A/N: Thank you for saying that my author's notes are interesting to read. I feel like I have to have one. Glad that you liked Donna. I just figured that—Hey. She's wearing different clothes in ISOTG than in WKODHIB, so who's to say she didn't go home and change clothes. I was a little anxious about doing the dream sequence because I was afraid that it would seem a little melodramatic, but it worked. Glad to hear that you liked the dream.
Disclaimer: Maybe some day I'll work in the actual West Wing. But I still won't own the show.
,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,...,..,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
Leo McGarry's POV
,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
It's funny how fast things can change. The course of a day, hell, the course of a life can change in the fraction of a second. Take Jed Bartlet for example. The second that his life changed was when I came to his house one night with the craziest idea I had ever had, opened my mouth and said "Jed, let's run for President." Sam Seabourne's life changed forever when Josh Lyman showed up at his law firm, looking like a maniacal, homicidal crazy person. Which isn't that far from the truth I suppose. But I digress. My point is that people's lives change in the fraction of a second. That's all the time it takes the pull the trigger on a gun.
The day had gotten off to a calamitous start, but I thought that we were finally smoothing it out. We'd gotten the pilot back to friendly territory, Columbia was coming back to the ground, and the FEC nominations were going to sail by. There were still lots of Republicans in Washington, but that was another day's fight. For now I was perfectly happy to wave to the ecstatic crowd. I would be back at the office soon: just me, Margaret, and two feet of briefing memos. Ah, the bliss of working for the government.
When I heard the first gunshot, my mind shot back to the war. I almost reached for my gun, and then realized where I was, and who I was. I was Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, and I was at a Town Hall meeting in Rosslyn Virginia. I wasn't a soldier, and I wasn't in the war. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I had no way to defend myself, and people were shooting at me. Everyone felt quite vulnerable and unprotected.
People began screaming and shoving. The crowd started jumping over the barriers. The Secret Service had their hands full with just the crowd. Absolute panic was the mindset of everyone there. I was looking around, trying to see where everyone was. Hands were flying in front of my face, narrowly missing hitting me. I joined in the blatant display of mob mentality, pushing and shoving everyone who got near me.
I felt a grip of iron encircle my upper arm, and then I was down. A Secret Service agent rested their weight on me, effectively immobilizing me. "Stay down Mr. McGarry," he yelled to me. I couldn't see that much from my vantage point. I just saw a lot of feet moving around. The frantic blasts of gunfire suddenly stopped. There were a few short blasts, and then the absolute quiet came. It was the calm after the storm. I could almost hear my breath echoing in the small plaza.
After a few minutes, the Secret Service agent let me get up. "Are you all right Mr. McGarry?" he asked me. Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted away. The motorcade was assembling. I tried to walk over and see how Jed and Zoey were, but before I could make it there the cars pulled away. The lights of the police cars made me blink in sudden discomfort. The cars left, and I was standing alone in the midst of great confusion.
The silence had been replaced by a bunch of screams and wails. People were crying out for help. I wondered where the ambulances were. Shouldn't they be coming soon? We had been shot at, we had injuries, where were the ambulances? I had just finished thinking this when the police cars and ambulances began to flood in. I moved out of the way and watched as people started coming with their bruises and cuts. They'd probably gotten more hurt in their panic than by the assassin's bullets. I put my hands in my pockets and felt the slight tremble of the fingers.
"I want a drink," I thought, walking over to the head of the long train of ambulances. "I need a drink." A Secret Service agent was standing talking to several other agents. He obviously recognized me because he didn't tell me to go away.
"What happened?" I asked him. "Did we get the shooters?"
"The shooters are dead," he told me, and then looked behind me. "Canvas the entire area! No one leaves here unless they have a White House staffer's tag!" he called to one of the agents behind him.
I nodded, and walked away. "I need a drink," I thought to myself. The trembling became more. I knew this feeling. It was hard to fight, and came on at times of stress. I looked around for the other members of senior staff to take my mind off the longing for scotch. I couldn't see anyone right off the bat. That got me more worried than the shooting itself did. Don't get me wrong, the shooting was terrifying, but what happened during and after was just as bad as the bullets. It's a horrible, terrible thing not to know how the people you care for are during a crisis. And no matter how much they irk me, I do deeply care for Josh, CJ, Sam, and Toby. Sometimes it's hard, but I do care for them. We're like family. And there is no way that we could have gotten where we are right now if we didn't love each other like family.
