A/N: I just found out today that Rob Lowe is leaving West Wing... so you'll
all know when it was that this chapter was written. So this fic is either
going to end up being AU or I'll fill in those 12 years at some point.
Chapter Six: One Week
9:25 AM
"One week, one week, one week," Karol said, pacing across her apartment. It was just one week until election day and tensions were high all over DC.
Scott, who had been watching her was feeling a bit queasy now. "Karol, please, I'm going to be sick."
"Don't be saying sick!" Annie Wildman shouted from the other room. "Or I will be..."
Annie and Allison had driven down two days previous and had taken up residence in Karol's first floor apartment. Scott's DC apartment was a third story and not good for a very pregnant woman with an at risk pregnancy. So, once again, the Wildmans impossed upon Karol.
Senator Wildman sighed. "You need to relax, you know, Karol?"
"RELAX!?"
Scott plugged his hears as Karol exploded.
Once he was sure it was safe, he pulled his fingers from his ears and said, "Yeah. You know, sit down, not worry that everything you've worked so hard to accomplish will be decided in seven days..."
"Yeah, thanks, Scott. *Now* I can relax," she said sarcastically.
"Anything I can do to help."
Rusty ran in and began barking happily as Allison chased after the leash he was dragging behind him. Scott stepped on the leash and kept the puppy from taking off. He struggled agaisnt it and then relented as Allison picked up the leash.
"Just wait until you have three little ones crawling around, Scotty," Allison told him. "You won't be able to stomp on any leashes to stop *them*."
Scott put on a mock look of horror then grinned.
Karol sat in the chair next to the phone, flicking torn off pieces of post it notes in various directions. Her brother, Dylan, was supposed to call and confirm his arrival at the air port so she could pick him up. If she hadn't had him to pick up here sanity probably would have disolved days before.
The phone rang and she jumped, the still whole post it notes flying everywhere.
"Hello?" She said picking it up.
"Hey, Kari!" Deryk McShane shouted over the phone. "I'm here."
"Yes, good," Karol said. "I'm going crazy. Hang on, I'm coming to pick you up."
"I can just take a cab..."
"NO!" Karol shouted in a craze.
Scott almost burst out laughing, trying to figure out what he said.
"I'm coming to get you," Karol said again in a normal voice. "Stay."
"Bu-"
"Stay."
She hung up and grabbed her keyes and jacket. "I'm going to pick up my brother," she told Scott and Allison who stood staring at her. "I'll be back in about half an hour."
Scott and Allison watched as she left.
"She's going to be our vice president?" Allison asked.
"God help us, eh?" Scott joked.
***
1:39 PM
"Hey, Ron," Secretary of Homeland Security greeted his coworker as he walked out of the Oval Office. Ron Timmons nodded to the other man and walked over to the President's secretary.
"Good Afternoon, Mrs. Cook," Ron said goodheartedly to the elder woman.
"Quit calling me Missus, Ronald Timmons," she said. "You make me feel like an old woman. You're not much younger than me."
Ronald smiled.
"Go on in," Mrs. Cook said to him. "And when you come back out I expect to be addressed Bethany. No more of this Missus stuff. How many times need I tell you that?"
Timmons grinned mischieviously. "Well, you've told me fourteen times, let's try for fifteen," he joked.
Mrs. Cook glared at him as he was let into the Oval Office by one of the Secret Service men.
"Ron!" President Schumer called out from his desk.
"Mr. President," Ronald nodded.
Schumer came around the desk and shook Ronald's hand. "How's Rachel?" he aked. "I heard she was under the weather."
//Does news travel that slow in this place?// Ronald thought, then wondered if it was that slow, how did it get around so fast that the Secretary of State's daughter had an affair? He shook his head.
"She's fine, sir," he told the President. "How've *your* kids been."
The President smiled. "Great," he said. "Marcy graduates Harvard Law in May and Justin is coming home from Oxford for Christmas."
