Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Ginger
Spoilers: None
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: Some of God's greatest gifts….
Author's Note: Wrote this a while ago, never got around to posting it. And considering what I'm reading, I thought maybe I should!

>*<*>*<

I hate State Dinners.

I hate having to schmoose foreign dignitaries. I hate having to schmoose the Congressmen and Senators and Campaign Investors that get invited to these things. I hate spending weeks with Sam, fighting over the wording of one little phrase; I hate the preparation that goes into the President giving one of those speeches. I hate the compulsory attendance and the mandatory white tie, which is surely one of the most uncomfortable ensembles ever created.

But what I really hate is standing here in the corner, as I always do, surrounded by everyone who is doing their best to appear as if they're having a good time, and pretending not to look at her, and failing miserably, because I can't keep my eyes off her.

I'm pretty sure that Josh and Sam have noticed, which is really worrying, because they're not usually the quickest draw when it comes to something like that. And they're smiling at me, because they know that I've been like this at every party, every state dinner that she's ever attended. They see my preoccupation for what it is, something harmless.

CJ, on the other hand, sees it as something else. She's been giving me these worried looks from across the room all night, has come over to me on several occasions to draw me into conversations. On the last occasion that she did that, she abandoned all sense of subtlety as she steered me around the dance floor.

"Toby, what do you think you're doing?" she hissed at me through a wide smile.

I shrugged, chancing a glance down at our feet. "The waltz?" I ventured, and was rewarded with the tip of her shoe coming down on my toes.

Her expression didn't change, still that same fixed smile, but her eyes told the story of her worry. "Toby, you haven't taken your eyes off Andrea all night."

Since I was looking her in the eyes right then, I was able to point out her error. "I'm looking at you right now aren't I?"

I moved my feet just in time to avoid another stomping. "You know what I mean."

And I did, and I knew that she was worried about me. "It's nothing CJ. I promise."

I knew from the look on her face that she didn't believe me, but she let it go, and we danced the rest of the dance in silence, and when the song was over, I went to the bar and got myself another scotch, and stood at the bar, watching her again.

I can't help it. I know that we're divorced; I know that it was hardly the happiest marriage in history. But when it comes to Andrea Wyatt, there's just something that attracts me to her, like a moth to a flame. It's been like that since we first met, through CJ funnily enough. I'd known CJ for years, and went to visit her when she was working on Andrea's first State Campaign. And while I was there, she told me that Andrea was looking for a speechwriter, and that I should meet her. Since I trusted CJ implicitly, I agreed.

At our first meeting, there were fireworks.

We just clicked instantly, mentally, politically. We went to dinner the first night we met, became lovers a week later. Got engaged six months after that and married ten months later. And for a time, we were happy.

I felt like I was living my dream. I had the most beautiful, most intelligent woman in the world, and she was my wife. She was everything I'd dreamed of, everything I'd prayed for, everything I would have wanted in a wife. I would go to temple every week, and I would thank God for the life that He had given me, and I would pray that He would make me worthy of this woman, that He would give me the strength to be a good husband to her.

And then the dream fell apart. All of a sudden, or maybe not, we weren't as in sync as we'd once been. There were disagreements about all manner of political strategy. And we couldn't leave them in the office where they belonged, oh no. We're both workaholics, Andrea and I, and we took our work home with us all the time. When things were good, it was perfect. But when things began to get rocky, it was just something else to fight about. So the personal became political and the political became personal, and it got so that we could hardly stand to look at each other.

She withdrew from me and threw herself into work. And I withdrew from her and threw myself into the bottle. I would speak to CJ and she would tell me that I was drinking too much, that I wasn't paying attention to my work, or my marriage and that I should pull my head out of my ass and do something about it, but I didn't listen to her.

Even when all this was going on, I still went to temple every Saturday. And I did pray. I still thanked God for bringing Andrea and me together. I asked Him for patience and wisdom when we fought, asked Him to strengthen me, to strengthen our marriage. I don't know how many times I prayed for that.

