Five things meme. Again.
Months ago,
catwalksalone gave me three Five Things to do. The first two are here and here, so this is the last one. *whines* It was haaaard.
Five things Jed misses about being President
(1) The mess was always quiet at night, and was always cool, even in the middle of summer. He liked nothing better than to pad down there, along silent, 1 AM hallways lined with the remnants of history. Of others like him. He thought of men, gray men and young men, filled with fire and idealism and experience, and wondered if anyone in the future would make the same trek and think of him.
Some days he hoped they would. Some, he didn't. And others, he didn't think about it. He knew those were his best days.
He loved going down there most when there was a thunderstorm. He would walk peacefully down the final staircase and sit at a table in the middle of the mess and listen to the thunder and the sound the rain made against the windows. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was alone in a darkened, empty building waiting for the morning, for sun and the fire of idealism. A building that was in the same state of flux as he was. He never felt lonely.
The men on the walls, the men that had sat in his seat before him, kept him company.
(2) Some days were nasty. Nothing went right, and that meant people dying, or a peace disintegrating, or a country hating them. His failures were the world's failures, but they felt personal. When he failed, people in Switzerland, hospital patients in Zambia, soldiers in Israel, were affected.
It really was no wonder he couldn't sleep.
But he missed the good days. The really good ones, signed papers and smiles. And someone had healthcare and someone had peace and someone had a second chance, and someone had her son back. He missed the handshakes and the successful rescue missions and the yes votes that everyone stuck around to watch even though they all knew they had won ten votes ago.
He missed them. It was worth the lack of sleep.
(3) The ice cream.
He had never had such good ice cream. He liked the hazelnut and the pistachio the most, but when he was feeling playful, he'd have rocky road, and on bad days he'd have caramel. When he felt like relaxing, when he needed something comforting, it was vanilla, and for really hot days, he had chocolate. There was mint chocolate chip, maple walnut, bubble gum, cookies and cream, strawberry, mango sherbet, and cookie dough (his secret indulgence).
Abbey joked that she could always tell his mood from the flavour ice cream he was eating. She didn't keep more than three flavours around the house, and he missed throwing open the mess freezer and watching the way the moods turned into colours and the colours turned into tastes. You couldn't get that with anything else.
(4) When everyone else had left, for home or the bar, they'd sit in the Oval Office or in Leo's, two ancient dinosaurs on the edge of extinction, and talk. Good talks, long ones over cigars. Sometimes about work, but usually about old times, as if by talking about university, they could go back there. Not that Jed ever wanted to. He liked it here, this time. His time. And if he was going extinct, so be it. He'd be the first to welcome the asteroid. But in the meantime, he just wanted to watch the sky fade through spectrums from inside, and talk.
Explosions were for daylight.
(5) When it was late and he couldn't sleep, he would sometimes walk through the West Wing. Sometimes, Toby was there, muttering to himself and leaning over his yellow legal pad, ripping up pages and dropping them, forming a pile by his desk. Jed would watch, not wanting to interrupt him, and marvel at the way the ideas were spun out into words and the ink dried dark on the pages.
Sometimes, Sam was there, the light from his laptop screen the only illumination in the office. Not even noticing, Sam would rub his eyes free of the strain and his fingers would resume tapping on the keyboard with barely a break, fingers that made images real and dreams tangible.
Sometimes, it was C.J., hunched over paperwork with CNN muted beside her. Or she'd be on the phone, waking someone up - an editor, a donor - and telling them what they needed to do. And they would do it. She was as strong at 1 AM as she was at 1 PM, and the paperwork never had a chance.
Sometimes, Josh was there, and always, inevitably, Donna with him. Josh would always stand when he saw him, and Jed would wave him back down, and Josh would ask him what he needed, hovering over him, like clockwork. Jed would smile and they'd talk for a while as the younger man somehow simultaneously argued with Donna, a feat that never failed to make Jed smile. And he knew that when he left, the two of them would go back to work, fixing something, making it better, preparing to fight with him in the morning. Fight with Leo. Fight with the Republicans.
He dropped by one night and Josh was on the floor, propped against his desk, head lolling back, with Donna asleep on his lap. It was late - nearly three in the morning - and they had been at work since 5:30 the day before. Jed's mouth quirked at the sight of them, and he dragged Josh's coat off the hook and over the two of them before ambling back to the Residence.
It was cold, after all.
It was as if the building never changed, the common late-nighters just fading in and out of its blackened halls, eating away the dreams they offered up. And it would continue to do so for long after they were gone. It was comforting, in a way, to know that they weren't the first and wouldn't be the last. Life went on around them. They weren't all-powerful. It was something he needed to remind himself, occasionally.
