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Title: Tenderness
Author: pene (penelopody@hotmail.com)
Spoilers: until the end of season 2
Rating: CJ/T, R, this is not so pretty, shut your eyes.
Thanks: august looked after it, punk beat it into shape.  Without the
two of them this and other things would be far worse.

'So it has all come to this'

**

She thought, 'watch me, I'll never fall.'

After that first briefing, after picking her way through phrases
like 'code blue' and 'immediate danger', she shut the door to her
office and vomited on the carpet.  She choked again as she looked at
the floor.  Then she blinked, swallowed and straightened her body.

She felt like a child as she searched the utility closet near the
women's bathroom for disinfectant.  She looked at labels around the
thick tears and ignored the bile on her breath.  The few people still
in the corridor stopped speaking as she passed.

She was on her knees rubbing at the ground, thinking 'onetwo, onetwo,
wear space in carpet then fall through', when he walked in.

"I would've had newspaper down if I knew Josh was gonna make a mess
in here-"  She stopped speaking too late. He looked down on her
uncomfortably until the phone rang.

"CJ Cregg."

"It's Leo.  Josh - he's doing good.  He was conscious briefly.  I'm
sorry kid, you need to get to the press... I'm sending one of the
doctors out to you. Are you gonna be okay to do this?"

She nodded.  Toby stood dully, moved too close as she hung up.  She
was aware of her stale sick breath.

She wanted to shake him.  'This is the good news, Toby.'  And despite
all that had gone before, despite blood and hospitals and pavement in
her joints, despite the taste in her throat, she leaned down slightly
toward him.

His lips tasted of rust. He followed her into the press room.

He thought, 'this is not what I had in mind.'

***

In the hospital she felt foreign, guilty, "Donna, what room's he
in?"  She fingered her neck and made an attempt to stifle the clack
of her now painful heels on the floor.

The pale green of a monitor lit Josh's face at not quite regular
intervals.  She leaned her forehead against the window of his room.
The glass fogged with day old breath.  She heard footsteps behind her
and knew their weight. 'That man is following me,' she thought.  His
face was reflected beside hers, his body dark, solid at her elbow,
and she didn't look at him.

"I want to go in there.  I need to go-"

"You can't," and he bumped his arm against her shoulder awkwardly
then reached and pressed his fingers hard into her palm.  She felt
the slick of sweat between them and looked at him with a kind of
clarity.

"This isn't supposed to be about us."

He let go of her hand but he looked at her with soft black eyes and
she felt something like pity for him.

"Come by later. Come by my apartment," he said finally.  She looked
about her with a swift irritation.  There was a sickness in hearing
his request in a tiled corridor.

He thought 'given the choice, given the words, I would turn the world
away.'  He thought she wouldn't come.

***

She was at his door.  He stood awkwardly, opened his mouth but said
nothing, so she passed him, and tried to look comfortable on his
graying sofa, reaching for the bottle he had been drinking from.

After a moment he sat beside her.

"You're gonna go over the thing that guy, what's his name, wrote?"

"Justin."

He frowned.  She passed the bottle to him.

"You OK, CJ?" he asked weakly, later.  She opened her mouth to say
yes and then closed it.  She thought if she didn't look at him he
might forget he had asked.  "Sorry," he muttered.

The bottle passed back and forth.

She looked at his shoes, scuffed and defeated.  "Take me to bed," she
said.

"I don't think..." he began but she reached for his thigh, for the
back of his neck without tenderness.  They kissed hard and she was
surprised at his roughness and familiarity.  She thought, 'more
breath.'

'More breath down my throat.'

That night was too bound to the night before for her not to feel
gravel in her knees as she kneeled on the bed and let him slam into
her.  Anger made her fierce and selfish and she came quickly.  He
seemed relieved.  He shifted his weight and she held onto the
headboard shakily, watched the unwashed silk sheets as he pulled on
her hips and rocked back.  Later she let her knees slide underneath
her.  He lay on her heavily.

"I'm sorry," he muttered as he ran a hand upwards between her legs.
He pressed too hard against sensitive flesh and she jerked away a
little.

"Don't, don't be sorry, it was good," she said quietly.  He smiled
against her back and she knew the rueful look in his eyes though she
couldn't see it.

"It was," she said and he rolled over.  There were tears on her
cheeks.  She thought he couldn't feel her shaking through the bed
frame.

He thought 'this is already engrained.'

***

She did her time sitting by a rarely conscious Josh.  She smiled when
he opened his eyes, though they looked past her.  She tried to talk
but her voice was loud and awkward and no one laughed at her jokes.
She read the newspaper and sometimes remembered to read to him too.
She thought, 'love him for his body and not his brain.'

"How is he?"  Sam this time.

