And the Ocean, Like Her Eyes
Author: Oro
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Aaron Sorkin owns the West Wing; did you not know that?
Notes: Oh, Tahlia. Thank you for the beta. I love you, even though you're a Sam/Josh UST fan.
1.
They meet in a small restaurant in Sausalito, where they have fantastic view of the blue ocean, penetrating their being through the transparent glass window. She orders a salad and he orders steak, but she ends up eating his food too anyway. They haven't seen each other in years, but it doesn't matter because in his book, she's allowed to do that anytime she wants. It's not just because she's beautiful (well, partially it is, but no one's keeping score or anything): it's because she's CJ, the feisty girl who became an older version of herself and is now the boldest and most poignant woman he's ever known.
You'd expect this meeting to take place in a bar, she thinks, as the waiter comes to take away their now empty plates. Everything with them, always seems to happen in bars, and yet here they are: the sunlight glistening as it touches the ocean, happily mocking their past purely social encounters… and then he orders coffee! It's just what she thought he would do -- order a completely PG-rated beverage on a completely normal, PG-rated afternoon.
But then she looks at him, and she quietly says: "I'm not over you, Toby." simple, really; just like that. And he almost chokes on that coffee, because what she said doesn't match the theme of 'hey, how you doing', 'how have you been all those years' and 'do you remember…?'
"What?"
"No, I'm really not. I'm sorry." Her gaze breaks away from his eyes, shies away behind carefully mascara-covered eyelashes. All that's left to do now is pay for the food and go outside, and then see what happens. Or not see, and break contact for a few more years -- this is probably not what he wants, anyway, and she just said what she did for no reason, which is what she meant to do in the first place. (Huh?)
She pushes down her own words by consuming all that's left of her drink, whatever the hell it is.
2.
It's graduation day at Berkeley, but it feels like the cheap seats at Yankee Stadium. His hair is still somewhat long and so is hers, and they laugh and kiss on the cheek and act like the flower children they are in their hearts, even though the timing's all wrong. But the timing is never right, so nobody gives a damn anyway. She flashes her diploma along with a grin, he takes a picture, and then they have their picture taken together for no reason other than the fact everyone else is doing it.
Everyone else is kissing, too, he'd never dare. He's just her Toby, one of her many admirers (or not even that); just one of her pet people. And he chuckles as she wraps her arms around him, at how important it makes him feel. For now, though, he just enjoys that brief moment of breathing in her scent. (Oh how foolish and childish of him; so he backs away just as quickly as he gave in.
And the hurt in her eyes is just as quick).
"Finally, finally, finally to be over with the thing," she says, looking at the blue sky as though she sees it for the first time.
"The Berkeley thing?"
She stops staring at the sky in order to give him a look. "I can go work at the Geri Smith campaign now, and, and… not do everything I've been doing until now."
He smiles and remembers: "She's not going to win this race, though, you know."
"That's the thing – I don't know," she nods wisely, patiently. "Sure, it's tough, but she seems like she's up for it."
"Wiseman, though, he's friggin' bulldog."
"Yeah, but the point I'm making is that it might not be what the voters looking for there right now," CJ replies cheerfully and carelessly, just as he'd been on the first campaign he did when he was fresh out of college.
Toby feels old now, and wonders what the hell he's doing there with her, looking like an idiot. She's so young, it seems as though he hasn't been, for so many years. And then she does something so unexpected, (yet so familiar and so exciting), that all of his doubts dispel in mid-air… actually, all she says is, "Know what I'm saying?" but he's still in awe of that.
"I'll miss you," he says quietly, as though to himself. He looks at CJ and she's toying with her diploma and posing for pictures with people she'd probably never see again in her life but now mean the world to her: people like him, quite possibly. But that's the way it should be, because it's just what you do in college, and afterwards you forget (unless you need something).
3.
"I need something," Toby's voice is tinted with a metallic tone to it over the phone line that connects New York and California. CJ imagines him to be just standing on the street, talking to her from a pay phone; the receiver stuck between his one shoulder and his cheek, resting on the curve of his neck, while his fingers tap lazily on the red metal.
She listens to the sirens and between his words and chuckles softly. "Yes, Toby, I'm doing fine, and how are you?" a subtle hint.
"I wanna offer you a job," he says, sending the hint back to wherever the hell it came from.
"I have a job, Toby," she mutters, knowing what he's about to do and not doing much to stop it, even if she doesn't like it at all.
A patronizing snort. "No, you don't."
"Well, you're quite the pompous jackass-"
"I know, I know," sigh. "Take the job."
"Why?"
