Summary: Nobody, least of all Jed, is having a very good day. As it always happens, things go from bad to worse in very short order.

Spoilers: Everything. Seriously. We think we’ve managed to drop a hint about all and sundry from seasons one through three, with special emphasis on ‘The Two Bartlets’ and ‘Night Five’. Consider yourself warned.

Rating: PG-13, probably. Some language (but we think you'll agree the characters were entitled at that point <G>), a touch of violence and lots of emotional angst. Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.

Characters: Jed, Leo, Abbey - towards the end, and Ron Butterfield. (We like Ron, and if we thought writing this fic, and a possible follow-up had anything to do with AS suddenly resurrecting both him and Fitz for the end of season three, we'd have done it months ago!)

Archive: Sure, just let us know where and drop us a line first. We’ve a very good two part MS WORD file we can send to make things easier on you.

Disclaimer: Of course they’re not ours. We wish! This is just a bit of an exercise in creative mayhem. We promise to put them back when we’re done with them. Really. IF we’re ever done with them <G>.

Feedback: If you must <G>. Any and all comments are not only welcome, but strongly encouraged. Send to:

nithehowl@livingston.net

or

annemcal@gofree.indigo.ie

Authors’ Note: Apologies all around, but we just couldn’t resist <VBEG>. This may be an unlikely scenario but it was a blast to write and, if you're willing to suspend any disbelief, we hope you'll have a lot of fun in the reading too. Hey, if Hollywood can do it, why can't we?

Dedication: To Sheila, who writes such wonderful WW crisis fics, and to Sam, who broke the ice and gave us the courage to try this sort of fic with her amazing 'Not Everything's Black and White' story.

A Frightened Peace

By

Anne Callanan and Kathleen E. Lehew

Part One

"Mr. President, it's time." Face professionally bland, the secret service agent stood by respectfully.

President Josiah Bartlet’s previously relaxed smile faded slightly and he gave the waiting helicopter a sour look. His step faltered a bit as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets and nodded a curt and unenthusiastic acknowledgement to the agent.

The President’s Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry, shot a knowing glance at his Commander in Chief and friend. His lips twitched and he was unable to entirely suppress a grin of amusement that was tinged with just a hint of sympathy. He was well aware that the high spirits the President usually exhibited while flying were noticeably subdued during trips on Marine One, or any craft significantly smaller than the majestic 747, Air Force One.

McGarry suspected that a great deal of that exuberance stemmed from the fact that traveling aboard the huge executive aircraft was one of the few times in his life when the President was actually able to relax sufficiently to enjoy the experience of flight. There --apart from the fact that he usually traveled with more than sufficient work to keep his mind fully occupied-- the greater size and the freedom to move around was much more comfortable for him. It enabled him to conquer the latent claustrophobia that the more cramped and confining restrictions of commercial flight had always triggered.

Bartlet had struggled with that fear for as long as McGarry had known him. He’d never been able to find out its origins --but he had his suspicions-- and at times had seen the phobia border on the crippling. It was at such times he was more than impressed with Bartlet’s sheer stubborn strength of mind.

Well aware of what was going through his Chief of Staff’s mind, Bartlet ignored McGarry’s look with studied dignity and faced the patiently waiting agent. "Thanks, Donny." He recovered enough of his composure to grace the young man with a quick smile. “You along for the ride this time?”

“Yes, sir!” Agent Donny Sandler nodded smartly, more than a little pleased that the President had remembered his name correctly.

Bartlet smirked and nudged McGarry with his elbow. "Ron wants him along to hold our hands, eh Leo?"

McGarry rolled his eyes heavenward in exasperation. "Well, thank you for the thought, Mr. President, but I was under the impression we already had that covered ourselves."

He chalked up a mental ‘score!’ as he saw the President’s head jerk back slightly and the narrow-eyed glare scorch him. An expression of mildly guilty amusement was the only satisfaction that Bartlet received in return. Only McGarry, with the confidence of a forty-year friendship of mutual trust and affection, could have gotten away with reminding the leader of the free world of that particular moment of personal embarrassment.

Over a year before, another flight on Marine One had been hit by a considerable amount of turbulence. As always, Bartlet had remained outwardly calm, but his hands had instinctively grasped at the armrests of his seat. He was mortified afterwards to realize that what his left hand had clutched in a convulsive grip was not the chair seat but his Chief of Staff’s arm, which had been lying along the common armrest of their adjoining seats. Fortunately, there had been no bruising, but the sleeve of McGarry’s normally pristine suit had been irreparably creased for the remainder of the trip.

McGarry had been frankly amused by the incident and never passed up the opportunity to remind his friend whenever he got the chance. Emphasizing the end result seemed to distract his friend from the initial causes, exactly what he needed. The phobia McGarry understood, but not the reasons. He had crammed himself into far smaller cockpits than the passenger area of a Sea King helicopter and had certainly encountered far worse turbulence as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. It had been intriguing and more than a little entertaining to see his normally self-confident and mischievous friend's composure momentarily fractured.

Sandler had been waiting patiently, apparently oblivious to this by-play. Now he stepped forward again. "Mr. President, Agent Butterfield would like me to inform you that our departure is scheduled for five minutes' time. He requests that both you and Mr. McGarry take your seats."

"Yeah, yeah" muttered the President, giving the helicopter and the agent a dark look. "C'mon, Leo. You know how upset Ron gets when I throw out his schedule."

"I can't think why," McGarry commented dryly, following his President's rather unenthusiastic progress towards the idling helicopter. "Anyone would think you made a habit of running late. And as for lecturing him on the history of past assassinations, both attempted and actual …” skirting the protocol line, he fought back a grin and finished with perfect deadpan aplomb, “I really don't understand why he isn't more relaxed in your presence."

Bartlet glowered at his friend. "You're very uppity today,” he complained, although a glint of reluctant amusement flickered in his eyes. "Isn't it enough that you’re forcing me to take the weekend off, to say nothing of traveling aboard that …" He waved his hand in the direction of their transport as words failed him.

McGarry’s amusement faded and he regarded the President with genuine concern. "Sir, I am truly sorry about the helicopter, but you know that a motorcade would take too long. And using Air Force One would involve too much manpower for what is supposed to be a quiet and discrete break. And you know that right now you really need this time away. If only to get some rest."

Bartlet muttered something under his breath that was lost in the swish of the rotor blades.

"What?"

Catching yet another glare, McGarry reflected that the recent sleepless nights he had been suffering from had seriously damaged Bartlet’s normally sunny disposition.

"I said,” the President enunciated with elaborate distinctness, "That I'm sleeping again now."

"Yeah, but only for a couple of hours at a stretch, and never for more than five hours a night" McGarry pointed out reasonably. Weighing his words carefully, he added, "Not only is that barely enough to keep going on your schedule, it's nowhere near enough to make up for all those nights that you missed entirely. And, if you'll excuse my saying so, Mr. President, I'd really rather not have you dropping off in the middle of another security briefing. For some reason, it tends to disconcert your advisors, not to mention what’ll happen if you do it next week with that Russian missile specialist.”

