Title: Tell Me Why

Author: Michelle K. (dalurve@gmail.com)

For: mcamy, by way of the bubbleficathon. She wanted CJ, Toby, and a rubber ducky.

Pairing: CJ/Toby

Spoilers: through 'The Supremes'

Rating: PG

Summary: Not that she really knows Huck and Molly all that well.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.

Many thanks go to Angie and Luna for betaing.

*

CJ holds the rubber ducky in her palm, reminded first of Huck's insistent squeezing of the toy, then of that song from Sesame Street he and Molly have just learned from their mother. Next -- and perhaps randomly but it all makes sense in her head -- come thoughts of Big Bird. She wonders if Toby's kids will ever point out the supposed resemblance. Some kids *might* even be more childish than Josh.

Not that she really knows Huck and Molly all that well.

She sinks into her makeshift bubble bath, made possible by a couple squirts of shampoo. She dips her hand under the water, letting the duck float away. It crushes the foam it encounters with its miniscule weight, bobbing slightly as her body shifts. She watches the water ripple against the small movements of her body, the gentle warmth engulfing her doing its part to ease her tension. And there's a lot of tension to push away. A week of work, a weekend of hard-to-tire-out kids. She'd add Toby to this list, but what he's brought her was more of a pleasant ache than anything else.

Most of the time.

*

Her mother always loved to brush her hair, even when CJ insisted on cutting it short. She complained and rolled her eyes, but it soothed her more than it irked her. When she got older and briefly considered having children, she wanted to be like her mother. Wanted to have that gentle touch that could make everything better.

Now that she has kids to look after, she finds she could never be her mother.

Sometimes, it doesn't even feel like she's trying. Maybe she was just meant to pretend her way through motherhood.

*

There's a small knock on the door before Toby makes his entrance.

"I didn't say you could come in," she says, not pretending to feel modesty about the parts of her that are exposed.

"You didn't say I couldn't," he replies.

"Getting by on a technicality?"

He shrugs. "Something like that. Or exactly like that."

Toby sits at the edge of the toilet lid. He looks at her with his serious face -- or, rather, his normal face with a touch more tension -- and, after several seconds of silence, he says, "We'll talk about it later."

He gets up to leave, but she stops him with a wave of her hand. "You can't do that, especially when I don't know what we're talking about."

"You're taking a bath."

"That didn't bother you five seconds ago."

"Yeah, but... Yeah."

He sits back down. He's silent again and, if she didn't know him as well as she does, she'd be alarmed. But death and destruction don't hamper his verbosity; life does.

"I just dropped the kids off," he says.

"I know."

He leans forward, resting his hand on the edge of the tub. He brushes the fingers of his other hand against her cheek before getting up again. She pretends to believe that's all he had to say and lets him leave.

*

By the time she's drained the tub, Toby's long gone and she can hear music emanating from the living room. She picks the rubber ducky up from the bottom of the tub and places it by the soap, too tired to put it back under the sink with the few other bath toys they've accumulated for the kids. She wonders if they miss any of the things they have at her and Toby's place, or if Andi has things that are the same. She tilts her head, studying the toy. Yeah. Andi's gotta have something better.

Maybe Andi's the sort of person who's meant to be a mother.

She shakes her head at the ridiculousness of staring at a bath toy. Strange the things that looking after another woman's kids will make you do, like waxing comparative about a grinning piece of elastic. What it will make you feel, like the doubt about being good enough, a weakness that she normally reserves for work hours.

CJ comforts herself with the fact that she'd doubt herself just as much if they were her own kids. At least now, she gets a lot of breaks.

*

Toby's waiting when she emerges in her bathrobe. There's a glass waiting for her but, when she takes a sip, there's too much tonic and not enough gin. She doesn't bother to get up for an extra splash.

He talks about anything and everything -- "Josh called." "I think we've got all the votes." -- but none of it is *the* thing.

She knows it'll come suddenly, in a rush of emotion coming to the surface after a long burial. She's heard the angry tirade meant for a bully from the third grade, smiled stoically through a litany of problems with his first lover, is still waiting for all the reasons why Andi shouldn't have left him.

Maybe if she's around long enough, she'll hear all the things she did wrong during the first run of their affair. She told him what he did wrong long ago.

Toby finishes off his drink, placing the tumbler on the square glass table. He brushes his lips against her neck, then leaves her to refill his glass.

"How's Andi doing?" she asks with a fortunate lack of the jealousy that asking about the ex may bring.

"Fine," Toby says curtly. "She's taking the kids to her mother's on my next weekend," he says. "I'll probably be busy anyway."

He's somewhere between angry and guilty. She rests her hand on top of his and finishes her own drink. This was probably the *thing*, but she can't see what exactly has left him feeling so bad. But then she hears the nagging questions in her head. Like: why does less time with the kids make me feel relieved?

She interlaces her fingers with his, kissing him softly. "We'll probably both be busy," she says.

*

There's sex, because they're alone after a weekend of being anything but. Afterwards, he tells her he loves her while staring at the ceiling. She returns the sentiment, rolling over to her side. Toby's fingers ghost over her back. After all these years, after years apart between their years together, after his marriage and divorce and sudden fatherhood, the touch still makes her shudder.

Between them, she still feels words unspoken.

*

He asks, "Do you think I'm a bad father?" while she's drifting off to sleep.

She'd smile at the basic predictability of his out of the blue comment if she had an answer. If any of it didn't have to do with the fact that the home she and Toby have might not be hospitable. If she felt like she could be half of the mother her own was.

"No," she says, and she's not sure if she believes it herself.

END