The Most Dangerous Place in Washington
Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Ginger
Spoilers: Post ep for Stirred.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Toby's in the most dangerous place in Washington…
Author's Note: When watching Stirred for the first time, a long long time ago, I saw the Toby/Ginger scenes and immediately wanted to know why she was so hacked off with him. I thought I was imagining things until my best friend said the same thing. So when I was looking to restart this series, this seemed like a good place to begin!
Toby sat in the mess, stirring his coffee listlessly, hoping that no-one would come near him. He'd already had an excruciatingly long day, the kind that had been coming along far too often over the last year, and he knew that he was going to have an even longer night ahead of him. He'd known that ever since Josh had told him about some meeting that Leo wanted him to take in the Roosevelt Room that night, comprising of all the Senior Staff and some advisors. Toby wouldn't have been as concerned were it not for the fact that he knew that Josh had had a long meeting the previous night with Bruno, and when the words "meeting" and "Bruno Gianelli" went into the same sentence, the outcome was never good.
The only bright spot on the horizon for him was that he was getting out of the West Wing for a break, because he and Sam were escaping the madhouse to go to a different kind of madhouse; a hockey game. He'd been given Caps tickets, and while he wasn't much of a hockey fan, baseball, basketball and football being more his thing, the notion of getting out and about, working off some tension by shouting at people who didn't do what they were supposed to do, and eating food that would clog his arteries at twenty paces was very appealing to him for some reason.
He knew that he and Sam should be leaving soon, but he'd grabbed the chance to get a head start on the food thing, sneaking down to the mess for some pie. He had his newspaper with him, and was giving out "speak to me not" vibes for all he was worth, hoping that he wouldn't be disturbed, and it appeared to be working.
At least it was until a shadow fell across him and he looked up into a smiling face.
"Mind if I join you?" she asked, and Toby lifted an eyebrow. Time was that she wouldn't even have thought about joining him in public like this, especially after New Year's Eve when everyone found out about their little secret. They'd stayed away from one another for a long time after that, both in public and in private; in fact, she'd only come to his place twice that year. Once was the night that she'd heard what he'd said to Sam about his relationship with Carol. The other was that terrible night that they'd both been trying to deal with what Ginger had done to herself. Both were feeling more than a little guilty, wondering what, if anything, they could have done to help, wondering if they weren't partially responsible for pushing her over the edge in the first place. That last night, while they'd slept together, they'd just held each other, comfort being more important than anything else.
That had been the last time, and since then, he'd heard on the grapevine that she was dating Cliff Calley again. Which didn't bother him, as long as she was happy. He'd never had any claim on her, had never tried to exert any claim on her. What they'd had was convenient, suited them both, but they'd known that they were never going to be anything serious.
Josh and Ginger had been a one-time thing, and after Christmas, Josh had begun dating Amy Gardner, although in the last few weeks, Toby couldn't help but notice that he was spending a lot of time around Ginger. He'd been curious about that; after all, he didn't see how it could be healthy for Ginger to be around him so much, but she seemed happy enough, and there was a sparkle back in her eyes again, so he didn't look too deeply at it. Especially not when he had to keep stamping on the jealousy that flared up when he saw them together.
Sam and Carol, the third couple who had gone home together that night, were still together, completely in love, disgustingly happy, and there was already a book going around the West Wing on when they were going to make it official.
In fact, of all the people who had entered into liaisons that New Year's Eve, Toby and Ginger were the only ones who were not currently in relationships.
A fact that Toby tried not to think about too much.
"Join away," he heard himself saying to her, somewhat belatedly since she was already pulling out a chair. Toby was getting the distinct impression that he was dealing with Hurricane Donna in full force, and knew from long experience that when that occurred, the best thing to do was batten down the hatches and strap yourself in for the ride.
"I just wanted to make sure that Josh told you about the meeting in the Roosevelt Room tonight," she said, and he almost believed her. Probably would have were it not for the fact that she'd been standing there when Josh told him about the meeting in the first place, and that she'd seen Ginger write it on his schedule in blood red ink.