Pause. In a way, it's like saying 'you know you're gonna come here anyway, at least for a look, so why must you argue?' "Because I need you to."
"What's it pay?"
"I'll double your salary."
"I make 50 grand a year, Tobus." Okay, stretching the truth a little bit never hurt anyone. Remaining tough is the key point here. Remaining. Tough.
"I can offer you four a week." Toby's voice is muffled.
"Four what," she asks, skeptical of his offer.
"…hundred. Look, do you want the job or not?" he asks impatiently.
Her voice rises helplessly, "No, Toby, I don't want the job!"
"Great, I'll meet you tomorrow at the airport." Click. Just like that.
And – God! He always does that. Or, not exactly that but something like it. And even though she hates it, she goes on the plane anyway and meets with him because that's what you do for friends from college, at least when you're young and can still remember their names (she's learned from her candidate's husband, who cannot for the life of him recall the name of his friend from Yale who might be really interested in investing some money in this campaign that seems to be going nowhere at all).
They meet in a bar; he says his candidate's name is Roger Caan and the image in her mind is instantly that of an insurance salesman. They argue and drink and shout until they're totally hammered but keep arguing anyway. It's only so she can yell at him at the top of her lungs that he always does this kind of thing (even though on the plane she continued to ponder what that kind of thing might be), and his guy is all wrong when it comes to environmental issues and no, you can't fix that, no matter what. "You wanna win, Toby, or you wanna lose, is the thing," she says drunkenly, glass between slender fingers. So good at stating the obvious yet so lousy at seeing what's right in front of her, on the tip of his finger and the look in his eye and the million other things she blindly looks at as Toby being the epitome of occupied.
"I want a job," he says, and for some reason he finds that extremely amusing, because his guy is a slightly more exciting version of an insurance salesman (not that there's anything wrong with that), and probably has the mind of a fish and the charisma to go with it. And he can argue, like she did before him, that she always does this kind of thing, with the making-him-change-his-opinion thing, but he can't even see (or think) straight. So he finishes his glass and hits on the next attractive woman he sees, if only to distract himself from her.
4.
"Why, I happen to like my boys loud and drunk," Andi says at their wedding. And a kiss and a toast to the happy couple.
CJ smiles and quickly gets herself loud and drunk, because Toby's encouraging her to drink and be merry, and she trusts him to do the right thing. Epitome of occupied now becomes reality. The lady next to her whispers that all the good ones get snagged away before you're ready for them, but who knows if she even knows what she's talking about because it sounds so banal and so, so, so old. She never thought she'd feel old at his wedding. More cheap wedding wine to regain youth and a Hail Mary to regain purity. Wanting to hate him and love him and be happy for him at the same time is giving her a headache, and she should've realized before the previous night that she has absolutely no desire to be his best man.
5.
It ends, like all things probably do, at a point. And she never thought he and Andi would come to that point, because to her, they symbolized all that was happy and true and right in the world. (Except when he'd come over and they'd go to some bar and he'd confess that they might not be what he thought they were; but CJ, for some reason, would always choose to ignore that.) It blew up in his face and she was there to pick up the broken pieces of him, or some other cliché that describes Toby after his marriage fell apart. She may not be fully equipped to handle the situation, but to him she is motherly and protective without ever ceasing to be his best friend, which is what he needs right now.
"We have got to get you drunk," CJ says, looking at him, laughing, happily holding her glass of liquor. She then puts it on the counter and stumbles to the crowded dance floor, leaving him behind, next to her drink. So he just stays there, watching as she joins the huge mass of people, her body swaying to the rhythm of what at the moment seems to be the loudest music in the world (if only because he can feel the drums roll inside his very chest). And it's all so very modern: the music and the colorful lights that shine over her face, making her classical and beautiful and monochromatic. The monochrome, he thinks briefly, clashes with her style. And he didn't think earlier, before the alcohol, that she had the energy in her to dance: he didn't think he did either, but now she is closer to him and her hand pulls his towards the crowded dance floor, which doesn't feel so crowded once they're there.
Punk rock switches to soft music that caresses her ears and makes everything softer, mellower, and her arms instinctively reach to claim their spot on his shoulders, as they try to maintain some sort of rhythm that fits them both. And it takes a while, but they never doubted they would, eventually; until it's time to flee the scene.
6.
Fast forward: he lost his job last week. Now he's back to the circle of losers, or the something else, because he'll never win another campaign in his life, if only because Bartlet was the real thing. Bartlet was Bartlet for eight years and now it's time to leave the only job where he ever won anything. Twice. And the just, nacreous place, which will always contain his memories from this journey of a lifetime he shall never again experience, is now vacant of everything he feels should be there. The next time he'll step there will surely be on some painfully dull tour with his children (just like the guy who had his job before him).
