For McSister, via Emily Meredith's "Bubbleficathon."
STILL LIFE WITH BATHTOY
June 2004
Toby called out his ex-wife's name without thinking.
"Not even close." C.J.'s voice, without surprise or embarrassment, rang
out from
his bathroom.
He'd noticed the flickering candlelight in the window as he'd driven
home from
the synagogue, and for a whole minute he forgot that Andi was still in
Germany
while the twins were still with her parents. Stupid mistake, an
exhausted man's
mistake.
"You decent?" he shouted as he stuffed his keys into the pocket of his
suit coat
and slung it haphazardly on the back of a chair.
"Come in and find out."
It was an invitation to something, but Toby was not willing to wager
what it
might be. Sidling to the door of the master bath, he poked his head
inside just
in time to hear the sloshing of water over flesh. "Whoa," he muttered,
backing
away.
"Oh, come on in," C.J. said. "It's not like I have something you
haven't seen
before."
She had a point, albeit a shaky one. "Yeah, but it's not anything I've
seen
since the last millennium."
Droplets of water landed on the back of his head. "I'm covered head to
toe with
bubbles. Well, collarbones to toes. So pick your mind up out of the
gutter and
get in here."
"You're pretty bossy," he said as he leaned against the sink.
"Especially for
someone who commandeered someone else's home without his permission."
"It's hard to 'commandeer' something when the homeowner has given you a key."
Toby cut a glance at C.J. and hoped he was focusing on her head rather
than the
bubbles clinging alluringly to her curves. "You scared the crap out of
me, just
now. I ought to have you arrested."
"For what?" she asked, turning on the faucet again.
"Bathing and entering." He knew he was smirking at his own joke, almost
ruining
it. C.J. favored him with a throaty laugh.
"I had to enter before I bathed. But you're a funny guy, Toby, you
should do
stand-up. Especially since you're just standing here."
"I'm leaning," he said, hoping to sound dignified.
C.J. snorted. "Just sit, would you?" When Toby headed for the toilet,
C.J.
patted the rim of the tub, leaving a little halo of soap bubbles in her
wake.
"Right here."
"You're not going to, you know, with the water?" Toby asked, indicating
the
dampness at the back of his collar.
She shook her head. Her hair, which was in a messy bun on top of her
head, was
curling a little bit at the ends. A peachy glow, rather becoming,
spread across
her cheeks and shoulders. "I'll be good, if you tell me why you didn't
come home
after work for over two hours."
"I went out," Toby replied gruffly. For whatever reasons he didn't want
to
consider, ever, he had never been comfortable coming out and saying
that he'd
gone to worship. He looked down at his clasped hands, at the place on
his finger
that was still a little lighter than the rest of his skin. "I went to
temple,"
he said, and this time his voice was soft.
For a moment it was so quiet that Toby could hear the soft popping of
little
bubbles. "To do the thing," C.J. whispered.
Mi shebeirach. The thing. "I...yeah." Toby scratched above his left
eyebrow.
Saying Donna's name aloud had been excruciating. "Josh said he was going
tomorrow morning. One of the nurses is giving him a ride."
"I'm surprised he could tear himself away from the hospital."
"I am too, a little. But who am I to question one of Josh's rare
moments of
faith?"
"Or desperation."
"Or that." He dabbled his fingers in the water, frowning when he nudged
something neither water nor flesh. "What the hell?"
C.J. smiled, moving one knee and letting a yellow rubber duck float to
the
surface. "Who knew you kept bathtoys?" she smirked.
"Give me...that's Molly's duck. Andi was going nuts wondering what had
happened to
it."
"I found it among all the shampoo stuff." C.J. pointed to a rack
hanging from
the shower nozzle. "For someone without a lot of hair, Tobus..."
"Shut up." He squeezed the duck in the middle, and it let out a
metallic
squawk.
"She gets this in her hands and she won't stop. Ten, fifteen minutes at
a time.
Quack, quack, quack."
She looked up at him, her pale eyes shining brightly. "Two years ago
you'd have
taken that duck and hurled it into the nearest trash compactor just to
hear its
death wheeze." Her fingers grazed his wrist. "Fatherhood's really
softened you
up."
"Don't." He held his hand away from her in a warning gesture. Andi had
all but
called him a lousy father, and the words still stung. He was a sad man,
and now
he was a bad father. Maybe a bad friend, for all he knew, because Josh
sounded
worse at the end of their conversation than he had at the beginning. He
untied
his shoes and slipped them and his socks off while he waited for the
anxiety to
abate. "I see you have a drink, there," he said quickly.
"Gin and tonic. Only I didn't use enough gin, so it's more like juniper
soda."
She was talking too fast, the way she always did when she knew he was
misdirecting the conversation. "Hey, did you know that 724's going to
get hung
up in committee?"
Groaning, Toby ran his palm over his forehead. "Could we, for the love
of God,
not talk shop? At least not any shop where I work?"
"Sounds good to me." C.J. slipped deeper into the tub. "Although I do
have some
'light reading' to do tonight, unless you have some secret code that
will
eliminate nine-tenths of the excess verbiage. Ever thought about
writing Cliff's
Notes for Congress? Filibusters for Dummies?"
He snorted. "That's the best post-administration job idea I've heard so far."
C.J. finished her drink and held the glass out to Toby. "Yeah, I'm
sure," she
said in response to the face he knew he was making. "Don't skimp on the
gin."
