By S.G.E.
SPOILERS
This is set after the end of season 6.
THANKS
Belinda and Aim. Merci!
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“And we’re joined tonight by political commentator Alastair Devitt. Al, good evening.”
“Good evening to you Jane.”
“Now we’ve been hearing today quite a lot about the re-shuffle in the Santos camp, can you throw any more light on that situation for us?”
“Sure. Well, as you know, the Santos for President campaign is moving into its second week following the Democratic nomination, and there’s certainly been a lot of speculation about who would be moving into the top jobs now that the other candidates have thrown their support behind Matt Santos. This was quite a dog fight, if you’ll remember, with a lot of acrimonious in-fighting going on within the party as things came to a head.”
“It certainly was a remarkable couple of evening’s worth of television.”
“That’s right Jane, but it also showed up a lot of weaknesses among the Democrats, and they’re moving quickly now to limit the damage and plug the gaps.”
“So you’d say this was an expected event?”
“Absolutely. I’d say the only surprising thing is that they’ve waited this long to do it. I for one, thought Josh Lyman was going to be right in there with his old boss, now candidate for vice president, Leo McGarry, to move a lot of their more experienced friends into the key posts. The fact that that hasn’t happened, I think, is a sure sign that Matt Santos himself is keeping a close hand on the tiller so far in this campaign.”
“And have any of the choices surprised you?”
“There’s not too many eyebrow-raising names being bandied around out there, Jane, but I will admit to some surprise at the choice of Donna Moss for press spokesperson for major issues. She’s fresh from the Bob Russell campaign, and by all accounts things have been far from friendly between the two camps up until now. She’s also short on experience, so it’ll take a while to figure out how she’s going to handle things. Better than her predecessor I hope!”
“Yeah, he was having a bad week wasn’t he.”
“He was, and the inexperience really shone through with those errors. I think we just have to wait and see now to find out whether the new team is any match at all to the one put together by Arnie Vinick.”
“Do you think it’s a fair match so far?”
“Far from it. The Democrats are looking scrappy and unprepared to be honest with you. But things can change. It’s a long way to the polls, and there’s a whole lot of campaigning yet to come before November.”
“Alastair Devitt, thanks for being with us tonight. And now we’ll go over to Melinda at our weather centre. ”
*************************************************************
“You’re working late.”
Josh looked up, surprised at the voice. He’d been so engaged in what he was doing that he hadn’t heard the door open, and certainly hadn’t heard anyone come in. The fact that there were now two secret service officers in the room along with his candidate for president was a little bit of a shock.
“Uh, yeah,’ he said, fighting his sudden urge to stand. He’d started doing that almost immediately after the nomination, and Matt had told him with progressive annoyance how much he hated it. Josh had now resolved to do it in public only, but it was strangely tough for him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Well, I’ve been improving my stealth mode now that I have to travel with bodyguards,” Santos joked, his face betraying very little humour.
Josh smiled none-the-less and glanced at his watch. It was coming up on midnight, and he’d been pretty much sitting on the chair he was in now since seven that morning. Rubbing his neck, he leant back and stifled a yawn. He’d yet to catch up on the sleep he’d lost at the convention, and with the workload the way it was, it didn’t look like he’d be catching up on it any time in the immediate future. “Was there something in particular you wanted me for, sir?” he asked.
“You teaching Bram your bad habits?”
Josh looked around him to where he could see Bram out in the front office on the phone. “He’s here under his own volition. I can’t help it if we’ve got over-eager staff.”
Matt moved to the side, reaching out to play with the corner of a Santos For President poster that had curled up on itself in the humid Houston air. Josh watched him curiously. Normally he was the only one left in the office at this time, and Santos knew that; he was here for a reason.
Suddenly, he turned. “Did you fire Ned Royster today?”
Josh sighed. They were going to do this now. “Of course not. I didn’t fire anyone.”
“Ronna said you fired him.”
“Well, then, Ronna’s wrong. He was moved to a new post, he wasn’t fired from the campaign.”
“You moved him from press spokesperson?”
“Yes I did.”
“Why?”
“Because, with all due respect to someone who I know has been working for you for a lot longer than me, he wasn’t very good at it. It was nothing personal.”
“So, what’s he doing now?”
“Strategy analysis for the Eastern Seaboard,” he said immediately. “I thought we could use his talents most effectively in the area of New York, New England.”
“In areas that are already pre-dominantly Democrat, is that what you’re saying?” Matt questioned. “You moved him somewhere where there’s no real work to be done.”
“New Hampshire’s looking pretty shaky from where I’m standing.”
“Josh…”
“Look, there’s real work to be done everywhere on this campaign,” Josh countered. “With Bruno Gianelli threatening to come in and work for Vinick, I’d say every state is up for grabs. But we’ll see how Ned does where he is and then reconsider things. It’s a big campaign, Congressman, and we need to put our resources in the right place from the very start to make progress.”
“And you decided you’d do that without consulting me?”
Josh licked his lips and tried to suppress a smile. He was aware of the problems that Leo had had persuading Jed Bartlet to accept a new staff before his nomination, and in many ways he’d been waiting for the problem to emerge between himself and Santos. But he didn’t think the Congressman would see the humour in the mirrored situations. “Yes sir.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve done this before, and you haven’t.”
“I think I may have mentioned that I won two Congressional campaigns without any help at all from you.”
“Yes sir, but this is different. This isn’t persuading a relatively small number of people who basically share your values anyway to put you in an elected position of power, this is persuading a huge and diverse nation, most of whom have entirely different values from you, to put you in a position of ultimate power. “
“Don’t patronize me Josh, I do know what I’m doing.”
Josh paused at the rebuke then quickly shook it off. “Of course you do. But then so do I.”
Matt stood and looked Josh in the eye before dropping his gaze and playing with something on the table. He’d seemed more nervous than ever after the nomination, filled with more self-doubt, and Josh found it rather disconcerting. He was used to this firebrand of a candidate who would start an argument then ride it out in a blaze of logic, until he defeated his opponent completely. This man was second-guessing himself, allowing others to make decisions for him without really challenging them the way he used to.
Josh put his head to one side. In many ways it made his life much easier now that he had a chance of actually winning these arguments with regularity. But he never felt good afterwards. He preferred a fair fight.
“There are some decisions that I have to take without you,” he said, more gently. “But that never means you shouldn’t have a say in things. And I’m sorry, I should have told you about Ned before you heard it second hand.”
Santos nodded. “Yes, you should.” He looked back up. “Ned’s just nervous,” he said. “Those mistakes he made were just through nerves, you could see it.”
“Everyone could see it,” Josh allowed himself a smile. “That was part of the problem sir.”
“And you think this girl you brought in from the Russell campaign can do better?”
Josh shrugged. “Donna? Well, she’s got a lot of potential. They were using her as press spokesperson and you may have noticed that they were doing okay during the primaries.”
“That’s all you judge people by isn’t it?”
Josh’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Sir?”
“Ned’s a good guy, Josh. He was popular around here, and you’ve not made a lot of friends by moving him out and someone from a different campaign in.”
“Well, I’m not in this to make friends Congressman.”
“No, I’m sure you’re not. In fact after years of doing this, I’m surprised anyone will talk to you at all!”
“Yeah, I’ve been considering getting a pet,” Josh said glibly.
“I’m serious, Josh. You could learn to be a bit more of a person about this.”
“Look, at this stage I have to do what I think is right for you without worrying about the hate mail I’m going to get afterwards. If you don’t believe me, you can talk to Leo about it. He’s been through this as well, and he’ll tell you it’s tough. He lost his marriage because of the work he did for Jed Bartlet. Losing a few friends isn’t quite as bad.”
Santos shook his head. “I just don’t know what to make of all this.”
“All what?”
“All this,” Matt threw his hands out. “I never thought we’d get this far, certainly never imagined myself arguing with you over who gets the position of press spokesperson in a presidential campaign!”
“Donna’s good,” Josh broke in. “Honestly, you’ll like her. I’d have you meet her, but I sent her on ahead to California to ready the office for us there. You’ll meet her tomorrow.”
“As it happens I’ve met her already,” he folded his arms.
“Really? Where?”
“On the campaign trail. People just bump into each other out there.”
“Yeah I’ve heard that happens.”
There was a pause as the Matt became lost in his thoughts, leaving Josh to quickly scan through the email he’d been reading before he’d been disturbed.
“I’ll have to go through the list.”
“I’m sorry sir?”
“The list, of new staff.”
“Of course. I’ll have an updated version ready for you on the plane tomorrow.”
“What time’s the flight?”
Josh sighed inwardly as he perceived the ‘third degree at midnight’ session to be coming to an end. “Wheels up at 09:15,” he said. “It’s just a pity we won’t be able to persuade the VP to let us borrow his plane for the rest of the campaign. I’ve been missing the onboard bar facilities.”
“Yeah, well I don’t think Bob Russell’s particularly happy with us right now. I’d be amazed if he does anything to support us in the next couple of months.”
“He’ll toe the line. President Bartlet will see to that.” Josh’s eyes narrowed suddenly as he remembered something. “He fired Will Bailey yesterday, I got a call from him.”
Santos had been on the verge of turning to go. “His campaign manager?”
“Yeah, something about irreconcilable differences. Will called looking for a job.”
“Did you give him one?”
“Not yet,” Josh said slowly.
“You going to?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “He was pretty dismissive of us throughout the primaries. I’m frankly amazed he’s willing to lower himself to the level where he asks us for employment.”
“A man without an ego, hire him this instant!”
He snorted at Matt’s joke. “Yes sir.”
“Well, tell me what you decide,” he turned, this time with finality. “And don’t go making yourself any more enemies, Josh. I don’t want this to be about you alienating yourself from the entire party just to make me president.”
“It might be a bit late for that now, Congressman.”
Santos turned back as he was walking away. “I’m serious,” he said, walking backwards (to the disconcertion of his secret service bodyguards). “I want to be able to go to your funeral some time in the future and find out that I’m not the only person there.”
“That’s a cheerful thought, sir. Thank you.”
Matt just shook his head and walked, the right way by now, out into the hot, Houston summer night.
*************************************************************
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
“I dunno,” he punctuated his words with breathless kicks. “What’s your definition of enough?”
“Well, he did say red not dead. You keep that up and it’ll be dead and red.”
He gave one last kick and stopped, breathing hard. “Get his wallet and his phone.”
His companion dived for the body, scrambling around in awkward inside pockets for a minute before standing up again, triumphant. “Got them.”
“There much in there?”
He opened the wallet and flicked through. “Couple a hundred.”
“And are we sharing that or what?”
The wallet was flipped closed again and placed in a back pocket. “A conversation for a place other that this. Come on, let’s get going.”
“What about him?”
“What about him?”
“You mean, that’s it?”
“Red not dead. He is still breathing, right?”
“I dunno. Looks like.”
“So we’re through. Come on, let’s get out of here before some kind and caring citizen stops by to lend a hand. I’m not in this to get caught.”
*************************************************************
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
She was startled by the lights and noise and the smells; totally disorientated in this world that had been thrust upon her unasked for and unwanted. “No I’m, I’m fine. It’s only I mean, I’m not hurt.”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“I don’t know I wasn’t there. I just found him like this.”
“He’s not moving much air.”
“Alright, someone intubate please. Ma’am I’ll need to ask you some questions. Does he have any history of medical problems, take any medications at all?”
“No, no I don’t think so. We’ve never talked about that kind of thing though.”
“How about recreational drug use?”
“No, never that I’ve seen.”
“Was he drinking tonight?”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry. Uh probably not if he was in the office working. But I don’t know why he was there so late. I just went back to pick up my phone.”
“There’s blood in the ear canal.”
“Okay, c-spine, chest, head. Cross-type him for two units and someone page neurology please.”
“Pressure’s 90 over 65.”
“I’m sorry, what’s going on. Is he going to be alright?”
“Ma’am we’ll do everything we can here, but I need you to wait outside. Annie, take her out please.”
“But is he going to be…I need to stay in case he…”
Alarms blazed to life suddenly, bleeping and screaming.
“He’s seizing!”
“Alright, let’s try 10 of Dilantin. Annie!”
“Ma’am, you have to come with me.”
“Oh my God, what’s going on?” A hand grasped her arm firmly and she was moved forcibly through the doors, though her level of protest at the change in location was tempered somewhat by the sheer horror sinking into her at what she’d just witnessed in the emergency room. She turned to the nurse once they were out in the busy corridor, bustling with people even at 3AM in the morning. “Is he alright? What was going on? What was happening to him?”
The nurse took her arm again, but this time in a more gentle, comforting manner. “Your friend was having a seizure, which is very common for patients with severe head injuries,” she explained. “But the doctors are doing everything they can. Now, would you like to call someone? Have someone come down to sit with you?”
“I I don’t…Oh God, I have to call… I don’t know!” Lost in a train of thought that she couldn’t resolve, she realized somewhere along the line that she was shaking and that the nurse was leading her somewhere else, somewhere quiet where she was pushed into a chair.
The nurse squatted down beside her. “What’s your name honey?”
Name? Oh. “Ronna.”
“Well, Ronna, I think you should sit here for a few minutes and just try to calm down. You’ve had quite a shock. Now, when you’re feeling better, there’s a pay phone just over there, and you can make some calls. I don’t think you should be here all by yourself.”
Ronna took a couple of deep breaths, trying to tame her wayward thoughts. “I’ll have to call Matt.”
“Matt, is that your husband?” the nurse wondered.
“No, no. He’s a congressman, the Congressman, Matt Santos.”
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the nurse’s confused expression. “The presidential nominee?”
“We work for him,” she tried to explain.
“You work for Matt Santos?”
She nodded, still trying to breathe.
“And your friend works for him too?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, that makes you practically celebrities.”
Ronna looked at the nurse in surprise only to see a kindly smile spread over her broad face. The smile seemed to soothe her a little, and she even managed to smile back. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Well, you call whoever you need to, honey. And if you need anything, just ask at the front desk, alright?”
*************************************************************
“In breaking news, there have been reports in the last hour of a disturbance outside the campaign headquarters of presidential candidate Matt Santos, which is located in the Greenspoint district of Houston, Texas. Early police reports seem to suggest that a violent incident took place around 1AM this morning, and an ambulance was called to the scene, however, no further information has been released at this time. Eyewitnesses say there appeared to have been some sort of an assault on the street outside the building, but it is not thought that the Congressman or any of his staff were involved. We’ll have more on this, and all the other top stories for you on the hour.”
*************************************************************
“Ronna?”
She’d never been so happy to see anther human being in her life. “Matt!” she got out of her chair and actually embraced him. It was the first time she’d felt secure since this nightmare had started.
“Hey,” he said, reaching up automatically to stroke her hair. “It’s alright. Hey, it’s alright.” The second time he said it firmer as he could clearly sense her distress, and didn’t think the first words had made it through to her brain.
She hugged a little tighter, ignoring everything else going on around them in the waiting room but feeling a surge of emotions at being faced with telling him the story of the night’s events.
“What happened?”
Reluctantly, she pulled back. There was something so comforting about having his arms wrapped around her, that she could have stayed there forever. But it didn’t do to be so intimate with a married man in public, especially not one running for president. “I don’t know, I just went back to the office for my phone and I found him…”
“Sir, can we move this to somewhere else please?”
Matt turned in surprise to the secret service officer at his elbow. The guy so rarely spoke that he was amaze to hear he had a voice. “Well, where would you like us to go?” He was trying not to be petulant, but not trying very hard. He’d never been to the Methodist Hospital before, but it was clearly a busy place, and although he was aware that they were drawing stares and whispers, it was hardly something he cared about under the present circumstances.
The guy put a hand to his ear. “We want to move you to a private room, sir.”
“You have people out scouting that down for us or something?”
“Yes sir, it’s just this way,” and he indicated with his hand.
Matt sighed in frustration, but put a supportive arm around Ronna and ushered her in the direction indicated. Once in the new room, with an officer in with them and two outside, he let go of her and turned her round to face him. “Okay, Ronna. Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened.”
She swallowed, nervous about telling him, nervous about going back there in her head.
“I was just going to bed in the hotel,” she began. “And I was looking for my phone to use it as an alarm because I never trust those automated wake-up calls, but I couldn’t find it. I turned my room upside down, but it was nowhere. So I figured I must have left it in the office. I wanted to get it, because I had those early calls to make, so I called a cab and I went back down there.” She stopped, her face expressing how much she did not want to continue this conversation.
“Ronna, it’s okay. You can take your time.”
She wanted to take the rest of time, but she was guessing that wasn’t an option. Instead, she closed her eyes. “I got out the taxi and asked it to wait, then I ran up to the main door and let myself in. I found the phone pretty quickly, and I was about to leave when I saw one of the posters on the wall move, as if in a breeze. That was pretty odd, so I went round just to check the back door was closed and I…” She stopped again.
“What did you see?”
“Well, it was open, and I went to close it.” Ronna rolled her eyes up feeling a tear escape and snake its way down her cheek beside her nose. “I saw something outside, on the ground, I went to see what it was, and then I realized it was a person.”
Matt was watching her intensely, drinking up every word as if she were his eyes to the past.
“I pulled the door open, because I thought maybe it was a drunk or something someone who needed help. But when I went closer I I saw the blood. And then I realized who it was.”
“You found him out by the back door?”
She nodded, feeling the tear snake down and drip wetly off her chin.
“And he was unconscious then?”
“Yeah. I could tell he was badly hurt, so I called an ambulance straight away. A squad car came down too, and they asked me a load of questions. The EMTs worked on him for a while, then they brought him down here.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else outside?”
“No, no one. The taxi driver came over to help me, but nobody else did. I didn’t know what to do!”
“Ronna, you did the right thing. You stayed with him, you called an ambulance, no one could have done more.”
“But I think he’s really badly hurt, Matt. I haven’t heard anything since they took me out of the treatment room.” She put her hand to her mouth, suddenly seeming to grasp the severity of the situation.
Santos read her thoughts and pulled her into another hug. “Don’t worry. He’s as strong as an ox. I’ve never seen a man with a stronger constitution. Or a more stubborn one.”
Ronna let out a nervous gulp of a laugh against his shirted chest, relieved not to be alone thinking terrible, morbid thoughts any more.
The door to the room opened.
They pulled apart.
“Congressman Santos.” The new arrival was a tall woman, probably in her late fifties with chin length, highlighted, graying dark hair. She clearly commanded authority, and pushed her neat glasses further up her nose before speaking again. “I’m sorry, no one informed me of your arrival, Congressman, or I would have been here sooner,” she said. “I’m Carol Barnes, the hospital administrator.”
“Ms Barnes,” Matt reached out to shake her hand. “This is my associate, Ronna Kanakredes.”
Barnes nodded to Ronna curtly, but kept her attention on the congressman. “I’m sorry to be meeting you under such circumstances, but I want you to know that I’m at your disposal for anything that you might need while you’re here. And of course, this room is yours for as long as you need it.”
“Uh, thank you,” Matt was temporarily overwhelmed by her speech until something at the back of his head kicked in and reminded him that he was running for president, and that tended to make people be nice to you. “That’s very kind. I suppose first we’d love some information, an update of some sort on his condition.”
But she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I like to leave those sorts of details to the doctors. Though I will endeavour to track down someone who can keep you informed.”
“Thank you, that would be very helpful.”
“I should also tell you that the hospital has already received two telephone calls from members of the press, and I have been told that there may be a reporter actually inside the hospital. If that’s so, then security will track him or her down and eject them.”
“Already?” Matt was incredulous. “How would they know already?”
“People are tracking your every move,” Ronna reminded him. “It’s something to do with the whole president thing.”
He sighed in deep frustration and walked away a few paces.
“We are of course not releasing any information to anyone,” Barnes said soothingly.
“Good! Because there are people to call first before it gets out in the press.”
“We’ll have a phone line set up for you in here, as soon as possible. Can I bring you some coffee or anything as well?”
“Yeah, and how about a little lobster,” he said sarcastically, the stress getting to him a little.
Barnes grimaced at his tone. Ronna moved over and nudged him with as much subtlety as she could manage. “Be nice,” she mouthed.
“Yeah, look,” he rubbed his hands over his face and ended up with them clasped behind his head. “I’m sorry, I’m just a little you know…”
“That’s quite okay, I understand,” she said. “I’m sure it’s been quite a shock. Well, I’ll try and have that phone set up for you. Until that happens, any calls in will have to come through our main switchboard. We’ll have someone come get you if anyone legitimate tries to make contact.”
“How will you tell?”
“Oh,” she smiled. “We develop a sense for these things.” Barnes pulled open the door and left in a waft of sophistication and control.
“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” Matt sent out after her quietly.
Beside him, Ronna let out a sigh. “I hadn’t thought,” she said. “I don’t know who to call. His family. I don’t know who to call. I just thought to call you.”
“It’s okay,” Matt draped his arm around her again. “We’ll figure this out, Ronna. We’ll get there.”
*************************************************************
“Good morning, it’s 6.30AM and this is KHOU eyewitness news, thank you for joining us. And the breaking news today is the story that a prominent member of the Santos for President campaign has been taken to hospital here in Houston after being the victim of a violent assault. Details are still sketchy at this time, and there has been no official statement from Congressman Santos or his staff. But KHOU news can exclusively reveal that sources inside the Methodist Hospital are telling us it may in fact be Santos’ campaign manager Joshua Lyman who is receiving treatment this morning. Mr Lyman, who only recently began working for the Congressman after 7 years as deputy chief of staff in the Bartlet Whitehouse, is widely credited with leading the campaign to victory in the Democratic nomination fight which took place only two weeks ago. If our information is confirmed as correct, it must surely come as a massive blow to this fledgling campaign. Meanwhile, police have sealed off the streets around the offices where the assault took place, but they are also not releasing any information at this time. Stay with us here on KHOU and we’ll bring you more on this story throughout the morning.”
*************************************************************
Both Santos and Ronna had their cell phones practically glued to their ears. Time had run out on the secure phone line, and their need was too pressing to run to the pay phone down the corridor.
The door opened. “Miss Kanakredes?” It was one of the nurses.
She put the phone to her chest. “Yes?”
“There’s a call for you at the main desk. It’s a Donna Moss.”
Ronna looked at Matt who was lost in a conversation with Leo McGarry. Her calls, which had mainly been concerned with calling off the day’s events, hadn’t been going anywhere anyway. She’d forgotten about Donna, so recently (and forgettably) anointed press spokesperson and flown to California. But it would probably be wise to talk to her there. They’d need some sort of statement before the press leaked all the details themselves.
“Alright, I’ll be right there,” she said before speaking quickly into the phone and ending the conversation.
Outside in the corridor, the lights seemed brighter now and the noise, certainly, at a higher level. She was beginning to feel disorientated again, the lack of sleep catching up with her as the immediate sense of danger and worry ebbed a little with no information to stoke the embers. She walked down to where she remembered the front desk being situated, and found a phone handset lying out and unattended on the surface. She picked it up. “Hello?’
“Ronna, this is Donna Moss.”
Ronna smiled just faintly, still amused by their rhyming names. “Yeah, Donna.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?” she wasn’t awake enough to play games.
“That Josh was that he was attacked. That he’s in hospital there?” She sounded husky, but it was early, and even earlier where she was.
“Yeah, it’s true. We’ve no idea how the press got hold of his name, we’ve released nothing, and we weren’t going to until we were sure his family had been informed.”
“His mother?”
“Oh, we got her, thank God. I take it it’s on the news out there as well?”
“I just heard,” the huskiness seemed to get worse. “I couldn’t believe it, I just wanted to phone you as soon as I could, and I couldn’t get you on your cell.”
“I’ve been making a lot of calls, look, Donna, what we’re gonna need…”
“Is he okay?”
Ronna was surprised at the interruption. “Who, Josh?”
“Yes. The news gave no impression of his condition.”
“I don’t know,” she said tiredly. “He was unconscious when he came in, he’s got head injuries… I don’t know, I’m not a doctor and they’re not telling us much at the moment.”
“Okay. Well the earliest flight out I could get was at 5.45 from LAX. It’s about a three hour trip, so I should be with you around 11 o clock your time. ”
Ronna blinked. “You’re coming here?”
There was a short silence at the other end of the phone. “Of course. I need to be there.”
She shook her head. “Of course you do, sorry Donna, I’m not thinking. We should have you brief from outside the hospital, you’re right. Okay, I’ll tell the Congressman you’re coming and if you could work on a statement on the way that would be great.”
Another silence. “Alright. But can you phone me if you hear anything, if you find out if they tell you how he is?”
“Sure, we’ll have all that for you when you arrive. Look, I’ve gotta go, I’ve got a million other phone calls to make here, and a big schedule to re-organize. I’ll see you when you’re here. Have a good flight.” And she hung up.
*************************************************************
“So the doctors haven’t given you any more information?”
“Honestly Leo, what I told you earlier is all they said. He came into the hospital in a critical condition, he had serious head injuries and they were waiting for him to stabilize before they took him to surgery. That’s all I know.”
“And you told Rachel that already?”
“Mrs Lyman? I don’t know exactly what she was told, I haven’t spoken to her myself. There wasn’t time.”
“Okay.”
Matt could hear Leo sigh at the end of the phone. Their conversation wasn’t going very well so far. He knew that Leo was close to Josh, but the news of his attack seemed to have completely derailed his VP candidate in a way Matt could never have anticipated. Leo had asked several times what the doctors had said, and didn’t seem to be listening to details in the replies. He’d mentioned three times that he would have to tell the president and told Santos twice that he should cancel his schedule for that day.
If this was the way he was going to act during the campaign, then they were in trouble.
“I’m gonna presume that you want to come down here.”
“Yeah, as soon as possible. I imagine it’s a media circus down there already, MSNBC has a reporter doing a piece live to camera from the Houston Medical Center as we speak.”
Santos could feel his blood pressure rise at the mere mention of the press. “Maybe it’s them who had got the leak in the hospital.”
“I thought it was KHOU?”
“Oh who knows, Leo! Whoever it was it was just damned irresponsible, releasing a name like that before any kind of confirmation, when they don’t know if the family has been informed or anything. Do these people not have any common decency? I mean, do they have to live up to every bad stereotype in the book?”
“They’re just trying to do a job. And if you continue to give them nothing, then they will continue to report on unconfirmed stories and rumours. You should have put out a statement straight away confirming it was one of your staff but saying that you weren’t releasing the name until the family had been informed.”
Matt really didn’t like being lectured, particularly before seven in the morning: “They can damned well wait for their news like the rest of us. Anyway, we don’t have a press spokesperson here, and I don’t want to send just anyone out right now.”
“I thought Josh had employed Donna Moss to do that job?”
