Analecta

by: N. Y. Smith

Disclaimer: Not Mine

Category: AU (very), Josh/Donna Romance, Josh POV, Angst,

Spoilers: Through Season Three

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Contains references to 9/11/2001. Amy-free universe.

The Ties That Bind Us

"One of the great assets of mankind is its ability to endure anything; one of mankind's greatest faults is its ability to put up with anything."

Toby Ziegler

Freedom's Voice, 2008

The war dragged on, casualty counts and war-zone reports becoming a part of the daily newscasts. Occasionally the military operations would turn up a small pocket of terrorists, but the expeditions were mostly fruitless. The fervor and fear from September, 2001, faded to a benign toleration of the ongoing threat. Domestic security alerts, and most were false alarms, were issued as intelligence indicated but were mostly ignored by the general public. We weren't much different. Constant exposure to extraordinary circumstances make you crave the ordinary. Indulging that craving was nearly tragic for all of us.

The pace had been murderous the summer of 2003-the constant communications morass that consumed Toby, Sam and CJ and my travel on behalf of the Office of Homeland Security. It was the last week before the schools would start and Mallory was bringing the baby by for lunch. It was an unseasonably cool day in early August, which meant the temperature was down to muggy, and The Sisterhood (well, it beats The Harem) had decided on a lunchtime picnic. The assistants had been alerted to the activity and all of our schedules had been cleared at noon for Operation Lafayette Park. Andy was coming over from the Hill and stopping off at the day care in the OEOB to pick up her baby. Donna, CJ and I were meeting her there then proceeding to the rendezvous point in the park. Toby and Sam were going directly to the park to help Mallory set up the blankets and the food.

The pickup went smoothly. CJ practically sprinted with her son while Donna walked a little more slowly with our new baby. I grappled with our fifteen-month-old who alternately wanted to walk, run, be carried and carry his baby brother. We managed to join the group under a spreading tree with a minimum of fuss.

"Can't believe you're in town, Josh," Mallory teased through a bite of fried chicken while keeping an eye on the baby who was trying to crawl across the blanket spread over the grass.

"What day is this?" I asked just before cramming a fork containing potato salad in my mouth.

"Wednesday," Andy answered.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes, Josh," Toby said impatiently.

"Well," I swallowed, "if it's Wednesday I'm definitely in Washington because if it were Tuesday I'd still be in . . ."

"Harlingen, Texas," Donna supplied, corraling our older son. "And if it were Monday, you'd still be in..."

"Ruidoso, New Mexico," I answered, "with the cattle ranchers."

"Doesn't Buckland do any traveling?" Mallory asked. "Seems like you're gone all the time."

"He travels the end of the week," CJ explained, slipping applesauce to her baby boy.

"What's with the travel?" Mallory continued despite Sam's warning glare.

"Face time," Donna parroted my explanation to her. "When it comes to inspiring confidence, there's no substitute for it."

"Can't the Vice-President do it?"

"He does it, too, Mallory," Sam sputtered. "He has an even heavier schedule than Josh and Buckland."

"Wow, Mallory," Andy Wyatt elbowed her husband, "did you make the potato salad?"

"Yeah, Mallory," Toby continued obediently, "I really like the, uh, what the hell are these, onions?"

"No," Mallory explained, "Mom made it, from her mother's recipe."

"Jenny made the potato salad?"I stage-choked. "Then Sam and I'd better head to the hospital now cause she hates us so much she's likely to have poisoned it."

"She doesn't hate you, at least not Sam," Mallory winked.

"It's amazing how the production of grandchildren raises one's value in the eyes of the in-laws," Sam opined.

"Sometimes," Josh glanced pointedly at his wife, "as long as they're not too close together."

"Oh, come on," CJ gestured with a half-eaten chicken-leg.

Toby finished her thought, "You guys aren't, um, you know again are you?"

Donna turned scarlet and, judging by the heat radiating from my face, I was, too. Conveniently, my toddler decided to toddle away and I chased him down and scooped him up, returning just in time to hear Donna's explanation.

"We're not planning," she fished for words.

"We're just not preventing," I finished for her. "When you're as old as I am..."

