Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (For language, violence, and sexual situations)
Timeline: Directly following the closing scene on Grey Gardens of Shadowed Rapture. Spoilers through BtVS Seasons 5/6 and TWW Seasons 2/3.
Summary: A key presented as a sister, a friend drowning in a vat of darkened magic, a country torn apart at the seams. Buffy Summers travels to Washington DC to inquire the assistance of President Bartlet as Glory grows stronger in Sunnydale. Meanwhile, after answering a call of duty, Willow finds herself journeying into darkened territory, spurned onto a move that will change her life—and cost the lives of others.
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy and Aaron Sorkin/NBC Broadcasting. They are being used for entertainment purposes and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.
*~*~*
The motorcade sped down the highway on the wings of sirens and flashing lights.
“Get her again.”
“She wasn’t hit, sir—”
“Get her on the radio, please.”
Special Agent Ron Butterfield released a deep sigh. There was nothing fair about the world when he was the one designated to tell the man that he couldn’t talk to his daughter just minutes after shots had rained fire on a crowd she’d been in. But making the President comfortable was not part of his job description; his job right now was to get him in the White House as soon as possible, not appease his concerns as a man. The President, as far as the Secret Service was concerned, was the office first and a father second.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Sir, she can’t talk right now.”
“Why can’t she talk?”
A sigh. “She’s vomiting in the car.”
The President’s eyes went wide and he lifted himself off the seat to steal a glance at the cars following them. Some indiscernible objection tumbled past his lips—the growing anxiety on his shoulders nearing a state that was seconds away from taking a physical manifestation.
“It happens, sir, we’ll get—”
“Why is she vomiting?”
The answer was obvious, but Butterfield was a professional. The girl had just been fired upon. The President was worried about his daughter, yet he needed to be put inside the White House before any of these fears could be addressed. “It happens, it could be shock—”
“Ron—”
“She might’ve gotten an elbow in the side of—”
“Is Gina with her?”
“Gina put her in the car.”
“She’s not with her.”
“She’s got two other agents in the car—she’s got Mike and Fred, sir—they’re gonna have her back at the White House.”
A look of pure irritation flashed across the President’s face. “Why isn’t Gina in the car?”
“Gina put Zoey in the car then stayed behind for the ID Agent. Mr. President, please.”
That seemed to do the trick for the moment. The President released a long sigh, his head collapsing against the back of the seat as the night settled in around them. The nonreality of their reality. As though the bullets echoed still, even within the most protected vehicle in the world.
“Is anybody dead back there?” he asked a minute later, his voice tight.
If Butterfield lived a thousand years, he never wanted to hear the President sound like that again. Never wanted to have to face this question again. Never wanted to face a night where the face of his department was dominant over his face as a man. As a father who would be screaming were his children out of his sight at a moment like this.
“We don’t know,” he replied honestly, shifting to release pressure on his wounded hand. “We don’t think so.”
The move brought attention to the blood leaking through his skin and the hasty bandage he had made in the excitement of getting the President in the car. Another faux pas. The President’s eyes went wide with concern, and he jerked upward immediately. “What happened to your hand?”
There was no way to delay the obvious conclusion. “I got hit.”
“Oh God.” The President turned to the driver of the motorcade, panic rising in his voice. “Coop, turn around! We gotta get to the hospital.”
This was precisely the reason Butterfield had tried to conceal his wound to begin with.
“We have to get you in the White House.”
“We’re going to the hospital!”
“I need to put you in the White House, Mr. President. This isn’t something we discuss.”
The irritation was back with a vengeance. “My daughter is throwing up in the floor of the car behind us. You’re losing blood by the liter, not to mention god-only-knows how many broken bones you have in your hand—” Something was wrong. Butterfield’s eyes went wide, his ears tuning out the extent of the President’s tirade as he caught a drop of crimson spilling out the corner of the man’s mouth. “—but let’s make sure I’m tucked in bed before—”
God, he hadn’t checked him for wounds when they got in the car. He hadn’t checked.
“Mr. President!” Butterfield engaged his wounded hand to stop the man from moving, his good one shuffling through the body check. Behind the neck, over the shoulders, and finally on the inside of the President’s coat, where his skin collided with blood.
Oh God.
“GW!” he screamed to the driver, the car performing the fastest U-Turn he reckoned it had ever endured. “Move! Move! Move! Move!”
The President was hit. Oh God, the President was hit.
And he hadn’t said a word.
