(no subject)
1.
He had respected her from the first moment she'd taken him down a peg. It was the way Andi had never quite had the force to, and with a different sort of grace. Eight years later, he more than respected her, because respect could only prevail as its own, isolated transitive verb for so long.
It was one of Toby's least favorite Hollywood devices, the idea that Respect could turn into True Love to justify all manner of preposterous relationships, usually in feudal or medieval situations. Really, he'd always thought it was probably Shakespeare's fault first, for writing The Taming of the Shrew.
Still, the Bard had had a way of recognizing universal truths and patterns that spoke of an awareness beyond his Elizabethan world, lit only by fire as it was, and centered around England the way the modern one centered around the sun.
Though he supposed it explained something of how she and John, the limey bastard, had fallen in together. He made her look less leggy, at any rate.
Watching them now, so casually and unoffensively and partially tangled, sitting on the sand in the afternoon's fading light and laughing with Sam (which meant Josh was nearbye, had to be), he wondered at the rest of the explanation, the large gaps in the logic of the situation.
He wondered if his distance had contributed. He wondered if his gruffness and melancholy and double vision- the strange and unfair overlap of this CJ and the older, darker-haired woman he'd betrayed and left in the West Wing- had had more or less to do with the way things turned out than Lord John and Cj Cregg's mutual Respect had.
He couldn't blame them. His own respect for her had undergone the same transformation. He had just been slower to see it, perhaps. Or less willing.
He started down the beach to his friends.
_______________
2.
He knew he was staring blankly at Josh, and had been for the past thirteen seconds or so, but he couldn't really manage any other expression. He turned the look on Sam, who had an anxious frown on. Back to Josh, who was squinting in the way he did when he was ready to wince.
"But you just figured this out," he said roughly, trying to wrap his brain around it, looking to clarify things. Josh and Sam both nodded, exchanging a fleeting, intimate glance, then looked back at Toby.
"And...Kosciusko and House both confirmed it?" Another shared nod.
"What if you only drank the water indirectly. In your coffee." The two men sitting opposite him shook their heads, in unison. Toby sighed.
"Well, it...will take some getting used to," he said grudgingly after a moment, and Sam grinned, and leaned forward to remove the older man's tie.
_______________________________
3.
The man staring back at him was not one he knew. He had known him, once. Very well. Intimately, one could say, or as intimately as Tobias had ever known anyone. Better than his father, better than his brother, better than his wife, better than his children, though that last opportunity had been, he would have argued, robbed of him. This man seemed gaunt and thin, not only of body, but of principle. He seemed empty. He felt empty. He certainly had no sense of reality. None of this was real: how could he?
But that Australian doctor sure had a point. And without principles, who was he to argue?
And though heroin was not Jewish, Toby held the lighter underneath the spoon.
_____________________________________
4.
Toby stepped off the compound's front stoop, as it were, inhaled deeply the scent of fresh island morning, threw his arms wide to the world and yelled, "I'm so happy!"
__________________________________________
5.
He dropped to his knees in the sand. The feeling in his chest was powerfully painful. He welcomed it. He stretched his arms out ahead of him to the horizon, and smiled, and his vision blurred, with the heat or the strain or tears, he could not be certain.
He felt it then, two distinct hits, two solid whumps against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around them in embrace.
"Daddy!" cried Huckleberry, clinging to his father's sweatshirt. "Daddy daddy daddy!"
Molly, usually the more talkative just beamed up at her father, stretched a hand up and curled her fingers into his beard.
"I missed you," she said.
Toby's vision cleared and the smile remained and he kept his arms around them.
He had respected her from the first moment she'd taken him down a peg. It was the way Andi had never quite had the force to, and with a different sort of grace. Eight years later, he more than respected her, because respect could only prevail as its own, isolated transitive verb for so long.
It was one of Toby's least favorite Hollywood devices, the idea that Respect could turn into True Love to justify all manner of preposterous relationships, usually in feudal or medieval situations. Really, he'd always thought it was probably Shakespeare's fault first, for writing The Taming of the Shrew.
Still, the Bard had had a way of recognizing universal truths and patterns that spoke of an awareness beyond his Elizabethan world, lit only by fire as it was, and centered around England the way the modern one centered around the sun.
Though he supposed it explained something of how she and John, the limey bastard, had fallen in together. He made her look less leggy, at any rate.
Watching them now, so casually and unoffensively and partially tangled, sitting on the sand in the afternoon's fading light and laughing with Sam (which meant Josh was nearbye, had to be), he wondered at the rest of the explanation, the large gaps in the logic of the situation.
He wondered if his distance had contributed. He wondered if his gruffness and melancholy and double vision- the strange and unfair overlap of this CJ and the older, darker-haired woman he'd betrayed and left in the West Wing- had had more or less to do with the way things turned out than Lord John and Cj Cregg's mutual Respect had.
He couldn't blame them. His own respect for her had undergone the same transformation. He had just been slower to see it, perhaps. Or less willing.
He started down the beach to his friends.
_______________
2.
He knew he was staring blankly at Josh, and had been for the past thirteen seconds or so, but he couldn't really manage any other expression. He turned the look on Sam, who had an anxious frown on. Back to Josh, who was squinting in the way he did when he was ready to wince.
"But you just figured this out," he said roughly, trying to wrap his brain around it, looking to clarify things. Josh and Sam both nodded, exchanging a fleeting, intimate glance, then looked back at Toby.
"And...Kosciusko and House both confirmed it?" Another shared nod.
"What if you only drank the water indirectly. In your coffee." The two men sitting opposite him shook their heads, in unison. Toby sighed.
"Well, it...will take some getting used to," he said grudgingly after a moment, and Sam grinned, and leaned forward to remove the older man's tie.
_______________________________
3.
The man staring back at him was not one he knew. He had known him, once. Very well. Intimately, one could say, or as intimately as Tobias had ever known anyone. Better than his father, better than his brother, better than his wife, better than his children, though that last opportunity had been, he would have argued, robbed of him. This man seemed gaunt and thin, not only of body, but of principle. He seemed empty. He felt empty. He certainly had no sense of reality. None of this was real: how could he?
But that Australian doctor sure had a point. And without principles, who was he to argue?
And though heroin was not Jewish, Toby held the lighter underneath the spoon.
_____________________________________
4.
Toby stepped off the compound's front stoop, as it were, inhaled deeply the scent of fresh island morning, threw his arms wide to the world and yelled, "I'm so happy!"
__________________________________________
5.
He dropped to his knees in the sand. The feeling in his chest was powerfully painful. He welcomed it. He stretched his arms out ahead of him to the horizon, and smiled, and his vision blurred, with the heat or the strain or tears, he could not be certain.
He felt it then, two distinct hits, two solid whumps against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around them in embrace.
"Daddy!" cried Huckleberry, clinging to his father's sweatshirt. "Daddy daddy daddy!"
Molly, usually the more talkative just beamed up at her father, stretched a hand up and curled her fingers into his beard.
"I missed you," she said.
Toby's vision cleared and the smile remained and he kept his arms around them.