AUTHOR: Kathleen E. Lehew
CHARACTERS: Josiah Bartlet. Sorry, that's all I can give you without spoiling it ;-)).
SPOILERS: Goodness me, yes! General, from season 1 through to the beginning of season 3. There are direct dialogue quotations from the episodes 'Proportional Response', 'Two Cathedrals', and 'Manchester, Part One'. There is also a direct quotation from another source, however you're going to have to wait till the closing Author's notes on that one.
SUMMARY: This story takes place sometime during the events depicted during 'Two Cathedrals', and 'Manchester, Parts One & Two'. A great deal went on that night, not the least of which was a storm as backdrop to doubts and fears. It was a long road to renewed determination and conviction, but he found it.
DISCLAIMER: Of course they're not mine G. So any lawyer-type persons out there, please settle down. I'll give them back when I'm done, promise. The surrounding words, however, are mine. Caught them and beat them into submission myself.
FEEDBACK: It would be appreciated, really, either here or at nitehowl@livingston.net. As an author, this is an entirely new style for me, one I've never tried before, and I'd appreciate knowing if I managed to pull it off or not.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'd like to dedicate this exercise in words to Anne, Nomad, Amanda/MAHC and SheilaVR, all of whom in their own way have both encouraged and inspired me to attempt this. I'd especially like to thank Sheila, whose patience and forbearance as an editor/beta reader cannot be measured, and whose efforts have kept me from mauling the English language anymore than I already have. Thank you, all.
That said, no more notes or mea culpas. However, check out the closing Author's Notes accompanying part two of this story. A few more points and questions raised here will, hopefully, be made clear.
For now, onward…
'Such is Time'
~*~
Future Tense
By
Kathleen E. Lehew
Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, and joys, and all we have;
And pays us but with age and dust,
Which, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
And from which earth and grave and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
From Even Such is Time
Sir Walter Raleigh: 1552 - 1618
The White House; Washington D.C.
A battle was raging outside.
Staring out the blurred, rain spattered window, he ignored the cynical voice of his own thoughts, and listened instead to the wind as it whistled hauntingly round the building's corners. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the glass pane in front of him rattled ominously. Hands clasped behind his back, blinking myopically through his spectacles into the murky darkness, broad shoulders tensing with each crack of lightning, he considered the implied irony and wondered if God were indeed baiting him.
Like the storm, the question hammered at him. There were two wars, two battles being fought this night. Nature and the elements had their playground and their conductor. Who then was conducting the battle he was about to fight with his own body? Or his own fears and doubts?
Stubborn to the last, he had absolutely no intention of permitting himself to negotiate a surrender, either to the roar of the cascading storm, or the mocking voice he could hear directing them. Grimly silent, and already sensing the coming defeat, he was painfully aware that it always started out that way. Defiance for him was easy, even when the opponents were beyond his reach.
A late summer flu, that was all it was.
He did not find that thought satisfying, or very convincing. It was not that simple, not anymore.
He knew the signs, the harbingers of what was to come. First came the chills, then the descent into mind-numbing fever and uncontrollable shivering. He knew them all. The body he had struggled all his life to hone and preserve would fail the battle and refuse his commands. In this he knew his authority to be worthless.
Seething with a helpless rage tinged with humiliation, he regarded it all as the ultimate treachery. A betrayal he could not combat nor could he defy. Where was the lesson in that? The answer came before he finished the question.
Pride goeth before a fall.
And the Good Lord knew he had pride. A cold shudder spread through him, caused equally by insistent memory as much by current physical failings. He realized penitently that many had quietly, and with humility he lacked, pointed this out to him, even his beloved wife. The iron control and dynamic conviction with which he ruled those around him always failed him in this. It was arrogance, pure and simple. So sure of himself and his rightfully earned place to reign, to dominate, he forgot the lesson.
Nothing had been earned this time, either by strength of mind or his own convictions. Death had given him this moment, this chance to rule as so many, himself included, had seen as the inevitable future. The future had come, but not as foreseen or even desired, not like this. If he hadn't earned it, what was left?
That evening, Senator Hanna, always moon-eyed and now ancient and weighed down with recent sorrow, had told him a truth. The warning was no less grim than the first time he had issued it all those terrible days ago. "Do not think anything about a second term."
A second term. This term, beginning a new millennium, unearned and with death and sickness as markers, had barely begun, yet already that specter of defeat left a bitter taste in his mouth at the possible ending. An ending he did not and would not choose. That was the future these messengers trumpeted.
If there was no future, why even bother to fight? His first instinct had always been for combat, but faith and conviction could only take you so far. If defeat was indeed inevitable, why bother to even try?
He squeezed his eyes shut, impatiently trying to pull his drifting thoughts together. Was that the lesson? If so, he wasn't listening. Stubborn and prideful to the last, he never did.