The continuous spiral of red and blue was blinding against the dark night sky. There were camera crews being denied admittance, even within that few minutes spanning the President’s exit from the building and the sprinkle of fire that had ensued. The scream of sirens seemed to grow louder even as the cars remained where they were, blocking every possible corner of the street and streets around them. A helicopter flying overhead, drowning out all strands of reality.
“I’m really fine,” CJ was telling the medic, her voice muffled with either shock or tears. “I hit my head on the ground. Somebody pulled me down.”
“Are you CJ Cregg?” the medic replied routinely.
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me what day it is?”
“It’s still Monday.” He was pleased with that and went on into some spiel about how she did indeed appear fine. CJ wasn’t paying attention, her thoughts haunted with the weight of one possibility. “Is the President dead?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the medic said, packing up and moving along to the next person to check. CJ released a long sigh and stood, her legs quivering. The scene around her like something she had seen a thousand times in movies and the like—nothing comparable with actuality.
Not until tonight.
The window of a police car was shot out. That same window that someone had pushed her down under. She had come that close to meeting the nasty end of a bullet.
“Are you all right?”
CJ whirled around. Oh thank God. Sam.
“What?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, where’s the President?”
Sam heaved a deep breath, concern not lifting from his eyes. “He’s on his way back to the White House; so’s Zoey. They just put Leo in a car.” He touched her arm, bringing her back to herself as the night threatened to carry her away again. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head miserably. “Somebody pushed me down,” she said.
And that someone had saved her life.
Sam nodded, turning to the image of Gina Toscano running past him. Zoey’s special agent. God, maybe she would know something. “Gina!”
“I can’t talk right now,” she replied hurriedly, making her way over to the newest arrival on the scene. The agent she was to report to; everything she had seen prior to the shooting. “Gina Toscano. Are you the ID Agent?” He muttered something in confirmation. “Two shooters in that window and we got them from the roof, but there was a signal.”
“There was somebody on the ground?”
“White male. Maybe twenty, twenty-five. Five ten.”
“What else?”
“He was wearing a baseball cap.”
“What kind of cap?”
She stalled at that. That was the one thing in the horrible seconds before she saw the gun in the window that she didn’t remember. The one thing aside a thousand other instincts that her gut had twisted; warned her about. The girl was in the car. That knowledge, at the time, had been all that mattered.
Still, the agent didn’t look pleased when she couldn’t help him.
“Josh?”
Toby released a deep sigh and shook his head, unwilling to admit how hard he was trembling. It seemed he had been searching for Josh for hours now; his head still pounded with the echo of screams and bullets, but that didn’t matter. He needed to find Josh. Everyone else had checked out; they needed to get to the White House.
There was Charlie. Perhaps he could help.
“Hey Charlie. Are you okay?”
It seemed such a foolish thing to ask after a shooting, but he needed to know. He needed to be sure that everyone was okay.
“Yeah.” The reply was crisp and shaken, not entirely truthful, but Toby hadn’t expected any more.
“Have you seen Josh?”
“He got in the car with Leo.”
A sigh. “No, he didn’t. Shanahan got in with Leo. Josh didn’t get in the car.”
God, this night was a nightmare. He nodded briefly to Charlie and muttered something under his breath about staying where he was, whirled around to the steps he would never look at quite the same. A sigh of relief escaped his chest—the same he didn’t know he had been holding. Suddenly it was all right: he knew where everyone was.
Josh was sitting with his back to him against the concrete exterior.
“Josh!” Toby all but sprinted toward him. “Didn’t you hear me shouting for you? I didn’t know where the hell you…”
Another second and he was in front of his friend—his friend who sat against the ledge. His back upright; a glossed, lost look covering his eyes. How in the world had they not noticed him before? He was sitting there, breathing deeply, not reacting. Not seeing anyone. His hands soaked in blood, covering the shot in his chest. And Toby nearly fell to the ground.
He had never believed in pure panic before. Not before now. Not for this indescribable feeling rising in his throat. Oh God. Josh was shot.
“I need a…” His voice rose octaves, a tight, unutterable sensation cluttering his insides. “I need a doctor!” Josh was shot. He was sitting there, looking at him but not seeing him, because he had been shot. God, there was so much blood. “I need help!”
CJ and Sam seemed a world away. Toby fell to his knees and caught his friend as he slid from the concrete, cradling his head in his arms.
The shots were just the beginning. Their night had only now begun.
