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Five Times He Disappointed Someone (and One Time He Didn't)
by Steph

Summary: Maybe it was then that he stopped talking so much. Maybe it was then that he realized that sometimes it was just better for everyone if he didn’t speak up at all.

Rating: PG-13

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.

Spoilers: Just what we've learned about Toby over the years including Goodbye Toby deleted scenes and Casual Friday.

Still love Toby and still love writing him. Even when it's depressing stories like these.

-----


In those days, Shannon was the quiet one.

Shannon was so young and shy around strangers and both of her parents, the feuding Flendersons, decided she would not be a good choice to testify. Each parent separately decided their son, Toby, who even at his young age was thoughtful and well-spoken, would be the better choice.

Toby’s mother took him out one day for lunch at his favorite restaurant, the one with the little train that chugged all around the restaurant and as he dug into his hot dog and fries she told them all about Dad’s slutty girlfriend Melissa. She was the one who called them at home and hung up the phone. She told him that Melissa was trashy and horrible and if Toby didn’t tell the judge he wanted to live with his mother, then he and Shannon would have to live with their father and trashy Melissa and Melissa had her own kids and she didn’t love Toby and Shannon and never would. Toby didn’t want to live with trashy Melissa, did he?

“No,” Toby said. He ate another fry and watched for the train. It should be coming back around any second.

“Then tell the judge that and everything will be fine,” his mom said smiling at him.

His father took Toby to get ice cream and reassured him that no, Melissa was just a friend of his and she was a very nice young woman. He asked if Toby remembered a few weeks ago when his mother was tired and sad and stayed in bed for a few days and didn’t make dinner or do laundry or even pick Toby and Shannon up from school.

“Yeah,” Toby said. He pushed his ice cream away. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

Toby’s father continued, saying that if Toby and Shannon lived with their mother that might happen again and Toby didn’t want that, did he?

“No,” Toby said. He didn’t know what he wanted. No, that wasn’t true. What he wanted, everyone living together, wasn’t possible anymore.

One warm morning he wore a suit bought for a cousin’s wedding, now too small for him. The judge and everyone else were nice, but there were too many questions about his father and mother and Melissa and staying in bed and Toby tried his best to say only nice things because he didn’t want anyone to get into trouble.

While the big decisions were being made, Toby sat outside with Shannon and the babysitter. He tried to read but couldn’t concentrate.

They had been waiting for awhile when their mother came out. She looked devastated. She stood in front of her children and asked Toby, in a choked voice, “How could you do that? You were supposed to talk about your father’s trashy little girlfriend! Why did you say all that about me going to bed? Is that what he told you to say?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He would not cry. He was too old for that. “Mom...”

She shook her head. “No, Toby, I just... I just can’t talk to you right now.” Her mouth quivered and she choked back a sob before turning around quickly.

He sighed, a very grown up sound coming from such a young boy. Shannon took her thumb out of her mouth and said, “I’m tired.” She put her thumb back in there and leaned against her big brother.

“Yeah,” he said. He rested his head against the wall. “Me too, Shannon.”

Maybe it was then that he stopped talking so much. Maybe it was then that his teachers started mentioning on his report cards his newfound tendency toward mumbling. Maybe it was then that he realized that sometimes it was just better for everyone if he didn’t speak up at all.

--

The seminary, like Catholic school, was his father’s idea.

Growing up, before the divorce, the family wasn’t religious. Toby and Shannon’s father was Catholic, their mother was Jewish, but neither parent was particularly devout. But then their father found religion right about the time that he lost trashy Melissa (who, just as their mother predicted, never really warmed up to Toby and Shannon) to another man and he decided to put the kids in Catholic school.

“They’ll get the best education there,” their father said to his ex-wife. “And that’s what’s important, right?”

Their mother agreed that it was what was important. Toby excelled in Catholic school, liking the order and rules which were so different from the chaos of his home life (his mother had remarried by then; his father had a new girlfriend). Shannon struggled more, getting into trouble often. Her grades were dismal and she was often punished for misbehaving.

“It’s not like she’d be doing any better in public school,” their father said. “This is probably the best place for her.”