The President growled something unintelligible, although McGarry had a strong suspicion it was neither complementary to his Chief of Staff nor the Russians. Yet another reason to give the man a much needed break. Sleeplessness was one thing, but he didn’t think the Russians or their ambassador would quietly put up with another dressing down like the one he’d given them over their shoddy missile program the previous year.

And with Bartlet in the mood he was in now, McGarry strongly suspected that civilities were going to be strained to the limit. Sighing, he pointed out, “With all due respect, sir, you did start this. You made the offer. The specialist is only…”

“Malinoff.”

“What?”

“The specialist’s name is Malinoff. Gregori Malinoff.” The tight smile Bartlet gave McGarry offered neither humor nor apology, merely frustrated annoyance at the badgering. “See? I was awake. Where were you?”

“Getting the coffee.”

Bartlet paused for a moment and with hunched shoulders, hands jammed deep into his trouser pockets, studied the tips of his shoes. Though he didn’t answer McGarry’s pointed remark, his face and the far away look in his eyes spoke for him.

A concerned Chief of Staff respectfully observed him for a moment, then leaned in. "Sir" he said quietly and discreetly, "Abbey's worried about you. Hell, I'm worried about you. I don't know what happened that night between you and Toby, and Stanley's been playing the doctor/patient confidentiality card for all it's worth. Maybe it's not important that I know. But this I do know; you need a break. Maybe only for a day or so, but you do need it."

Bartlet glanced up sharply in surprise, and what looked suspiciously like a hint of relief. "Stanley didn't tell you what we discussed? I thought that …"

McGarry shook his head. "He said that the actual cause of the problem was not related in any way to your job and so was none of my damn business. At least unless it actually continued to affect you to the point where you were diminished in your capacity to perform that job. He saw no evidence of that yet and felt that the worst of the sleeplessness would ease soon, if only because you would be too exhausted to resist it. He did say that he felt a few more sessions might be beneficial, but that was entirely up to you."

Bartlet was regarding him oddly. "Toby didn't say anything either?"

McGarry snorted. As if Toby would ever open up on that subject! "Apart from acknowledging that you two have been avoiding each other as much as possible, a not so easy task when you consider he is your communications director, Ziegler has been about as communicative as you'd expect."

"I really thought one of them would have told you. I was waiting for someone to say something." Bartlet shook his head abruptly and turned away.

"Something about what?"

For a brief moment, a look of withdrawal came over the President’s face. Then he laughed shortly, putting the matter aside with sudden good humor. "Nothing. Come on, Leo. I can see Ron from here. He’s just looked at his watch for the third time and glared at me. Do I have any skin left?”

"Are you telling me that you're afraid of your own agent?" McGarry needled good naturedly, making a mental note to find out whatever it was Bartlet seemed so reluctant to reveal at a more opportune moment.

Bartlet regarded his Chief of Staff with open amazement. "Afraid of Ron? Are you insane?" Suddenly that impish grin that McGarry was surprised to realize he had missed in recent times broke out. "Of course I am! Do you know, that man once picked me up and carried me by the scruff of my neck during an emergency evacuation? I make it a basic rule never to annoy people who can do that."

Grinning, McGarry followed the President towards the waiting agents. His amusement bubbled up even further as he watched his friend instinctively duck as he passed under the wash of the blades, which cleared his head by at least six feet. Shaking his head, he wondered idly exactly where that particular habit had originated.

"Ron!" Bartlet enthusiastically greeted the tall, lanky head of his security detail, raising his voice over the roar of the motors. The two members of the accompanying Marine detail saluted the President smartly as he passed.

"Good day, Mr. President." Butterfield allowed his charge to precede him up the steps into the Sea King's passenger area. "You'll be pleased to know that we are proceeding more or less according to schedule. Our ETA at Concord is in approximately three hours time. A secret service detail will be waiting and the motorcade will then take you and Mr. McGarry to the Manchester farm."

"Three hours?" Bartlet paused abruptly on the way to his seat, something unreadable flickering in the back of his eyes. "Surely that exceeds the normal flight time?"

"Yes, sir. But Colonel March thought that, as this was a vacation trip, you might like a more scenic route. Accordingly, he has filed a flight vector that will take us slightly further inland, along the east side of the Catskills."

McGarry saw the President swallow a bit convulsively and grimace. He didn’t have to ask why. He raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry to ask if Bartlet wanted him to veto the suggestion.

Bartlet gave his worried friend a quick shake of his head, refusing the offer. "That was very thoughtful of the Colonel, Ron,” he replied instead, surprised that he actually meant it. “Tell him I appreciate the gesture."

"I will, Mr. President. Colonel March's co-pilot for this flight is Captain Johnston. The only passengers are you and Mr. McGarry, accompanied by Agent Sandler and myself and the Marine detail.” Satisfied that this information had been passed on as efficiently as possible, Butterfield turned to the Chief of Staff and said, "Mr. McGarry, I would like to take this time to discuss some of the security details relating to the upcoming campaign schedule, if you can spare me a moment.”

"Sure Ron." McGarry nodded and turned to Bartlet. With sympathy for the man’s predicament, he offered a bit lamely, "Mr. President, Ron and I are just going to sit over here and go over some stuff."

Bartlet, who was buckling himself into his seat, waved him away distractedly. Sandler was just sitting down next to him in the adjoining seat. Taking his glasses from his coat pocket he slipped them on and picked up the book he’d brought along. He doubted he was actually going to be able to read and enjoy it –he never had before, not on Marine One— but it was worth a try.

McGarry shrugged at the somewhat curt dismissal and settled into a seat that would allow him to converse with Butterfield over the noise of the engines. The President may have been on a short vacation, but his Chief of Staff and the head of his security detail never really got that chance. Still, he didn’t begrudge him that, or the answers his friend wouldn’t give up.

The President of the United States would talk when he was ready. He always did and McGarry had the patience to wait.

A considerable time later, McGarry looked up from the schedule he had been going over with Butterfield and glanced at the clock set into the forward bulkhead. They were over halfway into their flight time and rain clouds were plunging the cabin into premature dusk. He reflected ruefully that the Colonel’s well-meant gesture had turned out to be a little pointless. What little he could see of the mountain range through the cabin window was shrouded in a thick mist of rain and dark, low hanging clouds.

Glancing across the cabin at the President, he couldn’t help but smile at the sight. At least Bartlet wasn’t missing much, which all things considered was a bit of a blessing. Drifting in and out of sleep, the President’s chin was resting on his chest, his book precariously balanced on crossed knees. As usual when he wasn’t really paying attention his reading glasses had slid almost to the end of his nose.

