(no subject)
Title: Misadventures of the Campaign Kids
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: None (This be Gen/Ensemble)
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: General spoilers for the whole series
Disclaimer: Title from Kings of Prussia Song. The West Wing is the creation of Aaron Sorkin, I'm just mucking around in his toy box for the fun of it as the characters aren't mine (which on balance, is a very good thing as Sorkin = much better at this than me)
Notes: For tww_minis and the prompt of "Beginnings" because I couldn't resist the opportunity. This is the story of Jed Bartlet and the family he never intended - in lyrics, in prayer and in politics. And this story, in large part is dedicated to all my friends, online and off but especially raedbard, avon7, fuyu_ginga, jillkins and Laura, Kacey and Para.
Notes II: This is edited entirely by me and is my first real forey back in to straight TWW fanfic after a hiatus off to other fandoms. Any feedback - whether it be critical or otherwise is always accepted gratefully, particularly as I'm never sure I've quite gotten Jed Bartlet right and this is truly a flashfic - short, fragmentary and vaguely different from what I usually do.
That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall
not perish from the earth. (Abraham Lincoln)
If America is both the country that allowed Jefferson to pen the Declaration of Independence and to keep his slaves then is not Toby the living representative of this sentiment - to face the legacy of slavery, the crippling statistics that tell the story of a crippled country so that everyone might better reach for the ideals that exist side by side.
Jed wishes he'd been able to better make Toby understand his value, in this ability to push him to face what is wrong with the system. But he and Toby have always had that problem - both of them too full of words, too similar temperaments to truly have the full conversation that they always should have done - the one about democracy, faith, brotherhood and family and that most of all that Jed is sorry that Toby was the boy in school who got beaten up for not praying with the other children.
It is the beginning of a litany of apologies but somehow, he and Toby managed to find a space with each in which they could exist, despite everything and build something together - even if it was only of words and the act of speaking those words that formed them in to something whole. And it is as he said - Jed Bartlet (and America, he silently adds) couldn't do without Toby Ziegler and the dark bright mirror that he holds up to both.
"Let's have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Leo never required apologies, much of the time because he didn't particularly see himself as deserving of them - however many second chances he might give to other people. It would never have occured to him to berate Jed for a bad deed towards himself rather than a larger political or moral duty. Truth be told, Jed had never felt the need either because he'd assumed that Leo had always known, in the way that brothers do, that he was sorry.
Death has a way of crumbling away old certainties and now, as with Toby he finds himself penning half articulated phrases of apology, love, forgiveness - a thousand expressions of meaning that would have been so easy to say, had Leo been living. It is still too raw sometimes, to not imagine that Leo is no longer there to listen, mock and challenge him towards something higher than he imagined he could be, just as Toby did. And now both of them are gone and he wonders what it says about him, that he has inspired such loyalty in these two men.
Looking for your fingerprints / I find them in coincidence, / and make my faith to grow. / Forgive me all my blindnesses / my weakness and unkindnesses / as yet unbending still.
('Penitent', Suzanne Vega)
Zoey and Sam - the babies of the little family that is, even as they have children and families of their own now. He can't help thinking of them as the baby that he knew Zoey as and the child Sam, whom he wishes he'd known. In many ways they are very alike, these two - all golden smiles and stars in their eyes. Two kids, whose older brothers and sisters always felt the need to look after them and who could laugh together, most often over some kind of icecream.
That's how he'd come to Sam, through Zoey who had sought him out for reassurance and information about campaigns and had found a friend. And Jed Bartlet, who has never been very good at saying sorry, even when he knows he needs to - will forever be glad that he managed to say it to Sam, who made friends with his youngest daughter, was clumsy without being graceless and is truly a gentle man. As are all his sons and daughters.
Oh, let us turn our thoughts today/To martin luther king/And recognize that there are ties/between us/All men and women/Living on the earth/Ties of hope and love/Sister and brotherhood ('Shed A Little Light' James Taylor)
If Sam is the baby, the one who he finds so easy to please and whom his heart stabs every time he has hurt him then Josh is the oldest son, the one whom he is perhaps sometimes too hard too but it doesn't matter because Josh has always known he was loved, even if he never entirely thought that he deserved it. Josh, whom when he yelled at him that day, terrified Jed Bartlet because he saw too much of his own father in himself that night. Which is why the possibilities of broken glass and gunshots still haunt him and perhaps why it was less God, than himself that he was denying, that night in the Cathedral.
And CJ, who perhaps is similar to Josh except of course he is never sure that she knew what she meant to him. As with Toby, there are words left unsaid but with CJ it is also about actions and words that should not have been said. But somehow, like all his adopted children she has stayed and loved him, though sometimes Jed Bartlet wonders how much of it is about him and how much is about the ties they have built between them, these fatherless children.
