you love a strong woman until it makes you bitter

Andy/Toby: Ride or die. This would be a 5+1 fic about having sex with your ex. The +1 being the time they don't, for their own good. or something like that.

The hardest and easiest decision they've made is to separate. They move out in early 1999; the following year, they can finally get the legal part figured out. But to stop missing someone just like that isn't as easy as flipping a switch.

Andy went back and forth on not keeping Toby as her point-person at the White House for issues. She's worked with plenty of annoying Republican staffers in the previous admin, and she'd hoped to have a solid supporter in this new one and, well, it turns out she is about to divorce one of them. Way to go. The country comes before their personal feelings. She can't work with Josh's ego. CJ's heart is there, but the scope of her current position limits her ability to address Andy's requests.

In between moving out and the final stamp on the divorce papers, Andy and Toby go over to each other's places because they do miss each other. The first time, it's just this once. The third time, it's i had a bottle of wine open, it's the office had a birthday party and do you want the extra cake. The fifth time, well...

They're not mad anymore. Toby isn't happy about the prospect of facing the rest of his life without the love of his life, but at this early point he does understand she's not getting back with him. Andy is just as frustrated with his moods, the way he's addressed her fertility and had a few doubts about the reality of her political ambition even though he admires her so much. He's recently tried to use his newfound position to bargain even more with her, which Andy likes and is annoyed by all at the same time. It's the new reality.

They spend many nights in somebody's living room talking about a new foreign dispute or a subsidy Andy's colleague brought up, because work has never been able to stay at work. The night ends someplace other than the living room.

Jed/Abbey: I'm picturing this after Zoey's kidnapping. They've been through hell and back. Abbey is forever mad and heartbroken that their youngest child got caught in the middle of all of this after doing their best to separate their family from the attention and dangers that come with the presidency. There's the shutdown, Abbey's kind of back, and she and Jed still fight so much. Leo doesn't dare get into it as much as he would've, any other day.

They're still angry the other isn't seeing their point of view. But, god, you know these two love each other to death. It breaks them to be apart even one or two days. It takes a hell of a long time for Abbey to say she misses Jed more than she's angry with him. Maybe Jed actually says it first—a sort of apology for everything. It's complicated, but he's invoked the 25th and there's bombings halfway around the world then a shutdown, and it's his second term that was never supposed to happen, and they need each other.

Amy/Liz: I haven't written this ship yet but I've read a few really good, amazing fics. There's something about them that makes you go "I want to see them kiss and fight and be sad and be happy." It's a perfect storm for any sort of big falling out between you and your childhood friend turned crush/first kiss turned first big breakup.

And what do you do, what do you say, to that girl whose dad is entering the national stage of politics, who was just in Congress, who's about to be Governor one day? Amy's curious about that world, the workings of it—Liz is, too, a little bit, but she can't separate who her dad is from the kind of public servant she would be. Amy says so what, use it to your gain. Liz doesn't get the chance.

And with the way Amy acts around Jed and Abbey in season 3/4, she's awkward, she's flighty, she's loud - she doesn't know how to act, because the last time she really spoke with them, she was on the outs with Liz. She was on her way to law school while Liz was starting to develop a crush on someone else (to get rid of the one she had on Amy).