AU fic that west wing fans will not understand

Title: This Time the President Didn’t Smile
WC: 1500
Characters: Toby, CJ, and Josh all narrate.
Rating: pg-13 for a trifle bit of language.
Notes: for , who asked for: CJ, Toby, and Josh. From Category One she asked for: President doesn’t run again. One of the above pairings happens. I like to picture Toby stopping everything and living in New England somewhere. No children. Vignettes totally rock my socks.. It is told in vignette form, through CJ, then Josh, then Toby, then repeat. All 100 words. Five vignettes per. Anything up through Two Cathedrals is kept in original canon, I reference a lot of things that happen post then, some canon, some not. The title comes from the very end of ‘canon’ in this fic, when in Two Cathedrals he is asked if he will run again. He sticks his hands in his pockets but …

( This Time the President Didn’t Smile )

I was hit hardest by the news, by both pieces of news, the first being of the MS. It is I who has to fend off the press, day after day, answering questions of the prosecution, the testimonies, and whether the Democrat nominee for the Presidency will pardon Bartlet if elected. Do I give a flying rats ass if he’s pardoned? Not at this moment. Katie asked me how many times I had lied about the President. I looked her square in the eye and told her on the day of his Inauguration, he had puked three times. Everyone laughed.

It was easy, in a way, to quietly slip out of the office from time to time, ignore everyone, even Donna. She told me to call Stanley. I didn’t call Stanley. What could I have said to him? Sorry, Stanley, I just don’t give a fuck? Somehow I don’t think Stanley would have understood very much. Toby understood. Toby knew, though, that’s different. Said he’d be in his office for me when I was done talking to the President. Figure that one out, would you Stanley? CJ cried, tried not to let anyone know. I gave her another orange friend.

Thwack, thwack, this little red ball is getting a lot of use. Commas are hanging uselessly and I feel lost, angry. Fiercely angry and fiercely quiet. Fiercely commas. David always said I was like our father in my anger; when I was really angry at someone I cared about I didn’t fight fire with fire, I just let their fire sit over me, consume me until I was ready to strike back. The President knows I’m upset, what he is waiting for I don’t know. Me to speak first? Ah, Mr. President, you will be waiting for a long time.

Toby’s been snapping at everyone, was for days before the President told us. Was for days afterward, weeks afterward, and here we are, months afterward and he still tells me to go out there smiling and lie to the press like it’s nothing I haven’t done before. Smiles in that mean way, almost daring you to challenge him so he can let go of some of that anger. Me, I just take it out on the fish. Gail and Gail One. Josh says that’s not original. I tell him if he wants original, he should name the damn fish himself.

Slowly, I think, people are able to pull themselves together. It wasn’t just losing Mrs. Landingham, it was losing pieces of ourselves. I figured that one out without Stanley. I think Donna would be proud, if I could tell her. I’ve started playing the Ave Maria in my office. CJ asks if I want to convert. Toby snaps that I’m losing and he can’t afford for me to lose it and would I just pull myself together? And hey, while we’re at it, what the hell kind of a name is Gail One? That’s what I’d really like to know.

Josh is drifting, CJ is trying to cling to any sense of normalcy, and I’m here, I suppose. The rock in their rivers. Thwack, thwack, why bother? Who cares? Thwack, thwack, Sam tells me to knock it off, tries to meet my anger with his own. He’s not a Jewish kid from the Bronx; thwack, thwack, I win. I am all their bosses, I answer to Leo and the President. Mostly Leo. Sweet Leo, who has lost faith and looks it every day. He’s going to have a heart attack, and then what will we do? Thwack, thwack, don’t know.

When it does come, we are thankfully scattered, I am not a Press Secretary, but CJ, living with her father, lost in the frozen Ohio winter. Fishing with my dad. Leo’s the real Long Goodbye. My father, I still have pieces of him, he still remembers. Once we past that mark, well, I don’t know. I never was good at figuring this stuff out. Leo we watched fall from grace, fall from faith, fall from life. The stroke doesn’t surprise me, doesn’t shock me. Should it? This is now what the former leader of the free world does, slowly kills.

We struggled to stay in touch, most of us, I think. I don’t know. I went to Dayton once or twice or maybe a few more times than that. I’m back into politics, found a new ‘real deal’, someone who won’t lie about a degenerative disease or bail out because of it. His name’s Newmann and he’s from South Carolina. His brother’s wife’s father was a Jew, spent more time in Poland than he would have liked. Doesn’t know if that’ll hurt his chance, but that’s what he pays me for, making sure it doesn’t. I don’t think CJ approves.

After the funeral, after blowing up privately at the former President, the man I used to admire, I moved to Amherst, go to a few games now and then. It’s not such a bad place to spend some time. Better maple syrup at any rate. It’s quiet, just how I like it. CJ calls from time to time, Josh actually visits. I’m writing a book, Josh throws out his own little tidbits, asking me to ‘Write that down! That one was actually good!’ Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Andrea came down once, asked again for a baby; I declined.

My father has his good days and his bad days, mostly bad days, but still I stick it though. My reunion came, I went, stood in the back, watched Sally Merton give a speech called ‘The Promise of a Generation’. It wasn’t good at all. Would I have been giving that speech if the President hadn’t screwed us with our pants on? Does it matter that I was once the most successful of my class and now I hide in the shadows? Dayton, it forgets far more easily than it forgives. I am in the middle, the dutiful daughter, proud.

Newmann’s got a shot at it, in two and a half years, but for now we’re focusing on his ratings at home. Nothing below sixty, he tells me, that’s what he pays me for. I call him Bill, the rest of the world calls him William. Big Brother Bill, I tease him with and he asks me why I haven’t laid the aide yet. Her name’s Marjah. I tell her all about CJ and tells me of the man she left in Sweden. Sweden! Who gets to Sweden and decides they’d rather live in South Fucking Carolina? Marjah, that’s who.

Josh visits less and less, flying high on the excitement of this William Newmann from South Carolina. He sends cards, tells me how he’s sleeping with CJ when he goes up there. Asks how to get her down to South Carolina. He’s calling me for advice on his love life, that’s all I’m good for. And little words, dripping off the page into your open mouths. Thwack, thwack, I’ve still kept the rubber ball, I throw it when the commas won’t come right. I was a speechwriter, my book needs to be impeccable. It is you I have to convince.

When Gail died, I lost it, called Josh up, asked him to please come and help me bury my fish. He agreed, and I lost it on him. All that holding in from my father, and I finally let go. And the strange thing, it was Josh who made it all better. Yes, there was sex involved, but so what? We made it work, and that’s all that matters. I think he wants to convince me to come join on with this Senator. I think not. I’ll stay here with my goodbyes and Gail One. Goodbye, Josh. I love you.

The fish funeral, more than Leo’s, brought us together for one last goodbye. All but Toby, who had already said goodbye. He did send a copy of his book, CJ clung to it, her lifeline to all of us, a past life that can never be again. A past something that cannot be explained as anything but that, past. I saw her smile, pried more out of her, talked Tal into letting her come to South Carolina, but CJ didn’t see it that way. She saw a fish and a father that wouldn’t travel well and sent me off, alone.

We move on, slowly, yet surely. CJ losing herself and finding herself in the loss of her fish, Josh living by the moment, anything could change, anything could stay the same. I am what David argues I have always wanted to be, a recluse in the woods, writing my words and daring you to read them. And dare you did. New York Times Bestseller. What will I write this time, now that there is no Bartlet legacy? Perhaps I should leave the writing for now; sit here with my ball and enjoy the quiet. Thwack, thwack. Do I still win?