Classification: Post-administration. Character Death. Angst.
Summary: "No one understood what it was like to be a Beatle
except the other Beatles, and it's like that for us, too."
***
2017
"It's time."
They get identical messages, all of them, and from near and far they
answer the
summons.
CJ and Sam travel together from San Francisco. CJ watches Sam kiss his
wife and
kids goodbye, Wendy with her hair kept dazzlingly red after all these
years, and
the three kids who might as well have been parthenogenically derived
from their
father, two boys and a little girl with black, black hair and Sam's
depthless,
innocent blue eyes.
For herself, CJ has kept up well with her health and her looks, her
figure trim
thanks to exercise and dancing, lines kept at bay with the best creams,
and her
hair long enough to cover the slight sag of her jawline. She kisses
Wendy on
each cheek and hugs the two kids who aren't too big to be hugged, then
offers a
jaunty salute to the eldest, who already has some of the Seaborn weariness
around his eyes.
"Love you," Sam and Wendy say to one another as they part.
CJ and Sam sit on the plane side by side. "How's Josh taking it?" CJ
asks. She
doesn't talk to him enough, doesn't really see any of them except Sam,
and even
that is rare.
"He sounded resigned. He was up there a few weeks ago and said he isn't
surprised." And it's Sam's turn to ask about someone he doesn't see
often. "Did
you talk to Toby?"
She did, and she turns away from Sam as sunlight streams through the
window
because the touch of gold makes her skin look sallow. "He sounded depressed."
"Well hell, CJ, we're all depressed. I mean, we knew, but we didn't really..."
"I know."
They eat their first-class meal in silence except for the clinking of
their
silverware against the china. CJ drinks wine, more than she really
needs,
perhaps to fortify herself against the reason.
"Toby and I fought the last time we talked, you know," she says idly
to Sam, who
nods.
"Yeah, I heard about that."
"I thought you hadn't talked to him."
"I didn't, but he called Donna and yelled at her about it, so it got
back to
me."
CJ smirks, imagining how little of Toby's egotistical bullshit Donna
would take.
She'd married into ego, knowing Josh needed his peacemaker as much
as his
pacemaker. Donna's as old now as CJ had been when the MS scandal broke,
and the
thought makes her both nostalgic and apprehensive.
Josh meets them at the airport, Donna by his side. When had Josh started
using a
cane? And when had his hair turned the gray of steel wool? And how
the hell did
Donna's breasts stay way up there, no matter how thin she was? Dammit.
They embrace, the four of them, Sam going first to Josh, hugging him
gently but
for a long time. "I'm sorry I didn't come out for the surgery," he
says softly.
"Maggie and Ethan both had chicken pox and I didn't know if you'd ever
had it,
so I couldn't risk infecting you."
"It's okay. Abbey came, did you know that?"
At the mention of Abbey's name, the four faces all turn solemn. CJ feels
the
narrow bones of Donna's ribs as they stand with their arms around each
other's
waists, taller than the men, unabashed by it, glorious women still
amazing
enough to turn heads.
"Joshua," CJ says softly, and he opens his arms to her the way he always
has.
God, he's frail, he's too damn skinny, and he carries himself stiffly.
For a
moment she recalls Leo's odd gait and finds it ironic that Josh now
has a
distinctive walk as well.
At least Sam doesn't mirror his counterpart. Disgustingly healthy, Sam
is, even
more beautiful in his fifties than in his childishly lovely thirties,
more
beautiful than Donna as he holds her tight against his blue-suited
body, more
beautiful than the sunlight in the eyes that are still as bright as
the
California sky.
"Are we at the Hyatt?" Sam asks as he looks toward Donna's dove-gray
suitcases.
CJ spots Josh's latest backpack and grins when she sees that it's on
wheels.
Then she remembers why he can't lift anything heavy and the smile evaporates.
"No, we're staying at their place. It's quite a compound. There's a
carriage
house, believe it or not, they've set aside for Donna and me, and the
rest of
you have the third floor guest rooms. I went ahead and got a limo for
us."
