be giving up to be with a public figure but of what he would be gaining by living his life alongside a real and flawed human being by the name of Jim Marshall.

"We can't do this here," Marshall said, breaking away, his voice ragged, breathless. His mouth had let go but his arms could not, frozen in position as they had been during the nightmare crossing to Liberty 24. "This is too public. There are plenty of people who are going to have to know, but I'm damned if I want to make an exhibition of myself in a room that doesn't even have a lock. I wasn't planning… " A heartfelt sigh, a light touch of lips to Caldwell's cheek, and then, "We have to let go of each other, Ry."

Incapable of speech, Caldwell nonetheless managed to loosen his grip. He opened his arms and let the other man step away from him and out from under the shower. It was the most difficult thing he had ever been asked to do in his entire life, and in a kind of numbed haze he followed and started absent-mindedly drying himself and looking around for his clothes.

"I want to see you. I want to spend time with you," Marshall was telling him, unsteadily. "God knows what this is or why it's happening, but I know I want to go along and see where it takes us – and I want us to get out of this house. Do you still have an apartment?"

Vaguely Caldwell recollected pleasant, airy rooms he'd been lucky to find but had forsaken almost without a thought when he'd been given the job. He hadn't set foot inside the place in weeks.

"Full of dust and dead houseplants," he replied. Surely Marshall couldn't possibly be contemplating a visit to his apartment? It was untidy, neglected, the haunt of a bachelor Air Force officer with absolutely no talent either for housekeeping or interior design – and he couldn't immediately think of anything more potentially dangerous either to Jim's life or his political career than being caught in flagrante with a man in an unsecured location.

"Where is it?"

"Just off 16th, north of Dupont Circle."

"Safe?"

"It could be, I suppose. Jim, are you seriously thinking…?"

"Why not?" Marshall demanded reasonably. "It sounds perfect. I'll get Buzz's people to check it over as soon as possible. If we're going to do this, it has to be either tomorrow or the day after, before Grace gets back. What do you think?" Almost anxiously, as though there was one chance in a thousand Caldwell might turn him down.

"I'm escorting the Vice President tomorrow," Caldwell told him regretfully. "We'll be out of town all day and we don't get home until the early hours."

"Rejected for my own Vice President?" Marshall teased. "Okay. The day after tomorrow. See Buzz, he'll make all the arrangements. Don't even think about saying 'no', Ryan, we both need this. Don't we?"

"All right, Jim. Whatever you want is fine with me."

"Submissive type, huh?" Marshall asked him, a smile lighting his previously grave expression. "The same in the bedroom?"

"With you around?" Caldwell responded. "Will I get the chance to be anything else?"

Marshall discarded the towel he had been using and began to climb back into his clothes. "That, Colonel Caldwell," he said, smiling, "very much depends on you."

Drowsing on the back seat of the limousine, alongside Vice President Bennett, Caldwell was very nearly asleep after an exhausting bout of dinner and classical music with some high-toned academic types who were a long way out of his league. As Bennett's escort he'd had to make polite conversation which had given him a headache, and he thought he'd probably taken a glass or two of red wine more than he should; the Vice President's Secret Service people had certainly given him odd critical looks from time to time.

It was 1 a.m. and they were fifty miles from home; the roads were clear and their speed good, but he was hating every minute of the journey and just wanted to be back at the house. Bennett wasn't any more comfortable; her attempts to start a conversation were having little success in breaking through his negative mood.

"I hear Grace Marshall will be home in time for the Memorial Day weekend," she said. "I'm told she's flying back by way of Geneva to talk to some of the senior Red Cross people there. She seems to have had a valuable few weeks at the camp."

Caldwell squirmed in his seat. He had done entirely too much sitting down for one day. "I admire her for it," he conceded. "She's a strong woman."

"Yes, she is. She's a lot tougher than I am." Bennett turned to look at him, and smiled one of her tight, tired smiles. "Grace is one of my best friends," she said, although he had known it already. "There isn't much she doesn't tell me. She's talked a lot about the plane, about watching you and Jim together and what you both did. I've known Jim Marshall a long time, and I think I'm beginning to know you, too, Ryan. I see your loyalty to Jim and his to you, and I see the pair of you getting closer all the time. I know I'm not imagining it."

He didn't answer. He didn't know how to.

"This is a President who practices what he preaches," Bennett reminded him. "Grace thinks he could end up falling in love with you."

Caldwell turned away. "I doubt it," he shrugged, staring at the black window and the night passing outside.

"Why not? You think just because he's who he is that he doesn't have the same kind of feelings as everybody else? Do you have any idea how many Presidents have had affairs while they were in office?" She let the question hang for a moment, then answered it herself. "Very nearly all of them."

"I know that," he growled. "But in case you hadn't noticed, Madam Vice President, I'm not exactly Marilyn Monroe!"

"I should hope not," Bennett shrugged. "Poor woman. You don't think Jim Marshall would deal with you as unkindly as Jack Kennedy did with her, surely?"

"No, of course not. But I'm…"

"Older and more cynical? Not as cute in a gown?" Bennett teased. "Lighten up, Ryan. Do you want the man or don't you? And don't try to pretend you don't."

"Kathryn!" he exclaimed in annoyance, "how am I supposed to answer that? It's a closed question."

"'Kathryn!'" she mocked, gently. "You're even starting to sound like him. And you've already answered it a dozen times over. Is it Grace you're worried about? Only I thought she'd made certain you knew you had the green light before she went away."

"I can't talk about this," he said, firmly, hearing in the back of his mind Marshall's assertion that some people would have to know but that he wanted to limit the damage.

"Does he know you love him?" The quietly insistent tone of an agony aunt broke through his limited attempts at defense. He leaned forward, hand over his eyes, and she saw rather than heard his lips form the answer.

"Yes."

"Then he'll move Heaven and Earth to get what he wants," she whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Didn't you learn that on the plane?"

"Yes, of course. But how could I ever imagine that I…"

"…would be what he wanted?" she finished for him. "I understand that." She paused, then started again on a different tack. "Tell me something, Ryan. Tell me what you want out of the relationship. I don't suppose anybody's got around to asking you that yet, have they?"

"Ha!" He gave a cynical little laugh and met her gaze levelly, but she could see hurt in his blue eyes. "No, they haven't. Marriage. A nice split-level three-bedroom in a select neighborhood, two children and a dog. Two cars in the garage, country club membership, a husband who comes home every day at five o'clock and never so much as looks at another Colonel."

Bennett's smile grew warmer. If he was still strong enough to joke about this, there was every chance he could survive without being overwhelmed.