"I'm aware of it," he told her simply, leaning back in his chair, not taking his eyes off her. At his words, her smile faltered ever so slightly before staging a quick recovery.
"Sam told me that you and he are going to the Caps game," she tried then. "I didn't think you liked hockey."
"I'm not a big fan," he acknowledged. "But I was given the tickets, so they shouldn't go to waste."
"That's a good point," she said. "And I'll tell you what else-"
"Donna-" Running out of patience, he interrupted her, her finger raised in mid-air to make a point. "Do you have something that you're trying to tell me in the midst of all this small talk?"
She swallowed hard. "I do, in fact, yes, have something to tell you." The thought ran through Toby's mind that if she was going to spend this entire conversation talking like Ainsley Hayes, he was going to need substantially more pie, and he took a mouthful in preparation. "Or ask you rather, I'm not sure which." Her eyes narrowed as she tried to settle on the appropriate verb.
"Well, you want to tell me about it?" he asked, trying to hurry her along. "Because you know, I have these tickets…"
She smiled uncertainly, resting her arms on the table, lacing her fingers together. "I heard a certain rumour…" she began, and his heart sank, because if there was one thing that he'd learned in my life, it's that no good comments ever began with those words.
"A rumour?" he echoed, and she nodded again.
"Yes. Quite an old rumour actually, from the First Lady's birthday party? I may have missed it the first time around due to my immigration problems."
"And what might this rumour be?" Although he did have a pretty good idea.
"It seems that a certain White House Senior Staffer - that's you, by the way- was seen escorting a certain lady to the party. That you were, in fact, seen sitting at a table, talking with her, sharing champagne?" She lifted both eyebrows, smiling at him expectantly. "Is this true?"
A sudden image of how Ginger had looked in all her finery that night came to Toby's mind, taking his breath away even in memory. "Yes, it's true," he said quietly, and she beamed, leaning closer across the table.
"And? Why did you not tell me this?"
For some people, Toby knew, it might have been peculiar to have their sometime bed partner privy to the details of their relationship, or lack thereof, with the person that they would like to have as somewhat more than a sometime bed partner.
Then again, he and Donna had quite a peculiar relationship.
He'd taken her to his bed that first night knowing full well that she was in love with Josh Lyman. And she, although he hadn't found this out until much later, was well aware of his feelings for Ginger. She'd been the one who told him that Ginger had feelings for him as well, that he should do something about it. He'd been the one who resisted, telling her that he was Ginger's boss, that he was far older than she, asking what could she possibly see in him. Donna had usually laughed when he'd said that to her, pointing out that she saw plenty in him, and he'd look away, afraid that he'd offended her.
He'd listened to her though, tried to see what she saw in Ginger, but he'd never managed it. When she'd gone home with Josh that night, he'd thought that he'd missed his chance but then Josh began to date Amy, and he didn't know where he stood with Ginger after that.
Then came the morning that CJ called him, waking him from a deep sleep, telling him to come into the office, that she needed him for a meeting in Leo's office. No-one there had known what it was about until she came into the office and she began talking, telling them exactly what Sam had told her on the phone, ripping his world apart piece by piece. He'd spent long nights since then thinking it over, wondering what he could have done differently, wondering if his worst fears could have been any worse than the reality.
"There's nothing to tell," he told her now. "I met her in the hallway, and I escorted her into the room." He neglected to tell her how he'd waited outside the ladies room for her to emerge, how his heart had literally skipped a beat when he saw how wonderful she looked. "I got us some champagne, and we were just beginning to talk when Leo called me to talk to Lord John Marbury."
The name drew a reflexive giggle from her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth, apologising quickly. "What then?" she asked.
"Nothing," he told her. "For the rest of the night, she was with the rest of the assistants. I barely saw her." Barely saw her up close that was. From across the room, he hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her.
