Abandoned Communication

By Cappuccino Girl

Genre: CJ/Sam. Angst. Drama.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Great minds think alike. Unfortunately mine didn’t invent these characters, they only have temporary residence there. They are the invention of Aaron Sorkin and belong to him, John Wells Productions, and Warner Bros.

Notes: Follows ‘Complicated Piece’. No Spoilers, but I assume you have been watching. Thanks as always to my wonderful beta readers :-)

Summary: She tells herself she doesn’t care, because if she would have seen clearly before she wouldn’t be where she is now, so she lets herself come as close as possible to drowning.



It has been more than a week since their walk in the park, a walk which resulted in her feeling more alone and useless than she has ever done. And so she had reached into the depths of her desk drawer for the telephone number of a therapist once recommended to her, and booked an appointment for Wednesday at 1 pm, the only time of the day she had free. Having walked the ten minute journey from the White House to the doctor’s during her lunch hour, she had stood outside the waiting room, deliberating whether to go in or not. Sharing ones problems went against her inner pride. She never went in, and left the premises having wasted her precious time, vowing never to let herself get so low that she might consider, even for one moment, to share problems outside her circles.

She is unable to forget their conversation that night, that intense, bitter tone in his voice and how he now avoids her in the office, never talking together on the same issues like they used to each day. Everyone has noticed this, she thinks, taking one last drag of her cigarette, and studying the print left on the paper by her lipstick before stubbing it out.

She has been sitting here, out on the balcony of her apartment, a lot since then, watching everyone walking by on the street down below, huddled up in winter jackets, all holding hands or laughing. It reminds her of her childhood, when she and her friends used to sit out on the back porch of her house, regardless of the weather, when they came home from school. She can hear their young and carefree voices talk of what they had learned that day, and what the bullies who used to hang around by the swings were getting up to. Those memories comfort her a little. Every now and then, they used to giggle when they’d mention the really cute guy who always sat next to her in math class. They’d sing those childish songs, and she’d blush, throw her arms about emphatically, denying it all. The commotion would cause her mom to open the kitchen window and call them inside, and she’d always say that they were fine and were okay outside. She laughs a little now at the memory, because she’s never been able to get that phrase out of her spoken defence mechanism, and deep down she’s always been a spokesperson.

She watches her breath freeze and float away in wisps into the dark air, and huddles deeper into the gray sweater she is wearing to block out the cold. It’s late, and she knows she should be sleeping, but she doesn’t usually sleep much, and since their fight she has hardly closed her eyes except to suppress the ever present wish to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry continuously until all the misery is washed out of her. She lifts her hands to her face and they feel ice cold against her cheeks. Sense tells her she’d better go inside, even if the slight chill she is getting seems nice, so she complies, returning to her warm living room.

Its atmosphere reflects how she felt when she moved to D.C. Pictures of fond moments and the ones she holds dear on the mantelpiece. Shelves filled with the old novels she’d love to have time to read once more. A throw which her aunt gave her as a housewarming present hung neatly over the back of the couch.

She shivers a little, and looks at her hands, noticing how they’ve turned red from the temperature change, and she makes a move towards the bathroom. That feeble voice of sense inside her makes her switch on the shower, the scalding water causing the room to fill with steam. Her hands and cheeks burn from the warmth as she throws her clothes into the corner before stepping under the powerful spray. She’s standing towards the stream, water shooting into her eyes causing both pain and loss of vision. She tells herself she doesn’t care, because if she would have seen clearly before she wouldn’t be where she is now, so she lets herself come as close as possible to drowning.

Back and cheeks flushed from the boiling water, she steps onto the bath mat, wrapping herself in a blue towel. She dries her eyes and starts to move her hand along the white shelf where her glasses are. Blurred vision combines with the chlorine still in her eyes, causing her to wrap her finger around a familiar necklace instead. She lifts it up, fingers tangled in the chain, and hears a faint voice calling to her.

“CJ. It’s the big evening, come in here and get a drink already.”

“I’ll be there in a minute! You go ahead and have another one.” She floats around the corner, showing little of her apprehension. This is the day that they have been working towards and now they can panic, and scream, and do whatever else one does in a situation like this, but nothing can be changed. This is the Primary, the first leap into unfamiliar waters.

She moves a hand up to her neck, hoping that it might be there, but it isn’t, and that scares her, for she has little else to hold on to. She tries her best to be optimistic and tells herself that it will be in her office.


