Rating: PG, Crossover (ER)
Pairing: Toby/Ginger
Spoilers: Up to Dead Irish Writers, major for the ER episode, The Letter
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: Anyone you recognise is not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Ginger gets a phone call from her brother.
Author's Note: So, I'm sick with tonsillitis, drugged up to the eyeballs and not having slept well for the past three nights. I'm sitting on the couch on a Monday afternoon, when I should be in school, and I'm watching a videotape of Sunday night's ER, which was the one episode all year that I'd made sure I didn't miss, The Letter. In the middle of this episode, I'm reminded, for no particular reason, how much I adore the character of Robert "Rocket" Romano, and how I routinely praise the writers for not "redeeming" my favourite hard-ass, and keeping him as nasty as he ever was, while simultaneously showing us his soft side every now and again. Then, I remembered Paul McCrane from his Fame days, and that crop of curly red-hair that adorned his head back in the day, and recalled a discussion once held on a WW list about assistants' surnames, and how someone had always thought that Ginger might have Italian roots… and all of a sudden, a plot bunny came bounding up that would not be denied. What can I say….it's the drugs I tell you!

I don't even look up the first time that Bonnie calls my name. She calls me any number of times during the day; sometimes there's a pressing reason, sometimes there's not. And even if she does have a pressing reason right now, say, that there's an impending war, some form of international crisis, Toby on the warpath, or even that it's lunchtime, I don't want to hear it. This damn photocopier has just eaten part of the memo that I've been typing up all morning, and if Larry - or is it Ed, I'm not sure - doesn't get it fixed for me, I'm going to kill him.

"You know, you could just print it out again," he tells me as the red light shows no sign of disappearing.

"I know I could," I tell him from between gritted teeth. "But it's the principle at stake here. I always copy these memos, and I'm not giving in to this damn machine."

"Fine," he mutters, before adding something that I can't hear, but is probably something not too nice about assistants and women and other misogynistic claptrap. I pretend not to hear him, just like I pretend that I don't hear Bonnie calling me again. Then Larry's - at least I'm pretty sure it's Larry- face brightens, and he pulls out a crumpled, smudged and torn piece of paper from the bowels of the machine. He throws it in the nearby bin before sliding all the parts back where they're supposed to be, before he flicks off the machine, then turning it on again. All the lights are where they're supposed to be, pretty rows of green, not a red in sight, and we're good to go again.

"Thank you," I say to him, bestowing my most winning smile on him. The effect of which is totally lost because he's looking at his right arm. Which is covered in black toner, even his shirt-sleeve, which he'd rolled up to keep it clean.

He's giving me a look that I swear is a Toby classic, but I don't flinch. I've had lots of practice dealing with those looks after all. "Next time, call maintenance," he suggests.

I bite back my reply that he was next in line and that he volunteered to disembowel the damn thing. That I didn't do a thing to force him into it, and besides, do you know how long we'd be waiting for maintenance to get their asses down here? "I will," I tell him, putting back in my memo. "Thank you."

He walks off, muttering something about clean shirts and Zuzu that I don't pretend to understand, and it's then that Bonnie comes up to me. "I've been calling you for the last five minutes," she tells me, and the look on her face is a cross between irritation and worry.

"Photocopier anarchy," I laugh, and I'm all ready to launch into an explanation, but she cuts me off.

"Whatever. Look, there's a call at your desk for you."

I'm slightly taken aback by that, because usually she'd just wait for me to come back, or she'd take a message or something. She wouldn't be hollering around the bullpen. "Who is it?" I ask.

"It's your brother." All irritation is gone from her face now, there's only worry left, but I feel relief pouring over me.

"I'll be there in a sec," I tell her, checking the out tray quickly. Still working fine, thank goodness. "Tell Andrew that I'll call him back, or you've met him, talk to him-"

"It's not Andrew."

She cuts across me, and it takes a second for the words to register with me. "What?"

"Ginger, it's not Andrew," she repeats. "Your brother Robert is on the phone."

"Robert?"

"Yeah?"

All thoughts of memos and photocopiers are forgotten as I hightail it back to my desk, and when I pick up the phone, my hand is actually shaking. "Robert?"

"Ginger?"

The voice of my oldest brother comes loud and clear across the phone line, and I try to figure out when the last time I talked to him was. Christmas? New Year's? I really can't remember. "Yeah, it's me."

"Nice way to keep your brother hanging on there Sis," are his next words. "You might want to work on your phone etiquette there."

I want to tell him to take his phone etiquette and shove it, but I don't. "What's wrong Robert?" If it's bad new about Mom or Dad or Andrew, I'd much rather he gave it to me straight.

"Wrong?" There's a short laugh from my brother. "Why would anything be wrong?"

"Because you're calling me at work?" I suggest, dropping down into my chair and rubbing my forehead with one hand. Only a few sentences into the conversation and I'm already wishing that I had some aspirin handy.