"You, sweetie," she soothed. "Not Marilyn Monroe. What does Ryan Caldwell want?"

He sat back in the seat, looking considerably older than his years. "A man, of course," he conceded, softly. "A guy who used to be a pilot. What I don't want, Kathryn, is a President."

"The President is part of the package," Bennett reminded him. "At least for the next three years. Could you wait until he's out of office?"

"Yes. I could. But not Jim."

"Then you'll just have to take him as he is, job and all," she consoled. "He has made a move, then? I thought he might, while Grace was away."

"Not exactly. He… We discussed it, that's all." He had come so close to saying "He kissed me", wanting everyone to know about it but being afraid to let the knowledge escape him. "We're seeing each other tomorrow."

"All right. I don't need to know the gory details."

"I don't even know if I should do this, Kathryn. I don't want to be the villain of the piece when it all hits the tabloids – which it will, sooner or later."

"If it's Jim's reputation you're worried about, don't," she advised. "At the moment he's so high in the polls he could screw you on public TV without significantly damaging his ratings. And you can't live your life with one eye on the history books, Ryan. You just have to live it as it is." Her tone became softer as she dug into personal experience to try and convince him.

"I was married to Lewis for eighteen years before I became Vice President; the moment we were elected to office, everything changed. He didn't want me to have such a high public profile, he thought I should resign and stay home baking all day. That was when I realized he'd never taken my political ambitions at all seriously. He was constantly expecting me to fail. First he accused me of having an affair with Jim, and then with Grace – neither of which happens to be true, by the way. Then he became violent and attacked Buzz Craig – he worked for me in those days. Finally it was just too painful to have him around any more. People think a politician ought to be married, Ryan, but they never think about the hurt some people inflict on each other in the name of marriage.

"The point is… if you have someone you can trust, and who loves you enough to stick with you through thick and thin, you can't let what other people may or may not think color your judgment. You and Jim Marshall are supposed to be together. If even Grace can see that, why can't you?"

"Because he scares the living shit out of me, Kath," Caldwell told her seriously. "He's so many people I don't know."

"But some of them love you?"

Caldwell did not answer immediately. He had resumed his sightless staring out through dark glass to a dark landscape and was asking himself that very same question and trying to find an honest answer. "I think so," he admitted at length.

Bennett sat back in her seat. "Then hang on in there," she advised. "The only person you need to worry about is Walter Dean; he's never been in favor of relaxing the rules on gays in the military and he likes you about as much as he likes me, and for the same reasons. A strong gay man is an oxymoron as far as Walter's concerned."

"Like 'military intelligence'?"

"Just like. Women and gay men are equal lowest in Walter's estimation, and he despises Jim for having anything to do with either one of us. I don't know about you, Ry, but I get itchy shoulder-blades around the man."

"I know what you mean," Caldwell told her, with a weary sigh as the lights of the city hove into view ahead of them. "We can cope with our enemies all right, but may Heaven protect us from our friends."

* * *

Caldwell had been at his apartment for well over three hours and had looked at his watch something like a thousand times when at last the entryway buzzer sounded and the familiar voice of Agent Craig said, "Pizza." A laconic call an hour earlier informing him that 'we're running late' had done precisely nothing for his nerves; he had hauled out the brandy bottle and swallowed not one but two glasses before carefully setting the rest aside to stir into the sauce.

He had taken trouble in preparing for this evening; he was clean and clipped, scented and perfect, as ready as he had ever been for any date with any man – although he was acutely aware that this was not just any man. He had tried to remind himself that Marshall had the same needs and desires as anyone else he had ever dated, but despite himself he had ended up with the worst case of stage fright of his entire sexual career. He wondered briefly whether Marilyn Monroe had suffered the same thing and decided that, if she had, she had probably had a selection of pills to take the edge off. His solitary forays to the brandy bottle seemed nothing like as exciting – or as effective.

Aware that the President had hardly ever seen him in anything but uniform, he had dressed in a silk shirt of pale turquoise and a pair of chinos the color of sun-whitened bone; he hated new clothes, particularly new civilian clothes, and they itched and he felt vaguely ridiculous in the knowledge that Buzz Craig's masterplan called for Marshall to arrive wearing a miscellaneous assemblage of garments from a variety of dubious sources – but then it was all slightly ridiculous and too staged for his taste, the spontaneity of lust removed and packaged in the way best suited to the exigencies of the service. He would have given himself to the man in the locker room without a second thought; they had been naked and the emotional climate had been just right, and even before Marshall had kissed him it had been perfectly obvious that he could refuse the man nothing. This business of turning his apartment into a movie set for a planned assignation, on the other hand, seemed far too cold-blooded and premeditated and the mere notion of it made him more nervous than ever.

Champagne chilling, flowers everywhere, the apartment sparkling clean and fully swept out in more senses than one – by the Secret Service and by two dedicated ladies from the White House housekeeping staff – the bed made up with brand new sheets, new towels in the bathroom, music playing softly in the background; this place had never seemed like a home to Caldwell, but perhaps that was because there had always been something missing. Every night he had spent in this bed he had spent alone; he had always lacked someone special to share it with. Yet surely he was kidding himself if he was expecting James Hall Marshall, of all men in God's created universe, to be the 'someone special'? Those joking references to Marilyn Monroe he'd exchanged with Bennett had a basis in deep-seated insecurity about this whole relationship; he had accepted the job in the hope that being close to Marshall and seeing him interact with his family might serve to drive out his inappropriate feelings for the President, whereas instead they had been driven in deeper. Grace Marshall and Kathryn Bennett had not helped; both women had seemed not only to realize that he loved Marshall – no mystery to anyone who had ever seen them together, he realized wryly – but to genuinely believe that Marshall either loved or could come to love him.

Aware how much self-deception had played a part in Monroe's tragedy he was obsessive in analyzing and re-analyzing his own feelings, trying to be objective about Marshall and the time they spent together. That worked fine when they were apart, but he had only to set eyes on the man for all the demons to start picking at him again and the neon sign in the back of his skull to light up with the ominous message LOVE THIS MAN AND GET HURT.

The moment he set the phone back on its cradle he was across the room, unlocking the apartment door. Craig was outside on the landing, looking down over the stairs, and a tall figure in a red jacket and matching baseball cap, carrying a pizza box, was hurrying up towards them. It moved past with neither look nor word and dived swiftly through the open doorway. Caldwell had just time to exchange glances with Craig, then he too was inside the apartment and slamming the locks over. When the last one was in place he rested both hands on the door for a long moment, not daring to turn around, trying to get his heart rate to slow to something less likely to warrant a trip to the nearest emergency room.

