Title: May Parade

Author: CretKid (aka Cal)

Category: CJ/Toby

Rating: PG-13/R for strong language

Spoilers: Manchester

Summary: "I went down to the May parade / mumbled words under my breath / there is something I've been meaning to do / I am dying to tell you ... You don't know how far you've gone / or recognize who you've become / how'd you grow to be so hard?"

Author's Notes: Ask and ye shall receive. Greg wanted more Guster lyric songs, so this is his fault! Title and summary come from "I Spy" on the Lost and Gone Forever cd. I will soon be working up a story based on "Mona Lisa" just 'cause he asked, that will follow Manchester II. Thanks to my beta readers, you know who you are.

"May Parade"

==========

For two days Toby had watched the procession of deputies march in and out of the closed-off office and wondered when the self-imposed exile would end. Blinds across windows facing open hallways had been drawn down since the fateful briefing. The only person with any success of getting into the gilded cage was the gatekeeper. He had stopped several times at Carol's desk to get a silent update: Carol had shaken her head and looked forlornly at her boss' door.

CJ was pissed. Truth be told, they were all angry. Their internal numbers said that they might just pull through the MS announcement with a scolding and a slap on the wrist. They had all been very careful not to disrupt the taut tightrope for fear of losing everything over a dumb mistake. Everyone was told to stay away from a microphone. They couldn't afford an off-the-cuff remark.

Only, the person whose job it was to speak for them had been the one to stumble.

He fingered the key in his hand once more. His own apartment key was worn and tarnished through the years. The center hole of his key was rounded, thinned and misshapen from erosion and juggling in his pocket. He wondered briefly if her own personal key to her apartment showed the same wear and tear.

It was late. The only illumination in the hallway was from a small fixture near the elevator. The welcome mat on the floor in front of her door betrayed the muddied weather the District had been subjected to in recent days.

He wanted to ring the bell. He wanted to use the knocker to announce his presence outside her door as it was after midnight. He wanted to call ahead to let her know that he was coming over to see her.

But he knew all entreaties would be flatly ignored here, just as they had been at the office. All phone calls to her direct line had been routed through Carol. Her cell phone had been turned off and on more than one occasion he had found her pager in Carol's possession.

The work was being done, though. The Office of the Press Secretary was running and micromanaging. Briefings for the last two days had been handled adeptly by one of her deputies or in the case of those last briefings concerning Haiti, Nancy McNally. Statements from her office were being delivered to the different news agencies as they had always been. The web site had been updated. All was as if nothing had ever happened.

Tomorrow would be the first time she faced the Press Corps since the 'relieved' statement. It had been announced in staff just before they were allowed to leave for the night.

Leo had looked up from the folder in his hand, looked her straight in the eye and had said, "CJ, you address the agriculture bill first thing tomorrow."

Until that moment, CJ had been virtually ignored during staff for nearly two days.

No preamble. No foreshadowing. No warm up. CJ had nodded her acknowledgment and jotted down a note in her briefing binder.

They had all left the meeting like it was any other. Josh and Sam had started discussing their meetings on the Hill the next day as they trotted to Josh's office. Toby had watched CJ gather her things and leave. No fuss, no muss. No fight.

Toby didn't like what he saw. This was the woman that broke the White House when Leo wanted to hire the Republican that had publicly defamed the Chief of Staff. This was the woman that saved the President's meet-and-greet with school age children when the Galileo probe disappeared off the proverbial radar screen. This was the woman that had fought him tooth and nail the night of the shooting when he suggested that one of her deputies should be behind the podium.

This woman quietly hid in her office. This woman sat through staff meetings with an air of disinterest. This woman closed doors instead of slamming them.

This was not the woman he knew.

The key caught the light as he turned it over in his hand. His key ring jingled, inexcusably loud in the hallway. He was sure the old lady that lived across the hall was going to come out and yell at him with a broom in hand.

He didn’t want to violate the trust given to him when she handed him the key. They had exchanged apartment keys for as long as he remembered, even when he was married to Andy.

Tracing the tip of the key across his temple, he stewed for a few minutes in front of her door. If he used it, she might feel entrapped, cornered in what was supposed to be a safe haven.

His cell phone was to his ear before he realized he had pressed the speed dial.

Her voice was quiet, bitter, when she answered. "What?"

He closed his eyes and wondered if he should have left well enough alone. "I'm standing outside your apartment door. May I come in?"