"Leo!" I turned around to see Sam jogging towards me. I looked at him in shock. He looked like he had just come out of the Oval Office. Sure, his suit was a little rumpled, and his hair was mussed, but other than that he looked fine. Only Sam could come out of a murder attempt looking like he came out of work instead. There's something quite scary about him.
"Sam are you all right?" I asked him. It's a really stupid question. Of course he wasn't mentally all right, and physically, he was fine.
"Yeah, I'm all right," he said, giving me the once-over. "You seem all right," he added.
"I'm fine," I said, shaking the question off. "Do you know how the President is? Were any of our people hit?"
"I don't think that any person here was hit. CJ got her head pretty banged up," he said. He kept on glancing around nervously like he was looking for snipers. "I've seen Charlie and Toby; I haven't talked to them yet. As far as the President and Zoey, I know as much as you do. The motorcade pulled out a little while ago. We haven't had any contact since then."
"All right," I said, nodding my head. "All right. Sam turned around and started to walk away. I thought for a second, and then a new concern hit me. "Sam!" I called after him. He turned back. "You didn't say anything about Josh." He looked at me in confusion. "When you said that you'd seen everyone, you didn't mention Josh."
"I haven't seen him yet," Sam said. His eyes might have shown an additional flicker of concern, but it wasn't anything immense. "He's around." We stood together for a few short seconds. Sam and I were unique in the fact that we had a small cocoon of sanity. In the midst of great madness, we were probably the two calmest people. The adrenaline was running out of me, leaving me with an empty, tired feeling.
"All right," I said, feeling marginally better. Sam clapped me on the shoulder and started to walk away. "Sam?" I paused for a moment, pondering whether or not I should say what I was thinking. "I'm glad you're all right." He smiled and walked away. I probably shouldn't have said that. At the time, it was the right thing to say, but it was too sentimental. Much too sentimental for Sam.
I had nothing to do. Usually I am incredibly overworked with at least 92 things to do at any one minute. But I was now stuck with nothing to do. It was slightly offputting. I couldn't do anything to help the paramedics, and I couldn't find another member of the staff to talk to. It made me feel very lonely.
I looked around, and then I saw Charlie. "Charlie!" I called, breaking into a fast walk. "Charlie, you okay?"
"Yeah," he said. Charlie was obviously shaken up. He didn't have his normal docile tone that he had whenever he was speaking to me, or to Jed. He shook his head and came back to himself. "Do you want a car?"
"If you could get one, then I'd like that," I said, glancing around. The screams had subsided, and the crowd was calming down and becoming tamer. The frenzied feeling of action and confusion was still there, but I was no longer a part of it. I was standing alone, nearly brushing the great madness of the scene, but so far outside of it at the same time. It made me feel so different from the crowd and from my coworkers. But I suppose that it made sense. I'm a soldier: I'm used to the frenzy and terror of battle, and the explosions of gunfire. The shooting didn't phase me that much. I thought that everyone was fine, so all that remained was to go back to the White House, head to the Situation Room, and find out who shot at us and how we could find them. Charlie came jogging back.
"Leo, I got you a car," He said in the breathless pant that everyone seemed to be using. "I think that Josh is already in there, or is getting in. You're going back to the White House."
"Thanks Charlie," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. I climbed into the car, expecting to see Josh. Instead, I saw Bob Shannahan.
"Leo," he said, shaking my hand warmly. Despite my surprise at seeing him there I managed to return his greeting. "Thank God you're all right."
"The same here," I said, settling back into the seat. "From what I could hear, everyone's all right. And I don't think that anyone in the crowd was hit."
Shannahan nodded, and slumped back into the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes. It was slowly fading, but the panic he felt was still present in his eyes. There was silence for a heartbeat, and then he spoke again. "Leo, how can you be calm?" he asked hoarsely. "With all the world falling down around you, you're still perfectly calm?"
"You obviously haven't seen Sam," I thought to myself. "You think that my relative tranquillity is something, then imagine how you're going to feel about a person who can come out a shooting with perfect hair."
"Leo?" Shannahan prompted.
I thought about my answer before giving it. Why was I so calm? My first answer came to my head almost immediately. I was used to being shot at, I was used to hearing gunshots. I was a former soldier, I didn't give into urges to panic. But my second thought was the right one. I was calm because I needed to be. Everyone else, Josh, Sam, Toby, CJ, hell, even Jed—they were going nuts. Someone needed to be calm. I was calm so that they didn't have to be. But I didn't say that. I didn't even say my first thought.
I shook my head and turned to him. "Because I am," I said simply. This effectively ended our short conversation. I've become an expert over the years at ending conversations abruptly. It's a special talent.