He heard the pragmatic sounds of undressing and turned to see Marshall throwing the red nylon pizza delivery jacket and grubby baseball cap onto the floor in disgust. He wore the most disreputable blue jeans Caldwell had seen in a long time, sneakers that had once been white and were now a faded city grey, and a port wine colored sweatshirt with the promotional logo of some printing company. He also had beard stubble that effectively changed the shape of his chin and a pair of cheap looking eyeglasses with tinted lenses which disguised the well-known hazel green of his eyes. When he took these off there was a look far back in the green gaze that Caldwell had seen before; somewhere between lust and determination, it had been in Marshall's eyes the moment he had burst into the briefing room with a terrorist hostage and two SMGs and throughout as much of their time on the plane as Caldwell could remember. It was one of the things he had found most unreasonably attractive about the man, the hard stare of a conqueror looking out through windows in the good-natured family man façade.

Marshall did not simply stop at removing his jacket. The sweatshirt went too, shoes were kicked off and forgotten – a thing he had a tendency to do anyway whenever he considered himself off duty – and he advanced on Caldwell bare-chested and in jeans that no self-respecting down-and-out would seriously have considered wearing. Frustration from their aborted encounter in the locker room two days previously, from an additional two days of meetings and decisions and dedications and telephone calls and public smiles, had boiled together under the cool exterior of the consummate public servant; nothing now was going to stand between James Marshall and what he wanted.

"God, I need this," he growled, pulling Caldwell to him without greeting or preliminary but with a ferocious sexuality that left no option but abject surrender. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of Caldwell's shirt and for a moment Caldwell tried to help him; then Marshall's mouth met his and he let go, fingers numbed and useless, the prey abandoning itself to the predator. He gripped the back of Marshall's head and responded with little animal sounds of encouragement as lips and teeth feasted on his willing mouth. If Marshall wanted to tear his throat out and dine on his corpse he would make no murmur of protest; indeed he could not, slammed back against the wall and with the man pressing hard and aroused against him.

"Jesus, Jim!" Half-protest, half admiration, the words were snatched from a brief breath of air when Marshall backed off temporarily, seeking to throw Caldwell's wrecked shirt as far away as he could.

"Ryan, you want me or not?" A darkness in Marshall's eyes. There was a ruthless core to him which Caldwell had recognized at their first meeting. Most of the time he acted like a pussycat, but there were times when the silken fur concealed a tiger – and a saber-tooth at that.

"Of course I do." But nothing in their previous acquaintance had prepared him for this abruptness, this urgency.

"This could get a little rough." An almost apologetic shrug, a last remnant of social conditioning surviving in the maelstrom of emotion.

"I know. That's okay."

It had been the only thing that made sense of the First Lady's remark that he could give her husband something she couldn't. Once he had received Shepherd's confirmation that Marshall was looking for a sexual relationship, Grace's words had fallen into place in his head. After all the violence and the killing and the humiliation and the high-octane experience of taking out the terrorists and bringing a good many of the Air Force One crew home safely, the President still had unfocussed aggression left over that could only be worked out in violent sexual activity – so violent that he didn't want to inflict it on Grace, and had turned instead to the one man who might possibly understand what he wanted.

"Here? Or in the bedroom?"

Marshall's brow creased. "You don't want to know what?"

"Let's just do it, Jim."

Gripping Marshall's wrist, he pulled the man behind him down a short corridor. The bedroom was cool and comfortable, all polished brass and rich ivory bedding like a room in an interior design magazine. It seemed too impossibly perfect to spoil with anything as sweaty and untidy as sex; that would be like defiling the icing on a wedding cake.

Marshall was wrestling with his jeans, shucking them off, discarding his underwear. He was well-preserved for his age, still slim and with creamy skin and a minimum of light brown body hair, muscular and already very aroused. Caldwell climbed out of his chinos, wondering why the hell he had ever thought that it mattered what he wore; he should have realized he wouldn't keep his clothes on long enough for Marshall even to notice them. In moments he too was naked, his own enthusiasm for the project equally evident. There was a space of some six to eight feet between them, as though long-outworn locker room etiquette still prevailed, but Marshall's eyes had no intention of keeping their distance. They raked Caldwell's shorter, slightly chunkier form with its abundant covering of dark blond body hair appreciatively.

"Blond everywhere," he grinned, exaggerating the suggestive tone in his voice. "I like that."

"Not everywhere. You can't see the grey from there."

Marshall stepped nearer, made a re-inspection at close quarters, walking around Caldwell as though he was a stallion he was thinking of buying.

"Grey," he conceded. "I like that too."

"Doesn't seem fair. I have more grey than you do."

"And I'm older and have more responsibilities," Marshall completed. "You look at me in the shower, don't you?"

"I can't keep my eyes off you." An admission that should have been embarrassing, but was not.

"I know." Marshall smiled that twisted smile, half way between modesty and smugness, which was his trademark. "You ready for this?"

"I'm ready. How about you? Do you want a condom? Lubricant? Anything?"

"Only if you do."

A short, meaningful silence, during which Marshall still did not touch him but his eyes bored deep into Caldwell's.

"God, no," Caldwell breathed, softly. "Do whatever you want to do, Jim. However you want to do it."

He hadn't needed to think twice. On the plane there had been no time for wavering or negotiation, and here and now he had no need for either. His mind had been made up a long time ago; the man he had fallen in love with aboard Air Force One would treat him with respect and inflict only as much pain as he needed to; Jim Marshall had demons of his own, demons that had chased him since the sound of gunshots had interrupted their first meeting. Caldwell was not about to deny him anything he needed, from a mild spanking to a forcible fisting – and beyond.

"Turn around. Put your hands on the rail."

They were standing at the foot of the bed and its brass top rail was at roughly the height of Caldwell's lower ribs. He turned, spreading his hands wide on the rail; it felt cool and smooth beneath his fingers, and he was already aware that he was making sweaty fingermarks on its gleaming surface. He drew a deep, sweet breath, and bounced for a second on the balls of his feet like a high diver on a cliff edge psyching himself up for a long dive into the unknown. He thought about his first parachute jump, the long-missed sensation of flying clear and free; the moment before he jumped had been just like this, the world held in perfect suspension and giving him one last chance to change his mind while it whispered; "Are you sure?" and "There's no way back!"

Marshall's hands were on him, gently positioning him, parting his legs further and guiding his feet back so that he was leaning forward over the rail like a suspect being frisked in any one of a thousand cheap cop dramas.

