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Fic post: Go and Catch A Falling Star (The West Wing)
This was a pinch-hit for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
apocalyptothon.
Title: Go and Catch a Falling Star
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jmtorres
Fandom: The West Wing
Rating: PG-13, for the apocalypse.
Pairing: Various.
Warnings: Er. It's the apocalypse.
Word Count: 5,000
Recipient:falseeeyelashes
Request: "You saw Armageddon, right? Let's just imagine Bruce Willis wasn't there to save the day, lol. And, there's a bunker. Who gets saved and who doesn't?"
Summary: "If we survive this, we'll be able to buy everyone at NASA a pony," said Josh.
Notes: Setting is probably around late season 2.
Thanks to:isabeau, niqaeli, grey_bard, keelieinblack, and stariceling, all of whom I would take to the bunker with me if the world were ending.
Also viewable on AO3.
---
"Donna," said Josh, "why am I looking at NASA's weekly fax of doom?"
"Well, look at it," Donna said. She had an armful of folders Josh needed to look at, undoubtedly more than he needed to look at a report on asteroids on supposed imminent collision courses with the Earth. Yet this was what she had handed Josh first.
"Haven't we had this discussion?" Josh asked. "None of these ever actually hit, no matter how many faxes NASA sends us."
"The numbers, Josh, look at the numbers," Donna urged. She got around in front of him, walking backwards, in order to point at a column on the sheet. "Diameter. Look at that."
Josh kept walking, and Donna fell back to his side, biting her lip. Josh sighed and looked at the numbers. At a glance, the fax looked like every other fax NASA had sent them. All the asteroids had completely unreadable alphanumeric designations, and columns of characteristics you really needed to be a rocket scientist to interpret. "Seriously, what?" Josh asked.
"The diameter on the third one down there," Donna insisted, pointing. "It's a few digits longer than they usually run."
Josh frowned at the sheet and tried not to think about Donna poring over these, week after week. Certainly the number in question was a few digits longer than all the others on this list. "Wouldn't that mean it was roughly a thousand times bigger--?"
"Exactly!" Donna said. "And that's the diameter! The volume would have to be--"
"A thousand times cubed, yes, thank you," Josh said. "That can't be right. It's got to be a, a, a typo."
"A typo," Donna repeated skeptically.
"Or the wrong unit. You know, meters instead of kilometers," Josh said.
"If those other ones are in kilometers, they're all enormous," said Donna.
"They'd be yelling louder than this if it were for real." He held the page out. They'd reached the Oval Office--Josh was not taking that in.
Donna reluctantly took it back, shaking her head.
As Josh walked into the morning briefing, the president turned to Leo and said, "What's this I keep hearing about a giant rock about to fall out of the sky?"
Josh grinned, about to quip that Donna was his sister--good, strong Jewish name, Donnatella--since only nepotism could explain why he kept her around--
But Leo said, "They're still calculating how close it's going to come, but we're scrambling Operation Falling Star, just in case."
--and Josh felt his heart stop.
---
"NASA now estimates asteroid L728B has a 47% chance of colliding with the Earth in a little over thirty-two hours," CJ told the reporters while Sam and Josh watched on closed circuit. Hands shot up around the podium.
"CJ, how long is 'a little over'?" someone asked.
"My God, what a pointless question," Josh said. "Who is that?"
"What time is it now, 2:01?" CJ asked.
"What's-his-face from the Post," said Sam.
"What's-his-face always asks stupid questions," Josh muttered.
"About fourteen minutes," CJ went on. "NASA hasn't refined it past the quarter hour. Sorry, folks."
"CJ! How'd it get this close without being spotted?"
"Insufficient funding for the Hubble Space Telescope and various observatories here on the ground, combined with a--" CJ shuffled her papers, and read off, "an albedo, or reflectivity measurement, of 3%, which I am told is blacker than coal."
"Great," said Sam. "If we survive this, we'll be able to buy NASA any mission they want."
"If we survive this, we'll be able to buy everyone at NASA a pony," said Josh.
"CJ, you said previously that measures were being taken which you couldn't tell us about at the time. Can you expand on that yet?"
"Given the likelihood of collision now estimated, the president has given a go on Operation Falling Star," CJ announced.
"Here we go," Josh grumbled. "They'll love this."
"What, that our solution is to nuke it?" Sam asked. "We're Americans! That's what we do!"
"I'm just feeling a pang of grief for that test-ban treaty," Josh said.
"We never signed the test-ban treaty," Sam pointed out.
"And now we never will," said Josh. "Not after nukes save our bacon!"
"...hopefully breaking the asteroid in smaller fragments which will burn up in the atmosphere," CJ concluded, "rather than striking the ground. If it works, we should get a very pretty light show, thus the code name 'Falling Star.'"
"You said 'hopefully'--what are the chances of this working?"
"Oh, she slipped," Sam murmured.
"A million to one," Josh answered darkly, throwing Toby's rubber ball against the window.
"Sorry, guys, this is a completely untested procedure, so your guess is as good as mine," CJ told them.
"When will we know if it's worked?"
"If everything goes as planned," CJ said, running her finger down the schedule, "the space shuttle Endeavor will take off in two hours--they're in pre-flight check now--and will reach L728B around three tomorrow morning. We should detonate the nuclear devices by eight, and NASA plans to be able to assess the outcome accurately by noon tomorrow."
"It's amazing how she can read that so straight and not like we're all about to die," Josh said.
"Oh, ye of little faith," said Sam.
"Are you kidding?" Josh said. "I've been praying harder all day than I have in the last, oh, twenty-five years combined."
---
A good deal of the press coverage shifted to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral and Ground Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston over the next few hours. Josh and Sam kept watching. CJ kept giving the White House press corps hourly updates. Toby kept writing firm, positive statements for CJ, which CJ, according to Toby, was incapable of reading without modifying.
"Lie to them," Toby said. "Stop telling them we don't know if it'll work, that hopefully it'll work, that it might work, if it works--just tell them everything will be all right!"
"They're not kids," said CJ. "This isn't a bedtime story."
"Then say we have every confidence in the mission," Toby suggested. "Oh, and say 'the mission,' not 'Operation Falling Star.' Falling sounds like failing."
"Do we have every confidence in Operation Falling Star?" CJ asked.
"No," Josh said, leaning on the doorway. "The thing's coming in too fast. That means it's probably high density, so its own gravity will keep it together."
"That's beside the point," Toby said. "And that's not any more certain than the reverse--don't think I didn't hear you say probably. CJ, you have to keep them from panicking."
