THURSDAY:

Bonnie waved her bagel expressively. "Okay, I call this meeting to order! Everybody; the toast."

Donna joined the others as they raised their coffees. "Let's not screw anything up too badly this week," they dutifully chorused. Ritual completed, they all sat back and slurped coffee or chewed hastily snatched-up breakfast snacks.

The White House assistants' early morning meetings happened erratically at best. It was fairly rare to find a morning when none of their respective bosses had either arrived early or else never left. These days, though, the ever-conscientious Sam had a boyfriend to linger in the mornings with, and Leo's usual workaholic habits had taken a downturn. Margaret, despite the fact that she'd been agitating for this to happen for years, was deathly worried now it finally had. The others found it hard to tell if this was genuine cause for concern or standard Margaret procedure. They'd all been keeping a surreptitious eye on him, but what might be going on beneath the McGarry surface was a mystery to greater minds than even those that inhabited the White House.

Donna much preferred working for Josh, the man for whom the words 'open book' had been invented. At least when he was angry or upset, you knew about it.

"Okay," Bonnie began. "Anybody got anything to report? Donna?"

She pulled a face. "The niceness continues into week fourteen. As do the feelings of fear and disorientation." They all grinned in understanding. Joshua Lyman, following the shake-up to his life and career caused by a PTSD attack in the public eye, had declared it his intention to try to look beyond his job and be a nicer, more understanding person.

Then, he'd actually stuck to it. Everybody was still reeling from the shock.

"We hear you just got tapped for a bridesmaid?" Ginger asked her, and Donna blushed.

"I still can't believe she asked me!" she exclaimed. Zoey Bartlet could have picked anybody to be her bridesmaids. To be picked for a hallowed company that included CJ, Zoey's niece Annie and Deanna Young felt like an unbelievable honour. She supposed it was because she was somebody well known to both Zoey and Charlie, but even so...

Of course, it did have its downside.

"So how's... The Dress?" Bonnie asked knowingly. Donna buried her face in her hands.

"How do I tell the daughter of the leader of the free world that her bridesmaids' dresses make me look like a walking soufflé?" she groaned. Apparently even the public wedding of the century wasn't immune to the universal curse of godawful bridesmaids' dresses.

"If it's any consolation, CJ hates hers too," Carol offered, as she flipped through a batch of faxes from the press office.

Donna gave her a look. "CJ could wear a black plastic sack and look good in it ."

Bonnie nodded seriously, and raised a hand. "The committee declares a moment for its members to be screamingly jealousy of CJ."

They took a moment.

"What's the Toby report for this week?" Carol asked Ginger.

Ginger deliberated for a long moment, seeking out exactly the right word. " Morose," she declared, finally.

"No change there, then," observed Bonnie.

"What about Sam?" Donna asked, and the two communications assistants giggled.

"It's so cute," Bonnie grinned.

"He and Steve are moving in together this week-" Ginger put in.

"-And they're getting all domestic-"

"-Talking about dinner plates and curtains and towels and bookshelves-"

"It's completely adorable."

"No wonder Toby's morose," Carol quipped.

As the laughter faded they all looked across at the fifth member of their little gathering, uncharacteristically silent so far. "How's Leo doing?" asked Donna quietly.

Margaret shook her head slowly. "There's something... I can tell there's something, but he won't-" She made a frustrated noise, and sighed heavily. "Why do I work for this man?"

An entirely rhetorical question, and uttered only in the presence of those who had devotion enough to their own bosses to understand everything behind it. Your boss could drive you crazy - but they were your boss. The five of them, and all their counterparts throughout the White House, were bound together by that shared understanding. Your boss came first. The job came second. Everything else made for a far distant third.

"He's been depressed for months, even Josh has noticed it," Donna observed. Actually, that 'even' was probably a little unfair. Josh could be quite frighteningly oblivious to the ins and outs of everyday life, but when something was seriously wrong, he seemed to instinctively tune into it. "Which is weird, because, you know, things have been going much better these last few months."

Carol, still flipping through faxes, turned over the next one and then glared at her. "Thanks, Donna," she said dryly.

"Did I just jinx it?" she asked miserably, as Carol dashed off to put in a call to CJ.

"Hey, I'm on my way out." He walked into the next room in the middle of tying his tie.

"Okay," Steve nodded, still leafing through papers. "Hey, is this anything incredibly vital to the running of the government?"

Sam took the sheet of figures and glanced at it for a minute. "Possibly," he conceded.

"Well, it's good to know the country's in safe hands."

"Yeah." Sam returned to his bedroom to retrieve his jacket.

"Sure you don't mind me going through your stuff for you?" Steve asked, looking up as he came back in.

He shrugged. "Hey, I barely even live here. I don't even own anything interesting enough to be private."

"Okay." Steve leaned over to inspect the bookcase. "So... where do you hide the porn?"

Sam laughed. "I don't have any porn," he protested.

Steve gave him a look. "You told me you were single for three years." He arched an eyebrow pointedly. "There's porn in this apartment somewhere."

"There is not! And anyway, you wouldn't be interested in any of my porn. If I had it."

Steve pouted. "Oh, all of a sudden I'm not good enough for you, heterosexual porn boy?"

"I should point out, again, that I don't have any porn, and that if I did, in fact, have any porn - which I do not - it obviously would be a holdover from the days before I was dating you, and it would therefore be heterosexual porn. If I had it."

There was a short pause. "You've really got that weaselly politician thing down, you know that?" Steve observed.

"Well, I try." He headed for the door.

Steve called him back. "So, if I find any hypothetical heterosexual porn I should just leave it where I found it?"

Sam shrugged. "Since it is, you know, entirely hypothetical, you're welcome to do what you like with it."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"You won't find any."

"That just means you think it's perfectly hidden. But I'm smart."

Sam smirked. "Oh, can I tell people I'm dating a brain?"

"If it makes you happy."

"It does." He grinned, and leaned across to kiss Steve goodbye. This whole cohabiting thing was looking better all the time.

Leo slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His mouth was dry, and there was a dull ache behind his eyes that was somehow worse than any possible jabbing pain.

The empty bottles stood by the foot of his featureless hotel bed. He wrapped them up in the bag they'd come in and thrust them into the bottom of the trash, trying to pretend to himself that the sticky residue of alcohol that clung to his fingers wasn't as seductive as it was repulsive.

He peeled off the previous evening's clothes and turned up his en suite shower until it was too hot, trying to scrub away a dirt that wasn't truly visible on the outside.

When he emerged, a crisp white shirt and neatly pressed suit made him into the man he was pretending to be. Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, impeccably presented and under control.

Control.

Leo stood by the mirror for a long time, staring into eyes he wasn't sure he recognised anymore. He promised himself, as he had promised a half dozen other times these past few months, that this would be the last time.

He knew he was lying.

Josh walked through the corridors of the West Wing, coffee in hand. "Hey Toby," he nodded.

"Josh. This morning, I am cheerful. Do not talk to me."

"Okay."

They walked on for a little way. Toby shot him a look. "You have something. There is something lurking in the wings of your turbulent excuse for a brain that is waiting for an excuse to make me unhappy. I can feel it."

"No, there isn't."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You're still lying."

"Okay, so there may have been a little bit of a snafu on hate crimes," he admitted. Toby stopped walking.

"Define 'snafu'."

Josh waved it off. "Five Congressmen stepped off the reservation. Nothing huge, but they're solid guys, so I'm pulling them in to see what's what."

"Don't break my bill," Toby warned him.

"Your bill?" he demanded. The president's radical new hate crimes bill had been number one item on the administration's agenda for the past three month. True, it had been Toby's bulldog tenacity pushing through most of the parts Congress found difficult to swallow, but there was practically nobody in the Bartlet White House who didn't have some stake in it somewhere.

"My bill," Toby confirmed shortly.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you it was nice to share?"

"No."

"Okay."

"Don't break it," he repeated.

"I'm not worried."

"That's why I'm worried."

Josh grinned. "I've got my secret weapon."

"Now I'm very worried."

"Sam."

"Sam is your secret weapon?"

"We're debating the Discrimination on the Basis of Sexuality section," Josh explained.

"Ah."

"We push him out in front of them, he smiles sweetly, they trip over their defences of institutionalised homophobia."

Toby shot him a look. "You're using him in a dual role as strategist and poster boy?"

"That's the plan."

"That's also underhand, exploitative, and morally dubious."

"I know."

"Keep it up."

"I will."

CJ swung in from a side corridor to join them. "Toby, I need you to meet with a somebody with ties to International Relations about a story that's circulating."

Toby came to a halt. "I know where this is going."

"She was the obvious choice."

"I don't want to talk to my ex-wife."

"And yet she's pencilled in as your ten o'clock."

Josh frowned. "Why do we need the International Relations Committee?"

"We've got a problem with our international relations," CJ said dryly.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, and what poor excuse for a fair-weather friend country is raking us over the coals today?"

"Britain."

Toby glared. "The British are making waves?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"They obviously don't know this is this years' designated five minutes of cheerful Toby time," Josh said dryly. He turned to CJ. "So what's the problem?"

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer made some remarks about our Treasury Secretary; specifically, we got broiled on overseas aid."

"So... what's the problem?" Josh repeated.

She gave him a look. "The Prime Minister picked it up."

"We just got dissed on international policy by our biggest international ally?"

"Hey, we've still got Canada," CJ shrugged.

"Us personally?" he asked, ignoring her interjection.

"Are we Americans?"

"Last time I checked."

"Then yeah."

"Is there a quote?"

"'In the matter of bringing peace and stability to its most underprivileged peoples, the world looks to its richest nations for an example - and finds America sadly wanting'," CJ supplied.

"Ouch," he agreed.

"He was speaking to the press?" Toby asked.

"Yup," CJ nodded. "He was throwing out a challenge - no way we can't respond."

"Isn't this guy supposed to be, like, on our side?" Josh wanted to know.

"Apparently, he's decided to take our policies into account before deciding whether he agrees with us."

"Well, that's a very irresponsible attitude."

"So we need you to meet with Congresswoman Wyatt," CJ told Toby. He looked depressed. "And the British Ambassador." Toby looked considerably more depressed.

CJ left, and Josh turned to him.

"Still feeling cheerful there, Toby?"

"Mr. President."

"Ah, Ron." Jed nodded at the head of his Security detail. "Your men have had a chance to check out the venue?"

"Yes, sir."

"And?"

Butterfield hesitated. "Mr. President, you know it's the recommendation of the Service that the wedding be held in the Rose Garden."

Jed nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I know. But Zoey has her heart set on being married in the same church Abbey and I did."

"Yes, sir." Ron acquiesced, but he was well aware the agent didn't like it. He himself had mixed feelings; torn between pride in his daughter's desire to be tied to family tradition, and the pressing fear that something would happen he could have prevented. His future son-in-law had been brutally beaten on the streets of DC a few days after the engagement was officially announced. If one of Charlie's assailants had been holding a knife, he could have had a dead future son-in-law.

Now Charlie had a Secret Service detail of his own, something that he was less than thrilled about. Jed didn't care, at least not beyond the vague sorrow that your own twenty-four hour bodyguard was now as much a part of joining the Bartlet clan as getting your own place at the Thanksgiving table. He sympathised with Charlie's chafing under the new arrangement, but if his aide thought any amount of arguing was getting him out of it, he was in for a rude awakening.

He looked up at Ron. "This is important to her, Ron, and I don't want to ruin Zoey's special day." He hesitated for a beat. "I want every exit covered by snipers and the Secret Service ready to jump on anybody who blinks in the wrong direction... but I don't want to ruin Zoey's special day."

Butterfield gave a single brisk nod. Though Jed was no better at interpreting that impassive mask than the next man, he was sure Ron saw Charlie not as the boy who'd almost got the president killed three years ago, but rather as just another protectee he would do anything in his power for.

Which reminded him.

"Ron, could you just confirm for me... the Secret Service are, are they not, some of the world's leading experts in the field of covert operations?"

If Ron's curiosity was sparked, he hid it well. "Yes, Mr. President."

"In that case, do you think it would be within the considerable scope of your agency to possibly procure for me a packet of cigarettes?"

His tone and expression didn't so much as flicker. "No, Mr. President."

Jed gave him a sharp look. "Would you mind telling me why not?"

"The First Lady has made her position on the matter extremely clear, Mr. President."

"Aren't you people supposed to be willing to do anything for me?" he demanded.

Ron gave another military nod. "Secret Service members are ready to accept any risk for their protectee, up to and including their own death."