"Is Toby...?"
He smirks at CJ and it erases fifteen years from his face and he's Josh
again,
Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman, the wonder boy, the phoenix rising
from his
own ashes to win the impossible second term. Their victory lap, or
their last
hurrah, depending on CJ's mood when she thinks about it.
"Toby's in the bar," Josh says. "And I don't think it's the first bar
he's been
to today, either."
Sam's face flushes and his mouth turns downward. On the plane with CJ
he had
told her about their last conversation, when he told Toby to go to
AA or
something but not to call him at three in the morning anymore because
it was
making him an enabler.
"Goddammit, Sam," Toby had bellowed, his voice thick with scotch and
anguish,
"Did you learn nothing from me in all those years of speechwriting
in the White
House?"
And Sam, best-selling author of a number of books on politics and the
media,
told CJ that he had hung up on his mentor and made slow, depressed
love to
Wendy.
"I'll get him," CJ says, loping gracelessly in the direction of the
bar. Her
knees always ache after a long flight, and the high heels she wears
with her
best navy-blue suit exacerbate the pain.
Toby's morose and overweight and his hair's the same iron gray as Josh's,
but
coarse and unkempt. His eyes are red, whether from alcohol or grief
or fear she
can't tell, but she comes up to him and puts her arms around the softness
at his
waist.
"Hey," she murmurs into his nape, and when his arms enfold her she knows
all is
forgiven.
"It's awful," he whispers, slurring the "s" a little.
"I know, I know. But Sam's here, and Josh and Donna, and we're ready
to go if
you are."
"Sam..."
"Just go. Get off the bar stool and go." She fishes in her pocketbook
for money,
leaving a wad of bills on the bar because she knows Toby's an annoying
drunk,
and leads him by the hand to the baggage claim area.
"He followed me home," CJ says, trying to sound relatively cheerful.
"Can I keep
him?"
"You have to walk him and feed him," Josh says, pushing Sam forward.
Sam, famous, powerful Sam, stares at his shoes, not looking Toby in the eye.
"Oh, for the love of God," Donna groans, and she moves between the two
men,
grabbing each by the hand and joining them together. Toby's grip shakes
but
Sam's is steady, like the man himself, and he yanks hard enough to
pull Toby
into his arms.
They don't speak, these men of words, they just hold one another, and
Josh has
tears in his eyes, and so does Donna, and CJ stares at them and wonders
why they
look kaleidoscopic until she realizes that she's seeing them through
her own
lens of salt water.
"We gotta go," Donna reminds them, used to organization and schedules,
and the
five of them head for the sleek black limo.
There used to be a dozen or more in their motorcade but today it's just
one car.
Donna looks happy to be between Sam and Josh. CJ always wondered if
Donna had
been between them in more ways than one, but Sam is ecstatically happy
with
Wendy and Josh would have died five times over had it not been for
"his" Donna.
Toby looks unenthusiastically at the landscape as Sam extols its virtues.
"Bucolic. Fecund. Verdant," he says, pointing at fields of an astonishing,
impossible emerald green.
"Verbose," Toby says back, but there's a glint of humor in those black eyes.
Donna pats Sam on the arm. "Will Charlie be there, do you think?"
It had ended badly, the relationship between Charlie and Zoey, in the
manner of
relationships begun in the flower of youth and tempered too soon by
tragedy.
Before the second term had ended, Charlie had gone to college full-time
not so
much out of a need to begin his education but to get away from Zoey's
anger and
her father's disappointment.
"Abbey said she'd asked him. I think...surely they can put aside..."
Josh has
trouble speaking, leaning over the head of his cane with his forehead
on his
clasped hands.
"We're about to find out," CJ says as they draw near to the guarded
gates. "Oh,
my God, it's Ellie!"
She's standing at the gate, slim and slightly hunched over as if to
avoid
showing her vulnerability, even after becoming a highly respected cardiologist.
It had been Ellie who had been called in the dead of night when Josh's
heart
began to fail, Ellie who had flown out to perform the implantation
of the
pacemaker, Ellie who had saved the life of the one man who had never
treated her
as the least of the three daughters.
