Demons

By Nomad
October 2002

Spoilers: Let's say the first three seasons, just to be safe.
Disclaimer: The characters and concepts used within belong to Aaron Sorkin; I'm just borrowing for non-profit purposes.

You waste your days away on things so small
These concerns are no concerns at all
Demons gather round and wreck your day
But let me show this fear for what it really is, and see it fall away...
Give me all your demons; they don't scare me

- Demons, Easyworld

I

THURSDAY:

Bonnie waved her bagel expressively. "Okay, I call this meeting to order! Everybody; the toast."

Donna joined the others as they raised their coffees. "Let's not screw anything up too badly this week," they dutifully chorused. Ritual completed, they all sat back and slurped coffee or chewed hastily snatched-up breakfast snacks.

The White House assistants' early morning meetings happened erratically at best. It was fairly rare to find a morning when none of their respective bosses had either arrived early or else never left. These days, though, the ever-conscientious Sam had a boyfriend to linger in the mornings with, and Leo's usual workaholic habits had taken a downturn. Margaret, despite the fact that she'd been agitating for this to happen for years, was deathly worried now it finally had. The others found it hard to tell if this was genuine cause for concern or standard Margaret procedure. They'd all been keeping a surreptitious eye on him, but what might be going on beneath the McGarry surface was a mystery to greater minds than even those that inhabited the White House.

Donna much preferred working for Josh, the man for whom the words 'open book' had been invented. At least when he was angry or upset, you knew about it.

"Okay," Bonnie began. "Anybody got anything to report? Donna?"

She pulled a face. "The niceness continues into week fourteen. As do the feelings of fear and disorientation." They all grinned in understanding. Joshua Lyman, following the shake-up to his life and career caused by a PTSD attack in the public eye, had declared it his intention to try to look beyond his job and be a nicer, more understanding person.

Then, he'd actually stuck to it. Everybody was still reeling from the shock.

"We hear you just got tapped for a bridesmaid?" Ginger asked her, and Donna blushed.

"I still can't believe she asked me!" she exclaimed. Zoey Bartlet could have picked anybody to be her bridesmaids. To be picked for a hallowed company that included CJ, Zoey's niece Annie and Deanna Young felt like an unbelievable honour. She supposed it was because she was somebody well known to both Zoey and Charlie, but even so...

Of course, it did have its downside.

"So how's... The Dress?" Bonnie asked knowingly. Donna buried her face in her hands.

"How do I tell the daughter of the leader of the free world that her bridesmaids' dresses make me look like a walking soufflé?" she groaned. Apparently even the public wedding of the century wasn't immune to the universal curse of godawful bridesmaids' dresses.

"If it's any consolation, CJ hates hers too," Carol offered, as she flipped through a batch of faxes from the press office.

Donna gave her a look. "CJ could wear a black plastic sack and look good in it."

Bonnie nodded seriously, and raised a hand. "The committee declares a moment for its members to be screamingly jealousy of CJ."

They took a moment.

"What's the Toby report for this week?" Carol asked Ginger.

Ginger deliberated for a long moment, seeking out exactly the right word. " Morose," she declared, finally.

"No change there, then," observed Bonnie.

"What about Sam?" Donna asked, and the two communications assistants giggled.

"It's so cute," Bonnie grinned.

"He and Steve are moving in together this week-" Ginger put in.

"-And they're getting all domestic-"

"-Talking about dinner plates and curtains and towels and bookshelves-"

"It's completely adorable."

"No wonder Toby's morose," Carol quipped.

As the laughter faded they all looked across at the fifth member of their little gathering, uncharacteristically silent so far. "How's Leo doing?" asked Donna quietly.

Margaret shook her head slowly. "There's something... I can tell there's something, but he won't-" She made a frustrated noise, and sighed heavily. "Why do I work for this man?"

An entirely rhetorical question, and uttered only in the presence of those who had devotion enough to their own bosses to understand everything behind it. Your boss could drive you crazy - but they were your boss. The five of them, and all their counterparts throughout the White House, were bound together by that shared understanding. Your boss came first. The job came second. Everything else made for a far distant third.

"He's been depressed for months, even Josh has noticed it," Donna observed. Actually, that 'even' was probably a little unfair. Josh could be quite frighteningly oblivious to the ins and outs of everyday life, but when something was seriously wrong, he seemed to instinctively tune into it. "Which is weird, because, you know, things have been going much better these last few months."

Carol, still flipping through faxes, turned over the next one and then glared at her. "Thanks, Donna," she said dryly.

"Did I just jinx it?" she asked miserably, as Carol dashed off to put in a call to CJ.

"Hey, I'm on my way out." He walked into the next room in the middle of tying his tie.

"Okay," Steve nodded, still leafing through papers. "Hey, is this anything incredibly vital to the running of the government?"

Sam took the sheet of figures and glanced at it for a minute. "Possibly," he conceded.

"Well, it's good to know the country's in safe hands."

"Yeah." Sam returned to his bedroom to retrieve his jacket.

"Sure you don't mind me going through your stuff for you?" Steve asked, looking up as he came back in.

He shrugged. "Hey, I barely even live here. I don't even own anything interesting enough to be private."

"Okay." Steve leaned over to inspect the bookcase. "So... where do you hide the porn?"

Sam laughed. "I don't have any porn," he protested.

Steve gave him a look. "You told me you were single for three years." He arched an eyebrow pointedly. "There's porn in this apartment somewhere."

"There is not! And anyway, you wouldn't be interested in any of my porn. If I had it."

Steve pouted. "Oh, all of a sudden I'm not good enough for you, heterosexual porn boy?"

"I should point out, again, that I don't have any porn, and that if I did, in fact, have any porn - which I do not - it obviously would be a holdover from the days before I was dating you, and it would therefore be heterosexual porn. If I had it."

There was a short pause. "You've really got that weaselly politician thing down, you know that?" Steve observed.

"Well, I try." He headed for the door.

Steve called him back. "So, if I find any hypothetical heterosexual porn I should just leave it where I found it?"

Sam shrugged. "Since it is, you know, entirely hypothetical, you're welcome to do what you like with it."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"You won't find any."

"That just means you think it's perfectly hidden. But I'm smart."

Sam smirked. "Oh, can I tell people I'm dating a brain?"

"If it makes you happy."

"It does." He grinned, and leaned across to kiss Steve goodbye. This whole cohabiting thing was looking better all the time.

Leo slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His mouth was dry, and there was a dull ache behind his eyes that was somehow worse than any possible jabbing pain.

The empty bottles stood by the foot of his featureless hotel bed. He wrapped them up in the bag they'd come in and thrust them into the bottom of the trash, trying to pretend to himself that the sticky residue of alcohol that clung to his fingers wasn't as seductive as it was repulsive.

He peeled off the previous evening's clothes and turned up his en suite shower until it was too hot, trying to scrub away a dirt that wasn't truly visible on the outside.

When he emerged, a crisp white shirt and neatly pressed suit made him into the man he was pretending to be. Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, impeccably presented and under control.

Control.

Leo stood by the mirror for a long time, staring into eyes he wasn't sure he recognised anymore. He promised himself, as he had promised a half dozen other times these past few months, that this would be the last time.

He knew he was lying.