Giving Up This Fight

Standing at the precipice, with tiredness and frustration dogging her, she made her decision. CJ Cregg, a woman of courage and compassion, a woman who seldom shied away from a fight, decided that she was going to have to give up on Toby. There were, she reasoned, needing to justify her decision and her emotional cowardice to herself, only so many battles she could fight at one time. Her rearguard action against his heart was taking far too great a toll on her. It also showed little sign of being successful. With a re-election campaign to focus on she had no time to squander on such risky endeavours.

The one consolation she could take from all of this, the one thing that made this decision bearable at all, was that there was not much chance that he would notice her retreat from the field of battle. Throughout this adventure he had appeared to be completely immune to the fact that her feelings towards him had changed. While she might wish, in the cold, empty hours before dawn, that she had been less subtle in her methodology, now she was not sorry that he had remained so entirely oblivious.

It had after all been a not very carefully orchestrated operation, one that a communications professional, such as herself, had very little to be proud of. It was hardly ideal to discover in the aftermath of the shooting that her feelings for him coalesced into a painful consciousness that was entirely too close to wanting to be comfortable. It was laughable to be exploring that vulnerability, to be tentatively stretching out towards him as he launched into his own personal crusade to inflict pain and suffering on the people who had tried to wrest power and dignity away from them. Even when the worst of it was over, when they had sat together on Josh’s stoop at midnight, laughing with just an edge of bitterness about the vagaries of politics, she should have known that she had not chosen a path for herself that would give her rest or peace of mind.

There had been moments when she thought that there might be something lingering in the smoke between them, when she had sensed a chimera of longing from him. But her imagination was cursed with the ability to read more into things than was actually there, and the moments had been too few and far between to provide her with the type of strong evidence that would make her rethink her choice.

So, after all, giving up on this would cost her little; and if it meant that she was fated to stand by and watch as he let other women hurt him then that was what being his friend demanded. If her decision meant that it was her responsibility to argue with him when he laid himself open to personal and professional betrayal then that was a role she knew how to fill. In her calmer moments she was at least grateful that their skirmish with Ann Stark had redressed the balance between them and that in their personal history this time when CJ was right and Toby was wrong it was one of the occasions when it really counted.

In light of her resolution her behaviour altered. It was a subtle, incremental change, hardly noticeable unless you were playing close attention - and in the White House, where every day was a frenzy of crisis management it was hardly conscionable that anyone would be looking too closely at the currents between Press Secretary and Director of Communications. She drew back, just a little, was no longer quite so ready to be his confidante, stopped being the person who walked to his door to ask him how he was after something had gone wrong, or to congratulate him after a victory. A little of her lightness and ease around him was gone and her laughter was quieter, but she was surviving.

Josh had been there, probably without even knowing why he was needed or what was going on. She had long since stopped wondering how it was that they had a extra perception when it came to one another and had simply blessed the fact that he could offer her comfort without needing to know the whys and wherefores of a situation. And there were flirtations, an attraction buzzing around her that she knew she could handle, which flattered her and made her feel attractive but had none of the undertow of emotions of her feelings for Toby. While she might regret that her interest was fairly superficial, there was little doubt that if she chose to pursue what was apparently on offer she would enjoy a fairly pleasant interlude, and pleasure was after all something she deserved.

All of which took her to the State Rooms of the White House, at a reception for the British Ambassador, in what would charitably be described as dazzling form. The dress helped, in a room full of the expensive and glamorous its sleek, simple lines and rich colour screamed elegance. But it wasn’t really about clothing; it was about a room full of people largely spell bound by the woman moving among them that so many of them recognised as the public face of the Bartlet administration, it was about her charm and a rich laugh that wrapped itself around you and made you want to draw it forth again. And if a pair of dark, solemn eyes followed her every move with rapt concentration as she moved from group to group, flirting a little here and there, drawing smiles and wry remarks from those who knew her well, then that was just part of the magic of the evening.

Looking up to find him watching her she did not falter, nor look away, but met his eyes with a certain reckless bravery, bolstered by the fact that she had given up on this fight. Suddenly giddy by the knowledge that Toby was struggling here, that he was apparently unable or unwilling to wrench his gaze away from her, she merely raised an eyebrow at him and, smiling as though he was the merest acquaintance she resumed her conversation with Lord John Marbury. Conscious of those eyes watching her it was entirely natural to lay her hand on his arm as she lent close to talk to him in a way that would prompt a few snide references to the growing intimacy between the Bartlet administration and the British Ambassador in the morning’s papers.

