Disclaimer/Author's Note: This is a story I wrote to, er, fill in the blanks of the opening sequence of "The Leadership Breakfast." Wherever possible I have summarized the actual scenes in the episode, but for purposes of continuity I quoted a few of the original lines. Avid watchers of The West Wing will recognize (I hope, with glee) where Aaron Sorkin leaves off and I begin. All characters, props, and scenery (except C.J.'s lighter) are the property either of Aaron Sorkin or J.K. Rowling.
All reviews, comments, and questions welcome.
Teamwork: Or, To Conjure a Fire
by L. Inman
"What?" Sam said.
Josh pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What?" Sam said again, holding the lamp full of kerosene like a bridesmaid's bouquet.
"Hold on, okay? I gotta think."
"About what? Look, you said go look for flammable liquids, and here they are. I mean—oops…." Sam set down the lamp on the hearth with a rattle and wiped at his fingers with a crumpled Kleenex from his pocket.
"We're going to have to forget the kerosene," Josh said.
"Why?"
"Donna."
"What about Donna?"
"She said we shouldn't."
"Oh. Well, she doesn't have to know, does she?" Sam looked wistfully at the lamp at his feet.
"She already does know, Sam. She saw you coming in with it."
"Oh. Well, have you got a better idea?"
"That's why I'm thinking," Josh said from behind his hand pinching his nose.
"Looks like it hurts."
"Oh, shut up."
"Can't we just use a dribble…?"
Josh took away his hand and looked around warily. "If worst comes to worst," he said in a guarded voice. "Donna or no Donna, this fire's gettin' built."
"That's the spirit," Sam said.
They squatted by the fireplace and began to take inventory of Sam's foraging results.
"You said you got this lighter out of C.J.'s desk?" Josh said, examining it.
"Yeah," Sam said, comparing relative sizes of logs.
"It's got a 'CATS: The Musical' logo on it."
Sam looked around and started a slow grin. "Really? I didn't notice that."
They grinned at each other. "Can you say 'blackmail'?" Josh said.
"'Blackmail,'" Sam said, nodding.
Josh stood the lighter to one side reverently. "All right, let's get the logs in there first."
"Hold on, aren't we supposed to build up the fire with kindling first?"
"Well, we don't have any kindling. Let's arrange the logs so we can stick the kindling in under it once we find some."
"Okay, good plan."
**
They were still discussing log placement when Donna reappeared to ask them another question about placement at the Leadership Breakfast table. This was an unwelcome distraction, as they were very busy, pleasantly wrangling about what kind of kindling would be best.
They applied to Donna for help with the fire, but she appeared to be strangely distant from the whole enterprise; when Josh asked her to find them some dry leaves, she rolled her eyes and went out. "Yeah, I'll just run out to the forest and be right back." Her voice trailed away.
Josh watched her go. "You think she's being sarcastic?" he asked Sam.
Sam, at least, had his priorities straight. "I'm thinking she's not getting the leaves!"
After some thought, they decided to use newspaper for kindling, a decision which brought them both much satisfaction.
"See, this is what I'm talking about," Josh told Sam. "This is teamwork."
Sam looked up in delight. "It really is."
**
Several crumpled sheets of newspaper later, however, they found themselves a little disheartened at their progress; the newspaper would respond to C.J.'s "CATS: The Musical" lighter, only to burn itself up without igniting the logs.
Sam blew out his cheeks, his arms propped on his knees, and looked over at Josh.
"Right," Josh said, and reached across him for the lamp of kerosene.
Their last attempt was still smoking faintly in the fireplace. As Josh lifted off the top of the lamp to get at the kerosene, the bits of charred newspaper smoked more faintly and then dimmed altogether.
Josh was making a paintbrush out of a roll of newspaper when Sam said, "What the…." and shuffled backwards.
The smoke had reappeared, stronger than anything they'd made so far—and what was stranger, it had a faint tinge of green.
Worse, the smoke then billowed and burst into a color of flame neither of them had ever seen before. Worse still, within the flame something was whirling—and growing bigger as it whirled.
Josh and Sam, forgetting their enterprise, scrambled backward to their feet. As they watched, the whirling took shape and form and solidity, burst into full-fledged existence, and stumbled out of the fireplace as a grubby boy in a shapeless black garment, covered in soot, coughing, and fumbling for a pair of round glasses.
