#andy.... probably would not. but she will make all the room for cj in the life that they've all chosen and somehow that's MORE loving

[smallblueandloud]

hi!! cj/toby or cj/toby/andy + love confessor and first kiss😊 thanks so much ily!! i’m really annoying so i’m going to send another request with these ships so you can do both, neither, or whichever one strikes inspiration

i cheated a little on this one, oops! also i just wrote a full-out fic for it because i wanted to. for this ask meme, which will be open until tomorrow. sorry about the angst?

but i could only look down (1.3k, toby/cj/andy and toby/cj)

They go up to him after his speech. The crowds are still small, now, easy to push through. Toby knows they’ll get bigger. Leo McGarry turns, notices them at his elbow, and pokes Josiah Bartlet on the shoulder.

“Yes, I’d be happy to discuss that with you later, but right now my jerk best friend is tearing me away. What is it, Leo?”

“Jed,” says Leo, gesturing at Toby and CJ. “This is CJ Cregg. She’s going to be doing our press for us, I hope?”

CJ has stars in her eyes. Toby knows the feeling. It’s hard to listen to a speech by Josiah Bartlet without feeling optimistic, even stump speeches in tiny crowds. He can’t wait to hear him speak on the national stage.

“Nice to meet you, Governor Bartlet,” says CJ, shaking his hand. “I can definitely help with some of the more urgent business, but I still haven’t figured out my long-term plans yet. I’m here as a favor to Toby.”

“Toby?” asks Bartlet, narrowing his eyes. CJ gestures vaguely to her left, where Toby’s been standing this whole time, and he smiles. “Right. Of course. Toby.”

“Jed,” says Leo, at Bartlet’s elbow, and Bartlet’s smile turns apologetic.

“Sorry, kids, but duty calls. Nice to meet you, Ms. Cregg. I hope you can help us out!”

With that, he’s gone.

“Not great with names, is he?”

“No, not really,” says Toby. “He’s not a perfect politician.”

“But he’s a good man, huh?” asks CJ, and doesn’t wait for his answer. She knows him better than that. “Certainly an amazing speaker.”

“Yeah,” says Toby, and clears his throat. “You don’t have a room, do you?”

“You’ve been with me since we got off the plane,” she says. “No, I don’t.”

“You can- you can sleep on my couch, if you want.”

“Just like old times, huh?” asks CJ. She’s watching him carefully.

“Something like that.”

-

“No, no- no, shut up,” says CJ, laughing. “It’s not my fault that all the candidates you ever picked were losers.”

“I didn’t- they weren’t all losers!” protests Toby. “We won a few elections!”

“Mm hmm,” says CJ. “So few elections.”

They’re not drunk, but Toby feels like it, exhausted after two cross-country flights in two days. CJ isn’t tired enough to be as giggly as she is, but he thinks she’s just letting herself relax after a long, long time. They haven’t seen each other for a year, since she visited them for a weekend at their new apartment in DC after Andy was elected, and he knows she doesn’t have any close friends in California. Somehow they’re just as comfortable with each other as they’ve always been.

“What does Leo need me to do?” asks CJ. They’re sitting on the floor up against the bed, and her head slowly tilts to lean on his shoulder. He freezes.

“We need someone to talk to the press, basically,” he says, trying not to move too much. “Figure out which issues we should bring up, and when. Get the major news groups interested in us.”

“Oh, so nothing much,” drawls CJ. “Just everything.”

“Yeah, just everything.”

They sit there in silence for a few minutes. Toby works up his nerve. “CJ-”

CJ must recognize his tone, because she lifts her head up and turns to face him. “No.”

“CJ-”

“Toby, no.”

“Before I say anything else, I’m specifying that that Andy is-”

“We stopped this, Toby,” says CJ, looking at him like she’s begging him to understand. “We can’t do this. You two are married. I moved away. Andy’s in Congress, for god’s sake, and you’re working on a national campaign-”

“It’s tiny!” he says, throwing his hands up. “No one’s paying attention to us. We can do whatever we want, and no one will care, because no one’s even heard of the governor of New Hampshire.”