That threw him a little. Leo had been in DC for three days, and there had been a lot of staffing changes since he’d been gone. Why had he picked up on that one in particular? “You know about that already?”
“Josh and I talked about it the other night. He told me there was a re-shuffle coming up and he was looking for my advice.”
“And you told him to fire Ned.”
Leo’s voice sounded a little confused as he answered: “I told him to hire the staff he needed to take you to a victory in the presidential election in November, sir. There was no talk of firing anyone, at least not by name. We mentioned Donna simply because I thought it might be an issue bringing her on board.”
“Whatever, look Leo, I think I should know about any discussions like that in future, okay.”
There was a pause. “Okay.” He was on the edge of reluctance.
“Right now we have different priorities.”
“Yes and priority one is to release a press statement.”
“We are working on that.”
“Oh, and speaking of Donna Moss, has she be informed of what’s happened?”
“Yeah, Leo, my priorities on who to call this morning have been you, the president of the United States, and Donna Moss!”
Leo was silent for a moment. “I’ll talk to her.”
“When do you think you’re going to come down?”
“I don’t know, I have to talk to the president.” Four, Matt counted silently in his head. “But I’ll get a flight down as soon as possible. Late afternoon is going to be the earliest.”
“Well I’ll have someone give you updates as they arrive.”
*************************************************************
“Thank you Peter. Yes, as you just heard, we had a statement from the Santos camp just a little while ago confirming that it was indeed one of their staff members who was injured in the incident this morning. However, they are refusing to be drawn into confirming whether it is campaign manager Joshua Lyman, stating only that they are trying to contact the victim’s friends and family before they release his or her name. Meanwhile, the Congressman remains inside the Methodist Hospital at the Texas Medical Center here in Houston, and we have no word at all on whether he will be resuming his campaign schedule today.”
*************************************************************
“Donna Moss, the chicken fighter.” Matt was sitting with briefing notes in his left hand, a cup of coffee in his right, legs stretched out in front, one foot resting over the other. The room had been enhanced in the last couple of hours with a television set, fax machine, private phone line and a variety of drinks. It was beginning to look more like a luxury suite in a hotel room, apart from the plastic chairs and the drab dŽcor. “Thank you for coming back from California so quickly.”
Donna was breathless. “Of course sir. Has there been any news?”
He shook his head. “We’re expecting an update at any time. They told us the surgery might take three hours…” he looked at his watch, “…about two and a half hours ago, so if their estimate is right it should be soon. Are you okay to brief the press?” He was asking her mainly because she was looking so pale. Even his wife, who shared this girl’s fair skin and blonde hair, never got this white. He wondered whether she was ill.
But she nodded gamely, her eyes looking just a glazed. Actually, it looked rather like she’d been crying.
“There’s no need to be scared,” he soothed, putting down the briefing papers. “I know it’s a big step and you’re being thrown right in at the deep end, but Josh seemed to have a lot of faith in you. I’m sure you can live up to that.”
“Yes sir.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but never go the chance as the door to their room opened once again. He looked round his new press spokesperson to see a figure in blue scrubs. “Ah, doctor. Do you have news for us?”
“Yes I do,” the guy was fingering a facemask between his fingers, clearly he’d come straight from the operating theatre.
“How’s Josh?” Donna asked before the Congressman could get a word in. Matt looked at her in surprise.
“Well, he’s stable for now,” the doctor told them both.
“He’s stable?” Matt wondered.
“He’s in the recovery room and he’ll be moved to the ICU shortly.”
“What did you find?”
The doctor put his hands on his hips. “Well, I’m not going to lie to you Congressman, his injuries are very worrying. He has received a number of head injuries, any one of which on their own would be considered severe. There are several fractures, including one that’s giving us particular concern which is a depressed skull fracture.” He raised his hands to explain visually. “That’s where part of the skull is pressed inwards and pieces penetrate the brain cavity itself.”
Matt’s face was somber. “Will he live?”
“He’s stable for now, as I’ve said,” the doctor shook his head. “And we’ve done what we can for him. He’ll go into the care of the ICU staff and they will monitor his condition closely over the next few hours.”
Matt had put down his coffee and got out the chair. “Can we see him?”
“It’s probably best to have no visitors at this time,” the doctor said. “We’ll continue to keep you updated and see how we stand later in the day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to get back.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Matt reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you so much for taking the time to come down here.”
“Sure,” he returned the gesture. “I’ll find you later.”
When he was gone, Matt turned away with his hands on his hips, devastated by the news. However much Josh and him fought professionally, however much he infuriated him, however much he wanted to argue and disagree, on a personal level, he’d become very fond of his campaign manger. His passion was incredible, his drive to achieve, the respect he had for Santos and his ideals and his values. It was a rare trait, respect like that.
Matt turned back towards Donna, about to tell her to repeat what she’d heard to Ronna and then craft it into a press statement, but he wasn’t prepared for the look on her face. She was standing exactly as she had been when the doctor left, staring at the door, shaking with the effort of keeping control. Her face was registering seven different kinds of shock, and her eyes, which earlier had been glazed, were now wide.
“Hey, are you okay?” he was genuinely concerned and crossed over to where she was standing quickly, fearful she might faint. “Come on, sit down,” he said, pushing her into a chair. “It’s okay.”
Donna shut her eyes. “God,” she whispered.
Matt wasn’t sure if it were an expletive, or if she was actually calling for divine help.
“He’s going to be okay, Donna,” he crouched down in front of her and took her hands comfortingly. “It’s alright.”
She opened her eyes in surprise at his touch, and they were shockingly blue out of her pale face. But she didn’t speak.
“Can I get you some water or something?”
At her nod, he let go and got back to his feet, walking over to where the drinks had been placed on a side table. He was halfway through pouring a cup when the door flew open and his wife practically fell into the room in evident haste. Matt put the cup down quickly and went to her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” he enveloped her in his arms and squeezed hard. “I am so glad you’ve come,” the words were muttered into her hair.
“Is everything okay?” Helen wondered, pulling back to search her husband’s face.
He nodded. “It’s been a rough morning.”
“How is he?”
“We’re not entirely sure. The doctor just came down to say that he was out of surgery and going to the ICU. He said he’s got skull fractures, but I don’t really understand what the implications of that are.”
“But his condition’s serious?”
“I think so.”
“How could this happen?” Helen shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s I mean was he mugged?”
Matt just shrugged helplessly. He hadn’t been there he hadn’t been the one to find him even. Instead, he’d been the one to leave him working late into the night with obviously inadequate security and no thought to his well-being. “I don’t know, none of us does.”
He suddenly caught sight of Donna over his wife’s shoulder, and giving her a last squeeze, he moved away and went to retrieve the cup of water that he’d poured. Helen’s eyes followed him in confusion. She hadn’t even noticed that there was someone else in the room.
“Here you go,” Matt handed the cup into Donna’s shaking hands and watched as she moved it to her lips. Then he turned back to his wife. “Honey, this is Donna Moss. She’s our new press spokesperson.”
“Really?” Helen had sized Donna up in an instant as someone terribly pathetic who couldn’t stand up to an angry bee, let alone the ravening press hoard. She wondered how on earth she’d been hired into such an important position. “Is she okay?”
Matt moved away from Donna and spoke quietly. “She seems to be very upset about Josh. I didn’t even know that they knew each other very well.”
“When was she hired?” Helen asked, still watching Donna.
“Just yesterday. I’ve only met her briefly before.”
“I don’t mean to sound harsh under the circumstances,” Helen looked back at her husband. “But do you think she’s up to this? I had to walk through a huge crowd of reporters outside and they’re all but baying for blood. There are probably more on the way the longer you stay here.”
“We’ll give her some time,” Matt nodded, unintentionally raising his voice a little. “I’ll have Ronna read the next press statement.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
They both turned in surprise at Donna’s voice. The blonde got unsteadily to her feet.
“Is there a statement ready?” she asked.
“Uh, no,” Matt said. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“I’ll be fine,” she tried to smile, but it was a pale imitation of a smile that did nothing to light up her grief-ravaged face. “I’ll find Ronna and we’ll do a statement, bring it back to you for approval.”
“Yeah thanks.” The Santoses both watched in amazement as she left them, walking unsteadily but with an element of pride, to the door and out into the corridor.
“Well,” Helen stated. “Guess she might be okay for the job after all.”
*************************************************************
Donna hadn’t been particularly surprised when Josh sought her out in the closing hours of the Democratic convention to ask her to leave Russell and jump on board the Santos bandwagon. He’d been a little drunk, it was true, but she was pretty convinced of his sincerity, particularly since he’d asked her the same thing in New Hampshire before the primary, and in Iowa a couple of weeks later.
She’d been flattered of course, but torn between loyalty to Will and the VP and wanting to work on the campaign that would actually now be going somewhere. Will wasn’t keen to let her go either, giving her a lecture on loyalty and staying the course that, no matter how hard he tried, just didn’t come out sounding sincere. Maybe it was because he’d jumped ship himself a few times in recent memory, or maybe it was because he knew his current ship was sinking and wanted his crew to get to safety before that happened.
But it wasn’t just broken loyalties that was staying her hand. She’d left Josh to broaden her career it was true but also, undeniably, to get away from him. Impossible unless she vanished from the world of mainstream politics altogether of course, but at least on the Russell campaign trail she wasn’t seeing him every day, brushing up against him in the corridors and exciting her mind with fast moving conversations and arguments. Because when you were that much in love with someone, it was foolish to wind yourself up with hopeful possibilities on such a regular basis. Being away and engaging herself with something else entirely meant that she could get him more or less out of her thoughts, and when she did see him, it meant she could be aloof and a bit snotty without feeling any guilt at all.
How could she just ignore all that and go back to working for him? Wouldn’t it put her right back where she’d started? And why was Josh wanting her back anyway, had he missed having someone to boss around, or was he genuinely interested in her new skills?
It had all led to quite a muddle in her brain. So she’d stuck around with Will for a couple of weeks to help tie up all the loose ends but when Josh came back to her with a firm offer, terms, a salary and everything, she just couldn’t turn the opportunity down and resigned on the spot.
Her first task, however, made her wonder if she hadn’t made a rather hasty decision. Taking a late afternoon flight to LA her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She’d been given a huge task to perform, working on strategy reports, compiling polling data, coordinating with local members of the Democratic party, liaisoning with the press, and all in less than one day! It had to be a test, or Josh’s not so subtle way of getting back at her, perhaps. But she wasn’t going to let it beat her.
Some time after three in the morning, still very much awake and working, she’d flipped news channels just in time to hear the announcement that had almost made her heart cease beating. She’d stared fixedly at the screen, clasping the remote tight in her hand for a good five minutes before the words actually went in. Member of the Santos for President campaign injured. Badly injured. Josh, badly injured. She’d barely been capable of finding Ronna’s cell phone number, let alone ringing it.
Packing, getting to the airport and flying out, she only had Josh on her mind, and it wasn’t until she’d actually reached the hospital and talked to Ronna again that it had suddenly occurred to her: these people didn’t know her from Adam. They expected her to do a job, to speak calmly and with assurance on behalf of the campaign, not go to pieces because her dear friend was clinging to life in the ICU.
Well, she could at least try. She’d managed to stop herself from crying sometime in the taxi, though she was pretty sure her face was still puffy, not a good image for a press spokesperson. Plus the fact she’d hardly been thinking of make up when she ran from her hotel room at 4.30am. But she was still clutching her overnight bag.
Looking around as she walked down the corridor with as much dignity as she could muster, Donna spotted the ladies room and made a b-line. Until she knew differently, she was dammed well going to assume that Josh would be okay, and face the world with a professional face. It was the only thing she could think of to do.
*************************************************************
“And the big story this lunchtime is the news that a major man hunt is under way in Houston Texas as police officers launch an investigation into the assault on Joshua Lyman, the campaign manager for Matthew Santos in his bid to be the next president of the United States. Mr Lyman was attacked some time in the early hours of the morning as he left the Congressman’s campaign headquarters in the Greenspoint district of Houston. In a statement a little while ago, a spokesperson for the campaign stated that he had suffered serious head injuries in the assault and had already undergone emergency surgery at the Methodist Hospital. His condition is described as critical and police are treating the case as attempted murder though they haven’t commented yet on any motive for the attack. Speaking just ten minutes ago, Sheriff Wheeler of the Houston PD said that a number of potential witnesses were being questioned although they did not have a suspect in custody at this time. He described the attack as vicious but stated that officers were following several positive lines of inquiry. We’re expecting to hear from Congressman Santos himself some time later today, but at the moment he remains with his staff at the hospital under police and secret service protection. It is understood he has already spoken with President Jed Bartlet and received a call from Republican candidate Arnie Vinick.”
*************************************************************
“Congressman Santos?”
Matt and Helen both looked up at the intrusion.
“I’m sorry, but would this be a good time to talk to you?” The man was wearing a brown suit. He had a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. “My name is Detective James, I’m leading the investigation into Mr Lyman’s attack.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Matt held out his hand as the detective came up to them, but he didn’t get out his seat, and he didn’t let go of his wife.
“Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions? I believe you were one of the last people to see Mr Lyman before the attack.”
“Yes, I was at the office last night, and we talked for a while.”
“When was that?” James moved to write in his notebook.
“Around midnight. I was only there for about 15 minutes. It was a quick meeting.”
“And did you notice anyone in or around the office, outside on the street perhaps, anything unusual?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Nothing like that. Nothing raised my attention at all.”
“Okay,” James wrote his comments down.
“How is the investigation going?” Matt wondered.
“It’s in its early stages,” the detective admitted. “But we’re treating the assault as attempted murder, and because of the involvement with the election there’s a state-wide alert in place.”
“Murder?” Helen looked surprised. “I thought this was just a robbery or something.”
“Mr Lyman’s suffered life-threatening injuries,” James explained. “And it seems that’s it’s only through chance he was discovered when he was. We’ve talked to Ms Kanakredes and Mr Whitchells and ascertained that there was probably only one hour maximum between him leaving Mr Lyman, and her finding him outside. The doctor’s told me that if he’d been left much longer he may not have survived.”
“But it was a robbery, right?” Matt prompted. “His wallet and cell phone were both missing.”
James shook his head emphatically. “I don’t think it’s a simple robbery, no.”
“Why? How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s rare for victims of theft to be so badly injured.”
“Maybe Josh fought back,” Helen guessed. “They challenged him, he fought back and the attacker went too far.”
“Even that’s unlikely. Someone who’s fighting back or even defending them self is usually left with classic injuries, mostly on their hands and forearms. You can imagine someone raises their arms to protect their head if they’re being hit. Mr Lyman has no sign of these sorts of injuries. ”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning he was probably unconscious or at least stupefied by the very first blow. If this was a robbery why not just take his wallet and run? Instead they subjected him to a sustained and vicious attack, while he was defenseless and already on the ground.”
“Oh my God,” Helen said softly, clearly the thought that this was anything other than a random occurrence had not occurred to her.
The detective allowed his words to sink in. “The best way we have to track down the attacker is to find out the motivation for the assault. Now, do you know if Mr Lyman had any enemies, anyone who might have done this, anyone with a grudge against him or an axe to grind?”
“No,” Matt said firmly. “Not this. I mean yeah he’s got enemies, it’s part of the business. But the attacks are usually verbal not physical. I can’t imagine anyone doing this.”
“I believe there was some upset yesterday over your staff. Mr Lyman did a re-shuffle and there were a number of people not happy about it?”
“Yeah, he moved some people around, there were some gripes, but…”
“Serious gripes?”
“Noise,” he shrugged. “People complaining that sort of thing. I think people grow to be pretty thick-skinned in this business. No one took it personally.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah!” Matt insisted. “My staff don’t generally go around beating each other about the head because they got moved from their job!”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll understand me asking if you’re sure, Congressman. At the moment, it’s the best lead we’ve got.”
“Find another lead,” Matt stated flatly. “I know my staff.”
*************************************************************
He left the room shortly after the detective. It felt stifling suddenly, the news programmes running constantly, his wife asking him insistent questions, the fax machine buzzing to life every couple of minutes bringing him messages he didn’t want to read.
Matt just didn’t know what to think and now seemed a good time to clear his head. But there was nowhere he could really go to do that now. Everywhere in the hospital there were people who would recognize him. Everywhere he would try to go, the secret service would be there watching, ordering. The only thing he could do was come out into the corridor and be away from the immediate stress of the situation he found himself in.
This wasn’t how he’d imagined things would turn out. He’d thought the campaign would involve in-fighting and intrigue, invitations to advance through bending the rules, and of course, irritation from a hostile press and public who wanted to comment on everything from his policies to his inter-racial children. Not that that was ever going to be a topic of conversation he’d grace with a reply.
Instead here he was in hospital waiting to see if his campaign manager would recover from life-threatening injuries while police searched his home city for the would-be murderer.
What possible motivation could there have been for someone murdering Josh Lyman? Yeah, he was running a presidential campaign, but people usually went after the candidates not their professional political operatives. He really doubted the two things could be related. In his mind, the robbery theory still held ground.
But oh God, what was he going to do without Josh? The campaign was just getting going and already it was falling apart. He didn’t know what direction it was headed beyond the immediate future, didn’t know Josh’s complete strategy for victory, didn’t even know the new staff members he’d brought in.
As he thought that, Matt caught sight of the blonde girl, Donna, standing at a drinks machine further down the corridor. She was a little way away from him, but he could still make out the glazed look on her face as she appeared to stare at the selection of coffees and teas without seeing them. By the look of her, she could have been there for hours, still obviously in shock.
He watched her curiously. He knew virtually nothing about her except that she came from the Bingo Bob team and had been caught having an undignified altercation with people-sized poultry on CNN. The briefing she’d done earlier had been spot on though: dignified, but with some genuine emotion, informative but respectful of privacy, open but aware of the limits and willing to express them to the boisterous press. She’d handled the questions hurled at her with ease rather like she’d been doing it all her life.
It hadn’t taken Matt long to realize that she was a great choice for the job, and if Josh had been around, he’d have slapped him on the back and congratulated him for good hiring practice.
Josh. Not around. Lying in the ICU somewhere. Dead for all they knew from the crappy information they were getting.
Looking around for someone to grab and interrogate, Matt was distracted by sudden movement and turned back in time to see Leo McGarry arrive with his own entourage of secret service agents. The VP candidate made a b-line for Donna, and she acknowledged him as soon as she saw him. Leo put a hand on her arm. Matt frowned. Obviously they knew each other.
Leo talked, Donna nodded and occasionally shook her head. He took her hand and patted it affectionately then, catching sight of Matt over her shoulder, said one final thing and walked on. Matt waited for him to come up, holding out his hand to be shaken as he came closer.
McGarry shook it firmly. “Congressman,” he said.
“Thanks for coming down, Leo.”
“Of course.”
“Did you have any problems?”
“None. What’s the latest news?”
Matt sighed. There was no news at all. “Nothing recent. We haven’t heard anything in a couple of hours now. The hospital administrator keeps popping her head in the door, but she’s not telling us anything medical or useful.”
“Is Rachel here yet?”
The name meant nothing to him. “Rachel?”
“Rachel Lyman,” Leo clarified.
“Oh, his mother? Yeah, she’s up with him I think. I saw her briefly when she got here.”
“How did she look?”
“Pretty worried, just like you’d expect.”
“You talk to her?”
“I said hello.”
“Okay. I’m sure I’ll find her later.”
Matt put his hands in his pockets. “I saw you with Donna down there. I take it you know her?”
Leo looked back over his shoulder to where Donna had gone back to staring at the drinks machine. A small boy was standing beside her gazing up at her curiously. Leo turned back. “Donna used to work at the White House before she went to Russell. I thought she did well at the briefing earlier.”
“Yes she did,” Matt agreed.
“The President passes on his good wishes, by the way. He says anything you need or Josh needs, just to phone.”
“He called a little while ago,” Matt nodded, wishing suddenly that he understood more about the nuances in these relationships. Josh had worked for Bartlet for years it was true, but the President’s voice on the phone had been so full of concern that it was practically paternal. To say nothing of the fact that Leo had just abandoned a full day’s campaigning schedule wheeling and dealing in DC to fly down to Houston and hear exactly the same things he could over the phone. “He was very kind.”
“He’s very fond of Josh,” Leo explained, looking past him through the window in the door of the private waiting room. “Helen’s here?”
“Yeah, she came a little while ago.”
“Kids okay?”
“They’re with a neighbour. Helen says they’re all ready for a sleepover if that’s going to be required.”
“You going to talk to the press later?”
Matt was a little flustered by the question, annoyed even. “I thought Donna was doing a good job?”
“She is, of course, but it would be good for people to see the candidate, see that you’re not hurt in any way or made unable to perform your duties through what’s happened.”
His annoyance deepened. “You’re seriously suggesting I use this as some sort of photo op?”
Leo seemed surprised. “Not a photo op, no, but you’re still running for president, Congressman. You can’t forget that or stop it just because the campaign suffered a traumatic incident.”
“I can’t believe this,” Matt let out a frustrated laugh and turned away. “Josh is up there somewhere in a coma and you’re talking about - “ he paused and turned back. “Actually, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Leo. Maybe you should explain it to me.”
The shorter man looked at him cautiously, obviously trying to judge his reaction. They were all new to this particular situation. “Maybe we’ll talk about this later,” he decided. “This probably isn’t the best time.”
“You think?” Matt said sarcastically.
“I’ll just go and find Rachel.”
“She’s in the ICU, they won’t let you in. They’ve said no visitors.”
“I’ll give it a go. But I’ll be back to talk later, and meanwhile, you should at least think about what I’ve said.”
*************************************************************
“I’ve cancelled all of tomorrow’s rallies and the trip to San Francisco,” Ronna was reading from a list written messily in a banged-up looking notebook. “The Governor’s been on the phone about five times asking to talk to you, so if you’re thinking about taking any calls this evening, that might be a good one to start with.”
“He’s pissed?” Helen asked incredulously.
“Not pissed exactly, but not very happy. They had some pretty big events planned and canceling them at the last moment is causing him headaches. Thursday we had a stop over in Oregon, then you were due to speak at a dinner for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Seattle before Friday’s event in Chicago. I’ve pulled everything up to the Illinois trip, but haven’t made any firm commitments either way. I’ve called everybody in, Ned’s on his way back from New York and Gary and Bram are manning the fort at the Greenspoint office now that the police have allowed us back in,” she looked at Matt, expecting some sort of reaction one way or the other, but the Congressman appeared distracted and was staring at the floor at a point just in front of Ronna’s shoes.
Helen looked at him too, and seeing he wasn’t about to answer, gave him a nudge. “Honey. Are you listening?”
Matt nodded, though he didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” Ronna soldiered on. “Well Mr McGarry’s agreed to pick up events for you after your Friday commitments, but he’s booked solid until the weekend.”
“Is Leo still here?” Matt spoke up at last.
“No, I think he went back to the hotel,” she said. “He said he’s taking an early flight back to DC tomorrow but I think he had some calls to make.”
“At this time of night?” Helen glanced at her watch before looking back at her husband, but she did it fast enough to catch the fleeting look of distaste that clouded his face.
He saw her looking and forced a quick change in his expression and she didn’t pursue the matter further.
“I don’t want to make any decisions until I’ve talked some more with the doctors,” Matt said. “As to those trips, you’ve done all the right things. I’m sorry you’ve been saddled with sorting all of this Ronna. It’s hardly been an easy day for you either, and I don’t think you got any sleep at all last night.”
“That’s okay Matt,” she clutched the notebook a little tighter. “Keeping busy’s actually been quite a good thing to do under the circumstances. It’s stopped me from thinking about you know what happened.”
“That must have been awful for you,” Helen sympathized.
“It wasn’t nice,” the word sounded drastically inappropriate to her ears, but it was the best she could come up with. “But it’s happened and I can’t do anything about it, so I just want to go on with things.”
“You’ll be acting campaign manager until Josh comes back.” Matt stated it unequivocally as if it were the result of a long debate session and not just some decision he’d come upon in the last few seconds. As it was, Ronna was pretty surprised.
“Oh I’d be honoured, but I don’t think I’m nearly qualified enough to run something of this size and importance…”
“Nonsense, you’ll be fantastic. Unless you really don’t want it of course, but I want you.”
She gulped a little at the unexpected decision she was making, but was saved by the appearance of a figure on the other side of the door. The others saw her shift in attention and turned as the new arrival opened came in.
“Congressman Santos,” he went to Matt straight off. “It’s nice to meet you sir, I’m sorry I haven’t come down before. My name’s Dr Jennings, I’m the consultant neurologist.”
“Oh, right,” Matt shook his hand eagerly. “Is there news? How’s Josh doing?”
“Let’s sit, shall we,” Jennings gestured and the three re-took the seats they had recently vacated. “Okay, first of all I should say that Mr Lyman remains in a stable condition right now, so there’s no immediate need for concern. However, I thought it best if I came down and explained a few things to you so that you know what to expect in the coming days.”
Coming days sounded good, it sounded at least like there wasn’t going to be a funeral just yet.
“Now I think one of my colleagues came down to see you earlier after the surgery, so if I’m repeating what he said then I apologise, but basically what we’re looking at is three skull fractures. The surgery was necessary to retrieve several small pieces of bone that had been forced inwards and were threatening further injury to the brain. We also visualized an intracranial bleed that didn’t require surgical intervention, and as expected we discovered severe bruising and swelling.” He let them take that in for a few seconds. “It’s what we call a coup, counter-coup injury, the head is struck from one side and the brain essentially bounces off the other side of the skull and is bruised and damaged. Anyway, as it was, everything went as well as could be expected, and we’ve since been treating him aggressively with drugs to try and limit any further damage. A lot of it now is a waiting game. We have to wait and see how he responds and how quickly he regains consciousness.”
“Is he in a coma?” Matt asked tentatively.
“I wouldn’t like to use the word coma. He’s had his eyes open a couple of times, though he’s never been fully conscious and alert and we wouldn’t expect him to be at this stage.”
“Has he said anything?”
“No, he has a tube in his throat to help him breathe, so he won’t be able to talk for a few days.”
“What are the long term implications?” Helen asked. “I mean, the injuries sound quite severe. Is he going to recover fully?”
“They are quite severe, but all I can tell you is that I don’t know what that will mean for the long term. Head trauma like this can lead to a whole range of problems, from motor conditions to problems with hearing, vision, there can be emotional difficulties, memory problems, social problems, seizures, headaches. But it’s best to remain positive and not to dwell on those sorts of things right now.”
Everyone in the room found it suddenly hard not to dwell on all those things, especially once he’d said them. The list seemed extensive, and Matt had to be honest with himself that he really hadn’t been thinking further ahead than Josh waking up and being fine. Trust his wife to think long term.
