The Immediate Context Of History

by marciaplome

Preadministration, Jed rushes to Leo’s side as he recovers from injuries resulting from being shot down and the aftermath. Light slash, heavy angst.

1. Chapter 1

Title: The Immediate Context of HistoryAuthor: Marcia Plome
Fandom: The West Wing
Characters: Jed/Leo, Jed/Abbey
Rating: Mature for language, allusions to a m/m relationship, and violent references
Disclaimer: The West Wing, its characters and storylines are the sole property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros. and NBC Television. What follows is for entertainment purposes only and no copyright infringement is intended.
Spoilers: Major for events seen in flashback during "An Khe"
Summary: Pre-administration, Jed rushes to Leo's side as he recovers from injuries resulting from being shot down and the aftermath.
Warnings: Angst, very major angst. Slash, but well within a Mature rating.
Archive: Absolutely, just let me know.

Jed hurried through the doors to the reception desk, his carryall still slung over his shoulder. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Leo McGarry. Can you tell me which room he's in?"

The receptionist looked up from her magazine and consulted a folder on her desk. "Fifth floor. Ask at the nurses' station."

Jed punched the elevator button repeatedly, unaware of the attention he was attracting from staff and other visitors. When the doors finally opened, he slumped against the back wall for the short ride up. The flight from London had given him time to imagine the worst, and now, minutes away from his lover, he hoped reality would ease those fears.

He stopped at the nurses' station and asked again, "I'm looking for Leo McGarry. The receptionist downstairs told me to ask here."

"Third door on the left, 507," the young woman answered, without having to consult a list.

Jed thought he saw a flicker of something in her eyes as she pointed down the hall, but he didn't have time to ponder what it was. The door to the room she'd indicated was open, and Jed was standing there looking in before he'd even really processed her directions.

He felt his chest tighten with his first glimpse into the room. There was so much medical equipment surrounding the bed that the patient wasn't immediately visible. Jed could feel the heightened awareness of the adrenaline coursing through his body as he stepped closer. The rhythmic beeping of monitors and the steady whoosh of the respirator seemed to be setting a cadence to his steps as he arrived at the bedside. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself before looking at the man lying there, and was assailed by a sweet, unrecognizable tang in the air. He finally looked down and was flooded by a massive sense of relief. This poor guy, covered in bandages, with tubes everywhere, this guy wasn't Leo! Leo had always been on the lean side, with a build like the wrestler he was, but the occasional picture he'd enclosed with a letter showed him even thinner than he'd been when he'd left for Vietnam. The man lying in the bed was heavy, his face and fingers puffy. He was blond like Leo, but the resemblance didn't extend past that.

Jed stumbled out into the hall, the adrenaline back, pounding through his head until he heard buzzing around his ears. Two men were walking towards him in Air Force uniforms with lab coats on top, and Jed was positive, based on plenty of nights spent studying in the doctor's lounge while Abbey was on call, that they were both physicians.

Hurrying up to them, he asked again about Leo, "Excuse me. I'm looking for my friend, I was told he was in 507, but that's not him."

The two of them stopped their conversation and one of them asked, "What's your friend's name?"

"McGarry. Leo McGarry." Jed had waited days to leave London, and hours on the plane, but it was the minutes here in the hospital that were the hardest.

The doctor who'd answered Jed looked at his colleague. "We haven't put anyone else in 507, have we? McGarry made it through the night?"

The younger man nodded, "As far as I know, yes sir. He's touch and go, but I was on call last night, and his condition hadn't changed."

The older doctor looked back at Jed, "Come on, son, let's go take a look." The three of them went back into room 507 and the two doctors exchanged a glance. "Captain Leo McGarry, right, that's who you're looking for?"

Jed nodded, not understanding the tone underlying the doctor's question.

"I'm sorry, young man, but this is Captain McGarry," the doctor said apologetically. "He's in pretty bad shape, I'm sure he doesn't look like himself."

The adrenaline that had been there before now surged through Jed's every nerve ending, burning like liquid fire. Stepping closer to the bed, he stared down, trying to resolve the unfamiliar features of the man lying there into the ones he knew with every fiber of his being. His vision swam before him, things suddenly blurry, and then the light from the window caught a silver chain around the neck of the man lying in the bed. Jed reached a shaking hand to touch the chain. It was a St. Christopher's medal, and though it slipped through his fingers twice, he managed to turn it over. Engraved on the back in tiny letters, he could read, "Be careful and come home. JB".