“They will,” says CJ. “God, Toby, you’re a writer, you know it. This one’s different. You heard him talk tonight.”

Toby doesn’t say anything.

“Besides, Leo McGarry’s on this campaign, and people pay attention to that. Josh Lyman jumped ship from the Russell campaign to be here, and that’s not nothing. You’re here, Toby, and you might be a goddamned fool but people know that you pick good people as candidates. They’ll pay attention to that.”

He stares at her. “New Hampshire. That’s what’s stopping us, huh. Fucking New Hampshire?”

“Toby, even without that, Andy’s been elected. You two are married. You can’t keep- she can’t be seen-”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” says Toby. “We know how to hide this.”

“Not forever,” says CJ. “Not for long, even, not in Washington. Not when Andy’s going to be making noise. And you know she will. She won’t hold herself back, not for you, not for me, not for a thing that ended years ago.”

“It only ended because you wanted it to,” he says. “You know that. Andy and I-”

“You two went and got married!” explodes CJ.

“You told me to propose!”

“Yeah, because you two living together in sin wouldn’t look good! Especially with how much older you are.”

Toby looks up at the ceiling. “Is everything about politics with you?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees CJ put her back to the bed again. “Yes. While Andy’s a politician, yes. While you guys are married, yes.”

He closes his eyes. “You keep bringing up the marriage. You know we have a CJ clause, right?”

CJ exhales. “This isn’t last time. I know what’s on the table. I’m not saying no because I’m worried about Andy.”

“I would hope not,” says Toby. “Because she misses you. We both do.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I love you, you know,” he says, and opens his eyes, turns towards her again. “I never stopped loving you.”

She kisses him. It feels like a first kiss, despite the thousands of times they must have kissed in Boston. They haven’t kissed in years. CJ stayed in a hotel when she took that trip to DC, planned things so she wasn’t alone with them for more than twenty minutes at a time, didn’t allowed any emotional talk, and went to the airport alone.

He’s missed her, missed this, missed being close to her. He loves Andy more than breathing, but CJ feels like his equal in every way. He doesn’t want to do this without either of them.

CJ pulls back suddenly. “No,” she says, and stands up. “We’re not doing this.”

“You’re the one who kissed me,” he says, spreading his hands and laughing a little. “This is all you.”

“No,” she says, “it’s your fault, saying- oh, come on, Toby, don’t look at me like that. This can’t happen.”

“Why not?” asks Toby, standing to face her. “Give me your reason, CJ, and I’ll stop asking.”

CJ closes her eyes. “The American public.”

“Stop- CJ, come on, why are you so obsessed with what the press will think?”

“It’s my whole job!” she shouts. “That’s my thing! I obsess over what the press will think! Andy-”

“Andy forbade either of us from getting involved in her career,” interrupts Toby. “Stop trying to micromanage this for her.”

“This will ruin her,” says CJ, quietly. “I’m not doing that to her. I’m not doing that to either of you. I want to work on this campaign, Toby, and I want to work with you again, and I want to get Josiah Bartlet elected president, because I think he’s a good man and he’ll be a better president. But if you won’t stop asking me for- for this, I’m going back to California.”

Toby stares at her. Finally, he says, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine,” he repeats. “You’re my best friend, CJ. Nothing else. As long as that’s what you want.”

“It is,” she says, and sounds like she’s trying to convince herself just as much as him. “I’m going to bed.”

“Goodnight, CJ.”

“Goodnight, Toby.”

[aerielz]

Cj/Toby - Fluff #4?

“Shut up and hold me.”

This was supposed to have been out yesterday. It was also supposed to be just around three hundred words. Guesstimates are not my forte.

I had no idea where to go with it, so it ended up taking an interesting turn. Hope it still counts as fluff? Thanks so much for the prompt!

It starts with something stupid that Josh says, as many things have for so long, now, and probably will for the rest of his life, if he’s lucky enough.

