Author: penelopody 
Email: penelopody@hotmail.com
Spoilers: none 
Category: CJ/Toby.  
Summary: This, then, is the place where she stands.
Archive: please feel free 
Thanks: to august, cause we've got this whole fic mind meld thing 
going on and it's clearly working in my favour.  

//Ebenezer - stone of help.  
The name of the stone raised to commemorate Israel's victory over the 
Philistines.  "This, then, is the place where she stands, finally, 
and says this is mine, this is imperishable, a sign for all time."  //


Ebenezer

*** 

Recently, too often, he watched her.  He skirted her edges with wary 
eyes.  He marked the space between them.  And in doing so he 
separated them one from the other the way he fractured a moment or 
divided a paragraph into these tiny intimate particles.  Tiny and 
unbreakable.  
 
And while a part of her hated it - was frightened that he newly saw 
her as a different creature, as though she breathed in rarefied air 
and he in dark earth, deep underground - another part guarded it 
jealously. She took more time with her nails and smoothed her hair 
when he walked into the room.  Likely those things didn't matter.  
But she smiled and watched his eyes blacken roughly.  
 
He skirted her edges.  And steadily the space between them grew rich 
with conflict and color.  Like the distance between houses.  No 
fences, ill neighbors, so every moment she stifled an urge to place 
heavy stones there.  
 
"Get CJ for me."  
 
"I've been standing behind you for three minutes."  Although he'd 
known and his breathing gave him away.  
 
"We need a leak on the UN Security Council thing."  
 
"The Sudan?"  History and an ill-advised bombing.  
 
He nodded.  
 
"Even though..."  
 
"Even though."  
 
"Will the press be on our side in this?"  
 
"I want you to leak it to someone who will be on our side, CJ." The 
words held that condescension she fought against continually, though 
to his thinking and in a kind of truth he never meant it.  
 
"Are we even on our side in this?"  It came out with more bitterness 
than she had intended.  
 
Then his eyes were clear and dark and for a moment their connection 
was purely political, as though that was all that mattered.  And 
sometimes it was.  Particularly when they were taking hits for a past 
administration who sent Tomahawk missiles before they asked 
questions. Particularly when people died.  People died at a distance 
and because of who they were they defended it.  It was beyond her to 
take refuge in the fact that they hadn't been directly responsible 
and that, to some minds, just maybe it was right.  
 
"We need the Security Council to understand that we have the support 
of the American people."  
 
She didn't ask whether they did have that support.  She was ever 
aware that there were things she shaped.  

***  
 
All the time he stood apart from the rest of her world.  
 
And in time the world looked different.  It used to be that almost 
everything appeared through the stained glass of other people's 
perceptions, sheets of film with varied exposure and shifting colored 
filters.  It was her place to have this sense of people.  Especially 
here, where she could tell stories she believed, most of the time, 
where she could shape a world.  Which perhaps should have frightened 
her and rarely did.  
 
But now, while the colors and sheen hadn't changed, the subject had.  
Slowly she was reflected from strangers and friends and even enemies, 
such as they were, and each towered and was bright and funny just in 
talking with her.  
 
For several days she stole mildly obsessive glances at Carol's feet.  
 
"You don't like my shoes?"  
 
"I was... No, I like them.  That's what, a four inch heel?"  
 
"Nope.  Not even two."  She was unsurprised by CJ's newfound interest 
in footwear.  
 
"Hm.  You seem..."  
 
"I hung up my dance queen shoes after the wedding."  
 
"Miss them?"  
 
"On and off.  But you know.  They came with the dance hall slut 
outfit so I don't really need them any more. They've done their work, 
right?"  
 
Her eyes were laughing.  This was new too.  Carol didn't speak about 
her personal life lightly.  And she didn't say slut.  Especially not 
to CJ.  
 
At least the President no longer asked if she had grown.  And there 
was an odd delight in seeing herself through her own eyes.  Her 
reflection was less familiar than the faces of the people around her 
and she felt the pleasure of holding such diversity so well in 
hand.   Though in the press room she found herself concerned that in 
shaping her world she was creating something too much in her own 
image.  And now when Danny asked her a question he looked her in the 
eye.  
 
And certainly this glittering surety, this excess of confidence in 
her skill and soul came from somewhere.  
 