"That's good, sir."
"That's not why I brought you here, though," Schumer said.
Ronald nodded. "I didn't think it was, sir."
"There was another derailing in Colorado," he said.
The Secretary of Transportation nodded. He was well aware of it. It was the fourth in seven months. Just freight trains so little attention was paid by the media. "Yes, sir," he replied. "We're working on it. It's the tracks. They're all a mess. Atleast six hundred miles needs to be replaced."
Schumer gaped at him. "You're kidding."
"No, sir," Ronald said. "I've got a plan set up and-"
"No."
Ronald looked at the President in surprise. "Sir?"
"We're not going to do anything," he told Ronald. "Just patch up the worst places. I'm not going to admit that I've ignored this problem for almost a year. Ron, take care of the worst parts."
Timmons stared at the President. "Sir-"
"Ron, it's already being taken care of as we speak," Schumer said. "Just go along with it. My term is almost up. Then this will be on Seaborn or Billings's shoulders. All fault will fall to them."
Ronald wasn't sure what to say. What to do. Schumer's term was up in about two months. Then everything that happened in his administration would be set on the next to sort through. Maybe Schumer was right. It would fall on them and the blame would go to that administartion.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Schumer smiled. "Good. I'll see you later, Ron."
He nodded and exited the Oval Office.
***
6:02 PM
"This is really great, Bobby," Jenna Clark told the man sitting across from her. There was a candle lit in the middle of the table, the lights were dimmed, it was the perfect romantic setting. "You sure you can afford this?"
Bobby grinned. "Of course I can," he said. "What did you expect? I'd planned at dine and ditch or something?"
One of the waiters at another table heard him and looked him over suspiciously.
Jenna started giggling. "That was great, Bobby," she said. "Now they're not going to trust us all night."
"Are you ready to order?" a waiter with a stuffy French accent asked them.
"Oui, mon bon homme. La dame et je suis prêt à commander," Bobby said.
The waiter looked at him uncertain.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Bobby pretended to apologized. "Your accent. It sounded French. Yes, I'm ready to order. Jenna?"
The two of them ordered, in English for the benefit of the waiter. After the man had left, Jenna looked over at Bobby. "You're *evil*."
The other reporter laughed. "What?" he asked in mock innocence. "Oh, come on. That accent was obviously fake. It's not my fault someone finally caught him in the act."
It wasn't long before their food came and the two ate in silence. After they finished however, their reporter instincts clocked in as a group of Senators walked in.
"This is going to be fun," Jenna muttered as she watched them through the corner of her eye. They sat at the table just beside them.
Bobby grinned. "And I don't have my tape recorder."
Jenna took an extra one out of her purse and slid it across the table to Bobby.
For the next hour, they ate dessert, taking small bites of pie and ice cream so they could drag it out the entire duration of the Senators's stay.
"That was fun," Jenna said as they walked outside to Bobby's car. "I got dinner and a story."
Towlhouse smiled. "Glad you enjoyed it. I had fun, too." He held up the tape recorder. "I get this back to you... Friday night? At 7:30?"
Jenna smiled. "Sounds great," she said.
***
8:23 PM
"She should have gotten them on an earlier plane," Sam Seaborn said, standing in the waiting area for Gate Seven. He looked over at the Secret Service man Schumer had lent him. "Don't you think?"
"Yes, sir," the man replied.
"They're only three and four," Sam continued. "What were we thinking? Letting them solo from California? How stupid are we? What were we thinking?!"
The Secret Service man, realizing he needed to answer in some way, said, "I don't know, sir."
The Presidental Candidate bolted to the window as the plane set down. "If they're not on there, or something happened..."
"I'm sure they're fine, sir," the Secret Service man said.
Sam began to pace, waiting for people to start exiting the plane. An elder couple was the first off soon followed by other first class passengers. He knew that his two young sons were in first class and when they didn't come off with the first class passengers he began to panic. "What happened? Where are they? Did they not want to come? Did they-"
"Daddy!"
