Entry tags:

story: expecting

Title: Expecting, Chapter 14: Jolly Good Show
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG for offstage, um, "tumbling"
Words: ~1900
Disclaimer: Two.

For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.

And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.

Notes: Clips referenced: The Queen's visit; Tony Blair's departure.

For the full table of contents to this story, click here.




Chapter 14
Jolly Good Show

May 8, 2007
30 Weeks

The first meeting of the day was always a little chaotic.

Rob had adapted pretty quickly; he was usually able to muscle in his stories. Not like, say, Aasif, who was matter-of-fact and rarely raised his voice and sometimes had trouble getting on the air at all.

And then there was John.

Rob's officemate broke all the rules. He was nice and self-effacing and modest, and after more than a year in the country still came across as the awestruck foreigner, but somehow he managed to have a piece on the air practically every other night.

Maybe the wide-eyed innocence actually worked in his favor. Certainly it discouraged Rob from trying to beat him down for the sake of air time. But then, Rob had a huge crush on the man, so he had an excuse.

(Certainly Jon wouldn't think like that — "sweet and modest" wasn't exactly the host's type. On the other hand, maybe Jon saw something of himself in the cute Brit.)

They were all passing around newspapers and magazines and the reports from their researchers, occasionally debating a story's importance or taking notes or flagging an intern to see if they had a clip on file, when Rob noticed that John and Aasif were whispering over something in Time magazine.

He leaned over John's shoulder and snickered appreciatively.


"Something good?" asked Jon from across the table, looking over the top of the New York Times.

"Uh, well," said John, flustered. "Sort of."

"Oh? Give it here."

"It's not very interesting."

"I'll be the judge of that." Jon's tone was mild, with no trace of suspicion, as he held out his hand. "Come on."

Before Rob could stop him, John had tossed the magazine over.

It landed with a flop, leaves creased, and the host found the item instantly: a half-page article among the short gossipy pieces towards the back, dominated by a large glossy photo.

Jon took one look at the article and sighed. "Oh, for crying out loud. Does everyone think I'm sleeping with Stephen?"

Rob wasn't sure how to respond to that. Judging by the silence that fell over the room, neither was anyone else.

For a moment Jon didn't seem to notice. He read the article more thoroughly (Rob hadn't memorized it, but the phrases "long-unexplained closeness" and "has recently set tongues wagging" stuck in his head), studied the photo (a very sweet shot, really, in which he and Colbert were looking over a row of strollers), and flipped the page to see if there was more (there wasn't). Then he looked up.

Rob carefully avoided his gaze.

"No," he heard Jon say, quiet, disbelieving. "You don't."

"But aren't you—" began John.

He stopped there, as Rob had kicked him under the table, but the damage was done. When Rob allowed himself to look, he found that their boss had had turned a laserlike focus on John. And he was glaring. Rob had never realized the man could glare.

Poor John looked like he wanted to shrink into the floor.

There was a moment of tense silence, then Jon said, with an eerie lightness, "The Queen's visiting Washington. You're going to do a piece about it."

"I...I suppose I could...I haven't been following it terribly closely...."

"We'll write something for you. The Tenet interview will spill over into the middle segment, so we can put everyone on filling the first. Oh, and — Kelly!"

The nearest intern stood at attention.

"Run down to editing and tell them to TiVo everything with Richard Quest in it. I'll be down in the afternoon to make clips."

"Richard...?" It took John a moment to recognize the name. "Richard Quest? Isn't he the man who...Jon, you wouldn't."

"You all have your assignments," replied the host brightly, standing up and snagging the section of the Times with the crossword. "Meeting adjourned. See you this afternoon."

With that he swept out, leaving a stunned room behind him.

"He wouldn't really," implored John, looking helplessly from face to face.

"I think he would," said DJ soberly. "That was serious."

"Well, you bloody well could have stuck up for me, couldn't you?" cried John.

"Dude," said Rob, "we all know not to start talking when someone asks a question like that!"

"But I didn't think he would...you know!...I wasn't expecting that!"

Aasif, still looking at the door, shook his head. "It's always the quiet ones."


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May 10, 2007
31 Weeks

Though he was the correspondent most recently hired, Aasif had been freelancing for The Daily Show long enough to know when a report went well. His own before the commercial break had gone just fine.

Or so he thought. Sam wasn't convinced, and as the show's Senior Woman Correspondent and Senior Correspondent In General, Sam was generally defaulted to on such matters.

"It wasn't your fault," she declared in a whisper. "He's tense. Under the circumstances, you didn't do too badly."

When they were in-studio, the correspondents usually watched the show from the break room; when Aasif was there, they also usually stole his lunch. Today Aasif and Sam, along with Rob, were standing in the wings with John to provide moral support. Tuesday's segment on the Queen had been humiliating enough; if he was going to get through today's report on Tony Blair's resignation, he would need all the support he could get.

"Maybe Aasif should just do my bit too," moaned the Brit. "Then I can just hide under a rock until this all blows over."

"Uh-uh, John. You know the drill. I do reports on brown people, Sam does reports on women, Rob does reports on the military, and you do reports on England."

