Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Ginger
Spoilers: Five Votes Down
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: "I know you were angry, but that's no reason to take it out on your assistant. What the hell did you say to her anyway?"
Author's Note: More backstory for the Novembers Past universe, set during the episode Five Votes Down.
This was going to be a good week.
I wrote thirty-seven pages on Gun Control, which the President delivered to a rousing reception. I, in my customary taciturn way, told everyone that it was fine, although privately, I knew it was a hell of a lot better than fine. Even if he did get a little extemporaneous in the D section. The people were cheering, the President was smiling. I may have even laughed on the walk out.
Then the wheels came off the wagon.
Leo got a call which told us that five votes jumped the fence on 802; this after the President had guaranteed a victory. We haven't had many of them thus far, and God knows, we need one badly. I've seen our approval ratings, and they're going down at a horrifying rate.
Then Mandy, in her infinite wisdom, decided that we should take the heat off 802 by making a big deal of the financial disclosures; by feeding the press, the public, whomever, human interest. "People will really get a kick out of reading about how much money you guys have, especially when they find out you don’t have any." That's what she said. I told her that that was a pretty humiliating way of taking one for the team.
If I'd only known just how it would have panned out, I would have argued harder against it.
I had no idea that my stock issue had jumped by that much. I had no idea that it was because of what Ted said in front of Congress. For crying out loud, I had no idea what Ted said in front of Congress.
And yet there I was, being accused of manipulating the Stock Market. Which Sam informed me they had no proof of, but that I was in a world of PR trouble. CJ and her dumb little jokes didn't help any. Nor did having to listen to the attendant madness of the great mission of appeasement. Nothing to do with international relations or foreign policy mind you; oh no, the best and the brightest were trying to straighten out Leo's marriage.
The world was going to Hell in a handbasket and they were getting excited over a pearl necklace?
So yesterday was not a fun day.
And then today, we had to deal with a President who was high on painkillers, talking about getting a dog, and who agreed that I should be paid one dollar for my next year's work and cash out my stock option.
They call that a solution?
This isn't helped by the knowledge that the floor vote is going to start in less than an hour, and while we've got all five votes back, I still don't think it's going to turn out like we wanted. I think that Leo is right, that Hoynes can't be trusted, and he's going to use this against us somehow. And we can't do a damn thing to stop him.
I look up when there's a knock at my door, and CJ walks in. She looks as exhausted as I feel, and there's a long night ahead of us yet. Neither one of us will get out of here before the vote is over, and considering we'll have to craft a response for tomorrow morning's briefing, it'll be long after that.
"Hoynes got Tillinghouse," she tells me, throwing herself down in the chair opposite me, stretching her long legs out in front of her.
"I heard."
"You're still pissed about this morning aren't you?" she asks me, a knowing smirk on her face.
"Why would I be mad?" I ask. "It's not like I got punished for something that I had no intention of doing!"
My voice may have gotten a little loud there.
Actually, it definitely did, because she sits up in her chair, a look on her face that tells me that I've crossed some line in the sand. "Feel better?" she asks pointedly.
"I'm sorry that I snapped…"
"You think I'm mad that you snapped at me just now? Toby, how long have we known each other?"
I shrug. It's been so long that I can barely remember a time that Claudia Jean Cregg wasn't in my life. "Years," I tell her.
"You can yell at me Toby, and I can take it. And I know that the deal sucks, but the fact is, it's the best that we can do, and it'll make any questions go away, and that's more important than your pride right now."
I sigh, remembering how I hate arguing with CJ when she's right. "I know."
"What I don't like Toby, is when you yell at people who don't know you so well, and who can't fight back."
I give her a look that I hope indicates that I have no idea what she's talking about. Because I suddenly feel as if I've missed five pages of the script here and I'm lost.
"Don’t give me that look," she tells me. "I know you were upset yesterday, I know you were angry, but that's no reason to take it out on your assistant. What the hell did you say to her anyway?"
I sit upright in my chair, resting my head on my elbows. "Ginger?" I ask stupidly, wracking my brains to figure out what I said to her yesterday. There's nothing that I can come up with. "I didn't say anything to Ginger."
CJ snorts. "Think harder."
"Do you know something I don't?"
