SPOILERS: Bad Moon Rising and 18th & Potomac.
DISCLAIMER: All the usual stuff that basically translates to mean, "These characters aren't mine and I'm not making any money from them".
SUMMARY: Charlie reflects on his friendship with a wonderful lady and happens upon a profound revelation. (Hey, it's fanfic, I can go there.)
THANKS: To the wonderful triumvirate of Liz, Jess, and Lisa. How ever did I get lucky enough to have you gals as friends? To my mother - who will never know I wrote this - for sharing her deep thoughts with me.
Also, thanks to Douglas Adams, wherever you may be, for being one hell of a great writer, and for making me laugh harder than Monty Python, George Carlin, and my dad, all rolled into one. Oh yeah – and for inspiring the title.
(Note—This was actually written the day before Douglas Adams passed away, which I found just a little freaky.)
***
KNOWING THE QUESTION
by, Sid
_________________________
I really dug Mrs Landingham. She was a great, great lady. From the moment I started working here, she treated me with respect. Respect and consideration, with just a bit of teasing - and a lot of affection - thrown in for good measure.
She was always good to me. And not once in that let's-be-nice-to-the-inner-city-kid kind of way. Just good to me. She reminded me to wear a heavy coat when it got cold and told me it was
still polite to hold the door open for women. She baked my favorite cookies sometimes, and she listened to me when I talked. Really listened. She gave me little bits of advice, here and there, about how to hold on to a girl like Zoey Bartlet, and she helped me when I was so frustrated about Deena I could have screamed.
We used to have great conversations, Mrs Landingham and I. I think in the time we worked together, we covered some pretty good territory. Love, religion, fate, friendship, philosophy, truth, the globalization of American culture, and the virtues of a good baseball game. We discussed politics sometimes, but not often. Mrs Landingham once said that we weren't politicians, and just because we worked in politics didn't mean we should pretend to be. So we discussed other things.
We never discussed the President's illness, but she knew. I know she did. You just couldn't pull one over on Mrs Landingham. Maybe she didn't have the specifics, but you can't tell me she was clueless. She knew the man too well, and she would have known if he was keeping
anything from her.
Sometimes I would catch her looking at the President like a...Well, like a mother would look at her son. You know, searching him from top to toe, like she was trying to read his mind. Did he have a salad with his lasagna at lunch? Did he remember to take the throat lozenges she gave him? Is he going to piss off the Russian ambassador today in his meeting?
I know she knew. I could just tell. Mrs Landingham and I worked side by side for two years, and you learn things about a person when you work that closely. I knew when her arthritis was bothering her, because she would shift in her chair about twenty times in a row, trying to find a comfortable position. I knew when she was irritated with the President, because her lips would purse very tightly and she would "hmph" under her breath when she thought I couldn't hear her. I
knew when she was missing her boys, because she grew quiet and withdrawn, and the President and I would become the apparent center of her universe. You see? I just knew these things.
And now she's gone.
Gone. I hate that euphemism. She's dead. Mrs Landingham is dead. Mrs Landingham was killed by a drunk driver who ran a light at 18th and Potomac. And I was the first person who found out. I had to tell Leo. I had to watch the color drain from his face and an expression of utter horror cross his features. And I felt guilty. I had to add to this man's already considerable pain.
So much has gone on in the past few days, you know? Well, that's a somewhat naive statement. I work in the White House after all; there are a million things going on at any given moment. But lately – This is big stuff, and I know it. We all know it. We all feel it. It's in the air we're breathing; you can't help but notice it.
I know things about the President. Things Zoey has told me - in the strictest confidence, which I would never, ever betray; things I have picked up from being stuck to his side like glue for two years; things I know because my mother taught me to always be on the alert. I've watched and I've learned, and I've been quiet for so long. I was looking forward to being able to talk with Mrs Landingham. I really needed her to tell me it would all be okay.
We actually had a lot in common, Mrs Landingham and I. We were still a little lost, still grieving a little. She had lost her husband and her sons - years ago, but that's not something you ever really get over. And I had lost my mom - you never get over that. She had devoted her life to her country, to helping the man who had been elected to make it a better place, and I was trying to devote my life to something other than pain and rage.
