The cool, fake wood grain of the table felt wonderful against CJ's cheek.  Which probably had more to do with that alcohol-heated feeling she had after downing four beers in rapid succession than any inherent wonderfulness of the table itself.

"CJ?"

She didn't bother to move.  "Yes, Tobus?"

"Is there something wrong with you?"

She opened one eye and looked at him, his stout form blurred by the locks of hair in her face.  "Why?"

"Because," he answered, hands in his pockets and rocking a little on the balls of his feet, "you've got your head on the table there."

"It's cool," she answered, as if that explained everything.

"Okay."

"CJ Cregg," Josh crowed, sweeping into the deserted mess in that way he had.  "You, my friend, are the bomb."

CJ frowned at him, but he probably couldn't see that, what with the hair in her face.  "Are you using slang?"

"Well, yes."

"You shouldn't do that," she decided, closing her eyes again.  Because the room tilted a little, and she really didn't like that.

"Whatever."  Josh shrugged off her words with practiced ease.  Judging by his voice, he was standing with Toby a couple of feet away, staring at her.  "You kicked some major ass today, CJ."

"Yes."  CJ turned her face further into the table, her hair playing the part of a shield.

"You did," Toby concurred, using his soft, reluctant-to-actually-be-praising-someone voice.  "You played the press masterfully."

"I did," CJ agreed, but her mouth was a little squashed and it came out almost incomprehensible.  "Ainsley helped."

"Ainsley?" Josh repeated, sounding surprised.

CJ groaned and pushed herself to a sitting position.  After the room settled back down, she looked over at them.  "Yes.  Ainsley."

Toby nodded slowly.  "I thought you disliked her."

"We agreed to disagree."  CJ shrugged, eyeing the remnants of her beer.  She really shouldn't, but she was celebrating, dammit.  She was the bomb.  So convinced, she reached for it, but Toby's big hand swooped in and stole it.  "Hey!"

"Agreed to disagree on what?" he asked, tossing the bottle into the recycling bin as Josh looked on, smirking.

"Pretty much everything."  CJ impatiently pushed her hair out of her face.  "As long as we don't discuss politics, we get along fine."

Josh smirked some more.  "Well, that should be fine then.  'Cause who needs to discuss politics in the White House?"

"We don't discuss politics here?" Sam asked, suddenly standing behind Toby.  He had a way of doing that, Sam, just appearing out of nowhere.

CJ frowned at him.  "Not tonight."

"Ah." Sam nodded sagely.  "Okay.  Beer?" he offered, heading for the fridge.

"Yes," CJ answered.

"She's fine," Toby countered.  "But I'll have one."

"Oh, that's fair," CJ groused.

Josh nodded at Sam.  "I'll take a beer."

"Where's Donna?" CJ demanded, wanting someone else to be denied beer if she had to suffer the humiliation.

"I put her in a cab," he answered, struggling with the twist off cap.  "I'm guessing she passed out before they got out of the driveway."

"You should give her tomorrow off," CJ said, blinking blearily.

"Taken care of."

She smiled.  "Good."

"So," Sam said, settling in across from CJ.  "Why aren't we discussing politics?"

"Because," CJ answered, "it's late, I'm drunk, and we were served with subpoenas today."

"True," Sam acknowledged, "but I mean, you kicked some ass today, CJ, don't you want props?"

"Okay, now you're using slang," she pointed out.  "You shouldn't do that either."

Sam frowned.  "Someone else was using slang?"

"I said she was the bomb," Josh admitted.

Sam took a swig of beer.  "You know, I think it's supposed to be pronounced da bomb, actually."

Toby groaned.  "Sam."

"Sorry."

CJ gave Toby and Josh a strange look.  "You can actually sit down if you'd like."

Nodding, Josh collapsed into a chair, arching his back a little.  CJ watched him, wanting to ask about his back, but knowing he'd hate it.  So she patted his knee, then dropped her chin into her hand.

"Does this mean I'm allowed to sit at the cool kids' table again?" she asked.

Toby sighed and took the fourth seat, staring across the table at her.  "What does that mean?"

"Pretty much exactly what it sounds like it means."

"CJ, no one blames you for--"

"Please," she scoffed.  "Leo blamed me.  You, Sam, Josh -- all of you blamed me, and, yes, I fucked up.  But still.  Every single one of you has fucked up with less group retribution--"

"Retribution?" Josh interrupted.  "There was no--"

CJ waved a not-quite-controlled hand around in the air.  "Leo sent Nancy out there.  He sent Simon out there," CJ countered.  "You think that didn't send a message to the press corps that I was being punished?"

Toby conceded the point.  "Okay, but we never--"

"You did," she said quietly.  She picked up Josh's abandoned bottle cap and held it, the edges cutting into her palm.  "You left me out of it.  You let Bruno and his gang orchestrate the announcement--"

"They're the campaign staff, CJ," Sam pointed out.  "That's why we hired them."

"They were wrong about a lot of stuff," she answered.  "They wanted Hansberry up there to introduce the president, even though the press corps was buzzing with stories of marital strife.  I got smacked down by the First Lady for suggesting a photo op.  I got smacked down by Leo for--"  She stopped suddenly.  "Never mind."

"CJ--"

"I'm just saying, I know the press.  I understand the press.  I know how the game is played, and because I was tired and angry and I messed up, you guys cut me out of the loop."  She put her head back down on the table, her forehead resting on one arm.