“Can I go in to see him?” he wondered.
“It’s still only close family for now, but Mrs Lyman has asked for someone to be allowed in a Donna Moss. Is that you?” Jennings looked askance at Ronna.
“Uh, no. But I’m pretty sure she’s down in the cafeteria. I’ll go find her.” Ronna got up and stowed her notebook in a pocket.
As she left, Helen looked curiously at her husband, asking with her eyes what that was all about. Since he didn’t know, he just shrugged. Josh’s mother knew Donna as well? Just who was this woman?
*************************************************************
“We’re just watching here pictures of Congressman Matt Santos leaving the Methodist Hospital at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, uh he left about half an hour ago now and left without any comment at all to the press. Mick, uh, how do you think the Congressman is handling this situation so far?”
“Well, Sandra, it’s been a very difficult day for him, that’s for certain and he’s handled himself with dignity so far, but I’m not sure if it wasn’t a mistake to leave the hospital without a word of any sort. He knows the eyes of the country are on him right now, and it seems a little strange that he would be happy coming across as quite so aloof considering how much support he’s been receiving from the public.”
“He must be under a lot of strain, though. Isn’t it possible that he’s not thinking about this situation in terms of his image?”
“That would be a nice thing to believe, but I don’t know if I’ve yet to meet a candidate, in all my years in this business, who hasn’t thought about things in terms of his image. He’s in shock that much is clear, and who wouldn’t be. This was an attack on him as much as it was on Josh Lyman.”
“You’re convinced then that the assault was related to the campaign?”
“Yes Sandra, I am. Sad to say there are a lot of unstable people out there, and the Congressman’s agenda is fairly radical, even for a left-wing Democrat. I’m sure there are plenty of groups out there who would be quite eager to wipe out his campaign before it even gets started.”
“Is that what you think will happen?”
“Well, no campaign has ever hinged on one person alone. Even if we look at recent history and see the ascendancy of Jed Bartlet from obscurity to nomination in not too dissimilar circumstances, we can see that his strength came from relying on a very talented group of staff. Leo McGarry was obviously focal in that staff, and Josh Lyman again had an important role to play, but I think if we look at that staff we can see that the removal of one person more or less would not have made that much of a difference to the eventual victorious outcome. The problem for Santos in this case may stem from the fact that his campaign is in its fledgling stages: nomination only two weeks gone, election six months away. His staff is not yet up to a level where he can lose such a pivotal figure without it proving extremely detrimental. And whatever Lyman’s condition, we don’t obviously wish to speculate on that area, but it seems highly unlikely that he will be fit to return to work for quite some time. With Vinick’s strength in any number of previously Democratic held areas, this could be a serious problem for Matt Santos.”
“Now, Mick, you have some contacts within the Congressman’s staff. What do you think the mood will be like amongst them this evening?”
“Very down, Sandra, very down indeed. They were just getting going, just getting their sea-legs so to speak, there was this big staff shuffle just yesterday, and now, blam! Everything’s changed. They’re playing a whole different game, and at the same time they’re gonna be shocked by what’s happened. It’s an awful thing to have happen to anyone you know, and you get close to people working with them day in and day out, particularly with something like this when you’re working close to 20 hour days, seven days a week. I’d imagine there’d be some tears and a lot of mutual support going on right now. It’s really at times like this when you can figure out who your friends are, even in a presidential campaign.”
*************************************************************
Matt Santos was thinking to himself that although he’d spent far too much of the last twenty years in and around hospitals, they still didn’t bother him.
The car crash had been a big part of all of that. He’d been 19 and stupid, driving too fast and not paying enough attention to the road or the others vehicles to even see the car that hit him. It hadn’t actually been his fault at the end of the day, but if the wind had been blowing a different direction then it might have been. Five weeks of intensive in-hospital care had seen his broken legs back to almost normal, but he’d had to go back for months afterwards for physical therapy, nearly bankrupting his parents in the process. No health insurance was a personal thing for him and he’d vowed to change the system after watching his father work three jobs just to pay his son’s medical bills.
He’d died six years later of bowel cancer, so advanced when they’d diagnosed him, he’d only lived another four weeks.
Matt had gone into the Marines after that, determined to get a grip on his anger at life and learn the discipline necessary to take on the career he’d decided he wanted. It was the making of him, and back home five years later, he’d started on his path to political success, falling in love along the way and marrying the one woman who’d ever truly made him happy.
It was ironic in many ways that both her pregnancies had been so hard, and Helen had been hospitalized on so many occasions that Matt felt he should have gotten frequent flyer miles for his use of the car park and hospital gift shop. It was morning sickness the first time apparently it could be a killer (who knew?). She was so sick her weight plummeted to seven and a half stone and she suffered liver damage. But Jane was born a healthy seven pounder despite all the odds stacked against her.
They’d both been expecting the sickness again the second time, but it hadn’t actually been as bad and had stopped altogether after four months leaving three months of pregnant normality for the Santoses and their two-year-old baby daughter. At seven months, however, Helen had developed preeclampsia and was back in hospital, more or less to stay, until she came to as near full term as the doctors could allow. More trips in and out, more bunches of flowers, and a real baptism of fire for a dad with a full-time job and now a toddler to take care of.
But he’d risen to the challenge and stood for Congress later that year with his recovered wife at his side and his two healthy, beautiful children in his arms. It had been little surprise to the DCCC when he’d achieved a landslide victory, a personable, handsome, family man in his late thirties with two years as mayor under his belt and a raft of good ideas to campaign on. The political life spent flying between DC and Houston had been the down side, and when his mother became ill with dementia, things became even more complicated and the hospital visits again became frequent.
She was in a home now, and well looked after. He visited when he could and felt guilty when he couldn’t, even though she didn’t actually recognize him anymore and would variously call him José, Manuel, and Jake.
But being in a hospital didn’t bother him, even after all that. In fact, he saw them as places of hope, places where people like him came to get better or to watch their loved ones get better. He could walk past the clinical, white walls and not be struck by the sense of dread that seemed to grab so many. He could smell the hospital smells that nauseating combination of bodily functions and the disinfectants used to counter them and happily take a second breath. His wife described him as odd.
But today the hospital was bugging him just a little bit. It was probably the fact that he just couldn’t go anywhere in it without being recognized and stared at. All he was trying to do was find the ICU ward, but for the past fifteen minutes he’d been wondering the halls and trying to find one place, some corner, some corridor where people didn’t look at him, look again, nudge their friends and whisper, or call things to him as he passed.
So actually, what was probably bugging him was the fact that he was running for president. Not much he could do about that right now, however. But now he was a man running for president who was simply trying to visit his sick friend in hospital and he couldn’t do it without causing excitement.
The one upside was that his secret service officers didn’t seem to like it either, and tormenting them was turning out to be a seriously pleasurable pastime.
“Donna?”
She was sitting on a chair in the corridor just outside the door to the ICU wards, which he’d finally found after asking directions from a porter. Donna’s pale green shirt seemed to hang lifelessly from her thin shoulders and if anything, she looked worse than she had done when he’d last seen her the previous day.
She looked up, blinking in the bright lights. “Good morning sir.” She didn’t get up. She didn’t seem to have the energy.
“How are you doing?” Matt paused just beside her and it took him about five seconds to realize she was wearing the same clothes as she had been the previous day. “Have you been here all night?”
She didn’t answer,
Matt sighed and slipped into the chair next to her. “Have you has there been any more news today? Any updates on his condition?”
She shook her head with an uncoordinated movement. “He’s just the same. No change.”
“And you were here all night?”
“I guess. I didn’t actually know it was morning.”
“You should go get some sleep. We’ll get a hotel room for you.”
“I’ll stay a bit longer. Is there a morning briefing to do?”
Matt smiled. “I don’t think you’re really in any condition…”
“I can do it,” she insisted, interrupting him with an enthusiasm that he wouldn’t have thought her capable of.
“I’m not doubting your devotion to duty, or your ability. I’m doubting that you’ll be able to read a statement without falling over.”
Donna closed her tired, blue eyes. “I’ll be okay.”
Now seemed as good a time as ever to tackle the thing that had been bothering him since the day before. “Donna, why didn’t you tell me that you knew Josh?” She kept her eyes closed, though he could see her eyelids twitch slightly. “I talked to Leo last night,” he went on. “He said you were Josh’s assistant for seven years. Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday? I didn’t realize that this was so personal to you. I wouldn’t have put you out there in front of the media. I mean I’m not some kind of political monster who has no appreciation of personal feelings.”
Donna’s lips curled into a slight smile. “I’ve never thought that you were,” she told him. “But it was the job I came here to do.”
Her answer didn’t surprise him much. There was a sense of devotion to duty that often came with jobs of this sort. It wasn’t even an ego thing: trying to get ahead to better one’s own career. Still, this was a special case, and he felt an odd surge of pride at her words, glad to have her on his side in this whole mess. But he still decided to probe a little further, motivated partially by the urge to support this fragile looking girl. “Did you do a lot of work with Josh in the Bartlet administration?”
“I worked with him all the time. He taught me a lot of things.”
“Well, I’ll admit I didn’t think a lot about it when he hired you for this position,” Matt confessed. “But I’ve found that Josh usually has a good instinct about these things. I’ve learnt to trust him.”
“You should,” she murmured.
“You were with him all night?” he wondered again.
She nodded. “I was in and out.”
“I’m surprised,” he said.
Donna looked at him curiously. “Why?”
Matt didn’t know quite how to explain himself without his sentiment coming over the wrong way. “Josh isn’t usually… he doesn’t strike me as someone who has a lot of close friends, and you must be pretty close to want to do that.”
“Josh has friends,” she defended her former boss without even thinking. “He has a lot of friends.”
“Do you think he knew you were in there with him?”
“He squeezed my hand once.”
“Really?”
“The nurses told me it was a reflex, apparently he’s been moving quite a lot and it’s normal for people in that state. But I’m not sure, I think he did it because I was there.”
Matt took a deep breath. He was heading in the direction of the room himself and now didn’t quite know what to expect. “Ned’s downstairs,” he said. “Have you met him before?”
She nodded. “A couple of times.”
“Work with him on a morning statement, and then afterwards I want you to go and get some sleep. No arguments. Okay?”
Donna turned to him, grateful that he was being considerate, grateful that he was ordering her to sleep, because the chances of her leaving under her own will power were slim.
Matt got up and looked reluctantly at the door to the ICU ward.
“Josh thinks of you as a friend,” Donna said suddenly.
“What?”
She got up as well. “You’re running for president, but instead of being out there campaigning, you’re in a hospital in the early hours of the morning to sit with someone who’s unconscious and may not even know you’re there. Those sound like the actions of a friend.”
She was pretty spunky for someone who’d been up for forty-odd hours. Matt decided then and there than he liked her.
“Anyway,” she said. “I’d better go find Ned.”
*************************************************************
“It’s day two now in the search for the assailant who left Matt Santos’s campaign manager in a serious condition in hospital and police are no further forward in their investigation into the assault. They’ve been stopping cars in and around the city centre in Houston itself and have questioned approximately forty people in connection with the case. Sheriff Wheeler has said that they remain optimistic at this time that they will be able to identify a suspect before the day is out, but commentators view this as unlikely given the sheer scale of the investigation and the fact that even a motive has yet to be established.
“Meanwhile, Matt Santos remains at the Texas Medical Center arriving just before 6AM this morning, and we’ve been told that he has cancelled all of his campaigning events until the weekend. His campaign manager, Josh Lyman, remains in a serious but stable condition in intensive care as doctors attempt to treat his injuries. There seems little hope of a change in his condition for some time yet to come.”
*************************************************************
“What exactly is brain edema?”
This neurosurgeon was a quiet, intense, short man who liked to explain things as though everyone else were a child. Clearly he’d had aspirations to be a teacher at some early stage of his life and some parent or other had quashed his dreams and made him go to medical school.
He whipped out a pad of paper and a pen. “The human brain is a curious thing,” he began, and Matt frowned in frustration. He wasn’t really in the mood to be lectured about physiology. He’d returned to his private waiting room after spending the morning in and out of Josh’s ward, but this was the first new piece of information he’d been given about his condition all day, and he wanted it straight up.
“But in many ways it’s like any other part of the body. Now,” the doctor paused to draw something. “If you hit your thumb with a hammer, or turn your ankle while out running, odds are both thumb and ankle will begin to swell.”
Matt looked at what he’d drawn. It was a big swollen thumb.
“That’s perfectly normal, it’s fluid building up in reaction to the injury, and the same thing happens to the brain, right. A hard knock that injures the brain causes it to swell, first of all as blood gathers there, and secondarily as fluid gathers. Only, there isn’t anywhere for the brain to go.” Now he’d drawn a head with a brain in it and lots of squiggly lines. Matt wasn’t quite sure what the squiggly lines meant, but felt the explanation was coming. “Our brains are surrounded by this hard box, the skull, and it usually protects them, but when you get brain edema, swelling of the brain essentially, it can cause real problems. There’s just not physically space for it to swell, as the skull stops it. So it can lead to further damage.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Matt grabbed onto what he was saying. “Further damage?”
“Yes, if the edema continues,” the doctor was no longer drawing, but he still seemed to have the demeanour of a teacher. Matt sensed that the guy was pretty bright and knew what he was talking about, he just wasn’t terribly doctory about the whole thing and that didn’t inspire confidence.
“Well, can’t you treat it?”
He inclined his head. “Josh has what’s called a monitor bolt surgically implanted through his skull right now, and it’s measuring the intra-cranial pressure, which is what we worry about with brain edema. The pressure has already reached a level that we’re concerned about, and what we’ve done is placed him into a much deeper sleep using drugs so that we could take control of all his vital functions. We’ve given him other drugs to try and reduce the amount of fluid and there’s a valve on the bolt that can be opened to drain fluid away, but to be honest, we’re limited in what we can do.”
“Surgery’s not an option?” Matt half expected all doctors to tell him that surgery was a cure for something.
“In normal cases, we can consider surgery to remove a piece of the skull and allow the brain to expand but in this case we’d like to try and avoid that if possible because of the procedure he’s already undergone and because of his weakened state. He might not survive the second surgery.”
“So, what’s happens, we just sit here and watch?”
“Congressman,” he laid his notebook down in his lap and swung his short legs under the chair he was sitting on. “You have to realize the limitations of modern medicine.”
Alright, now he was talking like a doctor.
“We are doing everything in our power to help Josh, but his condition is very serious.”
“This edema it’s a normal reaction?”
“Yes.”
“So basically, you knew this was going to happen and you didn’t tell anyone?”
“We don’t like to assume the worst with our patients, but sometimes it comes to get you anyway..”
“Wait.” The worst? “How serious is this going to get?” The doctor opened his mouth but didn’t say anything as Matt barreled right over him. “He will recover, right?” Matt insisted, made more desperate by lack of sleep. “The edema goes away?”
“I’m afraid we can’t guarantee that.”
“So how bad does this get?” Matt felt a tingle of fear as if sensing how serious the situation was for the first time.
“I’m not going to sugar coat this, Congressman. If the swelling continues it can cause serious herniation and also push the brain stem down towards the spinal column in a manner which is often fatal.”
It was the first time he’d heard it, the first time someone had dared to say fatal. “But he’s come this far he’s survived this far. I was with him this morning, he was on the verge of regaining consciousness. He was moving and had his eyes open. How can he have gone from that to this?”
*************************************************************
Her hotel room had been full of light when she’d opened her eyes. Shafts of the early summer sun streamed in through the gap where her curtains failed to close and hit the wall beside the bed making an odd oblong shape on the crisp, new paint.
Everything in the room was new. The Congressman had made sure she was put up in one of the best new hotels in the city, ironically, not five blocks from the campaign offices where Josh had been attacked.
Donna turned over as she remembered.
She looked over at the clock, just before five. She’d been asleep about six hours maybe and was amazed she’d stayed out so long. It had taken her ages to drop off, the vivid images of the previous days playing over and over in her mind, the what ifs that wouldn’t go away, the feeling that she should have been there, that this should never have happened.
Wearily, Donna raised herself from the stack of pillows she’d been sleeping against looking down to see that she’d slept in her underwear, having nothing else on hand. Acquiring clothes was gong to have to be high on her list for the immediate future, that and eating something. She felt so hungry that even the thought of eating at the McDonalds she’d spotted just after the exit from the highway didn’t fill her with horror. A few McNuggets would go nicely right now with the huge knot in her stomach and the grinding pains that were lurking about somewhere further down.
Donna rubbed her belly, reaching for her phone and then the TV remote with her other hand. She clicked on the set and went through the channels until she came across a news station, CBS as it turned out, then she turfed the remote into her lap and dialed one on her phone to pick up her messages.
“Welcome to the answering service,” came the automated voice. “You have six new messages.”
It was all she heard, the phone dropping away from her ear as she recognized the front door of the Methodist Hospital on the news station and heard the reporter say into her microphone:
“Yes, I can see the Congressman now inside through the doors talking to someone on his staff with members of the secret service around him. Uh, we’ve been told that he may be addressing us sometime this evening, but that has yet been clarified with anyone from his press office. Wait… I think I can see… yes he’s coming in this direction.”
Donna switched off her phone.
“Alright, I think we are going to have the statement now so I think I’m just gonna wait for the Congressman to come out, and uh…”
The reporter stopped talking and the camera moved so that she was no longer in the shot then it zeroed in on the door where Donna could see Matt coming closer, flanked by his secret service officers who were looking around nervously.
He came out, nodding in welcome to the waiting press. “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” they all muttered back in something like unison.
He was smartly dressed as always, she noted, a blue suit, hair neatly combed back. And he was so tall, even on the television he looked tall. She wondered why she’d never noticed it before.
“I’d like to say a few words,” Matt was saying. “First of all I’d like to thank everyone who’s shown support and sent in cards and phoned with good wishes in the last 48 hours. It really has been appreciated. This has been a very difficult couple of days for my staff and of course in particular for Josh Lyman’s family, so I’d also like to thank the press for the restraint they have mostly been showing on this matter.” He paused and she could see him swallow, but it didn’t look like he was nervous, emotional maybe. She wondered what had happened, why he was talking to the press now and without anyone telling her. She was becoming sick of finding everything out through the news channels.
“I was informed a little while ago that Josh’s condition has downgraded to critical. He’s developed a brain edema that the doctors so far have been unable to get under control. They’ve placed him in a drug-induced coma and are hoping that the swelling will go down in the next few hours.”
Donna’s eyes widened, and she held her breath.
Matt frowned and it seemed then that he looked up and directly at her through the camera. “Since his condition had been improving, this has obviously come as a great shock, and I’d ask everyone to join me in praying for his speedy recovery. The medical staff here at the hospital have been fantastic, and I would like to take this opportunity to extend them my heartfelt thanks for all the care and attention they have shown. My thanks also go out to the police officers and detectives of Houston who are continuing their search this evening for Josh’s heartless attackers, men who left him for dead in an alleyway.”
If the speech was not up to Matt’s normal standards, Donna didn’t notice, she was so engaged in what he was saying.
“I have of course cancelled all my up-coming events concerned with the presidential campaign,” he went on. “And I anticipate that I will not be returning to that schedule for some time. I ask for patience from my supporters and I hope that they will be able to carry on in my name while I am absent.” He looked around at the assembled press once more before nodding and saying. “Thank you.”
Questions were screamed at him from all angles, but he just smiled grimly and walked back in through the hospital doors without answering anything.
“As you just heard, that was Congressman Matt Santos of Texas revealing that he does not intend to take up his campaign schedule again for some time, and also that the condition of his campaign manager has deteriorated in the past couple of hours. You’re watching CBS news, I’m Daniel Bradford.”
But Donna wasn’t watching anything. She was already halfway to the door dressed in exactly the same clothes as she’d been wearing now for almost three days.
*************************************************************
“Congressman Santos!”
Matt turned at the sound of his name. The man he saw coming towards him was average height and medium build, with a shock of dark hair and what his wife would probably have called a handsome face. But the face was crinkled with worry.
“Yes,” he acknowledged.
The man came up and shook his hand, mindful of the secret service officers. “I’m Sam Seaborn.”
“Congressman,” Matt shook his hand. “Of course I should have recognized you.”
“Not at all, we’ve never met.”
“But I was there when you were sworn in,” Matt insisted.
“Yeah,” Sam laughed. “But how far away?”
Matt smiled too. It was clear than Seaborn had an infectious personality. It was a long time since he’d been put at ease quite so fast by someone he’d just met.
“So is this a party thing?” Matt guessed. “Because you know I’ve suspended all of my…”
“I’m here to see Josh,” Sam interrupted.
“Oh,” that surprised him. “Well they’re not really letting anyone see him. His condition has deteriorated.”
“Yeah, I heard some of your press conference in the car on the way over. How serious is it?”
Matt sighed and put his hands on his hips. People kept asking him that question. “Pretty serious I think. How do you two know each other?”
“We worked together,” Sam said. “At the White House.”
“Of course!” Matt’s brain finally kicked in. “You were in the communications department before you began your campaign.”
“That’s right, though actually we’ve been close friends for years.”
“Really?”
“It was him who got me into politics. In fact, if it weren’t for Josh I’d probably have some cosy corner office in a New York law firm by now.”
Matt smiled again. “Then he has done some good in the world.”
“More than you will ever know. I owe him a lot.” Sam looked around quickly to cover the emotion that had suddenly come over him. “Is Donna here? I saw her doing press briefings yesterday then she disappeared today.”
“Donna Moss? She’s hanging around upstairs in the ICU,” he rubbed an eye tiredly, no longer surprised when people he didn’t know started talking about Donna as if she were someone important in the situation. He didn’t get it still, but he’d accepted it. “I sent her away to get some sleep earlier but she came back. She’s been pretty upset.”
“Yeah, I would imagine. And how about you? This must be pretty damaging for your campaign if nothing else.”
“Look,” Matt decided this wasn’t really a conversation for the corridor. “Let’s go back into they’ve set a room aside just down here.” He led Sam to the waiting room where they found Ronna just getting off the phone.
“Your wife called about fifteen minutes ago,” she said quickly, obviously taking the opportunity of grabbing Matt while she could. “She said she’d be in later and that you’re to eat something.”
Sam smiled at that, memories of Abbey Bartlet going through his head.
“Did she say what I was to eat?” Matt asked sarcastically, not liking it when his wife treated him like a child.
“No no exactly,” Ronna responded meekly.
Matt waved his hand. “Sorry that was. Sorry.” He moved on by turning to Sam. “Ronna this is Congressman Seaborn from California.”
She stood up. “Hi.” They shook hands. “Why don’t I go find you a sandwich or something,” she said, making her excuses to leave.
“No, Ronna you don’t have to do that,” Matt said.
“It’s okay, I’m peckish myself,” she assured him
When she’d gone Matt turned back to Sam. “Sorry, you asked me something and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.”
“I asked how you were getting on with all of this,” Sam said.
“With Josh? It’s been hard.” He took a seat, feeling all the strength drain out of him suddenly, all the fight, all the energy he’d been trying to maintain. He felt like just dumping all his problems on someone and walking away.
“You must have gotten to know each other pretty well during the campaign, and he’s certainly a good friend to have when you’re running for something,” Sam said, sitting in a chair opposite. “He won’t leave you, he’s loyal, a good player in the party. Hard worker.”
“Very hard,” Matt agreed instantly. “Too hard in fact. If he hadn’t been working so damned late the other night then this never would have happened.”
There was an awkward pause during which Sam seemed to be looking for something to say.
Matt noticed and tried to make things easier for him. After all, he’d come a long way. The least he could do was make him welcome. “Still, you must have some stories to tell,” he said.
“Hm?”
“Two presidential campaigns, five six years in the Whitehouse. You must know Josh better than me.”
“We had some good times,” he admitted nodding, the trace of a smile on his lips as he remembered things long gone. “We spent a lot of time sharing rooms during the first campaign so I became rather intimately acquainted with some of his more interesting habits.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he’s a really bad time keeper for one, and sleeps with a pillow over his face for some obscure reason that I never found out,” Sam said. “And he has this thing for coffee, drinks so much I think it must run through his veins. But if you ever go to his house and he offers you a cup, demand to see the actual packet the coffee came out of, because if he’s run out, he’ll happily fish an old filter out of the trash can to make a new pot.”
“No!” Matt was amused and horrified by the concept. “That’s so… studenty.”
“Yeah well, in his heart I think Josh still thinks he’s in the frat house a lot of the time, or wishes he were. Life was much simpler when your prowess was measured by who could drink the most beer.”
“And that certainly wouldn’t be Josh.”
Sam smiled. “Donna always used to say he had a sensitive system. I don’t think he appreciated it.”
“I can imagine.” Matt looked Sam up and down a bit, glad that he was here. It was comforting to think that Josh had friends who would come to see him at times like this. With a pang he remembered the last conversation he’d had with his campaign manager before the attack, when he’d talked about attending his funeral and not finding anyone there. This guy would be there, and Donna clearly. Looked like they were standing by Josh whatever happened. He wondered how, with all his arrogance and maneuvering, Josh had managed to acquire such friends.
“So you’ve halted your campaign?”
“What?” Matt snapped back in.
“You’ve halted your campaign,” Sam said again. “You’ve cancelled your events?”
“Yeah,” Matt rubbed his eyes again. “I didn’t feel right about flying off around the country hosting champagne dinners when the man who got me here is lying close to death in a hospital.”
Sam looked uncomfortable but said: “I can understand that. But he’d want you to go, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Josh would want you to go on. I know this meant a lot to him, it would have to, leaving Jed Bartlet like he did. He hated leaving people, and the President was like a father to him, yet he left him for you. He must have seen something, known that you were the right man for the job, the right man to succeed Bartlet. I think if he could talk to you now he’d tell you to go and finish what he started, to go campaign for all you’re worth.”
Matt grew angry. “Well he can’t talk to me because he’s on a ventilator because he can’t breathe,” he said sharply. “So I’m staying here until he tells me otherwise.”
Sam just smiled in return. “Okay.”
Matt softened again, thrown off guard by the placid reaction and wondering what was going through Seaborn’s head. “You know,” he said. “They probably won’t let you in, but they’ve been allowing people to be outside his room. I’ll be that’s where Donna is if you want to go and find her.”
“Yes, I’d like that. You said it was upstairs?”
“One floor up. Just ask at the desk.”
“Thanks.” He got up. “You’re doing okay you know, in your campaign. I think Josh was right about you, and you can’t give up just because of what’s happened. It wouldn’t be fair to you and it wouldn’t be fair to Josh. Just think about it.”
After he’d left, Matt sat for a long time pondering his words, wondering about whether he really should be sitting here in a hospital when then was so much work to do on the outside. And then Ronna returned with a tuna melt sandwich and a packet of chips, and their conversation turned to other matters.