"But you won't go up against the First Lady?"

He didn't crack a smile. "Up to and including their own death."

"I hear that," Jed agreed sincerely. He waved a hand. "Okay. You can go."

He sat back in his chair, and sighed to himself. Maybe he could pressurise one of the staff into buying him a pack... but Charlie wouldn't be back to working full time until Monday, and he was convinced at least one of his temporary replacements was a spy for the First Lady. The only other explanation for her ability to know exactly when he was contemplating dietary rebellion was a sudden emergence of psychic powers. And that was frankly too scary to contemplate.

He'd been very good, even Abbey had to concede that. He understood that it was this new health plan or goodbye to the White House, and he'd stuck to it. And while he was extremely reluctant to ascribe as much to replacing steak dinners with salads, he did have to admit that he'd been feeling considerably better recently. The stiffness in his back and legs had subsided somewhat, and now blurry vision only descended on him when he was pushing the edges of how long he could stay up.

There were even, from time to time, days when he remembered what it was like to actually have energy. Humiliating as it had originally been to contemplate the idea, having a half hour or so set aside from his afternoon schedule for an 'energy replenishment period' - which Abbey would persist in referring to as a 'nap' - really did help amazingly in keeping the crushing weight of fatigue away.

Abbey, alas, had steadfastly refused to listen to all of his highly convincing arguments about how having her join him up in the Residence for said energy replenishment period would do amazing things for his level of relaxation.

Yes, he and Abbey could both agree that he'd stuck to his health plan extremely faithfully; where they differed was in their opinion on whether this afforded him the right to some form of small reward. Surely one cigarette, one single slice of pizza, a few little sips of bourbon... when he was looking after himself so well the rest of time, surely such a minor indulgence now and again couldn't hurt?

Apparently, it could. Or rather, Abbey could hurt him. And apparently she'd been dead serious when she claimed to be putting the entire staff on a high state of alert as a deterrent against diet-breaking.

He sighed, and headed back to his desk to read more reports.

And think about pizza and cigarettes.

"Hey, Donna." Sam gave her a smile.

"Oh, hi, Sam. He won't be a minute, he's just in with Leo."

"Thanks." Sam leaned against the desk.

"How're things going with your mom?" she asked. He shrugged and smiled.

"Better... I think now we're moving in together, she's finally got used to the idea that Steve is going nowhere. She's not gonna be joining any gay pride marches any time soon, but, you know..."

"Yeah."

His smile widened into a more playful grin. "On the subject of moms... how goes the eternal Moss marriage campaign?"

She giggled. "Well, as you can see from my severe lack of potential suitors, Operation Marry Off Donna has not been a great success. Seriously, though, she's backed off a lot. Did I tell you about my sister Jo?"

"She's getting a divorce?"

"Yeah. It shook my mom up a lot. I think she seriously just didn't ever consider that Joletta could be that unhappy. I mean, my mom got married really young, but she's always adored my dad. I guess she didn't realise that sweet, funny caring guys like him are pretty hard to find."

"Yeah, I guess they are." The corners of Sam's mouth curled up into a reflective smile, and Donna tilted her head to regard him.

"You know, don't take this the wrong way, but discussing guys with you? Is seriously weird."

Sam held up his hands. "Hey, whoa! Slow down there. I'm strictly a one man guy."

"Yeah, well, I'm a no man girl," Donna admitted gloomily.

"Donna!"

"Oh. Yeah. Apart from that one." She stood up and hollered. "Yes, Your Majesty?"

Josh came jogging up. "I need my notes on the hate crimes thing," he told her.

"They're in that thing slung across your shoulder that you laughingly call a backpack."

Josh gave her a stern look. "You're mocking the backpack?"

"The backpack needs no mocking. The backpack is a collection of threads held together with buckles."

"This backpack, I'll have you know, has seen me through the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

"Apparently, you used it as a shield."

"And how did the notes get into the backpack, exactly?"

"I used my power of telekinesis."

"I see. Could your power of telekinesis possibly get me a bottle of water?"

Donna closed her eyes and held her fingertips to the side of her head for a few moments. Then she looked up. "My power of telekinesis says get up off your ass and do it yourself."

Josh indicated himself. "It appears to have escaped your attention that I am not, in fact, currently on my ass."

Donna gave him a sweet smile. "Then what do you know? You're already halfway there."

Josh went to get himself a bottle of water. Sam asked him "Did Leo say anything about Hate Crimes?"

"No." He paused in his office doorway, looking pensive. "Is it me, or does Leo seem a bit...?"

"Depressed?" Sam finished.

"Yeah."

"Margaret's worried about him," Donna put in quietly. "She says he's been like it for months."

Josh frowned thoughtfully. "You think he's still brooding about not catching these guys?" The three boys who had beaten up Charlie Young had never been identified and brought to justice... and, after three months had passed, it looked increasingly unlikely that they ever would be.

"Maybe." Sam straightened up. "So how about we go get this Hate Crimes Bill off the starting blocks and make sure the next lot of guys don't get away with it so easily?"

"Yeah." Josh shouldered his tattered backpack and started off after him.

"Josh," Donna called after him, memory suddenly sparked.

"Yeah?" He turned back.

"Charlie called in earlier. Asked if you had a few minutes to see him at the end of the day."

"Charlie?" Josh frowned. "I thought he wasn't supposed to come back to work until Monday?"

Donna shrugged. "He just asked if you had a few minutes."

Josh's brow wrinkled, then he shrugged back. "Okay." He headed off after Sam.

"CJ! CJ!"

"Chris?"

"Any comment on the British Prime Minister's condemnation of the current administration's stance on foreign aid?"

Sigh. Well, at had been a bit too much to ask that this particular story might slip under the radar.

"I think 'condemnation' is a little strong, Chris. Naturally, in the interest of international cooperation, we're happy to listen to input on our domestic policies, and we'll be holding meetings with the British Ambassador and a representative from the International Relations Committee over the next few days to see how we can better coordinate our efforts to bring aid to developing countries. Also, I would remind you that under this administration the foreign aid budget has seen none of the cuts it faced in previous years, and that we proposed several increases that were voted down in the House."

There, a nice hefty chunk of boring information to shut them up on that front. She looked around for somebody who might ask about something different.

"Rick?"

The young reporter still held his arm a little stiffly from where he'd been clipped by a bullet in a hostage situation several months ago. That whole incident had given him a new perspective when the secret of Josh's PTSD was revealed, and his support of the administration through that had given CJ a certain fondness for him.

His habit of asking well thought-out, incisive questions that she could actually be expected to give an answer to didn't hurt, either.

"CJ, the new amendments to the president's Hate Crimes Bill, uh..." he consulted his notebook, "the 'Discrimination on the Basis of Sexuality' section... is it true that the administration is looking at repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"

Ah, something controversial that they actually wanted out in front of the public.

"Well, Rick, I can confirm that if the bill were to go through as it stands, the current military position on gays and lesbians in the service would become untenable. The president's keen to see an end to institutionalised discrimination in all sections of society and yes, that would include military recruitment."

Dennis raised a hand. "CJ... with this radical new legislation and the controversial Sex Education pilot scheme, is the administration at all concerned about President Bartlet's increasing reputation as 'the sex president'?"

CJ tried to bury her urge to snicker at that, and didn't quite succeed. "Dennis, I think I can honestly say that that's a conversation I don't anticipate having with... anybody, ever."

The press corps grinned with her at that one.

"Okay, folks, that's about all for now. See you at the next briefing."

Katie Jackson caught up with her as she descended the podium and headed out. "Oh, hi, Katie. What do you need?"

"I just wanted to thank you again for the exclusive," Katie said with a smile. The president had reluctantly accepted there was no way his daughter and her fiancé were getting all the way to their wedding without speaking to at least one reporter, especially after the attack on Charlie. He'd asked CJ for a list of those who'd done them favours lately, and Katie's name had come up.

"The president appreciates you not dropping the hammer on Sam Seaborn," CJ told her.

Katie shrugged self-consciously. "It was on the news-stands eight days later, CJ."

"Sam appreciated the time." If Katie had taken her vague suspicions about his relationship with Steve straight to the front page, the two men would have been hit with the media barrage when they'd only been together less than a week, and the administration caught completely flat footed. The extra time had given Sam a chance to break the news in his own way - and even then, he'd left it too late to inform his parents. The damage that had done to his relationship with his mother was still slowly healing.

Any thought of parents these days sent CJ's mind back to her father. He'd been gone three months, and she still missed him painfully. His not entirely unexpected death had come on the same night Charlie had been put in hospital, and the chaos afterwards had given her time to grieve but not to really think about the sudden huge gap in her life. She hadn't realised quite how much she'd leaned on him, even as he slipped further and further away from reality, until he suddenly wasn't there anymore.

She realised Katie was still hovering. "Seriously, Katie, it was very much appreciated in several quarters," she nodded.

"I just feel like still I owe you something," Katie frowned.

"Next time we do something spectacularly stupid? Don't print it," CJ suggested.

The journalist grinned at the unlikelihood of that. "Well, I thought you might like to know that I've heard some rumours from a publisher friend about a book on the president's childhood."

"The Rogers thing?" CJ shrugged it away. "Yeah, I've heard of about it. We get about fifteen unofficial biographies every year, it's not a thing."

Katie gave her a look. "Like I say, I've just heard some rumours, but... I think you should probably see about getting an advance copy of this one."

She left, and CJ stood in thought for a moment. Then she went to find Carol.

Sam frowned at the list of names set out before him. "One question; what do all these people have in common?"

"They're all liberal Democratic members of Congress who've sided with us before and aren't doing it now?"

"Amazingly, I knew that much."

"Also, they're all just about to walk in that door so I can ask them why the hell not." Josh stood up as they entered, and did the rounds shaking hands. "Ted, hi. Sarah, Patrick, Jason, nice to see you. Paul. You all know Sam Seaborn, of course?" Another round of handshakes.

"Okay." Josh pulled out his chair and sat down. "Well, I think we're all friends here, so let's make this simple and straightforward." He looked at the five Congressmen. "You voted with us on Healthcare. You voted with us on tuition incentives. You voted with us on Sex-Ed, debt relief and the budget... you're our guys. What the hell is going on?"

They all shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

"Toby."

"Andy." He smiled awkwardly. "You look nice."

"And you look annoyed."

"I was cheerful. Now I am not."

She grinned. "It's good to see you too, Toby." She kissed his cheek briefly, and he reflected that an expression-hiding beard was sometimes a useful thing to have. Especially when you weren't entirely sure what expression it might actually be hiding.

Before they could begin their usual slightly misaligned verbal two-step, the third member of this hellish little setup put in an appearance.

"Ah, Toby! Andrea!" Lord Marbury captured his ex-wife for a kiss on each cheek in typical exuberant fashion. Toby wasn't quite sure what to do with the sudden itch to make fists over it. He shuffled around behind his desk to fiddle with the paperwork.

"John." He gave a brief, put-upon smile. "I hope we can get this misunderstanding sorted out as quickly as possible and count on your country's continued support?"

Marbury flopped back into a chair with a lazy ease that perhaps only his title and accent made seem elegant. "On the contrary, dear boy, Her Majesty's government is very much in earnest, and we fully intend to demand that America increase its spending on foreign aid fivefold in order to bring it line with the rest of the world's industrialised nations."

Andy gave him a wry smile. "Hey there, Toby. Why don't you pull up a chair?"

Josh was losing patience. Not the world's most uncommon occurrence.

They'd been sitting here for an hour, and nothing had been said. Or rather, everything imaginable had been said, and none of it remotely relevant. Jason Jones was still going off at a tangent about freedom of assembly and hate groups, and they weren't even discussing that section of the bill.

Finally, he snapped, and stood up. "Okay. Okay, that's enough of that. This meeting has been going round in circles long enough. And you know what?" He swept out a hand to encompass the room. "He's gay and I'm Jewish and you're black and she's female, so stop pretending this is anything to do with the issues and tell me what this is about."

Jones gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Josh. You know nobody here wants it this way."

He scowled. "So why are you making it this way?"

Nobody answered. After a moment, he sighed heavily. "Okay, let's wrap this up."

They all stood up. Sarah McMillan hesitated. "Josh-"

"We need your votes on this, Sarah," he reminded her pointedly. "This is too tight for you to walk out on us now."

"Without the sexuality section it'd sail," Ted Hobson pointed out softly. Josh glared.

"Without the sexuality section it's toothless, and who gives a damn if a toothless bill sails?"