McGarry frowned slightly and found himself openly studying the man with some concern. Bartlet looked a little better than he had during that stressful week when they all had begun to fear he would break down under the accumulated weight of the MS disclosure, the censure, the campaign and his wife’s unresolved problems with the Medical Board.

However, McGarry couldn’t help but note that his face still had a few lines too many, and the shadows had not faded from under his eyes. The man still needed to make up a considerable amount of sleep and he’d finally laid down an ultimatum; either Bartlet took a weekend to rest and recuperate or his Chief of Staff --as was his right-- would drastically reduce his schedule. To say that the President’s initial agreement had been unwilling was to put it mildly.

Given no other choice, McGarry had finally wheeled in the big guns and conscripted the First Lady to his cause only to find himself reluctantly co-opted into the weekend vacation as Bartlet flatly refused to go alone and Abbey had several appointments in the capital.

Still, he didn’t regret it. It was worth the price paid to his ego and the layer of skin he’d lost to Abbey’s sharp tongue. Protesting that the President didn’t need a babysitter to his concerned wife hadn’t been one of his most sterling moments. Truthfully, he was relieved. It had been a long time since he and Bartlet had been able to spend some time together. McGarry hadn’t realized till now how much he missed that. He was determined to use the opportunity and see if he could discover just what had been going on with his friend --over and above all the other crises-- in recent days. He had no idea just what wound Toby might have inadvertently opened, but the President’s reaction had been unusually troubled.

Even now, his fitful napping was an indication of just how exhausted he must be. As much as he tried to, Bartlet never slept while flying, as McGarry knew from painful personal experience. Either tension or excitement always guaranteed that he would be wide-awake and talkative throughout any flight. Even on the huge 747 the claustrophobia didn’t help either. The senior staff had quickly learned the necessity of catching a catnap before embarking on long trips with their President.

Suddenly, a muffled boom reverberating from somewhere forward interrupted McGarry’s meditations. A manic thought, ‘Mechanical?” was all he could manage when, almost simultaneously with the ominous noise, he found himself rising bodily into the air as his seat dropped sickeningly away from beneath him. The brief moment of weightlessness ended when his safety belt slammed him back into place with his stomach still churning.

Across the cabin, the President’s book crashed to the floor as he was jerked violently awake. For the moment more surprised than frightened, he stared wordlessly across the aisle at his Chief of Staff.

“What the hell…” McGarry glanced instinctively upwards as old, near forgotten habits enabled him to detect the fearful sound of unevenly beating rotors.

“Ron?” The President’s voice blended authoritative inquiry with ruthlessly controlled fear.

“Please remain as you are, Mr. President, Mr. McGarry.” Butterfield grimly unbuckled and stood up, making his way across the swaying floor towards the cockpit door. He had barely passed McGarry before a second, much louder bang caused the craft to swing and dip violently, sending him stumbling to his knees.

McGarry reached down and managed to snag Butterfield’s arm as the helicopter went into a steep sideways dive. Somehow, he was able to swing the agent around until he was able to grab the arm of his seat and scramble back into it.

“Sandler!” Butterfield bellowed as he struggled to refasten his seatbelt.

McGarry saw Sandler reach out and snatch the glasses from Bartlet’s nose, then twist in his seat and fling his arm across the President’s chest, pinning him against the backrest. Bartlet’s lower face was buried in the crook of the agent’s shoulder, but the Chief of Staff could clearly see his eyes; wide, fixed, almost silver discs in his face.

Clinging desperately to his seat, half-deafened by the high-pitched whine of laboring engines, McGarry risked a glance out his window to see a mountain face approaching with distressing rapidity. For a second, the treetops disappeared only to be replaced by sky as their descent momentarily halted and they began to climb laboriously above the ridge once again. Then the nose of the craft tilted and they plunged past the top of the ridge.

McGarry had a brief, dizzying view of rock and greenery and heard a swishing sound --were they actually scraping the treetops? -- before the whole craft suddenly jarred violently and whipped totally around, throwing everyone against their seat belts. Then came a confusion of whirling sight and tearing metal.

Then nothing.

~ooOoo~

"Mr. McGarry? Mr. McGarry! Can you hear me?"

McGarry roused himself reluctantly from the pleasantly warm cocoon he inhabited. Reality proved to be far less beguiling. He felt chilled and achy all over and there was an uneasily familiar ringing in his ears. For a moment memory failed and panic seized him. What had he been doing to get into this state? Surely, oh God, no… surely he hadn't …not again…

"Mr. McGarry!"

"Ow! Alright, alright!" McGarry jerked upright with a suddenness that turned the ringing in his ears into an outright clamor. Stopping himself just short of swinging, he growled, "I'm up! What the …"

Blinking, his voice trailed off when he recognized his tormentor. Butterfield's suit was torn and smudged and a small trickle of blood was curling down around his nostril from the bridge of his nose. McGarry stared at the agent blankly for a moment, then sucked in a breath in remembrance.

"Sir, are you alright?" Eyes narrowed, Butterfield regarded him intently. "Headache? Any nausea or unsteadiness?"

Trained to quickly assimilate events, he watched as the Chief of Staff gingerly shook his head mutely. Satisfied with his assessment of McGarry’s physical well being, Butterfield winced and rose stiffly to his feet, holding his right arm tightly to his side. "Then I could really use your help here."

"Huh?" With that rather brilliant response and holding his hand tenderly to what felt to be a very respectable knot at the back of his head, McGarry looked around vaguely.

The cabin floor lay at a steep incline and the windows above them were cracked, seeping rainwater down onto the men below. The other side of the helicopter seemed to lie on a bed of rock, with mud oozing into the interior. Broken tree limbs projected through the shattered lower windows into the cabin itself.

Blinking, he noted that the chairs he and Butterfield had been seated in and the area in which they rested had fared pretty well. However, across the cabin …

"God! No!" McGarry abruptly flung himself forward, only to be blocked and held back by Butterfield.

"Take it easy, sir! We can't rush into this!"

"The hell we can't!" McGarry was nearly trembling with shock and anxiety. The fear was lodged in his throat. "The President…is the President alright?"

"I don't know yet, sir. As I said, I need your help."

"You mean he's in there somewhere?" Regarding the scene of devastation in front of him, McGarry was appalled.

The opposite bulkhead appeared to have totally crumpled on impact, folding down over itself and against the adjoining cabin wall. To McGarry’s eyes it appeared as though everything on that side of the cabin had been swept and compressed into a single corner: metal sheeting, reinforcing struts, seats…and their occupants.

A deep and unaccustomed pain settled in his chest. McGarry knew its source. Josiah Bartlet was under that somewhere.

With Butterfield’s help, McGarry climbed unsteadily to his feet. Following Butterfield’s lead, he carefully eased his way across the slanting floor to the jumbled mass on the other side. Dropping to his knees, he tried to see through the tangle of warped metal, hoping to catch a glimpse of a white shirt or familiar thatch of dark hair.

