These are sort of outtakes from my bigfic, but I've been sitting on this for a year, and having read any part of the bigfic really isn't necessary. I hope.
Five Ways CJ Cregg Never Died
1. She can't leave her office, but she can call, and so she does. Wrenched and no longer able to bear the pain alone, CJ slides her hand along the handset and considers... Sam who knows versus Toby who will be angry he didn't know against Josh who will despairingly want it not to be so.
She chooses against the certain destruction of Josh, hoping this will be all right for Sam in the end.
"Sam?"
"CJ? What's wrong?" She can hear too clearly the undercurrent in his voice, and knows that he already, somehow, knows.
"My water broke," she whispers back.
A long pause.
"Oh, God. CJ..."
"I just..."
"CJ, I'll call someone, so you-"
"Sam." Her gentle, resigned voice stops his full force. "Don't. It's only that," and her voice catches, "I'm alone."
"How long have you been in labor?"
"Hard labor?"
She can feel his stomach clench across the phone line, the look of horror that must be dawning on his face. "Yes."
"A couple of hours."
"Oh, CJ..."
"Sam, be quiet. I mean, I just want to talk." Her breath catches and wavers, filled with a little too much water. "Sorry. Contraction. It hurts."
"What do you need?"
"Get him reelected."
"What do you need now?"
"Samantha Joan and Abigail Leona."
He can hear another contraction come and go before he can muster a response, water in his own tone now, dripped onto the receiver. "I don't deserve that."
"You really do." He can hear the exhaustion coming up on her now, unstoppable, forced by something more than tiredness of any kind. Complications... this wasn't supposed to happen.
"CJ, the lockdown's got to end soon. Stay with me."
"Can't," and she bites down on her lip, making a strained sound through the barrier. "First one's coming."
"CJ, keep talking. You've got to keep talking. Don't let it win. Come on."
"Optimist," she retorts faintly, smiling just a little bit. A pause, and then, "Second one's coming, Sam."
"No..."
"Don't destroy yourself," she admonishes weakly, suddenly fearful that her need will deal another blow to the senior staff.
"I-"
"Oh!" CJ's face twists in pain and fear.
"CJ, it's got to end soon, just a few more minutes and we can get you to the hospital, soon, just a little bit longer. Come on."
"They're actually beautiful," she notes softly to him. In the other office, eyes widen.
"CJ, are you-"
"You're a daddy now." A sharp breath. "I love them, Sam. Don't... don't forget that."
"I won't."
"Protect each other," she reminds gently.
And then he can hear her breathing wind down, slowly, so quietly that he misses the interval between when the breaths continue and when they don't. Pain tears at him, so that for over a day the White House is missing another senior staffer, and whispers follow even after that, that they're still missing part of one, for there is hollowness and a haunting in Sam's eyes that not even Mallory's fire can shake.
CJ sees, and saw, and wishes she could speak again, and weeps instead, condemning herself for letting her vulnerability and last need condemn Sam, her idealistic hope.
2. CJ's long fingers framed the stars, one arm flung outward in searching or denial. She turned her head, gaze crossing Leo's horrified expression just before he dropped one hand to brush it against her hair in reassurance.
Toby, gripping her other hand, hasn't spoken a word for almost an hour.
The President is pacing back and forth, shouting, as he has been almost since their meeting, stretched out a little by the crash initiated halfway through it, came to an odd end. CJ had stood and abruptly sat back down, paling.
"I..." she had trailed off inarticulately, closing her eyes.
"CJ, talk to us," the President had demanded after a brief silence. She had opened her eyes and lifted her head to meet his gaze, eyes filled with more than pain. Now she lay across the Great Seal, more by chance than by design, struggling.
"Not too much longer," Sam noted, voice precise and distant. She looked over at him and nodded, just once.
"Dammit, you've got to get someone in here!" Bartlet bellowed. A response started and was overridden. "I know about the risk, and I'm telling you I don't care! A team of EMTs, a military doctor, my personal physician, someone! She is not going to die in the name of keeping me safe from a threat that may not even exist!" Without waiting for a response, he spun away again, circling the room twice in quick, angry strides before coming back around by his desk and leaning over the knot of people there. "CJ?" he asked softly.
"Yes, sir?"
"We're going to get someone in here as soon as possible, all right? But you're going to be fine." Josh glanced up hopefully at this and watched the President step toward CJ's legs; he restrains a sound of astonishment when Sam stands and steps forward, actually blocking his leader.
"Mr. President," Sam started, before glancing down at CJ.
"Sam," Bartlet returned evenly.