Toby pushes him into accepting a guest lecture at Columbia, claiming that a few days outside of DC might do him good, and he accepts it, much to his surprise.

He hasn't seen Josh in a while, and the distance makes itself clearer and more acute while he watches Josh take the stage and command the auditorium with an authority he's never displayed before. A kinder, softer, authority. He has a gentler hand, now, a more apt hand to steer questions into answers and world views into realities.

He's changed, and later, when Toby asks about Donna, he's made fully aware of how much she's changed too. How much Sam changed. He feels a little bit stranged, then. Far away from the new world they've made, far away from them. Even if Josh is right there in front of him.

He's alright— he really is. This loneliness, he's used to it by now. But he's been wondering, these days, if this is what Andy meant, so many years before.

Maybe the question is apparent, because Josh says—

“You should see someone."

He scoffs, “Are you really going to stand there and tell me a woman is the solution to my problems— unbelievable.”

Josh chuckles a laugh, “No— I mean. Well. It wouldn’t hurt to get out of the shell for once, you know—”

“Why are we having this conversation, again?”

“—but I mean a therapist.”

He huffs and grumbles, and says thanks but no thanks, and changes the subject, and two weeks later he’s sitting in a beautifully furnished room inside a brownstone somewhere uptown, listening as his new therapist tells him that it wasn’t healthy — wondering why the fuck it is that he decided to pay any sort of attention to Josh Lyman.

“Excuse me?,” he says, half laughing.

She shrugs, “It wasn’t.”

Only he doesn’t need anyone to tell him that, does he?

The White House, a traumatic experience? Of course not, he says, mouth full of barbed sarcasm, “I’ve only lost my family and the better portion of my reputation— not to mention any peace of mind I can claim to have ever had and whatever was left of my hair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she deadpans, “you still have plenty of hair.”

“Thank you, but I think I’m still more interested in, you now, all the other stuff?"

“Well, can’t help you there. You said it yourself, that’s all gone.”

This type of frankness is something he’s more used to listening to in his own voice. And someone else’s, but he doesn’t want to think about her. He's managed to not think about her for months now, he’s not about to start.

“I see I’m getting my money’s worth of good life advice.”

“Toby—,” she says, leaning forward, ”it’s gone. It’s not coming back. And you knew that would happen when you leaked the—”

“This is not about that.”

“—but I think it is. I think it is and if you want me to help you then you have to stop trying to bullshit me,” she says, dead serious, but with an amused smile on her lips. “Otherwise we’re in for fifty minutes of verbal sparring a week and I'm sure you’ve had eight years too many of that.”

It's after the first month that he allows himself to picture her face again. It's a memory. The day she found out.

"Once you said you lost your family," his therapist says that week.

"Yeah," he answers, "in more ways than one."

"What do you mean?"

And that's how he learns a thing or two about opening up and about emotional honesty. That easily. By just deciding to.

He hates it. Almost makes the decision to go back, too.

Then he calls Andy for the first time in seven months, instead of the other way around—

"Tobias!," she says, before he can get a word in, "I couldn't understand shit of what you wrote in that last article, but I'll applaud any attempt at academically calling out congress on our bullshit. When's the next one due? Oh, and Huck and Molly are going nuts about the whole summer in New York thing, won't shut up about it."

— and wonders if his isolation wasn't a little bit self inflicted.

"Just because what you had is gone, doesn't mean you can't have something else," his therapist says. "Don't you have a new reputation, now? Haven't you found some peace again?"

"Hair's still gone."

"Well, you said you preferred the other things."

Can't have everything, he says, he thinks, to himself and remembers of her voice.

"No, no, you can," his therapist answers, having heard him very well, "Just can't have the same thing twice."

It takes him years to understand that one. It takes a beautiful, blue, envelope in his desk, his name written on it in fancy calligraphy.

It takes seeing Josh place his hands on the small of Donna's back, like he's watched him do so many times. It takes Donna's exasperated smile, her eye roll, the naked affection playing in Josh's face. The slender ring on their fingers that's somehow a contrast to the walls of the East Wing ballroom. It takes everything that's always been there being now so completely different.

