ACT TWO
INT, FIRST LADY'S OFFICE, NOON

Donna pushed the door to the First Lady's office open with her elbow.

"I brought…" she trailed off, seeing that her boss was on the phone.

"No, I appreciate you calling and letting me know. I'll talk with his pediatrician again. Thank you," Helen said into the receiver and then hung it up. "I thought you were having lunch with Josh," she said to Donna.

"He had to cancel. Big doings in the West Wing. So I brought us something from the Mess. I thought maybe we could talk about the Hamilton trip again." Donna set the tray she was carrying on the small
work table in the corner of the office.

Helen picked up her fork and took a bite of the salad Donna had brought up. "I just don't feel right leaving town during the kids' first week of school. That was Peter's teacher on the phone already. He's been coughing all morning and won't stop kicking his desk."

"Back to school jitters?" Donna asked.

"I don't know. He's had the cough since the spring and I talked to Dr. Perez about it when he was here last month to do their back-to-school physicals. He thought maybe it could be an early indication of asthma, but other than the cough, there aren't any symptoms and the cough is a little strange. Just a little throat-clearing kind of thing."

Donna gave Helen a sympathetic smile. "Maybe it's just stress. God knows those two have been through enough of that in the past eighteen months."

"Maybe."

The two women ate in silence for a few minutes before Donna broached the reason for her visit again.

"You know we'll be gone while Peter and Miranda are at school, right? And we'll be back by the time the President heads for New York that night? This is an important program that we went to a lot of work to get some important people behind. Friday is a big day and your absence would be seen as a lack of support for the program. I don't mean to be pushy, ma'am, but it's easier for Advance to set these things up ahead of time than it is to add them at the last minute. Can I at least put it on the schedule and if something comes up, we cancel?" Donna was concerned at the way Helen seemed to be shifting her focus entirely back to the kids and hoped it was just a symptom of their going back to school.

CUT TO:
INT. COMMUNICATIONS BULLPEN, THIRTY MINUTES LATER

"Lou, where's Lester?" Josh asked, leaning against her doorframe.

Lou looked up from the pile of papers on her desk. "He's out with Otto trying to find his mojo."

"Lester and Otto are out trying to find Lester's mojo?" Josh scratched his head. Lester's last press briefing had been fine.

"No," Lou shook her head and leaned back. "They're looking for Otto's mojo."

"Do I care about any of this?"

"They're trying to pin down a decent topic for the ABA convention speech on Friday. We've been having some issues. Otto's blaming his mojo, or lack thereof.

"I didn't really care." Josh rolled his eyes and got on with his business. "Anyway. When you see Lester, let him know that if anyone asks him why Frank Weldon is in town, it's because he's attending a CIA briefing on Middle-eastern terrorism trends."

"If anyone asks, Frank Weldon is in town for a CIA brief on Middle-eastern terrorism trends," Lou parroted. "Got it. Do I get to know anything more than that? Like maybe who Frank Weldon is?" The name was tantalizingly familiar, but she couldn't place it without context.

"Just tell Lester," Josh admonished.

"It's a close hold. Got it."

Josh nodded and headed back to work. He took about three steps before spinning around and returning to Lou's door. "You'd better page Lester with that. God forbid he and Otto went looking for Otto's mojo out on the Mall or something."

"You really think some reporter is going to walk up to Lester sitting on a park bench and ask him about some dude named Frank Weldon?" Lou took in the seriousness of Josh's expression and picked up the phone to page Lester.

CUT TO:
EXT. PARK BENCH, WASHINGTON MALL, SAME TIME

"What are we doing out here?" Lester asked, watching Otto throw breadcrumbs to the pigeons gathered around them.

"I'm trying to find my mojo."

"By sitting on a park bench throwing bread at birds?"

"Hey, you never know what will work," Otto said defensively.

"You think we're going to find a topic for Friday night's speech out here?" Lester guessed.

Otto looked at his friend miserably. "I could care less where the inspiration comes from, as long as it comes. Lou has shot down seventeen straight themes and six drafts, Lester. I'm running out of ideas!"

"What's this week's message?"

"Do I look stupid? That was the first thing I tried. Three weeks ago!"

"Excuse me, Lester, I'm sorry to interrupt." Lester was saved from a detailed recitation of Lou's decimation of the draft by the appearance of a tall brunette.