"Have you looked at her today?" I shake my head, and CJ's eyes grow wide. "I swear, sometimes I don't know how you and Sam and Josh remember to breathe." Lost in wonder at my ineptitude, she continues. "Carol told me that she had lunch with the rest of them yesterday, but left early because of some typing that you were waiting on. When Carol next saw her, she told me that she looked like she'd spent the afternoon in tears, that she was shaking."
"Did she tell Carol what was wrong?"
"A headache." CJ's scepticism is palpable, and I don't blame her. "I saw her this morning when I came in Toby…she looks like five miles of bad road. Not that I expected you to notice of course, but I would have thought that you'd at least remember what you said to upset her so badly."
I don't say anything in reply, and CJ shakes her head in disgust, standing up. "Anyway, that's what I came in here to tell you."
"To lay off shouting at my assistants?"
"You have no idea how much you scare people do you?"
"Of course I do. I work very hard at it."
A variation on my stock response has CJ chuckling in spite of herself. "Some people can take it Toby. Some need a little more handling."
I look after her until the door closes behind her, then I lean back on my chair, thinking, running yesterday's events through my head.
And I realise something. That I barely saw Ginger yesterday. It was Bonnie who came in to me with my messages, and while Ginger was typing for me, it was nothing urgent, nothing that would require her to leave her lunch early. And besides, no matter what CJ might think of Ginger, I know that she's a lot tougher than she looks, and that it would take more than me ranting at her to move her to tears. You don't go through what she's gone through without developing a tough exterior.
When that thought comes to my head, another one follows it, and a flash of inspiration has me checking the calendar, frowning when I realise that it's still the middle of October. If it had been November, I would have made a good guess as to what was wrong with her, but we've got a good four weeks before the first anniversary of Election Night. Although maybe there's some other significance to the date that I don't know about.
There's another knock at my door, disturbing me from my thoughts, and as if they've summoned her, Ginger herself steps into my office. She has a sheaf of papers in her hands, and puts them down on my desk. "They're the summaries of those meetings," she tells me. "And the letters you wanted typed. Sign here."
She points out the places I need to sign, and I watch her intently as she does, watch the way she moves. There's a distinct tremor in her hand, and when I look at her face, I see what CJ meant. She's paler than she usually is, and I swear that I can see dark circles under her eyes. Her eyes look more than a little red too. She catches me looking, and a blush lends some colour to her cheeks, and she looks more like herself suddenly.
"Sit down Ginger," I find myself saying, and she blinks, taken aback. As am I. I had no idea I was going to say that. "Are you ok?" I cut right to the chase, no point in beating around the bush once I've committed myself, and she nods hastily.
"I'm fine Toby, really."
"Because CJ seems to think that I did something yesterday to upset you." I keep my tone light, not wishing to upset her further, because I've seen Ginger, and this isn't her. This is a woman hanging on by a thread, a woman that I've seen before, in the garden in Manchester nearly a year ago.
She shakes her head again. "I had a migraine yesterday," she tells me. "And I didn't sleep too well last night. That's all. I'll be fine."
"You will?" She nods again. "Because I was wondering if it was something else." I pause, and she looks like she's holding her breath. "Someone else."
She winces, closing her eyes quickly, but not quickly enough. I saw the raw pain there, the flash of emotion that she couldn't hide, and I know that I was right. "It's silly," she whispers, and I'm not sure who she's talking to.
"Ginger," I lean forward in my seat, resting my hands flat against the table, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. "If it has you this upset, how silly can it be?" She looks up at me, surprise replacing hurt. "Do you want to talk about it?"
She looks to heaven and shakes her head, but then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "We were having lunch yesterday…and we were talking. And Margaret told us about Leo, and how he forgot his anniversary." She swallows hard at the word "anniversary." "And she told us how he was getting her to organise this romantic dinner for Mrs McGarry, and how he was giving her a pearl choker as a present."
I have a sudden image of Leo standing in his office, admiring the choker, a proud grin on his face as he imagined Jenny wearing it, CJ and Mandy on either side of him, in the seventh heaven of delight as they all but drooled on his shoulder.
"And all I could think about was my pearl necklace…"
Ginger's voice is little more than a whisper, and I lean forward further to catch it. She's looking down at the floor, not at me, and I don't think that she even knows I'm here.
