DISCLAIMER: See chapter 1
A/N: Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the final chapter! I hope you enjoy it. I have decided that I will write an epilogue but that won't be up for a few days. Many thanks once again to nattieb and kursk... my faithful reviewers. This chapter does begin to get a little corny and I apologize for that.
Chapter 9 - Love
Josh couldn't move. He couldn't comprehend anything going on around him. He felt his cell phone fall out of his hands, but that was it. Before he knew it, he felt hands grabbing him, making him walk to one of the sofas, and then making him sit. Voices were talking to him, but they were inaudible.
Finally, Josh heard the President's voice over the others. "Josh... can you hear me? What happened?"
"They just killed Alex," he whispered. Everyone was taken aback.
"Are you sure?" Leo asked.
"One of them got on the phone and told me to say goodbye and then there was a gunshot and then I got cut off." Josh buried his head in his hands. He was distraught. She couldn't be dead, she had been there arguing with him two days ago. He had just been talking to her on the phone. Josh felt as if his own life was about to end.
Everyone else in the room was in dismay as well. The President began to pace around the room, remembering Alex as a teenager. Toby stood still, shocked. He had his arm around CJ who was crying silently into his shoulder. Leo was flabbergasted. Sam was sad for Alex, but still couldn't stop thinking about Olivia. "What about Olivia?"
Josh sighed and told them everything that Alex had said in their conversation. When it was over, Sam couldn't breathe. Fear overtook him. The only thing that mattered to him then was Olivia's life. Josh, on the other hand, was consumed with guilt. "I did it. I killed them. I killed Alex. I sent them there because I was mad at them. God, I'm so stupid! Thanks to me, she's dead!"
"It's not your fault," Toby said.
"Yes it is."
"No it's not. We all agreed that they should go. No one can take more blame than another."
The Oval Office was silent for several minutes. At long last, Charlie came in. "Mr. President, Leo, they need you in the Situation Room." The President and Leo left.
Charlie had sounded completely fine. Josh thought, How can he be okay? Doesn't he realize that Alex just died? The one woman he cared about more than any other was gone, and it was all his fault. Josh couldn't lie anymore. He loved her, he always had, and he always would. Now he would never see that smiling face or hear her teasing voice or feel her soft skin ever again. She was gone.
Sam didn't know what to do with himself. The love of his life was dying and there was nothing he could do to help. He wanted to be there right then, to comfort her. If there was one thing that he could have done, he would have taken those bullets for her. Then he could suffer through the pain and she wouldn't have to. The only thing that Sam could think to do was pray. And he did.
After what seemed an eternity to the four remaining in the Oval Office, the President and Leo returned. "We've got some good news," the President said gravely. "Somehow, some passengers have gotten control of the plane and made a rather bumpy, emergency landing on some farm in Germany. The hijackers have been taken into custody, and the dead and wounded are being airlifted to Ramstein Air Base. The rest are being bused there. Six people were killed. Nine people injured."
"Any news about Olivia?," Sam eagerly inquired.
"No," Leo replied. "But we've been thinking... Josh, Sam, perhaps you'd like to go to Ramstein and keep watch over Olivia and... Alex's flight home." They both nodded sadly. After a few seconds, Leo cried, "Well what are you waiting for?! Go!" Josh and Sam made a run for it.
The flight to Germany was excruciating. Sam and Josh were forced to sit still. Neither of them could focus on the work they had brought. Both were anxious about Olivia, especially Sam. Josh kept hearing Alex's voice in his head, replaying all of the conversations that they had ever had. He tried to get it out but it wouldn't go away. Sam kept seeing a smiling Olivia in front of him. No matter how many times he rubbed his eyes, the vision wouldn't go away. The only time that they talked during the trip was when Josh said, "We both need some sleep." Sam smiled. Both knew that they would get none.
Josh and Sam sat in the lobby of the hospital at Ramstein Air Base. The receptionist told them that a woman named Dr. Pfeffer would be out shortly to talk to them. All of their inquiries to the receptionist failed. Josh turned to Sam. "Do you know how to speak German? Because I don't have a clue."
"Josh... this is an American Air Force Base. They speak English here, not German."
"You can think whatever you'd like. But when they end up speaking German, don't come crying to me about it."
"Mr. Lyman? Mr. Seaborn?," came a woman's voice. She had an American accent.
Sam laughed. "Told you."
"What?," the woman asked.
"Nothing," Josh said. "You must be Dr. Pfeffer." They both stood up and shook hands with the short, red-headed, freckled doctor.
