Please see Chapter 1 for general info and disclaimers.
*~*
Twenty minutes later, Toby made his way towards C.J.'s office to see if she had arrived yet. He found her at her desk, staring off into the distance. Her head was propped up on her right hand and her mind was drifting through a variety of disjointed thoughts. She was currently reflecting about the packet of 'Sugar in the Raw' she dumped into every cup of coffee she consumed. Should she be concerned about those 'empty calories'?
Toby observed her through her open door and could tell from the expression on her face that she was deep in thought. "Hey," he murmured as he leaned against her doorframe.
She shifted her gaze to her left and acknowledged Toby's presence with a curt nod of her head. From the look of his rumpled clothes, frazzled hair, and weary eyes, she had a feeling he hadn't gone home like the rest of them had at 2 am.
"When did you get in?" he asked quietly.
"Around six. I decided to skip going to the gym. I just wasn't in the mood to deal with people."
"I was in my office at six. Why didn't you stop by and let me know you were here?"
C.J. cocked an eyebrow and looked at him suspiciously. "Toby, when have I ever checked in with you?"
He appeared to consider the question for a second before conceding, "Yeah, good point."
They then stared at each other in silence until C.J. exhaled loudly, the bags underneath her eyes becoming more pronounced as she expelled the air from her lungs. "We have a plan, right, Toby?"
"Yeah," he said, trying hard to sound convincing. "It's not the most creative thing we've ever come up with and it's certainly not the plan to end all plans, but it'll get the job done."
C.J. absently began to nod her agreement, but then suddenly dropped her head on to her desk with a loud thump. Alarmed, Toby rushed to her desk and leaned over until his nose was only inches from her hair. "C.J., are you okay?" he whispered in the vicinity of her left ear.
She slowly raised her head, pinching the bridge of her nose on the way up. "Why is this happening to us again, Toby?" she questioned mournfully. "How is it possible that we're actually back to where we were only four short months ago?"
Toby opened his mouth to respond but quickly learned that C.J. wasn't finished.
"I thought he was supposed to be the one, Toby. The one who was going to make a difference. The one who wasn't supposed to make us ashamed to wake up and go to work every day. What happened to that? When did this administration go from bettering the world to covering his ass on these…these things?! How long are we expected to keep doing this?" C.J.'s eyes flashed with anger and her breathing grew shallow. "I know we serve at the pleasure of the President, but I swear, I don't know how much more of this pleasure I can take. I really don't."
To Toby's surprise and chagrin, he found himself defending the man he'd spent the past few hours loathing in private. "You don't mean that, C.J. You're just tired."
"Damn straight I'm tired," she snapped, "but that's only the tip of the iceberg of what I'm feeling right now."
Taken aback by the depth of C.J.'s fury, Toby realized that he didn't know what to say. He'd seen her upset before, but never to this degree. Within the West Wing, he was the one who was known as the staff member who held grudges and never overtly expressed any anger until he was on the brink of exploding. But with her hands balled up into fists and her jaw muscles twitching from the intensity with which she clenched her teeth, he recognized the signs of someone who had been stewing in ire for some time. Sighing dejectedly, he tucked his hands into his pants pockets and said, "C'mon, we've got staff."
C.J. glared at him, her anger at the President temporary misplaced on to Toby, before she closed her eyes and covered the right side of her face with her hand. "Yeah, okay," she eventually muttered with reluctance as she pushed her chair backwards and grabbed a notepad off her desk.