Chapter Text
“How’s she doing?” Danny asks, looking more nervous than his usual self in the passenger seat of Carol’s car. “What am I in for, I mean.”
Carol doesn’t answer immediately.
She’s driving them from the White House to Leo’s place. She’s anxious — she’s half expecting Leo to call her any moment to tell her CJ changed her mind. She doesn’t know how to prepare Danny for how CJ’s changed — for just how bad CJ’s really doing.
She thinks some of them have gotten too used to seeing CJ every day to really understand just how big of a difference it is from the last time Danny would’ve see her, I person or on television. She wonders if he knows her hair’s getting more curly.
“She looks sick,” Carol ends up saying. “Physically sick. She’s lost weight — noticeably. She’s tired, just exhausted, and it shows. The scars, well I expect she’s covered them, actually, but if she hasn’t, they’re bad. They’re still red, and very clearly, you know—“
“—DIY?” Danny offers, and when Carol almost loses control of the wheel he apologizes before she can say anything. “Wow. Sorry. That’s not-”
“No, no. It’s fine. Don’t say that to her. But, yeah. Yeah pretty much. She…” she pauses while she makes a turn, taking a moment to think of what else to say. “She’s ashamed.”
“Of the attempt?”
“Of being alive after the attempt, I think.”
“Right,” Danny says, quieter than she’s used to. “Alright. You’re sure she’s okay with me coming here?”
“Yeah,” Carol assures him. “I asked.”
There’s a silence. She knows she should bring up CJ’s speech — knows that she can’t let Danny walk into the house without being aware of it, knows she can’t do it to him and could never do it to CJ to let him find out by hearing it himself. She’s not sure how to do that.
It reminds her of calling Leo from the hospital. Like a band-aid, the nurse had told her.
“What is it?” Danny asks. Carol’s never had a good poker face. She’s trying to learn for the sake of her briefings — she’s better at it than Donna, God bless her.
Carol hesitates. “This is the part where you need me to promise we’re off the record completely. It’s a story. It’d be a story, if you wrote about it, if you told anyone. We don’t want it out until we know to what degree it’s permanent.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Danny insists.
“Off the record?”
“Jesus, of course off the record, what’s going on?”
Carol takes a deep breath. “She sustained an acquired brain injury as a result of the blood loss,” she begins. She focuses on the road, blinking away tears in her eyes and trying to avoid catching even the smallest glimpse of Danny. “Among smaller problems, it’s caused her to develop a speech impediment. It’s— it’s serious. It’s hard to understand what she’s saying if you’re not used to it. Even if you are, really.”
Danny doesn’t say anything immediately. She doesn’t blame him.
“People are gonna know eventually, there’s no way around it,” Carol acknowledges.
“It’s that bad?” Danny asks.
She nods. “She might not say much, she’s… it’s frustrating to try, she’s embarrassed. Leo tries to push her to talk more, she needs to train it, but— yeah. Eventually everyone’s gonna know, as soon as she goes back to work it’s unavoidable. But we’d like to keep it out of the press while we can help it — we don’t want her to have to deal with that judgment.”
“Of course,” Danny manages to say.
“We stopped straightening her hair,” Carol says to break the silence. “I don’t really know how to work a straightener, and it takes too much effort for her to do it herself — she can’t quite lift her arms that way without hurting herself. So, remember the curls from the campaign? They’re making a comeback.”
She can’t see Danny’s face, but she imagines he’s smiling when he tells her “that’s nice. She looked good during the campaign.”
oOo
Leo opens the door and it’s hard to tell who between the four of them is more nervous when Carol and Danny are lead into the living room.
CJ is sitting in her usual corner of the couch, wearing the high-neck top she picks when she wants to avoid the scar on her chest and a loose cardigan that doesn’t quite match. There’s a blanket covering her legs. Carol feels bad that CJ feels the need to hide her scars for visitors, and worse that she’s relieved that she does so today.
Danny’s standing still in the entrance to the living room.
CJ’s looking at him like she’s surprised to see him. Like she was expecting him to not really show up after all. She doesn’t say anything yet — Carol didn’t expect her to. There’s a slight puffiness to her eyes that Carol only sees when she walks closer and that she hopes Danny won’t notice from where he’s standing.
“Hey, how are you doing?” Carol asks, breaking the silence as she calmly walks over to CJ’s side of the couch and helps her sit up straighter. CJ says nothing. She’s still looking at Danny, her eyes wide but exhausted. CJ’s hair’s wet — someone’s washed her hair, and Carol assumes it was the First Lady.
Carol hasn’t helped her with that since it went so wrong a few days ago. Leo said it might be better — she’d been relieved she didn’t have to ask for a break herself. She wonders if CJ’s more tired than usual because she had to do more herself getting ready this morning, but she doesn’t ask.
“Hey,” Danny says, cautiously. He holds up his hand to wave, walking further into the room when Leo nods towards one of the chairs.
He doesn’t say anything else yet, doesn’t ask her any questions when CJ hasn’t answered Carol’s yet.
CJ sounds hesitant, looking up at Carol now as Carol sits down next to her. “Hey,” she says to Danny. She looks more sickly now that Carol’s looking at her from the perspective of someone who’s not seen her since the attempt.
