DISCLAIMER: See chapter 1
A/N: Thanks again for the review nattieb (of course the Yanks were going to win... they rock!). Anyway... one more chapter left after this one! YAY! Unless I decide to put in an epilogue... and that will all depend on my mood and what you guys think.
Chapter 8 - A Killer Experience
When Sam and Olivia started dating, they were both happier than they had ever been in their entire lives. Over the next week, it had become quite apparent to everyone in the west wing that they were dating. Most were happy to see it. This time, Toby decided to take the not caring approach. Alex tried her best to look happy for the two, though it always came out looking halfhearted. Josh was just very angry at them for being happy.
Josh and Alex now avoided each other at all costs. When they were forced to be in the same room, they ignored each other's presence. No one really cared though. At least they weren't fighting.
One day as Josh walked into Sam's office to discuss a speech with him, he found Olivia and Sam kissing on his couch. Josh groaned loudly and turned to leave. "No wait, Josh, come back!" Sam called. Josh turned back and Olivia went to leave, but not before giving Sam a LONG kiss. Josh rolled his eyes. After Olivia had left, Sam said to Josh, "I want to talk to you."
"About what?"
"Well... recently you seem mad at me."
"I don't know why you'd think that, I'm not mad."
"Okay, good. You're just jealous then."
"Jealous?"
"Yeah. Olivia and I are so happy and your relationship with Alex ended so badly."
"This has nothing to do with jealousy or you and Olivia or... Alex."
"What is it then?"
"Nothing. There's nothing wrong!"
"Then why have you been acting so hostile towards me?"
"I have not been—"
"SAM!!!," they could hear Leo yell from down the hall.
"Uh oh, someone's in trouble," Josh giggled as Leo blew into the office.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"That's usually what he says to me—"
"Be quiet Josh! Sam... what the hell are you doing?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Leo," Sam said. Although, he saw Olivia cowering in the doorway and got a pretty good idea what was happening. Olivia had told Leo about their relationship.
"You two are DATING?! I can't believe this! First my daughter and now my niece! Are you just trying to ruin my life?!"
"No... I would never try to ruin your life..."
"Wait a minute," Olivia said slowly. "You dated Mallory?"
"Yes he did," Leo responded.
"Only like one time!" Sam cried.
"Are you the one that slept with a hooker and then never called her?!"
"She was a call girl!"
"Oh my God!" Olivia ran out of Sam's office.
"Olivia!" Sam called after her. He was about to run after her when he was stopped by Leo.
"Listen to me Sam, if you do anything to hurt anyone in my family again.... I will be forced to hurt you."
"Okay." Sam broke free of Leo's grasp and ran to Olivia's office where she had penned herself up. He knocked on the door repeatedly. "Olivia! Olivia please let me in! I'm sorry!" After a few minutes of pleading she opened up. Her eyes were puffy and red.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well... this relationship is still kind of new. I didn't want to bring up the fact that I accidentally slept with a call girl because I regret it. I didn't know that she was a call girl when I slept with her. And about your cousin... we only went on like one official date, and we only kissed once. And I thought that she had told you about us. So I'm sorry. I really mean it. Forgive me?"
Olivia sighed. "You know I can't stay mad at you. I just wish you had told me." Sam hugged her. "You know, I think that this was the corniest fight I've ever had."
"I think it was mine too. Let's just hope all of our fights are like this." Olivia giggled.
Alex and Olivia met Donna outside of Josh's office. Alex groaned, "It wanted to see us."
Donna smiled. "Still not using Josh's name huh?" Alex shook her head. "Yeah he did want to see you guys. He's in his office, you can go in."
As Alex and Olivia walked toward Josh's door, Olivia grabbed Alex's arm and whispered, "What do you think he's gonna do to us? I mean, this meeting can't be anything good. He hasn't talked to you since you split up, and he's been mad at me since Sam and I started dating."
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
"Haha... that was funny."
"Thanks." They walked into Josh's office to find him sitting at his computer.
He looked up, completely ignored Alex, but gave Olivia a grim smile. "Sit," he ordered. They sat in front of his desk. A few seconds later, he rolled his chair back so that he was facing them. "I'm sending you two to Evastad."
"Why?," they asked at once.
"The Evastadian Foreign Minister has some peace proposals that he wants the US to approve. You two are going to go meet with him, and bring the better proposals back to the President."
"Why can't the Evastadian Foreign Minister come here?" Alex inquired, still acting very stiffly toward Josh.
Josh had a tint of annoyance in his voice. "Because that country is unstable right now. They don't want any of the important people leaving there." Alex began to think, and her anger started brewing.
