Title: Green on Gray
Author: Lyman’s Might
Rating: PG-13...maybe pushing R
Category: CJ/Toby
Archive: Go nuts but drop me a line if you have a
chance
Feedback: Always appreciated at lymansmight@yahoo.com
Summary: "This is the solstice, when his world is most
out of balance" 

Disclaimer: The West Wing, including CJ Cregg, Toby
Ziegler, Josh Lyman, and Andrea Wyatt, belongs to
Aaron Sorkin’n’Co. No infringement intended. Of
course, I could be writing about another CJ, Toby,
Josh, and Andi in a big white house with a wing facing
west...I’m not, but I’m just saying...Also, a couple
references to the Bob Dylan songs “Mr. Tambourine Man”
and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Props to anyone
who recognizes them.

One note...I wrote this before I knew character ages
(I missed the first season), and my ages were based on
actors’ ages. I like the ages I used, so I’m going to
leave Toby a bit too young. Something tells me he
won’t mind.

Parenthetical thanks to Bobby Kennedy and Bob Dylan
for giving me a reason to write in the first place.

All that said, let’s rock and roll...

Green on Gray

He’s awake and has been for a while. Maybe all night,
he really can’t remember. He remembers the gratifying
burn of scotch in his throat, and he remembers the
searing guilt as he stepped into the cab hours later.
The remaining time, which he might want to remember,
blurs. 

This night appears unexpectedly but repeatedly in his
life. And it is incredible and disturbing, and he
always tries to burn each breath into his memory in
case it is the last time. But the moments fade,
swirling into the fog that hangs in this room. This
room where he is supposed to be comfortable, on this
day when he is supposed to relax. 

He’s hung-over. His head pounds, and he can’t hold
onto the images. They flicker and fade, mocking him.
He considers trying this, the next time, without being
drunk, but he’s not sure that this isn’t about being
drunk. If he were sober, his touch would be too
honest, and he’d have to answer for it in the morning.
He’d have to stay the night and bring her flowers and
explain the things he doesn’t understand. And it would
be trite and foolish and short-lived. This thing is
beyond him, beyond his ability to shape, and he’s
afraid of it. A few shots make him reckless enough to
chase it anyway, to try to conquer and cultivate it.
Without that, he’d resign himself to it and to her,
she’d be bored and insecure, and then she’d be gone.

**

The summer he met her, he’d enjoyed the outdoors for
the first time. She had forced him outside to talk and
argue with her in the sunlight of Central Park. The
leaves had shimmered against the tree bark, green on
gray, and the entire world had come alive. She’d
shuddered against him, and he’d found that he too was
alive. He’d lit candles for dinners, and he’d watched
them flicker in her eyes. The bitterness in his throat
had dissolved, and he’d felt light and smoky. When
she’d gone, he’d wandered in the park, vainly trying
to recapture the brilliance, but he’d found no beauty
in the brown and red leaves. He’d seen his world
crumble as swirling winds drew the leaves into a
veritable cyclone, leaving them dead at his feet. The
world turned cold and gray. He’d found himself staring
out windows, searching the streets of New York in
February for the first touches of green. 

Eventually, he’d found Andi. She’d brought glints of
purples and blues, and though she hadn’t made him feel
alive again, she’d made him feel different. In the
wake of endless winter gray, different had been
enough. He’d forgotten the greens and tried to ignore
the ominous symbolism in his inability to see the
white of his wedding as anything more than a sharper
shade of gray. And when the marriage had crumbled, as
he’d known it would, he’d been left in the D.C.
winter, imprisoned by cement and snow.