She doesn’t answer Carol’s question. Carol doesn’t push it.
“It’s good to see you,” Danny tells her, sitting down in one the chairs. He sounds sincere despite the tremor in his voice.
“It- g’d to see -ou -oo.” CJ says, speaking slowly. She’s looking down into her lap now, her cheeks red as she tries to get through her sentence without looking directly at Danny anymore.
Carol hates seeing the flush on CJ’s cheeks when Carol quietly adds “you too,” to clarify the last part to a struggling Danny. She wants to reach out and take CJ’s hand, wants to say something comforting or encouraging, but stops herself before doing anything that might add to her discomfort. Clarifying her speech is bad enough, Carol thinks.
“We miss you on the podium,” Danny tells her, then glances at Carol with a panicked expression like he said something wrong. Carol suspects it didn’t take him too long to realize it’ll be a long time before CJ makes it back to the briefing room. She tries not to think about the chance CJ won’t ever.
CJ smiles weakly. She’s silent for a while before she tries to speak again.
“You -ave a goo- ‘ep-ace-nt,” she says slowly, her face tightening in frustration as Danny honestly tries to pretend he knows what she said. Carol wants to tell him not to do that — that it only hurts CJ’s pride more if people act like she’s too fragile to see how bad her speech can get — but not in front of CJ.
“’Epl-ce’nt,” CJ tries again, after which Carol quietly supplies replacement.
“Thank you,” she tells CJ. She smiles at her and doesn’t mind that CJ doesn’t smile back.
“She’s doing a pretty good job,” Danny agrees. “It’s clear she spent a few years learning from the master.”
CJ chuckles at that. It’s nice to hear, Carol thinks.
Leo places three mugs of tea on the low table and gives CJ a concerned look, his back turned away from Danny so he can’t see how hesitant Leo still is to leave her with others. CJ nods subtly, and Leo gently pats her shoulder when he leaves the room, telling them he’ll be right in his study.
“What’s it like living with Leo McGarry?” Danny asks next, looking curiously at the door Leo just closed. “Gotta be a little weird?”
Carol chuckles. The casual way Danny asks his question almost makes it sound like CJ moved in just to share the rent. CJ shrugs, and only Carol notices the slight way that makes her pause because it still hurts. “L’ttle,” CJ says.
She should’ve told Danny that it’s better to wait, sometimes, before asking another question. Carol doubts he intuitively understands that it takes CJ a while to decide on a way to phrase her thoughts that’s least likely to be mangled when she tries to speak — or to gather the will to give it a try at all.
She interrupts whatever Danny’s saying next the moment she notices CJ intended to say something more, and Carol only feels bad about it because she knows it’ll only make CJ feel more patronized. “Give her a moment,” she tells Danny, while looking apologetically at CJ.
“Right,” Danny nods. He takes a sip of tea instead of saying anything more. He looks uncomfortable here and she knows CJ can tell.
“He’s -een b’tte’ than -ould be -xp’cte- of -im,” CJ speaks slowly; Carol thinks she might’ve made a mistake asking for Danny to come over. She seems to hesitate, the flush on her cheeks doesn’t go anywhere. “Be’er,” she tries.
Danny doesn’t wait. “That’s good to hear,” he tells her.
“He ma’es -anc’kes,” CJ comments, dryer than Carol had anticipated, making her and Danny chuckle at the same time. CJ smiles at that.
“Leo McGarry making pancakes, now there’s an image for the papers,” Danny says, the easy-going smile on his face that had always put CJ more at ease than she ought to have been around a reporter. Carol remembers many such exclamations of frustration when that was all going on.
She appreciates it a whole lot more right now. “Getting your breakfast hand-made by the White House Chief of Staff, not such a bad deal,” Danny adds.
CJ rolls her eyes, and neither she nor Carol adds the context that it’s only because she can’t move well enough to do it safely, and no one trusts her with a knife. She thinks Danny knows, anyway.
“You’re gonna watch the debate?” Danny asks then, leaned back in his chair and looking more comfortable.
CJ nods. Her fingers are tapping slowly against the mug she’s resting on her leg — Carol wonders if Danny can tell how much effort it takes her to keep it upright. She wants to reach out and take it from CJ before it spills over, but holds back. “Leo has a -ee’ing at the wh’te -ouse,” she says. Carol trusts Danny to get meeting from that and says nothing. “We’ll -a’ch f’om the ‘es-den-.”
She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment. Her fingers stop tapping. Carol waits. “Wa-ch. -rom the re-dence.”
“The luxury seating,” Danny comments lightly.
CJ takes a sip of her tea and, to Carol’s surprise, offers her mug for Carol to place on the table instead of leaning forward to do it herself. Carol does so happily, trying not to make it seem like a big deal that CJ accepts the little bit of help.
It’s easier after the initial awkwardness fades.
Danny asks about her day to day life and doesn’t push when it becomes clear that CJ doesn’t like to talk about it — too embarrassed by how little she does on a day. CJ in return eventually lets him know that she’s read the articles about her case he’s been writing; the articles that never mention CJ directly, though everyone knows who he’s thinking about when he writes about suicide.
“I w-n’t -ick up gar’ening,” she warns him.
Danny tries not to make it too obvious that he’s taking a few moments to process what she means. “You ever know,” he chuckles. “You might find you like it.”
