Right... So I suppose this fic is sorta out of left field, since I don't know that I've ever seen a story out of this particular fandom (are we a fandom? I'm a fan anyways) that is based around kidnapping or anything like that (besides the kidnapping of the president's daughter or whatever but that's canon so..) Well anyways I'm not huge into romance or anything; angsty adventurous fics are more my cup of tea. So I wrote one of my own. Review! I can't promise when this will be updated as I'm posting on a whim.
Also, I haven't actually watched this show in forever, so the characters may be a little OOC. Sorry. Plus I'm more dramatic? cliché? than the show writers so that doesn't really help oops. (Oi it's hard to be a more dramatic writer than television script writers from the 90s isn't it?)
Disclaimer: I don't own the show or any of its characters. I don't know who does and I'm too lazy to find out rn. But it's definitely not me because I wasn't even born when the show started oof.
It had been a long week, a volley between contending with diplomats, nuclear threat, and Congress at its most incessant. CJ sighed and relished in the silence of the West Wing, such a rare occurrence really, and only wrought now because of yet another too-late night. She had sent Carol home three hours ago, but with burgeoning crises comes increased responsibility, and she couldn't afford to go home short of complete exhaustion.
Well, she was spent now, and while she had done her darndest to remain behind her desk, shriveled in an uncomfortable chair with a file before her, she just couldn't get any more work done without at least a half night's sleep. With the words in the file swimming languidly before her, CJ had finally decided to call it a night.
She shrugged into her coat and snatched up her pager, car keys, and the file. It wasn't right just to let classified documents lay around, but she wasn't exactly in the mood to lock it away at the moment. It would stand going home with her the night. She flicked the light switch as she left her office, sending the shadows skittering to utter black.
Her heels clicked sharply on the tile floor. She could feel her eyes drooping, and gosh if she wasn't more deep bone tired than she could remember feeling in ages. Of course, living in the moment always presents itself with far greater clarity than memories of past experience, and really, she had been staying up through the night most nights since the president had taken office five years ago.
Every day was a rough day at work, especially when your particular place of work was the White House.
Pick your poison, she thought miserably. This had as of yet been the most fulfilling and exciting job of her career, but with that gratification came hefty sacrifice. Personal life and health had been all but thrown out the window once she began working as White House Press Secretary, and they weren't returning in the foreseeable future. President Bartlett had just started his second term, after all, and well...
The light to Toby's office was still on, a glaring discrepancy against the darkened corridors. There was no one left in the entire White House except for her and a few Secret Service agents, or at least that was how it should have been.
"What could he possibly be working on so late?" CJ muttered to herself with a scowl. She just wanted to go home and become reacquainted with her bed. The literal last thing she wanted to be doing was baby-sit a grumpy old speech writer, listening to half-hearted complaints and annoyed grunts before somehow cajoling him into going to his own apartment to sleep. "But I can hardly just ignore the poor man," she knew.
Resolve born more of exhaustion than will convinced CJ to open the door to his office. The fluorescent lights were glaring against the dimness her eyes had become adjusted to, and she was momentarily blinded. It was enough, though, to hear Toby's startled yelp for her to know that he hadn't exactly been working at his desk.
"Toby, for heaven's sake, it's two in the morning, no one else is even here, and you need to get up off your sorry ass and go home before I have to drag you there myself!"
CJ stood in the doorway like a crazed angelic mass of frizzy hair and sagging eyes, which was in fact what she was. Toby, startled, gaped at her from his sprawled position on the couch. His eyes were red and his clothes mussed. Scattered around him were papers and books, tossed from their previously precarious positions around his prostrate form by his sudden awakening.
"Huh?" was all he could manage to articulate. It was enough.
"Home, mister!" And CJ was grabbing him by the arms and hauling him to his feet in two seconds flat.
Toby sputtered. "Um, I'm kind of, you know, busy at the moment!" he harrumphed, annoyed and pretending to order the spread of papers into some semblance of neatness.
