This Text file is old! In a 🏛️Museum, an unsorted archive of (user-)pages. (Saved from Geocities in Oct-2009. The archival story: oocities.org)
--------------------------------------- (To 🚫report any bad content: archivehelp @ gmail.com)

TITLE: Irreparable Things
AUTHOR: Ellen Milholland
EMAIL/URL: radiant@bluelikethat.com,
http://www.bluelikethat.com/radiance/imagine.html
RATING: R, for pseudo-sex and adult themes - be forewarned.
CATEGORY: CJ, really, but the plot is significantly CJ/Sam.
SPOILERS/SERIES: Sequel to my previous story, Center of Gravity,
which can be found at
http://www.bluelikethat.com/radiance/centerofgravity.html.
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
DISCLAIMERS: Consider me disclaimed. Lyrics from 'Spark' by Tori Amos. 
SUMMARY: "What if this is one of those irreparable things that just
goes on broken forever?"

FOR: mousecarcass, most especially, because she was the one who
started the idea rolling. For AJ and her poking, Marguerite for
her impatience, Zo for her excitement at every stage of this writing. 

*

she's convinced she could hold back a glacier
but she couldn't keep Baby alive
doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere

* 
It has been the longest day of her entire life, and it is only three
thirty in the afternoon.

Her hands shake so hard that she has difficulty getting the little
silver key into the little bronze keyhole, but after a few deep
breaths and a two-handed grip, she manages to let herself into her
apartment.

She closes the door soundly behind her, turning the lock and the
deadbolt and leaning hard against it. Her skin itches underneath
her clothes, and she's struck by the faint scent of bleach in her
hair.

She is startled at the clean normalcy of the space, in comparison to
the deep turmoil that sits in the pit of her stomach and makes her
eyes burn. Her apartment is just as she left it, the carpet newly
vacuumed and the coffee table free of dust and year-old-magazines.
There is still food in the cat's dish, milk in the refrigerator, and
apples in the fruit bowl.

Everything is the same as she left it, except for her. Nothing has
changed, except for her. The realization makes her suddenly cold,
despite the fact that outside it's a 95-degree late August day, and
all the windows are tightly shut.

She wraps her arms around her, slumps into her couch, the upholstery
soft against her bare shoulders. She had called in sick to work,
giving Carol an evasive description of her ailment, assuring her that
she'd be back tomorrow extra-early to make up for all the work she was
missing. She told Carol to call Henry, to tell him to pick up her
morning briefing. And then she pulled on jeans and a tank top and
pair of cross-trainers and she had called the doctor's office.

She had turned off her cell phone after the seventh unanswered call
from Sam. She hadn't been ready talk to him about this, not yet. She had
hurt too much - physically, emotionally - to talk to him.

She doesn't want to share this with him, not yet. She will have to call
him soon enough. He has left twelve messages on her home answering
machine, but she presses the delete button without listening to any of
them. She covers her face with her hands, and bright, creamy sunlight
streams in through the miniblinds.

She toes off her tennis shoes under the coffee table and stands
directionless in the middle of her living room. Her skin begins to
itch again, and so she blinks her eyes slowly and heads towards the
bathroom.

* 

The bathroom door is ajar, and the light is off, and the late afternoon
sunis straining through her bedroom window. She is sitting on the toilet
seat, her hands in her lap, and her naked legs pressed tightly together.
The bathroom is still steaming and her skin is numb from the scalding
water.

She has scrubbed her breasts and stomach and thighs so hard and for so
long that they are raw, and there are thin, red scratches where she dug
her fingernails into her hips. She is ashamed of her body in a way she
has not experienced since her adolescence, angry at all the strange
angles she's bent at. She hates that she is not a woman, really.

There have been no tears, and she does not know whether or not to expect
them. She does not know if she will mourn, does not know if she will ever feel
anything but this hollowness, this empty place in her belly and in her
chest. She never expected this, would not have believed she could feel
this way. She is struck by the profound loneliness of a pristine
bathroom and the blood underneath her fingernails.

No, she has not cried, but she has thrown up five times since she's
gotten home, and even sitting on the cold porcelain, the sharp taste
of acid coats her tongue and angry nausea eats through her. So she does
not move, hoping that she will not have to go on retching and retching,
her body trying to expel her heart through her mouth.

She wonders if she hasn't already lost it, her heart and its beating,
and all that's left is the afterbirth, and that's what her body is so
desperately trying to get rid of. The very idea makes her head spin and
her stomach churn, and so instead she concentrates on taking an inventory
of the items on her bathroom counter, anything to take her mind off of 
the low ache in her stomach.

She takes slow, careful stock of the contact lens case and the baby oil,
the bottles of aspirin and Tylenol PM and Claritin and aftershave, the
tubes of Colgate and Aquafresh, the box of condoms, the hairbrush and
the hair gel and the hair spray, the electric razor, the tweezers, the
multivitamins, the tube of lipstick and the eye shadow brush, the
moisturizer and the perfume and the cologne, the aromatherapy candle,|
the pair of little gold earrings and the tiny gold ring she'd set aside
before getting into the searing water.

They were almost a family, she thinks, and that sends her retching
again, her hands gripping the edge of the bathtub and her back aching.
And when her body is satisfied with its attempt to turn her inside out,
she misses him, misses his hands on her back, and yet she knows she
will not call him. And so she reaches out for the tiny ring and slips
it onto her pinky because it reminds her of his eyes.

She stands up slowly, deciding to put on some clothes, to watch C-SPAN,
to do something, anything to clear her mind. She cannot stand to think
of this, of loss, of the blood any longer. Her thighs hurt when she
walks, but not enough, and she catches a glimpse of herself in the
mirror, frighteningly pale, eyes bloodshot.

She does not remember what it feels like to look like a woman, and so
she closes the bathroom door behind her, locking the image of that
wraith inside.

* 

The little clock on the VCR reads 5:43 when she hears his keys in the
lock, but she makes no move to get the door, merely sits on the couch
watching amuted episode of CNN's Inside Politics. Her back is to the
door, her shoulders slumped forward, the old Princeton sweatshirt she
wears betraying the fact that somewhere inside she's inordinately
relieved that he's home.

She hears him shut the door quickly, hears that he does not lock it,
hears him drop his briefcase.

Hears his breath more than anything.

"CJ?" his voice is soft and tentative. He touches her hair from behind,
but she does not turn to him, does not answer him, just breathes,
slowly and deeply, trying to hold back the nausea.

"CJ?" he repeats, as if saying her name again will wake her from
whatever trance she's in.

