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Title: A Closet to Keep You In
Author: penelopody@hotmail.com
Category: CJ/f, CJ/T, pre-admin
Spoilers: None
Rating: R
Thanks to a bevy of pronoun advisors
Thanks and show tunes to brilliant bluesky august

for Sab (and Lizzie and Hawkeye): cause it always was


[There's only one place to hide.]

***

They'd met and there was instant recognition, something that hissed
and singed, sweated.  Rachel in her docs and a miniskirt, with
considering eyes. Rachel on every side.  And it was a long time
before CJ found that the only thing she'd want to know, over and
again, was why Rachel left.

***

Her phone trilled.  And through her window, past the suspended
window cleaner, LA was always the same bleached blue, so the
noise could never seem incongruous to her.  Even after she
answered.

"CJ Cregg."

"It's me," Rachel's voice said, all presumption, and CJ felt it thud
against her chest.

"Where are you?"

"I'm here in LA.  You'll meet me?"

"I have this.. You know," she spoke quickly, "I don't wanna miss the
game

tonight.  Those Dodgers-"

"CJ?"  And that rough child's voice, the low note of uncertainty, the
tiny imagined frown.

"Where and when?"

As she hung up she felt her muscles ache and twitch, fall to ribbons,
because there was nothing she wanted more than to be back there,
inside, where she couldn't eat, where she couldn't speak without
Rachel on her lips.

***

"I'm better than that," Rachel said, as always, as she appeared, her
eyes on the rough haired vocalist.  "And their lead guitar," with
disdain, "hasn't even noticed the 80s ending around him."  She sat.
"Sorry I'm late.  I didn't think-" She looked from the little row of
glasses to CJ.  "You started without me.  Excellent."

She reached across the table, through shifting lights, for CJ's
cigarettes. "You're still smoking these, maybe nothing's ever
changed."  CJ nodded unsteadily, made vulnerable by the alcohol
cloud at the edges of her vision. More vulnerable because all she
could see was Rachel, Rachel stealing her cigarettes without a
thought, as though they had never stopped breathing the one
breath.

A hiss and flicker, and light from the match caught against freckles
and eyelashes.  CJ looked across the bar.

"Three years, Rach."

"I knew it'd be you that had to say it.  I thought of you every day.
I promise."  There was no space to doubt her, they had sworn the
last of themselves to the other once, early, and that promise was
the last to be broken.  "It was… I was overtaken.  You couldn't
understand it, it was too much, CJ.  You wouldn't understand.  But
you know I thought of you constantly, babe."  She spoke securely,
'you'll never dream without me' in her eyes.  And so far in life it was
true.

"You should've…" She stopped.  The list was too long, and all she
wanted to do was make Rachel stay.

***

"You're angry at me," Rachel said later, in bed, tugging her bottom
lip. 

"But you love me.  I know, cause I love you."

"I'm angry with you."  And she turned away.  But Rachel curled into
her back, pressed against her shoulder blades, and the vinegar taste
of her still made CJ's throat close.

"I missed you," Rachel murmured against her skin.  "I was never safe
without you."

***

The city hadn't a chance to draw breath before there was again a
weight to this thing, finding her apartment thick with another
person.  Coming home

late, Rachel sleeping on the sofa, finding Rachel's hand, always, in
the dark.

She opened the door and called to Rachel down the hallway.
"Morning skyblue."

"Mmm.  Morning baby."  From the bedroom.

CJ snorted at her, glanced toward the collapsing yellow of the
evening, which crept around the closed curtains.  She walked in and
sat on the bed.. "I presented the residence plan to the council
today.  Showed 'em my stuff."

"Sexy, sexy."

"You'd better believe it."

Rachel sat up and reached to trace her face, pressed sleepy fingers
into her cheekbones.  "You amaze me, you're all bones and bravery."

"Skeleton in your closet," she said, laughing a little.  There was a
pause.

"I want to be you, when I grow up," Rachel said.  "You're so
present. The things you do are real."

"You're present for me, my love," CJ said, doubtfully.  Rachel laughed
and shifted, sat up on her knees to kiss her.

***

She'd hung a mirror just inside the door and now she grinned into it,
head tilted to one side, and ran her fingers over her hair.  She'd
been working for months and tonight she was giddy with fund raising
success.  "I'm celebrating," she called.  "You and me and the cast of
thousands, baby."