Ellie, prodigal daughter, welcomes the weary party. She grabs bags,
asks Josh if
he's taken his pills, and shows them to the carriage house. It's a
pretty place,
all light and windows and pale wood floors, and CJ wishes there were
room for
her there. But Ellie leads the rest of their party forward, to the
gabled green
house, past the reporters waiting on the patio in respectful silence,
and takes
them through the back entry.
"You have this entrance just for yourselves. Steve, Mark, these are
Sam Seaborn,
CJ Cregg, and Toby Ziegler," she says to the two Secret Service men
who stand
guard. "They'll get pins for you sometime soon, and some for Josh and
Donna. I'm
so glad you could come."
"I'm sorry about the circumstances," Sam says, his voice gentle. His
is the
first room on the floor, and CJ gets the big, airy room in the middle
while Toby
gets a dark-paneled corner suite filled with books. They're told to
meet Abbey
downstairs at six.
CJ unpacks quickly, her array of professional clothes facing the same
way on the
hangers, her shoes paired up like beige soldiers. A part of her that
hasn't been
touched in far, far too long begins to ache, and she is too restless
to wait
around in her room.
She goes down the back stairs and heads to the carriage house. As she
lifts her
hand to knock she sees Donna, arms high over her head, laughing at
something
Josh has just said. His back is to her, he's sitting down, and Donna
deftly
removes the pins holding her hair in its demure bun as she leans over
her
husband. The blonde waterfall cascades over Josh, a loving baptism,
and CJ has
to turn away from the sheer intimacy of the scene.
On the way back she spots a green sedan coming through the gates. She
peers into
the window, shading her eyes from the glare of sunlight on tinted glass,
and
lets out a gasp.
"Charlie!" she cries, even though his windows are rolled up and he can't
hear
her. He halts the car just a few feet from her and gets out, Charlie
is all
grown up and a lawyer and still so grave, but then they're all grave
this
weekend.
"CJ," he says as if he's seen her every day for the past eleven years
instead of
once, three years ago, at Leo's funeral. He's a sleekly handsome man,
as sober
as the occasion warrants, his smile all too fleeting. He takes a single
suitcase
out of the car and follows her to the bedroom across the hall from
Toby's.
Sam spots him and smiles. "Look at you. My God, Charlie, you look great!"
"Thanks, Sam," he says. His voice is stiff. "Did you have a good flight?"
"Yeah, CJ and I came together, and we met Josh and Donna and Toby at
the
airport. I just wish..." His voice breaks and he lowers his head.
"I know. Look, I'm gonna get settled and....what are we doing?"
"We're talking to Abbey and the girls at six."
"Have you seen...?"
"Not yet. We just got here ourselves."
"Ah." Charlie looks out of place. Startled, CJ realizes that it's because
he's
on a different plane than he was in the White House, that he's their
equal, a
man with education and success written in his proud posture. "I'll
see you down
there, then." He disappears into his room and Sam stares at the closed
door.
"Sam, he's had to swallow a lot of pride to come here today. Don't take
it
personally," CJ says.
But Sam takes everything personally, always did. Got angry when he told
her he
was engaged to Wendy and CJ had laughed, calling him "Peter Pan." Got
angry when
he found out about Donna's miscarriage three weeks after the rest of
them did.
Got angry when Toby's book came out and he was third from the end of
acknowledgements.
"Boomeranger," Toby always called it, because it made Sam fly away from
them and
return, fly away and return.
They all end up closing their doors. From next door CJ hears a shower
running
and Toby singing "Nessun Dorma" in a key Puccini never dreamed of.
She doesn't
even knock, just goes into his room and into his shower after shedding
clothes
like leaves in a high wind. His body responds to hers, hard where hers
is
yielding, the rhythm familiar even in this strange setting and after
all these
years.
