Rating: PG
Archive: At my site, The Band Gazebo Anywhere else, just ask me
Disclaimer: If you know it from the show, it's not mine. If you've never heard of something, I probably made it up.
Spoilers: None
Summary:Ginger goes home for Christmas.
Author's Notes: A response to The West Wing Women list December Challenge - have one of the women go home for the holidays, and have a tradition or custom make them think of one of their co-workers who aren't with them. This is set at Christmas, the same year as The Ghosts of Novembers Past and I would suggest reading it before reading this.
Growing up in a house with four older brothers, you learn a lot.
I was the only girl in my grade school class who could list the starting order of both the New York Giants and the New York Jets, although of course, the New Jersey Devils hockey team was far more important than either one of them. And while girls in my high school class looked at the New York Yankees with a view to who was the cutest player, I was more concerned with their batting averages and scorelines. I also know an inordinate amount about science fiction, and more about trash metal rock than anyone should ever know.
But if you'd asked me when I was growing up, I'd say the most valuable thing I learned from having four older brothers was the ability to sleep through anything. And when I say anything, I mean from high school parties, to loud music, to the elephantine stealth of a high school senior who's had too much to drink. I can fall asleep anywhere and I can sleep through anything.
That's what I always thought.
I was wrong.
I didn't realise this until years later. Not until the boys all moved away, got married, had families of their own, and began to come home for a family Christmas, bringing those families with them. Nowadays, we're literally sleeping on the floor when it comes to Christmas time, and sleeping through a horde of rampaging children who love Christmas and can't wait for Santa to come is impossible.
But I love my family. And I don't get to see them enough, and that's why I smile when I wake up on Christmas Eve to the sound of a gaggle of little Clarks practising their Christmas songs. I know that my mom's probably downstairs having warned them to be quiet so that Aunt Ginger can get some sleep, relishing the chance to have me at home. Every year for the past four years, I've come home on Christmas Eve, late on Christmas Eve at that, full of stories about how the President left late and the rest of us had to stay on too. But not this year. This year, we get an early mark, and I was able to go back to New Jersey on the day before Christmas Eve. The atmosphere coming up to the holidays was much more jovial than it has been in years past - there were no Congressional hearing, no worries about Josh, instead, there was the relief of having won re-election, and I think that some of us got the extra day off so that we could recharge our batteries before facing into the next four years, starting off with the Inaugural Ball that we have to get on with organising when we get back to D.C.
But all that is a distant memory as I rise and shower, pulling on a pair of faded blue jeans and WVU T-shirt that's seen better days. Mom hears me coming down the stairs and is already pulling out the frying pan to make an omelette for me, even over my protests. "You're too skinny Ginger," she admonishes. "Don't you ever eat in Washington?"
I bite back a reply about not having time because Toby works me so hard, because Mom probably wouldn't find the humour in that. She worries about me, she always has. It used to be because I was so quiet and shy - the legacy of my four older brothers rearing its ugly head again. My brothers range in age from ten to three years older than me, and I was very much an afterthought. Mom and Dad both thought that four boys were more than enough, but Mom always secretly wanted a little girl. When I came along, it was like the answer to her prayers. And the boys, who one might have expected would hate to have a little sister, reacted in just the opposite way. Even during their terrible teens, they spoiled me rotten. And when I entered my teens, the Clark brothers were a legend in my class, scaring the life out of any boy who might have noticed me.
Not that I was any great catch in high school. The boys were outgoing and lively; I was just the opposite. I'd sit in the corner at home quietly, reading or writing, but taking everything in. And I wasn't anything to look at - tall and skinny with too many freckles and too red hair. And I dated, but it wasn't anything serious.
It took moving away from home, going to West Virginia University to change things.
It took Alan to change things.
And that of course, is another reason why Mom worries about me.
Because she's the one who was there when I woke up in hospital, the one who had to tell me that my husband was dead, but I already knew that because I'd held him as he died.
She was the one who had to hold me as I cried, who watched me sink deeper and deeper in a depression that I couldn't lift myself out of. She was the one who cried in my living room, telling me that the accident had taken Alan's life, and that she didn't want it to take mine as well, that Alan wouldn't have wanted that for me. And I screamed and cried at her, telling her that she didn't know what Alan would have wanted me to do, and I told her to get the hell out of my house.
She was the one who nearly had a stroke when I told her that I was renting out the house and driving to New Hampshire to volunteer on a presidential campaign, but who helped me arrange everything and stuck up for me with the rest of the family, because she knew that I needed to do something to help me get on with my life.
