Title: "Fortunate Ones"

Author: CretKid aka Cal (AIM: cretkid)

Category: implied CJ/Toby (Toby POV) with special guest appearance by Abbey

Rating: PG

Spoilers: General Season 3: specific from the last 4 episodes of the season.

Summary: "baby I said it's all in our hands / got to learn to respect what we don't understand / we are fortunate ones, fortunate ones I swear"

Author's Notes: Branching out in my song repertoire, adding Indigo Girls to the list this time. Title and summary from "Fugitive" on the Swamp Ophelia album. This is part of my Parachute series, which can be found on my website (www.oocities.org/rdcottrell/parachute.html). And I've been thinking to myself that I really need to get Abbey in this series more. Kudos to Rhonda for the initial beta read.

"Fortunate Ones"

=============

"Toby, you've lost weight," an appraising yet seductive voice said from 10 feet behind him.

Toby straightened, turned his head. Standing in his office doorway was the First Lady, with a cat-that-got-the canary grin and a predatory gleam in her eye. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she leaned against the wood frame of the door. Her eyes traveled first up and then down his side, then stopped. Following her sight line to his mid-section, particularly his backside, he blushed and scuttled around the corner of his desk.

"Abbey? What can I do for you?"

Abbey pouted her lips for a brief moment. "You can come back from around that desk."

He slid even further behind it. "I don't think so."

Uncrossing her arms and stepping away from the doorjamb, Abbey took a seat on the arm of his couch. "Just because I'm married doesn't mean I can't appreciate another man's butt. Besides, it freaks out my husband, and my day is not complete until I say at least one thing that gives my husband the heebee jeebees."

"Does giving his staff the heebee jeebees count in this endeavor?"

"On occasion." She folded her hands in her lap. "Seriously, you look good. What have you lost, about 10, 15 pounds? Even have a touch of sun on your nose there."

Toby unconsciously touched the tip of his nose and moved back to the corner of his desk. "There must be a hole in the ozone layer above Washington."

"That there might be, however, a little bird told me that you've been walking to work. From CJ's apartment."

Toby inwardly sighed. Abbey was on her matchmaking bandwagon again. Deciding that a scowl was a better deterrent against the inevitable flow of conversation than flat out denying the accusations, Toby made himself ready for yet another round of 'Fending off Infatuated First Lady'.

"Is this little bird some sort of stool pigeon, because I really don't see how this is anyone's business but my own."

There was a gleam in her eye as she responded, "So it is true?"

Toby tried not to cringe at the slight happy note in her voice. "Yes."

"You've been walking CJ to work every morning?"

"Yes."

"Do you carry her books too?"

He hid a smile at the thought of anyone carrying CJ's books and shuffled some papers on the top of his desk.

Undeterred, Abbey smiled and crossed her legs at the ankle. "Driving to her place to drop off your car or have you found a permanent spot for it near her apartment?"

Toby scowled, refusing to rise to the bait.

Waving an arm in dismissal of the last question, Abbey asked, "Something wrong with your parking space here?"

"No."

Giving one word answers tended to tire out the ask-ee. Toby had developed the tactic during his school days in order to fend off other students who'd gotten in the habit of looking for him to give them all the answers.

As if reading his mind, the First Lady responded, "You know, one word answers are not going to stop me from asking my questions. I am the queen of Twenty Questions."

Toby mumbled, "More like twenty-thousand questions."

"What was that, Toby?"

Feigning ignorance to which she was referring, Toby deflected, "Yes, I have been walking to work with CJ. Yes, I have been dropping off my car in front of her apartment in the morning and picking it up again after work. No, there is nothing wrong with the parking here, other than it is atrociously mismanaged. Have I answered all of your questions?"

"We haven't even scratched the surface." Abbey slid down to sit properly on the couch. "May I ask what has prompted this sudden urge to commune with nature?"

"Yes."

"If I ask, will you answer me?"

Shrugging his shoulders, he replied, "Probably not."

"If I were to go down and ask CJ about your morning, and I assume evening, ritual, what would she say?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Horse pucky!"

