And The World Stood Still

by:SheilaVR

Character(s): Jed & Co.
Category(s): General
Rating: TEEN
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is actually intended, but no threat of same will stop me from fantasizing about "The West Wing" anyway...
Summary: The President demonstrates that alcohol and motorcades do not mix.
Author's Note:I wrote this shortly before we heard any details about the first season finale episode. So, for all intents and purposes, humor me and pretend that "What Kind of Day Has It Been" never took place.

In his office, Toby was alone and working - or rather, *attempting* to work. At first glance, one would assume him to be intensely focused on the drift of pages across his desk. His stillness seemed to endorse this image... but each effort at cohesive thought ended either in a depressing daydream or in a passing interruption. And there were plenty of both.

"Toby, have you heard anything?" one of the clerks asked in passing.

Chin in palm as though in deep contemplation, he didn't look up. "No."

"Damn. Well, if you do, you'll let me know?"

"Sure."

"Thanks." The guy left.

Toby fiddled aimlessly with his pen, then started tapping it against the desk's blotter in a preoccupied, mechanical fashion. *One, two, three, four, five - *

Sure enough, another head poked in. "Toby, anything new?"

He still didn't look up. "Not yet."

"Oh. Well, if something comes in - "

"I'll let you know."

"Right. Sorry to bother you."

"Oh, you're not bothering me," he muttered. "Why would anyone think that?" But the asker had already left. Just as well; it was hardly true, anyway.

*One, two, three, four - *

"Toby?"

Might as well nip this one in the bud. "No, there's nothing new."

"Thanks. Uh, can I stay for a bit anyway?"

For the first time his gaze lifted. Sam leaned on the door jam, hands in pockets, tie askew, as preoccupied and at loose ends as everyone else *except* his boss did not deny feeling.

"Oh, sure. I can use the distraction."

"Yeah, I can see that." Sam slipped quietly into a chair opposite, crossed his arms, and said nothing. Seemingly content just to be there.

Toby returned his unfocused vision to the desktop. And after a fairly long pause he commented idly, "You do realize that the strong, silent approach is not going to wheedle out information that does not exist?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, I had hopes. But at least here I'll get it as fast as you do."

"You don't have some urgent task to do like everyone else?"

"Well, a little while ago my task consisted of bringing in late night provisions. And seeing as my last delivery has long since grown cold and soggy, resuming my duties would mean that I'd have to go out for more." He raised both hands, as though this young yet astute political expert was actually unable to make a decision. "And for some unaccountable reason I'm experiencing a real reluctance to absent myself for any length of time in the foreseeable future."

"Gosh, I wonder why."

"Maybe it's agoraphobia. That would give me a patented excuse to stay here all night."

"How convenient. Whoever files first will be awarded the license."

A deep quiet very irregular for the West Wing descended around them. For two heartbeats.

"Toby - " a new voice began from the door.

"No, I do not have any new information, and yes, I will let you know when I do." He didn't look up.

" - O-*kay*. Bye." Warned by this too-level tone, the woman departed quickly.

In the restored illusion of peace, Sam scratched his jaw where the hint of five o'clock shadow had begun to itch. And glanced at his boss somewhat enviously; men with established beards never looked so unkempt.

But on the down side, the beard did accentuate the shadows around his boss's face.

Toby sighed, still not raising his eyes. "I'm going to kill him."

Sam blinked. "Who - Leo? Or the President?"

"Whichever of them I run across first." Someone less familiar with the Communications Director might actually believe him. "Leo for setting me up as the central switchboard to a hundred apoplectic employees who won't leave me alone... and the President for not having the grace to miraculously heal himself at once and put us all out of our misery."

"I'll be sure to mention that you're gunning for them. The President will definitely know better next time."

Toby tossed him a resigned glance, then dropped his eyes again. "Your eternal good humor is especially insufferable in moments like this."

"Hey, we all deal with stress in our own way." Sam stared into the ethernet, running a hand through his hair in pretended nonchalance - which was belied by his next words. "The man *I* want to get my hands on is that drunk."

Toby didn't move. "Dibs."

"Yeah, whatever his name is," Sam muttered absently, not really listening. "Good thing he's under lock and key is all I can say." His youthful features were growing positively vindictive.

"You'd have to wait in line."

"I doubt the President will be in any shape to meet out personal retribution for a little while at least, but he could always delegate to us and have the pleasure of watching." Sam was sounding more serious by the moment.

"If he does, it's to me." Toby threw him another glance. This one glittered. "I get first dibs to tan our tipsy assassin's hide and mount it on the Oval Office wall."

