fun things to do on back-to-school monday
A TWW ficlet, written for the latest prompt on 15_minute_fic.
Title: On and On
Fandom: The West Wing
Episode/Timeline: Pre-series, after the first Iowa caucus. (Alternately, an episode insert for In the Shadow of Two Gunmen).
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: ~330
She stands on the sidewalk and looks into the plate glass window, watching as the men and women inside move around, as they cross back and forth from one desk to another, making notes and talking on cell phones and stopping to stare at television sets and appointment books and the little group of people clustered in the middle of the room.
She can see it in their faces, the energy, the sense of purpose, of being part of something. Of being no longer apart.
She’s sure her heart’s racing at well over 100 beats a minute. And she could explain exactly how many reasons that’s bad, right down to differential diagnoses based on her runny nose and the way her hair’s gotten brittle lately - those years of vicariously attending medical school ought to count for something, after all. But none of those facts will help her right now; none of those answers are right. What she’s suffering from is the sort of thing that is only cured by moving forward, by taking one step and then another and another, over and over until she’s anyplace but here.
Until she’s left the past well and truly behind.
She lets her gaze dwell for a moment longer on the crowd-within-a-crowd, men - and one woman - perched on desks and chairs, referring to their notes and talking with fast words and quick, incisive gestures. All of their energy directed at the one man at the center who sits still, silent and serious.
A statesman, maybe.
Her eyes shift to the sign displayed in the window. Bartlet for America. There’s something about it that calls to her, something in the sign’s simple honestly, propped up on the sill and tipping just slightly to one side; something about the idea of these people and that man that transcends her own desperation.
Donna squares her shoulders and takes the first step toward the door.
It’s as good a place as any to start the present.
Title: On and On
Fandom: The West Wing
Episode/Timeline: Pre-series, after the first Iowa caucus. (Alternately, an episode insert for In the Shadow of Two Gunmen).
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: ~330
She stands on the sidewalk and looks into the plate glass window, watching as the men and women inside move around, as they cross back and forth from one desk to another, making notes and talking on cell phones and stopping to stare at television sets and appointment books and the little group of people clustered in the middle of the room.
She can see it in their faces, the energy, the sense of purpose, of being part of something. Of being no longer apart.
She’s sure her heart’s racing at well over 100 beats a minute. And she could explain exactly how many reasons that’s bad, right down to differential diagnoses based on her runny nose and the way her hair’s gotten brittle lately - those years of vicariously attending medical school ought to count for something, after all. But none of those facts will help her right now; none of those answers are right. What she’s suffering from is the sort of thing that is only cured by moving forward, by taking one step and then another and another, over and over until she’s anyplace but here.
Until she’s left the past well and truly behind.
She lets her gaze dwell for a moment longer on the crowd-within-a-crowd, men - and one woman - perched on desks and chairs, referring to their notes and talking with fast words and quick, incisive gestures. All of their energy directed at the one man at the center who sits still, silent and serious.
A statesman, maybe.
Her eyes shift to the sign displayed in the window. Bartlet for America. There’s something about it that calls to her, something in the sign’s simple honestly, propped up on the sill and tipping just slightly to one side; something about the idea of these people and that man that transcends her own desperation.
Donna squares her shoulders and takes the first step toward the door.
It’s as good a place as any to start the present.