Her palms are flat against the shower wall and she bites into the soft
flesh at
the back of her wrist to keep from crying out. Toby hums his aria again,
although he has trouble catching his breath, and at the end he moans
her name so
longingly that she almost comes from the joy of it. His fingers, calloused
where
he clutches a pen too many hours a day, stroke her until she really
does come,
spasms shaking her so hard that she loses her balance and falls in
a graceless
heap at his feet.
He helps her up and kisses her once, twice, a third time, and breathes
his love
into her ear. She wants to believe him, needs to know that it's not
the fumes of
alcohol still in his system, not just a shared need to cheat death
by this
living act, aches to have him tell her again. Instead she gives him
a rough
kiss, full of promise and energy, and goes back to her room to dry
her hair and
change her clothes.
Church bells chime the hour and like figures in a cuckoo clock they
all emerge
from their rooms, heading in an orderly line to where the women are
waiting for
them.
They're already talking to Josh and Donna. Liz looks exactly like her
mother.
Ellie is hanging back and holding Josh's hand as if checking his pulse,
and Zoey
is standing at wary attention as she scans the group for Charlie's
face.
"Oh, look at you," Abbey says. In true grande dame fashion she's let
her hair go
an attractive silver and she's wearing the pearls her children had
bought her on
her sixtieth birthday. Her scent is still Shalimar. God knows where
she's
getting it since it's not made anymore. CJ kisses her cheek, then turns
to
embrace each of the daughters in turn.
"I think he's scared," she whispers into Zoey's ear, and sure enough,
Charlie is
standing back behind Toby.
Zoey's manners kick in and she walks right up to him. "I'm glad you're
here,
Charlie," she says, and with a pang CJ remembers the bitter fights
that tore
them apart, the nights Zoey wept in her office while Charlie roamed
the halls
like a ghost. Charlie manages a shy smile and a little hug, repeated
for Liz and
Ellie. It's Abbey he holds close, making her beam as she rocks him
back and
forth.
Annie, crowding thirty now, joins the group. She's the image of her
grandmother,
elegant and worldly, planning to enter practice with her Aunt Ellie
when she
completes her residency. Third generation surgeon.
CJ feels old, stiff. Toby slips her hand into the crook of his elbow
and pats
it.
"It's time," Abbey says softly.
The study is huge, a two-story library complete with fireplace. Where
comfortable chairs would be there is instead a hospital bed, albeit
a
state-of-the-art model with cashmere throws for warmth. Monitors and
wires and
tubes are everywhere. CJ's heart thumps in an ominous tempo. It's what
Sam had
said earlier, about knowing but not really knowing, and from the hesitant
footfall of her friends she can tell that everyone else feels the same
way.
"Father Michael gave him the last rites a few minutes ago. He can't
talk," Liz
warns them, "but he'll recognize you, and he can hear you."
They stand in an awkward semicircle. CJ's gaze travels to a portrait
of Leo
standing among the family pictures at the bedside. How she's missed
Leo these
last three years, the glue that held them together, gone after an agonizing
bout
with liver cancer.
Josh goes first, holding Donna's hand and leaning on the bed rail instead
of his
cane. CJ can't see them, her view blocked by Charlie and Toby, and
she can't
really make out their words, but she can hear Donna's little sob and
the way
Josh's voice quavers as he says farewell.
She can't watch, can't listen, as Toby and Sam and Charlie each take
their
leave, Charlie lingering a little longer until Zoey wraps her arm around
his
slim waist and pulls him back. And then she has to go, has to look,
has to come
to grips with this newest, rawest reality.
There's little of the man she knew in the wizened face, just the
robin's-egg-blue of his eyes still gleaming out of the wreckage of
his body. His
mind, thank God, has remained intact, and there is still an intelligent
spark
behind the desperate longing for release. She sees him incline his
head a little
toward the picture of Leo, and she smiles tenderly at him. "Tell him
we miss
him," she murmurs, then she bends down to kiss the pale, wrinkled forehead.
"Goodbye, sir," she manages to say, and when he frowns at her she realizes
what
he wants, what made the others weep, even Toby.
