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The First One Hundred Days
Violet

Back to Part One

Oh, God, I can't stop laughing
This sense of humor of mine, it isn't funny at all
But we sit up all night talking about it
Just being alive, it can really hurt...
- Kate Bush, "Moments Of Pleasure"

Monday, April 9th: Day Eighty


Sam was running late, and he hated it.

A hundred times -- every New Year's, every time he got waylaid at a red light, every time his phone started shrilling when he had a foot out the door -- he'd resolved to become a punctual person. He'd set his watch and his alarm ahead ten minutes, tied strings around his fingers, asked for wake-up calls and warnings. None of it worked. The problem was chronic, and the damnedest thing was that it wasn't always his fault.

He hurried through O'Hare, anxiously checking his boarding pass and luggage and the time. It wasn't his fault, this time. It had been kids, grad students, a group of them who had attended all eight of the lectures he'd given at the University of Chicago. They'd come to the discussion afterwards, trying hard to pretend they didn't believe that the world was an essentially good place. Three of them -- a redheaded political science major named Tabitha, a brunette law student named Holly, and an education major named Kyle who had bleached his dark hair blond -- had been fairly obvious in flirting with him. Sam thought he should be flattered, but he was unnerved. They were young enough, technically, to be his children, and they would have gone to bed with him. The thought made him want a long shower and a long night's sleep.

They'd gathered him into a discussion of cancer research at a coffee stand just off the campus. He'd managed to disentangle himself from the group, but the sixty-minute grace period he'd allowed himself to make his flight on time had somehow evaporated. Then he'd gotten stuck at the tail end of every possible long line, and of course his plane was at the farthest terminal. Airports were like hotel rooms; they were all alike and they were rarely above awful. The boarding call crackled over the intercom. He groaned, slipped past a couple of stodgy gray-haired women who were standing still and dashed down the moving walkway.

Predictably, as Sam sprinted off the end of the belt, he lost his footing and fell face forward, landing in a jumble on the cold tile as his briefcase skittered out of his hands.

He sat up, dazed. Several adults snickered. At least two children pointed and giggled outright. "Serves him right," he heard one of the matronly women say as she walked by. For several seconds, his mind was blank. He knew, of course, who he was and where he was going, but all that seemed irrelevant in the pure absurdity of the moment. The floor was cold under his hands. His elbows were definitely bruised. Everything was the white of reflected fluorescent light.

Then everything in his head became very clear.

He seized his carry-on and scrambled to his feet, rummaging frantically for his cell phone. The number flew off his fingertips, and rang and rang until he felt like a schoolboy counting down until recess. Finally, there was an answer.

"Josh--"

"Put Josh on," Sam said automatically, before he even heard the voice.

"Dude, it's me. You caught me right on my way out the door."

"Hey, sorry. I thought you'd be Donna."

"I promise you, I will never be Donna." Josh sounded drowsy. "I was heading home. It's like nine-thirty here."

"That's early," Sam observed.

"Only in our sick little world. What's up?"

He paced a few steps toward the wall, away from the flow of human traffic. "I'm lucid."

"Okay," Josh answered warily. "Is this one of those times like when people say they're sane and it means they're too crazy to know they're crazy?"

"No, I'm really lucid."

"Also, I thought you could only be lucid if you had been unconscious for a long time," he continued. "Like, 'How's the patient?' 'Oh, she woke up from the procedure. She's lucid, but she can't eat yet.' And then the other guy says--"

"Josh? Can you stop doing a one-man rendition of 'St. Elsewhere' and listen to me?"

"I'm a little punchy," Josh apologized. "So, you're lucid?"

"I'm like O.J. Simpson in the old Hertz ads," Sam declared.

"I have to tell you, O.J. Simpson is the last person that I think of when I think of you."

"Are you going to stop interrupting?"

"Yeah, but--" Josh stifled a yawn. "You have to get to something like a point soon."

"All that time we were running on a moving walkway," Sam said, running his fingers through his hair. "Like the Hertz ad. We were going with the direction, and it was all the time, and we never thought about it. We never realized how fast we were going. And then we went right off the end and our legs were moving way above normal speed, and we're out of control and we have to catch ourselves."

"So let me get this straight," Josh said. "You fell down at the end of one of those people belts in the airport."

"No," Sam said defensively. "Well, yes, yes, yes, but that's not the point. It's a perfect metaphor, you see?"

"There is nothing more dangerous than you with a perfect metaphor."