*************************************************************
“And in local news, detectives in Houston say they have arrested a man in connection with the attack on Josh Lyman two days ago outside the campaign offices for Santos for President. The man has been described as black and in his early thirties. Police say there was an exchange of gunfire at a house in the early hours of the morning before the arrest was made. Several weapons were recovered at the scene. There has been no comment so far from the Congressman’s staff, and it is believed that Matt Santos himself has not arrived at the hospital this morning as was expected. There has been some speculation that he may be considering returning to his campaign schedule despite his words to the contrary yesterday. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate Arnie Vinick returned to his own campaign today with a speech at John Bowne High School in Queens, New York. The Senator had suspended his events for 48 hours out of respect for Mr Lyman’s condition.”
*************************************************************
“Honey, you should go back to bed.”
“I’m missing a sock.”
Helen sighed and leant against the doorframe watching her husband as he turned out his sock drawer.
“You just gonna stand there or are you gonna help me find it?” he inquired when she didn’t move to assist.
“You got maybe three hours of sleep last night,” she said. “Tops. You didn’t come home from the hospital until three, and I know you were up for another hour talking on the phone to God knows who is up at that time in the morning.”
“I was talking to Leo McGarry.”
“Oh, that figures. DC never sleeps.”
“Honestly, Helen. I’m missing a sock.”
“Well, just get another pair then,” she snapped, walking up and grabbing another couple of socks from the pile at his feet.
He took them from her outstretched hand and moved to the bed to pull them on.
“So what were the two of you talking about?”
Matt paused in the middle of pulling a sock onto his foot. “The campaign,” he offered.
“And what does Leo have to say about that?”
“He thinks I should resume the schedule sooner rather than later.”
She considered that. “I guess he knows what he’s talking about.”
“Yes, maybe he does,” Matt pulled the sock on the rest of the way angrily as his wife crossed over to the bed to sit beside him.
“What do you think you should do?”
He looked at her. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “People keep telling me to go back to campaigning, they keep telling me ‘it’s what Josh would want’ but I just don’t know.”
She waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, commented: “Of course, it doesn’t really matter what other people think.” She reached up to push away a wayward tuft of hair on his head.
“What do you think?” he wondered.
“It doesn’t really matter what I think either. You’ve got to do what your heart tells you. And if it tells you to stay at the hospital, then stay at the hospital.”
Matt looked down. “You never asked why I was there so late last night.”
Helen pulled her hand away. She hadn’t asked because she’d been mad at him staying out so late.
“He got worse,” her husband said quietly. “Around midnight the doctors came to tell us. I was just heading out, and they came in and said he was bleeding diffusely, and they couldn’t stop it. They told us he could only have hours left.”
That made her feel pretty terrible. “But, did it stop, or…”
“We were there for two hours,” Matt went on. “Just waiting. His mother was crying, Donna was crying, she kept phoning people. I got to go in and sit with him for a while, and he was just so still, like he was already gone and just those machines keeping him alive. It was awful.”
Helen reached up to rub the back of his neck gently as her husband sat looking glazed.
“Then a couple of hours later they said he’d stabilized again and that there was probably nothing we could do until morning. That’s when I came home.”
She tried to think of something comforting to say. “They’re reporting that they may have caught the guy who did it,” she told him.
“Yeah I know. I talked to Sheriff Wheeler last night. He called just after I got off with Leo.”
“Well, that’s some good news anyway.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” he sighed, sounding depressed. “I don’t really care who did it, or why. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“The hospital would have called if there had been any changes overnight,” she tried again.
Matt looked at her finally, appreciating the effort she was making. “I know,” he said, and wrapped an arm around her, hugging her close. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a hard thing. But, maybe that was the worst.”
“I hope so. I don’t know if I could take another night like that.”
She gazed up at him with her slightly squint eyes. “I can see why you don’t want to think about campaigning anyway.”
He squeezed her a little closer. “I don’t want to do it without him,” he admitted quietly.
“What?”
“Without Josh. I don’t want to do this without him. He’s the reason I’m running, Helen. He’s the reason I got here, he’s why I’m here, and I don’t want to start doing this again without him. I just can’t.”
She sensed he was tired, no wonder with the amount of sleep he was getting, but he was also becoming irrational. She knew what Leo wanted, had talked to him herself, and she also knew that, even if Josh had the most miraculous recovery in the world, it was going to be weeks before he was ready to go back on the campaign trail. And it was more than likely there would be no miraculous recovery.
Leo was thinking of the good of the party, he had to. Matt was the nominee, and as such, he had an obligation to get out there and campaign with every fibre in his being. If Josh were sick, or, heaven forbid, died from his injuries, what then? How were they going to get Matt back out on the road if he remained wallowing in the belief that he was nothing without his campaign manager. It wasn’t anybody’s fault that Josh was so ill, but it was crippling the campaign and giving the Republicans a head start without even trying.
Helen hated just about everything associated with running for president, but she knew what was required of her, and was prepared to do it, all of it. But her husband just seemed to have given up before he’d even started.
She’d never in her wildest or worst dreams anticipated this.
*************************************************************
“You’re going to see trouble from the DNC before too much longer, I can tell you that.”
“And how would you know what’s going on in the DNC?” Bram asked disbelieving.
“Because the national finance chairwoman happens to be a very good friend of mine, and she called me last night.”
“What did she say?” Ronna wondered.
“She said there had been some comments, displeasure shown at the sight of the Democratic candidate standing in front of a hospital in Texas saying that he wasn’t going to be campaigning any time soon while the Republicans pass on condolences and move from strength to strength in the polls.”
“Really? He gets three days grace and that’s it?”
“If it were a relative they feel he’d have the sympathy of the country behind him, but as it is, being in a holding pattern over a member of staff isn’t writing us any cheques and isn’t winning us any points. There have been words spoken in the Senate as well, things said about national security after the mall bomb.”
“Yeah, I saw last night,” Ronna bit her lip. “One or two guys not happy and trying to draw us out on a statement.”
“You should have made one. Instead, there was no sign of the Congressman all day. There’s no access to him because what’s happening to one man is taking up all of his time, and that’s just not presidential.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Bram pointed out. “The guy’s in a coma. Doesn’t Congressman Santos get even a little sympathy from those on high?”
“Oh it’s not just your candidate. The rest of you are foundering in the mud too. You’ve got to get your act together.”
“Any suggestions on how we might do that?” Bram asked testily, and more than a little sarcastically.
“Well, you could try holding a few more press conferences. Get the VP candidate out there and away from the policy advisors. Move Leo front and centre until the Congressman is up to resuming his schedule. Get the staff sorted out, get the hiring finished, triage what needs to be done. Resume your media campaign, respond to some of those grand speeches Arnie Vinick’s making about teacher tenure and Medicare, and don’t just sit around expecting the country to be eternally sympathetic. This is a cut throat business, and 48 hours is all the down time you’re going to get.”
“Bram, where’s Leo right now?”
“DC I think.”
“Find him and get him on the phone will you?”
Bram gave Ronna a look, but went to do what she asked.
“Alright,” she looked around the rest of her staff. “Josh had a list,” she said. “It was for the reshuffle. A list of names. I want someone to find me that list, and someone else to get everyone on it into this office within the next 24 hours.”
“Do you think they’ll all fit?” asked one of the younger interns, scribbling the orders into a notebook.
Ronna just looked at her. “I want you to set about finding us larger accommodation,” she said. “A hall, an office building, whatever you can find.”
Staff peeled off and began to get busy.
She went back to looking at their visitor. “I’m just worried, Amy,” she said.
“About what?” Amy Gardner took a long drink from her tall latte.
“About Matt. You say we need him on the road again, but I know him. He’s not going to want to leave Josh while he’s still in the hospital. I don’t know how we can persuade him otherwise.”
Amy licked her lips. “From what I was told today Josh could be in the hospital a long time.”
“Could you talk to him?”
“Me? I haven’t got any clout with the Congressman. He’s unlikely to listen to what I’d say to him. Won’t he listen to you?”
“I don’t know. I just feel awkward telling him what to do. I mean, surely he knows best?”
Amy smiled a sly smile. “Ronna, I’ve been in this game a long time, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, the candidate never knows best. They may think they do, but they don’t. They get blinded, stuck in this tunnel where all they can see is the light shining ahead. They don’t see all the crap coming up on either side and that’s your job.”
Ronna took a deep breath. “I’ve seen the list, Josh’s list. You’re name’s on it you know.”
“I know,” Amy took another drink. “I talked to him on Monday.”
“So you gonna take the role?”
“Was thinking about it. Policy advisor sounds good right now. Head of strategic planning sounds better.”
“You’re going to try and negotiate with me? Now?”
“Well I would have negotiated with Josh if he were here, but he’s not so I’m stuck with you. And it’s not like I can offer sex to persuade you or anything.”
Ronna looked up at her words but saw the sly smile was back, and was fairly sure she was joking. She smiled as well. Amy freaked her out just a little bit, but she had to take knowledge and experience where she could get it. “You’ll start today?”
“Honey, I think I’ve started already,” she countered. “You want me to talk to Leo?”
“No, I’ll do it. Can you have a word with someone at scheduling, tell them the rally is back on in Chicago tomorrow.”
“You don’t want to talk to Leo first?”
“He’ll find it harder to refuse if he’s already booked to appear. Oh, and you’ve had some contact in the past with Senator Stackhouse haven’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
“Could you give his staff a call and tell him that we saw him on TV last night and while we appreciated his thoughts on national security, we’d really rather that he shut up and support his party for a while rather than mouthing off at something which isn’t even our responsibility yet.”
Amy just eyed her over the top of her glasses. “But I don’t have to use those words, right?”
“Use whatever words you want.”
“You may have a union problem as well.”
Ronna sighed. “I’m not sure if I want to know this. Teachers again?”
Amy shook her head. “The AFL-CIO has called an emergency meeting. There’re rumours that the SEIU is looking for a breakaway deal.”
“This is because of the…”
“Yeah, they weren’t very happy that their candidate only got about five minutes of floor time at the convention.”
“I don’t think it’s my fault Governor Baker chose to enter the race at the last minute and then drop out before he even get going.”
“No, but it might be your problem.”
“Alright.” Ronna started going through some numbers which someone had thrown in front of her and Amy watched.
“You have to get him on the road,” she insisted.
“What?”
“Matt, you’ve got to get him campaigning and away from that hospital.”
“I told you, I don’t know if I can. Josh could have. He listened to Josh, listened to him in a way I’ve never seen him listen to anyone else.”
“Josh is a pretty persuasive guy.”
Ronna looked at Amy, sizing her up for a minute, wondering what was going on under the surface. “You dated, didn’t you?”
“We did,” she admitted it without emotion.
“For how long?”
“About a year I guess, on and off. Off mostly.” Ronna kept looking at her. “What?”
“It’s just I’m surprised you’re not more upset,” she said frankly. When Amy didn’t respond she went on. “There’s this girl called Donna down there, and she’s obviously close to him, and she just won’t leave. She’s worse than Matt. I don’t know, it’s none of my business. It’s just you’re so calm.”
Amy’s eyes narrowed a little bit and she took off her glasses. “I get upset in my own way, Ronna, and I don’t feel that I have to explain myself to you.”
“No, I’m just saying…”
“And I certainly don’t need to be compared to Donna Moss, thank you very much.”
“Oh, so you know Donna.”
“Of course I know Donna, and I know she’s down there right now trying to do her Florence Nightingale impersonation. I’m not interested.”
Ronna was a bit taken aback by Amy’s harsh tone, but curiosity made her soldier on. “Did she and Josh date too?”
“I think in their dreams perhaps,” Amy said smiling to herself. “But not while they were working together, and it’s usually frowned upon for people on opposing sides of the same campaign trail to get all down and dirty when their bosses aren’t looking at night.” She folder her glasses up carefully and placed them into the little green bag she had over her left shoulder. “So, no,” Josh and Donna have never dated. But when he wakes up, I’m sure she’ll be there hanging over the sheets and giving him big, toothy grins.”
“Maybe she could talk Matt into resuming his campaign schedule,” Ronna suggested, trying to change the subject since it was clear she’d hit something of a raw nerve. “She’s been talking to him a lot over the past few days.”
Amy looked at her fixedly for a few seconds and seemed to realize something. “This list of Josh’s,” she said. “Did Donna Moss happen to be on it too?”
A little nervously, Ronna nodded. “Press spokesperson for the campaign’s major issues,” she confirmed. “He wanted to wait a little to hire a press secretary.”
For a split second, Ronna had the strong impression that Amy Gardner was going to scream, and who knows, maybe she did internally. But the sense past as quickly as it had appeared, and with as much grace as a movie star she simply said. “Well, this is going to be an interesting few months.”
*************************************************************
Matt ran into a lot of people during his four days at the hospital. There was his staff of course, who buzzed around like ants in a disturbed nest, and then there were all the other people associated with the campaign like Leo and the Governor of California who’d visited for half an hour and used the phrase “responsibility to the party” a total of seven times. Matt had counted. Then there were all of Josh’s friends, people like Sam Seaborn and the dozen or so others like him that passed through the hospital doors. Donna would try and introduce them if she was there:
“Congressman, can I introduce Joey Lucas and her interpreter Kenny.”
“Congressman, I’m not sure if you’ve met Amy Gardner?”
“Congressman, this is Charles Young. He used to be personal aide to President Bartlet.”
“Congressman, I’d like you to meet Danny Concannon. You may have seen his byline in the Washington Post.”
He’d talked to these people, liked a lot of them, some of them he’d met before, most of them he’d heard of. But none of them added to the situation for him, he still felt alone and bleak.
His wife was there a lot but she’d tried to talk to him several times about going back to the campaign and that wasn’t helping. Leo had been on about that subject as well, and even Ronna had started to talk about trouble at the DNC and losing ground in the polls.
Matt didn’t care. None of these people could talk him into going back if he didn’t want to, and right now he didn’t. He’d visited the hospital a hundred times when his father was sick, more than that for Helen. He knew you needed to be there, it wasn’t a choice, it was something you just did
But that wasn’t to say there wasn’t a niggling doubt somewhere hiding in the back of his mind. He could almost hear Josh yelling at him telling him to get out of the goddamn hospital. Didn’t he know how far they’d come? Didn’t he realize what they’d all given up for this and now, here was the candidate sitting in a hospital corridor while all around him the news cycle changed, the country got bored, and the Republicans slipped quietly and effortlessly into the lead.
He hushed that part of his mind up pretty well for four whole days, and then he finally ran into someone who let it out.
It was Saturday, mid morning, and Matt was sitting thinking, his elbows on his knees, his head resting on his interwoven fingers, the knuckles digging into his chin. Visiting hours were just starting and he was waiting for one of the doctors when he heard someone say Josh’s name and looked up curiously to find a nurse directing a man down the corridor past where he was sitting.
The man was tall, portly built, with a dark beard and the remnants of black curly hair clinging round the fringes of his head. There was something about him, something that gave off an air of shabbiness, like his clothes didn’t fit properly (which they did) or he wasn’t clean and spruce (which he was). Matt recognized him instantly, he’d even seen him in person before though they’d never actually met. Still he was surprised when the man walked down towards and then past him without acknowledging his presence in any way what so ever.
On instinct he called to his back: “Hey, aren’t you Toby Ziegler?”
The man stopped, reluctantly, and turned. “Yes,” he came a few paces back. “Yes sir I am. Sorry. I didn’t see you sitting there.”
Matt wasn’t sure if that was the truth he had seemed a little flustered or a polite lie to cover up the fact he’d walked past on purpose, but he smiled amicably and got to his feet. “That’s okay, I’m…”
“Matt Santos. Yes, I know who you are.” Toby retraced his steps and came up to shake the Congressman’s hand.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Matt said politely. “I’m a big fan of your writing.”
“Uh, thanks,” Toby responded without smiling.
There was a little awkward silence. “You’re here to see Josh,” Matt asked in a rush.
“Yeah,” Toby confirmed, his eyes doing this thing which implied he was trying not to look Matt in the face too much.
“He’s doing much better today,” Matt nodded his head appreciatively.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. The edema’s gone down, they’re talking about bringing him out of the coma a little later on.”
“That sounds good.”
“I’m told it is,” he confirmed.
Another awkward silence.
“You’ve uh you’ve been here all week?” Toby asked.
“Most of it,” Matt decided to retake his seat. He was feeling pretty drained. “I’m back at the office a bit, go home to sleep occasionally.”
“Yeah. That’s very dedicated.”
Matt looked at him curiously, Toby’s tone betraying the irony behind his words. “You don’t think I should have been here all week?”
He smiled for the first time. “It’s not very much of my business, sir.”
Now Matt frowned. He remembered all the times he’d heard Josh on the phone asking to speak to Toby Ziegler at the White House, remembered all the times Josh had started a conversation: ‘You know, Toby Ziegler says that…’
“Josh has always spoken very well of you,” he said diplomatically.
Toby gave a little half smile and then looked uncomfortable.
“You were close friends at the White House?”
“We worked together a lot of years.”
“I know he’s been calling you during the campaign,” Matt went on. “I’d like to thank you for all the advice you’ve been feeding him.”
Toby shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “Josh didn’t need advice from me,” he said. “He’s quite capable of making all his decisions for himself.”
Matt was now curious. It had not escaped his attention that for the past few weeks, the words ‘Toby Ziegler always says that’ had not passed the lips of his campaign manager, and the phone calls had disappeared completely. He’d not really thought about it, the way you don’t think about a buzzing noise in your ear when it suddenly stops, but here was one of the most high-ranking and dedicated members of the Democratic Party, and it suddenly occurred to him that he could not remember any time he’d heard Toby Ziegler endorse him in any way. And that was just weird.
“You don’t approve of his decisions?” he asked.
Toby looked down the corridor, wondering if he could escape. “I’ve got to get back to Washington this afternoon,” he said. “I’m just here to see Josh.”
Matt was unmoved and took a not too wild, stab in the dark. “You don’t approve of his choice of candidate.”
“We all make our choices, Congressman. Some of us would make different ones.”
“You fought with Josh over this?”
Toby appeared startled by that. “We’ve always disagreed on a lot of things,” was all he said.
Matt chuffed out a laugh. “Man. I knew that Josh gave up a lot to run me for president, I didn’t realize just how many people had disagreed with him about it in the process. You were rooting for Bingo Bob?”
“I was not,” Toby insisted. “I don’t think anyone serious was.”
“Didn’t his campaign manager, Will Bailey, use to work for you?”
“He worked in the White House.”
“In your department?”
“Technically.”
“And Donna Moss worked for Josh before she went to work for Bob Russell?”
“Yeah.”
He smiled. “Is there anyone up there who’s actually, you know, for me, at all?”
“You’re the Democratic candidate sir. We’re all with you. We’ll all be voting for you. If you actually make it to the election.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Vinick’s got a pretty healthy lead in case you haven’t been reading the papers while you’ve been here.”
“It’s six months to the election, you think the fact that I’m spending a few days in the hospital because my campaign manager’s seriously injured is going to damage my chances in November?”
Toby seemed to consider the question, then laid it on the line. “Congressman Santos, you barely scraped the nomination. And that was against a two-bit cowboy congressman from Colorado. It’s been two weeks and Arnie Vinick is already amassing an unassailable lead while you sit here crying into your coffee!” His voice rose to a high level throughout the speech, and Matt responded in kind.
“I’m here for Josh. Why are you here exactly?”
Toby tipped his head to the side and coughed out a laugh, then he turned away.
“You think bagging me is going to make him feel any better?” Matt went on. “You have any conception of what’s been going on here the past few days? Josh has been everything to this campaign, everything, and everyone just expects me to now drop him and go on without him. No one can possibly understand what this is like for me.”
At that, Toby turned and came back, walking slowly, shuffling almost. He looked incredulous. “You expect me to feel sorry for you? You’re running for President, sir. You’re the choice, you’re it, and right now you’re not even trying. You’ve given up, and you’ve given up on him.”
Matt swallowed. “Josh was dying three days ago,” he said. “I was here. Where were you?”
“We had a national security crisis. There was a bomb,” Toby said, his eyes narrowing. “In a mall in Philadelphia.”
“And that takes priority?”
“Of course it does,” he said incredulously. “We’re trying to run a country. Maybe you haven’t got that concept yet. Maybe that’s something you and Josh have yet to get around to.”
“Okay,” Matt held up his hands. “Let’s not do this, here.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s not do this.” He covered his eyes.
He heard Toby sigh and after a few seconds felt him sit down in the chair beside him. He took his hands away from his face.
Toby was looking at the floor and Matt waited for him to speak. He didn’t have to wait long.
“He was cold,” the bearded man said unexpectedly. Matt didn’t understand, but he waited for more. “When I found him. He was already cold.” Toby raised his eyes, looking back into the past. “I thought that was it, I thought he was dead, it was over and I was there on the ground with him just holding on to his hand and I couldn’t do anything.” He blinked and took a breath. “There was chaos you see. No one knew who the shooters were, there were some people injured in the crowd. No one heard me yelling at first, and I was screaming for a doctor. It seemed to take ages for them to hear me and ages for them to come, and there was just me and him.”
Understanding began to dawn in Matt’s brain. The scenario Toby was describing felt familiar, but his particular story was unknown.
“I’d seen shootings before,” Toby went on quietly, looking up as one or two people went hurrying past with a trolley. “I mean I grew up in New York, my father was… I’d seen shootings before. But not like that. Not a friend like that. It’s different. And it obsessed me for days afterwards. Even when he was getting better, when he was finally out of danger, when they’d confirmed that the two shooters were dead, even then, I couldn’t get over it.” He glanced at the Congressman. “Why Josh? Why him out of all of us? Why did those bastards shoot him, and they were aiming for Charlie. Hadn’t we seen the back of that in this country yet?
“I wanted to get even, wanted to make it all okay. I couldn’t do anything for Josh, he was off in the hospital for weeks, I don’t know what he was going through, he didn’t tell us. But I wanted to get them, the ones who’d done it. I spent weeks on it, trying to get around the Bill of Rights, trying to get the FBI to arrest every loathsome hate-group in the country. And none of it made me feel better. It got to the mid-terms and I just didn’t think I could take it anymore. I was losing it. I mean, this was three months later and I still felt the same. I went to the President, and I asked him for some leave.” Toby smiled. “He gave me 15 minutes. Told me to get up off the mat.” He fell silent.
“That was Rosslyn?”
Toby nodded. “Rosslyn,” he confirmed. “Josh is one of the unluckiest men I know. It’s like he’s a tragedy magnet or something.” He smiled at the expression. “But he’s lived to tell the tale so far.”
Matt didn’t know it, but he was looking statesman-like suddenly: his strong jaw set, his eyes decisive. “And you think I should go on without him.”
“You have to,” Toby said firmly. “I argued with Josh over you, told him you were the wrong choice, yelled at him for picking you without talking to me. I was arrogant, I was angry. There was stuff going on, but I went too far. We haven’t talked much since.”
“I’d figured something like that,” Matt confirmed. “When he stopped calling you. But he never said.”
“Too proud,” Toby guessed. “But we never fought about the right things.” He lowered his head and went on a little quieter. “Josh always believed that elections weren’t about the candidates but about the issues, and it was always my thing that you had to pick the right man for the job, because the job is the man and we never know what he’s going to have to face. You have to pick someone with guts and someone who cares about other people, really cares, not just pretends he does on some ABC special because he’s in the running and the cameras of the country are on him.” He looked Matt in the eye. “You’ve stayed here, Congressman, through all the… noise, all the people telling you to get back on the road, the press castigating you for staying too long. But you stayed because you genuinely care. Josh picked the right man, for both of us.”
Matt felt an unexpected glow of pride surge through him.
“He picked you for president, sir, and that’s what we’re going to make you. But we can’t do anything for you while you’re sitting here. And you can’t do anything for Josh. You’re not a doctor, you’re not a detective on the case, you’re the nominee for the next President of the United States. And the way you can honour Josh is by fighting and winning that election. We can get you the best staff in the world, and when Josh is on his feet again he’ll be back like a bat out of hell. But you can’t sit here and wait for that to happen. Or you’ll lose. And then all of this is for nothing.”
When it was boiled down, it was the same argument he’d been hearing for days, just the same one. But it was the first time he’d been touched by it, felt something stirring, heard the words of truth being spoken to him.
Of course he wasn’t doing any good to Josh right now. Donna had been right, the guy didn’t even know he was there. But when he woke up and discovered the Republicans had taken back the White House he was going to mightily kick Matt’s ass. And that just didn’t sound much fun.
“Will you join me?” he asked Toby openly.
He shook his head. “My place is with President Bartlet,” he said. “I need to stay until his term is over. But we can help you, we can put pressure on our Democrats in the two houses, push funding, feed you polling data. I’m on the end of the line if you need one-to-one advice. But you’ve got a good staff already sir otherwise you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Yeah, they’re good,” Matt admitted. “But Josh will be missed.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Toby said. “After Rosslyn he was on the phone to us within a week telling us what to do. It drove CJ Cregg up the wall.”
Matt smiled at him. “A week?”
“Yeah. So if you’ve got any big policy initiatives you were planning to bring in that Josh didn’t like the look of, I’d do them now while you have the chance.”
*************************************************************
“Of course you will have heard the news that the Democratic ticket for president finally took flight this morning. Congressman Matt Santos and his VP candidate Leo McGarry both attended a rally in LA this afternoon and I’d like to personally thank them both for snarling up the freeway traffic so completely for me when I was coming to work. You know what I’m saying? Nose to tail the whole way in. But it’s nice to see them making an effort at last. And good of course to hear that Josh Lyman is finally on the mend Ð isn’t it? Yeah, all best wishes to him. But you know what I have to say about the candidate, I have never heard a man sound less like he comes from Texas in my whole life. And where’s his hat? Ya can’t be from Texas if you don’t have a hat! I’m betting that he’s really from one of those rather respectable Democratic haunts like Boston or Providence and snuck down to Houston a couple of years ago to make himself seem more folksy to the masses. I’m not saying it’s not a good ploy, but come on! He didn’t think anyone was going to notice? They couldn’t have given him some elocution lessons on how to say y’all and order grits and the like?
“But no, all joking aside, good luck to all the candidates as the race gets underway. I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to the next six months of wall-to-wall coverage, headline stories and spin. It takes me right back to my childhood, then my teenage years, my twenties, then my late twenties, early thirties…”
*************************************************************
It was two weeks before Donna would let Matt come back to the hospital to visit Josh. At first, his actively guilty mind worried that she was doing it out of anger, but he could hardly complain.