"Hey," said Rob suddenly, in what could with a lot of imagination have been an attempt at an English accent, "chin up, old boy, eh? Stiff upper lip, what?"

John stared. "You," he pronounced, "sound incredibly stupid."

"Can't let you be the only one," replied Rob, then leaned over John's shoulder to read from the notepad in his hands: "Pip pip cor blimey, and all that rot."

"Jolly good show, Rob," chimed in Sam. "Easier to be a bloomin' idiot when your mates join in, innit?"

They both turned expectantly to Aasif.

"Um," he said. "Tea and crumpets?"

It was not the most convincing attempt, but John looked surprisingly gratified. "Thank you," he said, tucking away his notepad. "All of you. I really mean it."

Then: "Right. There's my cue. Cheerio, eh?"

He took his place on the stage, and a moment later, when the camera cut to him, said brightly: "Hello! It's an absolutely frumptious night! That cheeky boy Tony Blair has finally called it a kipper and cried 'tallyho!' to 10 Downing Street!"

He even danced a bit.


"John," said the host, "what are you doing?"

"Reporting the news, what what! Jolly good show, innit?"

He saluted and grinned; Jon looked sober. "Why are you talking like that Richard Quest guy on CNN?"

John's grin began to waver.

"I-isn't that what you wanted?" he stammered. "...guv'nor?" he added belatedly, the last attempt at the forced caricature of himself. "Jon, you remember...the other — two days ago, you showed me...Chuck, do we have that footage?"

One of the Quest clips played; when it was over, John looked helplessly at the host.

Jon's 'what are you doing?' expression didn't move. "That guy sounds like an idiot!"

It was like watching a high-speed film of lettuce wilting, or a carefully sculpted ice cream sundae collapsing into a puddle. Aasif's stomach was churning.

"John, this is a momentous event! For a world power, the first new Prime Minister in over a decade! I'm surprised you're not prepared with some sober analysis!"

Aasif caught Sam's eye — she looked shellshocked — and then they looked up at Rob, and both grabbed his arms, because Rob looked like he was about to charge onstage and cut the segment short by brute force.

When it finally came to a close on its own, John stumbled off the stage and nearly collapsed against Rob, whose murderous look was sideswiped by his confusion over how to respond. Aasif helped Sam marshal the pair away from the set and into the hall.

"What do we do now?" he asked at last.

Sam shook herself out of her lingering daze. "Go home, John. You too, Rob," she added to the man who was now gingerly patting John's hair. "Don't worry about post-show anything. Just go and enjoy your weekends."

Her jaw was set, her shoulders squared. "Who's 'we'?" inquired Aasif nervously once the other two were out of earshot.

"Don't worry, not us personally," replied Sam, flipping open a cell phone and furiously punching in numbers. "I'm calling in the heavy artillery."


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May 11, 2007
31 Weeks

John woke to a very unusual smell. It wasn't tea or coffee, eggs or toast, sausage or bacon; it was very sweet, but too unusual to place.

He opened his eyes and reached for his glasses, only to find that the bed was much wider than he remembered, so that instead of hitting the nightstand his hand found only more sheets. Rolling over, he discovered that a wall had appeared right up against the beside, so no nightstand there either.

And then, trying to figure out where he had left them, he reconstructed the events of the previous night and sorted out that it wasn't his room at all.

He eventually found the glasses hanging precariously on the headboard, and put them on just in time to see Rob enter with a large plate.

"I tried to make you a full English breakfast," he said as he sat down on the other side of the bed, "but I dropped the eggs, burned the toast, and charred the bacon, and the tomatoes were still hard and I didn't think you'd want just mushrooms. So I made you pancakes instead."

He passed John the plate; it was piled high with fluffy golden pancakes dripping with syrup, topped off with butter and a dusting of powdered sugar. No wonder it had smelled sweet.

"Well, I didn't come here to eat the American version of British food," pointed out John, picking up one of the two forks and poking at the stack. "Now, what are these things in them, these little dark things...?"

"Chocolate chips! You like 'em?"

"Chocolate...? You mean, instead of having meat and eggs and vegetables for breakfast, you have sugar and butter and syrup and chocolate?"

"Uh, yeah. Is that too much?"

"No, no, it's perfect." He gouged out a forkful calculated to contain all four, bit down, and spoke around the sweet fluffy mass: "Go' b'ess A'e'ica!"


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May 14, 2007
31 Weeks

When Jon opened the door of the meeting room on Monday, it was empty save for one person.

"Where's everybody else?" he asked as he sat down and tapped the papers he'd brought into a neat stack.

"Morning meeting. They've moved it."

"Oh." Jon stood again. "Where is it?"

"Undisclosed location."

"Right, right, very funny. Seriously, though, where did they go?"

"I'm serious too. It's undisclosed. They know, and I know, but you don't get to know."

"Well, why aren't you with them?" Jon paused. "Hang on. You don't have a segment this week."

"Ah, I can see the gears turning from here. Yes! I do not have a segment! That's why I'm not at the meeting."

"All right, I give up. Why are you here?"

"For you."

"What?"

"Sit down, Jon," ordered Lewis. "This is an intervention."