She walked into the living room, light on her feet, sat by Rachel on
the sofa.  Rachel leaned against her.  "I have a show."

"Tonight?  You didn't tell me."

"No matter, it's a little thing.  What did you do that's got you so
pleased with yourself?"

She was still for a moment.  "They're going to-" But she thought of a
night watching Rachel sing through the tempered glare, hearing her
voice angle around a guitar and a microphone.  And she thought of
listening hungrily to lyrics for a hint that this was enough, for
something that pointed back to her.  "I'll be there. I'll just call
Derek."  She smiled convincingly. "They can celebrate almost as well
without me."

Rachel beamed at her, all light in her eyes.  "Nothing's as good when
you're not there."  She wrinkled her nose and CJ leaned and kissed
her.

***

There was always a company of fifteen or twenty people straining
to pet and revere Rachel at these shows.  CJ could never recall
where any of them came from.

"They love me," Rachel had said once, twice, many times, because
she needed to be sure.

"They do.  How could they not?"  CJ was generous, if not brave,
here.

She lit a third cigarette from the second.

The tables had a blue metallic sheen and the lights were turned in all
directions, to be diffused and captured by bottles and glasses, to
reflect from the drum kit and the strings on Rachel's guitar.

Beside her, Rachel and a blonde girl in tinted glasses murmured
together.

Rachel reached out absently, sliding a slightly sticky thumb along
the inside of CJ's thigh.  The blonde girl's eyes followed Rachel's
hand. Rachel curled her fingers against CJ's leg and ran her thumb
higher.

CJ felt it, knew she was something to touch when Rachel's hands
were shaking.  And CJ thought she'd never refuse that, the hot and
cold spokes of that inside her, the saturation.

She shifted a little in her seat and a slight smug smile was thrown in
her direction.  She froze, sat still.  Rachel's fingers moved up and
down, and up and down, rhythmic and forgetful.  CJ wondered if her
skin might wear out.

"Wish me luck," said Rachel to the table as she stood.  Too slow, CJ
rose to kiss her.

By the time Rachel leaped onto the small stage CJ had crossed her
legs under the table again and reached for her drink.  There had
been a time when, across a crowded room, Rachel had known her
every motion, had turned first to her, had asked, "I was good?"

And CJ had said, truthfully, "You were perfect."

Now CJ counted her teeth, over and over, with her tongue.

***

CJ knew what to expect, this time, though she didn't know how to
fight it. And even now her greed seemed more a sickness.

"I'm working late," she rattled to Rachel's machine.  "Call me when
you're more… awake?"  Though Rachel had never slept through a
ringing phone.

"I love you," she said, to remind herself.

CJ called again when she got home and later, when the streets were
empty.

Then it was 4 am and she held her fingers between her knees so
they couldn't accidentally dial another time.  She knew, perhaps,
what to expect, but it pressed like an alien inside her.

Two days later CJ was nodding toward sleep, sitting on the sofa, her
laptop on her knees.  She woke to the sound of keys in the lock.
Then Rachel stood in the doorway.

"Hi," CJ said sleepily.

"I'm not, I'm not back."

Anticipation didn't allay the whip sting and swift ache.  Rachel
switched on the overhead light and CJ stared blindly for a moment.

"There's nothing to say, baby.  It's… I just feel like you're always
chasing me down.  I need room."

CJ held her breath to stop the flow of words.  "You'll never find
another

place to run."

She followed Rachel down the hall and stood against the window.
Rachel threw clothes in a bag.  It was all too easy to believe.

"You know me," Rachel said as she left.

CJ wanted to say, "I'd forgotten."

***

CJ couldn't stay in the house.  And hours later she knew she
couldn't go home.

She drank gin.  Her words would blend together somewhat if she
spoke, but

she needed only look to the bartender and there was another glass
before her.  CJ sat, held her head still, and kept a hand pressed hard
against the bar counter.  She blinked and breathed in turn.

"Touch wood," muttered someone near her.  She looked down at her
hand and

smiled tightly, without a glance at him, but she felt the man's slow
gaze

glide across her cheekbones.  She turned her head.

"Hey," she said.

His eyes, meeting hers briefly, were warm and blank in the half light.
She tried a smile and his brow creased, as though the music was too
loud.

