The Texas Connection:
Part 8


Kasey

---

Leo appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Baby…how ya doin', Sam?"

"…Okay, Leo…"

"You sound outta breath."

"Kinda…"

"Feeling better?"

"Better than…having bullets in me?" he smiled weakly but stopped when he saw
Mal stiffen. "…Sorry.."

"…Baby, we've gotta get going."

"What?!"

"They're kicking us out for a little bit so everyone can get some rest."

"I'll rest here," Mallory insisted.

"C'mon, Mallory, let's go to the hotel. The phone numbers are at the nurses'
station so if anything should happen we could be here in fifteen minutes."
Mallory looked helplessly over at Sam, who was looking a little lost but
trying to be brave. "I'll wait outside." He walked out into the hall.

"…I've gotta go…" she murmured.

"Yeah." He didn't want her to leave, to be alone, to have to think about what
had happened, what had almost happened.

"I'll be back as soon as Dad lets me, I promise."

"Mmhmm." He nodded weakly. She kissed him gently on the forehead and
reluctantly left.

~*~*~*~

She was much too smiley. And too fake, too. She kept smiling while she gave
him staged sympathetic eyes and laid a hand on his knee, which he wanted
badly to slap away.

But he had his orders. He wouldn't do anything that would be considered
stupid.

Even if the bimbo WAS driving him insane.

"And I would-…I mean, I've never been shot at, obviously, but I would imagine
it would be…**awful**…" She stressed the word "awful" the way a
five-year-old stresses words he knows are 'bad' but says anyway - a sort of
hushed, dramatic tone. And she didn't move her hand, either.

"It certainly wasn't a picnic," he muttered, trying not to go off on someone
- probably Leo, for making him do this ridiculous exercise.

"Do they have any idea who was behind the attack?" asked the guy, who wasn't
much better…there was enough gel in his hair to choke a horse - not that Toby
had any idea how much gel exactly would choke a horse. It was quite possible
that the gel itself would POISON the horse, so there would be no point in
sending more down its throat.

And the conversation going on in his head was truly beginning to annoy him
more than the blonde host.

"The Secret Service is looking into it, but it's policy that we can't comment
on Secret Service procedure or investigations."

But the blonde was talking again. //Y'know,//he thought with a mirthful grin,
//there really should be a law against IQ's that low. Not even IQ so much as
common sense.//

"How's Josh Lyman coping with all this?" Where'd that question from? Clear
blue sky, he swore. "He barely lived the last time there was an
assassination attempt, now a friend of his is lying in surgery…this has gotta
be pretty rough on him…"

//Lady, if you had any idea…//

"…What's he thinking?"

"We rarely have any idea what Josh is thinking," he answered, and the two
hosts laughed.

"We have to go to commercial now…stay right where you are, we'll be back
after these messages with Toby Ziegler, White House Communications Director,
who's speaking with us about the assassination attempt yesterday on President
Josiah Bartlet. Stick around."

"We're out."

//Remind me to kill Leo,// he thought. At least Larry King had kept his hand
off Toby's knee.

~*~*~*~

The office was most gorgeous from the desk. One could admire the room from
any number of places, but it was absolutely amazing from the desk.

The dark-haired Texan sat down in the chair and gazed at his surroundings,
then grinned at no one but the sunlight streaming through the large windows.
"Mission accomplished," he chuckled in self-praising triumph. "Mission
accomplished indeed."

---

part 9

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