"They're already panicked," CJ said. "If they stop trusting us, they'll stay panicked. We have to tell them the whole truth or they won't believe anything we say, or believe in our ability to save them."
"No, CJ, you have to comfort them, calm them down," Toby insisted. "They'll believe anything, they'll grasp at straws, so give them some straws to grasp at! Lie to them!"
"If we're all about to die, I'm not sure I can face my maker with deliberate lies about the fate of the world on my soul," CJ said.
"Well, don't say that," Toby said. "Do not, under any circumstances, use the words 'we're,' 'all,' 'about,' 'to,' or 'die,' especially in that order!"
"About to die, we all are?" Sam suggested.
"Hello, Yoda," said Josh.
"I haven't," said CJ. "I have been as non-inflammatory as I know how to be while staying honest."
She left to speak to the press again--it was six in the evening, time for another hourly briefing--and Toby put his head in his hands.
"Doesn't 'lie to them' imply that you think all hope is false?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, not to mention 'straws to grasp at,'" Josh added.
Without raising his head, Toby answered, "Of course I think all hope is false. I think all hope is false on a good day, which this has definitely not been."
"Oh, Toby, tell us how you really feel," said Josh.
"We're all going to die," said Toby. "That doesn't mean you tell the press."
---
Sometime after two (before Endeavor reached L728B, but late enough to compound the helpless, disbelieving, desperate mood with caffeine-fueled insomniac contemplations), Josh said softly, "They keep calling it apocalyptic. That evangelist CNN dug up to commentate Falling Star, and Pat Buchannan, and Dan Rather."
"Well, as you know," Sam said, deadpan, "we are being punished for our sins. If only we'd been a more God-fearing nation and stoned gays and blacks and women who show their midriffs."
"A God-fearing nation?" Josh asked, gazing out at the sky. It was hard to see--the asteroid--it wasn't close enough to be very big yet, but there was a black spot over half a dozen stars in the East. "That's too small. What about the rest of the world?"
"Commies, the lot," Sam supplied. Before midnight, it had seemed funny to hear old Cold Warriors like McCain talking about the "communist response" to their use of nuclear weapons. Now, it felt like a dead horse.
"But apocalypse... seems too big," Josh said. "This isn't going to wipe out all life on Earth--it's not as big as the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs, and the Earth bounced back from that. And even if it didn't--we're just one pale blue dot in the cosmos. Shouldn't the apocalypse be the end of all creation? Some kind of reverse Big Bang, the implosion of the universe?"
"I thought the universe was expanding," Sam offered. He was letting Josh meander through his thoughts without trying to argue a point, which was rare, and nice. It was bizarrely more relaxing than if he had tried to convince Josh that they would be fine.
"It is," Josh said. "Whether it will expand infinitely until everything is just dust, too far separated to form anything, or whether it will snap back at some point and start collapsing is something astrophysicists argue over. It depends how much matter there is in the universe. They can't agree on that, either."
After a moment, Sam asked, "Does it give you comfort, to think that the rest of the universe will just keep going without us?"
Josh stared at the black spot in the sky. "No," he admitted. "This is still the end of the world."
---
Josh and Sam slept a bit on the couch in Toby's office. Toby didn't sleep at all, so he didn't seem to mind.
When Josh woke, Toby told him, "It failed. It's all over."
Josh blinked blearily. He was still too tired, he knew he hadn't slept that long. "It's only--" He couldn't get to his own watch--Sam lay on his arm--so he leaned over and checked Sam's. "--eight-thirty. I thought NASA wasn't going to declare until noon."
"Some of the devices didn't detonate," Toby said bleakly.
Josh's heart didn't stop this time--he felt as if he'd been preparing for this all along--but despair seemed to weigh down his bones.
"Don't tell CJ," Toby said. "We're stringing the press along as long as we can."
---
The news broke around four in the afternoon like a dam bursting: a crack and a trickle and then fury unleashed. The president came out of the Situation Room and CJ cornered him, demanding, respectfully, "Sir," only to see his eyes and realize he was grieving. Leo told her, quietly, how bad it was, and CJ nodded, wiped her face, and went out to tell the press that FEMA was handling evacuations of areas likely to be affected by fragments of L728B.
Then she came back and yelled at Toby and Josh.
"You knew! You knew and you kept it from me--knew people were going to--the affected areas! We're going to get hit with two-mile-wide pieces of rock, and we're still going to, to, get the giant dust cloud and starve when all the plants die, and--" CJ stared at both of them, breathing hard, and it hadn't escaped Josh's notice that she couldn't flat-out say, we're all going to die, not now that the if was stripped off.
"If we don't all suffocate from the dust first," Toby said.
"CJ," said Josh. He had his head down, rolling Toby's ball between his hands--he hadn't been able to look at anyone since he'd heard. "The largest fragment is going to strike in the Atlantic. There's going to be a tidal wave. It's going to take out the whole coast--here, Europe, Africa, Brazil--"
"I don't understand," said CJ. "Why aren't we being evacuated? Why isn't--why is the president still in the building?"
"We can't possibly evacuate the entire Eastern seaboard," said Toby. "The freeways would jam up, everyone would still be trapped, just trapped in their cars. So we're not telling them."
"Was this your idea?" CJ said, low and furious.
"The president--" said Toby.
"Did you put this in the president's head?" CJ snapped.
"The president," Toby repeated, "is staying until the last minute, so everyone will think it's safe here."
"The president," CJ said heavily, falling into the seat by Josh, "is lying to them. Is that what you're telling me."
"There's still a remote chance it could hit Morocco," Josh said.
"I hate this," said CJ.
"I'm sorry," said Toby.
CJ put her hand to her face, as if to brush her hair back, but she held it there instead, a shaking shield. "So we're all going to die," she said, with a quiver in her voice that Josh took for tears until Toby answered,
"Yes, we're all going to die," and CJ leaned toward Josh and gripped his hand, bent in hysterical laughter.
---
Josh was with Sam, eating popcorn and morbidly heckling CNN, when Ron Butterfield came to see him. "Mr. Lyman--"
"Shh," said Josh. "Did he say 'nigh'?" he asked Sam, gesturing at the TV with the vodka bottle.
"Pretty sure he did, yeah," Sam said.
Josh swallowed vodka directly from the bottle and passed it to Sam. Sam did the same and reached blindly for the bag of microwave popcorn in Josh's lap.
"Mr. Lyman, if I could--"
"Oh, I heard a 'Gabriel's horn,'" said Sam, drinking again and passing the bottle back.