"Don't move. Keep your eyes closed." Marshall lowered his head and kissed the back of Caldwell's neck, while his hands obsessively explored the smooth curves of Caldwell's backside.

"Okay."

"I want to hear you."

"Yesssss." A breathless sibilance, then teeth nipped his flesh and the languid whisper became a yelp of surprise.

"Louder." Brutal fingers twisting an innocent nipple.

"Yes!" This time a shout, part way between affirmation and demand.

Bites to neck and shoulders turned into a line of kisses that continued down his spine, every vertebra given separate attention, and then he heard Marshall drop to his knees on the carpet and felt a wet-mouthed bite deep into the soft flesh of his buttock.

"God, you smell so good," the muffled voice behind him said.

Then a sensation that had once been familiar, the firm parting of his flesh and the first delicate touch of a tongue to the dark place within. Caldwell quivered, fighting the urge to push back against the sweet wet thing that wanted in, letting Marshall lick and suck and probe and responding only with whimpering cries as his dick grew impossibly harder and begged to be touched, weeping and yearning and neglected.

"Christ, Jim, I need…"

But he could not imagine anything else in the world to need when a fluid tongue was sweeping backwards and forwards across his anus, dipping lightly into him, reactivating muscles and nerve endings which had endured two years of celibacy and now sought to swallow the invading flesh.

"Put your hand on my dick," he said. "Fuck me." And for all his years in the military he wasn't sure that he had ever heard such an edge in his own voice before – and these commands issued to the man who was his ultimate superior, his Commander-in-Chief. "God, yes, fuck me hard."

And the hand was on him before he had finished speaking; rough and grimly purposeful, pumping him, tearing at him, forcing him to the brink of orgasm with no trace of finesse whatever while the strong tongue dived into his willing body; between the two oppositional forces he was torn and battered, used, brought unwillingly quickly to one of the most violent climaxes of his life.

"Oh no… oh god… too soon…" he screamed. "No!"

But it was too late; walls collapsed and self-control melted as hand, mouth and mind conspired against him; he came hard and abundantly into Marshall's demanding hand, swearing disappointment and frustration and shamed annoyance at his own pathetic lack of willpower.

"Shit!" His head dropped forward. "Shit shit shit! Jim…"

"Easy." Marshall unwound from him, placing a gentle kiss on his butt, and rose to his feet. His face pushed itself into Caldwell's and the younger man found himself being kissed deeply, searchingly, the tongue that probed his mouth tasting faintly of soap and sweat carried from inside his own body. "That was only the hors-d'oeuvre. I just wanted to make sure I had your full attention. Stay where you are."

With scientific deliberation Marshall spread cooling semen deep between Caldwell's cheeks, soothing it into overheated flesh as though it were some gentle balm, and a moment later, without further preparation, Marshall was in him, deep to the hilt, and Caldwell was easing back and opening up to allow it and encourage it even though he was still throbbing and seething and weeping from his own climax.

"Oh god yes!" A moan of triumph as Marshall sheathed himself deep inside Caldwell's body. "That feels right."

"It is right. Do it, Jim. Do it hard."

Encouragement was scarcely necessary. Marshall drew out, slammed in again, forcing Caldwell's legs further apart, forcing more of his weight on his braced arms and rigid hands. Caldwell cried out as he drove home, then repeated the process with yet greater violence. Teeth tore at the back of Caldwell's neck and at his shoulders and a deep animal growl grew in Marshall's throat.

"Yes… come on… deeper… harder! More, Jim! More!"

"Wanna… hurt you…" Marshall's deep, half-ashamed growl resolved into words; violent words, passionate and frustrated words. "… tear you…"

"Yes. I want you to. You have to. I need it, Jim. Don't make me wait!"

And Marshall slammed him again and his whole body was thrown forward, chest hard against the brass bed rail, and expelled all the air from his body with a gasp and still Marshall rammed him, deeply and roughly, one hand twisting his nipple into a painful contortion that made him scream, the other gripping his half-hard genitals and crushing ruthlessly.

"Yes…" Barely breath to form the word, his body pulled and tortured between invasion and pain as he pushed back towards it, fucking himself against the thrusts with every ounce of energy left to him, letting Marshall's hardness rifle out his body and leave him hollow and ready for more. He became less articulate than ever, his cries dwindling to partial syllables from a lexicon lodged somewhere between distress and demand.

"… 'esss… hard… hard… hard!"

A shout, a gasp close to his ear, and then an almost unbearable moment of tension before it happened, a whole-body shudder and tautness given sudden release, the sweet flooding deep inside him that he had never expected to know again and certainly not with this man, the final surrender of the hard body against his, the last aching throbs and the limp reluctance to leave him.

"Holy fuck." Lacking breath to give his words the emphasis they merited Caldwell barely murmured them. The smell of sex was strong in the room and he stood on unsteady legs, resting his bruised chest against the bed rail, Marshall's hand trapped against the one abused nipple beneath him, Marshall's entire weight against his back as the man remained stunned, his lax fingers still cradling Caldwell's genitals. "Jim, are you all right?"

A swift, silent kiss against his shoulder was the only answer. Caldwell was content to let it go at that for what seemed a very long time, letting breathing slow, letting legs with all the tensile strength of spaghetti gradually regain their stability.

"Oh god, Jim, that was wonderful."

"…hurt you too much?" Marshall rumbled against his cheek, still barely capable of a whole coherent sentence.

"No more than I wanted you to. It's been too long since anybody…" And the last guy had been such a disaster that celibacy had seemed the preferable option, but that was not a story he was ready to burden his lover with just yet.

Lover.

That word applied to Jim Marshall, single-handed savior of the free world.

Bizarre beyond comprehending.

"It was perfect," he said, softly, keenly aware that Marshall had finally fallen off the heterosexuality wagon in the most catastrophic way imaginable. Kid gloves were needed, or even this strongest of strong men would spook and run. "If you can bear to take your hands off me for a minute, I'll get us both a drink."

"Drink?" A stunned, zombie-like response out of some reserve of social conditioning untouched by the recent cataclysm.

"I've got some champagne chilling," Caldwell said, by way of incentive. Then, after another long pause. "Jim, darling, I'm afraid you'll have to let go of me first."

When Caldwell returned from the kitchen carrying a butler's tray with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and two glasses he found Marshall, slightly pink and embarrassed-looking, sitting on the bed.

"There's food as well," he said, setting the tray down in front of his guest and squirming onto the bed beside him. "Are you hungry?"