**
Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he listens to Bob
Dylan. It strikes him that if he hadn’t lived through
the sixties, if he hadn’t had sisters who had
worshipped this man, he’d likely dismiss this music as
pretentious drivel. The music, apart from the singing,
is good enough, and the writing is expressive, but
Dylan wasn’t above the occasional cheap rhyme. But, he
thinks, that’s the point; the meaning is on the
surface for anyone who’s interested. Dylan doesn’t
spin. The writing isn’t impeccable, but it’s poetry on
par with Elliot and Wordsworth because it’s honest in
a way that only artists master. Toby understands it
instinctively; it echoes inside him, comforting and
revealing, from a time in his life when defending his
principles had nothing to do with Republicans on the
Hill or concealed diseases. He was not even a
teenager, but his sisters dressed him in tie dye and
bellbottoms and prohibited their mother from cutting
his hair. He’d carried a little sign, and he’d pouted
for  policemen so his sisters didn’t get arrested.
Looking back, he hadn’t really understood what his
signs meant and he hadn’t known who Robert Kennedy
was, but he’d understood what it meant to stand for
something. He’d understood something about being human
and something about being American. 

Dylan spoke to that through doubts and divorce. He was
the voice of a generation Toby had almost been a part
of, should have been a part of, a generation that
believed in liberty, peace, and  democracy. He doesn’t
belong in the generation, he knows, because he is
cowardly and apathetic and only occasionally knows
what he stands for. But Bob Dylan lays it out there
for him, the soundtrack befitting the colors and
feelings he, for all his overstated eloquence, can’t
describe.

There are so many parts of his life that he can’t find
words to explain. He stood in a room, once, before his
friends and family, and he vowed that Andi would mean
everything to him. And it doesn’t matter that he later
signed papers admitting that it was all a lie, that
she’d never actually meant that much. It doesn’t
matter because it just seems that there are promises
that should be taken seriously. Crowds of protesters
taught him about love long before he felt it. He was a
child, but he understood love, and he believed that it
was everything. But now he isn’t sure because he tried
to love Andi, and it destroyed him. The sky folded
under him, and the carpet felt shaky beneath his feet.
He’s unable to make sense out of any of it; he has no
way to explain what happened to his marriage and to
him. He’d spent years reeling, and it was CJ who’d
saved him.

One night, a couple of years from his divorce, while
he still struggled to get over a woman he’d barely
loved, she’d been there when he’d come home. He’d
looked around his apartment, confused and disoriented
until he’d seen her eyes. She’d stared at him from the
couch, and the room had faded leaving only her amidst
the specks of green and gray.

“You bought me new furniture.” It wasn't a question,
but an even-toned remark, as though this was only one
more discovery he didn’t have the energy to explore.

“You’d spent entirely too much time moping on that
couch,” she’d said in a light voice that rumbled
through the room like a burst of restrained laughter.
“This is a new beginning.”

“It’s a new couch, and it’s ugly.” His eyes glowed
beneath the scowl.

“No, it’s an old couch I had in storage.” She’d
smiled, aware that he was, in his own vague and angry
terms, thanking her. “It’s a new beginning. It’ll grow
on you.”

He’d sat with her, his heavy sigh the only sound
breaking a heavier silence, and he had finally offered
her a drink. Since then, when he’d looked at that
couch, he’d been unable to see the spots of green.
He’d seen nothing but her bare shoulders grinding
against the upholstery as she’d called his name. He
never thought twice about the gesture, never realized
that it was odd, and he knew this couch was about her
as much as him. The old couch had been Andi’s, and CJ,
even with all of the abuses she took from him, could
not stand to be a replacement for Andi. She’d given
herself to him when he’d needed her, but she had been
unwilling to give herself up. So this one was hers,
and it taunted him with the feel and taste of her
skin. Every night, as he walked into his living room,
he willed her moans and sighs from his mind, because
his apartment revolved around that bit of her.

This was the era of denial and excuses. He avoided the
truths he was unprepared to face, the intimate
intonations of her screams, the instinctive rhythm of
their bodies. They gave each other excuses to end it,
dismissing it as a conflict of interest and laughing
over Leo’s possible punishments, but he knew the
political and ethical questions were irrelevant. It
was the simple questions, the intermingling of anger,
desperation, and perhaps even love, that overwhelmed
him, leaving him frightened and drunk on this couch in
an apartment that was no longer his own. 

