She snaps the cell phone shut, still writing notes to herself in cramped script on a curling scrap of paper - something she'd tugged out of her diary when the phone rang - and as she flips it over she discovers it's a receipt for a hotel somewhere in Arkansas she doesn't remember staying.

She barely remembers Arkansas.

Toby answers on the first ring, but he won't say to her that he's pissed she slid out of bed first this morning. That he had to shave and fix his tie in a fogged-up mirror, that he knows she left her towel in a wet heap on the floor just to irritate him. She tells him about Nightline before he has the chance to disappoint her and disconnects the call as she strides through the hotel lobby.

The elevator doors slide closed. She's confronted with a gold-tinted reflection of herself and the distortion does her no favors as she runs her hand helplessly through dry hair. Hotel shampoo, she thinks, attempting to smooth the creases out of her skirt. On a par with dishwashing liquid.

In the main room of the suite someone has set up a whiteboard and a map, and there are volunteers standing in front of them, clutching endless piles of paper and arguing over numbers.

"If Josh Lyman catches any one of you near that with a pen..." she jokes as she dumps her bag in an armchair and grabs a bottle of water from the mini-bar. They look at her, startled. She sighs. Her sense of humor's probably gone the way of her hair.

The door to the main bedroom is closed.

She calls over her shoulder for someone to find the address for the local ABC affiliate. They have about an hour and a half, but Toby and Sam will be pulling together remarks that the Governor will need to read (and hate, and change) and they have to get moving soon. She's still thinking about the risk she will wind up with an address in New York, instead of Kansas, as she dials Leo's number and leaves him a message about the interview. She downs two aspirin and rubs at her temples. She doesn't want to disturb the Governor, but they really do have to get moving.

She wonders if Toby even noticed that she took her toothbrush with her this morning. As if it mattered, given that her tampons are in the glove box of his rental car, and she's currently wearing a pair of his socks. It seemed important to her at the time.

It's the socks she's thinking about as she turns the doorknob, scrunching her toes up inside her boots. Mentally taking an inventory of her possessions, his obsessions, and wondering how she came to be tangled up in this mess.

The apology dies on her tongue, tastes acidic.

Abbey's black leather bag sits by her ankle. It has a silver buckle.

CJ backs away silently, and closes the door.