She was the first person I called when I heard that we'd won, when I finished screaming and crying with the rest of the volunteers. I found an empty room and called her, and she told me how happy she was for me, and asked me if I was ok, because she knew what day it was. That it would have been my fourth wedding anniversary. That Alan had been dead for exactly one year. And I tried to be brave, really I did, but I couldn't help but get a little weepy. And I knew I couldn't go back into the room like that, so I went outside, on the pretext of getting some air.
My thoughts are interrupted by Dominic, my eldest brother. Once a high school wrestler, he still possesses the elephantine grace he had back then, and I hear him coming before I see him. One look at his face tells me what he wants, and I shake my head in exasperation. "Are we gonna do this every year Dom?" I ask him.
He helps himself to coffee and pours me a mug too, sitting down beside me at the table. "As long as you keep helping me Gin," he tells me. "Nearly finished there?"
I laugh, because I'm only halfway through my breakfast, but that's Dom. When he's ready to go somewhere, he doesn't see why he should wait for you, even if you're doing him a favour. "You can wait," I tell him, and not surprisingly, he does.
See, Dom has this problem. He's totally incapable of buying his wife a Christmas present without my help. You would think that a forty-year-old man would be beyond such childish notions, but no. It's all my own fault really, because I helped him out the first Christmas that they were dating each other. And ever since then, every Christmas, on Christmas Eve, no matter how late I've been home, he's dragged me out shopping with him. Nor is it unusual for me to get mail in the run-up to Christmas of various things that he's thinking of buying her. Which also means that it's not unusual for me to ring him telling him to wait until I get home and we'll got shopping together.
Which is probably what he expects me to do.
And for all I complain about it, I don't really mind. Dom and I might be the two farthest apart in age, but we're two of the closest in spite of that. So this time is one of our chances to catch up with each other, away from the family, away from his kids. It's one of our holiday rituals that I cherish.
The first place that we go to is that old reliable, the jewellery store. And as we always do, we split up, seeing what catches our eyes. And I know that I should be looking for something for Fiona, but I'm walking past a case when something catches my eye. It's a selection of those handy little cigar-cutter gizmos, the things that you use to cut the top off the cigar before you smoke it. And as I stare at them, I'm reminded of Toby, about how I always know when he's around by the smell of the cigar smoke that clings to his clothes.
When I started working on the campaign, Toby scared the daylights out of me. It took the first Election Night to change my mind about him. After I'd talked to Mom, I went out to the garden to pull myself together, and he found me out there. I hadn't told anyone about Alan, and certainly hadn't planned on telling him, but he was so nice and so kind that it all just came out. And he gave me the rest of his glass of scotch, telling me that he thought I needed it more than he did. And rather than leave me outside, crying on my own, he convinced me to come back inside, telling me that CJ was going to do "The Jackal." I'd never heard of that before, but when the thought of it made him smile I knew it had to be something good.
And when I think of that Election Night, my thoughts are soon pulled to the more recent Election Night, when we were in the Sculpture Garden together. Toby and I have become closer over the last four years you see, although there's been nothing untoward going on. I haven't been ready for that, and even if I was, he's my boss, and it'd just be too messy to consider anything. But we're definitely more friendly than your standard boss and assistant. Not as close as Josh and Donna, but I can tell Toby things, say things to him that I'd never say to Sam. And no other boss would have come to my apartment in the early hours of the morning to tell me that Mrs Landingham had been killed by a drunk driver, just because he knew that it was going to hit me harder than anyone else.
But I didn't think too much of it, didn't want to think too much of it until Election Night, just over a month ago. When he came out to the garden with two glasses of Scotch, one each, and drank a toast with me. A toast that I proposed, based on my thoughts that evening, to Novembers past.
And he told me that it was a crappy toast, and when I challenged him to do better, he raised his glass to Novembers future.
And I drank to that before taking his arm and walking back into the party with him.
Nothing happened between us that night, and for the last few weeks, I've been sure that I must have imagined the whole thing. But sometimes, I see him looking at me when he thinks that I'm not looking, and I know that I didn't. And I look at him when he's not looking, and I know I didn't. Because somewhere along the line, somewhere in the last four years, without even realising it, I've started to see him in a more than boss-assistant light, and that scares me.
Not only because it's a potential scandal, although there is that.