"We went flying off the thing," Sam persisted. "That's why everything keeps spinning away from me. That's why everyone's lost and confused and crashing into things."

"Yeah. So." Josh hesitated for a heartbeat. "You're coming back here, then."

Sam didn't know it, hadn't decided or realized it until he was speaking. He filled his lungs with air and let it rush out of him. "Yeah."

The sleepiness left Josh's voice with speed. He was alert now, Sam thought, and awake and alive. Lucid, and pleased about it. "It'll be good," Josh said.

Sam realized he had to look ludicrously, stupidly happy. "It will!"

"It'll be great. It'll be really -- it hasn't been the same here." Josh sounded infinitely relieved by just saying the words. "I mean, it has, but it hasn't. It'll be good now. Within a week we'll be painting the town red."

He tried to stop smiling, found he couldn't, and wondered if his face had really frozen that way. "Columbia's gonna be pissed when I don't show up."

"You cash their check yet?"

"No."

"Then let 'em eat cake," Josh said gleefully. "Now we're in business."

Sam bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. "You think Georgetown'll have me?"

"They'd be fools not to. Plus, we have connections."

"We are connections."

"And after you do that for a while -- you don't have to, you know, commit to anything," Josh told him. "I don't want this to be like you got the wind knocked out of you and it seemed like a good idea to go back."

"No, no." Sam shook his head as if Josh could see him. "It's more like when amnesiacs in movies get hit on the head and remember everything."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He turned up his forearm to inspect it. "I tore my jacket."

Josh's laughter was warm. "Honest to God, Sam, how do you even get dressed in the morning?"

"I don't know!" He whirled around. "I gotta -- I gotta go find the ticket counter again and see if they'll give me some of my money back when I change this."

"They won't."

"I know it." The phone was hot against his ear. He pulled it away for a second and looked at it. "Do you think this thing is giving me brain cancer?"

"Who cares? You're coming back!"

"I am!" Sam took a few steps forward. "It really is this simple."

"Everything should be. So I'll talk to you again soon. I'll see you soon. It's gonna be good, Sam. Hard but good."

"It takes a nation of millions to hold us back," Sam agreed cheerfully. "We'll talk later."

"Proud of you," Josh said.

Sam thought of the students that had flirted with him, the ones that had listened to him, the ones who had simply tolerated his presence for extra credit. He could see Mallory chiding him, and at the same time Leo's steady gaze over lunch, both -- he knew, now; it was all so clear - saying the same thing.

"I am too," Sam said. "Later."

He hung up the phone and stuffed it back into his briefcase, striding through the terminal -- and avoiding the moving walkways -- with the oversized smile shining from his face.


* * *


Saturday, April 14th: Day Eighty-Five


"So the long and short of it is--"

C.J. put a hand over her eyes and leaned back against her pillow. "You're back in Washington. I know."

"You don't sound surprised," Sam said, disappointed.

"Danny told me yesterday afternoon."

"Danny Concannon?"

"The once and future Fishboy," she confirmed. "People keep me in the loop."

"So it can all become grist for Sweeps month?" he teased.

"You know, it's not like I'm putting your words in anyone's mouth."

"I still think Jake should ask Julie out."

She gritted her teeth. "Jake is still not based on you."

"I can't believe Danny told you I was back. I wanted to tell you."

"You want to tell everyone," C.J. guessed. "You want to stand on top of the Monument and bellow it to the assembled masses. You're pretty pleased with yourself, Sammy."

"I am," he said without humility.

"Are you getting fêted?" she asked. "The return of the prodigal, that kind of thing? Are you the toast of the town?"

"'Hey, you're that guy,' is what I mostly get," Sam said. "Well, and Donna's happy because now when Josh feels the need to show up at someone's door at two a.m. and rant, he has twice as many victims in the neighborhood. How are you doing? How's California?"

She massaged her left temple lightly with two fingertips. "It's great. We're both great."

"I know it must've been weird for you," he said softly. "I mean, you're in the loop. You hear things. I know it must've been weird."

C.J. fought the urge to slam the phone down on him, and managed to finish with a friendly goodbye instead. She was alone in the unlit bedroom, curtains blotting out the sun as she nursed the migraine she'd awakened with three hours earlier. Jeff was asleep somewhere downstairs on her couch. He spent half his nights there and half in his apartment, to which, after a month, she had never been.

