TITLE: Depositions AUTHOR: Kasey RATING: PG-13 SUMMARY: Keyworth talks to the rest of the staff DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em.  Never will.  Get over it.  No infringement intended. (is it ever?) THANKS: Dis and 1stLt. Flip. ~*~Sam~*~ He was very nervous approaching the room.  Why did he suddenly feel like he was about to be deposed?  This was to help Josh, give the doctor something to work from. He hated the idea.  He hated the idea of Josh needing to see a shrink to be okay again.  But he knew it was necessary.  There was no way the incident in the Oval Office could EVER happen again.  And only partly because of the firing quotient.  Also because he doubted Josh would go long enough to shout at the president twice without completely losing it and doing something dangerous. It scared him that he kept thinking of that, but he couldn't help it.  His sister's best friend had been manic depressive when they'd been growing up, and all he kept picturing was the look on his sister's face when she'd found her best friend nearly dead in the kitchen...and also the young girl who he didn't know all that well but who his sister had loved...the pale faced girl in a pool of her own blood. He shuddered.  As hard as he tried, he couldnt' get that image out of his head.  And it was becoming superimposed with the look on Josh's face when he'd been shot at Rosslyn. He opened the door slowly. "Dr. Keyworth?"  The man at the table looked up from his notepad.  "I'm Sam Seaborn...They sent me in to talk to you about Josh?" "Yes, Sam.  Come in."  Sam walked in and sat down.  "I understand you're close to Josh?" "He's my best friend." "Have you noticed him acting any differently lately?" "Of course I have...I mean, I...It wasn't like when Toby went on his warpath against the hate groups or when he decided he didn't want to sue the Ku Klux Klan...he wasn't like himself at all..." "Were you at Rosslyn?" "Yeah...all of senior staff, plus Zoey - the first daughter, Charlie - the President's aide, Majority Whip, the press corp, about 500 or so fans of the president, and obviously the President of the United States." "Were you hurt?" "No, I...I pushed CJ down, she hit her head...but I wasn't hurt, no." "Did you see Josh when he got shot?" "No, not until - Not until Toby called us over...Toby found him first." "Did any of you get to go see Josh during his recovery?" "Not really." "The job -" "Not the job.  Donna." "Donna?" "Josh's secretary...she used to go over and make him meals and make sure he was okay...she refused to let us go over there because she thought we'd make him try to work too soon." "So basically, was Donna the only one he saw while he was recovering?" "Pretty much.  His mother's too sick to travel, his father died three years ago...so no family...And Donna kept the rest of us back, so..." he shrugged apologetically. "Is he close to Donna?" "Sort of...I mean, we're all somewhat close to our assistants, if we don't trust them and they don't like us, then we're basically screwed...a few of us think Donna has a thing for Josh, but sofar as any of us can tell he's blind to the whole thing..." "What I meant was do you think he talked to her much about what he remembered or what he was feeling?" "Probably not.  I know he was obsessing about theoretical physics while he was home...I think that's mostly what he was bothing Donna with...I...not to say she wouldn't have listened to and tried to help if he would've told her anything.  But I doubt he brought it up, he was probably like the rest of us, trying to forget it and move on.  If he remembered it at all, I really don't know." "When do you think you first noticed he was starting to act differently?" "After the incident with the pilot.  He kept bringing up that they had the same birthday, and Josh didn't normally obsess over little things like that...his bigger concern would've been how to get the thing down, what they could do to possibly talk the pilot down from whatever he would do.  And then he was going nuts because there wasn't any more information coming about why the pilot would've killed himself.  Then there was the meeting..." "What meeting?" "I was telling the president advantages to the SPR...Josh was there to basically play devil's advocate, which is something he does from time to time...not so much playing devil's advocate as it is that he goes not with what he wants to do but what we should do in the interest of what Congressman we'd piss off one way or the other." "What happened?" "He started shouting at the President.  Going completely off the wall with him, yelling at him that we couldn't dip into the SPR without making Didian mad and if Didian got mad he'd retaliate...normally Josh would've just persuaded the President, partially because he'd persuade Leo who'd then convince the President." "But he shouted instead." "Yeah.  