It was after he left Catholic school that he began to have problems. Not big problems, nothing like Shannon. No, he just began to feel restless. He went to college in Pennsylvania then he went off to California where he studied psychology and it was only after he had the diploma in his hand that he realized how much he hated it. He went to Hawaii for a year because a friend was going too and when he came back home he still had no idea what he wanted to do, what he wanted out of life. Back in Pennsylvania, still completely aimless, he worked different jobs in different fields hoping to discover what it was he was meant to do with his life. He didn’t find anything remotely close which worried him. Finally he found work at some advertising agency because he had always been good with words, but was dismayed to find that that wasn’t what he wanted either. He was running out of ideas fast.

His father suggested the seminary. Toby had laughed, sure that he was joking. His father was completely serious, reminding Toby how much he enjoyed Catholic school and that it might provide him with answers and guidance. His father kept going over the benefits and it was crazy, but Toby really had no better idea at the moment and thought what the hell. He might as well try it. If nothing else, it would make a fascinating story. He was planning on writing the Great American Novel after all.

The seminary wasn’t exactly what Toby had expected, but he found he loved the quiet, the strictness and the rules. There were definitely some days where he was ready to leave, where he thought that this was the stupidest thing he had done in his life, but there were other days where he thought a life helping people would be a fine life indeed.

It was a very confusing time for him.

During this confusing time, he visited with a friend. His friend brought along a friend too. Toby’s friend’s friend was Catherine. Cathy. Toby took one look at this young woman, beautiful and smart with a sweet smile and he wasn’t sure if it was love or lust or a combination of the two, but Toby knew without a doubt he was done with seminary.

The vow of celibacy was not his friend anymore.

Toby’s father begged and pleaded and yelled at him not to make any rash decisions. Not to be stupid and throw his life away for some girl he didn’t even really know. Which was ridiculous, because by this time, Toby knew her quite well, knew it wasn’t just lust that he was feeling. This was serious, the real thing.

Toby’s father told him to look inside his heart and he would see the answer. Toby looked inside his heart and all he saw was Cathy.

The wedding was several months later, fun and informal. His mother sat in front, accompanied by her husband, sniffling happily into a tissue. Shannon came late and left early, ready to do “God knows what with God knows who” as his mother put it when she later found the newlyweds.

Toby’s father sat in the back and muttered to anyone who would listen that Toby was making a huge mistake and that he would have made a great priest. Still he half-heartedly congratulated both of them and only grimaced a little when he looked at Cathy and said, “Welcome to the family.”

--

Toby was making dinner. Stir-fry. He liked cooking, liked the preciseness of measuring out ingredients and found that it relaxed him after a stressful day at work. Today had been particularly stressful and he was so thankful to be at home in their apartment.

While Cathy fed Sasha, Toby sliced up some of the raw chicken. He was telling Cathy a little bit about his day, glossing over the routine verbal abuse he now found himself subjected to on a daily basis. He tried to turn it into a joke, tried to pretend that it didn’t bother him that no one at work listened to him and how the manager thought he was a terrible person. Humor wasn’t his strong point though and by the end of the story neither of them were laughing.

“Why don’t you do something?” Cathy asked. She smiled at Sasha before turning to look at her husband. “You can’t be so passive about everything.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said, sorry he brought it up.

“I just don’t think it’s that funny,” she said. “You can stand up for yourself you know. You have rights. If you can’t talk to him, talk to a higher up. I mean seriously Toby you’re not winning by not defending yourself. You aren’t still at seminary, you know.”

Cathy had bought soy sauce last weekend, right? He was sure of it. He opened the cabinet, pushing aside jars of baby food and other condiments before finding what he was looking for. He wondered if they had ginger.

That might have been too much to ask for.

Cathy grabbed a napkin to wipe Sasha’s mouth. Then she sighed just a little bit. “Do you ever wish you were still at seminary?”

“No,” he said. Definitely not.

“Maybe,” Cathy said slowly, softly, “you would have been better off if you had stayed.”

She didn’t used to talk like this. They had been so happy the first few years and having Sasha, wow. He loved his daughter with a fierceness he didn’t know he possessed. He was very happy. Sure his job sucked, but overall he was happy. Lately Cathy had been weird though, asking questions he didn’t want to answer. Talking about the past and what might have happened. It made him nervous.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so.” When he smiled at her, it was tentative and unsure and not the way a husband should smile at his wife.

She seemed deep in thought and didn’t smile back. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Sort of,” she said. She rolled up the dirty napkins into a ball before throwing them away in the trash can.

“I just don’t know,” Cathy said. She sounded tired suddenly. “Maybe you should have stayed. Maybe we would have both been happier. I mean this isn’t what we wanted, is it?”

