Revisiting the Past

MC


Toby Ziegler leaned his chair back as far as it would go and stared at the ceiling. He'd never noticed the pristine white acoustic tiles on the ceiling before. He reached over to his desk and picked up several of the crisply sharpened number two pencils. Three of the first five pencils stuck neatly in the tiles above his head. He found that by leaning back almost vertically in the chair he could launch the pencils so they'd stick. He reached for another five.
In the hallway, Sam sped by with his arms full of briefing folders. After he dropped them on his desk, he realized what he'd just seen Toby doing.
He puzzled that for a few minutes. Toby didn't play very often. He was serious to the point of being morose most of the time. Unless he was drunk, mused Sam, then he was just quiet. Last week it had been the rubber balls and the baseball cap, and now the pencil thing. Such things would be normal or rather usual, Sam amended, for Josh or even himself. They often acknowledged that they acted like children. But not Toby.
Further musings stalled when Bonnie entered Sam's office and added another five pounds of paper to his desk.
"The briefs are for the new bill. The messages are arranged in order of priority. You have senior staff in three minutes." She fired at him efficiently.
"Thanks. Bonnie, what's with Toby?"
"We don't know. We like it. He hasn't yelled in days. Ginger's gonna bring in some Silly Putty or Lego-s for him tomorrow."
"Yeah." Sam said, in a puzzled tone.
Senior staff meeting went quickly. Josh ranted briefly because two junior senators tried to kill his current pet bill and regaled them with his plans for retribution. Toby supplied a particularly vicious plan as an offhand comment to get Josh to shut up.
Leo just shook his head. Toby was a master tactician. He'd lived in the world of politics so long that he didn't miss any of the nuances. After recent weeks, Leo was again glad Toby worked on his team and not against it.
As the staff meeting concluded, Mallory strolled in and gave Leo a hug in greeting. Leo just beamed at her as he always did. Sam scurried to make a hasty retreat, but paused when he turned to ask Toby a question and found him openly staring at the happy father and daughter. He watched as they teased each other, and Sam couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be a bit sad. Not annoyed, not gruff, not bothered by their obvious public affection. Just sad.
Sam didn't get to ask his question because Toby stood abruptly and walked quickly out to the office. He returned to his own office and closed the door. Sam heard nothing form the office for several hours. That worried him a bit. No balls hitting the walls. No pencils hitting the ceiling. Just silence.
Later that day, Toby headed to the Hill for a meeting and Sam tapped quietly into his laptop. Ginger appeared at the door.
"Sam, Congresswoman Wyatt's here to see you."
"Send her in." Sam puzzled over the unexpected visit.
Andi appeared at the door a moment later and he motioned her to have a seat.
She entered quietly and shut the door behind her.
"I hope you don't mind." She gestured at the door. "I have something private to discuss with you."
"Yes Ma'am."
She settled into the couch and took a deep breath. "Sam, how is Toby doing?"
"He's fine, Congresswoman."
"He may look fine, but I can assure you he's not really. You guys here are his closest friends now. I thought you might have noticed something."
Sam thought carefully about what to say. He really didn't know a lot about Toby's relationship with his ex-wife. But they seemed to share a fairly calm relationship, and Toby had never said a word against her. For Toby that meant he still respected and cared for her.
"Well, he's been playing with balls and toys quite a bit lately. We think he may be entering a second childhood." Sam smiled at her, expecting little response to what he thought was an innocuous comment.
Andi paled visibly and looked upset. Sam had no idea what that meant.
"Did I say something wrong, Ma'am?"
"No, Sam. but I think if I explain a few things to you you'll be able to help Toby through the next few days."
Sam nodded and leaned forward attentively.
Andi permitted herself a small smile. Sam Seaborn was a good kid. She could see why Toby liked him so much. He'd never tell anyone that, of course. But she'd been married to him long before he'd learned to hide his feelings well and could still read him.
"Toby and I had a son, tomorrow would have been his eighteenth birthday."
She paused and let Sam absorb that. Confusion and sympathy flared in the younger man's blue eyes.
"Benjamin died of leukemia when he was three years old. He went from being a happy, active child, to critically ill in a few weeks. They had little hope of saving him from the beginning, and the doctors told us that. He had a very rare and untreatable form of the disease. Toby insisted they try everything. He called everyone he'd ever known who had any medical knowledge. He took a leave of absence from work, and he stayed with him every minute until he died."
Andi paused and looked up at Sam. His eyes were moist with tears.
"Hey, it's okay, it was a long time ago."
Sam shook his head softly. "But it must have been horrible."
"Yes, it was." She paused again as she considered how much more to tell Sam. Toby would be upset with her for telling him this much. But his friends couldn't help him if they didn't know what he was facing.
