TITLE: Back Roads: Cradle Rocking
AUTHOR: Kansas J. Miller
PAIRING: CJ/Carol
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: For all of my wonderings about CJ's emotions, I had completely overlooked the one time and place where all I'd seen were raw, unadulterated feelings
SPOILERS: "The Fall's Gonna Kill You"(minor), "Two Cathedrals"
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, how many times do I have to tell you? : )
***
I've seen CJ at her best and at her worst. I've seen CJ when she's putting the charm on and when she's ready to tear out the nearest person's hair. I was shocked out of my seat the first time I heard her yell—it was the sharp, do-as-I-say-or-else kind of yelling that makes a person sit up straight. And I was even more surprised the first time I saw her acting just plain sweet. She'd brought roses for Josh's birthday, presented them to him in front of the entire campaign staff, and gave a little speech that made eyes water.
And that's where I'm left wondering—tears. CJ doesn't cry. I have never seen her cry. Ever. I know she gets sad because everyone gets sad, and when you're sad, you cry. But maybe CJ doesn't cry.
Today is a day for musing, I decided, as I cautiously lounged around CJ's apartment. She insisted I stay here, let my eye rest, and even though the pain from the glass was only a recent memory, I indulged CJ's one request.
I would have gone home, but I was afraid that my mother would call. She'd catch me off guard, I wouldn't be able to mount a credible defense, and there I would be, alone with the realization that my mother had beat me at my own game. So I stayed here, shamelessly hiding from her, in CJ's roomy apartment.
I'd gotten past the guilty snooping that I was so prone to; in an hour I'd looked at CJ's healthy collection of bath gels and lotions, discovered her obvious penchant for MAC makeup, and decided that when I grew up, all of my office supplies would too be sorted. The words 'high maintenance' affectionately crossed my mind as I returned her engraved fountain pen back to its display.
I realized, as I settled down on the floor in her living room, that I had a lot of faith in CJ. That frightened me, because I knew that beyond my ulterior notions about her, I didn't really know the woman.
The night before she had told me that she loved me. It warmed my heart, but led my mind wandering towards the fork that divides the road of love and being IN love. Love was an extremely deep amount of caring. But being in love was something all together else. I was in love—I could hardly go a moment without thinking of CJ, and when I did, butterflies riveted around in me; I never wanted to be away from her, and when I had her close, couldn't imagine letting go. CJ was an all-consuming element in my life, and I could never go back from that.
This morning she was on the phone early, yelling at whatever poor soul happened to answer the phone at the Lexus Corporation. They were apparently disinterested in honoring the warranty on her car, and her harsh tone filtered down the hallway and roused me out of bed.
CJ looked absolutely abrasive as she sat perched on the edge of a stool in her kitchen, phone cradled between her head and shoulder, glasses on her nose. She was sharply groomed, ready to conquer the White House, yet unable to persuade the empty suit at Lexus that yes, indeed, she was a force to be reckoned with.
Her sharp sigh and subsequent hang up indicated to me that she was already considering her next move, and when she looked up, I was leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Her pajamas were too big on me, and as they hung around my body, I reveled in wearing her clothes. They smelled like CJ, they felt just like her, and wearing the soft satin reminded me that this was all a crazy dream come true.
CJ kissed me carefully, her lips soft and leaving behind a translucent red smudge. She poured me coffee and announced that she was going to have to pay for a new window herself. Perhaps kill some people while she was at it, CJ added, her humor covering up some of the annoyance I knew she was feeling. And me, she turned around and eyed me slowly, she was worried about me.
I found it oddly reassuring that CJ seemed bothered. She sometimes seemed to be a shell, a just a body, one that possesses the wit and humor, edge and strength enough to get a good job done. But those things are not emotions, and when she hides behind the wall that they create, whatever else lies there is only drifting away. Still, when she turned to me and announced her worry, I saw the reality of her words in her eyes. Yes, it was there, and if only I could see it all the time…The thought was incomplete then, because it led to another—what would she be like, all the time uninhibited and emotional?
***
With music videos dancing across the television in front of me, I paged through CJ's In Style, Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines. They were virtually untouched, unwrinkled, and as I looked at each page carefully, I wondered if CJ only subscribed to them so she could realize her own glamour. Maybe she didn't even have a reason for getting them, except that she always had.
