"On To New and Better Things" by CretKid

"Ready?"

"If I say no, will you go away?"

"No, but only because you answered my question with another question," Toby replied.

CJ collapsed on the couch in her half-unpacked living room. Her arm draped across a box of knick-knacks and other bric-a-brac out of necessity; there simply wasn't any room for her arm to lie next to her side.

Toby chose to stand near the door in the hopes that CJ might get the hint that they should really get on the road.

"We really should leave soon."

"I don't want to," CJ pouted.

"So you've decided to be a five year old on the first day of kindergarten. This is going to be a productive administration." Toby tapped his foot quietly near the door and when there appeared to be no movement whatsoever from the direction of the couch, he scuffled over around the rest of the litter in the living room to maybe pry her off the damn thing. "Why haven't you unpacked yet?"

"For the same reason my car is in the shop and you're here driving me to work."

"What does your car's brake problems have to do with unpacking, or lack thereof?"

"Procrastination. If I had done something earlier about the noises my engine was making, my car wouldn't be in the shop now for three days."

"I thought you said it was the brakes."

"It was just the brakes until the mechanic called to tell me otherwise."

"And here I thought you just wanted me as a chauffeur. We've been in DC for the better part of 2 months, CJ."

"What's your point?"

"That you've procrastinated for two months to unpack. What, did you think the election results would get reversed?"

"I lived out of suitcases for the first two years of college. Give me a break."

"So, I can expect you to actually have a living room floor sometime around the turn of the century."

"Shut up."

Toby pulled one of the boxes off the couch and took its place. He checked his watch. It wasn't as if they were going to be late for anything. The movers were still bringing things over from the interim offices to the White House. There would only be hours of unpacking and setting up of offices once they got to the West Wing anyway. Though he still chose to wear a suit and tie, CJ had chosen khakis, pull over sweater and sensible sneakers. Josh and Sam no doubt would be similarly unattired.

"You're going to roast in that coat, you know." Toby leaned his head back on the sofa and absently watched the television that was still on and covering the weekend's Inauguration ceremonies. He unbuttoned his own coat to prove a point.

"I don't want to go."

"Aren't you a little old for first day jitters?"

"No." CJ pulled herself off the couch. "Let's go."

Toby huffed, "I just got settled."

"Let's go."

Toby rolled his eyes and lifted himself off the couch. "You have everything? Homework, school books, lunch money?"

CJ shot him a glare that would have frozen the Potomac if it already didn't have a sheen of ice on it from the cold winter weather. Toby walked over to the television to turn it off. CJ started patting down her pockets.

"What are you looking for?"

"My keys."

"Oh, dear lord," Toby sighed.

"SHUT UP!"

CJ emptied her pockets on the end table, the only clean and stable surface in the living room. A few receipts, ATM slips, a pack of Life-Savers that had seen younger and better days. She chucked those into a garbage can next to the couch. From another pocket other minutia from a life on the go emerged. Something solid hit the glass table top.

Toby turned at the clink on glass sound.

"CJ, why is there a rock in your pocket?" He cringed as he said the words, sounding like a very bad Dr. Seuss lyric.

CJ stopped momentarily and stared at the coffee table and the spot Toby pointed to. "That's not a rock."

"That is a rock. I know a rock when I see it. That is a rock."

"Okay, it is a rock. But it's not a rock."

"And we have you speaking to the Press as a profession? God save the country."

"It's not a rock, it's a worry stone. I've had it since I was like eight."

"It's a rock."

CJ sighed and picked it up. "Keep calling it a rock and I will throw it at you."

"Then it just proves it's a rock."

"Shut up." She shoved it in her pants pocket and then found her keys. For some reasons she felt compelled to explain why she had a rock in her pocket, despite the fact that it wasn't a rock, exactly.

"I found it during a camping trip. I was hiking with my father along the Sacramento River and found it in the stream bed. My father called it a worry stone. He said if you rub it when you're nervous, you rub your fears away."

Toby was staring at her as of she had grown a second head.

"Shut up. Let's go. I have my keys."

"It's still a rock," he said as a parting remark as he closed the door.

By the time the afternoon had rolled around, most of the office furniture had been moved to where it needed to be and the mountain of boxes had been sorted and placed in the appropriate places. The chaos of the morning had turned to a general din of quiet determination to get the damn day over with after lunch, when the anxieties that had plagued most of the staffers had subsided.

Once she had gotten into the groove of setting up her office, CJ had forgotten completely about the initial nervousness of the morning. It didn't matter that she had worked with these people for the better part of a year and sometimes longer. They were working in the White House now. That fact alone was a little more than daunting, and it took a while to get used to it. The honeymoon was over. Bartlet had won, there was nothing but positive feedback from the media about the transition of power back to the Democrats, for the most part. She didn't worry about the Republican blow hards that had whined about a no-name Democrat that had never served a military day in his life. That argument had already been beaten to death, and the press credentials she had already approved were for people she knew that would not try to beat a dead horse.

