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.

The first thing that immediately became apparent was the stillness. Shutting the door, Leo just stood there and experienced it. He could hear the hum and beep of the several medical devices present, but somehow they didn't quite overcome the pervading quiet, the sense of life *suspended* that could not possibly be normal.

And then he noticed the air. Not rich and sweet, the way the White House breathed history, but tainted with decontaminates and the specter of a slow and painful death.

The occupant of the bed did not react to this new presence. The room's bright lighting, at odds with normal sleep patterns, had no apparent effect either. Eyes closed, breathing regular. The only motion at all was the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

Softly, *fearfully*, Leo approached. Taking in the heart monitor, the blood pressure reading, the intravenous drip. The oxygen tube that maintained and monitored breathing. The thick blue pajamas that preserved body warmth. The white wrap around the head, the splinted left arm resting on top of the covers, the angry abrasions across one cheekbone, the ugly bruising about one eye. No other bandages could be seen, but he knew they were there...

The Chief of Staff looked down at Jed Bartlet's familiar features, utterly expressionless in sleep, and did not move himself. Wanting dearly to address his President. Wanting desperately to speak to his old friend. But certainly not wanting to disturb a rest that was so important for an anxiously-awaited recovery -

"Don't wake him."

Leo spun around so fast he almost lost his balance.

The well-known voice should have been warning enough. But he still wasn't prepared for the sight of Jed Bartlet's familiar features confronting him from the left, six feet away.

*At the same time.*

The President of the United States. Casually dressed. Up and about and uninjured.

*"WHAT - "* The White House Chief of Staff seemed to be saying that a lot lately.

"Shh! Keep it down. The poor guy needs his sleep."

Leo looked quickly back at the President sleeping, and back again at the President standing. Eyes wide, brows pinched and mouth open in sheer disbelief. This didn't quite surpass the shock of first hearing about the accident forty-eight hours ago, but it sure ran a close second.

Best friends don't put each other through such stress. And best friends these two had been for most of their lives. The second Bartlet wasn't quite smiling... still, a roguish glint in his eye suggested that he wanted to enjoy this vivid reaction for *one* moment at least.

That in itself was enough to prove to Leo which one was the real thing.

Slowly, his battered emotions began to make sense of all this, his stunned mind arrived at the obvious conclusion... and his expression settled into rather grim planes for a man who'd just learned that his old friend and, incidentally, his Commander-in-Chief, wasn't in peril of life and identity after all. He was just fine.

All that frantic worry, all that mental anguish, had been spent on the wrong man.

Just as slowly, Leo turned from the bed and straightened to his full height.

"Well, considering what the Presidency's going through, I'd say we *all* could use a restful night right about now."

The President looked puzzled. "Is this all the joyous welcome I get?"

He didn't get a smile, either. "Since *you're* not the one lying at death's threshold or courting mental incapacitation, I don't think it's deserving. You used an impersonator." Leo's voice rose in accusation at what he and countless others had been subjected to. "The man who swore he'd never deceive the American people is using a stunt double."

"Not 'is using', Leo. Once. Never before - and so help me God, never again."

"Which, of course, makes it all right. So there aren't any *other* President Bartlets running around here? How reassuring."

One essential aspect to old friendships is their level of absolute honesty. Few people had the audacity to reprimand a president of *any* country. Not that it happened often here, but Leo never hesitated to sound the conscience of their partnership when he felt it justified.

He set the folder of staff summaries down on the end table sharply, his anger visible and building. "Well, you're obviously going to have more time *and energy* to read these reports than any of us dared hope."

Another aspect to old friendships was the element of trust. Also, if a President can't trust his Chief of Staff, then he can't do his job.

This Chief of Staff chose not to strike that rather low blow. His feelings of hurt and injustice were counterbalanced by a surging relief. Besides, in all fairness he could see the difficulties in informing him any earlier than this without letting more people in on it. And the more minds, the more mouths.

Nevertheless, he had a job to do... and a Chief Executive to straighten out. Joy vied with outrage, back and forth. He walked over until they stood face to face, sparing the man in the bed this confrontation. "So, may I ask what was the critical matter that has resulted in you breaking your word and the entire country hanging on the edge of its seat, afraid that its President may not return to office, may not even live out the week?"