"That's okay." Lester smiled at the Washington Post's White House correspondent. "Hey, Peggy, have you ever had an editor shoot down everything you write before?"

"Oh sure," Peggy laughed. Lester pulled his buzzing pager off his belt and read the message from Lou while the journalist rambled on about the methods she used to overcome the occupational hazard. "Anyway, what I was wondering, and this is going to sound a little odd, is—do you know what Frank Weldon is doing in town?"

"Frank Weldon?" Lester repeated, buying time to glance down at his pager.

"Yeah, he's the ambassador to Qumar and he's back in Washington all of a sudden."

"He's in town for a CIA briefing on Middle-eastern terrorism trends," Lester said, parroting the information Lou had just sent him.

"Oh. That makes sense. Thanks, Lester."

"No problem."

CUT TO:
INT. JOSH'S OFFICE, LATE EVENING

Josh sighed heavily as he dropped his backpack onto the sofa. Margaret had left him a thick stack of message slips, which he quickly rifled through to see that nothing required his immediate attention.

Good, he thought. He could brief the President on the progress they'd made at the Pentagon this afternoon and then go home.

"So why is our Ambassador to Qumar really in town?" Lou asked, walking into the office without knocking.

"For the exact reason I told you earlier," Josh answered.

"You're lucky you caught me in the middle of something or I would have remembered who the guy was," Lou said with arched eyebrows. She hated being left out of the loop and knew it was happening again. "You are going to fill me in on this eventually?"

"Eventually." Josh nodded. "Don't feel offended. This one's so tight it could make a diamond."

It was clear Lou wasn't happy, but she accepted Josh's explanation. "For the record, Lester got the question out on the Mall while he and Otto were feeding the pigeons."

"Feeding the pigeons?" Josh asked, even though he didn't really want to know the answer.

"We don't have a topic for the speech on Friday," Lou admitted.

Josh stared at her incredulously. "This thing's been on the schedule for months. Stop screwing around with it and pretending that feeding pigeons will help find the answer! I want a draft on my desk before anyone leaves Tuesday night, even if you're all still here working on it Wednesday morning when I come back in."

"Yes, sir," Lou knew better than to argue when Josh used his Leo-voice. She started for the door. "I'm going to go get them restarted."

"Yeah." Josh pulled a briefing folder out of his backpack and headed into the Oval Office.

CUT TO:
INT. OVAL OFFICE, CONTINUIOUS

Matt was reclining on one of the sofas reading through some briefing materials when he heard the door to Josh's office open and close.

"Make any progress?" he called without moving.

"Some," Josh answered. He dropped his folder on the President's lap as he made his way to the antique wing chair that faced the sofa Matt was lying on.

"I'm wondering if we aren't giving in on this too easily," Matt said, sitting up. "Maybe we ought to make a bigger effort to keep that port operation."

Josh rubbed his hands over his face. It was something he'd been thinking about all day as well. "To be honest, the idea of abandoning port facilities just because somebody's got a bug up their ass rubs me the wrong way, too, but I've never been a fan of rewarding the Qumari government with American money while they make no moves to suppress their religious hardliners and allow terrorist groups to freely operate on their soil because they think we have no other friends in the region. I think it's time to make new friends, Mr. President. Friends who are actually our friends."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, sir," Josh paused for a minute before he spoke again. "If I can ask, sir, who were you talking to on the phone earlier today? Right before Ambassador Weldon got here?"

"Did you meet the kids' pediatrician when he was in town last month?" Matt waited until Josh shook his head. "Jeff Perez has been a friend of mine forever. In fact, when I was going to quit Congress and go back home to Houston, he was the guy I was planning to work with to open those healthcare clinics. Anyway, he also does some work with a non-governmental organization, kind of like Doctors Without Borders. He just got back from one of his trips to Africa, a little country called Amiir, on the Red Sea, and he wanted me to lean on the drug companies to get them to distribute their new HPV vaccine there because they have a horrible problem with the non-treatment of HPV developing into terminal cervical cancer ."

"You know you can't do that, right?" Josh asked. "I mean, I could have someone do it for you, but you personally can't do it."

"I told him the HPV vaccine was Helen's thing and he should call her, but that I'd definitely let her know I think it's a good idea."

"How did he take that?"

"Like I was blowing him off," Matt answered. Even though he'd been short with Dr. Perez on the phone, it bothered him that he couldn't fix the man's problem.

"This building is hell on relationships," Josh observed.