Category: pre-White House, general and/or CJ/Josh but not really.

Rating: PG-13

Archive: anywhere

Notes: This is a prequel to my stories "The Company of Women," "Lessons," and "Downtime." Also, I could be wrong, but for purposes of this story I'm assuming Mandy and Josh broke up before or very early in the campaign.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
New Hampshire
1998

He slumped further down in his seat. He actually didn't think he
could slump any further. It might not be humanly possible.

Things were - not good. If he had to bet, he'd say they were going
to come in second. Not just in one state, but across the board.
Trouble was, in the primary second didn't mean squat. He was pretty
sure Hoynes wouldn't come knocking for Jed Bartlet to be his
vice-president, and he was also pretty sure that Jed Bartlet wouldn't
be lining up to be anybody's second. So that was it.

And the trouble was, he didn't even know who to blame. For once he
didn't think he'd done anything stupid. Certainly Sam hadn't done
anything stupid. Leo McGarry - well, Josh had known him for a long
time, long enough to know that Leo did not make political mistakes.
Governor Bartlet's best friend and staunchest defender was probably
also the most savvy of his advisors. Not to mention that secretary
of his - what was her name? Margaret - keeping Leo and everybody else
in line. Josh had learned from his first run-in with the tall
redhead not to mess with her. There was the other new guy - the one
the Governor kept calling by Josh's name - Toby Ziegler. Surly but
smart. Josh had heard the stories of how Leo had fired everyone on
the campaign staff except Toby after a particularly sensitive issue
about - milk? Something like that? Toby might be rough around the
edges but his advice was sound. And that woman he'd brought - well.
Josh wasn't used to looking up to women (physically speaking) and the
six-foot-tall Californian had scared the hell out of him at first.
Call him sexist, but he'd gotten comfortable with the good-old-boys
atmosphere of the campaign before Toby flew off to the West Coast and
brought home a Berkeley amazon who'd worked in Hollywood. That was,
until he'd talked to her after that speech to the Catholic League.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He was sitting, not surprisingly, slumped in his chair in the hotel
bar. Steps behind him alerted him to his company, and radar told him
that the person behind him was very tall. Rather than turning around
he leaned over backwards. "Hi there," he said, trying to hide the
fact that he really didn't want to talk to her.

"Hi." Either not noticing or, more likely, ignoring his tone, CJ
Cregg slid into the chair across from his. "What'd you think?"

He gave a resigned sigh. Looked like she was here to stay. "You
were right."

"That wasn't what I meant."

He looked at her for a moment. No, it looked like she really hadn't
come to gloat. Interesting. "Oh. It went well. Is that what you
meant?"

"Yes." She settled back in her chair. "You think we made an impact?"

He raised an eyebrow. "With the Catholic League? The first
candidate since Kennedy? Yeah, I think we made an impact."

She shrugged. "Okay."

There was a long silence. He studied her unabashedly during the
pause. For the first time he took the trouble to notice the fact
that her clothes hung loosely on her - a sure sign that she'd recently
lost a lot of weight - and that her collarbones and upper ribs showed
prominently through the skin at the opening of her shirt. She didn't
look sickly thin, but it was plain that she was rather underweight
for her height. He took note of the circles under her bright eyes,
and was surprised to see a pained expression on her face. Call him
slow, unobservant, sexist, whatever, but it truly had not occurred to
him before that it might have been difficult for her to join their
club. He wondered whether she still felt like an outsider.

"You don't trust me, do you?" she asked suddenly as if she'd read his
mind.

"That was just eerie," he commented before he could stop himself.

CJ frowned. "You were just thinking about how you don't trust me?"

"No!" he corrected hastily. Only honesty was going to save him here.
"I was just thinking about how - well, I've never really wondered
whether it was hard for you."

CJ thought for a second, obviously deciding whether to answer his
question. She must have decided that he was okay. "Harder every
second," she said truthfully.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked at him oddly. "I wasn't looking for pity."

"I wasn't offering it," he said. "I was apologizing. I'm sure I
haven't helped."

She eyed him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay."

They were silent together for a while.

"CJ?" he asked finally.

She looked up from the floor tile she'd been studying. "Yeah?"

He met her eyes across the table. "Do you think we have a shot?"

She looked back at him frankly. "Well, it's not going to be like
shooting fish in a barrel."

"I figured that."

"Our fish are more like in the Mississippi."

He nodded, considering. "You think we need bigger guns?"

"I think we need a dam."

Hmm. He raised his glass to her. "I think I see. Stop taking pot
shots -"

"- and narrow the field. Yeah."

"So pick a platform?"

She nodded. "We're all over the place."