Ron intercepted the pass and stood in front of the TV. "Mr. Lyman," said Ron, "I need to speak with you."
Sam threw popcorn at Ron, who closed his eyes briefly but otherwise didn't respond. Sam giggled drunkenly into Josh's shoulder and Josh ruffled his hair. "Yeah?"
"Privately," Ron said, eyebrows up.
So Josh stood unsteadily and followed Ron into the hallway, which was eerily deserted. Ron pulled the office door shut, blocking Sam, and began, "Sir--"
"Don't 'sir' me," Josh slurred. "I'm not the president."
"Mr. Lyman," Ron said. "You need to come with me now."
"Come where?" Josh asked, jerking back when Ron tried to put a hand on his arm.
"The helipad," Ron said. "It's time to leave. You're on my list--you should have been out of here an hour ago--"
"I gave the card back," Josh announced. "I gave the NSA card back to Leo 'cause I don't wanna be only one who goes to the bunker while all my friends die."
"Well," Ron said patiently, "that explains why you didn't come to your assigned exit. But it's time to go now, sir."
"Not sir!" Josh repeated. "Not going, either."
Ron stared at him incredulously. "If you stay here, you'll die," he said.
"I know," said Josh.
"You can't just--" Ron actually looked frustrated. His moustache trembled. "You can't give the card back and not come. You serve at the pleasure of the president. If he says to come, you come!"
"I'm not leaving my friends here," Josh said stubbornly.
"Fine," Ron snapped. "How many seats are we talking about?"
"Seats?" Josh repeated stupidly.
"How many people do you need to take with you to come on?" Ron said.
Josh stared for a moment. He couldn't be serious. All the same-- "Sam and Donna and Toby and CJ and--" There were more people Josh should think of, he knew. Who would his friends want to take? "Danny Concannon, and--" because CJ wouldn't have a professional conflict there after the world ended, would she? And would Toby thank him or kill him if--? "Andi Wyatt, and--"
Ron had started talking into his earpiece. Josh didn't quite hear what he was saying, but he stopped when Ron raised his hand. After a moment, Ron said to him, "Seven. I can get you seven seats."
"Am I at seven?" Josh asked, not quite succeeding at counting off in his head.
"Including yourself?" said Ron. "Yes. I'll arrange to get Congresswoman Wyatt over here. You round up the rest of your friends."
"They all get to come with me," Josh said, reaching out to catch Ron's sleeve as he started to turn away.
"Yes, Mr. Lyman," Ron said gently.
"Oh," Josh said. He felt soberer all of the sudden. He realized that a great deal of his inebriation had been the same kind of hysterical giddiness that had made CJ laugh at we're all going to die. Hope quite suddenly evaporated that mood, that protective insanity. "Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me," Ron said gruffly. "Work on a way to get Danny Concannon out of the press room without the rest of them noticing."
Josh stepped back into the office and said, "Sam, we're going to live."
Sam paused with handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. "What happened? And why isn't it on CNN yet?"
"I--no," Josh said. "I mean. We are. Not everybody. Ron wanted to take me to whatever bunker the president's in, and he said I could take some people with me, and I. Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"
"It's all right," Sam said, looking away. "I wanted to hope. I wanted to grasp at straws."
---
Josh and Sam found Toby at his desk, where they'd left him. There was a brief, frantic search for Donna, who seemed to have left the building, before Josh thought to try her cell phone and turned her up in the Rose Garden. They came barrelling down the hall in a knot, Josh yelling, "CJ!"
"What is it?" CJ asked, coming out of her office to stand wearily against the door.
"You need to talk to the press, right now," Josh said.
"About what? We're not announcing the president's departure, are we?" CJ asked.
"No. Uh. Tell them--" Josh floundered, unable to think of anything.
"Tell them people should be warned not to approach impact craters," Toby said quietly. "Thanks to Operation Falling Star, the asteroid fragments may be dangerously radioactive."
"Jesus," said CJ. "Is that true? We made it worse?"
"The warheads that went off were designed to burn clean and not leave fallout," Toby said. "There were a couple that didn't go off."
"Okay," said CJ. She looked punch-drunk, but she'd been giving hourly reports to the press for over thirty hours now. She straightened and turned to go out.
Josh realized he'd forgotten to tell her the important bit. "Wait, wait," he said, catching her hand.
"What?" CJ asked.
"Call Danny back when you're done," Josh said.
CJ blinked at him. "Why?"
"We're giving him an exclusive," Sam said. It might have ordinarily sounded like a joke, but Sam had gone quiet and dark. Josh might have spared more energy to worry for him except that the world was ending, and Sam's response seemed like the sanest Josh had seen.
CJ looked at them as if they were all crazy. "Okay," she said, humoring them, and went out.
---
Ron ushered Andi into the office just as CJ reached the podium on their TV. Toby rushed to her, and Josh thought Ron might have urged them all out the door except that CJ wasn't back with Danny yet. So Toby had an awkward-sounding exchange with Andi.
"Can I ask you something?" Toby said, gripping Andi's hands. "Is it okay, now that we're all, now that the world is--" Toby seemed to gather himself from his uncharacteristic inarticulateness. "Is it all right if I'm not the most cheerful person in the world, under the circumstances?"
"You mean, is it okay if you're depressive, pessimistic and cynical, now that you've been completely vindicated about how bad things could possibly get?" Andi asked.
"Yeah," Toby said, smiling a bit.
"Why do you care what I think?" Andi asked. "What does it matter if I think it's okay for you to be the saddest little man in the world?"
"Because I want you to marry me," said Toby.
"What, again?" Andi said, ducking her head with a little smile of her own.
"Yes," said Toby. "Marry me. Please, Andi."
"For the last two hours we're alive?" Andi asked. "It means that much to you?"
"Yes, it does," said Toby.
"Okay," said Andi.
"Okay," said Toby in a questioning tone. "Okay? Really?"
"Yes, really," said Andi.
"I have something I have to tell you," said Toby. "Josh has a helicopter and he's taking us all to the president's bunker and we might actually make it through this alive. Will you still marry me?"
"Oh, God," said Andi, bringing her hands, and thus, Toby's, to her mouth.
"I'm not saying you have to in order to come with us or anything," said Toby. "That doesn't matter. You can come with us even if you don't want to marry me, I'll just be, you know, the saddest little man in the world."
"You idiot," said Andi, muffled by their hands. "Yes. Yes, Toby."
"Do we have paper cups?" asked Josh. "I've still got most of a bottle of vodka in here."