And so, to appease him, she says, "Hi, Sam."

"Are you alright, CJ?" he keeps saying her name, and she's not sure she
likes being reminded. "I heard from Carol that you called in sick, but
I... you weren't answering your cell phone, and you weren't home, and
then your cell phone was off, and -- God, CJ, why didn't you call me
back?"

"Sorry."

"No, no. It's okay. I've just been so, so worried about you all day. I
know you haven't been feeling well, but... my plane got in late, and I
was going to take an earlier flight back from St. Louis, a commercial
flight, but I couldn't get out of the thing, and I--"

"It's okay, Sam." 

He only reluctantly removes his fingers from her hair, she can tell,
stepping around the sofa and smiling faintly at the logo on the
sweatshirt. He goes pale as he sees her face.

"God, CJ. What happened?" 

"Oh, nothing." She cannot look at him, and so she stares at the talking
heads on the television screen continuing to argue in silence. A
commercial, then, for Merrill-Lynch. Smiling faces, and parents with
children, and husbands with wives -- and CJ with Sam.

She looks up at him, and his brow is furrowed.

"I've been so worried about you, and you're so pale, and you're sick
enough to stay home, and nothing's wrong?"

"It's not the pills, if that's what you're thinking." She cannot look
at him as she says it, hates that she has gotten to a place where she
needs to tell her boyfriend that no, she's not doing drugs. Not at
the moment at least. She chokes back bile.

"No, I wasn't." 

"I didn't even have a drink," she adds. 

"Okay, good," he says slowly, touching her leg. 

She jerks back from him, and she bites her tongue to keep from throwing
up again. "Please, Sam."

"Look, CJ, it's okay. I'm sorry." 

She stares blankly at the TV screen, a commercial for a sports car,
silver and sleek. 

He leans back, rubs his eyes with a hand. The little gold ring on his
pinky finger glitters in the waning light, and he's dressed in her
favorite suit, charcoal and perfectly tailored to his shoulders and his
thighs. His tie is satin, and his shirt is perfectly, stunningly white.

She realizes a second too late that he is watching her. 

"So, yeah. I guess I should tell you," she says slowly. She does not know
how to put her loss into words, does not know how to put the pain or the
blood or the anger or the guilt into words. She barely knows how to say
anything unscripted.

He says nothing, just raises his eyebrows quizzically. She finds that she
cannot breath, and she reaches out to touch his hand, just brushing her
fingers over his knuckles in order to remind herself that he's just Sam
 
"Sam, I... I mean, we..." Her throat is so dry. "Sam, I had a 
miscarriage."
 
He is perfectly, absolutely silent, and she realizes it is because he
is holding his breath. He releases it in a long, hissing sigh. "Um,
I didn't know you--" 

"I didn't either, really. I suspected, but... I hadn't really gotten 
the chance to confirm it."

"How many--"

"Seven weeks."

"Jesus." 

"Pretty much, yeah." 

"Look, CJ. It's okay. How do you feel?"

"My stomach hurts. My throat, too. I've been, you know, throwing up."

She can't lie to him, so she tells him the truth in its entirety. "And
I've beensitting here, you know, not drinking, because I was waiting
for you." She pauses, drops her head into her hands. "I'm sorry."

He reaches out slowly, and he touches her stomach through her sweatshirt.
"This isn't your fault."

She is silent.

"We'll be okay, CJ." 

"I know," she replies, and they sit like that, just like that, until the
sun is gone from the sky. 

* 

When she wakes up, it is almost 5am, and the shower is running in the
bathroom. She can hear Sam singing something from the Pirates of Penzance
horribly off-key, and a trickle of steam sneaks through the cracked door.

Her stomach hurts, and her throat feels packed with cotton. She lies 
very still, warm minutes slipping by, until he emerges from the
bathroom. The pre-dawnlight is thin and watery, but there is enough
for her to see him, standing with a pale blue towel around his waist,
watching her.

"Hey," she says, stretching her legs out under the old sheets. The
quiet hum of the air conditioner is loud in the silence.

"Good morning," he replies, pulling off the towel.

"I think that may be an overstatement," she says, and her voice is thick
and rough. She throws the sheets off and lets the cool air sweep across
her naked body. They had not had sex the night before, had merely
slept skin-to-skin, her back to his chest, one of his hands on her
stomach. Safe and close.

She closes her eyes for a moment, yawning, and when she opens them, he's
sitting next to her on the bed, touching her thigh. "How do you feel?"

"A little sore, still." She slowly sits up, tucking her calves beneath
her. Her breasts are still red, and he runs a lazy finger across them.
She is amazed that they have been together long enough that his hands on
her nipples can be completely nonsexual.

"Maybe you should stay home," he says, after chewing on his lip for a
moment and tracing an angry red mark down her abdomen. 

"No, the doctor just told me to take some Advil. There's nothing that I
can do now." Her voice catches, and she leans back onto her arms.

"You know, CJ. I meant what I said last night. I don't blame you for 
this," he touches the lowest part of her belly, "Not at all."

She wants to ask him what kind of woman can't even keep her own baby
alive, but she knows he will just counter with the fact that thirty
percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. So instead of answering, she
merely says, "Find me something to wear, Sam. I'm going to go shower." 

"Do you want breakfast?"

"God, no." Just the thought of eating brings on a fresh bout of nausea,
and she grimaces.

"You're going to eat today, right?"

His concern warms her fingertips and her palms. "Maybe," she says.
 
He runs a hand through her tangled hair, brushes her forehead. "CJ, 
remember--"

"I'll eat, yeah, okay," she says with a yawn. "Now go get dressed."

* 

Her skin is still tender and thin underneath her clothes, and so she is
wrapped up in the pale beige folds of Sam's favorite suit when she
walks into Leo's office. She has a hand against her belly, the other
clenched into a fist near her leg, and her eyes are down. She just
wants to sleep, just wants to forget about all of this. Just wants to
get out of here.

Margaret follows her in, and the younger woman's eyes are wide and her
mouth tight. "Thank you, Margaret."

"CJ--"

"I'm fine, Margaret. It's okay," CJ soothes half-heartedly, patting her
arm. Margaret nods bravely and slips out, closing the door behind her. 

"CJ," Leo says warmly. "We missed you yesterday." He chooses his words
slowly and carefully, setting his pen down and gesturing towards a seat.

She sinks gratefully into the plush chair, crumpling in on herself.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that."

He nods, clears his throat, rearranges a few papers on his desk, and
finally sighs, visibly uncomfortable. "So--" He looks over her shoulder.

