Pairing: CJ/Toby (with eventual references to CJ/Hoynes, CJ/Danny, Toby/Andi, CJ/OMC, CJ/Will Saywer, Toby/OFC, CJ/Simon, and J/D)

Timeframe: Started following Drought Conditions, but gives eventual spoilers back through the beginning of time. :-) Er, the Bartlett Administration, rather.

Rating: The entire series is being posted under “Adult”, even if the chapter isn’t, because of dark imagery, sex, language, and other … joys.

Disclaimer: These guys don’t belong to me. They may talk to me, but they are the property of NBC, of John Wells, were created by Aaron Sorkin, and I don’t get a penny for writing any of this. If anyone wants to sue, they can have my student loans, my credit card debt, and my medical bills.

A/N: I was reading a fic called "Attonement" by DaniBannani and in it, Toby called CJ "Jeanie". The idea stuck with me and I liked the nickname, so I credit her with the idea, even though I know there are others who have had similiar ideas, including the guys on West Wing.

A/N 2: Credit goes to the writers of "Mr. Frost" for the dialogue used at the end of the chapter. Literature References: Mrs. Dalloway (V. Woolf, c, 1925); Life Before Man (M. Atwood, c, 1979)

It seemed to her as she drank the sweet stuff that she was opening long windows, stepping out into some garden. But where? The clock was striking – one, two, three: how sensible the sound was; compared with all this thumping and whispering; like Septimus himself. She was falling asleep. But the clock kept on striking, four, five, six and Mrs. Filmner waving her apron (they wouldn’t bring the body in here, would they?) seemed part of that garden; or a flag. She had once seen a flag slowly rippling out from a mast when she stayed with her aunt at Venice. Men killed in battle were thus saluted, and Septimus had been through the War. Of her memories, most were happy.
~ Excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway (V. Woolf, c, 1925)

Chapter 10: The End of History

She'd majored in English, minored in communications, had a Masters degree in mass communication and another in public polling and public speaking. There had been a time when, on Sunday mornings, for fun she had read through Webster’s - just to challenge her mind. She had no unearthly word to describe the blow to her body as she listened to Toby confess. She'd known, and she'd been ignoring it, and now, now she ... move, CJ. Move. She got up, picked up the phone, told Margaret to get someone from the counsel's office over, and then hung up and looked into his eyes. Her best friend, her lover, her soul mate, was sitting here in her office, telling her that he'd been the leak. What did he expect, absolution and forgiveness just because she loved him with everything she was? Well, he had it. And somehow, once this black hole of nothingness wore away, she'd be able to see that. But right now, all she could think was that he had ... "We really can't say anything without counsel present." She interrupted his apology. God, how could he have done this to them? Nausea washed over her and she leaned in the window, trying to keep the coffee in her body. She had to keep moving. She had to keep moving. She had to keep breathing. Somehow, she had to keep breathing. Her stomach hurt. She bent over, sick, forcing the bile down, staring at him, communicating with him, the conversation they couldn’t have verbally taking place just with their eyes. Somehow, through it all, though the tears in his eyes and the numbness in her body, somehow, she kept breathing.

1997

They didn’t speak as they entered the house, it was odd for them, to exist in silence – their life together was about words, verbal thrusts back and forth, debate; he never knew how to read her. But, when Andi didn’t tell him to stay at the bottom of the stairs, he followed her up to their bedroom but stayed in the doorway as she went to the bed and sat down – on his side of it. She didn’t look at him for a long time, and even when she finally spoke, her face was turned away, looking at the picture he kept of them on his side of the bed. It had been taken on their wedding day.

"I love you, you know." He leaned in the doorway, watching her.

"I know," Andi's voice was soft, "which is why I don't understand how you could do this to me. Toby ... I've lived through late night phone calls and you running out to see her whenever she needed it and I even lived with the fact that you two were rooming together on the campaign. I actually deluded myself into believing that you weren't sleeping together." She sighed and pulled off her wedding band, just looking at the diamond. "It started in LA, didn't it? When you went to go visit her, to bring her onboard? You slept with her then, didn't you?"

"Yes." He still watched her. "Andrea, I didn't ... I didn't go out there with any intention of it happening. And she didn't seduce me either. It just ... happened."

"No, it didn't. But I'll believe that the two of you didn't have any intention for it to happen then or for it to continue like it did. That much I'll buy." She touched the rim of the diamond with her fingernail. Tears filled her eyes. "I don't get it though, Toby. You are this paragon of honor and value. You go after those who do exactly this. And I know how CJ felt after she made that mistake with John Hoynes."

"How did you know about that?" Toby's voice darkened. No one was supposed to know about that.

"I listened in on the phone conversation." She sighed. "Don't get mad at me, you don't have any right and I was feeling insecure and jealous that night. You left our bed at two in the morning and spent three hours on the phone with her. After a while, I got mad and curious."

Toby just nodded.

"Did you ever have sex with her here?"

"No."

"Did it go on the entire time you were on the campaign trail together?"

He sighed, wondering how to put that answer into its proper context. "Yes." Was all he could come up with. Even if they hadn't slept together for a few weeks starting off, she had still been in bed with him, and more than once they'd spent hours just touching and kissing and exploring. More than once they'd maneuvered around the "no sex" rule by watching each other masturbate or by just touching rather than full body contact. He'd never planned it that way, but it just happened.

"Why did you marry me, Toby?"

"Because I love you." He meant it. "Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Again, Andrea sighed. She didn't doubt his love for her. She doubted his commitment. "I gave CJ an ultimatum right before we got married," she confessed. "And she yelled at me. God, she yelled at me. She told me that I had no right issuing ultimatums on friendship. And I've spent the night, replaying that conversation, and wanting to blame her for what happened. But she was right - I created the situation by placing that ultimatum on the two of you. She hates me."

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes she does. And I don't think it's out of jealousy. It's out of love for you and because I dared to manipulate your friendship with her." Andi sighed again and finally looked over at her husband. "I admit I don't like her much either, but I can't stop you from loving her. I can stop you from sleeping with her again, though."

"Andi ..."

"I want to get pregnant, Toby. I want to get pregnant and have a baby and have it with you. I want to watch your bald head grow gray and I want to be standing there with you when you watch Jed Bartlet get sworn in."

"Don't tempt the fates."

