Sonata in C MaJor

by:SheilaVR

Character(s): CJ
Category(s): General
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: Warmest thanks to Aaron Sorkin, Warner Bros., NBC, et al for graciously allowing us to expand upon their patented creation at no extra charge.
Summary: CJ disappears without a trace...
Spoiler: After "Galileo".

***

Phase III: DC al Coda

DC al Coda (Mus.): to return to the start and repeat to a specified point

I can't take this anymore. I can't STAND it!

Work. Phones. Meetings. People. I don't care. How can any of that matter?

Where is she? What happened to her yesterday? What's happening to her right now?

God, it's been more than a day... anything could have happened. Anything at all...

Is she still alive?

Trapped somewhere? Does every second count now?

In pain? Bleeding?

A prisoner? But why her? And what will they do to her?

No – not that! Anything but that!

If anyone so much as touches her...

Better to kill her outright than...

I can't bear it. How can I think that?

She's got to live. She's got to be unharmed. She's got to be!

But...

What if – she is dead?

Maybe... all this time... somewhere, unnoticed... alone... before we even missed her...

We were just sitting around. We did nothing!

No... we were joking...

She's counting on us. On me.

What can I do? Where can I look? I have to do something! But WHAT?

I can't help her!

CJ, where ARE you?

*****

Guilt is an extraordinary emotion, more powerful than can be imagined until you face it yourself. Each person deals with it in his or her own way.

Josh's office is some little distance from mine, but I can still hear him. I expect the entire West Wing can, for that matter. In another few minutes someone is going to show up with a straightjacket. He's stomping back and forth, pulling his hair out and raging to himself for not protecting CJ better. Guilt – and its close cousin, fear – has completely consumed him. I know he hasn't slept; none of us have, really. Unlike myself, I don't think he even feels the exhaustion. I've never seen him so worked up, so completely unhinged.

By contrast, I'm forcing myself to work. This is where my guilt comes into play: I'm actually succeeding. Somehow, even with the noise down the hall and the fear that's hanging over every single head in this place, I can still lose myself in the art of writing. For a time, at least, I can blot out everything and get the job done. Just as Josh is compelled to pace and shout, I feel compelled to work. It forces time to pass. It gives purpose to this waiting period. It's far preferable to doing nothing at all. Not to mention the fact that I have no idea what else I could do. Besides, even in the darkest crisis of the heart, we have a responsibility to the nation. We can't panic. We have to keep working.

Josh is panicking. He's long since given up even pretending to try to work. I've attempted to calm him down with optimism. I even tried to get his mind on a specific task, a professional challenge. It's another way of getting through the day. But then, not everyone functions the same way I do. My success in that effort was... predictable.

What is the source of my guilt? The fact that I failed to help him in any way, that I'm handling this better than he is, and that handling it better gives the impression that I don't care as much as he does.

Now no one really knows what a person means to someone else. But if anyone had posed the question hypothetically – How would you react if CJ were to vanish into thin air? – I know I'd never have been able to predict Josh's reaction.

God knows I don't want anything to happen to her. Obviously something has happened, and we have absolutely no idea what, where, or when. But I have another worry on top of that one: what will happen to Josh if CJ doesn't come back.

*****

CJ will be all right. I'm certain of that. There's simply no other option. This world cannot possibly commit such a heinous crime against her.

My God will not permit that to happen to her. Especially not to her...

*****

She's going to kill me. I know it.

That, I can handle. It would mean that she's back, safe and sound and actually able to get mad enough to kill.

At least we're free to go now. The lock-down ended early this morning. Everyone else in the corps has gone, and returned, and gone again. They've left me behind each time, to "mind the store."

The word at the last briefing is that CJ's sick. I shudder at how far that may be from the truth, and yet how close.

I know the inside story. I know what none of them have guessed yet. I know what a story it'll make. And I'm still sitting on it.

Toby asked for my silence. He didn't apologize, but none of us care about that now. The White House wants me on board for this. If a whisper gets around that someone else has finally put two and two together, I'll hear it first. I have no problem playing the stool pigeon to the media if it'll help hold the cover that much longer... if it'll help her in the slightest way.

When the time does come, then I've got permission to break this story myself. When secrecy no longer matters, I'm going to get the truth out there at once, so that the whole nation can help us look. I'm going to plaster her name and face everywhere.

She's going to kill me for it.

I honestly don't care.

I can't get that moment in the Oval Office out of my mind. I walked out and left her. Sure, she turned me down, but I was the one who left. I was furious at her, at myself, at the President for literally coming between us like this... hell, I was mad at the whole world for letting me fall for a woman who can't get past her work to her heart.

