She was the last person he expected to see standing at the door to his apartment. The minute their eyes met he slowed his pace, almost stopping completely. Besides television coverage of the investigation, they hadn't seen each other since the night he confessed to being the leak, almost a month ago.
He was hesitant to approach her, half-afraid that she'd begin lashing out at him but just as fearful that she might second-guess her decision to come, that she might leave without saying a word to him. If she came here tonight to make him feel horrible, leaving would be the best way to do it.
"CJ," he said. Her name was all he could manage. For someone who makes—no wait, made—his living as the voice of the President, he often had trouble finding one of his own.
"Toby, we need to talk."
"I figured as much when I didn't see the "Sorry you might be going to federal prison" fruit basket."
"This isn't funny," she said sharply, her gaze locked on him.
He couldn't stand the way she was looking at him, like he was the enemy and not her best friend. He began turning over his apartment key, pressing its indentation into the soft flesh of his thumb and inspecting each ridge so that he wouldn't have to meet her stare.
"You wanna come in?" he managed softly.
She hesitated, trying to read him.
"Yeah," she said.
He stopped fiddling with his key and turned it in the lock, letting her follow him into his cluttered bachelor quarters. Books, papers, and files covered every surface of the apartment. A couple of beer bottles were stuck to some documents on his coffee table. He hadn't felt much like cleaning and besides, no one came over. He'd barely spoken with anyone except for his lawyer and Andie and he was always the one who came to them. He tried to clear off a place for CJ to sit on his leather couch but she simply continued pacing around the room with her arms folded, showing no intention of being still.
"Can I get you anything?" he asked her, knowing full well that all he had was tap water and a bottle of scotch with barely a mouthful left.
"No…Thank you," she replied. Even in a situation like this she still remembered the rules of decorum. She was still the class-act he had always known her to be.
"So…" he began, the silent tension making him anxious, "Should we start with the verbal lashing or go straight to the tar and feathers," he said flatly.
"Toby!" she snapped. She was pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, her eyes closed as if trying to ward off a massive headache. From the dark circles under her eyes, he could tell she hadn't slept much…maybe not for days…or even a month.
"I just need you stop talking and let me think," she said more gently.
"If only I'd stopped talking a month ago, we wouldn't be in this situation," he said more to himself than to her.
She dropped her hand from her face and turned towards him.
"What were you thinking? Besides the fact that you obviously weren't!"
Here it comes, he thought.
"I mean, Jesus Toby! You leaked CLASSIFIED military intelligence! This wasn't just some game of Battleship, this was a military-grade space shuttle that you decided to tell the whole world about!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, is that what it was?" He couldn't be quiet anymore. "If I had known that I never would have put myself in danger of going to federal prison!" he shouted.
"Dammit, Toby! How could you do this—"
"The American people are entitled to know what their government is doing, especially if it might cause World War III! They have a right to debate potential threats to national security—"
"Right! Because letting the Russians, Chinese, and every other nuclear power in the world know that we have a spaceship that can blast them from Mars has no bearing on that!"
"You know what CJ, it doesn't matter! The council's office sure as hell doesn't care why I did it so why should you? You shouldn't even be here!"
"Yeah, and neither should you! You should be at the White House, in your office, doing your job! Honestly, I have been driving myself crazy since you told me you were the leak, trying to figure out why you would put your entire career in jeopardy, why you would risk going to prison for this! Does it have to do with David? Is this some strange homage to him—"
"Maybe, I was just trying to one-up my dead astronaut brother," he snapped.
"Don't give me that! I want a straight, honest answer."
"Hah, tell that to my lawyer."
"WHY DID YOU DO IT TOBY?"
"SO YOU WOUDN'T!"
The silence that followed his admission swallowed them both as she tried to digest his words.
"What do you mean, 'so I wouldn't?'" she finally managed, her voice firm but vulnerable.
"Exactly what I said," he said throwing his hand in the air, as if to gesticulate the obviousness of his statement.
"Well I think I might require a little more clarification," she said, slightly annoyed with his dismissal of the question.
"God, CJ," he muttered, taking off his sports coat before sitting down in his favorite armchair. "You don't think I didn't see it in your eyes when you asked if David ever told me anything about the shuttle? When you asked whether or not he'd stake three lives over a breach in national security?"
"I wasn't asking you to do anything, Toby," she said.
"I know you weren't," he said, looking down at his hands clasped together in front of him. "You were asking if you should."
She looked away, running her hand over the top of his sofa as she stood behind it.
"You know, the President said something to me after I got fired," he continued. "He said that what I did was inevitable. That I was bound to sacrifice myself in order for something like this because I believe myself to be morally superior to everyone else. And you know, one of the things I love about Bartlett but also hate about the man is his astute perception of human character. "
She came around the couch and sat down across from him.
"Toby—" she began. He knew she was going to try and disagree with him; that her endless well of compassion was stirring.
"CJ, please don't. Because you know what. Maybe I do think I'm morally superior to almost everyone else, even the leader of the free-world. I guess that's what happens when you spend eight years in the White House. But if I had to make an omission in my ethical omnificence, it would be to you."
He looked at her as she turned away, as if embarrassed by his compliment. He rubbed his chin, feeling the unkempt bristles of his beard and looked down at the scratched hardwood floor.
"CJ, you have always been the moral compass of this administration. I know it, Leo and Josh know it, and the President knows it. You were hired as the voice to the public, but you were also the voice for the public. As Press Secretary you were allowed to be the champion for the disenfranchised, for the people rather than the politics. But as Chief-of-Staff, things are different, because the job is different. I saw how much it was killing you to feel as if you were responsible for those guys up there because you were expected to think in large-scale terms and not about the lives and families of those three strangers, of the three names you'd assign to your guilt if we just let them die because of some quasi-public knowledge we weren't willing to admit."
She didn't say anything so he took a deep breath before adding one final thought.
"And let's face it, CJ. The Bartlett administration needs you a lot more than it needs me."
CJ looked up at him, the smallest glimmer of tears in her eyes. She sniffled loudly, just once and flicked her nose with the knuckle of her first finger.
"You know, when I came here, asking how you could have done it, what I really wanted to ask was how you could have done this to me. I never thought that it would have been for me."
Toby's thick brows knit together in confusion and expectation, waiting for her to continue.
"When Josh left…and Leo wasn't going to be there as much, you said that it was just you and me. And as terrified as I was to take on everything, I knew you had my back. So when you told me you leaked the information to Greg Brock, I felt like I was drowning. Because I knew the one person I had left, my one life-saver wasn't going to be there anymore. I felt like I just lost my best friend to a moment of political bravado."
When she said the words, "best friend" her eyes moved past him, out the window into the darkness of D.C..
"I'm sorry," he said. He cleared his throat, his voice raspy with emotion.
She tore her stare from the city skyline to look at him.
"Me too," she said, each knowing the other was sorry for more than just their just previous fight.
"I'm still on your team, CJ" he said quietly.
She laughed just the tiniest bit, as if to keep from crying and smiled at him. "Always have been," she said.
"Always will be," he answered.