---
Ron started pushing them all out in the hallway the second CJ went off of the screen. Donna slipped over to her desk to get her purse out of a drawer, and Ron muttered something about herding cats. The tips of his moustache were wet from being chewed on. Then CJ and Danny came in at the end of the hall, and the door to the press room shut behind them.
Danny had his notebook open, asking, "What did you want to see me about?"
"I don't know, Josh asked for you," CJ said, rubbing her forehead.
"Josh has a story and you're letting him tell me without vetting it?" Danny said. He and CJ had closed the space to just a few yards from Josh and the others. "What is it?" Danny asked Josh. "Does the president have a secret plan to fight crop failure?"
"Move along, everybody," Ron begged, reduced to tugging at Toby and Sam's sleeves.
"Let's walk and talk, people, places to be," Josh said, swinging around to walk between CJ and Danny.
"Really? Where are going?" CJ asked.
"Uh, West Virginia, I think?" Josh said. "I wasn't actually paying that much attention, it didn't seem important. You remember the card the NSA gave me for what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, and didn't give anyone else? And you said, yeah, I'm a press secretary, Sam and Toby write speeches, they probably won't need us?"
"Yeah," said CJ. "Should we be discussing this in front of Danny?"
"Oh, what's he gonna say, the president has a secret plan to fight a nuclear war?" Josh said. Danny was scribbling away. "Close your notebook, Danny."
"I'm not even here," Danny said, flipping the cover over.
"Anyway, that didn't sit right," Josh said. "I need you guys. So I'm taking you with me."
"Okay," said CJ. "What's Danny doing here?"
"CJ!" Josh said. "The world's about to end. You're not going to be press secretary, and he's not going to be a reporter. So what's the problem?"
"I never had a problem," Danny pointed out.
CJ gave Danny a tired glare, then looked back to Josh and said, "I think the word to describe what you are is 'yenta.'"
"Actually, it doesn't really mean matchmaker in Yiddish, just, you know, busybody," Josh said. Being slightly unnerved by CJ's continued glare, he added, "But you're not Jewish so I'll let it pass."
"So does this mean we're going to the president's secret love nest?" Danny asked.
"Love nest?" CJ squawked.
"If you don't let go of the president's secret thing, I'm going to have to rethink taking you with me and saving your life," Josh told Danny.
---
Josh kept thinking of people he wished he could have taken. His mother, of course, was too far away to rescue, but there were people closer to home. "What about Margaret," he said suddenly, stepping quicker to catch up to Ron. The romantic in him was quite sure that Leo--
"Mr. McGarry took Margaret," Ron said, sounding annoyed.
"He did?" Josh said. "I mean, good!" After a moment he said, "Oh, but, what about Charlie?" He added hopefully, "Did the president take Charlie?"
"The president did not take Charlie," Ron said through clenched teeth. "Zoe took Charlie." After another beat, he added, "The president took Mrs. Landingham."
Josh said, "Did that NSA card I had say 'Joshua Lyman and guest' and I just didn't read the fine print?"
"No--they pulled rank. But aren't you glad it didn't?" Ron asked, pulling open a door for him. "You'd have killed yourself trying to decide on just one guest to take."
The helicopter was already fired up, its rotors spinning, when they got outside. Ron loaded them all in and made to shut the door on Josh, but Josh held it open, yelling over the helicopter noise, "Wait, aren't you coming?"
"No room!" Ron shouted back.
"But I thought--" Josh firmly held onto the door. "I thought you already had a seat! Or I would have asked you too!"
"My job is to put myself between you all and danger," Ron shouted back, almost directly in Josh's ear. "You tell me how this is any different than taking a bullet."
And when Josh flinched at that, Ron slammed the door, backed up, and gave a thumbs up to pilot.
"No--wait!" Josh yelled, plastered against the window, but they were already off the ground.
---
Donna thrust a headset at him across the crowded cabin, and Josh took it. He put it on at first just to keep from going deaf, without switching it on, but Donna chattered at him inaudibly and finally reached over to switch it on herself, and then her voice came through, scratchy and raw. "Was this your idea?"
"Was what my idea?" Josh asked. He didn't hear his own voice in the headset, and Donna leaned over impatiently to show him his 'on' button, like a walkie-talkie. "Was what my idea?"
"West Virginia!" Donna said. "Were you involved in these evacuation plans at all, and if so, why didn't you farm them out to me? I could have done a much better job. If the whole coastline is going to flood shouldn't we be going to Kansas or something? I don't feel West Virginia is safe enough!"
"Donna, this isn't exactly policy," Josh said. "I'm pretty sure the military handled the plans."
"Well, why didn't you?" Donna demanded, folding her arms.
Josh heard somebody else come on the line, and an unfamiliar voice said, "This is actually somewhere around Plan D. We wanted the president farther inland, but by the time he was willing to evacuate, the bunker in the West Virginia mine was the best we could reach in time."
Belatedly, Josh realized it had to be the pilot.
"A mine shaft?" Toby asked. "Wasn't that Dr. Strangelove's suggestion?"
"Well, just because he's fictional doesn't mean he's wrong," Sam said. "Especially if there's really going to be fallout from Operation Falling Star."
Donna leaned forward--but not toward Josh. "Hi, my name is Donna. What's your name?"
There was a short, startled silence on the headsets, although the chopper blades kept roaring away in the background.
Josh turned his mic on. "Hi, Donna, I'm Josh. We've met."
Donna glared at him.
"I guess you mean me," said the pilot. "Lieutenant Colonel Luke Hoffman, ma'am."
"Will you get to come down to the bunker with us, Luke?" Donna asked. Horrifyingly, she was twirling her hair around her finger. "They won't turn you away at the gate, will they?"
"I don't imagine they would, ma'am," the pilot said.
"Oh, you can call me Donna," Donna said breathily.
"Donna, what are you doing?" said Josh. "Interviewing for the father of the hundreds of little Aryan babies you plan to repopulate the Earth with?"
The pilot coughed.
"Hey," said Donna. "You brought boyfriends and girlfriends for everyone but me, so excuse me if I look out for myself, here!"
Toby squeezed Andi's hand, though they both looked embarrassed. CJ and Danny were looking everywhere except at each other, but CJ was holding Danny's hand, too. Josh risked a glance at Sam. Sam patted his hand and snickered.
"So, Luke," said Donna, leaning forward again, "do you have a family history of any diseases or syndromes I should know about?"
"Oh my God," Josh said. "Donna."
The End.
apocalyptothon. Title: Go and Catch a Falling Star
Author:
jmtorresFandom: The West Wing
Rating: PG-13, for the apocalypse.