"You were asking about Olivia Brooke?" They nodded. "She just finished surgery and is in recovery. You can see her in a half hour."
"How is she?" Sam questioned.
"She's in critical condition. The surgery went well, but we're not promising anything. You have my word though, that we're doing everything we can for her."
"Thank you," he whispered before sinking into a chair.
"I have a question about Alexandra Cameron," Josh swallowed back tears as he said her name.
Dr. Pfeffer looked at her clipboard. "Oh. She's been out of surgery for hours now and is recovering nicely. According to this, she's been awake for a while and is in stable condition. She'll be able to leave tomorrow or the day after."
Josh was confused. "You must be thinking of the wrong person. Alex Cameron is... well... she's dead."
"According to this, she's alive."
"Let me see that!" Josh snatched the clipboard from the doctor. He scanned the list for Alex. He read the same thing that the doctor had read to him. Josh was overjoyed. This couldn't be happening. He turned to Sam. "She's alive Sam! She's alive!"
"Go and find her!," Sam rejoiced, indifferently. "Sweep her up in your arms, tell her you love her, and ride off into the sunset."
"Okay!"
"Actually... you won't be doing any of that because she's hooked up to a lot of machines." Dr. Pfeffer smirked.
"Can I still go and find her and tell her I love her?"
"Sure."
"Good. Here I go." Josh ran down the hall and realized that he had no idea where he was going. He walked back to Sam and the doctor, who were both laughing, in shame. "Where is she?"
"Room fifty-eight. Down that hall." Dr. Pfeffer pointed him in the opposite direction.
"Thanks." Josh went off in search of Alex. He was still shocked. He had convinced himself that she was dead but she wasn't. Josh knew that he mustn't get his hopes up though because there could have always been a mix-up about something.
Josh found the door to room fifty-eight slightly ajar. He slowly opened it, afraid to see what was inside. His breath caught in his chest when he did see it. Lying on the bed in the middle of the room was Alex, HIS Alex. Her left arm was in a sling and she looked slightly paler than usual but other than that she looked fine. She was propped up in bed and reading a People magazine. Emotions were running wild through Josh: happiness, joy, relief.
He took a tentative step into the room. Alex heard, looked up, and smiled. "Finally!," she called to him, playfully. "I have been waiting for hours!"
"You knew I was coming?"
"I knew you'd come for me. I had an instinct."
"I thought you were dead."
Alex looked down at her body, then back up to Josh. "Nope. Apparently not."
"But I heard him shoot you!"
Alex's demeanor suddenly got dark. "No. He shot Helga, who was fixing my arm at the time. Right through the head. I don't know why. He hit me across the face with his gun though." She pointed to a bruise on her left cheek that Josh noticed for the first time. He walked into the room, pulled up a chair next to her, and sat down. "And then he broke my cell phone. Snapped it in two! I really liked that cell phone too!"
"I'll buy you a new one."
"Oh, you're going to. I was planning on it."
Josh laughed. "How are you feeling?"
"My shoulder hurts a lot and I'm pretty light-headed. They said that I didn't really sustain any injuries except for my bruise, and my shoulder, which they said is gonna need physical therapy, and they said I lost a lot of blood. But other than that I'm okay."
"Did you hear about Olivia?" Alex nodded gloomily. Neither spoke for a minute. "They all think that you're dead back in the US. I think that President Bartlet was going to make the call to your parents."
"Really? Oh, that must be awful for everybody."
"You really think highly of yourself, don't you?"
"You mean you weren't absolutely tormented when you thought that I was dead?" Alex sounded more hopeful than playful.
Josh sighed. "I was. All I could think of was how crappy I had treated you because you deserved so much better than me. I found myself wishing that I could see you one more time, just to tell you how much I loved you. Because I really do Alex, I love you with all of my heart."
Alex was on the verge of tears. "I love you too Josh. I never stopped." Josh leaned forward and kissed her. She put her right hand on the back of his neck and kissed back.
In between their kisses, Josh said, "I will never, ever let you go again. I'm not going to lose you again."
"Don't worry. You won't."
Sam had been led into Olivia's hospital room. She was on the bed in the center, and what he saw made his heart sink. She was extremely pale, and she was hooked up to all sorts of monitors, IV's, and breathing tubes. There was a rhythmic beeping that Sam knew was her pulse. He sat beside her on the bed, took her hand, and waited. Waiting was the only thing that he could do. He waited for over two hours, not knowing what to do. During those two hours, Josh and Alex came to see Olivia as well. Alex gave Sam a hug, and she and Josh talked to Olivia a bit before a nurse shooed them out of the room.