Sam looked over to the gate to see four year old Toby Seaborn running towards him. He picked the little boy up and hugged him. "Where's Josh?"
"He's right here," a woman said.
He looked up. "CJ!"
CJ Cregg smiled. "Good to see you again, Sam."
"Daddy, Daddy!" Joshua Seaborn yelled from down on the floor and reached upwards with his arms.
Sam set Toby down and picked up Joshua.
"These two little guys decided that first class wasn't good enough for them when they saw Auntie CJ back in coach," CJ told Sam. "They seemed to be driving the stewardesses in first class crazy. They were glad to have them move back with me."
"Thanks, CJ," he said. "For looking out for them."
Toby had wandered over to the Secret Service man and was looking up at him. "You're gigantic," the little boy said to the man who laughed at Toby's mispronounciation of the word. He nodded. Someone standing 6' 4" would be tall to a little four year old.
"CJ, this is my Secret Service man for the time being," Sam introduced her. "Max Bannerman. He's on loan from Schumer."
Bannerman nodded to CJ.
"That reminds me," CJ said. "Where are the others?"
"We didn't want to take them out of school until we really had too. These two miss a week of pre-school, they aren't going to miss anything but the others would," Sam answered. "And AJ refuses to miss any day that she absolutely doesn't have too."
Abigail Jean, only seven, wouldn't miss a day of school unless it was absolutely neccessary. A grade ahead, she hated missing out on anything of an educational standard. AJ was probably the weirdest seven year old Sam had ever met, reading instead of playing (and playing football and climbing trees when she did) and already able to take apart a remote and put it back together in working conditions. Something that still remained to be figured out by the rest of the country's population.
"What are you doing here in DC?" Sam aked CJ.
"I came back to vote," she said. "I never did register in California and I haven't voted in years."
"Thanks," Sam said.
CJ smiled. "You think I wouldn't vote for you?"
"You didn't have to take a plane all the way to DC just to vote. That's the wonderful thing about absentee ballots."
Joshua was looking up at Sam and CJ in confusion, having no clue what a ballot was and why his father didn't want CJ to be there. "Daddy," he said tugging at Sam's jacket. "CJ stay?"
"Of course," CJ said and picked Joshua up. "For more that week!"
The little boy smiled.
"Come here, Toby," Sam called out to his other son and the boy ran over to be picked up.
"On another topic," CJ said. "How many of our names have you crammed on to these kids?"
Sam grinned. "Hey, Josh, what's your name?"
"Joshua Bartlet Cregg Seaborn, Daddy," he answered. "You know that."
"What's Toby's name?"
"Toby McGarry," Toby answered, pronouncing McGarry as miggery.
"You got off easy didn't you?"
"They're names aren't that bad. They're named after very important people, after all," Sam defended. They were now outside the airport and on the curb. "Need a ride?"
CJ shook her head. "I'll get a cab."
"Come on, where are you staying? We can make a stop," Sam said. "Right Max?"
"Yes, sir."
"Fine," CJ said in resignation. "It's a little motel down the road from the Georgetown Hilton. To far out of your way?"
Sam laughed. "Not at all. We're at the Hilton. You know, this is perfect. You can come to the election day party," he told her. "Josh and Donna are coming and the President and Dr. Bartlet. It'll be like old times... sorta. Just no running around and no one shouting because someone has missiles pointed at someone else."
"Sounds like... well, fun probably isn't the word to use," CJ jested. "But it sounds good. If you've got room for one more, count me in."
***
A/N: As I said up above, it is easy to know when this chapter was written. I love West Wing, but I feel that the loss of Sam is going to hurt the show. Along with the death of Simon, the leaving of Rob Lowe will cause up roar in the fields of the viewers and we may sadly see Bartlet as a one term president. Or, more likely, a 5 season president. But then, ER survived actor disappearances so... maybe, hopefully, West Wing will, too.