Donna was shaking her head from side to side, a sparkle in her eyes and a smile on her lips. "Toby, Toby, Toby," she murmured, a combination of amusement and dismay in her tone. "What am I going to do with you?"
The words "leave me alone" were on the tip of Toby's tongue; only a mouthful of pie kept them back. Instead, he settled on a plea for clemency that came out as her name. "Donna…"
"Toby." She was firmer than he'd ever heard her speak and she looked from side to side before she leaned across the table, staring him down. "You're crazy about her," she reminded him, keeping her voice low. "And furthermore, she's crazy about you. Are you going to let that pass because you're afraid of what people might say?"
"Yes?" Toby tried, and her eyes narrowed into sapphire lasers at the word.
"Life's short Toby. You two should realise that more than anyone. What if Ginger-"
He knew where she was heading with that, and the bare notion was like a knife to his heart. Several knives. "Don't say it," he pleaded, holding up a hand.
She looked down, momentarily chastened, then looked back at him again. "You know what I mean Toby. You two could be great together. Don't let that get away."
A quick smile tugged at Toby's list. "Of all the people to be getting advice from…" he teased, and she grinned, cheeks flushing.
"It's a strange situation," she agreed, echoing his earlier thoughts. "But I'm right. And what's more, you know it."
He didn't say anything, just looked at the clock on the wall, standing up quickly. "I have to go," he said. "I have these tickets…"
"OK," Donna nodded. "Just remember what I said."
He stood beside her, looking down at her for a second, then his hand drifted to her shoulder, touching it gently in a thank you he would never voice. "See you later," was all he said.
As he turned to walk away, he thought that he saw a flash of blue material and red hair vanishing from the doorway, but it was gone so quickly that he couldn't be sure. Going to the door, walking up the steps, he could see no sign of anyone, and put it down to a figment of his imagination.
But she wasn't in the bullpen when he got there, and the first person he saw was Sam, coat on and all ready to go, so he left.
>*<*>*<
Hours later, he knew that he should have been on his way home for the night. After all, he'd put in a long day, gone to a hockey match, and participated in a meeting about the logistics of replacing the Vice President on the Electoral ticket, not to mention he'd also smacked down the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, which was always fun.
What hadn't been fun was standing in Leo's office, listening to the Vice President out himself to the Senior Staff as an alcoholic, that he'd told the President, and that he had the President's full endorsement. The four words that were used - "Because I could die"- were enough to have Toby's heart sinking, because after all, they'd come pretty close to that almost two years ago, and neither the memory, nor the notion that it could happen again made for especially good thoughts.
The rest of the Senior Staff had been as shocked as he, Josh's primary objection being that the President just got past an honesty test. Which drew an immediate response from you, one that came right from the gut, because the President's not past the honesty issue, not yet, and you know it. You also know that there's every chance that Hoynes's thing will become public, and you're just surprised that he's gone this long in public life without it coming out. What better time - or worse, depending on how you look at it- for something like that to come out, in the middle of what looks to be surely one of the dirtiest Presidential campaigns in history?
All of these things were enough to have him worried, enough to have his brow furrowed, his stomach in knots, his heart pounding.
They were all enough, but they weren't even close to being the real reason.
The real reason had big blue eyes and red hair, a ready smile when she felt like it, a smile that he'd been seeing more and more often over the past few weeks, after far too long of an absence. The smile that had been missing today, or to be more precise, that had been missing ever since he'd come back from the hockey game.
He'd been on his way to the meeting in the Roosevelt Room, but something Sam had said to him had struck home, and he'd asked her to find out what the Cabinet was doing tomorrow. She'd looked up, nodding at him, but she'd continued to flip through the pages in front of him, not moving. He'd rubbed his forehead, telling her, "Ideally, sometime before tomorrow," and while he'd never seen Ginger huff before, that was the only word he could come up with for what she did. She got him the schedule, told him what was what, and that had been when the issue with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development arose. He'd got her to arrange for Bill Fisher to come in, and he'd had cause to talk to her about it on three different occasions. Each time, she'd been tense, terse almost, and he was sure that he'd seen her rolling her eyes at him. Whether or not that had been his imagination, he wasn't sure, but he knew he wasn't imagining Ginger's bad mood.