It had been clear that she was having a conflict of interest when he’d announced he was returning the campaign trail, obviously feeling her place was at the hospital but at the same time not wanting to abandon her post. Donna had been sharp with him on several occasions, and she wasn’t the type to muck him around or make light of anybody’s emotions. So Matt considered her the perfect choice to leave behind in Houston. When he’d told her he was leaving, he’d taken one look at her face and told her to stay. He’d also told her to keep him up-to-date on everything, absolutely everything that happened while he was away and to inform him when would be a good time to visit. The recovery was going to be difficult, he knew that, and he didn’t want to muscle in at an awkward time, but he hadn’t really thought it would be two weeks before he’d get to see Josh again.
“He’s just not… up to it,” her tired voice had told him from the other end of the line. “He’s not… it’s not that he wouldn’t want to, I just don’t think that…” She’d sighed, frustrated at herself.
“Donna?”
The line was quiet. Then she said. “It’s hard, okay. It’s been hard. I just don’t think he’s up to seeing you yet.”
“Well, how is he doing?”
He could almost hear her smile a little. “He’s doing a bit better, trying hard, you know. There’s a lot of stuff he can’t manage. But he’s trying. I mean, he couldn’t speak a few days ago so, anything is up, you know.”
“Yeah, I guess. So when do you think I could come?”
“I don’t know. This is what?”
“What today?”
“Yeah?”
“Uh it’s Tuesday I think.”
“Right. I don’t know. Can you leave it to the weekend anyway?”
He’d had lots of worryingly vague conversations like this with his hospital informant. At first, there had been phone calls full of hope. Donna had talked all about the big move to the neurology ICU ward and the new things they’d had up there: the heavily monitored beds and the computer driven, fancy equipment. That had been on the evening of the Sunday Matt left, and after they’d moved him, Josh had been actively encouraged to wake up. Not that it achieved much, he hadn’t actually opened his eyes until lunchtime on Monday, and even then it had been brief. On the Tuesday, he’d been more fully awake, but unable to engage with the world in any way. Matt had been unsure what that meant until Donna explained that although his eyes were open, Josh was yet to look anyone directly in the face, and wasn’t responding to stimuli. She’d sounded depressed.
Wednesday, things had begun to look up a little. He was more awake, more agitated, but that had also meant, more self-aware. He’d reacted badly to being on the ventilator so they’d taken him off allowing him to take his first natural breaths in over a week.
Donna’s phone call that day had caught Matt campaigning in a noisy hall in Memphis, but he’d still been able to make out her happy voice telling him all about Josh’s first attempts to speak again. Not that they’d been very successful by the sounds of it, but it was a step forward.
With these things, though, as they were both learning, you took one step forward and two back. On the Thursday, his temperature had started to spike. With no infection evident, the medical explanation had been that suspected damage to his hypothalamus had caused a disruption to his autonomic functions causing his core temperature to rise. They’d been using a cooling blanket to try and get it down, she’d explained, and it hadn’t sounded nice.
Friday, from St Louis, he’d taken the call in his hotel room late in the evening, and they’d had a long discussion about him coming down on the Saturday to pay a visit. But Donna had been dead against if from the start. He was still not awake a lot of the time, she’d said. He still couldn’t talk really and wasn’t showing signs that he recognized anyone who visited anyway. Even the high-security visit by President Bartlet on the Friday afternoon had brought barely a flicker of interest from the patient.
Matt had accepted that eventually, admitting to himself that Ronna’s plan for a Saturday taking part in a whole range of little league sports was probably a much better use of his time right now.
And so it had progressed. Every day another report, some days two. Sometimes she sounded upset, mostly she sounded tired, occasionally there were a triumphant air to her voice. But the recovery was slow.
Josh was out of bed now, not up and walking that would be a while but in a chair. He was saying a few more things, and they’d moved out of the ICU into the plain ordinary neuro ward where Josh had a room to himself and a TV that he liked to have on even when he was sleeping. Which was a lot of the time.
“Has he asked anything about the campaign at all?”
“No,” she said reluctantly. “I mean I talk about you, out of desperation almost. It’s hard to talk constantly for hours on end, but I do talk about the campaign and what’s happening, what the Republicans are doing, what the polls say. He listens, but then again he listens to almost everything I say right now. He’s not asked about anything though. “
“Do you think he… remembers at all, or is he just not able to articulate the words?”
“I don’t know, Matt,” she said, unexpectedly using his first name. “I don’t know anything, I’m new to this. All I know is that he is improving, but I’d just like it to be faster. I’d like to have him back, you know?”
“Did you see that the guy’s been charged?”
“The one they arrested for this, yeah I saw it on the news. Trial will be a while yet though, the investigation’s still open.”
“I think the police think there were two of them.”
“Well, they’ll find the other person before too long.”
“Has Josh said anything about that? About the attack I mean?”
“No. A detective came up to try and talk to him, but he wasn’t up to it. The doctor’s said anyway that he probably won’t remember the day at all, but if he says anything at all, I’ll report it.”
On the Monday, a whole week after he’d first woken, his speech suddenly took a leap forward and for the first time he had been able to have something like a normal conversation, albeit a short one. She described how he was very muddled with his words, and had developed a bit of a stammer when he got stuck on one. But he was getting therapy for that, and everything else; physical therapy, speech therapy, mental exercises, memory games, co-ordination tests. He was also having tests done on his hearing as he’d gone a bit deaf on his left side. The depressed fracture they’d operated on and repaired had been just behind his ear so the doctors were pretty sure that was responsible. Would it improve? Like everything else there was no way of telling.
“Is he still talking in his sleep?”
“Yeah, he’s been doing that a bit today, it’s very weird.”
“Has he said anything interesting?”
“It’s just gobbledygook, rubbish. The nurses say it’s his brain trying to process all this new information while he’s asleep. It can’t do it when he’s awake.”
“And how is he… you know, how is he coping?”
She paused before answering. “He seems trapped. Frustrated. He seems more self-aware all the time and that just makes things worse because he becomes more aware that he can’t do things. He can’t even handle a spoon to feed himself, he can’t sit up without help, he can’t change the channel on the TV, not that I’m even sure he knows what he’s watching.”
Helen had flown out for a dinner on the Wednesday night hosted by the United Farmers of America, and she’d commented that he looked tired. And down. Very down. When they’d slept together that night, safe, warm and peaceful in the comfortable hotel bed, Matt couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than kiss her good night. He’d opened his arms to her warm body, but his tight grip around her was less sensual and more security and eventually she had pulled away to sleep alone on her side of the bed. As he frequently had been doing, Matt stayed awake for over an hour thinking, his mind going over the problems of the day, his guilt making the process more complicated.
Thursday, he thought Donna was going to renege on her suggestion that he should visit on Saturday. Josh had had another bad day, though she didn’t specify many details despite his urging. She had said something about more cognitive problems and frustration with his inability to perform simple tasks. He’d been emotional for no real reason, and an attempt at walking had ended in resolute failure.
But Matt was still keen to see his campaign manager again. Friday was going to be the deal breaker, and nothing he could do at any of his speeches, his campaign stops, his events, his private meetings, could do anything to change that.
*************************************************************
“With a one point gain in many of the mid-week polls, Matthew Santos may be in a somewhat happier mood as he heads back down to Texas this morning, reportedly to visit his campaign manager who still remains is the neurological wing of the Methodist Hospital in Houston. Josh Lyman was injured in an assault almost three weeks ago but is said to be making steady progress in recovering from his injuries, which included a depressed fracture of the skull, but he is not expected to retake his position for some time.
“It may be other issues the Congressman will be thinking of however, as loud questions trail him to Texas about the suitability of his VP candidate and team-mate on the Democratic ticket, Leo McGarry. With a self-confessed history of alcohol and substance abuse, plus a recent and near-fatal heart attack, many are questioning the wisdom of selecting Mr McGarry for what is likely to be a very tightly contested race. Speculation has been rife of a split within the party on the matter, and there have been a number of clashes between the staffers of both candidates.
“But both men, as you would expect, are keeping remarkably quiet in public about any problems behind the scenes and questions on Mr McGarry’s past are being quickly deflected with reminders of his long years of service both for President Jed Bartlet, and as Treasury Secretary in past administrations. Those questions can be expected to crop up at least for the immediate future, at the three or four press conferences that Matt Santos is currently holding a day. An unnamed high-ranking source within the Democratic Party was earlier this week quoted as saying:
“‘I’ve never seen a man so keen for press attention, and so well coifed when a camera comes his way.’
“With voting day still over five months away, let’s just hope the Congressman manages to keep his hair in place a little longer.
“For ABC news, I’m Peter Redgrave.”
*************************************************************
“Could you read that last bit back to me again?”
“You know, you could just read it yourself.”
“In a moving car? It makes me ill just looking at you reading it!”
Ronna rolled her eyes, but picked up the paper off her knee, and began to read: “On the subject of national security, Senator Stackhouse was more than plain about his feelings for the Democratic candidate. ‘Congressman Santos has yet to show the skill necessary for coping with the dangerous situations our country now finds itself in. With our own citizens bringing fear upon their fellow countrymen with fire and death, it needs a true leader to stand up to the challenges of our time.’”
Matt looked out the window at the highway speeding past, and caught the reflection of the police rider just to the car’s rear outside wheel. “I thought Amy was going to talk to Stackhouse,” he said quietly, watching the guy weaving slightly in the strong wind.
“As far as I know, she did,” said Ronna, folding up the paper and picking up another. “This one’s got a report on the speech you gave at the Young Mothers of Choice meeting last night: ‘With many now questioning the wisdom of the infamous Roe versus Wade, isn’t it about time the candidates woke up to the modern implications of abortion and stopped using vulnerable young women as poster girls for their own political egos?’”
“This sounds good,” he commented in a softly sarcastic voice.
“Santos has followed the traditions of many of his Democratic predecessors in cementing the idea of a woman’s right to chose, but said nothing on what that choice should be. Of course, there’s little to choose between the candidates themselves on this matter. Vinick, a well-known lover of Wade himself, has refused to be drawn on the issue of abortion, stating only that his views are already well known, and for now, there is nothing more to say on the matter. That sounds great, except, isn’t the man running for president? And if he doesn’t have anything to say on the matter, then just who can we expect to step up to the plate?”
“So actually, this guy doesn’t like either of us,” Matt said.
“It’s a woman, but pretty much. You want to hear another?” Ronna reached for the pile she’d stacked on the floor of the motorcade.
“I really don’t,” he assured her.
“They’re not all that negative.”
“Then you should have started with the positive ones first to buck me up,” he said.
“You need bucking up?” she was perusing another broadsheet.”
“This morning, yes, yes I do.”
“Amy’s going to talk to the Stackhouse office again, I wouldn’t worry about him too much. She say’s he’ll fall in line when it matters.”
“I’m not worried about Howard Stackhouse of all the people in this world,” he muttered, glancing back at the police rider as he was blown around again.
“Did you hear about the new Hoynes scandal?”
He sighed. “The man dropped out, they’re still interested in the bedroom tell-alls?”
“Apparently, though I’m not sure if anyone will believe this one after that last report was so widely discredited. “
“Maybe not. Does this road take us straight to the hospital?”
She glanced out the window on her side. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. It’s the 59 straight through the Downtown district, then Harmann Park. They’ve closed a section off for us.”
“Really? They’re allowed to do that?”
She looked at him. “You remember you’re running for president, right? I mean, you don’t think you’re running for a school board or something?”
“President? Oh that’s what all this fuss is about,” he put back.
She smiled, glad to see he hadn’t completely lost his dry humour as a result of all the weeks of hassle. “It shouldn’t be long now. Twenty minutes I guess.”
“Okay.”
They traveled in comparative silence for the remainder of the journey, Matt keeping his steadfast gaze out of the window, Ronna reading paper after paper, and occasionally circling things with the gel-ink pen she was rolling between her fingers. Pulling in at the hospital, Matt tried not to sigh in frustration as the secret service officers all leapt to do their job, and watch to make sure that none of these broken-legged, sickness-ravaged people could do him harm.
Ronna rode the elevator up with him, but they remained in silence until the doors pinged open to reveal a familiar, but not particularly welcome figure.
“Oh Lord,” Matt muttered to her as the secret service officers fanned out in front of them. “What was this lady’s name again?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered back quickly. “Baines was it? No, Barnes I think.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.” He glared at her, but had no time to take the conversation further as the hospital administrator came straight for them like she had them in a tractor beam.
“Congressman Santos, how nice to see you again.”
“Ms Barnes,” he said, but in a manner which made the name as ambiguous as possible. It actually came out more like ‘Bones’, but if she noticed, she was too polite to comment and merely said:
“Please, call me Carol.”
“Carol,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Your colleague is being taken care of just down the hallway,” Carol went on. “He’s lucky he received his injuries here in Houston as we have one of the best neurosurgery and aftercare units in the country.”
“Yes, that’ s lucky,” Matt agreed hesitantly, glancing at Ronna.
“And I’ve been told he’s doing really well,” she smiled encouragingly. “That must be good news for you.”
“Yes, great news. We’ve had someone here since the attack who’s been keeping us up to date on his condition, so we’re really happy he’s been doing better.”
She seemed just a little put out by that, as though she’d just had her thunder stolen. “Well, can I offer you a tour of the facility while you’re here? I know you’re busy, but it seems a shame to come all this way and only see the inside of one ward.”
“Oh, I’d love to, but…” he glanced at Ronna again and she duly took over.
“I’m afraid the Congressman’s very busy today as you can understand. He has to be at a local elementary school in two hours to speak to pupils, so I’m afraid he won’t have time for a tour. But,” she obligingly fell on her sword. “I’d love to see some more of the unit while Matt goes in to see Josh.” She smiled at her boss, clearly saying ‘you owe me big time’.
He smiled back. “You say it’s just down the hallway,” he asked.
“Room ten,” she said. “You can’t miss it.”
As Ronna set off on her hospital tour, Matt wandered down further in the neurological wing feeling the fingers of trepidation begin to caress his insides like hot worms.
What was he going to encounter this time? The thought made him almost want to turn around and go back outside to the car. But he didn’t.
Somehow it was always harder to accept a mental change in a person rather than a physical one. He’d sat through both his parents declining before him, and while it had been truly gut-wrenchingly awful to see his father in such pain, the sight of his mother, a formally robust, sharp and witty person, reduced to a drooling, helpless state where she couldn’t even remember her own children’s names, had been almost too much to bear.
Donna had told him that Josh was improving, but he wasn’t going to be the person he’d known, the person who’d lived and breathed his campaign for the previous six months, the person who’d won him the nomination.
Stopping outside room 10, he stood for a minute as the secret service hovered silently by his shoulder. Then he knocked gently and went in.
Suspended in a corner of the room, the TV was blaring out, some basketball game by the look of it, and both Josh and Donna had their eyes trained on the screen when he walked through the door. She was comfortably dressed, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she was sitting in a padded chair drawn up beside the bed. Josh himself was stretched out wearing sweats and running shoes with white socks. Matt gave him the once over as quickly as he could. He was looking tired and worn, thinner than he had been, and his hair was cut short though most of the dark wounds that had previously been evident about his head and face were no longer really visible from a distance. He actually looked quite peaceful, his hands resting comfortably in his lap, his head and back propped up on any number of hospital pillows. A large fan was switched on beside the bed blowing a cool, welcoming breeze that occasionally ruffled his clothes, but apart from that he wasn’t moving at all.
They both looked towards him as he came in. Donna got up smiling, which had to be a good sign.
“Congressman, it’s good to see you. I’m glad you could make it.”
“Thanks,” he nodded a bit awkwardly then turned his eyes to his campaign manager. “How are you doing Josh?”
Josh smiled as well, and Matt was relieved to see that it was an honest smile, not a confused one which would suggest he hadn’t been recognized. “I’m g-good Matt, thanks.”
He seemed to get stuck on the ‘g’ in good, like it was a hard word. Matt recalled Donna telling him about the stutter. He tried to ignore it.
“Well, it looks like you’re all set up in here,” he said cheerfully, glancing around. The room was indeed well-appointed, a bright window on the left side of the bed, a doorway leading off, presumably to a bathroom, equipment stored neatly against the walls, a couple of bunches of flowers resting on various tables.
“It’s quite a nice hospital, actually,” Donna said, re-taking her seat. “I mean, of hospitals I have seen, this has to rank near the top.”
Matt looked back up at the TV, which was still on. “Since when did you like basketball?” he inquired.
Josh moved his head a little to look accusingly at Donna: “I don’t like basketball?” he demanded shakily.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s sport, Josh. You’re a guy, you like everything.”
“Oh, I beg to differ!” Matt protested. “I’ve never seen much point to the luge myself.”
Josh’s eyes found him again. “What’s luge?” he wondered.
“That’s where these guys fling themselves down a mountain on a sledge,” he said. “You see it at the winter Olympics. “
“Sounds s-silly,” he said, getting stuck a little on an ‘s’ this time.
“It’s pretty dappy,” Matt agreed, looking around for a seat and trying to ignore the agent who’d come into the room with him. The guy was trying to be inconspicuous and was being patently unsuccessful. Matt dragged a plastic chair out from the wall and sat in on the opposite side of the bed from Donna. He’d been a little surprised that she hadn’t offered to leave and wondered if Josh had been worried about seeing him on his own.
“So,” he went on. “What’s the food like here? Pretty rotten I would imagine.”
Josh blinked a little uncomfortably and looked over at Donna.
“Yeah, despite the good hospital, the food’s not very nice,” she said for him. “We’ve had some… issues with it.”
“Oh,” he sensed he was in a bad area so tried to lighten the conversation. “Well, how about the nurses? It’s always nice having a pretty nurse to run after you.”
That made Josh smile a little. “They’re alright,” he said slowly. “Some of them.”
“They’re very good,” Donna agreed. “They’re patient which is what you want.”
“They need to be with m-me,” Josh said.
“You’re always required patience,” Donna told him, causing him to smile again.
“They work you hard?” Matt wondered.
“Yes, every every day,” he said with feeling. “Downstairs, trying to g-get me to walk. And exercises all the all the time.”
“Are you close to walking yet?”
Josh rolled his head back and forth on the pillow to indicate a no. “It’s pathetic,” he said. “I feel like a kid.”
“But you’re getting better?”
“So they say.”
“You are. I saw you down in the ICU. You’re much better now then you were down there.”
Josh’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You were here before?"
Matt shot Donna an accusing look. She simply pressed her lips together and reached over to pat Josh’s hand. “I told you that, remember? Matt was here, and lots of people were here visiting you. Joey came with her little baby, Charlie was here, Sam was here. But Matt was here a lot.”
He still looked confused, but met Matt’s eye. “She tells me stuff. I don’t remember,” he explained.
“That’s alright,” he said, smiling to hide his concern. “My wife tells me stuff all the time that I don’t remember. Or at least, so she claims.”
“Yeah.”
“So, you want to hear about the campaign?”
“Yeah,” Josh was obviously trying to muster enthusiasm. “We w-watched the news earlier. You seem to be doing okay.”
“We picked up a point in the polls so Vinick’s now at 49, we’re at 46.”
“How long till the election?”
“Uh, what is it, 18 weeks something like that.”
“You’ll pick up the points,” Josh stated, closing his eyes tiredly.
“So Amy tells me. You know Ronna hired her as head of strategic planning.”
“Amy Gardner?”
He saw Donna grimace out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah. She said you’d been planning to bring her in on the campaign anyway, and she’s helped us out quite a bit.”
“I was going to bring her in?”
“Yeah, so Ronna said.”
“Amy, my girlfriend?”
“I’m not sure she’d like you referring to her in that way, but yeah, that Amy.”
“I don’t r-remember. But maybe if it happened just before I was whacked. Some police guy tried to to talk to me about that, but I couldn’t remember it.”
“The doctors said that’s normal,” Donna said, shrugging. “It’s just hard because it means there’s no first-hand evidence, no ID parade. I’m afraid these guys are going to get off.”
“Donna, look, I’m no lawyer, but I’d say there’s a pretty good case against them,” Matt tried to assure her.
“You’re not a lawyer?” Josh asked unexpectedly. “Somehow I can picture you as a lawyer.”
“Really? Well my dad wanted me to be one, but it wasn’t for me.”
“What happened?”
“I guess I didn’t get the grades.”
“I can picture you in a courtroom,” Josh was smiling to himself, almost off in a little world of his own. “Just like my dad. Fighting Ð for justice.” He turned his attention to Donna suddenly. “Could I have a drink?” he muttered.
“Yeah,” she got up and grabbed the tumbler beside the bed, holding it so that he could suck through its straw. He didn’t even attempt to hold the cup himself.
Matt tried to look elsewhere, hating seeing him like that. It was a private moment between them anyway, Donna so easily slipping into the role of carer and Josh accepting her as docilely as if she had been a parent. Or a spouse. The thought slipped in before he could stop it. They were almost like a married couple, so attuned to each other.
As Donna sat the cup down and re-took her seat, Matt tried to strike up one last bit of conversation, sensing somehow that this visit was not going to last as long as he’d imagined. “Well, your position as campaign manager is there for you if and when you decide to re-take it,” he said sincerely. “I know you’ve got a ways to go yet before you’re going to feel up to coming back to work, but we all miss you, and we’d like to see you back.”
“Thank you,” Josh almost murmured, his tired eyes closing once more. “Be a while though.”
“Take your time. Ronna’s doing a good job for the moment, she’s really growing into the role, and we’ve been getting help from all quarters. Even your old friend Toby Ziegler’s been chipping in with some advice.
That made Josh open his eyes again. “Toby? But he hates you.”
Matt grinned. “I talked him round.”
“Knew you had it in you,” he said, his eyes closing with finality.
Matt looked over at Donna and she raised her eyebrows and indicated the door with her head. It wasn’t clear if Josh had actually fallen asleep, so Matt felt farewells were at least in order. He stood up and moved his chair back. “Well, I’ll keep in contact,” he said. “And I hope you continue to feel better Josh. We all miss you out there.”
There was no response, and Donna got to her feet. “I’ll walk you out,” she said quietly.
They got outside the door and Matt walked just a little bit down the corridor with his hands in his pockets, sighing and gathering himself.
Donna waited for him.
“Well,” he said finally, coming back.
“Was it what you expected?” she wondered, crossing her arms.
“Yes and no,” he nodded. “Is he just tired all the time?”
“Pretty much. He can sit and watch TV for ages, but doing anything else really tires him out. He’s got therapy in a little while anyway, so it’s good he has a nap.”
Matt looked down, unsure what to think. “This must have been hard for you.”
She shrugged. “Sure. But you get used to it, somehow. It’s people that just come to visit who get the shock, you know. They’ve not been prepared.”
“Well,” he said again. “I better go rescue Ronna from that administrator woman.”
“Carol Barnes?”
“You know her?”
“Oh she’s been around,” Donna said with a touch of venom. “She came in this morning to talk to us, first time she’d been in since you left two weeks ago, so it’s fairly clear what her particular interest in this case is.”
“She’s giving Ronna a hospital tour right now.”
Donna grimaced. “Poor Ronna. Anyway, I’d better get back in. He gets upset if he wakes up alone.”
“Alright. Any idea when you might be coming back?”
“To the campaign? I don’t know. I want him to be okay first, not 100% but, able to cope on his own. His mother’s just not up to being here 24 hours a day, and there’s no one else. I don’t want him being here with just doctors and nurses. I want him to have someone.”
Matt touched her arm reassuringly. “You’re doing a good thing, Donna. It’s good he’s got you. Everyone should have someone when something like this happens.”
*************************************************************
Eight days later, Donna phoned Matt to tell him she’d be coming up for the big rally they were holding in New York. She was planning to do a couple of days work, then pop back down to Houston to make sure Josh was coping okay without her. But he’d been improving immensely since the Congressman’s visit. In fact, that day had been a bit of a turnaround, and Donna had been wondering if the sight of his old boss has spurred Josh to work harder on getting better so that he could get back out there. Certainly he’d been watching the news more and trying hard to retain more information and get back into the swing of the normal world.
There had been something in her voice though when she’d called, something which made Matt think she wasn’t telling the whole truth. He wondered if they’d argued maybe, if Josh had thrown her out. Of if something else had happened.
When Donna found him in the prep room of Madison Square Garden where the rally was being held, he was surrounded by staff who were getting him ready for his big speech, and throwing questions at him that he might expect from the educated audience they would be getting in. This was New York, after all. These Democrats would know what they were talking about.
“Congressman, are you still planning to pursue your policy of dramatically increasing the number of days in the school year?” Amy Gardner was saying in her nasal tones as Donna entered the room.
“I still firmly believe that our school year should be increased to match much of the rest of the world, which is pulling ahead of us in so many areas of academia. But the exact number of days we’d like to see added is still being discussed with teachers unions and parents’ associations.”
“Are you saying that parents need schools to keep their children occupied for more of the year?” someone else threw at him. “Surely that’s state control gone mad.”
“I don’t believe it is,” he said. “All we’re trying to do is give our kids the same opportunities as children can expect in Germany and Japan. I want American children to be the best-educated children in the world, not lagging behind in basic subjects like math and English. Our kids should be the best in the world, and this policy is one of the many ways we’re looking at to improve that, as well, of course, as increasing funding to schools and restructuring the way that much of the teaching goes on.”
He noticed Donna hiding at the back of the gaggle during this speech, made eye-contact and nodded discreetly to her, but wasn’t given time to speak.
“With President Bartlet essentially reversing the Democratic Party’s long-standing position on school vouchers, do you think this is an issue which will need to be seriously addressed in the next few years?” was the next question.
“First of all, I don’t believe President Bartlet did reverse the position on school vouchers, he agreed for a limited trial programme to be held in the DC area at the urging of the mayor, also a Democrat I might add. Examining the possibilities doesn’t mean reversing the position, it means gathering all the information you can before making your decision, and I’d like to see the result of that trial and talk to some of the children involved before I take a stand one way or the other on the issue.”
“Are your children attending private school , Congressman?”
“My children attend a public school in Houston that my wife and I feel has a very high standard of education. It’s one I’d like to see at all schools around the country. And that’s why education is going to be high on my list of priorities when I make it to the White House.”
Ronna, who was perched on a table to Matt’s side, had also caught sight of Donna and knowing that the Congressman would want to speak to her, shut the questioning down.
“Okay folks, thank you. We’re going to take ten. You’re all doing great, but I want you to go away and think up some really tough ones for when we get back. I want him stumped.”
The crowd began to disperse, the volume of conversation in the room instantly going up. Amy had spotted Donna too, but ignored her and walked away with as much of a strut as she could manage.
Donna ignored her back and made a b-line for Matt and Ronna who was still at his side putting the top back on her pen. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey, how was your flight?”