I applied to be a messenger. That's almost hilarious now, looking back on it. Just think if they had hired me as messenger boy. I guarantee you I never would have seen the President, let alone met him, and now look at me; I'm dating his daughter and he's giving me family heirlooms that were crafted by Paul Revere. I'm a firm fixture in his life, and he in mine. And not that you would ever forget working for the President of the United States, but after you've dated his daughter and nearly gotten him killed because of it, well, it's a given you'll always be a part of each other's lives.
I didn't know what I was doing when I started working here. I applied to be a messenger, and suddenly I'm wearing suits and escorting foreign dignitaries into the Oval Office? Suddenly I'm answering calls from the Queen of England's press secretary and discussing the best Mexican food in DC with the governor of New York? Personal aide to the President? This is my life now?
I was a fish out of water, and it was Mrs Landingham who helped me through. Well, actually, everyone helped me through. From Leo to Josh to Sam, from CJ on down to her latest deputy, everyone did their best to help me adjust. It was like one big happy, dysfunctional family, and there was more than enough room for one more. They welcomed me, they accepted me, they included me in on inside jokes and trips down memory lane. They never made me feel less than anyone else. But it was Mrs Landingham who put her hand on my back and said, "Here, Charlie. This is the way it is done."
She helped me, just like she helped people all her life. Even after the man she loved was gone. Even after the children she adored were blown to bits in a terrifying war, Mrs Landingham kept right on going. She helped. It was who she was. I think that's important somehow.
I'm standing alone in the Oval Office now, staring out the window. The lights of D.C. are twinkling at me, and I'm having that moment that comes to you when you have just lost someone. I'm thinking, 'Was it just this afternoon I was teasing Mrs Landingham about taking me camping? Was it just last week that she made me a batch of her famous macadamia nut cookies? Was it just two years ago that she introduced herself and slapped a stack of files into my hands?'
I have had many epiphanies in my life. Losing my mother will always be the defining moment of my existence. The moment when my world pivoted and was altered forever; the moment I grew up in my head and in my heart.
But there were others after that. Falling in love with Zoey was a big one. Learning that love doesn't make everything all right was another. Coming to terms with my part in the...the night at Rosslyn - that was almost as big as losing my mother.
I'm having another moment like that tonight, so clear it's almost tangible.
I came to terms with the brevity of life after my mother's murder; the delicacy of life hit home when I fell in love with Zoey and realized that we must live in the moment at all times; after that
horrific night at the Newseum, when we didn't know whether Josh would live or die, the fragility of life finally got through to me.
Now I'm realizing the responsibility of life.
People always want to know what the meaning of life is. It's the eternal question. We're supposed to all want to know the answer. Only I've never really wondered. I've never even really thought about it. Why does there have to be a meaning to life? We're all here, isn't that good enough?
But now I know there is a meaning. And it's this - Responsibility to your fellow man. Helping each other out.
I don't care how simplistic that sounds, I think it's profound. Because I'm standing here, in this room where wars have begun and alliances have ended, in the same spot where great men have stood and looked out this very window, and all I can think is that Mrs Landingham affected my life more deeply than anyone I have ever known, except perhaps my mother. And I never even got to tell her. If that isn't heart-breaking, I don't know what is.
Because in a very real, if cliched sense, Mrs Landingham took over where my mother had to leave off. Only Mrs Landingham didn't preach or teach - not specifically. She didn't have the responsibility of mothering me, but she did do her best to serve as an example, in every word, in every gesture. Even when she didn't realize it.
I think my mom would have really liked Mrs Landingham.
"Charlie?"
I turn to find the President standing in the doorway. You know that expression about people aging overnight? Well, the President has managed to age twenty years in between now and the time I got that phone call.
"Yes, sir?"
"You're still here?"
"Yes, sir. Should I go?"
"No, no. Of course not. Sit down, sit down."
We sit down on opposite couches, facing each other. We are silent for a moment. The President is still white-faced and stunned.
"Sir? Can I get you anything?"
"No, Charlie." He pauses. "Charlie?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Do you believe in regret?"
"I don't believe in it, sir, but I certainly indulge in it."
He chuckles mirthlessly at that. "Do you regret things you never said?"
I see where he's going with this, and I owe it to him to be honest. "More than the things I did say."
