Air Force One with all its speed and authority still took eleven hours to get from Tel Aviv to Washington. By the third hour Josh was out of surgery; by the tenth he'd woken, briefly, just once, and incoherently, but enough to encourage the doctor - a little.
Now it was hour twelve, and Donna stood at the window of his room in intensive care. Aortic aneurism, they'd said, he would likely recover, and be home within the week, but he was so pale and still, Donna couldn't help but wonder.
He hadn't moved since she'd arrived. It was only the monitor beeping out his heart rate - slow, slower than she thought Josh's heart was capable of.
"Ma'am?"
The sudden voice cutting through the silence startled her out of her thoughts. She spun around to face Ben, hovering anxiously in the doorway. She nodded once, and he slipped into the room, closing the door behind him.
"How is he?"
"No change," Donna said, drifting towards the bed again, but not looking down. "What do you need?"
"I'm going to cancel your meetings for today. The Vice President offered to take some, but the ones you want to keep we can move back a day or two. The Ambassador-"
"I'll see the Ambassador today. Who else is on the schedule?"
"The directors of the CIA and FBI, the Secretaries of State, Treasury and HUD, a couple of photo ops, the Office of Protocol - the whole afternoon was blocked out for the State of the Union."
"I'll sit down for ten minutes with Elsie and Max and they can carry it on themselves. Protocol can wait. I'll see Director Jameson and Secretary Warner, the rest can go to the Vice President. If he doesn't have time for everything, Violet will know which ones are urgent. I want to be back here by two."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll have the motorcade ready."
"Have Daisy bring the kids up to the waiting room before we go."
Ben nodded and vanished, closing the door quietly behind him. Then Donna turned to Josh.
"So what the hell do you think this is? You never wanted to tell me about the Ambassador. I didn't think you'd go this far to get out of it! Was this supposed to stop me? Maybe if you made a big enough scene I'd cancel the meeting? It's not going to work! So why don't you give up whatever you think you're doing and just help me?"
She stopped to breathe. Josh was still and silent; some small part of her had imagined he'd get riled up by the unfair accusations and fight her on it, just like he used to when they were young and it was all they had. But they weren't young any more, and Josh was thirteen years her senior, he wasn't far from seventy, and for all he did eat and exercise and rest like the father of two teenagers should, he'd been shot in the chest before, and he had PTSD, and he'd worked himself to the point of sickness a dozen times over the years. She always pushed the thought away, but sometimes she wondered how long she had left with him.
"You better have something to say for yourself when I get back," she said, and turned to go, and -
what if he doesn't?
- she flew back to his side, and picked up his hand, and kissed his palm softly. "Don't you dare go anywhere," she murmured into his skin, and left before she let herself hesitate.
—
"No, Mr Secretary, the President won't be taking any additional meetings today. I can see what I can do to help you myself, or you can talk to the Vice President. No, I'm not going to make those kinds of decisions for her. My office will set up a meeting as soon as it's possible. Yes, sir. Thank you for your concern. No problem."
Violet hung up the phone and refrained, barely, from banging her head on the table.
With Josh out of the office and the President too, she was more or less running the White House herself, but without any of the authority that came with his name and position, and it was wearing her down. She couldn't do his job - who could live up to Josh Lyman? What would happen if he didn't come back?
And if he died, that was the ball game. The President wouldn't dream of running again.
He'd been in so much pain. Jackie had screamed beside her.
She had to get back to work.
Violet spent a good two minutes organising work to hand out to the assistant deputies, and then Stella sent her a copy of Josh's schedule for the day, to see if she could take anything on, and she was back to square one.
She piled on as much of her own day as she could to the assistant deputies - they might hate her for it on a Friday, but that was too bad - and promised to take on about half of Josh's meetings, identifying quickly which ones she could take, which weren't important, and which ones he wouldn't want her to handle. He'd have to make a decision on those when he woke up.
She'd seen him after the surgery, just for a moment; she'd taken Jackie to see that her dad was still alive, but he'd looked so still, so empty, and it was like the President all over again—
She couldn't keep obsessing over this. She was going to go insane, and for all she cared about Josh, for all he was to her - she had a job to do, and if Josh's own wife was coming into work at a time like this, she could do her job too.
She needed to go to the Hill.