It takes the sight of her, coming from the other side of the room in a green dress that makes her tanned skin shine golden.

The pain of longing is there, surrounding his heart, threatening to wash over him, but he finds it that he likes what the distance did to them. There's a lightness to him that wasn't there before. And her smile is brighter, somehow.

They walk towards each other like drawn by gravity — naturally, inevitable, painlessly.

"Oh, God, I missed you," he lets out with a laugh.

She laughs, too. CJ laughs the laugh of recognition, and it's light and beautiful and a little bit shy, and he's falling in love with her again before he can even name the feeling.

"I don't think I've ever heard you say something like that so openly," she comments. He finds himself shy, too. It's a delicious feeling, the giddy happiness that washes over him. “Who are you and what have you done to—”

“Just— shut up and hold me, will you?," he retorts.

She steps into his arms, sinking into the warmth of his embrace. He encircles her tight, fitting himself around her and remembering the size of her against him like he would a rhyme from a childhood song. Uncertainly, bathed in tentative affection.

"Gladly," she says, against his neck.

The familiarity of it clashes with his newfound internal honesty, with the walls of the White House, with the reality that he doesn't owe anyone anything. "Don't let go."

"Wasn't planning to."

She clings to him, a little bit, unashamed to do so.

And he likes it best. Whatever this new thing is that he has now, he thinks he likes it best.

[extasiswings]

is this a prompt? is this me losing it? no one knows 🤷‍♀️

Nonny, you are, as ever, a delight. And I’m sorry XD.

Toby is quiet.  Which, considering the fact that in prior weeks he’d been short-tempered and snippy with absolutely everyone, prowling the halls and working too late and not sleeping, would to some people seem like a gift.  But CJ knows that when Toby goes quiet, it’s rarely a good sign.  

She also knows his divorce was finalized a few hours ago.  

He went out, he came back, and then he stretched across the couch in CJ’s office, and hasn’t left.  And it doesn’t really matter how much she tries to ignore the suffocating tension emanating from him, she can’t focus on her own work.  Which means there’s really only one thing to do.

“Okay, get up,” she says finally, powering down her computer and grabbing the blazer from the back of her chair.  Toby just tosses the ball in his hand up again and stares blankly at the ceiling.  

CJ shrugs the jacket on and gives him a look.  “Get up,” she repeats.

“Why?”  

“Because I’m going home and I’m not leaving you alone in my office; you’ll get antsy eventually and probably end up eating the chocolate in my desk and then next week when I can’t find it I’ll be very upset, so really I’m doing us all a favor.”

Toby turns his head to look at her.  

“You keep chocolate in your desk?”  

“Yes.”

“We’ll get mice.”

“Shut up and just come with me.”

Toby sighs and reluctantly pushes himself up off the couch.  When CJ flicks the lights off, he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“I should—Sam’s drafting some remarks for that thing tomorrow—”

“And Sam can handle it because he’s good at his job,” CJ interrupts.  “You’re coming home with me, you’re going to have a drink, and then you’re going to sleep for more than three hours before you show up again tomorrow, got it?”

“Bossy.”  A hint of a smile passes across his lips before they flatten out again.  “You got the good stuff?”

“Who do you take me for?  Of course I do.  Now come on.”

It’s not one drink.  Granted, realistically, it probably was never going to be just one.  But at the point they’re both on the couch in CJ’s apartment and the room spins when she turns her head too quickly, she’s pretty sure that means it’s time to switch to water.

CJ makes herself get up and grab some for both of them once they finish laughing at a story from her Hollywood days and when she returns, Toby is quiet again, aimlessly running his finger along the rim of his empty glass.

“You know...I think I always knew she would leave me,” he says when CJ sets a new glass down in front of him.  “She was always too good for me.”

“That’s not true,” CJ replies, knocking her shoulder into his when she returns to her seat.  

