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TITLE: and maybe alcoholics 
AUTHOR: not jenny 
SPOILERS: anything aired in the U.S., just to be safe 
DISCLAIMER: not mine. not making any money.  don't sue. 
ARCHIVE: yeah. just tell me so i can visit. 
RATING: PG-13/R? nothing too graphic 
SUMMARY: just read it. (cuz I suck at these.) 
 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  so my 'puter broke & ate up the first incarnation of  
this little tale & this is the best i can reconstruct it.  so there  
are holes, naturally, but hopefully not too many; it's not what it  
was, but what it is isn't too bad, i think.   
 
also, about the AA stuff- no offense, disrespect, etc. is intended;  
i've got many a family member 12-steppin' it & I've done the alanon  
trip myself so i respect the program.  
 
 
 
and maybe alcoholics 
 
* 
 
She's good in bed, and it isn't a secret.  Because sometimes she finds 
herself beneath someone in the middle of the night after a few too  
many drinks.  And Washington is an unexpectedly small town.  Besides  
she screams it at one of her mistakes one night at the Kennedy Center; 
she announces it in the Oval Office. 
 
She's good in bed, and it's far from a secret.   
 
And when she wakes up to discover him lying beside her, her thoughts  
turn, of their own volition, to Toby.  Fleeting images really,  
memories she thought she'd banished from her subconscious, and yet  
they ambush her every time this happens.  Waking up with yet another  
in a long line of others, she remembers. 
 
And if this isn't really that, not just the latest in a long string of 
replacements, if this is different, and it is, she pushes that thought 
aside as well.  Because she's not ready to face the fact that she's  
blatantly disobeyed a presidential order.  The leader of the free  
world, a man who could have her banished to Siberia with a flick of  
his wrist, forbade her to see this man, this conflict of interest.   
And she was full of good intentions, willing to sacrifice the personal 
for the professional.  She was full of good intentions, mostly because 
this isn't what she wants, not really, because her mind will always  
return to Toby in the morning.  But one night, and one too many  
martinis, and she's waking up in Danny's apartment. 
 
So, careful not to wake him, and a little more than terrified about  
what he'll imagine this to mean, she dresses and leaves.  It's still  
dark out, and she's missing one of her contacts, and she waits outside 
his building for the cab she's just called. 
 
"You're leaving." 
 
"Danny."  She glances over her shoulder to see him, clad only in a  
pair of X-Mas novelty boxers, hovering in the doorway.  Or at least  
she thinks they're X-Mas boxers; it's hard to tell, with just one  
contact in.  "I called a cab." 
 
"Oh."  And he suddenly seems to realize its March, and cold outside,  
and he wraps his arms around himself.  "You could stay.  A few more  
hours, I mean, till sunrise anyway.  If you want." 
 
But she doesn't want to, which is why she snuck out in the first  
place.  Besides, she's already begun to see photographers lurking  
behind every parked car on the block.  And she's beginning to remember 
possibly calling him 'Toby' last night, which embarrasses her because  
it's something she's never done before, not with any of the others in  
this long string of men not Toby she's been with.  Luckily the cab  
pulls up before she can respond, and she mumbles a quick goodbye as  
she climbs in. 
 
* * * 
 
She's great in bed, and it's not a secret. 
 
So, once upon a time (& isn't that how these things are supposed to  
start, properly?) there was the past, and she was a different person.  
Before him, she was another person.  And sometimes, when she's had  
just the right amount to drink, her former life flashes before her  
eyes like a B-Movie, in furious Technicolor. 
 
In high school, she was too tall too soon, and she learned to spin the 
truth.   
 
* * * 
 
"CJ- these just arrived for you." 
 
Carol enters her office with a huge bouquet of red roses, a rather  
gaudy floral arrangement, or so CJ thinks as she buries her head on  
her desk.  Toby would never send her roses; she knows this  
instinctively because Toby is anything but banal.  Besides she has a  
daisy pressed in a college Statistics textbook as a sort of tentative  
proof. 
 
"Great.  Just put them by the fish."  She tries to smile.  "And tell  
Danny to come to my office after the morning briefing.  I need to talk 
to him."  Which, of course, makes Carol smirk, dedicated personal  
assistant that she is, and CJ amends her statement.  "For an  
exclusive.  Get your mind out of the gutter." 
 
She's hung over again, and after staff meeting Leo asks her to stay  
behind.  To talk, of course, about the possibility she's become an  
alcoholic.  Because she hasn't spent a sober night in weeks, and its  
beginning to show.  He orders her to attend an AA meeting with him, to 
try to stay sober for the remainder of the week.  Which scares her,  
even though she knows it shouldn't. 
 