Toby wondered what the response time for the Secret Service would be if he were to jump out the window at that very moment. Of course since his office was on the ground floor, jumping would probably just make him look foolish. It also was not a guarantee that Abbey Bartlet wouldn't hop out right behind him

The First Lady must have noticed him looking beseechingly out the window. "Oh, Toby, I'm not saying all this to make you feel self-conscious about it. Well, I am, a little bit. But you do look good. And CJ looks considerably more calm now than she did a few weeks ago. You're obviously doing something right."

"Don't you have other things you could be doing right at this moment?" Toby asked, chancing a bit of insubordination. Anything to derail Abbey's train of thought.

"Many, many things. But I would rather sit here and talk to you."

"Oh joy." Toby dropped into his chair and turned it in such a way so that he could watch the bullpen. He really didn't want any one eavesdropping on this conversation.

"Don't take that tone with me," Abbey admonished playfully. "I'm here at the behest of my husband."

"I'll just bet you are."

"Again with that tone. You're lucky I'm in a good mood." Abbey discretely folded her hands in her lap and sat forward. "You are aware that this Thursday is the Fourth of July."

Toby pointed at the open laptop on his desk. "And I have a speech to finish for your husband to give Thursday morning."

"My husband also wants to fly to Manchester for the afternoon."

"So I've been told."

"He's invited all of the staff to join us. Hamburgers, macaroni salad, fireworks."

"The general fare of the holiday," he said in a manner that said 'what does this have to do with me?'

"What will you be doing this Thursday?" she asked sweetly.

Toby tapped one finger along the side of his desk as he pondered his answer. "Probably forced to endure a multitude of history lessons ranging from the origin of gunpowder to the proper way to case a hotdog."

Abbey was shaking her head. Too tired to play games, Toby braced his arms against the desk as he leaned forward. "Why don't you tell me what I'm doing Thursday."

All manner of playfulness left the First Lady's expression, leaving only matronly concern. "CJ is the only one that hasn't said yea or nay to my husband's invitation. I realize that it is a matter of semantics; everyone will show up at Andrews Air Force base. But CJ usually makes it a point to say if she is, or isn't, going to attend the festivities. I want you to make sure she's there. She needs a day to unwind as much as anyone else here, despite the fact that she will be with all of you yahoos."

"No one wants to push her given recent events," Toby replied quietly, toying with a red stirring stick left over from his morning coffee.

"Is it safe to assume that your little walking routine started soon after that first email arrived?" she asked with a sweet, small smile.

"The first email after Gossling was incarcerated, yes."

Abbey's expression turned from coy to curious. "He sent email from behind bars?"

"First opportunity he could."

Toby noticed that the First Lady's posture had changed as well; her shoulders were held in a much more guarded manner. The President must not have told her about the internet insecurity running rampant in the White House. CJ had not willingly checked her email since that day. Andy McIntosh arranged for CJ's email to be redirected to Carol first, after it became apparent that CJ wasn't going to check it herself. Carol sorted through it and forwarded any pertinent messages on to a new email account that CJ would check from time to time.

"This is the first I've heard of it," she replied, her voice a touch apprehensive.

He had often reveled when he was able to throw a wet blanket on any of the First Lady's machinations concerning him and CJ. Toby pondered how much of the information he had he wanted to hoard and how much he was willing to share.

CJ had tried to keep the first death threat quiet, until Donna read the email several hours later and then called for Josh. Toby had not heard any of it until three days later when there was a Secret Service agent tailing CJ's every move. She had been very tight-lipped about the whole affair, and only when under duress did she confess any of her misgivings to him. This time, Toby had been there from the onset.

"Only CJ, Carol, Ron Butterfield, your husband and I know, though I suspect Leo does as well."

"How did this happen?" Abbey shook her head, recognizing the uselessness of asking such a question. She rephrased. "How could it happen?"

Toby shrugged his shoulders, at as much a loss about the turn of events as any one else. "He pled guilty to the charges at his arraignment as part of a plea bargain, 3 years without parole in a medium-security federal correctional institution. He was allowed access to the prison's computer system as part of an in house work program. Ron has made sure that doesn't happen again."

"Don't they monitor outgoing emails from prisons?"

"There was nothing inherently dangerous about the content of the email. He asked how she liked the play in New York."