It was so quiet. Sam wished that he could hear Olivia's melodic laugh. That would help to brighten the room. To get rid of the uneasy silence, Sam decided that he would do what he did best... talk. "Hey Olivia. It's me... Sam. I know that you can't hear me right now, but I'm just going to talk anyway. I think that that will make me feel better, and maybe, by some chance, you can hear me. So then maybe my talking will make you feel better. Besides... you've said yourself how good I am at talking to myself. Anyway, I thought that you might like to know that Alex is okay. We all thought that she was dead, but she's not. So I guess that that's always a good thing. Josh was going to tell her that he loved her. Which reminds me... I don't think I've said this in the past five minutes... I love you Olivia Jennifer Brooke. I love you with all of my heart. I love you like—"
"I love you too, Samuel Norman Seaborn," Sam thought that he heard a groggy voice that sounded much like Olivia's say.
"Now not only am I talking to myself, but now I'm hearing voices in my head."
"Sam!" Olivia laughed. Sam looked down to Olivia and saw that her eyes were open. Without thinking, Sam rushed forward and kissed her, kissed her like there was no tomorrow.
When he finally pulled away, Sam whispered, "I thought I'd lost you."
"You know what? The last thing that I thought about before I blacked out was you. And I thought that that was a nice dying thought. But I didn't die. I had this dream with you in it. We were married and had kids and a cat and a house with a white picket fence and—"
"I don't think that that will ever happen." Olivia's smile fell. "I'm allergic to cats." She started to laugh. "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap." Olivia moaned. Sam could tell that every time she talked it was causing her pain.
"Well you just lie still and don't talk. I'll call a nurse and maybe they can get you high on morphine." Olivia giggled as Sam pressed the call button.
"Sam...," she whispered. "I love you."
Sam smiled. "I love you too."
Olivia spent two weeks at the hospital recovering. Alex was released after two days, but waited for Olivia to get better. Sam and Josh did all of their work via phone calls, faxes, and e-mails so that they could stay and wait for the other two to recuperate. The White House Staffers in the US were ecstatic to find that Alex was alive and that Olivia was going to be all right.
The day that Olivia was released from the hospital, Sam, Josh, Alex, and her flew back to Washington DC. Alex's arm was still in a sling, and Olivia, due to the fact that she was still weak, had to travel by wheelchair. The entire plane ride home, Alex talked Josh's ear off about how her experience had been like a Quentin Tarantino movie or a Wolfgang Peterssen movie. Olivia was petrified of flying after the incident, and Sam soothed her to sleep shortly after takeoff.
Neither Alex nor Olivia wanted to go home once their plane touched down in DC. They begged Josh and Sam to take them to the White House, stating that they had thought that they would never see their friends again, but now that they could, they wanted to see them as soon as possible. Josh and Sam were being much stricter than usual, saying that doctor's orders were that they get rest. Despite all of the tactics Olivia and Alex tried: the flirting, the teasing, the pouting, and the whining, Josh and Sam wouldn't bring them to the White House. Instead, they headed straight for Alex's apartment.
As they walked up to Alex's door (Sam was rolling Olivia), neither of the women would speak to Josh or Sam, except to fire insults. "You two are poop heads, you know that?" Olivia remarked.
"Why are you both so mad at us?! We're only doing what the doctor told us," Josh cried.
"You are mean and I hate you." Alex stated.
"No you don't"
"Oh, but I do."
Olivia turned to Sam who was smirking. "What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Something's up. What is it?"
"Nothing is up."
"Liar!"
Josh opened the door, laughing. They walked into the dark apartment. Sam flicked the lights on. "SURPRISE!!!" The apartment had been decorated with balloons and party decorations, including a banner that said, "Welcome home Alex and Olivia!" CJ, Toby, Leo, Donna, Charlie, Zoey, Ed, Larry, Olivia and Alex's assistants, Margaret, Bonnie, and Ginger all stood inside of the apartment, smiling. Alex and Olivia were shocked. They made rounds hugging everyone over and over again. People were crying, but out of happiness.
"Enough with the sappy stuff!," CJ yelled. She herself was holding back tears. "Let's break out the music and beer!" The stereo was immediately turned on and Toby pulled out a cooler full of beer.
As everyone began to party, Leo walked over to his niece and Alex. "Hey! Welcome back. Glad you guys are feeling better." He gave them both a hug. "The President wants you both to know that he wishes he could be here. But he can't. So he said that he can't wait until you guys come back to work. Alex... the President gave me this to give to you." Leo handed Alex a box the size of a small book. "Do you think I could speak to my niece alone for a minute?"