When it’s time for Carol and Danny to return to the White House, Leo comes back into the room with a worried glance at a growingly exhausted CJ. Neither Danny nor Carol says anything about it, but she can see the pang of guilt in Danny’s eyes that only fades a little bit when CJ stammers her way through thank you for stopping by.
At the door, Carol makes sure to stop Leo and tell him that she’ll be back tomorrow morning. “You’re sure you’re okay for that?” he asks. She feels bad for making him worry about her too.
“Yeah,” she insists. “Tell Mrs. Bartlet she can sleep in. I’ve got her.”
oOo
She walks towards Bonnie after handing Albie Duncan his drink, readjusting her blouse a little uncomfortably.
“He likes pretty women to bring him his drinks?” Bonnie asks, rolling her eyes as Carol nods with a tired laugh. “Typical.”
“Who doesn’t?” Carol dares to joke, smiling when Bonnie laughs with such surprise that she clasps her hand over her mouth. “CJ— she knows how to spot the type of guy who falls for that shit. I don’t always, but Duncan’s easy. He wants to kiss your cheek and be given a drink by an assistant in a nice skirt, and if you let him he doesn’t cause trouble.”
“Hmhm,” Bonnie muses, leaning against the wall of Airforce One. “I always wondered if it’s different dealing with that working for CJ instead of the guys.”
Carol shrugs. She knows it is. She’s worked for plenty of men before CJ hired her, and she doesn’t think she’d like to again, not as an assistant, if she has any say in the matter.
“She gets it,” Carol says simply. “You know? She knows what Duncan’s like, she knows what Goodman’s like, she knows what Walken’s like. She knows when it’s worth playing along, or asking me to play along, and when she wants to keep me out of the room to avoid putting me through it.”
She and Bonnie take two seats in one of the cabins near the back. “I trust her to believe me and to care if I’d tell her something happened, or if I didn’t trust one the guys she’s meeting with.”
She wipes away the tears in her eyes before she can understand why they’re there.
“Gotta be a big shift to be in her position now, without her looking out for you,” Bonnie comments; Carol wishes she hadn’t said it like that. She just nods. “I know I always found it comforting. Knowing she was on the senior staff, you know? Can’t have been easy— I mean,” Bonnie looks down. “Clearly. But— I was glad she was there. I love working for Sam and Toby, but it was nice knowing she was around.”
“I know what you mean,” Carol says quietly. She wants to yell at Bonnie not to use the past tense that way — wants to make sure Bonnie understands that this is temporary, that CJ will be back in no time, that she’s still here. She doesn’t say anything about it.
“This one time, the VP was being a bit… you know. Nice. Overly nice.” Bonnie waggles her eyebrows like it’s genuinely funny. She’s smiling. “And he wasn’t being inappropriate. Not… not really, not in a way you can complain about. But CJ saw my face and interjected without needing to be asked — walked me out of the room under some pretense I don’t remember. And nothing happened, but it was nice to know that she was watching. It felt good.”
There’s a moment of silence while they’re both given some tea by the Airforce One staff. Bonnie’s stopped smiling. “I never really told her,” she says. She looks at Carol, trembling just slightly. “I assumed she knew. How much of a difference it made. Her being here. I never— I thought she knew.”
“Me too,” Carol says quietly. She blinks new tears away.
“She’ll be back,” Bonnie says then. She squeezes Carol’s hand briefly and then shakes her head. “Until then, we’re doing a pretty good job looking out for each other, too. I think.”
oOo
Congresswoman Wyatt hovers around her for most of the debate. It gets on Carol’s nerves, but she says nothing to stop her. She never gave Andrea back her suit, Carol realizes, though it feels like the wrong time to bring it up. She briefly wonders if that’s why she’s at Carol’s side the whole night.
“How was she doing this morning?” Andrea asks, as Ritchie is droning on rather nonsensically about foreign policy he can’t possibly understand. She’s already asked Carol how CJ’s doing — only the specification of this morning is new.
Carol shrugs. She writes something down in her notebook but doesn’t find the rest of Ritchie’s answer important enough to pay much attention to. “Alright. Her balance is fluctuating more — Leo looked worried. But she talked to Danny, and she didn’t seem like she hated doing that after the initial shock.”
It’s not much different than what she told Andrea before.
“Sorry,” the Congresswoman shakes her head. “The moment you said it I remembered asking earlier.”
Carol chuckles. “Long night?”
“They’re not kidding about the brain fog,” Andrea clarifies, one of her hands protectively against her stomach. “I was going to bring pie to this — I baked a pecan one because I needed it yesterday — but I’m pretty sure it’s in the fridge still, or just on the counter.”
“You’ll have something to look forward to tonight,” Carol offers.
“You’re getting good at spinning,” Andrea laughs. “If I remember, I’ll bring you some pie for lunch tomorrow. Bonnie says you’re not eating enough, and I make a good pecan pie.”
She’s still not sure what to make of Congresswoman Wyatt. Carol likes her — she’s nice and well-attuned to what Carol might need — but she doesn’t understand where this is all coming from. They’d barely spoken before CJ.
“Bonnie talked to you?” Carol asks. She looks around the room and catches sight of Bonnie talking animatedly to Ginger. She moves her balance from one foot to the other, not sure what to think of it. “Why?”