Jeff had brought her home the day she'd booted her guts out on the studio lot, had patted her hand and made mint tea in her kitchen and not once questioned why a bad bagel was wrecking her so thoroughly. He'd called her the next morning, to make sure she was okay and invite her to dinner. He didn't know anything about politics. She supposed that was fair, because she didn't know anything about sound editing. There wasn't any pressing need for either of them to learn. But he was a nice guy in all kinds of ways, and so uncomplicated that she felt like she was constantly getting away with something.

They'd fucked on her back porch after their second date, drunk and starry and hysterically amused by some comment on the weather. It wasn't amazing; it wasn't a letdown. It was simply nice. Over burnt coffee and greasy omelets the next morning, he told her he'd grown up in Ohio and liked to smoke pot. She told him her real age; he took it in stride.

That was how it proceeded, easy and casual and mildly decadent. She was significantly older and smarter than he was, but it didn't matter. And the most delightful thing was not to have to worry about who saw them together, or whether they felt each other up in doorways, or where they ate breakfast, because neither of them were names on marquees and nobody in the world cared. Los Angeles was beautiful that way.

Her head hurt. She wanted water, but her glass was empty and it was a toss-up whether getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom would be worth the pain. She wanted to rest, but between the ache, the cars passing on the street, and the mid-morning sun trickling through at the windows' edges, it seemed impossible. She wanted to pass out for an hour or a day or about four years.

The phone rang again.

"Shit," she said, and wished that Jeff would pick up the extension, although she was glad he never did that. She pulled herself up straight, reached for the receiver, and mumbled her name into it.

"Well, you sound awful as all get-out," a lively voice greeted her.

For a few moments she couldn't quite place it. "Um."

"Headache?"

"Mm hmm."

"Drink fruit juice and take Advil, not aspirin," the voice advised.

It clicked into place then. "Hi, Abbey."

"Hello, C.J."

"I'm sorry, I'm kind of out."

"So I gathered."

C.J. leaned back across her bed. "How are you? How's the family?"

"I'm perfectly fine. My husband, however, is threatening to go build his library with a load of lumber and his own two hands." She snorted. "And I wish he'd go do that and stop walking around the house ranting about how he can't find the right translation of Quintus Smyrnaeus's 'The Fall Of Troy'."

"Smyrnaeus Quintus," a distant voice in the background corrected her.

She sighed. "You see?"

C.J. furrowed her brow. "I didn't think Presidential Libraries had, you know, regular books. I thought it was for historical documentation."

"Well, some people don't seem to have gotten that through their heads. Zoey's arguing her first court case in a couple weeks."

"I'll send her flowers."

"She'd appreciate that," Abbey said. "But I called to see how you were. We haven't heard from you in a while."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"We've been hearing from everyone else lately. I'm sure you know that Josh and Sam are giddy as schoolgirls."

C.J. squinted up at the ceiling. "Like Thelma and Louise without the crime spree."

"Yes. Sometimes they remind me of a couple of other guys I know." Abbey was silent for a moment. "But how are you?"

"I'm good." She rested her hand just above the collar of her T-shirt, tracing a finger along the scar on her throat. "You know, I'm having a lot of fun out here."

"With the TV thing?"

"Yeah. They're interesting people." That much was true; the story meetings and table readings were charged with humor and enthusiasm. Sometimes she would argue for realism and lose it in favor of drama, but when she was overruled, sometimes it was a relief. And if everyone was a little too smug about their own cleverness, that was the most realistic touch of all.

"I have to say, everyone was pretty thrown when you left before the curtain call."

"Well, you know, it wasn't like there was much left for me to do. And I wanted to get settled out here for New Year's."

"Even so."

"Most places don't measure time by elections," she mused. "I'd almost forgotten that."

"Yeah." Abbey sounded concerned and a little impatient. "C.J., how are you doing?"

"I told you, it's good. It's just, my head hurts."

"Josh told Leo that he's been worried about you. And frankly, that makes me worry too. You've been, at least, a fellow soldier." She chuckled wryly. "I have three daughters, and the mindset sticks with you. We don't hear from you, and we only hear a little about you. Which is all by way of saying, cut the crap and tell me how you are."

"Abbey, really, it's not like I live in South Central. I'm not in a red vinyl miniskirt out on Sunset."

But it all seemed kind of dissipated, when she tried to picture herself from the outside. There was this not-young (middle aged, she forced herself to admit) woman with a job that required minimal mental exertion, a too-young stoner sex partner and a cellar full of wine. She had been on the Senior Staff, and it sounded like Los Angeles was debauching her. Or maybe the other world had been the pretense, and this was who she'd always been.