Chapter Six: One Week
9:25 AM
"One week, one week, one week," Karol said, pacing across her apartment. It was just one week until election day and tensions were high all over DC.
Scott, who had been watching her was feeling a bit queasy now. "Karol, please, I'm going to be sick."
"Don't be saying sick!" Annie Wildman shouted from the other room. "Or I will be..."
Annie and Allison had driven down two days previous and had taken up residence in Karol's first floor apartment. Scott's DC apartment was a third story and not good for a very pregnant woman with an at risk pregnancy. So, once again, the Wildmans impossed upon Karol.
Senator Wildman sighed. "You need to relax, you know, Karol?"
"RELAX!?"
Scott plugged his hears as Karol exploded.
Once he was sure it was safe, he pulled his fingers from his ears and said, "Yeah. You know, sit down, not worry that everything you've worked so hard to accomplish will be decided in seven days..."
"Yeah, thanks, Scott. *Now* I can relax," she said sarcastically.
"Anything I can do to help."
Rusty ran in and began barking happily as Allison chased after the leash he was dragging behind him. Scott stepped on the leash and kept the puppy from taking off. He struggled agaisnt it and then relented as Allison picked up the leash.
"Just wait until you have three little ones crawling around, Scotty," Allison told him. "You won't be able to stomp on any leashes to stop *them*."
Scott put on a mock look of horror then grinned.
Karol sat in the chair next to the phone, flicking torn off pieces of post it notes in various directions. Her brother, Dylan, was supposed to call and confirm his arrival at the air port so she could pick him up. If she hadn't had him to pick up here sanity probably would have disolved days before.
The phone rang and she jumped, the still whole post it notes flying everywhere.
"Hello?" She said picking it up.
"Hey, Kari!" Deryk McShane shouted over the phone. "I'm here."
"Yes, good," Karol said. "I'm going crazy. Hang on, I'm coming to pick you up."
"I can just take a cab..."
"NO!" Karol shouted in a craze.
Scott almost burst out laughing, trying to figure out what he said.
"I'm coming to get you," Karol said again in a normal voice. "Stay."
"Bu-"
"Stay."
She hung up and grabbed her keyes and jacket. "I'm going to pick up my brother," she told Scott and Allison who stood staring at her. "I'll be back in about half an hour."
Scott and Allison watched as she left.
"She's going to be our vice president?" Allison asked.
"God help us, eh?" Scott joked.
***
1:39 PM
"Hey, Ron," Secretary of Homeland Security greeted his coworker as he walked out of the Oval Office. Ron Timmons nodded to the other man and walked over to the President's secretary.
"Good Afternoon, Mrs. Cook," Ron said goodheartedly to the elder woman.
"Quit calling me Missus, Ronald Timmons," she said. "You make me feel like an old woman. You're not much younger than me."
Ronald smiled.
"Go on in," Mrs. Cook said to him. "And when you come back out I expect to be addressed Bethany. No more of this Missus stuff. How many times need I tell you that?"
Timmons grinned mischieviously. "Well, you've told me fourteen times, let's try for fifteen," he joked.
Mrs. Cook glared at him as he was let into the Oval Office by one of the Secret Service men.
"Ron!" President Schumer called out from his desk.
"Mr. President," Ronald nodded.
Schumer came around the desk and shook Ronald's hand. "How's Rachel?" he aked. "I heard she was under the weather."
//Does news travel that slow in this place?// Ronald thought, then wondered if it was that slow, how did it get around so fast that the Secretary of State's daughter had an affair? He shook his head.
"She's fine, sir," he told the President. "How've *your* kids been."
The President smiled. "Great," he said. "Marcy graduates Harvard Law in May and Justin is coming home from Oxford for Christmas."
"That's good, sir."
"That's not why I brought you here, though," Schumer said.