It had ended within the month. He couldn’t articulate
his feelings for her, and she could only handle so
much casual sex. He stared at her during staff
meetings, he avoided her outside of them, and things
were otherwise normal. He again wondered if it had all
been a lie. He just couldn’t understand how she could
leave him without looking back. She’d done it before,
slipped away without looking back to see how her
absence wore him away. And it was worse this time
because he wasn’t twenty-three, and he wasn’t
resilient. A sharp pain grew in his chest, and
sometimes, when he watched her with the rest of the
White House boys, he had the slightest bit of trouble
breathing. 

He knew that he missed her, missed the feel of her
lips on his chest and her nails in his back, but he
wasn’t the little boy who believed in the slogans on
those signs anymore. At forty-something, Toby Ziegler
clung to shards of idealism. The memories of those
nights with her, basking in the afterglow of something
he’d felt only in those moments, faded quickly. He
wanted to tell CJ what his world was without her. He
wanted to point to the line where the cement met the
grass, and he wanted her to understand, but he knew
that she wouldn’t. He had no words, he was losing her,
and he was terrified.

**
He’d had the chance to repay her. He’d had the chance
to save her life, but he hadn’t. Sam had saved her
because Toby had been too busy not saving Josh. 

He drank a lot of scotch, and he showed up at her
door. He’d had that chance to save her, but he’d used
her again instead. He was a selfish, bitter man who
screwed CJ every time he couldn’t handle his life. It
was how he cried, somewhere inside of her, where
nobody, not even CJ, saw. He was broken and drunk and
confused, and he needed CJ. And he needed to believe
that she needed him, that she, too, just didn’t have
the words to explain it. 

They were all depressed. Leo bellowed obscenities,
Josh smashed windows, Sam wrote diatribes, and Toby
screwed CJ. Because they were scared and confused.
They were boys entering some midlife adolescence where
they weren’t allowed to cry and they weren’t allowed
to love each other. Toby trembled, his hand gripping
the couch, and he thought for a second that he might
cry, and he shook harder. Then he knew that he
wouldn’t, and, though his body began to relax, that
was almost worse.

The mornings after, he felt dirty and cruel. He knew
subtext didn’t matter. She would never know the things
he couldn’t say, and, if he never said them, this
would always be about anger. It would be about sex and
drinking and hiding. She would never know why the
gentle curve of her collarbone made him quiver. He
thought about it often, trying to find the words that
would make this last, but he found none. She would
stay while he suffered visibly, while the shooting
hung over him. He handled the MS privately, and he
knew that as he internalized, as she forgot that he
needed her, she would fade into the rings of smoke. 

**

“Josh?” Her voice was too anxious, and she almost
cringed. 

He noticed, but he said nothing. The only sign was a
look that lasted seconds too long and a strained tone
in his mumbled, “yeah?” before he looked away, rubbing
his eyes.

“You seen Toby?” Too hopeful. Too urgent. She worried
because should have been so much better at this.

“Yeah, he, uh, he has a thing,” Josh answered, his
voice apologetic because his answer seemed to need an
apology. He didn’t know why because, in this White
House, nobody asked unnecessary questions anymore.

“Oh,” she said, her weary voice still beyond her
control. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She was gone,
walking toward her office. Josh watched her as she
walked, her shoulders slumping just slightly. As she
paused nearly imperceptibly outside her door, he shook
his head and walked away. 

Toby’s eyes, burning in the dim haze of her office,
were all that she could see when she opened the door.
His eyes reflected the moonlight in flecks of gold and
the remaining scene faded into the unusually silent
night. The magic of his eyes, the unsettling intensity
of his unexpected stare, drew a gasp from her. “I
thought you had a thing...”

There was a hint of a smile on his lips as he looked
up at her. “I do. You.” He barely moved as he spoke.
His eyes were locked on hers. A stillness existed
between them amidst the reverberating words. It was
solid and tangible, and, for once, it was the outside
world that wasn’t.

“I’m a thing?” She fought her awkwardness as she stood
in his invasive gaze. Her hands began to fumble with
her necklace until she forced them into her pockets,
feeling childish and silently scolding herself.

He gestured between them. “This. Us. We have a thing.”