"C.J.--"

There was a scuffle on the phone line. She closed her eyes briefly against the pounding in her head, and waited for Abbey to speak again. But it wasn't Abbey who spoke.

"C.J."

She gulped. "Yes, sir."

His voice was stern, gentle, paternal. "You know, I am so sick and tired of being called 'sir' by my friends. I could never get called 'sir' again and I'd be happy."

"I'm sorry," she said, and then couldn't help herself, "sir."

"You know what you are, C.J.?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"'The tireless war-god's child, the mailed maid, like to the blessed gods,'" he said.

She raised herself up on her elbows. "I am?"

"Smyrnaeus Quintus," he told her proudly. "Some people with plebeian tastes don't appreciate it."

"Well, I certainly don't understand them."

"Claudia," he said, lowering his voice. "What are you doing?"

He spoke quietly, but it resonated, and it made her wince. She sat up straight in the middle of her bed and looked at the pale gold streak of light between the curtains. Without intending to, she held her breath, and she could hear Jeff stirring downstairs. She could hear the house settling as houses did when they weren't far from fault lines, and she could hear her cat bumping for the millionth time into the unfamiliar walls.

Her throat closed up so much she could barely speak. "I don't know."

"I don't like it when people lie to my wife," he said, not unkindly.

"I know."

"You sound pretty miserable there."

"I'm not," she protested weakly. "I mean, I'm not completely. There are things about this place that are great."

"There are things about Peoria that are great. I don't see you packing your bags."

She studied her hands in the dim light. "No."

"C.J., transitions are difficult and ugly and no one handles them with as much grace as the speeches and handshakes make it seem. But they have to be made, and like most important things in the world, they require far more than a day of your time."

Her vision blurred, but she wasn't sure if it was tears or the headache. "There's a chance," she said, her voice faltering. "There's a chance I've done some very stupid things."

"I'd say there's more than a chance." His tone changed somehow, lighter but still firm. "For a long time you've been working hard at being brilliant. You're entitled to get the stupid things out of your system, but that's all you're entitled to, young lady. And Abbey may yet kick your ass for lying to her."

Everything still hurt, and the room was still too bright, but she had to smile. "Yes, sir."

"For the love of God, stop that. I'll let you go. But if you don't call back, Abbey won't be the only one gunning for you, is that clear?"

"Crystal." She swallowed the 'sir', but he noticed it and laughed.

"Maybe you should think about whether you want to pack your bags," he said. "And I'm not talking about Peoria."

"I'm thinking about it," she promised. She wouldn't have said it a day or an hour before, but it would have been true then too.

"Good girl," he said, and hung up.

C.J. lay still by herself in the dark for a little while. Eventually she wiped her face off on the corner of her sheet and took her empty glass down to the kitchen. She was still very thirsty.


* * *


Wednesday, April 25th: Day Ninety-Six


"I've been looking up statistics," Donna said, draping her jacket over the back of a chair. "And we are definitely not normal."

C.J. looked at her curiously as they sat down at the table. "You had to look up statistics for that?"

"Sixty percent of former White House staffers move on to non-political jobs."

"Really? Sixty percent?"

"I made that up. I couldn't find numbers." Donna unfolded her napkin. "But it's got to be a lot more than the ones that stay, right?"

"I guess so. Otherwise the place would be overrun. Like the deer population. They'd have to pick us off one by one by sending in radical Republicans and heavily armed teenagers." C.J. paused and covered her mouth with her hand. "That was so completely not funny."

"But here we are," Donna murmured. "Josh and Sam and you and me."

"That's not so very many," C.J. observed, accepting a menu from the busboy. "I mean, Leo's retired--"

"He's still armchair quarterbacking. C-Span on television and Josh on the phone."

"Well, at least he's good at it."

"The greatest. And Margaret will basically work for him forever, no matter where it takes her."

"Yeah." C.J. began to tick people off on her fingers. "And Carol's at CBS, and Ginger's editing at Avon, and Bonnie's getting married in a couple months."

"Ainsley's writing a book."

"Really?"

"She couldn't get a job." Donna tried not to smirk. "Republicans won't hire her; Democrats certainly won't hire her. So she huffed off to a publisher and got a six-figure advance."

C.J. whistled. "Well, if she writes the way she talks, that'll be cheaper than paying her by the word."

"She's not a bad person, but--"

"--But I can't say I miss hearing her voice," C.J. finished for her.

"Exactly." Donna flipped through her menu. "Oh, wow, tortellini."

