XIV

He felt an irrational stab of panic as they approached the hospital, and fought it down. This isn't about you, Josh. Get over yourself. He was supposed to be here to provide a comforting familiar presence for CJ - much good he would do if he ended up collapsing and hyperventilating and she had to help him.

Still, it was hard not to feel that phantom constriction in his chest, and when one of the ambulances pulled away with its sirens blaring, his friendly grip on CJ's arm must have tightened, because she looked at him worriedly.

"Don't worry about me," he reassured her gently. "Come on, let's go find your dad."

The stereotype of the disinterested receptionist was obviously doing somebody a disservice, because the young woman at the desk was friendly and sympathetic. Josh spared her a grateful smile as he and CJ headed toward the elevator.

As they got out on the right floor, a tall red-headed man with a neat goatee beard hurried towards them. Josh had already met him briefly at some campaign-stop or other, but he would have recognised something of CJ around the eyes anyway.

"Peter." CJ moved away from Josh to give her younger brother a close hug. "How is he?" she asked anxiously as she pulled back.

Peter pulled a face and ran a tired hand over his eyes. "He's in and out. Robert's in there with him now."

"Okay." CJ passed through into the hospital room, and Josh hung back to give her some privacy. The first glimpse of someone you loved looking small and shrunken in a hospital bed was always a shock, no matter how prepared you were.

Peter gave him a distracted smile. "It's Mr. Lyman, right?"

"Josh," he correctly quickly.

"Thanks for coming up here," he said gratefully. "I wouldn't like to think of CJ making that flight all on her own."

Josh shrugged the praise off, knowing that any one of his colleagues would have been willing to do the same. He took a brief glance through the doorway; CJ was sitting by the head of her father's bed, her older brother gripping her arm. Jack Cregg lay unconscious, moving and mumbling slightly in his sleep. Josh was no expert, but it didn't look to him that the old man was much longer for this world. He only hoped that he would wake some time before the end came, and CJ would have a chance to say a proper goodbye.

They exited the theatre giggling. Zoey clung to his arm delightedly, any trace of annoyance she might have been harbouring towards him forgotten. "That was great! We should go again!"

"Yeah, because it's not as if I already cleaned out my bank account getting these tickets," Charlie reminded her dryly.

"I'm not worth it?" she demanded, pretending to be hurt.

"Yeah, I'll have to think about that." She gave him a playful shove.

"Remind me why I decided to keep you?"

"Free supply of theatre tickets?"

"Yeah, that must be it."

"Zoey." One of her agents appeared, ready to usher her to the limousine. They'd been edgy enough about her coming to the show at such short notice, although it was a venue they'd scoped out before. It had been afternoon when they went in, early evening now, and the streets were beginning to darken.

Zoey turned back to him. "You want a ride?" He glanced at his watch. "Oh, we're not fast enough for you, now?"

"No, I've got an errand to run." He should just about have time before the store closed...

"So we'll drop you off," she shrugged, but Charlie shook his head.

"It's a surprise."

"For me?"

"No, it's for your limo driver." She rolled her eyes.

"Fine, go ahead and walk! Just don't expect me to offer again."

He grinned, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Maybe." She spoiled her pretence at a haughty mood by grinning. "Goodnight, Charlie."

"Goodnight, Zoey." He kissed her again, on the lips this time, ignoring the impatiently hovering protection detail. Then he pulled back, gave her a tiny wave, and headed out into the rapidly darkening streets.

"Mr. President." Stanley stood up quickly as the president entered the study. The shorter man waved him back into his seat.

"Stanley," he nodded. Stanley watched the president lower himself into his chair, scanning his face for signs of the same weariness he'd seen at their first meeting. He looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but then he supposed that was, all things considered, rather appropriate.

"Okay, so... have you been having trouble sleeping?" he probed cautiously. Jed Bartlet, he'd quickly discovered, was a complicated enough personality to unravel even without all the extra layers the presidency laid over him. Joshua Lyman had been - offended as he would probably be at the idea - a relatively predictable encounter; he'd had plenty of practise defusing high-risers with flawless academic records and fragile personalities.

President Bartlet, though... They'd spoken, briefly, of the fact that one of his staffers had accused him of embodying two personalities. Stanley privately thought that had been an amazingly astute diagnosis, although he suspected the two were far more closely intertwined than that unknown staffer had suggested. It wasn't a simple case of flipping between the steely-eyed intellectual and the playful, avuncular prankster; they were both there, all the time, and whenever you made a comment you could never be sure which of the two might choose to leap on it.

