After it, therefore because of it.

[notplaying]

Toby Ziegler had a very tall bottle of 12 year old Macallan single malt whiskey, or at least, 12 years old from a given point of time that the island didn't necessarily adhere to. It was the same bottle he'd bought for himself the night that President Josiah Bartlett had been elected. He could tell, because there was a peculiar crease in the

Comments

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley found him while she was on her way back from Shadow's hut and taking the long way home. Tonight was not going to be a night of 'is Karen going to surprise me in a state of undress' just like all the other nights and she could smell the alcohol before she saw it. "You know," she spoke up, conversationally. "Back home, my Dad used to drink on the porch if ever he was too stressed to really do anything else and my Mom wouldn't let him drive until he was done with it because he'd just go to the bar and she hated that little dingy place so he just sat in a rocking chair until morn."

[notplaying]

"I never liked rocking chairs," Toby said, eyebrows quirking slightly upward toward the center. "If you're going to sit still, sit still. Or throw a rubber ball at the wall."

[playingtheenemy]

"No wall here to throw a rubber ball against," Ainsley pointed out, settling down beside him as she tucked her hair over her shoulders, letting the wind have it. "Definitely alcohol though, even if my nose won't tell me what kind."

[notplaying]

"The Macallan. It's really good scotch," Toby explained, tapping his fingers against the ceramic. He glanced at her sideways.

"Do you know anything about whiskey?"

[notforredlights]

Donna was still getting used to the whole island thing, but wandering around on her own seemed a harmless enough thing to be doing. Coming across the island's baseball diamond, it wasn't much of a surprise to see Toby there as well. It was seeing him outside the office that was still strange. "What're you up to?"

[notplaying]

"I'm getting drunk," Toby said gently, clearing his throat and looking up at her. "Hell, Donna."

[notforredlights]

"Hello, Toby." Donna sank down to kneel beside him. "Sounds like a plan around here." She didn't look down at the paper. Even though Toby and Sam ran around extemporizing, she knew better than to look at what he was writing.

[notplaying]

"This," Toby said, lifting the mug, then glancing around and gently tapping the bottom of it to the top of the bottle, "is the same bottle of single malt I got dunk off of the night Bartlett won the White House." He flashed one of his non-smiles.

"Funny that I'm going to drink it twice."

[with_diamonds]

Lucy had hardly slept in days, and it showed. Her newly-short hair was a mess, there were dark circles around her eyes, and she looked almost older, more world-weary as well as simply physically exhausted. Going for a walk on the beach was intended to help her clear her mind, get the past few days off repeat in her head, but so far, it wasn't doing much good.

At the sight of Toby, though, she wandered over and dropped down in the sand near him instinctively. She didn't say anything for a moment, just stared out at the ocean, knees tucked into her chest, but finally, she turned to look at him and sighed. "You know," she began, "sometimes I really hate this place."

[notplaying]

Toby blinked, squinting over at her, and frowned, slowly.

"Lucy," he said, paused, then offered her the coffee mug with its few sips of scotch. "What happened?"

[with_diamonds]

Mirthlessly, close to laughing, Lucy smiled before she took the mug. She wasn't expecting it to hold liquor, but it was relieving, almost, with the few days she'd had.

"My brother," she explained, holding the mug back out with a nod of thanks. It was like she'd switched into auto-pilot, the only way she knew to make the story come more easily, her voice hollow. "I walked into the hut the other day to find his draft letter on the floor and a half-empty syringe next to him on the bed." At least, she thought, she'd passed the stage of weeping about it. Repeating the incident from the kitchen with Gert and Veronica was not something she particularly wanted to do.

[notplaying]

"It's not uncommon with Vets," Toby said quietly. "Most of them just drink." Technically, Toby was a vet, but he didn't think of himself as any kind of soldier.

"What was it?" he asked. "The drug."

[sir_samuel]

Vimes smelled the scotch even before he recognized the man holding it. It was scotch, and it was half-decent, that much he could tell. He had never been very discerning, back when he had done that kind of thing.

He sat down next to Zeigler and raised his brows. "You celebrating, or the other thing?" It was just a stupid damned island, but they had done a lot of work over the last, hell, year. And now it was pretty much done. That was worth celebrating a little bit.

[notplaying]

"Ah," Toby started, sitting back and considering the question. He let his head tilt either way for a moment, then shrugged, and took another drink.

"Somewhere between the two, I guess."

[sir_samuel]

"Huh," he said, more understanding than confusion in his voice. "Who needs a reason and all that?"

He took out a cigar, squashed and cheap. Pantweed's we're exactly fine, they sure as hell had never matched the elegant, unobtrusively expensive case they were kept in. But becoming a duke didn't mean you changed your brand. He spun it absently round in his fingers and then brought it to his lips to light it.

"So we finished the damned thing," he said after a beat, thinking of the laws, the election business. "More or less. For now."

[notplaying]

"We did," Toby said, and slid his wallet back into his trouser pocket. He turned the mug around in his hands.

"Out of the twenty five months I've been here, I've spent eighteen of them on this damn council." He was quiet for a long moment, then poured himself some more scotch. "I'm still not sure what I'm doing."

[playingstupid]

Josh could have recognized that figure from anywhere. He trudged toward him, finally dropping in the sand next to Toby, facing toward him. He sat for a moment, staring off toward the ocean, then his eyes scanning back to the treeline. He glanced down, seeing the bottle there. He huffed in a breath, looking away again, squinting out across the sand.

After a pause, he reached down, unscrewing the top and taking a long swig of whiskey, then re-corked the bottle. He slid the bottle back in the sand, letting out a loud sigh.

[notplaying]

"...You should be ashamed of yourself," Toby said, reaching over to take the bottle and pour himself another shot, into the coffee mug.

"That's not way to treat the Macallan."

[playingstupid]

Josh eyed him for a long moment. "Y'got another coffee mug, James Bond?"

[notplaying]

"No," Toby said, "I hadn't planned on sharing." He offered the mug over, taking the bottle away and capping it and settling it into the sand.

"You're helping Donna get settled in?"