"There's plenty more in the bill that'll do a lot of people a lot of good," Jones reminded him.

Josh shook his head. "We're sweeping the board with this, Jason. The president doesn't want to cut out prejudice for 'a lot' of people. He doesn't want to make this country a better place for everybody except gays and lesbians. We want the whole package, and I know you want the whole package, so what, exactly, has changed here?"

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Finally, Josh waved them away with an exasperated gesture. He slumped back into his chair as they trooped out of the meeting room, and looked up at Sam.

"You've been pretty quiet there. What happened to the whole 'how can you deny me my right to live the way I choose' spiel?"

Sam shook his head. "It wouldn't have made any difference," he said grimly. "It's obvious somebody's doing some pressuring."

"Yeah. The question is, who?"

"The question is... what do these five people have in common?" Sam repeated his query from before the meeting. Josh was no closer to having an answer, and they sat silently mulling it over for a few minutes.

Finally, Sam spoke up. "Actually, you know, the whole 'gay' thing, I'm really technically more-"

"Ah, save it for your memoirs, nobody cares," Josh shrugged. He stood up with a decisive motion, and tossed his papers into his backpack ready to head off to the next thing the day decided to throw at him.

Toby massaged his forehead and sighed deeply. "The US policy on foreign aid-" he began.

Marbury immediately leapt in to cut him off again. "In 1970, the US paid just three tenths of a percentage point of its GNP in foreign aid. In 1990, it was down to two tenths. Now, it's barely a tenth of one percent. There are twice as many countries classified by the UN as 'least developed' than there were thirty years ago; why, exactly, is the US under the impression that the need for its aid in other parts of the world is decreasing?"

"Nobody's under that impression," Toby grated into the hand he was resting his chin on. "Obviously we want to earmark as much money as possible to help developing nations-"

"Then why all the cuts?" Marbury demanded. Revealing the sharp diplomatic mind behind the drunken playboy exterior, he'd been casually reeling off figures for the best part of an hour without ever stopping to look at notes. "US foreign aid currently stands at eight billion dollars a year; if your country was paying the same proportion of its wealth as it did in 1965, that figure would be nearly fifty billion."

"This isn't 1965," Toby reminded him.

"Thank you for pointing that out, Toby," the ambassador said dryly, "that distinction had quite escaped me. However, the rest of the world is not living in 1965 either, and they continue to allocate much higher percentage of their Gross National Product to overseas aid than you do."

Toby sighed again, and there was a brief silence whilst they digested the fact that they were no further now than they had been when they started. He glanced sideways at the third, thus far largely silent, member of their little gathering.

"A little input here wouldn't go entirely amiss," he informed her.

Andy smiled brightly at him. "I'm enjoying the show."

There was a knock on the door.

"Maybe that's Ginger with my cyanide," he suggested optimistically.

Sam poked his head in the door. "Hey, Toby. Andy, Lord Marbury."

"Ah, Samuel!"

"Hi, Sam."

The Deputy Communications Director glanced across at Toby. "What do Baker, McMillan, Hobson, Jones and Westall have in common?"

"They're all people I don't care about?"

Andy smiled at Sam. "Toby's being Mr. Grumpy-Pants right now."

Sam's face split into a grin. "I'll remember that. Okay, Toby, I'll be working on the thing for Saturday's dinner." He left.

Toby turned back to Andy. "Remind me why I married you?"

"I believe you proposed in a sudden fit of starry-eyed optimism and faith in the human condition," she told him.

"I got over that."

She smirked. "So I noticed."

With a sigh, he looked back over his notes and got ready to start again.

"Ah, CJ." The president smiled at her as she entered his private study. "What's this business I'm hearing about the British Prime Minister?"

"Britain wants to see more money earmarked for foreign aid," she explained.

"Well, so do I," he pointed out dryly. "It's Congress that won't stand for it."

"I know, sir. Toby's trying to hash out a diplomatic solution with the British Ambassador."

Jed nodded slowly. "We can't afford to look weak in international circles now," he reminded her. "Not while we're this controversial on the home front."

"Yes sir," CJ agreed, although he wasn't telling her anything she didn't know. She hovered, and he looked up at her.

"Is there anything else going on I should know about?"

She looked as if she was about to say no, and then said "There's some talk floating around about a book by a man called Michael Rogers."

He frowned. "Never heard of the man." He was nearly sure he was right, too.

"In that case, I'm sure he's eminently qualified to write your biography."

"Another biography?" Jed rolled his eyes. "I'm fairly sure I'm still living the same life I had in the last one."

CJ grinned, and then turned to go, but hesitated. "Mr. President, is there... is there anything in your younger years I should be aware of?"

"I used to steal cars to finance my crack habit," he said dryly.

"I'll go now."

"You do that."

When CJ was gone, he stood with his hands in his pockets for a few moment, frowning. His eyes fell briefly on the photograph of his father, over the desk where his cigarette case had once rested.

He very much wanted a cigarette right now.

Sam returned home to an apartment full of boxes. He paused in the hallway briefly, wondering how he'd possibly managed to accumulate enough stuff to fill them all.

"Steve?" he called.

"You're supposed to say 'honey, I'm home'." The younger man's voice floated out of the next room. Sam grinned, and went in. He crossed the room to Steve's side and gave him a quick kiss.

"I think I'll save that for the new place," he smiled. He raised an eyebrow. "So. Did you find any theoretical heterosexual porn?"

"No." Steve pointed a finger at him. "But the fact that you have to ask me tells me a lot. I did find this, though."

He indicated Sam's chess set, now set up on the coffee table. "You play chess?" Sam asked him.

"I know the little horsey ones move in an L-shape," he offered.

"Well, that's you all set," said Sam dryly.

"I don't know from chess, but I know when I'm holding something worth several years of my salary. Where did you get this? You could buy my car with it."

"It's a Lotus set, made out of hand-carved camel-bone. It came to the Indian Prime Minister through a descendent of Tan Sen, a very famous sixteenth century musician," he recited.

"Yeah?"

"Well, that's what the president told me. But sometimes he's just making it up."

Steve shot him a sharp look. "The president gave you a priceless hand-carved chess set?"

"Mostly as an excuse to use it to whip my ass," he smiled self-depreciatingly. Not to mention honestly. He could play chess against... well, somebody else who didn't play chess very often, but the president was an expert at it.

"You play chess with the president?" Steve said wonderingly. It had been three months now, and his boyfriend was still very much getting used to the occasional grandeur of Sam's White House life.

But then, so was Sam, some days.

"It's really more of a 'losing' thing than actual playing," he admitted.

"He must think you're pretty smart," Steve observed, absently picking up one of the chess pieces and rolling it with his fingers.

"Not after he's seen me play chess."

Steve shot him a look. "Seriously."

Sam shrugged. "It was just... he likes to do his little mentoring thing sometimes." Remembering, he smiled to himself. "He told me I should run for president one day, I don't know what-"

"He told you that?"

He registered the sudden abrupt change in tone, and held up his hands. "Steve-"

He put the chess piece back down in its place. "You- seriously, you could've had a shot at being president?"

Oops. Possibly he'd just started a big deal out of something that really wasn't- "Steve, it was just-"

"You didn't tell me this," Steve said, jaw set warningly. "You said you didn't care if we got splashed all over the tabloids, you said it didn't matter, and you didn't tell me this."

Sam laughed. "It really wasn't- Steve, you seriously think I was ever gonna run for president?"

Steve refused to be lightened up. "I seriously think President Bartlet doesn't go around telling just anybody they could do his job."

Sam shook his head slowly. "Steve." He laid his hands on the other man's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "I? Do not want to be president. I never wanted to be president. I never thought about running for president. It... hell, it's so far away from being a thing it's, like, the anti-thing."

Steve pointed a warning finger. "Stop that with the Joshtalk, you're not confusing me out of having this argument."

"Joshtalk?" Sam asked, amused.

"He's a very bad influence on your vocabulary. But that's not we're talking about." Steve pushed back a stray lock of blond hair and thrust his hands into his pockets; items number one and two on his 'defensive' list. "Sam, I... I can't believe you didn't tell me this. I can't believe you didn't... You could have, you could have been- You really had the chance to-"

"Steve... don't make this into something it isn't," he pleaded. "I didn't give up anything for this. I didn't give up anything to be with you. You can't give up something you never had."

Steve shook his head slowly and met his eyes, looking saddened. "You can, Sam," he said gently. "You can, and that's worse than any other kind of giving up."

Sam smiled softly, and ran his fingers over the cool surface of the chess board. "Listen, Steve, it's- it's really not the big deal you're making it into. It was just... the president was just, you know, congratulating me on figuring something out. He was doing this whole thing about seeing the whole of the board, and-" Abruptly, it clicked. "Military training bases!"

"What?"

"Military training bases!" He grinned delightedly. "That's the link!"

Steve blinked at him. "Okay, did we just, you know, miss a page of the script or something?"

Sam started patting his pockets, looking for his cell phone. "I have to call Josh." Maybe it was still in his coat. Wait, think smart. There was a phone across the room. He could use that.

"Hey!" Steve objected indignantly. "Argument, here!"

Sam planted an absent kiss on his cheek in passing. "Yeah, sure. We can finish it later. I just need to make this call."

Ignoring the sudden disgruntled huff of air from his boyfriend, Sam grabbed for the telephone and dialled the White House.

"That's the link?" Josh kicked back in his chair and stretched out his shoeless feet. Donna had been bugging him to go home - well, now he had reason to show why he'd been right not to listen to her.

"I'm sure of it," came Sam's voice through the phone. "All five of our mystery dissenters come from areas with a large and high-profile military presence."

Josh rubbed his forehead. "You seriously think the military's putting pressure on members of Congress to vote us down?"

"We're talking about repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, you don't think they've been a little too quiet?"

"Yeah, but doesn't it seem a little... unconstitutional?"

"Well, I'm sure that's of great concern to the guys who think it's okay to drum somebody out of the service because somebody beat a confession of their sexuality out of them."

Josh made an awkward sound of agreement. It was stupid to be suddenly shy around his old friend on gay rights issues - Sam was still Sam, only with a... slightly more boyfriend-having quality these days. But still... it was the way he felt debating any kind of religious issue with Toby, the feeling like he maybe didn't quite have the qualifications to take part. Except Toby would just quite casually take a jab at him if he thought Josh was getting too big for his holiday-Jewish theological boots, and it would be much harder to tell if he offended Sam.

"Okay, so these guys are putting on the pressure... what buttons are they pushing? How are they shoving our guys around? I mean, I'm giving them some credit and assuming they're not, like, turning up in Congressional office and doing the whole hand-on-the-holster scene."

He'd obviously been working with Sam too long if the tenor of the brief silence sounded like a shrug.

"Maybe it wouldn't take as much as you'd think," he reflected. "A sudden military presence around one candidate's camp, a little bit of honour-guarding that maybe leans more to one side than the other... suddenly, voting Republican starts to look awful patriotic."

"I beg you, never put those words together in the same sentence," Josh scowled. "Okay. However they're doing it, our boys in uniform are leaning on members of Congress. What are we gonna do about it?"

He could picture Sam's determined smile. "Lean on our boys in uniform."

"Okay. I'll set up some meetings; we can shake a few military trees, see who falls out."

"Yeah."

"Thanks, Sam."

"No problem. Listen, I should go. I'm kind of in the middle of something."

He heard a muffled voice that had to be Steve say something like "yeah, don't mind me" in the background.

"'Kay, Sam? Whatever you're in the middle of right now, I don't think I want to hear it."

"An argument," Sam supplied. "Involving, amongst other things, chess."

"Yeah, I didn't want to hear that," he decided. "Night, Sam."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Josh put the phone down and padded, still in his socks, to the office doorway. "Don-" she materialised "-na," he finished more subduedly. "How do you do that?" he demanded.

"I have my ways, Joshua."

"You do indeed. I need you to set up some meetings."

She gave him the look. The 'how do you still exist on this planet?' look. "I'm going home."

"I need you to-"

"And yet, I'm going home."

"But-"

"I can do it tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, but this is time sensitive," he objected.

Donna looked at him for a long moment. "Josh... what time is it now?"

He looked at his watch. "Uh... something past ten?"

"And what will I get if I call anybody now?"

"Uh... an answerphone?"

"And when will they call me back?"

"Tomorrow morning?" he admitted in a small voice.

She patted him on the head. "Good boy. Goodnight, Josh."

"Goodnight." She left him standing somewhat helplessly in the doorway to his office.