And as had happened before and would no doubt happen again, the Good Lord in his divine wisdom had sent him a reminder. He would vow to remember, to never forget the brush with mortality that so often laid him low. He could admit that truth graciously, if not humbly. It wasn't in his nature to be humble, even before God.
A wry, twisted smile accompanied the memory and the admission. Lightning flashed, soon followed by the rumble of thunder, serving only to punctuate the bitter truth. The Divine knew him all too well. He never remembered the vow or the lesson, only the fight. And he so loved a good fight. A pity he had never learned to be as gracious in defeat as he was in victory.
The Almighty knew that, too. Turning abruptly away from the window, he laughed that short, snapping bark of mirth he knew so irritated those around him. It lacked dignity, or so those who dared make the observation to his face had told him. Few did.
'And where,' he bitterly wanted to ask those nay-sayers, 'was the dignity in this?'
He had never asked the question aloud, and therefore never received an answer. Not even from God. If the thunder and lightning raging outside were the answer to that silent query, he refused to listen. He would suffer alone and leave cryptic responses where they belonged: outside.
A summer flu.
An empty plea, and with it the last traces of resistance vanished.
Starting to shiver with the beginnings of fever, bone-weary with fatigue from the fights he'd won or lost this day, and those he dared not yet contemplate, he turned down the covers of the bed and carefully lowered himself onto the edge of the soft mattress. Removing his spectacles and laying them with a shaking hand on the corner bed stand, he pressed both hands over eyes that burned with exhaustion. This battle had yet to begin and already he felt drained, hollow and empty. Losing battles had never been his forte, and he knew with embittered certainty that this war was already lost.
This time he didn't laugh at the thought. He couldn't. There was nothing left. Not even that odd sense of humor, equal parts puzzling and annoying to those around him, could find purchase on this.
With a long, weary sigh he lay back against the pillow. His hand strayed to the empty space next to him, listlessly searching for a warm and loving presence, a comfort that was not there. He ached at her absence, and a shiver spread over him as he remembered. Sagamore Hill. She and the children were home, waiting for him.
He was alone.
Her face haunted him as he closed his eyes. Her smiles, serious or thoughtful, brought him some small comfort. He clung to the memory as the first waves of the coming storm broke over him. Perhaps the simple thought of her would keep the nightmares at bay, drive away the doubts clouding his certainties. It never had before, but he always hoped.
'Let the future take responsibility for itself, and damn the rest.' The thought came easily. At this moment in time, tired of losing battles posterity would never know or understand, he could no longer find it within himself to even care.
Punctuated by the mockery of the thunder, it was his last waking thought before he drifted off into troubled sleep.
~*~
Rain lashed madly against the bedroom window.
Staring blankly at the phone in his hand, he was so tired his nerves throbbed, pounding in rhythm to the headache that threatened to split his skull. He tried to cling to the pain, but it proved a poor anchor, unable to hold against the tides of exhaustion and fatigue that drained what little vitality he had left. Who was he going to call anyway? There were no secrets anymore.
And what difference would it make?
Even the sound of the storm still raging outside failed to rouse him from the creeping numbness that weighed him down, body and soul. There had been too many fights today, and all of them of his own choosing. Weariness, along with a hint of something more dire and familiar, enveloped him as he struggled to concentrate, tried to remember why he had chosen this particular battle when it would have been so easy to let it go.
Admitting the truth to himself, if not others, was easy. Pride, fueled by stubborn anger. And perhaps it was because it had been his choice, a battle he had some small chance of winning. He could fight it standing on his own two feet, not laid low and helpless as a child by a menace he couldn't even see. It allowed him one last tattered shred of dignity at least.
Collapsing onto the edge of the bed, his fingers tightened convulsively around the phone still clutched in his hand. Finger hovering hesitantly over the button that would instantly summon help, he wondered again why he didn't call, what was stopping him. It had taken him long enough to learn the intricacies of the intercom system. It was all so very simple, even if the choice wasn't. Why didn't he call?
It was only the flu.
A short, bitter laugh and he idly wondered how often he could repeat that thought and make it be true. It was never only the flu, not anymore. He'd lost that excuse along with any comfort he might have claimed from it years ago. All too quickly he'd found himself flung back to earth from the heights of vain self-importance, humbled by a mortality he had never truly contemplated.
Arrogance and pride. Had he truly been guilty of those sins? Or had the Divine simply been hedging his bets, weighing the future against lessons that needed to be learned before the actual choices were made. Pride he had already admitted to, but arrogance? When had he been guilty of that failing? If this were indeed a lesson, he would have dearly loved to feel he'd earned it.
He had never dared ask why, then or now. The author of his current predicament might answer, and right now neither of them were exactly on civil speaking terms. He could be humble before God, but not shamed. Was a little dignity too much to ask for?
A crack of vicious, condemning thunder rumbled through the building, emphasizing the point. Shaking his head, he smiled ruefully, admitting finally to the conceit. God was hardly subtle when making an argument. Perhaps it was arrogance. So much had been given to him, and so much taken away, he too often forgot the true lesson.