Ronald nodded. "I didn't think it was, sir."
"There was another derailing in Colorado," he said.
The Secretary of Transportation nodded. He was well aware of it. It was the fourth in seven months. Just freight trains so little attention was paid by the media. "Yes, sir," he replied. "We're working on it. It's the tracks. They're all a mess. Atleast six hundred miles needs to be replaced."
Schumer gaped at him. "You're kidding."
"No, sir," Ronald said. "I've got a plan set up and-"
"No."
Ronald looked at the President in surprise. "Sir?"
"We're not going to do anything," he told Ronald. "Just patch up the worst places. I'm not going to admit that I've ignored this problem for almost a year. Ron, take care of the worst parts."
Timmons stared at the President. "Sir-"
"Ron, it's already being taken care of as we speak," Schumer said. "Just go along with it. My term is almost up. Then this will be on Seaborn or Billings's shoulders. All fault will fall to them."
Ronald wasn't sure what to say. What to do. Schumer's term was up in about two months. Then everything that happened in his administration would be set on the next to sort through. Maybe Schumer was right. It would fall on them and the blame would go to that administartion.
"Yes, sir," he said.
Schumer smiled. "Good. I'll see you later, Ron."
He nodded and exited the Oval Office.
***
6:02 PM
"This is really great, Bobby," Jenna Clark told the man sitting across from her. There was a candle lit in the middle of the table, the lights were dimmed, it was the perfect romantic setting. "You sure you can afford this?"
Bobby grinned. "Of course I can," he said. "What did you expect? I'd planned at dine and ditch or something?"
One of the waiters at another table heard him and looked him over suspiciously.
Jenna started giggling. "That was great, Bobby," she said. "Now they're not going to trust us all night."
"Are you ready to order?" a waiter with a stuffy French accent asked them.
"Oui, mon bon homme. La dame et je suis prêt à commander," Bobby said.
The waiter looked at him uncertain.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Bobby pretended to apologized. "Your accent. It sounded French. Yes, I'm ready to order. Jenna?"
The two of them ordered, in English for the benefit of the waiter. After the man had left, Jenna looked over at Bobby. "You're *evil*."
The other reporter laughed. "What?" he asked in mock innocence. "Oh, come on. That accent was obviously fake. It's not my fault someone finally caught him in the act."
It wasn't long before their food came and the two ate in silence. After they finished however, their reporter instincts clocked in as a group of Senators walked in.
"This is going to be fun," Jenna muttered as she watched them through the corner of her eye. They sat at the table just beside them.
Bobby grinned. "And I don't have my tape recorder."
Jenna took an extra one out of her purse and slid it across the table to Bobby.
For the next hour, they ate dessert, taking small bites of pie and ice cream so they could drag it out the entire duration of the Senators's stay.
"That was fun," Jenna said as they walked outside to Bobby's car. "I got dinner and a story."
Towlhouse smiled. "Glad you enjoyed it. I had fun, too." He held up the tape recorder. "I get this back to you... Friday night? At 7:30?"
Jenna smiled. "Sounds great," she said.
***
8:23 PM
"She should have gotten them on an earlier plane," Sam Seaborn said, standing in the waiting area for Gate Seven. He looked over at the Secret Service man Schumer had lent him. "Don't you think?"
"Yes, sir," the man replied.
"They're only three and four," Sam continued. "What were we thinking? Letting them solo from California? How stupid are we? What were we thinking?!"
The Secret Service man, realizing he needed to answer in some way, said, "I don't know, sir."
The Presidental Candidate bolted to the window as the plane set down. "If they're not on there, or something happened..."
"I'm sure they're fine, sir," the Secret Service man said.
Sam began to pace, waiting for people to start exiting the plane. An elder couple was the first off soon followed by other first class passengers. He knew that his two young sons were in first class and when they didn't come off with the first class passengers he began to panic. "What happened? Where are they? Did they not want to come? Did they-"
"Daddy!"
