Author: Bibi

Email: gorgeousbibi@h...

Title: Hometime

Characters: CJ

Rating: Fun for all the family.

Disclaimer: WB owns everything. I can't make money any other way;

why

the heck would this be the exception?

Spoilers: Nope.

Feedback: Yes please, good & bad.

Bibi's Note: This is my first ever fic, so blame Angie for making

me

write it. Really, big thanks to Angie for helping me so so much.

And

Chris for thinking 'that giant woman' is cool. Erm, liked the title

at four this morning, but now I'm not so sure. Ho hum.





Thrusting $20 into the driver's hand, CJ emerged from the cab,

looking and feeling old. As she walked up the stone steps to her

apartment, clutching the box of take-out, her mood did not improve-

it was nearly midnight and she felt that she'd achieved nothing.



CJ replayed her day in her head:

The President had ridden his bicycle into a tree, making the

administration a laughing stock. Cubans were living such awful

lives

that they'd risk everything to reach `the land of the

free'- the land

of the free where millions of Americans were illiterate and living

below the poverty level. Unemployment was rising, while at the same

time managers of big companies gave themselves pay rises for

ruining

yet more of their planet. The rich got richer and the poor got

poorer.



There was nothing she had done to end any of it, make any of it

better. She had just sat in a meeting and not managed to say a

word.



Her apartment, as always, was cold and empty. She looked around the

all-too-familiar scene. No one was there to welcome her and the

unblinking red light on her answering machine told her there were

no

messages: no one had called all day. There was just the TV, the

couch

and her now tepid Chinese take-away.



CJ sat down at the couch, put her feet up on the coffee table and

began to eat her food. She'd read somewhere, perhaps a Glamour

magazine in a dentist's waiting room, that eating after eight in

the

evening could make you fat. She snorted a little at the thought.

Managing to find time to eat was trouble enough, her hectic

schedule

would never allow her to consume enough to outweigh the energy

expended through running around from briefing to meeting for

fourteen

or more hours a day. All women worry about their weight, she

thought.

Not her. Perhaps it showed that she was something less than a

woman,

perhaps it showed that she hadn't quite the same inner-workings.

She

knew that the men at work considered her one of them, forgot that

she

wasn't in possession of the same Y chromosome and while she knew

she

wanted to feel feminine, she had come to believe that this would

lessen her power and her standing in their eyes. So, she wore her

hair cut short and wore plain, sombre suits, ignoring fashion to

appear efficient: to appear more masculine.



Glancing around the room, CJ saw, not for the first time, how empty

her house really was. On the mantelpiece were pictures of a father

who was rapidly losing his mind; brothers she saw once a year if

she

was lucky, and nieces and nephews who didn't recognise her on the

few

occasions that they did meet. She made a mental note to phone her

father, to let him know that she still loved him and thought about

him. She'd all but severed her ties with her family and knew that

she

needed to make amends for that.



She rose from the couch and walked slowly to the drinks cabinet.

She

opened the lacquered doors and removed a bottle, beginning to pour

herself a large measure of gin. She stopped when she noticed the

unopened bottle of scotch, nestling at he back of the cabinet

between

the vodka and the polished mahogany. She picked it up, feeling its

weight in her hand. She'd bought it for Toby, hoping he'd

come to her

house more often and talk, exchange ideas about the world and how

they were going to fix it, just as they used to do in college, and

even after, when they were on the campaign trail. But he'd never

drunk a drop. Since they'd been in the White House, he'd been

far to

busy to spend time with his old friend, preferring to stay at the

office late or read memos at home- too busy to relax with her. Time

spent with friends was time not spent arguing with Republicans or

writing eloquent speeches to make the President's message clear

to

the American people; working at becoming the Voice of the President



Sighing, she carefully poured her gin back into its turquoise

bottle,

catching the colorless drop that slid down the neck and sucking it

from her finger, and then went to the kitchenette to rinse out her

glass. Standing her glass on a coaster, she poured out two fingers

worth of the tawny whiskey. She inhaled the scent deeply, the smell

reminding her of smoky bars and the cheap motel rooms that they'd

stayed up late in, discussing what they were going to do to make a

difference to people's lives if they ever made it to Pennsylvania

Avenue.



Sipping on the whisky, its warmth spreading through her chest, she

realized that it wasn't Toby she was pining for; she was pining

for

the girl she had once been. She was pining for the girl with her

whole life ahead of her, who thought a career and family would be

so

easy to combine. The girl with a thousand shining tomorrows, each

of

them filled with the laughter and love of her husband and children,

as well as the admiration and respect of her colleagues. She knew

that now it was too late to be all she had wanted to be. She would

never cook Thanksgiving dinner for her impatient husband and

children. A sick child in need of comfort would never call

her `Mommy'. Heirlooms, passed on for generations came to a

dead-end

with her. She was a cul-de-sac for her grandmother's pearls and

for

her mother's diamond bracelet.



CJ sighed and rested her head on her hands, rubbing her temples

with

long, slender fingers. It was time to let go of those dreams, and

to

look forward rather than back. She had to make new goals for

herself

and work out how to achieve fulfilment without those things she'd

always dreamed of.

She drained her glass in one measured movement, and stood up to go

to

bed. Tomorrow, she'd make a difference.