Pairing: CJ/Toby Friendship

Spoilers: Not really. I guess you could find 18^th & Potomac in there.

Rating: PG

Summary: “Toby?”

               “I’m coming with you, CJ.”    

Author’s note: I wrote this the day Katharine Hepburn died. And I couldn’t get the lines from the summary out of my head. So, this is a pale imitation of a tribute to an amazing woman.

This is back-story, mostly. And I have no idea if it fits in with canon timeline. Honestly, I’m not that concerned about it. And, oh yeah, I’m not wild about the ending.

Feedback: Is lovely.

Disclaimers: Yeah, they’re not mine.

Comfort, In A Time Of Need

The phone in her hand beeped. Then the annoying whine of a dead line filled the silence surrounding her like a shroud. She hung up the phone.

Slowly, the noise that had been around her all along filtered back into her awareness. Her roommate’s friends arguing about poetry. The jazz bouncing off the walls from the stereo.

She blinked.

Her bedroom door was closed, but the window was open. A small breeze struggled to make the light curtains move.

Not for the first time in her life, Claudia Jean Cregg had no idea what to do. She knew there were things to be done. Clothes to pack, a flight to be arranged. But, she couldn’t for the life of her think how those things were to be accomplished. How would she start?

She picked up the phone.

The tears started falling as she listened to the ringing in her ear. Three, now four rings. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if he weren’t there.

“Hello.”

“Toby, I…. I’m not sure…. I need to leave.”

“CJ? What’s…? Are you okay?”

“No. My mother. She’s dead.”

He had said not to move, he was on his way. Logically she knew he hadn’t meant it literally. But, she couldn’t seem to do anything but sit there, her hand resting on the phone.

Toby hated her roommate. He found her ridiculous. After all, CJ was a feminist and she didn’t feel the need to stop bathing. He felt guilty about the small pleasure that surged up when he yelled at her and her hippie-wannabe friends. But, CJ didn’t need to hear a diatribe against all white male poets. Not now. Not when she’d just lost her mother. He watched silently as they went scurrying from his glare.

He knocked softly and opened the door. CJ turned and looked at him. She had at that moment the saddest eyes he thought he’d ever seen.

“I should probably…. You know, there are things I should be doing. I just, I don’t know if I can.”

Her voice broke then and he wished he were someone else. Someone who knew how to talk to people. Who knew how to give comfort.

“Don’t worry CJ. I’ll do it. It’ll be fine.”

She shivered at his words, but made no other reply.

CJ stared into space while he called the airline. She’d have to hurry. There was a flight leaving from SFO in an hour and fifty minutes. She nodded. But Toby knew that she was only superficially aware of the information he was providing.

She seemed to come back a little while Toby packed a bag for her. She talked of the brownies her mother had made every report card day through high school; Toby threw jeans and t-shirts and sweaters into the army green duffel bag that had been her brother’s. She told him about the princess costume her mother had painstakingly sewn with hundreds of sequins for Halloween when she was four; Toby uncomfortably stuffed in her socks and bras and underwear.

CJ was silent again as he guided her out of the bedroom. He shut the door. But, the window remained open. And the breeze fought valiantly to get the curtains to dance.

She had teased him the first time he had driven her somewhere that he drove like an old woman. Toby felt sure that had the circumstances been different, she would have laughed at him speeding his way to the airport.

They arrived during the first boarding call. CJ stood mute waiting for Toby to buy the ticket. He asked the agent for two, please.

That seemed to snap her back. CJ looked at him questioningly.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Toby? Are you crazy? You don’t have any clothes. You’re in the middle of a campaign. And you’re not parked in the long-term area.”

The last of her reasons amused him. He smiled slightly and reminded the ticket agent that he had asked for two tickets to Dayton.

“Toby?”

“I’m coming with you, CJ.”

He shouldered the bag and grabbed her wrist. Taking the tickets with his free hand he led her to the gate.

“You can help me get my car out of the impound lot when we get back. But, I’m coming with you.”

And he had. He had held her hand on the flight. And in the limo from the church. He had stood behind her at the cemetery where she was flanked by her brothers. And he had held her in the middle of the night while she cried. He had been there for her.

Just as she would be there for him years later, when he would call her at two in the morning because his mother had died. And she would fly across the country and help to cover the mirrors. And sit Shiva.

And even years after, when they were preparing for the biggest press conference ever. When they were supposed to be talking about re-election, they would remember. And they would hold hands and mourn the loss of another great woman. Together.

Together they would provide comfort, in a time of need. As they had done for each other years before.