Episode addition to "Enemies." Set the following day.
One More Thing
Josh stuck his head around the door and looked at his assistant. “What’s with the thing?”
Donna afforded him a brief glance before looking back to her computer. “Which thing?”
“C.J.’s thing.”
“It’s just a thing.”
“Okay.” Josh flipped the page in the document he was reading and then looked back to Donna. “What are you doing?”
“I‘ve got this stuff.”
“What stuff?” Josh stepped into the room to look over her shoulder.
“I’m doing stuff!” Donna said a bit indignantly as she dropped her hands from the keyboard to smack against her desk.
“Okay, okay. So I should go to my office?”
“Yeah.” Donna went back to her typing.
“Okay.” Josh walked to the door and turned back. “Just a thing?”
“C.J.? Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Go work.”
“Yeah, I’ve got this thing.” Josh went back to his office to finish reading the report. “Will you get me some coffee?” He called.
“Yeah!” Donna yelled back.
He dropped the report on his desk and looked up in surprise. “Really?”
“No!”
“Okay,” he muttered and sat down to work.
“C.J.!” Toby called to the fleeting glimpse of the Press Secretary as she turned a corner. He turned the corner to find she’d slowed her pace for him to catch up.
“Yeah, Toby?”
“I wanted to talk to you about the language for the thing in the next briefing.” He matched her pace as she continued heading towards the Communications Office.
“I know the language and, besides, I’ve got the thing.”
“The thing?”
“Yeah. I’m leaving now.”
“Okay. You’ve got the language?”
C.J. paused in the bullpen to speak to Bonnie. “I’m going now, okay?”
“You’re clear. Nothing until the next briefing.”
“Okay.” She turned back to Toby and recited, “This morning President Bartlett established Big Sky National Park, which will encompass a whole lot of square miles, blah, blah, blah, and ensure the continuation of one of the last undisturbed habitats of the rare blue-breasted whosit.” C.J. waved her hands dismissively. “The President is empowered to create national parks by the Antiquities Act of 1906, blah, blah, blah. Since the boundaries of our newest national park encompass the area cited in the land-use rider attached to the banking bill currently before the House, that rider is now defunct and a vote is scheduled on the bill for later this afternoon.”
“The blue-breasted whosit?” Toby murmured, looking up at C.J. from a down-turned face.
“Toby . . .” C.J. said threateningly.
“Okay.” He sounded conciliatory so she let it drop, moving to her desk to deposit the papers she carried. She looked up to find him still there and shot him a what-now look. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him as she took down her coat and handed it to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not running out on you today.”
He held the coat for her to slip her arms in. “’Cause I plan to kick your ass at poker later tonight.”
She turned, giving her collar a sharp flip into place, and gave him a pointed look. “Keep dreaming, Mr. Ziegler.” She grinned at him as she breezed past him out the door.
“Bring your checkbook, Ms. Cregg! I don’t take American Express,” he called over his shoulder as he followed her out and turned in the opposite direction.
Sam threw a ball at the window between his office and Toby’s. He caught it when it bounced back and waited a moment. When nothing happened, he threw it a few more times. Toby appeared at his door and glared at him.
“What?” Sam said. “It doesn’t work this way?”
“It doesn’t work this way,” Toby said in his usual soft tone. Toby held his hand up.
“Okay.” Sam tossed the offending ball to his boss. “Where’s C.J.? We need to go over the language for the briefing.”
“C.J. knows the language,” Toby said, a hint of chastisement in his voice. “This isn’t her first day on the job.”
“You already talked to her?”
“Yeah,” Toby admitted.
“Okay. Where is she anyway?”
“She had the thing,” Toby said, putting his hands in his pockets and turning to go.
“What thing?”
“The thing.”
“You don’t know what the thing is, do you?”
“No idea.”
“Okay.”
Toby went back to his office and sat down. He looked at the ball in his hand for a minute, thoughtfully tossed it into the air, then bounced it off the window a few times.
Sam appeared, looking annoyed. “This isn’t at all fair.”
Toby ignored that and asked “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Know what the thing is.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Sam sighed loudly as he left.
C.J. followed the maître d' to the table where her lunch companion waited. The woman watched her approach and greeted her when she was still a couple of feet away. “Hi, Ms. Cregg.”
“Thanks for meeting me, Mildred,” C.J. said, taking off her coat and draping it over her chair. She sat down and turned to the waiter who must have been watching for her arrival almost as closely as the woman across from her. “Iced tea, please.”
She glanced at Mildred who was watching her and biting her lip. “Uh, the same.”
A second waiter arrived and poured C.J. a glass a water. She waited until he’d left to speak. “How are you, Mildred?”
“Fine, thanks. You?” Mildred fidgeted with the silverware arranged precisely around her plate.
“A little stressed, actually. You see, I had a real bitch of a day yesterday. The president kept trying to corner me to tell me about Live Oaks and Mangrove forests and Danny Concannon wanted to teach me to kayak and get a statement about the cabinet meeting. Have you ever experienced the president in professor-mode, Mildred?”
“No,” came the tense reply. “I don’t believe so.”