"Sure." Alex walked into her bedroom so that she could open her gift alone.
"How are you doing kiddo?" Leo looked concerned.
"I'm fine Uncle Leo."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"I am never letting you fly on a plane other than Air Force One ever again. I swear... you being up there almost gave me a heart attack."
Olivia giggled. "Well I'm fine now. I had some help getting better." Her glance drifted to Sam, who was watching CJ do "The Jackal". Leo followed her gaze.
"Do you love him?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Does he love you?"
"Yeah."
"You're happy?"
"Yeah."
"Well then I give you every blessing in the world. Mind you, if he ever mistreats you, I'm going to have the President order Secret Service men to take care of him."
Olivia laughed. "I'll keep that in mind, but he won't ever mistreat me."
"Good." Leo smiled. "I love you kiddo."
"I love you too, Uncle Leo." They hugged.
Alex sat on her bed and stared at the box in her hand. She was afraid to open it. What the hell would the President be giving her? Finally, after taking a deep breath, she opened the box. She gasped once she saw the contents of the box. Inside, she found a picture of herself as a teen, the three Bartlet girls at a younger age, and a younger pre-President Bartlet in a beautiful silver frame. There was also a note from President Bartlet in the box that she picked up and read. Tears filled her eyes.
The door to the bedroom opened and shut. Alex looked up and saw Josh walk in. He looked concerned as he saw that she was crying. "What's wrong?," he asked as he sat next to her on the bed. Alex handed him the picture. He looked at it and smiled. "You guys were cute. Notice, I said were." Josh saw the note in her hand that she was crying over. "What's that?"
"President Bartlet wrote this note that came with the picture. It says that when he thought that I was dead he felt like he had lost his own daughter." Alex started to laugh, though she was still crying.
"Wow," was all Josh managed to say. He put a comforting arm around Alex.
She furiously wiped away her tears. "Sorry. I'm just really stupid and sentimental."
"Well, duh," Josh laughed. "But... you're also sweet and charming and witty and annoying as hell."
"And you are funny and lovable and terribly egotistical. And I love you."
"I love you too." They kissed and then headed back to the party.
"Do you think that I could steal you away from the party for a minute?," Sam whispered to Olivia. Olivia nodded and Sam wheeled her out of the room into the hall. He headed straight for the elevator.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
A minute later they emerged on the roof of the building. It was a chilly, starry night with a half-moon in the sky. Sam wheeled Olivia over to the edge to stare out over DC. "It's a beautiful night," she said. She had started to shiver.
"Oh God. I forgot it was this cold." Sam took off his jacket and put it around Olivia.
"Thanks. But now you'll be cold."
"No. I'll survive. I'm used to these harsh winters."
"You're from California." Sam shrugged and sat down on the ledge in front of Olivia.
"I wanted to let you know that you mean the world to me, Olivia. There's nothing I care about more than you. I have never been so happy or had so much purpose to my life as when I'm with you. I love you more than you'll ever know. And I was just wondering..." Sam pulled a large diamond ring out of his pocket. "if you'd marry me?"
Olivia gasped. "Of course I'll marry you!," she cried without hesitation.
Sam smiled. "Really?"
"Yes!" Olivia held out her hand and Sam slipped the ring onto it. "I love you Sam!"
"I love you too." Sam leaned forward and kissed Olivia. Both were so happy that nothing existed in the world at that moment except for the two of them.
The party was slowly dying down. Many people had left, and Leo had gone back to the office. The only people that remained in Alex's apartment were Alex, Josh, Olivia, Sam, Donna, CJ, and Toby. They were all drinking the leftover beer and had decided to clean the mess up tomorrow. Conversations bounced around to various topics. All in all the atmosphere was peaceful.
"You guys... we have an announcement to make," Sam called. Everyone stopped talking to listen. He and Olivia looked at each other. "We're engaged!"
"Congratulations!" Everyone shouted. The two lovers were bombarded in hugs.
When the hugging fest died down, Josh banged a spoon on his beer bottle. "We have an announcement too...," he looked to Alex. "We're not!"
"YAY!" They all laughed.
Alex held up her beer bottle and said, "To what life is all about: fun, good friends, and most importantly... beer." Everyone chuckled. "Just kidding. Of course the most important thing is love."
"Here, here!" They clanged their beer bottles together and drank as more than just friends, but one happy, loving family.