Toby put all his concentration into cutting the vegetables into small, even pieces. You had to do that so everything would cook for the same amount of time. He cut the peppers, the zucchini and the celery and poured the oil into the pan and thought about what words he could use to try to convince Cathy otherwise.

--

Toby was not prepared. For the divorce or anything that came after. Sure he knew Cathy was unhappy, frustrated with him and his passivity. He knew she didn’t like it when he shut down, knew that just made her angrier, which made him want to shut down even more.

But he wasn’t prepared to be kicked out of his own home, with nowhere to go. He slept in his car for a few days, coming into work with a dazed look on his face and wrinkled clothes. He showered at Shannon’s a couple of times because people still had to work with him. He didn’t have the energy to shave though and that new guy Jim started calling him Grizzly Adams and Michael said he looked like a serial killer. Meredith growled at him appreciatively a few times and made a lewd comment or two, but then some beefy, tattooed guy started down at the warehouse and her attention was diverted.

Cathy’s lawyer was a slick family friend who had a great track record with custody cases; Toby’s was someone he picked out of a phone book. Her name was Dorothy James, and Toby chose her because the name reminded him of a kindergarten teacher and he imagined that she would be kind at a time he really needed kindness.

Dorothy was okay, but not especially kind. She had lipstick on her teeth and a blunt way of speaking. She told him quite plainly that she didn’t think his chances of full custody were too good. By this time, he was shaving and showering regularly and his clothes weren’t quite as wrinkled and he actually had a crummy bachelor apartment, but it was nothing compared to what his ex-wife had.

He was tired and depressed and confused and missed his daughter and missed his wife and didn’t say anything at first. He slumped over in his seat and tuned everyone out even though he knew he should be paying attention, but it was so difficult to focus on anything and he didn’t snap out of it until Cathy’s lawyer mentioned the custody arrangement they were thinking of and it was so meager, so unbalanced that he woke up from his daze and croaked, “No! That’s...” He stared at his wife (ex-wife!) and asked, “Why so little time? That’s unfair. Why?”

Cathy’s lawyer was the one who answered. “We were thinking that it might be best for Sasha to spend most of the time with her mother.”

Toby continued to stare at Cathy. “Why?” he asked again. His voice cracked just a little as he asked, “Do you... are you afraid I’m going to hurt her or something?”

Cathy flinched a little at that and he felt the smallest bit of satisfaction. Everyone knew that Toby was a great father and any fool could see how much he adored his daughter. Even Cathy would have to acknowledge that. The satisfaction was short-lived however when she shook her head and said, “No, Toby, I’m... afraid you’re going to hurt yourself.”

And he had no idea what to say to that.

Later that night he went to his father and stepmother’s house. The television was on and he sat numbly, in the old recliner, watching but not really watching a baseball game with the sound turned off. His stepmother was making pot roast and the smell was making him queasy. His father hovered around him, before finally settling on the couch to the left of him.

“I’m really sorry, son,” his father finally said after clearing his throat a few times.

“Hmm.”

“I didn’t like her,” his father said. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t. That being said, I didn’t wish for this.”

“Okay,” Toby said. He closed his eyes. So tired.

His father stood up, put his hand on Toby’s shoulder. “I think you should talk to your mother.”

Toby opened his eyes. “Why’s that?”

“She had a good doctor back then. Put her on some medicine to help her out a bit. That kind of thing is hereditary you know. Depression I mean.”

“Hmm,” Toby said again. Another time he would think about those times both pre- and post-divorce when his mother had stayed in bed for days at a time and what she may or may not have passed down to him. Now he was just too wiped to think about anything.

“Sometimes,” his father said, “I think we really screwed you two kids up. Take your sister. I mean we taught her right from wrong. She knows you aren’t supposed to do that with other people’s credit cards. And you...”

“Maybe we did screw you up,” his mother said the next day, coming by his apartment with some curtains and kitchen appliances and a few recommendations for doctors in the area. “If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t have asked you to testify. That wasn’t right of us to put you in that position.

“But now what you need to do,” she said, “is to get yourself right again. Once that happens, you go back to court. Fight for more time with that beautiful little girl of yours.”

It took a little while (and a misguided trip to Amsterdam) to get himself right again. He got put on antidepressants and moved to a nicer place with a separate room for Sasha. He started running and wrote a little bit and socialized with his coworkers a little bit more, joining them at the bar sometimes. He even dated once in a blue moon.