As I closed the final glossy page, my mind wandered back to what it had tried long to forget. For all of my wonderings about CJ's emotions, I had completely overlooked the one time and place where all I'd seen were raw, unadulterated feelings oozing from her very presence.
It was a year now, an entire twelve months, 365 days—any measure of time that one could use to mark a year—had passed. I only recently stopped letting the events of last spring consume my mind. That break-through was oddly reminiscent of the fact that there had been a time when twenty-four of my hours were taken up with scandal.
And CJ. CJ had been wrought and wrecked by someone else's life, and it had been then when I realized that there was someone else behind her glitter and glaze. Not to say that I was un-tortured by the President's revelation that he had MS; I was jolted, rocked and shocked by the news. I took it especially hard among those not close to the President, for he had been my Governor for four years longer than most of these people had heard of Jed Bartlet. I had started a new life at sight of this beautiful, passionate, idealistic reformer whose words became my beliefs. Finding out he had lied was a day in darkness, but it was darker still for CJ.
They hadn't told her last, but the President had not the courage to tell CJ himself. Leo instead called me personally, and asked to send CJ down to his office. It had been so late, and the days' brooding silence from Toby and Josh had given away everything: something was coming, and even I could see it. CJ grew nervous when I passed along the message, and I tried to reason aloud that it was nothing. She had only stood squarely in front of me, her expression resigned to the fact that nothing was always something.
And so she went, down the hall towards Leo's office, with a tired "Carol, you can go home now," thrown over her shoulder. The night had been eerie, long and slow, and instead of waiting for CJ's fury or broken spirit, I tried to convince myself that she'd be better off alone.
The next night, the First Lady coolly acknowledged me before knocking on the wooden doorframe; I still had no inkling to what was going on, but through the blinds I saw CJ dabbing at her eyes. There were no real tears, and so I can't say that she was crying. Still, the sight of two strong women clearly so distraught, so emotionally open, brought my heart to a twist. I clearly remember the violent urge I had to run through the door and demand to know what storm could be so intense…what could make CJ's façade break…
The press conference was the climax of everything that had happened that week. Only a half-hour before, I had stood shoulder to shoulder with CJ, watching in wide-eyed unabashed horror as the President sat with his wife and admitted his one weakness. As soon as he was off the air, CJ went in and spoke to him, fighting to get through her most important message. She came out of the room deflated and defeated; I could almost feel her ready to burst, ready to explode.
As we headed to the State Department, in the back of a chauffeured town car, CJ walked circles in my head. I tried but could not imagine how she would focus on the roomful of reporters there, just waiting to pounce on her every word. CJ sat hunched over in the car, her elbows on her knees, hands balled into fists as they covered her surely dry mouth. I wanted to touch her, to talk to her, but the rain was the only sound I could hear.
I curled into my corner of the car and watched CJ sway slowly back and forth as she worked to calm the tumultuous wave that had come over us all. It soothed me only slightly to know that the bow had broken, we had fallen, but CJ was still a cradle rocking.
***
The Press Corp had multiplied tenfold and before she took the podium, CJ turned to me and quickly squeezed my hand.
"I have to thank you for what you've done this week. I know how much he means to you," she said, looking at me through her glasses as she referred to the President, "but you're the only one who hasn't changed."
I nodded, unsure if I should correct her mistaken inference. I was anything but changed, anything but unshaken by the news that my President had crumbled. I felt like I was drowning in the pieces of a shattered lie. But CJ had not seen that in me; she thought I had remained un-torn in the wake of a shredding knife. But more incredible was CJ's admission that she had been changed; she had been affected by the President's mistake, and the real, true CJ had been standing before me, a minute too soon for me to prepare.
She was in front of that sea of sarcasm before I could consider what had passed. CJ fought her way through questions, hard and unanswerable questions, every few moments looking at me. I was watching for the President and his entourage, knowing that he would tell the truth tonight; he had to tell the truth now.
***
The shrill ring of the phone interrupted my reminiscing. I was reluctant to answer, not knowing if it would be someone looking for CJ. Still, it was probably CJ looking for ME, and so I answered tentatively.
"Hello?"
"Let me just tell you that I'm never ever letting you stay home again," CJ announced, brushing away my greeting with her trademark humor.