There really wasn't anything she needed to be concerned about.

The nervousness was more out of habit than anything else. Even through graduate school, she couldn't help but fall prey to first day of school butterflies. Toby had decided to play on her insecurities by dropping a brown paper lunch bag on her desk while she was meeting with her press office earlier in the morning with a post-in note: 'You forgot your lunch. Mom'. He had left at least three such bags in any area she might be that morning.

Later, she found polished rocks similar to her worry stone in her desk, on the bookshelves, and her purse. She wondered when he had found the time to get the stones, let alone hide them everywhere, seeing that he had to be just as busy as she was setting up his own office. Then she remembered that Margaret had had one of those rock garden fountains in the New Hampshire headquarters and Toby must have pilfered them from her desk. She'd have to remember to return the rocks later.

She had thought it was cute until Josh and Sam got in on the deal and starting leaving any old rock they had come across in her office. She didn’t know if Toby had let them in on her little confession that morning, but he was going to pay dearly for encouraging them in their little endeavor.

She was sitting in the middle of her office, sorting through the rest of the files she had to deal with Carol, when the phone rang. With a long arm reach she pulled the phone down to the floor, pausing to read the display. "What do you want?"

"Is this how you intend to answer the phone?" Toby asked. "I could have been a foreign press secretary. Or Mrs. Landingham."

"Caller ID."

"You have the phone numbers memorized all ready?"

"No, I programmed mine to give me the names."

There was a pause, and then Toby's voice sounded a little distant, as if the mouth of the receiver had been pulled away from his face. "Mine doesn't do that."

"Yes it does, you just have to know how to program it." Under her breath, she added, "Dumbass."

Carol looked sharply at her. "CJ!"

Covering the mouth piece, CJ whispered, "It's only Toby."

"Oh, and that explains everything." Carol stood up and walked out of the office. "I'm leaving before I'm called to testify against you."

"For what?"

"Harassment. Inappropriate behavior, I don't know."

"CJ?" Toby asked over the phone.

"What?"

"I need help."

CJ couldn't let such a great set up line go to waste. "I'm sorry, I'm not a shrink."

She could hear Toby groaning over the phone. "Not that kind of help."

"Could have fooled me."

"Will you just get down here?"

"Not until you tell me why."

The other end of the line was silent for a second. She could hear a scuffling and Toby mumbling to someone. There were a few phrases she caught, what sounded like an 'I'm sorry' and a definite 'Get away from me' from Toby.

Finally, he came back on the line. "I have a dead mouse."

"Then call the computer people. Besides, you use a Mac and I refuse to touch one of those machines. They are evil."

"It's not a computer problem."

CJ stopped for a second to register exactly what he was saying. "You have a dead mouse."

"Yes."

"A mouse."

"Yes."

"As in a formerly furry rodent."

"That would be an apt description."

"And if it is dead, why do you need my help?"

"Just get down here."

"Why?"

"It's something I'd rather not discuss over the phone."

"Is there someone laughing in the background?"

"That would be Bonnie."

"Why is Bonnie laughing?"

"Just get down here, please."

"You said please. This must be serious."

"Bring a bag of ice."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Okay, be there in a few."

CJ quickly headed for Josh's office, opening the connecting door. She knew he had a small box fridge in his office, and she was hoping that he still kept a bag of ice in the tiny freezer.

Josh was balancing on the arms of two chairs when she walked into his office. Rather than see what acrobatic maneuverings she could instigate by approaching unannounced, she rapped on the door.

"Hey, Josh."

"Hey, CJ."

"What are you doing?"

"Putting files away on this shelf."

"And it didn’t occur to you to get a step ladder or something."

"Nah, this is easier. What can I do for you?"

"Ice."

Josh pointed towards a corner. "Freezer."

"Thank you."

"Can I ask why?"

"Something about a dead mouse."

"Are you planning on shipping the head of Walt Disney to the White House?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Didn’t Walt Disney have his head cryogenically frozen?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"You said it was about a dead mouse."

"I'm telling Donna to cut down on your sugar intake. Climb down from there. I think the altitude is making you light headed."

CJ grabbed the ice bag and left the room. She was about to look for Donna when she heard a crash. Donna popped up from behind one of the desks, looking too much like a prairie dog from a nature show CJ had once caught while not sleeping. She had to keep from laughing out loud at the analogy.

She ran into several people on her way to the Communications bull pen. When she arrived, she noticed that Toby's blinds were closed. This had to be good.

Knocking on the door, she held the ice bag in front of her before entering. "I come bearing ice."

"Get in here and close the door."

"Yes, sir," she replied sarcastically.