I've been in love once in my life. And when I walked up that aisle, when I took those vows, I thought that it was forever. The fact that "forever" turned out to have a three-year expiry date was a cruel twist of fate, but I never considered finding someone else, no matter what people said, and they said plenty. "You're young, you'll find someone else, you'll be able to get on with your life," they told me, those and other meaningless platitudes that were meant to console me, but that only ended up making me feel even worse. Because the only life I wanted was the one that I couldn't have, and the only man I wanted was dead.
And now, I'm having all these feelings for another man, and I'm scared to death, because if I know the joy, I also know the pain. And I don't know if I could survive that pain a second time. It was easy to be brave on Election Night, when there was so much euphoria in the air, so much magic flying around. It's not so easy in the cold light of day.
I'm lost in thought, staring at the cigar cutters when I feel a tap on my shoulder, and Dom drags me over to a different counter, telling me that he thinks he's found the perfect present for Fiona. He looks so proud of himself that I can't help smiling, and there's a beautifully made-up shop assistant behind the counter, with necklaces spread out on crimson velvet in front of her.
In pride of place is a beautiful string of pearls.
Understand please that I'm much better with things like this than I once was. There was a time that the mere mention of a pearl necklace, never mind a sight like this, would have been enough to reduce me to hysterics, but aside from the time that Margaret told us that Leo was buying his wife a pearl choker for their anniversary, I haven't had an episode like that in a while.
Until now.
I should be fine, I know that. Maybe it's just the direction my thoughts were heading in just before Dom dragged me over here, but all I can think about is me standing behind an ironing board, concentrating on getting the creases out of a white shirt. The feel of a pair of lips on my neck, of a necklace of pearls being slipped on me. The laughter bubbling up against them as I hurriedly made sure that the iron was switched off before I let him drag me to the floor, the panic of nearly missing our dinner reservations. And then the cold on leaving the restaurant, and the lights and the screaming, and the pearls bouncing along the road. And my dress, my favourite pale green dress turning crimson as I gathered Alan to me, the same crimson as the velvet on the counter.
A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead and I can't quite manage to breathe, and there's little dots dancing before my eyes. From somewhere far away, I feel Dom's arms go around me, hear his voice, but I don't make out what he's saying. When I'm feeling myself again, I realise that he's procured a chair from somewhere and turned me around, so that I'm facing away from the counter, and the saleswoman is looking at us with worry stamped all over her face.
I can understand Dom's words now. "Jesus Gin, I'm sorry…I don't know what I was thinking…are you ok?"
I try to nod, then discover that that's really not a good idea. "I'm fine," I whisper, but he doesn't look convinced. Not that I blame him - my voice wouldn't convince me either. "Really." I attempt a smile.
"Gin, I forgot all about…" He's as pale as I'm sure I am, and he looks so guilty that it's all I can do not to burst into tears. Dom's a lawyer, and he was in Europe on business when Alan was killed. He was in the middle of a meeting when Mom called him, and he just walked out, took a taxi to the airport and got on the next plane home. His bosses weren't too happy about it, but he told them that his baby sister needed him and that that's where he was going to be. He stood at my side during the burial, one arm around my waist, the other hand in mine, just like he's doing now. The big brother, looking out for his little sister, always.
"It's ok Dom," I tell him, my voice getting stronger as I go on. "I haven't done that in a while. It's just…" I trail off again then, not sure of what to tell him, but Dom, bless him, takes a leap of faith.
"The holidays?"
I smile at him, seizing the excuse. "Yeah. The holidays." I reach out and pat his cheek. "I'm fine. Go pick a present for Fiona. I'll stay here."
He vanishes over to the other counter, coming back with several pairs of earrings, none of which have pearls in them, and together we pick a nice pair of sapphire earrings. The salesgirl takes them to be wrapped and Dom insists on bringing me to the coffee shop across the way for coffee, because he still thinks that I look way too pale. And we sit there, watching the last minute Christmas shopping frenzy going on around us, and we talk, but we don't mention pearls or Alan, but the absence of his name doesn't make me forget him, just the opposite in fact.
When we get back to the house, we're assaulted by kids the minute we get in the door, but Mom and Fiona come out to the hall right after them, their smiles vanishing when they see the look on my face. They both look at Dom quickly, and I see him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. They wisely take the hint and don't say anything, but I don't hang around to hear any questions, making my way through the house and going into the back garden.
It's cold enough outside that no-one will bother me, and I draw my coat closer around me as I make my way to the bench at the back of the garden. I sit down heavily on it, closing my eyes, taking deep breaths. Alan and I used to come out here all the time when we were home here, and no-one ever bothered us then either. Summer or winter, it didn't matter, as long as we had each other. A wave of longing for him breaks over me, and I can almost hear his voice beside me.
