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Carpe Diem Jane Harper RATING: PG-14 SUMMARY: Sarah gets thrown into the politics and personalities of the President's staff in order to help them heal from the assassination attempt. Begins about a month after the Rosslyn shootout. ARCHIVE: Help yerself. HTML version supplied upon request. DISCLAIMER: We didn't start the fire ..
FROM PART THREE: "How can people be like that?" Zoey asked. "I wish I knew. It might explain what happened to six million of my people." "How can you not-" She stopped to take a deep breath. "-want to run away?" "Where can I go? The world's too small. There's noplace left to hide. Besides, if I run, then they win. They get to tell me where I can be and where I can't, what I can do and what I can't." "Who you can be with--" Sarah nodded. "You've been through something horrible, and it's not going to be easy to begin to make sense of it, but I think we can, if we try. In any case, trying might make it a little less scary." Zoey got up and went to the sink and threw some water on her face. "I look awful." "You look beautiful. Want to go out and hug your Mom? She's worried."
PART FOUR: Several days later Abbey invited Sarah to lunch in her office. After the nosh, she leaned back on her sofa and said, "I just wanted to do something to say thanks for what you did with Zoey the other evening." "That's why you brought me here, Dr. Bartlet. No thanks are necessary. I was lucky enough to be able to say the right thing at the right time." She put her coffee cup down. "There is something you might be able to help me with, though." "I will if I can," the First Lady said. "Which hat am I wearing?" "I guess it's your physician's hat. In confidence, please." "OK." "I suspect that at least one of the more-visible members of the staff either has or is about to develop a substance problem, so I'd appreciate your advice about how one goes about getting somebody high-profile into rehab. Or at least into a 12-step program." "If it's Leo you're talking about, he's been there already, and I can almost promise you that he's not gonna lapse. There are no guarantees in life, but I'd personally bet the farm on his recovery." "He's an alcoholic?" "Don't you read the papers?" Abbey laughed. "It was all over them last winter. He's eight years sober and six plus clean from Valium." "Do you know if he still goes to meetings? What meeting could the President's Chief of Staff possibly go to?" "There is a meeting for high-profile people, or so I understand." "So he's the one I should talk to about it?" Abbey nodded. "I should probably tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, that I'm twenty-five years clean myself." "That's wonderful," she responded. "It helps to be able to speak from experience if an intervention is necessary." There was a knock on the door and Abbey looked up. "I guess my appointment is here. Remember though, I'm here for you if you need me." "I appreciate it, ma'am." The First Lady smiled and stood to walk Sarah to the office door. "Tell Leo I sent you." Sarah made an appointment to see him the following evening. When Margaret showed her in, he was leaning back in his leather chair behind the fortress of his desk. "What can I do for you, Sarah?" "I came to ask you about your meeting." "Which meeting might that be?" "The First Lady said there's some sort of secure AA meeting you've been attending." He blinked, pulled off his reading glasses and laid them on the pile of memos in front of him. "Why?" "Two reasons, sir. First, there's at least one staffer here that I think may need an intervention before all this is over, and I'd like to see what kind of support is available for him or her. Second, I'd like to find a meeting for myself that's not too far away, in case I'm needed here in a hurry." "I thought I told you, 'sir' is the guy in the office next door." His smirk widened into a smile for a second, then disappeared. "A meeting for yourself?" "Yeah. Twenty-five years." "You must have been young." "Oh flatter me!" She laughed. "You've kissed the Blarney Stone." He shrugged and grinned. "You still go to meetings?" "Yeah, when I need to. And I'm feeling the need coming on." "Well," McGarry continued as he stood up, "I'll have to talk it over with the meeting before I can bring you over. These folks are understandably paranoid." She looked up and caught his eyes. "It must be scary to work in a setting where you can't really trust anybody." He shrugged again, and walked around his desk to open the door for her. "I dunno, Sarah, I've never known anything else." He extended a hand to her as she left, which she took and gave a perfunctory shake. "Thanks, Mr. McGarry." He sighed. "It's Leo. And you're welcome. I'll be in touch about the other thing." * * * * * Late the following afternoon there was a rap on Sarah's office door. It was Donna. "Hey," she greeted the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff. "C'mon in and set a spell." She pushed the comfy chair with her foot. Donna sat down and sighed. "I don't know how this works…" "Well, it's a good start to say what you want to talk about. It's ok, just blurt it out." "I'm so worried about Josh." Sarah nodded. "He looks so tired all the time, and he's... nasty." "Nasty?" She gave a puzzled look. "He says hateful things." "Didn't he do that before? I mean, he's got a sarcastic sense of humor, sometimes that seems nasty when it's not really meant to." "No," Donna shook her head. "He's always been sarcastic. Now he's insulting." "How does that make you feel?" "Lousy, how do you expect it to make me feel?" "He aims some of these insults at you?" "Yeah." "I think that would really piss me off." She searched Donna's face for a reaction. "It does, usually." "Do you tell him?" "Sometimes." "When somebody steps on my toes, if I don't say 'ouch' they usually don't know they've done it." "I know. It's just that he's been through so much-" "He has. And I'm sure it's not really about you. He's just striking out, and because you're standing closest, you get hit first." "What do you think I should do?" "Well, Donna, I don't know what you should do, but I can tell you what I would do." "What?" "Well, if he said something that really hurt me, I'd say ouch. Otherwise, I'd just let it roll off. It wouldn't mostly have anything to do with me personally." "OK." "And remember, if he really gets to you, you can always come up here and I'll loan you the Nerf bat and you can beat the tar out of his picture." She grinned. The willowy blonde got up and leaned over to hug Sarah. "I'm so glad we met you. It would have been so much harder--" "Thanks. I'm here to do what I can." * * * * * Two weeks after she initially contacted him about the meeting, Leo called Sarah in her office. "You still want to go to my meeting?" he asked, avoiding preliminaries. "Yes sir." He sighed. "Meet me here in the office at quarter till eleven." "Tonight?" "No, a week from next Tuesday. Of course tonight." **What a jerk!** she thought. **It was a reasonable question, how many meetings start at nearly midnight?** "Yes, sir. I'll be there." The line went dead. That evening, Sarah borrowed the sofa in CJ's office for a nap. She woke up at ten-thirty and was in Leo's outer office by twenty till eleven. "That you, Sarah?" "Yes sir." He sighed. "This 'sir' crap has got to stop, at least for tonight. There are going to be some _very_ high-profile people there, but everybody leaves rank at the door, and we're all first names inside the room. It's set up to look like a card game, and there's a Secret Service agent at the door. You'll know why when you get there." "Yes sir." He shot her a look. "Yes, Leo." "That's better," he said with a smirk. She hadn't used the tunnel between the White House and the Old Executive Office Building before, so it was a good thing McGarry was with her, or else she would have gotten very lost. He introduced Sarah to the agent at the door. "Bobby Lee, this is Sarah Cooper. She's going to be joining the game from time to time." The two shook hands, and the agent smiled. "Hope you brought your wallet, Ms. Cooper. Mr. McGarry's a real card-sharp." "Actually," she answered, smiling, "I left my wallet in my office, for that very reason. It's very nice to meet you, Bobby Lee." He opened the door for the newcomers.
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