Out of Time
- After Rosslyn, Josh's loves find solace in each other's arms. Sam/Josh/Donna.
This story is set during and immediately after Rosslyn, with the occasional later-season spoiler. While not my first work of fan-fiction, it is my first West Wing story and as such is bound to contain errors aplenty. The first couple of chapters extensively reprise In the Shadow of Two Gunmen; however, I have tried to fill in the gaps, so to speak. The real story comes after Rosslyn.
Warning: contains medium levels of slashy themes and low levels of slashy action.
Chapter One: Reveal
MONDAY, 9:37 P.M.
"Josh?"
Toby Ziegler swore over his breath, too concerned to care whether anyone heard. Chaos surrounded him, chaos for which he had always tried to prepare. Shouts, cries and screams whistled over Toby's head like Teflon, his ears alert to the sounds of one man.
"Charlie, have you seen Josh?"
His relationship with Josh was professional, workable - nothing more. They had little in common, even less of shared interest, yet Toby was scouring the area searching for him. What are you talking about? Of course I'm looking for him, Toby told himself sternly. You think I'd suddenly cease to be a human being in times like this?
"Yeah, he got in the car with Leo."
Toby shook his head; was no one looking? "No he didn't. Shanahan got in the car with Leo. Josh didn't get in the car." Charlie nodded in apology, but Toby had already strode away. The Communications Director was subconsciously counting the minutes since the shooting, hoping against hope that nothing serious had happened to Josh. Yet half-forgotten chapters of a first-aid manual were tapping at his brain, telling him time was of the essence and if Josh was seriously injured then Toby needed to find him, fast.
Finally he spotted him: an arm, clothed in grey, poking out the edge of a planter-box. Toby ran as quickly as his suit and middle-aged body would allow across the concrete and up the stairs, still hoping.
"Josh? Josh, didn't you hear me shouting for you? I didn't know where the hell you -"
Toby stopped. It was Josh, for sure - sitting against the planter-box with a large, bloody bullet hole in his chest.
"I need a doctor... I need help!"
Toby shouted across the concrete common, his eyes fixated on the bloody leak in Josh's chest as if someone had painted it there. It was so foreign, such a jolt to the senses, so ultimately distracting, that Toby barely heard the footsteps surrounding him as Josh slid to the ground and into Toby's shaking arms.
"J-Josh?" gasped CJ. Toby didn't see her; he was looking out for the paramedics that were surely coming over. Turning his head, he saw Sam kneel next to him, gaze open-mouthed for a second at Josh's limp body, then shout urgently for a doctor.
This cannot be happening, Toby silently muttered, as if a news ticker were playing in his head. This isn't happening. This isn't happening.
"Step away, please!"
Toby felt himself being roughly pulled away by a pair of strong hands; seconds later Josh was surrounded by a swarm of paramedics. They spoke in hushed but rather carrying whispers in some sort of medico-dialect Toby couldn't understand; phrases like "BP is 90 palp" jumped out at him. One medic shouted in English, "Ambulance, NOW!" but Toby was too far out of it to register. CJ, evidently calling on every ounce of self-restraint she possessed, was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and mumbling a hushed prayer to herself. Sam had given up trying to get a straight answer out of the paramedics and instead kneeled silently at Josh's head, his face as strained and twitchy as Josh's body.
After what was barely a minute, but seemed like hours to Toby, one paramedic appeared to pull a stretcher out of his pocket. Bound by shock to the concrete, Toby watched as Josh was hauled onto the stretcher, tubes, blood and gauze obscuring his face and chest.
"Where are you going? What are you doing?" Sam asked the paramedics urgently, but the only coherent response he got was "Not now. No time." The medico-swarm surrounded Josh's trolley as it sailed down the stairs, past the distracted crowd and into the waiting ambulance. Toby, Sam and CJ watched the ambulance hurtle along the road, sirens further fragmenting the already shattered peace.
MONDAY, 9:42 P.M.
"You three all right back there?"
"Yeah, we're fine, just-just get us the hell to GW!"
Barely had the front doors closed than the police car gave an almighty lurch and bolted. CJ, Toby and Sam were squashed into the back seat - Sam, who was holding CJ's hand very tightly, had more or less ended up in Toby's lap, but neither had said a word. All three had felt the car accelerate without them and were thrown against the back seat.
"Sorry 'bout that," called the driver.
"It's fine, we don't care," replied Toby's muffled voice. Sam tried to squirm his way out of his boss's lap, but realised soon after there was nowhere else to sit. If he hadn't known better, Sam would have sworn Toby was trying to keep a grip on him. The driver talked to the police radio and the second cop in the passenger's seat, but the back seat remained silent save for CJ's occasional sniffs.
Toby twisted around to get a better view out the window. The Potomac was beautiful to look at this time of year, the city lights reflected in the water's glass-like gaze. Toby smiled ruefully at himself, appreciating the river's beauty in spite of earthly events.