"Sir," CJ interceded. "Please..." Her eyes closed and she took a sharp breath. "I appreciate it, but...it's not... it's not going to be fine. I'm sorry."
"CJ, what are you talking about?" He knelt beside her, taking her free hand in his.
"There's something I have, a-" Her voice scaled up suddenly as she cried out. "Sam!"
"Shh." Sam touched her leg lightly. "I'm watching, CJ. It's all right." But his voice shook.
"What is it?" their leader wanted to know, eyes full of concern.
CJ knit her brows for a moment, trying to phrase it, then gave up. "I'm, uh, I'm at high risk for complications. The twins are fine, but my... something's in the wrong place, and..."
There was a hushed pause as the President studied her, finally swinging his gaze to Sam. "You knew about this?" he inquired.
Sam drew in a deep breath. "Yeah."
The President nodded, then opened his mouth to reply.
He saw the blood.
He turned back, noting that CJ had gone even paler. "No..." he protested softly.
CJ fought her way through the oncoming tide and squeezed his hand. "You weren't supposed to know. It's all right."
"What's going on?" Josh interjected, coming closer. His face was drawn, mind visibly working to put things together, and then trying to put them together in a shape that didn't spell loss.
CJ turned to face him, then winced and closed her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Josh."
He clutched one hand in his hair and leaned over her. "No... CJ..." Toby touched him on the shoulder, very lightly, but he didn't seem to notice.
"How long do you have, CJ?" Leo asked gently.
"I think I can deliver both of them. That's what... that's when it'll get bad." She clamped her lips together, watching Sam watch her. "Sam?" she half-warned, half-asked after the contraction had passed.
"I can see a head," he replied quietly. She nodded, and waited. "It's definitely..."
"CJ," Toby urged, simply, softly. She squeezed his hand lightly.
"Don't... what can I say that's not the worst cliche in the world?"
"Is there anything you can do to help, to-"
"No," she told them. Silently, Leo yielded his place, letting Josh rest his hand on her hair and try to convey some measure of strength. The President guides her hand and Josh's to each other, then stands, coming around the desk and fingering his phone as if to start shouting again, then coming back to stand where he can watch Sam's hands and CJ's face.
He owes her that much, this little, little thing that can never compensate or repay what she's done for him. He knows it, knew since she stood in this office and shouted that he had to let her protect him. Leo simply stands opposite him, watching and waiting and feeling the burden of what he should have realized descend.
"What do you need?" Toby whispered.
CJ's eyes flickered in a quick glance at the President. "I think you know why."
"Yeah." One hand cups the side of her face, then rests on her shoulder. "I do."
Toby is almost crying, some distant part of her mind notes. "Four more years." He nods, shoulders slumping a little under the new responsibility.
"CJ," Josh begged softly. She almost, almost smiles at him.
"Come here." Obediently, he leans over, and she whispers briefly to him.
"They're beautiful."
"Thanks." She pauses for another force. "Should have been alone..."
"No, it's okay," he tries to reassure. For just an instant, her eyes go to his with a hint of the old CJ look, the one where she knows one of the guys is telling her a crap story, and he smiles, a strained expression. "Yeah."
A baby wails, and everyone turns their head to see Sam cradling the tiny creature. CJ smiles just a little, with great force and effort. "Not too bad..."
"Yeah." Sam turns to put her down, but is intercepted by Leo.
"Halfway..." CJ suddenly draws in a sharp gasp. "Second one, too much, I can feel it... Samuel!"
"CJ, no..." his voice recedes, almost impossibly so.
Toby's strong grip seems to go right through her hand.
Josh is talking to her encouragingly, speaking as though the force of his voice can pull her back and command her to stop bloodletting and live.
"CJ, don't give up," the President commands, lower than he was before. She can feel another pair of hands trying to stop it.
"I love you," she whispers to everyone, no one and anyone.
"Hang in there, CJ," she can hear Leo's voice try, from somewhere over there.
Her eyes close, even as they all try to pull her back with their voices, these five men who can open their mouths and rearrange the world. Through that deep, urgent chorus, she can hear a higher whisper, so tired and yet with force equal to theirs...
"What's next..."
3. Samantha cries out, her voice suddenly high and young and desperate, hands staunching her twin's flow of blood. Abigail's lips are clamped together, face tight and twisted with pain.
They all turn at that voice, the President most of all. He can hear a horrified sound escape CJ's lips, even through the urgent sounds of his detail trying to get him in the car, they have to get him in the car and on Air Force One.
Josh's face is stark against the background of lights and shouts and the crowd, but he twists against the grip of his own agent. "Al!"
"Girls," CJ whispers in soft despair, trying to disentangle herself from the chaos that is the Service trying to make a final shot, trying to fulfill their duty.
