Author: Angie
Email: AngieSuth@aol.com or angiesuth@hotmail.com
Title: Buried Treasure
Characters: CJ/T
Rating: PG
Summary: The world spins on and so does she.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all.
Spoilers: None.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
A/N: For Maeve because I owe her and I let her down. Evelyn got me thinking.
And Rhonda for 'lessening the London'. It's tougher than you think.
It's good to be back on track.
*
Buried Treasure
*
She picks at the unblemished leather with long, elegant fingers; the nails polished and even, the dried skin at the sides almost unnoticeable and - like all her flares of distress - hidden to even the most careful observer. Much as she appreciates the luxury of Air Force One, enforced captivity makes her edgy. When she is busy with meetings to take, press to torment with trivia laced with an occasional kick, she can handle it. She can look as if she's enjoying it. But inactivity means sitting. So she's sitting and thinking, and thinking about her father and her friends and the life she doesn't lead, and the life she had when she was still a thirty-something. When she had a life.
This isn't living, she thinks. This is a game with absurdly high stakes, and for the first time for a long while, she's not sure whether she really wants to win – or even play.
Her eyes dart round the staff cabin; empty or near as, damn it. She compares it to her life, and laughs at her self-indulgence.
"What's so funny?"
His voice makes her swivel in her chair and she finds herself staring at the familiar features with an intensity bordering on rudeness. The seconds meld into minutes and he holds her gaze with a commitment not usually on display. She realizes that they are alone and that, as he reads her mood better than anyone else, dissemblance would be futile.
"Do you have friends, Toby?" The words are simple, her manner is mild, but CJ knows that she is on the verge of revelation. She bites her tongue and turns her face to look at the oval of relentless blue at her right shoulder.
"I, uh . . . do I have friends?" He seems to be startled by her question, and CJ is relieved to have disconcerted him, even for a fraction of a second.
"You heard me," she snaps back at him and watches him flush at her tone. "I mean the kind of friends who invite you round for dinner for the pleasure of your company, not because your name looks good on their guest list."
She flicks at the creases of her skirt, distracted by the overwhelming longing to be in jeans. "What's happening to me, Toby?"
"Which question am I answering first, or is this some kind of evil mind game you are punishing me with? If it is, I'm surrendering now. I don't have the energy to play."
CJ flushes. "The friends thing. I'm not sure I meant to say the last bit out loud and I don't think I care to have my personality dissected when my feet aren't safely on the ground. The friends thing, Toby, tell me who your friends are and why . . ."
She considers him while he's thinking; notices the silver-threaded curls that are shorter than usual; the lines under the eyes that seem chiseled fractionally deeper; the full redness of his lower lip that has always charmed her. He's getting older. The truth hits her hard in the chest. She can't imagine life without him there.
He speaks before her tears have a chance to fall.
"There's Simon and Karen . . ." Toby pauses and looks up at her carefully. He knows what she's going to say before she says it, she can see it in his eyes.
"Oh, yeah. And that'll be how many years since you did more than the occasional email? For God's sake, Toby, Simon was best man at your wedding and you haven't seen him more than once since then. It's bad enough to be embarrassing if you were thinking of asking him to be your best man again. He might even have less hair than you now, but you couldn't crow about it because you haven't seen him. And Karen never liked you anyway. You made her feel stupid."
"Don't hold back, CJ, will you." The tiredness in his voice makes her regret the brutality in her words. She knows he didn't ask for this conversation, and that he's only answering because it's her. He'd have savaged anybody else.
She looks at him curiously. "Just who were you going to ask, you know, if Andi had said 'yes'?"
Toby's eyes blink slowly and she sees his fingers rub together at the seam of his pants. This has turned into an inquisition – no holds barred – and CJ wonders if he will answer; wonders if she will have to pay the price in her own way. What will he ask of her as recompense? What will he answer?
He licks his lips and the words fall gently. She has to strain to hear, stares at his mouth so as not to miss a word.
"My first thought was Josh, then I thought again. He's a friend," his eyes flicker at her face defensively, "and we have gotten closer as the years have gone by. But he meddles when he shouldn't, and he wants me to marry Andi, almost more than I want to myself."
CJ is intrigued. Many times over the years of their knowing each other, she and Toby had offered each a personal morsel, before thinking better of it, before retreating behind humor, or temper, or just the unexpected visitor. The wrong time and the wrong place, more often than not. She almost holds her breath and waits for him to continue.
