RELIQUARY
part 2/4


***

Toby returned from Sabbath services to find his office full of people: Sam, who
was sitting behind the desk, along with Ainsley and CJ, who were lounging on the
sofa. Toby glared at Sam until he relinquished the comfortable leather chair,
then addressed the group. "Hello, it's nice to see you, and what, exactly, are
all of you doing in my office?"

"Well, we started to meet in my office," Sam said, taking off his glasses and
cleaning them on his sleeve, "but you've got better furniture."

"And what was the meeting about?"

"He hasn't heard?" Ainsley asked.

Frowning, Toby turned toward her. "What haven't I heard, and why do I need to
hear it?"

The two women started to talk at once, but CJ's voice held more authority and
she took over. "Okay. You know Bulgaria sent a new ambassador, right?"

"Right."

"And he was being given his credentials this morning, right?"

"Right again, and I'd like it if somebody got 'right' to the point." Toby sat
down and began to fidget with the pens on his desk as CJ continued.

"Then I'll get right back to it. The ambassador, whose name is Mikhail Arensky,
brought the President a gift - a statue of a 14th century saint named Euphemia
of Bleven."

"What, is the statue too big? Is it naked? What's the problem?" Toby asked,
sounding more annoyed by the second.

"It's not that big," Sam cut in, holding his hands about eight inches apart.
"Just so."

"It's not the size that matters," CJ said, taking a moment to glare at Sam
because he was snickering. "The problem is that it's hollow, and the Gift Office
found out a little late that it contained a relic."

"Wait." Toby set the pens down and leaned forward on his desk. "A relic, like a
piece of the Shroud of Turin or something?"

"Worse, actually," CJ sighed. "This reliquary, as it's called, contains what the
X-rays are showing to be a human finger."

"Ah." The corners of his mouth twitched upward. "So someone gave the President
the finger."

"That joke is so this morning," CJ mumbled.

"But the thing is," Sam broke in, "that surely there's some pretty strong
language in international law saying you can't give away body parts."

"And I'm arguing that there are probably exemptions for articles that are used
for religious purposes," Ainsley added as she looked at her empty coffee cup and
reached for Sam's instead.

Sam snatched it away. "Nice try."

"The coffee or the explanation?"

"For the love of God, will you two shut up?" Toby barked. "This is outrageous!
You can't use body parts as a gift, no matter whether you're intending to
worship them or, I don't know, pickle them. It's not done in the civilized
world!"

"I think what Ainsley means," Sam said as he rescued his coffee, "is that the
Constitutional right to freedom of religion may supersede the indignation of the
American public, or possibly even international law."

Toby let out a low groan of rage. "Good, then. So I can say that carving up
Republicans is part of my religion and offer bits of you to my elected
officials, and no one can touch me?"

Ainsley shook her head. "Not at all. You'd have to kill me and that's the part
that's illegal. But this...thing...is probably six hundred years old. The
person's already dead and has been for a long time - and that's only an issue if
the finger is real, which we don't know for sure as of this moment. But the
point is that we can't tell people to turn over religious artifacts that are
already here."

"There's a big difference between my prayer shawl and someone's finger."

"There's also a big difference between smearing a baby's head with holy water
and cutting off part of his penis. Do you want the government interfering with
that?"

The room became still. Sam looked down at the floor. CJ looked apprehensively at
Toby, who made a soft humming noise and turned his head toward the bulletin
board for a moment. "I think," he said in a dangerously neutral tone, "that this
conversation has ended."

Ainsley's tone was conciliatory. "Toby, I know that's part of your religion and
I, personally, don't have a problem with men being circumcised. But you know
that there's a lot of controversy about the procedure being performed on boys
without their knowledge or consent, and that even some Jews are refusing--"

"Ainsley." Sam spoke in a near-whisper.

Ainsley stood up, crestfallen. "I've obviously stepped over a boundary, here,
and I'm terribly sorry."

Toby took a deep breath as CJ nodded at him. "It's all right. It's just...I just
got back from Temple and now we're talking about severed body parts, and I'm..."
He managed to bestow a flicker of a smile on her. "Don't worry about it."

She let out a sigh of relief. "I agree with you in principle, Toby. But I'm
telling you that constitutionally the reliquary isn't a problem."

"Maybe not, but from the standpoint of public perception it's going to be a
nightmare," CJ put in.