It was a relief that Toby stood apart.  She couldn't find herself in 
his too long glances, although they were nearly always directed at 
her.  

As in older days she teased him about continuing teamster sagas and 
burgeoning rumbles from the Sudan (though earlier it had been 
teachers and Iraq, and at another time hospitals and the European 
Union).  She wished it were calming.  She chose to keep the heavy 
wall stones out of sight.  
 
***  
 
Then, after all, she wasn't as sure of this as she hoped.  
 
He opened her office door without knocking though he paused before 
speaking.  
 
"Yes?"  
 
"The Security Council briefing.  You read it?"  
 
"It's read, digested and fully integrated into my understanding of 
the UN Charter."  
 
"Good."  
 
"What, no questions, Madam Inquisitor?"  Her tone was too light and 
she pinned it down with a glance.  
 
"You say you've got it, you've got it.  I heard you earlier.  You 
dealt well with the bin Laden question."  
 
His confidence was unexpected and not quite welcome.  So she grabbed 
Josh and had him run her through the briefing.  
 
"Does President Bartlett support the bombing of the El Shifa plant 
three years ago?"  
 
"The President believes the bombing was legally justified as a 
measure taken in self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations 
Charter. Intelligence showed the plant was producing chemical warfare 
related weapons.  Intelligence, right," she added with a 
snort.  "Hundreds of those reports have been shown to be nothing but 
a little CIA inventiveness."  
 
"You're not planning to say that, right?"  
 
"No, Josh.  I have every intention of retaining my position here for 
today."  
 
Josh grinned at her then and five minutes later.  She grinned back as 
she stood.  She had known she was ready before they'd started.  As 
she closed the door she breathed relief because she didn't want her 
new refractive eyesight to blanket everyone and Josh didn't look like 
her at all. 

***  
 
She noted how Toby watched her as the press chewed oppressively and 
the Security Council deliberated.  After midnight she went into his 
office and it was like another time when she wouldn't even comb her 
hair, except that she had done so for the press corps and he looked 
at her with something that was akin to blindness.  
 
She was not going to be his floating world.  She would never let him 
turn this into blindness.   But she was in his office and she didn't 
know how to start that conversation.  
 
She was strangely aware of their difference in height and sat 
abruptly.  He looked at his desk before speaking.  
 
"The truth is the UN will theorize endlessly about the rules of war 
and confronting terrorism but the final question is one of fact.  And 
they just don't have the capacity to decide matters of fact," he said 
resignedly for her sake and his.  
 
"So we're in the clear for now.  They're not going to ask the 
questions."  
 
"I don't think they can, feasibly.  And we've done a good job of 
showing them that.  You've done a good job.  The American people are 
with us."  
 
"_With_ us?"  
 
"I know."  
 
"We... the US, we have a power that I'm not quite comfortable with."  
 
He responded slowly.  "I see."  
 
"It makes things easy, but I'm not comfortable with it."  
 
She wished this was less about politics, though she saw him most 
clearly at times like this and the distance between them dwindled.  
She wished she wasn't seated across the room from him.  
 
"CJ."  
 
As they were the only two in the room her name ricocheted uneasily.  
She met his eyes.  
 
"You need to know..."  
 
Ginger appeared in the doorway.  "I'm leaving now.  That OK?"  
 
"Yeah.  You're done.  Thank you."  Ginger smiled.  
 
"Shut the door would you, Ginger."  CJ said calmly.  
 
And again.  
 
"It might be that ..."  
 
And she was aware that they were alone and the door was closed and he 
wouldn't touch her.  But she didn't move.  
 
He shifted his eyes.  "Do you know what I... I have these things, 
these words in my mouth, they seem to glow and twist just as I need 
them to but they won't... come together.  And I... you must know I 
look at you sometimes and there are things that are too much to say 
or... It doesn't seem to help, not to look.  I watch your edges and 
even then... I'm..."  
 
She sat still.  
 
"CJ.  You know what I'm saying."  There was a kind of reproach.  
 
"I won't be this golden floating thing that you watch.  I'm not just 
admired."  
 
He considered her.  
 
"I have long experience with that kind of glittering esteem and it's 
easy at first but it shifts."  
 
"I know.  I know you."  
 
