NOTES:

This is a companion piece to "Noel."

A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone on tumblr who cheered me on, listened to me whine, and helped me iron out the timeline of the episode. And to Blake, who spent many a long summer night talking me through epigraphs and bouts of writer's block: this is for you. Thank you for never letting me give up.

aftershock (n): the effect, result, or repercussion of an event; aftermath; consequence.

I.

"After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom."

― Arthur Golden

He was thinking about Noah again. It was hard not to.

Sometimes, Leo would study Josh and see Noah Lyman flashing through. It was funny. The kid had never seemed to look much like his old man when he was growing up, and really, he still didn't. Josh had his mother's coloring, her eyes, her smile—right down to the dimples. He was loud like her, in all the ways that Noah had not been. When Leo thought of Josh Lyman, he thought of hurricanes. Concentrated passion and fierce intelligence; a force capable of destruction, true, but also startling, almost breathtaking, in its chaos. Besides, once you knew how to harness Josh, once you understood him, it was obvious all that energy was swirling around a center of intense focus.

That center was everything. It made Josh brilliant. It made him indispensable. Josh Lyman: the guy the guy's guy counted on. The guy who could sweep into a meeting with some of the most vitriolic politicians in the country and talk them into effortless knots, until they'd all made promises he would bully them into keeping. They'd be too caught up in the bluster to notice that every move Josh made, every smartass remark, every casual threat, every snap of his temper, was calculated. He could be your best buddy one minute, a circling vulture the next. That always threw them. More than one party elder had taken Leo aside, told him that his deputy was crazy (he's effective, Leo, but Jesus—get your dog on a leash). They only saw the unpredictable loudmouth. The terrier. The natural disaster. They also saw that Josh was difficult to beat, the man Bartlet sent when there were no punches left to pull, but they didn't see him, not really. Like his father, Josh was quite a bit more than he liked most people to notice.

When Leo thought of Noah Lyman, he thought of the sea on a calm, cloudy day. Quiet, just until the wind changed. He had been such a hard man, although certainly not a cruel one. Funny, at times cuttingly so. Smart, but in a different way than Josh. Surprisingly kindhearted, especially when it came to children. Stubborn as all hell. And once you finally got him started on a subject he found interesting, you couldn't get him to shut up. More often than not, that subject was Josh. Leo had always gotten an earful about the kid when he and Noah met up for drinks throughout the years, especially when Josh took an interest in politics. Leo had even helped Josh get his foot in the door of the Senate after he graduated from Yale, much to the Lyman family's collective gratitude.

After that, though, there had been fewer visits. The years kept crawling by. Leo descended headfirst into his addiction, stopped calling his old friend entirely—but one night, after Leo had finally finished rehab, Noah showed up on his doorstep with a box of cigars. He talked to Leo about politics and Josh and Mallory and the weather and D.C., and didn't once make it strange that they weren't sharing their usual bottle of scotch. They didn't discuss Sierra-Tucson or the booze or the pills that night; in fact, they never did. Noah would just keep stopping by whenever he was in town to visit Josh, always with some new book, always with his usual wry grin, always with a clap on the shoulder and the silent understanding that he wasn't going anywhere.

It went on like that, their comfortable friendship, their sporadic visits and quick phone calls, especially after Leo brought Josh onto the Bartlet campaign. Noah would call all the time to check in, even when he'd already spoken with Josh earlier in the day. Leo always picked up the phone, knew that Noah was bored out of his skull. He'd been spending too much time in hospital rooms, doing too many easy crossword puzzles. Usually, it was just how much trouble is that kid of mine giving you? and your Bartlet guy could be a hell of a speaker if he'd just get to the point already, but one day, it was something different. Something serious.

"I'm getting worse," Noah had said without preamble. "Don't tell Josh—he'll know soon enough. He's gotta focus on the primaries. Just look after the kid for me, won't you? He doesn't have anybody else."

Leo had understood what that meant. This was a man who never asked for anything, who'd practically shrugged off Leo's deepest sympathies when Joanie had died all those years ago, who didn't even mention his cancer until he showed up for one of their chats missing all of his hair (and about twenty-five pounds).

