Title: Absent

POV: CJ

Setting: Late second season after the president insults Richie with the "hot" red light on, and it gets publisized like mad.

I've come to the conclusion that my job is not so much about doing things as it is about-- not. Across the bullpen there is Josh's office. Beside mine is Toby's, and beside his is Sam's, and they are powerful men because they can get up in the morning tightening their ties and telling themselves that they do something real, that they fight for the truth and the deep-set goodness of man kind and forwarding a golden ideal. I get up in the morning telling myself that my gray skirt doesn't fit as nicely as it used to and that I have to think of a new, innovative way not to do something.

You know what I mean, of course; it's an answer, but it's not really an answer; it's an apology, but it's not really an apology. Sure, I'm saying something, but I'm not really saying anything at all, just pretending to say something, just hoping that everyone doesn't wake up one morning, telling themselves that CJ Cregg is a no-show. She's always absent, but she's so damn smart nobody ever notices. I want someone to tell me what kind of use of a 156 IQ and a first rate Berkley degree that is. I get up in the morning just hoping that everyone thinks I'm pretty and cool and quick enough that they don't think about the fact that I don't do a single damned thing.

Everyone does their fair share of complaining, and everyone takes too much time to themselves, and everyone plays pretend every once and while. I know that Josh goes home to his beautiful, catalog, empty apartment and sits in his perfect, modernistic chairs and feels sick because he knows its Sam and not him. He knows that for all the talk and whit and ego and laugh, he's the man behind the scenes and men who are not quite as smart as he is are spending time being huge. But he still comes to work everyday and pretends it's not true.

I know that Leo goes home and fights the inevitable, the bottle he will always keep and never drink. I know that while he may never drink a drop again, his life will be no better because of it. He won't be anymore worthy as a man, he won't be any closer to something holy-- he won't be any closer to Jed. He knows that he'll always be better than his best friend but that very few people in the world will ever know it, and he knows that he's so terrible for wanting them to know because that's not something a good man does and he is a good man, or no one is. But he comes to work and pretends it isn't so.

I know that every time I fuck with Sam he pretends he's fucking Laurie. Or Mallory. Once it was Ainsley's name he murmured in his sleep.

And I know that I'm supposed to be that girl. That girl that's so good she fixes other people. That's why Toby wanted me, still wants me. That's why Sam wanted me, and Josh, and Ben, and Danny. Not Simon, but Simon was so perfect he had no chance anyway. A long list of fucked up people with a fucked up way of helping themselves. I don't think I mind it nearly as much as I should.

So today I pretend to apologize for something that the president pretended was an accident, and I even get a congratulations for coming up with something clever that avoided being anything at all.

Survival is key, I guess. Survival is key.