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: None (This be Gen/Ensemble)
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: General spoilers for the whole series
Disclaimer: Title from Kings of Prussia Song. The West Wing is the creation of Aaron Sorkin, I'm just mucking around in his toy box for the fun of it as the characters aren't mine (which on balance, is a very good thing as Sorkin = much better at this than me)
Notes: For tww_minis and the prompt of "Beginnings" because I couldn't resist the opportunity. This is the story of Jed Bartlet and the family he never intended - in lyrics, in prayer and in politics. And this story, in large part is dedicated to all my friends, online and off but especially raedbard, avon7, fuyu_ginga, jillkins and Laura, Kacey and Para.
Notes II: This is edited entirely by me and is my first real forey back in to straight TWW fanfic after a hiatus off to other fandoms. Any feedback - whether it be critical or otherwise is always accepted gratefully, particularly as I'm never sure I've quite gotten Jed Bartlet right and this is truly a flashfic - short, fragmentary and vaguely different from what I usually do.
That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall
not perish from the earth. (Abraham Lincoln)
If America is both the country that allowed Jefferson to pen the Declaration of Independence and to keep his slaves then is not Toby the living representative of this sentiment - to face the legacy of slavery, the crippling statistics that tell the story of a crippled country so that everyone might better reach for the ideals that exist side by side.
Jed wishes he'd been able to better make Toby understand his value, in this ability to push him to face what is wrong with the system. But he and Toby have always had that problem - both of them too full of words, too similar temperaments to truly have the full conversation that they always should have done - the one about democracy, faith, brotherhood and family and that most of all that Jed is sorry that Toby was the boy in school who got beaten up for not praying with the other children.
It is the beginning of a litany of apologies but somehow, he and Toby managed to find a space with each in which they could exist, despite everything and build something together - even if it was only of words and the act of speaking those words that formed them in to something whole. And it is as he said - Jed Bartlet (and America, he silently adds) couldn't do without Toby Ziegler and the dark bright mirror that he holds up to both.
"Let's have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Leo never required apologies, much of the time because he didn't particularly see himself as deserving of them - however many second chances he might give to other people. It would never have occured to him to berate Jed for a bad deed towards himself rather than a larger political or moral duty. Truth be told, Jed had never felt the need either because he'd assumed that Leo had always known, in the way that brothers do, that he was sorry.
Death has a way of crumbling away old certainties and now, as with Toby he finds himself penning half articulated phrases of apology, love, forgiveness - a thousand expressions of meaning that would have been so easy to say, had Leo been living. It is still too raw sometimes, to not imagine that Leo is no longer there to listen, mock and challenge him towards something higher than he imagined he could be, just as Toby did. And now both of them are gone and he wonders what it says about him, that he has inspired such loyalty in these two men.
Looking for your fingerprints / I find them in coincidence, / and make my faith to grow. / Forgive me all my blindnesses / my weakness and unkindnesses / as yet unbending still.
('Penitent', Suzanne Vega)
Zoey and Sam - the babies of the little family that is, even as they have children and families of their own now. He can't help thinking of them as the baby that he knew Zoey as and the child Sam, whom he wishes he'd known. In many ways they are very alike, these two - all golden smiles and stars in their eyes. Two kids, whose older brothers and sisters always felt the need to look after them and who could laugh together, most often over some kind of icecream.
That's how he'd come to Sam, through Zoey who had sought him out for reassurance and information about campaigns and had found a friend. And Jed Bartlet, who has never been very good at saying sorry, even when he knows he needs to - will forever be glad that he managed to say it to Sam, who made friends with his youngest daughter, was clumsy without being graceless and is truly a gentle man. As are all his sons and daughters.
Oh, let us turn our thoughts today/To martin luther king/And recognize that there are ties/between us/All men and women/Living on the earth/Ties of hope and love/Sister and brotherhood ('Shed A Little Light' James Taylor)
If Sam is the baby, the one who he finds so easy to please and whom his heart stabs every time he has hurt him then Josh is the oldest son, the one whom he is perhaps sometimes too hard too but it doesn't matter because Josh has always known he was loved, even if he never entirely thought that he deserved it. Josh, whom when he yelled at him that day, terrified Jed Bartlet because he saw too much of his own father in himself that night. Which is why the possibilities of broken glass and gunshots still haunt him and perhaps why it was less God, than himself that he was denying, that night in the Cathedral.
And CJ, who perhaps is similar to Josh except of course he is never sure that she knew what she meant to him. As with Toby, there are words left unsaid but with CJ it is also about actions and words that should not have been said. But somehow, like all his adopted children she has stayed and loved him, though sometimes Jed Bartlet wonders how much of it is about him and how much is about the ties they have built between them, these fatherless children.