"Oh Leo," he breathed, and then the air was gone from his lungs like he'd been hit with a battering ram. Rushing out, he ran for the nearest bathroom, collapsing on his knees just in time to throw up what little he'd been able to force down on the flight over. He stayed there, hunched over the toilet dry heaving for some minutes before he heard a gentle tap at the door. "C'min," he managed.

The nurse who'd originally told him which room Leo was in opened the door a crack. "I'm sorry sir, the doctors were concerned. Are you all right in here?"

Jed felt like he was never going to be all right again, but telling her that, when the hospital was full of people with far more tangible problems, seemed inappropriate. "I'm sorry, I just…" he trailed off, unsure of how to explain that he hadn't even recognized his best friend, his lover, the man who meant the most to him in the world.

"Don't worry about it. Gangrene has that effect on people pretty often actually. We even have doctors get sick from the smell once in a while," she admitted.

The word 'gangrene' hit Jed's empty stomach like a shot of bourbon and he leaned over the bowl again as another spasm of retching tore through him. It hadn't been the smell that had made him sick before, it had been the horrible feeling that he'd somehow betrayed or abandoned Leo the one time he actually needed Jed to be here for him. But he knew what gangrene meant and the implications of what that would mean to Leo had him sick again.

The nurse waited until he was finished and then handed him a paper towel and a cup of water. "He probably won't know you're there, but if you want to go sit with him, it can't hurt." She gave him an understanding smile and left him to collect himself.

Jed made it to Leo's doorway, still somewhat lightheaded. How could he not have recognized him? He knew Leo's body better than he knew his own, as well as he knew Abbey's, how was it possible he hadn't known him?

He took the last steps into the room and stood by Leo's bedside. The St. Christopher's medal had been inarguable proof, but Jed took the time now to look closely, to discover how he'd been able to miss his lover in the first place. His mind flashed to an image he'd clung to over these last months, Leo, sprawled across his bed, covered in a sheen of sweat and post-coital glow, but flawless, his eyes sparkling and his grin the one he saved for Jed alone. He'd been so alive in that moment, and contrasting that man to the one lying in the hospital bed had Jed's eyes stinging and his breath caught in his chest.

