Importance of Saying Sorry
Rating: G
Archive: Please just let me know
Feedback: Is welcomed - lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I’m just making them dance, and my choreography grant from the government hasn’t come through yet.
Summary: “His father had taught him the importance of a good apology.”

~*~

Toby made the best apologies in the West Wing. They were born of lengthy experience, he was usually the one who needed to apologise. That was the problem with telling the world what is on your mind, oftentimes you’ve said the wrong thing. You’ve hurt someone you care about and you can’t stand the way pain leaves its mark in their eyes. So you are required to apologise, ask for forgiveness, and wait until you have to apologise again.

His most frequent apologies over the last few years had been made to CJ and Sam. He calculated that if he added up how many times he’d had to say sorry, CJ would win due to the sheer amount of time he had known her. But if you worked out the average on a yearly basis, than Sam would be a clear winner. He apologised to them because sometimes he pulled rank, and sometimes he yelled at them, and sometimes he was wrong. Their pain was always gritty and untidy and it would sting until he would do anything to make it go away.

He’d had to apologise to CJ within the first week of meeting her. She was young and enthusiastic, and he was a weary jackass. He’d teased her about how naive she was, which was funny because he loved that about her. She just glared at him, and he was afraid he was going to lose her before he’d really gotten to know her. He’d wrapped his arms around her, reasoning that she couldn’t run away if he wouldn’t let her, and he’d whispered in her ear. And she’d laughed and hit him in the arm, and everything had been okay.

CJ always stayed when he said he was sorry. She understood him, and forgave him, and called him funny names that made her laugh and made him glare in mock disgust.

Andi was never that understanding, but Toby had caused her much more pain. He could never work out why she was the hardest person to apologise to. He could never understand why he hurt her the most. He remembered the fights and how they had been terrible and wrenching. She’d look at him, with her hair flying and her eyes red and angry, and she’d plead with him to make things better again. She’d begged him to take her, to hold her and soothe her, to help her forget that they fought too much. She begged him to remind her that they loved each other.

He could never really make it better. Toby hated this truth, and Andi hated it, but nothing either of them did could solve the problems.

His father had taught him the importance of a good apology. His father was a busy man, with four children to feed, and his spare time was rare. Toby was four years old and loved sitting on his father’s lap. Even at the age of four, he regarded these moments with the greatest solemnity. His father would laugh at his serious eyes and tell his Mama that they were raising a little old man. But his father told him wonderful things, and they were worth a little teasing.

“Tobias.” His father called him Tobias, although his mother had put Toby on the birth certificate. Toby, his father felt, was too flippant for this little boy, Tobias was a more suitable name. “Tobias, there will be times in you life when you will say the wrong thing. You will say the wrong thing and you may hurt someone. This is an inevitable fact because you are like your Papa, and you have a quick mind, and also for the simple reason that human beings hurt each other.”

Toby fiddles with the worn collar of his father’s jacket. “Why do we hurt each other Papa?”

His father had shrugged and his mother, overhearing the question while she mended the tear in his good shirt, had sighed. “That’s a good question, Toby.”

“We just do.” His father looked at the newspaper that was sitting on the floor, the headlines blaring about some atrocity or another. “The important thing, Tobias, is being able to say that you regret causing pain.”

‘What do you mean?”

“You’ve got to be able to say you’re sorry. That’s important, very important. Always say you’re sorry.”

Toby stood from his father’s lap and walked over to his mother. “I’m sorry Mama.” He whispered in her ear. She laughed and hugged him and his world was wonderful.

His parents were gone now. After his mother died, it occurred to him that maybe they hadn’t been real proud of him when they had died. He wasn’t the best guy in the world, his marriage had never been secure, and his career was near shambles. So he began making up for it with little things, tried to live as they had taught him. He began to make wonderful apologies.

CJ was the only one who knew that his apologies were more than simple pangs of guilt. Knowing meant her heart melted whenever he told her he was sorry, whenever he gestured that he had been wrong. Knowing allowed him to use actions rather than words, and she understood that the more he loved someone, the harder words were. Knowing meant that she laughed when he whispered in her ear, and she would hit him on the arm, and call him funny names. Knowing meant that she stayed.