Rating: PG
Spoilers: Everything up to season three to be safe
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 and Ginger have their first date.
Author's Note: Anyone remember when this was supposed to be one story? Previous instalments, in reading order are The Ghosts of Novembers Past, Moments of Transition, Surprised by Joy, One Person, Anniversaries, Breaking the Fall, The Gift of Hope, Moving On and Something New. This one is for Sunny (see, I'm blaming you again!) who asked for this waaaay back when, and for Jenni, who wanted it.

"Toby, I'm out of here."

I look up at Sam in mild surprise. "It's only one o'clock," I tell him, and for once, I don't mean one o'clock in the morning. Rather, it's one o'clock in the afternoon, and I can't remember the last time any of us got out of here that early.

"On a Sunday afternoon," he points out. "A beautiful, summer, Sunday afternoon, I might add. The House is in recess, this place is practically dead, the President's at Camp David… and I have a date."

He beams at the last words, practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He looks immensely pleased with himself, a sight with which I've become all too familiar over the past couple of days. "With Mallory, I take it?"

At the mention of her name, his face lights up even more, something I didn't think was possible. He and Mallory have had this insane flirtation going on since our first term, and things might have even worked out for them were it not for the little matter of a picture of him and a call girl being splashed all over the papers. Then she was dating that idiot hockey player, and Sam entered into another, even more insane, flirtation with Ainsley Hayes, and Connie Tate later on. But nothing ever came of those, and Sam and his disastrous track record with relationships became something of an office joke.

And then he met up with Mallory a few days ago at Josh and Donna's wedding.

He was a little nervous about her being there at first, having avoided her for a long time. He couldn't understand why she was there at all, and it took me reminding him that her father and Josh's went way back, that they'd known each other for years, to stop him whinging about it. He managed to convince himself, mostly in my office, soliloquising to himself as I sat and tried to work, that he was the best man, that he'd be busy, that he'd hardly see her all day, that it would be fine.

Later on, he tried to convince me that it was because he was so nervous about seeing her that he managed to lose the rings, and who knows, maybe it was. But whatever it was that made him do that, he was at the reception, beating himself up over it, and nothing that CJ or I could say to him would make him feel better. Not that we tried too hard I must admit. It took Mallory to waltz over and take him in hand before any semblance of the Sam that we know came out, and within a half an hour of Mallory talking to him, he was the life of the party again, making a best man speech that reduced much of the room to tears, and tormenting Ginger, who he'd decided had spared his blushes, helping him out as she did in his hour of need.

He and Mallory were hardly apart for the rest of the night, and he's been walking on air ever since. I wasn't too sure how Leo would feel about it after the last go-around, but he seems happy enough. And even if he's just hiding it well, Sam's happy enough for both of them.

"Yes, with Mallory," he tells me now. "She's making lunch. A picnic lunch. We're going sailing."

"That's nice."

"Yes it is Toby. And do you know why?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me."

My sarcasm would normally deflect him, but a lovesick Sam is an impervious Sam, so I settle back and wait for him to finish. "Because it's a summer Sunday, and I have time to take off work and a beautiful woman to spend it with. And it's a sin to waste that." He pauses, looking down at me, and there's almost a challenge in his eyes. "Don't you think?"

I meet his gaze head-on, and then my attention is distracted momentarily by a familiar head of red hair passing by behind him. And suddenly, his words make a lot of sense.

"Get out," I tell him.

He grins. "That's what I thought. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

When he's gone, I lean back in my seat thoughtfully, my hand fingering my beard absently. Much as I hate to admit it, and never would out loud, he makes a lot of sense. It is a lovely summer's day. We have been cooped up in here for hours that seem like weeks. And there is a distinct lull in activity, almost as if everyone's been hit by summeritis or something.

And in the middle of my thoughts, that head of red hair floats across my field of vision and I see her talking to Bonnie, laughing over something and shaking her head.

She has one of the most amazing smiles I think I've ever seen.

Not that I admit to that either mind you. I have, after all, a painstakingly cultivated reputation to uphold, and it doesn’t involve mooning over my assistant like a lovesick schoolboy.

But I've often thought it.

I took that smile for granted for a long time. Never really noticed it at first, especially since for the first few months that I knew Ginger, she didn't smile much at all, nor did we have much to do with one another. I was the Senior Political Consultant on the Bartlet for America campaign, and she was just one of the volunteers who I would yell at. I don't even recall her first day at work, the first time that I met her. She was just there one day.