She begins to think maybe she is a drunk.  
 
"Hoynes'll be there, too, just so you know.  And Toby-" 
 
Which snaps her out of her reverie.  "Toby?  But he's not an  
alcoholic." 
 
And Leo looks at her like she's grown an extra head.  "Have you seen  
him at all in the past few weeks, CJ?  Because he's seriously the only 
member of this staff who's consistently looked worse than you every  
morning." 
 
She thinks he may have insulted her, but she really doesn't care. 
 
* * * 
 
In high school, she always stood alone at parties, holding her  
friends' purses as they made out with the basketball team behind the  
bleachers. 
 
In college, she screwed around.  She became a sort of female gigolo, a 
term she prefers infinitely to slut, whore, tramp, and any other of  
the slurs thrown her way by the other girls after they discovered  
she'd gone down on the brothers of Delta Upsilon at a party one night. 
 
* * * 
 
And this cannot end any way but painfully, and the realization winds  
her as she watches Danny saunter into her office. 
 
"Whatcha doin' tonight?"  He's flirting with her again, behaviour she  
thought she'd ended after Portland, but obviously her actions last  
night have convinced him to resume.  And she gives him that look, the  
one that says they've made a horrendous mistake, before commencing on  
a speech she's long since perfected but rarely has to give.  Because  
usually she doesn't know the guy, these days, and they don't exchange  
names.   
 
"Danny," And this is harder than she remembers it, somehow.  "Last  
night, well, it was nice, Danny, but it was just, you know, a one time 
deal." 
 
"You know it was more than a one-night stand, CJ." 
 
"No.  It wasn't." 
 
And he looks contemplative, and he looks upset.  "Last night, you  
said- I thought I was hearing things, I was drunk, but you called  
me--" 
 
"So I--" 
 
"--Toby." 
 
"--did.  That wasn't just my imagination.  I did." 
 
"So that's that?" 
 
"I'm afraid so."  And she can see his heart breaking as he tries to  
smile.  She can see the damage she's wrought, and she tries,  
halfheartedly, to make it up to him as he leaves.  "Thanks for the  
flowers, Danny.  They're beautiful."  Even though they're not. 
 
* * * 
 
In college, she screwed around.  In college, CJ was still Claudia and  
Toby was a stranger, and she went down on him one night at a party.  
She went down on him in a fraternity bathroom, and he was the only one 
she ever took home. And when they woke up together, in her dorm room,  
she made him a bowl of cereal, and he kissed her in the doorway as he  
left a week later. He sent her a bouquet of daisies and Queen Anne's  
Lace when he went home to New York, and she pressed the petals in her  
Statistics textbook. 
 
* * * 
 
"So I hear you're being punished too." 
 
She looks up to see Toby looming in the doorway of her office, a dour  
expression on his face.  An even more dour expression than usual, she  
decides. 
 
"AA?" 
 
He shrugs. 
 
"So are you?  An alcoholic, I mean?  Do you think you might be?" 
 
He shrugs again, his all-purpose response to questions he really can't 
answer, which is really starting to bother her. 
 
"Toby."  It's a warning, really, the way she says his name, a threat  
she's perfected during the decades of their friendship.  "Have you  
been struck mute?" 
 
"No." 
 
"No to what?  The alcoholism or the mute?" 
 
"Either.  Both."  He toes the carpet and plays with his tie.  "I'm not 
an alcoholic, CJ.  It's just lately, you know, things have been tough. 
What with reelection and Hoynes and the shooting still *everywhere,*  
it's just been--" 
 
"Yeah." 
 
She can tell when he's noticed the flowers because his head dips a  
little closer to the ground.  "Nice flowers." 
 
"Not really.  I mean, they're *nice,* just not very me.  I prefer  
wildflowers, daisies, stuff like that." 
 
Which, of course, he already knows, being the one who started her  
affinity for them, and he smiles abruptly at the memory.  "Cheerios." 
 
She laughs, "What?" 
 
"My favorite cereal.  Always will be, thanks to you." 
 
And she blushes at that, but mostly because she's always been more of  
a cornflakes girl.  "They were my roommate's; she was home with her  
parents that week, and I didn't have anything of my own to eat." 
 
"I'll have to thank her, someday. For going home that week, for  
leaving us some form of sustenance." 
 