His colleague brightened a bit. "Hey, talk about a homecoming present."

"Nothing but the best for our hospitalized Chief Executive - "

"Toby?" a new voice broke in.

It might well have been the retribution-planning that had stretched something a little too thin. This time it snapped. *"THERE'S NO FURTHER NEWS!"*

The explosion was jarring. Sam jumped in his seat.

Mandy retreated a step from the threshold, one hand held protectively over her heart. "Right." She took a deep breath. "Well, thanks for telling the whole office."

Toby turned away. He was renowned for concealing his emotions, with a better poker face than the President himself, but regret could clearly be read at this moment. "Sorry." And exhaled. "Like you said, Sam... we all deal with it. One way or another."

"No problem." After an awkward moment, Mandy stepped inside. Content to lean against the open door, ignoring the other empty chair. Despite the late-night tension that permeated the entire building, her pantsuit was still pristine, her hair perfect, and her poise as self-confident as ever... but not even this fiercely independent private political operator could appear totally unaffected. "I suppose you don't want *everyone* to move in with you for the next few hours, but I was just wondering how you guys were doing."

"About as well as can be expected." Sam inclined his head in the direction of their unusually-volatile colleague as evidence. "We were just killing time with theories about the best method of killing a president-killer."

"Huh! You and the rest of the House. And I have the perfect solution. My nails are longer than either of yours." She flexed one hand, her fingernails for a moment chillingly similar to the claws of a tiger.

Sam studied their polished length, then her absolutely humorless expression. She sounded more dangerous than Toby at his best. "Hmm, not bad. I'd like a ringside seat - and I wouldn't be the only one. That is, assuming *you* draw the lucky number. Right now there are quite a few others vying for that honor."

"An honor it would be."

"You'll get no objection from me." And the silence agreed emphatically with him.

Of all White House affiliates, if not all political operatives in DC, Mandy liked inaction the least. To her high-charged, politically-gifted mind, patience and ambition were mutually exclusive. She scrounged for some new topic.

"Say, they're tuned into the networks outside. Want to join the crowd?" Never mind that each member of the senior staff possessed in his or her office no less than three TV sets for catching multiple newsbreaks; there was something to be said for support in numbers.

"You think CBS has more information to offer than I do?" Toby asked with deadly softness, shooting her a hard glare under dark brows.

She accepted the challenge at once, though less belligerently than usual. "No - I think *they* think that any news, even familiar news, is better than no news at all."

"By the time the anchors *get* the news, it'll have been amended six ways to Sunday."

"I thought you wanted us to stop asking you every five minutes."

"I am not in the mood to watch spontaneous interviews with distraught citizens who never voted for him in the first place."

Sam tried to ease the cynicism. "I know what you mean; I'm having enough trouble dealing with my own thoughts right now. The personal pain aside, it's downright dismaying how this affects absolutely everything we do."

Mandy nodded her full agreement. "Then you'll be glad to know that no international rumblings have commenced - yet. Which is not to say that they soon won't. It's just too early. Even political insurrection takes time to come to a boil."

"Something to look forward to."

Then a new idea occurred to him. "Say, have you heard anything about the Family?"

"I know that one of the First Daughters is overseas; no telling when she'll be able to catch a flight home. And the other simply cannot get away just now. Her daughter's too sick."

Sam closed his eyes in empathy. "God, what a choice to make."

"That's another thing," Toby interposed. "During our bloodthirsty debate earlier, we seem to have forgotten someone else. Did you speak to Charlie yet?"

Sam shifted in his seat. "Yeah, I got through not long ago. I'm really glad he's there; Zoey sure needs someone to lean on right now."

"And how is *she* doing?"

Mandy switched into indignant mode. "How would *you* feel if your father was fighting for his life just down the hall and you were told you couldn't be with him?"

"Well, I personally would care less about the security issue or the hospital rules," Toby said, still in profile, hands clasped and voice quiet, yet his opinion set in cold marble.

"My sentiments precisely." These two had waged some rousing arguments in recent memory, on a wide range of topics. They had a lot in common that made such arguments inevitable: both thoroughly enjoyed the taste of combat, defended their logic in the face of all opposition and hated to yield a point. On those infrequent occasions where they actually found themselves in consensus, the rest of the senior staff knew to pay attention.

"I think I can name one person around here who's not interested in us winning the next election," Sam mused, in a weak effort to lighten things at least a bit.

"Oh?" Mandy folded her arms in the way she had when answering the call to battle. "You might be in for quite a surprise. She's inherited a lot of strong qualities from both her parents."