“No, it is,”  Toby insists, and she thinks the room must be spinning for him too if he’s being this honest.  “It’s what I do—I fall for women who are far too good for me.  Andy, you—”

CJ nearly chokes on the sip of water she’s just taken.  “What?”

Toby waves a hand.  “You know.”

CJ suddenly wishes she was sober, that both of them were perfectly, completely in their right minds, because it’s the conversation.  The one they’ve been dancing around for too many years to count because it’s never been the right time, because she’s gone back and forth telling herself they’re just good friends, that whatever her feelings may be, anything reciprocal is all in her head.  

“I don’t,” she says slowly.

“CJ…”  Toby looks at her briefly, then away, shifting back on the couch like he’s withdrawing into himself.  CJ grabs his hand.

“Hey.  Don’t do that.  You can’t just say things and then—”

“There was this night several years ago,” he says.  “We hadn’t seen each other in awhile, I had just lost a campaign for some state legislative seat but I got dragged to this fundraiser for something or other and you were there.  You were wearing this red dress and I asked if you wanted to leave early and you said you had to stay just in case you were needed.  So we ended up sitting at the bar downstairs catching up for...two hours?  Before you were called to go back.  And as you were leaving you told me to try picking up the phone once in awhile so that we could run into each other on purpose the next time.”

CJ’s chest squeezes as her mind is flooded with the memory.  “I kissed your cheek.”

She doesn’t mention she did it because she hadn’t been able to tell what would have happened if she’d just kissed him.

Toby nods.  “I had this idea in my head,” he admits, “that I would call you and ask you to dinner and finally just tell you—but I put it off and put it off because I didn’t want to risk it, and by the time I finally did you were seeing someone.”

“You could have said something anyway.”  Her head is spinning again, but she’s not sure the alcohol is exclusively to blame.  

Toby tips his head and considers that.  “Would you have wanted me to?”

“Yes. Yes, I—Toby—”

CJ isn’t sure if she should scream into a pillow or have another drink so she won’t remember this or shove him for being a fool or some combination of all three.  

She kisses him instead.

One might think that a first kiss after years of repressed feelings would be like some sort of explosion, all pent up passion and aggressive escalation.  But it isn’t.  It’s soft and slow and restrained, as if after the initial contact the world shifted and they realized they needed to navigate the new landscape with caution.  

And then, too soon, Toby pulls away.

“We can’t,” he says quietly, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

CJ swallows hard as she sits back, the world righting itself around them.  “I know.”

“I want to, I do, but…”

“We work together,” she finishes.  

“We’re trying to build a better country.  That fight, that goal...it’s bigger than us.”

“I know.”    

Toby smiles sadly.  “You’re my best friend, CJ Cregg.”

CJ squeezes his hand and then gets up.  “Damn right, I am.  Come on, I’ll show you the guest room.  I was serious about you getting more than three hours of sleep.”

She leans against the door for a long moment after he closes it behind him.  And the world spins on.  

[smallblueandloud]

okay i’m back again— SO i was rereading your tww sense8 au posts, as one does, and there’s so many THINGS IM DYING TO EXPLORE. but. um. i forgot some. i’m the worst sorry! BUT: this. “if marriage equality existed at the time, they’d have probably gotten married and toby would’ve had a Crisis about it” WHAT WOULD THIS HAVE BEEN LIKE I WANT MORE OF THIS. i love them so much. i wrote my first cjandy fic and THEY KISSED it was euphoric. ALSO 4x20 IN THIS VERSE. pls talk about any of this, whenever!!