"Fuck the fates. I gave everything over to them when I let the two of you room together." She slid her wedding ring back onto her finger and got up, moving over to where he stood. Her hands rested on his chest and her forehead against his as she whispered, "I won't stop you from being friends with her, I won't even stop you ... I won't stop the late night phone calls and I know that when you guys win, you'll both have jobs in the administration. I won't stop late nights in the office together and God knows that I can't stop the two of you from talking to each other. I want to. I want to ban all further communication, but if there's anything I've learned over the course of being married to you, it's that she's as much a part of you as writing and breathing. I don't like it, but I love you, so I have to live with it. I want to work through this because I love you. But I swear to God, Toby, if you so much as lay another hand on her I will divorce you and take everything you have. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." He whispered.

She wanted him to take her the way she'd seen him take CJ. She wanted to feel that passion that CJ had felt as she came. But she also didn't want him touching her yet. She couldn't. She could still smell CJ on him and there was lipstick on his collar.

“Go shower, Toby. I can still smell her on you. Shower and change.” He took his first real breath since Andrea had found out about him. He started to kiss her but she backed off. "Not until you shower, Toby. Shower here, with our things. You still smell like her."

"Okay." He bowed his head again and then moved into the bathroom. At least he was being given a second chance. He wouldn't screw it up this time.

Only after the bathroom door had closed behind him, did she move, managing to change out of her clothes and into a pair of flannel pants and a warm shirt. She waited until the she heard the shower running before turning to the bed. Seeing their sheets, and realizing that when he came out of that bathroom they’d be sharing that space together, struck terror through her heart. She couldn’t go back to bed with him. Not tonight. Andi was mature enough to admit that she wanted to tempt the fates. She wanted Jed Bartlet to loose. If he lost then CJ would go back to California and hopefully never be within arms reach of Toby again. She also knew it was a pipe dream and that her fate was sealed. All she could hope for was that Toby's need for CJ was now out of his system. Unable to stare at the wedding picture or the bed any longer, she turned away, reaching blindly, angrily for her brush. How could he have done this to her?!

Standing at the mirror, brushing out her hair, she realized the clothes were his – she’d stolen them once, long ago because they were so comfortable and they smelled of him and it was that touch she missed when he was gone. Some part of her mind told her that she needed to tear the clothes from her body, but no. She just stood there and stared at herself, wrapped in her husband’s pajamas. No, she wouldn’t throw him out tonight (even though she suddenly wanted to), but she also couldn’t share a bed with him either. And when he emerged from the shower, she just handed him a blanket and his pillow and sent him down to his study. She couldn’t face this tonight. An hour later, she followed him. Sleep wouldn’t come tonight, and she had questions that needed answering.

“Is she really that amazing in bed that you were willing to throw us away for a last fuck?”

Toby turned to his wife and sighed. Andi stood in the doorway to his office, wrapped in his shirt, and tearstains on her porcelain face. His plan had been to call CJ, to tell her he was sorry, but he also knew that if Andi caught him, everything really would be over. Right now, he still had a fantasy of saving his marriage. “My relationship with CJ is more than that, Andi, and you know it. She’s my best friend. And there’s something more to us than …”

“But you married me, Toby. You married me. Was it because she wouldn’t say yes?” The hurt came through clearer than the anger and Toby wanted to just go to her and hold her.

“I love you, Andrea. I do. And I never even asked CJ. It was never that with us. I can’t describe it.”

“You helped to talk a nation into rallying behind a liberal democrat from New England. You can talk me into not leaving you right here, right now. Describe it.” She wanted more than the answers he would give her. She wanted to know why he took the late night phone calls and why his very tone changed when he talked to her and why he’d been sharing his bed with her for the campaign. She couldn’t look at her husband now without seeing the other woman in their life draped over him, gasping his name as they moved against each other.

But Toby couldn’t say anything. How could he tell his own wife, the woman he was desperately in love with, that it was his best friend who owned the other half of his soul? He just stood there and looked at her, refusing to look away from her eyes. “I can’t, Andi.” He repeated and then turned, flopping onto his couch. “I can’t.”

“Find a way.” She reiterated. She refused to enter his den, his sanctuary, the place where the pictures of CJ remained. While her husband sat on his couch, staring at his hands, she took another look at the picture on his desk.

CJ had to have been maybe 25 in that picture, young and free. Her eyes held an expression that Andi had never seen reflected back – trust. Her hair had been longer then, curled around her shoulders, and somehow she was thinner now and the extra weight then made her seem even younger. She was beautiful in a way that Andi would never be – she was classic, handsome, eternal.

There wasn’t a way to describe it, there really wasn’t. Toby had no real justification for the fact that he’d slept with his ex-lover while his wife had been struggling with her own demons here at home. How could he tell Andi that it was more than love and less than love and only love that kept driving him back to CJ’s bed. How could he tell her that it was the way CJ moved, and the way that she gave over such complete trust only to him? How could he tell Andi that he was in love with her, and only her, but that CJ was still the owner of his heart? How could he tell Andi that part of it had been jealousy; he’d seen Danny Concannon flirting with her and he didn’t trust any other man near CJ.

“It doesn’t work that way, Andi, and it cheapens what we have and my friendship with CJ to try and describe what you saw tonight.”

“What I saw tonight was the destruction of our marriage vows.”

“What you saw tonight was the two of us working through … us …”

“You planned this, Toby. You planned it. You lied to me and went to the fucking Watergate and you … I can’t even …”

“Then don’t.” He sighed. “Andi, what happened between me and CJ had nothing to do with me and you.”

“It doesn’t? You cheat on me and it has nothing to do with us? Wow, that’s rich.” Andi still couldn’t breach the doorway, the barrier. “I can’t … I want to talk about this right now, but I can’t. Not anymore. I’ll … I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“You aren’t kicking me out?” He fully expected her to take away the blanket and pillow she’d given him and send his butt to the pavement outside.

“No, Toby. No. If you think that you’re getting out of this that easily, then you have seriously under-estimated me. But if you even pick up that phone to call anyone tonight, then it’s over. You hear me?”

He just nodded and didn’t even look up as he heard Andi storm up the stairs and down the hall to their bedroom. He could only hope that in the morning, they’d both be able to find the words.

2005

Words had never been needed between the two of them. It was a look, a touch; their basis for communication came as an escape from the constant barrage of words they lived with all day long. He could read her mind based on the way her eyes moved when she walked, she could read his based on the slump of his shoulders, and the touch of her hand to his was more powerful than the most explosive orgasm. With them, it had never been words, it had been the lines between.