I waited for us to get back in Washington. We took a turn, and my cell phone rang. "Damn it," I said angrily. Shannahan looked at me curiously. "Who the hell is calling?" I took the phone out, prepared to scream and rant at whoever was on the other end.
"What?" I snapped into the phone. There was static crackling on the other end and there were sirens in the back round. Either someone still at the meeting, or POTUS. Now I felt bad that I had yelled.
"Leo!" I searched my memory for that voice, and came up with a name. Ron Butterfield, head of the President's Secret Service detail. I unconsciously gripped the phone tighter. Why was Ron calling instead of the President? The adrenaline of the shooting and the immediate aftermath started to creep into my fingers. I needed a drink...
"Ron?" I shouted into the phone. Shannahan was looking at me with an insane energy. "Ron, what's wrong?" I demanded. I was gripping the phone so tightly that my knuckles were white.
"Leo, we're going to the hospital," Ron said. he had his commanding voice on. This was the voice that told people that they were under arrest, and to put their hands in the air. This was the take-charge voice. The commanding voice should have made me feel better. It didn't.
"Ron, what happened? Is the President all right?" I yelled into the phone.
"Leo, we're almost at GW," Ron said. "The President was hit in the side. We're going to the hospital to see how bad it is." He hung up.
"Oh God," I said into the phone. "Turn us around!" I bellowed to the driver. He didn't question my order. He just spun the car around. "GW!" I snapped. Shannahan gripped my arm so tight that it was painful.
"The President was hit," I said, finally taking the phone away from my ear. My heart froze when I said those words. Saying them aloud just made them seem so hopeless. The memories that I had of the shooting started coming back to me. They were disjointed and unconnected. Coming out of the building, the gunshots, the sirens, and the screaming. That was all that I could really remember.
"Can we go any faster?" I bellowed.
"We're pushing 70 right now," he called back to me. Thank goodness that the streets were cleared for this. We could as fast as we wanted. Within another few moments we were at the hospital. I left Shannahan in the car and sprinted into the hospital. I looked around, and then saw good deal of black suits standing outside of a room. Ah. There's the President.
I ran towards the pre-op room to be stopped by a nurse. "Sir, you can't go back there," she said, grabbing my arm. "They're getting ready to go into operation. You aren't allowed in the room!" she said urgently as I tried to break away from her.
"I'm Leo McGarry; I'm the White House Chief of Staff, and the President is asking for me," I said, flashing my ID. She immediately let go of my arm and let me burst into the room. The first thing I saw was my old friend Jed lying on a hospital bed with blood on his side. The next thing I saw was Zoey standing at the foot of the bed. She looked absolutely terrified. "How you doing kid?" I asked her.
"I'm fine," she said faintly. This told me that she was not fine. Zoey hated when I called her kid. But I couldn't help it. I gave all the Bartlet girls nicknames. Elizabeth was Liz, Eleanor was Ellie, and Zoey was kid. It was just the way things were.
"She booted all over the back of the car; you know they're going to bill me for that," Jed said, trying to lighten the mood. It failed monumentally, but it did make at least me feel better. If he was telling bad jokes, he couldn't be seriously hurt-right? "Honey, do me a favor would you?"
"Yeah, I'll go step outside. I'll wait for Mom," Zoey said, her eyes still wide with terror.
"Tell her not to frighten the doctors," he called after her. Knowing Abbey, she would frighten the doctors, and she would do it a lot. "I'll see you in a couple of hours." I walked over to the side of the bed. Jed slipped from 'caring father' mode into 'Presidential' mode. "Anyone dead back there?"
"The two shooters, they got them through the window," I answered, while adding silently, "May they rot in Hell." Jed took a deep breath. Doctors rushed around the bed, doing all of their doctor duties.
"Anybody in the crowd?"
"A few injuries, they're coming now."
"What about our people?"
"CJ hit her head on the ground, but other than that..." I let my voice trail off. Was that a twinge of concern in my voice? Over what? The President looked like he was going to be fine, and no one was hurt badly. Just let the President be all right.
"Get the Cabinet together, and the Security Council," he said in a weak voice. "Tell Jerome to suspend trading on the Stock Exchange." Amazing that he had a gunshot wound, yet we're talking about work. No one else had jobs like we do. "Do we know who the shooters were?"
"No," I answered simply. They're dead. Does it really matter who they were? But it did matter. If we knew who they were, then we could know who sent them and why.
"I'm going to be under anesthesia for a few hours," he said groggily. I nodded. "You know what that means?"
"I'll talk to Abbey," I assured him. She had probably had already thought about this, but if it made Jed feel better, then what the hell.