I laughed in spite of the morose mood the memories had brought into me. "You a little lost without me, there?" I teased, taking kindly to her sugary voice streaming into my ear.
"You bet I am. But I've had help. Donna has been running up and down the hall faster than I thought humanly possible. I was thinking about getting my video camera, but decided it would take too much time away from figuring out how to kill the Lexus people."
I laughed again, listening to the typicality of CJ's rising defenses. She couldn't talk about how stressful her day was, she couldn't really let me know how much she wanted me there, needed me there… "CJ, don't joke," I sighed, letting the bitter taste that hid behind the sweetness filter into my brain. "Be serious for a minute."
She said nothing for five seconds, five seconds that felt like hours. "Sorry…I, uh, just wanted to see if you were doing all right."
"I'm fine. I can come in if you need me to."
"No," she quickly responded, "you're resting today. And I'm bringing home Chinese for dinner. Is that okay?"
"CJ, can we talk later?" I asked, the pressure building. She had to know how I was feeling.
Silence filled the line, and then CJ was clearing her throat. If she were uncomfortable, she covered it up. She was probably uncomfortable, I deduced. "Yeah, sure, we can talk later…Listen, sweetie, I have to go. Call me if you need anything."
I hung up the phone, mentally kicking myself. I was with the finest woman that I'd ever laid eyes on, the most beautiful picture of perfection I could imagine, and here I was, trying to start a thing.
Not a fight, mind you, I was not trying to start a fight. The curiosity, the want, the underlying NEED to know exactly what CJ couldn't let come to a head was fueling my actions; I didn't want to make waves in our relationship—it was a good relationship. It was. It was, I kept telling myself, and then I would wonder if it could be better.
It was a paradox, I thought, that I could be with CJ and be slightly unsatisfied. I didn't want to admit that, because having her in my life as more than my boss was a feat I had never really considered. It was a fantasy, a guilty pleasure, a dream that could never be. Craving more from her than simply what she gave seemed like too large of a request. Yet a part of me knew that I deserved to have all of CJ, and not just small concessions of her.
Fractions added up to one whole piece, and briefly I wondered if I too were hidden like CJ. Did I become real for only fractions of time? I would make CJ tell me later, after I found out just how real she could be. *
AUTHOR: Kansas J. Miller
PAIRING: CJ/Carol
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: For all of my wonderings about CJ's emotions, I had completely overlooked the one time and place where all I'd seen were raw, unadulterated feelings
SPOILERS: "The Fall's Gonna Kill You"(minor), "Two Cathedrals"
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, how many times do I have to tell you? : )
***
I've seen CJ at her best and at her worst. I've seen CJ when she's putting the charm on and when she's ready to tear out the nearest person's hair. I was shocked out of my seat the first time I heard her yell—it was the sharp, do-as-I-say-or-else kind of yelling that makes a person sit up straight. And I was even more surprised the first time I saw her acting just plain sweet. She'd brought roses for Josh's birthday, presented them to him in front of the entire campaign staff, and gave a little speech that made eyes water.
And that's where I'm left wondering—tears. CJ doesn't cry. I have never seen her cry. Ever. I know she gets sad because everyone gets sad, and when you're sad, you cry. But maybe CJ doesn't cry.
Today is a day for musing, I decided, as I cautiously lounged around CJ's apartment. She insisted I stay here, let my eye rest, and even though the pain from the glass was only a recent memory, I indulged CJ's one request.
I would have gone home, but I was afraid that my mother would call. She'd catch me off guard, I wouldn't be able to mount a credible defense, and there I would be, alone with the realization that my mother had beat me at my own game. So I stayed here, shamelessly hiding from her, in CJ's roomy apartment.
I'd gotten past the guilty snooping that I was so prone to; in an hour I'd looked at CJ's healthy collection of bath gels and lotions, discovered her obvious penchant for MAC makeup, and decided that when I grew up, all of my office supplies would too be sorted. The words 'high maintenance' affectionately crossed my mind as I returned her engraved fountain pen back to its display.
I realized, as I settled down on the floor in her living room, that I had a lot of faith in CJ. That frightened me, because I knew that beyond my ulterior notions about her, I didn't really know the woman.