I don't know who was more surprised - Leo or the President or Josh himself." "Or you?" "Right." "What happened then?" "Leo took Josh into his office." "What happened there?" "I don't know, I -...I really don't know." "Okay, Sam.  You can go." "You think you can help Josh?" "More likely than not, yes." "I want odds." "I don't have odds, but they're very good, whatever numbers they may be." Sam hesitated.  "Okay."  With that, he turned and left. ~*~CJ~*~ She walked in the door very confidantly, masking the uncertainty she felt.  "Dr. Keyworth?" "You're CJ, right?" "Yes, sir." "You don't have to call me 'sir', Dr. Keyworth or Stanley's fine." "Okay."  She sat down.  "You want to talk about Josh." "Yes, I do." "He gave us all a couple of pretty good scares this year." "Really?" "Well he was shot...fourteen hours of surgery later..." she shrugged.  "And then at the Christmas party..." "What happened?" "He looked like he was ready to pass out during the YoYo Ma cello performance.  He was flinching, shuddering...like it was something disgusting or sickening to him." "What happened then?" "He went home...the next day he had a bandage on his hand and said he'd broken a glass." "Did he?" "No one knows, he was alone, no witnesses...Donna doesn't think so, Toby does, Sam wants to believe he did but can't..." "What about you?" "What do I think?" "Yeah." "I think Josh needs help, whether he actually cut his hand on a glass or not." ~*~Donna~*~ "Dr. Keyworth?" The willowy blonde poked her head inside the door. "They said you wanted to see me?" "Are you Donna?" "Yes, sir...?" "Then yes I do want to see you.  Come in, sit down."  She nodded quickly and sat across from him.  "I understand you're Josh's assistant?" "Yes I am." "And you were the one who took care of him after he was home from the hospital after the shooting." "Yes." "Did he talk to you at all about what he remembered?" "Not a word. I assumed he didn't remember...I mean, at most he would've remembered a very little, Toby and Sam told me he was really out of it when they took him into the hospital...that he passed out in Toby's arms...so I figured, y'know, he probably remembered shots ringing out and that was it." "Did you talk about anything?" "Theoretical physics."  She rolled her eyes.  "He threw himself into that...like he was determined to do SOMETHING constructive when I wouldn't let him work...everyone wanted me to let him get on some bandwagon they wanted him on...Toby wanted him for the crusade against hate groups, Sam wanted him for the thing with his friend Tom Jordan, CJ and Leo just wanted him back..." "What did you want?" "I wanted him to relax and let his body heal...and I wanted him to stop reciting and reading to me long lists of facts about unified field theories and Einstein's research.  And to stop talking about how I should let him outside because he was 'an outdoorsman'.  He hates the outdoors, he always has.  But I guess the fact that he *had* to stay inside was driving him nuts and making him long for the outdoors." "When he went back to work, did you notice him acting differently?" "Not really...not at first...he'd do things I told him not to, but that wasn't unusual...I'd tell him not to shout, he'd keep shouting..." "Maybe he thought you were being too overprotective?" "Yeah, probably.  I just...I didn't want him to get hurt again." "Why?" "Why would I have *wanted* him to get hurt again?" "Good point." "He started getting strange about...I don't know...three, maybe four weeks ago?  When he had to do the thing about the pilot who had his birthday." "That's what Sam said." "Yeah...he started obsessing over that...and he acted really weird at the Congressional Christmas Party...I was all happy because he'd let me go so I could hear YoYo Ma...but he was looking like he wanted to die...I mean, I know he's not as much as a fan as I am, but it wasn't a look like 'get me out of here now', it was more a...a dangerous look, like he was being tortured or something."  She shrugged.  "He left as soon as he could that the President wouldn't get mad at him, and the next day he had this big ol' bandage on his hand, he said he'd broken a glass but I think he did something else...smashed a window or something, I don't know what...But Josh is a coordinated enough guy that he wouldn't smash a glass by accident...we're not talking about Sam here...and don't get me wrong, Sam's a great guy, but he's a klutz...I just don't think he would've done something like that on a glass.  Then I hear tell he's yelling at the president..." She shook her head.  "Something's wrong with him.  It really is."