"So I'm not planning to make it from now until tomorrow.  Anything
you think you should tell me in these last hours?"

He thought for a moment. "Well.  George Bush is a dupe. Or
culpable."

"Okay.  Politics is not always the way to get the girl, my friend.  Not
that I'd be arguing with you, even if I could string a sentence."

"Have you..."  He breathed loudly and his head bobbed a little.
"Hussein's government has a deplorable human rights record.  If Bush
is not aware he's an idiot.  Even so he's made it some kind of priority
to strengthen US-Iraqi relations  And his damned approval ratings
are on the rise"

CJ focused reluctantly.  She'd believed she could be free from
herself, could hide herself here in the dark.  "I read that report," she
said slowly.

"The Bureau of Human Rights? Richard Schifter?"

"Yeah.  Violations there against the Kurds are some of the worst of
this decade."

He stared at her for a long time.  She looked back, mildly amused.

"Toby Ziegler," he offered, and looked down at his drink.

She looked toward the bartender, who filled her glass.

Later Toby lowered a hand to her thigh.  She looked at it blankly.  It
was pale and solid and she imagined he could use it to erase
Rachel's fine criss-crossed lines.

They closed down the bar.  On the street CJ breathed through her
nose and

let the oxygen mix with nicotine and bring a kind of clarity.  She
dropped the butt and placed her foot on it on it firmly.

"Where are you headed, Tobiathan?" she asked.

"I'm staying on Wilshire."

"Okay."   She thought of his heavy hand and the way he'd dragged
his weary gaze from her collarbone to meet her eyes.  She bent and
kissed him. "Let's go," she said and felt borrowed confidence shift
inside her.  There was nothing she needed here.

***

He took her bones in his hands and pressed her wrists to the bed.
And her response, all hips and fingernails, all anger, stirred her and
frightened

her, so when she came Rachel wasn't in her head.  She wondered at
the freedom, felt it as a stranger inside her.  She turned away from
him.

He had the grace not to touch her as she dressed and left.

***

Days later one of Rachel's friends called, looking for Rachel's phone
number in San Francisco.  CJ found Toby at the same bar.

The walls of his hotel room were blank and pink and it was again an
escape. He spent that night tracing her angles with rough hands,
pressing fingers

and teeth into her, bruising her ribs, her own viciousness reflected in
his hands.  CJ avoided his eyes.  She bit hard on his fingers as they
probed her mouth and he yelped and growled a little.

He sighed as she dressed, this time, said "We could have dinner."
She turned to him, caught his eyes and saw her own helplessness
and greed there, his.  He backed down a little.  "Look, CJ, I have...
I'm looking for a place in LA, I'll be speechwriting for Barrows.  So,
take my card."  He looked self conscious as he passed it over.  "I, I
mean, I know there're some things going on with you, but this-"

"Yeah.  Okay, thanks," she said, without meaning to be cruel.

***

A week later she called his office in New York and was given an LA
number.

They talked, for a year, talked politics and movies and even family
and career.  They talked about the war and she never mentioned
Rachel.  They fucked.  She watched him and kept him on the
sideline.

He never told her she was better than him, wiser, more real,
because she wasn't.  He never told her they were different.  He
never told her that she tied him down, though she did and she saw
it in eyes that warmed only to her.

"This seems so transitory," he said abruptly in the dark of his
apartment. "It's some terrible storm, and it'll pass, but I can't predict
when or how much it will hurt."

"I don't know," she said, and the stranger shifted in her chest.  "This
is easy, though, and it's what I need now.  Just-"

"I'll just forget it," said Toby with a bright unexpected anger.
"Fuck,"

under his breath.  Then, after a second, "CJ.  Just get out of here.
I can't deal with this, with you in the room."

She dressed hastily in the dark and closed the door without a word.
She walked to the street. Someone had smashed the side window of
her car. She glanced up at his balcony.  The lights were out.  She
drove home with the

wind in her hair and eyes.

***

Later in the week Toby called from Sacramento to gripe about
Barrows' increasingly conservative leanings, as though nothing had
changed.  Two hours later he called again.

"Toby?"

"Something's happening in South Central," he said.

"Something?  Care to be more specific?"  She turned on the
television, watched an overturned car, people standing as a liquor
shop blazed, people standing as a motorist was dragged from behind
the wheel.

