II

"Good morning ladies, gentlemen, minions." Josh arrived in the office and dropped his backpack, struggling out of his coat. His damp hair sprang up in all directions, resisting his admittedly cursory attempts to smooth it. "Anything?" he asked Donna as she appeared across the bullpen.

"Fifteen billion senators calling about Hoynes?" she offered.

"Any pledging their unwavering support?"

"Only to the Republican party."

"Anybody faxed in a résumé yet?" Vice Presidential hopefuls gathered to a scandal faster than sharks to drops of blood.

"No, but Ed and Larry's pool has Phillips as the favourite."

"It'll be Winston," Josh corrected confidently.

"Should I bet on that?" she asked immediately.

"Insider trading, Donna?"

"A girl has to work with her budget, Joshua."

"Indeed." He started towards his office, then backtracked. "Ash confirmed?"

"He'll be here at eleven."

"You think I should interview him for the Vice Presidency?"

"I think you should give him your job."

Josh raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I should give him yours."

"Does that mean I get to be Vice President?" she wondered brightly.

"Oh, no, you should not be given power. It goes to your head." He gave her a wary look. "For instance, that business with the supply requisition forms-"

"Josh, nobody should get through forty-seven pencils in a month."

"I don't-"

"A month, Joshua!"

"People steal them from me," he defended himself weakly.

"This would be the same mysterious person who chews the ends of them and definitely is not you?"

There was a brief unspoken battle of wills that he had little chance of winning. "I think we have mice," he said hastily, and beat a strategic retreat.

CJ sighed and slipped her glasses on as she flicked through the papers waiting on her desk. She already had a budding tension headache; no need to tempt it further by squinting to make the words out.

"Anything exciting?" she wondered aloud, without much optimism. "Aliens land, deliver world peace? New oil field found in Rhode Island? Republicans wake up, say 'oops, we were wrong'?" She inspected the top story, in vain hopes of finding something interesting enough to distract the press from the target they'd locked on to. "Ah, cabbages. Wonderful." Well, hey, who'd want to concentrate on a sex scandal when there were agricultural bills to discuss?

She felt a shadow, and looked up to find her assistant hovering in the doorway. "Carol; tell me you've got something for me?" she pleaded. "I'm sensing many, many puns on the word 'vice' in my near future."

At this rate, she was going to be reduced to finding something cute to say about the kitten just to avoid a complete disaster. And it didn't help that the president was stringing her along over deciding on a name. If he'd just let the schoolchildren of America write in with suggestions, that would at least buy her a couple of column inches. Cheap column inches, but right now she'd take whatever she could get.

The silence lingered long enough to make her second guess her foolish wish for a headline story. "Carol?" she asked warily, pulling off her glasses.

Carol gave her a sad smile, and handed across a sheet of paper. "We just got this off the wire. Two teenage boys were shot last night in Texas."

"Oh, damn." She closed her eyes. "How old?"

"Fourteen and fifteen. The older boy died on the way back to the hospital; the other one's in critical condition. They've been fighting all night to try and get him stabilised, but they're still not sure if he's going to pull through."

"Damn," she repeatedly softly. There didn't seem much else to say.

Carol's face twisted in sympathy. "There's more," she continued reluctantly. "They were shot trying to break into a neighbour's house; the shooter was a thirteen-year-old girl."

CJ took a long, slow, cold breath, and let it out again. "Okay. Give me the details."

"Leo?" Margaret appeared in the doorway. "Mallory's on the phone for you."

His frown at the interruption immediately lifted into a smile. "Put her on." He raised the receiver and leaned back in his chair. "Hey, Mal."

"Hi, dad."

"You're back in town?" he guessed.

"Yeah. Listen, about the State of the Union-"

"You can't come?" he asked, disappointed.

"No, I'll be there," she promised. "I just wanted to speak to you about my date..."

"He can't come?" Leo said hopefully.

"Dad."

"Sorry," he said unapologetically.

There was a slight but ominous pause before Mallory continued. "Okay, dad, I want you to hear me out first, before you completely overreact."

Oh, that boded well. "Mallory, who are you bringing?" he demanded.

"Brandon."

His brow wrinkled. "Who the hell is Brandon?"

The voice on the other end grew more exasperated. "My boyfriend, Brandon, who if you recall I told you I was dating-"

He vaguely recalled that conversation, or at least one like it. It wasn't so much that he didn't take an interest as that Mallory's boyfriends tended to come and go faster than his infrequent contact with his daughter could keep up with. Every time he successfully pulled a name out of the air, it was greeted with rolled eyes and an admonishment that Michael was months ago, dad, I'm dating Robert now. "Brandon who?" he asked helplessly.

"I told you. Brandon Foxton."

"I don't remember you telling me you were- Brandon Foxton?" The name suddenly registered.

There was another pause, during which he'd swear he could hear his daughter's eyes rolling. "Okay, thanks for listening to the 'hear me out' part, dad."

"Mallory..." He sank down into his chair, and grimaced. And to think he'd thought Hoynes was going to be his biggest headache this week...

"You heard about Texas?" Toby demanded as soon as he walked in.

"The original wire story," Sam said with a nod. There hadn't been much detail. "Two boys were shot...?"

Toby turned to the hovering assistants. "Bonnie?"

"There isn't much more," she admitted, leafing through the papers with a dismayed frown. "Two teenage boys were shot in Lubbock County, Texas, during a break-in. Shooter was a thirteen-year-old neighbour; her name isn't being released, obviously, but I think CJ's got more details on the boys."

"The second boy's still alive?" Sam checked.

"So far," said Ginger solemnly.

Toby made an unidentifiable noise in the back of his throat. "A thirteen-year-old girl is alone in the house with a shotgun why?"

"They're going to be saying it was just as well she had it," Sam pointed out grimly. Speak the magic words 'self-defence' and suddenly no argument you could make for the other side would fall upon anything but deaf ears. "Are you going to tell them they're wrong?"

"I'm going to tell them they're stupid," Toby said bluntly. "Was this an actual break-in or an assumed break-in?"

Bonnie shook her head. "We don't know."

"Do either of the boys have records?" Sam asked. Toby's pessimism was contagious.

"We're still getting the information now," Ginger said, spreading her hands helplessly.

"You think she panicked then called break-in afterwards?" he asked Toby.

"She went and got her father's shotgun and proceeded to blast not one, but both of the intruders. That's a hell of a long heat of the moment."

Sam could sense his boss was winding up to a diatribe - and the build-up to the State of the Union was probably not the best time to let him unleash it. It had been enough of a battle hashing out a speech that balanced between addressing the events of the past year and not dwelling on them, quite without Toby going off on a controversial gun-control tangent. He cleared his throat quickly.

"So, um, CJ'll have the details by the one o'clock briefing?"

Bonnie took the hint and picked up the subject change. "Yeah. Toby, Paul from State wanted to have a word with you about one of the lines in the second section."

Toby grimaced. "Again? We've been over this. I told them-"

"I told them we'd take another look at the language," Sam cut in. His boss shot him an incredulous look.

"We already pared down that section. It's pared! If we pare any more, we're in danger of losing fingers!"

Sam settled in for a good long verbal battle that he would, quite honestly, be more than happy to lose. Still, at least it would keep Toby off the Texas shooting for a while. He just hoped that would resolve itself quickly and slip out of the news cycle before Toby latched back onto it and refused to let go.