"You can sleep from anywhere, pokey—and if you want to argue with me and say that you weren't sleeping, don't even bother, because I'm tired and I may have been blind but I can sense you sleeping from a mile away. You and I both need to go to our respective homes and get some shut-eye; tomorrow is a big day—err, today is, now I guess. Because it's today now, not tomorrow."
Toby looked down at the ground. He still felt somewhat bewildered and groggy and he couldn't for the life of him keep up, much less argue. "Wait, you were blind? What?"
"Not important, Tobus. Now come on, and I think I'm driving, much as I'm loathe to..." CJ stared down at Toby's bleary eyes with a wince; she knew it would be practical homicide to put this man behind the wheel in his present state.
"Driving? I—CJ, you don't have to... Wait, tomorrow is a big day? What's going on tomorrow?"
"Today now, Tobus, and... Well, we work in the White House, darling; when, pray tell, isn't it a big day?"
Toby nodded even though he had no idea what in the world CJ was talking about. He focused on putting his left foot before his right, and pretty soon the Secret Service guard on night duty was waving them out the side door and into the cold.
Toby was shivering. CJ led him expertly to her car and was trying to maneuver him into the passenger seat. Toby was struggling somewhat, vaguely insisting that he was perfectly capable of driving himself home. CJ sighed.
"Toby, I'm not letting you drive. You're tired, I'm tired, and I just want to take you home so that I can go home so that we can both get some rest, which I most definitely wouldn't be able to do if I let you drive yourself home only to get a phone call thirty minutes later to inform me that you had crashed your car into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool or something! So shut up and let me buckle your seat belt!" And she shoved him, hard.
Toby made an affronted "oomph" sound as he fell back to his seat. The seat belt was fastened with a click, and CJ got into the car from the driver's side.
"CJ, listen—" Toby mumbled quietly.
"Toby, if you're about to start arguing with me again, I'll have you know that—"
"No, no, no, just listen, okay?!" Toby's voice has scarcely risen in volume or intensity. He really was tired. "I don't want you to have to drive me all the way back to my apartment, okay? It's on the other side of town practically from yours, and that's unfair to you, you know. And before you can interrupt me again—" he continued, noting that CJ had opened her mouth to do just that "—I'm fine that you're driving. Sure, I feel like I'm gonna nod off any second. But you've got a couch at your place, so if it's fine by you, I'll just crash there, okay?"
CJ flushed scarlet. "If you're thinking of trying anything funny, mister, you've got another thing coming to you, okay?"
"CJ! How long have you known me for? Even if I wasn't so tired that I can barely lift a finger, do you really think I would ever do anything so inappropriate as try to take advantage of you like this? You know that I have all the love and respect for you in the world, and—Sorry, that's not me talking; it's the exhaustion, I'm sure."
"I'm sure," CJ repeated laughingly as she settled into drive. "You always manage to sweep women off their feet and then drop them on their faces, Tobus. Such a talent you have; rivaled by none!"
The drive was continued in silence, but a comfortable one. CJ had been friends with Toby for longer than anyone else, and though she may have said differently, she trusted him and knew that he absolutely would behave the part of a gentleman around her, even in a situation like this one.
CJ had often fiddled with the idea of whether Toby loved her or not. His emotions ran so hot and cold, but they were always hidden beneath the surface. With a glance she could read him, but upon further examination she often found her assumptions lacking, or even flat out wrong. The persona he presented to the world was far different than the one he actually wore, and even his ex-wife hadn't been able to finagle past all the walls and illusions he had forced up to mask his true self.
It wasn't even that Toby was a very private person, though, or a fake person; he was the most candid individual she had likely ever met, and he held rigidly to his beliefs. But at the same time, like it or not, he trusted too much and therefore not at all. He was too rational to expect never to get hurt, to be as delusionally optimistic as Sam was about the world, yet he was so idealistic that it was physically painful watching his analytical self be constantly proven right. Politics was a cutthroat world, and one which killed dreamers as surely as night falls after day.