He wanted to touch him, to offer Leo his presence for whatever comfort that might bring, but was afraid that he might hurt him, afraid of somehow making things even worse. Jed looked him over, trying to find a patch of skin not bandaged or bruised. Leo's blond hair was the only thing that looked right, and even that was greasy and mussed. Obviously no one was wasting time and effort trying to wash his hair given everything else going on. There was a cut above his left eye that had a butterfly bandage on it and a bandage across his right cheek. The tube taped into his mouth ran to a respirator which took up one entire corner of the room, the steady rise and fall of its bellows almost hypnotic. The machine stood as the single biggest sign that Leo lay somewhere between life and death: its very presence a testament to his inability to even breathe without intervention. His lips were chapped and split, and dried blood crusted over some cuts. His whole face was swollen and puffy, giving him the look of someone much heavier, and the primary cause of Jed's confusion before. Although, he admitted to himself, it had been as much hope and denial as anything else. His subconscious had been prepared to offer any alternative to it being Leo lying there in this condition. Jed let his gaze travel down, Leo's dog tags and St. Christopher's medal lay on his chest, the blanket was only pulled up to his waist, and wires connected to various monitors stuck to his chest. His arms were by his sides, IVs taped into both hands. Jed loved Leo's hands, but the swollen fingers and dirty nails he saw were a far cry from the hand Leo had splayed across his chest their last time together, its tapered fingers and neatly trimmed nails a tangible reminder of the hold the man had on him. The bandages winding tightly from Leo's chest to his hip were bright white and stood out in sharp contrast to the pale, washed out tone his skin had. A tube snaked from beneath the blanket to a bag hung on the bedrail, and Jed knew Leo would hate the catheterization the moment he became aware of it. He could only hope that was soon. That left only the leg in Jed's inventory of Leo's injuries, and he'd purposely not looked too close. The leg was on top of the blanket, splinted and bandaged, but even beneath them Jed had a strong sense of something he couldn't exactly define. Just a sense of wrongness, that everything else came back to this. There were red streaks leading from below the bandages up towards Leo's knee and down towards his ankle. The whole leg was grotesquely swollen, like a tomato that had gotten too ripe and might split open at any moment, and Jed imagined he could see the heat radiating off of it. The nurse had said gangrene, and that had to mean that Leo was at real risk of losing the leg. Jed collapsed into the chair, as much his legs giving out as a conscious decision to sit. Deciding that Leo's shoulders were free from bandages or other medical accouterments, he reached out to lay his hand there. Even as he touched him, Jed brought his hand back. Though he'd known, consciously, that Leo wouldn't react, it was something altogether different to confront his subconscious with that bit of reality. In all the years they'd known each other, Leo had never once failed to respond to Jed's touch. That he didn't do so now did as much to cement the seriousness of the situation in Jed's mind as any of the more visible indicators. He put his hand back and stroked gently with the back of his knuckle. Leo was hot, but where Jed had expected him to feel clammy, instead he was dry, unnaturally dry, like the moisture was being baked out of his skin. Everything was wrong, and though he knew this was Leo, Jed still felt like he was somehow a stranger. "Hey Leo," he began, unsure of what to say, feeling awkward talking to Leo unconscious like this, but not knowing what else to do. "It's going to be okay, I'm here now. You just rest, man." He tried to communicate both with his words and his touch that he was there, that Leo could trust him to take care of things and just let his body heal. Jed looked at him lying there, so still, so unnaturally still. Leo was never still, he was always fidgeting with a pen or smoothing a fingernail or tapping a shoe. Even asleep, and Jed had watched him sleep countless times, he twitched, shifted, and kicked. To watch him now, the only movement the steady rise and fall of his chest as the respirator forced air in, made Jed wonder if that certain something that defined Leo was even still in there anywhere. Jed believed his presence would be a beacon to that part, and wherever he'd slipped off to, Jed hoped Leo knew his friend and lover would be here standing guard until he found his way back.

Leo had given him an envelope, just before he'd left for Vietnam, with strict instructions that Jed wasn't to open it unless something happened to him over there. He'd been tempted on several occasions just to see what it contained, but Leo had made him promise, and Jed was faithful to that promise, despite his intense curiosity. He'd opened it before the staff car had pulled away from the curb after they'd come from the embassy to inform him that Leo had been shot down. Sitting here now, he flipped through the contents again, mentally categorizing each item. The letter explaining things was still on top, and Jed skimmed it, Leo's words echoing in his head made all the more painful by the fact that his friend lay in front of him, a machine breathing for him, and his voice silenced indefinitely.

"Jed,

Here's hoping you hand me this letter back unopened and never get a chance to see what's in it. But if you're reading this, I guess something pretty ugly's happened over there."

This was ugly, Jed agreed to himself, casting another quick look at the broken man in the bed before him.

"Enclosed you'll find all the legal stuff you need to act as my next of kin. You'll also find my will and a list of assets, should you need either of those. It should be obvious, but I know how stubborn you are, so I'll put it in writing: If you're taking care of me, or making arrangements for my care, use my money. Same goes for executing my estate, should it come to that."

Jed remained impressed by how well Leo had planned for this possibility. All the documents were here, signed and notarized, making him Leo's agent. He hadn't looked at the will yet, he hoped he wouldn't have to, but Leo's painstaking attention to detail was obvious in everything else. The demand that Jed not use his own assets for caretaking was so typical of Leo, and though the implication that he wouldn't be able to manage it annoyed him, he appreciated the thoughtfulness and foresight.

"I'm supposed to write letters to the people closest to me telling them how I feel so they'll have something to hold on to if I don't make it back. I've tried, but I just couldn't get that on paper. I'll try again from over there, but for now, tell Josie and Elizabeth that I love them and that they'll have three angels looking over them now, so they'd better behave."

That was so Leo, even his last words to his sisters a reminder of his expectations for them, as much a parent as a brother. Jed would have to call them soon, and though he didn't have to pass on Leo's message, he had no idea how he would tell them about their brother's condition. His eyes flipped back to the letter, knowing what was coming next.

