TITLE: Relapse - Consequences (Part 2)
AUTHOR: Jacinta and Willow
SUMMARY: Leo tries to talk to Josh
SPOILERS: Anything up to S4
CHARACTERS: Ensemble, mainly Josh and Leo
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: John Wells, NBC and many others own them
10.40PM JOSH APARTMENT
Josh had finally got rid of Toby and Donna, after agreeing to sleep on his resignation. Toby had been furious when he'd found out what Phillips had said, and he'd been apologetic for not asking sooner. Josh is just considering phoning Sam when the door buzzer goes. "Yeh?" he answers.
"It's me."
"What do you want?"
"Are we going to do this over the intercom?"
"Come in." Josh presses the button, opens his front door and watches Leo walk up the hallway. "Drink?"
"Coffee'd be good." Leo follows Josh into the kitchen and watches him make the coffee. "You don't really want to live in California do you?" he asks in a attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
"Climate'd be better," Josh replies. No matter how angry and hurt he is by Leo's attitude, he's still Leo, although in a way, that's the reason he is so angry. He hands him the coffee, picks up his own and they go and sit in the lounge.
"Josh, no matter how angry you are with me, don't throw your career away over this. If you do then Phillips has won. You said early that you don't care anymore. I don't believe that."
Josh tries to think how to explain things to Leo. "I could never understand why Sam was so pissed off. I could never work out why he thought it wasn't going to get better. Sure, we have bad days, but we have good ones as well. The good we manage to do has always outweighed the crap for me. But recently, since May actually, I just can't see any good. I don't know that I want to do this anymore."
"Since Zoey's kidnap?"
"Yeh."
Leo watches Josh with concern. He knows it's hard enough normally getting Josh to open up. He very much doubts he's going to have any luck now, but he has to ask, "Has the PTSD been worse since then?"
"No," Josh says, a little too quickly. "Has Donna said something?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno, she fusses."
"She cares about you."
"Yeh, I know. That's another problem isn't it?"
Leo's not entirely sure how it's a problem, but he doesn't want distracting. "Tell me what Phillips said to you."
"You been sent by the President?"
"No. Although him and Toby have both given me a talking to." Leo watches Josh. "I'm here because I want to know. Because it may be too late to salvage a friendship, but I realize now I should have asked twelve days ago."
Josh is disarmed by Leo's candor. "The meeting had gone well, though Ed did most of the talking, you might want to consider promoting him, if you can prise him away from Larry. We were just leaving, everyone had gone, so I thought. It turns out one of the interns was still there and heard everything, Toby tracked her down." Josh sighs. " I'm not sure why Phillips stands as a Democrat. He's not left wing, he's not liberal, his policies never have been. He says it's the only way he could win in his district, but I think that's just an excuse. You know he always disliked Earl Brennan?"
"Yeh, they had quite a few run-ins as I recall."
"He's a racist, Leo. He hates Earl because he's black, he thought me being his CoS was appropriate, seeing as I'm Jewish."
"What happened?"
"He said that he hoped I realized he wouldn't support 443, not when it was helping minorities."
"We expected that."
"Yeh. He told me he wasn't surprised I supported it. He wasn't surprised that this administration supported it."
"I don't...."
"He said that a President who hired blacks and Jews was bound to support a bill that helped scrounging immigrants. He said I should think myself lucky I'm allowed to be here because as far as he was concerned we should all have been sent back to the camps."
Leo suspects that wasn't quite how Phillips phrased it.
"Normally I shrug off that kind of crap and if he'd have stopped then I would have, but he carried on, he.... I just saw red, I didn't realize we'd walked out into the corridor, I didn't realize there were reporters there. I know I shouldn't have said...... "
"What else did he say?"
Josh stands and walks over to the window, looking down at the street below. "If she hadn't got that letter last week."
Leo watches him. "If who hadn't got what letter?"
"Donna. She got a letter warning her about the dangers of associating with Jews and blacks."
"Warning her in what way?" Leo asks in a voice that barely hiding the anger he's starting to feel.
"What way do you think, Leo?" Josh snaps, as he turns to face Leo. "Warning her that her life was as much in danger as mine or Toby's or Charlie's. Warning her that she should be very careful who she was.... who she was friends with." Josh hadn't intended telling Leo everything, but now he's started he can't hold back. "It warned Donna of the consequences of defiling herself and her race by sleeping with a Jew." Josh had been livid when he saw it, but Donna had thrown it away.