It was a miracle they got on the ground at all. Were it not for the flight attendants’ panicking, there was every possibility that the plane from St. Louis that housed the witch, the god, and the vampire would never have officially landed. Not with Washington DC shut down in a matter of seconds. The fact that they were already in landing preparation was merely a technicality.
“We have to get her to a hospital.”
It was the third time in ten seconds that Buffy had forced herself to ignore the otherwise logical solution. Her best friend was resisting the help of a stretcher rather, trying to rise to her feet of her own accord. The words, “He’s been shot,” tumbled through her lips every other breath. Her skin was paler—more so than usual. Her eyes were black with an overload of sensory. And suddenly the trials of the past few weeks felt like child’s play. For the certainty in Willow’s voice, the sheer force of the terror behind it, the Slayer was about ready to declare war on the PTB.
They couldn’t have been thrust from one hell and into another so quickly. It wasn’t fair. She and Spike had just settled down in Sunnydale. Just organized the last of their furniture. They were supposed to meet the President tonight. Willow was supposed to see Sam, whom she hadn’t once failed to mention in conversation since they parted ways two weeks before. It wasn’t fair.
“God, Buffy,” Spike murmured, shades of concern that now seemed so natural on him clouding his eyes. “Her heart…she…” He shook his head, releasing a low breath. “I’ve never…”
“It’s Sam,” Buffy whispered furtively. “Sam was hit.”
One of the medics that had been ushered immediately to the plane following landing was looking at her skeptically. Through the pass of the last few minutes, every time someone had attempted to touch the Witch in order to get her on the stretcher, the offending party had either been shocked or blown into the aisles. For the stares they were receiving, they didn’t care. They might as well have been the only people in the city.
The vampire met his Slayer’s eyes gravely. “We gotta get her to a hospital.”
That was it, then. That simple sentence composed of seven simple words. The same words, the same advice, that had been reiterated from every other mouth on their flight except for the two closest to her. As if by suggestion alone, Willow’s quakes rumbled slowly to a halt and her eyes shot open once again. Wide, black still, but burning with comprehension. With knowledge. With something beyond anything that had come close to touching her until now.
Until that moment.
Until a face peered through the clouds in her mind, revealing himself to her slowly. A face that went with the sensation wracking her body. The same she had felt ever since that night at Longwood, sitting in the circle, holding his hand as the words from ancient rite spilled through her lips.
Since he was there with her as she banished a god.
Since he was a part of the three.
“Willow!”
The redhead turned to Buffy in a flash. As though she hadn’t been lying in a fit for what seemed like hours. As though her eyes weren’t still clouded with the aftermath of magic that was flooding her veins. No end in sight. “We have to get to the hospital,” she said. “We have to get there.”
“Willow—”
“It’s not Sam. I can’t feel Sam.”
“What do you mean you can’t feel him?”
“I mean he’s okay. He’s terrified but I…I can’t feel pain. He’s okay. He wasn’t shot.”
Spike was staring at her blankly. “This might be a stupid question, but weren’ you havin’ a seizure a minute ago?”
“If it wasn’t Sam—”
“It’s Josh. Josh was hit. He was hit in the chest.” A long, trembling sigh rolled off her shoulders. And suddenly, she was lost. Her eyes far away. Her mind with someone else. Feeling the impression of another’s pain. The weight of it crushing beneath her fingers. “Oh God. There’s so much blood.”
“Red—”
“We have to get to the hospital.”
The Slayer stared at her vacantly. “Willow, you—”
“This isn’t up for discussion. I have to get there. Now.”
Willow was suddenly on her feet, storming through people who scattered almost instinctively. Tossing the medics a cold glance of warning if they thought of getting in her way. And soon she was out of sight, leaving her friends to stare after her numbly.
“Spike?”
The vampire’s hand clamped around his mate’s, and he nodded fiercely. “Come on.”
“She can’t be serious. They’ll never let us out of the airport if—”
A roll of thunder that sounded strangely captured inside the adjoining terminal cracked through the air. Spike tossed her a wry glance.
“Somehow I don’ see that bein’ a problem.”
“If there’s been a shooting—”
“Red battled her way around an ancient god who had the balls to possess not one, but two Slayers, luv. You really think a couple feds an’ some guns are gonna stand in her way? Her boyfriend was jus’ shot at.” He was picking up the pace; following the strain of empty expressions in pursuit of the redheaded witch. “She’s gonna tear the town apart if she doesn’ get to him.”
“Spike…”
“Come on.”
In seconds, it had turned into one of those nights where the blessings would come if they lived through it.