"Alan gave it to me for our anniversary. I told him it was too much, but he told me that it used to be his grandmother's and that he wanted me to have it. My engagement ring was hers as well. I wore it out to dinner that night."
I now have a good idea where this is going, and I feel my stomach twist in pain on her behalf. Part of me wants to stop her, not to make her relive this again. The other part of me knows that she needs to talk about this, and that for better or worse, I'm the one that's here. I'm the one who knows about this stuff, no-one else in the West Wing. I'm not quite sure how to feel about that.
"We were walking down the street, to where we'd left the car. And neither of us were drunk, because we knew that he'd have to drive home, so we only had a glass of wine each. And it was cold, because it was November, but I didn't feel it, because I was with him. We stopped at the edge of the path, and waited for the light to change. And it was in our favour. I know it was in our favour."
She didn't tell me this the last time. This is new, and I keep my face level with difficulty.
"I stepped out onto the road, and then I saw this light out of the corner of my eye. And it all happened so fast…I felt someone pushing me, and I was flying through the air. And when I landed, that's when I first felt the cold. And I heard bumps, glass breaking. I remember that my necklace broke, because of the fall…" Her hand reaches up to her neck, where the necklace would have been. "I can still see the pearls, bouncing all along the road…and then I turned around and I saw him lying there…"
A single tear makes its way down her cheek, and I catch my breath as the impact of her words hits me. "He pushed you out of the way…"
She nods, a smile on her face that's half sad, half proud. "I held him, and he was still alive, but he couldn't talk, he just looked up at me …and I told him that I loved him and asked him not to leave me…" She stops talking, shaking her head as if to clear the memories, and I can literally see her pull herself together. I reach into my pocket and pull out a handkerchief, sliding it across the table to her.
"It's clean," I reassure her, and she takes it gratefully.
"Margaret told us about Leo…and that's all I could think about. I had to excuse myself so that I could fall apart in peace. Held myself together for most of the day, then went home and had nightmares all night. Pearls bouncing along the road." Her lips twist in a grimace, and I sympathise. That image is going to stay with me for a long time too.
"I didn't know you were there," I tell her after a moment's silence.
She nods. "It was our anniversary. He always took me out, every year. November was our month. We met in November; he proposed in November; we married in November." She shrugs. "Five years next month."
"You know, if you want to take some time…" I make the offer as gently as I can. "Visit your family, that can be arranged."
She looks as if she's considering it for a moment, then she shakes her head. "I think I'd rather stay busy."
"That's fine," I tell her quickly.
"But thank you." She looks down at the handkerchief in her hand. "I think I made a mess of this."
"Keep it," I wave a hand. "Just in case."
She grins, somewhat sheepishly, but a real grin nonetheless. "Yeah." She wipes her eyes once again, running a hand over her face before she stands. "I'd better get back… Do I look as if I've been bawling?"
"You look fine," I tell her. In fact she looks better than she did when she walked in here, and I fight the urge to tell her as much. She still looks tired and pale, her eyes are still red, but she looks lighter, as if some burden has been lifted from her.
She walks to the door, puts her hand on the handle, and then she stops. I haven't take my eyes off her since she began to move, and her pause has me looking at her even more sharply. "Toby?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For everything."
She still doesn't turn around, but I nod anyway. "You're welcome."
The door closes behind her, and I can see her in the bullpen through the blinds. I see her sit down at her desk, go back to her computer. I see Bonnie and Cathy come over to her, throwing glances at my door, and I know what they're asking her. And I see her smile as she sends them away, telling them that she's fine, can see the smile remain on her face as she begins typing again.
She does look better than she did when she walked into my office, and I feel glad about that.
That's when I realise that I'm not as pissed off about my salary, the stock issue and the teasing that surrounds them anymore. Because really, if that's all I can complain about, I've got it pretty good. Even the vote on 802 doesn't look as important any more. And Leo's desire to show Jenny just how much he loves her doesn't seem as stupid, as pointless.
And I remember what I said in the office, that they all laughed over, even as they admired the pearl choker.
I looked up at them and I said, "There's literally no-one in the world that I don't hate right now."
But as I look out into the bullpen, I come to the conclusion that there might be one.