He figures he peaked too soon.

It's been a downhill slide ever since that crowning moment when, aged twenty five, he talked his way into a city councilman's office in the Bronx and thought he could change the world.

He didn't lie today. He knows he's extremely good at what he does, and yet here he is. Exactly three bourbons past the point at which he could have salvaged this. Exactly three years past the point at which he cared.

He won't look at Cal. Won't give him the satisfaction. McGarry's voice seems distant. Tuned out the way you turn down the volume on a principal berating you, or a rabbi expressing his disappointment.

"If a change has to be made, it has to be made," he's saying, and Toby's thinking about how quickly he can get back to the bar. Drown yet another defeat, become even more spectacularly unemployable.

"Jerry, Cal, Mack, Steve, you're fired."

He looks up in surprise, "What?"

Leo continues, "No kidding. It's moving day. I want Toby. The rest of you...thanks very much."

He's mired in a hazy cloud of disbelief. Obviously McGarry's going to have a good laugh about this with the others later. Cal and Jerry will love retelling the story of how they pulled one over on Toby.

His mouth is as dry as the desert.

McGarry just scowls at him, and says "Don't screw up."

Two days pass, and no-one says it's all been a joke. There are new people all around him. Josh Lyman arrives with an impossibly young-looking attorney in tow. The Governor is foul-tempered, refuses to remember any of them by name.

Toby's not convinced.

There's a new energy here he doesn't have a handle on. He's pretty sure Bartlet's a candidate he'd be proud to support, he knows he can get this job done, but in an instant he doesn't know if he wants to. He finds himself thinking that he hasn't done all he can to sabotage his career, maybe there are new avenues he could explore.

He's sitting on a too-hard office chair. This new kid, Seaborn, is looking at him with a frightening degree of optimism. He's babbling at Toby about polling strategies, trying not to sound so inexperienced, wanting approval. Toby's already plotting the route to the Inn where Lois will pour without expecting anything from him.

He's almost on his feet.

He hears Leo come up behind him, is about to turn and quit.

"Toby, get out to the airport. I need you to go to California."

A sarcastic retort forms on his tongue. There's nothing Leo can say now. Toby's tired of it all. He doesn't want to shoulder the responsibility. Doesn't want to have to care.

There's a glass three blocks away with his name on it, and it's all he wants to think about.

Leo's eyes say 'I've been there and you can forget about it, I'm not letting you go.'

His voice says, "Get to California. Get us CJ Cregg."