"Well you know, whenever you're not here he's up and performing
Broadway musicals.  Jazz hands and all."  She splayed her hands.

He smiled tightly.  His skin was dull and folded under his eyes and
she felt guilty.

"He's gonna be fine, Sam.  We just need to wait."

"Yeah.  Thanks, CJ, for watching him."  And she thought, 'this isn't
for you.'  But she gathered her briefcase and left quietly.

Twenty minutes later, well before the sun appeared between the
buildings, she was inside Toby's apartment, her shoulder blades
thudding and scraping against the wall, rubbing at grazes from the
night before or the night before or the night before.  She cracked
her head against the door frame and he looked at her around the edges
of desire briefly but she pulled him toward her and out of her line
of sight.

He thought 'soft now,' but he knew he wouldn't be.

***

There were reasons to wear long sleeves to work despite the heat.

Leo tried to impress upon her the importance of an unshaken
administration and her role in presenting that.  She looked at him
from above and thought 'how very short you are.'

"Yah.  You know all this." he finished.

"I do.  Are we gonna let Danny in for an interview this week?  He's
pawing at the ground out there."

"I don't know.  I'll talk to the President."

"Sure."  After a pause.  "Thank you."

She knew now that Bartlet always would be Mr. President, that even
Leo would always be set apart, would always warrant a thank you.

Toby approached her in the hallway.  Everything was day lit and
public except that nothing was.  "I need Sam to get this thing done
tonight, CJ.  Can you take Josh for a bit longer?"

"I've got the Reid thing."

"Right.  Right.  It's not like-  I'll talk to Donna."

"You go ahead and do that, Toby"

And for now it was not about late nights and the painful corner of a
table, the end of a bed.  And to think of the things made her feel
cold.  She thought 'I'll never go to him again.'

He thought 'I barely recognize her in daylight.'

***

Only she did and this time it was early morning and the blinds
shifted as the fan swept to and fro.  Light poured in through the
spaces.  She wished she could sleep for a minute but she always
left.  She hated light in his room.  And not only was there a
briefing to brush up but it was likely that despite the show of
support after the shooting the EU energy summit had found something
to make a grating statement on.

She pulled her clothes on quickly, though he knew every mark on her,
had made most of them.

She didn't say, "I'll see you in the office."

He didn't watch her leave.  He thought he could never tie her down
long enough for his heart, for his satisfaction.

***

'There's nothing more to ask,' she thought.

All she could ask of him she asked with a searching mouth, long
thighs and muscles, holding him close inside, surrounding him.

'Let me out', she thought, and seconds rippled as honey, days closed
over her head, over and again.

***

She was enduring an early evening shift watching Josh.  Toby walked
in.  She looked at him over her glasses and put down the paper,
glanced at Josh's form in the dim light.

"He okay?"

"The same."

He reached for her almost resignedly, mechanically grasped at her
arm.  And she took a breath.  It sounded like fear, to her. As always
she sensed the power in that.  'I know the strength of hidden
things,' she thought, and shuddered.  He held her arm tightly and too
long.

"Toby, someone will come." Low and intense.  He blinked briefly,
nodded.  His eyes slid over her defeated face.  He left.

She rubbed her lower arm, looked at old bruising, pressed a finger on
a yellowing region.  When she looked up Josh's eyes were fixed on her
with some kind of clarity for the first time in almost three weeks.
She called a nurse.

Once he had thought 'she will always be beautiful'.

***

"They won't let us see him?"

"He needs his rest, Sam."  She spoke like someone's mother, parroted
the nurse's words.

"We've been there 24 hours a day."

"He was unconscious, he won't sleep if we're there."

"He won't sleep if we're not," Sam insisted and she wondered if
despite his pretty bones he might be right.

She looked at him closely for a moment.  'Such a sweet and simple
thing,' she thought.

"You want me to talk to the doctor?"

"I'll do it."  He was impatient which suited her.

It was before ten pm when she knocked on his door.  Later when she
lay back in his bed, her thighs weak and red in places, her ankles
bruised, her back eking its way to its ordinary S-curve, he tucked
her feet under him.

"They're little ice cubes.  How could you possibly be cold, CJ?"

'You are cruel,' she thought and said.  "My feet are a size ten and a
half, they're nothing like little ice cubes."

She wondered at the hints of tenderness, wondered what this might
have been.  But she couldn't forget what it already was, nor could
she forget the bile in her mouth.  She got up to leave minutes
later.  Only then did she mention Josh.

He thought of her walking down his stairs, thought 'I'm just counting
the times.'

***

She woke to the phone, found herself unable to open her eyes as she
reached for the receiver, said, "yeah, CJ Cregg, yeah?"

Josh said, "CJ, I thought you'd be up."