And she hits him, playfully, on the head with a file from her desk  
because he's making her nervous.  Because they don't talk about this,  
as a rule, and suddenly he's bringing things up, things she thought  
he'd forgotten even if she never could.  Which makes her nervous, but  
also foolhardy.   
 
"So, tonight, after AA, do you want to go out?  Maybe get something to 
eat and talk?" 
 
Shrugging, "OK." 
 
* * * 
 
In college, they talked about everything & nothing, and started over  
infinite times.  She went down on him in a fraternity bathroom, and  
they spent a week in her room, eating Cheerios at every meal. 
 
And if sometimes they forgot to say the words, if they skipped that  
part from time to time, it was OK.  Because he would send her flowers  
when he left at the end of the week, and she'd make him a bowl of  
cereal come morning. 
 
* * * 
 
"My name is Leo, and I'm an alcoholic and an addict." 
 
"My name is John, and I'm an alcoholic." 
 
"Bill, and I'm an addict." 
 
And Toby's playing with his tie when the circle comes to him, so CJ  
elbows him.  "Huh?" Looking around, "Oh.  Toby.  Hi." 
 
"And I'm CJ, and Leo thinks we're alcoholics, when we're really just  
overworked."  She glares pointedly at Leo and continues, "Which sounds 
like a lame excuse of some sort, I know, but really isn't.  Which is  
why we're not going to have anything to drink, not even a lite beer,  
until Easter.  As a sort of Lent exercise thing, even though Toby's  
Jewish and about to bite my head off." 
 
"What she said.  Except the Lent stuff, and the biting off of heads.   
I'm just doing this to prove a point." 
 
Leo's mad, but mostly at himself, because they're obviously not taking 
this seriously.  Or at least as seriously as he thinks they should.   
"Go.  You two are treating this as some sort of perverse joke, so just 
leave.  But if either of you shows up to work hungover again, I *will* 
be sending you to rehab." 
 
Admonished, they leave. 
 
And break out into laughter as soon as they reach her office. 
 
* * * 
 
And the next time she saw him, he was married and she was living with  
some guy she didn't really like.  
 
The next time they met, she laughed at his wedding band, he joked  
about her house, and they agreed to ignore their past.  To spin the  
truth, just a little, just enough to get by. 
 
* * * 
 
"So how dead do you think we are, exactly?" 
 
He's flirting with her, she thinks, as he bounces another one of those 
rubber pink balls against her desk.  They're eating cold Chinese food  
in her office, leftovers from that afternoon's lunch, and he's  
slouched on her couch, tossing those annoying little balls in her  
general direction.  Which makes her giggle, when she realizes how  
sexual it all sounds. 
 
"The fact that we may both be out of work in a few hours is somehow  
amusing to you?  I've never figured you for a masochist, CJ." 
 
"Not that, Toby.  Your balls."  Which only makes her laugh harder.   
"The bouncy ones you seem to have this crazy addiction to. To which  
you have this crazy addiction.  Whatever." 
 
"I thought we already covered the addiction angle for the evening."  
 
"Morning.  Early morning, but still-" 
 
"Whatever." 
 
"It's just that you're usually so precise with your words.  I figured  
you'd call it like it is, my friend." 
 
"Morning it is, then.  Pre-dawn early morning, the time of day you  
only experience after pulling an all-nighter of some sort."  Which  
reminds her of Danny, and she winces.  "What?"  And he rubs his hand  
over his head, a subconscious gesture, really, one he resorts to only  
in times of stress.  "Danny." 
 
And suddenly she's shy; her head tucks down without her wanting it to.  
"Yeah." 
 
He gets up with every intention of storming out, full of righteous  
indignation, when he turns to see her cradling her head on her desk.   
And righteous indignation be damned, he thinks, because he can't just  
leave her like that, looking all sad and lost and lonely.  Because  
he's been feeling it too, the lonely and the sad and the lost, which  
is why he's here, tonight, eating cold sesame chicken on her couch.   
 
His hand is in her hair when he speaks, whispers really, next.  "Ann  
Stark, even after the breakfast and the maple syrup and the press  
conference, she and I, we--" And he finishes the thought with his  
spare hand, waving it towards the ceiling.  "We were drunk, and we,  
and I don't really like her, anymore.  Maybe once upon a time, but  
after everything, I don't even like her, and we're sleeping together.  
Or were, anyway, I'm not sure.  So I won't judge you too harshly." 
 
