Thanks again to HarmonyLover and chai4anne for beta reading this story.
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"Excellent speech, sir," Will told the Vice President as he stepped off the stage.
"Are you sure it was enough? You know, maybe I should have gone up there carrying a few ears of corn as props. Or, you know, composed a poem about the wonders of ethanol."
"Mock all you want, but your pandering will pay off at the caucuses, sir," Donna smiled.
"Aren't you a little new on this campaign to be calling your boss a panderer?"
Donna bit her lip. She didn't yet know the Vice President well enough to be sure whether or not he was joking. "Of course, sir, I'm sorry-"
"Kidding!" he reassured her, patting her shoulder. "And trust me, pandering is not a bad word on this campaign. I do actually want to win this thing."
"Hey guys!" one of their campaign aides ran up to them, a look of urgency on his face. "Did you hear?"
"Hear what?" Will asked.
The aide paused and took a deep breath. Then he began to talk, stammering slightly. "Matt Santos's airplane…he was flying himself to the Expo on a small charter plane…it never showed up at the airport."
Donna slowly started to feel dizzy as the full meaning of the words sunk in. "Never showed up? What does…"
"I'm sure it's nothing," Will quickly tried to reassure her. "They probably just got delayed. Or something."
"Doesn't sound like it," the aide shook his head. "The plane's not on radar, no radio contact – they're pretty sure it went down. They're sending rescue crews out now."
Donna's mouth went dry. It was all she could do to speak. "Who was on board?"
"Well, the congressman, obviously. I guess there were some campaign aides on board. I don't know…"
Without waiting for him to finish, Donna turned and ran into a lounge where she knew there was a television. It was already turned to CNN. The large red lettering at the bottom of the screen told the story in three words: "Santos Plane Missing."
Maybe Josh hadn't been on the plane, she thought desperately. Maybe he'd had to stay behind for some reason. He'd always been a little bit afraid of small planes; maybe he'd decided to take the campaign bus instead. She immediately dug out her cell phone and speed-dialed Josh's number. It was a phone call she'd started to make a thousand times since she'd quit, and always stopped herself, and now she was dialing without a second thought. But her heart sank when the call went straight to voicemail.
"This is Josh Lyman…" the recorded message began, and tears unexpectedly filled Donna's eyes at the sound of his voice. She hung up without leaving a message.
He hadn't been on the plane, she decided, staring at the television. He couldn't have been. He was a very prominent person. Screw all that nonsense she'd been telling herself about how she was a more powerful political operative than he was; he was ten times more important than her. A thousand times. If he'd been on the plane, they'd be reporting it.
As if on cue, the news anchor spoke. "If you are just joining us, a small aircraft that was being flown by United States Congressman and presidential candidate Matthew Santos is believed to have crashed somewhere outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Crews have been dispatched to try and locate the wreckage and, of course, rescue any survivors. Passengers on board include Congressman Santos and five members of his campaign staff – including, and we have just confirmed this, his campaign manager, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman-"
Donna let out a small gasp and sank into a chair as the news hit her. Josh had been on board a plane that had crashed. That stark reality was more than she knew how to process. He wasn't…he couldn't be…she wouldn't even let herself think the word. He was fine. Everything would be fine. People survived plane crashes all the time. Didn't they?
She hadn't realized there was anyone else in the room until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"The rescue effort's being coordinated by the Cedar Rapids Sheriff's Office," Will said quietly, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you wanted to wait there for updates."
She rubbed her eyes, managing to regain some of her composure. "No. I'm fine."
"It might be best-"
Josh is fine, she told herself firmly. He had to be. The rescuers were going to find the plane any minute now, and report that everyone was alive and uninjured.
Half a semester of majoring in psychology had been enough to teach her that denial was the first stage of grief, but she didn't care. If that was what was going on with her, she was happy to embrace it. It was better than contemplating the unthinkable.
She glanced at her BlackBerry. "So the Vice President has an hour and a half before the photo op at the Coffee Bean Caucus. We should probably-"
"What?" Will looked at her in confusion.
"He should probably finish shaking hands here and then we should get on the road. We don't want to be late-"
"What on Earth are you talking about?"
"I'm doing my job."
"Donna…" Will stared at her, dumbfounded. "No one expects you to be working right now. I know how close you and Josh were. Are." he corrected himself quickly. She wondered why he'd made the correction. Because he wasn't sure whether she and Josh were still close? Or because he'd accidentally spoken about Josh in the past tense?
"What do you want me to do?" she demanded. "Go charging through the wilderness trying to find the damn plane myself?" She was vaguely aware that she was suppressing an impulse to do exactly that.
"Of course not-"
"You and Josh were friends, too. Are you going to go AWOL from the campaign over this?"
"We…" Will still seemed to be trying to make sense of her attitude. "It's not the same thing."
"Why not?"
"What do you mean, why not?" he stared blankly at her. "Josh and I – we got along pretty well, yeah – or at least we did until we ended up on opposing campaigns. And of course I'm worried about him, but it's not…I mean, there's nowhere near the history that you guys have." He sounded baffled that he would have to point out something so obvious.
Donna took a deep breath and summoned every bit of icy professionalism she could muster. "History is what it is. My job is here now."
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"Josh. Josh." Matt tried to revive his campaign manager, who was slumped in his seat, unresponsive. There was a large red bump forming where his forehead had slammed into the side of the plane on impact. A trickle of blood was running down his cheek. He could tell Josh was breathing, but every second he remained unconscious caused Matt to imagine increasingly dire possibilities about the severity of his injuries.
He felt a wave of relief when he heard a low groan coming from him.
"Josh," Matt said his name again, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You have to support ethanol, congressman…" Josh sputtered, eyes half-open.
Despite himself, Matt couldn't help but smile.
"I think he's going to be okay," Ned commented, kneeling next to Ronna on the small floor of the aircraft.
Josh blinked several times, slowly becoming more alert. "What…" he glanced around. "What's going on?"
"The plane crashed. You hit your head," Matt explained gently.
"What?" Josh was quiet for a moment, the memories appearing to slowly return. "The plane…Oh my God…" His voice got clearer. He attempted to sit up straighter. "Are you…is everyone…who's hurt?"
"Don't worry about that now. Just relax."
That answer seemed to alarm Josh. "Who's hurt?" he demanded more loudly. Then a look of dread crossed his face. "Oh my God…is anyone…"
"No, no," Matt assured him quickly. "Andrew's leg is hurt – probably broken. Ned's back is hurt. And Lucy has some bruised ribs or something, I think." He paused for a moment and glanced at Ronna, who was lying down as best she could in the aisle of the small, mangled plane. She had tried to get up from her seat after the crash only to collapse onto the floor in pain, and Ned was in the process of helping to wrap her in one of the plane's emergency blankets. "Ronna's hurt. I don't know how badly, but…she's in a lot of pain."
"You're okay?" Josh asked.
"Not a scratch." Matt tried to keep a note of bitterness out of his voice. He didn't know what had happened. There had been some kind of massive engine failure, and clearly the distress calls he'd sent hadn't gone through. Something seemed very wrong; in all his years of flying, he'd never seen or heard of an airplane's systems failing so suddenly and catastrophically. It almost seemed like…he shook his head, cutting off that line of thinking. The bottom line was that it didn't matter how it had happened. He had been the one flying the plane. This was his responsibility. It had always been one of his worst nightmares, something like this happening. Countless thousands of hours of flight experience had made him into a very confident pilot, but in the back of his mind he'd always been aware that no amount of skill or experience could ever guarantee a safe flight. And now it had happened. Five people were injured, at least one possibly critically, because he hadn't been able to land the plane safely.
Josh's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Something went wrong with the plane."
"Yeah."
"The engine…the radio…they all failed?"
"I guess."
"Does that happen?"
"Apparently."
"What I'm saying is, do you think this was a normal mechanical failure, or-"
"Are you saying you think the plane was sabotaged?" Ned cut in, a note of alarm on his face.
Matt shook his head. "There's no one who would want to do that."
"You're a public figure now, congressman...a hundred times more so now that you're running for President," Josh told him. "There absolutely are crazy people who would do something like that."
"You really think there's someone out there so threatened by the Santos juggernaut that they'd tamper with an airplane to try and take me out? And five of my staff to boot?"
Josh's eyes narrowed. "Cast any votes in Congress that made anyone mad?"
"Every vote I cast makes someone mad, but this...?"
Josh let out a breath and changed the subject. "Anyway, look, we have to get out of here. Has anyone tried to call-"
"No cell phone reception," Ned reported.
Josh dug his BlackBerry out of his pocket, the "no service" icon confirming Ned's words. "Damnit," he muttered. "But they'll find us, right? I mean, how hard can it be?"
"It depends," Matt responded. "The plane has an emergency locator transmitter. Whether it's working or not is anyone's guess; nothing else seems to be. And in these conditions…" He gestured out the window. There was a low, thick cloud cover, and the rain was coming down in sheets. It was mixed with a few wet snowflakes, confirming that it really was as cold as it felt. They had landed in what appeared to be a small clearing in otherwise dense forest.
"So what you're saying is, we may be here awhile," Ned broke in, voicing the fear that was on all of their minds.