"I... yeah I was...should be."  She rubbed her eyes.  "What do you
want?  Compadre?" she continued, remembering why even his voice was
somehow gaping and deflated.

"You haven't come by."

"I know, Josh, I- Sam wants to be there and Donna does, and I'm..."

"Please, CJ."  He was plaintive.

"Of course.  Whatever you want," thinking she sounded less than
enthusiastic, "I want to see you, see for myself that you aren't just
playing hooky out there. I'll come at lunch time."

There was a pause.

"Josh?"  He'd gone.

'I used to do this better,' she thought.

***

Josh reached for her hand from his bed.  She thought 'this is new,'
and was suddenly suspicious.

"Josh?"  He looked at her directly.

"Fuck, CJ, I know what I saw, I think I know."

She took a breath.  "My choice, Josh."

"He's hurting you."

"I am not discussing this.  It's none of your-"

"It is my - he's your boss, or I am... someone's your boss CJ."  He
lifted a hand and let his fist fall to the bed, as though he was play-
acting anger.  He was still weak.

"It's nothing," she said coolly.

"Nothing," he repeated and she knew the side of her throat was
bruised, recalled how it had happened, knew nothing else had made her
feel like that.

"Leave it, Josh."

She walked out.  In the hallway she thought of him, too thin and
draped with white bed sheets.  She turned back, banged the door
accidentally as she entered.

"Josh, don't make it about this.  I'll, I'll deal with this.  I want
to see how you are."

"Yeah." He blinked.

"What can I do?"

"You can- ok you can tell me how the press is taking things?"

"Good, it's good."

"Don't give me crap, Claudia.  Go on. Go on."

She spoke about work but thought about Toby.   'Let this be where I
get off.'

***

She strode across the West Wing and through his door.

"I'm not gonna come back."

He looked up at her, his eyes shifted.  "Okay."  He looked back at
the papers on his desk, blinked, reached for a pen.

She watched him a minute longer then left the room.  She didn't know
why she had waited.

In her office she closed the door.

***

Four nights later she let him into her apartment.

"I said to myself that I wouldn't write this down, that I wouldn't
even think this through, that I'd just come here.  So I drove, sang
along with Astrud Gilberto the whole way.  And all I have in my head
right now is useless to me.  I think you should know that and take it-
"

"Why'd you come?" They were still in the entrance hall and it was too
small for comfort.  He seemed to shrink in her field of vision.

"-take it into consideration.  Cause I think this thing should have
been different.  There should have been something, between us.  And I
think we have to try all this again-"

"Toby."  She felt he'd been talking for hours.

"We have to try again.  Cause I knew you better before this.  I
fucking knew you better before I knew your name, CJ.  So this... it
was a just step in the wrong direction is all."

"Have you even seen this?" She stuck out her arm, taking small
pleasure in the drama of the remnants of horizontal lines, of a
fading bruise.  'Cue tears, recriminations, swelling music,' she
thought, admittedly unfairly.

"I..." He stopped and sighed and she nearly smiled.

"It's not the look I'm aiming for," she said.

"There was-."  He sighed again and she thought she'd won this.  "We
should never have got into this the way we did.  Josh-  I need to
rethink.  We can-"

"You're assuming I want to, with all this 'can'."

"If you don't then what-" he met her eyes, "you came to me CJ."

"Fuck you," she said, but resignedly.  She was tired.

"It's gonna be different this time," he said and she admired his
resilience.

She reached an arm toward him and didn't flinch as he touched
her.  'This is the end,' she thought, but there was relief in it.

"You sang?"

'So it all comes to this,' he thought.

***

He stayed the night in her house, brushed her hair back from her face
and said "morning' when she opened her eyes.

It went on and on.

So most mornings she seemed to lose the power of speech.  And during
those blank claustrophobic times before dawn she knew this was more
about proximity and terror and inertia than love.  But for now she
couldn't be sure that there was more fiction in speech than silence.

She lay on her side and watched him dress in the almost dark.

"You gonna stay there all day?"

"Mmm."  She looked at the clock.

"I'm just saying we have the Armistice Day thing."

"Go.  Now."

Before he left he sat at the edge of the bed and leaned to kiss her.
From this angle he was massive - bulky and shadowed.  She felt the
twinge, a touch of fear, and kissed him back.  He stood up.  She
wanted to smile and say "see you in a bit."  She wanted to pull him
to her, to remind him of the feel of ropes and the edges of things.
She wanted to know that she could leave him.  She wasn't sure it
would count as leaving, exactly.

She watched him through her lashes and thrust one bare leg into the
cold.  As he walked through her front door she threw the covers off,
turned the television on and walked to the shower.

She wasn't afraid of the dark, she was just afraid she might never
open her eyes again.

***

End