The day was still fairly young, but for the White House staffers, the day
had begun long ago. It was a crisp September morning outside, and the sky
was clear and blue with sunlight already beating down on the pavement,
belying the snap the air had. But inside the West Wing, no one could even
tell a difference.

Business as usual was the way it was, as it always seemed to be. They were
always in the middle of some crisis-political or otherwise. And while the
Russian situation hadn't escalated too much over the night, it had elicited
a certain amount of fear from the nation, and the White House, as the
Russian people were still reeling from the shock.

At her desk, Donna was talking on the phone, busily writing down the
message and notes she was collecting. "Okay, thank you," she said, and hung
up. After organizing the notes and adding an appointment to the calendar,
she established herself and went over to Josh's office.

"Gary Johansen," she said simply with no introduction.

"Excuse me?" Josh asked.

"Gary Johansen," she said again. "That's who you want to talk to about the
whole Russian thing."

"Who's Gary Johansen?"

"He's the guy you want to talk to."

"No, but why do I want to talk to him?"

"He spent ten years in the US Embassy in Russia, and just moved back last
May when the new President-late President-old-"

"I get the idea," Josh cut her off.

"So I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow afternoon."

"What time?"

"One. I'm not sure if Gary will make it himself but he assured me that one
of his people would."

"Do his people know what's going on?"

"I would think so."

"Okay, great."

Donna waited expectantly as Josh continued with his work. After a moment,
Josh realized that his blonde hair assistant was still standing there. "Was
there something else?" he asked.

"You know, a thank you might be nice every now and then," she said.

"Wha-where did that come from?"

"I do all these things for you and you never even say thank you. I mean,
you would be drowning in your work if it wasn't for me and I don't ask for
much. Just 'thank you' every now and then."

Confused, Josh tried to calm her. "Okay, okay, take it easy. Sometimes I
forget. Everything you do is very important to me. Thank you."

"Your welcome," she said, as she began out the office. "I just want a
little appreciation."

In typical Josh form, he stared confounded at nothing for moment. There
were times when his assistant was completely endearing and thoughtful.
Other times, she was the most impossible person to understand. Her mind
took turns he couldn't follow, and he never seemed to know why she was mad
at him once he figured out that she was mad at him. Shaking his head
decidedly, he concentrated his efforts on his work.

The press anxiously watched as CJ walked to the podium in the Press Room.
This was a routine for all of them, but as journalists, they made it point
to take every story and analyze it, looking for unique angles, angles with
an edge to them. And that edge depended largely on what CJ Cregg, the Press
Secretary, told them, and what they could get her to say. As they were
quick to learn, CJ didn't give them much besides what she intended to, but
they could never keep themselves from trying.

Professionally, CJ stood before them. Her face was more or less
expressionless-set in that Press Secretary mode that it always seemed to be
in. She straightened her notes and began without hesitation. "Good
morning," she began. "It's a fairly busy day today as most of you know, so
let's try to do this without getting too bogged down, shall we? Okay.
First off, we'll deal with what's most likely on your minds, the
assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Bartlet was
deeply shocked by the incident, and saddened. He and President Putin had
met over the summer to discuss relations between the United States and
Russia and was quite pleased by the outlook. Although he sends his
condolences to the Russian people, he hopes that friendship and goodwill
continues to grow between our two nations.

"Next, The First Lady arrived at the White House today after a four day
trip to Portugal to meet with other women from around the world to discuss
child labor…."

Washington was its usual and political self as the fall began to come upon
it. Seasons changed and the political scene continued as it always does.
But on that particular fall day, things were extraordinarily hectic for one
office in particular.

Gary Johansen had never been extremely prominent in the political scene, at
least not in the United States. He'd spent ten years living in Russia,
working at the US Embassy in Moscow. In that time, he dealt a lot on a
daily basis with Russian officials, but all under the direction of his
superiors. He'd come to love Russia as home, as did his family. Moving
back to the States had been a drastic change, but one they had all come to
appreciate. The job was less stressful here, since he wasn't in the heat of
the battle. Gary's job was much more indirect now, working mostly with the
Russian Embassy in DC.

And then the Russian President had been pronounced dead and everything fell
apart. The Russians were panicking, the diplomats in Russia were
frantically calling on the phone. The implications were completely
unpredictable. But predicting them was the only job he had right now.

He was on hold again, while talking to a US diplomat in Russia. He'd been
on hold a lot today, and was getting used to the emptiness of it. He was
humming to occupy himself when his young assistant walked in.

"I got Peter calmed down," she said softly, sitting down easily. "You'd
think that Russia had fallen off the map the way Peter was acting."

Gary shrugged. "Well, Peter worked his butt off trying to get Putin into
office and someone goes off and kills the guy. Plus, this is his home
country. At any given moment, Russia could fall off the face of the earth
with this kind of event."

