4-23-06 A/N: This is a polished, edited version of my story My Fellow Americans from 2004. Rereading it, I found a lot of things I wanted to fix, so I decided to take it down, tighten it up, and repost it.I'mreposting theentire thing in one go today.Thank you to everyone who read it when I originally posted, for your support and constructive criticism.
Disclaimer: I do not own the West Wing. I'm not getting paid for this. I'm not in any way affiliated with the West Wing.
CHAPTER 1
9:17 PM EST. Leo McGarry's Office
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Margaret looked up from the papers she was typing for Leo and saw Donna rush in, her face bright red as if she'd been running through the White House. Which in fact, she had been.
"What is it, Donna?" she asked, inwardly groaning. She had hoped to use the quiet time to finish the work that she had neglected today. But if Donna was having some kind of personal crisis, it looked like she was in for a long night.
"The speech isn't on the air!"
"Are you sure you're on the right station?" Margaret asked, her eyes straying back to the incomplete sentence in front of her.
"It isn't on any of them! There's nothing playing!"
"Sit down," Margaret said, "and tell me."
"I was at my desk watching the speech and when the President went up and started speaking, the station suddenly went dead. Like the TV had shut off, but the other stations, the ones that weren't showing the speech, they were fine."
"It's probably nothing," Margaret said, "An error at the station, but we should go tell someone anyway."
As she stood up, a tremor passed beneath their feet.
9:07 PM EST. The Capitol Building
Josh had to pee. The speech was going to begin in seven minutes and he knew there was no way he was going to last through it. So, muttering something intelligible to Sam as he passed, he raced out of the room, trying to remember where in the Capitol Building the bathrooms were.
Sam felt Josh brush by him and slipped him the paper with his seat number on it. The last thing any of them wanted was a picture in tomorrow's paper of the Deputy Chief of Staff wandering aimlessly through the crowds.
Toby was muttering to himself about all the things he should have added to the speech and how so many parts sucked and were going to screw them over. Nobody was listening.
CJ was wobbling in four inch heels and hating how they made her even taller. She paced the room best she could, mentally preparing herself for the crazy press conference that would be the next day.
Leo was wondering where his deputy had gone and hoping that the bonehead would come back before he had to send a search party. Again.
The President was going over some last minute things about the speech with the First Lady.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States."
"Damn it, Josh," Leo muttered as the President went out and they went into the corridor. He looked around, but the corridor was empty except for them.
"CJ," he said, "Do me a favor. Find Josh, beat him to within an inch of his life, bring him back, and let me finish it."
CJ grinned, but the grin faded when she saw how extremely pissed Leo was. "Yes sir." She said and wobbled off down the hall.
9:15PM EST
The others took their seats in the crowd. They had good seats, pretty close to the podium. Sam looked around at all the other guests that were there along with Congress and Senate. There was a football player who had won the Super Bowl a few years earlier and was an anti-steroid activist, a movie star, and a member of the British Royal family. A distant cousin probably. There were also a few children, including an adorable three year old clutching her daddy's hand. Her daddy happened to be a Senator from Mississippi. With a little wave to her, he settled back in his chair to watch the reward of months of hard work.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress, my fellow Americans-"
That was when the lights went out.
9:15 PM EST
Where was he? CJ had looked all over the ground and first floors and now she was racing up the stairway as fast as she could in those stupid shoes. She was beginning to feel as pissed as Leo had looked. She was already late for the speech.
"Josh!" she yelled, climbing yet another flight of stairs.
Third floor. She didn't see anyone, but he'd probably been looking for a bathroom and there might be one here. She didn't spend much time in the Capitol so she really didn't know. As she walked past a ladies' room, the lights flickered and went dead. Heart pounding, she felt her way along the wall.
"JOSHUA, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"
"CJ?" His voice was faint.
"Josh?"
To her relief she heard his footsteps coming up the hall behind her. "I'm in the men's room doorway." He said, "Right ahead of you."
9:16 PM EST
People were starting to panic. Ron Butterfield sent a few of his men to guard the President, then he and the others slipped out the door.
When they got to the front doors, he realized they had been locked from the outside somehow. This was no ordinary black-out. They were trapped.
The agents surrounded the President. He wanted to grumble about it, but knew it would be no use. Suddenly one of the agents, a young woman named Alyson, froze. She could swear she could hear a faint 'tick, tick' coming from the podium.
CJ walked quickly, trying to act calm, in the direction Josh's voice had come from. She could hear the footsteps quickening when she did and was about to break into an all-out run when someone grabbed her elbow and pulled her through a door. She lost her balance and hit her face on cold tile.
Josh was sitting next to her, shielding a lighter with his hand. The flame only illuminated his face, which was pale. He pulled CJ further into what she had to assume was the men's room. The footsteps outside kept going and soon faded.
"What the hell is going on?" he whispered, dropping his hand.
"I don't know." CJ said, "But we should get back to the President."
Josh agreed with her, but what he really wanted to do was stay in here, safe, until the lights came back on. But the lights didn't come back on.
9:17 PM EST
The explosion came before Alyson could react. The podium was immediately incinerated and the blast spead, filling the room with fire in seconds.
The bathroom rumbled and the sinks exploded, the basins flying across the room and water soaking Josh and CJ. One of the basins narrowly missed Josh's head and, grabbing CJ, he ducked into a stall. But the toilets and urinals blew too and they had to risk leaving.
The sky was falling, CJ thought as they ran down the hall, the ceiling falling on them in chunks. Grasping hands so they wouldn't be separated, they headed for the stairwell leading down to the exit. But they got to the first landing and heard the rumble of fire coming up the well. They flung themselves face-first against the wall and CJ grabbed out for something, anything. By some miracle she found a doorknob. It was a janitors' closet. They dove inside and slammed the door. As the fire passed, the door bubbled, but stayed up. Both praying in the tradition of separate religions, they clutched each other and waited for either salvation or death. Then the walls collapsed.
9:37 PM EST. Josh Lyman's office.
Donna stood at the window as she waited by the phone. She could see the Capitol building, or what was left of it. Staring at the fire she breathed, "Josh."