Once he felt almost normal, he met with Cathy and her lawyer and old Dorothy again, still with lipstick stains on her teeth, to discuss things. Cathy looked beautiful. He tried not to think about that.

Cathy’s lawyer tried to bargain with them, throwing in a few more weekends, a few more holidays.

“Unacceptable,” Dorothy said. “This is what we’re thinking about...”

The lawyers talked and negotiated and Dorothy said, “Sasha’s getting older. Perhaps we can talk to her a little bit.”

Did Dorothy mean testify? Dorothy wanted Sasha to testify? She was too young. The thought of doing that to his wonderful daughter turned his stomach. He could not ask her that. He would not make her worry the way he did when he was a child. He would not screw her up.

“No,” he said. “I’ll take what you’re offering. The extra weekends and holidays.”

Cathy met his eyes for a second and she mouthed a thank you. He looked away. He wasn’t doing this for her.

“What was that?” Dorothy asked when they were alone. “We discussed what we were going to ask for. I could have gotten you so much more.”

He didn’t know how to answer her. Was he a hero who had saved his daughter from something traumatic or was he just a fool who let himself get walked on? He didn’t know.

Dorothy frowned. “Why? Why did you accept what they offered? It was practically nothing. I just can’t understand.” She looked so upset which was bizarre as she was going to get paid either way. This wasn’t her life, her daughter.

“We wouldn’t have gotten what we asked for,” he said. “That’s what you told me. We wouldn’t have won.”

“Probably not,” Dorothy said. She picked up her briefcase and gave him one more pointed glare. “But we would have lost less.”

--

Her name was Lola, but she wasn’t a showgirl. She also wasn’t an angel come to welcome him into heaven after his accident. Because he hadn’t died, although there was a second where he wondered. Then he idly wondered if a half-Jewish/half-Catholic man who went to seminary and then dropped out to marry a woman who eventually divorced him would even get into heaven at all. Then he may have blacked out a little.

No, Lola was a nurse in the small Costa Rican hospital where he was taken to to recuperate from his assorted injuries. Lola was a nurse, every patient’s favorite. She was pretty and curvy and giggled frequently and loudly. She spoke both Spanish and English in a high-pitched excited tone and often sat on the edge of a patient’s bed to watch the end of a particularly entertaining telenovela. Sometimes if she liked a particular patient, he’d get an extra dessert. Sometimes she would eat some of the dessert herself.

When Toby first met Lola he was so drugged up and confused that he didn’t even comprehend that she reminded him of someone. All he knew was that there was something vaguely familiar about her in a place where everything was unfamiliar and he relaxed just the slightest. When his mind was a little clearer, Lola asked him who Ryan was. At his frown, Lola told him that after they first met he asked her if she had heard from Ryan and if he were still in jail. She giggled and swiped what looked like a piece of cake from his dinner tray and he realized exactly who it was he had mistaken her for.

When he was in traction, Lola helped him with the phone. He called Cathy and told her what had happened and she said, “Jesus Christ, Toby” and then she made a sniffling sound that made him think she might be crying. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

“Can I talk to Sasha?” he asked. He needed to hear her voice.

“Of course,” Cathy said. Then she asked him if he would keep this little mishap a secret from Sasha. Cathy didn’t want their daughter to have nightmares of her poor, sad father falling out of the sky, landing hard, in an awkward position, not completely conscious.

“No,” he said, his voice weak and tired, “I won’t tell her.”

Weeks passed. He lay in bed and tried not to think of the surfing and spectacular views he was missing out on. Tried not to think about this horrific zip line injury as some kind of karma for his weird behavior at work and for leaving his daughter. Maybe lying alone in a hospital bed was exactly what he deserved.

He was in the hospital for awhile. Other patients came and went it seemed, but he just stayed in the same bed, bored and homesick and lonely. Lola was kind of fun to have around, keeping him updated on the telenovela plots that he had missed out on and telling him all about the various actors and actresses. She asked him tons of questions about his life and his family and when he wasn’t too tired he answered her. She asked him about his old job and maybe because he was so grateful to have any kind of company he told her some stories. He told her a story or two about Michael and it was such a relief knowing that he would never have to see him again. “Asshole,” she muttered and he smiled. She brought him an extra dessert that night and sat on the edge of his bed to watch Entourage.

She talked all through Entourage which was fine with him because he hated that damn show. She told him about her family and the last date she went on and how much she adored her job and children and after taking a breath stood up and went to check on the other neglected patients.