"Josh?"

Charlie's sudden voice startled him, and he banged his head on the desk.

"Ow." He sat up and rubbed his head miserably. Charlie smirked.

"What were you just doing down there?"

"Putting my shoes on... Charlie!" He stood up. "What are you doing here? I thought you didn't start back until Monday? Do you need me to sort something out for you? If you don't want to work full hours that's okay, I know-"

"Actually I'm gonna be here most of tomorrow... I wanted to ask you something." Charlie seemed awkward, not quite sure what to do with himself; Josh came around the front of his desk to sit on the edge of it and regard him seriously.

"What can I do for you, Charlie?" The brutal bruises were gone from Charlie's face, but from the stiff way he was carrying himself his ribs were still causing him some pain. Josh could sympathise; even now, three years on when it was supposed to be all in his head, the twinges from his chest could keep him up at night.

"Are you busy?"

"Well, I've got to go kick the ass of the entire US military but, you know, Donna went home."

"So you're taking a rain-check on that?"

"Just 'til tomorrow." He leaned forward. "What is it, Charlie?" He wondered if he was going to be asked about his own recovery from the shooting - and whether he'd know how to answer it if he did. It was still a dark and complicated corner of his recollection, a nest of dangerously vivid memories he preferred not to revisit.

But that wasn't what Charlie wanted to talk about.

"Okay, I need to ask you a favour that's probably going to freak you out."

"Okay...?" he accepted tentatively.

"I want you to be my best man."

He choked.

"Yeah, I thought you might do that," Charlie noted dryly.

"Charlie, I, I- Me?"

"Is there somebody else in this room?"

"Well, you could be talking to the walls," Josh noted, "'cause you're obviously delirious. Charlie, I, I'm not- I can't be your best man."

"Why not?" he asked mildly.

"Because I'm not-" He cut himself off. "What about Sam? You could ask Sam. Sam would be good."

Charlie grinned and shook his head. "Yeah, Sam would be good. I'm asking you."

"Charlie, I'm not..." He rubbed his forehead. "Seriously, I'm not best man material. You should ask somebody who, I don't know, who-"

"Josh." Charlie looked him in the eye. "I didn't pull your name out of the air, okay? I've thought about it. And I picked you. I want you to do it. Now, are you turning me down?"

"No," he said quietly.

"Good." Charlie straightened up and turned to go. He hesitated in the doorway. "You put me where I am, Josh. I haven't forgotten that."

Josh met his eyes, and heard the phantom howl of sirens. "Most people wouldn't expect you to thank me for that."

"And most people would be wrong." He smiled. "Goodnight, Josh."

"Goodnight, Charlie."

After he was gone, Josh leaned back against his desk and stared into space for a while.

There was a light under Leo's office door. Jed stood in the darkened corridor and contemplated it for a moment. He thought perhaps he was searching for a metaphor, but it wouldn't quite come together.

Leo was here. Leo was shut away in his office. And something was very, very wrong.

He'd been so preoccupied with his own traumas that he worried it how long it might have gone without him noticing. The fear over his MS; the adjustment to all the rules and restrictions of his new lifestyle; concern over Charlie; a hate crimes bill to craft and shepherd through Congressional hurdles. And somewhere in the middle of that, something had changed with Leo, and it had slipped through the cracks.

He knocked.

There was no response, but he went in anyway. Leo was half dozing over his desk, but he leapt to attention as Jed entered. He hated that. He wanted very much to talk with Leo, just the two of them, and he couldn't do it. There were always three of them in any given room now; him and Leo and the presidency; an awkward, uninvited guest to muscle in on any attempt at intimacy.

"Sir?" he queried tiredly. His face was lined with weariness; Leo had always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, but lately it seemed like the world had got a whole lot heavier.

"You shouldn't be here, Leo. Go home, get some rest."

Leo gave a wry little smile that made Jed feel like there was some bitter little private joke he wasn't in on. Then the expression cleared, and he just said "I'm just finishing up on the-"

"Leo... what's wrong?" He was surprised at his own words, and by the nakedly pleading quality in his voice. This had gone on long enough. He needed to know. He needed his oldest and closest friend to let him in.

Leo sat back in his chair and pushed back his glasses with a frown. "Mr. President-?"

"Oh, don't give me that crap," he snapped angrily. "Leo, I'm not blind. And I'm your friend. Talk to me."

He wished the glasses weren't there to place an extra layer of insulation between him and Leo's eyes. For a second he thought he could see something, hesitation and misery and an aching pain that made him want to cry. And then it was gone, and damn him for knowing how to be inscrutable.

Leo stood up and straightened the papers on his desk, and every trace of his old friend was buried behind the face of the Chief of Staff.

"It can wait until morning," he conceded, but Jed knew he was talking about his work and not his secrets. "I'll go home."

"Leo..." But he didn't know how to finish that, and Leo just gave him a brisk nod and walked away.

Jed remained behind in his office, miserably wondering what could be so bad that his old friend wouldn't talk to him. It was so like Leo to try to shield him from his personal problems... didn't he realise that seeing him suffer was a million times worse than dealing with any trial, however complicated?

He was patting his pockets for a good long while before he realised he was searching for cigarettes that weren't there.

"Hey." Abbey smiled at her husband as he came and sat down on the bed in the Residence, tiredly loosening his tie.

"Hey." He smiled back fondly as she pressed a kiss to his cheek, but his eyes were sad. She slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder.

"Jed, what's wrong?" she asked gently.

He sighed. "I don't know. There's... I think there's something wrong with Leo."

Abbey frowned. "What kind of something?"

He could only shrug. "I don't know," he repeated. "I really don't. And he won't..." He made a frustrated gesture.

"Give him time, Jed," she counselled. "You know Leo. He doesn't open up easily about anything. He'll come to you sooner or later, honey, you're his best friend."

"But I want to help him now." His blue eyes were flooded with the innocent distress of a child wanting the world to make itself simpler. It tugged her heart, and she smoothed back a strand of his hair and smiled gently.

"Leo loves you, Jed. Give him time."

"Yeah." He sighed again, heavily, and Abbey gave him a playful squeeze.

"So..." she began tauntingly. "What's all this I hear about you being the president of sex?"

It produced the desired effect, and the edges of a grin began to unfold across his features. "Yeah, I heard about that. I've been wondering all day what my official duties are."

"I think it's mostly a ceremonial position," she said dryly.

The grin escaped into a full-fledged smirk. "Well, I'm not sure I agree with that," he said, in the kind of low, rumbly voice that made it very pleasant indeed to be pressed close enough to his chest to feel it. "I believe in practising what I preach."

"Do you now?" He was leaning towards her, and she was leaning away.

"It seems to me that as the president, I really ought to set a good example for my people."

She looked at him pointedly. "In that case, you'd better get some practise in, hadn't you?"

"Oh, I think so."

He captured her for a kiss, and for a while the weight of concern and responsibility was forgotten.

FRIDAY:

"CJ?"

"Hi." CJ spun around from where she'd been contemplating the framed picture of her father that now stood beside the one of her and her brothers, and looked up at Carol.

Carol waved a package. "I got the manuscript."

"The presidential biography?"

"Yeah."

She adjusted her glasses and sat up. "That was quick."

"I think they're hoping to get a foreword out of somebody at the White House."

"We can probably spare an intern from supplies."

Carol grinned, and held out the manuscript. "There's pictures, too."

"Pictures?" CJ tipped the package out with more enthusiasm, and Carol leaned in.

"Between you and me? They're really kinda cute."

CJ smirked, and flipped quickly through a few black and white photos of the youthful president. A school picture and a baby photo that she'd seen before. A candid college-era shot of the president displaying a broad grin that she had to concede Carol's point on, and one that made her snicker of him looking like a James Dean impersonator complete with moody pose and cigarette. Not to mention- "Aww."

"Isn't that adorable?" Carol agreed.

"We should see if the First Lady wants a copy of that." Apparently, the future First Couple had been near-sickeningly sweet together even as teenagers. For a moment the picture made her sentimental about the days when dating had been as simple as waiting to see who would ask you to the prom.

Then reality caught up, and reminded her that she'd hated those days with a fiery passion. She shuffled the photographs back together and stashed the manuscript on the edge of her desk.

"I'll have a flick through that later, see if there are any embarrassing teenage exploits for me to take notes on."

"Embarrassing for the administration?" Carol queried.

CJ gave a wicked grin. "Well, you know. That too."

Josh arrived back in his office and quickly sought out his assistant.

"Okay, Donna, now that we're actually back at work, could you possibly see your way to setting up-?"

"It's at eleven," she cut him off without looking up from her typing.

He was silent for a beat. "Your psychic powers have improved."

"They have."

"I didn't even tell you who I need to meet with!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Sam told me."

He frowned. "You spoke to Sam?"

"Sam doesn't sleep in for like, two hours in the morning."

"That's because Sam is currently sharing his bedroom with forty-seven boxes of junk."

"Not to mention Steve."

"Are you suggesting I should get a boyfriend?"

"Would it help you get to work on time?"

"I doubt that very much."

"Then I'll leave it to your own discretion."

"Thanks for that," he said dryly. Suddenly at a loss, he decided to sit on the edge of Donna's desk for a while. She paused in her typing, and looked up at him.

"Don't you have a job to do?"

"Yes, but I had a few minutes pencilled in for talking to you."

"'Annoy Donna' is an actual timetabled activity now?"

"No, it's a hobby." He was silent for a moment, thinking, then said "It's weird..."

"Your desire to annoy me? I know."

"No. Sam. It's weird to think of him and Steve, you know, setting up home together..."

Donna folded her arms and gave him a curious look. "Is this a delayed 'my best friend's dating a guy' wig out?"

"What? No. It's not Steve, necessary, it's just... you know. Sam's been dating him for what, three, four months almost, they're moving in together... that's a... that's a relationship. And Charlie and Zoey are getting married, and it's just... it's just weird."

"Yeah," Donna sighed.

"I don't know, it just seems like..." He shrugged.

"Everybody else is leaving Singledom Station, and some of us missed the train?"

Josh almost made a smart remark, and then sighed. "I was just thinking about the whole, you know, the whole 'settle down and have kids' thing. How come I never did that? It's not like I didn't want to."

"Josh," she chided him with a gentle smile. "It's not like the world ends on Saturday. You still have time."

"Yes, but I'm..." He struggled for a moment. "...Approaching the latter section of my manly prime." She snickered. "Hey!"

Donna, he felt, failed to make a suitable expression of contrition for mocking his manly prime. "What brought all this on, Josh?" she asked.

"Charlie asked me to be his best man," he confessed.

Her eyebrows shot up. "You?"

"Yes."

"Best man?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't that involve you being, you know, best? Not to mention a man?"

"I am also confused. But one-hundred percent man."

"Of course you are." He suspected that was sarcasm, but decided not to challenge it.

"That means I'm going to have to do... things. Best-manly things. I believe rings are involved. And possibly a speech."

"Boy, Charlie sure picked himself a winner," Donna said dryly.

He gave her a look. "I feel you could be more sympathetic to my feelings of... overwhelmed-ness."

"Hey, at least you don't have to be a bridesmaid."

Josh shrugged. "What's hard about that? You don't have to be in charge of complicated weddingy things, like I do."

She glared. "Do you know what being a bridesmaid means, Josh?"

"Uh... wearing the same dress as the other bridesmaids and, um, maiding the bride?"

"It is the death-knell of the single woman, Josh. There is a great celestial clock ticking off the number of times you appear as a bridesmaid. One, twice, three times; boom! Doomed to die a crazy old lady surrounded by cats."

"Wow."

"Indeed."

"Do all bridesmaids know this?"

"Why do you think CJ and I are going out together tonight and getting drunk?"

"You and CJ are going out and getting drunk?"

"Yes. You're driving us."

He blinked. "I am?"

"Yes."

"That's nice of me."

"It is."

"It's good to know I have a volunteer spirit."

"We thought so too."

"Were you actually going to... you know, ask me?"

Donna shrugged. "It seemed counterproductive."

"Okay."

He decided to wander back into his office before he discovered he'd offered to pay for the drinks as well.

"Charlie!"

"Mr. President," he nodded.

"None of that now," the president chided, coming around the desk to capture him in a hug that was loose only out of respect for his recently broken ribs.