"Sir, it's time," one of the doctors said to me. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay beside my best friend. What kind of friend was I if I deserted him right when he needed me. We'd stuck beside each other through many things: booze, pills, MS, and a Presidential campaign. I had to leave his side now?
"Hey come here," Jed motioned to me. I leant down because I thought that he wanted to whisper something in my ear. Instead he grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek. I looked down at the hospital bed, and the President of the United States was gone. Instead, there was Jed Bartlet, father of three daughters, grandfather, husband, and my oldest friend. "Everything's going to be okay," he told me.
"I'll see you in a few hours Mr. President." I walked slowly out of the room. I walked into the waiting room. The first thing I saw was Abbey hugging Zoey. Then I saw the Doctor that had been with Jed. "Abbey, this is Dr. Keller," I told her with a significant look. She got the meaning behind it.
"Yes, we spoke on the phone." They launched into a whole campaign of doctor language. I am an educated man, but I cannot understand doctor language, so I led Zoey into a small room that said "Private Room" on the door. This would be the best place for us to go.
"How you doing?" I asked her seriously. Give the kid credit, she had guts. She nodded, and even tried to smile.
"I'm fine," she said, her bravery not quite reaching her eyes. They were still wide and scared. I patted her on the arm.
"Zoey, we've got good people at George Washington. They're doing everything they can. They honestly don't think that there's going to be any trouble now." She nodded again, and hugged herself.
"Yeah, I know," she said faintly.
"You want me to go?" I asked her. She nodded, and whispered something that I couldn't catch. I left the room and softly closed the door behind me. I was stuck in the waiting room with nothing to do. Like a writer on a movie set, is how Josh would describe my situation right now. A lot of Secret Service agents were standing in the waiting room, but one caught my eye. She was standing against the wall with a blank expression and her eyes wide. I walked over to her and leaned against the wall. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she said, turning around to fully face me. Now I recognized her. Gina Toscano, one of Zoey's agents. She had yelled.
"Was there someone on the ground?"
"There was a signal. I couldn't give a description." So that's why she was upset. Sirens wailed faintly behind us. The injuries must be coming here now.
"Did they close the airports?"
"And Union Station." She was quickly breaking down. "We've got troopers on the bridges, and 300 field agents on the ground, but I can't tell them what they're looking for." She was breaking out of her stoic agent role, and was letting her frustration shine through. The siren was closer now.
"You got the girl in the car Gina."
"It's right in front of my face." A buzzer sounded, and doctors and nurses burst through the doors. I turned around to see what was coming through the doors.
"Gunshot wound, no exit!" one of them yelled. Genuine alarm and panic swept through me. I didn't think that any member of the crowd had been hurt that badly. I saw them wheeling the stretcher towards the doors. A member of the crowd would have been bad enough. But what was about to come through those doors was much worse.
"It's Josh!" CJ yelled as she came in. She, Toby, and Charlie were running beside the stretcher. I looked into the stretcher and almost died. Josh was lying there, looking like he had already died. His blue shirt was ripped, exposing a hole that was spurting out blood in his chest. His hands were also bloody and his face was so confused.
"Josh!" I yelled. "What happened?" I asked no one in particular.
"We didn't see, he was behind us," Toby answered.
"Josh, I'm here!" Sam called as Josh pulled off the oxygen mask. Josh said a bunch of mumbled words that I couldn't hear. It was horrible to see him like this. He was normally so alive, energetic, sarcastic, and funny. Now he was reduced to a delirious man on a stretcher. He wasn't even Josh anymore.
They lifted him up on the pre-op table. First Jed, now Josh...my life, friends, and coworkers were disintegrating right in front of me. All I could think about was a few hours ago, the last time that I had really talked to Josh.
"What are you doing?"
"I...thought that you were going to hug me."
"Boy, did you read that one wrong."
And now he was dying. He had a collapsed lung and he was going into surgery. That was my son, and he was dying. My son had been shot by assassins. I was going to find the signal guy. I was going to talk to Ron, to Nancy, to Fitzwallace. I was going to talk to whomever I had to talk to, I was going to find the signal guy, and I was going to kill him.
"Sir, you need to leave," one of the doctors said. CJ, Toby, Charlie, Sam, and I were ushered out of the hospital room. Sam kept his face pressed up against the glass. I knew the feeling. It was misery to watch Josh going through this, but you didn't want to turn your eyes away. I looked in the room. They had thrown a surgical blanket over him, and put a cap over his brown hair. They were giving him the anesthesia. I watched them fix machines to them, and saw the irregular beat of his heart on the monitor. They wheeled him into the operation room. I watched the doors swing open and closed as Josh went into surgery.
