�You didn�t tell me.�
Her pain was in her eyes, and he knew now what she had seen in him that night, when she had asked him repeatedly what was wrong, and he had been unable to answer. She hadn�t come to his office tonight, and he hadn�t really expected her to, so he hadn�t stayed long. He heard her leave, saw her through the blinds on his window as she tore out of the building as if trying to escape all the nightmares she had ever seen. Maybe, in a way, that�s what she had been doing. He left not long after her, because he knew she didn�t need him.
But here she was, and though she didn�t look any different than she had when he had seen her earlier, there were emotional scars just below the surface that would take a lifetime to heal, and maybe never would. He wanted so badly to take her in his arms, to hold her and let her cry, but she had not come here for solace, because that was not what they did. She had come because she needed to be angry at someone, and they had plenty of experience at that. So he stood wordlessly, arms at his sides, and waited, because it would have to end sometime, and that would be when the tears came.
�Do you remember why I agreed to come here, Toby?� she demanded, and he didn�t answer because he knew she didn�t want him to. �You came to me out there in LA, and you said, look, there�s this guy, and I said great, good for you, because hell, isn�t that what you always wanted? To know that you found that guy, the one that was going to change everything? And then you asked me to come out here, to join his campaign, and do you remember what I asked? I asked you if he was a good man. I didn�t want to know if you thought he could win, or if he was a good politician, or a million other questions that should have been the first thing I thought of. All I wanted to know was if he was a good man. And you said he was.
�Do good men do this?
�Seriously, Toby. Good men, they don�t lie their way into office. They don�t hide something like this from the American people, from their own staff. We gave up everything to get him into the White House. All of us, not just you and me and Josh and Sam and Leo, but everyone. There are people at all levels of this thing who dropped everything, who lost everything, just because they believed in him, because they thought they could change things by getting him into office.
�And what has changed? It�s just another season in Washington with another sleazy politician in the White House, and nothing is any different than it has been for hundreds of years. So what the hell did we do it all for? And more importantly, what do we all do now? Where can we possibly end up going from here? I mean, there�s not a chance in hell that all of this is going to end any way but badly.
�Think about it. Say we don�t say anything, that we keep him in the White House, and, hell, maybe even run for a second term. Isn�t that what you and Leo were planning? Leo, who has known about all this for more than a year and never said a word to any of us? He was all set to head up the campaign for a second term of lies. So say we do that. Say we all go into this one with our eyes open, knowing what there is to know. And then halfway through the second term he has a�what do you even call it? An attack? An episode? Say he has one of those in the Sit Room, and gives an order that he never should have, that he never would have if his brain was functioning properly. We could go to war over this. We could get innocent people killed, and worse. Could you live with yourself if that happened? Maybe you could, I don�t know. I just know I couldn�t.
�Or maybe we keep going with us, all of us keeping up this fantastic charade, and then somewhere down the line someone talks. Maybe it�s Hoynes, trying to get the nomination against us. Maybe it�s someone from GW who knows more than they should because of the shooting. Maybe it�s even you, or Sam, or Josh, having some sudden attack of conscience. Don�t give me that look, because you know as well as I do that it could happen. So we�re all set, lying our way through our second term, and then all of a sudden this is out there, and it�s just a rumor, but it�s not going away, and no one who�s talking knows anything, and no one who knows anything is talking. Just imagine that nightmare scenario for a few minutes.
�Maybe he�ll just step down. Ride out this term, and hand over the White House to Hoynes at the end of it. But Washington isn�t populated by idiots, you know. At least not entirely. If he doesn�t run again, the questions will come. And then years down the line when he�s been out of office for years, it won�t matter anymore, and so it will come out on its own because he won�t have us there hiding it for him. That�s when the questions will start. Did he have it while he was in office? Is this why he didn�t run again? And then what? More lies?
�There are a million ways for this to play out, and all of them are bad. All of them center around lying to the American public, the people who got him here in the first place. And maybe he and Leo and Abbey are comfortable with that. Maybe they�re all ok with the party line of �No one lied. No one was asked to lie.� But I don�t think I am. And I�m the one who�s going to be out there, I�m going to be the face of these deceptions, the voice of them. I don�t think I can live with that.
�And then there�s our final option, the one that will be political suicide for all of us. We tell the truth. We put him, and maybe Abbey, in a room with a camera, and we tell the public that yes, we�ve been lying to you for the past few years, and sure, your President is being slowly eaten alive by a disease that not only attacks him physically, but also mentally, but don�t worry, because he�s still a good guy.
