The Gods Have Conspired

by LemonyLyman

It's inauguration day and Josh is watching as the candidate he campaigned for is being sworn in as POTUS. Josh has been in this position 6 times before but there is something different about this candidate, it's almost as if it was meant to be this way from the very start. A series of vignettes that tell the stories of people and events that make a president.

28. Shiva in the White House - Ryan Pierce

Various characters try to come to terms with Josh Lyman's mortality.

(a series of vignettes within a series of vignettes... vignette inception, lol)

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Washington D.C. - 2043

-Ryan Pierce-

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Ryan Pierce rounded up the most trusted members of the Senior Staff and told them that their jobs were going to be a little harder for the next few days and that he expected them to rise to the occasion. There would be no setting of fires that would require the President to put out, they would make sure that the West Wing continued to run like a well-oiled machine. Ryan was willing to move heaven and earth to make sure nothing ended up on the President's literal and figurative desk unless it absolutely needed to.

It hadn't felt callous when, after being informed of Josh's condition and the President had left for GW Hospital, Ryan had started making calls in order to prepare for the possibility of Josh's death. There was only so much he could plan at that point but the prognosis had not been good and he had to get ahead.

Ryan knew that even if Josh had never been particularly religious the President was. The funeral would have to be right away, he knew that it was highly likely that the President would want to have something that at least remotely resembled sitting Shiva; whatever the constraints of the President's time-consuming job would allow.

And then there was Josh's status, not just as the President's father, but also as a long-time leading figure in the party and major influence on the American political world for nearly the last five decades; that meant that a great many people would want to attend some sort of memorial. Ryan would of course have to work with the Lyman family to finalize any arrangements but he wanted to make sure that whatever they needed could be taken care of as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

"I'm not even dead yet and you're already planning my funeral," Ryan imagined Josh saying to him, half whining and half teasing.

Those imagined words pierced the soft part of Ryan that he liked to hide, the side that, if discovered, many would think clashed with the "devious frat boy at heart" persona he had cultivated over the years.

For a brief moment he felt guilty for jumping the gun.

But the rational part of Ryan came to his swift defense.

"What else are you supposed to do," it asked. "You've got to be prepared, you've got to make their lives easier because this is going to be hell for all of them. You promised Josh you'd do your job so that the President could do his, so get back to work, you can have a shot of something strong and yell at the monument of your choice when all this is done."

And so, Ryan went back to making phone calls and looking at calendars, planning and organizing for any eventuality, because that's what Josh would want him to do. This was how he planned to mourn his mentor for now, by ensuring that his son could mourn him properly; there would be time for tears later.