"You don't have to feel bad about it."
I turn my head and see him sitting beside me, all bundled up in the jacket we'd spent the weekend shopping for a month before he died. He looks just like I remember him, the dark hair impeccably short, kind of like Sam's was a few years ago, his eyes clear and blue, almost the same blue as my eyes. "Seriously Gin," he continues. "I mean it."
"What don't I have to feel bad about?"
"How you're feeling. I understand."
I laugh bitterly. "I'm glad one of us does."
His hand reaches out and finds mine, our fingers intertwining, and I can't take my eyes off them. I used to love his hands, so big and strong and soft. Large enough that he could wrap one of my wrists in them and hold it securely, but gentle enough that he'd never hurt me, only leave me feeling safe and protected. I haven't felt that way in too long. "He's a good man Ginger. I'd like him."
I smile at that, having often wondered how Toby and Alan would have got along. And I think that they would have liked each other, all the more so since Toby seems to have taken an interest in my welfare since he found out about how I came to join the campaign. Alan would have appreciated that. "It's just hard," I whisper now.
"I know." Alan's voice is gentle and low, and his thumb makes sweeping motions against my skin. "But that usually means that it's worth it."
"It wasn't hard for us," I protest, the tears rising in my throat as I recall just how easy it was to fall in love with Alan, just how happy we were.
"We were different. And that's not good, or bad. It just…is."
"I just miss you so much," I whisper, the hurt spilling down my cheeks, and his arm goes around me, pulling me closer to him, and I let my head rest on his shoulder.
"It's ok baby…" he tells me. "It's ok."
The words slip unbidden from my throat. "Don't leave me…."
"Gin?"
A voice from behind me makes my eyes fly open, and I look around to see Rick standing there. Absurdly, I half expected to see Toby behind me - something about sitting out in the cold on a bench I suppose, but I could almost smell cigar smoke, and I have a sudden thirst for scotch. Rick's hands are in his jacket pockets, and he hasn't adjusted to the outside temperature yet, because he's hopping on his feet slightly. "Mind if I join you?" he asks, but I know that it's not really a question.
I shake my head; the memory of my conversation with Alan rendering me slightly disorientated. "It's fine," I tell him, wiping the tears off my face, sure that my eyes are red. The tears, at least, were real.
He sits, rubbing his hands together before jamming them back in his pockets again. "You ok Gin?" I don't reply, and I see him shooting me a look. "It's just…Dom said that you had a bit of a turn at the mall…"
The phrasing make me smile. "A bit of a turn" - that, ladies and gentlemen, is my youngest brother, able to make a crisis into a drama. He's a journalist by trade, something that I haven't quite managed to work into the conversation with Toby yet, and his knack for subtle understatement is really quite something. "I'm fine Rick," I tell him.
I don't for a moment expect that to hold him off. If I'm close to Dom, I'm just as close to Rick, and being the closest in age to Alan and me, Rick was the brother that we gravitated to most when we were home. They got on so well that Rick was one of Alan's groomsmen, and four years later, he gave the most beautiful eulogy at his funeral. I still have a copy of it at home, although I can't read it. Rick was the brother who was standing on the other side of me when we buried him, and I needed his strength and Dom's to help me get through that day.
"Are you?" he asks me. "And don't tell me it's just the holidays. You've got through Christmases with us before…and you were fine in the summer. I thought…"
His voice trails off. I don't get home very often, although I keep in touch with the family through letter and calls and emails. Sometimes, they come to D.C. to visit me, although with the hours that I work, visitors invariably end up amusing themselves a lot. But Rick was in D.C. during the summer on business, and he saw me at work in the White House. That's not something I usually do with my family, but it was in the middle of the campaign and we were snowed under with work. We were meant to go for dinner, but I got tied up with something for Sam, and so I ended up signing Rick in, and he sat in the bullpen and just took in the madness that is my working life. When we finally did get a late dinner, he told me that he had no idea how I stayed sane in that working environment, and I just laughed and told him that I loved it.
"You're different," he tells me suddenly, and I'm not sure what he means.
"Different how?"
"When you're here. You're different than you are when you're there. You're quieter…more reserved." He shrugs. "I always thought it was just because of the holidays, the memories. But it's more than that, isn't it?"
Rick always was able to read me with just a look. "It's just…working in the White House…the atmosphere…it keeps you going, you know? Picks you up." At least, it always has for me, since the first day I walked into the campaign headquarters, having spent almost the last six months cooped up in my house and introduced myself to Margaret, telling her that I'd do anything that needed doing.