He winces slightly and murmurs, "'I must not regret the things I did, but those I did not do'."
"It's an excellent motto," I say, and I wonder for a moment if he's thinking about Mrs Landingham or the other thing.
"I don't think I ever told her...just what she meant to me."
I am silent. I know he has more to say.
"She annoyed the hell out of me sometimes, Charlie."
I manage an little laugh at this stating of the obvious.
He continues. "She was a pushy old broad. Hell, you know it as well as I do. How many times a day did we bicker? Ten? Twenty?"
"At least, sir."
He sighs and begins to run his hand over his knee. "But you know, she stuck by me, Charlie. The woman was with me many years, and she was loyal every minute of them."
"Yes," I agree. It's hard to imagine Mrs Landingham as anything but loyal to the core.
"Do you think she knew, Charlie? Do you think she knew I valued her?"
I don't have to lie. I don't even have to alter the truth the least little bit. I nod emphatically. "I know she did, sir."
"Really?" His face lifts for a moment. "How do you know that?"
A smile creeps across my face. "Because she once told me any man with half a brain would know what she was worth, and that was being pretty generous on her part."
A chuckle rumbles from the President's chest, lingering for a moment, and then catching, ending in a hiccup that eases quickly into a sob. "That sounds like her," he says when he has choked it back.
I don't want him to beat himself up over this. I want him to grieve, but I also want him to save himself, to store away every available reserve of strength for what lies ahead.
"Sir, may I tell you something?"
"Of course, Charlie."
"I believe that every death teaches you a lesson, and every lesson is a piece of innocence you're never going to get back, whether for better or for worse. But even as you lose that innocence, you earn a new part of yourself that you could never have earned otherwise."
The President just looks at me, waiting for me to go on.
"Mrs Landingham would not want you to regret what's already been done, sir. 'We should take from the past its fire and not its ashes'."
"Jean Juares," he says with an understanding nod. "Charlie, I already miss her a lot."
I nod. "I can't imagine - " I say. Then I stop, because my voice has broken. I clear my throat. "I can't imagine looking up from my desk and seeing anyone else sitting across from me, no matter who it is. I just can't imagine it." When I look at the President, there are tears spilling out of his eyes.
"No," he whispers.
"We'll get through this, sir."
"Yes, we will." But he's wiping away tears as he says it, and he's looking old and tired, and utterly, utterly defeated.
"I'll help you any way I can, sir. I'll give up nights, weekends, whatever you - "
He puts up a hand to ward off a further tirade of words. "You've already given up too much, Charlie. You're going to have a lot to go through in the coming weeks; I can't ask for any more than that. It wouldn't be right."
"It's my job, sir."
He looks at me, prepared to argue, but when he sees determination on my face, he shrugs in acquiescence and says no more.
I have friends who think my job must be a real drag. My friend Dayton tells people I get paid to hang out with 'crusty old white folks'. I think he's secretly proud of what I do, but he's equally as
mystified. He doesn't even believe me when I tell him I enjoy it, that spending twelve hours of my day in the company of Mrs Landingham and President Bartlet is infinitely preferable to hanging out at the basketball court with the other guys. I don't even think Zoey believes me when I tell her.
But it's moments like this, even as devastating as it is, that make me glad to have my job. More than glad; honored, even. I am sitting here with the most powerful man in the world, and we are grieving together, and he is talking to me as an equal, and I am free to talk to him as I would any other man. And then I realize something else.
I know the answer to life, but do I really know the question? Maybe it's not so much 'Why are we here', as it is, 'Why am I here?'
They say that no man is an island. Your life is constantly affecting other lives, no matter how trivial the occasion, no matter how insignificant the decision. It's up to you to decide what you can do
with that powerful information.
I have a part to play in all of this. I am a key piece in this puzzle. I don't believe in fate, but I think I am meant to be here.
That's it. It's hitting me like a damn thunderbolt. And I want to scream, 'I know! I know! Why did it take so much pain for me to know?'
I would have loved to have been able to tell Mrs Landingham she taught me the answer to the meaning of life. But I would have loved even more to tell her that now I know the question.
THE END
_____________________
"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Yes...!"
"Of Life, the Universe, and Everything..."
"Yes...!"
"Is...Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"
"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy -