Author's Note: My apologies for the wait, guys. I'm afraid this chapter doesn't advance the story all that much, either, but if you stick with me, I hope it will pick up a bit in the next one. Don't expect too much, though-this is just a silly bit of future-fic, and AU future-fic at that.
Chapter 2:
Noah spent the next morning playing outside with Sally and Gressie, their big black Labradoodle, in the snow. The children dragged their sleds up the long slope to the crest of the hill behind the lighthouse and the keeper's cottage, and tobogganed down again and again.
Noah chose a different route for them every time. He made sure they sledded the other way, into the dip behind the crest where the new buildings had been built out of sight of the house, at least as often as they took the longer run towards the lighthouse and the cottage. Gressie danced around them wherever they went, barking joyfully. By lunchtime most of the promontory the lighthouse stood on was a smooth white field no longer, but wildly criss-crossed with footprints and toboggan tracks. Noah looked back at it with satisfaction as his mother called them in. Then he followed Sally into the lean-to shed off the kitchen, where they stored their sleds and took their boots off before going into the house.
Grandma Lyman had made his favorite lunch: chicken-noodle soup and peanut butter sandwiches. He golloped them down, as she was expecting, but surprised her by shaking his head when she asked if he wanted seconds.
"We're going outside again," he announced. Five-year-old Sally, who could be counted on to follow her brother around worshipfully and do anything he wanted, nodded and slid off her chair. Watching Noah help her climb into her snow things, Donna thought how unusually good he was being with his little sister today.
The children didn't stay out long this time. Only half an hour later the grandmothers, sitting with their knitting in the living room, heard Sally's voice calling, "Hurry up, Noah!" The kitchen door slammed once, then twice. A volley of giggling followed, accompanied by wild barking and stampeding feet apparently tearing through the kitchen into the tiny front entryway and up the stairs.
The older women smiled at each other and went back to their knitting.
Holed up in the master bedroom, where she was trying to finish off some last-minute wrapping, Donna smiled too. The children really were getting along so well this vacation. It was going to be a good Christmas. As long as nothing happened to keep Josh from getting away that afternoon, and the weather held until he was safely home with them, it might even be one of their best.
oooooo
Washington, D.C.: 4:00 p.m.
In Washington, things were going well. Josh's meetings had finished more or less on time. Margaret had brought him coffee and a turkey sandwich packed with stuffing and cranberry sauce, and-in spite of the promise he was sure she'd made to Donna-hadn't even tried to foist a salad on him with it. He had just opened a bottle of Glenfiddich and poured out glasses for Toby, Sam, Danny and C.J., who had dropped over after finishing off some pre-holiday business in her office at State.
Looking around at his friends, Josh thought how impossibly lucky he was. A little over nine years ago he'd thought his life in Washington was over. He'd thought his life anywhere was over, and all that was left for him was friendlessness and poverty and-after the scandal that had brought his political career to a screaming halt-shame.
And now he was sitting in an office in the White House again, doing the work he loved best, work that had always been like bread and meat and air to him, and doing it with the people who meant more to him than anyone else in the world-except Donna, of course, and his children, and his mother. And Leo and President Bartlet. And while those senior statesmen might not actually be there with him physically, both of them always insisted whenever he talked to them that they were there with him in spirit.
Which in itself was still enough to amaze him. He didn't do a lot of looking back anymore, but once in a while he couldn't help remembering that when Leo had had that heart attack he had told the President to give his job to C.J., not Josh, and the President had done it. Josh had thought then that they didn't trust him anymore, which had hurt more than he'd ever been willing to let on. And then there had been the time when Cliff Calley had stirred up all that trouble, and Josh had taken the hit so Donna wouldn't have to, and Jed and Leo had actually believed Josh had done those things and had turned their backs on him-he'd thought, forever. That had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to take-harder even than prison itself, and that had been every bit as difficult to get through as Josh had expected it to be.
Of course, if it hadn't been for all that, he would never have been sitting here, in this office, doing this work with these people he loved now. Josh understood many things about himself these days that he hadn't once, and one of them was how much those long months he had spent in prison-which had seemed like the end of everything at the time-had turned out to be a good thing for him in the end.
Going to prison had changed him in ways he'd needed to be changed, he thought now. It had been a humiliating experience, but he knew he'd learned valuable things from it: humility, for one. Not that he'd ever been the egotist some people had thought him-he'd been far too hard on himself for that-but he knew that he'd often acted egotistically, sometimes as a kind of blustery show to keep anyone from guessing what he was really feeling, and sometimes without actually meaning to at all. He didn't like remembering those moments now.
He'd learned things from the time after prison, too, when he'd done his parole in that little fishing village in Maine. He'd learned about financial stress, and hard physical work, and the grit and courage it took to meet those things day after day after day without giving up. He'd learned to respect and love the ordinary men and women he'd met there, who met those challenges cheerfully every day. They were men and women he'd never have known if Cliff Calley hadn't gone after him and he hadn't lost his political career and gone to jail. That fact had given him a lot of food for thought in the years since.
