Going Away Present
by Steph
Summary: After his goodbye party, he keeps her company while she waits for Darryl.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
This may end up turning into a longer fic.
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After Toby was escorted out of the building by the guard, he kept Kelly company in the parking lot while she waited for Darryl and the band to finish packing up.
They sat under the security light, and bored, Kelly went though his box full of papers and mementos from his years of working there. The papers were boring, but the pictures of Sasha were adorable and then there was the rock.
Michael’s present.
“Suck on this,” Kelly read out loud. Toby didn’t look at her.
“Why do you have this?” she asked before throwing the rock as far as she could. She imagined it hitting Michael’s car and shattering a window even though she knew she didn’t throw it that high and Michael was long gone.
It was still a nice thought.
She picked up Toby’s camera and played with it, finding a photo of him and Pam. They both looked so uncomfortable.
“You know she’s in love with--”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
She frowned as she clicked through more pictures. “You totally have to get rid of this.”
“Please,” Toby said, his hand on her wrist. “Please don’t chuck my new camera.”
“I won’t,” she said. Without asking permission, she deleted all the pictures of him and Pam.
“Oh,” he said sadly. “My pictures.”
“Trust me. You don’t want pictures like that. You need happy pictures. Pictures that won’t make you sad. Take one with me.” She held the camera away from them and clicked.
There, she thought as she looked at the picture. Much better.
She looked super cute; Toby looked a little stunned.
It was still a huge improvement over his pictures with Pam.
“I look so cute,” she said. “Will you send me a copy?”
“Sure. About the pictures you just--”
“Will you write me?” she interrupted.
He sighed, seeming resigned over losing the pictures. “If you want me to.”
“Totally,” she said. “We can be pen pals. Email pals. Can I come visit you in Costa Rica?”
He blinked. “You want to visit me?”
“Yeah. It would be fun. We could hang out at the beach. Speaking of which,” she said looking at him. “Promise me you’ll get a tan. You’re so pale. It’s weird how pale you are. No offense.”
He seemed more tired than offended. “I really don’t get tan. I stay pale or burn or freckle.”
“Hmm,” she said. Neither of them said anything and she wondered how much longer Darryl would be. She smiled at Toby and said, “It’s okay if you don’t tan. All that matters is that you’re super crazy happy there. You’ll be happier there, right, Toby?”
He took a breath and mumbled, “I... I don’t know.” He tried to smile at her, but only managed to look sadder. “I just don’t know.”
Wow. That was so, so depressing.
She wanted to tell him something to cheer him up. To make him happy. She wanted to tell him that it was just starting to hit her how much she’d miss him. And that the girls in Costa Rica would be so much hotter than Pam. And that she would never, ever play Dunderball with stupid Holly. And that she had always thought he was nice and cute (even though he was kind of old and losing his hair) and if she were single she would totally let him get to at least second base with her tonight as a going away present but she was with Darryl and she was so not a slut.
She really wanted to tell him about a commercial she had seen last night with this guy who reminded her of him. The guy in the ad was sad like Toby and had a rain cloud over his head until he took some pills and then the rain cloud changed into a huge smiley-faced sun. The guy had a huge smile on his face too.
Kelly wanted to buy Toby lots and lots of those pills so he could smile like that.
But when she tried to tell him all that, she found her voice wasn’t really working so she took one of his hands (pale, freckly and oddly huge yet kind of nice at the same time) into hers and couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that she had missed out on something that could have been really good for her. The feeling that she was losing something she hadn’t even known she wanted.
This was so weird.
He squeezed her hand and when she leaned into him for a hug he felt solid and warm, and when he asked in his gentle voice why she was crying she didn’t even know how to answer.
The End
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