"Yet this is new."  
 
And so much of her wished it weren't, wished they could be taking a 
second swing at a thing long past so she'd know the edges and the 
rules and be ready to have no hope.  So she'd be ready to miss if it 
was fleeting dust.  
 
"I'm here, though, all the way through.  So much, all of me," he 
said.  And she was surprised that he understood and hoped he wasn't 
reaching her with mere loose words.  

They didn't touch until he held a hand to her in the hallway of her 
apartment.  
 
***  
 
Later he pressed into her and she felt the rough wall against her 
back.  And in the slanted morning gray his words were no longer 
careful and somehow they were all the more penetrating. He was more 
comfortable in his skin than she expected.  She felt too old to 
giggle but he breathed against her thigh and she was delighted.  She 
took pleasure in the way he chuckled into her mouth.  It was much 
more than she had hoped.  

She leaned back and watched the ceiling.  And she let him talk her to 
sleep.  Talking in short sentences was a kind of lullaby for people 
who saw too much with their eyes open. 

Yet it was new and old at once.  And in the morning some parts 
crumbled into forgetfulness. 

So she welcomed nights.  There was a place where he spoke in tones of 
unpredictable sweetness and she curved and rose against him.  And she 
felt that the sex wasn't about sex, and he confirmed it in a way, but 
that was all there was so she didn't have much to choose from.

He spoke to her less when the lights were on.  Which meant she 
couldn't catch his eyes, though she caught flickers of him in the 
still glances he could never avoid directing her way.  And his 
glances were sharp and perilous, but they were elusive.   

She wasn't sure of this.  Though she chose it over and over.  

*** 

"CJ."  From two directions, which wasn't a good sign. But one was 
Carol giving her the name of a Chilean emissary for the next 
morning's briefing and the other was Toby wanting to have lunch.  
Which they hadn't done since the UN Security Council run in.  Since 
well before that.   

She smiled a thanks to Carol and turned to him.  Lunchtime was never 
going to seep into night.  Which was disconcerting, although it might 
be the point.

Which brought her to a small restaurant with him and to the 
realization that here, in doing this, he had taken the step which she 
had avoided. It stung and it frightened her although she was more 
than aware that no one could tell the difference in her smile.

"I've thought about this, between us.  And thinking about you and 
about us, my work's suffering."  Which was abrupt and hard to pin 
down at once, especially because he was muttering.  

"Okay."  

"I know what I want to say.  To a certain extent."  Her mouth curled 
a little as she imagined his fight not to write it on paper.  "But 
first... I want to know what you are thinking."        

She looked at him and then away for too long and he spoke again.

"CJ, you comb words perfectly between the President and a large group
of professional news people.  You give them these... yet you haven't 
spoken to me since... I feel like we used to talk."  

He paused and breathed softly.  "You shout inside me.  But you don't 
talk to me."

And she felt that the balance was out and that suddenly she needed to 
fill this space but she didn't know what to fill it with.  

The silence hid itself in the noise of the restaurant, but it was 
there nonetheless.  She spoke reluctantly.  "I need to make these 
declarations.  But I don't want this to be about declarations.  
They're not everything. They might not be anything. I understand why 
it is this way, so far. We have this brief time together, always 
after dark.  And it's hard to see things.  But we can wait...  It can 
grow slowly."

"All right."  He drew the words out painfully.  

"And it's not that I don't value... You said..."

He didn't finish for her because he had said so many things.  

"Be sure of me, Toby."  He nodded and she glanced around the small 
restaurant before taking his hand.  And it was daylight and she saw 
too deeply into his eyes, and felt him taking the same from her.  She 
was strongly aware that the conversation was not over.  But she 
convinced herself that no conversation ever could be.  And she would 
choose him one day after another.  

After all, she could perhaps be more sure of this than she seemed.  

***

This, then, is the place where she stands finally and says this is 
mine, this is imperishable, a sign for all time.  Each word is a 
heavy stone and she places them here, one on top the other.  And it 
doesn't matter that every second word is a lie, because she is aware 
that she shapes her world out of words each day.  It doesn't matter 
that they are separate, because the very way he looks at her is 
binding.  And the stones with which she builds this Ebenezer in the 
space between them are the same stones with which a thousand walls 
have been built.  
 
***

end