HI BRO IT’S BEEN LIKE THREE MONTHS SINCE YOU SENT ME THIS BUT I’M STILL RIDE-OR-DIE FOR THIS OT3 SO I’M ANSWERING IT NOW!!

look. not to be that person, but toby is an insecure kind of guy. i love him but he is. he’s sad, and he’s quiet, and you know the reason why andy’s breakup conversation to him (in her dream house, right before she went into labor) broke her heart so much was because she knew how much she was hurting him. he’s used to being alone and he doesn’t LIKE it but i think he’s at the point where he wouldn’t be SURPRISED, you know?

this is all to say that he doesn’t do so great, when everything is tense and cj refuses to even be in the same room as him but will kiss andy in the psycellium for some reason. He Doesn’t Cope So Well, understandably. this is worse in an au where marriage equality exists.

presumably we’re working with an au where marriage equality is at about the same level as it is today -- so couples of varying genders can be legally married, but no polycules. in this case, we have cj less concerned about being seen with andy in public and more concerned with being seen with toby and��andy in public. i’m guessing she’s still cagey and therefore the disintegration still happens (honestly, i want to say toby and andy would’ve fallen apart no matter if cj had stayed or not, but that’s a whole other discussion), which means andy is therefore available when cj finds herself living in DC with two (2) acquaintances she doesn’t work with (and the other one is her brother’s college roommate, so the choice is easy).

see i just think andy and cj get along in a way that andy and toby just DON’T. they’re both pragmatic, although cj will get caught up in her emotions if she’s not careful and andy is always ready to drop everything to start a fight. toby isn’t either of those -- toby will just stand his ground for what he believes in, no matter how people try to convince him otherwise, and this is why toby works very well as a second in command and would make a very bad leader in anything besides speechwriting. (i finally talked myself into cj being chief of staff, as you might be able to tell.) (this, btw, still means andy could’ve been the shuttle leaker -- ready to start a fight with the bartlet administration about the pointlessness of military secrets if they can’t use them to save people -- but that’s a whole different issue. the main reason why it makes sense for it to be andy and not toby is that toby is, above all, someone who’s thrown in his lot with josiah bartlet, and that means he will STAND WITH HIM in public no matter how MUCH he disagrees in private. okay seriously i’m trying not to discuss the shuttle leak here. ahem. GAYNESS.)

what this means is that toby gets into arguments with both cj and andy very easily, because he’ll dig in his heels and ignore them throwing every argument they’ve got at him and god can you imagine how frustrating that is. but cj and andy make a very good team, good at compromising, good at showing affection (toby tends to lock up when he’s in a mood), and really good at choosing movies for movie night. (they DO burn things whenever they try to cook together -- toby and cj are the family cooks when they’re all living together -- and andy, like toby, doesn’t speak the language of the press the way cj does, but for the most part they work very well together.)

this is a really long description to say that, yeah, i think if we were in an ideal world, andy and cj would make the best married couple. it wouldn’t be a good IDEA for them to get married, because toby would NOT take it well and obviously you don’t want to get married if it’s going to hurt your other partner in the way it would hurt toby.

also?? i just want to say you’re a genius because i had never considered the angst potential of 3x21 (edit: completely misjudged the season whoops) in the sense8 au but oh MAN it’s painful. i’m torn between my love of that shot of cj sitting alone in her gown while times square streams past her -- versus a similar shot, except toby and andy are psychically sitting on either side of her, with toby’s hand on her back and andy’s hand on her leg. LIKE?? THE ANGST POTENTIAL IS OUT OF THE PARK HERE Y’ALL, I NEED EVERYONE TO GET WITH ME ON THIS.

the image that won’t leave my head is toby, pale and shocked next to sam celebrating the motorcade maneuver, and at some point sam turns to him and asks “are you okay?” and toby, feeling cj’s pain and feeling pain for her, says “yeah” because what ELSE can he say??? pain. pain is good. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[smallblueandloud]

HEY HI WHAT'S UP so i'm almost at the point where i can FINALLY read the tww sense8 au, i'm so excited, you have no idea. so anyway- whenever you're in the mood to write for this verse- how did early cj/andy/toby work? how did they meet, and figure out they were in the same cluster (yes including will i'm so in love with him as a part of this)? what were/are the individual relationships like within it? literally talk about anything- any relationship- within this au, i love the concept so much. ❤

(the sense8 au in question)

hmm, okay, so as i mentioned to you i actually had written a bit about their relationship in some snippets that will probably never be posted. but i don’t LIKE what i wrote, so i’m gonna change it, and we’re all just gonna pretend it was like this the whole time lmao.

