Paper Tigers
Author: amerella
Feedback is muchly appreciated.
*
Her mother looks like a slim white candle, and Cathy doesn't know when that happened, when she started looking like that. Still, there it is.
Outside, the hospital H gleams, too high and too red in a strange sky. Smog and car exhaust in her lungs, and her fingertips numb. It's colder than it should be in California, and that makes her uneasy. Then again, this entire day has made her uneasy, this entire month, this entire year.
Her car had broken down on the New Jersey turnpike, but it's been running okay since then. Tonight, it spits to life, and she remembers that the winters in DC used to render it useless. She hadn't thought she'd have to worry about that here, at least.
*
The President's on the radio, sounding tinny and distant. They're good words, but they're Toby's words. She can tell.
It's the first time she's thought of it all day. The White House. The fact that she had once stood in the White House. It's inconceivable to her now.
Cathy remembers her mother's arms, skinny but healthy-brown. Her mother saying, "Jed Bartlet must be a smart man, to have hired you."
"Mom, he didn't, I mean, it wasn't him who—"
But her mother was already drifting away, and Cathy decided to leave it, to just leave it. The sun catcher twinkled from the bay window. Diffused, scattered light.
She's talked to some of them, but she's never told them why she had to leave, really. Family reasons. She's talked to Ginger and Donna a few times. Bonnie, once. But not Margaret. And not Sam.
She's vaguely pleased when he recognises her voice. "You're here; you're in California," she accuses him. "Come see me." Laughing when he stumbles over his answer, because it's something familiar.
She hangs up, and she's still laughing. She wants to see him; wants it more than she's wanted anything for a long time.
He's someone she could love, if she had the chance. Easy to love. He knows when not to ask questions.
She's always thought of that as a virtue.
*
They hug awkwardly, as if they are lovers, or strangers. Sam's all long bones and jerky movements, and he says coffee would be fine, just fine. "I should have, I should have called you. Cathy," he says, like she knew he would.
"Hey, it's been quite a year."
He stills; his features grow pinched. "Yeah. Yeah. It's good that you left, you know, when you did."
It isn't good for me, she thinks. "Did you have any trouble finding the place?"
"No. And it's a beautiful place, Cathy." And he smiles, and she knows that he means it.
"It's my mother's."
*
He's drinking his coffee black now. She'll have to remember that.
"I'm supposed to be writing this thing. It's not even a thing. It's, it's just notes. Lillianfield's been—"
"I've been keeping tabs."
Sam looks pleased, but then something passes over his face. "Well."
He leans back in his chair, and he seems out of place, out of the West Wing. Whenever she thinks of him, that's where he is. Like an underwater creature, never in the air, never in the open.
"You know what you should say, Sam? You should say 'all reactionaries are paper tigers'."
"You're, Cathy, you're giving me Mao?"
"There's nothing wrong with Mao. With his philosophies, I mean. There's nothing wrong with his philosophies." She pauses. "Well, not all of them."
"Okay. I'll give you that. But, I still can't use Mao."
"Why not?"
"Because Toby doesn't think we should be quoting The Little Red Book," he says, like he's had this conversation before.
"He has a problem with that, does he?" She grins, somewhat wildly.
"Cathy."
"Sam, Mao said 'All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying—"
"'But in reality they are not so powerful'." He nods. "Yeah."
"Yeah. And Lillianfield's an idiot."
Sam licks his lips. "If you've been keeping tabs, then you know that it's not just Lillianfield. It's, it's everyone."
She takes a sip of coffee; can't think of anything to say to that. She's never been the one with the words, anyway. "They're all reactionaries," she says finally, and it's inadequate.
Sam's already speaking again. "But, they're not all idiots. And they're not all powerless."
"Sam."
"And they're everywhere. It's everyone."
"Hey."
*
"How's Josh?" she asks, because there's this uncertainty in him, in her, and she doesn't know what to do with it.
He blinks. "Josh." Said like something more than just a name; something less than a reckoning.
"Because of the shooting," she says, her small pale hand on his knee.
"Oh," he says slowly, "Oh."
"Yes."
"He's good." Sam ducks his head. "Do I, can I ask you something, then?"
She draws her hand away.
*
She's waiting for him to ask her why she left, she's waiting and waiting. She should know better.
His voice is very quiet. "Is there, is there any chance that you'll be coming back? Sometime?"
"Sam, there's this thing."
"You don't have to tell me. I just, I want you to know that your job is open. That there will always be a place for you, as long as— at least for another two years."
"A year and a half," she says childishly, cruelly. Doesn't know why, really. Sam's face is gentle. It's only in the way his eyes flicker that she knows she's hurt him. "There's a place for you to come back to, Cathy."
"I know," she says, and she does.
Sam kisses her on the forehead before he leaves. His knuckles graze her temple. She wonders how many months it will be before she sees him again. How many years.
And she sleeps, and when she wakes up there's a place for her to go back to. Three tries, and the car starts.
Her mother looks like a slim white candle, and Cathy doesn't know when that happened, when she started looking like that.
Still, there it is.
*