"Sam keeps saying that you want to talk to me." She can hear her own
voice, raw and defeated. She thinks of baby clothes and basinets, pink
and blue pastels. She feels nauseous.

"About the budget? Because you're getting a copy of it just as soon as--"

"Not the budget."

"Then?"

"About Thursdays, actually."

She hates asking for help, but she knows when she's been beaten. The
feeling is like rocks in her lungs. She can't breathe, really, but she's
relatively used to the feeling.

His eyes fly back to hers. "Ah, yes. Look, CJ, I'm not out to judge you
or to tell you whether or not you're an--"

"Look, Leo. Don't do this. Don't be so careful with me. I'm asking for
your help here. You of all people should appreciate how difficult this
is for me."

Her voice is hard and brittle.

"Good. I hate playing softball like that. Okay. CJ, we're all worried as
hell about you. Josh freaks out at the very mention of your name, some
days. Abbey's beside herself; the President doesn't know what to think.
I'm not even going to start on Toby, but I'll tell you he's pretty
difficult when he starts worrying. And Sam tells me about the drinking
sometimes, because he's young, and he hasn't got a clue of how to help
you."

She doesn't meet his eyes, looking instead at her shoes, dark brown
against the floor. Her chest hurts.

"CJ, look at me a sec." 

She feels her skin pull tight across her face as she looks up. "I barely
have the heart to tell him that there's really nothing he can do to
help you. Because you've got to help yourself on this one."

"I know," she says quietly.

"Good."

"I don't see how it could hurt to, oh, I don't know, learn a little more
about this AA thing." She shrugs.

"Okay--"

For the first time in the conversation, her eyes pull him into focus.
He is small against the backdrop of his wide chair. "Leo, I don't really
want to go into everything that's going on right now with me, if you
don't really mind."

"Yeah, don't worry. I respect your privacy, unless you think we need to
know."

She ignores him. "But yesterday, I was in a bad spot, and I wanted a
drink so badly I couldn't think clearly." She never admits these needs
to anyone but Sam, who silences her with glasses of grapefruit juice
and long, slow kisses, and sometimes thin, French cigarettes. The words
hang strangely in the stagnant air.

"Did you have it?" 

"No," she says, crossing her arms across her chest. 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's killing me, isn't it? Maybe not physically, not yet. But
in every other way, it's killing me. And it's killing Sam. And it's -
it's killing." Her voice breaks, and she mentally curses her weakness.
She is thinking of the blood, and of the fact that maybe if she hadn't
drunk so much, she might've kept the baby.

"Well, it sure killed me." His eyes are dark and cloudy.
 
She nods slowly. "Sam couldn't bear it if I died." Her mouth has
betrayed her; that wasn't what she wanted to say at all. Her hands are
touching her stomach.

"I couldn't bear it either, CJ." His voice is gruff. 

She stands abruptly. "I'm going to go... work. Yeah."

He seems relieved with the sudden change. She's breathing again,
hitched half-breaths, and he's tapping the end of his pen against
his blotter. "Did Carol catch you up with what happened yesterday?" 

"Yeah, nothing big, right?" 

"Nah, the usual. Nothing big. It was a good day." 

"At least someone's was," she says with a wan smile. "Hey, will you get
Carol to put the, the thing in my schedule?" 

"Of course." 

She leans back against the door. "Leo, I just--" She straightens up
quickly, tugging her jacket back into its proper place. "Thanks. I'll
see you later, then." She turns the knob and almost falls over Margaret,
who is standing on the other side of the threshold.

"CJ?" he says, just as she's leaving. She turns back to look at him. 

"Yes, Leo?" 

"Maybe you should talk to some of the people around here. Let 'em know
you haven't left us yet."

She nods slowly. "Yeah. Okay." 

She leaves the door open behind her. 

* 

It takes her twenty minutes to get back to her desk because four
different people stop to inquire about her health. After graciously
assuring one of them that she was just fine, just a stomach virus, good
as new, she would move on, and another would pop up.

She is exhausted by the time she dropped into her desk chair. Carol
pokes her head in. "Hey."

"Mm?" CJ asks, laying her head down against her desk. "Please tell me
that there's no one here to check on my health. Because I think I'm just
going to snap." 

"No, no. Not at the moment. I sent them all away." Carol makes a little
'go away' motion with her hand, as if acting the scene out.

"Thank God. Then, what?" CJ asks, picking her head up wearily and
searching a drawer for a bottle of Advil, which she finds hidden
under a box of highlighters and ten sheets of address labels.

"Sam he had to go meet with a senator, but he'd meet you for lunch about
two, if you were available."

"Make me available," CJ says, not looking up as she struggles with a
childproof cap.

Carol grins. "I already moved your one-thirty to four o'clock, and moved
your four o'clock to tomorrow at 11:30. I thought since you were sick
yesterday and all..."

CJ smiles for perhaps the first time all day. "When was the last time I
gave you a raise, because, you know, you're amazing?"

"Well, it's been a while," Carol teases. She sticks her hand out,
handing CJ a neatly organized folder, brightly adorned with blue, green,
and fuchsia post-its. "Here you go. You've got a briefing in twenty. You
need any help with that bottle there, CJ?"

"Okay, don't push your luck," CJ says lightly as she finally manages to
fish out two pills. "See, I can do this all by myself. I don't need you
help." She takes a drink from the Volvic bottle on her desk and 
wallows the two sugar-coated pills.

"Is that so?"

"Whoa, kidding there, Carol. Very kidding. Hey, could you let Josh and
Toby know that I need to speak to them sometime soon?" She breathes in
deeply, trying to feel some sort of immediate effect from the ibuprofen
 
"Urgent?" Carol asks, her pen poised over her notepad. Her brow furrows
in concern, and CJ smiles slightly.

"Just some personal stuff. They shouldn't worry." She smiles again, for
the younger woman's benefit.

Carol nods sharply and looks down at her watch. "Briefing in eighteen,"
she says as she leaves.

CJ watches the door close behind her, and then sighs. It is only then
that she notices that her desk is not exactly as she left it, that
there is something new. Between the box of paperclips and the small
ball of rubber bands, there is a roll of Lifesavers, cherry flavored.
They're her favorite, the cherry ones, and she has to smile, if briefly,
at the obvious irony.

"It's going to take more than candy..." she says aloud into her empty
office, but unwraps one of the little red candies in any case and lets
the sugar melt onto her tongue.

She knows it was Sam, and she wants to thank him for the gesture, but
she knows he is gone, so instead she collects all the little papers and
notes that she can find, not really pausing to check their importance
before stuffing them in the folder.