"What, can't a brother call just to check in with his sister?" Robert sounds almost offended, which is kinda ironic, since he's usually on the giving rather than the receiving end, and I will admit that I take a certain little-sisterly joy in having him on the ropes.

"A brother, yes. Andrew, yes. You, no. What's wrong Robert?"

There's a silence on the other end of the phone. A long silence. One that stretches until I hear him sigh.

I don't think I've ever heard him sigh like that.

"Robert?" My voice is gentler when I speak. "Tell me what's wrong."

I hear him take a deep breath. "I lost someone today…"

"A patient?" But I can't imagine a patient having that kind of effect on him. Robert's a damn good doctor, not that I'd ever let him hear me saying that, but he's not one who lets losing a patient affect him. He learned early on in his career how to shut off his emotions, although there are those who would believe that he's been doing it his entire life.

"No, not a patient. Another doctor, from the ER."

"Friend of yours?" Not that Robert has many of those.

"Not really. Mark and I butted heads a fair bit. His wife works here too, Elizabeth. Doctor Corday? You met her the last time you came out."

The last time I was in Chicago was when we had a speech there about two years ago, and I met Robert for dinner. We were staying there overnight and I had to beg Toby to let me skip the end of the speech so that I could meet Robert, and finally CJ and Sam got involved and over-ruled him. Once I finally did meet Robert, he was delayed in the ER and we ended up going to some greasy spoon across the street from the hospital, having a not-so-comfortable conversation about what we'd been doing with ourselves lately.

But the name Elizabeth Corday means something to me, and I can just about see a woman, the same height as me, with a mass of curly hair and an English accent. Her face is a blur though. "English woman?" I ask, to make sure.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's her. You might have seen Mark around, bald guy, glasses?"

"I don't remember Robert," I tell him honestly.

"Yeah. Why would you?"

His voice trails off again. "Was he young?" I ask, although I know that he must have been.

"He was only thirty-eight. He and Elizabeth have a kid, a baby. Ella."

I close my eyes, wincing. "Jesus, Robert…was it sudden?"

"They knew it was coming. He had a recurrence of a brain tumour…and they stopped treatment. But we didn't think that it would be so quick."

"I'm sorry Robert," I tell him honestly, and I really am. Especially since he's taking it so hard.

And then I get an image of him sitting across from me at that diner and I remember him talking about Elizabeth Corday. And I remember hearing him argue with her, although I still can't remember what she looked like, while I was waiting outside his office for him. I was outside, they were inside, and while I couldn’t hear just what they were saying, the volume could have stripped the paint off the walls. She blazed out of the room without even looking at me, but the faint glimpse of her told me loudly and clearly that she was pissed off and that I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of her. She looked like she could rival CJ on her worst day.

But when Robert came out, he looked anything but pissed. In fact, his eyes were alive, and he was smiling. My brother, Robert, smiling. I almost passed out at his feet.

And when I brought the subject up later, he got that same look on his face, and the tone he used in speaking of her was one of untold admiration.

Which brought me to the very quick conclusion that my dear brother has taken a bit of a shine to the lovely Elizabeth, but Robert being Robert, he won't do anything about it.

Especially not if she's married. Or widowed.

Or if she works with him.

You see, my brother has a reputation. A well-deserved reputation, one that he's worked very hard at building and it follows him everywhere. I know because he makes sure it does. He's known as a hard-ass, a cold-blooded, ruthless son-of-a-bitch, who'll do anything to get to the top.

Which of course he is.

But if I know that, I also know that he's got a good heart. Deep down. Very deep. And he's loyal, to his friends, to his family. I remember getting a call like this a few years back when he ended up telling me that one of the med students that he'd been working a lot with had been stabbed in the ER, and that she'd died on the table. He'd felt guilty that he hadn't been able to save her, and I'd told him that he'd done everything he could. I’m not sure whether he believed me. And after Rosslyn, he called me, and I could hear the panic in his voice as I tried to reassure him that I was fine. I told him everything I knew about Josh's injuries and asked him what he thought his chances were.

I hung up on him when he told me, went straight to the ladies room and threw up. Then I rang him back and apologised. Surprisingly enough, he understood.

A year later, after the MS announcement, I did the same thing.

We have an odd relationship, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'm the youngest in the family, he's the oldest, and if we spend too much time together, we drive each other crazy. Put us across a table from each other for long enough and it can get painful. But put us miles apart, both in busy jobs, hardly speaking, and we end up turning to one another. I'm pretty sure he didn't call Andrew before calling me. Or Jessica or Sandy.

I just wish I could do more to help him.

"Me too." His words bring me back to reality. "And then there was this kid…"

"Yeah?" I prompt him when his voice fades again. If he tells me he lost a kid today as well, then I'm going to have to go to the ladies room and cry for him and to hell with what Toby or anyone else says to me.