"Sirs? Ma'am?"
Toby snapped out of his momentary reverie. Sam and CJ were also alert.
"A coupla guys are sayin' on the radio that the President himself was shot-"
"WHAT?!" shouted Sam and CJ simultaneously. Toby was suddenly thankful neither of them were driving the car.
"-but it's only in his side, and that it's not that serious," finished the cop in the passenger's seat. "Thought you guys might need to know that, is all."
"You thought we might-?!" CJ began to splutter, but Sam gripped her hand even more tightly.
"Were there any more details?" Sam asked urgently.
"No, sir. They don't want the story to blow itself out of proportion on the grapevine."
"Out of-? Sir, I'm the White House Press Secretary! The President's just been shot, for crying out loud! If this story isn't already all over CNN, I'll-I'll..." CJ hollered, before trailing off in a profusion of splutters.
"Eat your hat?" suggested Toby.
"Eat you, more like," retorted CJ.
"Well, that would come under the definition of cannibalism, which I'm quite certain is ille-"
"Guys! GW round the corner!" shouted the passenger cop. Toby fell silent at once, the thoughts of all three focusing immediately on Josh. The cop slammed on the brakes at the emergency entrance to GW, decelerating the car without its passengers.
"Sorry, guys!"
"Doesn't matter, the ambulance is here!" called CJ, almost falling out of the car. The three ran to the entrance, only to be greeted with a heap of tubes, gauze and braces on a stretcher.
"Gunshot wound, no exit!"
Josh!
"He's got decreased breath sounds on the left. Pulse ox 92 on 15 litres."
"It's Josh!" called CJ.
"I've got the HaemoCue."
"Josh!" called Leo, rushing to the trolley. "What happened?!"
"I don't know, he was behind us," replied Toby as the mob steered the crash cart through the hallways of George Washington Hospital.
"Gunshot wound, entry, left fifth intercostal space."
"Josh, I'm here!" yelled Sam, in danger of being left behind by the pack. Someone help him! Whoever's up there, I implore you!
"This meeting, I shouldn't be at this meeting..." murmured Josh, in a semi-conscious haze as the trolley sailed by.
"Trauma 1's ready."
"Get a needle. Chest tube tray."
"Senator..." blurted Josh.
"Tell me what's happening!" shouted Leo, desperately.
"I don't have time!" shouted a doctor in reply.
"I shouldn't be at this meeting..." Josh repeated, consciousness seeping out of him.
"Pulse ox 88."
"I need to get to New Hampshire!" Josh declared, trying to sit up with every ounce of effort he had.
"You went to New Hampshire. We both did," said Sam, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere at Josh's side. "You came and got me."
Sam's words seemed to comfort himself more than Josh, who was quickly fading into oblivion.
"On my count. One! Two! Three!"
A dozen pairs of strong hands transferred Josh from the crash cart to the hospital bed.
"Josh, a bullet collapsed your lung. I'm putting in a tube to re-expand it..."
Medical jargon surrounded him; his mind was spinning into the past...
"Sirs? Ma'am?"
CJ looked up from where Josh lay, startled. A kindly-looking man dressed in hospital greens smiled at her.
"Ma'am, we need you to come with us. You too, sirs," he added, speaking to Toby and Sam. The former made to follow CJ out of the room, while the latter appeared to ignore them completely.
"Sir?"
"Sam?"
He stood at the head of the stretcher, forlorn and lachrymose, shoved aside by countless doctors. He muttered comforting niceties under his breath, verbally holding Josh's hand while holding himself in like a shaken beer can. Toby was strongly reminded of the homeless men he'd once met in a mouldy corner of D.C.: disconsolate, yet refusing to appear so.
"Sam?" called Toby. Sam's head jerked upwards like a marionette, the rest of him frozen where he stood.
"Yeah?" he replied, a hint of wobble in his voice.
"The doctor here," Toby motioned to the smiling man next to him, "says he needs the three of us to follow him someplace."
Sam nodded automatically, then bent over to whisper a final something. CJ followed the green-clad doctor out of the room, while Toby waited for Sam to join them.
"You okay, Sam?" Toby asked, with uncharacteristic concern.
Sam turned to look at Toby. "Yeah. Don't worry about me." He tried to smile and found he couldn't, choosing instead to twist his mouth and admire the hospital linoleum. Toby watched him closely as they walked behind CJ, through busy corridors and into a private waiting room.
"You guys want some coffee?" CJ asked, turning around.
Toby replied, "Yes, thanks," but Sam just nodded again, as if his conscious self had gone to sleep and put his body on autopilot. Toby gave CJ one of those meaningful looks and steered Sam into the nearest chair.
Sam felt his body being asked to sit down; he obliged, but with no earthly idea why. All that mattered to him was Josh - his best friend, his soulmate - and whether he'd live to write another memo.