She slides the Lifesavers into her pocket and stands up, leaning heavily
onto her desk, her wrists throbbing. She sighs, then opens the door to
her office, and when she sees Carol, she knows what she should really do
before her briefing.

"You need something, CJ?" Carol asks, after the older woman has stood
next to her desk silently for a while, chewing on her lip.

"Look, I wanted to say--" She gestures helplessly.

Carol smiles knowingly. "Don't worry about it, CJ. I'm just glad you're
back. Go forth and brief."

*

you say you don't want it 
again and again 
but you don't, you don't really mean it

*

"You know, Katie, I really don't know. If you want, you can ask me
again, for the third time, but I really doubt I'll know the answer then,
either." CJ's legs are tired, and she leans heavily against her lectern.
She has ceased to be surprised that her mouth and her wit are still so
quick and her voice so acerbic when she stands in front of the cameras.
She is nothing if not good at her job.

"CJ!" ten voices call out in near-unison.

"Yes, Shaun?" she says, pointing at the most recognizable face in the
group.

"I was just thumbing through what I've seen of the recent proposed
budget--"

"Make for good bedtime reading?" CJ asks lightly.

"More than I can tell you, CJ; put me right to sleep. In any case, I was
wondering if you could walk me through the $300 million allocated for,
and I quote--"

"Yeah, I'm just going to head you off at the pass on that one. If you
could hold off on that for a couple hours, 'til this afternoon, I'll
have learned all you'd ever want to know about the budget, and then
some." She considers the group for a second, then points to Danny.

"CJ, we heard you were ill yesterday."

"That would explain my absence, and my surprising lack of knowledge
about budget-related matters, yes." She quirks an eyebrow, appraising
him, begging him silently just to back off.

"I just, wondered if you were feeling better," he smiles breezily.

Her stomach hurts. "Better than ever, thanks for asking. And if that's
all, I think it's time for me to bid you adieu." She blinks hard as she
sweeps from the room through the door that Josh holds open for her.

It takes her a moment to register his presence, she is so wrapped up in
the headache growing behind her eyes and in the effort it had taken to
keep her voice light and a smile plastered across her features. She
doesn't even see him until he is blocking her path down the corridor.
She almost runs right into him until she looks up, sees his wide eyes
and his thin-lipped smile, and she freezes.

"CJ," he starts.

"Josh, I--"

"You know, I'm sorry that it took so long today to get you that budget.
I could've sworn someone handed a copy off to Carol for you..."

"Don't worry about it. With all of the other stuff, you know, like the
potato farmers and the new ambassador to Luxembourg, I really wouldn't
have had time to read it anyway." She shrugs, but she cannot meet his
eyes.

"Oh, CJ. Why're you so good at that?"

"What?"

"Playing the part. Playing CJ Cregg and doing it well." He is standing
close to her now, close enough that she can feel warmth rippling off his
body. She feels cold.

"Um, I'm not sure what happened while I was away yesterday, but last
time I checked I still am CJ Cregg."

He shakes his head. "No. Not for a long time."

"I don't know what--"

"CJ, come on. It's not like we haven't been friends for, you know, ever.
Why have you all the sudden decided that you're fooling anybody?"

"I didn't... Yeah, I guess I did. I thought I was better at being me."

"Oh, you're good. If I didn't know you so well, I'd never have noticed
the difference. But I do. Come on, walk with me. You have a few minutes?"
 
"Yeah, a few. I could use some Advil." She follows him as he moves off
down the hallway. 

"Advil, this is something I have in abundance. Advil and Halls cough
drops, too," he whispers conspiratorially.

"You're a god, Josh."

"So I've been told." 

* 

She drops into a chair facing his desk. She is sick of feeling so tired, 
but she cannot think of the last time she felt awake. She wonders if she
has been sleep walking, if all of this is somehow a twisted, demented
nightmare.

But her stomach aches, and that reminds her of reality, and it reminds
her that Josh's eyes are on her, appraising.

"So what's going on, CJ?" he asks, his voice sticky with deliberate 
levity.

"It's not so simple as that question," she chides, as if the
complexities of her life are obvious to him.

"No?"

"No."

"Well then, what's happened to you? Is that simpler? Or just, where'd
your sparkle go?"

"Sparkle? I don't sparkle." She wrinkles her noses as if she finds the
idea repugnant. It makes her sound feminine, and she feels gangly and
empty inside, not a woman at all. She doesn't sparkle.

He makes a vague gesture with his hands as if he's trying to collect
strands of her essence from the air. "You used to sparkle all over,
your hair, your teeth, your eyes, your fingers. But now, you're dull
all over," he says, and his hands drop to his desk with a low thud.

"Gee, thanks. I'm not sure I want to sparkle."

"I'm just being honest."

She bites her lip, and says, "So, what's up?"

"I want to know what's up with you and Sam lately."

"Nothing's up with me and Sam," she replies, but she looks away as she
says it.

"CJ--" 

"There's nothing up. He spends the night at my place sometimes. It's 
nothing."

"Nothing?" 

She shrugs. "It's just... it's just, you know... We don't really sleep." 
She says it because it sounds straightforward, because it's easier to 
use innuendo than to admit to him any of the feelings that sometimes 
escape from the careful little box she's constructed inside her chest.
 
"God, CJ. You make it sound so, so tawdry, when--" 

"--When we occasionally have sex?" she smirks, "Of course, it's tawdry.
 What would make you think it wasn't?"

"It's strange, because Sam makes it sound so beautiful."

This makes her start. "Sam talks about me?" she asks, and her voice is
smaller and less sure.

"All the time."

"What's he told you?" she asks, trying to make her voice sound normal
again but only succeeding at a strange imitation.

"How beautiful you are right before you wake up in the morning."
Josh's eyes are shining, and he looks down suddenly at the papers
 on his desk. "That you can't live in a house without Lucky Charms.
That you hide your Enya CDs where you think he won't find them. That
you only use Body Shop body wash. That he can't imagine, sometimes,
waking up without you."

She considers Josh, focusing on his rumpled shirt and his crooked silk
tie and his diamond cufflinks, trying to avoid the implications of what
he's said. "I suppose he's talked about the drugs and all," she says
after a long moment.

"Well, he didn't have to. But yeah, he told me."

"He wants to save me, you know," CJ says, a note of bitterness in her
voice. It's just another weakness, and she hates it.

"He's very, um, valiant."

"Yeah, valiant. Like a white knight, out to save me from the dragons and
to whisk me away to his castle."