"I'm having a Caesar salad."

"That's all?"

"I was..." C.J. tucked her hair behind her ear. "I ate too much in California. And drank too much. And... and everything, too much."

"Why?"

"All kinds of reasons," she said cryptically. "It's California."

"Then I'm glad you're back," Donna said warmly. "And you can have some of my tortellini if you're still hungry after that salad."

"I may not stay," C.J. said cautiously. "I mean, I don't know that I want to be here now. It's just that I left too fast. And it's not like anything here is ever that long-term."

"Right, because Los Angeles is the capital of permanence? Sam says the same thing as you, you know."

"And?"

"...And I'm glad you're back, that's all." Donna set her menu down. "So there's a thing I'm going to ask, and you're going to yell at me."

She took a deep breath. "No, I haven't been talking to Toby."

"How did you know?"

"I knew," C.J. said simply. "And it's none of your business."

"I just don't understand why, why you wouldn't--"

"Because it's--" She looked at the tablecloth, idly realigning her silverware. "It's just been easier this way, is all."

"What has?" Josh asked, making them both jump a little as he sidled up to the table.

"Nothing," C.J. said quickly.

"Keeping secrets isn't nice," Josh scolded.

"You caught me." C.J. rocked her chair back. "I'm really a man. All this time I've been a drag queen. Does that explain everything?"

"Well, the height. And the heels. And -- I'm going to stop now before you kill me with a butter knife."

"You're a wise man," C.J. said, letting her shoulders slump.

"Did you know that two-thirds of former White House employees get out of politics when their term in office ends?" Donna asked Josh.

"Does that make me weird?"

Donna nodded at Josh and glanced at C.J. "Welcome to the freak show."


* * *


"They don't even have jobs," Toby said, and slammed his newspaper down on the coffee table with one hand. "I mean, Sam's corrupting the American youth or whatever the hell he calls it at Georgetown. And--"

"C.J. will have a job," Andi said quietly on the phone.

If he heard her, he did not show it. "It's bullshit. Like you go back to Washington waving your little flag and that somehow cures all ailments. Like the Reflecting Pool is a fountain of youth. And it's not like they were rode out of town on the rails. They left. But I guess that's just some kind of footnote now."

"Toby, if you can't talk about this calmly--"

"It's not like they have that much credibility, for crying out loud. They have no idea what they're doing and, oh, yeah, they don't have jobs."

"They have jobs," Andi reiterated.

Toby leaned back on the couch, glaring into space. "She does not have a job."

"She will when she decides to find one."

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "She's clumsy and capricious and she's been in politics for a hell of a shorter time than most people. I feel sorry for the bastard that hires her."

Andi snapped. "Well, I'd hire her if she'd work for me, you overblown jackass!"

He was silenced for a few seconds, wordless. "I'm a jackass now?"

"You are the jackass, Toby," she said, loudly enough that he moved the phone away from his ear. "You are the champion jackass of the entire Eastern seaboard."

"I think--"

"Shut up. Do you not remember how to be a person anymore? You don't even have a job yourself. Pot, kettle."

"I think it's none of your business," Toby said coldly.

"You called me up in the middle of the afternoon to complain about your friends and it's none of my business?" She laughed harshly. "I guess your big brain got up one morning and went on vacation from your bald head."

He raised his voice. "It doesn't have anything to do with you. And you're not better, somehow, better than me, so--"

"Oh, do you need to turn this into a dick-slinging contest? Because I think we've established conclusively, many times, that mine's bigger."

"I'm going to hang up on you," he said.

"No, you're damn well not. I've listened to you for three months now, which is a lot more than enough. And I'll never not care about you, Toby, but I'm sick and tired of this crap. And I'm not as big an idiot as you, so listen."

He said nothing, held the phone where he could see it but still hear her, and waited.

When she spoke again, the sharpness of her voice had diminished to a determined edge. "Since the inauguration you've been doing your best imitation of someone who never cared about anything. And maybe most people can even be convinced that you didn't, but there are some of us you're not fooling."

"Or maybe I stopped," he said.

"What?"

He brought the receiver up again. "Never mind."

"I don't like you this way," she said, suddenly vulnerable. "And there have been other times when I haven't liked you much, but -- this is bad, Toby, so beneath you. You're going to wind up as some cautionary tale they tell in the wee hours of election nights. And I know C.J. Cregg, and I've seen what you see when you see her."

"That was really regrettable sentence construction," he said.