Butterfield leaned over McGarry’s shoulder and directed the beam of a flashlight, recovered from one of the few remaining intact equipment lockers, into one of the gaps along the base of the pile.

"There!" The agent’s hand tightened suddenly on McGarry’s shoulder and he directed the man’s attention towards a small flash of color in the flashlight's beam. Color that transfigured itself into a red tie; the same color tie the President had been wearing that day.

"Mr. President?" McGarry ducked his head from side to side, desperately squinting along the path of the flashlight beam. "Can you hear me?"

No response.

"Mr. President? For God's sake, please?” Abandoning the protocol that had ruled him the last three years, he raised his voice and shouted frantically, “Jed?" He reached out impulsively to rip away the barrier separating him from his oldest friend, only to have Butterfield’s cautionary hand come down again on his shoulder.

"Take it easy, sir,” Butterfield warned, a flash of fear momentarily breaking through his usual bland and hard countenance. It was quickly replaced by an expression of grim determination when he said, “We have to proceed with care. That metal is extremely sharp, and we have no gloves or cutting equipment. If you lay your hands open, you won't be of any use to me, or to the President. Until we know their situation, we can't afford to scrabble around in here haphazardly."

Feeling Butterfield’s hand tighten briefly on his shoulder, McGarry nodded stiffly, firmly beating down the panic rising in his throat. Working carefully, forcing himself to keep an even pace, he cautiously began to remove items from the barrier. The sound of rain and dripping water joining the creak of broken metal as he and the agent worked.

He clenched his teeth in frustrated anger when thunder, far in the distance, began to rumble an ominous accompaniment to their careful work. Forcing himself to remain calm, McGarry knew what that sound meant. Their problems were about to get worse.

As if they already didn’t have enough to deal with.

The bulkhead had folded over to produce a tent-like effect but the upper edge had stopped its descent a little short of the floor, at one point by as much as two feet. It left what looked like a possible access point to the debris-filled area beneath.

It was at this point that the two men began to work more rapidly, in hopes of finding that the 'tent' had created sufficient space to protect the missing men --one man in particular--from being crushed.

As they worked, Butterfield kept up a running commentary. To hear the sound of his own voice, for his own benefit or his companion’s, McGarry wasn’t quite sure. He suspected a bit of both. In a strange way, the normally taciturn agent’s need provided a bit of reassuring comfort. Wincing as the jagged edge of metal sliced into his fingers, he listened.

"As nearly as I've been able to determine since regaining consciousness, our tail section more or less folded over, causing the inner bulkhead to collapse.” Pausing to catch his breath, Butterfield waved a tired hand in illustration.

The secret service agent’s expression stilled and, although McGarry had thought it a physical and emotional impossibility, grew even more serious. Hope and fear warred for dominance as he listened to the following words.

"I was unable to raise a response from either President Bartlet or Agent Sandler." Butterfield swallowed uncomfortably and continued. "The door to the cockpit is badly warped in the frame and impassable, but I was able to see through a space at the top of the frame. I'm afraid I have to report that it looks as though neither Colonel March nor Captain Johnston survived impact."

McGarry closed his eyes momentarily, hands painfully gripping a torn bit of wreckage. Taking a steadying breath, he asked, "Are you sure? I mean…you weren't able to get in to check."

Butterfield said nothing, but regarded him steadily.

McGarry looked away, for the moment unable to face the dire certainty in the agent’s gaze. "Of course you're sure", he muttered. "Sorry, stupid question." He took a deep breath and determinedly bent to his task. "So it's just us? What about the Marine detail?"

Butterfield looked back at the remains of the rear cockpit, the tangled mess of metal and bulkhead blocking the way to the far end of the passenger area. Again, he didn’t need to say anything. His eyes, bleak and tired, said it all.

McGarry closed his eyes and whispered a short prayer for all the dead. “So it is just us?”

"For the moment, yes sir." Butterfield pulled away yet another jagged section of metal and carefully laid it aside. Grunting with the effort, he continued, "Because I can't reach the cockpit, I'm unable to access the radio. But this is Marine One. Intelligence and the US Navy always have an exact pinpoint on her location whenever she’s in the air. I'm pretty sure that we came down on the other side of the ridge to that displayed on our flight plan. Given the scale of the assistance that will be mobilized on our behalf, I don't anticipate there's much chance of their missing us. We will be located very soon. Any delay after that will depend on the nature of the terrain, and ease of access to our location."

The worsening storm, as if to add it’s own terrible voice to the play, chose that moment to rumble its presence. Both men started involuntarily at the sound, exchanging worried glances.

“Or the storm,” McGarry spat out, frustrated and angry at circumstance.

“That too, sir.” Settling back for a moment, Butterfield slipped his hand under his jacket and closed his eyes.

"So, help's on the way even now, but we still don't know just when it'll get here", the Chief of Staff summarized grimly, pulling away another sheet of metal, all the while hoping to catch a glimpse of Bartlet or Sandler. "We're perfectly well able to wait and those poor devils in the cockpit don't care anymore. But we have no idea how long these two may be able to afford to wait until we get to them."

Butterfield’s lack of response signaled his fear that such a concern might well be moot when they finally reached their targets. He continued to work in grim silence, pausing every now and then to add his voice to McGarry’s and call out to the trapped men.

Getting a good grip on the edge of one over turned seat, Butterfield pulled then nearly doubled over, grunting as he pressed a hand to his side.

“Hey!” Concerned, McGarry reached out and grasped the agent by the arm. “You alright?”

Shrugging off the hand, Butterfield hitched in a quick breath, grabbed another bit of debris and stated flatly, “It’s nothing.”

“Ron…”

“I said,” he leveled McGarry with a narrow eyed glare that dared him to push the issue further, “It’s nothing.”

McGarry watched for a moment as Butterfield struggled with a torn bit of seat cushion, favoring his right side as he tossed it aside with a barely contained grunt. The man was in pain. How much or how badly, he knew if he asked he’d get the same response. Nothing. He wasn’t a doctor, but a mad list of possibilities ran through his mind. Ribs, internal injuries, nothing good came to mind.

Somehow, McGarry didn’t think their luck would hold that it was just a bad bruise, but he could hope. Without Butterfield, their chances of survival were markedly reduced.

Suddenly, Butterfield paused. Eyes narrowing, he leaned in closer and cocked his head to one side, listening intently.

McGarry looked at him, startled and alarmed. "What?"

The agent threw up a hand for silence, but McGarry had already heard a muffled groan sounding from behind the barrier. Hope sprang in his chest, almost suffocating him and his concerns for the agent were replaced with another. "Jed?"

The groan repeated and McGarry winced at the confusion evident in the sound, the bewildered fear in the broken cough that accompanied it. There was silence for a moment, only the sound of breathing and dripping water. Then he heard an abrupt gasp, followed by the sound of frenzied scrabbling as if someone were clawing frantically at something with their bare hands.

