TITLE: Music of the Wounded Heart (and Lung) AUTHOR: Kasey SUMMARY: A concert at the Kennedy Centre. RATING: PG, EJF SPOILERS: Minor –The Short List, Galileo,  any of the ones with Toby bouncing the ball.  Major – Crackpots and These Women, In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, Noel DISCLAIMERS: I don’t own them, Sorkin does.  I wrote this just after going to the Kennedy Centre on my whirlwind tour of Washington this weekend, so at least most of it should be accurate in terms of what little I mention about the building. THANKS: To my betas, the Sirens.  Naturally. **IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ** This story contains flashbacks, hallucinations, and all sorts of strange things thrown in.  It’s supposed to be confusing, and have the “seamless flashbacks” like Noel did, where it just sorta switches back and forth automatically and quickly.  So you’ll have to read parts of it very carefully to understand it fully.  **ALSO** In order to get this story a little better, you should at least know somewhat the song “A Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copeland, I use it in the end of the fic a little, and it would help for audio effect – my disadvantage here is that I have a little film going in my head of all this going on, only I can’t actually SHOOT the film and whatnot, so I’m trying to describe it.  Try and get the music going on in your head along with the fic if you can, I think it helps effect. There are times I want to kill the President.  Seriously.  I mean, I wouldn’t actually, I just want to. Try explaining **THAT** to the Secret Service. The President has decided he wants to go to a thing at the Kennedy Centre.  Some band, lots of brass and Sousa.  All I know is that he has also decided his entire staff is to be in attendance.  And he got the box next to the Presidential Suite for our secretaries. So Donna’s outside my office right now, hopping around like a little girl on her way to the zoo.  Swear to God, I don’t think she’s ever been to the Kennedy Centre.  I know Margaret hasn’t – she told us when she came to tell Donna the assistants were going – and she lived down here the whole time Leo was Secretary of Labour. I think maybe Leo said something to the President and hence the invitation.  I know it would’ve been like that if Mal had never been somewhere, and Leo thinks of Margaret like his other daughter… But whatever the reason for the invitation, the assistants are all pretty psyched. Donna calls, “Josh, we gotta go!” and I walk out of my office.  She rolls her eyes in disgust at the state of my bowtie before tying it and leading me out to the cars.  As if I couldn’t find them without her.  She slides into a car with Margaret and Carol and Cathy and Bonnie and Ginger – all dressed to the nines and looking like they could die right now and be perfectly happy.  They’ve been invited BY THE PRESIDENT to go with him to the Kennedy Centre and sit in box seats worth more than most of them would be able to afford. But none of the rest of us see it that way. I slide into the car with Sam and Toby and CJ.  Sam looks perfectly pressed as only he can, and CJ’s wearing one of two theatre dresses (different than State Dinner dresses, she insists) she owns – not the blue Armani, the other one, the red one that made Danny Concannon trip over a chair when he saw her in it.  And Toby’s just sitting there in his tails, looking pissed – which is no change from the usual. “Why the hell are we going to this…colossal waste of time?” he mutters. “Because the President asked us to,” Sam, ever dutiful, replies. And the motorcade takes us over to the Kennedy Centre, and we all walk in as we usually do – Secret Service scoping it out, then the President, Leo a tiny bit behind, me, Toby and Sam, then CJ, secretaries trailing behind in similar corresponding order, gazing up at the chandeliers in awe.  We all go up to the stairs and to the Presidential Box.  Sam keeps looking around like he’s hoping Mallory will show up – the two of them always seem to meet up at the Kennedy Centre.  Soon the lights flash and we take our seats and settle in to listen in agony to two hours or so of marches. I’m amazed at how many of the songs I recognize – as much as Joanie loved classical orchestral stuff, she still had a thing for marching band music – I can remember a phase she went through when I was 6 where **all** she would play was the “Washington Post March”. I still hate it, to this day.  But it’s no longer because I’ve heard it too much. But that’s not even close to being the worst of it. Right before intermission, the director says some schpeel about how they, from time to time, play at religious services, despite the absence of strings and organs.  Then the band proceeds to launch into “Ave Maria”. Now, I’ve been to enough therapy sessions to know about triggers.  And this is one in a very big way.  Between the song itself and the fact that it’s music… I can’t breathe, and I feel nauseous, and, more than anything else, hot.  Like I’m in an oven or something, so hot it’s burning my skin off and all I can see is orange… I vaguely see Leo look over at me and smile sympathetically.  He’s the only one who knows about my sister, about her connection to the song.  He was at the funeral…then found out the next day Jenny was pregnant with Mal. I always did think Mallory was a sort of…reincarnation of my sister.  Except Mal was a little more argumentative than Joanie.  Probably because Leo was a little more argumentative than Dad. The song finally ends and intermission begins.  I go immediately outside and lean against the cool marble, staring across the Potomac at the Theodore Roosevelt Wildlife Sanctuary, trying to calm down.  Trying to keep breathing. Donna comes bounding out – I haven’t seen her so excited since I let her go see YoYo Ma at the Congressional Christmas party.  “Isn’t it great?” “Yeah,” I answer quietly. She looks quizzically at me.  “Are you okay?” “Yeah.” “You’re sure? ‘Cause you don’t look –“ “I’m not gonna smash my hand through the plate-glass door or anything,” I retort.  She tries to hide her wince, but I see it anyway.  “Sorry.” “It’s-…It’s fine.” But I can see it’s not. The lights inside start to flash, and I lead her in, then we go into our separate boxes and I sit next to Sam as I did through the first half.  And I try to take my mind off my sister and am a little successful. The last song, the director announces, will be “A Fanfare for the Common Man” by Copeland…And then it starts. **Boom!** “You didn’t notice the banging on the ceiling?” **Boom!** “INCHES from my head!” “It was not inches.” **Boom!** “You should be nicer to me, I could be dead right now.” “I don’t have that kind of luck.” **Boom!** Thundering applause **Boom!** Panic…Run! Hide! What’s happening? What -? **Boom!** Pain! Ow!  Help! **Sirens-** Oh, God, is this the end? Is it – Joanie! Standing before me, looking like an older version of the sister I had known, wearing a more adult style of the dress she wore for the burial –a grey dress with little pink roses.  And she looks amazing. “Stop mourning for me, Josh, it’s been too long.” I try to reply but cannot. “The music is beautiful, you shouldn’t hate it because of me,” she says, sounding logical, just like she always did.  “You’re not cursed, Josh, stop thinking that.  The reason you didn’t die at Rosslyn is because you’re destined for great things. You work for the most powerful man in the world and do things for the good of the people.  And I’m truly proud of you.” It’s all I can do to keep from crying. She starts to fade away.  “…The music is beautiful…Oh, and Daddy says hello…” And she’s gone. **More sirens, fading away…** **Boom!** Toby bouncing the infernal red ball.  Seems like he never used to do that, now we can’t make him stop. **Boom! Boom!** “Josh!  Didn’t you hear me shouting?” Toby shakes my shoulder as Sam looks on in fear. “C’mon.  We’re going.” “Yeah,” I say quietly, standing slowly and carefully, feeling dizzy. “What’s wrong?” “N-Nothing,” I answer.  “The music was beautiful.”