"The Rodney King judgment came down today."  She had forgotten
the phone at her ear and was surprised to hear Toby's voice again.

"Yeah.  God," she said.  "I can't believe it."

"I know,' he said.  "Look CJ, I need to get back in to Barrows and
find him something to say amongst this.  But I needed to make
sure… call me if you

need me.  I'll be back in four days."

"I will," she said carefully and hung up.

The phone rang again and she picked it up, her eyes fixed on the
screen before her.

"Hi."

"It's me.  I'm...  I'm frightened.  Can I come there, CJ?"

She considered saying "oh, so you're back." with some false surprise.
"So this is where it ends."  Or, "no."  But it was never really an
option.

CJ closed her eyes, suddenly weary.  "You know you can, Rach," she
said.

***

CJ muted the television to let Rachel in.  The sky had darkened
without her noticing and the room flickered with the grey and gold of
LA on fire. Rachel stepped into the hallway and CJ moved back,
found her heels thudding against the wall behind her.  Rachel slid
past.

They stood in the middle of the living room in silence and watched
Stan Chambers in a helicopter.

At length, "This is just insane, it's too much," Rachel said.

"Yeah. It is."

"You got tea?  Or better, gin?"

"You know I've got both."

"I know." Rachel turned toward her and smiled, widely.  It was
brilliant and wearing and out of place. "I missed you, and then, with
this."  She waved

her hands vaguely.  "I needed to come here."

"How long have you been back?"

"In town?  Mmm.  Not long.  Maybe a month or two?"

CJ nodded.  "So, which do you want?"

"Gin, of course."

Rachel followed her into the kitchen, leaned against the counter and
blinked as CJ switched on the light.  Her freckles stood out against
her skin. CJ looked away.

"So, what do you need from me here, do you want to…" CJ let her
voice trail.

"I just want to go to bed."

"Sure.  I've got a guest room.  And I can set you up with whatever
you need."

Rachel eyed her briefly, then said, "OK.  Thanks."  Sirens sounded in
the

street.

***

Rachel closed the guest room door.  CJ sat in the dark on the end of
her bed and watched her city.

Just before sunrise she turned the television off and climbed under
the sheets.  And almost immediately Rachel stood in the doorway.
The hall light swung in behind her and CJ couldn't see her face,
could only see the halo of her hair, the way the sweatpants she'd
borrowed bunched around her ankles.

"I can't sleep.  I've just been staring at the roof.  I'm just, I'm gonna

curl up with you for a while."  It was almost a question.  CJ moved
away from the door to make space.  The sheets were cool, now,
underneath her.

"This is okay?" Rachel asked.  CJ didn't answer.  Rachel shifted,
pulled at the comforter, edged in and out of her space.  CJ's eyes
dragged heavily across the inches between them.

In the decreasing dark, CJ brushed a finger across familiar skin,
though she knew it would never be enough.  It wasn't enough.

And with red eyes and Rachel tight in her lungs as ever, CJ slipped
fingers close around Rachel's spine, moved her head and pressed lips
and bared teeth against her shoulder, breathed through her pores.
Rachel twisted to her between the sheets.

CJ's hands found, again, bone between breasts, soft space between
hip and

ribs, salt on lids and lashes and joints.  And Rachel slid down her
body,

murmured against her.  So CJ's muscles unraveled one from another
and she

could no longer even close her fist, though she'd walked into this
tiny room imagining herself able to bite and claw her way out.

After sunrise, lying boneless and angry, splayed on the bed with
Rachel everywhere, CJ forced her mind to find the door.

"This, did you think of it as payment, Rach?  You know I didn't
expect anything.  I would have let you come here anyway."

Rachel didn't answer.  CJ rolled from under Rachel's arm, reached for
the

remote.  There were riots on every channel.  The smoke was dark
now, and the flames seemed to fade against the morning sky.  But
people stumbled and ran, blood black on their clothes and the
concrete, and in the daylight the mobs had real faces.

CJ flinched with a reporter as an explosion on screen tore open the
windows of another store. Rachel placed a shaking hand on CJ's
knee.

"You and me, babe," Rachel said.

***

When the telephone rang, an hour later, CJ knew who to expect.
Rachel raised her eyebrows but moved to let CJ reach the receiver.

"Hey."

"I just finished over here, CJ.  It's a near damn perfect speech, but I
doubt Barrows will do it justice.  He's not the guy you want under
pressure."  He sounded exhausted but she could barely think to
answer.