The first time I really noticed her was in the garden on Election Night, when she told me what had brought her to join the campaign. And she was so close to falling apart, but was doing a brilliant job of holding herself together. I knew then that she was stronger than she'd ever let on, couldn't believe how much courage it must have taken for her to uproot herself from her friends, her family, everything she'd known, to join the campaign, to make a new life for herself. When her name came up later as one of the volunteers who Leo was considering employing, I had no objections. And later still, when we were in Washington, when her name came around as a potential assistant for me, I welcomed it. And that's a decision I've never regretted. Ginger is the best assistant that I've ever had; she does her job quietly and efficiently, and she lets me rant and rave to my heart's content, knowing when to reel me in. Those first months as my assistant, she was bright and sassy and confident, and I couldn't believe that she was the same woman that I'd seen crying in the garden months earlier.

Then came the day of the vote on the Gun Control Bill. We were chasing around trying to recover the five votes that had jumped the fence, I had that thing with the financial disclosures and the deal they had made for me to avoid any appearance of impropriety. And CJ came to me wondering what I'd done to Ginger.

I told her nothing, and then I'd seen Ginger, and had realised that CJ had been right; she did look terrible. Not the bright and bubbly Ginger I'd come to know, but more like the woman I'd seen the previous November. That was the first time that I realised how accustomed I'd become to her smile. When I asked her, she told me more about how her husband had died, how she'd been there and he'd pushed her out of the way of the car, sacrificing himself to save her. How she'd been wearing a pearl necklace, like the one Leo had given Jenny, and how it had broken on impact, the pearls bouncing over the road.

I sat across from her, and listened to her, and offered her my handkerchief and wished that I could do something, anything, to ease her pain.

But she looked better for having talked to someone about it, having got it out of her system, and I felt like I'd done something to help her. And when she walked out of my office, I tried to put how I felt in that office out of my mind.

I did it too. Until one day some six months later. I was walking through the bullpen on the way to my office, barking out orders. Not that there was much unusual in that. The unusual thing had happened only hours earlier, when I was walking behind the President, as I'd done a hundred times in the past year, and shots had rent the night. The President was shot, Josh was shot, we were all shaken up, and we had Constitutional problems that I'd never even heard of.

I had a million things to do. So why did I stop at the door of my office, my heart having processed something faster than my brain? I'd seen a slight movement out of the corner of my eye and I turned to see her standing there, her coat still on, her bag on her shoulder, her hands shaking. Her eyes were huge and scared, and she looked just like she had on Election Night, and on the night of the vote.

I could no more handle that look then than I could those two other times.

She came closer to me, telling me how she'd been at home, looking at television, and the closer she got to me, the more she was shaking, and when I couldn't stand it any more, I did the only thing I could think of to do, the thing, I suddenly realised I'd wanted to do on two other occasions.

I held her and told her that it was ok.

And she smiled when she pulled away, and I made a joke, asking her if she was ready to go to work, and she told me she was.

And that's just what we did.

That was the first time that I held her.

The second time came a year later, when I had to tell her about Mrs Landingham and she collapsed in my arms.

I'm pretty sure I hugged her when the Election results came through in 2002. I hugged a lot of people that night. She was probably one of them. But when I think of that night, it's not that that I remember. It's meeting her in the Sculpture Garden, bringing her a drink, making a toast to Novembers Future that sticks in my mind. It's the feel of her arm in mine as we walked back to the party. It's the feeling that something special started between us that night, something that she wasn't ready to act on. But, I realised over the next couple of months, that was fine by me. If she needed time, then I'd give her time, and I'd be there for her when she was ready. I took off my own wedding ring, but accepted that she needed to hold on to hers, and never put pressure on her, sure that it would happen in time.

And then Sam lost the rings at the wedding.

I was sitting beside CJ, and when she realised what he'd done, I had to physically hold her down. I was so busy trying to stop her from charging the aisle and tearing him limb from limb that I didn't register the murmur of the crowd, barely even noticed when someone walked down the aisle towards Donna and Josh. It took CJ to ask, "What's Ginger doing?" before I saw her, and when I saw her hands going to the clasp around her neck, my breath caught in my throat. I couldn't hear what she said to Josh and Donna, but I saw the uncertainty on Donna's face, the utter confusion on Josh's. And then I saw Donna hug Ginger hard, all traces of her tears forgotten. CJ was whispering questions along with those around me, but I paid them no heed. Because I was the only one who knew what she'd done, and I knew how much those rings meant to her, knew how long she'd been carrying them with her. I tried to catch her eye as she passed by me, but she looked neither left nor right before returning to her seat.

I tried to talk to her at the reception, I really did. But there was always someone around me that I couldn't get away from, and Bonnie hovered around her for most of the evening like a protective mother hen. It was when the speeches were over and the dancing had begun that I missed her in the room, and I knew, without even thinking about it, where she was going to be. So I went to the bar, got two glasses of scotch and went to join her.

And sure enough, there she was, on the same bench that we'd sat on the night of the Midterm Elections, almost four years ago now. The same bench that we'd sat on the night of the 2002 Election, the night that I'd realised what I felt for her.

