XII
CJ surreptitiously adjusted the straps of her dress as she watched the party guests mill about. Stunning she might look, but considering there was nobody special on hand to look it for, dressing up was definite pain in the ass. The boys had to have a much easier time of it in their tuxes. And mighty fine they looked in them too - even Josh, who managed to look like he'd been wearing his for a week even though Donna hadn't let him touch it until five minutes before the party began.
The simple pale blue dress Donna herself wore couldn't be half as expensive as CJ's ensemble, but she managed to make it gorgeous anyway. It looked comfortable too, dammit.
CJ fidgeted, waiting for the speech to begin. The president was ready to make it, or would be, just as soon as he could be persuaded to let go of his wife. CJ was pleased on more than her professional account to see the First Couple looking very cosy this evening. Things had been strained for far too long ever since the president had decided to run for reelection, but now that he'd actually achieved it, the bridges had started to mend.
Charlie and Zoey were being incredibly cute, too. CJ smirked at the way they quietly held hands under the table, Charlie shooting occasional slightly nervous glances the president's way. They made an adorable couple, and the complications of working around Zoey's college commitments and Charlie's nightmare schedule didn't seem to have dented the relationship any.
She couldn't see Leo, but that was hardly a surprise - the Chief of Staff would take any excuse to work rather than party. Another absence, however, was more puzzling.
She nudged Josh. "Have you seen Toby?"
He shrugged expansively, still bouncy from his victory with the votes. CJ made a mental note to have Donna make sure he didn't touch any alcohol this evening. "Maybe he's talking to people about the Peterson thing."
"Yeah, but I wouldn't have thought he'd want to miss this. Not after all the effort he's put into rewriting it." God only knew why. "Unless there's a thing." She turned to Sam. "Is there a thing?"
Sam's shrug was much more subdued, and considerably less cheerful. "Not so far as I know. Not that he tells me anything."
Clearly, Sam's depression had not improved a great deal. But, dammit, this was her evening off. Personal problems could wait. She went back to contemplating Toby.
"Maybe he's been abducted by aliens," she mused.
Sam snorted, a little more bitterly than he might have done at one time. "Boy, that's gonna mess up their impressions of humanity."
"I just wondered why he was making such a big deal out of this speech. I mean who's in the audience, the Queen of England?" CJ couldn't even begin to guess who Toby was trying to impress; not least because Toby wasn't the kind to care about impressing anybody.
She caught the president out of the corner of her eye as he made to stand up, and nodded at him. "He's not gonna like, break into song or something, is he?"
"Maybe he'll do a couple verses of 'Happy Days Are Here Again'," suggested Josh. He opened his mouth, and CJ pointed at him warningly.
"Start singing, Joshua, and you'll discover some creative new uses for that bowtie of yours."
He closed his mouth.
"I'm just a little jittery, I guess," she admitted. "I mean, the vote turned out okay and the hostages got out alive... something's gotta go wrong."
They all watched the president as he slipped on his glasses and quickly skimmed over his cue cards.
"Well, he hasn't fallen over yet," Josh observed.
"Yeah. I guess we're doing well."
Toby stood with his back against the wall, watching cigar smoke curl up into the night. He registered the sound of the door beside him, but didn't turn.
"Toby Ziegler." The voice, slightly cracked with age but still strong, was familiar even though he hadn't heard it for years. It had rung perfectly clearly in his mind the instant he'd seen the name on the guest list.
"Dr. Wilson," he nodded.
The frail, white-haired man who came to lean on the rail beside him wasn't quite the striding giant he remembered from his university days, but the intensity in his eyes was the same.
"I heard your speech," he observed.
"It was the president's speech," Toby corrected.
"You wrote it; most of it. I recognised you, you always did have a distinctive voice."
"So you always told me. As I recall, you also told me I'd never amount to anything if I didn't learn to use imagery to reinforce, not confuse." Toby took another puff of his cigar.
"Yes, you seem to have cured yourself of that. Mostly." The acerbic addition was as perfectly timed as it had been in all those lectures decades ago. Dr. Wilson had always been a master of scathing, no-holds-barred criticism, unprepared to cut either the worst or the best of his students any slack. Toby had always greatly admired that quality.
"Yes, it was a very fine speech, full of stirring words and grand sweeping ideas. You've found yourself a good orator in that president of yours, he knows how to use his material. It's a pity you didn't give him anything more meaningful to say."