"Jed?" Leo was rewarded with even more panicked scratching and shallow, panting breathing. "Jed! Damn it!"

For the first time, Butterfield wore an expression of open alarm. "What's happening? Do you know what's wrong?"

"Not for certain, no!” McGarry nearly snarled his response to the agent’s concern. “But I'll bet you dollars to donuts it's that damned claustrophobia kicking in again, admittedly with good cause. It sounds as if he's having a panic attack." He raised his voice again. "JED! Listen to me! Calm down, you'll only hurt yourself or hyperventilate and pass out or something. And you know I'll never let you live that down! We're right here. We're coming for you and we'll have you out in no time. Now listen to me and stay still!"

He strained anxiously for a response, anything that would let him know he’d gotten through to the trapped man. The scrabbling noises slowed until only the sound of heavy breathing remained.

Finally, forced out between gulping breaths, a shaky voice called out, "Leo?"

McGarry went limp with relief and he saw a huge, uncharacteristic grin split the face of the taciturn security chief. He could feel a similar smile cracking the tense muscles of his own face. "Yeah, Mr. President. I'm here. How are you doin'?"

An explosive snort of shaky amusement rewarded him. "Leo, would you really like to know what I think of that question right now?"

"Normally, I think you’d know my answer, Mr. President. But right now, I'd welcome a lecture on the inappropriateness of my semantic choices."

"You would?"

McGarry almost grinned at the surprise of the involuntary response. "Yes, sir. Because a lecture right now would reassure me that you've got the whole breathing thing back under control."

He was rewarded with a hoarse laugh, more a cough but still filled with sarcastic humor. Even the crack of thunder, now nearly overhead, failed to still his joy at the sound. Things just might work out.

McGarry gave the man a moment to catch his breath, listening to the breathing in question and waiting for it to calm further. Careful not to set off another panic attack, he inquired gently, "Mr. President? You okay now?"

A few more deep breaths, then "Yeah…yeah, Leo. I'm okay."

"Good.” He exchanged a relieved glance with Butterfield before asking, “What can you tell us about your situation?"

McGarry could hear the President struggling to control his incipient panic. Never more than at this moment, he marveled at the man’s self control.

"Well, I can't really move…my right leg hurts…and there's something pressing down on my chest and head.” A creak of metal and a muffled grunt as Bartlett shifted as best he could under the weight pinning him down. “Feels like it might be a seat or something."

"Okay." McGarry actually felt himself relax just a bit. It wasn’t much, but things were looking up. Gesturing to Butterfield, he started once again to shift the rest of the wreckage and to work on clearing the gap.

"Leo?"

At the hesitant, still slightly breathless call, McGarry paused again. "Yes, Mr. President?"

"You, ah…you couldn't hurry, could you? Only, I'm not sure how long I can stay on top of … you know?"

McGarry softened his voice sympathetically. "I know, sir. You're doing fine. If it starts to get too much, call out to us, talk to us. We're coming. We'll be with you real soon."

"Thanks, Leo". A pause, then the voice returned with a definite quaver in it. "Ron?"

"Yes, Mr. President?" Butterfield leaned towards the voice.

"Are the pilots alright?"

Butterfield sat back on his heels and glanced at the Chief of Staff. He watched him struggle for a moment with the decision and hesitate, then grimly nod his assent for the agent to answer the question honestly. Equally grim, knowing full well how the truth would affect the man trapped under the wreckage, he leaned forward again and answered, "I'm very sorry, Mr. President. I'm afraid that they didn't make it."

“The Marines?”

“No, sir.”

There was a short silence. "You and Leo alright?"

Butterfield almost smiled, although his hand strayed to his side and a slightly guilty look shadowed his eyes. "Yes, Mr. President. Nothing some aspirin and a new suit wouldn't cure."

"I'm glad to hear that, Ron. Keep an eye on Leo, won't you? He's not very good at taking care of himself."

McGarry shot a look of long suffering exasperation at the pile.

"I will, sir." This time the agent did smile, if only a little.

"Ron?" Slightly more hesitantly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Agent Sandler …" Bartlet’s voice tailed off momentarily, "I'm sorry."

Butterfield’s eyes closed. "So am I, sir."

McGarry had no problems following that bit of dialog and what it meant. Upset, he spoke impulsively. "Are you certain, sir? I mean, you're not really in a good position to judge." Almost immediately, he kicked himself. Not again.

"I'm pretty sure, Leo.” Bartlet’s voice shook slightly. A long pause, then, “I can just feel his head when I stretch down my hand, and it's …” the words seem to catch in his throat.

The words may have remained unspoken, but not the terrible meaning. Exchanging a horror-stricken look with Butterfield, McGarry could hear the President’s breathing starting to stress again. "God, I'm sorry!” Redoubling his efforts to shift the twisted metal blocking the way, he said, “Mr. President, please listen. Concentrate on my voice. Concentrate on breathing slowly. We're nearly there."

The two men intensified their efforts, McGarry all the time keeping up a flow of inconsequential conversation, demanding responses from his trapped friend. Finally, he watched as, with a grunt that was both triumph and pain, Butterfield managed to haul loose a sizeable remnant of storage locker that had been blocking the gap. Dropping to his knees, McGarry wriggled under the overhang into the small space thus provided.

Butterfield passed him the flashlight and he quickly examined his surroundings. He was relieved to find that here, near where the bulkhead folded towards the cabin wall, it was possible to stand almost upright. The area around him was a jumbled mass of cabin fittings and structural materials. The space narrowed sharply as he played the torch further along, creating an eerie, cone-like effect. However, at this point the mass did not rise to meet the metal wall curving above, leading him to hope that it would indeed be possible for them to free the trapped man themselves.

A faint, odd smell tickled McGarry’s nose and his memory. It was barely there, shifting and fading as he moved his head. He couldn’t place it and felt somewhere deep down that he should.

A weak, broken cough issued from beneath the wreckage.

"Mr. President?" Heart in his throat, McGarry angled the light and peered in the direction the voice had seemed to come from.

"Here…I'm here!" Bartlet's voice sounded muffled, hope fighting with the panic riding just below the surface. A section of the pile shifted slightly, as if the man beneath had heaved upwards with all his strength.

McGarry abandoned caution and advanced the necessary step or two hastily. Behind him he heard Butterfield grunt as he squeezed his long frame into the gap they had created. Taking a deep breath and eyeing the twisted debris in front of him, the President’s Chief of Staff noted grimly that he and the secret service agent had their jobs cut out for them. This was not going to be easy.

Nearly laughing at the thought, McGarry choked it back. As if anything he’d done or contemplated in the White House these last three years could be considered easy. It all amounted to a warped game of mission impossible and somehow he’d always managed to find a way to win. Grimly, he set himself the task of figuring a way out of this one.

Losing was not an option.

As if the elements were laughing at him, a peel of thunder rolled almost directly overhead. Looking up, he listened as the rain beating down on the outer bulkhead increased its tempo, starting to come down in sheets.