"To be honest, I don't think I could handle his excitement." A deep breath and now his fingers are on his tie. CJ keeps her eyes on his face.
"And then I thought maybe Leo. We . . . we got kind of close, you know, over the last year and he, well, he seems to think better of me than I do myself. Strange that, don't you think? Anyway, the whole Zoey thing and then the President and First Lady . . . and I felt that maybe, maybe, and this is a harsh thing to say, but, maybe . . . Leo would screw me over if I stood in the way. You know, if I stood in the way of what he saw as expedient. I think Leo is a man with even fewer friends than me. In fact, I think Leo has only room for himself and Jed Bartlet in his life."
Toby falters again and CJ watches him as he clears his throat and sinks deeper into the leather. His eyes are focused past her shoulder, staring at her piece of sky, and the sunlight has bleached the last bit of color from his face. She is mesmerized by his eyes and mouth; so dark. She speaks without thought.
"You could have asked me." Shocked by the words and their implication, she clarifies, "but I wouldn't have done it, I won't do it." She's shocked even more by her clarification because she doesn't mean to hurt him, never wants to hurt him and she's frightened that she has. "I'm sorry . . ."
He nods his head, hears her apology. "I could have asked you, CJ."
He looks her in the eye and then turns away again.
"Why didn't you ask me?" She can't help herself, she has to know. She's never been a bridesmaid, not even when she was ten years old and five foot eight and growing. This man, she thinks, could make that better, comfort that bruised and battered child; heal the wounded woman that she still is.
"Are we still talking about my wedding?"
His voice cuts through her thoughts and she acknowledges his aim, feels him hit his target. Hears his soft regret. Is awash with regrets of her own.
Toby takes pity, of a kind.
"So, who would you ask?" His voice is still soft, it wafts across the cabin and curls around her edges. He names his price and it is her turn now.
"It's never been an issue, Toby, you know that. You have to be getting married in the first place, or at least be thinking about it. You are looking at a woman still firmly entrenched on her shelf."
"For God's sake, CJ," and he is up, standing over her, "stop with the self pity. It's not you and you know it - this isn't your style. You've had plenty of men at your beck and call – so just stop the coy nun routine. It doesn't suit you."
She swallows and looks up at him, letting the words ricochet off the walls and fall hard at her feet.
"I don't have any friends, Toby. I have people who stop me in the street and I have phone numbers that I don't call because 'he' answers the phone and 'she' is fed up with me canceling, fed up with the empty space at the christening, the spare man at the dinner table. I have addresses that are two moves out of date; printed Christmas cards with round-robin letters and photos of ugly children with no front teeth. They could be getting married themselves for all I know." She pauses for breath, checks to see that he's listening. "Old boyfriends are to be avoided at all cost. I really don't want to find out how much their stories are worth. I don't expect to see articles on 'My time in the sack with White House Press Secretary' in the Washington Post, but I know it could happen someday and somewhere. So new boyfriends don't hang around when they are subject to the kind of scrutiny I have to give them before I sleep with them."
The silence expands to fill the cabin and she wonders whether to blame the air pressure for the sudden rush of blood to her face.
"And you wonder why I'm trying to remarry my ex-wife?" His tone is dry and she can see the corner of his mouth lift. She smiles in response and sees the shift in his eyes, the warm chocolate of empathy, and she sighs for opportunities missed and lonely nights. For both of them.
"It's just," she sighs out the words, "it's just that I could use a friend sometimes. You know, to get things off my chest, so I can moan about the world and its great unfairness. Someone who won't knife me in the back when I take my eye off the ball." She laughs softly, "someone who will throw me the ball in the first place and won't care if I spill wine down the Armani or wear denim to dinner."
She leans back and runs her hands through her hair, eyes fluttering shut.
"I need a fail-safe, Toby; someone who can let me be, who expects great things from me but won't think less of me if I can't quite reach. Someone to hear me when I can find the time to call."
She opens her eyes and watches him as his fingers comb through his beard. She can almost hear the steady beat of his heart and feel the solid warmth of him three feet away. She leans over and touches his knee with a finger. Just once, a gentle pressure to convince her that he's there.
"Sounds like you found me."
Her heart stops. It takes a rough hand over hers to kick start it again. He seems not to have noticed, appears untouched by the thunder, the lightening, the chorus of angels. The trumpets.
She smiles.
"The Armani can be cleaned, you know."
And he returns it with bells on.
"So I should hope. It's one of my favorites."
She sighs and leans back. The world spins on and so does she.
The End.