Violet crossed the office and took her coat from its peg. She slipped it on and automatically stuck her hands in the pockets, and her fingers brushed something. She withdrew a slip of paper.
just like your daddy its time for you to die.
Well. Alice wouldn't get out of this that easily. Violet reached for the phone.
—
"The Vice President will be here in five minutes," Ben said when he brought her coffee, and the reshuffling of today's schedule meant Donna was allowed some time to think.
The Vice President wouldn't be a problem. Will hadn't taken kindly to being left out of the loop on a few things, but he was still Will, still their friend, and he was a damn good VP. He'd do everything he could to help them now - but this particular problem, he couldn't help with.
The Ambassador to Germany was coming today, and Donna didn't know a thing.
Years ago, they'd been good friends. And it had been a while since they were really close, but until about six years ago, they'd still been on good terms, still had coffee when they were in the same town. Then a sit-down meeting with Sam and Josh to which Donna was not party had sent her friend away and cut all ties between them. It had been complete radio silence since, with only a clipped, civil, brief exchange of pleasantries at Sam's funeral.
Josh had always refused to tell Donna what had happened, and he knew, he knew he'd have to tell her what happened now, and he'd left her alone in the dark.
God, she was so mad at him! And she was going to stay mad, because the other thing would take over her day, and she had work to do.
He was never going to put her through this again.
A knock on the door announced the Vice President, and she pushed that thought aside.
"How's Josh doing?" Will asked before he said hello, and Donna managed to smile as they sat down together on the couches.
"He's sleeping right now, but they think he'll bounce back."
"That's good, that's encouraging. He'll be back at work soon?"
"He's not coming back to work," Donna said with absolute finality.
Will raised his eyebrows and leaned forward a little in his seat. "Really? It's that serious?"
"He's my husband. Maybe if he were just my Chief it'd be different," she acknowledged, "but when family and work get mixed up like this…"
"I hear that."
She smiled at him. "It's not so easy working closely with your sister?"
"Elsie and I are in a bit of a rough patch right now," he said matter-of-factly, then fell silent and looked at his lap, uncomfortable.
"That happens sometimes," Donna offered, sympathy lacing her tone. She and Josh had needed to work together while in the middle of a fight plenty of times before. "It'll blow over eventually. In the meantime, I think I can manage to trust you." She gave him a smile, and opened the folder waiting for her. "Let's get to work."
—
The door opened and Noah stepped through quietly, his sister close behind him.
The room was empty. This was intensive care, he remembered, and went to the nearest soap dispenser to wash his hands before he approached the bed.
Dad was so still.
The last time he'd seen Dad this still was when they first brought Jackie home - two years old and always, always screaming - the third day she'd fallen asleep in Dad's arms and he'd sat there, silent, holding her gently, for hours.
That had been a good still. That still had meant that Jackie really was part of the family now. This still?
When he last saw Dad a week ago, he'd been a mass of nervous energy, containing himself as long as there were cameras about but making a bit of a fuss when they were alone. Mom had snapped at him. He'd given Noah a thousand warnings about how to behave in Israel, and recounted what you were supposed to do when you had an aliyah - it wasn't guaranteed, but it was more than likely, and it would be the first since his bar mitzvah - and then he'd calmed down a little bit, and talked about all the historical sites he should go to, and all the great things he should do, and made Noah promise to take pictures of everything.
There was a camera in his suitcase, which was still somewhere at the hospital - he hadn't even been home yet - but he didn't have many pictures. He'd been distracted looking for Rivka. And Rivka was dead, but Dad might-
No, if Dad was going to die then Mom would have stayed. And the doctor said it was promising. He shouldn't get upset over things that weren't going to happen. Everything that was going to happen was upsetting enough on its own.
Jackie had settled into the chair on the other side of the bed, and was holding onto Dad's hand, and looked calmer than she had before. Noah sat down, mirroring her.
"Dad?" he said, his voice coming out small and uneven. "Um, it's us. Can you - can you hear me?"
Dad didn't move.
"They say you're meant to keep going anyway," Jackie suggested. "Tell us about Israel."
Noah stared at her for a second, then looked back down to his father. "Yeah. Okay, Dad, you were right, Israel was really cool. They didn't let me go out on my own, but I got to see all the memorials, and we went to Independence Hall, I got to talk with a big group of Americans on their birthright tour, and I went to Kikar Rabin, Mom didn't come but I went, and we took a camel ride out into the desert-"
"Really?" Jackie was staring at him now, wide-eyed. "What are camels like?"