I should have given him that hug.
Disclaimer: Maybe some day I'll work in the actual West Wing. But I still won't own the show.
,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,...,..,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
Leo McGarry's POV
,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,
It's funny how fast things can change. The course of a day, hell, the course of a life can change in the fraction of a second. Take Jed Bartlet for example. The second that his life changed was when I came to his house one night with the craziest idea I had ever had, opened my mouth and said "Jed, let's run for President." Sam Seabourne's life changed forever when Josh Lyman showed up at his law firm, looking like a maniacal, homicidal crazy person. Which isn't that far from the truth I suppose. But I digress. My point is that people's lives change in the fraction of a second. That's all the time it takes the pull the trigger on a gun.
The day had gotten off to a calamitous start, but I thought that we were finally smoothing it out. We'd gotten the pilot back to friendly territory, Columbia was coming back to the ground, and the FEC nominations were going to sail by. There were still lots of Republicans in Washington, but that was another day's fight. For now I was perfectly happy to wave to the ecstatic crowd. I would be back at the office soon: just me, Margaret, and two feet of briefing memos. Ah, the bliss of working for the government.
When I heard the first gunshot, my mind shot back to the war. I almost reached for my gun, and then realized where I was, and who I was. I was Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, and I was at a Town Hall meeting in Rosslyn Virginia. I wasn't a soldier, and I wasn't in the war. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I had no way to defend myself, and people were shooting at me. Everyone felt quite vulnerable and unprotected.
People began screaming and shoving. The crowd started jumping over the barriers. The Secret Service had their hands full with just the crowd. Absolute panic was the mindset of everyone there. I was looking around, trying to see where everyone was. Hands were flying in front of my face, narrowly missing hitting me. I joined in the blatant display of mob mentality, pushing and shoving everyone who got near me.
I felt a grip of iron encircle my upper arm, and then I was down. A Secret Service agent rested their weight on me, effectively immobilizing me. "Stay down Mr. McGarry," he yelled to me. I couldn't see that much from my vantage point. I just saw a lot of feet moving around. The frantic blasts of gunfire suddenly stopped. There were a few short blasts, and then the absolute quiet came. It was the calm after the storm. I could almost hear my breath echoing in the small plaza.
After a few minutes, the Secret Service agent let me get up. "Are you all right Mr. McGarry?" he asked me. Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted away. The motorcade was assembling. I tried to walk over and see how Jed and Zoey were, but before I could make it there the cars pulled away. The lights of the police cars made me blink in sudden discomfort. The cars left, and I was standing alone in the midst of great confusion.
The silence had been replaced by a bunch of screams and wails. People were crying out for help. I wondered where the ambulances were. Shouldn't they be coming soon? We had been shot at, we had injuries, where were the ambulances? I had just finished thinking this when the police cars and ambulances began to flood in. I moved out of the way and watched as people started coming with their bruises and cuts. They'd probably gotten more hurt in their panic than by the assassin's bullets. I put my hands in my pockets and felt the slight tremble of the fingers.
"I want a drink," I thought, walking over to the head of the long train of ambulances. "I need a drink." A Secret Service agent was standing talking to several other agents. He obviously recognized me because he didn't tell me to go away.
"What happened?" I asked him. "Did we get the shooters?"
"The shooters are dead," he told me, and then looked behind me. "Canvas the entire area! No one leaves here unless they have a White House staffer's tag!" he called to one of the agents behind him.
I nodded, and walked away. "I need a drink," I thought to myself. The trembling became more. I knew this feeling. It was hard to fight, and came on at times of stress. I looked around for the other members of senior staff to take my mind off the longing for scotch. I couldn't see anyone right off the bat. That got me more worried than the shooting itself did. Don't get me wrong, the shooting was terrifying, but what happened during and after was just as bad as the bullets. It's a horrible, terrible thing not to know how the people you care for are during a crisis. And no matter how much they irk me, I do deeply care for Josh, CJ, Sam, and Toby. Sometimes it's hard, but I do care for them. We're like family. And there is no way that we could have gotten where we are right now if we didn't love each other like family.
"Leo!" I turned around to see Sam jogging towards me. I looked at him in shock. He looked like he had just come out of the Oval Office. Sure, his suit was a little rumpled, and his hair was mussed, but other than that he looked fine. Only Sam could come out of a murder attempt looking like he came out of work instead. There's something quite scary about him.