She smiled up at me and took the drink from my hand, and told me that she was fine. And I let her talk, and then she said four little words that made my heart leap. She told me that she'd figured out something that day, when she gave Donna her rings.

"That I've moved on," she said.

Since I'm a speechmaker, and since I write toasts, I proposed one, to just that, to moving on. And she tipped her glass against mine, emptying it with one gulp. When I'd emptied mine in two, I took her glass, placing the two inside one another, leaving them resting in the space between us, taking both her hands in mine. She took a deep breath, and when she spoke, I could see the nerves in her face.

"Toby…I'm not real sure I remember how to do this…"

She looked so unsure that I wanted to hug her again, just like I had that night after Rosslyn. Instead, I raised our joined hands to my lips and kissed them, smiling at her. "How about we start with a dance?" I asked. "And then see what the night brings?"

She beamed up at me. "I can handle that."

I stood up, saying, "Good. Let's get started," and led her back into the party, and we danced the rest of the night together. I could see people looking at us, but I didn't really care. It took CJ to get me to leave Ginger, insisting that I dance with her, and when I did, I was reminded of the second Inaugural Ball, when she questioned me on my feelings for Ginger.

"You knew about her marriage, didn't you?" she asked, the story having made the rounds in double quick time. And while normally the speed of the White House Rumour Mill would make me roll my eyes, in this case I knew that it was only out of concern for Ginger; that people had spread her story around to avoid anyone questioning her about it. "That's why you didn't make a move on her before now."

I nodded. "He was her first love CJ…she was there when he died. She wasn't over him."

"And she is now?" I cast a glance over at Ginger, who was laughing with Bonnie and Margaret.

"Yes. She is." She's still scared, I know that, even now. Still unsure about what she's feeling, about what I'm feeling. But I trust her. I believe her when she says she's ready to move on.

"You're sure about this Toby?"

CJ looked into my eyes for a long moment, and I didn't flinch, letting her see everything that I was feeling. And when she did, she smiled, and I didn't need to answer her, and we danced the rest of the dance in silence.

Ginger and I shared a cab back to her place that night, and when we got there, I told the driver to wait while I walked her to the door. And she was shaking once we got there, although it wasn't a cold night, and she was licking her lips nervously. I knew what she was thinking, so I just squeezed her hand in mine, kissed her cheek quickly, wished her a good night, and left.

Or tried to leave. "Toby?" I turned at the sound of her voice.

"Yeah?"

I waited for her, but she seemed to have lost track of what she wanted to say. "Thank you," she finally managed, and while some people might have wanted to know for what, I didn't have to ask.

That was a couple of days ago, and since then, we've been pretty much back to status quo around here. I told myself that we'd get together at the weekend, but it's just slipped away from me and now it's Sunday afternoon.

My decision made, I stand and go into the bullpen. I look to Ginger's desk to find it empty, and look over to Bonnie. "Bonnie, I'm heading home."

Her head snaps up from her typing, and she looks at me as if I've announced that my lifelong ambition was to become a priest. "Are you ok?" she asks.

"I'm fine," I tell her, and her look up at me is frankly sceptical and speaks volumes. "Really," I assure her. "It's a beautiful day out there Bonnie…why don't you head out too, and enjoy it?"

She blinks, running my words through her head, then obviously decides that she shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. "OK," she tells me, and is shutting off the computer before she's even finished the words. "Are you sure-"

"Go," I tell her, and she does as she's told as I return to my office to wait for Ginger.

When she returns and sees Bonnie's empty desk, she's momentarily confused, and comes to my office. "Toby, where's Bonnie?"

"I sent her home."

Her reaction is much the same as Bonnie's. "Is everything ok?"

"Fine. I just thought it might be nice to get out of here for a little while. Enjoy the weekend."

She looks at me, as if she's waiting for something. "OK," she says slowly.

"So…" I begin. "Would you like to?"

"What?"

There's a sparkle in her eyes that belies her words, and I know she knows just what I mean. So I smile when I repeat my question. "Would you like to go out with me?"

A smile splits her face when she nods. "I'd love to."

>*<*>*<

It did seem like a good idea at the time I have to say. And then we got outdoors, and I remembered that I really don't like being outdoors that much. I wasn't kidding when I told Andrea that once. And of course, it turns out that Ginger loves the outdoors. Or at the very least, the chance to get outside having been cooped up inside for so long.

Even now, she's lying on her back, eyes closed, faced turned up to the sun. When I suggested that we get out of the West Wing, her face lit up, and she almost set a new land speed record grabbing her purse. Somewhere along the way, we decided that I'd follow her to her apartment, and once I got there, I found that she'd changed into a pair of shorts and T-shirt, and was preparing a picnic for us.

"A picnic?" I asked, hoping against hope that I'd heard wrong.