In typical fashion, Sam started on one of his ceaseless rhetorical rants.  This one, CJ gathered, had something to do with the Byzantine way the legitimate print media filters stories through tabloids overseas, and how he certainly understood the workings of the press because, after all, his picture had been splashed all over the London Daily Mirror.

"I mean," Sam continued, "I know a thing or two about the ways of -- You know, she must really be pissed at us.  She hasn't spoken in, like, five minutes."

"None of us has spoken in the last five minutes," Josh pointed out, "because you haven't even paused for breath."

"That's not true," Sam argued, and CJ could tell just from the sound of his voice that he had that perplexed, turning-a-problem-over-in-his-mind look on his face.  "Do you think she's really mad at us? Because--"

"Did you ever think," Toby interrupted, "that she's not responding because she passed out five minutes ago?"

"Oh.  Well, that's all right then," Sam decided.

"I'm not passed out, you idiots," CJ grumbled into her forearm.  "There hasn't been anything said in the past five minutes worth responding to."

Josh argued, of course.  "Not even the thing about Sam's--"

"Especially not that."

CJ tapped the heel of her shoe against the chair leg.  "I hate this."

Toby's wedding ring clanked against the glass bottle as he took a swig.  "Hate what?"

"Getting all liquored up by yourself?" Josh guessed.

"In the basement at work, no less," Sam added.

CJ lifted her head and glared at them in turn.  "First, I'm not drunk.  Second--"

"You're drunk," Toby retorted.

"Tipsy," CJ countered.  "Second, I was quite happily all by myself--"

"Yes, you looked quite happy," Toby interrupted, sarcastic, "with your face mashed into the tabletop like that."

"I was quite happy," she repeated, "but then you boys showed up.  And third--"

Sam made to get up.  "CJ, we can go if--"

"She doesn't really want us to go." Josh dismissed the very thought with an expansive wave of his hand.

"She doesn't?"  CJ raised an imperious eyebrow at him.  Well, tried to.  She didn't quite manage imperious, judging by the amused look on Toby's face.

"No," Toby told her.  "You don't."

CJ thought about it for a moment.  "You can stay if you want," she decided.

Peeling the label slowly from his beer bottle, Sam commented, "Don't sound too enthusiastic."

"I was celebrating."

"By yourself?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because as it turns out, I am da bomb."

Josh and Sam exchanged amused looks.  "How come you can--"

"Because I can sell it."

Toby nearly choked.  "You really can't, CJ.  You're a forty year old white girl from the San Francisco Bay."

"Napa," she corrected.

"Even better," Toby snorted.

CJ frowned.  "And I can too sell it."

"As scintillating as this debate is," Sam interrupted, "I wasn't asking why you were celebrating; I was asking why you were celebrating by yourself."

CJ blinked a couple of times while her sodden mind processed that.  "Huh?"

"He's asking," Toby interjected, frustrated, "why you chose to celebrate alone."

CJ levered herself upright, reconsidered, and sat back down.  "I need another beer," she told Josh.

"Sorry, CJ," he shrugged.  "You missed last call."

"Josh, it's nine--"  She peered at her wristwatch.  "Nine forty-seven, and this isn't a bar."

Sam nodded.  "Which was kind of my point when I asked--"

"God, Sam," CJ turned on him.  "Grow up.  We can't very well gather the senior staff and go for a celebratory night on the town the same day we're served!  This is a company town."

"I wasn't suggesting we go to a bar, CJ," Sam fired back angrily.  "I was asking why you're shutting us out."

CJ stared at him for a long, shocked moment, then dropped her head onto her arms, her laughter balancing on the skinny edge of bitter.  Because, really -- she was shutting them out?  How absurd.

"I told you she was drunk," Toby muttered.

"Tipsy," CJ informed the tabletop.

Josh spoke this time.  "CJ--"

"I don't want to talk about this," she said, allowing the anger and despair into her voice now that she didn't have to look at them.

"We weren't shutting you out, CJ," Toby said, his voice very, very soft.

She grimaced, pressing her cheek into her forearm.  "You were."

"We really weren't," Josh argued.  "We were doing damage control.  We just weren't..."

"Paying attention," Sam finished.

It didn't help, knowing that they just hadn't noticed that they were ignoring her, but she nodded anyway.  "Yeah," she mumbled.  "Okay."

"Really," Sam insisted.  "CJ, we didn't mean to--"

"Fine," she interrupted, sitting up once more.  She met Sam's gaze.  "Okay.  You didn't mean it.  It was all--"  She glanced away.  "It's fine."

Silence.  CJ unclenched her fist and allowed the bottlecap to drop to the table with a small clink.  She examined the indentations in her palm with detached fascination.

"Well," Josh said, "this is really pathetic."

CJ looked up sharply.  "What is?"

"This," he answered, indicating the room with his beer bottle.  "We're four adult professionals who'd like to celebrate a victory, yet we've been reduced to sitting in a dark, closed mess one floor below our offices."

Sam nodded.  "I miss your stoop."

Toby didn't comment, but CJ thought she could read agreement in the way he took a hefty swig of beer.  Maybe she really was drunk.

The four of them exchanged looks, strange, unreadable looks.

"We should barbecue there," CJ suggested.  "When this is over."  If they were still friends, she amended silently, after it was over.

CJ put her head back down on the table.

"CJ?" Toby asked.

She rolled her head sideways to peer at him through her hair.  "Yeah?"

"You want another beer?" he asked.

CJ recognized the apology in his actions.  She straightened up a little, glanced over at Josh and Sam, who stared back at her, waiting for her decision.

There was a suspicious quaver in her voice when she answered, "Definitely."

THE END

10.28.01