"Not yet." To Caldwell's astonishment, Marshall half-turned and took him into his arms, kissing him very tenderly and gently. "Ryan, thank you."

"You're entirely welcome." He blinked into the famous green-hazel eyes briefly, and then suddenly found their intensity too much even for him. "Will you pour?"

"Gee, the responsibility," the President laughed. "Well, I'll try."

A few quick twists of the wire cage around the cork, and then a soft exhalation of breath from the neck of the bottle and champagne sparkled into two tall glasses.

"What do we drink to?" Caldwell asked, accepting the glass he was handed.

"The future," Marshall told him. "Any future, even if it's just the rest of the evening."

"All right. The future."

They drank deeply. The wine was cool and refreshing and seemed to reinvigorate them both. Marshall threw a casual arm around Caldwell's shoulders, drawing him down until his head rested against Marshall's neck.

"It's been years since I did that," Marshall said. "Or even wanted to. I've never considered sex with a man since I met Grace, but I wanted you almost as soon as I met you."

Considering the circumstances of their first meeting, Caldwell found this a difficult concept to absorb.

"On the plane?"

"It happened on the plane. I didn't recognize what it was until afterwards."

"On the plane?" Caldwell repeated, incredulous. "When did you ever find time?"

"Same place you did; in the briefing room, when you came up with the idea for getting those people out on parachutes. Before that it was all problems; you were the only person who had any kind of a solution for me. I don't know if it was my heterosexuality that snapped or only my sanity, but dammit I felt so close to you I nearly hugged you!"

"That would have caused a sensation," Caldwell mused. "Did you know you patted my arm? And when we were watching the altimeter you almost put your arm round me. I don't think you realized what you were doing."

"I did that?" Incredulous, Marshall struggled to recall.

"You did that." The pause lengthened. "I wish I'd had the chance to warn you about Gibbs. I knew the hijackers couldn't have got weapons on board and there were only a few people who could have been helping them. I'd worked out it had to be one of your close protection team, but I didn't know your Secret Service people so I didn't know who was dead and who was still alive. And Lloyd Shepherd still wasn't listening to me at that stage."

"I think he's learned his lesson about that," Marshall laughed. "Now he's not afraid for his life and he's got to know you a little better, I think he even likes you." He detached himself from Caldwell's arms, leaned over to refill the two champagne glasses and handed one to the blond man. "You know this is almost like…" he began, then paused abruptly.

"What?"

Marshall faced him. "'Like being a real couple', I was going to say. But we are a real couple, aren't we?"

"Are we?"

"In a way, I guess."

Caldwell looked at the light reflected through his champagne. "You make it sound so simple, but it isn't at all."

"Some of it is. I want you, you want me, we're good together. That's simple."

"I wish it was, Jim. You've left out Grace. Alice. The job."

"You know Grace understands," Marshall protested. "And Alice will, when she's old enough – if she hasn't worked it out for herself already. And the job isn't for ever, Ry. One day I'll be out of the gilded cage. Will you still be around?"

"If you want me to be. You must have realized by now, Jim, I'd have to be dead before I'd ever let you down."

"I'm glad about that," Marshall said softly against his cheek. "Because there's something I want you to do for me."

"Uh-huh? What?"

Purposefully Marshall drained the last of his champagne and set the glass aside on the butler's tray. Then, calmly, although it needed a lot of courage simply to phrase the request, he said, "You didn't think you'd be the only one getting fucked tonight, did you? And I don't want any less than I gave you, Ryan, do you hear me?"

"Hard and fast?" Caldwell asked, for confirmation, staggered that Marshall had even suggested it.

"Uh-huh."

"Without lube?"

"For preference."

"Bed or floor?"

"Your choice."

"Oh god." The very concept of the unlimited power being granted him by a man who himself was used to wielding the ultimate in temporal authority was nearly enough to give Caldwell a nervous breakdown. Instead he felt a powerful twitch at his groin and knew that once again his body had far better instincts than his poor pedestrian mind. His dick ached for the tight places of James Marshall's body, and if that meant condemning his soul to everlasting perdition for committing a bestial act with one who should have been sinless and above reproach then he would take his punishment like a man and consider it well-earned.

He set aside his own champagne glass, ran his lips lightly down the midline of Marshall's body, pressed the man's hips firmly back against the bed, opened his mouth and inhaled him to the root.

An hour later Caldwell was in the kitchen stirring the last of the brandy slowly into the cream sauce when he heard the shower stop. Moments after that a pair of arms slid around his waist from behind, a hand dipped below the rolled top edge of the towel that was all he wore and Marshall's face came to rest in the angle between his neck and shoulder. Caldwell raised a hand to the man's face without turning around.

"You shaved," he whispered.

"Thought you'd prefer it," was the deeply-voiced reply. "What's this?"

"Sauce for the steaks; they're in the microwave."

"I'm impressed."

Carefully Caldwell removed the pan from the heat, then turned and wound his arms around Marshall's neck. "Much better," he said, nuzzling at the now-smooth cheek. "You look like you." He broke free of Marshall's clinging embrace and began to serve the food onto plates, speaking as he worked. "Time's Man of the Year, recognizable in over two hundred and fifty countries."

"Dining informally at the home of a friend," was the equally light response as Marshall seated himself at the table and contemplated the meal in front of him. "'Towels only will be worn'. And only just beginning to recover from some of the best sex of his entire life. I don't want this to be the only time we do this, Ryan," he added, seriously. "I just need to try to figure out exactly where you belong in my life."

"Right in the back of your closet, I imagine," was the response. "I don't think the American people are ready for a gay President just yet, Jim. If the media get hold of this they'll pull you apart like a pack of ravening wolves, no matter what Kath Bennett says about it."

"She's got good instincts," Marshall mused, cutting through his steak. "She told me I'd better not break your heart and I'd hate to get on the wrong side of her, she could well be our next President. You know Walter Dean won't work with her? He'd rather retire than take orders from a woman."

"That makes him a Male Chauvinist Pig," Caldwell declared.

"'Male Chauvinist Pig'? Now there's a phrase I haven't heard in a long time – but that's exactly what he is. Old-fashioned. Problem is, at the moment it's safer to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in."

"President Bennett," Caldwell smiled. "I like the sound of that."

"So do I. You know why?"

"You like the sound of somebody else being President?"

"Anybody else. But I must admit Kath would be my first choice."