"He just wants to help you, CJ," Josh says tiredly. 

She snorts, glad to have retrieved the upper hand in the conversation.
"Josh, come on. It doesn't matter if it's Mother Earth or Ainsley Hayes,
Sam is a sucker for a damsel in distress."

His eyes widen a little. "God, CJ. He's just... it's not like that, and
you know it."

"It isn't like that? Sometimes, I think I'm just pathetic enough to
make it to the top of his list of, you know, special cases." Her voice
is sharp.

"I'm being serious, CJ." 

"So am I, Josh." She shifts in her chair, rearranging her legs. "I mean,
it's not like, I mean... It's not like we have so much as you try to
make out."

"CJ, you two live together." His tone is exasperated.

"I resent the implication that the fact he has a toothbrush in my
bathroom..."

"Yeah, and his suits in your closet, his tiepins in your jewelry box,
his cereal bars in your cabinets."

"That doesn't mean--" she defends herself quickly.
 
"Of course, it does. CJ, I just totally refuse to believe that you are
so oblivious to how much Sam cares about you, how much he genuinely
cares about you."

"Jesus, Josh." 

"Look, he's trying his hardest, bending over backwards for you so that 
you always have something to fall back on, if you haven't noticed. But
one of these days, boom. You're gonna bend and he's going to break, and
you're both going to tumble. And if you're really so goddamned blind
that you're letting him," Josh gets flustered and starts pounding a hand
against the desk, "letting him _love you_ like this without even
noticing it, then there are much bigger problems here than I was led to
believe."

"You make it sound like I need him." Even to her own ears, her voice
sounds small and petulant.

"Well, how else would you explain it, CJ?"

"Explain what?"

"Oh, the look in his eyes when he sees you. The way you brush his hands
when you pass each other in the hall. Or--" He makes tick marks in the
air.

"Okay, Josh." She cuts him off with a sigh.

"I just care about you both too much to just sit back and watch you kill
him like that."

She looks up at him suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "You act like I'm a
murderer, or something. Like I'm out to hurt him." She feels like he
knows her secret, like he can see the blood in her panties and the three
missed days of Orthotricyclen seven weeks earlier.

"No, you aren't," he says, and she sighs. "You're just oblivious,
I think. You're caught up in that blackness that just eats away at
you from the inside."

"Yes," she says uncertainly.

"Look, CJ. I know where you're at. Maybe different reasons, different
circumstances. Hell, maybe for you it's nothing like it was for me.
_Is_ for me. But now we're all afraid that you're making yourself sick
enough to start staying home, and none of us can explain that. That's
not like you, even this unsparkling creature that's parading around in
your body."

"I wasn't really sick, you know. Not from the pills or the drinking,
at least," she says abruptly.

"Then, what?"

"Look, I... Does Sam ever talk to you about children?"

"I think he has names picked out, like he's a teenager or something,"
Josh smiles vacantly. "But no, he's not kid-obsessed. He's barely stopped
being one himself."

"But don't you think he wants them? Don't you think he wants little
babies with his eyes?" And my hair, the voice inside her head completes.
She swallows hard.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the thought had ever crossed his
mind," Josh shrugs.

"Well, it's never going to happen that way, is it? Not with me, that's
for sure." She chews on the edge of one of her fingernails.

"You mean, the whole deal? Two-story house in the suburbs, with the
picket fence? You driving a minivan with the three little brats in the
back, heading to soccer practice, and tap dancing, and cello lessons?
The little wife and the little husband? No, CJ, it's not."

"I've never, you know, wanted them. Kids, I mean," she touches her
stomach as she says it. "But he does. And, it's clear enough that it's
not going to happen with me."

"You knew how long we'd be in here, in the White House."

"Eight years," she says without hesitation.

"Yeah, and since you and I were the same age back then... I mean, I'm
feeling the fact that we're leaving this joint when we're forty-six.
Forty-six. We're not kids anymore, CJ."

"But Sam is, right?"

"Nah, he's no kid. Not really. He's just aged more gracefully than some
of us." He smiles self-deprecatingly.

"But come on, he's going to get out of here a pretty, suave 39. He'll
still have time for a family, and I'll--" CJ is still trying to convince
him that she's old and falling apart, and she can tell that Josh sees
things differently.

Josh cuts her off sharply, "He doesn't want anybody but you."

"Ainsley--" she starts.

"Is a Republican," he says without malice, just a statement of fact.
"I wish you'd stop obsessing over her. It annoys the hell out of him.
And moreover, he's made it explicitly clear to her that he's not on the
market. She's taken to going after one of the guys in the Counsel's
office quite aggressively."

CJ frowns. "I don't obsess over her. I'm just saying. Still, there
should be somebody."

"There is somebody, CJ. You. And look, it may be hard for him to come to
grips with the fact that there may not be the pitter patter of little
feet around, unless we're counting perhaps your cat. Yeah, it may be
hard. But he'll get over it. You're enough for him, because he's so
young and idealistic inside."

She touches her stomach. "You know, I had a miscarriage."

"He didn't tell me," Josh says quickly, but his hands turn into white-
knuckled fists.

"So I'm telling you."

"All right--"

"I bled so much. It was awful, really. Pain like I couldn't describe,
but not so much physical as the wrenching pain of knowing what was
happening and knowing I couldn't stop it. I mean, what kind of woman..."

"A good woman, CJ. A beautiful, smart, intelligent, overstressed,
amazing woman. And he knows that as well as I do."

"We're supposed to have lunch today," she says suddenly.

He nods. "I know. He told me before he left with--" His voice trails off
into a shrug.

"Josh?"

"I was just going to say that he told me before he left for the Hill
with Ainsley."

She looks away nervously. "What's he doing on the Hill with Ainsley?"

"They're meeting with Compton, Joyner, and Nazer."

"Budget stuff? Why'd Ainsley go?"

Josh shifts uncomfortably. "Liaison to the dark side, I suppose. I hear
she's friends with Anja Nazer. Sam finally got Ainsley on board with the
education thing, and he wants her to convince Nazer and the rest of
them."

There is a long moment of silence. They look at one another, and neither
one moves.

Then CJ shrugs, crosses her arms across her chest, and says, "I'm not his
mother." But her mouth tastes sour, like jealousy.
 
* 
She finds him at five 'til two, in Ainsley's office, and she feels the
tingle of fear, and anger, and suspicion in the center of her chest.
Their heads, dark and blonde, are close over a pile of papers, and
Ainsley's touching the end of a pink highlighter to her bottom lip
unconsciously.

