A/N: Sorry I'm a little late this week. I had a chapter all ready to go, but then decided that it needed a little run up, so here it is…

Tempus minus five years two months, one day, sixteen hours and fifty-five minutes

Toby Ziegler meant to be waiting for her and had in fact spent minutes he couldn't really spare loitering around in the hall. It was a bit of a novelty to watch much of the campaigners roll into the Bartlet for America national headquarters. When at all possible he tried to ensure some sort of barrier – he wasn't picky, a closed door was just fine – between himself and the arriving volunteers and interns to avoid dull and redundant small talk. CJ was often already at work by that time. Not so today, which offered him the chance to intercept his friend before she made it to the media office.

But then Ginger tracked him down with a call waiting from his counterpart at Donaldson's campaign and new notes from the Governor on the debate-issues – most of which were respectably discarded within seconds – and he only heard CJ slam her door shut.

Now he was back to loitering around in the hall. The door to her office was open again, but now he had to wait for Josh to leave. In the meantime, while he certainly didn't mean to eavesdrop – he wasn't actually interested in whatever his colleagues had to say to each other – he overheard the tail end of their conversation and found himself silently agreeing with Leo's right hand. "CJ, it's no big deal."

"It'll cost us votes." The weariness in her voice surprised him, he'd been expecting anger and frustration.

"Meh, if people switch sides because of what you said, we didn't want their votes in the first place."

"Gee Josh, I'm not sure if you just demeaned our constituents, or me."

The following silence spoke volumes and it didn't take long before Josh stepped backwards into the corridor. "Yeah, you know what, I have work to do." He turned on his heels and hightailed out of sight.

Amused, though determined not to show that, Toby prepared to step inside only to halt his step when afamiliar voice called his name. Turning, he saw Leo McGarry approach.

"She in there?"

Reluctantly he nodded. Okay, so yes, CJ screwed up yesterday and Danny Concannon hadn't wasted time to advertise her screw-up to the public, but he knew her well enough to know that a dressing down from Leo was the last thing she needed right now.

"Oh by the way, I gave the WLC meeting to Josh."

Wait, what? "You what?"

The older man shrugged, "we need you focused on the debates, we'll leave the lobbyists for Josh to deal with."

"You put Josh in…" He couldn't… it was just… the were no words… Struggling with his thoughts, he just couldn't construct a proper sentence. Even speechwriters couldn't avoid to occasional tongue-tied moments.

"The WLC meeting, yeah."

"Have you met Josh?!" Instantly he remembered last night's fight with his wife and his subsequent promise to not raise his voice for a week. Hell, Andi'd understand. He respected Joshua Lyman and the man certainly had his uses, but the WLC lobbyists were carnivores and Josh would in all likelihood be too busy to be cool to notice their fangs.

Leo's eyes narrowed. "He'll be fine."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"With Brenda McKenzie and Amy Gardner in one room." He'd never admit it, but it was almost… fun to see realization dawning on Leo's face.

"Amy Gardner?"

"The WLC brought her in last week to help with the—"

"Josh!" Passersby stopped dead in their tracks at the forceful exclamation. Toby merely pointed in the direction of Josh's office and watched Leo pass by CJ's door. Quietly he stepped inside the office she shared with some of her staff and carefully shut the door behind him.

She didn't look up from her paper, the lines of her face hard and unforgiving as she scanned the written words for probably the fourth or fifth time that morning. "Was that Leo?"

"Yeah," he shifted uneasily, he'd prefer it if she at least looked at him, "he was going to send Josh to the WLC meeting."

It certainly got her attention; CJ looked up from her copy of the Washington Post. "Has he met Josh?" Toby chose not to say anything in reply; silently pleased they were on the same wavelength. "He knows Amy's going to be there, right?" When he still didn't speak, she misjudged his motive and confessed, "I screwed up."

The role of priest wasn't one he was comfortable with, not even with her and she was one of the few people he could stand for prolonged periods of time, so he moved to cut her off. "You can fix it."

"I will fix it. If Leo doesn't fire me, anyway."

There was real fear in her voice and though he told her otherwise, he knew it wasn't completely unwarranted. The last few weeks their campaign had been disrupted by mistake after mistake and while none had been hers, hers would be the most visible to the voters. Leo was on a warpath. "Have you figured out the spin yet?"

She nodded, but didn't elaborate and instead picked up the paper again and recited, "Governor Bartlet has relied heavily in his campaign on his intellect and appears not at all worried by accusations of arrogance and book smarts. Campaign press liaison CJ Cregg however, is concerned by the candidate's 'know-it-all attitude' and is reported as saying the Governor is 'too smart to be President'".

"I've read it."

"I didn't say… I just didn't know Danny was… damn Toby, I said that in a private conversation, Danny had no part in that, he shouldn't have…" but she dropped her line of thought and rubbed her forehead. "It was stupid."

"Yeah." He threw up his hands in defense when she glared at him. "You'll do better."

"I thought I was." With practiced ease, she refolded the paper and dumped it in the trashcan next to her desk.

Before he could reply, Carol knocked and poked her head around the door, "you've got the daily press meeting in two and you're scheduled with the Governor and Leo at nine to go over tonight's appearance. Oh, and Danny wants you to call him."

CJ harrumphed, drawing her fingers through unruly curls before gathering up her files. "Figures the little coward would hide in the White House today."

"Knock 'm dead," Toby encouraged as she breezed past. She didn't verbally acknowledge him, but briefly touched his hand in passing. He resisted the urge to follow and instead returned to the office he shared with Sam. They were still working on the opening remarks for tonight's Capitol Hill appearance and Sam had apparently forgotten all about the existence of commas and periods.