"You want us to talk about peace plans? Why not send someone more qualified? Like yourself or Toby or Leo?," Olivia questioned.
"Because we all have important things that we need to be doing."
"Suddenly you don't think that our jobs are important?!," Alex cried. "You're sending us to one of the most politically unstable countries in the entire world! We could very likely be killed while we're over there! Have you realized that?! Probably not! You know, I can understand why you hate me, but what about Olivia?! Just because she and Sam are happy and you and I are not is no reason for you to take out her anger on her!"
"I chose you two to go because you're smart! And those people over there like to see women in power!"
"No they don't!" Olivia wailed. "It's Eastern Europe! They're all Conservative to the point where they border fascism! They will hate us!"
"Trust me. You two will be fine. They'll protect you. You leave tomorrow morning for the capitol of Shrilka—"
"Go to hell!" Alex yelled, running out of the office.
"Jackass!" Olivia added. She then followed Alex. Josh sat and pondered, rubbing his eyes with his hands.
"Are you guys going to go?" Sam asked Olivia over their romantic, candlelit dinner that night.
"We have to. If we don't go, we'll lose our jobs. And besides... we could be a major contributor to the peace process over there. Personally, I'm looking forward to helping."
"Good," Sam smiled. "I told Josh you'd come around."
"You what?"
"When Josh was picking people to go I said that you'd be angry at first, but then you'd come around."
Olivia was stunned beyond belief. "You volunteered me to go?"
"Well, not so much volunteered you as I came up with the idea that you should go."
"Why?!"
"You're one of the brilliant political minds of this generation."
"So are you! Why aren't you going?!"
"I don't do peace proposals."
"Neither do I, yet I'm going!"
"Yeah, but you can adapt, I can't"
"You do realize that I could very well be killed there don't you?!"
"It's highly unlikely."
"Why are you taking Josh's side with this?"
"I'm not... I wasn't—"
"Just forget it Sam! I'll see you when I get back," Olivia mumbled. She ran out of the restaurant, leaving Sam alone, debating whether or not to go after her.
Alex reflected on the trip to Evastad as she sat in her first-class seat on the plane back to DC. She thought that all in all it had gone pretty well. They had a couple new peace plans to bring back to the President and Leo. They hadn't been killed, which was always a good thing. Olivia was dozing off next to Alex. The plane had been in the air for almost an hour, and Olivia was finally almost asleep. She kept thinking that the plane that they were on wasn't nearly as cool as Air Force One.
Suddenly, four men came running past them from coach. They ran into the cockpit. Alex, who felt rather uneasy, nudged Olivia awake. "Olivia... were those male stewardesses?"
"I don't know," Olivia answered groggily.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"Don't worry. It's probably nothing."
A struggle could be heard from the cockpit. There were a lot of thuds and a lot of men's screams. Without warning, there was a loud bang which was unmistakably a gunshot. Several people on the plane screamed. "Okay. I think something is wrong," Olivia said in a high-pitched voice.
Over the PA system came the voice of a man with a thick Evastadian accent. He had an amused tone to his voice. "Hello ladies and gentlemen. This is your co-pilot speaking. I'm afraid that our pilot has been killed. Most unfortunate. So now my friends are going to help me fly the plane. If the government answers our demands then you all have no need to worry. But if they don't," he chuckled to himself, "well let's not talk about it just yet." It cut off.
"Oh God!," Olivia cried. "We've been hijacked. Oh God, oh God, oh God!" There were tears running down her face. She had gone extremely pale and was shaking all over.
Alex was looking the exact same way. She couldn't will herself to say anything, though. Alex reached for her purse, fished through it, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed the first number that popped into her head.
Josh sat at his desk going through some paperwork when his cell phone rang. He found it weird that he didn't shut it off, because he usually did when he was in the White House. Either that or he would get no signal. He sighed and looked at the caller ID. It was Alex's cell. Josh debated whether or not to answer it, but finally did because the ring was annoying him. "What?"
Alex's voice was panicked. "Josh! Our plane has been hijacked!"
"What kind of sick joke is this?!"
"I'm serious! Four men ran up to the cockpit, there was some sort of fight, then there was a gunshot, and then the co-pilot came on saying that they had killed the pilot and that they were going to do something to us if the government didn't answer their demands." Josh was shocked and couldn't say anything. "Josh?"
"Oh God!," he managed to whisper. "Hang on!" Josh got up and started to run as fast as his legs could take him to the Oval Office. He ran into the office just outside it to find Charlie at his desk. "Where's the President?! I have to speak to him now!"