"That's a cheap debate tactic." Her voice was hard again. "Do something, decide not to do something, that's not my business. You're right. But get up off the mat already, you big baby."

"You know, I thought you got to keep the ultimatums in the divorce settlement, and I got to keep the right to, you know, live."

"Community property," she said wearily. "Look, what you've done so far didn't work. And not for nothing, Toby... she's a good woman and capricious is the last thing she is."

He hung up on her. She did not call back.

In retrospect, he knew the outburst had been a long time coming, legible in the shape of her mouth and the movements of her hands. There were things she would always make him pay for. The anger, directed at no one and at everything, sizzled in his veins and knotted in his hands. But he let the sound of ice cubes cracking in alcohol substitute for putting his fist through a wall or a window.

It had happened very fast. The night passed very slowly.


* * *

In the pocket of the heart, in the rushing of the blood,
In the muscle of my sex, in the mindful, mindless love
I accept the newfound man
And I set the twilight reeling...
- Lou Reed, "Set The Twilight Reeling"

Sunday, April 29th: Day One Hundred


Everything was coming together, C.J. thought, tossing her coat over her elbow so that she could carry her keys and her briefcase in the same hand, while her purse hung over her shoulder. With the other, she clutched the handle of her coffee cup and pulled the door of her new apartment shut behind her. Walking down the hall, she felt graceful. She was poised. She was balanced.

The phone rang, and she was even ready to handle that. C.J. hooked a finger through her key-ring to hang onto it, and tossed the briefcase into her other hand so she could fish the phone out of her purse. She managed to extract it and push the button while it was still ringing, pinning it in place with her shoulder. "Hello?"

"Hello."

For a moment it sounded like, she thought, but of course it wasn't. "I'm sorry; who is this?" she said automatically.

The caller seemed odd, disoriented, stung by the question. "Toby."

Of course it was. She lost her grip. The briefcase thudded to the carpet; her coat swished down over it. The coffee cup bounced twice before rolling away, the lid flying off and the hot liquid splattering her ankle. She bit her lip hard to stifle a yelp. "Toby Ziegler?"

He still sounded baffled. "How many Tobys do you know?"

"Many," she said firmly. "Many, many, many. Ow."

"What are you doing?"

"I have a job interview," she explained, frowning down at the rubble around her feet. "I have virtually all my important personal belongings with me. I'm like a snail."

"How's your new place?" he asked.

"Three blocks over from my old building. Same architect. Practically the same apartment."

"Feels like home?"

"Jesus, Toby." And she started to ask, half sarcastic, who was dead or getting sued, because she couldn't imagine why else she'd be hearing his voice. But something stopped her, even if it was only his breathing and the static of the phone. "How's New York?"

"It's still very tall," he said. "There are lots of pigeons and, shit, food and homeless people. It's the same place. And it's the place."

"The place?"

"That I like the best."

"Right." She wondered why it seemed so difficult to make conversation with someone she'd spent years with, had made a living talking to. She leaned back against the wall, unconsciously tightening her hand around the phone. "I keep thinking I feel that way about Los Angeles. And I don't. It's not my New York, I mean. Um. It's been a long time."

"In proportion to what?"

"In proportion to every day."

"I suppose."

"You called me," she said, wonderingly.

His voice stayed casual. "Thought I'd see how you were."

She wanted to giggle. She didn't. "I'm still very tall."

"Ah. Is that everything?"

"I'm interviewing at NARAL in--" she checked her watch -- "Ten minutes. So I'll be late."

"NARAL, hmm?"

"I'm making up for some of the damage I did to the sisterhood." She hesitated nervously. "How's your savings account holding up?"

"I can let you go," he said abruptly. "I mean, if you're in a hurry."

"No. No. Hey. Ainsley Hayes is writing a book, Donna says."

"God help her copy editor," he said wryly.

Talking about other people was easier than talking about herself, so she went on. "You ought to send Zoey something for her first court thing. And you probably got an invite to Bonnie's wedding in the mail, I don't know if you're going..." For the first time, she listened past his voice and heard strange noises in the background of his end of the phone line. "Are you outside?"

"I'm outside," he said, in a strange undertone, as if it was some kind of declaration, in a voice other men had used to tell her she was beautiful.

She was shaken and she spoke too fast, almost babbling. "That's strange. I know you don't like being outside. Or maybe it's different in New York. Maybe you just don't like trees, although I really don't understand how anyone can not like trees."