Sam looked over to the gate to see four year old Toby Seaborn running towards him. He picked the little boy up and hugged him. "Where's Josh?"
"He's right here," a woman said.
He looked up. "CJ!"
CJ Cregg smiled. "Good to see you again, Sam."
"Daddy, Daddy!" Joshua Seaborn yelled from down on the floor and reached upwards with his arms.
Sam set Toby down and picked up Joshua.
"These two little guys decided that first class wasn't good enough for them when they saw Auntie CJ back in coach," CJ told Sam. "They seemed to be driving the stewardesses in first class crazy. They were glad to have them move back with me."
"Thanks, CJ," he said. "For looking out for them."
Toby had wandered over to the Secret Service man and was looking up at him. "You're gigantic," the little boy said to the man who laughed at Toby's mispronounciation of the word. He nodded. Someone standing 6' 4" would be tall to a little four year old.
"CJ, this is my Secret Service man for the time being," Sam introduced her. "Max Bannerman. He's on loan from Schumer."
Bannerman nodded to CJ.
"That reminds me," CJ said. "Where are the others?"
"We didn't want to take them out of school until we really had too. These two miss a week of pre-school, they aren't going to miss anything but the others would," Sam answered. "And AJ refuses to miss any day that she absolutely doesn't have too."
Abigail Jean, only seven, wouldn't miss a day of school unless it was absolutely neccessary. A grade ahead, she hated missing out on anything of an educational standard. AJ was probably the weirdest seven year old Sam had ever met, reading instead of playing (and playing football and climbing trees when she did) and already able to take apart a remote and put it back together in working conditions. Something that still remained to be figured out by the rest of the country's population.
"What are you doing here in DC?" Sam aked CJ.
"I came back to vote," she said. "I never did register in California and I haven't voted in years."
"Thanks," Sam said.
CJ smiled. "You think I wouldn't vote for you?"
"You didn't have to take a plane all the way to DC just to vote. That's the wonderful thing about absentee ballots."
Joshua was looking up at Sam and CJ in confusion, having no clue what a ballot was and why his father didn't want CJ to be there. "Daddy," he said tugging at Sam's jacket. "CJ stay?"
"Of course," CJ said and picked Joshua up. "For more that week!"
The little boy smiled.
"Come here, Toby," Sam called out to his other son and the boy ran over to be picked up.
"On another topic," CJ said. "How many of our names have you crammed on to these kids?"
Sam grinned. "Hey, Josh, what's your name?"
"Joshua Bartlet Cregg Seaborn, Daddy," he answered. "You know that."
"What's Toby's name?"
"Toby McGarry," Toby answered, pronouncing McGarry as miggery.
"You got off easy didn't you?"
"They're names aren't that bad. They're named after very important people, after all," Sam defended. They were now outside the airport and on the curb. "Need a ride?"
CJ shook her head. "I'll get a cab."
"Come on, where are you staying? We can make a stop," Sam said. "Right Max?"
"Yes, sir."
"Fine," CJ said in resignation. "It's a little motel down the road from the Georgetown Hilton. To far out of your way?"
Sam laughed. "Not at all. We're at the Hilton. You know, this is perfect. You can come to the election day party," he told her. "Josh and Donna are coming and the President and Dr. Bartlet. It'll be like old times... sorta. Just no running around and no one shouting because someone has missiles pointed at someone else."
"Sounds like... well, fun probably isn't the word to use," CJ jested. "But it sounds good. If you've got room for one more, count me in."
***
A/N: As I said up above, it is easy to know when this chapter was written. I love West Wing, but I feel that the loss of Sam is going to hurt the show. Along with the death of Simon, the leaving of Rob Lowe will cause up roar in the fields of the viewers and we may sadly see Bartlet as a one term president. Or, more likely, a 5 season president. But then, ER survived actor disappearances so... maybe, hopefully, West Wing will, too.