This harmless speculation was interrupted by the sudden ringing of the telephone; a telephone that should certainly not be ringing unless in the event of a national catastrophe, since Agent Craig's Secret Service people had an intercept on the line. For a heart-stopping moment the pair looked at one another in horror, then abandoned their meal without further thought and dived in separate directions – Marshall towards the bedroom to find his pants, Caldwell across the kitchen to the phone.

"Caldwell."

"Sir, it's Buzz." Unmistakably it was the voice of Craig at the other end. "I'm sorry, sir, we've got to get him out of there now. I'll be at the door in five minutes."

Caldwell knew better than to waste time asking what or why. "He'll be ready," he replied, putting the phone down. He went into the living room to pick up the pizza delivery uniform. If anyone was watching the apartment but their own people he would just have to hope that a reputation for seducing pizza guys would be the worst consequence. He could imagine that hitting his service record, but it might have been a lot worse.

Marshall emerged from the bedroom fastening his jeans. He dropped into a chair to put his shoes on.

"Any details?" he asked crisply.

"No. Just that you've got to leave."

"Damn, I'm sorry. I thought I'd be here until at least 5 a.m."

"It must be important."

"It had better be," Marshall growled, "or I'm going to have somebody's nuts on toast tomorrow morning." He had wriggled into his sweatshirt and Caldwell was holding the pizza jacket open for him. "See me for breakfast?" One deep, burning kiss, all the more passionate for its urgency, was all that time allowed before a discreet tapping on the door heralded the soft words, "Time to go, sir."

"Go," Caldwell said, his mouth scarcely detached from Marshall's. "I'll be there in the morning."

"I'm going." But Marshall did not move until there was a second respectful tap at the door.

"Now, sir, please."

This time the tone of voice could not be gainsaid, the urgency in it amounting almost to panic, and Marshall tore himself from Caldwell's arms and slammed out of the apartment without a backward glance. The sound of his feet on the stairs was like the accompaniment to every nightmare Caldwell had ever had, and he could not bring himself to look out of the window and see the man hustled into the delivery truck he knew would be waiting. The world had got between himself and Jim Marshall once more, and it would continue to do so for as long as the man remained in high political office.

Not for the first time, Ryan Caldwell was beginning to wish he'd voted for the other side.

* * *

Arriving for work the following morning more than mildly hung-over, his eyeballs feeling as though they had been sandpapered and the rest of his body as if it had been through a typhoon, Caldwell was met by Agent Buzz Craig with an anxious expression on his face.

"Colonel." The most perfunctory greeting. "Mr. Shepherd needs you in the Oval Office right away."

"What happened last night?" Marching briskly along carpeted corridors, Caldwell tried to shake the feeling of impending doom which had settled over him after the previous evening's debacle and which not even copious consumption of the left over alcohol had been able to cure.

"I don't know the precise details, sir, but I do know it wasn't the national emergency we were led to believe – and the President's boiling mad about it. Secretary Dean got here a few minutes ahead of you, Colonel." As he spoke, Craig handed over responsibility for his charge to Lloyd Shepherd, waiting in the office usually occupied by the President's secretarial team. The four women who worked in the office were nowhere to be seen, presumably sent off for an unscheduled coffee break elsewhere in the building.

"Ryan, thank god," Shepherd muttered, stepping across and gripping his arm. "You're probably the only person who can get him to calm down; the way he's shouting they could hear him in Uruguay – and the First Lady's on her way from Andrews. Go in there and do anything you can to take the heat out of the situation."

"What's it about?"

"Last night. Listen."

Caldwell listened for a moment. No matter how thick the door or how good the sound proofing, a Chief Executive in a foul mood and making no attempt to be quiet could be heard over a large part of the White House.

"You have no right to risk your safety like that!" Walter Dean was saying loudly, as if he really thought he could shout down the President.

"This house is not a prison and I am not a criminal," Marshall told him, a bitter edge to his voice. "I earn my free time and how I choose to spend it is my business."

"No it isn't. Not when you risk making this country ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Do you have any idea how some of the Muslim states would react to this if it got out? They hate you already; they'd be burning you in effigy!"

"Oh yeah? And you're going to tell them?"

"Sources close to the White House."

"Some sources aren't going to be close to the White House for a hell of a lot longer," Marshall told him coldly.

"Yeah? And who gets my job? Ryan? We'll be knee deep in Declarations of War by the weekend."

Caldwell opened the door and slipped in quietly, closing it behind him. Inside the room Marshall was on his feet behind his desk, dressed in his usual uniform of smart dark suit, crisp white shirt and soberly-colored tie. Above the sharp line of his collar a red bite mark was just visible. Facing him, with only the wide desk preventing them tearing one another limb from limb, was Defense Secretary Walter Dean, a man whose ominous manner spoke of brooding and ill-contained aggression.

Distracted, Marshall flicked a quick glance in Caldwell's direction and the set of his face softened momentarily.

"Ryan."

"Mr. President." Slightly tentative, he took a few steps forward. "Mr. Secretary."

"Get out," Dean snapped in response. "I'm not having this conversation with him here," he told the President.

"This is not a conversation, it's an argument – and it concerns him. He stays."

"I don’t believe this!" Dean seethed. "In all my years of public service I've never met a President who insisted on discussing matters of policy in front of the help! For God's sake, Jim, stop letting your dick make decisions for you. If you must fuck him, keep him out of your public life or you'll discredit us all. Other Presidents were happy enough to play it that way. Why can't you?"

"I'm not other Presidents," was the icy reminder.

"No, you're not," Dean told him, meeting him in the same sub-Arctic register. "Because out of all the crooks, clowns and lunatics who had this office before you there has never yet been one irresponsible enough to leave the White House without taking the football along with him."

"What?" Simple shock at the gravity of the accusation startled the exclamation from Caldwell. He had not advanced far into the room but remained awkwardly poised between the door and the lower corner of Marshall's desk, summoned but not quite knowing his place.

"That's right." Dean spun around, glaring open hostility at him. "The nuclear launch codes, vital for the defense of this country in the event of an attack, which are never supposed to be more than one hundred yards from the President at any time – they were in the White House in the hands of a man who was totally oblivious to the fact that his boss had left the building!" He turned back to Marshall. "Suppose I hadn't heard the rumors? Suppose I hadn't pulled you out of that apartment? And then suppose our enemies had chosen that moment to launch their missiles at our major cities? We would have been defenseless. Millions of people would have died. And all because you couldn't keep your hands off your… Well, what would you call him? Boyfriend? Catamite? Military adviser? I'm sorry, I've never known the correct term for a male mistress. Maybe I should just call him a 'cocksucker'?"