"We're at work, sir," Charlie reminded him. During his time in the hospital and subsequent stay in the Residence - the president had insisted, albeit on the strict proviso that Zoey not be left alone with him (apparently, being too battered to comfortably sit up wasn't quite enough to allay the president's suspicions) - lines had been blurred. In a fog of painkillers and the concern of his fiancée's family, it had been surprisingly easy to slip into calling his future father-in-law 'dad', as he was frequently ordered to.

But now he was back at work, and aiming for something towards his original hours instead of the occasional part days he'd worked during his recovery. And those lines between professional and personal had to be redrawn, as much for pragmatic reasons as decorum. He knew full well, whatever the president might say, that he now had to be very, very careful about the image he represented. There could be no hints that the president's future son-in-law was kept employed for any reason other than being extremely good at his job.

Predictably, the president waved it off. "Yeah, yeah. Are you sure you're up to this, Charlie?" he asked. "If you want to take it slowly, give it a few more days-"

"I'm fine," he nodded, heading back to his desk. Despite the relatively long gap in his employment, the daily tasks were so ingrained that he could run through them without even thinking about it.

The president continued to hover. "You don't want a more comfortable chair? 'Cause you know, the chair in my office is pretty-"

Charlie grinned. "I don't think I'm allowed to sit on that one, Mr. President."

"Well, can I have somebody get you something to drink? How about a-"

"Sir." He gave his boss a look. "This whole 'personal aide' thing doesn't really work if you spend the whole day clucking over me like a mother hen."

The president narrowed his eyes. "A mother hen?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"I assume that was said with the appropriate amount of respect?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, okay then. I'll be in my office if you need anything." The president gestured over his shoulder, as if Charlie needed to be told where that was. He hesitated in leaving, and then planted a quick, affectionately paternal kiss on Charlie's cheek. "Don't push yourself too hard, son."

He glanced around the area quickly to make sure nobody had seen. That definitely didn't come under the banner of discreet professionalism.

But he kinda liked it anyway.

Once, Andrea Wyatt had been very much in love with Toby Ziegler.

Immediately before and during their divorce, she had alternated between being very much in love with Toby Ziegler and being prepared to kill him, with occasional periods of both at the same time.

After their divorce, that love had not so much faded as mutated, becoming a mix of respect and wistful affection, and something that couldn't quite stretch itself from broken romance into friendship. She couldn't live with Toby anymore, but in many ways she still adored him.

None of that, however, precluded her from the more than occasional strong desire to brain him with something blunt and heavy.

The political argument had proceeded to much the same state their debates usually did. She sat with her feet up on the edge of his desk, looking up at the ceiling. "Compromise. Compromise. Compromise. Compromise." She varied the tone of her chant to break the monotony.

"Could you possibly... stop saying that?" Toby asked her, chin resting on his linked hands in that hangdog way he had.

"Could you possibly learn to do it?" She already knew the answer to that one. It was how she'd ended up divorced in the first place.

Rather than answer her, Toby went off at yet another tangent. "The United States foreign aid budget-"

"Sucks."

He gave her a look, and damn, she wished he didn't have such familiar eyes. "Is that Congressional terminology?"

"It's the truth."

"Obviously not, then."

"Score one for Pokey!"

He gave her an injured look, and then followed up with a put-upon sigh. "Could we... turn to the proposal on-?"

"Your proposal stinks, Toby."

"It would increase the overseas aid budget."

"By a paltry twenty-five percent," she objected.

"Congress-"

"I'm part of Congress," Andy reminded him.

"Ah, the multitudinous liberal Democratic part," he shot back. Score two for Pokey, not that she'd admit as much. "Congress," he repeated, "has consistently shot down any attempt to increase the budget allocated to foreign aid."

"Oh, I see, we're blaming Congress for the defeat before we've even tried?"

"It usually saves time," Toby said dryly.

"Congress consistently votes this government's proposals down because it knows damn well that this government won't back them up with anything more than talk. You need to be decisive, you need to be radical, and you need to increase the foreign aid budget by at least five hundred percent before it's anything more than a joke!"

"I don't think it's a joke to the thousands of people who are helped by the eight billion we pour into other countries every year."

"Oh, but the ones who aren't getting the forty billion you don't send are laughing," she said sharply. She folded her arms and glared, and for a moment there was an impasse.

At which point they both remembered there was actually somebody else in the room.

"Lord Marbury?" Toby inquired. The Englishman raised his chin from the hand it had been resting on as he regarded them both intently.

"Oh, do carry on, old man. I assure you, I'm finding you both perfectly fascinating."

He smiled brightly.

"Hey, Charlie!" CJ smiled brightly at the president's young aide. "How're you feeling?"

"Like a lot of people keep asking me that." He glanced at the papers she was reading. "The president was just wondering if you had the report on-" She nodded at it. "Thanks." He noticed the photographs piled beside it. "Hey, is that the president?"

"I'm reading his biography," she explained.

He nodded, glancing through the pictures and smirking at the one of Bartlet as a moody teen. "Is it interesting?"

"I'll let you know when I've got past the fifteen page introduction telling me how great the author is."

There was a knock, and Abigail Bartlet appeared in the doorway. "CJ," she nodded, and her smile widened. "And Charlie!"

"Oh no," he said under his breath.

"I heard that. Okay, come here, stand up straight, and let me look at you," she ordered.

"I'm really fine now," he told, complying.

"Sure you are. Breathe in, breathe out; good. Does this hurt?"

"Ow!"

"I thought so. You've got to be careful," she chided, "those ribs are still tender. You have to watch you don't try too much."

"I think I just have to watch people don't come up to me and poke me in the ribs," he said wryly.

"Are you starting something with me, Charlie?" she challenged playfully.

"No, ma'am."

"And don't call me ma'am."

In a remarkable display of quick thinking, Charlie redirected her attention to the photographs. She picked them up and leafed through them with a fond smile of recollection. "What are these in aid of, Claudia Jean?"

"I'm reading a biography... uh, Jed: Portrait of a Future President."

"Boy, that must be a thrill a minute," said the First Lady dryly.

CJ hesitated, and then asked. "Ma'am... did your husband do anything particularly embarrassing in his college years I should know about?"

"Well, he once lost a bet and had to do an Elvis impersonation in front of an audience."

"Elvis?" CJ was mostly unsuccessful at hiding her smirk; Charlie didn't even try.

"Oh, he was actually doing pretty well until he fell off the stage," Abbey noted.

"Is there photographic evidence?"

"Sadly not." The First Lady smiled to herself. "Although the mental picture definitely lingers." CJ grinned in response.

When the others were gone, CJ turned back to her reading in a more cheerful state of mind. If the president said there was nothing and the First Lady said there was nothing... well, whatever rumours Katie thought she'd heard, they surely had to be something benign.

Josh was beginning to get an eerie sense of déjà vu. However, he strongly suspected that it had less to do with any kind of mystical convergence than it did to do with the fact that the military knuckleheads they were meeting with kept reciting the same arguments and stock lines over and over again.

Knucklehead #1, also known as Major Whiting, was repeating his point; either for emphasis or just through lack of imagination. "The uniform code prohibits-"

"The uniform code is wrong," Sam spoke up fiercely.

Josh really didn't like the look of contempt in Whiting's eyes as he glanced at the Deputy Communications Director. "The current policy has worked for-"

"It doesn't work!" he retorted. "Over one thousand discharges every year, of servicemen and women who are not, in any way, unsuited to active duty-"

"It's a matter of unit discipline," put in Knucklehead #2, Major Hardcastle.

"Gay people are undisciplined?" Josh put in incredulously.

"They disrupt the normal functioning of the unit," Whiting said coldly.

"Yeah, by having the temerity to be beaten up, harassed, threatened and bullied into admitting their sexuality," Sam retorted. Josh shot him a warning glance.

"Major... we will repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell," he said firmly. "There's legislation in the House right now that will blow your defence out of the water, and you know it."

"It won't pass," said Hardcastle smugly.

"We have the support of Congress on this one," Josh told him.

"Oh, I think you'll find you don't..."

Sam scowled. "Would you care to elaborate on that?"

The major sat back in his chair, and smiled to himself. "Congress will never stand behind legislation which makes such a radical departure from common sense and common decency."

"Major," Sam said sharply, "would you care to comment on a series of meetings in the last few days between representatives from a number of military training bases and Democratic Congressmen?"

"I wouldn't know anything about that," he said neutrally, but he didn't even bother to disguise the arrogant smirk.

"Listen-" Sam began explosively, and Josh held up a hand to cut him off.

"Okay, I'm afraid we're going to have to call a break here. I have another meeting in a couple of minutes - can we continue this tomorrow?" They all packed up and left.

Out in the corridor, Sam glared at him. "I don't need to be reigned in, Josh."

"Nobody's reigning you in."

"You need to let me tell them exactly what-"

"Don't give them the ammunition to make this about you, Sam," Josh advised him quietly.

"This is about me, Josh," he said sharply. Josh looked at the floor.

The awkward moment was broken by the British Ambassador passing by. "Lord Marbury," Josh nodded.

"Samuel, Joshua! Out to lunch?"

Josh glanced at his watch. "Heading that way," he agreed.

"Were those dour-faced military chaps by any chance with you?"

"Gays in the military," Sam said, with a bitter twist to his mouth. This had been a pet issue of his since long before it started hitting a little closer to home.

"Ah, yes, disgraceful business. Good to see your country is finally taking a few tottering steps towards civilisation."

"Thank you, your lordship," Josh said dryly.

He smiled. "Her Majesty's armed forces have been pursuing for the past few years what was referred to as 'A policy of complete indifference'."

"We prefer to reserve that for more important issues," Sam said dryly.

"So I've discovered." He gave them both a brief bow. "Good day, gentlemen."

Josh shifted awkwardly, uncomfortable with Sam's unusual cynicism. "So... you want to get lunch or something?"

"No." He shook his head. "I have to go ask Ginger to pull some information for me."

Josh watched him go, and wished he possessed the key to banishing all the prejudice and frustrations his friend was going to encounter. But he knew from experience that changing the world wasn't nearly so easy; the scar on his chest could attest to that.

Thinking about it brought back the phantom itch of fading pain for a brief moment, and his hand touched to his chest. But then it was gone, and he headed off to grab a bite to eat before his next meeting.

"You need to quadruple the budget."

"With what?"

Andy glared at him over her lunch. "You spend enough on military applications."

Toby rolled his eyes. "You think I can slash the defence budget?"

"Oh, so it's okay to fund bombing other countries but not rebuilding afterwards?"

"Right now, the American public is not feeling very sympathetic towards sending money to nations who try to bomb us!"

She gave him a look. "And with that attitude, you're really going to win some friends."

"Sending monetary aid to countries with corrupt infrastructures doesn't work! It doesn't get to the people! It pays for bribes and, and security systems for the dictatorship and suicide bombers!"

"And if only five dollars out of fifty billion goes towards a meal for a twelve-year-old girl starving on the streets in Afghanistan, isn't it worth it?"

And this, he knew, was why he should never hold an argument with his ex-wife. Toby looked down. "We can't quadruple the foreign aid budget," he said quietly.

Andy was silent for a moment. "It has to go up, Toby," she said softly. "And not just because the British say so."

He sighed, and just looked at her.

"Eight billion dollars is a pathetically small amount in today's terms, Toby, and you know it."

"We've had to fight tooth and claw to keep that," he reminded her.

"So why stop there?" Andy demanded. "If you're already fighting, we might as well fight for an increase as to stay the same."

"We'll be laughed out of Washington if we try to earmark thirty billion dollars for overseas aid."

"Twenty billion, then."

He shook his head and shrugged. "It's still more than this Congress will swallow."

"So we package it in with something they want."

He looked at her. "We're not conceding ground on the Hate Crimes Bill."

Andy nodded, knowing better than to argue that point at least. President Bartlet had made it very clear - on national television, no less - that nothing was getting in the way of his anti-prejudice initiative. "The estate tax, then."

Toby pulled a disgruntled face. "No."

"Toby-"

"No."

She gave him a sharp look. "Beating the Republicans vs. the twelve-year-old girl in Afghanistan."

He narrowed his eyes at her, and then pushed his sandwich around on his plate. "We'll talk about it."

"Thank you."

"On one condition."

She raised her eyebrows.

"The words 'Mr. Grumpy-Pants' will never be uttered again in the confines of this building. Or, you know, anywhere."

Andy smiled, and pushed her plate aside. She covered his hand briefly with hers, and he wished there weren't so many memories associated with that. "So let's talk," she said.

CJ absently munched on an apple as she flipped through pages in her lunch break.