"No!" the President shouts, suddenly turning on his own detail with unnatural ferocity. "Al! Sam!"
"Uncle Sam, don't!" she cries, looking up from her sister.
Josh sags back into the arms of his detail as he sees his best friend break free of his, hearing the shots echo around him and knowing they're not all from the agents.
CJ ducks, and almost leaps forward, knowing this time it won't be a political bullet, nor a missed shot, for he is, in this moment, the perfect target. She catches him full on-
His hand scrapes against the pavement to catch the force of the impact, just as his detail catches up. They pull him away.
The pain registers at the edge of CJ's already-damaged consciousness. Her daughter's voice rises to a shriek, despairing and denying.
No...
"CJ!" the President shouts, still turned toward her even as three agents pull him into the car.
She can hear Carol and Will running up to her, shouting.
One last time...
The agents have to force him into the car to close the door.
It's the last thing, with Carol's gentle, fearful fingers on her neck, and Will's despairing litany of the bullet's path blurring together in her ears.
Not Samantha. Not Abigail. Not even a glance.
4. Leo wasn't there.
CJ is just aware of walking back to her office, feeling clumsy and stumbling, hoping and hoping against passing someone that knows enough to ask her what's wrong, to pull her out of the world where feet pound on the floor and she can feel carpet wet with redness and there are too many hands...
Hands.
Back in her office, she lifts her left hand and turns it over, looking at the cut the paper left, where blood is slowly beading up and running in a thin line, a line grown to monstrosity.
Blood... too much. Not enough...
The car ride to the hospital with Donna, the gentle and fully focused concern from the younger woman.
Weeks and weeks later, Josh's odd, pained expression, one that still held a little bit of hope, as he warned her. Reliving and remembering. There was a difference. Flashbacks, so that Josh and Sam both ended up with bruises after they came up on her from behind.
Should have done something then.
Someone was running. Who had run? Josh. Where was he? He wasn't here, she couldn't ask him and he wasn't here and it didn't matter because she didn't want to destroy him, yet he'd been the first to set foot in this office after the crash was lifted...
This office.
No.
Her hands are shaking, so hard that when she rests the right one on the desk, it instead forces something to the floor, something that shatters. One fragment bites her leg, and CJ steps back, almost hopping on her right leg, with fire running down the left and piercing pain.
Always the pain.
The phone. She should use the phone. But it's too far away and she doesn't know who to call because she works with too many men and what's the point, she's strategized everything, why should she pull out of this except for girls that she's not even sure should have been born anymore, and the phones are down anyway, that's why she's sitting on her couch gasping with too much wetness...
Sam was in the building. But she'd already leaned on Sam so much.
Leo was her first phone call. Something was wrong.
Too much wetness. The wrong color. Blood, it's the wrong color.
She couldn't stand this office anymore.
No one could know she was going crazy. She wouldn't permit it.
Hands...
The pain is so distant, and she's watching the blood on the finger of her left hand imprinting itself on the shard that came from nowhere.
It shouldn't be running down her arm. It was somewhere else, it was lower, her arms and hands were bruised, but not this.
Her legs hit the couch, and CJ sits, trying to work out a puzzle that will otherwise remain unsolved.
"CJ stopped by," Margaret tells Leo, face and body and voice giving it the force of a paragraph. Leo stares briefly, then turns quickly in the direction of his assistant's small nod, chasing CJ too distantly.
Something about reelection.
"CJ."
Oh, no...
Running, who was running again?
They think they need me. Oh, you guys, I'm so sorry.
And Leo's hand closes on the doorknob, denying; again, pale and breathless without Josh's promise.
5. She waits over a year.
CJ can't even remember anymore who found out first after her argument with Sam about the necessity of this; all she can remember is that they'd met and the President had told her he wouldn't permit his protection to be bought at this horrible cost.
Finally, before the haunted looks in the eyes of the five men, she had bowed her head and stared at interlocked fingers, slowly admitting that, yes, there was, and forever would be, a motivation to not let this hurt the President.
Later, she and Toby and Sam and Josh go to her office, the other three sitting down and gently pulling her to them, wordlessly waiting. Never before and never again will there be such a silence, as the sun moves and the West Wing whirls around them. Carol ducks in to drop off reports and memos almost reluctantly, never speaking, but casting a quiet, understanding glance at her boss each time.
When the sun is long set and they all sit in dimness, CJ shifts, just a little. "Will you go with me?"
"Who?" Josh asks softly.
"Yes. I mean, all of you." She pinches her nose and leans against Toby's shoulder.
"Are you sure, CJ?"
