Title: Paper Replicates
Author: august
Email: appelsini@hotmail.com
Codes: CJ/Toby
Archive: With thanks.
Spoilers: Set just after "20 Hours in LA". No spoilers, as such, but there's a time frame for you.
Story Notes: This is so definitely influenced by Penelopody's 'Politcs By Other Means' because I love her CJ and Toby, not to mention the wonderful creature that is Penelopody herself.
Summary: "She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling tired and old and over-dressed for a conversation on the steps of his apartment building."
*
She was invited to his wedding which, in itself, was not a big thing because a wedding in Washington was easier to get into than Arnolds, and often less expensive. But she went to his wedding and now, eight years later, she leaves her shampoo in his shower.
He wears his wedding ring, still, and she feels it sometimes when he rubs her back. He has a fascination with her back that is unexpected. There are a lot of things tied up in the times he touches her and she's glad for that band of metal, in some ways. Its absence would mean a whole other thing that she isn't sure she is ready to face.
When they are occasionally photographed together, she pretends to be a lot more annoyed than she actually is by the fact that Sam coerces federal employees into enlarging and photocopying the pictures. Toby spends these day taking the photocopies down from around the West Wing but even he resigns himself to the fact when Josh pays the Danish guy forty bucks to tack a copy onto his cart. Which would be, you know, fine, except in this one Toby had one arm around her and she was flattening down his tie with her palm.
It was momentary, transitory. They weren't the type of people who touched often in public. There was no such thing as privacy in Washington DC, especially if you were the White House Press Secretary and Communications Director, even at a 9.30 pm session of the latest Woody Allen film.
So, they just smile. The pictures go into the trash, and they indulge Toby's paranoia a little more than usual.
And, sometimes, she folds up one of the photocopies and puts it in her bottom drawer, never fully able to shake the feeling that this thing, this threadbare thing, will never last.
*
She has a television in every room in her apartment and they're on, always on. She's at the top of her game, and she does this job better than she's done anything in her life. Of course, now, in hotels, she puts on her television because it's the only way she can sleep. She used to think it was loneliness, but a few weeks ago, when she and Toby were in Montreal, he ended up sleeping with a pillow over his head, complaining about the noise.
"I don't understand, if you're not watching it, why does it have to be on?"
"Because I like listening to it."
"You enjoy listening to CNN?"
"Yeah."
"I could talk to you instead."
"Toby?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm paid to listen to you. It's not something I want to start doing in my free time."
She laughs, and he pretends to push her out of bed.
"Seriously, CJ, go to sleep."
"Will you talk to me about the global warming report?"
"What?"
"If I turn it off."
"Absolutely."
She leans back. "Shoot."
"CJ?"
"Mmm?"
"I'm not going to talk to you about global warming. Go to sleep."
She won the argument, but couldn't help smile at the sighs that intermittently came from underneath the pillow. And because this was Montreal, this was Toby in her bed, and the sight of that pillow balancing on his head looked ridiculous, she made him sigh again as she went down on him fifteen minutes later.
She'd always known there were all kinds of things tied up in Toby's touch. And from now on, the fact that she couldn't sleep without a television on would be one of them, every time his hands were in her hair.
*
Technically, they'd been sleeping together for over a year now, but that was mostly confined to after balls, galas, international summits and this one time in her car, after a four hour flirtation on Air Force One. This 'going home with each other at the end of the day' thing was only a couple months old, and she was glad they'd had the other stuff, the sometimes casual, sometimes brutal, this-is-who-I-am sex, before.
Toby had made her promise to let him tell Josh, and consequently the rest of the West Wing. She kept that in her pocket, like a pebble. She loved the fact that he wore her like jewelry, like some badge that makes him the cool kid. Josh found out, of course, in a less spectacular way, but that Toby asked made her smile.
One night, after a little too much wine and what seemed like centuries of the President illustrating in immaculate detail how Velcro was discovered, cultivated and utilised throughout the cosmos, Josh and Toby had dragged her to the President's kitchen, adamant that they wouldn't get in trouble if she were with them. She sat on a bench and watched Josh rifle through the fridge and Toby peer into the occasional cupboard.
It was strange, this almost privacy after she had spent the day trying not to look painfully obvious about the fact that other people were beginning to seem superfluous. And then he had touched her kneecap as he walked past, and she had reached out to grab his hand. Josh had his head in the fridge, mumbling something about the Head Chef's tyrannical kitchen regime, and she had pulled Toby to her.