Noah wrinkled his nose. "They smell. And they're not very comfortable. But it was cool to go."
"Do you think someday I'll get to go to Haiti? You got to go where you were born."
"Maybe someday," Noah said, and then looked back to Dad, and went quiet.
"So I was watching Meet the Press the other day," Jackie said conversationally, "and I was thinking that Senator Bassett kind of had a point about education spending."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Noah demanded. "He said-"
Jackie grinned at him, and nodded towards Dad. He was twitching a bit.
"See, the problem with the Democrats is that they don't understand there's only so much money-"
"Jack? Jackie?"
Jackie jumped forward to the bed. "Daddy? Are you okay?"
Noah didn't know how his sister managed to stay so calm when she'd been on the verge of hysteria all night.
"Jackie? You here?" Dad mumbled, and then he went quiet again.
"Dad," Noah said, "are you going to wake up?"
But Dad was asleep again - seeming steadier, now, a little more colour in his skin, breathing a little stronger - he let out a snore, and Noah grinned.
"Jack. Go get a doctor, and - and call Mom. I'm going to stay here, okay?"
Jackie nodded at him, and ran out of the room.
Noah watched the door close. He stood, slowly. "Dad, I think - um, I think I might get most of this wrong. I'm not great at it, but I'm going to try, okay?"
Dad was, of course, silent.
"Okay. Well, my Hebrew is nothing, so I'm going to go for it in English. Um…" He opened the map app on his phone and found the direction of Jerusalem, and closed his eyes.
"May the one who blessed our ancestors," he said in a shaky voice and on shaky legs, "bless and heal the one who is ill: Joshua son of Salome…"
—
"And he's doing better? He knew you? Good, sweetheart, that's really good news. Thank you for calling me. Is anyone in with him now?"
Donna paused while her daughter answered, and nodded absently at the phone. "Okay. Honey, I've got one more meeting, and then I'm heading back over there. Go back and sit with Noah, and if they need you to leave then go find Daisy. Okay? Good. I love you."
She hung up the phone, breathed a second, and buzzed the intercom. "Ben? I'm ready."
Ben appeared in the doorway a moment later. "Madam President," he said, "Ambassador Cregg."
CJ stepped into the Oval behind him, and he moved out of the way, closing the door as he left. Donna observed from her desk, for a second, and then stood, smiling.
"CJ," she said, reaching for her and drawing her to the couches, "it's so good to see you."
"It's good to see you, too," CJ said, her warmth laced with a touch of artifice, "Madam President."
"Come on, none of that. We're old friends."
"Right." CJ smiled briefly, but then leaned forward, elbows on her legs. "I heard that Josh was rushed to GW last night."
"He had a heart thing," Donna confirmed. "It's called an aortic aneurism. They say he'll pull through. In fact, I just talked to my daughter, he woke up a little bit this afternoon."
"Oh, that's good news. Give him my love, if he'll take it."
"I will. CJ, there's something I've been wanting to ask you-"
"What happened between me and Sam?"
"Something like that."
"Josh never told you?"
"No. He was supposed to brief me today, but…"
"Right." CJ closed her eyes for a second, then met Donna's gaze. "I'm sorry if this is hard to hear, or if it makes you dislike me."
Donna nearly promised it wouldn't, but she really had no idea what CJ was about to say, and she couldn't make rash choices. "Go on," she said.
"That meeting took place right after Wallace was found out."
"That's right," Donna remembered, "it was the next day. I barely saw Josh that whole week."
"I was Secretary of Homeland at the time. They called me in because they wanted to offer me Vice President."
"They offered you Vice President."
"Yeah. I turned it down," she added, "because I was getting ready to resign. Danny had this opportunity in Berlin and I wanted to step back and take some time off. You know how stressful this work can be. So I started to resign and next thing I knew I was Ambassador to Germany."
"But you and Sam can't have fallen out over that."
"No, not over that. We fell out because he told me his next choice was you."
"Oh."
The air grew heavy in the silence. Don't break, don't break. Donna fixed her eyes on CJ, calm, waiting.