Then I took it out on her. It was the most unfair thing I've ever done. If that had been any plane except Air Force One, I bet she would've smacked me. I just sat there and relished it. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Wrong. Not when you may never have the chance to put things right. Not when it's barely even odds that you can make up at least the friendship, if not the romance. Not when there's a very real possibility that you'll never see her again. Ever.

*****

No new information. I don't know why that surprises me; they're looking for one woman among several million, somewhere in the huge DC area and – before much longer – beyond that. Plus, they're doing it so discretely that the public hasn't gotten a single whiff yet. It's totally unreasonable for me to expect success so soon. We have no idea where to start. Right now we're just beating the bushes and hoping for a miracle.

The President's going to demand another progress report any minute now, and I honestly don't know what to tell him. That Danny's warned us that the top could blow completely off at any moment? That Carol looks paler every time she goes before the press, and that sooner or later she'll snap? That Josh is going insane right before our eyes? That Sam has buried himself in his work, ignoring absolutely everything else, and that Toby has withdrawn so tightly into himself that no one can get a word out of him? That none of them can be relied on any longer to help us run this country? That the White House is grinding to a halt, because we can't produce our Press Secretary on demand?

I can hear Jed complaining from here. He refuses to close the door between us, so that he can hear the least sound from me about the slightest progress. Meanwhile, he's doing his best to keep up the nation's usual business. But anyone who really knows him knows that this is not just a bad day. Just as anyone who knows me can tell that there's something pressing on my mind, too...

No time for it. We have to remain in command. There's just too much to do. Got to keep the administration going. I can't stop for anything – even to admit to myself that I feel personally responsible for CJ's well-being. No time.

It's not that the White House can't survive without a Press Secretary for a few hours, or even a few days. It's that the entire senior staff can't handle this crippling blow to their tight circle. Damn it, I want to order those guys to pull themselves together and get their asses back to work... and I can't. I can't bring myself to do it, not when I see how much each of them is suffering.

This is like a revelation. It makes you realize just how much we rely on each other around here.

Sounds like Jed's really talking himself into a fury. I pity the poor bum on the receiving end. Being President offers no exemption from human feelings. He works as closely with CJ as I do... in fact, he relies on her even more.

Thank God Abbey's here. She'll keep him on an even keel when no one else can. That woman could stabilize an earthquake. And an earthquake this is.

There's only one other person who can fix it... who knows how to fix everything for us... and she's the one who isn't here...

It was so good of Margaret to worry about me when my divorce papers came in. I don't blame her for fearing the worst; but the truth was, I didn't want a drink then. I'd already lost Jenny.

This is totally different. Now I really want a drink.

*****

Thank God Abbey's here. Otherwise, I'd pitch the next official who "has to see me today" straight into the Rose Garden.

I've still got responsibilities. Duties. Tasks to perform that only the President can manage. People to see that only the President can convince. Problems to face that only the President can solve.

Excuse me, but I've got my own emergency to deal with right now!

Yet the United States can't stop moving onward, just because one federal servant is missing.

Oh, I could argue that every life counts for something, or that we're not talking about a storeroom clerk here... but no matter how I justify it to myself, it still sounds alarmist and paranoid in my head just as I'm about to blast some persistent bureaucrat.

The President is in control. The President does not overreact. The President keeps things in perspective. The President always puts the welfare of the nation first.

This President is currently missing a vital member of the team that helps him run this nation. Damn it, I'm the most powerful man in the world! I can order people to search high and low, I can muzzle the press, I can terrify people into leaving me alone. But what good does any of this do for her right now?

What brought this on, anyway? Is it because she's a member of my staff? Did someone figure that my family was too protected, so they decided to get at me another way? Then why haven't we gotten a ransom demand or something?

If I break out the big guns to search for her, like I so want to do, what will it look like? That one of my employees is more valuable to me than every other citizen in the country? Will people start to whisper about the interest I have for this woman I work with every day? Like I need that ridiculousness right now!

I should feel some sense of triumph that the hostage situation ended bloodlessly. The police, the FBI and the Secret Service all handled it perfectly. Twenty-six congresspeople and civil servants are safe, the aggressors are in custody, and democracy has been preserved.

I don't feel like celebrating. Because we sprang to the wrong conclusion, because we didn't dig as deeply and as thoroughly as we should have, we lost an entire day looking for the person who fell through the cracks. The person I know best of all of them.

What will that day end up costing her? What has it already cost her?

I can't get past the feeling that this is somehow my fault. First, that I got her into this... and second, that I failed to get her out.

CJ, I pray to God that someday you can forgive me...

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

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