"Great. We can pride ourselves in nurturing the President of the next generation."

"And Charlie?" Toby persisted, more quiet than ever.

Sam rubbed one temple. "He seems to be holding up okay too, all things considered. It's kind of hard to quantify this sort of thing, you know."

Two very somber faces agreed.

"He was riding a few sedans back down the line, so he didn't see the actual impact, but he reached the scene before the ambulance did."

A genuinely painful pause ensued, and from the creases on his boyish face you could tell Sam's imagination was working overtime. "He didn't say much about that - but I can tell you how *I'd* have felt if I'd been on Connecticut an hour and a half ago... just standing there, helpless... staring down at... "

His words petered out. Neither Toby nor Mandy asked him to continue.

*****

The Roosevelt Room's polished wooden conference table gleamed under the low lighting of well-dimmed ceiling pot-lamps, majestic in its undisturbed semi-dark perfection. Historic works of art cast half-defined silhouettes against shadowy walls. Priceless paintings gazed down at this setting of countless national-level decisions in voiceless contemplation. The silence was complete.

One door opened soundlessly. No hinges were allowed to creak in *this* House.

Backlit by the brighter hall illumination, the young man peered into the gloom until he found what he sought.

The female figure had selected a chair in the very back corner. Her body was twisted sideways, elbows propped on a side-table, blond hair a disheveled cascade.

"Nancy?"

Too drugged by her emotions to jump at this sudden voice, she looked up slowly.

He advanced a few cautious steps. "How are you doing?"

She didn't move. "I'm okay, Rick." But her tone sounded less than convincing.

"Well, *I'm* not." He edged closer - until his adapting vision detected the course of tears down her face. And stopped. "Listen, I don't want to intrude. I'd just really rather not be alone right now... and I thought you might feel the same way."

Pause.

"I don't know *what* I feel," she said listlessly, looking away.

Rick accepted this indifference as permission to approach. "Yeah. Me too." He eased into the chair beside her. "We're kind of like - survivors of a disaster. Nobody else can really understand. None of them have gone through what *we* did."

She didn't answer him. He didn't push. It was enough to just sit quietly and find some measure of comfort in comradeship.

Silence lingered between them, until Nancy let out an enormous sigh.

"This excursion was supposed to be a wonderful chance for us. Not important enough to drag out the senior staff. We were trusted to handle it on our own."

Rick studied her. "Come on, you can't blame yourself for anything. We *serve* the President. The Secret Service have to protect him."

"I know, I know! But I just can't get over this feeling that we... we let him down somehow. When it came to the crunch, we were absolutely *useless*." Pause. "And since we couldn't help, they sent us away."

Reality is harsh at times. All Rick could do, faced with that stinging truth, was nod.

"You know," Nancy mused after another lapse, "I absolutely love it when someone asks me what my job is. I can say *I work for the President*, exactly the same way anyone else would mention the corner store. But sometimes - I don't realize myself what an incredible privilege it is. We have daily contact with him. We *know* him. Most people will never even *meet* him! Boy, what they wouldn't give to be in our shoes, even for a day." She brushed at her tears. "We're a part of the highest possible echelon of power. Sometimes we actually *influence* it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to made a real difference in the world."

Her voice wavered. "I never in my life thought I could take that for granted."

Rick empathized perfectly. In the semi-darkness that matched their mood so well, he reached over and rested his hand on her arm. "Until tonight, huh?"

"Until tonight. I'm not taking *anything* for granted right now." Nancy paused to take stock of herself. "I never felt this way about any other boss I've had. In fact, I don't think I was ever this worried about my own parents." She turned to look at her colleague directly. "Why *is* that? What's the draw? Is it the history? The prestige? Or just something about *him*?"

Rick managed a grin. "If I had to guess, I'd say all of the above. He *is* the most powerful man in the world, you know. And he's a terrific guy, too. But he's still human, Nance. He can make mistakes... and he can be hurt."

"Well, I don't know about too many mistakes. And I can't bear to think of him - "

Her shoulders started to shake.

Rick exhaled. "We have to face it: there are some things even the President of the United States can't do."

"Well, he *can't die*," Nancy stated unyieldingly. "We *need* him."

Very gently, Rick put his arm around her.

"Sure... and right now he needs *us*. And we're going to hang in there for him."

*****

Whether the President was present in the Oval Office, expected at any moment or gone from the White House entirely, the reception area Mrs. Landingham presided over almost always seemed to emanate serene efficiency tempered with a subtle vigilance. The Grand Entrance, front atrium and state chambers where kings and emperors were formally received managed to look regal and unhurried on the most hectic of days; the administrative offices, by contrast, hardly lost their energetic hum even in the dead of night. In this most prestigious of waiting rooms, both worlds melded into a unique atmosphere of calm preparedness.