The abrupt click of a disconnected line was expected. The door opening a crack was not. He pocketed his phone and entered her apartment. The only light on was that in the kitchen. It was eerily quiet in the apartment for a woman he had known to have no less than 3 televisions on and at least one radio receiver tuned to AP News. Even the computer was rigged to bring her wire updates every ten minutes with that damn quacking sound she favored just to drive him nuts.

A tea kettle whistling drew his attention to the kitchen. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the door frame. The swing door between the dine-in kitchen and the living room was tied to a hook on the wall to keep it open. There were no dishes in the sink, no fast food cartons spilling from the garbage can. Even the cat's food dish was tidy.

Smart remarks about nesting would get him nowhere, he realized. She only cleaned obsessively when she was upset. He watched as she pulled a decanter down from an over the counter cupboard and a tea ball from a drawer. She scooped tea leaves into the ball and set it inside the mug of hot water.

Without looking up, she asked, "Want anything?"

"No, I'm fine."

Her movements were mechanical, well tested and trained. She emptied the tea ball and set it in the sink. "There may be beer in the pantry."

Toby shook his head. "It's okay."

She brushed past him as if he weren't in the doorway and settled in the corner of her couch. The living room was dark save for the light spilling around him from the kitchen and moonlight through the picture window.

He continued to lean against the frame, turned so that he could watch both the light traffic on the street and CJ on the couch. CJ curled her legs under her and played with the mug in her hands. Smokey tendrils snaked towards the ceiling, nearly invisible in the low light.

"It's quiet in here." Toby pushed off the door

CJ took a careful sip of the hot liquid. "It's meant to be."

Hesitantly, Toby took a step into the room and leaned against the wall so that more light spilled in from the kitchen. "I, ah, I-I-I wanted to see how you were doing."

Taking another sip, CJ slowly turned the mug in her hands. Her head bobbed slightly as she considered her words. "I'm feeling … pretty shitty right now, thanks for asking."

There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her tone. She made eye contact with him. "How about you?"

Toby looked aside for a moment, drawing his forefinger across his temple before he realized his keys were still in that hand. The key ring was caught on his finger like a marriage band. He pocketed the keys, stepped a little closer to the couch.

"You've taken a beating the last couple of days," he said, daring yet another step.

CJ resumed her study of the steam rising from her cup. "Ya think?"

Toby would have been much more comfortable with an irate CJ than the passive woman sitting on the couch. He found himself justifying actions that he didn’t necessarily agree with.

"They - the press - they were turning the focus onto you. Instead of asking about the President or Haiti, they--"

"I know what they were doing, Toby," she said viciously. "I was there."

Her hands clenched around the mug. Even in the low light, Toby could see the whitening of her knuckles.

"We needed the focus to be on Haiti. And the resolution. Nancy did that for us."

"I may have been benched," CJ replied with some vehemence, "but I was watching."

She rubbed her face hard with one hand and Toby knew she was trying hard not to lose her temper. Though, her losing her temper would be a hell of a lot better than the lack of emotion he had seen the past few days.

"What do you want, Toby?"

Her tone was petulant, unforgiving. He had come to her apartment uninvited. He had invaded her personal space. He had kept her from wallowing in her own misery. By keeping him and his concerns at bay she had a chance of maintaining face.

He refused to rise to the bait she had set before him. Usually it was he that lost his composure in one of these confrontations, not her. One, or both, would become frustrated with the other and end the discussion without resolution.

That wasn't going to happen this time.

Toby did not pride himself on his counseling skills. He was a writer and, more often than not, a speaker. When he faced a problem, he charged at it head on. There was no time to tender foot around hurt feelings and bruised egos. However, this was exactly the problem he faced now.

For all the skills he had with words, communication of this level was not his strong suit. It had cost him his marriage to Andy. He decided long ago that it would not cost him a friendship with a woman who knew him better than he knew himself.

"I wanted to talk with you," he said quietly, daring to sit down on the edge of the coffee table.

Taking a sip of her tea, CJ's response was muffled by the coffee mug. "So talk."

She's not going to make this easy, Toby said to himself as he massaged his temple with thumb and forefinger.

"You were tired. You misspoke--"

CJ snorted. "Thank you, Mr. Obvious."

"No one blames you--"

"Oh, bullshit!" She sat forward and slammed the half-full mug on the coffee table next to Toby.

Toby ignored the splash of tea that assaulted his pant leg. "CJ--"

"No, Toby! Don't sit there and say that no one blames me!"

She leaned into his face and he could see the roadmap of red lines behind the bruised and puffy eyelids.

"He was relieved. He was glad that maybe for a few hours the focus wasn't going to be on him. Yes, I misspoke and in a way that what I did say could be wildly misinterpreted, but don't tell me that no one blames me."