"You just missed him. He and Leo were called to the Situation Room."
"Do you know why?!"
"No. What's wrong?"
Josh spoke to Alex again. "It's gonna be okay! The President and Leo have been called to the Sit Room, they've gotta know something. They'll take care of it."
"Josh... I'm so scared."
"I know. But just hang on. Everything is going to be fine. I promise." The connection was cut off.
"What's going on?," Charlie asked. He was starting to get freaked out.
Sam ran into the room. "Where's the President?! Where's Leo?! I need to talk to them!" He went on a beeline to the Oval Office.
Josh grabbed Sam to stop him. "They're in the Sit Room. How'd you find out?"
Sam snatched the remote to the TV that was in the office and turned it to CNN. On the TV, the reporter was talking about the limited information he knew about the hijacking. "Olivia gave me the information about the flight before she left," Sam murmured. "They're on that flight, Josh. They could die! We might never see them again."
"It's going to turn out okay. Everything's going to be fine. They're not going to die."
"But you don't know that!"
"You've got to stay thinking positive, Sam. It's the only way we're going to get through this!"
Sam was choking back tears. "We had a fight before she left. That might have been the last time I will ever talk to her and it was a fight. I never even told her I love her. And I do. With every fiber of my being. I wanted to wait for the right moment to tell her, but now it's too late." Josh, not knowing what to say, gave Sam a hug.
Sam's cell phone rang, and he pushed Josh away to answer it. "Hello?," he said hopefully.
"Sam?," came Olivia's voice from the other end. Josh, wanting to give Sam some private time on his phone call, started to tell Charlie everything he knew.
"Olivia! Oh my God, are you all right?!"
"I'm unbelievably frustrated. I've been trying for so long to get a hold of you, but I'm using one of those stupid airplane phones and I had to go through like ten different operators just to call you." Sam laughed to himself. "I'm also scared out of my mind."
"You don't sound it."
"I'm trying to think about other things!" Olivia sounded on the verge of insanity.
"Have they hurt you? Or anyone else?"
"Just the pilot."
Sam paused. For some reason this felt like the last time he would be talking to her. He needed to say it, he just needed to. While summoning up the courage to actually say those three words, he didn't notice CJ and Toby walk into the room. Josh signaled for them to be quiet as he listened to what Sam was going to do.
"Olivia..." Sam whispered. "I love you."
There was a pause. "I love you too." Tears filled her voice.
From behind Olivia, Sam could hear a voice with an Evastadian accent say, "Everyone off of the phones NOW!"
"Gotta go!" The connection was cut off. Everyone in the office sat in silence.
"They're on that plane?," CJ asked with a dry throat. Josh and Sam solemnly nodded. Toby's breathing faltered. CJ, her legs unable to support her, sunk into a chair.
"We have to do something!"
"Like what?!" Olivia cried skeptically.
"I don't know. But we're diplomats. We should negotiate with them or something."
"Don't you remember that saying? 'We never negotiate with terrorists.'"
"Oh yeah." Alex thought deeply. "Well, we could talk to them. Try to convince them that it's a bad idea and that they shouldn't kill us all. We can't just sit around and do nothing."
Olivia paused to think. "Fine!," she groaned. "But we should get some help."
The two women stood up, checked to make sure that none of the hijackers were around, and then faced the rest of the plane, filled with petrified passengers. "Um..." Alex cleared her throat. "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen. My friend and I work for the US government and we were thinking that maybe we should go up there and talk to them. You know, try to talk them out of killing us. Um... any help would be greatly appreciated." A few moments later, three men walked up. "Thanks." Alex tried to smile encouragingly.
They all walked up to the door of the cockpit. They stood there for a minute until Olivia knocked on the door. "Um.. excuse me... we'd just like to talk to you for a sec—" The door burst open and a man holding a gun stood there. Without blinking, he fired two shots, both hitting Olivia's stomach. Alex looked over and saw blood gushing out. Olivia fell backwards and the man behind her caught her and carried her back to some of the seats.
Alex tried her best to hold back the tears. "We just wanted to talk to you about alternatives to killing—" There was another loud shot, and suddenly a blazing pain was shooting through her left shoulder. Alex howled in pain and doubled over. It was so bad that she couldn't see anything, but she did hear two more shots and a door slam shut.
She gasped in a few breaths before she could finally see. Alex saw that the two men who had stayed with her were both shot, one through the chest, the other through the head. They were both dead. Tears started to roll down her cheeks involuntarily. It was a horrible sight, one that she had to stop looking at.