"C.J.--"

"I mean, they're trees, Toby!" she said, unsettled, speaking with exaggerated disbelief. "If you have issues with squirrels, that's different, because they've got the whole rodent paw thing going on."

"Be quiet."

"But then again there's that whole Norse myth. And I thought that was the kind of thing you'd like, the squirrel of chaos living in the tree that holds the world that, I don't know, throws acorns at people. I took it in college. And I don't know why you called, but--"

"For fuck's sake, C.J., could you stop talking for ten seconds?"

She stopped.

"I'm outside," he said, held his breath and let it out. "I'm waiting for a goddamn cab."

"Are you having trouble? I mean, you're not Danny Glover."

Toby kept talking like she hadn't interrupted. "I'd take the subway, but I'm carrying a quarter of what I own. I'm going to the airport."

She knew, then, but she made him say it. "And?"

"And I'm taking the shuttle down."

"You are."

"Yes."

C.J. slid slowly down the wall until she was sitting Indian-style on the floor. "You are. You're coming down."

"I'm waiting for a cab. And you're talking about -- what are you talking about?"

"I really can't tell you," she admitted dizzily. "What about--"

Toby didn't wait for her to finish. "The hell with it."

"You're coming down," she repeated, amazed that she felt relieved. "And I've been really horrible, Toby, I--"

"Don't," he said rapidly. "Don't make any sweeping statements. I don't know how long, or anything, yet."

"Ratatosk!" she burst out, opening her eyes wide.

"Uh..."

"The squirrel," she explained, distantly wondering if her neighbors were eavesdropping, were calling mental health care workers. "In the world tree, with the acorns and the chaos and such."

"I don't like squirrels," he said, and she was certain he was trying hard not to smile.

"I know." She was laughing. Crying. Laughing. "I've missed you."

"You're still very tall?"

"Most definitely," she told him.

It was as if that settled everything. "Okay."

"Toby--"

"Don't."

"I was just going to say, call me. Call me again. So I know when to pick you up."

"Yes," he said, but not goodbye, and hung up. She held the little phone with both hands until she was sure she was steady enough to stand up, then began to gather up the rubble around her. The coat went around her shoulders; her wrist slipped awkwardly through the briefcase handle so she could balance it. She left the coffee cup, mentally bracing herself for her landlord's complaints, and held onto the phone, knowing she had explanations to make, apologies to give, and wrongs to right.


* * *


"They're not twist-tops," Josh said, passing a can opener to Sam as he sat down on the couch.

Sam stopped straining at the bottle's cap. "Thanks for the update."

"I try." He reached for the remote. "Anything good on TV?"

"ESPN's showing rugby."

"Anything good on TV?"

"No." Sam took a swig of his beer. "We should go out on the town. We should find C.J. and see what she's doing, at least."

"We should," Josh agreed, stretching, "But that would mean making effort and putting on shoes and stuff."

"So, rugby?"

"Rugby or Nascar." Josh grimaced. "Help us, we are in hell."

"I like Nascar," Sam said.

Josh blinked at him. "You need some serious help."

"You've been saying that and saying that."

"Not sinking in?"

"Not as much as some things."

Josh chuckled and cuffed him affectionately on the upper arm. "So when are you going to get a haircut and get a real job?"

His eyes narrowed. "I like my job, Josh."

"Really it's the hair that's indefensible." Josh propped his feet up on the coffee table. "No, really. I mean, it's good that you're enjoying the teaching and everything, but you're a writer."

"I'm still writing while I'm doing this," Sam said. "I'll be writing until someone blows me up."

"I could use you. And you know you'd be happier working with me."

"How's it pay?"

Josh raised his eyebrows. "I didn't say I was going to pay you. Speaking of which, what do you plan to do with your tax refund?"

"I'm getting one, huh?"

"Looks that way."

"I'll give it to charity," Sam decided.

"Me too."

"Oh?" Sam cocked his head. "What were you going to do with it before I just said that?"

Josh kept a straight face. "Get digital cable."

"I don't need the money," Sam said. "I'm just not sure I'm with you yet. I maybe need a change. I don't know."

"Maybe you're not ready now, but you're going to be later. Maybe by the time we're looking hard at the next campaign. I don't know about C.J., or anyone else, but that's when the serious thinking starts, and that's when I'll ask you again." Josh took a long pull on his beer. "And you're my best friend, Sam, I mean, who else?"

Sam looked pensive. "If I'm ready, you'll know first."

"Who else, man? But you can afford to take your time."

He gave a tiny smile. "We earned it."

