Author: Angie
Title: White Christmas
Characters: CJ/T
Rating: G
Summary: Now it's a White Christmas in Manchester.
Disclaimer: Not mine at all.
Spoilers: Post Ep. to 'Impact Winter'.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
A/N: Happy Christmas, Kate!
IDreamofAJ made this possible – be thankful she was able to force some sense into me. I am.
For that and so much more.
- - - - - -
White Christmas
- - - - - -
The world is white. She can barely tell when the roofs become the sky, save for the occasional whisper of off-white smoke. The garden below has swallowed its fences, while the firs to her left show not a hint of green. A Christmas card, she thinks, a children's paradise, and she grabs at the thought as it passes, desperate for something, anything, to relieve the concern and the ache in her heart.
"Where has Andi taken them?" CJ turns to the man sprawling in the chair by the fire, a book on his lap, notepad in one hand and a pencil laced through the fingers of the other. As the words leave her mouth, she can't believe that she hasn't thought to ask before, that these vibrant and living things should have taken such a back seat in the whirl of her current conscious life. She almost apologizes.
"To her mother's. She maintains, or her mother maintains," Toby rubs his head, "that as it's a Christian festival, they should spend it in a Christian household." He stops and marks his page. "I hesitate to call it a home, although it's undoubtedly Christian." He grimaces. "She never liked me."
"Andi?" CJ keeps the skepticism out of her voice. Just.
Toby looks.
"Does it bother you? The Christmas thing… not seeing them…" She trails off, noticing the hunch of his shoulders, but her need to dwell on anything but her all consuming worry and that niggling fear that she can't do it all, have it all, forces her to delve where she really has no right.
"Toby?" She's not going to let it go. Not when they have all day like this, holed up in the Manchester Inn, waiting for news that may or may not come. Not when the alternative is a call to a hospital room where the man she still calls 'Daddy' sits with no memory of his life or his daughter. She can't afford to let it go.
Toby leans back with a sigh and closes his book with more vehemence than CJ thinks is strictly necessary.
"This is…" He sighs again and pulls at the knee of his jeans. Resistance is futile, she knows he knows, and he's getting accustomed to giving in with a reluctant form of grace. "It doesn't bother me."
He looks her in the eye and CJ can see, with some surprise, that he's telling the truth.
The surprise must show on her face because Toby stands and walks to the window, to where she's perched on the sill, and he stares at the invisible horizon, eyes searching for the farm that they don't see.
"Family can't be forced; you can't craft good times by intention alone. I prefer my pain without the guilt-edged wrapping." His breath hits the glass and it mists instantly. "I call it a strategic retreat." He is close enough for her to see the bead of spit on his bottom lip and to smell the slightly sour tang of his morning coffee when he speaks.
She waits. It's the only way with Toby. Push too hard and he steps aside or veers off on a tangent of his own choosing. He can be profound, she thinks, if you give him time. Pressure provokes brilliance, but it's not the way to go if you want a part of him. Trust is all. They've undergone a shift in balance and it's been swift and it's been delicate, but it's never been dangerous. Trust is all. She trusts him - would trust him with her life. She has no idea if he feels the same.
In the corner of the room, a grandmother clock chimes the hour. CJ shifts her gaze and takes it in for the hundredth time since yesterday. She sees the artfully placed antiques that distract the eye from more modern and more functional pieces. She lets the air of old-world opulence that only money or power can buy, wind its way through the nineteen hour days and the trashy food and the not quite enough exercise, and she marvels how this has become her world; a world of florescent lights and filtered air, of leather seats and leg room and Tiananmen Square. And now it's a White Christmas in Manchester.
What in the world is she doing here with Toby? CJ brings the heel of her hand to her forehead and presses. Hard.
"CJ?"
Toby's voice soothes the sudden pain behind her eyes and she shakes her head and manages a smile, but she's missed her moment and now the focus is on her.
He tilts his head. " So, who are you hiding from this year?"
It suddenly strikes her that this isn't so – she's hiding from no one. There is no one to hide from. Her father doesn't know the day of the week let alone this day in the year. Her brothers stopped asking a few years ago, after one too many birthday parties and anniversaries she didn't quite make. They've gotten used to the hamper and the cards and the store-wrapped gifts, and to seeing her through several hundred lenses.
No one batted an eyelid when she booked a room at a Manchester Hotel. They all assumed that she would be working. Except the man leaning next to her, who has just taken her hand in his and is tracing the inside of her wrist with his finger. Toby had asked her what her plans were for Christmas, and when she'd said that she had no plans, when she confessed that she wanted to be on hand just in case, he'd simply nodded and said that he was coming too.
So, here they are, the pair of them, bound by more than a tentative touch and a common goal, holed up in a hotel two miles from a farm, where a man they love with an unspoken passion, may or may not be able to move his hand. There is a log fire, an enormous selection of books she should have already read (and Toby probably has), and a very, very good bottle of Bordeaux with her name on it, has been decanted at their dining room table.
CJ rubs at the misted window with a finger and sees that, inevitably, it is snowing again. "It should be perfect, you know. When I was a kid…" She takes a breath but the words won't come and, if she's honest, she's not entirely sure what it is she wants to say.
Toby's voice breaks into her reverie. "I hate to be the one to put a damper on your downer…" He lifts an eyebrow and ignores her snort, his finger hovering and then coming to rest in the palm of her hand. "But who's to say that today isn't as good as it gets? For people like us."
She sees the corners of his mouth lift and the ache in her chest eases, just a little. She leans impulsively to kiss his cheek. "Merry Christmas, Toby."
His smile is small, but his eyes shine. "To you, too. Whatever it means."
End.