Wounds That Heal
Josh's car was in the garage that day, so CJ, who was driven by the Secret Service, suggested they swing by his place and pick him up. He came by her office later that afternoon, looking furious. "The garage won't have my car ready until tomorrow!"
"OK."
"Could I bum a ride home tonight?"
"It's gonna cost you…" CJ grinned.
Josh looked at her warily. "Name your price, Claudia Jean…"
"Well, I didn't break any laws lately. How about beer on your front steps again?"
"What about the Secret Service?"
"He can do with some law breaking. Sevenish?"
"'Kay." He left.
Simon was amused. "You trying to get me fired?"
"You don't have to drink. There's no law about sitting on the front steps, is there?"
"Not that I'm aware of, Ms. Cregg. But I can't allow you to paint a bull's eye on your pretty head. The front steps of an apartment building, out in the open, in the evening… "
"Don't start, Simon! "
"I'm actually quite done. You're still being stalked. I am charged with protecting you. You're free to have a beer with Mr. Lyman in his apartment, or yours. Not on his front steps."
CJ glared at him and hissed: "Well, if you're going to ruin my fun, you're going to have to come inside and join us."
He raised an eyebrow. "And that's a punishment because…? Oh wait, I can't drink on duty but I have to watch you two." He smiled. "Whatever makes you happy, so long as you're indoors. I'll be around." He left, chuckling, before she could have the last word.
CJ was quiet and moody on the ride to Josh's place. With eyes that shot daggers at Simon, she apologized to Josh for having an agent sweep his place before they could go in. He laughed easily. "Hey, I almost feel important this way!"
They walked inside. CJ sank into Josh's couch with a groan while Josh went to his fridge, calling out, "What will you have, Agent Donovan?"
Simon looked at CJ with concern as he slid into an armchair across from her. She met his gaze, and instead of trying to kill him with her eyes, her features softened. "I'm just tired," she offered, extending an olive branch. Simon nodded, and called back to Josh, "Just call me Simon. Anything that will keep me sober is fine. I'm on duty…and I'm being punished."
CJ snorted, as Josh came back with two beers and a Ginger Ale. "What are you being punished for?" asked Josh curiously as he handed the cans to CJ and Simon and dropped into the couch with his own groan of exhaustion.
"I had to nix the front steps idea. Ms. Cregg feels I ruined a perfect evening."
"Oh." Josh was quiet for a moment. "It would have been the first time we've done it since…" He sighed and CJ shuddered, pulling her knees to her chest and leaning her head on them.
Simon looked from Josh to CJ, who still had her head down. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was something more than just beer on the front steps."
"Would it have made a difference?" CJ's voice was muffled by her knees.
"No, I'm sorry. But I would have approached this differently." He sighed. "I'm really not out to get you, Ms. Cregg."
"She knows that. She just has a funny way of showing her gratitude," Josh quipped. Then he grew serious again. "Last time, there was a bunch of us on the front steps. When I came home from the hospital…after Rosslyn."
"He was there," said CJ.
"Who was where?" asked Josh, confused.
CJ looked at Simon, who shrugged, suddenly fascinated by his can of Ginger Ale. "I was on Eagle's protection detail at Rosslyn. I brought down one of the shooters. It was my job."
Josh sat in stunned silence for a few moments, and CJ sighed. "Josh, I'm sorry. I don't know why I…"
"No, that's OK. It's not like he was the one doing the shooting. At us, I mean." He turned to Simon, curious. "What was like, for you?"
Simon hated talking to people about Rosslyn. Their reaction was usually either horrified fascination or a case of hero worship, both of which made him nauseous. In the case of Josh Lyman, though, he felt he owed the man an answer. Josh's curiosity was a matter of trying to get the night into perspective, he felt. Josh paid an awful price for Rosslyn, both physical and emotional. Simon wondered if his own honest perception of the night could help ease some of Josh's nightmares.
"It's a funny thing about us, you know, we train so often for this. Once the shooting started my instincts took over – I wasn't really thinking until we were done, some ten seconds later. Than I was happy to find myself still standing, but there were evidence to gather…after securing the scene completely. I honestly didn't let myself…couldn't allow myself to feel until much, much later that night."
"And then what?"
"I worried about my family – I haven't had a chance to call them, and I knew they'd be worried. And I wondered if I really wanted to be in a job that involved killing teenagers, however warped and hateful they might be."
"Didn't you used to be a police officer?" asked CJ. "I thought Hogan said…"
"Yeah…" Simon was silent for so long that both CJ and Josh were actually growing concerned. Now there's a switch, thought CJ. There was an extraordinary mix of emotions on Simon's face – pain, bitterness, anger…and shame. Josh was about to break the silence when Simon spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I never shot at people with revenge in mind when I was on the PD."
"Revenge?" CJ and Josh spoke the word together, looking at each other, and Simon, with a stunned expression.
"Yeah…for my wife."
CJ thought she had Simon Donovan all figured out. He was confident, sometimes brash, undeniably sensitive (though she was loath to admit that), and a man at ease with the world. The last whispered sentence felt like a rug that has been pulled from under her, and as she struggled to regain her footing and ask the right question, Simon laughed bitterly. "I suppose I have to explain that, now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag."
"No…" Josh knew enough about remembered pain to recognize the look on the agent's face. "Not if it's too hard, you don't have to."
Simon leaned his head back with a groan. "A battery of psychological tests to get into the Service, and they never clued in on how I might feel. I suppose I was so far in denial this kind of a reaction didn't even occur to me. It took me some time to get over the shame of how I felt when I was shooting Beckwith…"
"Was your wife shot?" asked CJ.
Simon nodded, his face briefly contorting in pain. "Killed in the line of duty." His voice was bitter. "Someone's idea of a cosmic joke, I'm sure. We just found out she was pregnant. We figured life couldn't possibly get any better. That day she died, when she left for her shift, she told me she was going to talk to chief at the end of her shift. She was going to ask to be reassigned earlier than she had to. She didn't want to risk the baby…some punk ended her shift two hours later, with an AK-47."
Josh tasted that familiar bitter taste in his mouth, and forced his body to go through the routine the PTSD guy taught him. CJ, fighting tears and nausea, asked quietly, "A 15-year-old punk?"
Simon nodded wordlessly. They sat quietly for a while, than he stirred restlessly. "The day Michelle died, her dad, who was a retired officer, came over to our place and took my gun."
"Was he afraid you'd go after the punk?" asked Josh.
"No, nothing that noble. He saw how close to the edge I was. Hw was afraid I'd use it on myself."
Josh's hand spasmed, and he looked down at his palm, where the faint, barely visible scars criss-crossed. "Yeah," he whispered, "I've been that close too…"
He lifted his head and met Simon's steady gaze. The agent nodded, than smiled faintly. "I got help after Rosslyn," he said, "from a good friend who knew a very discreet psychiatrist…I made a deal with the guy. He won't let the Service know, if he can be convinced that I can carry out my duties as I should. It didn't take him long to be convinced, and boy was he thorough…" He looked over at CJ, "but if you really wanted to ditch me, I just gave you my head on a platter, you know."
CJ said quietly, "Do you really think so little of me?"
He shook his head and finished his Ginger Ale. Josh looked at him.
"How did you pull away from the edge…after she died?"
Simon smiled softly at the younger man. "Just like you, Mr. Lyman, one day at a time."