And he was sure that he wasn't imagining how much it was worrying him, because he remembered all too well the last time he'd seen her in a bad mood like that. Remembered all too well being woken up in the early hours of the morning by a phone call from CJ, summoning him to a meeting in Leo's office. His stomach still twisted when he recalled the look on her face, twisted again when he remembered what she had to tell him.
He'd blamed himself, even as logic and common sense told him that there had to be more to it than that. He'd still told himself that he should never have gone home with Donna on New Year's Eve, should never have been that careless. That he should have told Ginger long ago how he felt about her. That he should have talked to her when he knew that she was in pain, that he could have done something, anything to stop her doing it. But he'd done nothing, even afterwards. He hadn't gone to see her when she was in the hospital, hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. He couldn't stand to see her like that, knowing that he was responsible for it. Every decision he'd made regarding his feelings for Ginger had been made with the express intention of not hurting her, of not causing her pain. Yet look at where it had got them.
He'd promised himself, during those long nights where he sat alone in his apartment, wishing that he could turn the clock back, that he'd never let that happen again. He'd never let her be in that much pain again without doing something to help her, no matter the consequences for him.
That's what had him here, sitting in his car outside her apartment, fingers tapping a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel, staring up at her window. He knew he shouldn't be here, in fact there were a thousand other places that he should be, but here he was nonetheless, and the light was still on in her apartment, so she was still up.
It was nearly one in the morning. She should have been asleep by now, all the lights should have been turned out he realised, and before he knew what he was doing, he was out of the car, striding across the street, going up to her front door. He rang the doorbell, pressing it hard and long, stepping away, and when there was no immediate reply, he hit it again, just as hard, just as long. He was about to press the button for a third time when the door opened a crack, and Ginger's worried wide eyes appeared in the crack and above the security chain.
"Toby?" she asked, her voice showing alarm, and the door closed and opened again wide. "What's wrong?"
He looked her up and down, from head to toe. She'd changed out of her suit, and now she was wearing grey sweatpants and a grey WVU sweatshirt. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, falling into her face, and while she looked tired, and worried, she didn't look as if she'd done herself any injury, or was about to.
That was what he'd come here to find out, and now that he'd got that far, he wasn't quite sure what he should do next. So he stepped into the apartment, watching her as she closed the door behind her, and when she turned to face him, one hand was resting on his hip, the other rubbing his forehead. "Toby?" she asked him again, not moving from her place resting against the door. "Are you ok?"
"Yes Ginger…" he said slowly. "Yes, I'm fine."
She frowned. "Then what…"
"Are you?" He flung the words at her, and her face paled in shock first, then flooded with red.
"I don't know-"
"You know what I mean." He didn't let her finish, beginning to pace restlessly around the room. "You're not all right Ginger. At least, you weren't today. I know that something was wrong with you, that something upset you. And I want to know what it was."
She shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking-"
"Yes, you do." Once more he interrupted her, and this time, there was no room for argument in his tone. "Something was wrong with you today. What was it?"
It must have registered with her that denial wasn't going to bring her where she wanted to go, because her next words were laced with anger. "What makes you think there was something wrong with me?"
"Because I know you Ginger," he told her flatly. "I know your moods, I know how you…how you react to things. I know when you're happy and I know when you're not, and I know that something was wrong with you today." His voice was growing louder, and he shook his head, swallowing hard to bring his emotions under control. "And because the last time I knew something was wrong with you, and I didn't do anything about it, you ended up in the hospital." He drew in a deep breath, looking away from the sudden tears that came into her eyes. "I don't want that to happen again."
Her shoulders rose and fell, and she looked up to the ceiling. He could see her swallow hard, fancied that he could almost see her pulling herself together. "You'd better sit down," she finally said, brushing past him to go into the living room.