The door creaks open and her eyes flash around the surface of her desk, hoping to catch a telltale sparkle. Paper, empty coffee cups and pens are strewn everywhere, forming a little landscape of chaos on her desk, and now she must sit down and sort through it all. She’s always been systematic, even in the state she is in at present, so she takes each sheet in turn, placing them on one single stack, and puts every pen back into the top drawer of her desk.

“Hey.” A head looks around the door.

She throws a day old paper cup into the waste basket and looks up when she’s satisfied by her aim.

“Sam.” She smiles.

“Why so anti-social? The Governor can’t stop rattling off facts about national heritage sites and Abby’s about ready to fall backwards off her chair from excitement. ”

“Is that a positive or a negative sign?” she questions, still searching the desk.

“You’re supposed to have all the female intuition. Come decide for yourself.” He moves his head to one side, gesturing for her to follow.

“I can’t. Not until I’ve found my... my.. the thing,” she mutters, hands rummaging through the drawer.

He raises his eyebrows requiring further explanation, and she wishes she could avoid giving one.

“My, umm..” Her hands glide about her neck before clarifying, voice quiet because she thinks it sounds silly. “Necklace. My necklace.”

“Oh.” A puzzled expression takes over his face. “Deal with that later. Come watch the results.”

“I said I can’t,” she emphasises, a slight tone of desperation in her words.

“What? Because you’ve misplaced a necklace?” He mocks.

She gets up from her place behind the desk and moves towards him. “Yes, and I need to find it.”

He’s still confused, and she knows it, but would rather not tell him the reason behind her thoughts, yet his eyes are so kind and honest that she can’t help but do so. “It’s always brought me luck, and, well, I’m not feeling very confident at present, so I’d like to, you know, find it.”

“For luck,” he states. She nods like an innocent child in agreement.

He looks at his watch, which tells that the results should already be coming in, so rather than deliberate further, he pulls her towards him, brushes her hair out of her face and kisses her gently on the lips. She’s startled, pleasantly surprised. Her eyes close, and she lets the moment last a little longer before professionalism takes over once more, and she moves away from him again.

“A kiss, for luck.” He beams, and takes her hand. “Come.”

~* *~

She blinks the walls around her back into focus, and observes the little lines which have been made on her hand by pulling the delicate chain tight around her finger in recollection of those memories. His hand once touched there after they had kissed, the first true gesture of intimacy between them. Now it all seems like scratched records, where you can’t remember how the song sounded without the distortion and skipping. Maybe there wasn’t ever that much between them, she wonders, willing to try anything to make herself feel less sorry, but she can’t. She must wander through the corridors where he works, and is, and she feels like a departed ghost, for no one really needs her there now, at least not emotionally.

She sits down on the soggy floor of the bathroom, tiles cold at her knees which poke through the mass of towels she has wrapped herself in. She feels tired, exhausted. Rather than choosing her comfortable bed and quilts, she curls up on the ice cold floor, a mess among the blue towelling, and closes her eyes, praying that the world might change.

~* *~

She’s there, in the same room as him, and she can’t stop from moving and fidgeting. Less than two weeks ago she would have been blissfully happy, and he would have undressed her with his eyes at such a moment, but now all she wishes is that she did not have to look at him, because everything has changed between them.

“We can’t take time now to talk to some crazy animal rights organisation,” Toby exclaims, rising from his chair for emphasis.

She’s just started listening now, not sure why she’s there at all. The morning has been as painful as ever. Sam looks across the room to her. “But we need to talk with them, if only so that they will lay off the accusations that this administration isn’t interested in animal protection.”

She’s sure he’s talking to Toby, yet his eyes are focused on her intently, piercing an even deeper hole in her scared interior. She clutches her hands together, trying to find hidden warmth in them, but they are cold and trembling.

“We need to talk,” Sam repeats.

Toby wanders purposefully around the conference table until he is standing close behind her. “Because we have so much time that we can talk with crazy people who tie themselves to railroad tracks to stop some medical experiments which could save lives.” He remarks sourly.

She’s uneasy but feels the need to speak, if only to break her hour long silence. The issues concern her a little, so she does so, talking with surprising confidence. “We can give them some time with Leo or the President or whoever, but for goodness sake, we are not going to embark on a major discussion about animal rights at present.” Her voice rises a little, taking on an accusing tone, for there is meaning in her words, and secretly she wants him to know that too.

“So what, we’ll just keep it quiet and whenever someone tells us what’s wrong we’ll deny it, or cower in a corner until it goes away?” Sam’s shouting now, eyes fixed on hers, because it’s personal now, and he couldn't care less who knows.

“Yes, it’s called spin, Sam,” she retorts fiercely, getting up and heading towards the door.