Blah blah school. Blah blah excellent grades. Blah blah Catholicism. Blah blah parental friction. Blah blah-

Oh, hell.

She very slowly stopped chewing. Putting the rest of the apple down on the edge of her desk as she promptly reread what she'd just skimmed over. And then she read it again, hoping that if she stared at it for long enough, it would suddenly start to say something else.

It didn't.

"So, we know these guys are up to something, but proving it..." Josh sighed. "Five votes from our side isn't going to kill the whole bill, but it could seriously damage our chances of getting it through with the sexuality segment intact. There've been rumblings on that part anyway; we'd be lucky to get half a dozen honest 'yea's from the Republican camp, and there are plenty Congressmen on our side who aren't in love with it."

Leo fixed him with a fierce gaze. "He wants the whole package, Josh."

"I know," he agreed quickly. Leo had been throwing his weight behind the president with a whole new force ever since the hate crimes initiative had been announced; even though he hadn't been there when the president had gone out in front of the nation to propose it. Josh wasn't sure if it was a combination of the frustrations from too many lost chances along the way, or just the sharp reminder of how much more work this country needed when they'd almost lost Charlie. Either way, where Leo had once been the voice of caution and moderation at the president's side, now he seemed determined to push through all his old friend's most sweeping changes or die trying.

Fiery determination was all well and good, and Josh relished being let off the leash as much as anybody - but he couldn't help feeling that it was taking its toll on his boss. He would have scoffed at the idea Leo could throw himself any deeper into his work, until he'd seen the old flashes of humour and playful exasperation begin to dry up and disappear.

He didn't like it, and never mind whether Leo was becoming a harder taskmaster or a less forgiving boss. Leo was burning himself up for fuel, focusing his whole being on the job and nothing but the job, and Josh had been on that side of it often enough to know that sooner or later, something would have to give.

But Leo was... Leo. And how was he supposed to begin to tackle any sort of conversation about it without getting summarily dismissed with the verbal equivalent of a cuff round the ear?

He rubbed his forehead. "We're meeting with the military guys again tomorrow. But seriously, I... I don't see that we're going to catch them out on this. I'm not sure... We're gonna need another line of attack, something to-"

"Make it happen," Leo ordered, with an air of finality.

Josh hesitated, caught between needing to speak and knowing it would get him nowhere. "Leo..."

Leo peered over his glasses to give him the 'are you still here?' look. He didn't follow it up with a snide comment, which only made it more disconcerting.

Josh fumbled for the right words. "Leo... are you okay?"

Leo just looked at him for a moment. "Get to work," he said peremptorily.

And somehow, Josh found that refusal to even accept the question even worse than an outright, blatantly untrue denial.

"Hey Charlie."

He smiled delightedly and pushed up out of his chair. "Hey, Zoey."

"Oh, no, don't get up." She leaned across his desk to give him a soft, lingering kiss. There was a loud, disapproving 'hmph' from the direction of the Oval Office. Zoey pulled away reluctantly from her fiancé and grinned. "Hi, dad."

He pulled a face and narrowed his eyes at Charlie. "I'm watching you," he said, pointing a warning finger.

"I think you should be watching her," Charlie said dryly.

Zoey tilted her head to look at him. "Traitor," she said playfully.

They kissed again. Her father cleared his throat pointedly and waited for them to pull apart. "I haven't gone anywhere," he reminded them.

She nodded her head towards the Oval. "You got an office," she shrugged.

Her father looked disgruntled. "May I remind you that I run this country?"

"You'd better get used to it dad," she warned, smiling up at Charlie as she played with his fingers. "In two months' time we'll be married."

"Unless I ship one or both of you off to Zimbabwe," he threatened without missing a beat.

Zoey looked at Charlie. He looked back at her. She stood on tiptoes to kiss him again.

Her father beat a retreat into his office, grumbling all the way.

Toby was seated alone at his desk, eyes downwards in concentration. He registered her presence in the doorway through some unknown sense, and tilted his gaze up to meet her.

"Hey." CJ stepped inside and closed the door behind her. He straightened up in his seat and looked at her curiously. She tapped the edge of the manuscript against her cheek.

"I've been reading a book about... the president's childhood."

"Ah." There was world of expression in that 'ah', and she didn't like any of it. But he just looked at her, and she knew that this was something that she couldn't quite trust to the nuances of nonspoken conversation; no matter how much easier that would feel.

"Toby, there's... it's suggested that, uh, the president and his father..." God, how was she ever supposed to deal with this if it turned out to be true, if it turned out to be real? If she couldn't even make herself say it to Toby... "The author implies that... things weren't good. With the president and his father. Things weren't good."

No, things were definitely not good. Teachers who'd talked about bruises and a family doctor who'd made a note in the margin of a file... Things she couldn't begin to reconcile with the warm, boundlessly affectionate man who filled every room he stepped into. Except sometimes, wasn't there just an edge of a look in his eye; a guarded face, a defensive withdrawal, and... no.

Toby, tell me no.

But Toby just looked at her, and she looked back. And she could already read the answer in his eyes, but he seemed to understand that she needed it committed to words anyway.

"It's true."

CJ shook her head, even though Toby was Toby, and when it came to the important things, the things that existed under the skin, Toby was never wrong. "How do you know?"

"I see," he said simply. Toby always saw; every tiny gesture, every waver, every emotion that was buried down so deep that she knew damn well he shouldn't be able to read it in her face.

But that was... well, that was her and Toby, and the president was... not the same. Toby could be wrong. Toby had to be wrong.

"Dammit, Toby, this is- you're coming to me with 'I see'?" she demanded.

"Dr. Jekyll and Uncle Fluffy," he said softly.

"What?" He mumbled into his beard, but even after the words clicked into place it was a moment more before comprehension followed.

"I told you about Uncle Fluffy."

"Toby-" CJ shook her head slowly.

"He hides, CJ," he said emphatically, pushing out of his chair to stand up. "He hides, and you can see him do it."

"And from there you go to-? Toby, this is... This is not something you can, you can just pick out of the air because you-"

"CJ." They exchanged a long look.

Her voice, when it came, was tentative. She could see something there that... something that didn't quite fit on Toby, because for a moment there it almost looked like shame or guilt. "Toby...?"

He hesitated. "There was a time when I may have been... less than tactful-"

"Toby!" She stared at him in disbelief. There was a long pause, and he looked at the floor.

"We talked."

"You- you actually-? Toby!"

"I spoke to him about-"

"There are lines, Toby!"

"He shouldn't hide!" Toby burst out. "He shouldn't-" He broke off, and began to pace the office. "He can't be allowed to run away from himself."

"Because he's the president?" she asked sharply.

He came to a halt. "Because he's who he is!"

CJ shook her head sadly at him. "You can't try to make him perfect," she reminded him.

"I can make him as good as he can be," Toby said fiercely.

"Why?"

"Because..." He waved his hands emphatically. "Because mediocrity abhors brilliance. And the only defence against mediocrity is to be brilliant, and to stay brilliant, and hiding is not escape, it's surrender! And you cannot surrender to mediocrity, you cannot ever surrender to mediocrity, because... Because that's where it ends. If you let mediocrity break you down, then... that's where it... ends."

He wound down slowly, like a clockwork soldier. There was a long silence.

CJ gave him a slow, gently sympathetic smile. "Toby... what happened to you when you were at school?"

They exchanged a long look. "I got tougher," he said very softly. He gave her a melancholy smile, and walked past her out of his own office. She could have followed.

But she didn't.

"Toby?" She found her ex-husband sitting in thoughtful darkness - never a good sign. He gave her a wry smile, but didn't speak. She sat down next to him.

"I made some calls," she offered. "It's looking like we could work this." He just nodded. "Of course, you could always take this opportunity to up the figure..."

He replied with a silently eloquent look. She wondered what had pushed him into his melancholy state. You didn't have to spend too long around Toby Ziegler to twig that a silent Toby was a troubling Toby. His natural states were sarcastic mumbling or emphatic ranting, with no moderate zones in between.

Andy wondered if his sudden reticence was her fault. It was always difficult to predict how he would react to her presence; hell, it had been difficult enough when they were still married.

Fortunately, she'd come prepared. She leaned in until they were at eye level. "Do I need to go and get the reserve pie?"

That, at least, stirred a response. "What?" He frowned at her.

"I brought one in case of emergency," she elaborated.

"You were going to placate me with pie?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." He gave a slow, inscrutable nod.

Damn the man. "What was that 'hmm' about?" she had to demand.

"Nothing."

"It wasn't nothing. You 'hmm'ed," she objected.

"I just-" He waved his hands. "Here we are, hammering out a rational political compromise, and you were going to placate me with pie?"

"Fine! I'm sorry." She stood back and folded her arms. "I insulted the spirit of your dedicated professionalism. I apologise."

He nodded.

For a beat, the room was silent.

Toby looked up at her.

"What kind of pie?"

"Ma'am?" CJ approached the First Lady hesitantly, echoes of her conversation with Toby still ringing in her ears.

"CJ." Abigail Bartlet spared her a warm if tired smile. Just because the First Lady was currently at home base didn't mean her days were any less packed with events. CJ sometimes thought that her job must be even tougher than her husband's; at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that his meetings carried more significance than an endless chain of photo-ops and meet-and-greets.

She took a breath. "Ma'am, I-"

"You can call me Abbey, CJ," the First Lady reminded her gently.

"Abbey. There's... I've been made aware of a book... that's due to be published soon." It didn't take a mind as sharp as Abbey Bartlet's to know that meant some kind of uncomfortable secret or truth in danger of being revealed.

The First Lady sat back in her chair, and frowned. "Something about me?"

"Uh, no ma'am." Directions aside, that extra layer of formality was a kind of insulation she badly needed right now. "About the president."

Abbey cut straight through to the point. "Something true, or something not?"

"I... don't know," CJ had to admit.

"Which is why you came to me," she filled in, and sighed heavily. "Okay, CJ, shoot."

"It's about..." Oh God, is there a way I can actually say this? "About the president's relationship with his father."

"Ah," she said, in exactly the same way that Toby had said 'ah'. And she knew, right then, that there was absolutely no way that this wasn't what it seemed to be.

There was an awkward silence, but Abbey had other priorities here than mercy for beleaguered press secretaries.

"What does the book say?" she demanded bluntly.

Crunch time. "There are, uh, there are various accounts of people who would have known the family at the time, and it's implied that the president's father..." Child abuse, oh, holy crap, I can't say 'child abuse'. "That he was violent."

CJ couldn't tell if the way Abbey moved her head was a short nod or just looking down at the floor. She hesitated. "Abbey-?"

When she looked up, her eyes were alight with more fury than CJ had ever seen in them, and that was no little thing. "That man-" The venom in the First Lady's voice actually made her flinch, and Abbey bit off the rest of whatever she'd been ready to say. "CJ... God help me, CJ, but I'd gladly see my husband's family history dissected in every tabloid piece of trash this country's ever known if it meant that man was exposed for what he truly was."

CJ didn't dare speak up, and the moment was only broken when Abbey sighed and shook her head. "Honest to God, CJ, there are some days I wonder how he even survived that family. The way his father used to treat them... playing one brother against another, and God knows Jonathan didn't come out of it any better, seeing his older brother taken down all the time and neither of them able to stop it."

She looked CJ in the eye. "Nothing he ever did was ever enough to please his father, CJ, and Lord knows if he was alive today, he'd still be standing over Jed's shoulder, cursing him for a fool with every step he takes. And somewhere back in Jed's head, I think he still is."

CJ had nothing to say. It was so... incomprehensible. The only frame of reference she had for a father was her own dearly beloved dad, a tower of strength through all her life and a dull, aching place in her soul now he was gone. To have come through that kind of emotional degradation... how did you get from that to Jed Bartlet? It just didn't seem possible.

She hesitated, and cleared her throat. "Ma'am, the book. I don't know- What should I-?"

Abbey laughed, the kind of low, humourless chuckle that was really nothing more than an alternative to crying. "I don't know, CJ. I really don't. I don't know what it would do to him to have this out in the open after - God, after forty, fifty years. He's... he's never spoken to me about it. I saw the two of them together, but... I had to corner Jonathan to even try and get the real story. And I'm not convinced I even know the half of it."

She was silent for a beat. "Do you know what the most terrible, horrible tragedy of all this is?" Abbey lowered her head, resting her forehead in the palm of her hand a moment as if it suddenly felt too heavy. "Jed loves his father. He always did. He always, always did."

