Title: After One, Another
Author: Brandy B
Summary: After 17 People Toby picks up Sam and Ainsley's fight, and then goes home to begin another.
Disclaimer: Nobody here belongs to me, if they did, I'd be rich. I'm not, so feel free to sue me, all you'd get is this computer.
Archive: If you tell me where.
Feedback: Never required, I wrote this story, didn't I? However, always appreciated.
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CJ climbed into bed alone, again. Seven days, she sighed, it had been seven days since she and her husband had spent the night together.
"They forgot to bring the funny," Josh explained for the 19th time as they tried to punch up the speech for the Correspondents Dinner.
The Correspondents Dinner is supposed to be funny," Toby sighed.
"Yeah," Sam agreed.
"And the speech is tomorrow?"
"Today," Sam sighed as he looked at his watch. Midnight had long since come and gone.
"Yeah," Toby sighed as he read the speech. "Tell me you have better jokes than these?"
The group began tossing more quips at him.
Toby tried to separate the good from the bad. However, his mind kept going back to the president and everything he had learned over the course of the past few hours.
"We still don't have it," Josh sighed.
"Well, I've had it," Donna insisted as she stood up. "Use all the dead audience lines you need, I'm going home."
Toby winced, home, he vaguely remembered what home looked like.
"I'll drive you," Josh offered. He could no longer see straight and he wanted to learn more about Donna's accident, anyway.
Donna started to protest, but stopped, "I'll drive you." As weary as Josh's eyes looked, She didn't trust him to drive.
"Well, I'm staying," Sam protested harshly, "I'm not a quitter."
"You quit pretty easily a couple of hours ago." Josh smirked as he and Donna left the room.
Sam stammered. "I…it…I…"
Toby smirked, "Get your ass kicked, again? By a girl?"
"I resent that!" Ainsley protested.
"You resent kicking Sam's ass?" Toby questioned.
"No, the implication that it should be harder for me to kick his ass, or that he should be more embarrassed by it because I am a woman."
Toby grinned, "What was the fight about?"
"She is anti-ERA."
"Because?"
"She's a fascist."
"The Fourteenth Amendment," Ainsley corrected proudly as she recalled how thoroughly she had trounced Sam, "The 14th Amendment gives me equal protection. It makes all other amendments and laws about equality redundant."
A look of disbelief washed over Toby's face, "You couldn't defeat that argument?"
I had moved on to other things in my head," Sam defended himself meekly.
"Uh hu," Toby rolled his eyes, "Tell me, Ainsley, does the 14th Amendment keep you warm at night? 'Cause it's hard to pay the heating bill on 75 cents to the dollar?"
"There have been laws passed to correct that problem," Ainsley countered.
"You still make a quarter less than a man in the same position," Toby smirked, "You've come a long way, baby"
Ainsley rolled her eyes at the comment, "Women get paid maternity leave; they get paid to take time off."
"Usually, they are getting paid a small portion of their salary for a short period of time, a time period which is far less than any other industrialized country in the world. And this is their reward for repopulating the earth, for bringing the next generation of leaders into the world."
"It is their choice."
"Not if the leaders of your party have anything to say about it!"
"That was my argument," Sam interjected proudly.
"Whatever," Toby groused.
"All I'm saying is that we're talking about an issue of enforcement. All of this should be made redundant by the 14th Amendment."
"With that argument, we should repeal the voting rights act of 1965, as well as the 20th Amendment, and overturn Brown V Board of Education. Every one of those, and more just like them, helped to ensure equal rights after the passage of the 14th.
"In a more perfect world those…."
Toby interrupted, "In a more perfect world all children would have health insurance, all pharmaceuticals would be priced to move, the Hippocratic oath would make insurance companies refusal to pay inconsequential; a doctor's pledge to do no harm would overcome his desire to be paid. In a perfect world we'd all sing Imagine as the national anthem, and I'd have a full head of hair.
"However, this world isn't perfect, and passing legislation to ensure the rights of women is in no way redundant." Toby stopped his ranting, looked at Sam and Ainsley for a beat, and continued, "The Correspondents Dinner isn't for another 16 hours. I'm going home, I'm going to bed, and I'll bring the funny bright and early tomorrow. We'll do a rewrite then, Goodnight."
"Imagine as the national anthem?" CJ mumbled when Toby crawled into bed.
"Supersonic hearing?" Toby raised an eyebrow.
"Sam called me; he couldn't stop laughing," CJ shrugged.
"It's easier to sing than the current national anthem."
CJ fought hard to hold back a smirk, "Awfully presumptive of you to assume you could just slide into bed."
"You've never complained before."
"You've never ignored me for six days before, Toby. You haven't been home in a week. Thursday you had the audacity to ask me to bring you a clean shirt."
"Well, I was getting a little rank." Toby sighed.
"Yeah, Toby, what's going on?"
"Who said anything is going on?"
"Why are you answering my all of my questions with more questions?"
"What makes you think I'm doing that?"
"TOBY!" CJ exclaimed loudly.
"CJ!" To by mimicked his wife's expression.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing," He confirmed more solidly.
"Toby?"
"CJ."
"Why are you lying to me?"