"I thought you'd cracked when you told us what you were doing," Rick tells me. "And when Mom gave her blessing, I thought we should lock the pair of you up for your own safety. But it turns out, she was right."
"Mom always is," I joke, but Rick's at his most serious.
"I could never picture you working in the White House. And then when I saw you… holding your own with them all, doing ten things at once, standing up to that Sam guy… I couldn't help wondering what had happened to my quiet baby sister y'know, who put this beautiful, confident woman in her place? And then we went to dinner, and you were just the same…I called Dee that night and told her that that job was the best thing that ever happened to you." His words have reduced me to tears, and he pats my knee. "Alan wouldn't have wanted you to mope around like you were doing…he'd have wanted you to get on with your life. And he'd be proud of you Gin."
That does me in totally, and I cry on my brother's shoulder.
I don't know how long it takes me to calm down, but when I sit up again, he hands me a tissue and I mop up as best I can. When I'm done, I realise that he's looking at me strangely. "Gin, can I ask you something?"
"Sure." I figure that having just sobbed all over him, answering a question is the least I can do for him.
"This…" He waves a hand in the air as he tries to come up with a word. "This mood of yours…did something cause it?" He must see something flicker in my expression because he continues. "I guess, what I'm asking is, is there someone?"
I open my mouth to issue a denial, but a tell-tale stain of crimson is creeping up my cheeks before I can stop it. I always knew that Rick was perceptive when it came to me, but this is something else. "There might be…" I find myself whispering. "But I don't know…"
Rick raises an eyebrow, letting his breath out slowly. "He know about Alan?" When I nod, the first expression of surprise of the conversation crosses his face.
"We're friends," I tell him. "And it could be…maybe…but it's complicated."
"You know Alan would have wanted you to be happy, right? And that he would have wanted you to find someone else?" I nod. "And if this guy is worth it…then he'll wait. There's no hurry."
I find myself smiling at that, because it's just what I need to hear.
I want to be ready, but I'm not sure if I am yet.
Just then, a red-headed rocket flies out of the house and down the garden to us, and flings herself against her father's legs, smiling up at me as well, telling us that Granny wants us in the house for lunch. And we know that we'd better not go up against Mom, because we're wiser than that, so we swing her in between us as we go back inside.
The rest of the day passes as normal for my family, helping set up the dinner for tomorrow, visiting friends and family nearby, bringing the kids around to sing Christmas carols. We spend what seems like hours tucking them in and trying to get them to actually go to sleep, but they insist on staying awake as long as they can, and Mom makes several comments about how she remembers the days when we were like that.
When the kids are safely tucked away, the rest of us sit in the living room around the fire and tell stories about our year, about where we are in our lives. And I tell them a multitude of stories about the White House and the re-election campaign, and I think I end up scaring them because they realise that these people that they're laughing at actually run our country - welcome to my world I want to tell them, and do.
It's the early hours of the morning by the time that we're in bed, and while I'm used to early hours, I still groan for a moment when I'm woken up not that much later by the sound of screaming and shouting, and happy noises coming from downstairs. Then it registers that it's Christmas and I smile and grab my bathrobe, joining the happiness downstairs.
I have my own little pile of presents under the tree, small homemade presents from my nieces and nephews, a necklace from Mom and Dad, books and CDs from my brothers, and a bracelet that they've bought between them to go with the necklace that Mom and Dad gave me. I also have a pile of presents from D.C. that I brought with me, and the wrapping from those joins the huge pile already on the floor. There's nothing in those that surprises me, until I open the small box that Toby gave me. Actually, gave me would be the wrong word. He called me into his office, and mumbled a couple of unintelligible phrases before taking it out of his drawer and sliding it across the table to me. When I open it, I'm surprised to see a bottle of my favourite perfume, and I wonder how on earth he knew what I liked, and get a sudden image of him in a department store actually buying it. The thought makes me smile, and wouldn't you know it, Rick sees me, and Rick being Rick, jumps to the obvious, and right conclusion. "Who's that from Gin?"
And I smile back at him and tell him, "Oh, just from a friend."
But he sees right through me and winks, and I duck my head hoping that no-one else noticed the blush on my cheeks, and the smile on my face that I know I'm going to be wearing for the rest of the day. I'm not exactly lying after all - Toby is a friend. And right now, I don't think I'm ready for anything more than that, but one day I might be. I will be. And my conversation with Rick has given me the hope that when I am ready, Toby will be there. And after all, isn't that what Christmas is all about?