�Let�s see how many of them buy that.
�So now we�re left with the choice to end all choices. Our careers, or our consciences? And you know, when I left the office tonight, I didn�t go home. I walked. It was raining, and I just walked, and I wondered what other people would do in this situation, people that I respected. And you know, a week ago, I would have told you that every one of them would go with their consciences. But now I find out that�s not true. I find out that the President isn�t the man we all thought he was. He�s not the same guy that you came to find me in LA over. And Leo, he�s never exactly been the poster boy for brilliant moral choices, but at least I thought he was honest. Now I find out that two of the people that I would have thought of first as people I could look to for guidance, for support, they�ve been lying to me, to you, to everyone.
�And then there�s you. You knew about this days ago. I saw you that next day, and I watched you, and I knew something had changed. So when I went into your office that night to ask you what was wrong, you lied. And I knew you were lying, but I figured I could deal with it because I know you, and I knew you would talk when you were ready to. But it wasn�t about that, was it? It wasn�t just you being your reserved self. You chose not to tell me. It wasn�t just that you didn�t want to talk about it that night�you weren�t going to talk about it at all. What if Leo hadn�t taken me aside tonight? What if they had decided that your reaction was an indication that they shouldn�t tell the rest of us? What if they didn�t talk to Josh last night? Would you have kept it from us�from me�forever?�
�I don�t know,� he said softly, because he didn�t, and because he knew she needed to be angry with him and that was a good way to make it happen.
�You don�t know,� she repeated, not asking, just reiterating, sending his words back at him without the slightest hint of bitterness. And just that suddenly, the anger was gone, and the bruised look in her eyes was shadowed not with fury but with utter defeat. She stumbled past him, unsteady on her feet, and he knew that she hadn�t been drinking, so it was just from the shock of the night, and he could relate. He watched her cross the room and collapse onto his couch, and he wondered just for a moment if he should follow her, but then she looked up at him and the raw need in her eyes was answer enough.
He padded across the floor in his socks, and noticed for the first time that he hadn�t changed since he had returned from the office, and he was still in the same suit, with his tie undone and hanging loosely around his neck. He sank down beside her, but didn�t reach out to her because he was unsure of the rules of this game she was creating. �You didn�t come to my office,� he said instead, and she blinked slowly at him before answering.
�I couldn�t see you then,� she replied carefully. �I wanted to�I don�t know. I think I wanted to know how I felt about the whole thing before I started talking to other people. And somewhere along the way I realized that I wasn�t getting anywhere with it. It�s just�it�s too complicated for that easy an answer. I can�t just sum it all up and say, you know, I�m angry, or I�m betrayed, or I�m�whatever else. And then I was tired and confused and wet and in the middle of Washington, so I ended up here.�
�Not the first time,� he said, and it brought a tiny smile to her face that disappeared too quickly. �Of course, it�s usually the other way around.�
�Yeah,� she agreed, and they sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the rain that still pattered against his window. She turned away from him a little, watching the lights outside flicker, and when she finally spoke he could hear her tears in her voice. �It�s all falling apart, isn�t it?�
He didn�t have an answer for her, so instead he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, half expecting her to shrug it off. But she didn�t, so he slowly moved it up to smooth back the hair that still held a lingering dampness from her walk in the rain. His finger lightly brushed her cheek, and the touch made her turn her head to look at him, and he bit his lip at the hurt he saw in her tears. For just the briefest second, he wanted to hurt the men who had put that pain there, wanted to tear them to pieces with the aftermath of their own lies, but then he remembered that he was one of those men, and so he took her into his arms instead, and let her cry into his shirt, her arms reaching up to curl blindly around his neck, and he wondered if the guilt would ever leave him.
They had seen each other at their worst over the years, but he had never seen her this fragile, this broken, so when she lifted her head and stared into his eyes with wordless need, he felt the slightest tug of hesitation. But then her hands were clinging to his hair, and her tongue was dancing along his, and he discovered that he needed this as much as she did.
So he slid his hands down her back and clung to her with the desperation of a man trying to forget.
And when he woke in her arms in the morning, he discovered that nothing was forgotten, nothing was healed, and they were powerless to do anything about it but sit here at the edge of the precipice that had become their lives and cling to one another in the hope that maybe they would be each other�s salvation.
He also discovered that the answer to her question was yes.
It was all falling apart.