CJ leans against the doorjamb stiffly and clears her throat. Sam turns
to look at her, and he is smiling until he sees her eyes. His face
falls, and his forehead wrinkles.

"Hey, CJ," Ainsley says, too chipper. "Good to see you're, ah, back on
your feet and all."

"Thanks, Ainsley," CJ says without looking at the young woman, though
out the corner of her eye, she sees Ainsley leaning deliberately away
from Sam. She wants to look innocent of whatever CJ is accusing Sam of
with her eyes.

"Sam and I were just looking over--"

"The education thing," CJ finishes. "Josh told me. How'd it go with
Nazer and the gang?"

Sam looks at her, confusion flitting across his features, because she's
seething, somewhere below the surface, and he can tell, but her voice is
intentionally airy. "About as well as could be expected, I suppose."

"They only laughed a little?" CJ asks.

"Well, there wasn't laughter, per se," Ainsley pipes up.

"Though I would say," Sam adds, his voice making him sound more casual
than the stiffness of his spine would suggest, "that there was a
significant amount of smirking."

"They'll come around," Ainsley shrugs. CJ still hasn't looked at her,
and for a moment the older woman almost feels bad for trapping Ainsley
like this. Almost.

"Lunch?"

Sam smiles carefully. "I was just about to come looking for you." He
turns to Ainsley, and says, "So, we'll look at this more later. Thanks
for your help."

She looks inordinately relieved, and she falls back into her desk chair.
"My pleasure, Sam," she sighs. "Go eat."

Sam stands quickly and touches the small of CJ's back as they leave the
awkward office. CJ doesn't look at him, just walks in a too-straight
line down the center of the corridor.

"Are you mad at me, CJ?" Sam asks quietly.

"Why should I be mad at you?" she returns through clenched teeth.

"I, frankly, have no idea, and that's why I'm asking. If I thought I'd
done something wrong, I'd be on my knees, here, and you know it." She
glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

"You spent the morning with Ainsley."

"And three ornery Republican senators, yes," Sam says, annoyance
creeping into his voice.

She shrinks a little, down into her clothing. "The education thing."

"Yes, exactly. The education thing I've spent weeks trying to re-master
so that maybe, just maybe, we can haul a few Republicans onto the
bandwagon. Ainsley's good friends with Nazer, known each other since
law school. I thought we could utilize all of our assets here, and Toby
agreed with me."

"Yeah," CJ says slowly.

"I didn't know I needed to check in with you before I went on official
business with one of my colleagues."

She wants, more than anything in that moment, to apologize, but
something in her will not relent. Her stomach hurts. "You don't.
It caught me off guard."

Her voice must not be as convincing as she thinks it is, because he
shrugs and puts a hand on her arm. "She's cute like a twelve-year-old,
and she has the ability to speak an incredible number of words on one
breath, but CJ..." He shakes his head. "She's dating Paul Gerald."

She nods slowly. "Where are you taking me to eat, Sam?"

"Are you going to eat at all?" he asks skeptically.

"Maybe." She chews on her lip. "I'm-- Sam, I--"

"I know." He pauses as they reach the elevator. "I want to go to Jean's"
 
She turns and looks at him with the barest hint of a smile. "You think
they'll have that tart... thing, with the mango?"

"I almost guarantee it."

The elevator doors close behind them, and she intertwines her fingers in
his. "Want a Lifesaver?" she asks, and it's almost an apology.
Almost. 

*

she's addicted to nicotine patche
she's afraid of a light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my spark is?
here, here, here

* 
Toby's sitting on her couch when she gets back, drumming his fingers
against his leg. She had left Sam at his office door, assuring him
that she ate enough and that she'll lay off the caffeine for the rest
of the day.

The first thing she says to the haggard man on her couch is, "Toby,
please tell me that you're hiding something caffeinated somewhere on
you."

He arches his brow as she sweeps past him towards her desk much more
confidently than she truly feels. "I'm a little afraid to tell you that
I'm not, actually."

"Well, then why the hell are you here?" she asks, poking her head back
out of her door and asking Carol to get her a soda or an iced coffee or
something, but please without letting Sam see.

"Is he, ah, your babysitter these days?" Toby asks, pursing his lips a
little and shifting uncomfortably.

"He thinks he is at least." CJ says, but her voice is a little unsure. 
Toby's forehead furrows. "Well, isn't that precious?" The words would be
hurtful except for the pained way they leave him. She wants to touch his
hand, to tell him how transparent he is.

"Toby, this chatting thing is delightful, but did you have a specific
reason for brightening my office with your presence?" She gestures with
a flourish.

"I brought you the budget stuff," he says, looking down at his hands.

"You could've left it with Carol, so I could grab it when I got back,"
she replies. She is sitting on the edge of her desk, her hands against
her thighs, and she's exhausted. 

"I wanted to make sure you knew I brought it." He isn't going to make
this easy on himself.

CJ is looking at him strangely and some part of her is sad for him,
because he hates how things have turned out. He wishes that they were
together, that she was losing his children, that they were having
mango tarts at little bistros during their lunch breaks. She half-smiles
and says to him, "I'm not angry with you. Though you should've gotten it
to me sooner."

"Josh's fault," he defends himself quickly.

"Yeah, of course. Always." She picks up a pen and twirls it between her
fingers.

There is a long beat during which he examines the opposite wall. And
then he turns to look at her, and his skin is ashen, and his mouth
moves but no words come out until suddenly, "CJ, is everything okay?"
He looks at her hands, holding the pen too tightly.

"I feel much better," she lies, even though she wants to put her head
in his lap and just cry for hours. They have known each other too
long for deception, but she can't tell him, somehow. She is afraid
of how he would look at her, afraid of losing his respect. Afraid that
he would look at her and see less than a woman, see her for what sh
 really is. So she lies. "Good as new, really." She wonders if he can
see through her clothing straight through to her flesh.

"I, ah, wasn't exactly asking about your health. Though I'm glad you're
better," he adds.

"So you were asking about me and Sam?" she asks bluntly as the pen
falls to the carpet, and his head dips.

"Yeah, I guess."

She looks down at the glittering little ring on her left pinky, thinks
of the blood and then of Sam's hands against her stomach through the
sleepless night. "We're..." she shrugs. We're fucking, she imagines
herself saying, we're fucking and we're maybe living together and we're
not having babies and we're hiding everything and nothing from one
another and he has a dark birthmark on the inside of his right thigh.

"We're trying," she says.