With gentle fingers, he massaged the oil into CJ’s shoulders and back. She was sore and tired, and even getting her to stay home for even part of a Sunday morning had been a headache almost not worth getting. But she was here and she was trying to relax, and for that, he had to give her credit.

She tensed again under his fingers, sensing his thoughts, thinking that maybe she should go into the office. She couldn’t now stand to look weak, not with the convention fallout, the party a mess, and her still the one to hold the White House together – even if any part of the investigation was targeted at her. Toby switched how he was massaging, changed this thinking, and she relaxed again.

His fingers drifted lower, her back, and dripped down to caress around to the soft flesh of her stomach. He wanted to say she felt warmer there, that he could already feel the life growing inside of her, but it was the poet in him that felt that, not the man who knew better. Yet, still, her skin was warmer there and he gently rolled her over so that he could lay a kiss to the microscopic child of theirs inside of her. “What’s wrong?” He asked, stupidly, but needing to hear her say it.

“We aren’t talking about it here.” CJ rolled over and sat up. Toby watched her, watched the slump of her shoulders and the tension in her back.

“What aren’t we talking about? You haven’t said much in almost two weeks and I’m starting to think …”

“Think what you want, Toby.” She put her hand to her forehead and then looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she touched him, the electric shock he’d needed. “I’m sorry. I … I just don’t want to talk about it here.”

“You’re worried they’re going to find out about …”

“Of course they’re going to find out, Toby! Putting aside the fact that assuming I make it past the first trimester of this pregnancy, something which I don’t have a good track record of, but assuming that simple fact, they’re going to find out. They’re going to ask where our conversations take place! They’re going to dig and find out what exactly is going on with us! They’re going to read Mandy’s book! And suddenly –“

“No, CJ.” He took her hands, conducting the electricity through his body and straight to his heart. “No. You aren’t … are you getting a lawyer?”

“I don’t need a lawyer, Toby!” She pulled away again, the connection severed. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Three steps to the dresser. Three steps to the closet. The black skirt she loved, the blue blouse she loved, the black boots she loved. Three steps to the bathroom. “I need to shower.” The door closed behind her.

Time passed, as it always did when he was near her, through a wormhole. He really didn't know what he was going to do. His first instinct had been to go to CJ, to tell her what was going on. But he couldn't, he couldn't add to the stress she was already feeling. Maybe this would all blow over. Maybe the actual source to Greg's story would come forward and say something. He hadn't done it, but it was his responsibility and if someone didn't talk soon, he was going to have to confess to a crime he'd never committed. He felt, more than heard, the water in the shower shut off, but when he didn’t hear movement, he started to panic. “Jeanie?” He poked his head into her bathroom and suddenly they weren’t fighting over work and the leak, suddenly they were lovers and he was worried about her. "You okay, baby?"

"Yeah." She was leaning against the shower wall, wrapped in her towels, looking green and weak. "Just had the water too hot."

He frowned and came forward, not liking the look on her face. "Jeanie?"

"Really, Toby, I'm fine." She gave him a weak smile and reached out for him – lover to lover. She was pregnant and dizzy and tired and she needed his help. Their fingers linked, soul mate to soul mate and it didn’t matter that the world was coming apart and that Bartlet seemed to no longer trust CJ or that it wouldn’t be long before she was hauled out of the White House for doing something she didn’t do. They were lovers, best friends, and he kept his arms around her. It didn’t matter for this second that with every day, they pulled further apart. Right now, he held her, binding them yet again.

He had been rough with her last night. Ignoring doctor’s recommendations, they’d abandoned sanity for passion. The bed had been abandoned for against the front door, on the living room coffee table, and the kitchen counter. And now, after her shower, he could see exactly what he’d done to her. She had love bites on her shoulders and he knew both nipples were bruised. He was getting rougher and rougher with her as he grew more and more desperate. It wasn't going to be long before they zeroed in completely on her. The prosecutors wanted nothing more than to nail her for something, and Congress had always hated her. "I'm sorry. Did I … do you think we hurt ..."

CJ looked at him carefully. Toby's roughness-meter went up whenever he was feeling guilty about something. The last couple of weeks of their affair back during the first campaign had left her bruised every night. She knew what was bothering him, and she didn't want to think about it. And if she asked him, she'd have to testify to it, so she just put her hand on his shirt. "Hey, did you hear me complaining last night?" She'd wanted the roughness of last night, it relieved the stress she was going through every day. “And I think we’re fine. We just … we can’t do it again. Not until after …” she couldn’t finish the thought. This pregnancy was going to end one of two ways, and she wasn’t going to jinx any good luck the Creator might have decided to bestow.

"Once." He grinned a bit, but still felt guilty. “You complained once.” When he'd pushed her up against her front door, he'd pushed into her almost immediately, and she hadn't been ready for him. Her whimper of pain had seared him completely, and he was sure that when her agents saw him this morning they would kill him.

"I got over it." She leaned forward and kissed him. "I have to get ready now."

"Yeah."

CJ waited until he'd left before leaning back and closing her eyes again. The room wouldn't stop spinning.

1998

“Andi, what’s wrong?” He leaned in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her throw dinner together, watching her forget that he actually did eat his food kosher, watching her shoulders tense with every minute he stayed in the room.

“Nothing.” She replied.

He walked forward, but didn’t touch her. They didn’t touch, they talked. So instead he reached around before she could contaminate his meal any further and took the pan out of her hands. “Andrea, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She replied, still refusing to look at him. She couldn’t tell him, she didn’t know how.

“You’re lying to me. Do you know how I know that you’re lying to me? You never look at me when you talk to me when you’re lying to me. When you want to hurt me, you look at my chin, when you tell me you love me, you look into my eyes, and when you’re lying to me you can’t look at me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Andi pulled away and resumed dinner.

“Thank you for holding dinner for me …”

“It’s Friday night. Isn’t there some rule about you and sundown?”

“I gave that rule up when I took on this job.”

“You gave a lot of things up when you took on this job.” The bitterness in her voice crept into the soup she was cooking.

“Andrea, we talked about what it would mean … and it’s … it’s not like you’re here all day and I’m off working! You’ve got a constituency to represent!”

“I wasn’t accusing you, Toby.” Yes, she was.

“Yes, you were!” He paced back to the kitchen door, whispered a prayer, and then looked back at his Irish wife. “Andi, what is it?” He knew what it was, he wasn’t completely oblivious, but he just wanted to hear it before she handed him those inevitable papers.