andy and toby met first, as always, in boston because i am predictable. in this au you don’t know you’re in the same cluster until you make eye contact without being on blockers (which are telepathy-supressing pills, essentially), so they had no idea it was coming, but toby is running a campaign that one of andy’s college friends is working on and andy’s there because her friend was supposed to go to lunch with her an HOUR ago and toby glances up from the papers he’s holding, and-

well. that’s that. toby isn’t so militant about refusing to get close to andy, although he does still feel a bit odd about their age gap and still doesn’t agree to date her for a while. richard schiff is 6 years older than kathleen york, so i’m gonna say that andy was 24 and toby was 29. but, as andy points out: she’s just as smart as he is, and besides, something in their souls said they were equals, and there’s nothing he can do to avoid it. so they date.

they come up with some ground rules for their relationship. no blockers while they’re together in person. no blockers without a good reason, because they both like being connected. if one of them finds one of the other members of their cluster - because the cluster isn’t complete, they know, they don’t know how big it’s going to be but they know it’s not JUST the two of them - they have to call the other IMMEDIATELY. both of them are idealists like that. they know they’re going to share their lives with their other cluster mates, even if it’s not quite romantic.

and then about a year later, when toby is 30 and andy is 25, toby gets introduced to the new press representative of his latest campaign, a 26-year-old cj. and i think they actually even manage to get into an argument before they make eye contact - but it happens, and toby takes a step to the right into the office where andy has a meeting today.

“i found her,” he says. “the third one.”

andy, forgoing any other kind of conversation - that would only waste time - turns to the politician she’s meeting with. “i’m so sorry, something’s just come up,” she says. “we found another member of our cluster.”

“oh, of course,” says the politician. he smiles at her. “we’ll reschedule, naturally. and- good luck.”

andy thanks him and hightails it out of there. back at the campaign, cj and toby are still staring at each other. toby says, “you’re-” and cj says, “come here,” and grabs his arm to pull him into a broom closet, because you KNOW that was cj’s first reaction.

toby’s still kind of staring at her, because let’s be honest, young allison janney. cj says, “are there any more?”

toby says, “what?”

“in the cluster. have you found any others?”

toby blinks. “yeah, i’ve- yeah. she’s on her way. my girlf- my partner, andy. wait, wait, does that- have YOU found any others?”

cj shakes her head. “not yet. i’m cj, by the way.”

“toby ziegler.”

andy breaks SEVERAL traffic laws but gets to the campaign in a record ten minutes, which by the way are possibly the most awkward ten minutes of both cj and toby’s lives. she makes a beeline for the broom closet and makes instant eye contact with cj, because she is NOT going to lose this connection.

later, cj will think that that’s about when she fell in love.

it’s 1985, and bartlet is elected in 1998, so they still have a ways to go. they eventually fall into a collective relationship, as andy and toby realize that their relationship is never going to be able to return to a pre-cj dynamic. they met her a year after each other, but she’s just as important to the relationship as the two of them are.

cj moves to california eventually, fed up and cynical about the public sector. she takes a job with a media consultation firm, as she does in every world, they’re better at communication in this au. hard to be bad at it when you share a soul, bodies, talents. andy and toby move back to andy’s home state of maryland and andy starts to get closer to her goal of running for congress, while toby just keeps losing campaigns for honest politicians. i’ll say that cj moves to california in 1992, and toby and andy get married in 1993.

it’s a lot easier for you to stay in contact when you’re in a cluster. cj watches tv with toby and andy every night. it’s less of a breakup, in this au, and more of cj saying “i want to go work in california, and we have to be more careful”. she’ll only do romantic things in the psycellium, which is where, say, andy would perceive her if cj was visiting telepathically. no one else can see her, is the point. but she sits on their couch and watches tv with them and heckles toby when he makes dinner and goes to lunches with andy, where she sits on one side of the table and eats while andy makes herself at home in the other chair.