She looked up, and sighed heavily. "You'll have to talk to him, CJ. I'm sorry, but... I can't make this decision for him. I can't rescue him from his own past." She closed her eyes, and added, almost to herself, "I never could."

CJ found herself wandering the halls of the White House with an odd feeling of emotional fatigue; the way you felt after having a good long cry, except that she hadn't been sobbing, just listening to the First Lady's pain and being exhausted by it.

She couldn't talk to the president, not tonight. She just couldn't face another conversation like that tonight.

No, she was going to go out for the evening with Donna as planned, get well and truly hammered, and talk to the president tomorrow. Tomorrow was a Saturday, he might be in his jeans and Notre Dame sweatshirt, and somehow he'd be... less the president. A little more like Jed Bartlet, a little more a human being that she could have a desperately painful conversation with. She knew she couldn't do that tonight.

She wasn't sure she wanted to talk to Toby, either, but her feet automatically guided her over to his office. To continue their conversation from earlier, or just to sit with him in silence, she couldn't have said.

The point turned out to be moot. His door was partly open, and she hesitated instead of walking straight on through.

He was sitting with Andy. She wasn't sure if they were talking or just sitting, but there was a plate of what had to be pie between them and both of them were holding forks. She couldn't see Andy's face, but Toby's held an almost wistfully sad expression that was difficult to classify.

Even had she not been wanting to catch him alone, there was no way she would ever have intruded on that room. CJ took a few steps back without announcing her presence, abruptly feeling uncomfortably invasive.

Soft footsteps alerted her to the uncharacteristically quiet approach of Lord Marbury. He glanced towards Toby's office, and she had to stop him from interrupting. "Um, they're-"

"I saw," he said, and smiled quietly at her. "I think perhaps our concluding deliberations will have to be postponed until tomorrow. Urgent business of Her Majesty's government."

"Yes?"

"I'm sure I shall be able to find some if I look hard enough," he said dryly. She nodded and smiled at him. Oh, there was far more to Lord John Marbury than immediately met the eye - and she was fairly sure he intended it that way.

He offered her his arm - an archaically chivalrous gesture that seemed completely natural and normal on him - and she took it, and allowed him to walk her away from the communications area.

Let Toby and Andy have their privacy. She was going to go find Donna.

And get stinking drunk.

It had reached the point in the evening when they ordered drinks on the basis of interesting they sounded. The bar had started to become pleasantly blurry, and so had the conversation.

Donna raised her glass, proposing a toast. They'd started toasting fairly random things a few rounds of drinks ago. The glass stayed in the air for a while until one sprang to mind.

"Always the bridesmaids, never the bride," she finally declared, slurring the word 'bridesmaids'. Difficult word. Difficult job, dammit. But someone had to do it, and that was her, Donnatella Moss, bridesmaid extraordinaire. She'd done the deed for both her sisters and an old college roommate, now she was doing it for the daughter of the leader of the free world. She was going up in the world. Or possibly in some other direction. She was definitely going somewhere, because the room sure as hell wasn't staying still.

CJ clinked her glass and took a long sip from her own before asking of nobody in particular; "Why would anybody want to be a bride?"

Donna gave that a few moments of drunken contemplation. "Better dresses."

"True."

"Also, the whole husband thing," she added, waving her glass emphatically.

CJ pulled her face. "Ah, they're overrated."

Donna was still listing. "And the post-wedding sex."

"Which is ought to be good sex, dammit," CJ said firmly, thumping the tabletop.

"Well, if you're marrying the guy, one would hope. Post-wedding sex for bridesmaids, on the other hand-"

"Oh, no no no no no."

"There's always some guy in a powder-blue tuxedo-"

"And a little bit too much champagne-"

"And wham, blam, you wake up the next morning with a date to go long-distance hiking in the next county over."

Josh arrived at the table, her wandering boss returning from... wherever he'd been. Donna thought he might have told her, but she couldn't quite remember. The White House? No. Florida? No. Possibly the men's room.

He sat down at their table, setting his glass of water between their far more interesting alcoholic drinks. "What are you guys talking about?" There was a hint of amusement in his voice, although she wasn't sure why.

"Sex," CJ supplied.

"And cross-country hiking," she added helpfully.

Josh paused for a moment. "Strangely, in my daydreams, that seldom features as a follow-up."

"That's because you've never been a bridesmaid," CJ explained.

"Although you would look good in one of those little dresses," she informed him.

"Donna." He gave her a look.

"You've got the calves for it." Anybody would look better in one of those dresses than she did.

Except possibly Toby.

Hmm. That was a mental image she should probably try to divest herself of before she became completely sobered up.

Josh leaned back in his seat. "I think I should probably get you two home."

CJ and Donna exchanged glances. "We're not drunk yet," Donna objected. Josh smiled.

"I don't think you'd like to see the results of a straw poll on that one. Come on, ladies. The best man says it's time to get moving."

"Does he?" CJ looked around. Donna found that so funny she ended up with her face pressed against the table, unable to stop laughing.

A pair of gentle hands that presumably belonged to Josh helped her up and steered her out of the bar. The back of Josh's car suddenly seemed very inviting, and when he opened the door she pretty much collapsed inside. She was asleep before he finished carefully buckling the seatbelt around her.

Steve locked his car and adjusted the box against his shoulder as he headed up the path towards his future home.

His and Sam's future home. A smile spread across his features, until he remembered what he'd learned the night before.

President. His boyfriend could have run for president. And apparently, he didn't consider this anything that needed to be discussed before embarking on a very non-discreet relationship and openly admitting to being bisexual.

It was strange, but... he would have felt better about it if Sam was actually gay. If becoming Joe-Average-All-American-Guy-Next-Door would have been betraying his true self and making him desperately unhappy. But he hadn't had to know Sam five minutes to realise that he could fall in love with somebody for who they were, without so much blinking over their gender. Sam could have been happy marrying some equally sweet girl and settling down. He could have had his chance at the presidency. And instead he'd picked Steve.

And he didn't know how to feel about it. Weren't you supposed to go all weak at the knees when your other half made some kind of dramatic gesture for you? Well, okay, maybe there was a little bit of a knee-tremble going on there, but mostly he just felt... confused. And surprisingly angry.

How could Sam just, just casually throw all that away for him? Was he supposed to live up to that? Be 'The Guy Who Was Good Enough to Give Up the Presidency For'?

And Sam hadn't even thought to mention it. Not one little 'Oh, by the way, I could've run for leader of the free world but I'm picking you instead, no pressure'. He didn't even seem to realise that in turning away from being president he'd given anything up.

And that, of course, was why he would have been so goddamn good at it.

Steve had been blown away meeting President Bartlet; not just because he was star-struck - or because of the tiny tiny little fragment of a crush that he was not going to be telling Sam about ever - but because of the sheer presence of the man. He just had... something. Something special, and Sam had it too.

Whether he realised it or not, Sam really could have been president.

Steve unlocked the door and stepped inside. The lights were off, and he flipped the switch. He walked into the next room, and nearly fell over from shock.

"Jesus, Sam! You scared me." He laid a hand over his pounding heart.

Sam grinned angelically up at him. He was sitting on the floor, next to a cardboard box, on top of which was arranged the chess set.

"What's all this?" Steve wondered, placing the box in his hands on top of a pile of others. Nothing in the room was unpacked but for the chess set.

"It's a chess game. Sit down," Sam commanded.

Bemused, he found himself actually following orders. "What makes you think I can play?" he demanded contrarily.

"Oh, please. You work for a computer company. Your bookshelves are all Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov. You have a big plastic jar full of dice from games you used to play, and none of them are six-sided. You have played chess before, and played it many times, my friend, because you? Are a classic geek."

"Takes one to know one," he conceded.

"Now play."

"Why?"

"So we can finish our argument from last night." Steve opened his mouth, and Sam quieted him with a finger. He made the opening move on the chess board. Steve counter-moved. They played in silence for a few moments, until Sam took a one of his pawns.

"I never wanted to be president," he said.

Steve made to speak again, but Sam shushed him. Getting it, he quickly took one of Sam's pieces in return.

"You never even told me it was an option," he said.

They played some more. Sam took a knight. "I never saw it as one."

Steve reigned in the frustrated explosion until he had the opportunity to take a knight in return, and found it had cooled off a little in the meantime.

"It was one, Sam. You could have got up there and changed the world."

Sam took another of his pawns. "I can do that right where I already am." He got in another move before Steve could offer a rebuttal. "I could never live with the compromise that goes on at that level. I'd go crazy."

Steve counter-moved. "You've got the vision, Sam. You'd make a great president."

White knight takes black rook. "I've seen the toll it takes on President Bartlet."

Black knight takes white pawn. "So do you think he shouldn't have done it?"

White pawn takes black knight. "I'm not him."

He put Sam in check, and took one of his rooks when he was forced to move out of it. "You really are, Sam," he said sincerely. If Sam couldn't see how much he was like his mentor, he was being wilfully blind.

They moved and counter-moved in intense silence, neither easily conceding pieces now. Sam put Steve in check with a bishop, and Steve had no choice but to move the king back. Sam effortlessly slid his queen up the board, pinning the black king behind his own pieces. Checkmate.

He stood up and leaned across the board, touching his lips gently to Steve's. "I'd rather be me," he said, and smiled.

A few moments later, chess was the furthest thing from either of their minds.

Josh let CJ out of the car outside her place. "Thanks, Papa Bear. Now look after Goldilocks," she advised him. She was swaying slightly, but already it would have been hard for the casual observer to tell she was drunk.

"Goodnight, CJ."

"Night, Joshy."

He refrained from commenting on that, mostly in the hope that it would immediately pass out of her less-than-sober memory and never surface again. He hesitated, and then had to ask something that been had bugging him all the way back from the bar.

"Do you think it's true that I have nice calves?"

She gave him a CJ look that was no less blunt for the alcohol. "Josh. Would you like to borrow the dress?"

"I'll go now," he decided.

"Goodnight, Mi Amor!" She blew him a kiss, and he smiled in return. He got into the front seat of the car, and sat and watched until he was sure she was safely inside. Then he craned around in his seat to look at Donna.

"You alive back there?" he asked softly. She mumbled to herself in her sleep, and he grinned.

It felt like a shame to tip her out when they got to her apartment. Donna, he knew from experience, was considerably less steady on her feet than CJ after a few drinks, so he helped her up the steps and into her apartment. She collapsed onto her sofa and gave a world-weary sigh.

"I'm doomed," she mumbled to herself.

"You're what?"

"Doomed."

He knelt beside the sofa and smiled gently up at her. "Why are you doomed, Donna?" he asked tolerantly.

Donna waved a hand irritably at him. "I'm cursed. This is my fourth time as a bridesmaid. It's too late." Her face fell. "I'll never find anybody who's right for me."

Josh hesitated for a long moment. "No, maybe you won't," he agreed.

She gave him a drunkenly indignant look. "Gee, thanks."

"No, see, 'cause that would involve you finding somebody who deserves you." He paused for a beat. "And I don't see you ever doing that."

Donna made an incoherent noise somewhere between a squeal and a sob, and squeezed him in a tight hug. He smiled, and lightly pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Goodnight, Donnatella."

He got up and walked towards the door. Halfway there, she called him back.

"Josh." When he looked at her, she seemed almost sober. "You really are the best man, you know," she said softly.

He walked back out to his car with a smile on his face.

SATURDAY:

Sam awoke with a crippling backache. When he put his hands out to push himself up and felt the floor beneath them, he remembered why.

He looked down at Steve, who he couldn't help noticing was now wrapped in a rather larger proportion of the blanket they'd curled under than he'd been allotted the night before. "Hey, wasn't that a shared blanket at some point?" he asked, in a voice still foggy with sleep.

Steve blinked guileless green eyes. "It was a preemptive measure. You're a... floor-hog," he finished, somewhat lamely.

Sam yawned, stretched, and winced. He surveyed the empty apartment. "At some stage we should probably get, you know, furniture."

"You think?"

"It would give the decor that little extra sparkle."

"I don't know." Steve sat up, hair mussed. "The chess and cardboard box motif has its moments."

"Yeah, but the facilities leave a lot to be desired." He rubbed his spine and groaned to himself. "I'm too old for this."

"Yup."

He shot his younger boyfriend a venomous look. "Thanks for that."

"Any time."

"I've a good mind to never let you share a floor with me again."

"Ah, but you'll get awful lonely with my side of the floor empty."

Sam stood up, and Steve giggled as he staggered, legs still asleep. "Quiet." He leaned against the doorframe and shook his head to clear it. "I need to go home, get some clothes."

