VII

"Hey, Carol."

"Oh, hey, Bonnie!" Carol slowed her walk and gave the Communications assistant a curious smile. "You're still here? I thought all you guys had gone home."

"Ain't nobody in the office but me and Toby. And I am out of here." Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Sam bailed about three hours ago, for which I totally do not blame him, and I drew the short straw to babysit His Grumpiness in his place."

"Toby's still working?" Carol asked, surprised. CJ was still in her office, of course, waiting for news on poor Rick, but so far as she knew there was nothing particularly big going down in Communications. "Is he waiting for news on the hostages?"

"No." Bonnie contradicted herself with a shrug. "Well, I don't know. He could be. But he's been like this all week. It wouldn't be so bad that he's practically living in his office, if it wasn't for the fact that he's also actively trying to kill everybody who comes within shouting distance."

Carol winced. "Any idea what's eating him?"

Bonnie could only shrug. "He's Toby. We'll probably never know."

"Yeah." She grimaced nervously. "Think he knows something we don't?"

"I hope not," said Bonnie fervently, and Carol nodded in agreement. They were all aware of Toby's semi-legendary ability to pick up when something enormously bad was on the horizon. Carol wasn't sure whether it meant he was super-smart or just the only one pessimistic enough to believe all these awful things could happen to them.

But surely they were due a little break from bad news right at the moment. It seemed like there hadn't been a single thing gone right for them since reelection. The chain had to break sometime - didn't it?

As she waved off her friend and returned faithfully to CJ's side, Carol only hoped that Toby's psychic disaster sensors weren't pointing to anything happening to Rick Maskey.

Leo McGarry studied his president with an affection that would have embarrassed him if his old friend had glanced up and seen it in his face. Small chance of that; for all that his glasses were perched on his nose and a briefing book lay open on his lap, Jed Bartlet's head was nodding against his chest in the first stages of a much-needed doze.

When did we become old men? Leo wondered to himself. Surely there had been a time when they had both been young and fiery and ready to take on the world? Or had he just imagined that? Truth to tell, he hadn't felt young in a long, long time.

But Jed... Leo had always been quietly envious of the way his friend could get caught up in something, wrap himself in a dream so that his eyes lit up and the years fell away. He would be talking about something, and suddenly you would see through the distinguished looks of his later years to the bright-eyed boy as he'd first met as his old friend Abbey's new fiancé.

That look, that sudden sense of boyish wonder, had been sorely lacking in Jed Bartlet's face of late, and Leo missed it. The president looked tired all the time, and he feared the relentless stream of political defeats were taking their toll. They badly needed a victory to recharge their leader's batteries.

Leo wondered with a quiet smirk what the American people would think if they saw their leader now. Head dipping ever-closer to the pages of his briefing book, he looked more like everybody's favourite grandpa than the leader of the free world.

He looked up at the quiet sound of the door, and Charlie padded in with a glance at the sleeping president that mirrored Leo's amused affection. He decided to take the safer route, and came over to Leo.

"We've got the call," he said quietly, and Leo sat upright.

"They got the hostages out? Was anybody hurt?"

"They had to shoot the hostage-taker," Charlie told him, and Leo squeezed his eyes shut in dismay. "One of the hostages has a head-wound, and Rick Maskey was shot."

CJ's reporter. Aw, hell. "How bad?" he asked urgently.

"Not so bad," Charlie said, with a tentative smile. "He was hit in the arm, and they think he's gonna be okay."

"Well, thank God for that at least." There would have probably have been grave publicity-related repercussions to the death of a White House reporter in a gun crime, but dealing with that would have paled against facing an angry CJ. It had been partly his idea that Maskey would be safer if the hostage-taker knew he wasn't a politician. Had he been wrong? Had their plan saved the hostages from worse injury, or caused the ones that had already happened?

He stood up to take the call. Charlie hovered, glancing at the figure in the other chair, still oblivious to their exchange. "Should I tell the president?" he asked, obviously all too eager to put the responsibility for waking the sleeping bear on somebody else's shoulders.

Leo looked across at the snoozing president, and smiled. Injuries or not, everybody but the shooter had got out alive. This was good news. Good news could wait.

"Let him sleep a little," he advised, and they both crept out and left the president to his slumber.

CJ was bone tired, but her exhaustion disappeared the moment Leo appeared in the doorway. She leapt to her feet. "Leo, did we-?" He waved her back into her seat.

"It's done."

"The hostages?" she demanded quickly.

"One guy got whacked on the head with something," Leo told her. "It's quite a nasty head wound, but they're expecting him to pull through."

"Not the Congressman?"

He shook his head. "We'll have his details through before your next briefing." Leo grimaced. "Rick Maskey got shot."

CJ jolted straight back to her feet, and Leo quickly raised a hand to quiet her. "He was shot in the arm. He's receiving medical attention right now, he's gonna be fine."

Some of the panic bled out of her features, but a wary dismay replaced it. "Leo, did we-?"

"CJ-" He was already shaking his head warningly.

"Did we do this?" she completed, relentless.

Leo let out a heavy sigh. "CJ, it's a hostage situation. We don't know what's going through his head, we don't know what's gonna set him off... He didn't shoot Rick because we told him he was a reporter. He shot Rick because he panicked, and we don't know if that... We got the hostages out alive, CJ."

"Yeah." There was a moment of silence, and then she asked "The shooter?"

"Dead," Leo said heavily. CJ just nodded. Should they be glad? Sorry? Relieved? It was never that easy to separate the emotions into neat little boxes.

"Rick's gonna be okay?" she asked instead.

"He'll be fine." Leo smiled. "Might have a little trouble typing-"

"We should give him an exclusive," CJ said impulsively.

"On what?"

"On whatever."

"For getting shot?"

CJ shrugged. "Seems like a damn good reason to me."

"You think nobody's gonna notice that we gave the guy an exclusive for getting shot?" Leo pointed out.

"Hey, they wanna go get themselves shot, they can get in line," CJ said sharply.

Leo hesitated, then smiled. "The president's gonna want to talk to this guy anyway."

"Yeah."

"Give the guy his time in the spotlight," he nodded. "He's earned it." Leo turned to go, and CJ jerked a thumb towards the briefing room.

"I'll go tell the press."

Leo frowned. "They're still here?"

"He's one of their own," she reminded him softly.

"Yeah."

They were both silent, remembering all the good and bad news they'd waited up for on far too many occasions. CJ finally let loose a fragile smile. "This could have gone down a lot worse," she admitted.

"Yeah." Leo nodded. "Yeah, it could." He straightened up, and turned to leave. "Goodnight."

"It is," she called back, and grabbed her glasses as she headed for the press room. Rick Maskey had been shot, but he was alive, and he would recover.

It was a good night.