and it’s not great but it WORKS, and it works until jed bartlet calls them all in and cj closes herself off even MORE for the sake of andy’s career and andy and toby’s marriage falls apart. and then we get to their approximate relationships in canon.

toby and andy are divorced and spend a couple of years not speaking, but they’re still CLUSTERMATES and that MEANS something. they still hold to their rule of no blockers when in the same room and, once they start talking again (i think around mid s1), they start talking to each other for comfort and catharsis. oftentimes they’ll argue to get out their frustration with everyone else in their lives. it works.

toby and cj are as non-flirty as cj can manage, which is to say that they’re at canon levels of flirting. i would say it’s PRETTY FLIRTY. they’re keeping their cluster under wraps, and they’re even pretty good at it. senior staff knows because one time they got REALLY drunk during the campaign and had a conversation at normal volume about the boston globe. from opposite ends of a bar. but most of the press doesn’t know, except MAYBE danny, and they do their best to keep it that way. exceptions are at rosslyn and other situations like that.

neither of them generally take blockers, so toby’s attempts at briefing are SLIGHTLY less catastrophic than in canon, since cj can stand next to him and quietly advise. she doesn’t take over his body to do it, though, and they try to limit her advice, since it can get really obvious really quickly. toby takes blockers whenever they hide something from cj.

and cj and andy... are the most romantic of the three, just because cj and toby can get away with flirting and cj KNOWS that toby knows she loves him, but andy has always been better about physical affection - and they generally see each other in the psycellium, anyway. (look, i just want them to KISS.) if marriage equality existed at the time, they’d have probably gotten married and toby would’ve had a Crisis about it, but it didn’t and they don’t. they only very rarely see each other in public, generally at balls and the like, during which they both have to pretend they’re not about to burst out laughing. someone ALWAYS tries to introduce them, assuming they’ve never met before, and it’s worth it for the simultaneous “oh, no, we’ve met.” it’s explained by “cj was toby’s best friend while he was dating andy”, but you and i know the Truth.

okay, and then sam goes to california and meets a spirited young speechwriter and sends him back to the west wing, and he walks into toby’s office first.

toby looks up, meets will’s eyes, and something clicks into place. the last piece of the puzzle. the last member of their cluster. and toby goes, “oh no.”

will says, “uh- can we just. uh.”

“come in,” says toby, sighing and waving a hand. “we’ll handle that later. you have an appointment, right?”

they have their canon conversation, in which toby critiques will’s writing and refuses his help on the inauguration speech, and blah blah blah we get to the end of the episode where they’ve both revealed that they respect each other.

it’s the middle of the night, two days after they met, they’re sitting in the mess hall writing, when will goes, “and the cluster thing?”

“what?” says toby, glancing up. “oh, yeah. there’s two more of us. i’ve gotta introduce you.”

“i went home and looked it up,” says will. “there’s nothing on your cluster anywhere.”

“yeah, well, that’s on purpose,” says toby. “and it’s yours too, now. do you know cj cregg?”

he introduces will to cj the next morning, then gets andy to come into the west wing so she can pass will in the hallway and meet eyes with him. they’re very serious about keeping their cluster under wraps, and it would look REALLY suspicious if toby ziegler’s ex-wife came to the white house to meet the california speechwriter that sam seaborn recommended after two months of casual acquaintance. donna is the only one who notices it, but that’s another story.

the dynamics: toby and will are basically the same as in canon, complete with the s6-7 Rift™. toby isn’t as comfortable with will, hasn’t known him for as long, but they understand each other. they’re both writers. it’s something that andy and cj don’t know, even if they love toby more than will ever will.

as for cj and andy, they basically adopt will as their brother and move on. will and cj can’t be seen getting too cozy, but they talk through problems with each other a lot. andy and will can’t be seen in public together at ALL, but they make it a point to sit with each other in the evenings while they’re doing paperwork or reading or writing. it goes more easily with company, and they want to get to know each other.

and everything’s well and good and happy until toby commits treason. but that’s another story altogether.