But Andrea still left me.

Which left me crawling even further into the bottle, despite CJ's efforts to help me through it.

You would think that going through a divorce from the love of my life would have shaken my faith, but no. Once again, I prayed at temple, prayed that Andrea would come back to me, prayed that we'd find the love that we once had shared.

And I tried to believe, when my prayers went unanswered, that it was all for the best, that there was a reason why it didn't work. My Rabbi told me that, and CJ told me that, and my sisters told me that. I told me that. I just didn't always believe that.

Every time I saw Andrea, in the newspaper, on the television, I would see her as she was on our wedding day, I would see her as she was when she slept in my arms. I would remember all the reasons why I loved her, all the reasons why I wanted her back so badly.

Even tonight, as I look at her, my fingers itch to go over to her, to pull the pins out of her elaborate coiffure, just to see how that hair would look falling down her back, to once again feel its softness under my fingers. I tighten my fingers against my glass, raising it to my mouth as the metal of my wedding band cuts into my flesh, and the scotch burns its way down my throat.

The glass makes a thumping sound as I put it down on the table, and before I’m even aware that I'm walking, I'm almost at Leo's side. He sees me coming out of the corner of his eye and raises an eyebrow as he turns to look at me. "Everything ok?" he asks, and I realise how my purposeful stride must have looked to him.

"I was just going to head home," I tell him, and he checks his watch. I'm all ready to counter any objections he may have; after all, the toasts have been made, the speeches are done, and we're well into the dancing. I've talked and smiled and charmed as much as I ever do, and it's not unreasonable for me to want to go home.

I don't have to do any of that though, because he just nods. "I'll see you tomorrow." That's all I need to hear, and I'm walking away when his voice stops me. "Toby?"

"Yeah?"

"You sure everything's ok?"

I nod, because I'm feeling better than I have all night. "Yeah."

He nods and goes back to his conversation, and I find a driver to take me home.

Once in the car, once I'm away from Andrea, it's easier to be objective. Easier to remember the fights, the screaming, the pain that was involved in the end of our marriage. Easier to remember that I don't want her back, easier to remember the what-is, rather than the what-might-have-beens.

Easier to remember that she's not quite the angel that I once thought she was, that she's not the perfect woman that I imagined. That she has her flaws, just as I have mine, and that our combined flaws are too great for any love that we might have to overcome. One of the good things about working with her in Washington is that I've got to know her, as she is now, while talking to her about mandatory minimums and the Blue Ribbon Commission. She's changed since I was married to her, and so have I. And maybe the way we are now, we can be friends. But no more than that. I don't want that, and I don't really think that she does either.

I guess that things really do work out for a reason.

That reason becomes clear to me when I get home. The lights are still on, in the hall and in the living room, but the house appears deserted, so I know that she's gone to bed. So I undo my tie as I move to our bedroom, expecting to see her asleep in bed. I'm more than a little taken aback when I see the rumpled bedclothes, with an empty bed, so I call her name.

"Ginger?"

"I'm here." She comes out of the en-suite, her voice warning me that she's not in the happiest of moods, and her face confirms that.

"Are you ok?" I ask her, forgetting about getting myself out of this monkey suit for a moment as I go to her.

"Fine." There's a wry smile on her face as one hand rubs her swollen abdomen. "Your child however, has decided that I'm not going to get any sleep tonight."

I chuckle as I close the distance between us, one hand joining hers, the other resting on her hip lightly. As if the baby can sense my presence, I feel a succession of strong kicks, and Ginger winces. I know that this can't have been the first time tonight that this has happened - she only ever says "your child" with that particular tone and inflection after a particularly active period.

She smiles up at me, then blinks, checking the clock on the bedside table, surprise registering on her face when she sees the time. "You're home early," she observes.