Pairing: Various.
Warnings: Er. It's the apocalypse.
Word Count: 5,000
Recipient:
falseeeyelashesRequest: "You saw Armageddon, right? Let's just imagine Bruce Willis wasn't there to save the day, lol. And, there's a bunker. Who gets saved and who doesn't?"
Summary: "If we survive this, we'll be able to buy everyone at NASA a pony," said Josh.
Notes: Setting is probably around late season 2.
Thanks to:
isabeau, niqaeli, grey_bard, keelieinblack, and stariceling, all of whom I would take to the bunker with me if the world were ending.Also viewable on AO3.
---
"Donna," said Josh, "why am I looking at NASA's weekly fax of doom?"
"Well, look at it," Donna said. She had an armful of folders Josh needed to look at, undoubtedly more than he needed to look at a report on asteroids on supposed imminent collision courses with the Earth. Yet this was what she had handed Josh first.
"Haven't we had this discussion?" Josh asked. "None of these ever actually hit, no matter how many faxes NASA sends us."
"The numbers, Josh, look at the numbers," Donna urged. She got around in front of him, walking backwards, in order to point at a column on the sheet. "Diameter. Look at that."
Josh kept walking, and Donna fell back to his side, biting her lip. Josh sighed and looked at the numbers. At a glance, the fax looked like every other fax NASA had sent them. All the asteroids had completely unreadable alphanumeric designations, and columns of characteristics you really needed to be a rocket scientist to interpret. "Seriously, what?" Josh asked.
"The diameter on the third one down there," Donna insisted, pointing. "It's a few digits longer than they usually run."
Josh frowned at the sheet and tried not to think about Donna poring over these, week after week. Certainly the number in question was a few digits longer than all the others on this list. "Wouldn't that mean it was roughly a thousand times bigger--?"
"Exactly!" Donna said. "And that's the diameter! The volume would have to be--"
"A thousand times cubed, yes, thank you," Josh said. "That can't be right. It's got to be a, a, a typo."
"A typo," Donna repeated skeptically.
"Or the wrong unit. You know, meters instead of kilometers," Josh said.
"If those other ones are in kilometers, they're all enormous," said Donna.
"They'd be yelling louder than this if it were for real." He held the page out. They'd reached the Oval Office--Josh was not taking that in.
Donna reluctantly took it back, shaking her head.
As Josh walked into the morning briefing, the president turned to Leo and said, "What's this I keep hearing about a giant rock about to fall out of the sky?"
Josh grinned, about to quip that Donna was his sister--good, strong Jewish name, Donnatella--since only nepotism could explain why he kept her around--
But Leo said, "They're still calculating how close it's going to come, but we're scrambling Operation Falling Star, just in case."
--and Josh felt his heart stop.
---
"NASA now estimates asteroid L728B has a 47% chance of colliding with the Earth in a little over thirty-two hours," CJ told the reporters while Sam and Josh watched on closed circuit. Hands shot up around the podium.
"CJ, how long is 'a little over'?" someone asked.
"My God, what a pointless question," Josh said. "Who is that?"
"What time is it now, 2:01?" CJ asked.
"What's-his-face from the Post," said Sam.
"What's-his-face always asks stupid questions," Josh muttered.
"About fourteen minutes," CJ went on. "NASA hasn't refined it past the quarter hour. Sorry, folks."
"CJ! How'd it get this close without being spotted?"
"Insufficient funding for the Hubble Space Telescope and various observatories here on the ground, combined with a--" CJ shuffled her papers, and read off, "an albedo, or reflectivity measurement, of 3%, which I am told is blacker than coal."
"Great," said Sam. "If we survive this, we'll be able to buy NASA any mission they want."
"If we survive this, we'll be able to buy everyone at NASA a pony," said Josh.
"CJ, you said previously that measures were being taken which you couldn't tell us about at the time. Can you expand on that yet?"
"Given the likelihood of collision now estimated, the president has given a go on Operation Falling Star," CJ announced.
"Here we go," Josh grumbled. "They'll love this."
"What, that our solution is to nuke it?" Sam asked. "We're Americans! That's what we do!"
"I'm just feeling a pang of grief for that test-ban treaty," Josh said.
"We never signed the test-ban treaty," Sam pointed out.
"And now we never will," said Josh. "Not after nukes save our bacon!"
"...hopefully breaking the asteroid in smaller fragments which will burn up in the atmosphere," CJ concluded, "rather than striking the ground. If it works, we should get a very pretty light show, thus the code name 'Falling Star.'"
"You said 'hopefully'--what are the chances of this working?"
"Oh, she slipped," Sam murmured.
"A million to one," Josh answered darkly, throwing Toby's rubber ball against the window.
"Sorry, guys, this is a completely untested procedure, so your guess is as good as mine," CJ told them.
"When will we know if it's worked?"
"If everything goes as planned," CJ said, running her finger down the schedule, "the space shuttle Endeavor will take off in two hours--they're in pre-flight check now--and will reach L728B around three tomorrow morning. We should detonate the nuclear devices by eight, and NASA plans to be able to assess the outcome accurately by noon tomorrow."
"It's amazing how she can read that so straight and not like we're all about to die," Josh said.
"Oh, ye of little faith," said Sam.
"Are you kidding?" Josh said. "I've been praying harder all day than I have in the last, oh, twenty-five years combined."
---
A good deal of the press coverage shifted to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral and Ground Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston over the next few hours. Josh and Sam kept watching. CJ kept giving the White House press corps hourly updates. Toby kept writing firm, positive statements for CJ, which CJ, according to Toby, was incapable of reading without modifying.
"Lie to them," Toby said. "Stop telling them we don't know if it'll work, that hopefully it'll work, that it might work, if it works--just tell them everything will be all right!"
"They're not kids," said CJ. "This isn't a bedtime story."
"Then say we have every confidence in the mission," Toby suggested. "Oh, and say 'the mission,' not 'Operation Falling Star.' Falling sounds like failing."
"Do we have every confidence in Operation Falling Star?" CJ asked.
"No," Josh said, leaning on the doorway. "The thing's coming in too fast. That means it's probably high density, so its own gravity will keep it together."
"That's beside the point," Toby said. "And that's not any more certain than the reverse--don't think I didn't hear you say probably. CJ, you have to keep them from panicking."
"They're already panicked," CJ said. "If they stop trusting us, they'll stay panicked. We have to tell them the whole truth or they won't believe anything we say, or believe in our ability to save them."