“Dinner’s almost ready. Can you watch it while I set the table?” Her voice shook, then her shoulders, and finally she just shook herself into Toby’s arms. “Toby …”

Thinking ahead just enough to turn off the stove, he cradled his wife close and moved them both out to the living room. “Andi … just tell me.”

“I can’t do this anymore, Toby. I can’t. I can’t …” she finally pulled back, and looked into his eyes. “I love you, but I can’t wait to find out when we’re going to maybe get pregnant, I can’t wait to see when you have time to have a baby … and I can’t be in a marriage where I only see you , maybe every other Friday for a meal that is far more important to you than it is to me.”

“Andrea …” his world started to close in around him. “I thought we’d worked past everything … we’re trying, I’m with you on this baby and …”

“A baby won’t fix what’s wrong with us, and it’s been wrong since long before that first miscarriage or since you … since you cheated on me with her. We aren’t good together, and it doesn’t matter how much I love you, we just aren’t good together.” She pulled away, walked on shaky legs to her briefcase, and produced two identical manila envelopes.

“Divorce papers, already?” Toby swallowed. “Andi …”

“Separation papers. The first step. In them, I …” She watched his heart break as he took the envelope. “I voluntarily give up the house, you can keep it, you’re the one who makes the payments on it anyway. We’ll keep the joint account open until we divorce, but no further checks can be deposited … and I’ve switched any of the bills for the house that were in my name, to you. I’ll move out, to a place closer to my district. I’ll retain my possessions … and …”

“We can’t talk about this? Andi, you can’t … you’ve been planning this!” His temper took over. “You’ve been planning this! And you can’t tell me that you haven’t had it in mind for a very long time because you have full out separation papers, papers that are probably just the formality to the divorce papers that Rick has already drawn up! You think my own lawyer could have called me!” The envelope landed near the cold fireplace. “Move out, we’ll try a trial run, whatever you need to get yourself back but you can’t leave me.”

“I won’t give anything away. I won’t ruin your reputation. It’s as embarrassing for me as it is for you and CJ …”

“So this is about me and CJ!”

“No, Toby,” she somehow managed to remain calm. “No. It’s about the fact that we shouldn’t have said our vows in the first place. We were better just as lovers …” a gentle hand rested on his chest, “it’s how you are with all the women in your life. You’re married to that pen and paper, to the White House, to the possibility of making a change in the world. Any of the physical women who come into your life are only mistresses, and I’m tired of being a mistress.” She walked over to the fireplace, and handed him the papers again. “I won’t tell anyone anything about you and CJ – the press would love to find it out, they already know that we’re having trouble getting pregnant. I’m leaving because I’m not the number one thing in your life, and I never will be, and that’s the truth of it. It boils down to irreconcilable differences, nothing more. I love you. And I know that you love me. You just don’t love me the way I need to be loved.” Brushing away her tears, Andi moved back to the stairs. “I’m going to go pack … I’ll be at my mothers.”

Toby just watched as she walked up the stairs, and listened to her feet above him. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t feel anything, except the painful beating of his heart.

2005

He woke to the sound of a blaring alarm. The bed was empty, and he frowned, reaching across to slam off the offending noise and then to look for CJ. Her briefcase was still by the bedroom door – she hadn’t left yet. And then he heard it, the retching coming from the bathroom. Only five AM and CJ was throwing up her innards. It was going to be a long, long day. Without bothering to put his clothes on, he padded into the bathroom and knelt down next to CJ; her head was resting on the toilet seat and her entire body was shaking. She’d have to change her blouse.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You going to be okay?” When she only whimpered in return, Toby moved to get her some water. “Rinse out your mouth.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, Toby.” CJ murmured once her mouth was fresher. “I don’t know if I can manage a complicated pregnancy and my job. I don’t.” Slowly, she got to her feet and shed her blouse, her camisole, and the bra underneath. Even Toby could tell that her breasts were swollen and painful – and still healing from his attack of them last week. CJ checked her skirt for evidence of her child’s anger at even being alive and then stumbled back into the bedroom to find something else to wear. Toby stayed behind to clean up. It was the least he could do. Her health nagged at him. She’d never abort this baby on her own, but she couldn’t carry it either. He knew that, just by watching her, he knew that. So all that was left to them was a dangerous miscarriage, and they’d been down that road once before, with disastrous results.

“CJ?” He didn’t like the proposal he was about to make, but he needed to make it. He needed for her to know that he’d support her, no matter what, but that if she was holding onto this child out of any kind of obligation to him, she needed to rethink things. “CJ, are you … are you sure that carrying out this pregnancy to the end is the right thing to do? If it’s affecting your health like this … maybe … maybe before a miscarriage does actual damage to you … we talk about the very real possibility of you …”

“Of what, Toby?” She turned to look at him again, “Of risking a reporter finding out that I’m sneaking into a clinic to …” she couldn’t even say the words. She couldn’t. And as their eyes met, she knew that the very thought was killing him as well. Their fingers linked and she sighed, leaning her forehead against his. “Let’s see what happens … hopefully this too shall pass.”

His answer was in how he stroked her cheek, how he kissed her, how he held her close until the residual emotions of the suggestion had worn away. “Want a ride in to the office?”

“No.” She sighed. “It’s best if we don’t …” CJ pulled away, and, not for the first time, Toby noticed the change in her demeanor at the very mention of the White House. She knew. She had to know. CJ knew everything about him. She could read his mind, read how he touched her. She knew. And she was fine if they weren’t talking about work, but work was all they had to talk about anymore. “It’s best if we don’t arrive at the office together. Anyway, I have my driver.”

“You, have a driver now.” He chuckled, as amused today as he had been over a year ago when Mark had first been assigned.

“Yes, nimrod.” She chuckled. “I do. Which is good on days like today. It’s a perk I really don’t mind, I get to work on the way to work.”

“Are you ever not working?”

Silence hung in the air for a long minute.

“No.” She kissed his cheek and then left, leaving him alone to get ready by himself. Maybe he was reading her wrong, maybe she didn’t know. The kiss had seemed real enough. Maybe he was just reading into the stress of the investigation and the lack of sleep – she’d been spending more and more nights at the White House – and maybe she really wasn’t sending him silent signals that she knew.

But no, if there was anything in the world he could read, it was CJ Cregg’s mind.