Andrea looks at her like it should be an obvious answer. Carol’s face remains expressionless as she stares back. “She’s just looking out for you,” Andrea tells her, her smile warm. “She’s not the only one.”
“Right,” Carol just says. She writes something else down in her notepad without really thinking it’s important.
In the second half of the debate, just when the room’s celebratory and it seems Governor Ritchie stands no chance of coming out of this alive, the air shifts a little.
Bonnie’s standing next to her now, on the opposite side Andrea is. Ritchie’s looking awfully sure of himself for a guy who’s screwed most of his answers so far. Carol has the most uncanny gut feeling that something’s about to go horribly wrong and shushes Bonnie when she tries to ask her something.
“Jed Bartlet likes to position himself as folksy, a man of the people despite everything that proves he can’t possibly understand the experience of regular Americans.” Ritchie’s comfortably talking to the crowd — Carol doesn’t tear her eyes away from the screen. “He positions himself as a man for all the people of this country, but he can barely manage his own people.”
“He’s going after CJ,” Josh says, quietly and urgently, practically hitting Sam on the arm to get his attention as if any of them weren’t listening to Ritchie intently already.
“If it was my White House, Mr. President, I would have been more careful in vetting the people I chose to represent it. But if I thought I’d done that, and then someone I claimed to care a great deal about made a suicide attempt, I would never dispose of her as unceremoniously as you have. I’d wonder what in God’s name my administration did to drive her there.”
The spin room goes quiet, it seems to Carol, but it might just be that she stops being able to hear anything except her own rapid breathing. She’s scratching at her fingers, she realizes, but can’t focus enough to stop herself from doing that.
“I told him we should’ve prepared for this,” Toby mutters. Carol can’t immediately tell if it’s her or Andrea he’s looking at when he says it. She doesn’t answer.
She tries to trust that the President knows what he’s doing. She grabs Bonnie’s hand without thinking about it and Bonnie holds onto her arm without saying anything.
On screen, President Bartlet takes a moment. He takes a sip of water — and he looks furious, visibly furious, before recollecting himself and shaking his head at his opponent with the arrogance everyone had warned him not to lean into.
“Are you so desperate for a win, governor Ritchie, that after the way she’s already been torn apart by the press, you’d still go after CJ Cregg in a live debate? Do you not think that CJ Cregg is already going through what has to be the most difficult thing in her life, without you using her suicide attempt as a cheap shot?”
The President takes a sip of water. Andrea Wyatt is nervously holding onto Carol’s arm and though Carol wouldn’t have chosen that, it’s actually quite grounding. She hopes CJ’s not watching the debate anymore — she knows she will be.
“Let’s talk about CJ Cregg,” President Bartlet continues. Carol’s heart is hammering in her chest. There’s only a vague and quiet murmur among the reporters in the room, everyone else is silent as can be. “If there had been any indication that she was battling depression when I appointed her my Press Secretary, I would have hired her all the same.”
Bonnie squeezes her hand. She feels surrounded.
The President’s voice sounds across the room. “I didn’t dispose of her. Claudia Jean is recovering from intensive surgery and injuries that almost took her life, a process I sincerely hope you will never understand this personally. She is given the time and the privacy she needs to do that — I am more than happy to take a little more criticism if it means she gets to rest the way she deserves to.”
She suddenly hopes CJ is still watching.
“You are eager to portray her as someone of whom the rest of the administration should be ashamed — just so you can make the point that you wouldn’t have hired her in the first place. It’s mockery, it’s cruel, and above all else it couldn’t be farther from the truth. In this moment, there is no one in this world I am more proud of than Claudia Jean Cregg. When the time is right — when she wants to and is able to again — she will be welcomed back to the White House with open arms. There is nothing she can do to change my mind on that.”
The room cheers. Josh’s excited yell rings out above everything else.
Carol doesn’t realize she’s squeezing Bonnie’s hand too tightly until her fingers start tingling, but it hardly matters when she looks sideways to her friend with tears in her eyes. “That’s good,” she just says, and Bonnie nods, showing off her teeth in a huge grin. “That’s really good.”
As the debate continues, she doesn’t think there’s any point in having the senior staff stay around to spin it afterwards. Carol wonders if letting reporters that close to the senior staff, letting them ask them directly about CJ and how it’s affected the administration, might only hurt what the President just accomplished.
She doesn’t say anything.
She probably should — she absolutely should. But she’s standing slightly behind Josh and Toby, and Sam, usually much more approachable to her, is aggressively debating something with Ed and Larry in the corner.
She should say something. The way they spin or don’t spin this debate can determine the outcome of the election and Carol is suddenly painfully aware that she is making these calls now, or suggesting them at least.
It shouldn’t be on her shoulders.
She should say something.
She’s about to gather the courage to tell Andrea Wyatt they should just leave — she’s sure the Congresswoman would have no trouble getting Josh and Toby on board with the idea — when her phone rings.
Carol’s heart stops when she hears Leo’s voice on the other side of the line. A cold rush of panic washes down her back as she grips her cellphone tighter. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “How is she?”