Josh and Sam were too transfixed even to look at one another. And before they could recover, the strangely-colored fire regathered strength and disgorged another fantastic person: another boy, equally grubby, with sooty red hair and much longer limbs.
The first boy put on his glasses: and immediately saw the petrified West Wing staffers. "Uh-oh," he said.
The second boy wiped his face, coughed, and opened his eyes. He blinked, then hunched his shoulders apprehensively. "Blimey…where are we?" he said.
"In big trouble," the first boy answered. "Ron, quick, go back and stop Hermione…"
But whatever Ron was supposed to do, he didn't move fast enough. The fire, which had died almost to nothing, swarmed high again and brought forth another figure, a girl, dressed like the other two, but free of soot.
"There you are," she said. "I had to look through three grates before I found you…oh, no!"
"Oh, yes," said the boy in glasses grimly. "We must have come out in a Muggle house."
Sam cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, in a weak voice, "you're in the White House. The Mural Room, to be precise. It's used for meetings of the White House staff…"
The girl, Hermione, clapped her hands to her mouth, eyes wide.
Sam dared a glance at Josh. "Josh…are you okay?" he said.
Josh said unsteadily, "If 'okay' means that you too are looking at three strangely-dressed kids with British accents that just came out of our fire, then yeah, I guess I am."
"Holy crap," Ron said, "we've come out in America!"
"Oh, I knew this was a bad idea," Hermione moaned.
"It's your fault we got stuck in the village in the first place—" Ron started.
"My fault! Who kept telling us the Hogwarts gates didn't close till nine? And—"
"Shut up!" hissed the boy in glasses. "Let's get out of here first."
"—and who got the brilliant idea of hijacking the Floo network back to the common room?" Hermione persisted.
"You were all for it, till we ended up here—"
"Shut it, will you?" the boy in glasses said, louder. "We have to get out of here—unless you both fancy getting arrested in the White House."
Hermione put a hand to her mouth again.
"Josh?" Sam said.
"Why are you looking at me?" Josh said, still staring at the three kids. "I'm still trying to believe in my own sanity."
Sam drew a deep breath and said to the strangers, "Look. Exactly how did you do this? We have to know, you see, 'cause it's a breach of security."
Both the boys looked at the girl. "Why are you looking at me?" she said.
"Because you're the one who cast the spell," Ron said.
"And you can talk to Muggles," the boy in glasses added.
Hermione threw up her hands. "All right," she said to the room in general, then said to Sam, "Honestly, we don't know how we ended up here. We were trying to get back to our school…."
Sam just blinked soberly at her.
"Wait a minute," Josh said. He was pressing at his temples with his fingers. "You're trying to tell us that you were trying to get back to your school, and somehow ended up in a White House fireplace?"
"Well, we probably wouldn't have," Hermione said, "if there hadn't been a fire here already. Although," she added, "whoever built it doesn't appear to know much about building Muggle fires." She gave Josh what appeared to be an ingenuous stare.
Josh, sidetracked from the central issue and on the verge of hysteria, said defensively, "We would have used decent kindling if we'd had it. As it was, we had to make do with lots of newspaper."
"Looks like it," Ron said in an undertone to the other boy, looking askance at the abundance of blackened newspaper in the fireplace.
Josh reddened at this. "I'm calling security."
Sam held out a quick hand. "No—wait—"
Josh stared at him. "Wait? For what?"
"They're just kids," Sam began.
"Are you insane?"
"Please, sir," Hermione interrupted, "I know how to get us back. And I can fix it so that no one else comes by this way."
Josh stared at her, his lips moving faintly.
"It's too bad we can't stay long enough to take a tour," Hermione said, warming to him. "I've always wanted to see the American White House. It sounds so fascinating, all the presidents who have lived here." (The boys shot worried grimaces at one another.) "I'll bet this place is just full of interesting things. It must be wonderful to work in a place with so much history—I'll bet you could tell us all sorts of stories, Mr.—er—"
"Lyman," Josh said faintly. (Sam glanced at him; he wore an entranced expression.)
"—Mr. Lyman. I'll bet you know a ton about this room alone." She blinked at him innocently.
"Well," Sam piped up, "there is a lot of history to this room. In 1842, for instance…."
Josh glared at him, and he dried up rather quickly.