The night before she had told me that she loved me. It warmed my heart, but led my mind wandering towards the fork that divides the road of love and being IN love. Love was an extremely deep amount of caring. But being in love was something all together else. I was in love—I could hardly go a moment without thinking of CJ, and when I did, butterflies riveted around in me; I never wanted to be away from her, and when I had her close, couldn't imagine letting go. CJ was an all-consuming element in my life, and I could never go back from that.
This morning she was on the phone early, yelling at whatever poor soul happened to answer the phone at the Lexus Corporation. They were apparently disinterested in honoring the warranty on her car, and her harsh tone filtered down the hallway and roused me out of bed.
CJ looked absolutely abrasive as she sat perched on the edge of a stool in her kitchen, phone cradled between her head and shoulder, glasses on her nose. She was sharply groomed, ready to conquer the White House, yet unable to persuade the empty suit at Lexus that yes, indeed, she was a force to be reckoned with.
Her sharp sigh and subsequent hang up indicated to me that she was already considering her next move, and when she looked up, I was leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Her pajamas were too big on me, and as they hung around my body, I reveled in wearing her clothes. They smelled like CJ, they felt just like her, and wearing the soft satin reminded me that this was all a crazy dream come true.
CJ kissed me carefully, her lips soft and leaving behind a translucent red smudge. She poured me coffee and announced that she was going to have to pay for a new window herself. Perhaps kill some people while she was at it, CJ added, her humor covering up some of the annoyance I knew she was feeling. And me, she turned around and eyed me slowly, she was worried about me.
I found it oddly reassuring that CJ seemed bothered. She sometimes seemed to be a shell, a just a body, one that possesses the wit and humor, edge and strength enough to get a good job done. But those things are not emotions, and when she hides behind the wall that they create, whatever else lies there is only drifting away. Still, when she turned to me and announced her worry, I saw the reality of her words in her eyes. Yes, it was there, and if only I could see it all the time…The thought was incomplete then, because it led to another—what would she be like, all the time uninhibited and emotional?
***
With music videos dancing across the television in front of me, I paged through CJ's In Style, Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines. They were virtually untouched, unwrinkled, and as I looked at each page carefully, I wondered if CJ only subscribed to them so she could realize her own glamour. Maybe she didn't even have a reason for getting them, except that she always had.
As I closed the final glossy page, my mind wandered back to what it had tried long to forget. For all of my wonderings about CJ's emotions, I had completely overlooked the one time and place where all I'd seen were raw, unadulterated feelings oozing from her very presence.
It was a year now, an entire twelve months, 365 days—any measure of time that one could use to mark a year—had passed. I only recently stopped letting the events of last spring consume my mind. That break-through was oddly reminiscent of the fact that there had been a time when twenty-four of my hours were taken up with scandal.
And CJ. CJ had been wrought and wrecked by someone else's life, and it had been then when I realized that there was someone else behind her glitter and glaze. Not to say that I was un-tortured by the President's revelation that he had MS; I was jolted, rocked and shocked by the news. I took it especially hard among those not close to the President, for he had been my Governor for four years longer than most of these people had heard of Jed Bartlet. I had started a new life at sight of this beautiful, passionate, idealistic reformer whose words became my beliefs. Finding out he had lied was a day in darkness, but it was darker still for CJ.
They hadn't told her last, but the President had not the courage to tell CJ himself. Leo instead called me personally, and asked to send CJ down to his office. It had been so late, and the days' brooding silence from Toby and Josh had given away everything: something was coming, and even I could see it. CJ grew nervous when I passed along the message, and I tried to reason aloud that it was nothing. She had only stood squarely in front of me, her expression resigned to the fact that nothing was always something.
And so she went, down the hall towards Leo's office, with a tired "Carol, you can go home now," thrown over her shoulder. The night had been eerie, long and slow, and instead of waiting for CJ's fury or broken spirit, I tried to convince myself that she'd be better off alone.
The next night, the First Lady coolly acknowledged me before knocking on the wooden doorframe; I still had no inkling to what was going on, but through the blinds I saw CJ dabbing at her eyes. There were no real tears, and so I can't say that she was crying. Still, the sight of two strong women clearly so distraught, so emotionally open, brought my heart to a twist. I clearly remember the violent urge I had to run through the door and demand to know what storm could be so intense…what could make CJ's façade break…
The press conference was the climax of everything that had happened that week. Only a half-hour before, I had stood shoulder to shoulder with CJ, watching in wide-eyed unabashed horror as the President sat with his wife and admitted his one weakness. As soon as he was off the air, CJ went in and spoke to him, fighting to get through her most important message. She came out of the room deflated and defeated; I could almost feel her ready to burst, ready to explode.