And in the daylight, work awaited, chaos ready to claim him back. He smiled and waited for morning.
catwalksalone gave me three Five Things to do. The first two are here and here, so this is the last one. *whines* It was haaaard.
Five things Jed misses about being President
(1) The mess was always quiet at night, and was always cool, even in the middle of summer. He liked nothing better than to pad down there, along silent, 1 AM hallways lined with the remnants of history. Of others like him. He thought of men, gray men and young men, filled with fire and idealism and experience, and wondered if anyone in the future would make the same trek and think of him.
Some days he hoped they would. Some, he didn't. And others, he didn't think about it. He knew those were his best days.
He loved going down there most when there was a thunderstorm. He would walk peacefully down the final staircase and sit at a table in the middle of the mess and listen to the thunder and the sound the rain made against the windows. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was alone in a darkened, empty building waiting for the morning, for sun and the fire of idealism. A building that was in the same state of flux as he was. He never felt lonely.
The men on the walls, the men that had sat in his seat before him, kept him company.
(2) Some days were nasty. Nothing went right, and that meant people dying, or a peace disintegrating, or a country hating them. His failures were the world's failures, but they felt personal. When he failed, people in Switzerland, hospital patients in Zambia, soldiers in Israel, were affected.
It really was no wonder he couldn't sleep.
But he missed the good days. The really good ones, signed papers and smiles. And someone had healthcare and someone had peace and someone had a second chance, and someone had her son back. He missed the handshakes and the successful rescue missions and the yes votes that everyone stuck around to watch even though they all knew they had won ten votes ago.
He missed them. It was worth the lack of sleep.
(3) The ice cream.
He had never had such good ice cream. He liked the hazelnut and the pistachio the most, but when he was feeling playful, he'd have rocky road, and on bad days he'd have caramel. When he felt like relaxing, when he needed something comforting, it was vanilla, and for really hot days, he had chocolate. There was mint chocolate chip, maple walnut, bubble gum, cookies and cream, strawberry, mango sherbet, and cookie dough (his secret indulgence).
Abbey joked that she could always tell his mood from the flavour ice cream he was eating. She didn't keep more than three flavours around the house, and he missed throwing open the mess freezer and watching the way the moods turned into colours and the colours turned into tastes. You couldn't get that with anything else.
(4) When everyone else had left, for home or the bar, they'd sit in the Oval Office or in Leo's, two ancient dinosaurs on the edge of extinction, and talk. Good talks, long ones over cigars. Sometimes about work, but usually about old times, as if by talking about university, they could go back there. Not that Jed ever wanted to. He liked it here, this time. His time. And if he was going extinct, so be it. He'd be the first to welcome the asteroid. But in the meantime, he just wanted to watch the sky fade through spectrums from inside, and talk.
Explosions were for daylight.
(5) When it was late and he couldn't sleep, he would sometimes walk through the West Wing. Sometimes, Toby was there, muttering to himself and leaning over his yellow legal pad, ripping up pages and dropping them, forming a pile by his desk. Jed would watch, not wanting to interrupt him, and marvel at the way the ideas were spun out into words and the ink dried dark on the pages.
Sometimes, Sam was there, the light from his laptop screen the only illumination in the office. Not even noticing, Sam would rub his eyes free of the strain and his fingers would resume tapping on the keyboard with barely a break, fingers that made images real and dreams tangible.
Sometimes, it was C.J., hunched over paperwork with CNN muted beside her. Or she'd be on the phone, waking someone up - an editor, a donor - and telling them what they needed to do. And they would do it. She was as strong at 1 AM as she was at 1 PM, and the paperwork never had a chance.
Sometimes, Josh was there, and always, inevitably, Donna with him. Josh would always stand when he saw him, and Jed would wave him back down, and Josh would ask him what he needed, hovering over him, like clockwork. Jed would smile and they'd talk for a while as the younger man somehow simultaneously argued with Donna, a feat that never failed to make Jed smile. And he knew that when he left, the two of them would go back to work, fixing something, making it better, preparing to fight with him in the morning. Fight with Leo. Fight with the Republicans.
He dropped by one night and Josh was on the floor, propped against his desk, head lolling back, with Donna asleep on his lap. It was late - nearly three in the morning - and they had been at work since 5:30 the day before. Jed's mouth quirked at the sight of them, and he dragged Josh's coat off the hook and over the two of them before ambling back to the Residence.
It was cold, after all.
It was as if the building never changed, the common late-nighters just fading in and out of its blackened halls, eating away the dreams they offered up. And it would continue to do so for long after they were gone. It was comforting, in a way, to know that they weren't the first and wouldn't be the last. Life went on around them. They weren't all-powerful. It was something he needed to remind himself, occasionally.
And in the daylight, work awaited, chaos ready to claim him back. He smiled and waited for morning.