"Herself and her father got flattened by a cement truck. We're working on them both, trying to save them, and in the course of a routine X-ray, we find that she's got a tumour."

"She had cancer?"

"I spent all night in surgery with her, but we got it all. She's going to be fine. I'm just… this girl gets hit by a truck and it turns out it's the luckiest thing that ever happened to her. Mark Greene spends his life saving people, and we can't save him. Hell of a business, huh?"

There's really not much that I can say to that.

This time, it's Robert who breaks the silence. "So…yeah. I just needed to get this off my chest, that's all."

"Have you slept yet?" I ask him. If he said that he was in surgery all night, the smart money is on no, and that is indeed his answer. "Go home Robert. Get some rest and something to eat."

"Are you channelling Mom now?" he asks, and there's a slight, oh-so-slight, smile in his voice.

"You want me to start?" I ask, and this time, I'm rewarded by a laugh. It's a short one, but it's there.

"That's fine. Thank you. But Ginger?"

"Yeah?"

He pauses again before he continues. "Life's short Sis."

Half of me is hoping that he's too sober to get into his usual, three-in-the-morning, drunken ramble that usually follows those words. The other half of me wants to hear what he's going to say. "I know that Robert."

"And you've got to tell people is what I'm saying. If they mean something to you, you've got to tell them."

I close my eyes, knowing what he's getting at. Also that I can't get into it, not here, not now. So I parry with, "You gonna take your own advice there, Big Brother?"

"Maybe." I can hardly hear that word, but I hear the next ones. "I love you Ginger."

There's a lump in my throat suddenly. "I love you too," I tell him, and then there's a click and he's gone.

I hold the phone to my ear for a long time, trying to grab a hold of my emotions, which are whirring all over the place. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that Robert had told any of the family that he loves us. I don't even think I'd need to use the thumb. So hearing him say it is reason enough for emotional upheaval.

The other is the advice that he just gave me.

You see, I pointed out earlier that it takes being miles apart and hardly ever speaking for my brother and I to be close. I don't pretend to understand it, but he understands me more than anyone else in the family, and I him. And he can read me like a book and vice versa.

And one of the things he called me that night in Chicago in that little diner was that I have a crush on my boss.

Those were my words. His were "madly in love with" but you get the idea.

I know that some people, certainly most of the people in the West Wing, would be surprised to hear that. Hell, lots of them are surprised that I've put up with Toby for so long, and can take his changes of mood as well as I can. The notion that I'd love him is ludicrous to them. What they don't know is that I've put up with a man just like him my whole life. Handling Toby is second nature to me because I've handled Robert my entire life. They're both prickly, surly pains-in-the-ass, who run roughshod over those around them, but who have the softest hearts imaginable. I always knew that about Toby, because I judged him on Robert, it just took the night of Rosslyn, when he hugged me, to show me that I'd been right.

And I know that Robert's trying to do the best thing for me by giving me that advice, that he means well. But there are things that he knows nothing about, things that I can't tell him, and that makes me crazy.

"Ginger?"

I jump at the sound of a voice beside me, and wouldn't you know it, it just so happens that it's the very person that I've been thinking about.

"Yeah?" I ask, replacing the receiver in the cradle, taking a couple of deep breaths before I look up at him, hoping that he won't notice anything's wrong.

Vain hope, because he's got his worried face on. Which hardly anyone else recognises, but I know it. "You've been staring into space for the last five minutes. Everything ok?"

I nod hastily, remembering all of a sudden the photocopying. "I left the Hammond memo on the copier, I'll get it for you now…"

I stand, going to move past him, but when I'm beside him, he halts me with a hand to the elbow. "Bonnie gave it to me. She said that you got a call from your brother…" His voice trails off, and he can't have missed the fact that my hand is trembling like a leaf, or that tears have come into my eyes. "Come in here," he says, leading me into his office. I look around as we walk, and see that no-one is looking at us, which is something I suppose.

I close my eyes when I get into his office, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to pull myself together before I lose it totally. It should be easier for me. It used to be easier for me; after all, I am a Romano and we are masters at the art of putting on a brave face. Then I began working here, met this man, and forgot myself totally. I hear the click of the door as he closes it, hear the blinds snap closed too, and I know that now, we're in our own little world. There's no-one who'd enter Toby's office without knocking and waiting for a reply when they see that; they wouldn't dare.

That's why he feels safe enough to take me in his arms while the bullpen still hums with activity.

It's also why I feel safe enough to return his embrace, burying my head in his neck. The combination of the smells of cigar smoke and soap and something that's just Toby surrounds me, and I breathe it in gratefully, letting it give me strength, just like his whispered assurances that whatever it is, it's going to be fine, do.

