Part Six:



"Pizza, Toby?" she asked with eyebrows raised, a smile on her face. When she was a child, her father berated the fast food industry voraciously, praising home cooked meals and non-commercialized life. But when her mother was gone, whether it was business or friends or something as simple as the PTA, he'd look at his children across the dinner table, his gaze settling, in the end, on one of them, usually his youngest and only daughter, grin like his inner lost child, and pass her the phone.

"Pizza, Claudia Jean?" And he'd clear the table and she, in all of her eight-year-old-glory, felt very grown-up, smiling at her father like he was all that she had in the world. It was a tradition that continued for twenty-five more years, until she wasn't coming home every weekend, for she had joined the Bartlet for America campaign.

Of course, Toby'd known that for years, but he'd never shared in the tradition, he'd always been the one more likely to shy away from tradition and family, but, she pondered, he almost seemed to be embracing it.

"Well, we don't eat things like this enough," he defended as they climbed the stairs.

"Things like this?" she repeated, amused, "I'm assuming you don't mean take-out, so do you mean Italian knock-offs or junk food?"

"Actually, he chuckled, I meant carry-out anything away from the office. And I happen to have it on good authority that you love extra pepperoni," he smiled as they headed into the hall. He hadn't forgotten the stories they'd shared of childhood moments and traumas. It had been early on in the campaign, and they were both jaded as they sat in a hotel restaurant in New Hampshire, him drinking scotch, her gulping grasshoppers, telling each other things they hadn't before. Andi was gone for good then, though he'd known she was leaving for a while, and CJ's last relationship had ended months before. Once again, it was back to just them, and he told her of his father's ire when he realized the only memories she had that were worthy of her were of her own father. For Toby, his mother had been his savior, for CJ, it had been her father, the other parent in each family was much the same. They'd joked that together, they actually made one, whole, normal human being. And, Toby had begun to wonder how much of a joke it really was.

"Toby," CJ whispered, her eyes dropping to the base of her door. His followed, and they both paused, her with keys in hand, him still holding the pizza in one hand with his other planted on the small of her back. Sitting, centered, in front of the door was a crystal vase filled with long- stemmed red roses, a spritz of water visible on the petals.

"I'll get rid of them, you take the food and wait for me," his voice was gruff again, sounding more like the Toby she was accustomed to, and his eyes shifted from one end of the hall to the other.

"Toby, it's not that big of a deal," she sighed, steeling herself for an argument. "Come on," she led him through the door she'd just opened, dropped the keys on the bar, and deposited the roses in the trash can. Toby said nothing, leaving the still-warm pizza on the table, then standing beside her. After another few moments of silence, she pulled the card from the top of the arrangement, flipped it open and frowned, passing it to Toby.

"Dinner?" the card read, and Toby made quick work of ripping it in half and returning to the table. "We should do something," he raked a hand through his hair, "Call the Secret Service or the Police or, hell."

She shook her head semi-violently. "No. No, and no. It's pointless, Toby, he hasn't done anything, this isn't a veiled threat, he's just. sending me flowers. Drop it, okay, just, let's eat before we argue, I'm hungry and. he just hasn't gotten the hint yet. I'll make sure he does, but, let's forget it, okay? Just forget it for now."

"Are you sure you don't." he began, because he was less than sure and needed her to understand the rate at which the hairs on the back of his neck were raising.

"I'm sure," she smiled, "you can take out the trash after dinner," CJ's eyes twinkled, as she effectively cut off the conversation.

"Already I'm reduced to handyman and garbageboy," he rolled his eyes dramatically, pushing back the lid of the pizza box, allowing the scent of pepperoni to waft up to her.

CJ picked up the nearest slice and bit into it, moaning at the taste. "This," she paused and swallowed, "Is the guilty pleasure, garbageboy." Soon, they were both laughing their way through dinner, but from the corner of her eye, CJ saw a lone rosebud laying against the rim of the trash receptacle. But she shoved away the memories that fought to surface and smiled as the cheese slid from her pizza.

"She won't have dinner with me, but she'll have dinner with him? What does she think she's doing?" Neil raged, pacing from one side of the impeccably clean room to the other, staring at her face in a million shadows as he walked beside the clothesline he'd hung with her pictures, listening to the sounds of her laughter as it traveled through the listening device he'd had installed within her kitchenette.

"Damn it, Claudia!" he yelled, grasping a bedside figuring in his hand and throwing it angrily into the opposite wall. "You will not betray me!"

And six blocks away, in CJ Cregg's apartment, laughter rang out as they dined, oblivious to the man in Apartment 4B who was planning his schedule for the next day.

"So the darling Carol is feeling a tad ill." he whispered, their conversation washing over him in suffocating waves, "Goodnight, my Claudia, I'll see you soon."