As we headed to the State Department, in the back of a chauffeured town car, CJ walked circles in my head. I tried but could not imagine how she would focus on the roomful of reporters there, just waiting to pounce on her every word. CJ sat hunched over in the car, her elbows on her knees, hands balled into fists as they covered her surely dry mouth. I wanted to touch her, to talk to her, but the rain was the only sound I could hear.
I curled into my corner of the car and watched CJ sway slowly back and forth as she worked to calm the tumultuous wave that had come over us all. It soothed me only slightly to know that the bow had broken, we had fallen, but CJ was still a cradle rocking.
***
The Press Corp had multiplied tenfold and before she took the podium, CJ turned to me and quickly squeezed my hand.
"I have to thank you for what you've done this week. I know how much he means to you," she said, looking at me through her glasses as she referred to the President, "but you're the only one who hasn't changed."
I nodded, unsure if I should correct her mistaken inference. I was anything but changed, anything but unshaken by the news that my President had crumbled. I felt like I was drowning in the pieces of a shattered lie. But CJ had not seen that in me; she thought I had remained un-torn in the wake of a shredding knife. But more incredible was CJ's admission that she had been changed; she had been affected by the President's mistake, and the real, true CJ had been standing before me, a minute too soon for me to prepare.
She was in front of that sea of sarcasm before I could consider what had passed. CJ fought her way through questions, hard and unanswerable questions, every few moments looking at me. I was watching for the President and his entourage, knowing that he would tell the truth tonight; he had to tell the truth now.
***
The shrill ring of the phone interrupted my reminiscing. I was reluctant to answer, not knowing if it would be someone looking for CJ. Still, it was probably CJ looking for ME, and so I answered tentatively.
"Hello?"
"Let me just tell you that I'm never ever letting you stay home again," CJ announced, brushing away my greeting with her trademark humor.
I laughed in spite of the morose mood the memories had brought into me. "You a little lost without me, there?" I teased, taking kindly to her sugary voice streaming into my ear.
"You bet I am. But I've had help. Donna has been running up and down the hall faster than I thought humanly possible. I was thinking about getting my video camera, but decided it would take too much time away from figuring out how to kill the Lexus people."
I laughed again, listening to the typicality of CJ's rising defenses. She couldn't talk about how stressful her day was, she couldn't really let me know how much she wanted me there, needed me there… "CJ, don't joke," I sighed, letting the bitter taste that hid behind the sweetness filter into my brain. "Be serious for a minute."
She said nothing for five seconds, five seconds that felt like hours. "Sorry…I, uh, just wanted to see if you were doing all right."
"I'm fine. I can come in if you need me to."
"No," she quickly responded, "you're resting today. And I'm bringing home Chinese for dinner. Is that okay?"
"CJ, can we talk later?" I asked, the pressure building. She had to know how I was feeling.
Silence filled the line, and then CJ was clearing her throat. If she were uncomfortable, she covered it up. She was probably uncomfortable, I deduced. "Yeah, sure, we can talk later…Listen, sweetie, I have to go. Call me if you need anything."
I hung up the phone, mentally kicking myself. I was with the finest woman that I'd ever laid eyes on, the most beautiful picture of perfection I could imagine, and here I was, trying to start a thing.
Not a fight, mind you, I was not trying to start a fight. The curiosity, the want, the underlying NEED to know exactly what CJ couldn't let come to a head was fueling my actions; I didn't want to make waves in our relationship—it was a good relationship. It was. It was, I kept telling myself, and then I would wonder if it could be better.
It was a paradox, I thought, that I could be with CJ and be slightly unsatisfied. I didn't want to admit that, because having her in my life as more than my boss was a feat I had never really considered. It was a fantasy, a guilty pleasure, a dream that could never be. Craving more from her than simply what she gave seemed like too large of a request. Yet a part of me knew that I deserved to have all of CJ, and not just small concessions of her.
Fractions added up to one whole piece, and briefly I wondered if I too were hidden like CJ. Did I become real for only fractions of time? I would make CJ tell me later, after I found out just how real she could be. *