Thou art mortal.
For the third time he dropped the phone back on to its cradle, refusing to call. Mortal he may be, but this battle belonged to him, and to God. They didn't need an audience. And he was tired of the looks; the questions hovering unasked like a death shroud, suffocating him. Those around him may know the truth, but they didn't understand. How could they? Besides, if he called, would she come?
He wasn't so sure of that anymore. The space next to him on the bed was empty. It was late, and she still hadn't returned. From where? He didn't know and was too exhausted to even contemplate. The events of the day were a twisted, confused mess. All he could remember was the condemnation in her eyes when last they'd spoke.
Spoke? He laughed aloud at that thought, shivers of chill and fatigue accompanying the harsh sound. A mocking peal of thunder, commentary he could have done without, only made it worse. They hadn't spoke, they'd fought, using coldly civil words as weapons. His memory of her face was pure and painfully clear. She had thrown her words at him like stones, her flashing eyes conveying the betrayed anger that sharpened those verbal edges with deadly accuracy.
His wife had wanted answers, and he had none to give, only his own belligerent silence. That silence had stretched until it had become unbearable. Was it arrogance that left him unable to explain, to give her answers to questions that he himself hadn't truly asked? Trapped by his own lie, he'd taken the coward's way out, and said nothing.
And the lies only grew. Running his hand across his forehead he could feel the perspiration, the beginnings of yet another lie. It was only the flu. That was an excuse he wouldn't be able to use anymore, not that he had very many left to use. That particular bag was empty.
He had felt listless all evening, muscles aching along with the dull pain in his back that never seemed to subside; no matter how many pills he took. It was his own fault really, that spark of conceit and vanity that made him stand in the rain, hurling his anger into the storm while it raged around him. He had so wanted a fight, and since God was the only one to show, he'd stood his ground and let his mortal fury have reign.
No umbrella, no coat. Nobody had dared question him or insist on protection from the elements. They wouldn't even dare look him in the eye. He'd charged alone into a future as dark as any without purpose or guide. Only his anger led the way, the ultimate conceit. Was his anger enough of an excuse for what he'd done?
"Yeah," he'd told them, driven by a cold fury that drowned the voice of his own conscience. Arrogance had made him add, "And I'm going to win."
He had chosen that battlefield, but now didn't have the will to continue. Even current victories seemed hollow by comparison. She wasn't here.
He was alone.
Swallowing against the rising nausea in his stomach, giving in to the sickness, he sighed heavily. Just punishment divinely wielded for the sin of arrogance? He gave a choked, desperate laugh. Or was it the ultimate conceit to even suppose that God had even noticed the transgression?
Why bother fighting at all?
Tempted, he stared once again at the phone. It would be so easy to call, to let them all know he'd failed again. Failed them and failed himself. There was nothing to hide behind anymore. He was tired of fighting, bone-weary of the never-ending battle and he didn't want to be alone.
Reaching for the phone, he hesitated. Closing his eyes, he found the dignity and the will to resist. A last spark of defiant anger lent him further strength and he pulled his hand away. Not this time. There was only one person he wanted to be with right now, and she wasn't here. The one person he didn't want to fight, and she was a no show. Pride alone kept him from begging.
It was only the flu.
Like hell it was.
He lay down, throwing an arm across his eyes and letting the exhaustion take him as his head sank on to the pillow. 'Screw the future, let it come.' He wondered briefly if he should feel some guilt over the relief he felt. No more fighting, no more battles; just this last, faceless opponent. It was over. He'll apologize to her tomorrow; tell his wife it was all a mistake. If God wanted to pick a fight over that, let him.
"You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that."
He pulled his arm away from his eyes and stared at the ceiling. A phantom of the mind, or a spirit in truth? Had that really happened? Memory or guilty conscience, he wasn't sure anymore. Intellectually, he knew that she could not have, but she'd never been one to leave him to wallow in his own self-pity before, so why should death have been a barrier? Did the reality even matter? It was what she would have said.
"But if you don't run, 'cause you think it's gonna be too hard, or you think you're gonna lose... well, God, Jed, I don't want to even know you."
The disappointment so apparent on her face, so familiar, fevered imagination or not, for a short time had been enough to galvanize action. Anger had been the fuel, all too quickly exhausted. It wasn't enough, not now.
Too hard...
He was through fighting. Mortal or Divine, the battles would continue without him. At this moment he wanted nothing more than to command his own future, no one else's. Let history or posterity be the final judge. Tomorrow would find him alone. If tomorrow ever came at all. At this moment, he wasn't even sure if he cared whether it did or not.
Burned into his mind, his wife's face was the last thing he saw as he drifted off into troubled sleep. It was a vain hope, but his last waking thought was that perhaps her memory could keep the nightmares at bay.
He could no longer hear the thunder.
To be continued…