Title: Lives Entwined
Author: Jeanine
Rating: PG
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: CJ/Toby
Word Count: 998
Disclaimer: Not mine
Spoilers: Specifics for Two Gunmen, general for just about everything else.
Notes: Written for the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Old Friends" Challenge.
***
"You're old friends." Leo's tone is dismissive, and he doesn't look up from the papers on his desk. "You recommended her. You go get her."
Toby goes to his desk and books a flight to Los Angeles.
***
"We're old friends." The words ring strangely hollow in his ears, and he's wondering if he's filtering them through Andrea's senses, something confirmed when she speaks.
"Friends," she echoes, in a faintly disbelieving tone, and he stifles his sigh of impatience, knowing that that would make a bad situation worse.
"Yes Andrea," he says, having little luck in keeping the impatience out of his voice. "We need a good Press Secretary, and CJ's the best person for the job…"
"Because you say so."
"Because the Governor and Leo and Josh and I all agree that CJ is our first choice."
Andrea chuckles, with not a hint of mirth. "Wasn't she always?"
Then there is a click, and Toby knows better than to call her back.
***
In California, everything is warmer, not just the weather. He knows CJ is on her way home from her office, so he waits by the pool for her, calling out her name when she enters, keeping his face carefully neutral when she's not sure who it is; no glasses, nor any contact lenses, and she's blind as a bat. That's always been fun, and to his great, if understated, delight, he gets another CJ story to add to his already lengthy list when she slips and falls into the pool.
"CJ, you fell into the pool there," he says, as if she didn't know that, but he knows the reaction it will get from this, one of his oldest friends, and he's not disappointed when she surfaces, spluttering in disgust.
"I can't see," she explains, as if he didn't know that, and he moves towards her, again, suppressing his smile with difficulty.
"Yeah, well, maybe, kind of, uh, try to feel your way to dry land?" he suggests, and her reaction is no surprise to him.
"Shut up!" Hands on hips, he looks down at her, her next words catching him unawares. "Avert your eyes!"
"What?"
"I'm climbing out of the pool, my clothes will be clingy, avert your eyes!"
He considers pointing out that they are old friends and he's seen her wet before, in clingy clothes before, in far less than that; memory recalling instantly a time when they were the only two people on the shores of an Italian lake, when it felt as if they were the only two people in the universe. She went swimming, allowed the sun to dry her already bronzed skin, and he lay beside her, marveling at her, perfect as any Bottecelli painting, tracing with his lips the shadows the sun made her on skin.
He remembers, but he is an old friend, moreover an old friend who is now married, and he knows that if he is to travel down that particular Memory Lane, he is better to do it alone, so after another cursory protest, just for laughs, and a barked order from her, he turns around, listens to her climbing out, wet material slapping against her skin.
In a tone of disgust, she finally orders him to turn around, and he learns why she was fired from her job, and as an old friend, he does what he came here to do, offers her a new one. He makes it sound better than it is, as if Bartlet is impressed with her, but she sees right through him, as only old friends can.
So he tells her the truth, tells her that Leo wants her, and when she asks about salary, he tells her the truth about that too.
Then she asks the question that he was expecting earlier; if Jed Bartlet is a good man. But he's not comfortable with expressing admiration, not even to an old friend like her, so he looks down, mumbles, "Yeah."
Old friend that she is though, CJ won't take that, not on something as important as this. "Toby."
He looks up, meets her gaze, holds it as he replies, "Yes."
With the knowledge born of years of friendship, she nods, and going into the house, they drink to the future.
***
In the years that follow, there are many such conversations between the two old friends. They share a drink in his office when he tells her that he and Andrea are getting divorced, share another at Debate Camp when he announces that Andrea is pregnant. He is there for her when she acquires a stalker and a Secret Service bodyguard; he is there for her on the way home from New York when Simon is killed and the Yankees snap a twelve game winning streak. He talks to her when her father is hospitalized, she is there for him when Josh invites his father to the White House one Christmas. They do not always agree, far from it, but when she rails at him over the women of Qumar, he stands at the back of the press room, crosses his hands over his heart, gives her the strength to complete her briefing.
She is his oldest friend, his best friend, and he can't imagine his life without her in it.
***
All these thoughts are on his mind on January 19th 2007, when his office is all boxed up, the only things on the table a bottle of Scotch and two glasses which he fills when she enters, leans against his desk. "You got me into this," she reminds him, holding up the glass in front of her, turning it so that it catches the light of the deserted bullpen beyond, and he tilts his head as he smiles over at her.
"Any regrets?" he asks, and she answers, not in words, but with a matching smile, bringing her glass to his, the clink of crystal echoing off the walls as they drink, once more, to the future.