“It was good. Short, good weather, no delays. Everything you want really. When does this all kick off?”
“Four hours,” Ronna said. “We’ve got a couple of statements for you to work on, and there’s a press gaggle in an hour and a half and that you might want to take part in.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. But, can I talk to the two of you somewhere a bit quieter?”
Ronna looked at Matt who’d been sitting there with his arms crossed, as if waiting for Donna to ask that very question.
“There’s a private dressing room at the back,” he said. “We can talk there.”
As they walked across the prep room, Donna felt the eyes of nearly all the staff on her. Most of them knew who she was and where she’d been and why hadn’t been campaigning with them, and they were curious as hell to know what was going on.
Matt shut the door to the little room behind them. It was your classic dressing room, table with the light bulbs around it, a screen in the corner, the smell of nerves and grease paint clinging to the walls.
Donna looked around, feeling almost as if the room amplified her own trepidation at what she had to say.
“Well?” Matt wondered. “What is it?”
She took a deep breath, deciding there was to be no beating around the bush. “Josh has been diagnosed as having epilepsy.”
There was a small, shocked silence.
“Okay.” Matt said slowly. “I don’t know if I understand that. I thought epilepsy was something you were born with.”
“It is, but apparently you can also develop it after a head injury like this,” Donna told him quietly.
“But…” Matt seemed to be having trouble taking the information in. “When was he diagnosed?”
“Two days ago,” she said. “He had a seizure, I wasn’t there but he was with his mother. They said it was the second one he’d had since he’d woken up from the coma, though I didn’t know that. If you have a certain number of seizures in a set time after this kind of injury then they’re suspicious and they run a test called an EEG, which shows up abnormal brain activity. They did that, and came up with a diagnosis.”
“Oh God,” Ronna said putting a hand to her mouth. “I saw him have a seizure when he came into the ER, after the assault. The nurse said it was normal, she said it was normal. She didn’t say anything about epilepsy.”
“They wouldn’t have known at that time,” Donna said comfortingly. “But, it’s been a big shock.”
“So, what does it mean?” Matt asked. “Is it treatable?”
“They can treat it with drugs, he’ll be on drugs for it for the rest of his life probably.”
“Is it life-threatening, is it going to be a health issue?”
“I’m just learning about this too,” she said his words causing her to look upset for the first time. “From what I’ve learnt at the hospital, it’s something you can live with. They have a specialist centre down there called the Baylor Epilepsy Center and Josh is booked in for some sessions with one of their therapists. I’m hoping to sit in and learn some more at the same time. But I thought the two of you should know what had happened because I think it’s going to affect his decision on when he comes back to work.”
Ronna still had her hand to her mouth, obviously very shocked by the news. Matt just seemed to be angry.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” he demanded.
“What?”
“He was diagnosed two days ago. Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because I wanted to tell you in person,” she explained placidly. “It’s a big thing and I knew I was going to come up for the rally.”
“How did he take the news?” Ronna wondered.
“About the epilepsy? It’s hard to tell. He’s was upset, I think, mainly because he had no idea what had happened to him and that was pretty scary. His mom was very upset, mainly because she’d seen the seizure. She’d thought he was dying at the time. “
“That must have been terrifying,” Ronna sympathized. “I mean, she’s quite old, isn’t she.”
“In her seventies.”
“Why does this affect Josh’s decision on coming back to work?” Matt asked suddenly. “What difference does it make?”
Donna sighed a little. “I think he’s realizing his limitations,” she explained. “After you visited, he had this spurt of inspiration and began doing really well at everything and trying so hard to improve. Like he had a goal. But he’s just…” she took a breath. “He’s not up to doing what he was doing before, he’s truthfully not. And it upsets him, upsets him deeply. But I think he had managed to convince himself that he could get better quickly. This diagnoses has knocked him back because he’s realized that there are actually substantial things wrong with him. And he has to fix those first before he can do anything else.”
“I want him back,” Matt said earnestly, looking angrily into her eyes as though she were the one keeping Josh from his campaign. “I want him back,” he said again, then, hands in pockets, he stalked from the room.
Ronna watched him go then put a comforting arm around Donna’s shoulders. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you a cup of coffee and something sweet before you do any work. It’s sounds like you’ve had a pretty tough couple of days. You like donuts?”
*************************************************************
Matt was surprised to find that Josh wasn’t in his room. Of course, he shouldn’t have been, Josh was by all accounts up on his feet by now and was probably having physical therapy or something else medically related.
“He’s out on his walk right now if you want to wait for him, Congressman,” a young nurse said as she squeezed by his entourage of secret service officers and bustled into the room, evidently to change the sheets on the unmade bed.
“His walk?”
She nodded enthusiastically.“ Mr Lyman takes a short, unsupervised walk around the hospital corridors in the afternoon at the moment. He’s in training.”
“These hospital corridors?” Matt asked, thinking it rather a dull outlook for a man trying to get well.
“Yes, as much as he can manage. He headed out about five minutes ago, so he won’t be back for about twenty minutes or so. You can wait if you want.” She started to pull sheets off the bed.
“Do you know which direction he went in?”
She stopped what she was doing and frowned in thought. “Well, he usually heads towards the nephrology wards first of all, but I have a feeling he was headed in the direction of paeds today.”
“The children’s ward? Where’s that?”
She smiled in acquiescence, “It’s straight down the corridor you came up, take a left just after the elevators. You should catch him up pretty fast.”
“Thank you.”
“I think you’re great, by the way,” she called after him as he turned to go. “I’ll be voting for you in November.”
The Santos campaigning smile came into operation, though his head was far away from thinking about votes right now. “Thank you, that’s very kind,” he said.
Heading down the corridor she directed, Matt looked around him at the drab hospital walls. What a place to be stuck day after day, when your only change of scenery was a walk around wards of sick people. In fact, he was concentrating so hard on what everything looked like, that it didn’t take him long to get lost. No elevators came into site, and glancing around at the secret service officers, he could tell that he was making them nervous. “Alright,” he stopped in the middle of an empty corridor. “Did we take a wrong turn somewhere along the way?”
“Sir, there’s paediatrics straight ahead,” on e of the officers told him, and sure enough there was a sign hanging from the ceiling with a big arrow pointing to the appropriate department.
Looking out for Josh, and picking up the pace a little, he was distracted enough to not notice his campaign manager, who was coming slowly along a corridor which disappeared off to the left. Josh watched his boss go by, a little bemused look on his face, then called out to him: “Matt?”
The Congressman came to a sharp stop and turned back. “Josh,” he exclaimed. “We were looking for you.”
“So I can see,” Josh grinned at him, coming out from the corridor at a slow, slightly unsteady pace. Still, he was walking unaided, and he looked much better than he had done the last time Matt has visited. “Do you mind if we keep walking?” he asked. “Once I’m off I like to keep going.”
“Sure,” Matt agreed easily, taking in Josh’s Mets sweater as they set off at a snails pace. “I’m more of a Rangers fan myself,” he said, indicating the top.
Josh looked down at his front. “Not the Astros?”
“Nah, my dad grew up in Arlington. The allegiance was cemented early on. That a new shirt?
“Yeah. Donna got me this when she w-was up in New York. Your thing went well by the look of the TV.”
So he hadn’t lost the slight stutter just yet. “Yeah, it was great. We went down a storm.”
“And Atlanta yesterday.”
“Sure, that was great too. Bit hot. Bit too hot actually.”
“You going to put global warming b-back on the campaign schedule then?” Josh joked.
“Maybe not just yet.”
“You should. There’s a a,” he seemed to search for a few seconds. “Hurricane warning out here.”
“Yeah, I saw that on TV. We’re flying out tonight though, so I’m hoping we won’t be caught.”
Josh nodded, then stopped suddenly and let Matt walk a couple of paces in front, before crossing behind him and coming along his left side. Matt looked at him curiously.
“Deaf on the left,” he explained quickly.
“Oh right, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry about the other thing too,” Matt said, seeing a way into the topic. “The epilepsy.”
Josh lifted his shoulders just a little bit in a shrug, concentrating hard on where he was walking. “It’s not the best news I’ve ever heard,” he said. “But it’s not the w-worst either.”
“Donna said you wanted to talk to me about it.”
Josh walked on in silence for a few more steps as they began moving into the corridors of paediatrics with its bright pictures on the walls and the noisy buzz of children. Then Josh paused in his stride. “This is as far as I go,” he said, turning back.
Matt turned with him automatically, still waiting for him to reply.
He took a few more paces before saying. “I wanted to say sorry,” he said evenly.
“For what?”
“Leaving you, in the lurch like this. I’ve decided n-not to come back.”
“To the campaign?” Matt asked incredulously, though from what Donna had said, he’d been expecting this. “Why?”
Josh stopped again and looked at him ruefully. “You can see see me can’t you?” he wondered. “You see me here, how I am?”
“I see you getting better every time I come to visit!” Matt exclaimed sincerely. “You can walk, your talking is better, you seem much better. I see huge improvement.”
“You see what you want to,” Josh said shrewdly. “But, I’m not who I was. And it’s not fair to go b-back when I can’t do it anymore.”
“You’re getting better Josh. A few more weeks who can say?”
Josh just looked sad. “I can’t remember things. I can’t find words. I don’t know who people are. How can can I do that job?”
“I want you to. I can’t do this without you.”
And there was the nub of the whole thing, the issue he’d been dancing around the whole time. Matt was scared of doing this alone. Josh was his safety net, his one light in all that darkness of spin and politics and crap he took from everyone else. This was the man whose brilliant plan had sucked him into all of this when he’d been determined to quit politics for good. This was the man who’d taken him to New Hampshire a nobody and brought him out a contender. This was the man who was supposed to take him to power, not Ronna, not Ned, not Amy Gardner. He wanted that person to be Josh, no one else deserved it. And he’d been telling himself that it could still happen. He’d stopped believing on those long nights in the ICU but a glimmer of light had gone back into his soul the day Josh woke, and he’d told himself that everything would be okay. It would take a while, but the Josh he knew wouldn’t be kept away from the campaign, even if you tied him to a hospital bed.
This Josh didn’t want the job. He was tired. He was stuttering. He was afraid. Matt wasn’t sure he knew him anymore.
“Josh, I’m running for president,” he said passionately.
Josh began walking again. “I know that sir.”
“You’re supposed to be with me.”
“I can’t be,” he said.
Matt opened his mouth to say something else about duty and loyalty when he realized that Josh had stopped once more. His was standing swaying slightly with his eyes shut and a pained look on his face. When he opened his eyes they were wet, and he took a strange sounding breath.
“Are you alright?” he asked with genuine concern, looking around for any medical personnel who could come to the rescue.
Josh didn’t answer, instead, he moved a foot or so to the left where there was a window with a low, broad sill, and he sat down slowly, still breathing strangely.
“I’ll go and find someone,” Matt told him, and looked around again for a nurse or a doctor or anyone at all. But Josh stopped him.
“No, don’t. I’ll be fine.”
The Congressman came up in front of him looking him up and down. He didn’t look fine. In fact Matt was a bit worried he was going to have an epileptic seizure or something, and was rather shocked to find that the thought disturbed him more than he might have imagined.
“Are you sure? I’ll got back and find someone to help you back to your room.”
Josh just shook his head and closed his eyes. “They’ll come looking when I’m not back.”
Matt was unsure, but waited anyway. Josh eventually opened his eyes again, and smiled unexpectedly at the sight of his boss hovering over him like a mother hen.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m fine. This happens all the time.” Matt slowly seemed to calm down a little at his words. “You see me for two minutes,” Josh went on. “And you think I’m cured.”
Matt stepped away from him and put his back to the opposite wall. “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”
Josh dropped his head back carefully against the window, and sat in silence, seemingly happy to say nothing more.
“What was your plan?” Matt asked him eventually.
“My plan?”
“To win the election. You must have had one of your grand plans,” Matt grinned.
“You’re w-wanting a scoop?”
“Anything would help right now.”
Josh seemed to consider the question. “You’re a good man, sir. That’s your strength.”
“Arnie Vinick’s not a good man?”
“He’s clever.”
“I’m not clever?”
“Don’t,” he smiled. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
“Arnie Vinick’s a clever man. He’s going f-for all the states, because he can. Demo-crats will vote for him. He’s broadly popular.”
“You’re not filling me with confidence.”
“You can beat him simply by b-being who you are. People will follow you, because of who you are. Your policies are good, you s-speak like a man who’s president. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you can win. Don’t think about Vinick.”
“Can I call you and ask for advice now and again?”
He rolled his head a little against the window. “I would think so.”
“Okay. Then I won’t bug you to come back. I want you there of course, but I’m not going to bug.”
“Thanks.”
“Joshua Lyman, did you confuse yourself with an athlete again?”
The voice came from down the corridor, Matt turned to see the nurse he’d met earlier coming bustling along pushing a wheelchair in front of her.
“That’s Jean,” Josh sighed. “She thinks she’s funny.”
“She knows she’s funny,” Jean said drawing even with the two of them. “Hello again Congressman.”
He smiled back at her bright greeting, feeling the uncomfortable sense that this woman had rather an over-enthusiastic interest in him.
“So, sunshine. You need a ride?” she asked Josh.
He just nodded tiredly and reached for the wheelchair, pulling himself into it and pushing down the foot rests so that he could get comfortable. He looked up at Matt. “Thanks, for coming to see me,” he said, reaching into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulling out a notebook. He flipped a couple of pages over then wrote something in big scrawly letters.
“You writing me a note?” the Congressman wondered, confused.
“Myself,” he corrected, flipping the notebook back. “Or I’ll forget I’ve seen you.”
“Ah.”
“I’ve got an appointment with a therapist,” Josh said. “Can you say hi to Donna for me?”
“Sure.”
He smiled one last time, then Jean began to wheel him away back towards his room.
Matt watched them go, feeling somehow that he’d just been handed a torch.
*************************************************************
“And things aren’t looking good for Congressman Matthew Santos again tonight as polls show him down significantly against his opponent following gains Senator Arnie Vinick has made in the areas of health, the economy, and of course, most importantly, national security. With only three months to go until the election, the recent series of attacks from home-grown terrorists has created a climate of fear among many in the country. And Democrats are wondering if there’s anything their candidate can do to win back popular support. For CNN news, I’m Shirley Craven.”
*************************************************************
Time seemed to fly past for Donna once she was back on the campaign trail. Days bled into weeks, turned into months as they moved from hotel to hotel, never staying in one place for more than 48 hours. She lost track of her life somewhere out there in middle America, never sure where she was when she woke up, never eating properly, falling out of contact with her friends, neglecting to call her family except when she could scrape together some free time that wasn’t taken up with reading background information, watching news reports or lying passed out on her bed.
She never stopped worrying about the election and the polls and the commentaries in the papers. She caught colds that she couldn’t lose from allowing herself to become run down and eat rubbish all the time. She started to only wash her hair every few days as she simply didn’t have the time to dry it. Her suitcase packing skills became fantastic, and she could throw her stuff into a bag in a manner that kept things crease free, in record time.
Matt found her invaluable. He’d told her, his exact words were: “Donna, you’re invaluable.” And she liked it. She liked being useful, liked being able to stretch herself and liked that people noticed her worth and rewarded her for it. This was exactly what she’d been looking for when she’d left Josh all that time ago.
Josh.
She went to visit him at first while he was still in the hospital, but he was there almost four months in the end, and a girl who didn’t have time to wash her hair didn’t really have time to pop on a plane to Houston every five minutes. So the visits became less frequent. Then they became phone calls.
He had recovered a lot of what he’d lost and learned to manage what he couldn’t recover, adding to that the task of learning to manage what he’d been left with. The epilepsy was under control, his cognitive skills were 100-fold improved from what they had been in those worrying early days, and he’d even recovered a small amount of hearing on his left side.
He seemed well-enough whenever she spoke to him, though she knew he was still having problems and one of the nurses had told her that he’d started to have inexplicable but not unexpected headaches, common with head injuries. But he never complained, never made her feel guilty that she was on the campaign trail instead of at his bedside. He just got on with things. When he finally left the hospital, 110 days after he’d been carried into it, he went to stay with his mother for a week to get used to the real world again, then he flew back to DC and settled back into his apartment there.
That was the point where, if she’d had the time, she would have started to worry about him as he just disappeared inside his house and went off the radar. As far as she knew, he never went out, except when he needed to for check-ups and essential food shopping, and he tried to avoid having people over. CJ had reported that she’d tried to visit three times, and on the third occasion (her schedule being if anything more hectic than Donna’s) she’d practically forced him to let her in saying she couldn’t afford to take the time off just to come and ring his bell. She said he was fine, just seemed a bit down: “And who can blame him, locked up in that apartment all day with no one to talk to.”
He hadn’t made any inquiries into getting a new job, Donna didn’t even know what he was living off, though presumably he qualified for some handicap benefit, plus she was pretty sure his mom would be helping him out.
Money wasn’t the problem though, and she knew it.
But much to her own frustration, she couldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about Josh, because things weren’t going particularly great for her either all of a sudden. Vinick was storming ahead in every poll. He’d hired Bruno Gianelli in a move they’d all grudgingly agreed was a master stroke, and together, they seemed to be taking on every single state. They were fighting for votes in Texas for god’s sake, and Pennsylvania was fast becoming a happy memory. Washington State looked like it was going, Ohio was wavering, California was a gonner and New Hampshire had never really recovered from Santos’ first disastrous visits there in the primary all that time ago.
It was a mess. It was red across the map, and no matter how hard they tried, nothing was changing the tide of support towards Vinick and away from them. Ronna, who it was clear to everyone, was now out of her depth, had practically suffered a nervous breakdown through all of this, and had finally announced in early October, that nothing short of a miracle could help them to win now.
Which was kinda funny really, since the next day, a miracle of sorts arrived.
*************************************************************
Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring…
“Hello?”
“Josh, are you watching the news?”
“Donna?”
“Yes, are you watching the news?”
“News?” he sounded confused, and she could hear things moving about on the other end of the phone. “Donna, it’s 5.30 in the morning. I’m sleeping here.”
“Put the TV on Josh.”
“Donna, I don’t think you understand the necessity of…”
“Put the TV on, now Josh!”
He gave an annoyed sigh, then she could hear more things moving around, and the sound of a television clicking on. “What am I watching?”
“MSNBC,” she said, and heard the distinctive sound of someone going through channels.
“This better be important,” he grumbled. “Where are you anyway?”
“Seattle. And it is important. Have you found the channel yet?”
“Just a second… there it is.”
“…with the state of play as it is, are the police telling you anything else at all Rick?”
“Very little Geena, of course with these two arrests there’s been a lot of speculation and a source inside the FBI told us a little while ago that the movement tonight is all down to the information that was gathered on these bank accounts we heard about from Peter just a few moments ago.”
“These are the two bank accounts of Roger Nicholson, aka Chuck Roads.”
“That’s right, one of the two men currently serving time for the assault on Joshua Lyman way back in May.”
“Now we’ve heard a lot about these accounts tonight, uh, what if any, do you think the connection is here between Chuck Roads and Geoffrey Cline?”
“Well, it’s pure speculation, Geena, but with the evidence we’ve got so far, all we can say for sure is that there does appear to be a link between them. Geoffrey Cline has been working for some time as an assistant to Peter Brackhurst, the Communications Director of Governor Ray Sullivan, the Republican nominee for Vice President, and the Republicans have been quick to distance themselves from any connection to this case tonight. But it does seem to be a bit of a coincidence that there is this connection between a prominent member of the Republican campaign for president and the assault of a prominent member of the Democratic campaign for president. We understand that Cline is currently undergoing questioning, as is his associate Juliet Giles, and we have to presume that they are being asked about what link they might have to the case.”
“Donna, what is this?”
“Shut up and listen Josh.”
“…not going to speculate on that area, but when pressed, he did admit that they were looking very carefully at any links between the accounts of Roads and Cline, though he was quick to stress that the investigation is at a preliminary stage. “
“Thank you Rick Galston. Back to you, Peter, with this coming at such a critical time in the campaign, what immediate effect, if any, do you think this is going to have on popular support for the Republicans in the run up to the election?”
“It’s hard to say at this time. These are just allegations right now and no charges have been brought, but if it is discovered that there is a link between the Republican campaign and this attack, then I can’t see how it won’t affect Arnold Vinick’s popularity.”
“Even if there is no link whatsoever between the Senator and these individuals?”
“Even then. The American public is suspicious of anything in the run up to a general election, and allegations of impropriety within the party are just as damaging as anything specific to the candidate right now.”
“Donna really, what the hell is going on?”
“Wait… no, the Congressman wants to talk to you. I’m gonna put you on speaker phone. There’s just Ronna, him and me in the room.”
“Josh?”
“Sir, what is this all about?”
“The police arrested Geoffrey Cline and Juliet Giles from the Republican campaign a little over two hours ago,” Matt started to explain.
“Yeah, I got that bit,” Josh’s tired and angry tones came over the speaker.
“They’re saying there’s a link between Cline and the men who assaulted you, by implication they’re saying he paid them to do it.”
“What?” Josh sounded horrified.
“There was money paid into an account that Chuck Roads, who’s the main guy they charged, held under an assumed name that the police never found in the course of their investigation. But Roads was trying to set up another account through a go-between while he was in jail. The police were monitoring his visitors and his mail so they got suspicious when he started making allusions to moving money and apparently: ‘waiting for the second payment’. They thought he’d been involved in bank raids and this was stolen money, so they tracked down his associate on the outside, and on questioning, this man implicated Geoffrey Cline who he said was due to pay his friend Roads money from a legitimate business deal.”
“Wait, wait,” they could hear him sigh noisily. “I’m confused.”
“Chuck Roads, a guy who has three priors for assault and two for robbery, was sitting with $30,000 in an account under an assumed name when he went to jail for assaulting you,” Matt tried to explain. “The money went into that account three days before you were attacked. And it came indirectly from a foreign bank account set up under the name of Geoffrey Cline.”
“Cline paid Chuck Roads and that other guy?” now Josh sounded incredulous. “Why?”
“They wanted you out of the way,” Donna said.
“We don’t know that yet,” Matt countered. “We don’t know what’s been going on.”
“Okay I’m hypothesizing,” Donna broke in, sounding angry.
“Hypothesizing what?” Josh wondered.
“That prominent members of the Republican Party paid a couple of petty criminals $30,000 to take you out of the picture so that you wouldn’t be a threat to them in the campaign. And you know what, I’ll bet you anything that second payment Roads was talking about was an incentive to keep his mouth shut should anything go wrong, like them ending up in jail for 5 years a piece.”
“We don’t know any of that for sure,” Matt reminded her.
“How do you know all this stuff about bank accounts anyway?” Josh wondered.
“It’s been all over the news,” Matt explained. “Some source inside the FBI gave the game away in an interview with the New York Times and the interview got leaked shortly before the arrests were made tonight. He’d said the Republicans were being investigated in connection with your case and talked about the bank accounts in some details.”
“The press put the rest together,” Ronna chipped in. “The police have been pretty tight-lipped since it all came out, but the details of the case haven’t been disputed by anyone.”
“Ray Sullivan certainly hasn’t been making a lot of statements tonight,” Donna commented.
“He’s right not to say anything,” Matt put in. “This investigation isn’t anything like concluded yet. He’s already being tried and convicted by the press. If there is a case, they’re going to put it at risk by making allegations.”
“If there’s a case, then he should be arrested for election fraud!” she said angrily. “How are you still so calm about this?”
“Because I don’t see the point in getting upset until we know all the evidence.”
“You have another explanation for why Geoffrey Cline has been putting money into the accounts of criminals?”
“No I don’t.”
“Then stop standing up for him! The guy’s been trying to fix the election against you by means of violence. He put Josh is hospital and left him permanently disabled, how can you think that’s right?”
“Of course I don’t think it’s right, but I want proof before I start accusing the man!”
“Proof, like more proof than this?”
“Yes, Donna. I want more proof than an article with an unnamed source in the New York Times!”
Donna suddenly realized that Josh hadn’t said anything for a few minutes. “Josh, you still there? Josh?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Donna, can you take me off speaker.”
She glanced round at the others then picked up the phone. “Yeah, I’m here. Are you okay?” she asked quietly, walking to the side of the room.
“I dunno,” he said.
She listened to him breathe for a minute. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. “
“Josh?”
“I don’t know Donna. I’ve just been w-woken up in the middle of the night to be told that two guys were paid to break my skull in three places!”
“Does it make it worse that they were paid?” she whispered.
“Wait a minute,” he said.
“What? Josh, what?”
“Dammit, there’s a TV news crew outside!”
“Already? Journalists really don’t sleep do they.”
“Look Donna, I’ve got to think about this. I’ll call you later.” The line went dead.
She turned back to the others.
“Well,” Matt wondered. “What did he say?”
“He’s thinking about it,” she said, and hung up the phone.
*************************************************************
Josh stamped around his apartment for a couple of hours, occasionally pulling back the curtains a little to check out the growing number of news crews congregating outside in the street. He could see them on the TV doing pieces to camera every so often with his Georgetown building in the background, and the occasional shot of one of his neighbours coming and going out of the main door. But there was no way he was talking to any of them. He’d unplugged his phone, which had never stopped ringing since about 6 o clock despite the fact that his number was ex-directory. He still had his cell phone, and he’d been using that to call his lawyer and get in touch with the police.
They hadn’t been helpful. The police in particular weren’t giving away many details. He’d even talked to Sheriff Wheeler of the Houston PD who’d been the one in charge of his original case, but he wasn’t at liberty to talk about the arrests, which, after all, had been made in West Virginia where all the questioning was now taking place.
So Josh fretted. He took phone calls from President Bartlet, and talked to Matt some more, then at 11 o clock, Donna had called from Tacoma Airport to say she was on the next flight out and would be there for early evening.
Since he still wasn’t allowed to drive, he contacted Toby and had him go to National to pick her up, then the two of them snuck in from the back alley while Josh distracted the news crews by ordering copious amounts of Chinese food to be delivered at the front.
Over rice noodles, lemon chicken and duck with plum sauce, they discussed the election, polls, a particularly funny rebuke Matt had made at a press conference that morning, and of course, the day’s news.
“I wish they’d just tell us what happened one way of the other,” Donna said, trying not to get plum sauce down her front.
“What would that achieve?” Toby wondered. He had a carton of rice in one hand and a fork in the other. “I mean, what could it possibly achieve finding out before they know for sure?”
“I just want the waiting to be over,” she said, chewing.
“Well, it’s not doing their credibility any good,” Josh put in. He wasn’t eating much, but was sitting back on the sofa with his arms folded.
“I think that’s the election for them,” Donna stated. “I absolutely do.”