By then it was pretty obvious to everyone that Toby was her favorite. He thought perhaps he should have been more bothered on the other patients’ behalf, but he didn’t think he had been anyone’s favorite before so he decided to just enjoy it.

The day before he checked out, Lola came to see him, bringing him the juice he liked. As he drank, she asked him what the first thing he was going to do once he was discharged. Surf? Swim? She didn’t care, she said smiling almost flirtatiously, as long as he didn’t zip line again.

“Never,” he promised. Then he told her that he was going home. Back to Scranton, back to his old life.

Lola stopped smiling. “You’re leaving?”

He said yes and tried to tell her that this moving to Costa Rica idea was stupid and pretty much doomed from the start and that he missed his daughter and he needed a job and was taking his old one back...

“You’re going backward,” Lola said. “You should always go forward. Not backward.”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “But I need to go back.”

She stood up and said, “Well maybe you’re the asshole.”

Which was a little harsh. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t sure what he had done that had made him an asshole. “What?”

She didn’t answer him and walked away. She checked on him later, talking to him in a cool, detached manner, and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. He knew he had done something wrong, but didn’t know what it was.

The next morning, feeling stiff and achy all over, he signed all the paperwork and he hoped that Lola was around so he could say goodbye and thank her for being so nice to him for whatever reason.

But he didn’t see her so he said goodbye to the nurse on duty who could not have cared less and he waited outside for a cab to take him to the airport where a plane would take him right back to Scranton.

--

Dwight and Jim were fighting. Or something. Dwight was complaining about pranks and misbehavior and this and that and Jim was denying it and smirking and Toby wondered if it was okay that he still hated Jim a little, even though his stupid, stupid crush on Pam had disappeared and he was behaving normally again.

Dwight had papers and records that Toby needed to look at right this moment and Toby was trying to concentrate really he was but he was tired and trying to remember if his physical was tomorrow or the Thursday after that and he was more than happy when Erin knocked on the door.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “Toby, your daughter’s school is on the phone.”

Sasha was sick and Cathy was in a meeting and he didn’t even tell anyone that he was leaving. He just grabbed his jacket, turned off his computer and left. It didn’t matter. It’s not like anyone cared or even noticed what he did anyway.

Sasha was in the nurse’s office, lying down. When she sat up, he noticed her flushed skin and how exhausted she looked. This wasn’t one of her nervous stomachaches that she occasionally suffered from, he realized.

“Daddy,” Sasha said. “I threw up.” She said the last bit as an embarrassed whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” he said. “That’s okay.” He signed all the papers and they walked to his car.

“Dad,” she said once they were in the car. “Are we going home or to your house?”

His heart broke just a little over the fact that those two places weren’t one and the same. “My place,” he told her. She nodded, turned a little green and he quickly pulled over.

At his place, after leaving a quick message on Cathy’s voicemail, he gave Sasha a loose shirt of his to wear and some ginger ale to settle her stomach. He brought the little TV into her bedroom and together they watched cartoons until he told her he wanted her to get some rest and he would make her some chicken soup later if she felt like eating.

“Okay,” she said. He pulled the blankets up and kissed her forehead. She still felt a little warm. He didn’t have a thermometer though. He made a note to buy one immediately.

She fell asleep and woke up an hour later, cranky and sweating. He turned the TV back on and placed a wet washcloth on her head and told her to keep sipping the ginger ale. Slowly, he reminded her. Sip slowly.

“Okay,” she whined. She sipped her drink and he found something on the Disney Channel with perky, singing kids and they watched together. When the movie ended, he noticed her blinking a little and told her she should go back to sleep.

She was still sort of fussy and fighting sleep so he began singing All The Pretty Little Horses which he used to sing when Sasha was a baby and he rocked her at night. It would put her right to sleep and he wondered if it would do the trick now too.

She smiled a little bit. “I think I remember that song.”

“You do?” he asked. “It’s been awhile.”

“Dad?”

“What?”

“That song makes me wish I had a pony.”

He laughed and continued singing. Lullabies were perfect with his soft voice and as he sang Sasha started looking more and more relaxed. When the song was over, Sasha rolled over on her side and said, “Okay. I guess I can try to go to sleep now.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. He kissed her forehead again and said, “I’m here if you need me.”

“Yeah,” Sasha said. She closed her eyes again. “I know.”

The End


Steph is the author of 37 other stories.
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