You see, this is what I could never tell my brother; that he was right. Not that I'd want to tell him that specifically, he'd never let me hear the end of it. But that he could see in me what I couldn't see in myself; that yes, I was attracted to Toby, or in his words, madly in love with him. I had a long list of reasons why I could never admit that to myself, things like the age difference, like the fact that he's my boss, the fact that he'd never be interested in me, the fact that he was way too like my big brother for comfort.

And then he was talking to me the night of the First Lady's birthday party, and none of it made any difference. I'd made a special effort for the occasion; after all, it's not often that the assistants get to go to one of those things. I didn't expect for a nice dress and different makeup to have the effect that it had on him, but from the moment he saw me, he couldn't stay away from me. Leo spirited him off to talk to Lord John Marbury, and that was the last I saw of him until I was leaving to go home. I literally bumped into him in the corridor and we talked for a few minutes, small talk, until he said to me that he hadn't had a chance to dance with me all that night. And whatever possessed me to say it to him, I still don't know, but I told him that the night wasn't over yet, and that we could surely find a place that was still open.

He smiled and offered me his arm, and that's just what we did.

The next morning, I was so sure that he was going to tell me that it was a mistake, that the political climate being what it was, it was the worst possible time for a White House Senior Staffer to become involved with his assistant. Instead he pulled me closer to him and proceeded to do all manner of things that I never would have thought him capable of.

I was late for work that morning, but I had a smile on my face that lasted all day.

We've been together ever since, keeping it quiet, flying under the radar, and doing quite well. No-one else even suspects us. And while I know that we have to do that, that that's the way it has to be, it still hurts that I can't tell my family, my friends. Especially when Robert, the man whose picture is in the dictionary under "Pain in the ass" starts being nice and concerned and offers me advice.

The thought of Robert brings me back to reality, and I take another deep breath, marshalling my resolve before I pull out of Toby's arms, smiling quickly at him in what I hope is a reassuring gesture. I move over to the couch, sitting at the head of it, and he sits on the chair beside it. He's close enough to reach over and touch me if he wants to, but instead he joins his hands together, holding them out in front of him. "What's wrong?" he asks me quietly, and there's a world of worry on his face. "Is it bad news?"

I shake my head. "No. Not about the family anyway." He raises an eyebrow and I sigh. "Robert needed someone to talk to. He lost a colleague of his today. Cancer. It sounds like it was pretty quick…" I shake my head again, rubbing a hand over my eyes. "He just needed to talk."

"You seemed upset outside." His voice is showing doubt, and I shrug.

"Robert's not what you'd call demonstrative," I tell him frankly. We've talked about our families, but it's still early enough in whatever it is we're doing here for him not to have all the names down, not to know a lot about who's who. "Hearing him sound like that… almost human… it's pretty unusual."

"You aren't close?"

"I'm the youngest, he's the oldest. And he's always been… distant. With everyone. We get along fine, better once we're not near one another actually. But we don't talk on the phone every week or anything like that." I let out a long breath, knowing how those words must sound, knowing that our relationship sounds strange to others, but that it works for us. "And he never calls me here. The last time he did was after Rosslyn."

The word "Rosslyn" makes him reach over and put his hand on my knee. It's a light touch, gentle, so at odds with the Toby I usually see in here, yet so consistent with the Toby I'm learning about outside these four walls. "You gonna be ok?" he asks me, and this time, my smile is genuine.

"I'm fine," I tell him. I wipe underneath my eyes with a finger, then push my hair back from my face, knowing that a quick trip to the ladies room is no doubt in order. "I should get back…"

I'm half standing when I speak, and he stands up with me, catching my hand in his, stilling my movement. "I'll come over tonight?"

It's unmistakably a question and I nod. "That'd be nice."

"It'll be late," he points out unnecessarily, because when is it not late when he comes to my door?

"It doesn't matter. Just come." I can hardly hear myself speak my voice is so soft, but I see the flash of recognition in his, the one decisive nod of his head.

When I step back out into the bullpen, Bonnie's looking at me curiously. "Everything ok? With your brother?" she asks, and I know that I'm going to have to reassure her too.

"Yeah. He just needed to talk, that's all."

"But it's not urgent?" I shake my head. "And Toby didn't give you a hard time about the memo?"

"He was very understanding," I tell her, and she snorts with amusement.

"That'd be a first," she laughs, and I smile weakly as I go back to my desk, thinking about the two men in my life who are grouchy cranks on the outside, yet who are soft as marshmallows on the inside. Who each have entire battalions of staff terrorised, but who would take the time to worry about me, even when they don't have to. Who are there for me when they think I need them, and when I really do. Two men who are more alike than I ever would have believed possible.

And I realise again just how lucky I am to have these two phenomenal men in my life, how lucky I am to be able to see the real man, and not just the public face that they project.

How lucky I am to know what lies under their suits of armour.