Leo’s voice is steady and reassuring when he first says “CJ’s fine. Nothing’s wrong, calm down,” and only then, after she’s had time to take a breath, continues on. “We’re watching the debate,” he tells her. “CJ says that you should go back to DC after this, immediately. Don’t let the staff spin any of it. He’s said enough; let the experts answer questions, but the staff goes home. Back to work.”
“This is from CJ?” Carol asks, just to be sure. “I’ll tell the others.”
“She’s right here, you can tell them it’s coming from her,” Leo assures her. “And if you get the chance, tell the President she appreciates his words. We’ll likely be out of here by the time Airforce One lands.”
It’s much easier to give the rest of the staff orders on their press strategy when she can tell them the directive comes from CJ. Carol keeps her phone firmly in her hand, hoping to make it clear that she’s not talking out of her ass but directly reporting what Leo’s just told her.
People listen.
When she says it comes from CJ, and she knows how to argue for it the way CJ would have, they listen to her as if she’s CJ.
As the debate comes to an end and the press stays behind in the spin room with all the experts, she seeks out Danny and tells him, on the record, that the President has said it all and the staff will be heading back to DC to continue his work.
The reporters have stopped looking at her like she has no right to tell them these things.
Carol feels sick to her stomach.
Bonnie is holding her arm loosely as they all make their way back to the plane. There’s a vibrant energy in the small crowd of staff — the excitement about a job well done so heavy in the air it’s hard to breathe through it.
She’s too busy, too worried, and far too tired to take any pride that she’d had the same idea before Leo’s call.
oOo
“You shouldn’t be relying on CJ’s advice to fill in for her.”
Toby appears next to her when she walks past Sam’s office, joining her as she makes her way through the bullpen towards CJ’s office — taking a detour to stop by Donna’s desk for a memo she’s still waiting for. Carol doesn’t know what to say, not sure what Toby’s getting at yet, so she says nothing.
“She’s supposed to be resting,” Toby elaborates. “If she feels like she has to be calling you to tell you how to do her job, she’s not doing that.”
She thinks about how tired CJ looked this morning and still says nothing.
They’ve only just gotten off Airforce One — Congresswoman Wyatt’s been persuaded by the First Lady to join them for a non-alcoholic beverage despite Toby’s insistence she go home and rest; Sam eagerly joined them, surely already a few drinks deep. Carol thinks Bonnie’s gone straight home; she’s been more tired lately.
Toby walks beside her at a steady pace and Carol wonders if he wouldn’t rather join the others to celebrate. She wonders if she should do so herself. They’re both making their way down to the press office regardless.
“Either we find a temporary replacement for CJ, or you figure out how to do her job without making her do the work for you,” Toby tells her.
Carol scoffs. “You don’t want either of those things to happen. You want CJ back.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
Toby walks with her until they reach CJ’s office, where they stand in front of Carol’s own desk without opening the door just yet. Carol’s turned away from him, looking through files on her desk even though she can’t really focus on what she’s actually reading.
“Of course I want CJ back,” Toby starts. “You’re the only one benefiting from this predicament. They kept you doing this because you gave the first briefings and no one wants to tell you that if you can’t do it without asking CJ for help, you’re not doing a good enough job!”
Some of the paper she was holding fall down to the desk again. She wants to spit in his face for the insinuation. Carol turns around, not giving a fuck that she has tears in her eyes. “The only reason I gave those first briefings, that first day, is because no one else in this building — including you — had the guts to do it.”
She storms into CJ’s office, not wanting to make a scene in the hallway. Toby slams the door behind him when he follows her. She’s glad the others are likely getting drunk somewhere. She’s glad CJ wasn’t here anymore when they came back.
“You wouldn’t have been given this job if it wasn’t for—“
“Of course not!”
“Then what’s the problem with someone pointing out the obvious? You’re not trained for this. You’re not doing it well enough. We’re weeks away from the election for crying out loud and we need someone up there who knows what they’re doing!”
“Well good luck finding someone willing to take that on now.”
Gail’s fishbowl reflects the light from the bullpen and Carol instinctively goes to stand in front of it.
“I’m not some inexperienced, uneducated thing that just walked through the door!” Carol yells at him now. She glances past him just to make sure the door’s really closed. “I hold the same degrees CJ does, I’m new to briefings, not to press strategy and running this office. Bartlet for America wasn’t the first time CJ and I worked together, and I’m not her assistant because I’m incapable of doing anything else. I work for her because I want to. Because she called me when she joined the campaign and said she wanted me on board.”
Toby looks like he’s about to yell right back and she cuts him off before he can get the first word out of his mouth. “I don’t want to hear it. Be as pissed as you want. God knows you’re not the only one — everybody gets it. But this isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask her to do this. I didn’t ask to deliver that news to the world. I didn’t ask her and Leo for a falsified promotion. Do it yourself, and do it better than I am, or shove it up your ass.”
“You’re starting to sound like her.”
She can’t make sense of Toby’s expression.
He’s like Josh, that way. CJ just got them. Carol’s never bothered getting close.
It’s almost like he’s bouncing on his feet but not really — shuffling, sorta, and he’s frowning in a way that makes her think he wants to throw something at her head but he doesn’t look that threatening.
“I know,” she says, scratching at her hands.
“That’s not a— don’t act like you’re her. You’re not. Don’t go up to the podium and pretend it’s the same thing.”