With Josh's chattering in the background, and Toby's hands in the foreground, she decided that she was no longer hungry.
"Josh?" She had called out, not moving but watching Toby's hand on her knee.
Josh peered at her from behind the fridge door, and raised an eyebrow as he studied them closely. Almost reluctantly, he said, "yeah?"
"Toby and I aren't really hungry anymore," she said quietly. "We're going to go home."
There was a second of silence before he replied, "...okay."
Although the sight of the Deputy Chief of Staff hiding his head in a fridge was one that would make her laugh for months to come, she was not sure she would ever shake the feeling of Toby above her, later that night, quiet and apologetic for the things he thought he should be able to give.
*
Technically, they'd been sleeping together for over a year now, but that was mostly confined to after balls, galas, international summits and this one time in her car, after a four hour flirtation on Air Force One. This 'going home with each other at the end of the day' thing had started slowly, warily, reluctantly.
One night, they had stood outside Toby's apartment, again, and he was unlocking the front door and attempting to watch her at the same time. She was leaning against the wall, trying not to laugh as he missed the key hole.
"You might have to actually look at it," she remembers saying, and he popped the lock seconds later. She moved to walk inside, but he blocked her entrance, he pushed her back until she was against the wall, again.
So here they were, dressed to kill, drunk, and in Toby's hallway.
He does this, sometimes. He stood too close to effectuate a point, looked at her too long when he wanted her to agree. It was something they needed to talk about, something that was slightly unprofessional but at that moment he had her against a wall and that was about all she could think of.
They'd been doing this for months now, and there was a whole conversation that they'd been avoiding.
The next morning, she woke before him, like always and dressed quietly. She always did this bit quickly because there were about a million conversations they could have, and all of them seemed to end up in apologies.
She called a cab, and sat on the steps of his apartment building at eight in the morning, dressed in a ball gown. She felt ridiculous, felt old.
He sat down beside her quietly, dressed in sweats and sneakers.
She felt ridiculous, felt old and over-dressed.
"We can't keep doing this," she said.
"I know."
"Seriously. Toby."
"I know." He had rubbed his eyes. "I know."
"That thing in the car, last month, it was stupid. Dangerous. We could have been caught."
"Yes."
"It would have been the end of both our careers. We can't do that again."
He smiled.
"Why are you smiling?"
"Your hair." He reached to her and smoothed it down.
"Toby..." she started, not entirely sure of what she was supposed to be saying.
They sat in silence, watching each other and his hand in her hair felt strange, felt intrusive, felt dangerous.
"So, there are all of these places that are never going to be the same because of you." He begun.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Toledo for one."
"Ah."
"It's never going to feel the same."
She smiled.
"And Florida." He continued.
"Quebec." She added quietly.
"And Maine."
"Maine." She repeated, remembering hotel rooms and head boards.
"Texas."
She thought better of it, but added anyway, "The inauguration."
They were both silent at that memory, and she closed her eyes to forget about Toby tugging at her zipper and kissing her neck in an elevator.
"And I'm not sure what that means. Because I travel a lot."
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling tired and old and over-dressed for a conversation on the steps of his apartment building.
"You see, words are everything to me, CJ, they're all I have."
"They're not all you have."
"They're all I have," he repeated and she had tried to ignore his fingers at the base of her skull.
She remembers thinking how it would be to ease into them, to ease into the morning, to just close her eyes.
"But sometimes, these times, with you, they become..." He paused, searching for the right word, "insignificant."
And in the silence, with his hand in her hair, she could lean back into it, she could turn to him, she could quietly say, "I'm not sure I want to be the person who does that to you, Toby."
"I know." He replied, and her head was on his shoulder. "I'm not sure I want you to be, either."
"But I am, right?" She said, finally.
"Yeah."
She sent the taxi away.
*
She went to his wedding; her assistant had bought them a vase with glass that bent and curved in asymmetrical lines. She wonders where it is now, but files this thought amongst the many she will never ask.
Toby is the guy who brought her in from California, who had sat with her on the steps of his apartment building, who had told her stories in a quiet voice that she was never sure she'd get used to.
She gets scared, sometimes, that this is the thing she's not supposed to screw up. But he sleeps with a pillow on his head for her, and she loves listening to him sigh. It ebbs, like this, and her staff photocopy their picture, paper replicates of the momentary.
She's at the top of her game, and she does this job better than she's done anything in her life. And he helps. He helps.
*fin
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