Alex hobbled back to the first class section. She saw that the man who had dragged Olivia back was talking to the other men on the plane. "Olivia!," she shrieked as she saw her friend, unconscious, lying across their seats. Olivia was becoming whiter and whiter by the second. Two women were with her. One was a tall, pale, blonde woman who was wearing a stewardess outfit. The other was another passenger who was short and obviously Italian. "Is she okay?!"
"She has just been shot, do you think she is okay?!," the stewardess screamed in an Evastadian accent. She gasped, looking at Alex's shoulder. "You have been shot same. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I am... Better than her. Can you please tell everyone onboard that it's okay and that they shouldn't panic?" The stewardess nodded and headed to work.
The Italian woman looked up and smiled wearily. "Don't worry, I'm a nurse," she said in a squeaky voice with an American accent. Upon closer inspection, Alex saw that the nurse was pressing an airplane blanket onto Olivia's wound to help stop the blood.
"Is she going to live?"
"I don't know," the nurse whispered. She looked up and saw Alex's arm. "We've got to help you."
"I'm fine."
"Can you move your arm?" Alex tried to lift her left arm. The pain, which had been throbbing, became piercing. She screamed. "See? I expect Helga will be going to get a blanket to help with your arm."
"Helga?"
"That stewardess."
"Oh." Alex found her purse and dug for her cell phone, this time with one hand. "I have to make a call." Alex quickly dialed.
Leo, Sam, Josh, CJ, and Toby sat in the Oval Office in complete silence. Leo was staring off into space and shaking, Sam was staring at the floor and having trouble holding back tears, Josh kept moving and trying to keep himself busy, CJ was hyperventilating, and Toby was imagining worst case scenarios. "There's really nothing we can give them?," Josh asked, almost beside himself.
Leo shook his head. "No. We don't negotiate with terrorists. And besides... they want the Evastadian government to release the known leaders of that terrorist group that blew up the embassy a few months ago, the Bloody Seraphs. We can't do anything about that."
"We can influence them to do it—"
"Josh! We don't negotiate with terrorists! I know this is hard for you all, but think about me! I've known Olivia since she was born and I don't know if she's hurt or dead or going to die or—"
"Stop it, Leo!" Sam yelled, harshly. Everyone was quiet again.
The President came in from the Residence. Everyone stood up when he walked in but he motioned for them to sit. "I found it. That picture I was talking about of Alex and Liz at graduation." He passed around a picture of a young Alex and Liz Bartlet hugging in green graduation robes. Jed sat down. "I can't believe it. That girl practically lived at my house from the time she was thirteen until she went to college. I saw her everyday and it annoyed the crap out of me. I never thought that one day she'd be serving her country like this." He looked to Leo. "But I can't even imagine what it's like for you, Leo."
Josh's cell phone rang. Everyone looked hopefully to Josh. He stood up and started pacing the room as he answered it. "Alex?!"
"So we decided that we were going to try to talk them out of this."
"Are you crazy?!"
"We're desperate! So we went up there to talk to them and they shot Olivia twice in the stomach and they shot me in the shoulder."
Josh was momentarily paralyzed, his mouth hanging open. "Are... are you guys okay?"
"I am. I've never been in this much pain before and I can't look at my shoulder for fear that I'll pass out from seeing all of the blood, but I'm fine. But Olivia... oh God, Josh... she's unconscious and there's this nurse who's taking care of her who says that she doesn't know if she's going to live. Olivia is as white as a piece of paper. I think she's going to die. And I was the one who convinced her to go up there. It was all me." Alex began to sob.
"No... calm down. It's all going to be okay."
Josh could hear another woman's voice in the background, this one had an Evastadian accent. "I will fix your arm, yes?"
"Who's that?"
"Helga the stewardess," Alex answered. "She's wrapping up my arm in an airplane blanket." She began to scream and curse in pain, so badly that Josh had to hold the phone away from his ear. Those in the Oval Office could hear the yelling.
"What the hell is happening to them?!" CJ was freaking out.
"They're just wrapping up Alex's shoulder. She was shot."
"Oh God! Is she all right?"
"She says she is, but you know Alex... incredibly stubborn."
"I heard that Joshua Lyman!," Alex teased.
"I know that. Why do you think I said it into the phone?" Josh could hear people running and screaming in the background.
"Oh God!," Alex cried.
There was shouting, some from Alex and some from a man using a different language: Evastadian. They were obviously brawling over something. The man's voice was suddenly talking to Josh. "Say goodbye to your friend!" There was a gunshot and then the phone went dead.