"Old, my ass," Toby contradicted.

"When you got as late a start as we did..."

"Whose fault was that, Josh? Besides, what's the rush?" CJ jostled her son.

"We're not really sure," Donna teared up. "I mean, it's really too soon to tell and..." I pulled her into my embrace while they all shared that knowing look.

And then my friend, my friend Sam, the one who'd been my best man, for whom I'd been best man, the man I was going to ask to raise my children should anything happen to Donna and me, my friend wielded the coup de grace, "From what I've seen, if you two aren't preventing, you're planning."

My face, which had cooled a bit, heated up again, but his gentle smile tempered the sting of the remark. I could feel Donna shaking but couldn't tell if she were laughing or crying so I lifted her chin and found tears streaming down her face alternating with laughter. Oh yeah, I shared a knowing glance with my friends, number three was definitely on the way.

"They're just jealous," Andy consoled with a smirk.

"Oh, yeah," Toby lied, "we just really want to extend the sleep deprivation another couple of years." Andy thumped him on the arm.

"Leave them alone, guys," CJ said quietly, holding up her son's hands while he stumbled along.

"It's okay," Donna wrapped her hand around CJ's arm. "I seem to remember ours wasn't the only little bundle of joy named in that cartoon-what was it?"

CJ grinned, "'Four storks flew over the Eagle's Nest.' I have it framed in my office."

"So does Leo," I picked off some chicken and fed it to my older son.

"Where?" Mallory gathered trash.

"Behind his desk," CJ gathered her trash.

Toby handed the baby to Andrea, "With his pictures."

Sam walked their daughter, "Between the picture of the baby and..."

I pulled Donna to her feet, "The napkin the President gave him back."

"The best part," Donna wiped her face with a napkin, "is the little bubble at the bottom of the radar guy saying about the storks..."

Sam exchanged the baby for the armload of blankets his wife carried, "'They don't fit any of our profiles, sir, but it looks like a full-fledged attack!'"

We all smirked.

"At least they can't say we didn't accomplish anything while we were in office," CJ walked reluctantly back toward the White House.

The park was full that day, lots of tourists, some playing catch, others with Frisbees. Sam, Toby and I had become the designated beasts of burden, lagging behind with armloads of blankets and baskets. A Frisbee, it was red as I remember, fluttered behind Toby and in front of Sam and me. A young man trotted after it, bumping into Toby's back. Toby fell forward, yelling something that didn't register at first, and the young man took off to a waiting car. Then it registered that Toby had shouted, "Run."

Dropping our burdens we ran to him, screaming to our families to run, which they did, right to the gates of the White House. We flanked our friend's prostrate form, not daring to touch the handle of the blade that stuck out from the center of his back.

"Are they okay?" he asked wetly, voice barely more than a whisper.

"They're safe," Sam answered, his hand spread across Toby's shoulder.

He nodded then whispered, "Cold."

Frantically, I spread one of the picnic blankets over him then folded my hand in his. "You're gonna be fine, Toby."

In an instant we were surrounded by Park Police, Secret Service, DC police. It seemed forever until he was loaded into an ambulance then we walked back to the White House. After a brief word with our own families, we gathered up Andrea and headed for the parking lot but our exit was blocked by a small phalanx of Secret Service agents. My old shadow Lurch stepped forward but, instead of trying to stop me, handed me my suit coat and a panic button saying, "Follow me, sir."

I obeyed without protest, clipping the panic button to my belt next to my pager, "I suppose we're going to see a lot of each other from now on, Agent?"

"So it would seem, Mr. Lyman."

I slipped on my coat, chilled despite the August warmth, "Call me Josh, Agent Lurcael."

He preceded me through the door, "Lurch, Mr. Lyman."

"Of course, Agent Lurcael." Then we climbed into the armored SUV for yet another trip to the hospital.

Toby's injuries were not life-threatening-punctured, nicked really, lung and partial paralysis which meant a cane. That's what the doctors told us. True enough, he survived, but it was a long time before he lived again. Andy seemed to understand, even if she couldn't share it. She left that to us. Each of us understood his need to grieve, in his own way, for the person he'd been before he could accept the person he'd become.

