"Four hours! In the freezing darkness!"
"Did you take Dupont Circle, sir?"
"Yes! So what? Four hours!"
The cornered presidential aide cast a desperate glance toward Josh
Lyman, pleading for help.
Having, however, already experienced Sam's retelling of his travails
at the hands of cruel fate, Josh
deftly pretended not to notice the scene and dove into
the corridor, Sam Seaborn's agitated voice
and Charlie's meek attempts to get free dying away.
It was, however, not one of his lucky days.
At the end of the corridor there was waiting for him a horror beyond
all reckoning. Never even at
his worst would Sam come even close to comparing with the familiar
figure lurking before him. Still
flush with his successful evasive action of seconds ago, Josh
arrogantly allowed himself an illusion of
hope. Not slowing down his stride in the slightest he made a
180° turn, his mind feverishly
calculating the possible routes of escape. All for naught.
His neck hairs prickled in horror as the
familiar voice called out his name. As he turned slowly,
a passing intern gave him a sympathetic
glance and hightailed it out of the war-zone.
The wrath of Toby Ziegler was upon him.
Muttering a quick prayer under his breath Josh sighed deeply and stormed
the breach with wide
and completely false smile on his face. "Ahem.
Toby! I'm so glad I found you! Merry Christ..."
"What idiot has come up with the idea to decorate the West Wing?"
"...mas. That would the President. Why? Don't you think it's festive?"
"They misspelled Hanukkah. On the sign above my office.
Not only do I have to put up
with...this...this...garish display of complete lack of good taste,
but in addition they misspelled
Hanukkah!"
"Ahm, well, look on the bright side. Charlie had to sit through
a three-hour lecture on Kwanza from
the President."
"Toby, Josh, I need to talk to you. In my office... What's
with him?" Leo McGarry puzzledly asked
Josh, squinting at the fuming Toby.
"They misspelled Hanukkah." Josh replied, doing his best to keep his voice even.
"This is the White House! The best and the brightest! Can
someone please explain to me where in
the word Hanukkah is there an 'x'?!"
"Right. My office."
The holiday season. The time of sharing and forgiving. Of
brotherly love. Maybe somewhere else.
For Bartlett's White House, or any other White House for that matter,
the holidays were a time of
penultimate stress.
People were rushing through the corridors, each intent on their own
purpose, the feeling of barely
suppressed chaos permeating the halls decorated with bright colors.
The West Wing on the 24th of
December was anything but peaceful.
Elected by a slim margin, President Josiah Bartlett was hardly the
darling of Congress or even of his
own Democratic Party. Convinced by an old friend to abandon his
teaching job and local political
career in New Hampshire, he'd attained the White House
and spent the last two years facing
challenges of which he'd lost more than he'd won. Many more.
This bright winter morning, however, such maudlin thoughts were not
on his mind. Rather, he was
consumed by the fervent desire to be somewhere far, far away from the
bow tie currently intent on
strangling him.
"Jed?"
"Yeeees?"
"What in the hell are you doing?"
Untying the knot, President Bartlett gave the black piece of cloth a
long and studious examination
finally sighing and admitting defeat. "I have no earthly idea."
"C'mere, Mr. President."
Jed Bartlett stood unflinchingly as his wife's strong, slender fingers
carefully tied the impeccable
Windsor around his neck. As she stepped back to assess the result,
he looked back at her
ingratiatingly. "Abbey?"
"Hmm?"
"You know I love you?"
"Yes?"
"And you love me too, right?"
"Sometimes."
"Please don't make go out there. Please? It's going to be
ugly. It always is on Christmas Eve. And
then I need to go at that dinner and I just know they are going to
sit the German ambassador at my
table again!"
"Dear..." Abbey Bartlett nodded firmly approving the tuxedo as
suitable and letting the President
change back in the regular suit, "...you are whining. It's very
unbecoming."
Bartlett pulled off the jacket and grumbled under his breath, "Well,
you're not the one who will have
to listen to that story about how he got to whack the Berlin Wall...for
the thirtieth time. The man is a
moron. And what's worse he's a bore. Just once I'd like to sit at the
fun table with Sam and Josh."
"Big baby."
"Just for that I should return your present back to the store." Kissing
his wife fondly, the President
corrected his glasses and stepped out to get on with the day.
It was Christmas Eve, but as usual the world took scant notice of the
fact, throwing crisis after crisis
in their lap.
Outside the snow was still falling, The sudden snowstorm came as a surprise,
slowing most of the
traffic to crawl.
CJ Cregg was valiantly attempting to quiet down the gaggle of reporters
who wanted to know
whether the President would finally open the National Energy reserves
in an attempt to drive down
the price of fuel.
The Green Room was being set up for the upcoming dinner while Sam was
working on the final draft
of the Christmas speech, the inspiration gleefuly evading his grasp
and snickering in petty, gloating
manner.
And somewhere in space there was a lost probe that steadfastly refused to make its location known.
While the streets of Jerusalem run with blood as Israeli and Palestinians
clashed.
The evening drew closer and suddenly a pause descended on the White
House. As if somebody
had given an unseen signal, several people disappeared out of
sight. They made their way down to
the basement, to the rarely used part of the perhaps the most
famous building on the planet. They
crammed into
the small room where the heat was more reminiscent of July in Florida
than late December in DC.
The small desk was carefully moved back as to not to disturb the multitude
of papers on it, and
Ainsley Hayes breathed a soft sigh of surrender. She still was
not sure why it had to be HER
so-called office that was volunteered for this get-together but...at
least they didn't wreck her work
too much.
The voices and laughter filled the small room as people took a small
break, before plunging back into
work.
"Four hours! In the snow! And it was dark!"
"You took Dupont, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but..."
"So what are you complaining about? Your own fault."
"So CJ is still pissed about the Thanksgiving thing and then Toby comes in and says..."
"I asked Mrs. Landingham. Thirteen times... He sent poor Charlie
for thirteen different sets of
knives."
Ainsley was the first to notice the familiar, short figure at the door,
but before she could say anything
the President winked at her and touched a finger to his lips.
He stood there for a several seconds
observing the people in the room a strange smile playing on his face.
He watched them and thoughts
run through his head, quicksilver fast -- about the past year, about
this day and the days ahead.
About the fourteen-year-old boy who'd walked down the street carrying
the blue-white flag of Israel
and the green flag of the Prophet and planted himself squarely in the
middle of the battle zone. Of his
friends that had joined him, forming a line of bodies that stopped
death. He thought of the images
he'd been shown just minutes ago of Mars... where traces of water were
now unmistakable. He
thought of the hell that there would be to pay when he refused to
open the reserves. But mostly he
thought that...
"It's time to open the champagne, people!"
The day would finally crawl to an end, after other meetings, and dinners
and the lighting of the tree.
There would be other crisis, other victories and defeats. But
for now there was only this small room
full of friends. There was champagne and there was hope.
And in the end it was enough.