So she corrects herself. "Goodbye, Jed," and at that his blue-gray lips
turn
upwards in a smile.
CJ steps back, watching Zoey grasp Charlie's hand and lead him once
more to her
father's bedside. Liz shows the rest of them to the well-stocked dining
room.
They sit down, but no one can eat. No one even drinks. Donna puts her
head down
on her folded arms, her shoulders shaking, and Josh wraps himself around
her
like smoke.
"We shouldn't be here for this," Sam says softly. He fingers the tassels
at the
corner of the tablecloth.
"He wanted to see us," Toby replies, but he sounds as shaken as the
rest of
them.
"No. I mean it shouldn't have taken this to get us all here, together."
He drops
the tassels and makes an expansive, sweeping gesture. "We're so distant
from one
another, so removed, and, frankly, we haven't been doing too well.
Some worse
than others," he says, looking directly at Toby.
"Fuck you, Sam," Toby says, but that's not what he means.
"We were the senior staff. We shaped the way America's policies were
drawn for
eight years. No one understands but us what it was like. Without each
other..."
He has to stop, and he runs his palms over the silver wings at his
temples.
Toby puts his hands on CJ's shoulders, kneading the tension away as
he speaks.
"No one understood what it was like to be a Beatle except the other
Beatles, and
it's like that for us, too."
"So we were the Bartles," Josh quips, eliciting a hiccuping chuckle
from Donna.
"And Toby's Ringo."
"You wanna step outside and say that?" Toby challenges. Even Sam smiles
a
little.
"I'm just saying that we shouldn't see each other just because there's
a trauma.
That we can't let each other go through life alone." Sam pauses to
clear his
throat. His oratory skills aren't polished, but he speaks from the
most
affectionate of all their hearts. "We can't let this be the last time."
They are silent.
Josh begins to cry. Sam rushes to embrace him, his own tears falling
and
mingling with his old friend's. Toby wraps his arms around CJ's waist,
her back
against his chest, and they wait together.
An hour passes, then Zoey comes to see them. Her eyes are bright but
dry, and
she is able to say the words. "He's gone."
CJ crosses herself.
"He was the best man I ever knew," Josh murmurs, drying his own tears
before
standing up to embrace Zoey. "The world's not going to be the same
without him."
"Thank you, Josh." Her voice climbs on his name, breaking like a soap
bubble.
Charlie comes in and takes her hands in his.
"The First...Abbey...would like you to make the statement to the press, CJ."
She nods, smoothing her skirt, and walks in front of her colleagues.
Sam
scribbles furiously in a note pad as CJ joins Abbey, pale but composed,
on the
porch. CJ puts on her glasses and takes the hastily-written page from
Sam's
fingers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that former President
Josiah
Bartlet passed away at 7:24 this evening following a long battle with
Multiple
Sclerosis." She pauses for the sympathetic murmur from the reporters.
"His was
the finest mind and the noblest heart of his time. Those of us who
had the
honor...the privilege..."
Her composure deserts her, but Toby does not. He steps to her side,
beckoning
Sam, Donna, and Josh to follow, and the five of them stand together.
"...the privilege," CJ continues, "of serving at the pleasure of the
President,
join the First Family in their sorrow at losing a loved one, and in
their joy
that he is released from his suffering and has gone to be with God."
"You said it right," comes the President's voice from somewhere just
beyond the
range of mortal hearing. CJ sees the others startle and she wonders
what they
heard, then she sees Abbey smile wistfully as color returns to her
face. They'll
talk about it later, over the tea and little sandwiches sitting out
in the
dining room, and promise to keep in touch. Maybe now, with Abbey's
tears so
fresh in their memories, it will not be the same vain pledge made for
the past
decade.
She feels a warm breeze caress her cheek with the gentlest of touches,
and she
makes a promise to the departing soul, a vow as unbreakable, as unending,
as his
love.
***
END
Feedback is appreciated at marguerite@swbell.net.
Back to West Wing fiction.
For AJ, who needed angst and a shower, with love and hugs. Thanks to
the Onions
for much-needed support and suggestions.