Once and Future Husband

Toby, CJ, Andy, Danny, others

G

Spoilers: through end of series

Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul

John Blackwood Ryan, PhD, DD and Lisa belong to Andrew Greeley

Feedback and criticism always welcomed

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Memorial Day Weekend 2007

Saturday afternoon

Toby Ziegler stood apart from the others who were watching the volleyball game on the beach. He knew that President Bartlet and most of the former White House staff guests were to some degree uncomfortable with him being here. However, CJ wanted him to be here and so he was. Danny had told him, with some admiration in his voice, that CJ had told Abbey Bartlet that if Toby wanted to come to her wedding, he would be included; if that meant that the former President could not be there, she would understand and she would miss him, but – too bad.

His ears perked up at a familiar, triumphant laugh. Andy had just scored a particularly tricky point for her side.

"Your wife seems to have a special talent for the game." He looked up to see Tim, Danny's former roommate turned Jesuit priest and Physics professor standing beside him.

"On hopeful days, I call her my once and future wife. On normal days, I call her the mother of my children."

"And on bad days?"

"Congresswoman Wyatt."

"And today is?"

"I'm not really sure. This whole weekend has been up and down with the both of us – just like our life for the past eight years; I'm not sure why."

"Probably because you are not sure how to deal with your feelings for my former roommate's bride; Andy senses it and is afraid of getting hurt in the process."

Toby was a bit surpised at the personal comment. "Father, excuse me, but --?"

"Just Tim, please," the priest waved. "You and CJ have been friends for a very long time and it's obvious that the friendship has a very strong male-female component. It could be causing some fear on Andy's part."

"Yeah, well, the thing is there never was anything physical about it, even though lots of people thought so. Maybe the timing was never right. Uh, this is confidential, okay?" He waited for the nod.

"Of course it is, Toby. Right now, you're an honorary Catholic and this is an open-air confessional."

"The thing is, although we never did have sex, over the years, I've known that I was the only one who really understood her, the only one who could set boundaries for her, keep her in line. I'm not talking macho, discipline stuff, you understand, but she does sometimes let her passions get the better of her and someone has to keep her from hurting herself. Also, I mean being the guy she would come to for whatever it is that a Y-chromosome imparts to our thought processes. No matter who she was with physically, sexually, I knew I was the real number one male in her life. And she played the complementary part in my life until I met Andy. Then I guess it was an ego boost that I could have a beautiful, intelligent woman like Andy in my bed and in my heart and also have an equally beautiful and intelligent woman as a kind of platonic concubine. You know, I'm not sure that Talmudic law ever definitely changed to proscribe polygamy. Anyway, then your man came along and I could see that he was different. Of course, her sense of integrity and Leo McGarry's sense of rectitude kept anything from happening, but I could see it over the years. There was that secret service agent – I have to admit that for just one small fraction of a second I felt a sense of relief when he was shot; if I were one of yours, I guess I would have been confessing it – but other than that, I never felt that anyone could sever what she and I had, fulfill the role I just described, except Danny. And when the moral impediments they imposed upon themselves were due to expire, they grabbed at their chance for happiness. I wonder; I might even have tried to quash that and am egotistical enough to think I would have succeeded, except that when she came to me for advice, I thought I was headed off to Club Fed and I knew she needed someone in her life and I wouldn't be able to be there. Now I see how right he is for her, I want her to be happy, I want to make a life with Andy and the kids, but I'm not sure I know how to forget. So there you are."

"Well, Toby, I'm not sure if it's so much a question of forgetting as it's one of letting go and/or moving on. I'm not the expert on that. The man you want to talk with is over there."

Toby looked in the direction of his glance and saw the little bishop from Chicago.

"Him? He had an unrequited love? Is that why he became a priest?"

"No, it's more like he was the object of an unrequited love. You know Lisa -- , " Tim named a famous actress, songwriter, and singer. "They were childhood sweethearts. All through parochial grade school. Different high schools, of course, back then we segregated automatically by sex instead of giving parents and kids choices, but he took her to her senior prom."

"But she's supposedly very happily married, been so for twenty plus years."

"Indeed she is, but she didn't marry her husband until after Blackie was ordained. He performed the wedding. Go talk to him if you want; he's a great guy. Like I said, I'm not the expert, but if you ever want to talk, come see me at G-town".

"Actually, I think I'll be up in New York soon. Columbia is interested."

"Well, I know a couple of good guys at Fordham and I know some guys at Yeshiva too. Right now, Toby, I'll leave you with 'Shalom' once and future husband."