She knew.

1998

He waited a few moments before knocking. She was working, her head bent over a release or a report or something, but she was highlighting and making notes. Her curls were slowly finding their way out of her hair, and he liked the style that was emerging. He still missed her longer hair, though, she’d looked so young then. But then again, since Casey Creek, she’d aged at least ten years.

“What is it, Toby?” She finally asked, without looking up.

Slowly, he stepped inside, and then closed the door. “I’m sorry again about this morning, if I’d known you had anyone over …”

“Yeah, it would have been nice if you’d called. That really wasn’t the way I’d planned on saying good-bye to Will.” With a sigh, she tossed her pencil down on the report she was reading and looked at him. “What’s up?”

“You shouldn’t be sleeping with reporters, CJ. It destroys your credibility.”

“Getting beyond the fact that Will and I have been sleeping together for ten years, and that he’s heading out of the country and just might never be heard from again, it’s none of your business who I sleep with.”

“It is if it interferes with your credibility, CJ. Who’s next? Danny Concannon? He’s been after you since he laid eyes on you!”

“Oh for crying out loud, Toby.” CJ rolled her eyes. “What is this really about? You didn’t come over to my place at five AM because you wanted to lecture me about my sex life. In fact, last I checked, we agreed that we should keep our noses out of each other’s personal lives. What is going on?”

“Andi left me last night.”

The air stilled and then receded from the room, leaving CJ gasping for breath. When she could feel her legs again, she stood and walked over to the couch, and put her arms around him. “Oh, God, Toby… I’m sorry.”

He clung to her, “She left me. She … just up and left. She didn’t … CJ, she … she …” he lived in words, but couldn’t find a single way to describe how he felt right now. There were no words for the absolute pain and yet the complete absence of emotion. Andi was gone. He had to get up each morning without her, he had to go to bed without her. He had to find a way to live without her.

“It’ll be okay, Toby. I promise.” She kissed his forehead. “I promise.” The only time she’d ever been angrier at Andi, was when she’d issued that ultimatum all those years ago. This time though, the pain was even sharper. It would have made sense if she’d left Toby when she’d caught the two of them together, but no, Andi had held on. Andi had made it work. And it was only now, after she couldn’t get pregnant, that she was leaving him. “Look, it’s late. Why don’t I take you home. I’ll put you to bed and keep you sober.”

“What makes you think …”

“Shut up.” She gathered her stuff and then pulled him to his feet. “I’m taking you home.”

The turning of a key in the lock caught her attention, and CJ padded into the living room to see the reason for Toby’s heartbreak enter the house.

“Well,” Andi’s voice was cold, “this is hardly a surprise.”

“So why did you even bother to come back?”

“I figured Toby would be at the office already.”

“So why is it a surprise that I’m here?” CJ glared at the other woman. “Anyway, what Toby does with his time is hardly your concern anymore.”

“Apparently, he’s already busy doing you.”

“Think what you want, Andi. Seriously. You’ve never even tried to understand –“

“I understand that you and my husband were having an affair, and that barely twenty-four hours after I left him, you are right back here.” She fought the tears that came.

“Get over yourself, Andi.” CJ turned and walked into the kitchen. “Toby’s still asleep, by the way. He passed out in the car and it took everything I had to get him into bed.” She left out the conversation they’d had once she did get him up the stairs. “If you’re here to take things from him, you might want to wait until your lawyers have drawn up papers.”

“You’re in my home, giving orders?”

“You’re in Toby’s home. He bought this place and you’re the one who left.” She poured coffee, hearing movement on the stairs.

“Get out, CJ.”

“She gets to stay.” The dark tone of Toby’s voice made them both turn. CJ walked past Andi and handed him the mug of coffee. “She gets to stay, Andrea. Stop thinking that she’s messing with you, that she’s here in your place. She’s my best friend. We catch each other when we fall. What do you want?” The words were sad, not angry.

Andi stared at them, and the words she’d been planning to hurl at him faded into nothingness. Had she been the one to leave Toby like this – broken and sad? “Toby …”

He held up a hand and then looked at CJ. “I’ll see you at the office, Jeanie.”

“You sure?” She was still glaring, unforgiving, at Andi.

“Yeah.” He touched her arm and then nodded to the door. CJ moved into the living room, slowly, and then left, obviously uncomfortable with leaving the two of them alone together. “What do you want, Andi?” He repeated.

“I …” she sighed. “I came by to get my clothes.”

“You don’t have to leave,” he whispered. “We can work this out …”

“No, Toby.” She sighed and stopped herself from reaching for his hand. “No. We can’t. I can’t. Not right now.”

“Then get your stuff and go,” he said, quietly. “I need to get ready for work.” He turned and walked out, unable to even look at her anymore.

2005

“Toby?”

He looked up at Ginger, "What?" It wasn't her fault he was always so gruff with her, and he knew that she knew that.

"She's here."

“Have her wait another ten minutes and then bring her in. I don’t care if she’s sitting in full view of the reporters, I want her waiting on her time.”

“Yes, Sir.” Ginger slipped back out.

Toby felt a brief rush of emotion after the door closed. When Ginger had first been assigned to him, a fresh-faced English Grad student right out of American University, he'd wondered what she was doing as a staff assistant. But Ginger's knowledge of the English language had proved invaluable over the past seven years. He wanted to take her with him to wherever he went next, but she was destined for better things than being an assistant. Anyway, now he didn't know where he was going and he was pretty sure that convicted felons didn't need assistants.

He picked up the book and grumbled. He didn’t have time for this crap. He had meetings with the FBI, with CJ, and goddamnit with Haffley and Dresden on the leak. He didn’t know how that file had made it into Greg’s hands and he didn’t believe it was Leo or Ginger but they had been the only ones in his office. And Greg would never take anything off a desk, not by himself. He had too much respect for the process to do that. It had been someone else, someone bent on making it look like CJ. And he knew that was where the FBI was leading – they’d made up their minds the minute the phone call had come in. CJ Cregg was friendly with the press, CJ Cregg had a friendly relationship with Greg Brock, CJ Cregg had intimate knowledge of the space station. They were putting the evidence to the case rather than making the case. It was going to ruin her career and he knew that eventually, he’d have to be the one to fall on the sword. The stress of this was killing her and killing the baby. Even worse, he knew CJ knew he was involved somehow.