"I guess," Caelan sighed. She fell silent and it was then that Gary first
noticed how frazzled the young woman looked. He'd hired Caelan Reed in the
beginning of the summer, but she became vital to his work almost
immediately. She was exceptionally bright and incredibly sweet, that he'd
fallen in love with her at once. Her perseverance and optimism were
qualities that made her irreplaceable as his assistant. She could do grunt
work, and she could handle delicate negotiations for him. He knew he was
lucky to find her and wondered how long it was before she left DC all
together. After all, he kept reminding himself, she was only in town while
earning her PhD in language.

"Did he say what he thought would happen?" Gary asked.

Caelan shook her head regretfully. "He's a mess. If I asked him which way
was up, he'd point down."

"Well-" Gary began but then the voice on the other end of the line came
back. "Yes, I'm here."

Caelan straightened, looking on with interest.

"I know, Chuck," Gary said, talking to US diplomat currently in the
Embassy. "No riots? Not yet? You think there will be? Yeah… it depends
on how Kovac handles himself… they need someone to follow… I understand.
Call me soon. Thanks, Chuck. Bye."

Gary hung up the phone with a gigantic sigh. Caelan looked anxious. "So?"

"So far, Russia's still in shock," Gary said simply. "They don't know what
to think."

"How's the government looking to regroup?"

"Hard to say. They're taking Kovac back to Moscow as we speak. He was
vacationing at the time."

"Is that wise?"

"They haven't got a choice. The people need to see a leader."

"When will Kovac be officially sworn in?" Caelan asked.

"Chuck doesn't know yet but probably next week. There has to be a certain
mourning period," Gary explained.

"Who'll be the VP? I doubt Kovac will instill a lot of confidence in the
people."

"I know. They're talking about Markov."

"Markov?" Caelan asked in disbelief. "When did he become a candidate?"

"Hard to say," Gary said. "But he's our focus. That's what we have to
tell the President's staff to look into-getting him on track."

"When are you meeting with them?"

"Well, I'm not actually meeting with them," Gary said hesitantly. "But
tomorrow at one… you are."

"I am?" Caelan asked slowly. "Why?"

"I've got to be here talking to Chuck all day. So, it's all you."

"Me?" Caelan repeated not fully grasping it as her stomach flipped. "Oh…
no."

"Don't worry, I have complete confidence in you."

"I'm glad one of us does."

~~that night~~

In the residence section of the White House, Josiah Bartlet was trying to
unwind from another day. Every day in his life was stressful anymore, and
it was only a question of whether it would keep him up all night or not.
And tonight was not looking for optimistic.

"You know, Abbey, even when I think I've got my country figured out, some
other country has to come along and have problems," Jed said, as he lay in
bed by his wife.

"Well, then don't worry about them," she said tiredly. Her days were
stressful too, but she could always shed them at the door and sleep was
beckoning her.

"Yeah, right, like that's possible," Jed scoffed. "I would if that was an
option but unfortunately it isn't. I may be the leader of this country but
somehow that makes me involved in just about any and every other country
around. Especially Russia."

"Is this about the Russian president being assassinated?" she asked, giving
up on trying to sleep and sat up.

"Russia is a big country and it's always been one of those countries we've
watched with disdained. In general, they scare the crap out of us. And
that just ticks me off."

"What do you want to do about it? What can you do about it?"

"I don't know," Jed admitted. "I've got my staff looking into the
implications. Maybe this will have nothing to do with the stability of the
country but what are the odds of that. All we need is for the Russian
people to panic, overthrow the government, following some insane madman like
Lenin or Stalin again. But knowing my luck, that's what we're headed for."

"Yes, I'm sure that the Russian people will panic just so you can't sleep
at night," Abbey agreed sarcastically. "The Cold War never really ended.
This is all apart of the Russian conspiracy."

Jed cast an annoyed glance at his wife who simply smiled at him. "You
know, Abbey, that's not funny," he said. "I've got to see the big picture
to run the country. And that's a lot of responsibility."

Abbey groaned. "Yes, Jed, I know. Trust me, I know that by now. Those
are tremendous responsibilities. But they're not your only responsibilities
and I would argue that they're not even your most important
responsibilities."

"Do you care to enlighten me as to what are my most important
responsibilities?"

"Well, first of all there's yourself. Jed, you can't burn yourself out for
the country. It's no good for you, and it's no good for them in the end
either. And then there's me. I need you, Jed. Maybe that's selfish, but
you said you'd be there for me when we got married and I'm holding you to it
whether you're the President or not. And then there are the girls. Our
girls may be mostly grown up, but they still need a father. Just because
they don't live at home anymore doesn't mean they have any idea what they're
doing," Abbey said. "When you really compare them, doesn't the whole
Russian situation just pale?"

Jed thought about it for a minute. "Now all that did was make me more
worried," Jed finally said jokingly.

Abbey rolled her eyes and laid back down. "Go to bed, Jed."

Jed laughed and finally laid down. "Goodnight, Abbey."

TBC....