"No, CJ, you have to comfort them, calm them down," Toby insisted. "They'll believe anything, they'll grasp at straws, so give them some straws to grasp at! Lie to them!"
"If we're all about to die, I'm not sure I can face my maker with deliberate lies about the fate of the world on my soul," CJ said.
"Well, don't say that," Toby said. "Do not, under any circumstances, use the words 'we're,' 'all,' 'about,' 'to,' or 'die,' especially in that order!"
"About to die, we all are?" Sam suggested.
"Hello, Yoda," said Josh.
"I haven't," said CJ. "I have been as non-inflammatory as I know how to be while staying honest."
She left to speak to the press again--it was six in the evening, time for another hourly briefing--and Toby put his head in his hands.
"Doesn't 'lie to them' imply that you think all hope is false?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, not to mention 'straws to grasp at,'" Josh added.
Without raising his head, Toby answered, "Of course I think all hope is false. I think all hope is false on a good day, which this has definitely not been."
"Oh, Toby, tell us how you really feel," said Josh.
"We're all going to die," said Toby. "That doesn't mean you tell the press."
---
Sometime after two (before Endeavor reached L728B, but late enough to compound the helpless, disbelieving, desperate mood with caffeine-fueled insomniac contemplations), Josh said softly, "They keep calling it apocalyptic. That evangelist CNN dug up to commentate Falling Star, and Pat Buchannan, and Dan Rather."
"Well, as you know," Sam said, deadpan, "we are being punished for our sins. If only we'd been a more God-fearing nation and stoned gays and blacks and women who show their midriffs."
"A God-fearing nation?" Josh asked, gazing out at the sky. It was hard to see--the asteroid--it wasn't close enough to be very big yet, but there was a black spot over half a dozen stars in the East. "That's too small. What about the rest of the world?"
"Commies, the lot," Sam supplied. Before midnight, it had seemed funny to hear old Cold Warriors like McCain talking about the "communist response" to their use of nuclear weapons. Now, it felt like a dead horse.
"But apocalypse... seems too big," Josh said. "This isn't going to wipe out all life on Earth--it's not as big as the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs, and the Earth bounced back from that. And even if it didn't--we're just one pale blue dot in the cosmos. Shouldn't the apocalypse be the end of all creation? Some kind of reverse Big Bang, the implosion of the universe?"
"I thought the universe was expanding," Sam offered. He was letting Josh meander through his thoughts without trying to argue a point, which was rare, and nice. It was bizarrely more relaxing than if he had tried to convince Josh that they would be fine.
"It is," Josh said. "Whether it will expand infinitely until everything is just dust, too far separated to form anything, or whether it will snap back at some point and start collapsing is something astrophysicists argue over. It depends how much matter there is in the universe. They can't agree on that, either."
After a moment, Sam asked, "Does it give you comfort, to think that the rest of the universe will just keep going without us?"
Josh stared at the black spot in the sky. "No," he admitted. "This is still the end of the world."
---
Josh and Sam slept a bit on the couch in Toby's office. Toby didn't sleep at all, so he didn't seem to mind.
When Josh woke, Toby told him, "It failed. It's all over."
Josh blinked blearily. He was still too tired, he knew he hadn't slept that long. "It's only--" He couldn't get to his own watch--Sam lay on his arm--so he leaned over and checked Sam's. "--eight-thirty. I thought NASA wasn't going to declare until noon."
"Some of the devices didn't detonate," Toby said bleakly.
Josh's heart didn't stop this time--he felt as if he'd been preparing for this all along--but despair seemed to weigh down his bones.
"Don't tell CJ," Toby said. "We're stringing the press along as long as we can."
---
The news broke around four in the afternoon like a dam bursting: a crack and a trickle and then fury unleashed. The president came out of the Situation Room and CJ cornered him, demanding, respectfully, "Sir," only to see his eyes and realize he was grieving. Leo told her, quietly, how bad it was, and CJ nodded, wiped her face, and went out to tell the press that FEMA was handling evacuations of areas likely to be affected by fragments of L728B.
Then she came back and yelled at Toby and Josh.
"You knew! You knew and you kept it from me--knew people were going to--the affected areas! We're going to get hit with two-mile-wide pieces of rock, and we're still going to, to, get the giant dust cloud and starve when all the plants die, and--" CJ stared at both of them, breathing hard, and it hadn't escaped Josh's notice that she couldn't flat-out say, we're all going to die, not now that the if was stripped off.
"If we don't all suffocate from the dust first," Toby said.
"CJ," said Josh. He had his head down, rolling Toby's ball between his hands--he hadn't been able to look at anyone since he'd heard. "The largest fragment is going to strike in the Atlantic. There's going to be a tidal wave. It's going to take out the whole coast--here, Europe, Africa, Brazil--"
"I don't understand," said CJ. "Why aren't we being evacuated? Why isn't--why is the president still in the building?"
"We can't possibly evacuate the entire Eastern seaboard," said Toby. "The freeways would jam up, everyone would still be trapped, just trapped in their cars. So we're not telling them."
"Was this your idea?" CJ said, low and furious.
"The president--" said Toby.
"Did you put this in the president's head?" CJ snapped.
"The president," Toby repeated, "is staying until the last minute, so everyone will think it's safe here."
"The president," CJ said heavily, falling into the seat by Josh, "is lying to them. Is that what you're telling me."
"There's still a remote chance it could hit Morocco," Josh said.
"I hate this," said CJ.
"I'm sorry," said Toby.
CJ put her hand to her face, as if to brush her hair back, but she held it there instead, a shaking shield. "So we're all going to die," she said, with a quiver in her voice that Josh took for tears until Toby answered,
"Yes, we're all going to die," and CJ leaned toward Josh and gripped his hand, bent in hysterical laughter.
---
Josh was with Sam, eating popcorn and morbidly heckling CNN, when Ron Butterfield came to see him. "Mr. Lyman--"
"Shh," said Josh. "Did he say 'nigh'?" he asked Sam, gesturing at the TV with the vodka bottle.
"Pretty sure he did, yeah," Sam said.
Josh swallowed vodka directly from the bottle and passed it to Sam. Sam did the same and reached blindly for the bag of microwave popcorn in Josh's lap.
"Mr. Lyman, if I could--"
"Oh, I heard a 'Gabriel's horn,'" said Sam, drinking again and passing the bottle back.
Ron intercepted the pass and stood in front of the TV. "Mr. Lyman," said Ron, "I need to speak with you."
Sam threw popcorn at Ron, who closed his eyes briefly but otherwise didn't respond. Sam giggled drunkenly into Josh's shoulder and Josh ruffled his hair. "Yeah?"