Josh and Toby both looked at her incredulously. “Two arrests?” Toby said.
“Arrests like these, sure.”
“With the lead they’ve got, I don’t think they need to worry about a little rumble in their West Virginia office,” he said.
“It puts everything they’re running for into question,” she insisted. “If these are people prepared to do things like that, illegal, immoral things, then what else will they do to get power? And what will they do once they’ve got power? I wouldn’t vote for them even if I was a Republican.”
“Well, you might do, knowing your voting record,” Josh joked, earning himself a look. “Anyway, Santos has to take this chance,” he said leaning over to snag a prawn cracker. “It’s the only one he’s going to get. He has to campaign on this as soon as possible.”
Now Toby looked at him incredulously. “You want to become a campaign strategy.”
“No of course not, but he can’t sit this one out and not say anything about it just because it’s personal. And it is personal.”
“He was targeted specifically. Chuck Roads turned out to have pictures of Josh from press clipping hidden away in his apartment,” Donna told Toby through a mouthful of duck.
“I know that,” he said. “And what I’d really like to know is why the police didn’t find this before.”
“They weren’t looking for it,” she said. “They thought it was a robbery. Though I have to say that Matt said he’d been visited by a detective at the hospital who was categorically certain this was an attempted murder and not robbery. Why that view got lost in the investigation, I don’t know. ”
“They never did a thorough search of Roads’ apartment,” Josh broke in. “Sheriff Wheeler told me they missed the clippings and the bank details but he insisted it wasn’t through negligence or anything. He said they had what they needed to convict him and that was that. They didn’t look any further.”
“You are campaigning on raising the funding available for local police forces, right?” Toby said to Josh. He just grinned back.
“To be fair to them, they did go back in for another look,” Donna said.
“Yeah, after a tip off from the New York Times!”
“The Times only got involved after the FBI had already investigated Roads’ finances,” she said, and reached for the noodles.
Josh got up suddenly and disappeared into the other room. She looked anxiously at Toby and stopped eating until he came back about a minute later.
He smiled sheepishly. “Forget to take my pills,” he told her.
She rolled her eyes a little then went back to the food without making a fuss.
“What’s his feeling?” Josh wondered, taking another prawn cracker and sitting down again.
“The Congressman? He wants to wait until the police investigation is over before saying anything publicly.”
“And if they’re found guilty?”
“I’m not sure. I think he wants to wait and see what you want to do. If he starts to talk about it, you’re going to be all over the news again. The press will bug you, there’ll be a lot of questions about your health, why they were so keen to get you out of the way, what difference you could make to the campaign, whether Ronna’s up to the job…”
“Which she’s not,” Toby put in.
“She’s doing the best she can,” Donna insisted.
“Best doesn’t matter in this business. She’s not been up to the job since the start and Santos hasn’t had the balls to fire her and find someone who could actually get him results where he needed it. She’s one of the main reasons you’re floundering, Donna.”
Donna looked at Josh for support, but he was sitting silently with his arms crossed again.
“This has been hard for everyone,” she sounded a little upset, and with good reason. She’d put her heart and soul into this campaign and hearing Toby slice into someone who she’d become very close to in the last few months, was difficult. “It was hardly ideal circumstances we went into this, and there have been a lot of staffing problems and morale problems with Vinick doing so well.”
“Well, we’ve still got three weeks left,” Josh said quietly.
Toby put his rice down. “You can’t turn this around in three weeks, Josh. He’s ten points ahead in states where Santos is popular.”
“Not for long,” Josh said, looking determined.
Donna smiled suddenly. It was the first time she’d seen him looking that way in almost five months.
“What do mean ‘we’ve still got three weeks left’?” she said.
He glanced at her and smiled back. “I don’t know,” he returned. “I’ve been sitting here all day and it’s just been making my blood boil, y’know? I need to do something.”
“You could sue them,” Toby suggested, picking up a bit of fiendishly red chicken by spearing it with a single chopstick.
“All in good time,” Josh said, nodding. “But there’s something else I can do first.”
“What’s that?” Toby wondered, having not figured out what Donna had sensed a minute ago.
Josh looked straight at Donna. “Would he have me back?”
Her face glowed. “Well, I’m not sure. Things are pretty tight right now.”
“Yeah,” he grinned.
“Yeah, y’know, but I’m sure we could find something for you to do.”
Toby chewed the chicken slowly. “You’re going back?”
“I’ve still got a good few years in me,” he said, reaching forward for some food finally. “Plus, you said it, Ronna can’t do the job.”
“You want to take over the campaign?” Toby said, his amazement growing. “You’ve not exactly been in the loop.”
“I’m getting back into it,” he protested.
“You had three skull fractures, Josh. I don’t think this is just a matter of getting back into it.”
“You don’t think I’m capable?” Josh said, wiping lemon sauce off his chin.
“Do you think you’re capable?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been working hard,” he said. “Quiz me.”
“Quiz you?”
“Ask me anything.”
“What do you want, multiple choice?”
“What I’m saying Toby is, I think I’m ready to go back. I’ve been working on stuff. I’ve been sitting in this apartment for weeks doing therapy and reading, watching the news, going back over policies and checking through old notes. I can’t say for sure that I can do what I did before, but I’m willing to give it a shot. God, Toby, you were the one who sat there two weeks ago and told me I had to get back in the saddle.”
“Yeah, I meant maybe do some freelance work or something, not run a national campaign!”
“You really think I’m not up to it.”
“I…” Toby looked finally to Donna for help.
She just shrugged, still angry at him for dismissing Ronna. “You’re not on our campaign staff, Toby. I don’t think you’re the one to say whether he’s up to it or not.”
“Fine,” he said. “Go back. Run a campaign. You got any bourbon?”
Josh indicated with his head. “The cabinet there.”
As Toby crossed the room to make himself a drink, Donna noticed Josh looking at her with a happy expression.
“What?”
“You think I can do it?”
“I’ve always thought you could do this. Even when I was working for Bob Russell some small part of me knew that he wasn’t going to win. You chose Santos, you got him the nomination, you’re the only one who can make sure he wins this election.”
“You know,” he took another piece of chicken. “If Geoffrey Cline turns out to be white as the driven snow, we’re all going to look a little silly.”
She shrugged again. “I can live with that.”
*************************************************************
“Now, onto the election, and it’s going down to the wire tonight, as the new round of mid-week polls show Matt Santos gaining another two points on his Republican opponent. The shock arrest of several prominent members of Arnold Vinick’s campaign staff has been blamed for the drop in the Senator’s previously robust and seemingly unapproachable lead. The plot to plunge the Democrats into disarray by removing Santos’ campaign manager, Josh Lyman, is still being revealed by the police investigation, which tonight detailed the route the money took between the private accounts of Geoffrey Cline and his Texas associates. Congressman Santos, meanwhile, has labeled the plot ‘barbaric’ and says his campaign manager was lucky to survive the assault, which left him in hospital for almost four months. Josh Lyman has now returned to a prominent role in the campaign and it has been this move as much as the devastating police action, which many are saying is tipping the balance at this late stage in the election. And with less than one week left to go, it seems the only way is up for the Democrats who are now focusing their attention on the key states of Ohio, New Hampshire and California, Senator Vinick’s home state and potentially up for grabs next Tuesday.
“Now it’s time for all your sports news.”
*************************************************************
Donna watched Josh like a hawk for the first few days after he came back to work. Matt had welcomed him with open arms (of course) and Ronna had happily given up her place at the head table to allow him to take control, though Josh insisted she stay around to help the transition and explain her strategies to date. He was savvy enough to make sure he kept the support of all the key figures who’d been running the campaign to date, knowing full well that any jarring or unexpected changes would not go down well with either the voters or the staff at this late stage in the process.
But things went well. They got a bump in the polls when the Cline plot was revealed, and another when Josh came back to work. Some opposition members muttered cynically about it being a stunt and taking advantage of an enemy when he’s down, but they only ever did it quietly because Josh was now the man of the hour, and the press and public wouldn’t hear a word said against him. What a turn around, Donna had thought, from all those days spent struggling to win popularity while under Bartlet.
He even seemed up to the job, which she had to admit she’d had doubts about, despite her words in his apartment. He’d clearly been working hard to get back up to speed, and she was frankly amazed at the way he was able to cope with the stressful situations being thrown his way every day. There were moments when she could tell he wasn’t comfortable, when he was searching for words, when a heated argument would bring back the remnants of his stutter, which he’d all but lost in regular speech. It was hard for him, clearly: the hours, the work, the knowledge that what he was doing had long term and important repercussions. It must have been like one of those dreams, she thought, were you were suddenly plunked down in the middle of an exam that you’d had no preparation for and didn’t know how to do.
But if he was bluffing, then it was the best bluff she’d ever seen.
As November dawned, they realized with amazement that they’d drawn neck and neck with Vinick and it was anyone’s guess now who was going to win. She started to have trouble sleeping and they were pulling longer and longer days for a last minute push in the swing states. Even Matt started to look at little ragged round the edges, and his wife never seemed to smile any more, always telling her husband to get rest and eat something. Helen was worried about numbers, hell they all were. But three weeks ago they hadn’t been in this race, and what they had now they owed to Josh, at least everyone was clear on that.
Matt had announced he wanted to spend election night in his home town, so Ronna got them a suit at the Marriot and as Tuesday rolled around, every member of the campaign staff who didn’t have responsibilities on the road or with last minute campaigning and polling, took out a room and moved in to watch.
They had rooms over three floors; bedrooms on three, the main suits for Matt and the staff to watch the results coming in on two, and the first floor was where they’d had their early evening buffet meal set up, with various media and phone bank rooms available nearby. By 7 o clock, almost everyone had finished eating, or had doggy bagged themselves up with enough to last them the evening, and had retreated back up to the second floor to watch the news reports on one of the seven wide-screen TVs they’d had brought in specially for the evening. At first they’d had the idea of putting one of each of the major news networks up on display in different rooms, but nobody wanted to watch Fox, so that idea was quickly quashed.
But Josh hadn’t come up with the others and after a while, Donna went looking for him, just starting to feel the edges of concern. He’d been avoiding her all day, not that she’d been worried up to that point. He was busy obviously, a lot of things to co-ordinate and get right. But this was his night, and if things went their way, it would come off just as well for him as it would for Matt Santos. She hoped he was coping, hoped it wasn’t getting too much.
She found him eventually in the empty meal room picking at grapes from a huge pile of fruit that was lying virtually untouched at one side. He was looking pale, and certainly more nervous than she would have expected.
“Are you alright?” she wondered, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Yeah,” he said looking away. “Just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Me neither. I think it’s all this caffeine as much as anything else. The moment this election’s over, I’m switching to de-caf, no arguments.”
He didn’t smile, he was chewing his lip and scanning the room.
“There’s nothing you can do now,” she soothed. “The dice are cast. It’s all just about waiting.”
“I’m not good at waiting.”
“No kidding,” she shot back, and that at least raised a small smile.
“I’m gonna check in with the crew next door.”
“The media room?”
“Yeah, I wanna make sure these volunteers know what they’re doing.”
“Whoa,” she put out a hand to stop him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because you tend to get hostile with volunteers when you’re nervous, and I’m sick of buying people donuts because you’ve pissed them off.”
“Fine, don’t come with me.” He pushed past her a little roughly and she followed him with a concerned expression as he crossed the near deserted room and made for the media room next door.
“Josh, just come upstairs,” she protested. “Everyone’s there. The big TVs are great and Ned persuaded the kitchen to deliver 3 huge tubs of ice cream.”
But he was already through the door. She sighed and followed figuring he’d potter around for a short time then allow himself to be persuaded to go upstairs.
He was looking over someone’s shoulder at a print out when she made it inside, and she decided to amuse herself while he was busy, by reading some of the early newspaper reports that had already appeared and were piled in neat order by the door. The local papers were predicting a drawn-out fight with focus landing on one or two key swing states. None thought it was a landslide for Santos.
“No that’s just totally wrong!”
She looked up, surprised at the raised voice. Whatever the stresses and strains of the last few weeks had been, they’d actually managed to remain a pretty cheerful campaign, and the sound of shouting was unusual to say the least.
It was Josh. “Type that again. That statement deserves to go straight in the trash can and you straight out the door for writing it!”
“But sir, that statement’s already been cleared with Mr Whitchells.”
“And when did Bram turn into the campaign’s chief policy advisor?” he sneered back. “Do it again.”
“Sir, really, it’s a long-term strategy for election night that was worked out a long time ago, before you were working here I believe, so it’s possible that you don’t understand its full implications.”
“Thank you for reminding me how long I’ve worked here, but I actually understand the situation just fine, and can do without the clever remarks if you don’t mind.”
The volunteer was now looking confused and desperate, and all round the room, people were turning to stare. Donna didn’t quite understand what was going on. She knew Josh was stressed, but he hadn’t shown any signs of returning to his old yelling behaviour since he’d come to work for the campaign.
“I wasn’t making a clever remark, sir. I’m sorry if you thought that.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be right. Do you know how important this is? Look, give me that.” He snatched the paper she’d been showing him away. “This is wrong,” he circled something. “And this is wrong, and don’t say that, it sounds like you’re five and you’re begging with mommy, and this isn’t even proper grammar. Do you have a degree at all, do you know how to write?”
She looked down at the paper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see that there, I’ll correct it at once.”
“Yeah, see that you do. Remember, this isn’t some newsletter for your local stitch-and-bitch buddies this is about something that actually matters, and little mistakes by screw-up staff like you can make the whole thing come tumbling down.”
By this stage, the staffer was almost in tears and Donna was on the verge of intervening, when Josh turned sharply and walked away of his own accord. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared into the adjoining room, then crossed quickly to where he’d been standing. The staffer was looking down at her desk with a mixture of humiliation and fear on her face.
Donna leaned in close to her. “Don’t be upset,” she said, the staffer turning at her words. “It’s no excuse, but he doesn’t mean it, he’s just stressed because it’s election night.”
She nodded. “But he’s right.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he’s right or wrong,” Donna corrected. “He shouldn’t be talking to you like that, and you mustn’t take it seriously.”
This time the staffer nodded mutely, and Donna gave her a reassuring smile before going after Josh with the firm intention of ripping his head off and sticking it somewhere painful. She made her way to the doorway of the other room, and encountered Josh pacing furiously between the tables of un-eaten sandwiches and half-drunk coffees, his head looking well on the way to exploding all on its own.
Going in, she slammed the door behind her causing him to jump about three feet off the ground.
“God Donna! Don’t do that!”
“Who do you think you are?” She demanded without pre-emption.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t talk to people like that, Josh. I don’t care if you’re campaign manager or president of the galaxy, you treat people with respect!”
“I’ll treat people any way I see fit, particularly if they’re a useless waste of space who should never have been hired to do the job in the first place.”
She gawked. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”
He’d gone back to pacing, looking extremely agitated, his breathing coming quicker than seemed normal. “Uh, there’s an election on,” he responded condescendingly.
“Yeah and I’ve seen you do those before.”
“Not like this,” he corrected gesticulating a little wildly. “This one’s it, it’s the big one, and not you, or Mary Jane in there are going to put me off being concerned for one of the biggest moments our country’s seen in the past 50 years!”
“Alright,” she held her hands up. “You’re on the edge, okay. You’re about to fall off into I don’t know what kind of madness. You keep this up and I’m going to lock you up in here until it’s all over.”
“Don’t you dare! Don’t even think it! Do you know how much it smells in here?”
“Smells?” Donna couldn’t smell anything.
“It’s the coffee,” he explained, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose. “It’s so strong. The smell of it, it’s like like going into my dad’s study at home and finding him with all these coffee cups all over his desk as he worked on a big case. It’s just like that, cloying and stale in the air.”
“Josh what are you talking about?” now she was really confused.
But he’d stopped where he was suddenly, looking at her with a strange expression.
“Josh?”
His eyes had gone a little glazed. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“What?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, she had to watch as his whole body seemed to stiffen involuntarily. A strange noise emanated from his mouth, like all the air had just been forced out of his lungs, then he dropped like a dead-weight to the floor and started to seize.
She ran forward in shock, having quite clearly seen him make contact with one of the tables on his way down, but she was totally unprepared for the close-up view of his epilepsy.
His arms and legs were convulsing spasmodically and violently, striking the table leg with each jerking motion, his face a contorted mask, so totally unlike the man she knew.
Desperately, she struggled to move the table out of reach of his twitching limbs, scraping it along the floor as she pushed it to the side, and knocking a couple of chairs over.
The door to the other room opened quickly at the noise and one of the younger volunteers stuck his head into the room. “Is everything alright in here?” he wondered, not seeing Josh at first as he was obscured by his position on the floor.
“No!” Donna panted, standing to the side of the sprawled figure of her boss. “Josh is having a seizure.”
“Oh my God!” The guy came forward, possibly to get a better look. “Should we call an ambulance or something?”
Donna, in her fear, was tempted to say yes but she remembered well enough the advice she’d been given all that time ago in the hospital. “No, not at the moment,” there were tears in her eyes, and she fought to stay in control. “But keep everyone out of here. Go out and shut the door. Find the Congressman and tell him what’s happened.”
Her tone wasn’t one to be argued with. “Yes ma’am,” the staffer said, and disappeared quickly back through the door, closing it obediently.
That left her alone with Josh and she’d never felt so helpless. Having moved the table out of the way, there really wasn’t anything else she could do for him but stand and wait for the seizure to come to an end.
It probably only lasted about 90 seconds in total, but they seemed the longest and most horrifying moments of her life. She’d tried to prepare herself for this, read up on it, thought about what it would be like to see it happen, but to actually witness it first hand was totally different from any emotion she’d gone over in her head. There were tears pouring down her cheeks by the time it was over, when finally he stopped moving, and his body relaxed back into a more natural position on the floor.
Donna crouched down, wiping the tears away. He was already on his side, so she didn’t need to think of rolling him into a safe position, and he seemed to breathing normally. So she just watched and waited.
Eventually, after a couple of minutes when the room had been in silence, Josh stirred, and his eyes began to open.
She tried to smile and said very softly: “Hey.”
Josh didn’t answer at first, blinking with heavy eyes as if he’d just woken from a deep sleep.
“How are you feeling?”
He shifted a little, pulling his arm out slowly from where it was trapped beneath his body. Eventually, he responded. “What happened?” His voice was groggy, matching his general demeanour.
“You had a seizure,” she told him gently.
“Mm,” he moaned.
“Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
Josh had shut his eyes again, but she could see him swallow so she didn’t think he’d fallen asleep. “Where are we?”
“In the hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“In Texas, the Marriot.”
“Why are we in a hotel?”
“We’re with the campaign staff,” she explained, his confusion freaking her out a little.
He took that in without comment, but it was only a few seconds before he asked again: “Where are we?”
She blinked, trying not to let any tears fall again. “In a Marriot. In Houston.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah, your candidate’s from Texas. He wanted to be here on election night.”
“Mm,” he moaned again.
“You’re running the campaign to elect Matt Santos for president,” she went on, thinking maybe she should just supply the information to him. “You got a little upset with someone and you came in to this room and were shouting at me, then you had a seizure.”
“I’m sorry,” she hadn’t been expecting an apology. “If I said anything.”
“Don’t think about it,” she soothed. “Just feel better.”
“What are we doing here?”
Donna plastered a smile on her face. “It’s the night of the election,” she said again. “You’re candidate’s a congressman running out of Texas, and we’re in a Marriot in Houston.”
“This is a hotel?”
“Yeah,” she nodded.
“Mm,” he said once more, then tried to move suddenly, rolling and pushing himself up on his arms, but stiffly, as if he were getting out of bed in the morning. “Do I have a room?”
“What?” she’d moved to help him, offering an arm if he needed it.
“In the hotel,” he clarified. “Do I have a room here? I need to sleep.”
“Oh, yes of course. It’s the next floor. Room 314. You should have the key card in your pocket.”
She helped pull him up as he struggled to find his feet.
“I’m gonna…” he leant on the table beside him, now strewn with overturned cups from his actions as well as hers. Josh looked around the room. “How do I get out?”
She looked around and spotted the door into the corridor. “It’s over there. Are you sure you’re…I mean…” Donna ran out of words as he determinedly pushed himself away from the table and began to walk towards the door. “Do you need help getting to your room?”
“I’ll be fine,” he responded, making it to the door and yanking it open unsteadily.
“Okay, phone me if you need anything,” she called to his departing figure. But he didn’t reply. Donna looked around the room, unsure what to do. The whole shock of the thing was still to sink in, but the alien nature of what had happened, and Josh’s reaction to it, was making her shaky. He’d barely known who he was, certainly he didn’t seem to take in where he was. She’d learnt a lot about epilepsy while he was being treated at the Baylor Center and had done a lot of research online about the condition after his diagnosis, but reading meant nothing in the face of the reality.
Why had he had a seizure at all? As far as she knew, they’d got the epilepsy under control down in Houston, tailoring the drugs to suit him until they found the right ones. He’d had a couple of bad reactions, found one made him sleepy, but they’d struck gold in the end, so she thought. Found one that stopped the seizures altogether.
Had he forgotten to take those pills tonight? Would he really be that careless?
Distracted, she started to try and clear up a little of the mess, picking up a couple of the cups that had fallen to the ground and using some paper towel to mop up a rather large spillage of coffee that was dripping off the table and making a stain on the light beige carpet.
The door to the media room burst open, and she jumped, startled. It was Matt.
He spoke in insistent and agitated tones: “Donna, what’s been happening? Where’s Josh, I was told he had a seizure?”
“Yes,” she said tiredly, throwing the soppy tissue into a pile. “He did.”
“Well, is he okay? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “One minute he was next door having a yelling match with one of the volunteers, the next he came in here and was shouting at me, then… it just happened.”
“Where is he now?”
“He went up to his room. He said he was tired.”
“Okay.” Matt came in further and closed the door behind him, rubbing his hands over his face. He was clearly stressed, and this latest piece of news looked like it was pretty much the last straw. “I can’t believe this is happening tonight,” he said. “Of all nights. Is he going to need a doctor or anything?”
“No, he should be okay,” she said, crossing her arms to stop herself from shaking. The shock was finally kicking in. “We were given information down at the Medical Center that as long as he woke up after a seizure and seemed to be okay, then he wouldn’t need any kind of treatment. But I think he’ll probably sleep for the rest of the night now. I’ll go and check on him in an hour or so.”
“But he was definitely okay?”
“I think so. He hit the table pretty hard, but he walked out on his own, so that has to be a good sign.”
“Okay,” Matt said again, coming over and leaning on one of the tables to take a few deep breaths with his head down.
“How’s it going upstairs?” she wondered, feeling a little out of the loop suddenly. It was after eight, the polls must have been closing in the East.
“Still too early to tell,” he said. “We got New England by the looks of things, New York, DC, Maryland, New Jersey. The count in New Hampshire’s too close to call though.”
“A lot of people vote late in that part of the world,” she said reassuringly.
“Yeah, that’s what Ronna says too.”
“Well, we can’t both be wrong.”
He laughed a little. “I hate it when the women gang up on me.” Then he straightened back up and blew out a breath. “Alright, I’m going back upstairs before all that ice cream disappears. You coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute,” she said, watching him go, then sitting down slowly in the nearest chair she could find, and trying to calm her racing brain.
*************************************************************
It was a good ten minutes before she made it to the main room and found the nervous party still in full swing. It was a party because it was election night, and when you were running for something, you had to have a party on election night, and it was nervous because a whole raft of polls had just closed in the mid-west, all of them going to Vinick. Pennsylvania was still to announce, and Ronna said she thought it was going to be the decider, but no one else seemed certain. There was an amount of drinking going on, a subdued air of have a good time whatever tinged with, God- I-hope-we-win.
Donna sought Matt out and found him sitting with his wife, their hands wrapped together, their two kids on the floor in front of them. The boy looked like he was already asleep, while the girl was smiling goofily into her bowl of ice cream.
They all smiled in greeting and she had to field a few questions about what had happened in the buffet room, but all in all, she managed to hide from the most prying and nosy members of the campaign. Leo she would have told, had he been there, but he was up in DC with Jed and Mallory and the rest of her friends from the Bartlet administration.
Instead she sat for about an hour, trying to take her mind off Josh’s health by worrying about the election results. But as the numbers slowly added up, flashing images of Josh haunted her; on the floor, his body moving without control, his face before he fell. She played the incident over and over trying to make sense of it, wanting desperately to know what had happened.
At the end of an hour, she got up and wandered into the main area planning a surreptitious exit to go and knock on Josh’s door. Just on her way out, however, she was cornered by Ned.
“Hey, Donna. Tell me, are election nights always like this?”
She said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster: “Not always. They’ve all been different so far.”
“How many is this for you now?”
“This will be my third,” she said, and smiled at the thought, despite the circumstances. Three elections. She’d taken part in three general elections. In some small way, she’d helped shape the country, and how excellent a feeling that was right now knowing that of everyone in the room, she had the most experience.
“Josh was just telling me that on the last election day, you spent most of your time trying to swap your absentee ballot with someone because you voted Republican by accident. Is that really true?”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “I eventually found this navy submariner, believe it or not, who I even ended up dating for a while… wait, did you say that Josh just told you that story?”
“Yes. I didn’t think you’d be too happy about it.”
“Just now as in what, an hour ago?”
“No, about five minutes ago. He just came in and got the latest from the polls then said he was going to find the Congressman.”
Okay. A, how the hell had she missed him, and B, why the hell hadn’t he come to find her first!
She brushed Ned off quickly and retraced her steps to where the Congressman had been sitting, only to find his chair now occupied by his young, ice cream eating daughter, and his wife sitting languidly stroking the child’s hair.
“Oh, he went in the back with Josh,” Helen said at Donna’s unasked question. “Josh seems fine now, he must have recovered from whatever it was.”
Try epilepsy, Donna said inwardly, and you don’t generally recover from it. But she thanked Helen and pushed through the crowd to a door off at the side which, when she knocked and entered, turned out to be a bedroom.
Matt and Josh were locked in what was obviously a serious conversation.
“I just don’t want you to think this has any effect on anything,” Matt was saying, glancing round briefly as she came in, and nodding his approval of her being in the room.
“I wouldn’t think that you thought like that, sir,” Josh was standing with his hands in his pockets looking absolutely fine, just as Helen had said. It was as though the seizure had never happened.
“We’ll work around this,” Matt said reassuringly. “Alright? It’s not a problem.”
“Yes sir.”
“Alright, well if you’re sure you’re fine, then I’m going back out there to face some more of that God-awful commentary they put on ABC.”
“I’ll join you in a minute,” Josh said, sensing that Donna probably wanted to have a word as well.
