A/N:Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter. This chapter focuses more on the West Wing end of things, and moves the plot. I hope you like, and please, as always, remember to review. Reviews make me smile and well, I like smiling, so that's a good enough reason.
Chapter 3
Huck groaned and stared at his blank legal pad. This pad was almost used up, mainly because every time he started over, he tore off the offending pages, the filled pages with the horrific writing that he wouldn't ever show anyone. Well, perhaps one person, he'd always shown his work, no matter how bad he thought it was to AJ. But she wasn't here anymore, she'd left, abandoning her plans for law school and a bachelor's in political science, she had chosen her other love medicine. And had decided to not use both her specialized degrees to help people the way her parents, and his parents, had. Standing up and stretching his arms high over his head, he rolled his neck, feeling it crack as he moved the stiff joints, he grinned with the memory of making AJ wince every time she'd heard a joint crack. She hated that sound, and often to annoy her, he would crack as much as he could. He'd learned to make it last for about five minutes, going all the way up his back and neck, and then to his fingers, AJ would usually be covering her ears and wincing by the end of it.
But those were happier memories of his lifelong friend. Those and memories of copying her father and his roommate from sophomore year of college, they still hadn't been able to find out the unknown man's name, and getting a fish, a goldfish in honor of Aunt CJ's recent successes in creating roadways and transportation infrastructure in Africa, onto the dean's list. Hell, the fish had made the dean's list more often then he had. AJ though, she was smart, easily her father's daughter, though she had relied more on the common sense and native intelligence that her mother possessed in spades.
But then came the memories of AJ meeting Brian, and the laughter, and the hardship, being her mother's daughter AJ had never managed to have an easy simple relationship. Huck wasn't even sure that AJ had ever told Brian about that day….he was sure the man had known about it…it was still so recent, and their undergrad work had been done in DC, where people were aware of it simply because of who she was, and the fact that her parents had not left their jobs to take care of her. Only close family friends knew that AJ had demanded that her parents not leave the jobs they loved for her. But he didn't think AJ had ever talked with Brian about it…or about the chilling aftereffect…the simple truth that even though her heart had been fixed, even though the doctors had pulled off a 16-hour miracle that long night in January, she was never going to be the same….broken as she called it, damaged beyond repair.
Interrupting his walk down memory lane, Sara knocked on the frame to his office door and poked her head inside, "Bill needs to see you."
"As long as its not about the speech. I'll give him the draft when I'm good and ready," Huck grumbled. He, like AJ, and even Noah, had a reputation for being like his father. Although, he would classify AJ as her mother's daughter, with many of her father's bad habits. Grabbing the last copy of the speech out of the bin, and smoothing away some of the cresses, he took it with him, not that he wanted anyone to see it, and walked the 49 feet to the Chief of Staff's office, mentally smiling that his office was only 53 feet away from the Oval.
Quickly raping his knuckles on the doorframe, he walked into Bill's office, and found that he was not the only one there. Noah was also waiting, the impatience plain to see on his face. Huck wondered why the Deputy Chief of Staff was also there, and figured it was a same assumption that it wasn't about the speech to the teacher's union.
"We have a slight problem," Bill began, walking into his office and to his desk. He didn't go around to the other side to sit, instead he faced Huck Wyatt-Zeigler, and Noah Lyman.
"What type of problem? A we can fix this by noon if we don't get too badly off schedule problem, a going to occupy us for days even if we can't really do anything problem, or a huge going to give everyone a headache a make our lives revolve around it problem?" Noah asked, looking more like his father, and sounding like him, than Huck had ever seen his other lifelong friend.
"Somewhere in-between the last two, we have a chance to help relations with North Korea move to a slightly more stable position…"
"You mean spouting anti-U.S. rhetoric and attempting to have missile tests every few years isn't stable?" Huck muttered under his breath.
"Can the two of you stop being your father's for about five minutes? The youngest grandson of the current leader…"
"The one whose name you still can't pronounce, even though he's been in power since oh, before the Bartlett Administration?" Noah teased.
"Remind me why I hired you for even just the campaign? Much less let you hang around for the real work?" Bill groaned, remembering exactly why he had, Noah was a, slightly, nicer version of Joshua Lyman, and was just as smart and personable. He also had contacts that Bill didn't, despite the difference in their ages, a product of growing up in the most politicized square footage in the United States. Like his father he was also a bulldog, perfect for the roll of Deputy Chief of Staff. "The grandson is sick. None of their doctors can figure it out, mush less the Chinese doctors they've let examine him."
"So talk to World Health Organization, or Doctors Without Boarders, or hell, anybody else. What are the odds they would let a U.S. doctor treat him? And what are the odds they would even ask?" Noah rationalized.
"The Swiss, as always it seems, have become the intermediary. The North Koreans know who they want to treat the kid. And since the President has already even the go-ahead, you two get to draw straws."
"Over what?" Huck asked already knowing the answer.
"Which one of you gets to go to New Jersey and get one Gregory House to take the case."
"Since his sister…" Huck began pointing at Noah.
"Exactly why it shouldn't be me, there'll be more pressure if it was me, therefore it should be you…" Noah responded.
"One of these days, one of you will tell me why you are terrified of someone who weighs less than a third of either of you. RPS it," Bill said, using the method he had found that the two younger men used during the campaign to figure who would do something neither wanted to. They had a habit of using it still, especially when it came down to how had to talk to Mary Marsh, Bill was just amused she was still alive, after all she had been a power player for the Christian Right since the Bartlett Administration, and still seemed to despise anyone named Lyman.
"Ready?" Noah asked, turning to face Huck, and holding his hands out in the traditional way.
"Yeah, I guess. Rock, Paper, Scissors," Huck intoned, as both their hands moved.
"Yes! Victory is mine, victory is mine. Great day in the morning, victory is mine" Noah exclaimed.
"And your still acting like him. Actually that even sounds like him. You quote your own father?" Huck asked.
"Hey your dad was the one that couldn't get over the fact that babies come with hats."
"Let's not go there. Is there a file or something that I need so I can convince these people with I don't know, medical evidence that they really need to take this case?"
"And you even get a phone number. The doctor on the plane is calling in every hour to give an update. Until you get to the hospital, just write down what the doctor tells you. After that…"
"I give it to her, and let them do their jobs while hoping nothing goes wrong and more importantly that the man who is quite possibly the craziest drug-addicted doctor in the continental United States, I exclude Alaska and Hawaii, because well, six months of sun and six months of dark is enough to make anyone crazy, and well who can be crazy in Hawaii, doesn't kill this kid and totally screw foreign policy up for 50 or so years?"
"Basically, yes. Here's the folder. We don't have a lot of time, so there's a car waiting to take you to Andrews. There's a chopper waiting to fly you up…try not to insult anyone you meet. Remember these people will be voting for us in an all too short amount of time." Bill handed Huck the folder, and with that the two second-generation West Wing staffers left.