Leo looks just about as angry as Josh has seen him. "And Phillips said that to you?"
"Something along those lines, yeh."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't ask. You just assumed that I'd got too cocky or that I'd opened my mouth without thinking. You didn't want to hear my side."
"I'm sorry, Josh. I should have asked you about it at the time," Leo shakes his head and sighs. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have shut you out. I do trust your judgment."
"You're just not too sure how often I'm me, functioning normally, and how often I'm hiding PTSD from you," Josh guesses. "I knew as soon as I told you that I have episodes but I cover then up, I knew then. I could see it in your eyes. Suddenly you realized that I could be in a meeting, worse I could be in the Oval Office, having an episode and you wouldn't know. When I blew up at Phillips that was your first thought wasn't it? You thought, 'ah shit, I knew this was going to happen.' You took work away from me, you took responsibility away from me, because you don't trust me to be in control." Josh looks straight at Leo. "Once I've let PTSD affect my work, once. But you're not sure about that are you? Suddenly you were wondering. That's what hurt. You of all people doubted me. Out of all of them, you should have understood."
Leo sits in silence and digests Josh's words. He can't deny that that was what he did, that was he thought.
Josh is still talking though, "I can't work for you if you're going to be questioning my every move. If you're constantly wondering whether I'm acting sanely. I can understand if the President thinks like that, if Toby or CJ or Will. But not you. I've never once doubted you. I've never once thought you couldn't do your job because you're an alcoholic. I thought you trusted me as much."
"I do trust you. I've never doubted your ability. I've never doubted your loyalty. You know what the really ridiculous part of this is?" Leo asks and then changes his mind.
"What?"
"It doesn't matter, forget it. I should go. Please think about your decision some more." Leo stands and takes his empty mug into the kitchen.
"Tell me what you where going to say."
"You won't believe me, so there's little point."
"Try me." Josh is watching Leo and the look in his eyes says that he wants Leo to tell him a reason for his actions that he'll believe. A reason that'll make it all OK again.
"I thought I was protecting you. I'll see you tomorrow."
Josh follows Leo to the door. "From what?"
"I'll see you."
The next morning Toby arrives at Josh apartment early on his way to work.
"You making sure I'm going in?" Josh asks.
"Yes."
"At least you're honest," Josh comments as he walks back into the apartment. "Leo was here last night."
"Yeh?" Toby sounds hopeful. "What did he say?"
"Plenty." Josh fills him in on some of the conversation. "He says he thought he was protecting me. I don't know what he meant by that."
"From Phillips."
"I can handle Phillips."
"He wanted your blood, Josh. You humiliated him. He wanted revenge."
"And Leo was protecting me from him?" Josh sounds doubtful. "Then why didn't he tell me at the time?"
"Think how you would have reacted. Although I admit it probably couldn't have been worse than this."
"What could Phillips have done?"
"Stirred things up with media. Prompted people to ask questions about you. Found out about the PTSD."
"How would that have been worse than just shutting me out and not telling me why?"
"Yeh. It seemed like a good idea.... "
"You knew. You knew why he was doing this and you didn't tell me."
"I didn't know at first. He told me a few days ago. Josh, he said something I don't understand, he said you've had PTSD for a lot longer than three years?"
Josh wonders how honest to be with Toby, deciding he may as well tell him. "Leo and my mom have a theory, that Stanley now agrees with. They think the PTSD goes back to when I was a kid. Back to when my sister died."
"That's what, in a misguided way, he was trying to protect you from. I admit he was also angry and maybe he was punishing you by keeping you away from meetings, but he was trying to protect you."
"Then he should have been honest."
SUNDAY
Josh didn't see much of Leo at work on Saturday morning and he spent the rest of the day and the night thinking about his options and about the conversations he's had over the last few days. On Sunday morning he phoned Donna and told her what was going to happen and then he went to see Leo.
"You want a drink or anything?" Leo asks.
"No. I won't keep you long, I'm meeting Donna." Josh sits down and wonders, yet again, whether he's made the right decision. "I'll take my resignation back, but there has to be some new ground rules, for both of us."
"Go on," Leo says cautiously.
"I've told Donna that if she's worried about me, if she thinks I'm not coping she has to tell you. Donna always knows, usually before I do, and now so will you. Also if I feel ill, physically or not, then you'll be the first to know." Although Josh's words are those you'd say to a friend, his tone his still hostile and hurt. "But you have to promise that if you're worried you'll talk to me or Donna, you won't act unilaterally. And I want work back to how it was."