"Right."

She almost heard his brow crease.  "You ok?"

"I noticed that at the New Year's thing, with the blonde chick with
her hair on fire and the alarms."  The thought of alarms made her
shoulders tight.

He snorted a little.  "That was Tina.  You know he wasn't quite all
there. It was New-"

"I know.  But he did this-"

"Are you ok, CJ?"

"I'm fine."

"You've been watching?"

"Of course."  Rachel stretched a bare foot and tucked it under CJ's
leg.

"The National Guard is on its way."

"Yeah, I saw that."

"It's a terrible-  I had to-"

"Toby, I need to go."

There was a brief silence.

"Well, you call me when you're ready then," he said and there was
bitterness and some early trace of fear.

"No, Toby, I… I'm sorry.  Yeah I'll call you later."

"Good," he said, and hung up.  CJ slowly turned, took Rachel's ankle
in one hand.  She held it too tightly, pinched the skin together, and
Rachel frowned.

"Toby?" she asked.

"He's a friend."

"I saw the toothbrush.  I wondered."

CJ spoke deliberately, surprised by a slow anger.  "Well fuck you.
You thought I'd wait endlessly?  Your ego's swollen up like some kind
of.. fat Elvis."

"But you kind of did, didn't you?  You waited."

And CJ looked at her, CJ's skin and eyes were worn and heavy with
her.

For four days they didn't answer the phone, they didn't leave the
house. 

And CJ let LA tear about inside her, watched it blaze, watched,
unable to

scream "no", unable to respond, as mobs of kids kicked and punched
and killed people.

CJ only knew what she'd find in Rachel's face when Rachel was
asleep.

They let people on the television screen say what they couldn't.
"Things

are totally out of control here... and we expect it to get worse
when it gets dark...I hope we all live to see tomorrow".

***

Her office building reopened before the National Guard was ordered
to return home.  The city was quiet.  She left Rachel asleep, left a
note, and drove in, despite recurring thoughts of motorists dragged
from behind the wheel. She barely blinked, barely stopped for traffic
lights.

She walked into her office and Toby was leaning on her desk writing
a note. He turned.

"I was on my way out.  Barrows is in a state and I can't be gone
long. But. There's something, or someone going on.  And I need to
know."  She opened her mouth to speak and he flapped a hand to
quiet her.  She felt guilty enough not to talk over him.  "That wasn't
how I meant to start," he said. "CJ."  He puffed air through his beard
almost dramatically.  "Am I too late to do something about this.  It's
been hanging over our-"

"The thing is," and she tried to choose words, "there was never a
time that wasn't too late.  I'm-"  She stopped before she apologized,
there were places where sorry was worse than nothing.

He nodded slowly.  Then asked, "Who's back?"

"Rachel.  My girlfriend."  Even before she said it the words sounded
artificial in her throat, and afterwards she wanted to steal them
back.

He nodded again, and turned to leave.

"It's not quite… I mean, thank you," she said.  He didn't look back
and she wished she'd kept quiet.

She spent three hours staring at her wall.  "Wonder Woman for
President."

"Be Your Own Hero."  She grimaced as she stood and shook pins and
needles

from her feet.

"I'm leaving for the day," she called down the hall, and didn't wait
for an answer.  She almost followed the street signs to San Diego.


***

CJ banged the apartment door as she walked in.  She strode across
the room and down the hall.

Her bed was made.  And on the pillow, in Rachel's slanted
handwriting, "I

couldn't bear to be thrown out.  always, R"  As though Rachel had
known that this time it was mostly an enchantment, that it would
never last the daylight.

So perhaps Rachel had preempted her.  Perhaps CJ would have
asked her to leave, have given up the tooth marks and aching
muscles, have given up the child's smile, the soft, the hard, the
breath over skin over bone.  But now there was no choice.

CJ tore up the note, punched ineffectively at the wall, because this
time, this one time, she hadn't known what to expect.

***

Barrows lost.  And Toby didn't answer her calls until he'd moved to
DC to

work with a congress hopeful.

Months later postcards started arriving, from Rachel, electrifying the
New York music scene, Rachel meeting the right people in the best
places, Rachel finding a whole new audience.

"They love me, but all I can remember, some days, is you."

***

[the end]