They had reached her apartment. CJ jumped out of the seat, but Toby was not so quick to follow her. He tried the handle, failed twice, and when he had finally gotten the door open and stepped out of the car, when it seemed like "thank goodness, I might actually get some sleep tonight," well... CJ watched as Toby took a single step before crashing into the snow.
"I'm sorry, sorry," he muttered as she helped him up. "Gosh, I can hardly feel my legs."
CJ stared at Toby in concern. "Toby, what in the world is going on? What—when was the last time you slept?"
"Slept?" Toby chuckled, then laughed, then guffawed, before finally spirally into delirious coughing. "Oh, sleep, such that mortals drink, CJ. I have no need for—oh gosh."
Toby's knees buckled, and bar CJ he would have been dragged into the snow once more. CJ was now thoroughly worried. "How long's it been, Toby?"
"Toby? Hmmmm, you hardly ever call me—Well, it's been a little while, I don't know, no big deal, maybe a couple days or so..."
"And I'm not counting quick cat naps on your couch, either, Toby! Now how long's it been, really!"
Toby seemed to sober. "It's been hard, CJ," he whispered, and his voice was raspy with tears. He's just tired, CJ thought, but maybe it was more than that. "But, well, I may have lost track, but I don't know. Just a few weeks or so..."
"Or so?" CJ exploded. Her mind was whirring. "How many weeks, Toby? Be straight with me!"
CJ was so worried with getting a straight answer, and Toby so worried with just remaining straight in the air rather than splattered on the ground, that neither of them paid much attention when CJ pushed open the door to her apartment and the lights were all on. CJ, ever methodical and down-to-earth, never forgot to turn the lights off anywhere.
"CJ, I really don't know! I—"
A loud crash caused them both to jump. Toby was beginning to feel more awake, and with that sensation came his keen observational skills. "Say, CJ, since when do you leave the lights on when you go to work?"
"I don't."
"Huh?"
"Toby, I don't." And CJ's tone was enough to wake Toby up the rest of the way. Because CJ. Sounded. Terrified.
"There's someone in this house, Toby." CJ's whispered words rang in her ears. She felt Toby pushing her behind him, felt herself become as pliable as jello. She stood against the wall and shook violently.
"Gosh, there's someone in the house!"
Toby ignored CJ for the moment. He felt slightly dizzy, though whether from adrenaline or exhaustion was hard to say. He walked slowly, motioning for CJ to stay put, as he grabbed hold of the first viable weapon he came across.
It was an umbrella. Thick, somewhat sturdy, black. Good enough.
He had only been in CJ's apartment two or three times before. He could remember the basic layout if he thought hard enough, but he didn't exactly have his wits about him. He had only been in the living room twice, for about half a minute each time. It took a fifth of a second, though, to realize that the place had been totally trashed.
A second crash sounded, closer to him this time. He checked to make sure CJ was still in the doorway where he had left her, and then began inching forward, wielding the umbrella before him.
He was near the bedroom. He had never been in there before, but he knew where it was located. The door was flung open. He glanced inside.
"Toby!" CJ cried out, and Toby was whirling around to face a mountainous figure dressed in all black. It happened quickly, too quickly to think about, and he was swinging his umbrella, and the man was grasping at his collar, and CJ was rushing forward, and he was yelling no. Only in the next second he wasn't really able to yell no, because as it would turn out umbrellas are a rather ineffective weapon against giants, and even more ineffective when knocked from your grasp by a single meaty hand before you even land a blow, and yelling no is totally impossible when a behemoth has his other meaty hand encircling your throat in a vice. And then Toby wasn't even standing anymore, he was on the floor, and CJ wasn't rushing forward, she was kneeling down next to him. She may have been crying, but he still couldn't breathe even though the man had let go of his throat and so he really wasn't so worried about CJ crying, horrible as that sounded even in his own head. The world was getting a little gray around the edges and he couldn't quite focus and—
"Someone broke into her apartment. And I think that maybe I'm dying. Gosh, what a day." It was the last thought he had before something very heavy and glinting and metal cracked against his skull. He lost consciousness pretty shortly thereafter.