Toby drew closer, tracking her progress around the room, provoking her into a game that required her to stay one step ahead of him, to maintain the distance between

them even as he tried to close it down. It was a race with no obvious end in sight, and she was beginning to wonder if they were going to circle each other as literally as they did figuratively.

He was determined in his pursuit and there was no doubting that he was the superior strategist because he did, after an hour of careful progress, catch up with her. Or at least, as some of the guests started to leave, she was left with a choice of speaking to him or joining a group that was holding an animated conversation in Mandarin. But she had never stopped speaking to Toby, and it took more than his lingering eyes to quell the burst of confidence she was suddenly buoyed up with. She turned and faced him with self-assurance and was rewarded by his look of abject confusion since he had, apparently, expected that she would be as at a loss as he was.

That cool, controlled façade seemed to disconcert him even more. He stumbled over words, fidgeted, retreated, started all over again only to loose his train of thought once more, while she stood by with a slight smile curving over her lips and the blood racing through her veins like a high speed train. This sudden power to discompose a man who was never at a loss for words could, she decided, be ridiculously addictive. His tumbling rhetoric did have its own hypnotic rhythm and as much as she had stopped herself from being drawn in by him over the last few weeks it was impossible not to hear the caress and the desire in his voice and want in response to wrap herself around him.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Toby,’ professing ignorance at his outpouring of accusations and frustration took him a step closer to complete meltdown but as she silently celebrated her victory he found a shard of control.

‘This is an important event - we can’t play this game here.’

‘I’m not playing a game.’ She took a sip of her wine and watched him try to process what she was telling him, ‘you’re the one who can’t stop looking at me, who’s been following me around the room for the last hour. If you wanted to talk to me you only had to come over and join the group I was with - why all this cloak and dagger manoeuvring to get me on my own?’

‘CJ,’

‘Yes Toby?’’

‘We can’t. This isn’t the right time. There are too many other things we need to do.’ It would be too cruel to pretend not to know what he was referring to, yet the arrogance that made him presume that she did know was as attractive as it was irritating.

‘Fine,’ she started to turn away, giving every impression that the conversation was over, only to have his arm reach out to catch hold of her.

‘This isn’t the right time.’ His eyes pleaded with her to understand and on another day she might have both understood and agreed with his analysis of their situation. But this wasn’t the moment when she was prepared to concede that what she wanted was something that could be put in a box until a rainy day came along.

‘You really know how to treat women, you know that Toby? You can’t stop looking at me, even now - and your eyes say you want to touch as well as just look. You spend all night trying to get me on your own and when you do you stand here and say this isn’t the right time; as though you expect me to agree that we should wait until we both have some time and space in our diaries. I am not a piece of research or a Bill you can put in a drawer until after the election. If you want me, I’m here now, if you don’t that’s fine too - but this is an offer that can be redeemed tonight or never.’

He didn’t respond, or rather her determination to have the exit line robbed him of any opportunity to respond. She did not look back as she resolutely ploughed back into the groups of remaining guests and she had no idea what became of him, other than the fact that he had not followed her and apparently had no intention of accepting her challenge.

Brief discussions ensued with Leo and Josh and then, with the last guests drifting towards their chauffeurs she decided that the almost deserted State Rooms were not the place to contemplate how or why her giving up on Toby ploy had provoked him into such an unusual display of feeling.

Stooping to remove her shoes just as she stepped into her office she was not expecting the warm hands that grasped her and pulled her into contact with a solid body or the lips that plundered hers with urgency that bordered on desperation. Perhaps Toby hadn’t been expecting her enthusiastic response because the tortuous moment passed, and she caught her breath gazing down at wild eyes before leaning into his embrace once more just to confirm that he really did kiss as well as she thought he did. He really did.

Backing away with a smile that was reminiscent of nothing if not the Cheshire cat, CJ Cregg, a woman who had suddenly developed the knack of getting exactly what she wanted, made sure her office door was completely shut before sitting carefully and languorously on her couch and beckoning to the man watching her with eyes that promised passion and ardour if not peace and quiet.

The words he would have spoken as he joined her were lost, captured by her lips as she brushed them softly against his. She was teasing him, just a little, a game they both knew she would tire of soon. He might be the better strategist but she had the best poker face and had just executed a text book example of that classical tactic, the feint; wrong footing him entirely by appearing to change direction, or that’s what she’d be telling people from now on, because after all she had never really given up this fight.

The End