There is a twinge of bitterness in Toby's voice when he asks
 "Does he love you?" He doesn't ask if she loves him, and she wonders
if that's because he doesn't want to know or because he already has
an answer. She looks over at her computer screen, sees a new message
in her email box from Seaborn, S. with the subject, "I Intercepted
Carol - Shame On You," feels the roll of Lifesavers against her hip.

"Yes," she answers after a pause. "He does."

"Are you sure?"

"More sure than I am of anything, _anything_ else that's going on right
now."

He nods. "I knew that, you know."

"Yeah?" she asks, slowly crossing her arms across her chest. She
opens her mouth, ready to tell him all the things that she's done
wrong, all the ways she's hurt him, all the ways she's so, so sorry.

"You know, CJ, if you're about to apologize to me for something, I'd
probably want to just ask you not to."

"Yeah, okay."

He stands up stiffly, and she can't look at him. "The reason I didn't
ask how you were?"

"Yeah?" she says quietly.

He's facing the door, and his voice is barely loud enough to be heard
over his shoulder. "Because he called me four times yesterday trying
to figure out where you were, and if you were okay, and I had to
threaten him with unemployment to keep him in St. Louis." He smiles
to himself. "I don't have anything to compete with that."

She doesn't know how to tell him that this was never a competition,
that Sam isn't a show dog who happened to win first place because of
better grooming or his ability to sit on command. So she just nods and
looks away. She can't bear this, can't deal with his pain and her own
and Sam's and everyone else's, and all she wants is a drink. She's
trembling, and that's the worst part.

"I'm going now," he says, and Carol slips in as he leaves.

"Oh, CJ," she breathes. CJ's perch on the desk is a little perilous,
and she's swaying a little and she can feel that there's no blood left
in her cheeks. She wonders which shade of ghostly pale she's turned
this time, and she feels like she's going to just throw up, but she
swallows it down.

Carol's hands are against her forearms, and she's holding CJ steady,
urging her towards the couch. And when she's sitting, all of her weight
is against Carol as the young woman wraps an arm around her, murmuring
below her breath about how everything will be okay, how whatever's wrong
can be fixed, she's sure.

"What if I can't fix this?" CJ asks, more to herself than to Carol,
who's stroking her hair.

"Everything can be fixed, one way or another."

"But what if it can't? What if this is one of those irreparable things
that just goes on broken forever?"

"Then you buy some superglue, and you figure out how to live with the
pieces. Not everything that's perfect is whole, CJ."

* 

She's read through the entire packet Toby left her by the time her
afternoon briefing rolls around, and she marches up to the lectern
prepared to be brilliant for the press.

She'd really rather tell them that the whole document is absolutely
ludicrous. She'd like to tell them that she thinks all of the
President's advisors have suddenly forgotten that there's a
Republican controlled Congress, and that she wishes she could see
the laugh Ann Stark is going to get when she reads what they're
proposing, but she supposes this is politics.

She wants to tell them she forgets what idealism feels like, but
instead she tells them that they're prepared to spend fourteen billion
on NASA, and that the President is dedicated to improving education
and reducing the national debt, all at the same time. She can't quite
figure out how they're managing this, and she wants to tell them that
she's seen the people whose job it is to figure these things out, and
that frankly she advises people to hide their money in boxes under
their beds.

Instead, she tells them that the treasury gets thirteen billion, as if
they didn't have enough money to begin with. She earns a little ripple
of laughter off the press corps, and that at least makes her hands a 
little warmer. She rattles off a few explanations of where this billion
or that is headed, and all the while some part of her wonders how she
can discuss these astronomical, unimaginable figures when the world is
really, when it comes down to it, made up of tiny things.

She ends the briefing a little early, and Carol gives her a thumbs-up
before rushing off to attend to other things. When CJ gets back to her
office, this time there is Secret Service outside her door, and
reclining on her couch is the First Lady, who is dressed in some
indeterminate shade of something like maroon, something like blood,
her hands folded in her lap.

"Okay, who put the Howard Johnson's sign outside my door?" CJ asks as
Abbey looks up at her, eyes muddled with worry.

"I'm sorry for intruding, CJ," she answers with care, "I just didn't
want to miss you. I suspected you'd try to leave early."

CJ shakes her head. "No, honestly, I like feeling so popular. It's
really heartwarming."

Abbey smiles vaguely. "If you want me to go, CJ, tell me. I'm just
here as a friend."

"I..." CJ sits down next to the older woman, maintaining a solid wall
of personal space. This woman always knows how to get to the core of
her, and so CJ hopes that the space will keep her safe. "No, I don't.
I'm just losing control of a few things, and now I can't even open and
close the door without finding somebody new. But I'm glad you came. I
was going to look for you later."

"Were you?" Abbey raises her eyebrows, leaning back.

"No, probably not," CJ chuckles mirthlessly. "I was going to think
about it, and I was probably going to walk out there, and then I was
going to probably head back around the bullpen to my office to take
another Advil." She shrugs.

"Well, I've always admired your honesty, CJ." Abbey smiles gently.

"And I, your tact," CJ concedes.

Abbey regards her coolly, looking at her ankles, and then her hands, and
then their eyes meet. "How many weeks?" she asks without warning.

CJ jumps up, the blood rushing from her head. "Excuse me?" she asks, and
her voice is shrill.

"How many weeks were you?" Abbey asks again, just as slowly.

CJ's backed up so that her legs brush the edge of her desk as she moves
around it. She is trying to get as much distance between Abbey and
herself, and blood pounds through her wrists. "What the hell are you
talking about?" Her voice rises.

Abbey wrinkles her nose. "You don't need to yell, CJ. Just tell me I'm
wrong."

CJ starts, "You're--" but she can't finish. Her mouth stays open, and
her breath is uneven, and her stomach aches, and she's thinking of the
pills and her doctor's face and bloody baby carriages.

"If I'm wrong, tell me," Abbey says. "If not, tell me how many weeks,
CJ."

She deliberates for only a moment longer before sighing back into her
desk chair. "Seven."

"Seven weeks." It doesn't sound like a question, just sounds like a low,
dead weight on Abbey's vocal chords.

"Yeah." Her elbows are on her desk, hard against her blotter, and she's
hiding her face in her hands.

"Your doctor?"

"Hannah Sbeglia." The worst thing is that she knows Hannah is the best
there is.

"A cause?" Abbey asks, the hint of desolation somewhere under the words.
Perhaps, CJ reasons, she had been hoping she was guessing wrong, that
CJ would laugh and assure her that she had no idea what she meant and
that it had just been a little stomach virus.