"Tell Abbey to take care of you for me; I know she will. Jed, I wish I had the words to tell you what you've meant to me, but I've tried, and I don't, so I'll just say this – Everything good about me is because of you. I've loved you with mind, body, and soul and I hope I've never given you cause to doubt that."

Jed blinked to clear the tears that appeared every time he read that section and swallowed hard before reading the last bit.

"I've left some specific instructions about what decisions I want made about my health on the next page, but you know me as well as I know myself, so if there are decisions to be made, just ask yourself what I'd want and you'll make the right ones.

Yours,

Leo"

Leo's faith in him was humbling, and Jed only hoped he would be worthy of it. The next page was brief, just a paragraph that Leo didn't want to be kept alive beyond the hope of recovery and a reminder that he favored risky treatment that offered hope for a normal life over more conservative options that would guarantee his survival. Jed squeezed Leo's shoulder, a silent promise to do everything he could to see that these instructions were followed. His thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock on the doorframe.

Turning, he saw the doctor from before standing in the doorway. Jed had been so focused on finding Leo then that he hadn't noticed anything about the man beyond the fact that he was a doctor who might be able to help him locate his friend. Now though, he took a moment to consider him. He was older, Jed guessed late fifties or maybe early sixties, tall and built solidly without seeming heavy. His hair was silver, and longer than most of the military haircuts Jed had seen here, though still quite a bit shorter than his own. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and Jed noticed the look around his eyes that he'd seen on Abbey a few times when she'd come home from a very difficult shift.

Jed stood as the man entered the room.

"I'm Col. Hester," the man said, extending his hand to Jed.

Jed shook his hand, "Jed Bartlet."

"I wanted to be sure you were all right, you looked pretty shaken up before. I'm sorry you had to find Captain McGarry like this," the doctor continued. "I take it you two are close?"

"I'm his," Jed paused, trying to find a way to put words to their relationship that would communicate his right to be here, "best friend," he finished, painfully aware of both how incomplete that description was and of his uncertainty that he was even worthy of the title given his actions here so far.

"I see," Dr. Hester replied. "Well, we're doing everything we can for him." He looked at Jed for a moment before asking, "If you don't mind, how did you come to be here? Captain McGarry's only been here two days and we haven't even seen his family yet."

"I am his family," Jed answered, "or close enough. His parents are both dead and his sisters are minors. Can you tell me how he's really doing?"

Dr. Hester hesitated, seemingly torn between his obligation to his patient and trying to be open with the man who so clearly cared about him. "I'm sorry, I really can't discuss his condition with anyone but a family member."

Jed reached into the envelope he was still holding and withdrew the form that gave him Leo's power of attorney. "You can discuss it with me," he said firmly, handing the piece of paper to the doctor.

Col. Hester took the page from Jed and studied it. He paused and looked thoughtfully between Jed and Leo's still motionless form in the bed for a moment. Finally, he nodded. "It appears that I can. Captain McGarry must think very highly of you, to trust you with this. Most of our patients are satisfied with the professional judgment of the medical establishment." He handed the power of attorney back to Jed before adding under his breath, "Whether or not that's justified." Coughing slightly, as if to cover his last comment, he put his hand on Jed's shoulder to guide him out of the room, "Let's go to my office, and I'll explain where things are with your friend."

Jed stiffened, he didn't want Leo out of his sight at the moment. "Can you just tell me here? I, well, I just don't want to leave him right now."

Col. Hester shook his head, "I don't want to have this conversation in front of him. He's hooked up to enough machines that if anything happens, the alarms will go off and we'll know. You can leave him alone for a little while."

Jed swept his hand back across the room, a gesture that encompassed Leo lying there and all the machines and monitors, "You think he can hear us, like that?" His voice cracked on the last word, betraying his feelings.

"I don't know what he can hear right now. I've had patients tell me they heard conversations while they were unconscious, so it's possible he can hear us, yes. And if he can, I don't want what he hears to be us discussing how grave his condition is, and I don't think you do either," Col. Hester said, looking expectantly at Jed.

"No," Jed conceded, "no I don't. But I don't want to find out something's gone wrong by hearing an alarm blare either. Please don't ask me to leave him right now."