His door opened again and Mandy stood there, framed by the oak and the background of the communications bullpen. She looked different now, her hair was longer and highlighted, and she was sporting a rather large diamond ring on her left hand. That was right, he remembered, she was engaged to one of the senators who hated the president. "Madeline."

"Toby." She came forward and shut the door. As always, Mandy looked confident, and he knew she had every right to be. He had no business calling her on the carpet for ghost writing a book, but he was angry.

Yet, was that guilt he detected behind her eyes? He leaned back in his chair, picked a book up off his desk, and began to read. "The Bartlet Administration was plagued with nepotism from the start. Leo McGarry's hiring of his long time friend's son Josh Lyman was only the beginning of a chain of command that started and ended with family loyalty. Perhaps the most startling example of this problem was the hiring of CJ Cregg as press secretary by her former lover, Deputy Chairman Toby Zeigler. Despite being married to Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt, he carried on an affair with CJ Cregg and landed her the job of administration Press Secretary. The list of men CJ bedded during the course of the administration didn't end there. She was seen around town with some of the most important politicians - often right before crucial votes in the House or the Senate - and it was well known that while she served as Press Secretary she and Danny Concannon were involved in a romantic relationship. Conflicts of interest like this showed that the administration was consistently unprofessional." He shook his head, "You know, I would think that you of all people, Madeline, a woman who fought her way to the top, tooth and nail, who broke barriers that for a while CJ could only dream of breaking ... I would think that you wouldn't stoop so low as to look at a woman courting a man's vote as her giving up sexual favors. Does that mean that every time I met with Senator Boxer that I was sleeping with her to get her vote? And let's forget that this is all very bad writing. Do you feel like explaining yourself?” He tossed the freshly published hardcover in her direction. The book slid off the desk and crumpled on the floor. After a moment, Mandy bent down to retrieve it and then placed it carefully back on his desk. She obviously didn’t want to touch it either.

“No,” she answered, defiantly. “No. I don’t have any reason to explain myself to you. I think that question alone infringes on my freedom of speech.”

“I don’t care that you wrote a book, Mandy.” Toby growled at her. “But when you go out of your way to defame …”

“I only told the truth, Toby.”

“The truth. And so ruining someone’s future political career by publishing photos of her extramarital affair with a man who eventually became her boss was within reason to do?! We aren’t running sex scandals here at the White House, Mandy! People resign because of them! Vice-Presidents resign because of them! What your photographer saw that night was none of your business!”

“What about all the other nights? There are public photos of you and CJ – before and after your divorce, Toby. What about Josh and Donna?”

“That’s none of the public’s business!” The book landed on the floor again, this time as Toby came around the desk to meet her on her ground. “Did we piss you off that badly?”

“I –“

“You decided you wanted to take on more than one client, Mandy. We let you go without a fight and found a new media director. We let you go with a party, Mandy, and this is how you repay us?! We restarted your career in professional politics and this is what you do?! You are about to be married to a man who is now on track to be President in eight years and you write a piece of trash like this?!” If his blood pressure rose any further, his heart would come out the top of his head. “And you didn’t even have the guts to put your name on it. You’re clean, Mandy. You’re clean. And CJ can’t ever run for any political office, something she might be interested in someday, because this book has photographic evidence of a mistake the two of us made almost eight years ago. What did we ever do to you?” His energy suddenly spent, Toby walked back to his chair and sank into it. “Your name is out there, your fiancé, a man Josh introduced you to by the way, your husband will get to crow about family values to his heartland state, and the two of you will claim the White House since Leo won’t ever run for President. You’ve set yourself up well, Mandy.” He rubbed his eyes.

Mandy, for once, was speechless. She’d expected the lecture when she’d been summoned to Toby’s office, but she hadn’t expected the pain in his eyes. “Toby …”

“You got something wrong in this book, Mandy.” He opened to the now infamous paragraph about young black men holding open the door for people, and whores sleeping their way to top positions, but couldn’t stand to read it out loud. “See, the President never once thought about sex or color when hiring people. That was actually Josh’s and my job. We were the ones who got to care about the cosmetics. But that never once stopped us from hiring the most qualified people. The most qualified, minority people, are also the ones that don’t get the mainstream attention. Our national security advisor is going to be a Senator soon. Our press secretary was promoted, on her own merits, to Chief of Staff – and has proved to be even more persuasive than her predecessor. Josh Lyman was passed up for his promotion because we wanted him out grooming the next candidate.” Toby bit back his own bitterness that Josh hadn’t taken him out on the campaign trail. That wasn’t the argument right now. “We found those people on the fringes, working in fields that never get any attention. We found the most qualified by digging and looking and sometimes it was old white men and sometimes it was young black women. You wrote on speculation, you fed the gossip, something you never liked to do when you were media director. Times have changed, I guess.” He sighed. “But, CJ trusted you. And she doesn’t know that I’m having this conversation, but CJ trusted you and she went to bat for you, even after that damned memo. This is how you repay her. I’m all for political ambition, but not when she gets hurt in the process.”

For a minute, her temper flared, "What pisses you off more, Toby? The bad writing, the rumors that were put to light, or that CJ’s precious reputation was snubbed. A reputation that only you seem to hold on to, by the way.”

"I'm honestly not sure." He sighed, letting himself feel sympathy for just a moment. "Mandy, were you really that mad at us?” When she didn't answer, he shook his head. "Anyone who knows you knows that this was written by you. You've humiliated CJ, me, Leo, Josh, and the President. This is cruel, and you knew it when you decided to do it. And what's worse," he tilted his head, "is that I know you're ashamed of it."

"Toby ..." Mandy sighed and sank onto the couch. "Look, I'm not going to apologize. I did it for my own reasons."

"I know." His voice held that deadly calm that came before his storm. "And all those reasons have done is ruin the careers of a lot of women in this town, especially in this building."

"CJ will move on from it."

"Maybe."

"You have little right to talk, Toby. You spent so much time talking about morals ... and there you were, fucking CJ the whole time."

"I've dealt with that already, and it's not your place to judge me."

"You're a hypocrite, Toby."

He just glared at her. "You don't have any right to judge that." He’d finally had it. “Get out,” he whispered. “Just get out. And take a good look around, because I promise you that it’s the last time you’ll see these halls.” “Toby, wait …” Mandy tried to plead her case. “Toby, I … I didn’t … I didn’t know …”

He looked up at Mandy. “Get out.”