She wondered at his ability to speak precisely while
sounding so vague. This had been building for years,
pushing them to the precipice of something concrete
and acceptable. Yet they’d stopped, trapped in some
phase she didn’t understand. They’d stopped when this
weight had peaked, as though challenging each other to
bear it. It wore her down, and she felt powerless. But
he could speak of it gruffly and directly, and she
found that unsettling.

“We’ve had a thing for a long time, Toby," she said,
her voice bitter with accusation. This thing, this
grating, incredible thing, had clouded the air of
every room of the west wing. It had stifled and
mocked, a gray dusk slowly destroying them. It had
settled so resolutely that she had resigned herself to
anxious nights, to occasional drunken nights, to
nostalgic shame. But he was here, now, seemingly
confronting this thing, and she found herself unable
to distinguish this agony from the rest of her life.
This gray mess hovered over every thought, permeating
everything he touched and resonating in his voice. 

To know Toby, she had come to think, was to surrender
to him. As long as Toby was in her life, there would
be guilty cell-phone calls for cabs from the sidewalk
outside his apartment. Because he was manipulative and
irresistible. Because in those nights he offered
something greater than the shame, something that cut
through the fog of bureaucracy and routine to
something equally vague and nebulous that she needed
to understand. It was in his voice and in his touch.
It was in the particles of dust in the damn fog and
yet, in those nights, it was something invigorating.
At the center of it all, at his center, was something
light and alive. 

“Yeah.” His word dissipated, settling into a long and
hazy silence. He stared at her, unsure of himself. He
considered backing her into the nearest wall and
communicating instinctively, wordlessly. But that had
always left them isolated, and he couldn’t bear to be
an farther from her. So he just sat, staring. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Toby.” She was lying.
Shamelessly lying. She was sure that he knew how
little it would take to break her down. But she was
trying. She needed that, the simple desire to be alive
again, to matter. So, voice barely wavering, she
continued, “I’ve been your easy answer for too long.
I’m not a drug, Toby. I’m alive, or I was, before
this...this thing. This grave you’ve pulled me into
every time you couldn’t stand to be dying alone. I’ve
spent eighteen years doing this...”

She expected him to hang his head slightly, feigning
remorse he couldn’t feel. But his gaze was steady as
he looked through her. He wondered how he could tell
her what it was that she meant to him when he couldn’t
understand it himself. He understood it only in the
pigments of the leaves. It was an irrepressible and
indescribable will to survive. She penetrated him,
drawing him out, meek and trembling, like the weeds
emerging from the cracks in that damn sidewalk where
she made her early morning calls and left him ashamed,
afraid, and angry but alive. She didn’t realize that
he was so close to dying, and he knew that it was only
somewhere inside him, some part of him that nobody saw
and nobody would miss. But it would leave him hollow,
and the thought made him fight back a shudder.

He needed to say something, but “I love you” felt
stale and “I live for you” staggering. So he sighed
and said, “Yeah,” which was pitiful, and she walked
out hoping that something had changed and trying to
deny that the pangs of guilt that brought his single
word to the verge of an apology had pulled her back to
him. 

**
He’d stayed in that room for nearly an hour, and his
single word hung in the air. Her footsteps swirled
around it, chasing each other through the silent
night, the playful absurdity drawing stinging laughter
from deep within him. He couldn’t understand why he
couldn’t fix this. He’s a man who lives through words,
makes his living through them. Yet he has none, and it
disturbs him. He’s never had words when he’s needed
them most. Not to convince CJ to stay, not to
apologize to Andi, and not now, to salvage this ailing
passion he needs so much. He’s a man who bounces
rubber balls against windows because it’s so much
easier than asking for help. 

Sometimes, as he presses her against walls, he wants
only to kiss her. He wants to tell her that he leans
heavily on her not because he can’t keep his balance,
though he can’t, but because he can’t control his need
to be near her. He is overwhelmed and addicted and
eager to feel her rush over him. He wants to kiss her
for hours because it makes him burn without aching in
the morning, but he doesn’t know how to tell her that.
It seems intensely personal though he can’t say why,
and he’s afraid to find out.