Something changed in Col. Hester's expression, "No, I shouldn't have asked you to do that. Come stand in the hall with me, you'll be able to see him from there and we'll be out of earshot."

Jed accepted the compromise gratefully, moving to stand just outside the doorway. At least with Leo in view, Jed's imagination couldn't make whatever Dr. Hester had to tell him any worse. He took a breath and steeled himself for what he was sure would be devastating news. "My wife is a doctor, I know what 'grave condition' means. Tell me the specifics," he said, making eye contact with Col. Hester.

Dr. Hester paused for a moment, looking one more time between Jed and Leo before he spoke. "Very well. The most pressing issue at the moment is an infection we haven't been able to control. He landed badly after ejecting from his aircraft and there was a compound fracture to both the tibia and the fibula of his left leg. That would be serious under any conditions, but it was left open and unreduced for three days. We're attempting to get the cellulitis under control, but he's already got gangrene in the area of the wound. His distal pulse is strong, and he has good perfusion to the foot, so there's still some hope for the leg. We've reduced the fracture, but setting the bones will require surgery, and he's just not stable enough for that at this point. We're debriding the wound, and trying to contain the gangrenous areas. He also fractured three ribs punching out. That's not unusual, but he didn't need it given everything else. We can't do much for that except keep him immobilized, which obviously isn't an issue at the moment. The RESCAP met with resistance from an NVA platoon, and Captain McGarry was shot in the abdomen. It was a through and through shot and they closed it before sending him here. Other than that, you can see there are some cuts and bruises, but they're of no consequence." He took a moment, as if measuring how much more to say, and then went on, "The biggest concern we have is the infection. Everything else is secondary to that. If we can't get that under control, the leg and the ribs won't matter. I'm told he was unconscious for more than a day on the ground over there, and except for a brief period of consciousness on the chopper that got them out, he hasn't been conscious since. His fever was well past 103 for days. You said your wife is a doctor?" He waited for Jed's nod before continuing, "Then I probably don't have to explain that a prolonged fever like that can impact brain function. We won't have any way to judge that until and unless he regains consciousness."

Jed finished listening to him catalog Leo's injuries, and asked the question he knew he had to, regardless of how afraid he was of the answer. "What are his chances?"

Dr. Hester looked over Jed's shoulder at Leo, and then made eye contact with Jed as he answered, "Right now, I'd say 30-70 he makes it. The longer he's unconscious, the worse things look, and that 30-70 is that he lives, not that there are no lasting effects from the infection. Vancomycin is the biggest gun in our arsenal, if we can get the infection under control today or tomorrow and then deal with that leg, things could look dramatically better by next week. On the other hand, if he's still unconscious or if his fever goes back up, well, that would adversely impact his odds. He's a fighter, he wouldn't have made it this far if he weren't, but the next few days will tell us one way or the other."

Jed absorbed the words, trying to mentally record the conversation so he could review it with Abbey later. As far as he could tell though, he hadn't heard any reason for Leo to be on the respirator. "I'm sorry, one question. Why do you have him intubated? You didn't say anything about a lung injury."

Col. Hester nodded, "He was breathing on his own when he arrived, but he went into respiratory arrest twice yesterday morning before we got the fever down, and I decided the risks associated with the tube were easily offset by the effects of oxygen deprivation if we didn't catch an arrest in time, or if there were any complications getting him breathing."

Jed swallowed hard, respiratory arrest, meaning Leo had stopped breathing, not once but twice and who knows how many more times it might have happened if it weren't for the fact that they had a machine breathing for him. Every time he thought he'd come to terms with the situation, something else got added to the list. He hoped they were at the end now, he didn't know how much more he could take. Even as the thought occurred to him, he winced, it wasn't about how much he could take, it was about how much Leo could, and Jed feared that wasn't much more. He struggled to find words to respond to Dr. Hester, but as it happened, he didn't have to, a nurse Jed hadn't seen before hurried down the hall and interrupted, "Excuse me Colonel, but Captain Drake asked if I could find you for a consult on Sergeant Wilkes."

"Of course, Lieutenant, I'll be right there. Mr. Bartlet, sit with your friend, and remember what I said about him being able to hear you," Col. Hester said before hurrying down the hall after the nurse.