Pilot

Flames sear ejection canopy as the Pilot rockets from his crumpling fighter jet, parachute snagging smoke trails while shrapnel scars flesh in a survivor's brutal bargain. Years grind scars deeper until suicide claims him on Josh Lyman's shared birthday, his ghost surging into therapy's crossfire. Stanley wields this parallel like a scalpel, slashing through Josh's deflections to expose hand wound's self-inflicted truth amid Oval Office meltdown echoes. Trauma's echo chamber binds aviator's fatal plunge to Josh's unraveling psyche, forging narrative bridge from past inferno to present psychic firestorm.