"Privately," Ron said, eyebrows up.
So Josh stood unsteadily and followed Ron into the hallway, which was eerily deserted. Ron pulled the office door shut, blocking Sam, and began, "Sir--"
"Don't 'sir' me," Josh slurred. "I'm not the president."
"Mr. Lyman," Ron said. "You need to come with me now."
"Come where?" Josh asked, jerking back when Ron tried to put a hand on his arm.
"The helipad," Ron said. "It's time to leave. You're on my list--you should have been out of here an hour ago--"
"I gave the card back," Josh announced. "I gave the NSA card back to Leo 'cause I don't wanna be only one who goes to the bunker while all my friends die."
"Well," Ron said patiently, "that explains why you didn't come to your assigned exit. But it's time to go now, sir."
"Not sir!" Josh repeated. "Not going, either."
Ron stared at him incredulously. "If you stay here, you'll die," he said.
"I know," said Josh.
"You can't just--" Ron actually looked frustrated. His moustache trembled. "You can't give the card back and not come. You serve at the pleasure of the president. If he says to come, you come!"
"I'm not leaving my friends here," Josh said stubbornly.
"Fine," Ron snapped. "How many seats are we talking about?"
"Seats?" Josh repeated stupidly.
"How many people do you need to take with you to come on?" Ron said.
Josh stared for a moment. He couldn't be serious. All the same-- "Sam and Donna and Toby and CJ and--" There were more people Josh should think of, he knew. Who would his friends want to take? "Danny Concannon, and--" because CJ wouldn't have a professional conflict there after the world ended, would she? And would Toby thank him or kill him if--? "Andi Wyatt, and--"
Ron had started talking into his earpiece. Josh didn't quite hear what he was saying, but he stopped when Ron raised his hand. After a moment, Ron said to him, "Seven. I can get you seven seats."
"Am I at seven?" Josh asked, not quite succeeding at counting off in his head.
"Including yourself?" said Ron. "Yes. I'll arrange to get Congresswoman Wyatt over here. You round up the rest of your friends."
"They all get to come with me," Josh said, reaching out to catch Ron's sleeve as he started to turn away.
"Yes, Mr. Lyman," Ron said gently.
"Oh," Josh said. He felt soberer all of the sudden. He realized that a great deal of his inebriation had been the same kind of hysterical giddiness that had made CJ laugh at we're all going to die. Hope quite suddenly evaporated that mood, that protective insanity. "Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me," Ron said gruffly. "Work on a way to get Danny Concannon out of the press room without the rest of them noticing."
Josh stepped back into the office and said, "Sam, we're going to live."
Sam paused with handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. "What happened? And why isn't it on CNN yet?"
"I--no," Josh said. "I mean. We are. Not everybody. Ron wanted to take me to whatever bunker the president's in, and he said I could take some people with me, and I. Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"
"It's all right," Sam said, looking away. "I wanted to hope. I wanted to grasp at straws."
---
Josh and Sam found Toby at his desk, where they'd left him. There was a brief, frantic search for Donna, who seemed to have left the building, before Josh thought to try her cell phone and turned her up in the Rose Garden. They came barrelling down the hall in a knot, Josh yelling, "CJ!"
"What is it?" CJ asked, coming out of her office to stand wearily against the door.
"You need to talk to the press, right now," Josh said.
"About what? We're not announcing the president's departure, are we?" CJ asked.
"No. Uh. Tell them--" Josh floundered, unable to think of anything.
"Tell them people should be warned not to approach impact craters," Toby said quietly. "Thanks to Operation Falling Star, the asteroid fragments may be dangerously radioactive."
"Jesus," said CJ. "Is that true? We made it worse?"
"The warheads that went off were designed to burn clean and not leave fallout," Toby said. "There were a couple that didn't go off."
"Okay," said CJ. She looked punch-drunk, but she'd been giving hourly reports to the press for over thirty hours now. She straightened and turned to go out.
Josh realized he'd forgotten to tell her the important bit. "Wait, wait," he said, catching her hand.
"What?" CJ asked.
"Call Danny back when you're done," Josh said.
CJ blinked at him. "Why?"
"We're giving him an exclusive," Sam said. It might have ordinarily sounded like a joke, but Sam had gone quiet and dark. Josh might have spared more energy to worry for him except that the world was ending, and Sam's response seemed like the sanest Josh had seen.
CJ looked at them as if they were all crazy. "Okay," she said, humoring them, and went out.
---
Ron ushered Andi into the office just as CJ reached the podium on their TV. Toby rushed to her, and Josh thought Ron might have urged them all out the door except that CJ wasn't back with Danny yet. So Toby had an awkward-sounding exchange with Andi.
"Can I ask you something?" Toby said, gripping Andi's hands. "Is it okay, now that we're all, now that the world is--" Toby seemed to gather himself from his uncharacteristic inarticulateness. "Is it all right if I'm not the most cheerful person in the world, under the circumstances?"
"You mean, is it okay if you're depressive, pessimistic and cynical, now that you've been completely vindicated about how bad things could possibly get?" Andi asked.
"Yeah," Toby said, smiling a bit.
"Why do you care what I think?" Andi asked. "What does it matter if I think it's okay for you to be the saddest little man in the world?"
"Because I want you to marry me," said Toby.
"What, again?" Andi said, ducking her head with a little smile of her own.
"Yes," said Toby. "Marry me. Please, Andi."
"For the last two hours we're alive?" Andi asked. "It means that much to you?"
"Yes, it does," said Toby.
"Okay," said Andi.
"Okay," said Toby in a questioning tone. "Okay? Really?"
"Yes, really," said Andi.
"I have something I have to tell you," said Toby. "Josh has a helicopter and he's taking us all to the president's bunker and we might actually make it through this alive. Will you still marry me?"
"Oh, God," said Andi, bringing her hands, and thus, Toby's, to her mouth.
"I'm not saying you have to in order to come with us or anything," said Toby. "That doesn't matter. You can come with us even if you don't want to marry me, I'll just be, you know, the saddest little man in the world."
"You idiot," said Andi, muffled by their hands. "Yes. Yes, Toby."
"Do we have paper cups?" asked Josh. "I've still got most of a bottle of vodka in here."
---
Ron started pushing them all out in the hallway the second CJ went off of the screen. Donna slipped over to her desk to get her purse out of a drawer, and Ron muttered something about herding cats. The tips of his moustache were wet from being chewed on. Then CJ and Danny came in at the end of the hall, and the door to the press room shut behind them.