C.J. took a sip of her water. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like this place?”
Mildred’s eyes roamed around the room, darted to C.J. and quickly away again. “I’ve never been here before. I, uh, I usually eat in the building.”
“Yeah, this place is a little too far away from the office, hm?” C.J.’s tone suddenly became sharp. “But for some things, I like to get away from the office. Did you ever think you might get fired in a place as nice as this, Mildred?”
“Wha--? Ms. Cregg,” Mildred began.
“Funny thing about the West Wing, Mildred. There are no secrets. We can’t keep secrets from our opponents, from the public--certainly not from the press, but then you knew that, hm? Things get out no matter how quietly we speak. You might want to remember that next time you think you can keep a secret.” C.J. rummaged in her bag and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which she tossed onto the table. Mildred’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
“Calm down, Mildred. I’m not going to fire you. Not today. Today I’m feeling . . . nice. But if you ever leak to the press what goes on behind closed doors again, I won’t be feeling nearly so charitable,” C.J. bit out. She pushed the papers across the table. “You might want to take a look at that. It’s your non-disclosure agreement.”
She stood up and reached for her coat, holding up a hand to the approaching waiter. “I’m not especially hungry, after all, but you enjoy yourself, Mildred, because, next time, I won’t bother with the trappings before I kick your ass out the nearest door.”
She turned on her heel and strode from the room, coat swirling loosely behind her. The waiter placed two iced teas on the table.
Danny was waiting for C.J. outside her office. “There are signs,” she insisted as she swept past him.
“Where ya been, C.J.?” He followed her inside and closed the door.
“I had a thing.”
“C.J.--”
“No one got fired. All right? I keep my word.” She dropped her coat onto a chair and moved behind her desk.
“I know.” He sat down in one of the chairs opposite her desk.
She began checking her email instead of looking at him. “Why are you still here?”
“I’m going.” He stood and headed for the door.
“Danny.” He stopped and turned back. “Would you really have printed the story? If I had fired her.”
“Yes.”
“How would you have explained our knowing your source?” When he didn’t answer, she gave him a wicked smile. “Go away now.”
“Okay.”
Her voice stopped him again as he opened the door. “Danny.” He turned to see her regarding him with trademark intensity. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” He smiled.
“Tell Bonnie to come in, would ya?”
“I like museums. I like dancing--”
“Danny--”
“I’m a good dancer, C.J.”
“Out.”
“Okay.” He headed for the bullpen to tell Bonnie she was wanted.
Sam and Josh fell into stride with C.J. as she left the press room.
“That was great, C.J.!” Josh pumped his fist. “Your answer to that follow-up! ‘Yes, it is quite a coincidence that the president chose today to--’ I can hear Crane, Broderick, and Eaton screaming in agony right now!”
C.J. smiled. “Guess the president’s enforced lectures pay off now and then, huh?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“So how was your thing, C.J.?” Sam asked.
C.J. stopped walking. “How did you know about the thing?”
“Uh--” He didn’t get further because she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pressed close so that he backed up to the wall.
“How do you know about the thing, Sam?”
“I don’t!”
“You just asked--! What do you know about the thing?” She tugged on the fabric in her fists. Josh looked on with bewilderment.
“Nothing. I know nothing about the thing! Honestly! Toby just said you had a thing.”
She released his jacket and smoothed the lapels. “A birthday card?” She smiled and walked on.
"It was a birthday message."
They paused outside her office. “I hope you brought your money, boys. Because I’m feeling lucky tonight and I’ve made my quota of nice!” With that, and a large grin, she ducked inside.
Once they’d walked out of hearing range, Josh said. “What do you know about the thing?”
“Nothing! Didn’t you just hear me swear under threat of bodily harm that I know absolutely nothing about the thing? What the hell is going on anyway?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know, you don’t know, and Toby doesn’t know, but Donna--Donna knows.”
“Yeah.”
“’Yeah?’ ‘Yeah?’ I just said Donna knows. I’m pretty damned sure Donna knows what the thing is. My assistant knows more about what’s going on in the West Wing than I do!”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure our assistants know everything that we don’t.”
“It’s not fair. I’m the Deputy Chief of Staff. You’re the Deputy Communications Director. Doesn’t that piss you off?” Josh stopped outside of Sam’s office.
“I’m pretty used to unfair. I work for Toby, remember?” Sam went into his office.
“Yeah,” Josh said before heading back to his own office where his assistant would be waiting. “Waiting there, knowing things,” Josh muttered. “And not bringing me coffee.”
Donna walked up behind him, overhearing as he entered the bullpen. “Just not fair, is it?”
“I’m the Deputy Chief of Staff,” he told her.
“Yeah.”
“So I should go?” Josh pointed over his shoulder to his office.
“Yeah.”
“Right.” He sighed and went into his office. “I’m going to wipe the table with ’em all tonight,” he called out to her.
“Of course you are,” she said as she came in with a handful of phone messages for him.
“I’m going to lose every hand, aren’t I?” He dropped into his chair.
“Yep.”
He took the message slips from her. “Okay.”
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