“Okay, but don’t take too long. You wouldn’t want to miss all the excitement!”
After he’d left, Donna was about to launch into a whole lecture but was over-whelmed by the sense of awkwardness that came between them, and ended up saying only: “Did you sleep?”
“I did,” he assured her. “Half an hour or so.”
“And you…”
“I feel fine,” he broke in. “I honestly do. I wouldn’t have come down if I didn’t.”
“Oh.” She looked around, wondering if anyone would actually be sleeping in this bedroom later. “Um, how’s how’s your arm?”
“My arm?”
“You… before… you hit the table.”
“Oh right, it’s fine. I wondered what that was actually, hell of a bruise y’know.”
“Yeah.”
Josh cleared his throat and moved over to the side where there was a coffee machine with a pot already made up. He felt it to see if it was warm, then looked around for a cup.
Donna watched him carefully. He was calm, too calm. This wasn’t bothering him at all. None of it was, not the seizure, not the fact that’d she’d seen it. Her racing mind started to go over the events again: the fight, the fall, the fit.
If that had happened to her, she would have been freaked. It was his first seizure out of hospital, his first one in front of people where there weren’t doctors to rush to his aid.
Unless… it wasn’t.
Then something occurred to her, something that she should have thought of before, but in all that shock and sudden freak out unexpectedness, she’d missed it.
She watched him pick up a cup and cross back to the coffee machine.
“This has happened before,” she stated unequivocally.
He stopped with his back to her not moving.
“Since you left the hospital, I thought it was under control, I thought they’d stopped them, I thought you were doing okay. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell anyone you were having seizures?”
*************************************************************
“It certainly is party night here in the nation’s capital, and I’m half expecting to see President Bartlet himself hanging from the doors of Marine One and campaigning to the reverential masses below as the pilots circle the Washington Monument. Not that he’d need to do much campaigning here, and with the heat wave we’ve got going we’re quite grateful for a moratorium on hot air.
“But we’re here tonight in the Hawk and Dove, quite a classy DC establishment, and of course we’ve got our cosmopolitans and our martini cocktails and we’re watching the results role in like everyone else in the country tonight I guess. It’s a good atmosphere, everyone’s hopeful, everyone’s good natured, there really has been minimal tarring and feathering on the streets tonight, and I can tell you it’s always a good night when there’s a little less of that going on.
“Really though, we’re just getting started and I think everyone here is anticipating a long night ahead as we wait for the polls to close and the counters to get counting. With everyone displaying their ‘I voted’ badges though, I’m telling you, this is one proud city determined to mark their place in the country on election night.”
*************************************************************
At first she thought he was going to avoid the question, as he calmly poured his coffee with his back still to her, and reached for the milk. But then he turned, mixing the drink with one of those stupid undersized plastic stirrers. Then he looked her directly in the face.
“How did you know?” the question was unemotional. He didn’t seem upset she’d found out, certainly didn’t seem surprised.
Donna, however, was pretty shocked that he’d actually answered her question, and that he’d confirmed her suspicions without even the attempt of a cursory denial.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “You apologized,” she said.
“What?”
“Back in the room. Right before the seizure, you looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m sorry’. I thought at the time well, it didn’t really register with everything else that happened but I suppose I thought maybe you were apologizing for being such an ass, for saying those things. But you weren’t, you were apologizing because you knew you were about to have a seizure, and I was going to see it. You had them in the hospital, I know, but you weren’t really well enough to remember them then. You’ve had them since though, haven’t you. That’s why you were apologizing. You knew, somehow you knew it was about to happen.”
Josh took a drink, rolling the coffee around his mouth before swallowing. “I don’t remember,” he said.
Donna let out an incredulous exhale of breath, thinking that if this was his attempt at obfuscation, it was a bit pathetic and a bit late. “Josh, there’s no point in pretending. That’s what you said.”
“No,” he explained firmly. “I really don’t remember. You don’t remember, not when it’s like that.”
She stopped. “So you knew?”
He sipped his coffee again and then lowered it from his lips, playing with the plastic cup in his hands. “I woke up in bed,” he said, not looking at her now. “And I couldn’t remember who I was. It was weird. I’d no idea what my name was, what year it was. I thought I’d had a nightmare or something, and I was all tangled up in the sheets. But after ten minutes or so, I felt completely normal and just went back to sleep again.” He put the cup down and folded his arms, perching on the edge of the table that held the coffee machine. “The second time I woke up beside the bed, and I knew straight away there was something wrong. I couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten there, but there was blood in my hair, I felt sick and I’d clearly whacked my head off something.”
“And you didn’t tell anybody?” Donna interrupted in an imperious and incredulous voice. “You hurt yourself, you hit your head of all things, and you didn’t even tell your doctor?”
Josh looked over at her. “I got up, got dressed, called a cab and went straight to the hospital,” he said, his tone a little condescending in response to her statement.
“Oh,” she said, more subdued.
“They told me I’d probably had a seizure in my sleep and fallen out of bed,” he went on. “And I was surprised because I thought I wasn’t having seizures. Then they a-asked if I’d ever woken up in bed not knowing who or where I was, and it started to sink in.” He smiled ironically. “Anyway, they ran some tests, did another EEG, upped my dose of Tegretol and sent me on my way. A week later that whole Cline case blew up and I came back to work for you fine people.”
“But you didn’t tell anyone, Josh. You could have told us. You could have told me.”
“Told you what? I have epilepsy, Donna, you know that,” he looked at her. “You were practically there when then diagnosed me. Seizures are one of the defining characteristics of the condition.”
“Yes, but…” she stopped, thrown by his extremely calm disposition far more than by anything he was saying. “So you’d just had those two?”
Josh moved suddenly, pushing off the table and pacing to the other side of the room with his arms still folded, looking at the ground as he told his story. “I was up late, I think I’d been talking to pollsters, and I don’t know it was 1 or 2 by the time I got in. I woke up the next day feeling pretty crap, which was weird because I’ve always been all right with lack of sleep, y’know. But I got up anyway, campaign to run and everything, and went into the kitchen. I put the coffee on and it started to pour, and as it did I suddenly got this incredible sense of deja vu. I can’t explain it any better than that. It was so strong. I was remembering this teacher I’d had at school, a modern language teacher. She always carried this cup of strong coffee with her wherever she went, wherever you met her, she had it. It smelt lovely. She said it was the French thing to do, to drink coffee like that all the time. She was very attractive to a 14-year-old.” Josh was smiling at the memory, but his smile faded quickly. “The smell became overwhelming, the smell of the coffee, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. The coffee pot was full, and I had no idea at all how long I’d been there. I was so tired I felt I could hardly get up, but when I did, I went straight back to bed and slept soundly for about an hour. Then I woke up feeling fine.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago.”
“That was the day you came in late? You told me you’d overslept.”
“Well I did, after a fashion.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me what had happened?”
“Because it’s none of your business,” he returned a little harshly. “This isn’t anybody’s business Donna. And I’m sick of it, sick of the questions, sick of being poked and prodded and treated like an invalid all the time. It’s nobody’s business.”
At that, Donna almost thought she was going to break down and cry, thinking of all the hours she’d spent at the hospital worrying about him, sitting by his bedside, the sleepless nights, the long, hot Texas days. And now, after all that, he was rejecting her help. She forced herself to keep talking. “I thought the drugs were supposed to control the seizures? Did you forget to take them?”
Josh scowled. “No I didn’t forget to take them!” he said harshly. “Not tonight, not then. I’m sometimes a little late, but I never forget. And they do control them. But there are things that bring it on. Lack of sleep, I’ve been told. Stress. Stress is a big one. Alcohol too.”
She nodded a little, taking it in, remembering vaguely something she’d read somewhere about triggers and lifestyle changes. “Lack of sleep and stress. Well, that’s not something you should encounter too much with this job.”
He finally smiled. “Yeah.”
“So, you adapt,” she went on. “You make sure that when you’re back at the White House, you don’t fall into old habits.”
He didn’t answer, staring steadfast at the floor with glazed eyes.
“I’m sure Matt understands. He’ll make all the necessary adjustments for you. It’ll be fine.” When he still didn’t answer, she prompted him. “Josh?”
The look in his eyes when he raised his head was one she’d never seen before. It was resignation mixed with sadness and a little pride she thought. A trace of a smile played on the edge of his lips, and he thrust his hands deep into his pockets in a move she must have seen him make hundreds of times. He took a deep breath. “I’ll be resigning as soon the Congressman wins the presidency,” he said firmly.
Shock flooded through her, swiftly followed by denial. “Josh!” she exclaimed. “You can’t quit! Not now, not when you’ve done all this. This is all yours, the White House. Santos will make you chief of staff for sure.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda why I’m resigning,” he said.
“But you can’t,” she insisted. “You can’t give up.”
“Give up?” a little trace of hardness crept back into his voice. “God, Donna. You think I’m giving up? I went through everything to get here. I had weeks of physical therapy just to be able to get out of bed and feed myself again. And I’m standing here at a level of independence that everyone said it would be impossible to attain this fast. And I’m still running the campaign. But that’s as far as it goes. I can’t do any more than that. Not now. Not with this.”
“It’s a condition Josh,” she exclaimed. “But it’s not the end of the world! People live perfectly normal lives with epilepsy. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
“Normal life,” he repeated. “Come on Donna. You and I both know that working at the White House is nothing like a normal life. You put in hours that no one else would dream of. You’re up in the middle of the night, you’re staying late, the stress is unbelievable. You’re running the world, practically! That’s not normal life.”
“But you can do it. You can still do it.”
“Oh yeah, I can see it now. ‘ Mr President, I’m afraid that Canada has chosen to invade, and I’d love to give you a security briefing, but I’m sorry to say that the stress of the situation has led me to believe that I’m about to fall to the floor and fit convulsively for a while, during with time I have about a 50/50 chance of losing bladder control, so if you could just have maintenance standing by to clear up after me, that would be great. And oh, by the way, I’ll need a little nap afterwards if that’s okay’.”
“Josh…”
“Meetings in the sit room, with ambassadors, with foreign dignitaries, warlords, generals, kings, queens. I won’t know when it’s going to happen. I won’t be able to do my job like that, knowing that the stress and the long hours could directly result in a worsening of the condition. What the hell would Congress say? What would the papers be like: ‘Chief of staff has seizure during State of the Union address. Chief of staff has seizure after outbreak of war with Iran. Chief of staff has seizure after losing sleep over falling numbers that are falling because he can’t stop having seizures!’”
“It wouldn’t be like that.”
“No?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Now you’re deluding yourself, just like he’s deluding himself,” he thrust his chin in the direction of the door Santos had left through. “He thinks I can just go on like before as well, keep on by his side fighting his fights. But I can’t. If it were up to him I’d have all the power in the world and we’d never hear a word about epilepsy or head injuries or anything. But it doesn’t work like that.”
She came closer. “Jed Bartlet did it,” Donna said quietly. “He did it for eight years with multiple sclerosis. He went to China paralyzed and still organized a summit.”
“Jed Bartlet didn’t have epilepsy, and he almost killed himself at that summit,” Josh pointed out. “And I’m not Jed Bartlet.”
“But you can’t…”
He turned away.
“Josh, it’s not like you’ve not faced serious injury before.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t have long-term consequences.”
“It might have had!” she exclaimed. “But you chose to ignore it. You chose to ignore the threat and come back to work because you told me that working for the president was all you’d ever wanted to do, so if you weren’t working, then you might as well be dead. You didn’t know what else you would do.”
“Well, I’m going to have to find something, aren’t I.”
She stopped. “You’re really serious.”
He shrugged. “Of course I’m serious. I can’t do this any more. I have to get this thing under control. I have to get my life back, and I can’t do that working 24 hours a day for him doing what I did before, doing more, more responsibility. It’ll make me worse, and one day I’ll have a seizure and I won’t wake up.” Josh paused to let his words sink in. “Do you understand?”
She nodded with her lips pressed tight together.
He softened at the sight of her face. “It’s not that I want to,” he conceded. “I’m glad I’ve done all this, come to work for Santos, got him here. If I hadn’t, our nominee would have been Bingo Bob Russell and we’d be standing here tonight looking at the polls closing in favour of Arnie Vinick!”
She allowed him a smile. “You saved the party,” she said quietly.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
She came even closer, brushing up against him. “You have my support Josh, what ever you want to do. You know I’ll be there for you.”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yeah, um. Well, looks like one of us will have a job out of this campaign anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can be pretty confident of a place in the communications staff.”
“Really? What happened to jinxing the result by talking about it before it happens?”
“I’m not jinxing anything! “ he insisted. “Have you seen those polls?”
“They’re saying it’s too close to call.”
“Yeah, in their dreams! We’re gonna win this, Donna. Matt’s going to the White House, and you’ll be going with him. And I’m really, really happy for you. This is what you wanted, this was the career move I could never give you. Well, you’ve worked hard for it, and I’m giving it to you now.”
At his words, she felt a surge of emotion: gratitude, friendship, love, she couldn’t tell what. Here was a man whose one dream had always been to make a difference and work for the President in whatever capacity he could achieve. Here was a man who could have been White House Chief of Staff a dozen times, yet here he was standing there and giving it all up. And despite all that, he was happy for her, that she could go on and achieve her dreams in a place they’d both given so much of their lives for.
The surge turned into a glow then into an instinctive movement that she simply couldn’t get her body to deny. She kissed him.
It was surprise she encountered first, the surprise of someone who, moments before had been intent only on an intellectual conversation. She even thought he might push her away, but he didn’t. It seemed natural, normal, and as if the whole world had been waiting for it.
When they finally broke apart, Josh seemed stupefied, he didn’t speak, he didn’t seem to have any clue what to do next.
“Man,” Donna said. “All those years I was trying to get you to stop talking. Who knew it would be so easy?”
“Shut up,” he smiled, and pulled her closer. They kissed, then they kissed some more and stumbled passionately backwards until they encountered the room’s unoccupied bed, which, oblivious to the world suddenly, they tumbled onto in a confusion of legs and arms and suit jackets. But their moment didn’t last long, and a sudden loud cheer from the next room sent them scrambling guiltily to their feet, twitching and smoothing their clothing back into place.
“Okay… maybe we should…” Josh didn’t seem to have regained full use of his voice yet.
“Yeah, sounds like there’s something going on,” Donna agreed, patting her hair down and wiping her lips. She walked to the door and pulled it smartly open, trying hard not to look like she’d just been making out with someone like a high school teenager.
Josh followed her looking sheepish, and generally ruining her cool exterior. Not that anyone noticed.
“Josh!” someone cried. It was Ronna. “We just won Pennsylvania!”
“Really?”
㦤 43.”
“Okay, who said that was gonna be close?”
“Who cares,” Matt broke in, pulling back from hugging his wife. “We won Pennsylvania!”
There were cheers and whoops, and though the fight was not yet over, plenty of people slapped Josh on the back and congratulated him soundly on the win. But then as things settled back down and the room took on a quiet background hum on heightened excitement, he found that he no longer had much interest in the result. He only had eyes for Donna suddenly, and tracked her lean body as she kept coyly out of the way at the back of the room.
*************************************************************
“And with 90% of the votes counted, I think we’re… yes we are ready to call it… are we? Yes, we are ready to call the 2005 Presidential election for Democratic candidate Matthew Santos. So, congratulations to the Democrats on this monumental victory, and they are holding the White House for a third term with 54% of the vote. I think I can say for all of us that this has been one incredible night, with no one sure exactly which way this election was going to go.”
“Yes James, it has, and you can crunch the numbers any way you like, but at the end of the day, it’s all down to the voting on the night, and in this case, the voting has pointed quite clearly to a winner.”
“You don’t think any part of this vote will be contested?”
“I would think not. There’s been a clear victory in every state, the most surprising being of course, California, Vinick’s own home state which everyone knew was going to be a bit of a battleground, but I don’t think anyone in the world thought it would be going to Santos.”
“Well, I don’t think you can underestimate the value of the Hispanic vote in that part of the world, and although a lot of that community had been starting to vote Republican in past years, mainly due, it’s thought , to issues surrounding the abortion debate, when Vinick and Santos lined up pretty similar on that area, they’ve been turning back to the Democrats in droves. But now I think we’re going to, yes we are, we’re going to Jennie Walker who’s currently outside the Marriot Hotel in Houston where the Congressman has spent the night with his staff. Jennie, no doubt there’s some serious celebration going on down there right now.”
“Yes James, there certainly is, and you can probably hear that noise behind me, these are all supporters of Congressman Santos who’ve come down to the hotel this morning to celebrate his victory. Now, the Congressman himself hasn’t spoken to us yet, but he is expected to make a statement any time now.”
“Have we heard anything from the Congressman’s staff yet?”
“Not so far. But I can tell you that when the California victory was announced just about an hour ago, we did hear a very loud burst of music coming from the second floor rooms of this hotel, where we believe the Congressman and his staff have been spending the night.”
“Really? Was it celebratory music, could you hear what it was?”
“Well, unless I’m very much mistaken, it was Listen To the Music by legendary rock group the Doobie Brothers, so I guess I’m gonna call it celebratory.”
“Many are saying it was the turning point for the Democrats tonight.”
“California was the turning point, James, no doubt the people here thought so. But I’m sure that the Congressman will be down shortly to tell us that himself.”
*************************************************************
“You know, I couldn’t have done any of this without you,” Matt was straightening his tie with a little too much nervous energy, in the mirror at the side of the lift.
“Any of this sir?” Josh was traveling along with the Congressman as he descended to talk to the press, Helen at his side, and a ubiquitous secret service officer in attendance also. Everyone else was stumbling down the stairs as they spoke.
“Any of this,” he repeated, taking one last look in the mirror before the lift binged at the bottom floor. They got out, and, ignoring the screams and the cheers and the applause from all around. Matt turned to his campaign officer: “All of this. I owe all of this to you.”
Josh clapped him firmly on the arm. “You owe all of this to yourself, sir, no one else. You got yourself here, and you deserve it, every last piece. Now go out there, and tell the country that you’re gonna be the best president since sliced bread.”
His face crinkled. “Sliced bread?”
“Sliced bread is the coolest thing in the world, sir, trust me on this.”
And Santos laughed, which is what Josh had been intending, and some of the nervousness dissipated into the morning air. “Well I’ll think about it.” He put both hands on Josh’s shoulders. “Honestly, thank you.”
“Go knock ‘em dead sir.”
Matt was already moving away, going towards the lights and the screaming crowds and the press. “Don’t you go anywhere though,” he shouted back. “I don’t think I could do this alone.”
Josh began to follow, clapping slowly to match the people lining the corridor on either side. “You’ll have to find a way,” he muttered under his breath, smiling as he saw the rest of the staff marching smartly from the stairwell, slightly out of breath, but still grinning.
As Matt moved forward to address the assembled masses, the others hung back, giving him his moment and the respect that he’d earned with the position he’d just been appointed to.
He spoke of greater times to come, of a strong economy, of safe borders, of children better educated than anywhere else in the world. He spoke of medical care for the most desperate, and feeding those most in need, of cleaning the air and the water for future generations and building a great, and prosperous country where everyone could come together and be justly proud to call themselves Americans.
Josh felt a pair of arms slip round his middle, and Donna put her head securely on his shoulder. “I’m feeling proud already,” she murmured.
He breathed in the comfortable and calming scent of her and wrapped an arm around her in return. “Yeah?” he said. “How does it feel?”
“It feels good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He turned a little, dislodging her from his shoulder and she smiled up into his face, her eyes glowing with hope for the future. “It’s the best feeling in the world,” he said and kissed her, not caring who saw, not caring if anyone saw. There’d been enough waiting in his life. Tonight was a night when things happened.
*************************************************************
Donna got out of the metro at Smithsonian after traveling down from the new house she and Josh were considering buying out in Virginia. It was the beginning of December and colder than hell in DC, though she supposed that was actually a misnomer, as she couldn’t actually remember a mythology where it was cold in hell.
She hustled up the escalator, pulling her scarf closer around her neck and wishing she’d worn a thicker jacket. Winter was moving in with a vengeance this year after a balmy and late autumn had tricked everyone into thinking it was practically still summer. No one was tricked any more.
She wasn’t meeting Josh until 1 when they were going to find somewhere nice to have lunch. She’d actually already picked a place, a little Japanese joint just at the start of Georgetown and quite a hike from the Mall, but she figured they could hang the expense and get a cab. If it hadn’t been so cold, she might even have suggested walking as the exercise would have done them both good, but when the weather got this bad, it was time to hang the exercise and turn to modern convenience.
She got to street level. It wasn’t raining or wet in any way, but the sky was heavy with haze and seemed to threaten precipitation. There was a light breeze blowing, and the clouds were whipping across the open vista behind the Washington Monument.
Donna looked around. It was only half twelve, but she didn’t really want to stand around waiting for Josh outside. Nipping into one of the Smithsonians seemed the obvious choice, and since she was supposed to be meeting him outside the Natural History museum, she headed there, hoping it wouldn’t be filled with the mass numbers of screaming schoolchildren who seemed to accompany her every visit.
Sidestepping joggers honestly, who jogged in December? Ð she made her way over the loose gravel paths in the direction of her destination, but when she was a short distance away, she stopped.
Unless she was imagining things, that was a very Josh-like figure sitting at one of the few open cafŽs still doing business, staring off into space and holding a big cup of coffee between his gloved hands. She squinted. No, that was definitely Josh.
But he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t even notice her standing there, didn’t see her approaching, and wasn’t actually aware of her presence until she was standing at his table and said: “Hi?”
He glanced up. “Oh, hi,” he said, getting to his feet quickly and giving her a quick kiss.
“You been waiting long?” she said, taking the spare seat at his table, but huddling herself up and looking cold as a clear indication that she did not want to sit here long.
“A few minutes,” he said, retaking his seat and putting his hands back around his coffee. “But it’s okay, I mean we said 1,” he looked at his watch. “And it’s not even quarter to, so I guess I’m early.”
“What are you doing out here?”
He wiped the side of his nose. “Just thinking.”
“Your meeting with President Bartlet didn’t go well?”
“No, no it did. It went very well.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, he said better things that Congressman Santos,” he said sharply, lifting his coffee up for a sip. They’d had a bad conversation.
Matt had been dead against Josh leaving to the point of shouting at him about it. He’d said that Josh was to be his chief of staff, and that he couldn’t think of another person in the world that he’d rather have with him.
Josh had told him that as flattering as the offer was, there was no way he felt he could carry on working in this manner with the condition he’d been left with.
Matt had been furious. Josh was leaving because of his epilepsy? Because of the occasional lousy seizure that no one cared about and everyone would learn to live with.
Josh said he was the only person who had to live with it, and it would become more serious the longer he kept working under such stressful conditions.
So the thugs had basically won, Matt had said. The Republican thugs who’d wanted him taken out of the game so they wouldn’t have to go up against him. He was going to let them beat him?
He wasn’t actually going to let anyone beat him, and while they were on the subject, he wasn’t going to let anyone brow beat him either. This was his decision, he’d said, and he hated having to make it, but he felt that for the good of his own health as much as for the position he’d been offered, he felt he had to decline.
“In fact, he was downright supportive,” Josh finished bitterly.
Donna reached out to rub his leg with her cold left hand. “Matt was just upset for you,” she said. “He’ll come round in the end. So what did President Bartlet say?”
“He offered me a job,” Josh said, trying not to sound smug.
“Really!” Donna practically jumped up and down in her chair. “Doing what?”
“He’s starting up a new company,” he said. “Leo’s idea I think really, a way to put all that money they’ve got kicking around, to some good use. It’s a lobbyist company really, Leo will have no direct role in it because of his position now, obviously, but the President is going to be the executive in chief and he wants someone to run things at office level and manage the business while he’s back in New Hampshire.”
“What kind of lobbying?”
“For the little people,” he said, giving in to the urge to smile. “The small companies who don’t have enough money to take on the big boys on their own, the individuals who want to go to Congress and put forward their ideas or complain about their healthcare or their insurance companies. We’ll be there to show them how. We’ll raise money for them, raise awareness, talk them through everything they have to do.”
“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” she exclaimed. Then she smiled: “Why does this sound just like a really really big block of cheese day?”
He shrugged a little in his coat. “Possibly because it is. I told you it was Leo’s idea. But it’s a 9 5 job, five days a week, no weekends, minimal stress, and the opportunity to make a real difference.”
“So you told him yes?”
“I told him I’d talk to you and see what you said, then phone him this evening.”
“You told the President about me and you?” she felt herself blushing from her toes to her forehead.
“Sure. I mean, now that we’re sleeping together and everything, I pretty much want to tell the world,” now he was grinning.
“But the President, I mean…” she shivered a little. “Couldn’t we have started with the joint chiefs first? Maybe someone at cabinet level? I mean, did you have to go right to the top?”
He noticed her shivering for the first time. “Come on, you’re cold. Let’s go have lunch,” he pulled her up and rubbed her arms a little to warm her. “Did you pick a place?”
“I did,” she said, jumping up and down on her cold feet.
“Burger?” he said hopefully, wrapping his arm around hers as they set off.
“Nope.”
“Pizza?”
“Nope.”
“It’s not some new-fangled faddy health thing where you’re not allowed to eat potatoes or bread is it?”
“Nope. Japanese.”
“Donna!”
“What?”
“You know I don’t do well with noodles. I try and slurp them up and the sauce just goes all over the place.”
“They don’t just do noodles, Josh.”
“No?”
“No, they do sushi and sashimi and tempura…”
“Raw fish?”
“Cooked fish too.”
“And you, you know, want me to eat this stuff?”
“Well, you can try rubbing it on yourself, but I don’t think it’ll do anything for you.”
“Funny girl.”
She clutched his arm tighter, feeling warmer already at the familiar banter. “You’re really going to work for the President again?”
“If you think it’s a good idea.”
“I do, I think it’s a great idea.”
“Then I’ll go work for President Bartlet. And you, meanwhile, will go and work for President Santos, and then we’ll both be working for Presidents.”
“Only I’ll be the one staying late and giving orders and having high blood pressure,” she said, suddenly not sure she relished the prospect.
“Well, I’ll have dinner on the table for you every night when you come in, and I won’t bitch at you if you’re late. How about that?”
“Deal,” she said. “And you’ll stick to your hours and not try and sneak extra time when I’m not looking.”
“As if I would!”
“I know you, Joshua Lyman!”
“Yes,” he slowed them down a little and kissed her. “You know me.”
She smiled, feeling the same warm glow that had surged through her in the Marriot the night of the election, only this time she knew exactly what it was: love.
“Except about the sushi,” he said, pulling her on again down to the street where they could hail a cab. “I’m not sure which strange, deluded planet you think I’m from where you could actually get me to eat raw fish.”