"I'm fine standing," he told her, but he followed her anyway, and her words floated back to him.
"I need to sit down," she said, and true to his word, he remained standing, pacing from one end of the couch to the other while she sat, staring up at him. "What do you mean," she asked finally, when it was clear that he wasn't going to speak first. "The last time you knew something was wrong with me?"
He sighed. "After New Year's," he said slowly. "Not right after, but after the State of the Union. I noticed that there was something wrong with you…I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew you weren't yourself." He shrugged. "I tried to tell myself that you'd be fine, that it wasn't my place to ask, tried to convince myself…" His voice trailed off and he shook his head, blowing out a long breath. "The next thing I know, CJ's telling me you're in the hospital."
Her eyes wide huge, frank amazement in every feature, and her voice was thin and shaking when she said, "You noticed that?"
He shrugged, cheeks warming, nothing to do with the heat of the apartment. "I notice everything," he said simply, and her cheeks flared a deep scarlet.
"Why?" she asked him.
He shrugged, the tiniest of smiles hovering around his lips, and then he tilted his head, looking down at her. "You haven't answered my question," he pointed out. "What was wrong with you today?"
She sighed deeply, closing her eyes. "You know that since I…since that night…I've been seeing someone right? A therapist?" He nodded, knowing that Josh had made it his business to make sure that Ginger got the help that she needed, had recommended a therapist friend of his. He'd even ferried Ginger to and from some of her appointments, and how he was explaining that to Amy Gardner was something that fascinated Toby. "What I've learned about myself," she continued. "Although I probably always knew it, is that I have certain issues about my life, and the way that I live it, which stem from quite fractious relationship with my mother." She glanced up at him then, lifting an eyebrow, and he nodded once.
"Ah." Mothers and daughters could be a tricky subject, as he knew well from having two older sisters.
"Yes." Her smile was wry, and brief. "Seems that certain events in the New Year caused these issues to come to the forefront, resulting in what happened." She didn't say what the issues were, and he didn't ask, not his place to. "I thought I was handling it. Until I got a call from my mom today."
Toby frowned. "What did she say to you?"
"Nothing much. A cousin of mine, younger than me, is getting married. She was telling me how thrilled my aunt was about it, how they were making plans, looking forward to it, but of course, her underlying message was how come I hadn't…" She broke off, looking down. "You can imagine. And it's ridiculous, I know, but it just…it got to me." She shrugged, trying to give him a smile, but it didn't quite make it. "That's all."
He took a step or two closer to her, eyes flicking over her person once more, before commencing a sweep of the room. "But you're…what I'm trying to say is… you wouldn't…"
She didn't seem offended, as he'd feared she might be. Instead, she looked up at him, a vague smile forming around her lips. "No Toby," she said softly, almost resigned. "No."
His breath left his body in a rush, and his shoulders sagged visibly. "Good," he said. He couldn't find any other words, unusual for him, and she didn't move, staying where she was, just looking up at him.
"Why did you come here tonight?" she finally asked, her brow creased in a frown.
Toby shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "I told you," he parried. "I was worried about you. I thought that you…"
"Why didn't you call Carol? Or Donna?" There was something in the way that she said Donna's name that had Toby looking at her sharply. She looked away quickly, biting her bottom lip, and he was struck by the sure and certain realisation that she had indeed been in the mess earlier on that day, that she had seen him deep in conversation with Donna. If that had played any part in her bad mood, he didn't know, and he sensed that this was neither the time or the place to bring it up, but it did call to mind Donna's advice to him. The trouble was, it didn't tell him if this was the time or the place to act on it.
He still had to answer her question, and he decided that the truth was the best way to go. "Because I wanted to know for myself that you were all right."
"Why?" She was shaking her head in confusion again, and he shrugged.
"Because."
It wasn't any kind of answer, he knew that, but it was the only one that he could come up with. And, wonder of wonders, she seemed to accept it.
"You came here tonight…because you were worried about me?"
