The National Library - West Wing Fan Fiction

Refiner's Fire

Category(s): Post-Ep
Rating: TEEN
Disclaimer: This is an original short story spawned by the imagination of SheilaVR, based upon the creation of Aaron Sorkin, with the obligatory nod to Warner Brothers Television and NBC. No copyright infringement is actually intended, but no threat of same will stop me from fantasizing about "The West Wing" anyway...
Summary: A frame-by-frame analysis of the last thirty seconds of the first season finale.
Authors Notes: This plotline has no bearing on Mr. Sorkin's avowed intent to flashback to the Bartlet presidential campaign at the start of the new season.
Warning:I refuse to glorify violence, even in fiction. I will never comprehend how any person could willingly hurt another. However, violence does exist, and by its very nature it is dramatic. What follows is a coolly realistic interpretation of events, based primarily upon a frame-by-frame analysis of the last thirty seconds of the first season finale.

PART 5

*******

~ TIME INDEX: 00:02:45 ~

Throughout the rest of his days, Danny Concannon would never be able to decide whether he was furious at CJ for giving him the worst scare he'd ever known... or grateful to her for very possibly saving his life.

If she hadn't offered him that head start on the space shuttle *Columbia*, he would have been out there in the open with everyone else - and just as vulnerable. But then again, he also would have known what happened to whom (assuming nothing happened to himself) - and been spared several agonizing hours of supreme uncertainty.

He was still on the phone to his editor, throwing glances at his watch and hoping the motorcade wouldn't pull away before he got out there (in which case he wouldn't get to see CJ until much later, after the wrap-up briefing back at the White House), when an unexpected, out-of-place sound drew his attention.

Running footsteps. *Racing* footsteps. Not leaving to watch the excitement outside as one would expect... Instead they grew louder every instant, echoing in these halls that had just begun to calm down after the President's visit.

Before Danny could even wonder, a young woman in T-shirt, jeans, sneakers and shoulder bag - a student from the audience, his journalistic mind concluded instinctively - ripped around a corner not twenty feet away as though pursued by the devil himself.

The sight of Danny's total obliviousness seemed to trigger the scream hitherto choked off by her perfect terror.

*"They're DYING out there!"*

Danny was out of his chair without having made any conscious decision to stand. His right arm lowered, the phone call instantly forgotten. He watched the girl charge on past, saw her shocked eyes, heard her sobbing breaths... and knew that it was true.

And he dropped the receiver and ran. As desperately as that teenager had fled the awful sight, Danny Concannon just as desperately sprinted towards it.

The distance from his assigned desk to the outside door could not have been much more than two hundred yards. Professional sprinters can cover that ground in less than half a minute. By such a standard Danny would have qualified for the Olympics tonight... but from his own perspective, he was running for hours without end.

Danny had been a reporter almost all his adult life. He'd covered the White House for the last eight years. He'd worked his way up to Senior White House Correspondent. And he'd personally known the current President ever since Governor Josiah Bartlet commenced his run for the Oval Office more than two years ago. But in all honesty, that wasn't uppermost in Danny's churning thoughts during his marathon of horror. Because, as long as he'd known and liked the President, he'd known and loved the President's Press Secretary.

His thoughts had no time for the spectacular nature of a prime story erupting directly in front of him, the guaranteed repercussions to the entire nation, or the potential death of a man he truly respected. All he could see was an extraordinary woman no sane person could hate getting caught in the mayhem. With hideous results.

He exploded into the night air - and slammed squarely into a police officer, almost knocking him over. The cop rallied, though, doubtless a bundle of nerves himself by now, and seized Danny's arm, yanking him to an abrupt halt.

"*Hold it!* The whole area's restricted!"

At first Danny didn't even hear him. His senses were filled with the flashing emergency lights, the shrilling sirens, the shouting officials, the pitiful cries, the scuttling Secret Service agents on all sides *with their guns out* - and the bodies on the asphalt.

