Chapter Text
She wasn’t listening in. She was barely even paying attention to whatever was going on just beyond Congressman Maitland's left shoulder. She was in with the big kids, trying to appear focused on the discussion of the Kazakhstan crisis flowing around her. Admittedly, this was a shitty cocktail party. It was shitty for a hundred reasons – she was obligated to stand here, nodding along seriously to a conversation that was about seven steps behind the administration’s actual plan in Kazakhstan; she couldn’t even really engage in the discussion because only half of the men in the circle had clearance high enough for them to get real information; the Senator from Wyoming was directing all of his Kazakhstan comments straight to her tits; her heels were murder; and Danny. He’d been back in DC for a few weeks now – not that she’d sought that information out – but she hadn’t seen him until she’d walked into the room tonight. Now that she’d seen him, though, she couldn’t stop looking at him; even when she turned away, he was a stinging presence in her peripheral vision. And when the foreign policy goon squad cornered her, it just so happened that Danny was directly in her line of sight. She was trapped, trying not to stare at him while she feigned interest in this idiotic, Central Asia-themed circle-jerk. It didn’t help that he seemed to be having fun. There had been a lull in her conversation and she’d heard his voice, so she knew he was telling a story about winter in Mongolia to a very beautiful blonde woman. She couldn’t hear him anymore, but based on the blonde’s reaction, the story was hilarious. In fact, their conversation as a whole seemed pretty engrossing. The blonde had a hand on Danny’s arm, and the two had barely broken eye contact. A Congressman from Rhode Island said something blatantly incorrect about Kyrgyzstan’s military capabilities – did he mean Kazakhstan? Had she missed something that would make his point relevant? – just as Danny’s conversation partner laughed again. CJ felt vaguely nauseous.
He wanted another whiskey, but leaving Nadia alone probably wasn’t the greatest idea. He wasn’t even sure he could get her to walk to the bar with him – she might stumble, and the last thing she needed was to embarrass herself in front of this bunch of assholes. What Danny really wanted was to go to bed – or at least to go home, have a beer, and watch the late nights. Flirt with his 73 year-old neighbor, maybe. Gladys made cookies when she couldn’t sleep, which was often, and he could really go for some of those. But none of that was an option with Nadia, either. He suppressed a sigh, wishing he knew exactly what was going on with her. They’d been friends for a long time, so when he walked into the party and saw her, he’d headed straight over. He hadn’t noticed anything off until he was right next to her. Of course, he’d seen Nadia about three seconds after the sight of CJ in a practically backless black gown knocked the wind out of him, which might be why he’d initially missed the fact that his friend of over a decade was absolutely blasted. He didn’t know how long she’d been at the party before he got there, didn’t know how to ask what was going on – had she taken cold medicine before going out? Skipped dinner? Finally realized her husband was a prick? He’d only realized that Nadia, a widely respected researcher at Brookings, couldn’t be allowed to talk to just about anyone at the party if she was going to get through the evening without damaging her career. Keeping her occupied was getting difficult, though. They’d been at the same table for close to an hour. Concern for Nadia was starting to be overbalanced by temptation to stare at CJ – maybe even to go and talk to CJ, if he was feeling optimistic - and he’d just about run through all of his cocktail party-appropriate foreign correspondent stories. That was an issue, because drunk or sober, Nadia had no patience for boredom. It was one of his favorite things about her – she insisted on being good company and on being surrounded by good company. Unfortunately, that attribute meant there was no guarantee that Nadia wouldn’t try to walk away when the conversation got stale. At the moment, though, she was distracted, staring at a black-coated waiter with a look of abject contempt. “He looks too much like a penguin to be dignified, but not enough like a penguin to be appealing,” she opined. Caught off guard, Danny laughed. “The tails might have been overkill, I guess,” he acknowledged – and then he had an epiphany. Canapés. If he could get some food in her… Hoping his desperation didn’t show, he raised a hand to signal the waiter, trying to make eye contact with the man. Unfortunately, the waiter was already walking – right behind CJ, who definitely now thought that Danny was waving her over. She raised a brow and leveled her trademark smoldering stare at him, but appeared to excuse herself from her group – six or seven of the most boring powerful men in Washington. Beside him, Nadia hiccupped. “That’s CJ Cregg,” she informed him. Danny groaned internally at the impending clusterfuck. There was no way to wave CJ off, and there was a good chance she was going to verbally slit his throat for flagging her down like a waiter in front of everyone who was anyone in this town. Add in drunk Nadia, and he just hoped they could avoid a scene. Danny watched her approach and bit back a sigh. Wanting her had always meant flirting with disaster, though, and he’d wanted her for so long that the threat of a trainwreck interaction no longer meant much. Besides, he thought, even if this whole thing went to shit, at least it had given him an excuse to stare at her as she walked toward him – her don’t-fuck-with-me stride set off by the swirl of her evening gown – and that alone would make it worthwhile.