V
WEDNESDAY:
"Okay, everybody." Leo nodded to CJ, Toby and Sam as he took his place at his desk. "We're gonna start by-" He was interrupted by a knock; oddly enough, from the door to Margaret's area, not the president's passage from the Oval Office. He raised his voice. "Yes?"
The door opened, and a slightly abashed Josh appeared in the doorway. He gave them all a tentative smile. "Hi."
"Josh!" CJ ran over to give him a hug, her place taken by a grinning Sam the moment he let go. Leo felt a huge smile split his own face, whilst Toby restrained himself to a nod.
Initial hugging over, Leo rearranged his face into a mock-stern expression. "What time d'you call this?" he demanded.
"It's Donna's fault," Josh insisted quickly.
"Oh, yes?" he asked sardonically. "And how did Donna delay you this time?"
"She... exuded late vibes."
CJ giggled, and hugged him again. "You had us worried, Joshua," she told him sternly.
"I know. I'm sorry," he said seriously. "I needed to sort my head out."
"You mean you needed someone to sort it out for you," Leo interjected pointedly, and Josh smiled in acknowledgement. In that moment, Leo knew that neither of them would ever mention the still unopened letter burning a hole in his desk drawer.
It would be going through the shredder the moment this meeting was over.
"Are you gonna be okay, Josh?" Sam asked him softly.
Josh met his eyes. "I'm fine," he nodded. And unlike most of the times he said those words, Leo believed it. "But I've been watching the news, and I see some people out there have been saying nasty - not to mention fundamentally untrue - things about me." Josh straightened up, and smiled. "Let's go to war."
Everybody in the room smiled back, Toby included. Leo looked to his team.
"CJ, what's our next move?"
"Talk to the press," she said without hesitation. "Get it out there that Josh is back at work, he's here to stay, and all cylinders are firing."
"As much as they usually do," Toby interjected, and they laughed. Leo felt a strange kind of excitement rising. There was an energy in the room that had been missing for too long. The staff were meshing, joining back together into the indivisible wall they'd always used to present to the outside world. What had Jed called it the other day? A gestalt entity. Greater than the sum of its parts.
The Bartlet team were back.
Sam leaned forward. "Okay. So far as I can see, our best tactic with the press is to-"
"Let me talk to them," Josh interrupted, quiet but forceful.
"Okay, if that was meant to be anticipating what I was gonna say, you're way off," Sam informed him.
Josh smiled and tiredly rubbed his face. "I... I want it to be me who talks to the press. I want to explain... I want it to be me who talks about this."
CJ was shaking her head emphatically before he got halfway into the first sentence. Leo peered at his deputy over his glasses. "Josh, do you recall a ban being placed on you getting within twenty feet of the press room? 'Cause-"
"This isn't a briefing," Josh reminded him. "This is about me."
"They'll be asking you questions, Josh, and you're not gonna like most of them," Sam pointed out.
"You'll get hostile," CJ agreed.
"I won't get hostile!"
"You always get hostile," she snapped.
Josh turned pleading his eyes to his boss. "Leo... I need to do this. It's important. It's something I need to do, like... like therapy."
"Which is what I'm gonna need before this is over," CJ muttered despairingly.
Leo hesitated. But unlike the others, he knew exactly how seriously Josh had been considering resigning over this... and perhaps he did need to do this. "Okay," he nodded. "But if I hear we've got a secret plan to do anything-"
"Hey!"
"-I'm changing our story back to you're mentally unstable. Clear?"
Josh smiled. "Clear."
Zoey dashed around the kitchen, trying to eat toast, pack a bag, and do her makeup all at the same time. Her roommate Kelly was frustratingly calm as she sat at the table, leafing through her newspaper. But then, Kelly didn't have an early-morning class.
An early-morning class that she'd had every Wednesday for the whole semester and still managed to be late for every single time.
"I can't believe we're nearly done with college," Zoey admitted, checking her face in the mirror for smudges too bad to get away with.
"You're nearly done, honey, I've still got another year, remember?" Kelly pointed out, flipping to the next page. "Hey, do you know this Josh Lyman guy?"