"Sam are you all right?" I asked him. It's a really stupid question. Of course he wasn't mentally all right, and physically, he was fine.
"Yeah, I'm all right," he said, giving me the once-over. "You seem all right," he added.
"I'm fine," I said, shaking the question off. "Do you know how the President is? Were any of our people hit?"
"I don't think that any person here was hit. CJ got her head pretty banged up," he said. He kept on glancing around nervously like he was looking for snipers. "I've seen Charlie and Toby; I haven't talked to them yet. As far as the President and Zoey, I know as much as you do. The motorcade pulled out a little while ago. We haven't had any contact since then."
"All right," I said, nodding my head. "All right. Sam turned around and started to walk away. I thought for a second, and then a new concern hit me. "Sam!" I called after him. He turned back. "You didn't say anything about Josh." He looked at me in confusion. "When you said that you'd seen everyone, you didn't mention Josh."
"I haven't seen him yet," Sam said. His eyes might have shown an additional flicker of concern, but it wasn't anything immense. "He's around." We stood together for a few short seconds. Sam and I were unique in the fact that we had a small cocoon of sanity. In the midst of great madness, we were probably the two calmest people. The adrenaline was running out of me, leaving me with an empty, tired feeling.
"All right," I said, feeling marginally better. Sam clapped me on the shoulder and started to walk away. "Sam?" I paused for a moment, pondering whether or not I should say what I was thinking. "I'm glad you're all right." He smiled and walked away. I probably shouldn't have said that. At the time, it was the right thing to say, but it was too sentimental. Much too sentimental for Sam.
I had nothing to do. Usually I am incredibly overworked with at least 92 things to do at any one minute. But I was now stuck with nothing to do. It was slightly offputting. I couldn't do anything to help the paramedics, and I couldn't find another member of the staff to talk to. It made me feel very lonely.
I looked around, and then I saw Charlie. "Charlie!" I called, breaking into a fast walk. "Charlie, you okay?"
"Yeah," he said. Charlie was obviously shaken up. He didn't have his normal docile tone that he had whenever he was speaking to me, or to Jed. He shook his head and came back to himself. "Do you want a car?"
"If you could get one, then I'd like that," I said, glancing around. The screams had subsided, and the crowd was calming down and becoming tamer. The frenzied feeling of action and confusion was still there, but I was no longer a part of it. I was standing alone, nearly brushing the great madness of the scene, but so far outside of it at the same time. It made me feel so different from the crowd and from my coworkers. But I suppose that it made sense. I'm a soldier: I'm used to the frenzy and terror of battle, and the explosions of gunfire. The shooting didn't phase me that much. I thought that everyone was fine, so all that remained was to go back to the White House, head to the Situation Room, and find out who shot at us and how we could find them. Charlie came jogging back.
"Leo, I got you a car," He said in the breathless pant that everyone seemed to be using. "I think that Josh is already in there, or is getting in. You're going back to the White House."
"Thanks Charlie," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. I climbed into the car, expecting to see Josh. Instead, I saw Bob Shannahan.
"Leo," he said, shaking my hand warmly. Despite my surprise at seeing him there I managed to return his greeting. "Thank God you're all right."
"The same here," I said, settling back into the seat. "From what I could hear, everyone's all right. And I don't think that anyone in the crowd was hit."
Shannahan nodded, and slumped back into the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes. It was slowly fading, but the panic he felt was still present in his eyes. There was silence for a heartbeat, and then he spoke again. "Leo, how can you be calm?" he asked hoarsely. "With all the world falling down around you, you're still perfectly calm?"
"You obviously haven't seen Sam," I thought to myself. "You think that my relative tranquillity is something, then imagine how you're going to feel about a person who can come out a shooting with perfect hair."
"Leo?" Shannahan prompted.
I thought about my answer before giving it. Why was I so calm? My first answer came to my head almost immediately. I was used to being shot at, I was used to hearing gunshots. I was a former soldier, I didn't give into urges to panic. But my second thought was the right one. I was calm because I needed to be. Everyone else, Josh, Sam, Toby, CJ, hell, even Jed—they were going nuts. Someone needed to be calm. I was calm so that they didn't have to be. But I didn't say that. I didn't even say my first thought.
I shook my head and turned to him. "Because I am," I said simply. This effectively ended our short conversation. I've become an expert over the years at ending conversations abruptly. It's a special talent.
I waited for us to get back in Washington. We took a turn, and my cell phone rang. "Damn it," I said angrily. Shannahan looked at me curiously. "Who the hell is calling?" I took the phone out, prepared to scream and rant at whoever was on the other end.