Toby is standing forlorn between the subtle verbal daggers, eyes flicking between the pair, trying to decide if he should be worried or angry.

“And it can’t fix everything. Denying and not talking won’t repair it, CJ.”

She fights the tears in her eyes, refusing to let them show in public, in the office, in front of him once more. If it weren’t for her crying she knows they’d still be together, happy in unspoken feelings and words. She hates her tears more than ever, for they now have the ability to ruin intimate perfection, or the closest she’s ever known to it in her life. The corner of her eye burns. As the room around her loses its focus, she knows that they will show once more, those disgusting signs of weakness, so she grabs the door and opens it, slamming it hard behind her, because she can’t stand the sound of his voice, or the humiliation that comes with crying.

Once back in her office, her own sobbing takes over the dull empty space, and she wonders how with all her education and work she could become such a failure. All her youth she had been told that it was the key to happiness and a balanced future. Sitting alone amidst the mountains of papers and files, she feels cheated by everyone who made her believe such lies, annoyed with herself for being so gullible.

She throws her head back, tears stagnant in her eyes, and slams her fist down on the desk, relishing the pain which shudders through her bones as she doesn’t think she can articulate it any other way.

“CJ?”

Her head spins around, horrified by the thought that someone might have witnessed her behavior just then, and gulps when she sees Carol, concerned expression on her face.

“Come in,” she hears herself say before she can think clearly.

Carol stands before her, not knowing quite what to say, which is unusual for both of them.

“Your hand okay?” Carol asks gingerly, not wishing to offend.

She looks down at her hand, noticing a deep red imprint from the sharp edge of the desk. “Yeah, fine. I just, I kind of hit it.”

“I know. Sure you don’t want me to get some ice?”

It throbs. “No, honest. It’s fine.” Carol gives her a disbelieving stare, and there is a long pause between them. “No matter how hard I try at getting everything just right, I eventually succeed at ruining whatever I touch. Every damn thing, and this one mattered, really mattered. Happily ever fucking after is all you can think about. You get to this point and you’re supposed to know better, that nothing will ever be that way, and that this is what we have to contend with instead, reality, and it’s just so-” The words flow effortlessly from her tongue, and she’s not quite sure where they came from, or why she’s telling her secretary such things. “It’s painful.” Her chair sways from side to side as she tries to avoid all eye contact, running her index finger over her bruised hand.

The dark haired woman opposite her takes a deep breath, visibly shocked by the emotions which have been entrusted to her. “He’s been snapping at Cathy a lot,” Carol states.

She fingers her neck, pulling hard at the necklace and looking out the window. “Oh. Why?” Her words are crisp, cold, and she emphasises each one by yanking the chain taught against the back of her neck. Her secretary moves closer to the door.

“Deliberate. Be angry. Be whatever feels best, but don’t, whatever you do, _don’t_ stand around in silence.” The door closes behind Carol, and CJ notices that the chain is loose in her hand, because at ‘don’t’ she must have ripped the clasp. She fingers it delicately, running the soft metal through her hands. She knows it’s time to fix the one who really made her fortunate, so she drops the necklace onto the desk, watches as it slides down from the corner of the surface, weight dragging it towards the floor like a tiny anchor.

~* *~

It’s been work, and a briefing she can’t remember a moment of, and some conversation with Leo about tax rebates. She never saw him for the rest of the day, not once. She fumbles with her keys, trying to locate the one for the front door among the mass. Eventually she enters, gratefully throwing her briefcase and other items on the nearby chair, noticing that the red light on the answer machine is flashing. She habitually pushes the replay button and walks into the kitchen to examine the contents of the refrigerator. Food doesn’t really appeal this late in the evening, but then it hasn’t for two weeks.

She hears a loud beep, and pauses in front of the cool air streaming from the open door, ready to identify the voice, but it’s just blank sound and nothingness until the next tone. Confused, she steps back out to the living room to scrutinise the machine for its silence. It is silent after the second tone as well, and she knows that the volume is turned up, and the indicator only said two messages, so all she is left with is static and abandoned communication.

She collapses into the comfortable chair by the telephone, gazing intently at the flashing button as though she could will it to speak to her. She studies the dark blue line running across the side of her hand, and when the machine doesn’t speak to her she hits it hard as she’s never been technically minded, and that seems to work sometimes. It feels good too.

It’s still silent fifteen minutes later besides the faint noises from outside, and she probably left the refrigerator door open, but she doesn’t mind, doesn’t care anymore, so she breathes deeply, punches in star followed by six and nine, and listens to a computer generated voice tell her who called her. Twice.

~To Be Continued~

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