“It’s CJ you want on that podium,” Carol repeats.
She’s never going to be more than that. The girl standing in for CJ for as long as it takes Toby and the President to accept that CJ will require a real replacement.
“You’re damn right it’s CJ I want,” Toby tells her. There are tears in his eyes. They make her more uncomfortable than the way he yelled at her before.
Carol leans against CJ’s desk. She’s seen CJ do so a million times before. She looks at Gail and remembers she didn’t switch out the bowl’s decoration today. “I’m sorry,” she says. Firmly, with no real apology. It takes effort to do. “But it’s not my fault that she’s not doing it. It’s not my fault the administration hasn’t replaced her yet.”
“I know.”
She’s never heard the sound of Toby Ziegler’s voice when he’s on the verge of crying.
Carol doesn’t want to — but maybe does a little — but finds herself softly saying “it’s not your fault, either,” anyway.
He doesn’t acknowledge that she said it, but as he opens the door and turns away to head back to his own office, he pauses to tell her “you did alright, tonight.”
She smiles only until Toby’s closed the door behind him again.
There’s blood dripping down her hands so rapidly she’s sure she’s standing in a pool of it. Carol makes sure to keep her hands far away from her clothing when she walks towards the bathroom to wash them — realistically she knows they won’t stain, knows she’s imagining all of it, but she can’t get herself to rely on that blindly.
She scrubs her hands clean in the bathroom, dries them, and the scrubs them down again just so she can dry them off a second time.
Carol walks back to CJ’s office with crumpled up paper towels scrubbing dry her hands as Sam joins her in the hallway with idle chatter about how well the debate really went. She realizes she forgot to tell the President that CJ appreciated his words.
There’s blood on her hands when she throws out the paper towel in CJ’s trashcan. Real blood. She’s sure of it. The scabs and dry patches on her hands that she’s been trying to prevent she’s not creating have opened up, and what starts as just a few droplets turns to a significant amount all too quickly.
Her gasp sounds like a scream.
She closes her eyes to avoid seeing the blood. She’s sure she swings her arms at him when she hears Sam move closer. She’s standing in Leo’s bathroom — the mirror shattered into dozens of sharp pieces of glass that further mutilate CJ every time Carol attempts to lift her from the ground she’s fallen to.
Carol’s still holding the razor blade — her hands are dripping, soaked in blood, and CJ’s fallen off the plastic chair in the shower. She’s cut open the artery that runs down the back of CJ’s thigh and there’s blood everywhere, as CJ’s shaking on the bathroom floor and the shower is still running and Carol can only scream at the top of her lungs.
Sam grabs her arm and she screams again, blinking rapidly as CJ’s office comes back into view and she shakes off his arm violently. “Carol!” she hears him yell, too loud, too close, and he doesn’t let go of her when she tries to push him away. “Carol, calm down!”
There’s panic in his voice. He smells like he’s had the staff on Airforce One make him a martini or three.
CJ’s on her own bathroom floor, just where Carol had found her. Propped up against the bathtub with half-closed, unseeing eyes — a broken doll, a prop for haunted houses if she didn’t look so damn real.
This time, though, Carol’s still holding the razor blade. It’s a real one — old fashioned — reminding her of Sweeney Todd. She’s never been a fan of musicals, but in high school one of her friends had made her go. Doesn’t matter. She’s holding it, and the slashes in CJ’s arms aren’t by her own hand but by Carol’s.
She tries to reach out, tries desperately to grab CJ’s arms and close the wounds one way or another, but she never lets go of the old-fashioned razor blades and only makes CJ bleed more.
She screams more. She falls to her knees on a hard bathroom tile, sinking down into a pool of blood that grows larger every time she tries to help.
Sam sitting next to her — back in the office, on a White House floor almost against CJ’s desk. She can’t breathe, can’t focus, can’t hear what he’s shouting at her — just that he’s most definitely shouting. Carol’s shaking her head wildly but he doesn’t let go.
When he tries to grab both her arms, tries to pull her closer to him, Carol instinctively tries to turn around and shove him off of her as aggressively as she can manage it. Sam stumbles backwards, almost losing his balance on his heels and needing to let go of her to avoid falling down.
She can’t remember what she yells at him, but Sam leaves. She doesn’t realize he’s doing that until the door slams behind him and she’s left alone on the office floor.
Carol wants it to be peaceful when he leaves but nothing changes. She looks around frantically, blood everywhere — she can’t tell what’s real and what’s not real. It’s all around her. She’s convinced she can feel it in her hair again, dripping down her back and throat.
Not long after she’s chased Sam out of CJ’s office, when Carol’s shoulders are shaking violently and she’s wrapped her hands inside a shirt in CJ’s closet — CJ’s shirt — just so she doesn’t have to see the blood on them, Josh Lyman walks in without knocking.
He closes the door, not as drunk as she was expecting most of them to be — less time might’ve passed than she realized.
“Carol,” he says loudly, without yelling. He stands near the door while CJ’s staring up at her with lifeless eyes. When he does come closer, he sits on his knees in front of her and grabs her shoulders — not too tight, but firm enough to make it impossible to ignore he’s holding her.