“If she tries to get past Secret Service, they’ll shoot at her.”
The vampire tossed her a dry glance. “Then you better hope you’re fast enough to get there before she wipes them out.”
“Would she?”
“I would. If it were you, I would in a heartbeat.”
“But Willow—”
“Has a soul? Heard that story before, luv. Doesn’ play well with the golden oldies. An’ more so…” Spike arched a brow. “What if it was me?”
Buffy froze in the dawning of new realization.
“We have to get there before she does.”
“’S what I’ve been sayin’.”
“She’ll destroy them.”
A small jest. One in the night that knew no humor. He wanted it, now. Wanted to hear it, even if he knew it without being told. “How you figure?”
“I would.”
“Thought so.”
Sirens sounded all around the airport and only grew louder as they burst into the city. It might as well have been daylight; no one was asleep.
And they had a witch to catch.
The First Lady had just spoken with Dr. Lee about her husband’s medical condition. Leo didn’t need to see her to confirm that. And he wouldn’t presume to know how a multiple sclerosis patient’s life might be affected by a gunshot wound—he simply knew to trust Abbey in that she knew what she was doing.
Stress and fever are inducers for the attacks. Other than his initial anger-fueled astonishment from the conversation a few months ago with the man he considered his best friend, he didn’t remember much of anything else. Only that playing chess with the President to double check his reactionary skills was something to put on a quiet day’s agenda.
Not that they had many quiet days.
There wasn’t anything to do but wait now. Zoey had arrived and the President had finally stopped barking at everyone about his need to see his daughter. Now he was under general anesthesia and would be for several hours.
Gina was standing against a wall, a blank look clouding her eyes.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Was there someone on the ground?”
He knew the answer was yes. It was better if she began talking about it. Ever since she had arrived, a sort of self-resentful look had been about her. An expression that he knew well. It was the same he had faced every day for a period of eternity. Watching his life fall through the cracks and under the weight of an addiction that had nearly cost him everything.
“There was a signal,” Gina replied. “I couldn’t give them a description.”
“Did they close the airports?”
She nodded. “And Union Station. We’ve got troopers on the bridges and three hundred field agents working Rosslyn. I can’t tell them what they’re looking for.”
The persistently familiar wail of a siren sounded in the distance. Leo’s eyes remained on Gina’s face. “You got the girl in the car,” he told her. And that, as far as her job went, was all that mattered.
“It’s right in front of my face.”
“Look…”
The hall was blasted with sirens the next second, a sudden surge of traffic following a rush of paramedics and nurses racing to the admittance hall with panic that seemed to be immune to all attempts to calm it. Tonight was a night for panic.
A loud scream of a nurse sealed that thought with words that Leo would relive for months to come, guarded well under a façade of patrol. “Gunshot wound! No exit!”
A man was being wheeled in on a gurney. CJ and Toby were beside him.
Oh God.
“It’s Josh!” CJ cried.
Oh God.
Leo’s blood went cold. “Josh! What happened?”
“He was behind us,” Toby replied hurriedly. The Chief of Staff had never seen the man’s eyes that haunted.
Doctors were speaking in jargon. Leo couldn’t tear his gaze away from his surrogate son’s face.
Then there was Sam. Sam bounding up toward his friend in a blind panic. “Josh! I’m here!”
“I shouldn’t be at this meeting,” Josh replied, speaking groggy words into the surface of an oxygen mask as the world fell apart around him.
“Trauma One’s ready,” a nurse declared.
“I need a chest tube tray, Thirty-Two French.”
Josh was still talking. His eyes were nowhere. He saw none of them. For the moment, he lived in a world that no longer existed. “Senator…”
“Tell me what’s happening!” Leo yelled.
“I don’t have time!” the doctor barked back.
“I shouldn’t be at this meeting,” Josh said again, his voice fading. And Sam was beside him, watching him with intent. “I need to get to New Hampshire!”
“You went to New Hampshire,” Sam told him. As though he could hear, or comprehend anything around him. Needing to reassure him of that. They had gone to New Hampshire. “We both did. You came and got me.”
The medical team was preparing to lift him onto an operating table.
“On my count,” the doctor said. “One. Two. Three.”
Josh was gone, then. No longer speaking of New Hampshire or meetings. Overwhelmed as the medical team worked above him.
“Josh, a bullet collapsed your lung. We’re putting in a tube to re-expand it,” the doctor explained.
Explained without being heard.
There was nothing. The night fell around him.
A haven for new sinners.
TBC