I shrug, teasing her when I reply. "And do you have a problem with that?" I take a step back, finally ridding myself of the hated tie, jacket and waistcoat, hanging them up carefully so as not to vex her any further. I've learned to be very careful around my wife over the past few months.

Her tone is far from teasing when she asks me, "Was Andrea there?"

I feel my shoulders stiffen, and know that she'll have noticed it too. "She was," I say simply, and when I turn to her, my heart sinks when she turns away.

Like everyone else in the West Wing, Ginger thought for a long time that I wasn't over Andrea. And I wasn't, not at first, not when the campaign started. But when we won the election, when we moved to Washington, somewhere along the line, I noticed that the red-headed girl who kept me in line on the campaign trail was actually a very attractive woman, with a mind of her own and the courage of her convictions, and I was bowled over by her. I never thought that she'd be interested in me, until one night that we were all out for drinks and she made it very clear that she was. She was the first woman that I'd looked at since Andrea, and I was gun-shy to begin with, not wanting to go too far too fast, because I'd done that once before, and got burned as a result. But she understood that, and we took things as slowly as we could, until one day I realised that I couldn't imagine my life without her.

When we announced that we were engaged, CJ was torn - the Press Secretary wanted to tear my throat out for becoming involved with my assistant, while the woman, the friend, wanted to throw her arms around me and hug me. In the end, she did a little bit of both. The rest of the Staff were mostly happy for us, as were most of the Press Corps. There were a few negative comments from the predictable quarters, but it all died down soon enough, and we married in a quiet ceremony, just a few friends and family.

And I thought that I was happy. Until the day that Ginger told me that she was pregnant. We were both shocked, because it's not something that we planned. In fact, we'd planned to wait until we were finished in the White House before starting a family. She was terrified when she told me, not knowing how I'd react, but I was ecstatic, and wanted to tell the world. I looked on it like this - I never planned to date her, never planned to marry her, but they were two of the best things that I ever did. Why should this be any different?

Ginger knows that I love her. Knows that I would never cheat on her. But she also knows that I once loved Andrea, and since her pregnancy has begun to show, she's been slightly touchy about her appearance, worrying that I don't find her attractive anymore.

She couldn't be more wrong.

She doesn't say anything as I go over to her, her head dipped, one hand on her back. I stand beside her, allowing her to drop her head on my shoulder, one hand replacing hers, rubbing the small of her back carefully. I feel her relax against me, a small sigh escaping her, and I kiss the top of her head. "Better?" I ask after a few minutes, and I'm rewarded by a small, but genuine smile up at me. "You want me to get you anything?" I ask her as I help her into bed. I've become familiar over the past few months with strange requests for odd foodstuffs at all hours of the day and night.

"I'm fine," she tells me, and I see that she never takes her eyes off me as I finish undressing and slip into bed beside her. She lies on her side, facing me, and I take her in my arms, our child between us, still moving about even now. My head rests on top of hers and her arms are around me. "I love you," she whispers quietly and I smile in the darkness, before telling her that I love her too.

She drops off to sleep quickly, and the baby does too, because the movement stops, but I stay awake, just holding them, thinking of how lucky I am. How happy I am. Knowing that in two months time, I'll be happier still. And then I remember that tomorrow - or today, whatever way you look at it - is Saturday. So she'll have the alarm clock set to wake me at a reasonable hour, so that I can go to temple, then to the office. I'll leave her sleeping, and when I come home at lunchtime, we'll do a little more work on the nursery, probably with some of our friends helping us, or trying to. And then we'll have dinner, probably with them, before we're left on our own, and we'll curl up in front of the fire and look at a video.

I can hardly wait for morning.

And I make a mental note to say a prayer of thanks in temple tomorrow, for all the prayers I've prayed that have gone unanswered, which have turned out to be some of God's greatest gifts to me. Because those unanswered prayers led me here, to my greatest gifts, Ginger and the baby, and this life we have. And I wouldn't want to change a thing.