In another time and place, he might have been offended that she exhibited such patent amazement at the thought, but not tonight. "Yes," he said simply.
"You said…" Her voice trailed off uncertainly, then she rallied, and she stood up as she spoke again. "You said that you notice everything about me."
"Yes," he repeated, swallowing hard as she stepped towards him. He knew that he should stop wherever this looked like it might be going, knew that they shouldn't be doing this, couldn't figure out how it got to here so quickly, but he couldn't move, feet cemented firmly in the soft carpet.
"Everything?" She was in front of him then, hands resting on his shoulders, and his arms remembered how to work, his hands bringing themselves to rest on her hips.
"Yes," he breathed, remembering as he did so the words he'd tossed at her while exiting the bullpen earlier on that evening. Except he knew now that he'd been wrong. The most dangerous place in Washington wasn't between Bill Fisher and a TV camera. This was the most dangerous place in Washington, Ginger's living room, with the two of them standing like this. It was dangerous for myriad reasons; the boss thing, the age thing, her emotional state, the close proximity of the election and the fact that the last thing that the Bartlet Administration needed was a sex scandal.
He was standing in the middle of the most dangerous place in Washington, and he didn't care.
He would never be able to say later who moved first, or if they moved at the same time, meeting in the middle. He'd never be able to remember just how long they stood there, staring at one another like that. He would remember how natural it felt when their lips eventually met, how it felt right, like they were supposed to be doing this. He would remember how she felt in his arms, how soft her hair was between his fingers, how her lips moulded to his perfectly.
He would remember how her eyes shone when they drew away from one another, how they were both left breathless by that simple contact.
He would remember how her eyes darkened as she looked at him, how her face fell. "We shouldn't have done that," she whispered, and she tried to move away, but he gripped her tighter, holding her in place.
"No," he objected, and she looked at him curiously. "We should have done that a long time ago." Those words had her relaxing in his arms, and he gave her a reassuring smile, brushing her hair back behind her shoulder. "I've wanted to do that for a long time," he told her. "But I never thought…"
She shook her head, looking down. "We wasted so much time," she murmured.
He chuckled, putting one finger underneath her chin, tilting her head back up. "Sometimes… things are worth the wait." Her smile was like sunshine lighting up the room, and he hated to continue with his train of thought. "But Ginger…you know what people will say when they find out."
"The press?"
There was no small amount of apprehension in her voice, and he nodded. "I don't care what they write about me," he told her honestly. After all, he'd never thought that he'd get to the White House, much less have almost four full years there. If whatever it was he had with Ginger cost him that, well, he'd had a good innings. He wasn't worried about himself; he knew he'd be ok. "But you…" They both knew that the press could be, and more than likely would be, merciless, vicious, in their pursuit of the story, and he didn't know how that would affect her.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Who says they have to find out?" she asked, and that shocked him, more so than anything he'd heard that night.
"Ginger, I don't want you to feel like you have to hide anything…" he began, but she cut him off.
"Toby, we both know what will happen if the Press get hold of this. Especially now, this close to the election. It's only going to get worse between now and November."
"I don't want to hurt you," he murmured, taking her hand in his, running his fingers along her knuckles. "I don't want anything to hurt you. And I do want this." The words that he was getting ready to say were words he'd never thought he'd hear coming out of his mouth. "I’m just saying that perhaps…"
"We keep it on the down-low until after the election?" She'd anticipated his words, and even smiled at him when she finished speaking, kept smiling even after he nodded. "I think I can live with that," she continued. "I mean…I'm sure there'll be plenty of times when we're working late that we can talk…"
Her voice trailed off teasingly, accompanied by a quirk of one eyebrow, and he laughed. "I'm sure there will be," he told her, dipping his head and kissing her again. "You're really ok with this?" he asked then, just to make sure, and she nodded again.
"You're worth the wait Toby," was her reply, and he pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.
"So are you Ginger," he murmured, and the only way he knew she heard him was the almost imperceptible tightening of her arms around him. "So are you."