Toby turned to meet his old mentor's steely gaze. Dr. Wilson shook his head sadly. "You used to be a revolutionary, Toby. What happened?"
"We're doing good things here," Toby told him quietly.
"You're running on the spot without moving."
He shrugged and half-smiled. "That's... the nature of government."
Wilson was unimpressed. "Well, change it."
"It's not that simple."
"You've got the ear of the president - make it that simple."
Toby smiled to himself, and looked at the ground. "I may have his ear, but the president has a mind of his own."
"Then make him use it." Wilson glared at him. "Your government is doing nothing, Toby, just sitting and spinning its wheels. I can't believe you fought your way through two incredibly tight elections just to preserve the status quo."
Toby had always greatly admired the man who'd played a part in shaping both his writing and his ideals - but, as with all the figures he respected, that wouldn't for a minute stop him from leaping into a full-throated argument. No, the reason that stopped him refuting his old mentor's words was much simpler.
He knew they had the ring of truth to them.
Charlie had to admit, this wasn't the worst evening he'd ever had. A fairly relaxed day, a cheerful president, a fancy dinner, and now he was dancing with Zoey Bartlet.
Admittedly, he was doing it under the threat of occasional glares from her father, and he'd probably be in trouble if tempted to close up the formal gap between their bodies if they danced, but still... dancing. And Zoey. They spoke all the time on the phone and they got together when they could, but what with his schedule and her security detail, they almost never got to spend a proper evening out like any normal couple.
Yes, this would have been a perfect evening... if not for the aforementioned glaring president.
"Your parents are watching us," he warned Zoey as they danced. She giggled.
"That's okay. My mom thinks we're cute."
"Yeah, and your father's thinking up good excuses to send me back to work."
"That's all right, I'll go with you," Zoey told him. She smirked. "All those empty offices..."
"Yeah, that's exactly why he hasn't done it yet," Charlie agreed.
Despite her watching parents, not to mention the watching press, Zoey tugged him a bit closer as they danced. It felt very comfortable and easy to let her head rest against his shoulder.
After a moment, he asked "Is your mother still bugging you about what you're gonna do after college?"
"Oh, is she ever," Zoey groaned. "I keep telling her, it's not like- I mean, I'm not like my sisters. Liz already had Annie by the time she was my age, and Ellie went to Medical School, so she already knew what she was gonna do... And it's not like I can just go out and get a job, you know? Because of dad and the Secret Service and everything..."
Charlie nodded sympathetically. "So, did you decide-?"
"No," she said fiercely. "No, no decisions. I don't want to talk about this now. Can we just dance, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed, and risked a quick kiss to the top of her head. The president couldn't be watching them all the time, after all.
They just danced.
"Look at them. Aren't they cute?" Abbey smiled against her husband's shoulder.
Jed preferred to scowl. "Cute? Look at the way they're dancing! Why, when we were their age-"
"When we were their age, we were married and had Liz," she reminded him.
"Okay, bad example," he conceded. "But we always were advanced."
"Very advanced," she agreed, and gave him a quick kiss. Fairly chaste; she wasn't positive, but she thought there was possibly a rule against First Ladies jumping their husbands in front of witnesses. Unfortunately.
Not that her husband was necessarily in any condition to be jumped. Abbey was concerned to see how tired he seemed - he obviously hadn't paid a blind bit of notice when she ordered him to get some rest. He'd never have won any awards, but he'd always been a light-footed, fairly graceful dancer; surprising in a man so klutzy in other ways. Today, though, he was noticeably slow to react.
"Jed, you're dragging your feet," she observed worriedly.
He smiled faintly. "I'm doing the soft shoe shuffle."
Damn the man. Abbey had to smile back. "I'm fairly sure you're not."
"I could be," he shrugged.
"This is a waltz, Jed."
"I've always been adaptable."
"Are you tired, honey?" she prodded gently.
"I haven't been sleeping well," he admitted. "I miss you," he sighed.
It was hard to be mad at him for working too hard when he was being so adorable. "Well, I'm back now."
"I wish you didn't have to go away."
"Should've thought of that before you decided to run for president," Abbey reminded him lightly.
"Should've thought of a lot of things."
The softly sad statement unnerved her a little, but then his sober mood lifted and he smiled warmly at her. Her spine tingled, the same way it always had. Right the way back to the first time they'd ever danced, when they'd been younger even than Charlie and Zoey.
She was dancing with her husband, the man she still loved as fiercely as she had all those years ago. What else mattered?