TITLE: Seven Years AUTHOR: Teanna (teanna@gatefiction.com) CATEGORY: CJ/T ARCHIVE: Wonderful, but please ask first. Always at http://gatefiction.com/teanna DISCLAIMER: Aaron's making the money, not me NOTES: "Seven Years for Rachel" - three stories - "Bills, Postcards, Marriage", "This Thing, Forever" and last, "Seven Years". -- He has seven years on CJ, and it took her seven years to get over that. Those were her seven years for Rachel, but he didn't know that then. -- Once, and CJ is hanging a mirror on a wall in her flat (they never did share one), and it fell to the floor and shattered, and a piece cut her leg and she bled. And there was so much blood, then, but as he fell to his knees next to her, pressing a towel he found somewhere, against the blood, she was saying it was seven years of bad luck. -- He used to be married, and his wife used this perfume, and one day Ginger is wearing it and Toby has to ask her not to, he's blaming it on allergy, and then he shuts his door and picks up the phone to call Andi; but they have nothing to say anymore and he puts the phone down. -- He told himself CJ was fine with the deal they'd had right from the start; they both had things to do, places to go, people to see, and this attraction, it would pass, and let's be better than the common people out there, let's be superior and when it's over, when this attraction is a thing of the past, let's part like friends and move along. (Move along, move along; like schoolchildren crossing the street, a policeman telling them to move along, move along... Relationship applied to traffic.) But there were the phone calls; when she, in New York still, she kept having 'boyfriends', and people told him, friends of CJ told him, he was turning her into an alcoholic. Because they always ended up drinking, back when she was twenty - nine and had her hair in a ponytail, and he thought he might still catch up with her, length - wise, and she thought she might still catch up with him, age - wise; and time would only give one of them right. He's not sure he's to blame for her drinking; they are both restless and have trouble sleeping and alcohol, for them, is an easy habit. Anyway, the phone calls, and she's slipping away from him, and he's careful to let her, because they have this deal. No strings attached. It takes CJ seven years to get over that he has seven years on her, and when she gets over it she leaves, she leaves New York and him and she takes her cat with her and she sends him a postcard with two words: "bye /CJ" and he tries not to read anything into the fact that the card is a picture of the Statue of Liberty. His letters to her are long, he tries to choke her in his words, to bind her to him, bring her back, but she's not affected. (Years later, and Andi's divorcing him, and she's angry and she says: "And take back all your letters - they are everywhere - you try to hold me down with paper - you glue yourself to me - and *us* - with ink.") But it doesn't work on CJ; her postcards are flippant most of the time, and she has the upper hand always. Because she got over those seven years he had on her, she served her seven years and now she's free. -- They're in hospital, and she will have a scar, the surgeon says, and then he says cosmetic surgery will almost make it disappear, Mrs -? And Toby, Toby blurts out "she's not my wife", and there is panic there, in his voice, and the surgeon looks at CJ and CJ looks away and (this is something Toby understands much, much later) that's when CJ starts to regret this deal of theirs. This deal of his. She never does have cosmetic surgery; and the scar remains. She's slipping away, and he has promised not to hold her. -- She breaks up with him, mostly over the phone, and he won't respect her and leave her alone, no, he will come to her then, and she won't leave, not yet, not that time yet. He hates himself for not playing by the rules, but CJ, CJ is his poison, and he needs her. -- He met, and he married Andi, and he kept writing to CJ, and when the honeymoon was over (didn't take them that long), CJ came into his life again, but the terms were different; there were no unwritten contracts between them anymore, but he had another one, a written one even, with Andi, now. Suddenly, CJ was him, as he was seven years ago; she came to New York and she had him leave work early and go out drinking with her, or they'd sit in her hotel room and drink and talk politics, and he did wonder about this, that he had a wife at home who could talk politics forever and yet, he sat here in a hotel room with CJ. -- One night, they are lying on her bed, the TV's on, he's touching the scar on her leg. And then, his fingers move, and there never were any seven years, because he knows her body, knows it all, and the seven years in exile never were. -- How can you, when you come home and you have lost seven years (served your seven years for Rachel?), and then Andi, she's not shouting but she knows, she knows all, and you married Andi while you were lost, didn't you, and she's not your poison so she won't understand. You've taken that final step, then, stepped from Andi's arms into CJ's, or that's what should have happened, wasn't it? But CJ has left, the next day she's gone and Andi, she doesn't let you go, she's not moving out her lawyer isn't dropping off papers there is no division of furniture and no fighting over who owns what. So you're stuck in limbo; you're not free to fall into CJ, and even if you were, she's not going to catch you. So how can you, what can you do other that wait. -- In the end, it's CJ that returns, to him and to New York, and Andi that tells him it's over, it's over with him (and indeed, with New York) and Toby, Toby does nothing. So CJ is disgusted with the whole thing, and Andi files for divorce, and still Toby does nothing. Toby does politics, not relationships, and for the longest time, for the longest time, he's alone. -- Another seven years, and another city, and he thinks it's odd, that they are all in Washington, him and CJ and Andi, because it was that same morning that Ginger wore Andi's perfume, and she's been on his mind. CJ's walking around in the living - room, the TV's on, he sees glimpses of her through the half - shut door. He can't remember when she stopped drinking every day, it must have been many years ago. He knows why she's not sleeping, he knows why he's not sleeping, he knows everything. He knows he should be grateful she came back, even if it's a secret. He gets up, and finds a pad, and a pen, and then, he writes her a letter. He's served seven years times seven years, now, and Rachel's out there, in the living - room, and maybe, just maybe he should go to her, but he's not that kind of person, he's the kind of person that writes her a letter. And she's Rachel, so she'll not mind that. She never did mind that. *FINIS*