It wasn't until she turned around that she got a good look at the scene before her. Bonnie was standing in the corner as if being punished. She was holding her sides, trying not to laugh.

Toby was seated in one of the two guest chairs in front of his desk, glaring at Bonnie in the corner she had been relegated to. He was holding one of his handkerchiefs to his forehead. CJ couldn't see why until he turned around and reached for the bag.

CJ had to fight the tears; now she knew why Bonnie was laughing so hard. For that brief second Toby's head was uncovered, CJ caught a glance of a burgeoning bruise on his forehead that for all the world looked like the state of Florida.

"Get it out of your system now," he warned, wincing as the ice touched his forehead.

"How the hell did this happen?" CJ gently lifted the ice bag to get a good look. There was a small nick near where the pan-handle would have joined the rest of the state. It wasn't gushing blood now, though from the looks of the 'kerchief in Toby's hand, it was bleeding pretty good a few minutes ago.

"Bonnie threw a stapler at me."

Bonnie rose her hand. "In my defense, I did not mean to throw it at you."

"So Bonnie is being punished?"

"Until she can stop laughing."

"That's not going to happen any time soon," Bonnie declared.

"Do you have any bandaids in here? Or aspirin?" CJ asked, dumping some of the ice into Toby's empty waste can so that the bag would be easier to handle.

"No," Toby replied, batting CJ's hand away.

CJ nodded to Bonnie and waved her towards the door. "Bonnie, go to my office, get Carol to find my first aid kit."

"You have a first aid kit?" Toby asked incredulously.

"And aren't you glad that I do have one?"

"Point taken." He nodded to Bonnie. "And not a word!"

After Bonnie left, CJ moved around to the corner of his desk. "Want to tell me how this happened?"

Toby rubbed his face with his free hand. "She was unloading a box of office supplies. When she dropped the box on the couch, she dislodged our furry friend there." He pointed to a kleenex on the corner of the couch.

"I'm afraid to ask. Is it under the kleenex?"

"Yes."

"You covered it up."

"It seemed the right thing to do."

"And how does the stapler come into this?"

"Bonnie thought it was alive, threw a stapler at it. The stapler bounced off the back of the couch and hit me."

"I would have paid to see that."

"I could re-enact it for you. You be me, I'll be Bonnie."

"Over my dead body."

"That can be arranged. We know people now. What are you doing?"

CJ pulled the ice bag off his head. "I'm looking to see if there's any swelling."

"No more than usual."

"Now I'm convinced you have a concussion. You were funny just then." She placed the bag back on his head and put his hand over it to hold it in place.

"Ha ha."

CJ pushed the sleeves of her sweater up over her elbows, then crossed her arms over her chest. She cocked her head to the side and smiled, "You know, I'm never going to be able to look at that couch the same way."

"You have intimate knowledge of my couch? Why wasn't I there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Maybe I would."

An eyebrow rose at his continued banter. Maybe the blow to his head did alter his personality. Then again, maybe not. "We might disrupt a nest of mice."

Toby's expression never changed. She could never claim to have seen an innocent look on that sour puss of his, but this was a close to one as she thought she might ever see. "So they get a show for free," he said, catching her eye from around his arm.

"You think I'm that cheap? I expect to be wined and dined." She swatted him on the shoulder.

"I brought you lunch."

"So I take it dragging me down here so that you can complain to me is your 'whine'?"

"No, there's a fermenting bottle of grape juice in my desk drawer."

"You're a walking health hazard, you know that. I don't think I want to associate with you."

Bonnie knocked on the door and appeared with the first aid kit, as requested. CJ left her spot on the desk to get the kit.

"Thank you, Bonnie," Toby said, dumping the ice on his desk for a moment.

CJ couldn't help herself. "Bonnie, mark your calendar. Toby just said 'thank you'."

Toby tossed his ice bag at CJ's back. "You may both leave now."

"Fat chance. You'll never get that thing tended to by yourself," CJ replied as she picked up the ice bag and dropped it on his lap.

Toby nearly jumped out of his seat as the bag started to spill cold water into his lap. CJ couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

"That's what you get for making fun of my worry stone."

"I look like I've wet my pants, CJ!"

"Well, incontinence can be a problem for men your age." CJ offered him his bloodied 'kerchief to soak up some of the water from his lap. He swatted her hand away again.

"You may soon find dead furry things in your couch." Toby pulled his right pant leg away from his body.

"Promises, promises. Think of it this way, things can only get better from here on out."

"Speak for yourself. I refuse to tempt fate that way."

"And stealing the stones out of Margaret's water fall thing isn't tempting fate? I think you just got what you deserved."

"Go away. I have to change."

"So the mice will still be getting their free show."

Toby glared at CJ, and with that she left his office with a smile on her face. So much for first day jitters.

END