Work Text:
Jessie's lens is smudged. Out of focus. The aperture's too wide, the light blurs too much. The depth of field's all off. Her ears ring, fingers twitching on the trigger, de-saturated green and too-bright white, and she'd had the whole road trip to realize how dark blood actually is, but it doesn't look good dark, if it were saturated, it would– why did she bring a black-and-white camera, Lee's is color, it–
–Someone grabs onto the back of her vest, leans close to her ear. "We're done," they say. She's dragged, basically, out of the Oval Office. Orders are barked, but– but she still can't see anything, all smudged like this, if she could only take a second and change the lens, or clean it, or ask Lee if she. If she.
Jessie blinks. Once, twice. Oh. Her lens wasn't smudged. Her camera's fine. Her eyes are wrong, blurry, out-of-focus.
There's still conversation happening around her. Everything resolves enough to make sense, at least; it's Joel who dragged her out of the Oval Office, who still has a grip on her vest like he's trying to make sure she doesn't blow away in a storm. The Western Forces are mobilizing, arguing about where to go, whether to keep the White House or move out. Joel doesn't seem too bothered. Joel never seems bothered.
He drags her elsewhere, now. He says something to her, though she can't for the life of her catch it. He heads through doors, doesn't idle on the scenery, doesn't idle on the slowly-cooling body of Lee, still collapsed on the carpet. He gets outside.
Only then does he loosen his grip on Jessie. His shoes skid as he trudges towards the stairs. He collapses to his ass against the top steps, settles into sitting like his limbs are made of lead, and starts rummaging in his pocket.
The world comes into focus. Jessie comes into focus. The sky is dark. There's no gunfire, not right now– just crickets and rustling leaves. Her hands are sweaty. Hell, she's sweaty all-over, the last dregs of adrenaline working their hardest to keep her on her feet. Everything is uncomfortable. The air is clear, but she feels like she's choking on it anyway.
(Joel finds what he's looking for: his cigarettes and his lighter. Like he's done it a million times before, he takes one out and lights it in a movement too quick for her to focus on. Like nothing even happened.)
There's a long, scary moment where Joel says nothing. Jessie bites at her tongue like it's an enemy; spiraling brackish thoughts flood her brain, he hates me, he wishes she were here instead, he's contemplating killing me, or throwing me out on the side of the road first chance he gets, or killing me and then himself, he'll go crazy like every documentary shows–
–But Joel doesn't do any of these things. He doesn't talk, doesn't look. He just draws a new cigarette out from his pack and holds it up to her.
Good photo, she thinks, with his hand up like that. It's sudden. She doesn't know whether to be glad or upset that the photographer part of her brain is still firing on all cylinders. She carefully steps forwards, scans the horizon for anyone, on any side, with a gun and a motive. But she finds nothing.
She sits next to Joel, takes the cigarette from his hand, and holds it out for a light.
He lights it. She lifts it up to her lips, takes a short drag in, and is immediately coughing through her nose. He's gonna kill me, he'll hate me, she thinks, for coughing, it's his last straw. Joel proves her wrong again; he snorts, a little, but keeps his eyes firmly on the sprawl of dead grass and flowers.
They both sit there. Gunfire pops in the distance. The stars are visible, like this, with the power grid ailing– the White House probably only has its power because of an emergency generator somewhere. It's paradoxically peaceful.
"I'm sorry," Jessie forces out.
But Joel just looks at her side-long. He uses the smoldering end of his last cigarette to light his next one, flicks the butt into the dry branches of what once was a bush. "You didn't shoot her," is what he finally says.
The camera feels white-hot against her chest. "I did– I got, I got a photo, but I didn't–"
"–You know," says Joel, broken by a long drag off his new cigarette. "What I meant."
She does.
Joel gestures. "Get a good photo?"
"What?"
"Of the President," he clarifies. "Did you get a good photo?"
"Oh." She fumbles, thumbs at her camera. "Yeah. It's a good one."
"Good." Long drag. Jessie matches him. "I'll go back for Lee's camera." A beat; Joel thumbs at his pack of cigarettes. "She's not gonna need it anyway."
"Um," Jessie says, eloquently. "What–" No. Wrong question to ask, right now. "–what do you think will happen next?"
Joel puffs smoke out of his nostrils. That probably burns, she thinks. "I think the factions are going to rip each-other apart," he says, dry. "I have no interest in sticking around for that."
"Okay."
He finally turns his head, all the way, to look at her. The cigarette still dangles between his teeth– it's another good photo, the pinprick of light, all the white of the building against Joel's darkness, the "PRESS" letters stark. "You have something you wanna say," he decides.
Shit. Out with it. She blurts: "Are we staying together?"
Joel doesn't really look any different, when she asks. He just looks tired. "I don't know. Do you have anywhere to go?"
Back to Missouri, she almost says. "No."
"Then yeah." He looks back out towards the dead roses, tilts his head to try and see if the butt he threw set anything on fire. "I'm going to need photos to go with my article."
Jessie doesn't know whether to brighten or grimace.
But Joel keeps talking, anyways. "Don't let them kill me," he mocks. "Sammy was right. They always lose their bravado, at the end. Nobody left to write a good speech, either. No way he had time to practice."
"Probably not," Jessie tries to add.
"Nobody plans to die," says Joel, abruptly. His cigarette's almost out– he throws it with the other one. Jessie takes one last drag of hers and does the same. There's a non-zero chance an ember will catch, spread in the dry husks of flowers that used to make up the Rose Garden. A slimmer chance, still, the fire will spread; take out the West Wing, maybe the whole White House.
It'd make a good photo.
Joel stands up. Jessie tries to, but can't quite get her feet under her. But then there's a familiar hand, grabbing the back of her press vest, hauling her up, and– and arms, pulling her into a hug, so close and tight that her camera digs awkwardly into Joel's stomach, her face pressed uncomfortably against the scratchy, emblazoned fabric.
They don't stay there for long. When Joel pulls away and inclines his head towards the door back into the West Wing, his eyes are red. Even though he'd make a good photo, too, his head lined up with the one good light just enough to seem like he has a halo– Jessie refrains.