"What?" I snapped into the phone. There was static crackling on the other end and there were sirens in the back round. Either someone still at the meeting, or POTUS. Now I felt bad that I had yelled.
"Leo!" I searched my memory for that voice, and came up with a name. Ron Butterfield, head of the President's Secret Service detail. I unconsciously gripped the phone tighter. Why was Ron calling instead of the President? The adrenaline of the shooting and the immediate aftermath started to creep into my fingers. I needed a drink...
"Ron?" I shouted into the phone. Shannahan was looking at me with an insane energy. "Ron, what's wrong?" I demanded. I was gripping the phone so tightly that my knuckles were white.
"Leo, we're going to the hospital," Ron said. he had his commanding voice on. This was the voice that told people that they were under arrest, and to put their hands in the air. This was the take-charge voice. The commanding voice should have made me feel better. It didn't.
"Ron, what happened? Is the President all right?" I yelled into the phone.
"Leo, we're almost at GW," Ron said. "The President was hit in the side. We're going to the hospital to see how bad it is." He hung up.
"Oh God," I said into the phone. "Turn us around!" I bellowed to the driver. He didn't question my order. He just spun the car around. "GW!" I snapped. Shannahan gripped my arm so tight that it was painful.
"The President was hit," I said, finally taking the phone away from my ear. My heart froze when I said those words. Saying them aloud just made them seem so hopeless. The memories that I had of the shooting started coming back to me. They were disjointed and unconnected. Coming out of the building, the gunshots, the sirens, and the screaming. That was all that I could really remember.
"Can we go any faster?" I bellowed.
"We're pushing 70 right now," he called back to me. Thank goodness that the streets were cleared for this. We could as fast as we wanted. Within another few moments we were at the hospital. I left Shannahan in the car and sprinted into the hospital. I looked around, and then saw good deal of black suits standing outside of a room. Ah. There's the President.
I ran towards the pre-op room to be stopped by a nurse. "Sir, you can't go back there," she said, grabbing my arm. "They're getting ready to go into operation. You aren't allowed in the room!" she said urgently as I tried to break away from her.
"I'm Leo McGarry; I'm the White House Chief of Staff, and the President is asking for me," I said, flashing my ID. She immediately let go of my arm and let me burst into the room. The first thing I saw was my old friend Jed lying on a hospital bed with blood on his side. The next thing I saw was Zoey standing at the foot of the bed. She looked absolutely terrified. "How you doing kid?" I asked her.
"I'm fine," she said faintly. This told me that she was not fine. Zoey hated when I called her kid. But I couldn't help it. I gave all the Bartlet girls nicknames. Elizabeth was Liz, Eleanor was Ellie, and Zoey was kid. It was just the way things were.
"She booted all over the back of the car; you know they're going to bill me for that," Jed said, trying to lighten the mood. It failed monumentally, but it did make at least me feel better. If he was telling bad jokes, he couldn't be seriously hurt-right? "Honey, do me a favor would you?"
"Yeah, I'll go step outside. I'll wait for Mom," Zoey said, her eyes still wide with terror.
"Tell her not to frighten the doctors," he called after her. Knowing Abbey, she would frighten the doctors, and she would do it a lot. "I'll see you in a couple of hours." I walked over to the side of the bed. Jed slipped from 'caring father' mode into 'Presidential' mode. "Anyone dead back there?"
"The two shooters, they got them through the window," I answered, while adding silently, "May they rot in Hell." Jed took a deep breath. Doctors rushed around the bed, doing all of their doctor duties.
"Anybody in the crowd?"
"A few injuries, they're coming now."
"What about our people?"
"CJ hit her head on the ground, but other than that..." I let my voice trail off. Was that a twinge of concern in my voice? Over what? The President looked like he was going to be fine, and no one was hurt badly. Just let the President be all right.
"Get the Cabinet together, and the Security Council," he said in a weak voice. "Tell Jerome to suspend trading on the Stock Exchange." Amazing that he had a gunshot wound, yet we're talking about work. No one else had jobs like we do. "Do we know who the shooters were?"
"No," I answered simply. They're dead. Does it really matter who they were? But it did matter. If we knew who they were, then we could know who sent them and why.
"I'm going to be under anesthesia for a few hours," he said groggily. I nodded. "You know what that means?"
"I'll talk to Abbey," I assured him. She had probably had already thought about this, but if it made Jed feel better, then what the hell.
"Sir, it's time," one of the doctors said to me. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay beside my best friend. What kind of friend was I if I deserted him right when he needed me. We'd stuck beside each other through many things: booze, pills, MS, and a Presidential campaign. I had to leave his side now?