"Sleeping together?  That connotes that it's happened, you know, more  
than once.  Danny and I- it was just the one time, after too much to  
drink."  She blushes because she's fishing, but she can't seem to  
stop.  "So how many-- I ended it with Danny after he sent me the  
flowers, told him it couldn't go any further.  So how long, you and  
Ann, since when?" 
 
"Only when I'm drunk.  Her too, I think, though I'm usually too far  
gone to really tell.  Recently, the last few weeks." 
 
He's sitting on her desk, looking down at her for once, and they stare 
at one another in silence.  And they're laughing, suddenly and  
hysterically, at the preposterousness of their situation when he leans 
down and kisses her.  Hard.  So she kisses him back, and the papers on 
her desk scatter every which way and he's on top of her.  Her laptop  
digs into her back as he pulls at her suit jacket, and somehow they  
manage to move it to her chair as she pulls at the buttons on his  
shirt. 
 
And later, when she goes down on him, his hands feel the same in her  
hair.  His beard tickles a little between her legs, which is new, but  
doesn't last very long before she gasps at the feel of his tongue.   
They're older than they used to be, and they fall asleep on her couch. 
 
*** 
 
When he and Andy started fighting, irreparably and constantly, he  
called CJ in Los Angeles and she talked him down.  
 
She broke up with Jon and Chris and Mark, all of whom she never loved, 
and Toby was the one she phoned from a bar after too many  
grasshoppers.  He would call her a cab, long distance from New York,  
and in the morning there'd be flowers. 
 
So maybe this was inevitable, given their history, but maybe it  
wasn't. 
 
*** 
 
"So." 
 
"Yeah." He smirks. "So."  
 
"Good morning, I think."  She stretches, yawning, along the length of  
the couch. "What time is it, anyway?" 
 
He's sitting now, with her head on his shoulder, and he squints at his 
watch.  "Late.  Seven thirty." 
 
"Damn.  Thank god I let Sam talk me into leaving a change of clothes  
in my office."  A kiss.  "Something about the restorative powers of a  
clean shirt, I think; though I wasn't paying too much attention."  
Another kiss, this one deeper.  "Just agreed to bring a change so he's 
shut up about it already."  And they're tangled, yet again, on the  
couch, all legs and arms and lips everywhere. But it's morning, and a  
work day, and she finds the strength to pull away before someone can  
walk in on them. 
 
"This *was* my spare shirt." He rubs his forehead, "And now half the  
buttons are missing. Vixen." 
 
She swats his arm, then points to her top desk drawer. "There's a  
sewing kit in there, with spare buttons and everything. I'm going to  
grab a quick shower in the women's locker room."  
 
A quick kiss and she's gone.  He mutters to himself as he starts  
sewing new buttons on his shirt, but mostly to disguise these sparks  
of joy he's suddenly experiencing. Because last night was amazing, and 
this morning he doesn't know what to say, can't find the words.  Love  
just doesn't seem adequate, somehow; he might as well say 'blueberry  
pancakes' or 'ubiquitous.' And he laughs, sadly, because he feels a  
childish need to tell her anyway, to say the words out loud. Even  
though he knows, deep inside, that he won't.  Not yet, anyway, not so  
soon. He doesn't even notice Josh standing in the doorway. 
 
"Ahem.  Am I interrupting something in here?  And where's CJ?" 
 
"Go away." 
 
"Nope, can't do that; need to talk to CJ."  Josh saunters over to the  
desk and sits, eyeing the papers strewn on the floor. He whispers,  
"It's important, Press Secretary first call type stuff.  Sex." 
 
Toby sputters in response.  "Sex?" 
 
Josh smirks.  
 
In the shower, CJ's humming as she washes her hair.  Smiling at the 
thought of his hands where hers are now. 
 
*** 
 
Then he showed up at her house in LA, full of promises about this guy  
who was changing the face of American politics.  And she fell in the  
pool. 
 
She saw him, standing there all natural and oh so *Toby,* and she  
walked straight into the water.  She makes a point of blaming her  
contact lenses even today, but it was him in her yard and sudden  
visions of ravaging him on a lounge chair that really made her do it. 
 
So she took the job. 
 
*** 
 
And when the flowers arrive, as she knew they would, Carol makes a  
crack about CJ opening a floral shop before replacing yesterday's  
bouquet with today's new, improved version. 
 
Ginger isn't quite so smooth; she's clearly flustered by the sudden  
appearance of a bowl of cheerios with a note reading 'For Sustenance'  
addressed to her boss.  She delivers it with nary a wisecrack and a  
look of absolute confusion. 
 
CJ's smiling, and, alone in his office, Toby is too. 
 
* 
the end.