Author: Angie
Email: AngieSuth@aol.com
Title: What Drives A Heart
Characters: Toby/CJ/Josh
Rating: G
Summary: Post 25 and the nature of love . .
Disclaimer: Not mine at all.
Spoilers: None to speak of
Feedback: Always appreciated.*
"I told Leo that I was worried that I wouldn't be able to love my kids the way other fathers do. He said I would. Said it was guaranteed." Toby, perched on the edge of his desk looked down at the woman slumped on his couch. "And . . .and I went to the hospital . . . and they gripped my fingers . . . these fingers . . . my typing fingers . . . and God, I'm going to do it now . . ." he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, "Oh God, I nearly cried." Toby examined his fingernails minutely.
Josh pushed himself up from the armchair and leaned next to Toby on the desk. He slung an arm across his shoulder and squeezed. "It's been a rough night, an amazing night. You've been to heaven and hell, Toby, you're due a few tears. Don't worry about it." He glanced across at CJ for support, but she was in a world of her own, worry and exhaustion and something he couldn't define etched deep into the lines around her eyes and mouth. Josh stood, patting Toby's arm for the final time, and walked over to her. He put out his hand and gently stroked her hair.
"You okay?" He whispered. When she nodded, he laid his hand on her shoulder, briefly, and opened the door to the office. "Maybe we should all try and get some sleep?" Josh took one last look at his friends and closed the door behind him.
"You know," Toby continued as if he had never stopped, "I told him that we would rather die than let him down . . ."
CJ looked up in confusion and he caught her expression in his peripheral vision. Not looking at her directly. Don't look at her directly. Hold it together.
"The President, I mean Jed, not the . . ." He winced at his mistake. "I told him we would rather die . . ." Silence. "Do you think I could have said that before tonight? Before I held those tiny bodies, before I felt that complete vulnerability of fatherhood? Do you, CJ, 'cause you're like me, before tonight . . . do you think you would have felt that? Said that? Do you know your capacity for love . . . do you know what drives your heart?"
Toby still didn't look at her.
If he had he would have seen the current of despair, the wave of misery, flow across her face. She said nothing.
He felt her stand and sensed her approach. Then the breath of her voice in his ear.
"Oh yes, Toby. I know what drives my heart; I know the depth and constancy of my devotion. I may never be a mother, but I am a daughter and a sister and a friend. I know how to love."
And she placed her lips on his. A sweet kiss, full of longing and despair and acquiescence of her fate.
And she left him examining the new and extended boundaries of his world.
The end.