Whatever had actually transpired, which from even one glance could not have been less than a massacre... by the time that hysterical student picked herself off the ground and ran indoors and Danny got the news and ran out, it was over.

*Over.* Such a final word.

His entire being cried out a single name: <*CJ?*>

A sharp jerk on his arm brought him back to himself, briefly. He stared at the uniform that opposed him, and tried to think of what would change this guy's mind.

"My friends are out there!"

The officer looked suspicious. "And who might *you* be?"

"Uh - " That question took another priceless heartbeat to register and make sense. He groped for the answer. "White House Press Corps - "

The cop's look of scepticism twisted into blatant disgust, as though being a newsman was tantamount to a criminal. "*No* reporters. Get back with the rest of them. Your headlines can damned well wait."

Danny couldn't believe his ears. How could anyone not understand how critical this was to him? "No, I've got to find out if they're okay - "

"*No way*, pal. Not unless you want me to arrest you right here." The officer put a hand to his holstered revolver in unmistakable warning.

The threat penetrated somehow, before Danny completely lost control. At last he realized the futility of arguing any longer. Never had he felt more like hauling off and clouting someone - however, he saw the stupidity to that idea just in time. It felt like a vice crushing his heart, but he obeyed. Unable to do otherwise. Unable to do anything at all.

As long as he went no closer - and that cop watched him like a hawk - he was permitted to stand and look. Which he did, staring across an endless vista of destruction, peering at the casualties laid out and the survivors milling around them, praying that he'd spot a familiar face or silhouette. One with high heels and auburn hair.

A part of his brain that still functioned with some semblance of normalcy noticed that one of the long black executive limos was gone. The other remained. Which meant that at least one of the Bartlets had been removed from the danger zone - and the odds were at least even that one of them *hadn't*, since in a crisis they were supposed to be protected separately. And the Secret Service only knew which had left. So what about the one remaining behind?

Some of the fallen human shapes he could make out must have been innocent spectators, but at least two wore business suits such as spectators never would. Perhaps a White House staff member, someone Danny knew well? And he still couldn't identify a tall redhead...

<CJ, where ARE you?>

She might be on the ground bleeding ten feet away, and he couldn't go to her -!

It seemed that there were ambulances everywhere. Danny struggled to convince himself that, if by any appalling chance she *had* been hurt, the attendants would give her better help than he ever could.

No use: that image only made him more frantic to find her. But a cop with an attitude and a loaded gun still barred his way.

He tried to reason things out. Where would the victims be taken? Bethesda was usually the first hospital to come to mind whenever one thought about the President, just for its prestige - but rather distant to be feasible tonight. Walter Reed could provide the proper security needed, yet it too was unrealistically far away. Georgetown University might be nearest in terms of mileage, although the narrow streets around that neighborhood would give a speeding ambulance pause, to say nothing of a stretch-limousine. George Washington University seemed like the best bet, especially since it was almost on a direct line to the White House from here.

Which meant that by now a hoard of reporters would already be there, drawn just like sharks to blood scent.

Danny knew well the pull that a story could have. He himself had recently caused the Bartlet administration a great deal of embarrassment by publishing a document he'd uncovered, a veritable guidebook on its weaknesses. His defense had been that it was valid news. CJ held him personally responsible for weeks; only this evening had she shown any definite signs of thawing. That tip on the shuttle had been her olive branch of truce - offered mere minutes before she walked outside with the President and straight into assassin gunsights...

He could not have felt less of a desire to report on *this* story. He didn't care if he failed to write a single word about it, or what anyone would have to say about his reporting skills and senior correspondent status afterwards. Later he might calm down enough to look at things more objectively - but right this moment none of it mattered anywhere near as much as the one vital piece of news he wanted most, and could not learn.

He'd have no problem forgiving CJ for denying him a front-row seat to the biggest incident of his career - just as long as he'd be able to forgive her in *person*.

An object to one side caught his eye... something with which he was naturally familiar. A full-sized TV videocamera, lying flat on the pavement where no cameraman would ever place such a delicate and expensive piece of equipment, much less leave it unattended.

