V
"Toby!" Leo hurried after the Communications Director in the corridor. Toby slowed down to let him catch up.
"Runthrough's still on for two?" Leo confirmed.
"Yeah." The speechwriter shot him a sidelong look. "How is he, Leo?"
"He's fine," he assured shortly. All grumbling about being fussed over aside, Jed did seem to finally be over the nasty cold that had laid him low earlier in the year. Still, it should never have hit him so hard in the first place. It was not just for political reasons that Leo wanted to see him visibly healthy, strong and confident when it came to reading the State of the Union Thursday night.
And that meant no plunging him head-first into stressful issues with no clear route to a solution.
"Toby, I don't want to see Lubbock County on the president's desk," he said curtly.
"Leo-"
"Not now. Friday, it's a thing, but right now, we're just writing a speech."
Toby glowered. "A speech in which we are, ostensibly, discussing the state of the nation."
"State of the nation isn't any different than it was yesterday," he pointed out, with more cynicism than he actually felt. Toby had rather that effect on him.
"It's an opportunity to-"
"-Stir up a hornets' nest," Leo finished. "We can suit up for this argument, but we do it after the State of the Union. We've got enough on our plate with Hoynes."
Toby lowered his eyebrows. "It's not too late to jettison Hoynes."
"It's not too late for a lot of things, doesn't mean we're dumb enough to do them. We need a VP we can trust."
"And Hoynes is trustworthy?" Toby wondered sceptically.
"For the things we want him for? Yeah." Hoynes's relationship with Jed Bartlet was cranky at best, openly hostile at worst, but he'd proved he had presidential material in the panicked hours after Rosslyn. And these days they were all too well aware that the politics of the thing took second place to the knowledge that if the worst came to the worst, the man they chose for the co-pilot's seat would be the one their country was looking to. Hoynes was certainly not the easy choice... but he was probably the right choice.
Toby nodded briskly. "Okay."
"CJ's about to brief?"
He glanced at his watch. "In a couple of minutes."
"Tell her to lay off the-"
"She will."
"Yeah. Okay. And make sure the teleprompter guys read through the speech after they spell-check it," he called as they parted. "He was useless for hours after the 'election' typo last year. If that had made it into the final draft we'd have had a complete disaster on our hands."
Toby grunted an absent acknowledgement, probably already redrafting in his head.
"Hey, Charlie." The president smiled at his young aide. "What's next on the list?"
Charlie took a moment to consult a folded sheet of paper, although he probably had it clear in his head anyway. "Uh, you have a meeting with Tim Henley from-"
"Okay." Nothing wrong with his memory; things didn't escape him, he just had to be reminded of them. And anyway, he'd only really asked as a conversation opening gambit. "Charlie, come here a minute." He nodded the young man into the seat across from him.
"Mr. President?"
Despite the marriage to his daughter that had put an official stamp on a relationship that was already closer than just the job, Charlie remained scrupulously correct while they were working, even when they were alone in the office. However, he seemed a little distracted and agitated today, and Jed was pretty sure he knew why.
"Josh is interviewing this boy about working for you?"
"Well, technically, sir, he'll be working for you."
Ah. And there was the crux of the matter. If the whole point of getting Charlie a second-in-command was to reduce his hours, then the inevitable result was that the new guy would be, at least some of the time, taking over Charlie's job.
"Yeah, but you'll be the boss of him," he pointed out.
His personal aide grinned, then immediately went straight-faced. "Yes, Mr. President, but then you're supposed to be the boss of me, and look how that worked out."
Jed pointed a warning finger at him. "Careful there, Skippy."
Charlie chuckled for a moment, but then started to look sad. Jed looked down at the floor, understanding perfectly. He liked hanging out with Charlie, feeling comfortable, knowing he could make a friendly little jab and have it returned in kind, making free with the sarcasm without fear of misinterpretation, knowing he could rely on his aide to give him a gentle prod on those rare occasions when he was genuinely in the wrong... It wouldn't be the same, spending a couple of hours a day with some new kid. The position was about more than the job.
He sighed. "It's going to be tough to get used to."
"Yes, sir," said Charlie, with feeling.
He glanced up. "Still, you'll have more time at home, and that's the main thing. Especially when you're a father, don't think that isn't a whole extra full-time job in itself."
"No, sir, I know."
"How is Zoey, by the way?" he enquired.
"You've talked to her three times already this week," Charlie pointed out with a smile. Jed narrowed his eyes.
"I'm a hands-on father, Charlie. You just wait until your little girl's a married woman with a baby on the way."
"I think I've got a little time before that happens," he noted wryly.
"Oh, you think? One day they can fit in the palm of your hand, the next thing you know..." He shook his head.
Charlie smiled at him, and glanced towards his watch. "Sir, you have to-"
"Yeah." He straightened up, and clapped his young aide fondly on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go."
"CJ! CJ!"
It was funny how quickly the roar of the press room became familiar. These days, she was soon disconcerted if she went more than twelve hours without a pack of reporters baying her name and flashbulbs going off everywhere. "Derrick?"
"CJ, has the Vice President announced whether he still intends to seek the nomination for the 2006 presidential election?"
"I think it's probably just a little early to be counting those chickens, folks." She ignored the groans this response elicited. "In case you haven't noticed, the president - that's President Bartlet - is just about to deliver the State of the Union address, and unless somebody's been amending the Constitution without telling us, we still have another three years to go before we start changing the name tags."
"CJ! How does the president respond to Grant Toolan's demand that Vice President Hoynes resign his position immediately, pending a full investigation?"
"Well, I think if he was given the chance, the president would probably respond that he doesn't answer to Grant Toolan, and neither does anybody else in this government. As to the issue of an investigation, the Vice President chose to volunteer the details of this very personal matter of his own free will-" in a very loose manner of speaking- "in order to spare his family further embarrassment or run the risk of compromising his position. It's difficult to see how even Grant Toolan could consider that 'conduct unbecoming'." Time to call for another question, quickly, before anyone could jam in a followup. "Chris."
"CJ - any comment on the Lubbock County burglar shooting?"
It had been too much to ask that the press wouldn't turn this political. She pushed up her glasses. "Obviously, what happened in Lubbock County last night was a great tragedy whatever the surrounding circumstances. However, I should remind you that the local police department have yet to issue a statement as to whether there was, in fact, an attempted break-in."
"CJ!" Keith leapt in. "Are you saying there's a chance this could have been a mistake?"
Well, which part of 'thirteen-year-old girl kills teenage intruder' sounds like an ideal set of circumstances to you? "I'm saying, the police have yet to comment on whether they consider there to have an attempted break-in."
"CJ! CJ!"
"Erica."
"How does the president respond to Senator Millman's comments that the gun bill he wanted to introduce last year would have removed this girl's means of defending herself?"
It was only years of practise that stopped her distaste from showing. "Well, the president has yet to hear Senator Millman's comments-" and somehow, I doubt he'll be in that much of a hurry to- "but I think that, whatever your side of the gun control issue, we can all get together on the fact that we'd rather not have any thirteen-year-old put in a situation where the use of lethal force for self-defence should be an option. Katie?"
"Has there been any change in the condition of the fourteen-year-old who was shot?"
At least the White House press pool had enough sense of responsibility to not follow the lead of whatever idiot in the local press had thoughtlessly released the names of the two boys. "He was rushed back into surgery a few hours ago after unexpected complications; he's stable, but still in critical condition."
After that, the briefing shifted towards more mundane matters, but CJ stayed on her guard. This close to the State of the Union, the last thing they needed were any more slip-ups or complications.