"Of course I'll look after him," Leo had promised. "Not that he needs it! You should see him going toe-to-toe with the Governor. He's made of strong stuff, Noah."

"He is," Noah had said after a long pause. "But don't let him fool you."

Leo didn't get it then. He didn't get it for a long time, not even when Noah died, not even when Josh came back from the funeral, grim-faced and determined. He didn't get it until the night Josh turned to the President, pressed the NSC card back into Leo's hand, and told them he wanted to be a comfort to his friends in tragedy, to celebrate with them in triumph, to be able to look them in the eye for all the times in between. "Leo," Josh had said, "it's not for me."

That's when it clicked. That's when Leo knew. That's when Leo started looking for Noah, and finding him in the most unexpected places: in Josh's unrelenting loyalty, in the lines around his eyes, in the way he couldn't carry a card that the rest of his friends didn't have. Noah was Josh's guilt, his inability to accept help. Noah was Josh's laughter after a long day. Noah was the eye of the storm. He was there, always. He was here, now.

And Leo had let him down.

"Leo? I'm sorry," Stanley Keyworth said, leaning forward over the table. "Did you hear that last question?"

"What?" Leo's attention shifted back to the man in front of him. The young woman sitting off to the side was watching closely, her hands folded in her lap.

"I asked you if there was anything else I should know about Josh Lyman."

"Yeah," Leo muttered, shifting in his seat, fists clenched. "He's not gonna make this easy for you."

"They almost never do." Stanley flipped back through his notebook. "You've known him a long time?"

"Practically his whole life," Leo said. "He's a good kid. We just want him—we want him better. None of this was his fault."

"It wasn't anybody's fault."

"Right." Leo nodded. "Right, of course."

"We'll need to talk to the rest of your people, too," Stanley said, tapping at his notebook. "We want to get a full picture of the past several weeks. You said there was a woman, someone who works closely with him? She noticed it first?"

"That's Donna Moss. She came to me just before the incident in the Oval Office."

"Okay. Who else?"

"You'll probably want the rest of the senior staff. There's Toby Ziegler, Sam Seaborn, C.J. Cregg. The President, obviously, but you'll understand that he's a little busy today. I'm here on his behalf as well."

"Absolutely," Stanley said. He smiled, reached out to shake Leo's hand. "I'm glad you called. This was the best thing you could have done for him."

"Thanks for coming, Stanley." Leo got to his feet, heaved a sigh. "Just don't let him fool you, okay? He's tough, but..."

"I've been doing this a long time, Leo. He's in good hands."

"Yeah," Leo said, blinking rapidly. "Yeah, okay. I'll send one of them in."

Leo stalked off into the hallway, let the door bang shut behind him. He thought about Josh's blank face in the Oval Office, about the helpless, empty fear in his eyes. He thought about Noah and his late night visits. There'd been one in particular, one of the last times Noah had been able to travel before the cancer got bad. It was past midnight. They'd eaten all the snacks in the kitchen, smoked all the cigars. Noah said he'd better be going, and Leo had just blurted it out: thanks. Thanks for always coming. Leo had tried to tell him what it meant, to have a friend who didn't disappear, who didn't need to be told there are some things that just can't be talked about. To have a friend who knew, intimately, about pain. He hadn't really been able to get the words out, though. He wasn't good at that.

Noah had shot Leo that familiar grin—so like Josh's, even though it really wasn't. Somehow, it lit up his face in the exact same way.

"Let me tell you a story," Noah had said. "There's this guy walking down the street, when he falls into a hole..."

Leo came to a halt just outside Sam's office. Closed his eyes. Thought one last time of hurricanes, of oceans, of fire and disease and gunshots and grief. Of stubborn men who were nothing alike, except when they were very much the same.

He knocked once and opened the door. Sam Seaborn was slouched in his desk chair, but he scrambled upright immediately. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Sam whispered: "Did you see his hand?"

"Yeah."

"He says he broke a glass."

"Yeah."

"I don't think he broke a glass, Leo."

"No," Leo agreed, and then he jerked his chin towards the hall. "C'mon, now. Your turn."