Anxiety and fear for his friend cooled his thoughts, though he found it impossible to steady his erratic pulse. Playing the light along the wreckage, he noted that several rather heavy sections of metal, including the remains of yet another locker lay on top of and almost entirely concealing what did indeed appear to be one of the helicopter's passenger seats.

McGarry’s lips tightened. Somewhere beneath that chaos was his friend. He called out, "Mr. President?"

"Yes!"

The tense lines of his face relaxed and McGarry felt the knot in his stomach release. Bartlet's voice now seemed to rise from directly beneath the remains of the seat. Kneeling down, he put his hand on the back of the seat, willing the man trapped beneath to feel his presence. He called again, “Mr. President…”

“Leo?” Bartlet’s voice was deceptively calm, a faint tremor of mocking humor covering the thread of panic still fighting for dominance. “I warn you; the next words you utter had better not be 'are you there?' Could you please see about getting me out of here? Now?"

Swallowing hard, McGarry found his voice and replied thickly and with pride, "You know our staff motto, sir. We serve at the pleasure of the President. Be right with you.” He glanced up and exchanged a determined look with the waiting agent. Giving the man a curt nod, he said, “Ron? Can you squeeze in here beside me; I'm going to need a hand."

Butterfield eased alongside McGarry and the two of them once again began to slowly and methodically lift away metal fragments, awkwardly moving the pieces behind them and to one side.

Gingerly handling the jagged edges, McGarry was conscious of a sense of profound gratitude that Bartlet had been shielded by the padding of the chair. If not, he might well have been cut to ribbons.

Eventually, they had cleared enough to be able to get a good grip on the leather back of the upended seat. Satisfied at their progress, McGarry paused and called out hopefully, "Mr. President?"

"Yeah?" The note of stress had returned to Bartlet's voice. With the prospect of freedom so close to hand, he was having a hard time trying to control his emotions and desist from attempting to fight his way through the last of the barrier separating him from his rescuers.

"We've reached the seat you say is weighing down on you. We're about to attempt to lift it off."

"Good. Fine. Whatever. Just get it off me, Leo. It feels like forever since I've been able to take a deep breath."

"That's not such an unusual feeling for you, surely?" McGarry couldn’t help but smile as he said that.

The somewhat peevish response from the President of the United States didn’t disappoint him in the least.

"Leo, if this is your way of bringing up Toby's criticism of my delivery of that speech to the DC Law Society last month, that was not my fault! You know Sam loves long sentences. He calls it imagery."

"I think Toby called it 'forgetting to inhale', sir."

A brief grunt, somewhat resembling what McGarry might have called a laugh, issued from the granite-faced agent trying to get a good grip on the back of the passenger seat. A quick glance reassured the Chief of Staff that no, the laws of the universe had not been suspended and Butterfield was as stoically reserved as ever.

"Leo." The mild humor had leached from the President's voice again.

“Yes, sir?” McGarry turned his attention back to the job at hand.

"I want you to know that I appreciate the distraction and all, but I really need you to get me out of here. Please?"

"We're just maneuvering for a good angle," McGarry spoke reassuringly. "We don't want to jolt you when we lift it away, or have anything else fall down on top of you." He looked across at Butterfield, who nodded, and gripped his side of the seat firmly. "Ready?

Making sure his own grip was secure, Butterfield nodded again.

“Now!"

The two men heaved at the seat. For a brief, terrible moment, it stuck awkwardly in place, and then it abruptly yielded to their frantic tugging. They swiftly manhandled it to one side and then waited to see if their actions had caused a dangerous shift in the remaining wreckage. The sound of their heavy breathing, the constant drip of water, were the only things to be heard.

When nothing happened, McGarry breathed a sigh of relief. And for once the storm left out its mocking comments. Dragging out his flashlight, he shone it down into the dark space they had created at their feet.

President Bartlet blinked dazedly in the sudden blinding light, one hand coming up to cover his eyes. His face was dusty and had a deep bruise on one cheekbone. Another bruise darkened the line of his jaw. Blood coated the side of his head and matted his hair from a deep scalp wound just above his hairline, which was still bleeding profusely. His chest heaved convulsively as he struggled to bring his breathing under control.

Butterfield dropped to a crouch beside his charge, wadding a handkerchief against the head wound in an effort to stop the bleeding.

McGarry carefully lowered himself down on the other side and placed a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. Afraid of what he might see, he played the flashlight down over the President's body.

Bartlet's torso was visible to just below his chest. At that point his body disappeared beneath a heavy steel girder, clearly what was left of one of the bulkhead's main supports. To McGarry’s vast relief, the weight of the girder was held off the President's midsection by the debris on either side. One of Bartlet's arms was free and now lay across his chest, fingers nervously clenching and unclenching. The other arm disappeared beneath the girder. The trapped man had plainly been unable to withdraw it because of the awkward angle at which he lay among the rubble.

McGarry scowled as he looked at the point where that arm vanished beneath the debris. Somewhere under that pile, just within reach of Bartlet’s fingertips lay…he pushed the mental picture firmly from his mind, swallowing his deep regret for the young agent dead beneath the rubble.

Kneeling down, he gently touched his friend's shoulder. He nearly swore out loud when Bartlet turned a strained and slightly dazed face towards him.

"Sir?" he asked softly.

Shifting as best he could under the weight pinning him down, Bartlet coughed and grimaced slightly. "Think…I may have bruised my ribs," he explained. Catching his breath, he summoned up a weak smile. "Thanks, Leo. I was starting to feel a little confined, and you know how much I like to have room in which to expand my considerable personality."

McGarry smiled down at him. The humor, however weakly given, was a good sign. "We'll see if we can't find you a little more room, Mr. President." He looked inquiringly at Butterfield.

Butterfield looked up from his rudimentary first aid. The handkerchief was already soaked crimson. Catching the Chief of Staff’s alarmed expression, he nodded reassuringly. "It's not as bad as it looks, Mr. McGarry. Head wounds always bleed a lot. It needs stitches and if I can't stop it, the blood loss may make him nauseous and light-headed, but it's not exactly life-threatening."

The agent shifted his position slightly to better view his President's situation. His eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned into a bleak line.

From the look on the man’s face, McGarry knew he didn’t like what he saw.

"There's no way we can move that girder, or access under it,” Butterfield was saying, giving the remaining wreckage pinning his charge a supremely sour look, as if it had dared to offend him somehow. Shaking his head, he asked, “Mr. President, do you feel any weight on your legs? If the girder has created a pocket of space for your body, and nothing is pressing down on you, we may be able to drag you back out from beneath it."

Closing his eyes, Bartlet grimaced again and frowned in concentration. "My left leg is fine…can even move it a little. Just feels like the time that Michigan linebacker stomped on it at that college game. My right leg…I don’t know. It hurts pretty badly, and there seems to be some kind of pressure…" His voice trailed off and he paused. Uncertainty clouding his voice, he finally answered, "No, I don't think there's anything heavy lying on it though."