He finds himself lost in late nights. His head aches,
and the minutes speed toward morning, but the fleeting
seconds are quiet and safe. There are no crises. His
guilt doesn’t bear down on him. There are seconds of
clarity, when he knows that somewhere beneath the
mess, they have something indescribable. But morning
rushes on, and by night, he finds himself slipping out
of her bed not a week after she tried to end this. And
it would be unbearably shameful if he weren’t sure
that there is a reason his hands always find her. He’s
finally sure, however, that he needs to make this
right. 

So he’s here, with her, in the Roosevelt Room because
they need to talk and the Rose Garden seems too
romantic. Cartons of cold Chinese food, remnants of
the night’s last meeting, litter the table.  It’s been
hours since the others left, since they dropped the
professional pretext and began to talk. They’ve only
traced the contours of this relationship because the
evening has been calm and friendly and only a little
frightening, and neither of them wants to ruin that.
This is unusual; this is as close to a date as they
will ever come. There will never be dinners by
candlelight or walks on the beach. But maybe there can
be more than sex by TV light and cab rides home.
Something loosely defined, outlined by arguments over
the relative effectiveness of the UN and by the feel
of her breath on his neck. 

But he’s unsure, and he’s staring at her again. She’s
uncomfortable, but she’s too tired to squirm under his
gaze. She’s used to these long stares, and she knows
that he won’t look away. And they’re an hour away
stumbling into her apartment when he says her name.
She can’t explain the power of those two letters,
their ability to bring her out of self-destructive
thoughts. But she looks up, grounded and sober, and
she raises an eyebrow at him.

“CJ,” he repeats. “Can we, you know, not get drunk
tonight? You can come home with me; you can go home
alone, but I don’t want to do this to us, to you,
anymore. ” 

Then they’re silent as she considers him. She doesn’t
know what to make of this. This request that feels
like an overture but doesn’t make her blush or avert
her eyes. She’s not ready for this decision. It’s late
at night, she’s had a long week, and Leo said they
could come in late tomorrow. She was tired, and she’d
been relaxed. She wants him in a way that she’s not
sure is healthy, and she knows she’s not prepared to
make this decision. So she nods imperceptibly and
asks, “You want to take a walk?”

The streets are black, but black is infinitely better
than gray. Black is pure; it has definition and
conviction. He can sense the spring coiled in this
night. His hand touches her back as they turn corners,
and he grazes her arm as he gestures. And this is
suddenly comfortable. She lightly grasps his hand, and
this is a place to rest and to live. And he feels
alive, not in his customary half-hearted way, but in a
way that pulses through him. This is a start. The
words he’s been searching for glow in his mind,
disorganized and incoherent. It will take time to sort
and refine them, but at least they are there. And she
is here, for the moment, and he’s burning each breath
into his mind. 

As he holds her tonight, he wonders at this thing they
have. This way that they define each other and how
that frightens him less now. They are bound to each
other, like winter and spring on an April morning, in
this spirit of survival that can only be appreciated
in the face of death. This is his foundation, this
ability to regenerate, but it belongs to her. He can’t
stop touching her because she makes him invincible and
without her he’s so vulnerable. She still might slip
out when he falls asleep, but she’ll be back.
Eventually, she’ll learn to trust him, and she won’t
leave at all. And tonight, anyway, there was no
scotch, and he can taste only her. His arms tighten
around her, and her hand covers his. 

This is something, this thing they have. This is a
start, and he can hear the words gathering in his
mind. They spin among stationary lyrics and slogans,
and he has faith, and he is alive again. He begins to
whisper into her ear, and he feels her breathing slow
as she falls asleep. She’ll be with him in the
morning. It will be awkward, and he’ll probably order
flowers. He’ll have to answer for what he’s said and
done, and she’ll be skeptical. But this is the
solstice, when his world is most out of balance.
Tomorrow, he’ll speak beautifully, and she’ll kiss him
with shimmering lips, and his world will start to come
alive again.