"And from the standpoint of my day, it's giving me a headache. Something that's
not going to be ameliorated in any way by the sudden appearance of Josh." Toby
rubbed his forehead with the side of his index finger. "Have you come to give us
your views on the subject?"

Josh didn't appear to have heard the question. He leaned into the office, his
hands on either side of the doorway, his face drawn and flushed. "CJ, where's
Donna?"

CJ squinted up at him over the rims of her glasses. "I sent her down to the
basement office with some briefing books so she could read in peace in quiet.
Want me to have someone go get her?"

"Nah." Josh propelled himself off the door frame with a sharp movement. "I'm
gonna go get her myself."

"Speaking of basement office," Ainsley said softly, "I should get going. Thanks
for the coffee, Sam."

"I'll walk you down. Toby, we're supposed to check in with Leo around four,
about the speech for the D.N.C."

"I'm on it, thanks." He paused while Sam and Ainsley left the room, then turned
to CJ. She was on her feet, looking down at him with concern. "What?"

"What?"

"You're giving me that look. What?"

"I have a look?"

"CJ!"

She perched on the edge of his desk. "That outburst just now?"

"That was an outburst?"

"Toby." She wrinkled her nose at him. "That's not like you. What's the matter?"

He tilted his head to one side, watching her in silence for a few seconds. "It's
just some misplaced annoyance. I've been...the President and I..."

"He brought you that chess set and you guys played almost all night long. You
said things were better between you."

"They are. I just have--"

The phone cut him off, and when he answered he was almost relieved to discover
that this conversation would last long enough to make CJ return to her own
office.

***

Donna didn't look up when she heard the door open. She didn't need to, because
the footsteps could not have been more familiar. "Josh, I have to tell you that
the seating protocol for state dinners held on ships in international waters is
even less interesting than farm subsidies."

He didn't answer. She heard him come down the stairs and saw his shadow over the
book she was reading. His breathing was shallow and fast.

"Josh? Did you run down here?" she asked, turning a page with distaste. "Did you
get so befuddled that you couldn't wait for--"

His hand moved so fast that she didn't see what was landing on the table until
it hit the wood with enough force to make her jump in her seat. She looked up at
his face, at an expression she'd never seen in all their years of bickering and
bantering.

"Josh?"

His eyes flashed with rage and his posture was stiff as he pointed to the table.

Donna followed his line of sight. As she recognized the envelope she felt a
clamminess, a dizziness creeping up into her head. "Oh," she whispered.

"Oh? That's all you can say to me?" It was an explosion.

"I...I don't know what to say." She clasped her hands together tightly, trying
to keep them steady.

Josh picked up the envelope again and held it close to her face. His hand was
sweating and still smelled faintly like onions and well-done beef. "This isn't a
pencil I left lying around somewhere, this isn't something I dropped and forgot
about. Do you know where this was?"

"Josh..."

"Do you know where this was?" he shouted.

Without realizing it, Donna found herself on her feet, toe-to-toe with Josh. Her
voice was strident. "I know where it was! And you know what else? I know where I
was when they were taking it out of you!"

He ripped the envelope open and pressed the bullet against his chest. "It was
inside my body! Look at it, it went in right here! Do you know where it ended
up?"

This can't be happening, Donna thought as her vision swam and she saw Josh's
furious eyes multiplied by four. "It collapsed your lung," she said weakly.

"It was next to my heart!" Josh stopped as if he could hear something besides
his outraged scream. Donna wondered if he heard sirens. Josh's hand clenched
around the bullet. "It was next to my heart," he said, softer, blinking rapidly.

"I'm sorry," Donna was barely able to say. "Ron Butterfield got it from the lab
and gave it to me, and I meant to give it to you, but you were...I didn't know
how you'd..." Tears spilled down her face, stinging her cheeks, offering no
relief from the pain that radiated through her whole body.

"When?"

"When, what?"

"When did he give it to you?"

Donna paused, steeling herself against whatever was about to happen. She closed
her eyes. "Six weeks after Rosslyn."

Josh's mouth tightened in a hard, angry line. He shoved the bullet into his
pocket and stalked up the stairs. At the landing, just before he put his hand on
the doorknob, he stopped and spoke without looking at her.

"Finish whatever it is that CJ needs, then just get your stuff and go home."

Donna choked back a sob. "You're...firing me?"

She remembered a time when he'd done so repeatedly and she'd been able to
counter with "impervious." This wasn't the same thing. Not with this long, heavy
silence between them.