Nobody's perfect. If a mistake on his part could be *proven*, Jed Bartlet acceded. When he knew he was wrong, he didn't try to deny it.

Now, after a telling pause, he exhaled guiltily.

"You knew that Zoey made the honor roll in college this semester."

The recollection took a moment; academic excellence, even by the President's daughter, had taken a back seat of late. "I thought you'd resigned yourself to the fact that you couldn't make the honors ceremony. Not with that ACLU speech on the same evening."

"I thought I had, too." The President's tone was bitter. "Resigned myself to missing one of the highlights in my daughter's life. Resigned myself to her disappointment that my job wouldn't let me be there with her." His gaze wandered towards the bed. "And then Ron Butterfield told me about Tyler here."

Leo looked, too. The *other* President did not react, sleeping peacefully.

"He's a Canadian on contract computer work. Ron's security team ran across him quite by accident about a month ago in Syracuse. Last week, when I was bemoaning the injustice of my schedule and wishing I could get out of it gracefully, he mentioned the resemblance."

"And you jumped at the chance."

Bartlet glowered. "*Hell*, no. It took me two days to decide, two days to convince myself that just this *once* it would be worth the deception. And then another two days to arrange everything. Tyler Preston is half my age, but he looks so much like I did thirty years ago it's scary." The President shrugged. "A little make-up and some coaching, and he was all set to negotiate the hotel, shake some hands, walk outside and wave. The inaccessible public figure everyone expects to be on display, while I shared a personal moment with my family as I hardly ever get to do anymore. Now how dishonest is that?"

Leo shook his head. "Considering how things have snowballed of late, I'd better not answer." But he didn't press it; who could have anticipated such a fluke as a drunk driver at the one wrong spot *and* the one wrong moment? "So you ducked out the back door the second your speech was done and sped over to the college campus, right?"

"Ron had an unmarked car ready, and Zoey's part of the ceremony was at the very end. They took me straight backstage without anyone else knowing, and I got a beautiful view of the presentation."

Leo was starting to thaw. He understood a father's feelings.

"Did Zoey know?" There would have been far less purpose to all this otherwise.

Bartlet nodded in full agreement to that unvoiced thought. "Yes. So did Abbey; she was in the front row." He turned aside, his face creasing into a grin and his vision soft with the memory. "That was an amazing moment, Leo. My baby girl standing before the Dean and the entire faculty, trying not to sneak too many glances at me. I was just bursting with pride. I wouldn't have missed it for..." Then he came to himself, and stopped short of completing that expected phrase. In light of everything that had happened, it sounded terribly cliché right now.

"The world?" his old friend offered quietly. "Or just the country?"

He looked down. "Yeah, really." And sighed. "We'd all met privately afterwards, backstage, when the call came through about the accident. And that meant we had to take off in different directions, at once." He looked up again, his gaze smoldering. "It's not enough that we can't be together in a moment of triumph; we can't even be together in a crisis."

"It's the price we pay - "

"I know, I know." A wave dismissed the tired old rhetoric.

Leo took a deep breath. "At least Abbey and Zoey never believed for a moment that it was true."

"I wouldn't have lived with that. I'm having a hard enough time living with the rest." The President didn't - *couldn't?* - meet his eyes this time. "Dammit, Leo, I've always played straight with our staff and with the public. But for this incredible sequence of events, I would've just gone home with my family, Tyler would have been whisked away to his hotel, and no one else would have ever known. Either way, I'd already promised myself I would never stoop to that level again."

Leo conceded the general issue. "Well, we don't expect your limo to be sideswiped every other day. Still, as I'm sure you know, the country went through one hell of a night."

Bartlet's exhalation was explosive. "And I can't change that, however dearly I'd like to. I'll just have to make it up as best I can."

For a moment the outrage flared anew. "MAKE IT UP? How do you undo the anxiety and the fear already experienced? Do you have any idea just how worried we've all been?"

He rose to the challenge. "As a matter of fact, I do. I found out this very afternoon. In the main foyer. In *spades*."

That made Leo gape. "You were there?"

"Not in person. I've been hiding in my own House all weekend. But one of the staff had a camcorder, and the Service managed to sneak me a copy of the video. I had a better view than Tyler himself would have."

