W.W. – Sunday morning
Leo McGarry sat, starting out the window at a light rain falling over Camp David. The world was wet and gray, with all the colors washed out and the light a viscous haze in the trees. The world was not black and white, today, but gray in all its dull wonder.
He looked back at the briefing document in front of him, an assessment of Israeli intelligence assets. He couldn't focus. The President had been volatile, swinging from wrathful intensity to overcautious intellectualism, and Leo had been the one steering him to a consistent course. They'd butted heads more than a few times since the Gaza bombings. It was starting to take its toll.
He looked out the window again, and he felt his chest tighten. The gray haze wasn't just outside his window; it was over everything like a grimy curtain. He reached into his pocket and took out a small box. The nitro tablet dissolved under his tongue, and he felt the familiar headache and dizziness.
He lowered his head, and let the medicine speed to his heart. He tried to stay calm and to breathe deeply, but he was panting from the pain for a few minutes. He got another tablet ready just in case, but the feeling subsided. If only that was the end of it, he thought
He reached for his phone.
"Hey, Tim," he said sadly, "I need the doctor in here, and let him know I just took a nitro. No, I'm doing okay, so let's try to avoid a circus. Yeah." He hung up, and sat for a minute. He could already hear the security detail moving through the cabins, alerting the President and the medical staff. He thought about taking the other pill, but the pain in his chest had reduced to a dull ache so he just held the tablet in one hand as he closed the security briefing with the other.
He looked once more out the window as the head of the protection detail unlocked his door with the master key. The young Navy doctor assigned to the President was the first through the door.
"Mr. McGarry, I understand you've had to take nitroglycerine?"
"Yes, a few minutes ago."
"How many doses?"
"Just one. I'm feeling better."
"Well, we both know that can mean the trouble's over or it can just mean the medicine's working. We need to get some imaging so that we can see if you need thrombolytics, alright? We're going to run you back down to DC, Mr. McGarry."
The doctor was nodding at his patient's pulse and general alertness, but he was worried about Leo's pallor and shallow breathing. He decided to give Leo supplemental oxygen as soon as they were on the chopper back to the capital.
The head of he security detail, Tim O'Shields, carefully gathered up the briefing folders. He checked briefly to make sure they were all marked classified before sending them back to secure storage, at least until the NSA could collect them. The titles included "Casebook Sonic" and "Proliferation Models: Israel." Definitely secure stuff. He took the last briefing paper, a list of known Israeli operatives from "Arkin, Rahib" to "Maxwell, Avi."
He took the sheet, returned it to the Casebook Sonic file, and had it placed in the security safe until the new NSA staffer could retrieve and re-file it. His work done, O'Shields went on with the work of securing everyone at Camp David, American, Israeli and Palestinian, except of course for the President, a task that fell to Ron Butterfield and his extensive team.
W.W. – Sunday afternoon
Josh answered the phone as quietly as he could, stepping into the bathroom of the hotel room. Donna had not fallen soundly asleep until almost dawn, and despite her protests of health earlier, he could tell she was still physically sore as well as mentally stressed.
"Hey, Toby." Josh caught his reflection in the mirror, all wild hair and red eyes. "How's Andi doing?"
"She," Toby paused and sighed, and for a moment Josh felt his heart slowing, felt time stretching out with dread, but just as quickly Toby's scratchy voice resumed. "She seems to be improving. She listened to the twins on the phone."
"That's great. When Donna wakes up I'll make sure she knows."
"Don't wait, Josh." Toby's habit, of accenting the second to last word in a sentence when excited or passionate, turned the sentence into a command. "Don't wait, Josh."
"Well, she had a rough night, but as soon as she wakes up…"
Toby cut in again. "That's not what I mean. I look at Andi, lying in the bed, and she has three little bumps on her arm, Josh. Her right arm, little bumps down one side. It's fragments of glass that got blown right under the skin by the bomb, Josh." Toby's voice, so implacable, shook for a moment and Josh realized that Toby must be crying, standing in the hospital hallway in Germany.
"They'll take good care of her, Toby." It was something to say.
"They say they'll worry about them after they build up more antibiotics in her system, and something about liver enzymes. But even after they do that, and they, they take out those three little pieces of glass, she'll still be here, in a hospital. The mother of my children is my ex wife, Josh, and she's a thousand miles from home, and from them, and even when she's well, she'll be a thousand miles from me, even when we're in the same room. Don't wait, Josh."
Toby hung up, and Josh looked in the mirror for a long while afterwards.
W.W. – Sunday night
Charlie Young closed the door to the kitchen, and quietly walked to the young woman sitting on the sofa by the fire. He handed her a cup of tea, and she scooted her legs over to make room for him rather than have him sit in the chair across from her.
She took the steaming cup, and held it a moment, the warmth moving into her hands.
"I worry about him, Charlie," she sighed, in that breathy way she had that made her so attractive to him, so wise and weary yet still sounding of the carefree girl she had so recently been.
"Zoey, the doctors say Leo is doing fine, that they are on top of this thing. We have to give it time." He took a sip of his own tea, and watched her as she stared into the fire.
"I didn't mean Leo. Of course, I worry about him, too." She went to take a sip of her tea, and paused, looking carefully down into the cup and sniffing it for a moment.
"I made the tea myself. I don't think you have to worry." He smiled at her teasingly, which was not the right response.
She put the cup down suddenly, and leaned against him. Her legs were drawn up under a blanket and she hugged her knees with both arms. She made herself very small and folded against him, hair falling down to cover her eyes.
"You don't understand. No one does." He didn't need to see her face to know she was back at the nightclub, drinking the spiked cocktail from her ill-chosen lover. He would do anything to bring her back from there, if he knew how. She spoke again, her words coming as much through his chest as to his ears as she pressed against him.
"You never get over wondering. You go on. You never relax, and never forget. You sort of scab over the wounded places, and you go on. But that's all. You don't get better, you get used to it. You go on."
He tightened his arm around her, and kissed her hair with a casual compassion and ease that would have shocked them both just months before. He sat a moment, letting her feel him, being there, for her.
"It's over, Zoey. I promise."
She laughed sadly.
"There's no such thing as closure," she whispered, possibly to herself.
The fire crackled, and burned low. The tea grew cold.
At a cabin in Camp David, in a hospital bed in Germany, and in a Washington hotel, three women nursed their hurts and three men sat over them, chasing the myth of closure.
-fin-
Author's Note:
This Ends "The Myth of Closure." There are many stories here left to tell, but they are not this story, and I owe it to all who followed my series to end the story where it ends, not where we wish it would take us. I firmly believe in the title of this story, the myth that we move on, that there are real endings. If there are new beginnings I will see you there, but here ends the Josh and Donna stories of "Magic Kingdom Come," "Code 208" and "The Myth of Closure."
Bless you all and keep you,
ReverendKilljoy.