This time she did, her head bowed as she raced through the halls. She was almost free of the doors when the very recognizable face of the White House counsel walked past, on his way, clearly, to the Chief of Staff’s office.

1998

“There’s a quote,” CJ reached over to her bedside table, balancing the phone between one ear and her shoulder, “in a book … I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

“That time being ever since Andi up and left Toby?” Anisah rolled her eyes, knowing that CJ would hear the gesture in her voice. “You know, if you two hadn’t been stupid and just married each other ten years ago, none of this drama would have happened. But no, you had to break up with him and now you’re destined to only be best friends so if you tell me that you’re sleeping with him yet again, I’m hanging up this phone.”

“Give me a little credit, Ani.” CJ found the book she was looking for. “Anyway, I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that Toby wasn’t sleeping with me when we were having that affair, he was sleeping with the idea of me and the idea of us. It’s like we were acting out this fantasy we’d had forever and when the veil got ripped away, we realized we were happier with the reality.”

“”Somehow I follow that. What’s this quote?” She wanted to ask if CJ was alright, but she knew that her friend wasn’t. CJ would forever and always be dependent on Toby’s love, just as Toby would be on CJ’s. But together they were a scary, scary combination.

“Hold on …” she flipped through, finding the page. “Did you ever read Life Before Man?”

“The Atwood thing? I tried, but it was a bit convoluted for me.”

“It is. But, the book is about these two couples whose lives are forever intertwined.” Finding the page, she leaned back and began to read. “She riffled back through the days, looking for clues; at the base of her skull the old chill begins, the old fear, of events, cataclysms preparing themselves without her, gathering like tidal waves at the other side of the world. Behind her back. Out of Control. She stands up, turns the key in her desk. She has backbone. She has money in the bank, not enough, but some. She does not have to depend, she is not a dependant. She is self-supporting.”

“Sounds familiar.” Anisah sighed. “CJ, honey, you know I’m the last person in the world to think you need to settle down and get married, but sweet Allah, you need to settle down and get married. You need to be self-supporting, away from Toby. And don’t tell me that once he can breathe again, cause right now I know he’s suffocating, but once he’s breathing again you two won’t be up to your old tricks.”

“We’re good in bed together, that’s all.”

“And you love each other, but you aren’t in love. Sometimes I wonder if you ever were … no, I know that you were. But it was that early love, that passion that eventually fades. You two are soul-mates, and you know I don’t believe in romantic crap like that. But you really are and there’s no better way to fuck up the soul-mate connection than sleeping together like you two do.” Listening to the silence on the other end of the line, Anisah wondered if she’d pushed too hard. For as raw as Toby was right now, she knew that CJ’s feelings were even worse. She blamed herself, rightly, for a lot of the problems in Toby and Andi’s relationship, and now, seeing that Toby was single again, she also knew that her oldest friend was blaming herself for walking away ten years ago. Maybe Toby wouldn’t be hurting like this if they’d just married.

“Is it my fault, Ani?” CJ’s voice was soft, vulnerable.

“Not completely. Honestly, Ceej, you were a factor, you had to be. You were sleeping with him and Andi caught you. But there were problems with their relationship from the start. Sometimes I wonder if Toby is meant to be with anyone but his computer or his pen.”

“Me too.” CJ sighed. “I don’t want to get back together with him, but … there’s this desire I feel … it’s never gone away. We’re like gasoline and a match and whenever we’re together there’s this explosion that decimates all life in a fifty-mile radius … but god, when we’re together, it’s amazing.”

“You’ve slept together already, haven’t you?”

“No.” CJ sighed. “No. It came close … the night he told me Andi had left. I took him home and he had me mostly naked before I realized what we were doing, but I sent him to bed and I slept on the couch. Andi walked in while I was making breakfast though.”

“That had to be a mess.”

“It was.” She sighed again and blinked back a few tears. “I’m not dependent on him, Ani. I know what you’re thinking. But we’re so interdependent … we’re symbiotic. I’ve been finishing his sentences since the first five minutes we spent in each other’s presence. And …”

“He’s your boss, again, CJ. You can’t be doing this. You can’t even be thinking it. Go back to that quote, okay? You’re self-sufficient. And you’ve got that guy, what’s his name, Danny? Isn’t he flirting with you? Come on, here’s a guy that, according to you, is nothing like Toby but everything you want. He’s a writer, he’s passionate, he’s ambitious, and he believes in letting you be you.”

“Danny’s a reporter. I can’t date him. It’s a conflict of interest.”

“That you’ve gone that far only shows that you’ve actually given it thought. I’m serious, Ceej, think about it. Someone, anyone besides Toby. Be friends with him. Please. Try.”

“Yeah. I’ll try.” She chuckled.

“I gotta go, Abdul will be back with the boys soon and we’re going out to dinner.”

“Kiss him for me.”

“I will. Kiss Toby. Tell him I’m sorry. We’ll talk again, okay?”

“Yeah.” CJ hung up the phone and stared blankly into space for a long time before picking up the book again, opening to the first page, and reading. I don’t know how I should live. I don’t know how anyone should live. All I know is how I do live. I live like a peeled snail. And that’s no way to make money.

2005

“Baby?” He paused in the doorway, watching her. “CJ?”

She looked up at him, her eyes glazed with exhaustion. “I’m no where near going home, Toby. Why don’t you just head on and I’ll see you in the morning.” When he looked ready to argue, she just pointed to her stack of work. “Thanks to whoever leaked the damned story, my workload has tripled.”

He knew she was aware of his reaction to her words.

“And so I need to stay here and work. And I have a couch if I need to sleep.”

“Jeanie …” He wanted to plead with her, to remind her of her health and the baby, but one flash of her eyes told him that she knew full well what this was doing to her and the baby. “Okay. Don’t be here too late, okay?”

“Yeah.” For an instant she softened. “Yeah.”

“I’ll call you later?”

“Sure.” But already her head was back in her work, and he had stopped mattering. Toby walked away quietly, and CJ never heard him leave. After a while, she stopped and rubbed her eyes, and reached into the drawer where Greg’s manuscript was hidden. It would never get finished, well, at least not for a long, long time. She had to admit it had been exciting, the thought of her life story out there, written by one of the men she most respected. But, that man was behind bars, for doing what he was supposed to do. Even though he’d given her the draft right before he went to jail, she’d never read it, and she wasn’t going to. No, this was just safekeeping. Until he was free. Tempted though, she opened the first page, but then stopped and put it back into the drawer. Maybe it was her own guilt, her own worries that she’d tipped someone else (and she didn’t like to think of who that someone was) into leaking the information, and maybe it was that it wasn’t finished, and Greg never liked his stuff being read before it was finished. But, just like Greg, the book was under lock and key for an indeterminate amount of time.