Leo had been quite willing to listen, but he bristles at the last remark. "You can't lay down terms for your employment. You can't ask for special treatment."
"I'm not asking for special treatment. Shit, Leo,.... Look I knew this was a bad idea. Forget it." Josh stands up and picks up his jacket and starts to leave before turning back to face Leo. "You know, there was a time I'd have done anything for... for this administration. After everything that's happened, even after..... I don't expect special treatment," he repeats.
Leo watches Josh walk to the door and knows that this is his last chance. He's thought a lot about what Jed said, about him constantly putting work before people. He thought that ability was what made him good at his job. Now though, seeing the hurt in Josh's eyes makes him wonder. "Josh, wait." Josh opens the door and walks out. "Please wait," Leo calls and Josh hesitates. "I'm sorry, " Leo tells him. "I don't know what's wrong with me. But I'm sorry."
Josh walks back into the hotel suite and stands awkwardly in front of Leo. Suddenly years of pent up fear and anger are bubbling to the surface. "When I came back to work after the shooting, it was hard. I knew I had to prove myself again, especially after Christmas, but I thought I had. I know you've reduced my work load. There's still things that you'd have let me do before I was shot, that you do yourself now, but I thought that was either out of habit of having done them while I was recovering, or else you were still worried about my health. I didn't realize, until the thing with Phillips, that it was my ability you worried about, it was mental health, my sanity, you weren't sure of."
"I've never doubted your ability or your sanity. You lied to me, Josh."
"When?"
"You told me you were fine. You told me it was under control. But it isn't."
"By 'it' I guess were talking about PTSD and I didn't lie, it is under control. Yes I have nightmares, occasionally I have episodes. I don't have flashbacks, I don't think I'm still there. What do you think happens in an episode?"
"I don't know," Leo admits.
"Then you should have asked."
"And you'd have told me would you? Without getting defensive and denying that you have them?"
Josh shrugs.
"For God sake, Josh. I was worried about you. I know I handled it badly. Do you know how hard it is striking a balance between what's best for the administration and for the people I care about? When you told me you still have episode I tried to talk to you then, but you blanked me. Yes, I admit, when you blew up at Phillips, when I saw the footage of you yelling at him, I thought of you yelling at the President in the Oval Office. I admit I was wrong. If you're willing to throw away your career over this, because you're pissed at me, then you're an idiot."
"Yeh," Josh agrees as he sits down, suddenly feeling very tired. "This has just got so far out of hand that I don't know how to stop it anymore," he admits.
"Then stay and we'll work it out. I'm not saying we can immediately go back to how it was. Unless, do you really want to leave? Did you mean what you said about not caring anymore?"
"No," Josh shakes his head, "I didn't mean it." He looks at Leo. "Did you read the letter?"
"No."
"'Kay." Josh hangs his head.
"I seem to be making a habit of asking things too late. But what happens in an episode?"
Josh really doesn't want to talk about it but he knows, after what he just said, he has to. "According to Stanley, I've been having episodes of one sort or another since I was kid." He looks up at Leo. "Fills you with confidence in me doesn't it?"
Leo sits down across from Josh and waits for him to gather his thoughts.
Josh continues quietly. "Sometimes when I have a nightmare it can take a few minutes after I wake to realize that it was a dream, that I'm not still there. Although my nightmares don't tend to be about Rosslyn. You know after this conversation you're going to be opening that letter I gave you."
Leo shakes his head. "I knew about the nightmares of the fire, I've known about them since you were a kid. You lived in my house when you first came to Washington, you had them then. I found you sat in our kitchen on quite a few occasions you'll remember."
"Yeh," Josh agrees. "So it's Rosslyn you want to know about? I don't have flashbacks, it's not like it was that Christmas. I have occasional nightmares about it, and the episodes.... I have panic attacks. They're not frequent and I can usually control them. Sometimes I can feel myself getting agitated or anxious for no reason and I'll have trouble concentrating, that can go on for a few hours, not usually any longer. That's when Donna starts to fuss and makes me see Dr Hornby, or if she thinks it's going to be bad, like when the shots were fired into the press room, she calls Stanley."
"I wish you'd told me sooner."
"Yeh, 'cos look how you reacted when I did tell you."
"If I'd known I could have done something," Leo offers.
"It's not curable, Leo. I thought you knew that. That's why Treasury had a problem with it. It's controllable, I can live with it. But it's not going to go away. If you're not happy working with someone who's a little unstable, then accept my resignation." All the anger and hurt have left Josh's voice, he just sounds tired and dejected.