CJ's smile is brittle. "Pretty vague, but I probably didn't help things
by taking birth control, or drinking too much.
 
"No, you probably didn't," Abbey agrees mildly.

"Well, now that I've so graciously confirmed your suspicions..." CJ
attempts to reconstruct the wall of sarcasm.

"CJ, don't pretend you're the only woman ever to lose a baby." Abbey's
voice is rough and telling.

"Thirty percent of pregnancies end on miscarriage." CJ shrugs.

"Yes. Many of us have lost children, CJ," and her eyes are hard and
shining when their gazes meet. "When you look out over that pressroom
tomorrow, think about the fact that a lot of those women in there have
lost a baby. Look around the West Wing, and count every third woman you
see, and maybe she's the one. Maybe it's her baby who's gone, like
yours."

"I'm too old to be a mother anyway," CJ says abruptly.

"I don't know. I might say you're not nearly old enough to be a mother.
 
CJ laughs harshly. "How do you figure?"

"Look at you, CJ. You're having a hard enough time keeping your own life
together, let's not even talk about adding a second one on there."

CJ nods.

"And have you looked at Sam lately? He looks about as ready to be a
father as I do." Abbey laughs lightly. "CJ, we love you. You know that.
We love you so much we're not going to put up with this self-pity
anymore. We're not going to put up with the I'm-not-having-a-baby-so-
I'm-less-than-a-woman you're projecting all over the West Wing."

"I don't know what you're--"

"CJ, don't lie to me. Don't lie to any of us. Sure, go out there on
camera and be that other person, be so good at your job that we can't
help but be impressed. But don't waltz in here after losing a child and
delude yourself into thinking that nobody's going to notice."

CJ is silent.

"And on that note, I have things to do. If you need me, if you need me
for anything, you know where to find me."

* 

He is waiting for her when she gets home, opening the door as soon as
her key hits the lock. He is there, just inside the threshold, his eyes
big against his cheeks. He is there, locking the door behind her as she
walks towards the kitchen.

He sits down across from her at the blue Formica table. He covers her
hands with his own on the tabletop automatically, and it is real and 
normal.

"So I finally talked to Leo," she says without preamble.

"Yeah?" He is stroking her knuckles, and she's pressing the pads of her
fingers against the table.

"And then Josh. And Toby. And Abbey."

"Oh, God, CJ..."

"It was quite a day." She smiles.

"Do you want to--?"

She cuts him off. "I told Leo to get the meetings on my schedule."

He is silent.

"Because I told him that this was killing me, but I didn't tell him what
else it was killing."

"CJ, it's not your fault."

"Isn't it? My mistake got me pregnant, my mistake ruined it."

"A set of coincidences doesn't make you a murderer, CJ. And I refuse to
let you believe that."

"Abbey was pretty upset with me, too. She says I'm self-pitying." CJ is
looking at him, her gaze hard upon his cheeks and eyes, but she acts a
if she cannot hear him.

"You are." He shrugs, but tucks strands of her hair behind her ear.

"Thanks, Sam. You really know how to pick me up right off the ground."

He traces the curve of her cheekbone. "I'm not going to patronize you.
I'm trying to discuss this like adults. Adults discuss things, they tell
each other things, they don't talk around things or pretend like the
important things aren't happening. They don't pretend like you're okay,
CJ."

"I'm not trying to pretend... I'm just trying to hold everything
together."

"And you're doing such a good job of it."

"Well, you're not making it easy on me."

"Me? You're blaming me now?"

"I'm not--"

"Yeah, CJ. You are. You're trying to pretend like I'm making it this way
for you."

She watches him, then drops her eyes. "Josh told me you talk to him
about me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

And this is the moment, the moment when all the little things that hav
 been building up inside her break loose. "Look at me, Sam! Look at me.
I'm forty-one years old, I'm a goddamn alcoholic, I pretend not to pop
pills, I smile too much and I cry too much, and I can't even... I can't
even do this thing, this thing that every woman can do."

"Which is fine with me, because I'm clearly not looking for every
woman, or I would've been sleeping with Ainsley, a year ago!" He
flattens his hand loudly against the Formica.

"Don't play those word games with me, Sam. You're so young, and so
beautiful, and so... so righteous." She puts her hand over his.

"And you're tall, and your eyes are perfect, and you dance better than
anyone I've ever met." He half-smiles and shrugs.

"There aren't going to be any basinets here, Sam."

"CJ, don't pretend this thing is about children, because you know it's
not."

She can't look at him. "Sam... Sam, I don't know if I can handle
whatever this is. Don't know if I can handle--"

"Handle the fact that I'm in love with you?" He says, and his voice is
like sudden ice.

"Sam, don't say that."

"Come on, CJ. It's not like you don't know it. It's not like I don't
say it every time I touch you."

She shakes her head, "But Sam--"

"Allow me my banality for a moment here, okay? Because CJ, I love you
for all of your faults, and all of your vices, and for, for the way
your hair falls across the pillow when you're asleep. For the times
you've forgiven me when I didn't deserve it, for the times you let me
help you, for the fact you can't cook to save your life, for the fact
you really wanted a child that was _ours_. Nothing's perfect in this
world, CJ, and you know that as well as I do. We can't sit around
waiting for perfection to knock us over on our way down the street,
or we're suddenly going to realize that we've gotten old alone.
I want you, CJ, and not Ainsley Hayes or the woman who ogled me at the
supermarket the other day, or the girl who brings me extra ink for my
printer." By the time he finishes, he is standing on her side of the
table and his cheeks are flushed.

"Stop writing speeches like that for me, Sam." She stands to face him,
and her eyes are wet, and she's wrapping her arms around his neck
desperately.

"Oh, CJ," he says as he kisses her jaw. "We're all a little broken
inside."

"You've been talking to Carol," CJ murmurs, and Sam looks confused for
the split second before she's kissing him. The inside of her mouth
tastes bitter, but his is as pure as water. And this is how she chooses
to heal herself, inside, because it is genuine and immediate, her
fingers hard against his neck and his tongue slick against hers.

She heals herself with sex on the kitchen table, with his tee shirt
flung across the countertop, and her suit in pieces on the floor. She
heals herself by gasping his name, by sucking his fingers, by arching
her back, by holding onto his hips.

"I'm not dead, Sam," she says much later, when they're lying in bed
together, and she sounds surprised. "And maybe this is real."

Because it is, almost maybe, and because even though there was blood
and even though her stomach still aches and even though nothing makes
sense, he knows how to find the sparkling, unshattered places inside
her, and because that might be, just maybe, what love is supposed to
be.