I'm please there are people out there still wanting to read. Thank you all so much for the review. Please keep them coming. As with 'I'm Fine' I'm still no doctor, so hopefully all the medical talk is believable.

Enjoy!

I'm Not Fine

Donna was one of the last to leave the plane that took the Santos campaign from DC to Florida and the reason was because of the campaign manager. She had been watching Josh the whole flight and his actions were beginning to concern her. For two hours he sat alone, staring out the window. Not talking strategy. Not debriefing the Congressman or Leo. Not giving out orders. Not working on his laptop. Not playing around with his blackberry.

He had never been one to sit still and do nothing, even when he wasn't working; she just knew there was something wrong. After waiting until the rest of the staff had moved passed him, she headed in his direction when Bram appeared in front of her.

"Donna, Mrs. Santos is looking for you." He told her. "You said you would go over some points with her before the next event."

"Of course." She flashed him a smile but then frowned when she looked back to Josh and saw he was gone.

"Is everything okay?" Bram questioned.

"What? Oh yeah, it's fine…" She smiled again. "Come on, let's go."

She put Josh to the back of her mind for the time being but she knew she would have to talk to him soon. They could not carry on like this. She still considered him a good friend; they had been through so much together and despite the distant lately, he probably still knew her better than anyone.

XxXxX

As soon as they reached the hotel in Florida, Josh went straight to a meeting but as he sat there, he did not hear a word anyone said. No one seemed to notice they didn't have his attention and continued debating whatever the issues were.

Instead, Josh's mind was on the early morning appointment he had with Doctor Mitchell. The doctor refused to talk to him about it over the phone the previous night and insisted Josh stopped by before flying out.

Josh now wished he listened to his gut feeling and skipped the appointment.

The cancer was back… Worse than before.

Josh had tuned out after hearing those words. Immediately, he thought how ironic it was that it happened during another campaign. Then he started to try and work out what he would do now. He knew from last time that it would be near impossible to stay on the campaign trail, let alone run it while having treatment, then he heard two words that brought him back to conversation taking place…

Hospice Care

That only meant one thing…The cancer was untreatable…That he was going to die.

Suddenly, the campaign was the last thing on his mind. Now he was listening again, the doctor re-explained that the cancer had reached a stage where it was untreatable and the only treatment available was to make him more comfortable and prolong his life a little. When he had asked how long he had left, Dr. Mitchell told him it was difficult to know, that each patient was different, that it could be weeks or months.

He had left the doctor's office as quickly as possible, despite the Mitchell's effort to get him to stay to discuss it further and offers to call a loved one to come pick him up. He barely paused to accept leaflets containing information for support available and specialist doctors.

"Sir?"

Josh suddenly snapped back to the presence and found a volunteer stood in front of him;
he looked like a teenager and Josh started feeling incredibly old.

"Mr. Lyman?" He tried again when he got no reply.

"I'm sorry, what?" Josh shook his head a little to clear it.

"Ms. Thornton asked me to give you this…" He held out a slip of paper.

Josh took it but let it drop down to the table as he leaned forward and rubbed both his hands over his face.

The kid hesitated before speaking again. "Is there anything I can get you?"

"No." Josh mumbled from behind his hands.

When he looked up a few minutes later, he was alone in the room. He briefly looked down at the paper but he couldn't concentrate enough to make the numbers make sense.

He pushed himself to his feet and paced around the small space between the table and the wall. The room was only small and since there no windows, the only light was coming from lamps in each corner.

He didn't know what to do. If he didn't have the treatment then he would die sooner rather than later…If he did have it, he would have to quit the campaign. Give up everything he had worked so hard for the past year. No one had taken them seriously when they first started…Even Leo and the President didn't believe they would make it this far but they did. They did because of him and because of Matthew Santos' ideas and charisma.

He swung a hand out and knocked a pile of folders off the table, papers spilling across the floor. He didn't even look down and instead pushed over a chair before the table.

He barely noticed what he was doing until there was a sharp pain in his wrist. When he looked around the room, he saw he had trashed everything and it looked like someone had robbed the place. He took a couple of deep breath before falling backwards, so he was leaning against the wall.

He had no idea how long he had stayed there when Lou, Otto and Bram entered the room. Their conversation stopping as they gaped at the mess.

"What the hell?" Otto questioned.

"Josh?!" Lou exclaimed.

Josh slowly looked up at them. "What?"

"Are you okay?" Bram asked.

"I'm fine…" He muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"What the hell happened?" Bram bent down to pick some files off the floor when Lou grabbed his arm to stop him.

"No, you shouldn't touch anything…If we've been robbed…"

"Why would we be robbed?" Otto frowned. "There is nothing valuable in here."

"Not valuable in money but we're running a Presidential campaign…Who knows what the opposition thought they would find in here."

"You think Vinick is behind this?" Bram said in doubtfully.

"We should call the police…" She pulled out her cell phone.

"Stop." Josh said, causing them all to look at him again.

"Josh, we can't just ignore this…"

"The press is going to go crazy…" Otto added, almost excited about the idea of discrediting the republication campaign.

"Just stop." Josh said again, this time more forceful. "It wasn't the Vinick campaign."

"Then who..?"

"It was me." He cut Lou off. "I did this."

"You did this?" Bram looked around the room again. "Why?"

"Because…" He started but then paused briefly. "Because there were no windows."

"What?" Lou stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about? Have you gone insane?"

"I need to go…." He shook his head. "I need to get out of here…"

"Josh?" Bram tried to stop him but he just pushed past him.

"Should we do something?" Otto looked at the other two.

"Like what?" Bram questioned. "We don't even know what happened."

"Maybe the stress got to him and just flipped…"

"Would you two stop yammering and start cleaning up?!" Lou ordered with her phone to her ear.

"Who are you calling?" Bram asked but Lou signal for him to be quiet and turned her back to him.

"Leo? Yeah, we have a bit of a problem…."

TBC

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