"Right."

There was another long silence, but they were getting less
uncomfortable. He smiled at her across the table. "So, what does CJ
stand for?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yeah, CJ'd turned out to be okay. And she knew how to handle the
media, which was more than he could say for himself.

He heard a now-familiar step behind him, this time coupled with a
familiar gentle perfume. "Hey," he said without looking up.

"Hey." She gracefully folded her long frame into a chair beside his.
"What's up?"

"We're going to come in second," he said flatly.

She understood perfectly the tenuous connection between her question
and his response. His entire body radiated slump. "No, we're not,"
she replied, raking a hand through her hair. She'd only recently
straightened it again - Margaret swore it looked better this way -
and she still wasn't used to the length of it falling in her eyes.

He looked up. "We're not?"

"Nope." She pulled her glasses off and hung them casually from the
front of her shirt. "We're going to win."

He eyed her suspiciously. "You're crazed."

"I'm not."

"Then how -"

"Because we're going to pull from behind Hoynes at the last minute."

"Your Ouija board tell you that?"

She grinned. "No, Mrs. Bartlet did."

"So it was her Ouija board."

"Essentially."

They laughed. He was dimly aware that she'd managed to perk him up -
which was probably her intention, but he didn't even care. She
reached over and ruffled his hair and he looked up at her, surprised.
They'd become better friends in the past few weeks, but the sudden
gesture of affection was nonetheless unexpected. She grinned and he
couldn't help grinning back. He'd learned that CJ was like that.
She got to her feet and held out a hand. "Come on, you look like a
man who needs a drink."

His brow wrinkled doubtfully. "I'm a lightweight."

"I should have guessed," she said, still laughing. "Come on. I'll
keep an eye on you."

He smiled and took her hand.

* * * *

They held hands all the way down the street to the bar, which would
have seemed odd if they'd thought about it, which they didn't. It
was just what both of them needed. They faced each other over a
corner table, raising identical scotches and wearing fairly identical
weary smiles.

"How'd the press react to the polling numbers?" he asked after
downing half his scotch.

CJ shrugged and calmly pounded hers back all at once. She coughed
and pointed to the glass. "Not bad."

"The scotch or the press?"

"The scotch." She winced. "The press was - bad."

"They think we're going to lose?"

"They think we're going to lose." She picked up his now-empty glass.
"You okay for another?"

"Why not?"

By the time she returned the first drink had reached his head and was
beginning to burn pleasantly in his stomach. "What kind is this?" he
asked, accepting the second glass from her.

She eyed him critically. "Do you know anything at all about scotch?"

"No."

"It's Glenlivet."

"That's good, right?"

"That's very good." She drank this one more slowly, taking only
about a third of it at once. "The press think we're getting roasted
on budget reform."

"Are we even talking about budget reform?" For a second there he
really wasn't sure.

"Hardly." She tapped idly on the table. "They also think. . ."

He frowned over his glass. "What?"

She spread her hands in that nervous habit she had, the gesture that
said "I'm about to tell you something I don't want to tell you and
you don't want to hear." "They think the campaign is too macho."

"Macho?" He really tried not to sound mocking there, but the scotch
wasn't helping. "Man's wife is a doctor. He has three daughters.
We have you. We have Mandy. Hell, Margaret herself could take the
whole press corps without throwing a punch."

"Yeah, but Margaret's an assistant, Mrs. Bartlet isn't with us all
the time, and the girls never are. And anybody with eyes can tell
Mandy's not in the loop. Working on the campaign there's really just
me."

"Well, there's you." Drinking really did not improve his
communication skills.

This could not be good. She had to pound the rest of her scotch
before she could respond. "They don't think I help."

"What?"

"The press, they don't think I help."

"They don't think you help on the campaign? Who do they think tells
them everything they know?"

"No." She gripped her glass in both hands and studied it intently.
"They don't think I'm feminine enough to help the image."

"What?" People turned to stare at him. He waved. "Hi." Turning
back to CJ he whispered, "What the hell are they thinking?"

"Josh -"

"No, I mean - yes, you're tall, but that doesn't -"

"Josh. . ." Now she was starting to laugh. But only a little.

"No, really." He set down his empty glass and reached over to take
both her hands across the table. "If they want more feminine than
you, then they want us to hire a social director who wears a lot of
pink blouses and pearls, okay? The only reason anyone would say you
weren't changing the 'macho' image of the campaign is because you're
smart and you're hard and you fit right in with all of us Ivy League
macho jerks. It sure as hell isn't because you're not beautiful,
because you *are*."