“Eyes on me,” he tells her, voice still loud but not too loud. He’s trying. She can’t meet his eyes. “Eyes on me,” he repeats. “It’s okay. Just look at me.”
She can’t breathe when she looks up to meet his gaze; she imagines the blood that runs down her back on his hands and gags at the thought.
“You’re gonna feel real stupid doing this, but humor me okay?” Josh tells her, carefully taking her wrapped up hands without making a face. He walks her over the couch, as Carol struggles to breathe and instinctively folds into herself — only making her problem worse. Josh shakes his head, forcing her to stay upright as he insists it’ll make breathing easier.
It doesn’t feel like it makes a difference.
“Recite the alphabet for me,” he says then, daring to laugh when Carol’s eyes widen at him even though it doesn’t stop her from crying. CJ’s still bleeding out on the bathroom floor, dying before her very eyes. “Slowly. Take a breath in between each letter.”
He laughs again when she stops hyperventilating for just a second, just to stare at him like he’s lost his mind as she considers how stupid she’ll sound listening to him. “Just do it,” Josh insists. “I’ve been there, trust me. No judgment here. A.”
Carol rolls her eyes because she knows what the first letter of the alphabet is, but she doubles over again when another painful spasm hits her chest and breathing continues to feel like a chore.
Fine.
“A.”
“Good,” Josh squeezes her hand through CJ’s shirt. “Next one.”
“B,” Carol reluctantly says, sounding more fearful than annoyed. Her breath hitches; she coughs up some phlegm trying to keep breathing. Josh flinches — she must look quite gross — but doesn’t move away.
Josh is still holding her wrapped hands when he gets to “Alright, G.”
Carol repeats “G” and shivers, shutting her eyes tightly. She squeezes her hands together — feels them wrapped around CJ’s bleeding arms.
“Next one,” Josh’s voice sounds calm. He doesn’t give her the answer, and it feels awful that it takes her time to think about which letter comes next. She envisions CJ teasing her about her spelling — no level of education that could stop her from making some truly embarrassing mistakes. She laughs before she tells him H.
“Good, next one.”
He makes her go through the whole alphabet, even when she feels like she’s calmed down significantly by the time she gets to S.
Only when she’s informed him that the last letter of the alphabet is Z, does Josh let go of her hands and looks at her with a crooked half-smile, his forehead shining with a bit of sweat.
“Thank you,” she says softly. Dried tears uncomfortable on her cheeks.
“Anytime,” he tells her, like it’s normal. “What happened?”
Carol looks down at her wrapped hands and hold them up, ashamed to say it. The thought of looking at them without the shirt around them makes her heart pick up a beat again. “They started bleeding; seriously bleeding. Freaked out at the sight,” she admits.
“Can’t keep them wrapped in a shirt all night,” Josh says, more to himself than to her she thinks. She doesn’t know what to say. She understands as much about Josh as she does about Toby.
“I know,” she says. She hesitates. “I’m—” she shakes her head.
“Scared it’s gonna happen again when you see the blood?”
She nods. Josh leaves the room without saying anything else and Carol stares after him with enough confusion to leave her frozen in her seat.
Just a few minutes later, Josh comes rushing back in with a pair of leather ski gloves he proudly tells her Sam won’t even notice he took from his bag. Sam’s been talking about a winter holiday for years — he’s never had little enough to do to actually go.
“I’ll bleed all over them,” Carol shakes her head. It’s bad enough she’s irreparably staining CJ’s shirt.
“We’ll see. He has the money to buy new ones, who cares.” Josh shrugs like it doesn’t matter at all; she can’t imagine Sam would be angry, either, but it feels wrong either way.
Josh helps her unwrap her hands from CJ’s shirt patiently.
What’s worse than the pooling blood and red stains she’s expecting to see, is having to narrow her eyes to even recognize which small scab on her palm had started to bleed. She can’t even see the dried blood on CJ’s shirt until she’s turned it inside out.
“I don’t—” she starts slowly, a devastated flush on her cheeks when she only sees the faintest trace of a previously opened wound. “It was bleeding. More than that. It was, I know it was, I—”
“It’s okay-”
“It’s not,” she snaps.
Josh takes her hands, thumbs covering the small wounds he must know had been bleeding, and when new tears fall down her cheeks at the understanding that she greatly exaggerated the amount of blood there really was inside her head, he shakes his head. “It’s okay. Doesn’t have to be a lot for it to be enough.”
“I swear there was more,” she mutters weakly, staring at their joint hands in defeat.
She doesn’t see Josh’s hug coming, but doesn’t back away when his arms wrap around her and he squeezes her close. Her hands fold themselves between their chests.
Carol’s never liked Josh Lyman. He’s obnoxious and loud and she finds it annoying when Donna fawns over him when the assistants have lunch together. She’s made it a point not to try liking him.
She doesn’t want him to let go of her. Not ever.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her head against his shoulder. Her heart feels less ready to stage a prison break out of her chest. “That did feel really stupid,” she adds. Just because.
Josh chuckles. “I know,” he lets her know. “Doesn’t stop feeling like that.”
She hesitates to ask “you still get these?” and is glad that Josh doesn’t sound offended nor surprised that she asks anyway.
“Barely,” he says, keeping his arms firmly around her until her breathing’s evened out enough that Carol feels comfortable sitting up straight again. “Not barely. Not often, though. But there are times.”