Gin, tonic, ice cubes, a lime wedge. Easy enough. He tried not to think
of C.J.
lying naked three doors away. That road had closed for them over a
decade ago.
Or had it? Toby wasn't sure he'd ever really know the answer to that.
By the
time he cleared away the drink components, C.J. was calling him back
into the
bathroom.
"By the way, where are your legs?" he asked without preamble, wondering
how the
hell she got all six feet of her into his bathtub.
"That's between me and David Copperfield," she replied. "Give me my drink."
Toby handed it over with a bow. "Will there be anything else, Madame?"
"Quit staring at the bubbles and wondering how long they'll last. I put
in more
while you were making the drink."
He hadn't been conscious of it, but now that she mentioned it he
couldn't think
of anything else. Damn. He sat on the edge of the tub and looked away.
The glass
clinked against the porcelain and C.J. let out a heavy sigh. "What?"
Toby asked.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see C.J.'s right leg, soap bubbles
slinking along the slim length of her calf.
"I was just thinking. About the scars."
"What scars? Oh." Of course. Donna's scars.
"Toby - are they bad?"
He thought about the scars that now traversed her fair skin - Josh had
described
in morbid detail every inch that he'd seen, and he'd seen pretty much
all there
was. "Well, I heard about it all from Josh this afternoon. And of
course he was
incredibly upset. Just like I'd have been if it'd been Andi." He
reached behind
and let C.J. take his hand in her soap-slickened one. "Or you. There,
but for
the grace of God."
Truth be told, he'd awakened just that morning from a nightmare where
Andi had
been blown up. When he'd finally managed to get back to a fitful sleep,
he was
visited with another hellish dream where C.J. had been seriously
injured. All
day he had wondered which version of events terrified him more.
Then he thought about Percy Fitzwallace and he couldn't suppress the
tremor in
his hands. C.J. squeezed tighter, and for a second he heard her breath
catch in
a tiny sob.
"Don't you dare," he warned her, his own voice unsteady.
"I sent her," C.J. whispered.
"No, you did not." The tone was so stern that it surprised even him.
"You did
not send her with the CODEL group."
Her voice rose in pitch and the words jumbled together. "I might as
well have. I
gave her a lecture about being too dependent on Josh, about not
exploring her
opportunities. I all but packed her bags, Toby, and look what happened!
If she'd
been killed--"
"She wasn't," Toby said softly. The need to take her in his arms was
palpable.
He held it at bay, savoring the pain that kept his mind focused on her
instead
of his own gnawing demons. "She's going to come home and she's going to
be fine.
You're going to be a big part of her recovery."
C.J. blinked at him. "I am?" she asked tremulously.
"Absolutely." He moved his palm to her cheek, cupping it gently. "For
starters,
she's going to need help taking baths - and, apart from the
disaster-waiting-to-happen elements, letting Josh do it would probably
land him
in the hospital with a matching cast."
That made her laugh. She picked up the duck and squeezed it. "Can I
borrow the
duck?"
"You bet." Toby got off the bathtub's rim and walked over to the door,
unhooking
a blue and white striped bathrobe. "Speaking of help taking baths, you
need to
get out before you become the world's tallest prune."
"I need a towel," C.J. said, grabbing one from the bar just above her
head. She
got up with surprising grace, her back turned so that all Toby could
see was the
graceful line from shoulder to hip. Keeping his gaze off to the other
side, Toby
handed her the bathrobe and waited until she patted him on the shoulder.
"Where are your clothes?" he asked. The flush that rose to her cheeks
told him
even before she had a chance to speak.
"On your bed," she whispered, her voice low.
Oh, God, this was such a bad idea. "C.J.," he began, shifting from his
right
foot to his left and back again.
"I know." Despite the control in her tone, her eyes betrayed her
embarrassment.
"I just thought...it'd be nice. To have someone right next to me."
"Yeah." He took her hand between both of his and brought it to his
lips, never
breaking their shared gaze. "Where's your car?"
"I took a cab - to the sushi place down the street. No one followed me."
So damn complicated. Everything about their lives was just so damn complicated.
"It's been, what, twelve years?"
"Except for the night I found out about the M.S. But we were both drunk
off our
asses so that probably doesn't count." She backed away. "If you think
this is a
bad idea, then I can just--"
"No," he said, surprised at how thick his voice sounded. "I just…if
this is just
something we do when we're scared half to death..."
C.J. shook her head, her hair tumbling from its bun and framing her
face. "It's
really not." She bent her knees a little so she could kiss him on the
cheek,
then she walked toward the bedroom.
He was probably going to regret this in the morning. Hopefully, he'd be
too busy
for the next hour to start pre-regret. But he followed behind anyway,
laughing
when she turned to him and said, "Bring the duck."
It was small and relentlessly cheerful, and if it made C.J. smile, then
it was
the most precious thing he could possibly give her.
END
Author's note: I really hadn't expected to write any more West Wing -
but it was
a bubbleficathon, for goodness' sake, and I owe Emily Meredith SO much
for a
wonderful weekend's hospitality. Toby, a bathtub, and a rubber duck were
literally the least I could do.
Many thanks to Ryo Sen and Jo March for overcoming their own WW fear
and doing
beta
service.
Feedback is welcome at
Return to challenge fic.