Danny had his notebook open, asking, "What did you want to see me about?"
"I don't know, Josh asked for you," CJ said, rubbing her forehead.
"Josh has a story and you're letting him tell me without vetting it?" Danny said. He and CJ had closed the space to just a few yards from Josh and the others. "What is it?" Danny asked Josh. "Does the president have a secret plan to fight crop failure?"
"Move along, everybody," Ron begged, reduced to tugging at Toby and Sam's sleeves.
"Let's walk and talk, people, places to be," Josh said, swinging around to walk between CJ and Danny.
"Really? Where are going?" CJ asked.
"Uh, West Virginia, I think?" Josh said. "I wasn't actually paying that much attention, it didn't seem important. You remember the card the NSA gave me for what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, and didn't give anyone else? And you said, yeah, I'm a press secretary, Sam and Toby write speeches, they probably won't need us?"
"Yeah," said CJ. "Should we be discussing this in front of Danny?"
"Oh, what's he gonna say, the president has a secret plan to fight a nuclear war?" Josh said. Danny was scribbling away. "Close your notebook, Danny."
"I'm not even here," Danny said, flipping the cover over.
"Anyway, that didn't sit right," Josh said. "I need you guys. So I'm taking you with me."
"Okay," said CJ. "What's Danny doing here?"
"CJ!" Josh said. "The world's about to end. You're not going to be press secretary, and he's not going to be a reporter. So what's the problem?"
"I never had a problem," Danny pointed out.
CJ gave Danny a tired glare, then looked back to Josh and said, "I think the word to describe what you are is 'yenta.'"
"Actually, it doesn't really mean matchmaker in Yiddish, just, you know, busybody," Josh said. Being slightly unnerved by CJ's continued glare, he added, "But you're not Jewish so I'll let it pass."
"So does this mean we're going to the president's secret love nest?" Danny asked.
"Love nest?" CJ squawked.
"If you don't let go of the president's secret thing, I'm going to have to rethink taking you with me and saving your life," Josh told Danny.
---
Josh kept thinking of people he wished he could have taken. His mother, of course, was too far away to rescue, but there were people closer to home. "What about Margaret," he said suddenly, stepping quicker to catch up to Ron. The romantic in him was quite sure that Leo--
"Mr. McGarry took Margaret," Ron said, sounding annoyed.
"He did?" Josh said. "I mean, good!" After a moment he said, "Oh, but, what about Charlie?" He added hopefully, "Did the president take Charlie?"
"The president did not take Charlie," Ron said through clenched teeth. "Zoe took Charlie." After another beat, he added, "The president took Mrs. Landingham."
Josh said, "Did that NSA card I had say 'Joshua Lyman and guest' and I just didn't read the fine print?"
"No--they pulled rank. But aren't you glad it didn't?" Ron asked, pulling open a door for him. "You'd have killed yourself trying to decide on just one guest to take."
The helicopter was already fired up, its rotors spinning, when they got outside. Ron loaded them all in and made to shut the door on Josh, but Josh held it open, yelling over the helicopter noise, "Wait, aren't you coming?"
"No room!" Ron shouted back.
"But I thought--" Josh firmly held onto the door. "I thought you already had a seat! Or I would have asked you too!"
"My job is to put myself between you all and danger," Ron shouted back, almost directly in Josh's ear. "You tell me how this is any different than taking a bullet."
And when Josh flinched at that, Ron slammed the door, backed up, and gave a thumbs up to pilot.
"No--wait!" Josh yelled, plastered against the window, but they were already off the ground.
---
Donna thrust a headset at him across the crowded cabin, and Josh took it. He put it on at first just to keep from going deaf, without switching it on, but Donna chattered at him inaudibly and finally reached over to switch it on herself, and then her voice came through, scratchy and raw. "Was this your idea?"
"Was what my idea?" Josh asked. He didn't hear his own voice in the headset, and Donna leaned over impatiently to show him his 'on' button, like a walkie-talkie. "Was what my idea?"
"West Virginia!" Donna said. "Were you involved in these evacuation plans at all, and if so, why didn't you farm them out to me? I could have done a much better job. If the whole coastline is going to flood shouldn't we be going to Kansas or something? I don't feel West Virginia is safe enough!"
"Donna, this isn't exactly policy," Josh said. "I'm pretty sure the military handled the plans."
"Well, why didn't you?" Donna demanded, folding her arms.
Josh heard somebody else come on the line, and an unfamiliar voice said, "This is actually somewhere around Plan D. We wanted the president farther inland, but by the time he was willing to evacuate, the bunker in the West Virginia mine was the best we could reach in time."
Belatedly, Josh realized it had to be the pilot.
"A mine shaft?" Toby asked. "Wasn't that Dr. Strangelove's suggestion?"
"Well, just because he's fictional doesn't mean he's wrong," Sam said. "Especially if there's really going to be fallout from Operation Falling Star."
Donna leaned forward--but not toward Josh. "Hi, my name is Donna. What's your name?"
There was a short, startled silence on the headsets, although the chopper blades kept roaring away in the background.
Josh turned his mic on. "Hi, Donna, I'm Josh. We've met."
Donna glared at him.
"I guess you mean me," said the pilot. "Lieutenant Colonel Luke Hoffman, ma'am."
"Will you get to come down to the bunker with us, Luke?" Donna asked. Horrifyingly, she was twirling her hair around her finger. "They won't turn you away at the gate, will they?"
"I don't imagine they would, ma'am," the pilot said.
"Oh, you can call me Donna," Donna said breathily.
"Donna, what are you doing?" said Josh. "Interviewing for the father of the hundreds of little Aryan babies you plan to repopulate the Earth with?"
The pilot coughed.
"Hey," said Donna. "You brought boyfriends and girlfriends for everyone but me, so excuse me if I look out for myself, here!"
Toby squeezed Andi's hand, though they both looked embarrassed. CJ and Danny were looking everywhere except at each other, but CJ was holding Danny's hand, too. Josh risked a glance at Sam. Sam patted his hand and snickered.
"So, Luke," said Donna, leaning forward again, "do you have a family history of any diseases or syndromes I should know about?"
"Oh my God," Josh said. "Donna."
The End.
no subject
The Josh Lyman Plan For Surviving The Apocalypse:
Make sure everyone you know is
annoyed at someone other than youhappy. Happy. Really.But Ron Butterfield! ::is sad::
*is sad, too* I was just being so agressively fluffy, saving people left and right, that I felt like I had to kill somebody!
Thank you *G*