And then he realized that it must have been dropped: the stardust twinkling around it could only be broken glass.

Which meant that its wielder must have gone down as well.

Reporters as a breed disregarded their own welfare, pursuing the story at all costs, carrying cameras into the front lines of wars and disasters alike, maintaining through their lenses and microphones an almost callous detachment from the actual impact on people's lives - and seemingly convinced that the public service they provided would grant them virtual invulnerability. Sometimes it actually seemed to. And sometimes...

Just how dearly had that coverage been bought tonight? Was someone else Danny knew fighting for his or her life this minute - and *losing?*

How ironic, that the story of the year should break on the very doorstep of a museum devoted to news, as if someone had planned it that way all along. Nice touch.

The *Columbia* had been trapped in orbit, at the risk of its entire crew, until a desperate repair job finally made its safe return to earth possible. Captain Hotchkiss, his Stealth fighter shot down over Iraq, had been plucked from certain torture by a daring covert rescue operation in defiance of all diplomatic protocol. And there were a lot of other stories out there in the night, many of them important and all of them worth telling... now all destined to obscurity, overwhelmed by the simple squeeze of a human finger.

Danny sighed and pulled out his cellular phone, bracing himself to place one obligatory call.

"Sir - me again."

His editor's voice crackled along the channel, rising above both shouts and sirens.

"Yes, I can confirm that shots were fired and that people have been hit... "

He shook his head automatically at the next question, even though his boss couldn't see. "No, I don't have it; by the time I got out here it was all over."

Then his eyes widened in disbelief.

"*Where?* On the phone to you, sir! Giving you that tip on the shuttle, remember? How was I to expect that anything like *this* would happen?"

His editor wasn't impressed, and proved it.

"You wouldn't ask that if you were here. Bodies are still lying all over the place. I haven't even been able to find out if the President is okay - or anyone else, for that matter."

The inference drawn by *that* comment really made Danny see red.

"Oh, really? Fine! The next time Bartlet arranges his own assassination attempt, I'll make sure he waits until I'm right there to watch him fall!" And he broke the connection with more force than the phone was really designed to handle.

<The single-mindedness of the guy... > Danny didn't appreciate that self-centered attitude from anyone on a *good* day. Besides, every paper in town would have the whole story printed, or at least as much of it as was yet known, before another hour went by, and it'd be flashed around the globe long before that. People in every nation would tune in to hear all the gory details, getting a sterilized perspective, forgetting that behind this exciting drama was real human suffering. What conceivable difference could one more reporter make?

The rush caused by that little chat wore off fast, leaving him empty and listless. <NOW what do I do?>

He really didn't want to stay, gazing upon the graphic results of unmitigated violence, but he hated to leave without knowing for sure that CJ wasn't still here. And he had absolutely no idea as to her current location... or *condition*...

And yet, if he remained at this distance, he wouldn't learn either.

Across the field of combat, Danny could see a line of police holding back countless other reporters, both White House affiliates and free-lancers. The cops were obviously trying to shepherd them away from the scene and onto the buses that had transported most of them here earlier this evening. With predictably poor success: either the newsmen refused to leave, filming every possible angle of this calamity, or else they chose to obtain their own transportation. Heading for the hospitals, no doubt.

And beyond them, the lights of Rosslyn shone as bright and steady as ever, as though nothing unusual had happened at all...

At last Danny told himself that, logically, he should go to the White House and try to make some coherent sense of all this. He held the senior position; it was expected. Besides, the hospitals wouldn't let him in there any more than the police had here. And the bus would transport him as fast as any other public service.

However, right now he couldn't stand being around another witness to the past half-hour - especially another journalist, who'd want to talk about nothing else. He desperately needed privacy, to confront his fears and his hopes uninterrupted, in silence. He'd find a cab.

One thing, and one thing only, made this decision possible for him. CJ would be there in the Press Room, to brief the world on what exactly had occurred, if she was in fact all right.

And someone else would be able to tell him the truth, if she *wasn't*.

*****

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

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