CJ-who never left her emotions completely unguarded-now shared her heart only with her son. We still had a part of it, of her, but she'd thrown up a protective wall that we could never completely breach. Sam-always confident of his intellect-now worried that it, too, had been damaged along with his sight and hearing. And I, well, I remained a mess of guilt and loss, trying desperately to cram the life I wanted into the few short years predicted for me. It was late fall again before Toby spoke of it, hobbling on his ever-present cane as we returned from a lunchtime visit to the daycare center in the OEOB.

"I felt it, you know," he slowed and we did the same. "The knife." He stopped. "I felt the sting as it pierced my skin, then the sear of the nerves as they were severed, then the tingling in my leg as the neural pathways shut down."

"That must have been terrifying," CJ said quietly.

He shook his head, sitting on a retaining wall while our protective details maintained a discreet distance. "What was terrifying was knowing they could kill any of you-including Andy and the baby-and I couldn't do anything about it." He studied the head of his cane. "I'm charged with running a country and I couldn't protect my own family."

CJ joined him on the wall. "All I remember is the numbing quiet. Even in the middle of the bullpen, there was a silence that surrounded me for the longest. I finally realized the silence was that place in my heart where Will's voice had been. I'd blocked it out because it hurt so much to hear it."

Sam had sat on the other side of Toby. "Do you hear it anymore?"

She thought moment then smiled. "Yeah. I hear it in the baby's laughter and it makes me smile to know he's not completely gone. Silly, isn't it?"

"No," Toby shook his head.

"I don't remember anything," Sam whispered. "I was driving down the street and, the next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital, half-blind and half-deaf." He rubbed his left temple before continuing. "But those are only input tools. You take the information in and your heart and your brain sort it out. It took me a long time to realize that I had more than enough brains and heart to make up for the loss."

"I remember everything." A siren startled me and I grinned sheepishly. "But I guess you all know that. I guess everybody knows that."

"Josh," Sam consoled.

"It felt like somebody kicked me in the chest, then like a burst of fire. I remember backing against the wall and I looked down and there was blood. I could feel my heart pounding and with every beat it pumped more blood onto the sidewalk. I remember Toby, and the paramedics and the sirens, the hospital and the slow fade to black. The last thing I remember is thinking that Joanie was dead, too, and Donna and I never had the chance to give my mother grandchildren." I crossed my arms. "Then I woke up and remembered that everyone I cared about got hurt, so I set about pushing her, and everyone else, away."

"You were doing a great job," Toby observed wryly.

"You changed your mind after that Christmas," Sam offered. "About everybody but Donna, I guess."

"That summer after Rosslyn convinced me that I could never do enough for Donna, be enough for Donna, but she'd never leave me. So I had to push her away."

"What changed your mind?" CJ asked.

"Watching three thousand people die in an instant." I leaned my head back and inhaled. "I realized that, if our positions were reversed, I would have wanted the chance. So I asked, and she said yes."

"And is apparently still saying yes," Sam teased.

CJ grinned, "Two boys and a girl? At least three times."

"Four," I corrected sheepishly.

"Excuse me?" CJ swatted my arm. "Have you lost your mind?"

Sam gulped. "I thought you were traveling three days a week now..."

"Apparently, that's not enough," Toby observed.

"Donna says it's her last," I emphasized the word, "chance to even the odds. She thinks two boys and two girls would be nice even numbers." I licked my lip. "Two for Joanie and two for us."

Agent Lurcael looked around for the tenth time, as did the others' protective details.

"The natives are getting restless," CJ observed.

"And we still have a country to run," I eased off the retaining wall and down the path.

"Taskmaster," Sam tossed before following, leaving CJ and Toby a quiet moment. I stopped and turned, looking at my friends with a sigh.

"Are you alright, Mr. Lyman?" my protector asked quietly.

I shook my head. "Of all the things we could have had in common, pain is the last thing I would have wanted."

Lurcael met my gaze, "You may share a common pain, Mr. Lyman, but anyone could see it's hope that binds you together."

I thought for a moment, nodded, then let him usher me back into the West Wing.

Chapters - Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

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