"We earned the hell out of it," Josh proclaimed, glancing at the TV screen. "Hey, that was a pretty cool crash."

"They're the reason everybody watches." Sam rested his head on the top of the couch. "What time is it?"

Josh glanced at his watch. "Just after midnight."


* * *


Monday, April 30th: Day One Hundred And One


There had been a time when he was a child, a time when he knew that it was spring. It wasn't that the weather changed exactly; there were still heaps of half-frozen, muddy slush everywhere, bitterly cold rain spitting down from the sky. But the clouds were a different color somehow, a cleaner white, and for some reason as soon as he stepped outside, his fingers ached to pick up a baseball, cradle it, let it go. And that was how it felt when he looked at her.

There had been a time when she was an adolescent, gawky and twisted up inside with self-doubt, sure she was irrevocably hideous. And one day she'd been walking through town and a stranger, a boy her age she never saw again, smiled at her. It splashed her, shone on her, this commonplace approval. It was a ray of light into teenage murkiness, and it was the first time she ever thought of herself as a woman. And that was how it felt when he touched her.

C.J. woke up before Toby, but didn't move, remaining curled up at his side, her head pillowed on her arms. She watched his eyelids flutter, his face for once unguarded, and then he was awake too. He regarded her with a strange mixture of suspicion and amusement and astonishment.

"You know, when we're in bed," he said, "you don't seem so tall."

"Really?" She yawned and stretched as much as she could, her body bare and long and close to his. "How about now?"

"Even now." He touched her shoulder and closed his eyes against the sunlight filtering in. "What time is it?"

C.J. craned her neck to see the clock on the nightstand. "Almost seven."

"Too damn early."

"This used to be late," she reflected. "We would've been late to work by now. We didn't have that hard of a time getting up, then."

"Nothing is like it was, then," he muttered.

"It isn't, but it is." She rolled onto her back, crossing her arms across her chest. "You came back."

"I don't know how long," he cautioned her.

"That's what Sam and I said too," she reminded him.

"You turned me into a girl."

She made a face. "What?"

"On your little thing," he said with mild distaste. "The one woman got all my lines. I know myself when I hear it."

"You watched!"

"You turned me into a girl!"

C.J. laughed loudly for several seconds. "But she played you well."

"It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen," Toby said grudgingly. He sat up and surveyed the bedroom. "This really is just like your old place."

"At least the cat doesn't get lost." She turned her head to watch his profile. "It really has been a very long time."

"It has and it hasn't."

She cleared her throat. "I never would have been here. I never would have worked for Josiah Bartlet if it wasn't for the fact that you came and got me."

He shook his head. "It was Leo."

"Sure, it was. But really, it was you." C.J. lifted her head and rested her cheek in her hand. "You've had some fairly lousy days in New York, I believe."

He did not look at her. "Yes."

"This, then, here, has never been easy and sometimes awful, but..." She trailed off. "I ran away in December."

"Yeah, you did."

"I didn't want to do the thing where everyone hugs and shit. It was easier to just turn it off and be something else."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," he said, turning his gaze to her.

"Good, because I'm not sure I can." C.J. pressed her eyes shut and then opened them again to look into his. "I said some bad things about you. To this guy, when we were drunk, and I wasn't being myself."

"I was fucking Andi," he said under his breath.

She stopped sounding apologetic. "What the hell are we going to do with ourselves now?"

Toby touched the back of her knee under the thin sheet. "I was hoping you'd know."

"Well, here's what I think. I think we have to call Josh and Sam and have lunch with them, and get the teasing and misery out of the way so we can all move on. And then..."

"Job-hunting?" he suggested, almost playfully.

"House-hunting," she said, beaming. "I didn't even like this apartment when it was my old apartment."

She wasn't sure how it happened or which of them moved, but she was sliding under him, and he was speaking, breathing on her collarbone.

"It will serve," he said.

C.J. tipped her head back, exposing her throat. "God," she murmured, her breath quickening. "Everything's so bizarre right now, and I don't know."

"Neither do I."

She sat up a little, pulling away from him. "I want you to promise me something."

"C.J.," he warned, almost groaning.

"When I'm settled into something, some career, some role, I want to remember what this part was like." She waved a hand in the air. "And what it wasn't."

"You will."

"Will you remind me?"

"I swear it," he said solemnly. They did not move apart again.


* * *

Maybe one day soon, it'll all come out,
How you dream about each other sometimes
With a memory of how you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times...
- Fountains Of Wayne, "Troubled Times"


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