Josh's hand went into his pocket and his shoulders slumped as he exhaled. "No,"
he said, still looking at the door. "I just can't be around you right now."

Through a haze of tears Donna watched him leave. She didn't sit down, didn't
pick up the briefing book, just stood there with one hand over her mouth and the
other over her heart.

***

Bartlet came to the Oval Office after church the next morning, the loosening of
his tie the only concession he made to the day. Taking a seat at his desk, he
began to rifle through some leather-bound books, shaking his head and sighing.
"Charlie," he called, and he beckoned his aide into the office.

"Yes, sir?"

"I need you to set up a call for me. I need you to get me the Pope."

Charlie didn't flinch. "I'll get right on that, Mr. President. Do you want to
take the call here, or in the Residence?"

Bartlet removed his glasses and glared at Charlie. "Why do you think this might
be a call I'd need to make from the Residence?"

With the easy grace of someone used to all the moods of the President, Charlie
responded, "Well, sir, I don't know if you're going to ask him about Vatican
policy or about that finger someone gave you."

"Charlie," Bartlet groaned, "I swear, if I have to listen to that joke one more
time..."

"I wasn't joking, sir," Charlie said, but the grin he was trying to suppress
betrayed him. Bartlet chuckled and waved him away.

"Never mind, Charlie, it was a stupid idea. I think I'm just trying to kill time
until Leo gets back."

"Should I have Toby come in for a chess match, Mr. President?"

"Nah. He's my communications director, not my nanny. Although now I have a
mental image of him as Mary Poppins that is certainly brightening my day. No,
that'll be all, Charlie, so go on home."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President."

Bartlet went through some of the files that had been left for him, but he
couldn't concentrate on anything but the blue box, now empty, that sat on the
edge of his desk. He picked it up, running his fingers around the impression the
reliquary had made in the velvet lining, lost in thought.

He didn't know how much time passed before he heard a knock on the door that
separated his office from Leo's. "Yeah, Leo, come in."

Leo buttoned his jacket as he walked over to the desk. "Good afternoon, Mr.
President."

"It's afternoon?"

"It's..." He looked at his watch, "Yep, it's afternoon. One-thirty."

"Leo, I've been thinking. Let's not do this. Let's not open the reliquary. I
don't want it to happen."

"It's done, Mr. President," Leo said gently. "You did the right thing."

Bartlet sat down behind his desk, indicating the various books in front of him.
"I read and read and read, but I couldn't find anything the Church says about
what to do in a case like this. I took that as a sign that I shouldn't do
anything."

"Maybe it's a sign that this is a matter for the State rather than the Church,
Mr. President." Leo paused. "I just got off the phone with one of the forensic
pathologists from Quantico. She said they're sending the results by courier. It
should be here any minute. She also said that Abbey might want to see some of
the contents since she's got the background to understand what she's looking
at."

"Yeah." Bartlet spent a few moments focusing his eyes on Leo. "I should call
her."

"I already did. She's going to meet the courier in the lobby."

"Thanks." He walked around to the loveseat and motioned for Leo to sit opposite
him. "We might as well make ourselves comfortable."

They sat in silence until Abbey entered with a large manila envelope in her
hand. "Oh, good, it's just the three of us," she said, crossing over and giving
her husband a kiss on the cheek before sitting down. "I was reading this on the
way. The pathologist was very, very thorough and I concur with her findings.
This finger is definitely human, but also definitely not from the fourteenth
century."

"So it's not genuine - but that doesn't make it any easier, you know. Now we
have to say "thanks for the fake artifact, but no thanks," so we're really not
any better off than we were before," Bartlet groused.

"Well, at least we know what we're dealing with, and that's a start in figuring
out what to do. But I'm afraid there's something that's going to make this even
more complicated.

"How is that possible?" Bartlet asked, looking up at the ceiling in
exasperation.

"I've looked at the x-rays and the pathologist's photographs, and I've read her
report, and as I said earlier, I think she's right in her assessment."

"Abbey, if you don't, and I mean right now, tell Leo and me what you're talking
about--"

"When I say the finger's not from the 14th century, Jed, I don't mean that it's
something from Madame Tussaud's. It's a real finger, it's just not a real, old
finger. It's recent."

Bartlet could feel Leo holding his breath, and his own pulse began to race.
"Abbey..."

"How recent?" Leo asked.

Abbey held up the paperwork with a resigned sigh. "No more than three months."

***
End part 2/4
To Part 3