Ghosts in the Smoke Part 24

Disclaimer: I don't own these lovely characters, Aaron Sorkin and his friends do.

Sam and Josh are caught in a hotel fire.

Spoilers: Everything up through The Leadership Breakfast (set two days later)

Archive: Anywhere you want, just please e-mail me Partnrpal@aol.com

Ghosts in the Smoke

By Mer

Part 24

Georgetown Hospital-Josh's Room

"Josh buddy, I'm here for you. Please wake up please wake up. You have no idea how much I need to hear you yell at me for allowing this to happen. Please Josh I need you to wake up." Sam stated.

"He's not going to listen to you, last night you told him that you didn't need him remember?" Matt's voice filter back into Sam's head.

"Josh, if I said that earlier I didn't mean to." Sam apologized.

"Sure, like he really heard your apology." Matt replied.

"Can't you just leave me alone for a few minutes? Just let me say a few things to my best friend and then you can harass me all you want." Sam stated.

"You are talking to your best friend." Matt taunted.

"I'm going to ignore you now. Josh I need you to get better. I feel so bad for what happened. I wish that there was some way that I could take your place." Sam began.

"Yeah buddy consider yourself lucky, when he heard I was in a car accident he jumped for joy when he found out I burned up like a crispy critter." Matt replied, pretending to talk to Josh.

"Would you leave him alone?" Sam asked.

"Like he can really hear me anyway. I'm just a figment of your demented imagination." Matt replied.

"Anyway, Josh I am so sorry that this happened. Please wake up soon so that I can apologize to you properly." Sam stated.

"My, my, Samuel I didn't realize just how close the two of you were." Matt taunted.

"I cannot believe I am fighting with a make believe ghost." Sam muttered.

"Hey I'm not completely make believe." Matt complained.

"Like I said just let me talk to Josh for a few minutes will ya?" Sam begged.

"You know he has been worse of a friend to you then I ever have been." Matt commented.

"Oh really and how is that?" Sam asked.

"I can't tell you now, you want some quality time with comatose boy over there." Matt replied.

"I swear by the end of the day they are going to declare me insane." Sam commented.

"Might not even take that long." Matt replied.

"Anyway Josh." Sam said in a loud voice, as if to prove that he was going to ignore Matt now.

Sam tried to shake Matt out of his head as he studied Josh. Josh looked as bad as everyone had warned him that he would look like. But still it seemed a little surreal. It seemed to much like six months earlier.

Sam remembered what had happened after they found Josh, lying on the steps bleeding. Again, visions of the blood from the night before invaded his thoughts. He looked down at his hands again in shame and it appeared that they were bleeding.

"I have Josh's blood on my hands. I have Josh's blood on my hands." Sam began to repeat over and over again.

More visions of the previous night crept back into his memory. They were the visions of Josh clawing at the rubble because he had been so hurt by what Sam had said. The vision of Josh's arm swinging oddly reminded Sam of a pendulum swinging back and forth.

"So you have his blood on your hands what are you going to do about it?" Matt taunted.

"Oh shut up will you." Sam yelled.

"If that is what you really want. I will leave you alone then." Matt said in that same dejected voice that he used to use when he wanted to guilt Sam into going along with something.

"I never meant for you to be so hurt by last night. I have you're blood on my hands already. What more do you want from me huh? What more do you want from me Josh? So what if your sister died in a fire when you were little, that doesn't mean that you are going to die in one too. You aren't even in the building anymore Josh. You are safe now. Please wake up." Sam began to rant.

Georgetown Hospital-Just outside of Josh's Room

"How much longer are you going to give him?" C.J. asked.

"A few more minutes and then I am going to make him get some more rest. So were you able to sleep when you went home?" Abbey asked.

"Not really, I just mainly tossed and turned. I tried to call Toby and see what his problem was earlier but I got no answer." C.J. replied.

"Maybe he went to bed after all." Abbey suggested.

"If he even went home, which I highly doubt. Anyway, what happened to Donna? I haven't seen her since I came back this morning. Is she okay?" C.J. asked.

"Well, she was emotionally drained after last night and it all came spilling out when she was visiting Sam this morning. I knew that I couldn't convince her to go home so I had Margaret come and get her. Margaret has explicit instructions to send her up to Residence to get some sleep. I had to bribe Zoey, but she's promised to help look after her." Abbey replied with a sigh. v
"What did you bribe Zoey with?" C.J. asked.

"I bribed her with tickets to this concert that I said she couldn't go to." Abbey moaned.

"Why didn't you want her to go?" C.J. asked.

"Just because of security reasons and because I hate the band that she wanted to see. Well, mainly because I hated the band that she wanted to go and see. But I knew that someone needs to watch over Donna so I had to relent." Abbey replied. v
"Tough break. You can either be the evil mom or be the concerned doctor. So what did she throw the concert in as a way of her saying yes?" C.J. replied.

"No, I brought it up. But I'll bet she would've said yes even if I hadn't brought up the concert." Abbey replied. v
"She knows how to get what she wants." C.J. laughed.

"I'm surprised she asked me about the concert anyway. She usually talks to her father about this things." Abbey replied. v
"He was probably busy." C.J. commented.

"Yeah that or he already told her no." Abbey joked and they both laughed.

"Do you think that we…" C.J. began but her voice was muffled by the sounds of screaming coming from Josh's room.

"Wake up! Wake up right now! I already have your blood on my hands! I already am being tortured enough by that. Please wake up, now! I know that you are only doing this to piss me off! I already have your blood on my hands! I already have your blood on my hands!" Sam screams echoed in the hallway.

"I think I know what this means." C.J. replied but was barely heard over Sam's screams. v
"Sam's time is so definitely up." Abbey murmured and they both re-entered Josh's room.

Sam had wheeled himself even closer to Josh's bed and was trying to violently shake Josh wake. When that didn't work he was trying to pound on Josh to get him to wake up. There was no response from Josh and that was getting Sam even more agitated. He was screaming for Josh to wake up and Abbey could tell that he had lost touch with reality. v
Abbey told C.J. to try and restrain Sam and she went and got some help. C.J. wrapped Sam up in a bear hug in attempts to keep him from hurting Josh any further. Sam struggled in her arms and C.J. tried soothing words to calm him down but that didn't work. Sam managed to knock her down and he began to hit Josh in the face in his vain attempts to wake him.

C.J. started to get back up when Abbey returned with a doctor and two orderly's. The doctor wasted no time in jabbing Sam with a needle. Sam yelped out in pain and he tried to fight the affects of the drug he had been injected with. His fight didn't last long and he collapsed back into the wheelchair.

"You okay?" Abbey asked as they wheeled Sam back out of the room.

"I guess. I have never seen him so violent before. I was truly scared of him. What happened?" C.J. replied in a shaky voice. v
"Sam snapped on his own this time. I don't think it was because of an infection. I think that the hell he went through last night just became too much for him." Abbey replied.

Abbey looked over at Josh and realized that he was bleeding slightly from his nose. She took a Kleenex out of her pocket and she wiped the blood away. C.J. came over and Abbey wrapped her arm around her, as they both looked at the bruises that was starting to form on his face.

"He's probably going to have a black eye you know. How the hell do I explain that?" C.J. asked softly.

"I don't know if there is any explanation for that." Abbey replied.

Links

go back to last part
go back to general stories page
go on to next part
home