"Well, you haven't eaten yet, have you?" she asked me, rummaging through cupboards, her back to me.

"That sounds strangely like my mother talking."

She closed the cupboard with her elbow, a grin on her face. "Mine too," she told me. "She always worries that I don't eat properly." I tilted my head, inviting her to continue without words, and she shrugged. "My appetite took a vacation after Alan died… I didn't have a problem as such… I just didn't eat properly. And she worries."

It struck me that that was the easiest she'd ever said his name to me. "My mother died fifteen years ago," I told her. "And she worried about me right up until the end."

"So you're telling me I've years of this to look forward to?" She didn't sound enthused at the prospect, but it opened up the topic of families to us, and I told her all about mine and heard all about hers as we walked to the park nearby, and we spread out a blanket and enjoyed the lunch that she'd packed for us. We're not the only ones who have decided to enjoy the nice day it seems, judging by the amount of families with small children running around. I could see Ginger looking after them with a smile on her face, and she told me all about her brothers' children, and how much she enjoys spending time with them. There are couples young and old walking arm in arm, and a pack of college students with those huge water shooters mills around, every now and then their shrieks of laughter coming near to us before disappearing again.

But Ginger is, at present, oblivious to all this. Looking down at her, I can feel myself smiling, and I try to keep it back. I don't think I'm that successful though. "I can't believe you expect me to be seen with you wearing a shirt like that," I point out, not for the first time.

She chuckles, opening one eye to look over at me, before looking down at the New Jersey Devils logo on her shirt. "You don't like it?" she asks innocently, also not for the first time. The thing is, she knew well that I wouldn't like it - she knows that the Rangers are my team. She's also got to have a pretty good idea as to how the cut of that shirt would affect me.

"You know very well how I feel about it," I tell her, and the only response she makes is to arch her eyebrow before laying her head back down again. "We should probably get going," I tell her, seeing as she's not looking as if she's going to move any time soon.

She doesn't even open her eyes. "I'm fine," she tells me.

"That's not up for debate," I find myself saying, and I can't believe that I said that out loud. Her eyes don't open, and the red flush creeping up her face is the only hint that I really did. "But I still think we should go inside."

"But it's nice here."

"It's nice inside."

"You're not enjoying yourself? Look around you"

She still hasn't opened her eyes. "I'm enjoying myself. But I'm bored with the outdoors."

She shrugs, opening one eye and squinting up at me. "Nothing keeping you here."

There's a small smile on her face, and I think it's time to call her bluff. "Fine then," I say, standing up, looking down at her, my shadow falling over her face, the loss of sunlight causing her to squint up at me. "I can find my own way back to your place and-"

My words are cut off by a sudden pain in my chest, and I look down in shock to see a dark stain flooding my shirt. My gaze shifts to Ginger, who is looking up at me, eyes wide as she sits up, and then we both realise what's happened.

When she figures it out, she stays looking at my surprised face for all of five seconds before she bursts out laughing. She laughs so hard that tears stream down her face. The fact that a shamefaced college student appears near to us, his face crimson, his Super Soaker hanging limp at his side, uttering profuse apologies, only serves to make her laugh harder, and I wave him off, pulling at my water-soaked shirt away from my chest.

"Laugh at me, it's fine," I tell her, and she does just that. "Seriously, it's fine, really."

"OK," she manages to choke out between her peals of laughter, and looking down at her, I feel the laughter building up in me too, and before I know it, I'm laughing right along with her. I drop down to my knees beside her, and that's how we spend the next several minutes before we attempt to get any kind of hold on ourselves.

We just about manage it, and then our eyes meet, and she's off again. "I'm sorry," she hiccups, rolling onto her knees and moving closer to me, grabbing some napkins as she does, attempting to blot the stain.

"Those things pack a punch you know," I find myself saying, and she laughs again, shaking her head. "I'm serious…why don't they just bring out the garden hose?" She continues dabbing at my shirt, and I think the worst of the stain has been soaked up, but I suddenly realise just how close she is to me, and one of my hands moves of its own accord, covering both of hers on my chest, stilling the movement. She looks down at them, her giggles disappearing slowly as my other hand reaches up to brush back a lock of hair from her face. I've lost the impulse to laugh too as my hand lingers against her cheek, before moving to the back of her head, slowly drawing her to me.

I'm as gentle as I can be, not wanting to rush this, not wanting to scare her, giving her the time to pull away should she want to. But she doesn't pull away, and when our lips meet, it's everything that I would have expected from Ginger and me. It's not some grand passionate embrace, the kind that you see in films when the hero and heroine finally come together after seemingly insurmountable odds. There's no fireworks, no earth-shattering orchestral crescendo.

There's just tenderness, emotion. Two people who have come to care about each other and have been slowly working towards this for a long time now.

There's just me and Ginger.

Just us.

And that's more than enough.

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