"Josh. . ." She looked in actual danger of tearing up. That scared
him. He had never seen her cry, not on their worst days. He tugged
on her hands and she obeyed silently, slipping around the table to
his side. He pulled her down onto the bench beside him and hugged
her tight. "Thank you," she said quietly.

"You're welcome, Claudia Jean," he replied, stroking her hair.

"Have I mentioned that no one ever calls me that?" she asked from his
shoulder. She was beginning to sound like herself again.

He grinned. "Then I guess I'll save it for special moments."

She shook her head, but he could tell she was laughing. He pulled
back from her, trying hard not to think about how good it felt just
to be held like that. "Come on, we both need some sleep."

As they walked each other back to the hotel, his arm resting loosely
around CJ's waist, he considered the bizarre course of their
relationship. Having that hideous breakup with Mandy hadn't improved
his general attitude toward women, but he was fairly sure that even
before her he'd never been friends with a woman of his own age the
way he was with CJ. Even just walking like this with her felt so
comfortable and completely right. He pulled her just a little
closer, enjoying the feel of her warmth against his side.

At the door to her hotel room they paused while she fumbled with the
key card, then she flashed him a brilliant smile and invited him in.
"So I can make sure you're not drunk," she said.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm drunk," he replied cheerfully, entering the
room and throwing his coat over a chair. "Don't worry, I won't let
it go to my head."

CJ cracked up. He laughed right along with her, settling himself on
the end of the bed. "Okay, maybe I'm already there."

She reached over and ruffled his hair in a now-familiar gesture.
"You know what you need?"

"Coffee?"

"You need somebody to take care of you."

"That's what you were supposed to be doing."

She threw her hands up. "It's a full-time job, sweetheart. We may
need to hire someone."

He patted the bed beside him and she sat down, folding her legs up
under her. "When we win I'll think about it."

"When we win," she mused, kicking off her shoes. "Think we'll be
going to Washington?"

"You and me? Definitely." He reached over and started rubbing her
back, slowly and gently. "I've decided that you're right. We're
going to get past this, then we'll win, then my friend and yours Jed
is going to decide he can't possibly be the President without us.
You'll see."

She sighed. "Our fish are still in the Mississippi, Josh."

"Yeah, I know." He brought his hand around to cradle the side of her
face. "But Hoynes's are in the Mediterranean. He just doesn't know
it yet."

She laughed and her eyes wrinkled up, and some portion of his
alcohol-addled brain took over that made him lean forward and capture
her lips with his. She started in surprise, then leaned into him,
kissing him back and wrapping one arm around his shoulders. She
needed the other one to keep from falling off the bed. He had no
such compunctions, letting her support both of them and slipping both
his arms tightly behind her back. It was a long kiss. He couldn't
tell whether it was alcohol, lack of oxygen, or CJ that was making him
feel lightheaded, and he didn't much care. She tasted, as he
suspected he did, of scotch and that was oddly sexy to him. When
they finally broke apart they hugged tightly, almost desperately,
without looking at each other. He buried his face in her neck and
pressed a kiss to the smooth skin there before pulling back and
meeting her eyes. He brushed her hair back from her face and smiled
ruefully. "We probably shouldn't do that again."

She shook her head. "That would probably be a colossally bad idea."

He nodded. He continued to stroke the side of her face lovingly.
"We're better as friends."

It was, he thought, no less than a miracle. Her eyes sparkled and
she gave him another one of those dazzling smiles. "You're right, we
are." And that was enough. They'd been lonely (not to mention
drunk), they'd turned to each other, and it hadn't changed a thing.
He hugged her again, cradling her against him. Well, maybe one thing
had changed. Any tension that had ever existed in their physical
relationship was gone now. He found it suddenly very easy to touch
her, to hold her, and not worry that she would push him away. That
was different.

He kissed her temple and said quietly, "I'm going to go get some
sleep."

She nodded and disentangled herself from him. "Good-night, Joshua."

"Good-night, love."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He'd been quite sure that nothing would be awkward between them the
next morning, but he was relieved to find that he'd been right. He
walked into the campaign headquarters - in complete turmoil in
preparation for their flight to Charleston - their eyes had locked,
she'd smiled, and that was it. He squeezed her arm as he walked past
her, and she called, "Joshua!"

He turned, ignoring the surprise on Sam's face at her use of his full
name. "Claudia?"

She didn't even bother to scowl at him. "There's a blonde girl in
your office. Keep her."

He followed her line of vision. "There's a blonde girl answering my
phone."

"I know." She tapped him on the shoulder with a rolled-up newspaper.
"Keep her. I like her."

He shrugged. "Whatever you say." They shared another intimate smile
and he headed for his office, ignoring Sam's open mouth.


The End!