"Walter, one more word and I'll bust your ass so far down the chain of command you'll be counting paperclips in a bomb shelter in Arkansas," Marshall seethed.

"You keep your goddamn' queer hands off my ass," was the brutally blunt response. "Get rid of him, Jim," he added. "You're not a private citizen any more, you can't just take a holiday from the Presidency whenever you feel like it. Whoever a President fucks it has national security implications, and if you're so besotted you can't see that… well, maybe you shouldn't be President any more."

"I'll have your resignation on my desk by noon, Walter." The fury had gone from Marshall's expression, to be replaced by the sickening recognition of inevitability.

"Sure you will, if that's what you want. But think about what you're throwing away here, Jim. Think about the trust and confidence of the American people – the people who voted for you. Don't compromise their love and respect for the sake of a piece of ass, however cute you may think it is." Dean's expression made it abundantly clear that he could not imagine what anyone, his President least of all, could see in a sad-eyed, slightly shop-worn article like Ryan Caldwell. He was no oil painting, no Adonis, not even a muscular stud. "Air Force Colonels are two for a quarter around this city; Caldwell may mean a lot to you, Mr. President, but is he really worth giving up everything you've worked for all your life?"

Dean paused, looking from one to the other of the two men he had criticized so roundly. Marshall's face was stone, his green gaze cold and unyielding, his crooked mouth set into a thin, bitter line. Caldwell's expression was almost comical, mouth open, blue eyes betraying bewilderment. Violent death, enemy action, wanton destruction; he'd faced them all and survived largely because he had placed his entire trust in Jim Marshall's judgment. Learning exactly what Marshall had risked for those few carefree hours with him had been even more of a shock than the knowledge that Marshall wanted him at all.

"I'll go write out my resignation," Dean conceded, his anger moderating to a more manageable level. "If you change your mind, Mr. President, let me know any time within the next… two and a half hours… and I'll tear it up and throw it away. But we'll have to come to some kind of rational agreement about the Colonel here, because I refuse to allow you to compromise your own safety or that of this country by any more bone-headed escapades like last night. I trust I make myself clear?"

With this peroration he turned and made his way out of the room, dignity considerably restored.

It was a long time before Marshall would meet Caldwell's inquiring gaze. When he did he said nothing, just held out his arms, and in a moment Caldwell was in them, hugging him as tightly as he knew how to, crushing thousands of dollars worth of exclusive tailoring as he buried his face against Marshall's neck.

"I screwed up, Ryan," Marshall muttered softly into his hair. "God, I really screwed up. I forgot that the Presidency is like a magnifying glass; it shows up every little flaw a thousand times."

"You're saying you're not perfect?"

"No." Almost as if it had come as a shock. Almost as if Marshall had begun to believe, after the incident aboard Air Force One, that he could get away with anything. That he was indestructible.

"Big surprise," Caldwell whispered. "How do we get out of this one, Jim?"

"Let him stew for a while, then climb down and ask him to stay," was the weary response. "He's right, it was stupid. Beyond stupid. The dumbest, most irresponsible thing any President has ever done."

"Bay of Pigs stupid? Vietnam stupid? Watergate stupid?"

"Worse than any of those. I wanted you so much, I let it affect my judgment. Walter's right, I was thinking with my dick. If he insists on making trouble I'll just have to resign, let Bennett finish out my term."

"You can't!"

"Oh no? Watch me."

"No more stupid risks, Jim. Please."

"No more stupid risks. But god, wasn't last night worth it? I love the way we are together. I love everything about this relationship."

Exuberantly he bent his head, pulled Caldwell back into his arms, let their mouths move together into a deep kiss not of domination and devotion but of perfect equality so all-encompassing that the quiet click of a door opening and closing again was not enough to drive them apart. It barely registered with either set of senses, in fact, and neither man could spare enough intellectual capacity to analyze or process the implications of the sound.

A door had opened. They had been seen.

It scarcely seemed to matter, and as the kiss ended they stood together, forehead to forehead, giving and receiving moral support, not caring that there might be anyone else in the room with them until a gentle voice broke through their idyll.

"So, Jim, Ryan," Grace Marshall said brightly, "why don't you fill me in on what I've missed?"

"I got back here at two thirty this morning." A short time later Marshall finished up the story of his unceremonious extraction from Caldwell's apartment with a rueful smile, although it had taken several hours before he had been able to see the funny side of it. "I was at my desk again by six and I think I've found out what happened." He glanced around his small audience briefly. Grace and Ryan, side by side, drinking coffee laced with brandy. Lloyd Shepherd, propped in an armchair, drinking brandy to which a little coffee had been added.

"Kathryn Bennett's driver used to work for Walter. Apparently they met yesterday afternoon and immediately afterwards Walter started questioning the housekeeping staff about the work that was done on Ryan's apartment. Walter stayed late in the White House yesterday, and just before midnight he went looking for Ryan. When he didn't find him, he looked for me." An uncomfortable shrug, indicating the fruitlessness of the search. "Then he went to whoever was on duty with the football and asked him where I was, and he said I was upstairs asleep. That was when Walter started bullying the communications people into contacting Buzz. He made sure he'd got everything in motion to pull me out of the apartment, then went off home and left instructions not to be disturbed. It was after seven before my people managed to make contact with him; his domestic staff are very loyal."

"Wait a minute," Shepherd said. "Kath's driver? What the hell did he know and how did he know it? Who discussed this in front of him?"

A slow, guilty-schoolboy lift of the hand from Caldwell. "I did," he said, without apology. "Kath raised the subject, and I didn't try hard enough to block it."

"Where and when?"

Caldwell supplied the answers. Then, "I'm sorry, Jim. I needed to talk, and she was very insistent."

"Dammit, Ryan, I'm not mad at you," was the tired response. "Talking to the Vice President in a White House limousine with two Secret Service agents in attendance should have been safe enough, for chrissakes! If it's any consolation, I would probably have done the same thing."

"So what's the driver's problem?" Grace asked. "Homophobia? It just seems so spiteful."

"Could just be that," Shepherd responded. "But don't forget Dean tried to have Jim declared unfit for office while the four of us were on the plane. He thinks you're too much of a maverick, Jim, and he's right. A good Party man would never have made the 'Be Afraid' speech."

"Which you tried to get me to retract," Marshall reminded him.

"Okay, I know I did, but I'm with it now, all right? Like Caldwell here, I had a sudden conversion on the road to Damascus. The point is, Walter doesn't know how to deal with a strong President capable of making his own decisions; he's been used to working with puppets. He doesn't like you because he can't manipulate you behind the scenes. It would have suited him if you hadn't come back from the plane, Jim."