Sam meant a lot to Toby. She knew that. It was because Sam was very much like a young Toby. He was idealistic and committed to fighting every battle. Toby had been that way. Andi remembered the first speech she'd heard that Sam and Toby wrote together. It was poetic and elegant, but tempered with Toby's years of tactical knowledge to be politically powerful as well. She'd teased Toby that the only reason he could work with Sam was that it was like talking to himself about twenty years ago. She decided that was a conversation for another time.
She took another deep breath and continued. "When Benji was born, Toby went out and bought three hundred dollars worth of toys. He vowed that his child would have every opportunity to play with the things Toby never had time for. He jokes sometimes that the only time he wasn't buried in politics was during elementary school. But I think he was organizing junior student council races even then."
She looked up to see Sam smiling. She was glad she'd told him. She could see from his subtle nod that he understood what she'd said. She'd given him the real explanation for Toby's recent behavior. It was his way of honoring his son and revisiting the past.
"Thank you for telling me that Congresswoman. All of it."
"You'll watch over him for me, Sam?"
"Yes, Congresswoman."
She stood to leave. "Sam, you need to call me Andi."
He smiled at her again. "Yes, Ma'am."
She smiled back and headed out of the room. Sam closed the door behind her and sat quietly in his office.
Ginger and Bonnie stared worriedly at the closed door for an hour before they ventured to knock. He never closed his door. He never stayed that quiet for an hour, unless something was wrong. Ginger lost the coin toss and went to check on Sam.
She knocked softly.
"Come in."
Ginger entered the office and looked around. Sam sat at his desk. His laptop was out but the screensaver showed he'd not used it for a while.
"Everything okay, Sam?"
"Yes, Ginger. Um, when is Toby coming back?"
"He called ten minutes ago. He took another meeting on the Hill and said he's not going to make it back till late."
"Thanks."
She looked at him closely. He seemed a bit subdued, but clearly didn't want to talk about it.
"I'll be outside if you need anything."
"Yeah."
Ginger went back to the bullpen. "Bonnie, he looks a little spooked or something. Do you have any idea why Congresswoman Wyatt came here?
"No. We haven't done anything to her pet projects lately and there's not an active bill war on that I know about."
"I'll get Donna to get Josh to check on him without, you know, checking on him, so he doesn't get weird. You know the guys hate it when we fuss over them."
"Yeah, go to Donna. Tell her to keep it quiet." Bonnie sat back down and started in on another memo.
Josh pulled Sam aside later that afternoon in the hall. "Sam, what's up?"
"Nothing new that I know of."
Josh led Sam into an empty conference room. "Here's the deal. Donna says that Ginger and Bonnie said I needed to be sure you were okay, but not to be obvious about it. And we know from experience that doesn't work. I'm not subtle."
Sam smiled. "That's true, Josh. Do they really think that we don't know when they do this stuff?"
"Actually, I'm pretty sure they manipulate us all the time. I think Donna just tells me sometimes to cover for all the times they are successfully sneaky."
"Yeah." Sam decided that was quite true.
Josh waited for Sam to continue. He didn't and Josh grew a bit apprehensive.
"So Sam, what's up with you?"
"Nothing, Josh."
Josh persisted. "Andi came to see you today."
"Yes."
"Toby's okay?"
"Fine." Sam looked a way a bit when he lied, but Josh missed it.
Josh grew flustered. "For crying out loud, are you gonna tell me or not!!"
"Not. Go away Josh."
He threw up his hands. You be sure to tell Bonnie and Ginger that I was sympathetic and really tried. Donna will go on the warpath if she hears otherwise."
Sam nodded. He knew Josh would report to Donna and so he couldn't tell him the content of his talk with Andi. Toby's past would be reported to everyone in the West Wing. If they started being nice to him, he'd really lose it.
Toby returned from a long day on the Hill to a desk piled with new work and a quiet Bullpen.
He hung his coat up and then stopped when he saw the Nerf basketball hoop mounted on the wall next to the window.
Sam leaned in to watch his surprise.
"I thought you might like a new toy. And since you've got them all over the office, no one will notice. Wanna bet I can beat you?"
Toby shook his head and looked at Sam. "What the hell are you doing?" He grumbled. But he sounded more amused than mad.
"Just think, we can play for points. If I win you don't get to cut parts out of my speeches."
Toby picked up the ball and launched it at Sam's head.
Sam let it bounce off without flinching. His face turned a bit more serious.
"Toby, Andi came to see me today."
Toby stiffened and sat quickly in his chair. "So she told you about Benji."
"Yes."
"It was a long time ago, Sam."
"Yeah."
" I really don't want to talk about it."
"Yeah."
He looked up at Sam's concerned face. He should be angry for the meddling. But he really wasn't.
He smiled and picked up another ball. "How about we play tomorrow. I think I really need a drink now."
"Sure."
Sam started to leave. "Sam, I meant for you to come with me."
"Oh, okay. Let me get my coat."
Toby smiled. Sam was a good kid. And for the first time in the last week he felt the gloom lift a bit.
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