Author: Elina

A/N: There was a bar and a man and a story, and I started thinking about my favorite CJ/Toby moments, and I'm not going to yarn any longer, just going to say that this hasn't been betaed and if the sentences are a bit, I don't know, rambling perhaps, then you just have to take it, and now I'm going to finally end this sentence with a.

Spoilers: Some tiny one's from The Women of Qumar.

Summary: A sorta post-ep to TWOQ, takes off to outer space from there. -- Toby is drowning his sorrow with too many whiskeys. But why?

A/N-2: Just writing this to point out that this is a story that's merely beginning to form in my head and I have no idea where this is going, so if someone wants to suggest something then I'm listening. All I'm saying is that let's see where this is going to. (May I also state that I've, once again, drunken too much coffee)

Disclaimer: Yeah, I just bought myself a brand-new car and a villa in France with the money I get from doing this.

Rating: The entire story is rated R because of my habit of cursing too much.

# 100 Ways to Say I'm Sorry - Prelude #

The air in the bar was musty and filled with the smell of cigarettes. The jukebox was playing yet another whining blues tune in the corner. "My baby's gone away, she don't love me no more," a whiskey-throated man bewailed, the voice barely reaching through the other noise in the bar -- the men at the pool table playing and laughing, the group of students in the corner booth discussing today's topics, glasses clicking against each other, the 'one more' shouts echoing all over, and all the other general hubbub. There were a lot of motion in the bar; not enough people to call it crowded though, but too many to call it even half empty. People chatting, joking, laughing, making new acquaintances; people sulking, trying to drown their misery, unaware of the hassle around them, not caring about the social bull. All kinds of people could fit in that bar that night -- including a brown-suited man sitting on the barstool at the far end of the counter, whirling his drink around in his glass.

You could've easily missed him if you didn't look. To where he was sitting the light couldn't quite reach; it was shadowed by the shelf that hung above the counter. In that shadow he sat, not interested in the men playing pool or the students or even the soon-to-be-passed-out-woman at the near table who had been trying to make eye contact with him the entire night in her sudden moment of loneliness. No, he wasn't really interested in any of them. He was only interested in the melancholy sound of the blues and getting as drunk as humanly possible. He was already on a good way to it.

"My baby says I treat her mean," the singer moaned from the jukebox. "My baby says I treat her sooo mean, so she's gone left this town."

He whirled the ice around in the glass, watching as it pushed the brown liquid aside as it went around and around and around as he listened to the raspy voice, letting it fly over him. The song wasn't particularly good, not a piece of divine art, not even close, but it was good enough at the moment. The guitar started playing a solo, it wasn't anything different from the solos in the previous thirty-two songs, but it served it's purpose. He listened to it only half focused. After a couple of beats the singer started again. "My baby don't love me no more," was heard for the fiftieth time that night. He jerked his head back, the movement was followed by his hand and the glass, and gulped the remains of the whiskey down his throat. "You're damn right," he hissed from between his teeth as he slammed the glass back on the counter. Then he chuckled under his breath, a bit bitterly even: "Who writes there fucking lyrics anyway..." He wasn't saying it to anyone special, he knew that no one was listening, but, even though, it was a thought worth saying. At last he thought so.

If he wasn't waiting for an answer, he got it anyway. His heart almost jumped up to the roof as a voice suddenly stated next to his left shoulder, as if it was a completely normal thing to say: "Conveyer belt writers."

His head whirled around, his mouth slightly cracked in surprise, and he was set face to face with a man sitting on the barstool next to his. He was slightly taken aback by the realization that he hadn't even noticed that anyone was sitting there.

A smile formed on the man's face as he kept staring at him with his face full of wonder. The smile wasn't mocking, positively drunken, but not mocking, as the man put down his glass and turned on his chair to face him properly. "They're conveyer belt writers," he explained with a grin. "The guys who write these things. They don't care about art or creating or making hits songs or something new and wondrous. They're just songwriters who pull out a guaranteed formula from their back-pocket when they're in need of some cash and write an album full of songs just alike, get some guys from the clubhouse to record the songs and sell them to people like these jukebox-guys who buy them because they don't have to pay as much for them as they would for some famous guy." As if to make his point final, the man nodded self-confidentially and took a sip from his beer. "Mind if I join you?" he asked, stumbling slightly over his words. Considering that he was already sitting there, must've been for some time, and wasn't showing any signs of leaving that was a really stupid thing to even ask.

Or to answer. "Well, actually..." he started and then closed his mouth as he realized that he had no reason to tell him to get lost, or no desire to. "Sure, why not," he said at last.

The man offered him his hand. "Billy."

"Toby," he responded as he took his hand and shook it briefly.

"Can I get you another drink? You seem a bit dry there."

He glanced at the man, Billy, and his friendly smile, and then at the lonely ice cubes in his glass. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Billy gave a little wave at the bartender and a nod towards the empty glass, and soon it was full again. Then he turned back to Toby. "So, women, eh?"

He'd just been taking a sip from the drink as his hand stopped moving and left hanging in the air half way between the counter and his lips, the movement abruptly disturbed by this weird question, if it was one. He glanced at Billy. "Excuse me?"

"People usually drink alone looking as fucked-up as you do for two reasons: women or money. Looking at you outfit, it ain't the latter."

"Well, what's your excuse then? For drinking alone?"

His face lit up in a sparkling smile, the kind only a drunken person can give. "Oh, but I'm not drinking alone, am I? I'm drinking with you."

There was something so child-like in his statement, like a kid pointing out something he thinks is so obvious, proud that he realized it before the adults did, that he couldn't help but to laugh out loud and shake his head as he took a sip from the whiskey. "Yeah, I guess you are."

"See," Billy went on with the topic he'd opened, "my missus always preaches about the sisterhood, she's one of those 70's feminists that burnt their bras in front of the city hall. In front of raving maniacs like her, us guys gotta stick together."

A smile curved Toby's lips as the warm memory of a certain raving maniac who he knew so well invaded his thoughts. Then the smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Yeah," he grunted as his mind suddenly drifted back to apathy.

The two men sat in a sudden silence for some time, taking small sips from their drinks from time to time. From the side of his eye, Billy watched the other man, sitting hunched over the counter, his profile dark and miserable. In a sudden burst of sympathy he leant slightly closer, as if to form an invisible barrier around the two of them. "So, what's the story?"

His eyes turned to meet his, they were slightly unfocused and red due to too many whiskeys, and he stared for awhile. Then he turned back ahead, his hand moving to rub his forehead slowly -- his thumb moving across his temple and over his eyebrow as the other fingers imitated it's movements on the other side -- and eventually slipped down to cover his chin. Billy didn't rush him, didn't want to make him say anything he didn't want to. Toby on the other hand was trying to decide how much he was willing to tell this man who he hadn't known for more than five minutes and whether he was willing to tell him anything at all.

A long sigh escaped from his lungs and his hand cupped the glass, the small whirling movement of the ice begun again. Round and round and round and round.

"Well," he started with a silent voice after a beat, this one word making Billy unconsciously lean closer to focus on every word yet to come, "it all started about three months ago..."

TBC