McGarry regarded him with some concern and more than a little suspicion. He hadn’t missed the hesitation and what it meant. He knew Josiah Bartlet far too well. He was a terrible liar. "Sir, are you sure? I mean, I know you want to get out of this, but we can't afford to take chances…"

"I do want out of this!" Bartlet interrupted vehemently, his voice laced with a desperate determination.

Although his expression changed very little, Butterfield looked on helplessly and waited, watching the two men. The President’s breathing had started to become labored again and he saw the Chief of Staff squeeze the man’s shoulder reassuringly. This call was out of his hands.

Stopping just short of pleading, Bartlet took a deep, gasping breath and said softly, "Leo? I need to get out of this. Just … try."

"Okay, okay. We'll try. Please, sir, relax.” McGarry patted his arm helplessly. There wasn’t much more he could do. “You won't do yourself or us any good if you tense up or pass out. Now, slow breaths, remember? Get it back under control and then we'll try."

He held his friend's hand, feeling the fingers cold in his grasp as Bartlet fought valiantly to get the panic back under control. His clothes were slightly damp. Rainwater was trickling in beneath him from the cracks in the fuselage and dripping off the twisted girders. That wasn’t going to help if he started to slip into shock.

And that smell. There it was again. McGarry turned his head, trying to capture it and the memory. He was so close. He started as a particularly nasty peal of thunder cracked overhead, chasing away the memory he was so close to catching.

Turning his attention back to the President, McGarry watched in powerless silence as Bartlett slowly calmed and regained his control. He mentally cursed the phobia that was making things so much harder for his friend.

When he was sure Bartlet was as calm as he could get under the circumstances, he nodded to Butterfield and they both eased up to slide their hands under the President's arms.

Keeping his voice as even as he could, McGarry said, "Sir, we're going to try to draw you straight back and out from under the girder. There's just enough room behind you. You ready?"

Swallowing hard, Bartlet nodded his assent and braced his free hand on McGarry’s upper arm. He felt Butterfield’s hand slide beneath his armpit on the other side and lift him slightly. He winced at the sudden pain the movement caused. Tensing in anticipation, he looked up just as the agent signed his readiness to McGarry.

Lips pressed tightly shut so no sound could escape, he braced himself as the two men pulled and together drew back on his arms.

Both men stopped abruptly, shocked as a sharp cry burst from the President. McGarry winced as the man’s fingers closed convulsively on his arm. Panicked, he looked down. Bartlet’s eyes were closed and his lips drawn back over his teeth in a grimace of pain. His body held rigid, and then suddenly deflated as the worst of the throe passed.

"What happened?" McGarry heard his own voice, high with fear.

The President shook his head, unable to answer.

Grim faced, Butterfield seized the flashlight and ran its beam over the President's body, looking for injury. He almost snarled his frustration when he failed to see anything obvious.

Finally the pain subsided enough to allow Bartlet to speak. "My leg!" He gritted out between his teeth, perspiration gleaming wetly on his face.

Butterfield crouched down further, his head nearly resting on the President’s chest and shone the flashlight into the tiny space between the man’s body and the girder. He stayed in position for some moments, carefully peering into the limited field of vision. Finally he drew back, shaking his head in angry self-disgust.

"What is it?" McGarry had eased an arm under his friend’s head and was cushioning it in the crook of his elbow. It was a useless question and from the look on Butterfield’s face, one he really didn’t want the answer to.

Bartlet lay still with eyes closed and face pale, his breathing punctuated by short gasps. Occasionally his throat moved as he swallowed convulsively against the bile rising in it as the pain in his leg burned and clawed at him.

"I should have checked before we tried anything." Butterfield shook his head, for the moment unable to answer further.

The agent was as angry as the Chief of Staff had ever seen him. That anger was no less intimidating for being directed at himself. McGarry could also see the pain hovering behind his eyes as he explained further. More problems added to the growing list.

"It's barely visible, but it looks as if one of the metal spars from the interior wall has embedded itself deep into his leg just above the knee. I can see blood welling up around the shaft, so we must have aggravated the hell out of the injury when we tried to pull him out of there."

Shocked, McGarry looked down at his friend. "We can't get him out?"

Butterfield shook his head. "I definitely wouldn't like to try it. There's no way we can reach the spar and we have no means to cut or extract it. We try to just haul him out, no telling what damage we could do. As it is, we may have already done more than enough harm. I just hope the bleeding slows, and that we didn't tear a major vein."

"And if we did?" McGarry already knew the answer, but had to ask.

"Then you had better hope that help comes very soon, Mr. McGarry." Butterfield was painfully blunt, his professional mask once again in place, his own pain and discomfort disguised by the concern for his charge. "At the moment I can't even reach the wound to try to place any kind of effective compress on it to slow the bleeding."

McGarry sat in stunned silence as the wind whistled noisily around the wreck, driving rain into the cramped interior. He looked down abruptly as the President stirred in his arms. Bartlet’s eyes fluttered open and the Chief of Staff winced to see them dull with pain. This shouldn’t be happening. It tore at his heart when the man smiled weakly up at him.

"Guess I called that badly, huh Leo?" Bartlet’s voice was thin, a weak shadow of the vibrant instrument that could weave spells with words. "I'm…sorry, old friend. I had a feeling something was wrong, but I wanted out so much, I just hoped it wasn't anything major."

McGarry tightened his arm around his friend reassuringly, felt the cold hand grip that arm tightly in return. "It's okay, sir. We'll deal with it. Don’t we always?"

Butterfield looked away.

"You'll have to be the one Leo…you and Ron. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help." Bartlet laughed weakly and he flashed a pale imitation of that impish grin. "The worst I have to worry about is maybe not making it. You on the other hand will be stuck with the joyful task of explaining to my loving spitfire of a wife just why you allowed her jackass of a husband to talk you into trying to haul him out of wreckage with a spar of metal through his leg."

McGarry froze, the implication of those words washing over him in an icy wave of powerless terror. If Bartlet himself honestly did not expect to come through this ordeal …he forced the thought away from him with violent anger. Damn it, no! He had faced the possibility of losing his friend too often since he had taken office. First the stunning news that his friend was suffering from a chronic disease that might one day rob him of his tremendous vitality and that alert intelligence, perhaps even his very life.

Then that dreadful night at Rossyln, the first panic and the false relief when he heard the President was on his way back to the White House. Fleeting release only, to be followed by that terrifying moment in the car when the agent told him he was sorry, but they had orders to divert instead to GW Hospital. The mad dash down the corridors to finally burst through the exam room doors and see…

He closed his eyes and swallowed, then looked down again at his President. Bartlet's face had a grayish tinge, and the hand that once again rested inside McGarry’s was cold and clammy. However, those pain-drawn features continued to gaze up at him quizzically and the blue eyes still retained their usual sparkle of intelligence, mingled with a faintly self-depreciating humor.