And it's time for CJ to leave, too: she'll be going back to California, as she always ends up doing anyway, and Toby will probably end up following his children's mother like a little tow-truck. She'll probably go back to PR and to hating every second of it. For now, though, the kids are with their mother and the former White House Communications Director ends up sitting next to the former White House Press Secretary and a bottle of scotch (which neither of them opens, if only to be polite and because it's still noon), discussing how, just a week earlier, they still had their old jobs.
When they run out of words, they don't say anything; just sit and count down the minutes until afternoon and they can consume their alcohol. Thirty minutes. Twenty-eight. Twenty-six.
"Oh, to hell with this," and she drinks it straight from the bottle, like a true alcoholic, and immediately coughs, like the exact opposite of one. The amber liquor runs down her throat, apparently leaving thorns along the way to destroy her liver. He watches her silently until he has to chuckle at the sight of her confused expression. He stops, though, when CJ's eyes turn to look at him.
"I want this to be a clean cut, though, Toby," she tells him. "When I leave… don't come and get me again, alright?"
"Right," Toby replies, his mouth slowly forming the word, as if he's still processing the idea.
"I don't think I could do this the third time, you know?" CJ says, this time in a more soft than awkward tone of voice. She just wants him to see where she's coming from.
"I understand," he gives her a quick glance, "I understand."
She leans back against the leather sofa. "You're not planning on listening to me, are you?"
"I plan on offering you a-"
"No, you're not. You are not. You are so. Not. Offering me a job," she says through gritted teeth.
"Pays more than your last job did."
"No, it doesn't!" Her pleasant tone quickly becomes angry.
"Why the hell not, CJ?" His tone of voice matches her own and even rises above it, but he still remains seated on the sofa. "Maybe for once you should consider that I might be offering you something that is—" and he stops, because it's all nonsense and he knows it. It's nonsense and ugly and he really doesn't want this conversation to happen, if only because he doesn't have anything to say except 'I offer you jobs because I can't stand not being near you.' And that just isn't good enough reason.
"Because there is no job! And even if there had been, I don't want it. I just want to be left alone. I want my booze and I wanna leave, and I don't think it's fair of you to be doing this in the first place." And she sighs, she kneels down in front of him until they're at eye level. "I need some time. Swear to God, all I need is some time, and then I could forget all about you."
His eyes widen slightly as he understands the meaning of her words, and he just stares at her. He never thought he had anything else to offer her, and he's about to say that, only she opens her mouth to speak at the same time he does, and even though he shouldn't, he lets her go first. (What separates the men from the men.)
The blush on CJ's face deepens as she realizes Toby isn't really saying anything. "But never mind that, Toby… the point is, just stop offering me jobs because it would only make things harder on me, and please, try to forget this conversation ever took place." Soft chuckle, gaze at the bottle, then at her golden wrist watch, and back to his face: it's alright to drink now.
7.
And the wind is softer there -- in Sausalito, next to the tranquil ocean -- than it was in DC. She doesn't feel it flow inside her veins, penetrating her marrow, her very core; just a light sound in her ears as it brushes against the trees like it does against her hair. As she stands on the balcony there, the ocean reflects in her eyes, even though its color is a mere reflection of the sky, and she feels like a mirror for nothing as the thought occurs to her, which is even more frustrating. A tear trickles from her eye onto her cheek and falls into the water as it becomes one with it.
He stands behind her, watching, contemplating his moves carefully, when he realizes he'll never be prepared for whatever is about to happen, because it's not how things go about in the real world (which is too damn bad).
She feels him behind her, his presence somehow fragile and uncertain. His arms are wrapped against her waist and he softly pulls her to him, offering the only comfort he can think of at the moment. She closes her eyes in a feeling that she's suffered enough and doesn't want to be dragged back into this bullshit with him, because she'll surely end up hurting again, and she doesn't want everything to start again and float to the surface in all of its loveliness and murkiness. But still she leans back against him with a sigh.
They just stand there, watching the ocean like some painting that, once you look closely at it, you see how flawed with clichés it is: how wrong and unbearably sweet its colors are, how something is happening that shouldn't be but has every right to.
Toby's lips graze her cheek lightly, and everything is beautiful and kitsch. It's almost hard to forget they have to go back to their normal existence: with work and family (or lack thereof), those tiny victories and awesome failures, and the feeling that they're probably missing out on something in the larger scale of things that could've happened to them.
FIN