PALE

by Meghan Reilly - squirreilly@hotmail.com

SUMMARY: Toby POV after the shooting. First season finale resolution

DISCLAIMER: The West Wing and all of its characters and storylines belong to Aaron Sorkin and NBC. They're not mine. They are lovingly borrowed here with no intent of copright infringement.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, everyone seemed to like "Shoot You Down", so I decided to write another story. I hope you like this one as much.

The flashing blue and red lights ricochet across the pavement, and I'm suddenly sitting on the steps of the Capitol, clinging to my father's arm and watching fireworks light up the July night. I cling to the image of that night long ago, my first trip to this god-forsaken city, and try not to come back down to earth. I'd rather be anywhere but here, even if it means reliving my sorry childhood.

I can't escape it, though, and it hurts to realize that I'm where I am. My body hurts, dully, the bruises and cuts from being trampled upon still fresh; and my mind aches with the knowledge of what has happened here tonight.

Not far away from me, a woman that I know is lying unconscious, unaware of the injury that threatens to take her life. Glass glitters in her hair and on her clothes, and her face is peaceful, serene. She looks dead, and I grit my teeth against the horror of seeing such a beautiful, vibrant, essential person go down this way. The shred of hope that I have that she'll live, that she's not already dead, is small, even though I'm constantly reminded that she's still alive by the medics frantically working on her. In one way, she's lucky. She doesn't have to be the one whose heart is screaming for her eyes to open, for her to breathe. She doesn't have to be the one to live without her if she dies.

Next to that woman is a man, a man who is almost as important to me as she is. He's awake, thankfully, his eyes open. I want to move to him, to talk to him, but I don't because I don't have anything to say to him. The words I use to craft speeches, the words I put into other people's mouths to form their ideas for them, are gone- they left me the moment I saw her closed eyes and the blood on his shirt. Behind them, they leave a void that is cold and dark and that threatens to engulf me. The loss of language is, perhaps, even more frightening than the sound of bullets raining down upon me.

There's blood on my shirt, too, but it's not mine. It belongs to the man who saved my life. His outstretched hand lies on the ground next to where I'm sitting, covered in glass and blood.

He jumped on top of me when the shooting started and pushed me down to the ground. My head struck the fence and people ran over us, but I was alive. When it was over, I tried to get up, but the agent holding me down wasn't holding me down anymore. He was just laying on top of me. I looked into his face and his eyes were open, and I started to ask him to get up, but then I realized that his eyes weren't looking at me. They weren't looking at anything. They were blank and dim and completely lifeless, and that's when I knew...that the man was dead.

He died for me. Because of me. This man who'd been trained to serve his country and protect the President hadn't died the way he was supposed to. He hadn't taken a bullet for Bartlet. Instead, he'd taken a bullet for me, a nobody who is probably so far down in the line of succession that it would take a nuclear bomb dropped on DC to put him in office. He died for me, and I'm not- not worth it. Just not worth it.

Another woman lies on the ground close to me and the agent. I do not know her. She is a nameless member of the crowd, a person who took the time to come and see the President. He shook her hand; it was probably the most incredible moment of her life. She's dead now.

The unfairness of the situation hits me suddenly, and I have to bite my lower lip to hold in the cry of despair that bubbles up from my throat. Someone decided tonight that they didn't like us very much, and so they took out their weapons and shot our people to make their point. Nothing I've ever experienced before is quite as unfair as this is, I think suddenly. All of the dead homeless veterans and downed fighter pilots in the world don't add up to the senseless murder of innocents.

And this bloodbath, this parade of death, on our own soil- my friends falling down around me, their screams mingles with those of the dying- is unfathomable. Other injustices, they just...

They just pale in comparison.

The flashing lights around me play tag on my rumpled suit. The sirens are getting softer, quieter, as the occupants of the ambulances are sped away, not to safety, but simply to the next step in the battle for their lives. There's no ambulance for me; unlike the others, I am unhurt. The only vehicle I have to take me away from here is the same one I rode here in, a nondescript black towncar. It will take me to the only place I have to go, which is suddenly no longer safe; and I wonder if it wouldn't be better for me to just sit here on the cold pavement in my torn clothes, surrounded by pain and wasted lives.

But inevitably, there is a job for me to do. I must get up. I must go back to my former haven, which now looms cold and impassive in my mind. There is a job for me to do, and if I don't rise to it, then the man lying next to me will have died for nothing. I have to go back, press on, calm the situation for those people who survived unscathed and pray for those people whose lives still hang in the balance.

I will go back. I will get this done. Things will be changed.

And when my friends wake up in recovery, they will wake up to a better world.

THE END

Feedback is welcome and greatly appreciated at squirreilly@hotmail.com