Hey there you, shattered in a thousand pieces
Weeping in the darkest nights
Hey there you, try to stand up on your own two feet
And stumble into the sky
Laura Mvula - "Sing to the Moon
In the days and weeks that follow Rosslyn, CJ finds her hands curl into fists at odd times. She'll be out at a bar with Sam and Toby, sitting down to coffee in the hospital cafeteria with Donna or simply working in her office and her hands will close in tight fists as she surveys the people and place she loves. These people who have always been more than co-workers to her, this place, the White House, more than an office and she finds that if challenged, she welcomes a chance to step up and fight those that might hurt the ones she loves. To bloody a nose or blacken an eye, even metaphorical ones. She looks for fights in small places - grocery store checkout lines, internet message boards, phone calls to the telephone company or to dispute a charge on her credit card bill. She tells herself that those that speak for the White House do not yell, those that work for the White House do not challenge reporters; but CJ Craig can and does. She finds herself apologizing to phone bank operators, anonymous people somewhere in America who've done her no wrong except to be at the other end of the phone line, and yet cannot completely absolve them of her pain. Her rage is ever present, her grief unending. She wakes and thinks, "it still happened, I didn't know, I couldn't stop it, it still happened".
She wonders if people know what is truly sacrificed for American citizens, so that they may go about their lives in the perfect world of the uniformed. She wonders if she or her coworkers truly knew what targets they might make themselves by agreeing to a salary, a 401k, a desk at the White House. She decides its worth it and yet death seems ever present those first few days. At odd times "he's alive" whispers over and over through her mind, a thought bubble never popping even though she is expected to go about her job as if normal. There is the constant acknowledging that he could easily have been taken, no warning, no last witty retort, no more arguments, only a empty chair, an empty apartment, a loss so profound, one that should horrify the world and yet it would go on. She feels a deep sickness and that first day after arrives home, only to vomit on the living room floor. The stress overwhelms and she doesn't sleep well, waking exhausting, for months after. In the end, Josh returns to work, a different man, but still very present, still boisterous (though quieter she sees), and she thinks "he came home" and goes back to ribbing him about Donna or his choice in clothes. These small arguments feel like gifts.
Somewhere, months later, in a small African country a group of aid workers is attacked, one dies, she reports calmly from her podium. This was her name, this was who she loved and this is who loved her. The photo shows a young woman so deeply alive it's hard to imagine she's gone. CJ leaves the press room and breathes in and out and thinks "it still happened" and she thinks of those aid workers and what may have happened, if they can sleep, if their own hands curl into fists, if they are safe. Later she is told they are not, there has been gunfire and bloodshed, but they do not return home, they go back to work. There is so much left to do, they say, and now we do it for her. They do not break, CJ wants to break for them, wants to take pain and stop time so that they may heal.
She misses what once was, what was lost; the innocence of being unaware that all this could so easily change, that worlds can break. She goes back to work, her hands curl and she waits to attack. There is so much left to do.
PS - I know this is likely very OOC, I apologize for that