"Since when have you been an authority on the White House?" Josh muttered.
"Hermione," the boy in glasses said, "we'd better fix this before it gets any worse."
"Yeah," said Ron, "and before we get a tour of an American jail."
"Oh, shut up," said Hermione. She bent to look at the fireplace. "Are you sure this is a proper fireplace?" she said to Josh and Sam. "It doesn't look like the flue really opens…."
"Hermione," said the boy in glasses in a low voice, "we don't have time for details."
"Right," she said, and pulled out a long, thin baton of wood. In an instant, blue flames sprang up in the tripod Josh and Sam had made of the logs.
"How'd you do that?" Sam said. "We've been trying to start that fire for ages."
"Must have been C.J.'s lighter," Josh said.
"Well, I want a lighter like hers," Sam said.
"What exactly are you doing?" Josh asked Hermione.
She turned to him. "Well, I have to start a fire to send us back, you know, Mr. Lyman." She smiled.
"Oh. Right," Josh said.
"Josh, are you all right?" Sam said.
"Me? I'm fine."
Ron looked suspiciously at Hermione. "What did you do to him?"
"Just get into the fire, Ron." Hermione waved him briskly toward the hearth.
Ron half-turned toward the fire, but kept his eyes on Josh, glaring.
Sam suddenly giggled and hitched up his belt. "This town ain't big enough for the two of us," he said, grinning.
"Shut up," Ron and Josh said simultaneously.
"Get into the fire, Ron." Hermione lifted her eyebrows in a queenly fashion.
Grumbling, Ron got onto the hearth; but then he paused.
"What are we going to do about them?" he said.
The three looked at Josh and Sam, then grimaced at one another.
"You'd better do it," the boy in glasses said to Hermione. "You've been practicing all those extra spells for our O.W.L.s…."
"Oh," said Hermione, looking crestfallen.
"This is no time to be tenderhearted," Ron said.
"But they're so cute," she said.
Ron exploded. "Hermione, you can't take them home for pets. They can't live outside their natural environment—"
"And they're not dangerous enough for Hagrid to keep," the boy in glasses added, suppressing a smile.
"I don't know about that," Ron said quietly, looking at the dangerous glint in Josh's eye.
"All right, all right. Now go!"
Ron looked down at the fire. "These American fireplaces are really rotten for Floo travel," he said, "they're so small. Oh well—let's hope we don't come out in Snape's office or something—"
Awkwardly, he stuck a foot into the fire, crouched as close to it as he could, said something, and disappeared in a whirl of green smoke.
"Now you, Harry," Hermione said to the boy in glasses.
Harry followed Ron's example, and soon he too had disappeared.
Hermione paused at the threshold of the fire. "It'll be all right," she told Josh and Sam. "I'll make sure the portal is closed after this."
Sam smiled, looking amiably confused.
Josh blinked, then suddenly rubbed at the crown of his head, as if coming awake.
"And Mr. Lyman," she said, "I'm sorry about the Scintillating Charm."
"The—what?"
Hermione sighed. "And I'm sorry about this." She raised her thin baton.
"Wait a minute," said Josh, "what are you—"
The smoke was thick and grey and searing in the throat. Sam and Josh coughed and spluttered, fighting their way through it. The fire was hissing and popping lightly in the fireplace, but the smoke was all coming out toward them.
"Well—" Josh broke off in a fit of coughing— "it looks like we got the fire started—but—how come it's smoking?"
Sam spluttered. "I don't know. Didn't you open the flue?"
"I thought you opened the flue."
"No, I was getting the logs and the kerosene, remember?"
Josh muttered under his breath and went into another fit of coughing.
**
Sam said, as if to convince him, "I think this is because the wood is wet."
"Well, the fire oughta dry it pretty quick, shouldn't it?"
"You'd think."
Their fellow staffers arrived, yelping and swearing their way one by one into the room—and the scene went rapidly downhill from there.
A thousand yards over and two flights up, a P.J.'d and irritated President of the United States jerked open the door to his aide and barked, "What?"
**
As it turned out, in fact, Josh and Sam narrowly avoided getting in real trouble only because C.J. kept her mouth shut at the staff meeting the next day. Later, several people saw her stalking down the hall with a lighter clutched in her hand, growling what sounded like a deadly curse.