Toby hung his head, not knowing what to say or do. CJ shoved his legs out of her way and stormed into the kitchen.

He allowed her a moment to get her temper under control before following. CJ was standing at the kitchen sink, a brillo pad in one hand and the four burner grills from the stove stacked near the sink. She grabbed one grill and attacked it with the steel wool pad, the water from the tap starting to steam.

Toby leaned against the kitchen counter near the sink. Grabbing the roll of paper towels, he made sure to pass his arm within CJ's field of view. She stopped long enough to lean away from his boardinghouse reach.

After unwinding several paper sheets around his hand and wrist, he tapped the water faucet off with the end of the roll as he replaced it on the other side of the sink. He ripped a couple of sheets from his wad and proffered them to CJ. Reluctantly, she took them and dried her hands. He dabbed at the wet stain on his pant leg, then threw the used napkin into the garbage.

"We were all tired," he started, studying his shoes. "And as Sam so astutely pointed out to Leo, some of us had longer to acclimate than others."

"It doesn't matter who was told first and when," CJ hissed. "What matters is that we weren't told until now."

Toby hadn’t had any sense of how CJ felt about the President's revelation until that moment. She had stopped by his office to ask about a late dinner when Leo pulled her aside. Toby had told her that he would be waiting for her, knowing already what Leo wanted. The following days had been spent what-if-ing, compromising, theorizing and speculating. With the funeral, the constant sessions with Oliver Babish and the development of a media strategy, he knew she had barely found time to breathe let alone talk to him. He found it hard to believe himself at times that it had all gone down in the last two weeks.

He wondered what her reaction had been when she had been told.

"None of us have had our heads in the game," Toby said, daring to glance at her.

There was a hard look to her face, a chiseledness that wasn't there a year ago, a month ago.

"We should have never been thrown the knuckle ball in the first place."

CJ brushed by him, intent on leaving the kitchen and him behind. Toby caught her elbow. She tried to shrug out of his grasp. When he refused to let go, she raised her elbow and shoved hard against his chest with her forearm.

She was able to escape to the living room as he lost his balance against the counter.

He paced the length of the kitchen to give CJ a few minutes to compose herself. She was probably more surprised by the shove than he was. He knew from experience that she hated to lose control, especially in front of people who would forgive her such a minor transgression at the drop of a hat. When she felt justified in her anger, she let anyone and everyone know it. But when she didn't feel her anger was deserved…

Toby noticed it had started raining again as he walked back into the living room. CJ was standing in front of the picture window, misshapen drop shadows painted on her face. Her arms were crossed over her chest, hands held in tight fists. "I did my job, you know," she said.

"The press corps hasn't attacked Henry." Toby stayed near the door to leave her space. She was talking and he wanted to keep the dialogue going.

Her voice was deceptively calm, but he knew better. Her muscles were too taut, her limbs too tense. But it was the pacific façade that scared him the most. The mask she had held firmly in place for two days was back. She had her mind set on something and he wasn't sure he'd like whatever it was.

CJ shrugged her shoulders. "I told Henry to give them an ultimatum. If they tried to turn on him, he should end the briefing immediately, say that the Office would release a statement and they could get their news from the wires."

She walked over to the coffee table and retrieved her tea. Steam no longer rose from the placid liquid.

"We should have done that the first day," Toby grumbled under his breath. He tracked her motions through the living room with his eyes, unwilling to leave his post by the door.

"We couldn't do that and you know it. Not with Haiti." She took a sip as she walked back to her place before the picture window. "Nancy was the best choice," she conceded. "They know not to mess with her."

"What do you think the press will say tomorrow?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders again. "The regular crew -- Katie, Mark, Arthur --, they'll ask about the agriculture initiatives, they'll want to be updated on the Haiti matter, they'll ask about the President's health. The rats that only come up to the deck when the ship is sinking-- they are the ones to worry about."

He couldn't help but wonder if she thought that the wind had been taken from their sails and she had just been saddled with an albatross. They -- he, Josh, Sam -- had been hiding in the ship's cabin while she had been tossed around the deck, in danger of falling into shark-infested waters.

Leo had offered him a lifeboat. Toby wondered if the rope he had to throw was strong enough to pull her back in.

"The ship's not sinking yet," Toby ventured, testing the waters.

A wry, ironic smile played across her lips and he did not like the fact that he had no idea what was running through her head at that moment.

"Yet," she stressed, the smile slowly fading.

end

Story line to be continued in "Pouring Rain"