Title: Thanks, That Was Fun
Author: freak-pudding
Disclaimer: The West Wing and all associated articles are the sole property of Aaron Sorkin and NBC. No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: "I fired Ned for you." "You fired him for the campaign." "Whatever." Post-Here Today
Author's Notes: This is just my immediate reaction to watching WW tonight. I'll probably regret this in the morning, but here it is. Titled for the Barenaked Ladies song because it was on while I was writing this.
He finds him in the back of the plane, three tiny bottles of Jack open and empty.
"I fired him," Josh says quietly, a slur on the edge of the words. "I fired Ned for you."
"You fired him for the campaign."
"Whatever."
He sighs, rubs his face with both hands, and Matt takes the seat across.
"You see the President's address?"
"Helen showed me," Matt nods, taking an empty bottle in his hands, playing and tossing it back and forth. "You?"
Josh points one wavering finger at the large TV screen dominating one wall.
"He was my friend."
His hands cover his face now. Matt starts to scrape at the bottle's label with one dirty fingernail.
"I'm sorry this happened to him."
"Yeah," Josh sighs, palms digging into his eyes. "He found me."
"He what?"
"The President was shot, middle of second year."
"Yeah."
"I was shot too."
"Yeah," Matt repeats. "Rosslyn. I remember the news reports."
"Toby was the one that found me."
Josh takes his hands away; the brown eyes that find Matt's are red and bleary.
"Everyone was walking ahead, to the cars, and I…I went back towards the Newseum. I don't even…I don't even remember why. But when the shooting started, I was behind a fence. Toby was the one to find me."
He loosens his tie with two fingers, pulls out a fourth bottle and pops the plastic cork. He offers the first sip to Matt, but the Congressman declines politely.
"I remember the look, in his eyes. He was terrified. He pulled off his jacket, pressed it into the wound, trying to…trying to stop the blood."
Matt looks away from him, embarrassed. He doesn't know if Josh realizes he's crying.
"I'd be dead, if it weren't for Toby. His brother, David, was on the Columbia that day, and there'd been this thing where it couldn't land and everyone was worried…"
Josh tosses back the sour drink, wipes at his wet cheeks.
"He was pissed at me for leaving. For coming to work for you, and not taking him with. Or inviting him along. Whatever."
Matt sets the bottle on the edge of the table, and they watch together as it rolls to the ground.
"You said his brother was an astronaut?"
"Yeah," Josh sighs. "He died not too long ago. Cancer."
"Maybe that's why he did it."
"Maybe," Josh whispers. He studies the bottles, the twinkling pricks of light that reflect off their edges.
"Josh, look, I—"
"Anyway," Josh says, standing and cutting him off. "I fired Ned. I don't think he's going back to the Congressional offices."
He drops the last bottle on the table; it bounces and shatters in a spray of amber-coated shards.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Matt calls out as Josh passes.
"I'm really not."
He hears the rustle of the separating curtain, the soft, defeated footfalls as Josh walks away.