My apologies on how long it's been since I last updated... since the last update, I have moved from Los Angeles to Phoenix, and this is the first time I've actually been able to sit down at a computer and give a little time and thought to the story.
Allison Cameron had spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong, and then once she did figure it out, another hour hoping that she was wrong. Finally, she shook her head, and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, the paralysis is permanent. It’s your nervous system beginning to shut down as your MS goes into its final phases.”
“I see,” Jed Bartlet replied, a sigh escaping his lips. “Well, if I can’t move my left side, that means I can’t go anywhere… it means no more chess… it means I have to use a bedpan…”
He seemed especially irked by the idea of a bedpan. “Dammit!” he snapped. “Less than two days to live, and I still can’t let myself be a little undignified.”
Cameron truly had no idea what to say. Here was a man who had been the leader of the free world for eight years, who had done more in his seventy-four years than a dozen other men would have, and he was about to die. How was she supposed to tell him that a bedpan wasn’t the end of the world?
She decided that perhaps she just wouldn’t. She was about to say something when the President spoke.
“So, how would you like to hear some official state secrets?”
Dr. Cameron looked at President Bartlet, confused. “Huh? Official state secrets?”
“Oh, sure,” Jed replied. “Nothing that would jeopardize national security, of course, but just all these things I’ve had to keep secret for all these years… I’d like to get a chance to just spill them before I die.”
“Uh… okay…”
“Of course, you can’t tell anybody,” he continued. “Which means you get to bear the burden I have for the last twenty-two years.”
“Hmmm.” Cameron thought about it. “Will I be entertained?”
“Oh, absolutely!” Jed chuckled. “You will DEFINITELY be entertained.”
“Well, then, have at it.”
“Okay, first things first,” Jed said. “Before we get into the more entertaining bits, I have to get something off my chest.”
“Alright…”
“Abdul ibn Shareef. There were many rumors – none of which were ever confirmed or denied by the White House – that we had him assassinated.”
Jed paused. His eyes grew vacant, almost with a thousand yard stare. “We did. We were certain that he was behind the attempted attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. So, I gave the order to take him out.”
His voice took on a more weary tone. “Because of that order, a Secret Service agent died, my daughter spent nearly a week in terror, afraid she was going to die, and Glen Allen Walken’s political career got flushed down the toilet. He didn’t deserve that. He was a good man.”
Cameron sat down, a sort of shock coming over her. “You know,” she said quietly, “I always figured that’s what happened, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah,” Jed said. “We didn’t expect anything to happen – what could Qumar do? They’re smaller than Iraq, for heaven’s sake.”
Then he stopped, and when he spoke again, it was with a far more cheerful tone. “But I promised you entertainment! So, if I told you that one of the science fiction TV shows from the first decade of this century was based on the truth, which one would you say?”
Cameron just shook her head. “I have no clue,” she said. “Star Trek?”
Bartlet cocked an eyebrow – like Spock, Cameron thought. “Star Trek is set two hundred years in the future, Dr. Cameron. Try again.”
“Uh… the X-Files?”
At this, Bartlet laughed. “No, no, there are no crazy aliens rampaging around the planet. Also, Area 51 is an advanced aircraft testing center, nothing more.”
“Hmmm… Doctor Who?”
“Closer than you might think,” Bartlet replied. “The Timelords actually do exist. In 1955, one of their TARDISes crashed in England. The British government confiscated it, and when the Timelord’s people showed up to collect him, the British government politely asked them to please stay the hell out of Earth’s business. We’re pretty sure they ignored us, but if they have been around, they’ve kept a very low profile.
“Anyway, that was a long way of saying, ‘not quite’,” Jed said. “Next guess?”
“Hmmm… Supernatural?”
“Bingo!” Jed crowed. “There you go. Back in the 1960s, there were these two brothers – I actually went to Notre Dame with them, they were training to be priests – and after they graduated, rather than going into the priesthood, they went around the country exorcising demons. Now, this has never been officially confirmed by the government, of course. However, we know about them, and we okay’d them selling the rights to their life story to Eric Kripke some time back. If we hadn’t okay’d it, and they’d done it anyway…”
“You know what, I don’t think I want to know the consequences,” Cameron replied quickly.
“Fair enough. You want to know anything else?”
“I actually think I’d be better off not,” she said. “But what about stories from when you were President? Are there any of those?”
“Of course,” said Jed. “What would you like to hear?”
