XIV
FRIDAY:
Donna had never really had much occasion to look after a hyperactive small child, but she suspected that if she was ever called upon, she'd be more than amply equipped to handle one. Perhaps as many as six at the same time. And a couple of big bouncy dogs. Anything would be easy after Josh.
He paced around the confines of his own office, not unlike a goldfish endlessly circling his bowl - if said goldfish had an irritating habit of picking up random objects and turning them over in his hands. And then putting them down in some place where they did not belong, but she would nonetheless be expected to locate them at a later date.
So far, he'd tripped over fourteen different objects - some of them more than once - walked into his desk twice, and hurt his hand thumping it against the wall; in anger or in triumph, she could no longer recall.
And they were only up to the Rs.
Josh stopped pacing for a brief moment and made a wordless sound of frustration. "Why is this taking so long?"
"At a guess? 'Cuz there are, you know, quite a few members of Congress?"
"Why can't they only show the interesting ones?"
"Oh, right. I'll get on the phone to the people organising the roll-call and tell them to make us a tape of Josh Lyman's personal highlights." In his distracted state, it took him a moment to realise that this wasn't a viable serious suggestion.
"You're not helping," he said accusingly, as he resumed pacing.
"It's all part of my dastardly plan," Donna offered, from her relatively safe vantage point of the doorway.
"You have a dastardly plan?"
"Yes. I'm trying to make your brain explode. In the ensuing confusion, I'll be able to take over your job 'cause nobody else knows where you keep anything."
"Well, this explains a great deal." Josh's attention was caught by the television, and he snapped "Oh, give over, Salisbury, everybody knows you're voting nay."
"Mr. Salisbury of Virginia votes nay," supplied the TV helpfully. Donna gave him a look.
"Why are you even watching this, if you already know how everybody's gonna vote?"
"To make sure everybody does what I told them!"
"Well, it's good to know megalomania isn't dead," she observed dryly.
"I'm not megalomaniacal! I simply- shut up," he reversed himself mid-sentence. Donna raised her eyebrows.
"You simply shut up? Well, this is a novelty."
"Shh! This is Tavestock." Josh came to a halt in front of the TV and meshed his fingers together, although he probably would have loudly denied it if anybody suggested the posture had anything to do with prayer. He positively jiggled up and down on the spot.
"Mr. Tavestock. Mr. Tavestock of North Carolina votes nay."
The frenetic ball of motion that was Josh came to an abrupt stop. The kind of stop that was usually achieved by crashing directly into a brick wall, at speed.
Donna took a tentative step towards him. "Josh-?"
Ignoring her, he walked straight past out into the bullpen, a zombie-like look of disbelief stamped across his face.
CJ found herself somehow wandering the corridors of the White House. Tavestock. They'd lost Tavestock.
This was some stupid thing with her being out of the loop again, right? They'd found the final vote from a different and more trustworthy source, but nobody had bothered to tell her. Yeah, that had to be it.
She met Sam coming out of the communications bullpen, his pained grimace for once replaced with a wide-eyed look of surprise. "What happened with Tavestock?" She could only shrug.
Toby followed him out, a dark scowl drawn across his features. "What the hell does he think he's doing?" CJ couldn't decide whether he meant Tavestock, Josh, or possibly even God. It certainly seemed like somebody Up There was jerking them around.
Without needing to discuss it, they all headed towards Josh's office. As he emerged from the bullpen, they all leapt on him.
"Josh, what-?"
"What the hell happened to-?"
"When did Tavestock-?"
He walked straight past all of them, barely seeming to register their presence. They looked at each other in confusion as Leo came pounding up the corridor.
"Okay, somebody tell me I'm hallucinating, because I sure as hell didn't really just see Alan Tavestock vote nay on Healthcare."
Nobody answered him. A timid Donna appeared in the doorway and gazed nervously at the four of them. Leo turned on her. "Where did Josh go?" he demanded furiously.
CJ wouldn't have thought anybody could look more worried than Donna had at that exact moment, but somehow she managed to surpass herself. "I have no idea," she admitted.
Josh blasted past the snooty secretary without waiting to be acknowledged, and slammed through the door into Tavestock's office. The Congressman was already behind his desk, perhaps having hurried back for this very confrontation. He lowered his feet from where they rested on the corner of his desk, and smiled coldly.
"Ah, Josh. I'd say this is a surprise, but... it really isn't." The smile became a smirk. "Yes, this has all been very predictable. Unlike, I rather suspect, your morning."
Josh was almost too apoplectic to string a complete sentence together. "You sabotaged the vote!" he managed to finally squeak out.
Tavestock laughed in his face, shaking his head in disbelief. "I knew you were arrogant, Josh, but this is beyond even you. You seriously thought I would vote your way after you strung me out?"
"What the hell is this?" Josh demanded furiously.
"This, Mr. Lyman, is what you call poetic justice," the Congressman told him dryly. "It's not personal, Josh," he added sarcastically. "Sometimes the cards come down against you... and you have to take a hit."
The sound of his own words parroted back at him sent him over the edge. "This is it!" Josh shouted, getting right up in the bigger man's face. "This is the last game you've played with us, Tavestock! How long you think you're gonna last in this town without the backing of your own administration? How about we revoke your access? How about we cut off your funding? How about we reopen that investigation, and this time we keep it open until it finds something?"
Tavestock's smile shut down into an icy mask. "How about you leave my office, Mr. Lyman, before I have you thrown out by security."
There must have been some small force of self-preservation at work, to stop him from giving in to his first instinct and sinking his fist right into the Congressman's fleshy, self-satisfied face. Josh stepped back, shaking his head.
"You think you can play games with us, Tavestock? It's about time you learned where the limits of your powers lie."
The Congressman leaned forward. "On the contrary, Josh," he said sharply. "I think it's time you learned where yours do. In case you've forgotten, I'm a member of the United States Congress, and I'm not beholden to you or yours."
It was either leave or start a brawl, and Josh suddenly found himself sapped of all energy. The bill he'd spent his heart and soul to secure had crashed and burned around him. As he turned to leave, Tavestock's mocking laughter chased him out. "Every vote counts, Josh," he said smugly. "Maybe you should have remembered that before you hung me out to dry."
Josh had no memory of leaving the building, or of walking through the streets of DC to wherever this was that he'd ended up. He wasn't aware of the people passing by, or even of the bench he'd somehow found to collapse on. All he could feel was the crushing weight of his failure.
He'd sweated for this bill. He'd jumped through hoops and brokered deals, called in every last favour the administration could hope to hang on. And it had all come to nothing.
How could he ever have been so mind-numbingly stupid? What had happened to his ability to judge people? How could he not have seen Tavestock's betrayal coming?
He'd sworn to Leo that the bill was theirs, that he could pull it through. He'd fired up the senior staff, and convinced CJ to tell the press that it was going through. He'd been so smugly proud of his scraped victory, that vital one vote margin.
Well, that vital one vote margin had gone the other way, and now it was all finished.
The bill.
His political reputation, and the influence that came with it.
And maybe, just maybe, the very last chance the Bartlet administration had of rescuing their second term from the ashes.