The President raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I saw all of you. And I couldn't believe it. You hear about people who've had near-death experiences - but this was revelation of a different kind. There's just no way to describe what I felt. Everyone was there solely because they're worried about me. What have I ever done to deserve such *affection?*"

The Chief of Staff did not answer right away. Hearing all too clearly how amazed and touched his boss had been. That was a memory to lock away in one's heart forever.

But his boss still had some music to face...

"You don't want to know how worried *I* was."

"Yes, I do - "

Leo brushed him off, fighting the memories. "First that you weren't going to live through this at all, and then wondering if you were ever going to be right in the head again. And your office had nothing to do with - "

"*I know*, Leo." The President gripped his friend's shoulder, *willing* him to listen. "I just asked myself how *I'd* have felt... if that had been you."

And that simple, meaningful statement brought his friend to a standstill.

Then Bartlet hung his head, clearly remorseful. "But there was no safe way that I could tell you before tonight. Everyone who knew was either at Walter Reed the whole time or else guarding the door to my cell here. We didn't dare risk a phone call. And if any of them had dropped by to see you in private, or if you'd been invited to the Residence before this evening, people would have known something was up. Even Abbey and Zoey couldn't leave the hospital until today."

The short distance between them filled with empathy to a painful level.

Finally, Leo nodded. "I understand."

And he did.

"Are you going to forgive me anytime soon?" That quiet petition was almost a plea for mercy.

"Oh, probably at *some* point." Leo didn't really want to *just* yet.

The President's famous (or infamous) humor was incapable of being suppressed for long. "Well, the next time I start to doubt my value around here, I'll know what to do. That may be a rather brutal method to ferret out one's supporters, but it *is* effective."

"Right on both counts." And the two men shared a grin at last.

Bartlet moved a few steps away. "Anyway, it was only right for Tyler to receive some of that sympathy himself, considering everything he's been through."

"Agreed. So how bad is *his* condition?" Leo asked. "I'm betting the official catalog of aches and pains has been downplayed somewhat," he added shrewdly.

The President confirmed his evaluation with a grave nod. "Yeah, it's not that good. But he'll recover eventually. It'll just take longer for him than it will for me. The paramedics made their own preliminary, and of course the hospital trauma staff had to know what they were treating. Doctor Nickels' report minimized that as much as possible without being unrealistic. You know, so as not to raise any suspicions when I stage a very rapid recovery. I don't want to hold up the nation's business more than I must."

Leo humphed. "Right, can't have that. I suppose we should be grateful Tyler didn't die at the scene. *That* comeback would be a bit harder to explain."

He got a sour look in return. "Back off, Leo. I'm blaming myself enough as it is."

"I sure hope so."

A pause settled between them.

"Who else knows?"

"Just Ron, two of his best people, Doc Nickels, and Admiral Hackett, who had to be called in anyway. Charlie was in on it from the start, just in case Tyler ran into some kind of glitch we hadn't foreseen."

"Uh-huh. Now I get the *real* reason why you insisted on the junior staff carrying the ball Friday night."

"Exactly. Even just for the walk outside, you guys would've known that wasn't me."

Leo folded his arms and said nothing. His silence, however, was most articulate.

Bartlet got the message. "All right, already. I hate the very thought that people have been worried about me all this time. But you know even better than I do that this building leaks like a sieve. The only way to nail the lid down so tight that the press never finds out is to keep it from the staff, too." Another sigh. "Even our closest people."

The reference to "our" staff is generally unusual for a president... and clearly indicative of the tight-knit partnership behind *this* President and his right-hand man.

Which only further increased Bartlet's pain at lying to his best advisors - who had also become his friends.

Leo nodded, not so much in consensus as in making the point. "Now you know why you always hated the idea of a double in the first place."

The President waved one hand in acknowledgement. "*Touché.*"

The Chief of Staff was watching him closely. "Why tell even me?"

Bartlet spun on him. Wounded and smarting. "Do you honestly have to ask that?"

Leo waited one calculated heartbeat. "No." And another, to let it sink all the way in. "Just... evening the score a bit."

After a moment, his Commander-in-Chief looked away. "Fine. I deserved that."

"*That's* for sure. On top of everything else, I was worried that the MS might complicate things even more." Leo closed his eyes, as though that would shut out the images in his mind. "If I hadn't known that Abbey was right there within minutes, I don't know *what* I would've done. Told *somebody*."