He was used to being the one doing the analysing - not being deconstructed just as expertly in return. Also, he had a strong suspicion that President Bartlet was considerably brighter than he was. As a man who was accustomed to holding his own as the intellectual high point of any gathering, he found that more than a little disconcerting.

The president gave him a wry smile. "Actually, I've been having trouble staying awake."

"And you think the cause is psychological?"

"Actually, I happen to know it isn't." He hesitated for a long beat, and then met the psychiatrist's eyes. "I'm suffering complications from my MS. My health is... not critical, but it's not good."

And Stanley wouldn't have guessed that anything he could hear in a therapy session could feel so much like a kick in the teeth. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Sir, I-"

The president waved him quiet. "It's minor; minor problems, nothing that would affect my ability to do my job. But I have been warned that my position isn't doing me any favours... and I think we need to talk about that."

"Sir, I..." He stood up, shaking his head. "In all honestly, I'm really not sure I'm qualified to advise you on this." He was a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor. What did he know about MS, beyond the fact that the president had it, it was neither fatal nor curable, and even people who actually knew about it couldn't predict it?

The president regarded him from under lowered brows. "Well, you may not think you're qualified, but in the pool of people I can talk to about this, you're the only one to have the distinction of not being married to me, so why don't you sit right back down there and try to look knowledgeable?"

He sat right back down there and tried to look knowledgeable.

Josh gently laid a hand on CJ's shoulder. "CJ. You should come back to the hotel, try to get some rest." It was early yet, but the journey had been tiring, and CJ had spent most of it gripping the armrests so tightly it was painful to watch.

She was obviously reluctant to leave - she'd stayed at her father's side without moving the whole time, as if sheer force of concentration she could make him wake up. Josh could sympathise, but he feared she was running herself into the ground. She'd been living with this since Monday, and then there'd been the president's health scare and Sam's media outing - and it wasn't as if they'd been having a very restful couple of weeks before that.

"You should get something to eat; take a shower, try to get some sleep," he told her. Not that relocating her to the hotel was likely to be enough to accomplish that; he knew full-well what a little bit of floating guilt could do to your sleep patterns. Even with the sudden and completely unexpected nature of his own father's death, he couldn't help thinking that if he'd only been there...

Stop it, Josh. His collection of past guilts, polished smooth from years of turning them over, would still be waiting for him when he got back to DC. Right now, he was here to be a friend to CJ.

She accepted his hand to help her up, but cast a worried glance back at her unconscious father. "I should-"

"You should go, Claudia Jean," her older brother told her, gripping her shoulder in a brief gesture of comfort. "We'll still be here."

"I promise, I'll call you if anything changes," chimed in Peter. Josh had quickly decided he liked the Cregg brothers. They obviously adored their sister, and it was clear neither of them blamed her for the way her job kept her away. Not that they needed to; he was sure CJ was giving herself more than enough of a mental beating over that.

"Okay," she agreed slowly. "Um, I'll-"

"Josh gave me all the numbers for your cells and the hotel and everything," Peter reassured her, holding up a neatly folded square of paper. CJ gave Josh an enquiring look.

"Donna organised me before we left," he admitted. He was rewarded with a fragile grin.

"Okay, I'm just gonna go find a restroom," she excused herself. Josh suspected that when she emerged, she'd look every inch the polished and professional press secretary, no hint of the turmoil beneath reaching the surface. But that was all right, because he knew the real CJ, and even though she was probably one of the strongest people he knew, he was still prepared to give her every bit of comfort he could afford. He'd realised, in the aftermath of the political error and PTSD attack that had almost cost him his job, that he'd spent entirely too much time being a good politician and not enough being a good friend. And he was determined to change that.

As he waited, hands in pockets, in the hospital corridor, Robert came out to join him. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "Little sister thinks she can kick the world's ass." He grinned. "Between you and me, I think she's probably right. But it's good that she's got people looking out for her."

Josh shrugged. "Hey, I won't let her down." He smiled. "Or else I'll be facing the wrath of Toby Ziegler."

Robert smirked, and shook his hand. "In that case? I have no worries. Seriously, thanks, man."

"No problem."

He released his grip as CJ returned to join them. She hugged both her brothers, and then Josh lightly took her arm. "Come on, CJ. Let's go."