"Yeah." She pulled a face at herself in the mirror. "I hope he's okay. I got to know him pretty well on the campaign, the first time? He was kind of my special friend out of all the- euw! Not like that!" she objected, at Kelly's raised eyebrow. "No, I just mean... he was always really nice. Didn't treat me like a six-year-old."
"Talking of special friends..." Kelly began teasingly.
Zoey shot her a mock-exasperated glare. "Aw, Kelly! I am not telling you anything about Charlie!"
"Oh, come on! I'm your friend, you won't even tell me the saucy details?"
"There are no saucy details!" she objected, turning red despite herself.
"Still?" Kelly demanded. "Honestly, Zoey, what is this guy, a monk?"
Zoey giggled. "No! He's just really really scared of my dad."
Kelly smiled, and said more softly "But you guys are getting pretty serious, aren't you?"
Zoey blushed shyly. "Yeah." She was barely conscious of the way she automatically patted her chest to make sure the ring was still there. Kelly, on the other hand, saw the gesture just fine; a confirmation of what she'd been suspecting ever since she'd seen what her roommate had on a silver chain the previous night.
When Zoey was out the door, she could only restrain herself a matter of moments before rushing to the nearest phone. "Hey, Melissa," she drawled as her friend picked up on the other end. "You'll never guess who's just got engaged..."
This was a bad idea. In fact, on a scale of bright ideas, it - to borrow from one ex-roommate's occasionally useful vocabulary - pretty much sucked the big one.
"Josh, don't do this," she pleaded, absently straightening the lapels of his suit jacket.
Josh smiled at her. "Why not, Donna?" he asked, looking to the ceiling as if she was the exasperating one.
"Because - no offence - when it comes to press conferences? You're pretty much a big dork."
He gave her a look. "'Kay, Donna? Which part of that, exactly, was the inoffensive part?"
"The part where I said 'no offence'?"
"Donna, I'll be fine."
"'Fine' fine, or 'I've got a secret plan to fight inflation' fine?"
Josh abruptly pulled away from her endeavours to make him look presentable and scowled. "Why does everybody keep bringing that up?"
"Because it proves a point."
"What point?"
"Mostly, that when it comes to press conferences, you're pretty much a great big dork."
"Okay, but I was only a 'big dork' a moment ago."
"Trust me, Josh, by the time this is over you'll be a bigger dork than ever." She was teasing, but her eyes communicated her very real worry. Don't embarrass yourself out there, Josh. Don't lose it in front of the press. Please.
Josh surprised her by stepping back into her personal space to give her a quick hug. "I'll be fine, Donna. Trust me."
"Not much chance of that," she said automatically, and he smiled. He pulled away as CJ appeared in the doorway.
"Okay, Josh, I've got-"
Josh breezed past her. "I'm ready for this, CJ." He ran his hands down his jacket, theoretically smoothing it, but in fact unsmoothing all the smoothing she'd just done for him. "Let's go."
They walked towards the press room.
Jed looked up at his Chief of Staff. "Josh is going out there?"
"Yeah." Leo's expression looked as if he wasn't quite sure whether to be going for fatherly pride or extreme terror.
A sudden thought struck him. "Leo, he'd better not be going out there to deliver a public resignation," he said warningly.
For a moment Leo looked worried, and then he set his jaw. "He's not," he said, with only the barest flicker of uncertainty. He cracked a grin. "We had Donna beat the martyr instinct out of him."
"Good, good," Jed nodded. They both watched the screen as Carol talked to the press in preparation for Josh's statement. He considered ordering Leo to take a seat, but knew it would have little effect. Whether he admitted it or not, he was jittery with nerves, and Jed himself felt his stomach tighten as Josh took the podium. They'd both promised to stand by him, but this press conference could make or break Josh's career in ways they had no control over.
He glanced up at Leo again. "Just tell me I'm not coming out of this with any top secret strategies."
Leo's eyes stayed fixed on the screen. "Oh, he knows that if we do we're going with the 'mentally unstable' story."
"Okay."
His fingers tightened on the arms of the chair as Josh began to speak.