"Hey come here," Jed motioned to me. I leant down because I thought that he wanted to whisper something in my ear. Instead he grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek. I looked down at the hospital bed, and the President of the United States was gone. Instead, there was Jed Bartlet, father of three daughters, grandfather, husband, and my oldest friend. "Everything's going to be okay," he told me.
"I'll see you in a few hours Mr. President." I walked slowly out of the room. I walked into the waiting room. The first thing I saw was Abbey hugging Zoey. Then I saw the Doctor that had been with Jed. "Abbey, this is Dr. Keller," I told her with a significant look. She got the meaning behind it.
"Yes, we spoke on the phone." They launched into a whole campaign of doctor language. I am an educated man, but I cannot understand doctor language, so I led Zoey into a small room that said "Private Room" on the door. This would be the best place for us to go.
"How you doing?" I asked her seriously. Give the kid credit, she had guts. She nodded, and even tried to smile.
"I'm fine," she said, her bravery not quite reaching her eyes. They were still wide and scared. I patted her on the arm.
"Zoey, we've got good people at George Washington. They're doing everything they can. They honestly don't think that there's going to be any trouble now." She nodded again, and hugged herself.
"Yeah, I know," she said faintly.
"You want me to go?" I asked her. She nodded, and whispered something that I couldn't catch. I left the room and softly closed the door behind me. I was stuck in the waiting room with nothing to do. Like a writer on a movie set, is how Josh would describe my situation right now. A lot of Secret Service agents were standing in the waiting room, but one caught my eye. She was standing against the wall with a blank expression and her eyes wide. I walked over to her and leaned against the wall. "You all right?"
"Yeah," she said, turning around to fully face me. Now I recognized her. Gina Toscano, one of Zoey's agents. She had yelled.
"Was there someone on the ground?"
"There was a signal. I couldn't give a description." So that's why she was upset. Sirens wailed faintly behind us. The injuries must be coming here now.
"Did they close the airports?"
"And Union Station." She was quickly breaking down. "We've got troopers on the bridges, and 300 field agents on the ground, but I can't tell them what they're looking for." She was breaking out of her stoic agent role, and was letting her frustration shine through. The siren was closer now.
"You got the girl in the car Gina."
"It's right in front of my face." A buzzer sounded, and doctors and nurses burst through the doors. I turned around to see what was coming through the doors.
"Gunshot wound, no exit!" one of them yelled. Genuine alarm and panic swept through me. I didn't think that any member of the crowd had been hurt that badly. I saw them wheeling the stretcher towards the doors. A member of the crowd would have been bad enough. But what was about to come through those doors was much worse.
"It's Josh!" CJ yelled as she came in. She, Toby, and Charlie were running beside the stretcher. I looked into the stretcher and almost died. Josh was lying there, looking like he had already died. His blue shirt was ripped, exposing a hole that was spurting out blood in his chest. His hands were also bloody and his face was so confused.
"Josh!" I yelled. "What happened?" I asked no one in particular.
"We didn't see, he was behind us," Toby answered.
"Josh, I'm here!" Sam called as Josh pulled off the oxygen mask. Josh said a bunch of mumbled words that I couldn't hear. It was horrible to see him like this. He was normally so alive, energetic, sarcastic, and funny. Now he was reduced to a delirious man on a stretcher. He wasn't even Josh anymore.
They lifted him up on the pre-op table. First Jed, now Josh...my life, friends, and coworkers were disintegrating right in front of me. All I could think about was a few hours ago, the last time that I had really talked to Josh.
"What are you doing?"
"I...thought that you were going to hug me."
"Boy, did you read that one wrong."
And now he was dying. He had a collapsed lung and he was going into surgery. That was my son, and he was dying. My son had been shot by assassins. I was going to find the signal guy. I was going to talk to Ron, to Nancy, to Fitzwallace. I was going to talk to whomever I had to talk to, I was going to find the signal guy, and I was going to kill him.
"Sir, you need to leave," one of the doctors said. CJ, Toby, Charlie, Sam, and I were ushered out of the hospital room. Sam kept his face pressed up against the glass. I knew the feeling. It was misery to watch Josh going through this, but you didn't want to turn your eyes away. I looked in the room. They had thrown a surgical blanket over him, and put a cap over his brown hair. They were giving him the anesthesia. I watched them fix machines to them, and saw the irregular beat of his heart on the monitor. They wheeled him into the operation room. I watched the doors swing open and closed as Josh went into surgery.
I should have given him that hug.