McGarry’s face felt stiff, but he forced the muscles into a smile. "Yeah, right! Don’t think you're going to get away with landing me with that task. This one you’re going to have to explain for yourself."

Bartlet's lips quirked up on one side. "Are you telling me,” he teased gently, "that the man who told a House Disciplinary Committee that it was his job to take a bullet for the President…oh, yes." At Leo's abashed look he tightened his grip momentarily in unspoken gratitude. "I heard about that…is still afraid to face the President's wife?"

McGarry swallowed and spoke with deliberate lightness. "Sir, with all due respect, a bullet can only kill me. The First Lady tends to maul her victims rather badly, especially those who have been careless enough to damage her husband in any way. I'd much rather die with all my limbs intact."

He was rewarded with a low snort of laughter and a faint murmur of, "Chicken!" before the President's eyes closed and his head rolled to one side to rest against the Chief of Staff’s chest.

Alarmed, McGarry looked up at Butterfield, who had remained silent throughout the exchange.

The agent leaned forward to touch his fingers lightly beneath the President's jaw. McGarry's eyes widened at the gesture and he sucked in a breath of relief when Butterfield pulled back and reassured his anxious audience with a slight nod.

"It's alright, Mr. McGarry, he's just passed out for the moment." Butterfield began efficiently ripping a long strip from the lining of his jacket. "We'll need to wake him again in a minute. Between the leg injury, the bleeding and the wound to his head it would be dangerous to allow him to sleep. He's already in danger of slipping into shock and we have no means of determining whether or not he may have a concussion."

"Oh God,” McGarry swore softly. A curse or a prayer, he wasn’t sure. A wave of apprehension, sheer dread, swept through him and he snapped, “Wake him, now!"

"In a moment, sir. I want to take advantage of the circumstance. This might hurt him otherwise." Butterfield understood McGarry’s fear, shared it. But he couldn’t afford to let it rule him or his actions. He held out his hand. "Can I have your handkerchief?"

"Huh?" McGarry blinked and gave the man a blank look, totally caught up in the feeling of the weight lying against him.

"Your handkerchief,” Butterfield repeated patiently. "I want to put a compress on his head wound. See if I can halt the bleeding there at least, given that we can't do much about his leg."

"Oh!" Flushing at his own stupidity, McGarry balanced Bartlet's head as well as he could while digging through his coat pocket. He became aware of an oddly warm, clammy patch on his shirtfront that cooled rapidly as he shifted position. He swallowed convulsively when he realized that the blood still streaming from the injured man's head had soaked right through the lining of his jacket.

Gritting his teeth, he silently handed the handkerchief to Butterfield and watched as the other man added it to his own soaked linen, pressing both down firmly on the wound, and started to wind the strip of jacket lining tightly over them and around the President's head.

"Ow!" Bartlet was awake now, startled by the manhandling and managing to throw a pretty good elbow into McGarry’s stomach.

Grunting and catching the flailing arm, McGarry pressed down gently on his friend's chest to prevent him moving suddenly. He’d wanted the man awake, but not like this. “Sir…”

"Damn it, that hurts!"

"Sorry, Mr. President,” Butterfield did not pause in his task. Truthfully, he was rather pleased Bartlet had the strength to grouse and complain. "Almost done." He reached down and snagged the pin from Bartlet's tie, using it to secure the rough bandage in place.

"Careful with that", the President growled irritably. "Abbey gave me that for our anniversary three years ago and I copped hell when I mislaid it for a week."

"I remember the search, sir." Butterfield's voice may have contained just a trace of ironic amusement. "I'm sure the First Lady would understand in the circumstances and approve."

"Whatever. Just so long as you know you'll be the one doing the explaining this time." The President's voice trailed off and his head began to loll back against McGarry’s chest again.

"Mr. President?” Worry clouding his voice, Butterfield tried to regain the man’s attention. “I'm sorry sir, but you can't fall asleep."

The only reply the agent received was a slightly peevish mumble.

"Mr. President?" McGarry tapped his friend's cheek gently, this time easily evading the feeble swatting motion that Bartlet made in response.

"Leave me 'lone…tired."

McGarry sighed heavily. "I know sir, but we really need you to stay awake until help gets here. You could have a concussion and we have no idea how badly your leg may be wounded. How does it feel?"

"Hmmm?" Bartlet roused himself with an effort. He shifted slightly, before freezing with a stifled groan.

McGarry tightened his arms around him instinctively, felt the man’s muscles tense, then relax. But only a little. “Sir?” He prodded, trying again for an answer.

"It hurts, Leo…a lot. And it's cold. My foot seems numb, can hardly feel it. In fact,” Bartlet’s whole body suddenly shook in an involuntary shiver, "I feel pretty cold all over."

McGarry shivered slightly in sympathy and suddenly became aware once again of the sound of wind and rain playing through the cracks in the damaged fuselage. If at all possible, the storm had become worse. The constant drip of water around them, the frequent and alarmingly close rumbles of thunder were testament to that unwelcome fact.

Gritting his teeth to stifle a grunt of pain, Butterfield rose abruptly to his feet. "I'm going to see if I can find blankets in the lockers remaining in the cabin. I'll be back in a moment. Please keep him talking, Mr. McGarry." He twisted around and ducked under the cleared area of overhang.

McGarry watched him leave, then looked down at the man resting against his arm and sighed. Bartlet’s eyes had already closed again and his breathing had softened as he hovered precariously close to sleep. He gently joggled the arm on which his friend's head was laying.

Forcing himself to keep the alarm out of his voice, he said loudly, "Hey!"

Bartlet’s eyes snapped open and he snarled angrily, "What!"

For a moment, the full force of the President’s formidable temper left McGarry speechless. Then he grinned and said, "You know, I'm getting a whole new appreciation for Charlie's hatred of waking you up in the mornings."

"Ha, funny." Bartlet countered with a cynical curl of his lip. Shifting as much as he was able, he thrust his free hand impatiently against the heavy girder imprisoning him.

"Careful.” McGarry gently captured the wavering hand. “You'll cut yourself and you can't afford to lose any more blood."

"Whatever."

McGarry was dismayed at the weary, pain-laced tone of the President's voice. Underneath that was a hint of something he’d never heard before. Resignation. That more than anything sent a chill up his spine.

"I feel like it's weighing down on me, Leo. Like I can't fill my lungs."

Closing his eyes briefly, McGarry tried to ignore the dull ache of foreboding those exhausted words produced. Bartlet was riding the ragged edge and there was nothing he could do to help. How did you cope with an irrational yet very real fear, especially under these circumstances?

He had always admired his friend's strength of will, but never more so than now. He knew it was taking every shred of Josiah Bartlet’s self control to prevent himself from trying to rip that metal spar right out of his leg in a frantic struggle for free