“Well, as a doctor, I’ve always been curious about the health of the country’s leaders. Now, of course, everybody knew about your MS, and Leo McGarry’s heart condition… but I’d like to know about Josh Lyman. About his PTSD.”
Jed looked away from Cameron, toward the ceiling. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “When Josh got shot at Rosslyn, it really messed him up but good mentally. He spent the next six months trying to exorcise his demons, but he just couldn’t get over the shooting. Sam Seaborn, Toby Ziegler – they tried to help him, but it just wouldn’t work. It was when he yelled at me in the Oval Office and then two days later Donna Moss noticed his hand bandaged and bleeding that we knew something was wrong.
“We brought in Stanley Keyworth –“
“From Cal-Berkeley?” Cameron interjected.
“Yes. He was recommended to the White House as one of the best. I actually had a few therapy sessions with him myself – which is another one of those state secrets, by the way. Anyway, we brought Stanley in, he managed to figure out in two hours what none of us could in six months, and because of his efforts, Josh Lyman had a happy Hanukkah that year. Then, right after New Year’s, Josh came in to the Oval to speak to me…”
Jed Bartlet felt the presence of somebody waiting outside the door before he actually heard the knocking. So as soon as the first knock landed, he called out, “Come in!”
The door opened slowly, and in came Josh Lyman, who had made himself as unnoticeable as possible for the last month when in meetings in the Oval. He slowly approached the President’s desk.
“Mr. President,” he said softly. “I… I wanted to apologize for what happened last month. I think back on it, I can’t believe I would ever raise my voice to you. I… I may be one of the small group of people who got you here, but… you’re the man behind the desk. You’re the President. I was completely out of line, and I’m incredibly sorry.”
Bartlet said nothing for a moment, just looking at Josh. Finally, he spoke.
“Josh, the look on your face right now reminds me of the night when Elizabeth was 17, she took my Buick LeSabre out to go visit some friends, hit a patch of black ice, and ended up parking it – for the last time, as it turned out – in a ditch.”
A smile began to creep onto Josh’s face.
“Oh, I was mad, alright. That was a $15,000 car she had wrecked, and back in 1988, $15,000 was quite a bit of money! But I was far less concerned about that, and far more concerned about the fact that she was okay. She wasn’t hurt. She was scared, but she wasn’t hurt.
“We all recognized that there was something wrong quite a while ago, Josh,” he continued. “And yes, I was pretty steamed that you yelled at me that night. I was about ready to fire you, but Leo told me not to. And I’m glad he did. You’re a brilliant political mind, and you’re like the son I never had.
“Now I know that you’re not quite alright. I know that it’s going to take some therapy. But the fact is, you’re going to be alright. And all of us here will be supportive of you.”
Jed paused. “Now, unless there’s anything else, you might want to leave, lest I get out some slides of Wupatki National Monument and start regaling you with stories of the ancient Sinagua Indians.”
A smile cracked across Josh’s face. “No, sir, that’ll be quite alright. I have a… thing, with a… guy, at a place.”
“Alright, Josh,” Jed said, smiling. “You can go, then.”
“Yes, sir,” Josh replied. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Cameron didn’t say anything. Jed Bartlet was clearly at another time and place. After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“You know, I haven’t seen Josh since… since Abby’s funeral. He and Donna moved out to Seattle right after that… he said he was done with politics, that he was ready to retire and write his memoirs.”
Cameron just sat, silently. She couldn’t think of anything to say. President Bartlet’s experiences were so far beyond her own… beyond anything she could’ve ever imagined. Fortunately for her, the awkward silence was interrupted by the bedside phone ringing.
She didn’t think to move toward it, figuring that Bartlet would pick it up. Then, he said, “Uh, Dr. Cameron, if you wouldn’t mind, the telephone is on the side of my body that’s paralyzed…”
Embarrassed, she jumped to her feet. “Of course,” she said, picking up the phone and handing it to him.
Taking the phone in his right hand, Bartlet said, “This is Jed Bartlet.”
Somebody spoke on the other end for a moment, and his face brightened. “Josh Lyman? Absolutely I’ll take a call from him!”
The call was connected, and then Bartlet nearly shouted, “Joshua Lyman! As I live and breathe! Your ears must’ve practically been on fire!”
As he continued his conversation, Cameron let herself out of his room. Glancing down at his charts, she shook her head.
President Bartlet wasn’t going to live through the night.
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