She glanced up and blinked at the numbers on the clock. It wasn’t all that late – eleven o’clock. She knew the staff was gone, even Margaret, and that Toby was already back at his apartment. She couldn’t see him right now. Something nagged at her – the truth of the situation. He wasn’t telling her everything, and what he did know was turning out to be her downfall.

Midnight was marked by the faint sound of the bells at the National Cathedral. For a reason she didn’t quite understand, she crossed herself.

She looked up again. Two o’clock. She took another sip of coffee and looked back at the paper she was working her way through.

Four o’clock. She pulled a red bull from her mini fridge and apologized to the child in her womb and started to think that maybe this pregnancy really wasn’t the best idea. Maybe, Toby’s hints had been right.

Five-thirty. She hastily scribbled note to Margaret asking her to make an appointment with her doctor. At five-forty five, Margaret appeared, silent and worried. She nodded at her boss’ note and then slid it into Charlie’s pile to take care of while she was up at the Hill today testifying.

At six-fifteen she stepped into the closet to change her suit. All she had left was the dark one with the short, almost frilly skirt, but the scarf helped. A touch of under-eye base to cover the dark circles and a fresh layer to her makeup made it look like she’d managed at least three hours of sleep. At six thirty, Charlie showed up with her coffee. And he was talking to Toby.

She looked at the coffee Charlie was handing out to her and sighed. “Get that coffee away from me.”

Toby stared at her. She’d been here all night. She’d promised she’d go home and she hadn’t. She was pissed at him. He knew that she knew. Well, if anything, she knew something. He could tell by the way she looked at him every time he told her to get a lawyer.

So he did what she wanted, he shooed out of her office. He went to work. He worried.

She could tell he was here before he walked in the door. She could tell he wanted to touch her as he did, but that she kept him from doing it. She wanted to hold him and kiss him. She wanted to be able to breathe. She wanted him to confess before she and Leo were dragged in front of a committee. “Good evening. You would not believe the day I've had. I'd tell you about it if I could talk about it, but a bunch of stuff happened today that I can't talk about so I guess I should stop talking about it.” To do anything to keep him from touching her, she walked back out into the office, and Margaret was there. They blinked at each other – and CJ’s heart sank at the look in Margaret’s eyes. It was over. It was over. They’d haul her away before anyone confessed, and God, if it really was Toby … she didn’t know what she would do. She does not have to depend, she is not a dependant. She is self-supporting.

Toby, he was still there, staring at her. She couldn’t look at him because if it was him, then he was to blame for everything going wrong and if it wasn’t him, she was still going to be blamed. “But the truth is,” she continued, ignoring the pains in her stomach, “I'm so strung out and wired on caffeine I can't even tell what room I'm in.”

“C.J…” he started …

She couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t take what he was going to say. “Let's open that bottle of champagne you gave me for my birthday. Maybe the alcohol will balance out the caffeine.”

For a minute he stared at her, but figured the alcohol wouldn’t do any more damage than CJ’s lack of sleep and the constant caffeine intake. This was killing her, he had to put a stop to it. “C.J., the leak...” He didn’t want to do this, he didn’t want to confess to a crime he didn’t commit, but if he didn’t, then they would ruin her. He watched as she went to get that bottle of champagne from last November. They’d been saving it for a special occasion.

She choked back tears as she stared at the bottle, “Let's have a toast. One final toast before I leave the White House for my perp walk in leg irons. Here, you open it. I'll put your eye out.” She held it out to him, daring him with a look to open it, to risk it. Daring him to tell her the truth.

He stared at her. He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to celebrate the end with her. There wasn’t anything to celebrate and he wasn’t going to drink champagne to their broken hearts. “CJ …”

The tears in her voice were surprisingly well managed and she looked down at the bottle, “Fine, I'll open it,” She sank down into one of her chairs, the energy going out of her and, against her will, the tears starting to choke her throat. “But just, uh, listen to what I have to say. Leo's in trouble.” Maybe that would get through to him. If Leo had to testify, it would be the end of the Santos campaign. Someone had to confess before Monday and she was ready to do it, to fall on the sword, even if it meant lying, to preserve the presidency and Leo’s reputation. Political appointees were also the scapegoats.

He knew. And he didn’t know if what he was about to say came from his worry for her or his love for Leo, but he had to say it. “I know.”

She blinked at him, wanting to be surprised. “You do?” Of course he knew. He knew everything.

Slowly, from somewhere, he found the strength to move. “I got a lawyer.” Carefully, he sat in the other chair.

“What?” Oh Toby, no. No. Don’t tell me this. Don’t tell us this. We’re breaking up, we’re not even going to be together when this baby is born but please, please, don’t tell me this. You didn’t do it. Don’t make my suspicions come true.

“I got a lawyer.” He looked at her, unable to control the tears that were springing to his eyes. CJ turned away. She couldn’t look at him while he said the words. “I did it.”

She'd majored in English, minored in communications, had a Masters degree in mass communication and another in public polling and public speaking. There had been a time when, on Sunday mornings, for fun she had read through Webster’s - just to challenge her mind. She had no unearthly word to describe the blow to her body as she listened to Toby confess. She'd known, and she'd been ignoring it, and now, now she ... move, CJ. Move. She got up, picked up the phone, told Margaret to get someone from the counsel's office over, and then hung up and looked into his eyes. Her best friend, her lover, her soul mate, was sitting here in her office, telling her that he'd been the leak. What did he expect, absolution and forgiveness just because she loved him with everything she was? Well, he had it. And somehow, once this black hole of nothingness wore away, she'd be able to see that. But right now, all she could think was that he had ... "We really can't say anything without counsel present." She interrupted his apology. God, how could he have done this to them? Nausea washed over her and she leaned in the window, trying to keep the coffee in her body. She had to keep moving. She had to keep moving. She had to keep breathing. Somehow, she had to keep breathing. Her stomach hurt. She bent over, sick, forcing the bile down, staring at him, communicating with him, the conversation they couldn’t have verbally taking place just with their eyes. Somehow, through it all, though the tears in his eyes and the numbness in her body, somehow, she kept breathing.

~Fin~