"Ah."

Toby arched his eyebrows in agreement. The red stirring stick in his hand kept time with the clock on the wall.

"Let me guess," Abbey said, trying to regain her ground, "she received that email the day Henry did the afternoon briefings. Maybe 2 weeks ago? We were supposed to meet for a late dinner."

"Three weeks ago yesterday," Toby corrected in a quiet voice.

"Someone told me she was in a meeting."

"She was, just not the sort everyone was told." He sat forward, folding his hands so that the slight tremor in his fingers would not betray him.

Abbey's gaze focused on a spot over his shoulder. "How could no one else have known? This place keeps secrets like Elizabeth Taylor keeps husbands."

"It's what CJ wanted."

"She didn't want anyone to make a fuss over her again. Because of what happened the last time."

Toby nodded. Ron had wanted to reinstate Secret Service protection, if only for a few days. CJ had been arguing adamantly against it when Toby arrived at Ron's office door. She had wanted things to go back to normal and wasn't going to let an email scare her into submission. But the look in her eyes disturbed him more than any stalker or email threat ever could. Brave words did not hide the fact that she was scared, that she felt she could not succumb to basic human emotion. It was a state as close to unraveling as he had ever seen CJ, and it frightened him.

He took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to not drum his fingers on the desktop. "After she got the message from Gossling, she asked Carol to call Ron Butterfield. Ron called me about the same time Carol showed up in my office to tell me what had happened. I convinced CJ to talk with someone from EAP. Afterwards I took her home."

CJ had not argued when he insisted she talk to someone. He had waited with her in an unmarked office until someone from Employee Assistance could come. In that time she returned to the calm, collected professional. And he wondered if she was upset over the content of the email more so than the fact that it had been sent.

He had been in her office when she returned and walked her home. It had been uneasy, silent travel until CJ tried to crack a joke about the only army that could get Toby to walk with her involved General Sao and his spicy chicken.

The following morning, she had found him sitting on her stoop when she returned from the gym. He had the remnants of the previous night's Chinese take-out in a small plastic bin, declaring that General Sao had won the battle.

"How is she really doing?"

Abbey's question broke the silence. He wasn't aware of how much time had passed in the interim, lost to thought and memory. He shook his head once to clear it.

"She told me a while ago of a theory she has. If she doesn't go to sleep, the next day and anything bad associated with it can't happen."

"Insomnia has reared its ugly head again, eh?" Abbey sat forward on the sofa and asked quietly, "Is she seeing anyone about it?"

A true smile touched his lips for the first time since Abbey entered his office. "Everyone keeps telling her to cut out the caffeine; that's like trying to tear Linus away from his security blanket."

"I know the feeling," Abbey mused, the gleam back in her expression. "So…"

"So…" Toby echoed suspiciously.

"You know, we have plenty of trails that are just perfect for leisurely strolls on our farm."

He leaned back in his chair, arm braced straight against the edge of the desk. "I'm sure there are."

Abbey shook her head in impish ruin. "I suppose I will never understand you two."

"Join the club."

As she stood, she stabbed him with a mindful stare. "Please think about it. You two, of all people, deserve to have a peaceful day. If you come, I will make sure to keep you both off of my husband's radar."

"We could just as well stay here and stay off the President's radar," Toby reasoned, standing out of propriety.

"You and I both know that if you are in this city, both of you will work, not relax."

Toby walked around his desk to walk her out of the Communications bull pen. "I will see what I can do."

"You're a good friend, Toby."

"Don't let it get around," he stage whispered as her Secret Service detail picked up where he left off.

"I think it's a bit too late for that," she replied, rounding the corner.

He didn't know how long he was standing in the hallway when he felt a tap on his right shoulder. As he turned in that direction, someone jostled him from the left.

"You look lost. What's the matter, Pokey? Can't follow your nose home?"

Toby turned in a circle before finally settling his gaze on CJ. She was leaning against the opposite wall, trying not to bend over in laughter. It was a pleasant sight to see, and he decided he would gladly surrender his dignity to see more of it.

He stepped to her side and touched a hand to her elbow as they walked towards her office. "I was wondering what you thought about moving our walks to the country for a day."

END