When Carol walked in, the President's secretary jerked her head up so fast she could have suffered whiplash herself. But the only response to her silent, anxious query was a pair of empty hands. She sighed and resigned herself to the status quo.

"I take it no one's heard anything."

"Absolutely *nada*." CJ's assistant put her hands on her hips. "I've never seen this place so tight-strung. *Something* has to break. One way... or the other."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Carol just stood there, glancing idly around as she'd almost never had the chance to do before on her standard workdays of racing countless deadlines... and eventually registered on the click of computer keys.

"How can you work at a time like this?"

Mrs. Landingham didn't pause. "Oh, one becomes accustomed to blocking out a variety of distractions around here." She reached for a folder to one side. "Secret Service sweeps, visiting diplomats, political upheavals..."

"I'll bet. That would sure keep *me* in practice." Carol drummed her fingers on a side table. "I never thought I'd say this, but it's a good thing after all that the work still has to go on. At least it provides *some* distraction."

"Are you having much success distracting yourself?" Mrs. Landingham asked with deceptive casualness.

Her visitor didn't hesitate. "No."

"In case this makes you feel better, I'm not having quite as much success as it looks like, either."

Carol's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really? The illusion's pretty good."

A secret smile. "I get a lot of practice in this as well."

Donna appeared next. Carrying, on a tray, three cups of steaming coffee.

She hesitated in the aperture. "How welcome am I?"

Carol grinned. "When coffee is included, you're welcome anywhere." She reached for a caffeine fix. "So, what brings you around? As if I couldn't guess."

"Uh, chiefly the fact that Josh is tied up and Toby doesn't know any more than anyone else." Donna's effort at being cheerful was strained around the edges.

Mrs. Landingham grimaced as she took a cup. "Much more of this and we'll be bouncing off the ceiling."

"Lately it's the only thing that's kept body and soul together." Carol frowned. "What - no muffins?"

Donna circulated the sugar and cream. "*You* try negotiating through that labyrinth with a loaded tray when everyone's running around as if we'd just declared war on Cuba."

"Never mind," Mrs. Landingham advised with a matronly look. "Have a cookie." She nodded to the large crystal cookie jar that always held court on her desk.

CJ's assistant accepted that invitation, then slid a hip onto the desk corner. There wasn't an abundance of chairs here; normally, if you got this close to the Oval Office, the President would be waiting inside to receive you at once. "Let's just treat this as a much-needed breather in the constant administrative pressures of Government."

The glance that the President's secretary gave her was pure stoicism. "My dear, this is just the calm before the storm."

"Well, I admire *your* calm."

"The President is at his coolest in an emergency. Usually." She paused on that qualifier. "I can hardly be less so."

Her guests read between the lines: a lot went into smoothing his upsets as well.

Donna tossed her hair and picked up the third coffee mug. "I wish he'd give Josh a few lessons in self-control."

This time Mrs. Landingham stopped completely. "No, you *don't*."

Now *that* statement was suggestive. Both visitors raised eyebrows.

"Let me just say that on those rare occasions when his temper slips, it is a thing to behold."

"Really? So, now I know where Josh gets it."

Silence fell. Even the keyboard was left alone while they shared the coffee, each other's company... and the omnipresent suspense.

Donna wandered over to the patio doors that led onto the back lawn, studying the picked-out pattern of Washington's downtown lights on black velvet and the towering Monument like a silver-white arrow aimed at Heaven. And sighed. "The waiting is always the worst."

"I'll second that." Carol got up and started to pace; she couldn't help herself any longer. "I was told from the first that this job would have late nights. Formal functions, important briefings, even national crises. But not - " Her voice cracked a bit.

Donna picked up the thread. "Not the end of the world." She rubbed her arms as though she felt chilled. "You *know* the President is at risk every day from criminals and nutcases... but you don't expect such a simple, stupid accident. Just like anyone else."

"If only he'd worn a seat-belt."

"You want to be the one to tell him to buckle up?"

"Do those limos even *have* belts for the back seats?"

"If they do and he doesn't, would anyone dare ticket him?"

Mrs. Landingham culminated the debate with a sigh of her own. "After today, surely he won't need to be encouraged."

And the undercurrent of her words seemed to ring through the air around them: *Assuming he lives through this one...*

*****

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

| << back | send feedback | The National Library |