"It wasn't about you really," she burst out, "or it was, but - you were doing great work in Congress. You were crossing the aisle and winning more votes than the White House was sometimes. You were going to be wasted as VP - and I wasn't wrong about that! You didn't do half as much once you were out of Congress, even though you were working harder. And I don't need to tell you my objections given your relationship with the President's Chief of Staff."
"Given everything that's happened today, I don't need to hear those," Donna agreed evenly. "And yet it worked."
"It did work. I never doubted you'd do a good job. I just thought we could have gotten along fine with someone empty like - well, somebody like Will Bailey. Of course, I was wrong about what we'd need from a VP. But we couldn't know that, and if we could have set you up doing everything you were doing against a VP like Will, achieving nothing, and you'd have been the perfect candidate to be running right now."
"Okay," Donna said, taking a mental inventory of everything that had come out in that little speech. "Will Bailey is a damn fine Vice President and he has my trust."
"That's a mistake," CJ said.
"I don't believe it is. And he achieves plenty. He's not setting himself up for success, he's getting ready to retire, but he's good for what he does, and I count on him. And I am the candidate running right now."
"You haven't announced."
"I want to announce after we've found Sam's killer. And there's something else I'm waiting for. Which you don't need to know about, CJ."
"Right."
"Right." Donna eyed her and turned to the folder waiting on the desk. "Look, this is my last meeting today, and the sooner we're done the sooner I can get to the hospital. Tell me what's so urgent in Germany."
—
"Elsie, there's a call for you."
Elsie turned a page in the enormous binder and sighed. "Can it possibly wait?"
"It's the Vice President."
She sighed. "Max, take over. Everyone, education is a huge priority for this speech. Let's get it right, okay? I'll be back in five."
She followed Maisie from the Roosevelt room and headed to her office to take the call.
"Mr Vice President," she said into the phone, stiff and calm. "How can I help you?"
"Elsie…"
"Mr Vice President."
"Look," Will said, his voice strained, "I'm sorry, okay? I want you to know that I never meant to make your life more difficult. It wasn't about that."
"No, it wasn't," Elsie agreed, checking to make sure the door was shut, "it was about getting intel on the President."
"It was about not trusting Josh, and that was a mistake. I met with the President today and we talked through some things, and - well, I was wrong about Josh."
"Did she say how he's doing?"
"There wasn't any change when we spoke. Not any worse."
"That's something," she muttered.
"Elsie, we've always been close, right? I know I screwed you over, but I really wasn't trying to. You know, the kids miss you, we miss you. We're family, right?"
Elsie closed her eyes. Will had come close to destroying her career on the premise of we're family.
Through the window, Josh's face appeared on the television screen as the newscasters, presumably, discussed his emergency admission to GW. Elsie had spoken to the President for only five minutes today, but she'd looked pale and anxious, for all she focused on the work at hand.
Will was her brother.
"Right," she said. She could hear Will's relief through the phone.
"So… can we expect you for dinner tomorrow night?"
He was her brother, but he'd betrayed her.
"Maybe next week."
—
It was two on the dot when Donna arrived back in the hospital.
She stopped briefly to see the kids, and sent them on their way to get some dinner. Then she spoke with Josh's doctor, who confirmed that he'd woken up a few times, more coherent every time, and was starting on the road to recovery.
Then, finally, she was alone with her husband.
She hovered by the bed for a second, then gently pushed his legs aside a little and sat down on the mattress, smoothing the sheets over him.
"How are you doing, Josh?" she asked softly.
He cracked open one eye and looked at her. She shuffled forward quickly on the bed to get closer. "Hi," she whispered, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "You feeling okay?"
"Like hell," he muttered.
"Yeah, an aneurism'll do that to you. You're going to have to cut down on the stress a little, hon."
"Yeah?"
"I think retirement's going to hit you a couple of months early."
He smiled faintly and mumbled, "Okay," before closing his eyes again.
Donna rubbed his leg a little longer and then moved to the chair, trying to get comfortable. He was a bit more like himself. She'd get her Josh back. But everything was going to be different now.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about medicine and this is all the result of some intensive Googling. I also know very little about Judaism, and I trust Google a bit less with religion. If anyone reading this happens to be Jewish, and would be willing to talk about it a bit, please let me know!
Hopefully the next thing to come will be another chapter of Nine Hundred Miles Away, and (it's pretty optimistic) it might even come within the next month.