"It'll be fine, Josh."
"No, I mean about this." Their eyes meet in the darkness, CJ's unusually reflective.
"I don't know."
"You can sleep on it," Sam suggested quietly.
"Yeah, maybe. I... this is why I didn't want anyone to know. I'm terrified, but... this is more terrifying, in a way."
"Shh," Toby soothes. "Whenever you decide, we'll be here."
"Yeah."
The next Saturday, they all go with her, very quietly, to a clinic Doctor Llanewyn had suggested after CJ told her. Her face was drawn with worry at the look in CJ's eyes, but a knot of helpless agony had uncoiled in her, that CJ, now, would not be taking that awful, awful risk.
Afterward, they go back to the White House, slowly, and the First Lady intercepts them, guiding CJ up to the Residence to lay quietly for a little while, but not so long, they all hope, as to let the deeper and more dangerous pain fester.
And now, later, on Election Day, CJ watches the early returns and places a hand over her stomach, body tensing. They'd done the best they could, and yet... rumors had still flown, were flying a little bit to this very day.
Finally, she goes out, walking almost aimlessly in the gathering darkness, without heed to the works she passes. She might have glanced quickly, once, back at the White House when she could see it from the top of a rise, or taken a glimpse of Lincoln, but those moments passed by and were forgotten.
She doesn't know it, but now she stands almost exactly where Josh stood seventeen months before, watching the darkness wave away beneath her. Unlike with Josh, though, there is nothing truly to keep her; she failed at the greatest aspect of her job, and nothing important is left.
CJ's long body swings forward. It's November, after all; even here in DC, the river will be cold, too cold to permit much thought.
A strong hand pulls her back, familiar voice muttering a curse as her legs catch on the railing. A brief, awkward struggle ensues before she is lying on the pavement, staring at three faces that might well have been carved of marble for all the color in them.
"CJ," Josh gasps.
"No," she returns, despairing.
"CJ, he's going to win," Toby told her, as if reading her intent.
"It didn't look good," she whispers.
"It's okay," Sam tries to reassure.
They go back, talking quietly, and say nothing more of it, not even to Leo, nor to Carol.
Two months later, Leo goes into his office in the morning to find an envelope on his desk. He opens it and scans the contents hastily, then swears softly and strides down the hallways, knowing he won't find anything but wanting to see it before the President arrives and must be told...
Carol is bent over a similar envelope, head in her hands. She looks up at his entrance, eyes full of pain and guilt.
"She didn't say anything..."
"It's not your fault, Carol," Leo sighs back, stepping past her and into the office. It is quiet, almost hollow, and very neat. There is almost nothing in it; the desk is still there, with a sole box on top of it, labeled in CJ's angled script.
One by one they gather there, staring around and trying to puzzle out what happened. Sam's hands shake as he opens the box with his name on it, and he stares down at the folders, trying to puzzle out how he can possibly do anything now...
"We can find her, can't we?" Josh finally asks, voice pleading.
"We could," Leo admits after a brief hesitation.
"Don't," Toby directs. "Don't."
"But we can't just let her go like this!" Josh cries out.
Toby's eyes were darker than usual, with what emotions none could say. "I know exactly where she went."
"Then let's go and ask-"
"No." That from Leo, who has seen the look in Toby's eyes. "She's gone, Josh. You can't save her."
"But we did this!"
"And we can't undo it," Sam reminds.
In a town and house immensely familiar to her, CJ moves about, trying to put some order to what her father has, all too unknowingly now, disordered. Once in a great, great while, she turns on the television, old reflexes driving her to C-SPAN or CNN. Sometimes, then, she will see that podium and blue drapery with the great picture of that great building, and a familiar face will be at the podium, giving answers as she would have more often than not. Carol has adapted well, CJ thinks, and turns off the TV.
The years pass quietly by, until another man besides the one she once tried to protect sits in that office, and when she goes out for the walk that stretches her injured leg and keeps it from crippling her prematurely, there is a familiar, familiar face waiting, stepping out of a rental car to watch her come down the sidewalk and stop, staring at him.
Toby steps up to CJ very slowly, watching her watch him, and watching the changes in her eyes, in her face. His lips part, but he never speaks the single sentence he came here to speak, instead taking her hands briefly in his and giving them a light squeeze before turning away. Even that fails to bring a flicker of joy to CJ's eyes.
Josh and Sam and Leo and even Jed came with Toby as far as the airport, but wouldn't come any nearer to that which they feared to see, that which Toby saw. As soon as he walks up, they know, but he says it anyway.
"She's gone. CJ... has been gone for a long time. And I wish we could undo what we did."