"You're not suggesting the Defense Secretary could be in sympathy with the terrorists, are you?" Caldwell was properly appalled.

"No, not in so many words. But I can see how he could have turned it to his advantage if Jim had been killed, and you can be sure he saw it at the time. He'd have bullied Bennett until she started doing things his way, and he'd have ended up de facto President without ever facing an election."

"But I stayed alive and thwarted his ambitions," Marshall completed. "No wonder he's focusing all his frustration and disappointment on you, Ryan; saving my life put a crimp in his career strategy. Every time he sees you with me, it must remind him what he's lost out on."

"So send me away!" Caldwell told him, urgently. "Give me a job to do in Alaska or New Mexico or somewhere. I don't want to be caught up in some kind of tactical battle between you and Dean. You need him far more than you need me!"

Marshall glared at him. "Oh yeah? Remind me again, Ryan, where was he standing on the jump ramp? Where did he sit on the flight deck? For god's sake, last night you were with me and he was out here plotting against us both! If I have to make a choice between you," he underlined, setting the matter to rest for what he hoped would be the last time, "I'll keep you and find a new Defense Secretary."

"I thought you wanted him inside the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in?" Caldwell asked, in some bewilderment.

"Given a choice, I'd rather not have him pissing at all," was the fervent response. "But if he does, it won't be all over you."

"Thank you for that vivid image, Mr. President," Lloyd Shepherd said, coolly. "Ryan, when this hits, everybody's gonna know who you are. So much for staying out of the limelight."

"We'd better make sure it doesn't hit," Marshall put in, firmly. "I'm going to get Walter back in here, apologize to him in front of all three of you, and ask him to stay. Then we all join forces and concentrate on damage limitation. This administration will not disintegrate in scandal and lies," he ended. "I'd rather walk away than have that happen."

"Sit down, Walter."

Half an hour later, under the scrutiny of three pairs of critical eyes, a meeting of wild animals who faced one another uneasily. Dean obeyed.

"Walter, I owe you an apology." Forestalling the unheard response with a wave of the hand, Marshall continued unimpeded. "Yes, and the country too. But you were the one I lost my temper with. I was in the wrong and I didn't want to hear it. I deserved everything you said about me. I'd like you to stay on in the Cabinet; you'd be virtually impossible to replace."

Dean looked slowly around the room, contemplating his reply. "What happens about Caldwell?" he asked, bluntly.

"He stays. Ryan's place in my life is non-negotiable. But I'm willing to have a story circulated suggesting that he's dating the Vice President. That's with her approval, by the way." The slight emphasis on the word 'Vice' was very apparent in the quiet room.

Dean glanced up quickly, meeting Grace Marshall's calm gaze. "You're in agreement with this?" he asked her.

"It was my idea," Grace confirmed. "Ryan is our friend, Walter. Every member of this family loves him dearly, and we don't want to have to part with him. However we are prepared to de-emphasize his friendship with the President, if that's what it takes to keep you with us."

Dean did not respond directly to the First Lady's words, but returned his attention to Marshall. "No more unscheduled liaisons or meetings in private apartments," he stipulated. "We have dozens of hospitality houses and apartments all over this city and you have access to any of those whenever you like. Choose one; I'll have the security doubled and give you any agents you want. I don't care what you do there or who you choose to entertain as long as you adhere to proper security protocols. And don't leave the White House without the football again or you'll find Caldwell's picture alongside yours on every front page in the English-speaking world."

A sharp intake of breath in the room. This was undoubtedly blackmail, but at least it was openly stated and perfectly understood by all parties; there was nothing there that would compromise what remained of the President's integrity. Marshall stared down the incipient protest, then nodded towards Dean.

"I deserve that," he said. "I'm not going to try to wriggle away from it." A capitulation every bit as humiliating as the one he had endured at the hands of Egor Korshunov when he had been forced to beg for the lives of his wife and daughter.

"Good. Then with your permission, Mr. President, I'll rip up my letter of resignation and we'll say no more about it." Dean put a hand inside his jacket, drew out a white envelope and held it poised. At a confirmatory nod from Marshall he ripped the envelope in two, then in two again, and let the pieces fall onto the polished surface of the coffee table. Whether his letter of resignation had in fact been inside the envelope or not, it was a strongly symbolic gesture.

"Thank you, Walter."

"Thank you, Mr. President." Getting to his feet, Dean accepted a rather shamefaced handshake. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"So am I."

Dean stepped away and found himself facing the Air Force officer at the epicenter of the argument.

"Caldwell." He offered his hand, and Caldwell did not hesitate to take it. "Nothing personal," Dean said. "I don't know you. I shouldn't have called you a cocksucker."

Caldwell shrugged. "Technically it's a perfectly accurate description, Mr. Secretary," he allowed, with complete composure. "But I prefer to think of myself as a kept man."

The look on Dean's face at this remark – appalled, astounded, more than a little embarrassed – was one all four of the others in the room would cherish for the rest of their lives.

"We should have been more discreet," Caldwell added, consolingly.

"You should. If there's nothing else, Mr. President?" Marshall shook his head. "Then excuse me, I have work to do. Grace. Shepherd." Brief nods of acknowledgment all round, and Walter Dean strode away from the Oval Office leaving an impressive silence behind.

"'Technically it's a perfectly accurate description'?" Marshall repeated, when he felt sufficient time had elapsed. "You've never thought about going into politics, have you, Ryan?"

"No, I haven't. Why, do you think I should?"

"No!" Three voices in unison, and then a dissolution into uneasy laughter.

"We got away with it, didn't we?" Grace asked.

"This time," her husband confirmed. "I'm glad it happened, though, and I'm glad it wasn't worse. We'll just have to be a hell of a lot more careful in the future. Ryan, you might want to get a list of those properties from Walter and take a look at some of them. Get rid of your apartment; you won't need it again."

"Okay." The usual no-quibble decisive response.

"Grace, I…"

"We'll talk about it later," Grace Marshall told him, firmly. "Don't you people have any work to do today? Or is the country running itself?"

"I think it's running itself," Shepherd smiled. "It couldn't be doing a worse job than we are, that's for sure. Mr. President, you have a budget strategy meeting in thirty minutes and I don't believe you've read the briefing document."

"Excuse me," Caldwell said, turning for the door, "I missed breakfast."

"So did I!" Grace exclaimed, taking his arm and escorting him towards the exit. "Come along, Ryan, let's see if we can't get someone to make us some waffles!"

* * *

Use [back] button on your browser to return to index page.