"You're not unstable. I wish you wouldn't talk like that," Leo tells him. "Okay, in future, if I'm worried about your health, and by the way, it's normally your physical health I worry about, then I'll ask."
"There's nothing wrong with me physically...." Josh starts to object.
"You see, this is why I don't ask, because you won't tell me anyway. I know you're recovered as fully as possible, but I also know you have left over effects of being shot, so don't try and kid me. I know you tire quicker, I know about your arm and leg, your back. But in future I will ask, no matter how pissed you get at me."
"Fair enough. What about work?"
"We're still in a lot of trouble, Josh. The only way out of it is to keep you in the shadows for a while, or to tell what really happened. I'm sorry, but you and President are both right, I have to think of the administration."
"I know that. I'm not angry because you shut me out, I'm angry at your reasons."
"So if we've got them sorted, we have got them sorted haven't we?" Leo asks, Josh nods not too convincingly, "then we don't have a problem. Do you want to tell the press what Phillips said to you?"
"They're hardly likely to believe me are they, not after two weeks. "
"I thought there was a intern present who heard everything."
"Yeh, she's working in McCain's office. I don't know that it's fair involving an 18 year old intern. Anyway, I don't want Donna knowing. I told her some, but not the part about her."
"It's up to you, but you should think seriously about it. At the moment the press are writing you as the bad guy. If she works for McCain then they can hardly accuse her of being biased to us can they?"
"I'll think about it. I've been the press's bad guy before, many times."
"Okay," Leo agrees. Although he wishes Josh would come clean to the press, plus he gets the feeling that there's more. "And work?" he asks.
"That was going to be my question. When you say 'in the shadows' what does that mean?"
"It means I can't have you taking high level meetings, you know very well what it means."
"Yeh, it means they win and we roll over for them and let them kick us, just to make sure we get the message that they won. I thought we'd stopped doing this crap years ago?" A thought occurs to Josh, "Is this what you want or the President?"
"The President's pissed at me for stopping you staffing for him. In fact I don't think he has a much higher opinion of me at the moment than you do."
"Okay," Josh sighs. "I'll see you at work tomorrow. I've got to go, I'm going to be late for lunch."
"I'll see you tomorrow." As Josh leaves, Leo can't help but wonder whether they've actually resolved anything.
Twenty minutes later Josh walks into a restaurant and sits down at a table. Five expectant faces stare questioningly at him. "Hey," he smiles. "You ordered?"
"Yeh," CJ tells him, "we ordered you chicken. What happened?"
"With fries?" he asks.
"Yes," Donna says. "What did Leo say?"
"We're fine."
"Really?"
"Maybe not fine," Josh admits. "But we're better than we were. He thinks I should tell the press what Phillips said."
"So do I," Charlie tells him.
"And me," Donna adds.
"What about you?" Josh asks Toby.
"I don't think his new friends will care very much. I think it'll stir it all up again. They could say you were making it up."
"But?"
"I still think you should say something. You could talk to Danny," Toby tells him.
"Yeh," CJ agrees, "I can arrange that."
"I'll think about it," Josh says as their food arrives.
Once they've eaten CJ and Josh go to the bar and CJ takes the opportunity to talk to Josh "I spoke to Lucy Gutheridge, the intern from McCain's office. She let slip something about Donna."
"And I don't want Donna knowing, which is why I don't want to talk to Danny."
"You think he should get away with saying things like that?"
"No, of course I don't, but I don't want Donna getting dragged into this and she will, maybe not by Danny, but she still will."
Jed watches Leo and shakes his head, "Do you ever take a day off? It's Sunday afternoon."
"I've got a lot of work on, Sir."
"Well what you need is a deputy you can trust to take some of the load."
Leo smiles slightly, "I've got one, but he's out having lunch with his friends."
"You've still got one then?"
"Yeh, I've spoken to him. We're fine."
Jed looks questioning. "We, the administration or we, you and Josh?"
Leo sighs, "The administration," he admits.
"You're still angry with him?"
"I understand why he said what he said, but he shouldn't have said it in public, in front of reporters."
"I think he knows that, Leo. He was baited then?"
"Yes." Leo replies. "Phillips called him, well I think you can imagine what he called him. I think bringing Donna into the conversation may have been what really set Josh off. Why the hell didn't I ask him sooner what had happened? This whole damn mess could have been avoided."
"He's staying Leo, that's a start."