Still gazing to one side, the President winced ever so slightly.

"Is anyone *else* around here aware of that minor medical detail?" Leo asked in a gentler tone, sensitive to the delicacy of this particular topic.

Bartlet's hesitation proclaimed how much he hated to admit that his wish for privacy was endangering his life, hated to discuss this chink in his armor at all - even with his best friend. "Not before tonight. That's another unexpected benefit to this whole affair: I finally got it though my skull that we can't risk keeping it to just you, Abbey, Zoey and me." He exhaled heavily, yielding to the inevitable. "Hackett's on board now. He'll leave standing orders to be called in for all future health issues, whether he's on duty or not."

A nod of relief. "*Thank* you. That's one more load of my mind."

Silence.

"I'm curious as to why Tyler is still here," Leo wondered aloud. "He's certainly fulfilled his purpose."

Both men glanced over at the undisturbed patient.

"He's another reason why I feel so bad about all this. None of us thought for a moment that we might be actually setting him up as a target. I owe him something, and the best I could think of was a night in the White House. That *is* what the President is entitled to." The President smiled briefly. "He leaves late tonight for a safe house Ron has arranged in upper New York, all expenses paid until he's back on his feet. Abbey will plaster me up tonight so that I can make my appearance in a day or two."

Leo rubbed his eyes. "You're going to break every medical record on the books."

The whole country knew this mischievous smile. "That's the idea."

"You'd better lose some weight, though."

Bartlet's eyes narrowed. "And just what are you insinuating by that?"

"Well, a man on IV for a week is bound to shed a few pounds." Leo looked him up and down, and smirked. "Right now you won't fool anyone."

The President gave a derisive snort and pretended to cuff him. "Any more cracks like that and you'll regret it. But now that you mention it, I've got a few old extra-large sweaters around. Made to order."

"You *appear* to have everything under control."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

It was a great relief to share what little fun could be found in all this.

"Well, I guess everything is going to work out for the best after all, right?"

Bartlet stared at his friend, smile gone in an instant. "For *whose* best?" He waved at the bed. "Leo, that man may never be physically sound again in his life! And we're not even sure that Kevin Duane will pull through yet!"

"I know this sounds callous, but better them than you."

"Well, my conscience doesn't agree with you at the moment," he snapped back. "Even if Kevin makes it, he can kiss his career goodbye. How am I supposed to make *that* up, before you ask? I can pay his medical bills as well, but that won't replace what he's lost."

"He did his job. He wouldn't have wanted it otherwise." Still, for all their truth the words did have a hollow ring.

The leader of the free world started pacing. "When you talk about needing bodyguards, you figure you have to be someone pretty important. But right now I'm feeling pretty damned *small*. I hate the very idea of people risking their lives for me. Just because some fruitcake wants to shoot at me or run me down is no reason for other people to get hurt."

"Yet another price tag attached, if you're going to accept the responsibility of leadership. The President has to be protected."

"Yeah, yeah." After another few moments he stopped, brow furrowed in painful thought. "You know, *if* is far too small a word for the difference it can make. If I'd been there instead of Tyler, I would've lingered outside the hotel for at least a little while, and that kamikaze driver would've completely missed me."

"Or hit someone else," Leo pointed out solemnly. Remembering CJ's allusion to all the tiny details that can add up to sink an ocean liner - or kill a president. "Or, if your timing had been just as good as Tyler's here, you could have easily fallen a different way. You might've wound up with only a few bruises... *or*, you might've been killed outright."

The silence that fell between them now was sobering.

Leo heaved a sigh. "I'd say we all owe your replacement a big debt. And your bodyguard as well."

His expression somber, at last the President allowed himself a slow, final nod.

It was high time to restore some propriety. "Anyway, Mr. President, it's over and dealt with. Let's look on whatever bright side there is, and get on with running the nation. Among other things, it's obvious that we're going to have an easier time dealing with Hoynes than I originally thought when I first walked in here."

For one more long moment, Bartlet just stood there and studied his best friend. Then, suddenly, he laughed outright.

"Leo, I have *got* to nominate you for the next Bench vacancy. You can switch arguments faster than any lawyer I've ever met!"

*****

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

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