Curiously enough, he had earned their affection and respect, too. In some ways that was harder for him to believe than almost anything else that had happened to him, though he'd been shown again and again over the past few years that it was true. He'd never be in this job now if it weren't.
He didn't think he'd be in this job now without those few months working for President Vinick after his name had been cleared, either. That was something else he never would have imagined himself doing, working for a Republican, but the President had asked him, and Josh believed that when the President of your country asks you to help him you don't say no, even if he is from the party you've detested all your life. Vinick was a moderate Republican, of course-Josh didn't think he could have brought himself to work for him, President or no, if he'd been seriously right-wing. But then, if he'd been seriously right-wing, he never would have asked Josh to.
Josh knew he'd learned a lot from those few months as Vinick's free-lance political advisor. Among other things, he'd gained a greater understanding of where ordinary Republicans were coming from-why they thought the way they did-and a greater patience with at least some of their ideas. It had helped him immeasurably in his career since.
And what a career it had been. If you had asked Josh, during his years as Bartlet's Deputy C.o.S., what he thought he would do with the rest of his life after Bartlet left office, he would never have pictured anything like what he'd actually done. The climax of his conflict with Cliff Calley, captured on that webcam that night in August nine years ago, had catapulted him into a degree of fame and fortune he could never have anticipated-and would actually never have chosen, if he'd been given a choice. But he hadn't been given a choice, at least about the fame. And after that, it wouldn't have made much sense to turn down the opportunities that came his way to make the fortune. He could hardly have married Donna and raised a family if he'd still been flat-out broke and living on a meal and a half a day.
So there'd been the movie, which had turned out to be a surprisingly good one, and had broken box-office records and garnered considerable critical acclaim when it was released. The inevitable speaking engagements had followed, most of them surprisingly well-paid. Matt Santos had approached him and asked him to run his campaign against Vinick again; Josh had thought about it, but finally said no. He told Donna he'd been in enough campaigns to last him the rest of his life; he didn't want to give up his time with her and with Noah. She'd been more pleased than she wanted to let him see. Somewhere inside her she suspected that he might not always feel the same way, and she loved him too much to want to say anything that would make it hard for him to tell her if he changed his mind and wanted to go back to campaigning in the future.
And then there been the night the governor of Maine had asked him to accept the Senate seat that had just opened up when the junior Maine senator had been forced to resign after making a fool of himself in a prostitution scandal midway through his term. Josh had been taken completely by surprise: he'd had no idea he was even being considered for the job. But Jed Bartlet was an old friend of the governor's, and he and Leo still had tremendous pull in the party.
His new colleagues on the Hill were surprised to find Senator Lyman a quieter, more mature man than the brash, impulsive youth who'd annoyed them so many times in his years as Bartlet's bulldog. Josh had been surprised, too, by how much he enjoyed the work. He'd always thought of himself as what Jed Bartlet had called him once-the guy who wanted to help the guy in charge, not the guy who wanted to be in charge. The Senate had suited him well, though: he'd been able to use his old skills of negotiation together with his newly-gained understanding and respect for different kinds of people to take a leading role in passing some important legislation right from the start.
Josh could easily have spent the rest of his life in that job, though the idea of having to run for it in an actual election held very little appeal for him. He had no desire to have anything to do with political campaigns again. But then, one summer night, Sam had come to Maine-it was August, and Congress was on vacation-to talk to him. He'd been followed by Toby. And then Leo and Jed Bartlet, and Josh had never been able to say no to either of them.
And now here he was, back in this familiar office in the White House. There were Christmas garlands in the windows, and a menorah on one of the sills. Set out on a side table was a curiously carved chess set, a gift from President Bartlet. And hanging across from his desk was the painting of a ship that Leo had always had hanging across from his desk. Josh had asked him for it; he liked working in the face of that reminder of everything Leo had stood for, everything he'd done.
It was a room full of symbols. But the best symbol of all was the group of faces in front of him now. Sam. Toby. Danny. C.J. The best friends, the best help, a man could ever have.
Josh took a deep breath, but his hand still shook just a little as he raised his glass.
"I'm not much good at speeches," he started. His friends burst into laughter.
"Maybe once you weren't," C.J. said. "There was that secret plan to fight inflation."
Josh grinned. "I'm still working on that one," he said. "I'm expecting to get it solved, too. After all, we've got the best people in this room that any White House could ever have. And we're not exactly new at this; we've done it before. Twice before. We've got three more years, and what I want, more than anything in the world, is to make sure we do this right. So I just wanted to say-thank you for being willing to do it with me. There's no way in the world I could do this without you."
Sam beamed at his old friend, his heart almost bursting with pride. Toby glowered and looked at the floor, hoping to cover the way his eyes were starting to water. C.J. didn't even try to hide what was happening to hers. She brushed the tears away, gave Josh her megawatt smile, and said, "Always, mi amor." And then she blushed, and corrected herself: "I mean-sir. I mean-"
But she was cut off by the phone on Josh's desk ringing. Josh sighed and reached to pick it up. His hand was still in the air when Margaret opened the door, anxiety written all over her face, and Ron Butterfield rushed in.
To be continued. . . .