“I didn’t know,” she admits.
“I like it that way,” he grins. “People know enough about the music and Stanley. I don’t need them knowing a car alarm going on too long can set me off the wrong way.”
“Fair enough.”
“What are they like for you?” he prompts. She’s not sure she wants to have this conversation with Josh Lyman. She doesn’t know who else she’d have it with.
He doesn’t seem half so bad right now.
“The other day I was helping her out of the shower,” she says quietly, and she thinks that in any other situation Josh Lyman wouldn’t have been able to resist making a joke about that. She half expects to have to shut him down, but he says nothing. “She’s unsteady. Her balance is off, her leg keeps hurting, it’s hard. I hold her up.”
Carol shivers. She tries to take slow breaths, trying not to slip back into her earlier panic. “And all I could think was what would happen if I couldn’t hold her up anymore. If I slipped, or let go without thinking, and the dozen unlikely freak accidents that can happen with glass shower walls and mirrors and corners of bathroom sinks.”
She sees Josh pale a little and wants to apologize but he shakes his head as soon as she starts. “That happens all the time,” she says instead. “I just keep imagining all the ways she could bleed out after all, and I won’t be able to stop it in time.”
“And your own hands?” he asks. “They were bleeding?”
She nods, but doesn’t say anything yet.
“I threw my hand through a window because Yo-Yo Ma played Bach,” Josh quips. “What are you doing to yours?”
Carol laughs at that.
“I feel bad reminding people that I found her,” she admits to him, a little nauseous at saying it out loud.
Josh looks tense, he’s frowning even when he’s trying to look more comfortable in this conversation. She wishes she hadn’t said anything. “It’s confronting,” he says, softer than she’s ever heard Josh Lyman say anything. “I feel bad for being relieved I didn’t, if that’s anything.”
Carol can’t tell if the twisting inside her chest is guilt, frustration, or relief at being understood. She just nods.
“I tried to stop the bleeding, and it made her blood run down my fingers, down my hands, down my arms. And now no matter what I do, I keep feeling it. I don’t think there’s a specific trigger for it, not one I can find anyway. It just happens. And I wash my hands and dry them off, over and over and over again, because only after they’re completely scrubbed dry does it feel like the blood’s gone.”
Carol hesitates, looking down at her hands. She feels sick to her stomach knowing she got blood on CJ’s shirt, even the littlest amount.
“I keep picturing what I think it might’ve looked like,” Josh admits. He doesn’t need to explain what he’s talking about. “And everything I come up with feels too gratuitous or too peaceful, and all of it makes me feel like throwing up.”
Carol’s not sure what to say.
“You talked to Stanley, didn’t you?” Josh continues. She’s glad to be let off the hook.
Carol nods. “He kept reminding me to stop focusing only on how this was affecting CJ,” she says softly. “Said I kept changing the subject to how she was doing — I kinda assumed that was his main reason for flying out here.”
“Pretty sure it’s the reason the President called him initially,” Josh says. Carol doesn’t remind him that she was in the room when the President did. “But no offense, but you’re not doing okay. People can tell.”
“I keep telling myself that CJ’s doing worse.” She wishes she hadn’t pulled away from his hug. She’s not about to ask for another one. “And I’m just— I’m supposed to be standing in for her, and I should be okay to do that.”
There’s something he wants to say. She likes how much easier Josh is to read than Toby — or almost anyone else in the building. His poker face rivals Donna’s.
She waits and doesn’t ask. She wouldn’t know what to ask for.
“When I said I could fill in for Leo while he was with CJ, I didn’t think it’d be that hard,” he says. Carol’s not surprised at the ego; she’d have rolled her eyes in any other situation. “Naive, I guess, but I mean— never mind. It’s… weird, isn’t it? Doing part of the job and wanting to do it right, because you’re doing it in someone else’s stead until they get back? It’s different — Leo’s still doing it, really, he’s constantly on the phone, and now that CJ’s doing a little better he plans to come in more, but— I’m not sure where I was going with this.”
Carol finds herself chuckling.
“No, you’re right,” she tells him. “You don’t wanna let them down. You’re doing it to make it easier on them, and it shouldn’t turn into something for them to fix, preferably.”
She’s kinda glad when there seems to be a mutual decision to drop the topic.
Josh clears his throat.
“Stanley recommended you some people in DC to talk to?” he asks. She doesn’t immediately say anything, but nods her head. “Haven’t called them yet?”
Carol looks down. “That predictable?”
“I only called them because Leo was all over me about it,” he tells her. ”But you should. CJ’s doing worse, but— don’t wait until you get bad enough to rival her. I think everybody needs you to do a little better than that.”
“Right,” she says quietly. She doesn’t promise anything, but tells herself she will.
Josh clears his throat again. Carol wipes her eyes. “Alright. Need a ride home, or do you wanna stay for a drink? I’m sure they’re still going.”
She should tell the President that CJ watched the debate, she thinks.
“A drink sounds alright,” she tells Josh. He helps her off the couch without asking. Sam’s gloves lay abandoned on the couch when they leave CJ’s office and Josh suggests they wait and see how long it takes Sam to notice they’re missing. She thinks she’ll try listening more attentively the next time Donna talks about him.