"You have clothes."

"Yeah, but they look like I spent the night sleeping on the floor in them."

"Imagine that." Steve remained lazily tangled in the blanket, apparently untroubled by the hard cold, surface he was splayed against. Sam shot him a look that was more jealousy for that fact than that he got to sleep in.

"Are you gonna stay there all day?"

"Well, it's Saturday, so... probably."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You youngsters today," he tutted. "No respect for your elders, no work ethic, sleeping on floors..."

Steve pouted adorably. "Hey, you were the one trying to seduce me with your devilishly sexy chess playing."

"It was your idea to get the blanket and make like we were camping."

Steve shrugged. "I'm gay; I have a licence to camp." Sam pointed an admonishing finger.

"Okay, that's it. I'm reporting you to the bureau of bad puns and stereotypes."

"You have one of those at the White House?"

"Some days I think I work in it." He came back over to give Steve a quick kiss. "You want to come with me to this thing tonight?"

"The dinner party?"

"You've deciphered my ingenious code," he said dryly.

"Will there be music, food and alcohol?"

"There'll even be furniture," he promised.

"Well now, how could I hope to resist that kind of decadence?"

Despite the fairly grim parade of meetings he was facing before the evening was upon them, Sam's face was split by a wide grin. "Then I'll see you tonight." They parted with a kiss.

Donna woke up, and wished she hadn't.

She reached up a hand and cautious patted the back of her head, just to make sure it hadn't really been sliced off with an axe. Apparently not. Which was a pity, really, because that rather reduced the possibility of a quick and merciful death.

She discovered that she'd been slumped face down on her own couch, still in the clothes she'd been wearing the previous evening. Well, at least she hadn't been drooling.

Boy, you really knew it was a five star morning when that was the first cheerful thought you had of the day.

Donna staggered out to the kitchen, and briefly weighed how much she really wanted to eat toast against how much she really wanted to spend the next few minutes throwing up.

Coffee for breakfast it was.

Mug in hand, she pressed the button on her answer machine, and winced at the piercing bleep. "You have - two - messages," it informed her stiltedly.

"Donna!"

Oh God, not a loud Josh at this time of the morning. She would have jabbed at the pause button if that hadn't involved actual effort.

"Good morning, Donnatella," her boss's voice said exuberantly. "The sun is shining, birds are singing... well, they're probably singing somewhere, anyway... it's a beautiful day!"

She growled at the phone.

"For the record, you didn't do anything hideously embarrassing last night, and your charming, witty and generally wonderful excuse for a boss escorted you home with your clothing, honour, and most of your dignity intact. Have a nice day!"

As the machine bleeped between messages, Donna seriously contemplated throwing something at it. Then Josh's voice came on again.

"And, by the way. You can have the morning off." Suddenly smiling, she started to feel better.

Until she tried to move, and decided that a warm and fuzzy feeling was no substitute for Advil, after all.

Leo sat in his office, very still. He hadn't slept in it the previous night, but he wished he had. His hotel room wasn't safe for him - it wasn't any refuge from the things he was running from. The things he was running from he carried with him, and the only place to escape them was in the blessed mental numbness of working until he was ready to collapse.

There had been no alcohol the night before. That was good. That was very good. He could do this. He could find his control. He could pull himself out of this. He-

He was practically shaking with the desperate need to get drunk. Leo wasn't sure if the way his hands seemed to quake was for real or the stigmata of the weight of guilt that was slowly crushing him to death. Either way, he kept his muscles tensed as painfully tightly as he could whenever he was not alone, burying the evidence.

And nobody suspected. That was the worst of it, the knife in his gut; nobody, nobody suspected. Oh, he couldn't hide completely - not from Jed, or from Margaret, or from Josh - but though they all eyed him concernedly, not one of them had fingered the horrible truth. Because not one of them believed for a second that he could screw up this badly, that he could ever have sunk to this depth. They trusted him, and he was betraying them for every fraction of a second they continued to.

But how could he ever tell them the truth?

But how could he go on this way?

But how could he tell them?

The door to his office creaked open, and he didn't jump. He was too good at this. He knew how to hide the signs; he'd had years and years and years of practise.

Margaret appeared in the doorway, holding a mug of coffee. She eyed him sorrowfully, but said nothing.

Ask me, Margaret. For God's sake, ask me. Just look me in the eye, and say 'Leo, are you drinking again?'

And then I can say yes.

Please, God, somebody ask me.

But Margaret just placed the coffee silently on the desk before him, and momentarily touched his hand in a gesture of support he didn't deserve. And then she was gone, and she hadn't asked, and he hadn't told.

Leo hadn't told anybody, and he didn't know how. He couldn't go on like this, but he didn't know how to stop, didn't know how he could ever make that ultimate betrayal. Couldn't look his oldest friend in the eye and admit that the faith he'd placed in him had been wasted on a shadow of a man who couldn't even trust himself.

He didn't know how to tell anybody, and nobody ever asked.

So the truth never got told.

Jed flipped absently through pages of briefing notes, but his mind was elsewhere. He was hungry, as he usually was at this time of the morning, but not so hungry that he'd stoop so low as actually trying to eat fruit. Breakfast had lost much of its savour now that it had been made abundantly clear by his wife that anything involving syrup or even remotely sugary was not going to come within a million miles of his menu.

Alone in the room - Charlie, despite his protests, had been barred from coming to work any earlier than midday - he surreptitiously tugged at his waistband. If he was getting any thinner, it was taking a long time showing itself. Abbey insisted his diet had put him in better shape than he had been for years, but he suspected he was being humoured.

Still, there was nothing wrong with being humoured when Abigail Bartlet was the one doing the humouring. There was something in the way that she looked at him that even if she was giggling helplessly at the sight of him in a less than elegant pose, he still felt great.

Thinking of those kind of looks... Abbey was still in the building, it was the weekend, and hell, those reports weren't really that important...

There was a knock on the door.

Dammit.

So much for that idea. He got to his feet as the door tentatively opened. "Mr. President?"

"Come in, CJ," he said genially.

His press secretary entered the Oval Office and hovered uncertainly. Jed fixed on the sheaf of papers in her hand. "Something I should know about?"

"Yes, sir," she said, but she seemed reluctant to actually hand it to him. "It's the, um, the Rogers biography I told you about."

"Juvenile drug habit?" he cracked, but she didn't smile.

"No sir." She hesitated long enough that he suddenly didn't want to ask her to spit it out. They looked at each other for a moment, and then she slowly profferred the pages. "I think you should probably... read it yourself."

He continued to hold her gaze for a few seconds, and then pushed his glasses back up into a reading position and sat on the arm of his chair. Despite himself, Jed felt a sudden flare of nervousness in his belly. The words momentarily blurred, but though he wanted to tell himself it was the MS he knew it was really a symptom of his own reluctance.

He made himself read.

He stopped reading. For a moment he tried to put a face to the name of Jason Peters, but it wouldn't come. Old Doc Peters himself swam on the edge of his memory for a moment, but when he tried to pin the image down it was his father's face that rose up to fill his mind.

Was that supposed to be funny?

Do you think you can impress me?

Don't get clever with me, boy.

For a second he felt dizzy, and he had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he was back in the Oval Office, back in the real world.

Away.

Thirty years away, and President of the United States, and- I wasn't trying to be clever, really I wasn't, I can't help it, I just think that way-

CJ was watching him. He gave her a thin and tired smile.

"I think perhaps you should leave this for me to read," was all he said.

"Yes sir." She nodded, and practically fled the office.

"Well?" Sam looked up at him. "What do you think?"

Josh pulled his gaze away from the pages of the report. "Sam-"

"You've got to let me do it," he insisted.

He grimaced. "Sam-"

"You know I'm right."

"That's not the-"

"It is the point," Sam cut him off firmly.

Josh shook his head warningly. "You don't want to take this, Sam."

"I want to take this," he said determinedly.

He could see his friend's eyes were alight with righteous battle - and also the dangerous chasm he was about to go charging headlong into. "They'll make this personal," he warned.

"It is personal," Sam reminded him.

"Sam-"

"Would you tell Charlie not to take on the guys who attacked him because he's black?"

"We don't hold military hiring practises as a parallel to Neo-Nazism, Sam!"

"And it's about time we started asking ourselves why not."

"Yeah." He hesitated for a beat. "Take the meeting, Sam."

Sam quirked a slight grin at that. "I was telling you what I was doing, Josh, not asking permission," he informed him.

Josh pulled a face. "You know, technically, I'm your superior."

"Toby's my superior."

"And I'm up there with Toby, so I'm still the boss of you. In fact, I think, I'm not entirely sure, but I might be the boss of Toby, too."

There was a brief pause.

"Good luck with that," Sam said wryly.

"Yeah." He turned to go. "Sam," Josh called him back. He looked over his shoulder. "Just try not to hit anybody, 'kay?"

"Okay."

"Sam." He turned back again. "I don't actually care if you hit anybody," Josh admitted.

Sam smirked. "Can I classify that as 'orders from above'?"

"Why not?" he shrugged. "That defence always seems to work for their guys."

"See you later, Josh."

"Kick some ass in there," he smiled.

Sam grinned. "Oh, I will," he promised.

Toby glanced across at Andy, and they both straightened up as the British Ambassador walked in. "John, we've spent some time going over a few proposals, and I think we've come to a conclusion that-"

"Excellent," Marbury cut him off, beaming cheerfully. He shook Toby's hand. "Well, I'm sure that whatever solution you've come up with will be more than satisfactory. I think my business here is done."

They exchanged puzzled looks. Yesterday and the day before, it had seemed that the ambassador had no other goal than to keep them locked up in a room together, tied up in every tiny little nuance of the debate. Now suddenly whatever they decided was okay with him.

Toby mentally regrouped. "Uh, the figures we're proposing-"

"Will be more than enough to satisfy my compatriots across the pond," Marbury waved it away. "Naturally, we're all aware of the realities of these issues; the fact that you were willing to commit to making improvements is the important factor. The PM will be more than happy to clarify his comments and retract any accusation against your county. In fact, he already has; I spoke to him last night." He smiled and bowed. "And now, I shall leave you two alone. Good day!"

He left, and they both looked at each other for a few moments.

Toby rubbed his forehead slowly. "Remind me why we didn't finish the British off when we had the chance?"

Andy grinned and stood up, shuffling her papers back together. "Well, I guess... we're done here," she said a little awkwardly.

Toby nodded, feeling suddenly disoriented and awkward. So, here they were, suddenly alone together with nothing to argue about. He wasn't quite sure what to do with that.

There was a long silence, and then Andy blurted "You'll discuss the proposals with-?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

More silence. She gave him a tentative smile and moved towards the door. And something made him say "There's a dinner party here tonight."

"Oh, you've got to- you're working on that now?"

Which would have been the easy, graceful way to bow out. For some strange reason, he failed to take it.

"Come with me. Tonight."

She hesitated, plainly torn. "Toby-"

"Come with me."

Andy smiled cautiously. "Okay."

"Okay." He smiled back. And then she was gone.

Sam strode purposefully into the meeting room and sat down. He nodded at the two men. "Major Whiting, Major Hardcastle, sorry to keep you waiting."

"Where's Josh?" frowned Hardcastle. Sam looked up from his notes.

"Josh isn't going to need to be here. This is gonna be a pretty short meeting."

Whiting shifted irritably in his chair; whether he was angry at being kept waiting or being palmed off on somebody he'd made it clear yesterday he considered no more than a poster boy was hard to tell. "Now listen, I'm an officer in the US armed forces, and-"

"And we know damn well you've been abusing your position to pressurise members of the House of Representatives into vetoing an amendment that would make your organisation's discrimination against homosexuals illegal, so I'd lay off the self-righteousness if I were you," Sam said coldly.

The Major spluttered very satisfactorily; Hardcastle shot to his feet

"Now listen, Seaborn-"

"No, I would suggest you listen. Let me give you a list of names. Anthony Thomas Braxton, Robert J. Lewisham, Damon Knetchel, Gavin Liferman, Richard Drafer... Are any of these sounding familiar? I think they probably should, given that they're high-ranking members of the military hierarchy. If not?" He lifted the corner of the top page before him. "I have two dozen more right here."

Whiting narrowed his eyes. "Whatever kind of stunt this is-"

"Oh, this is no stunt," Sam said calmly. "Did I mention the second list of names? You probably won't know those, but it's a considerably longer list. They're all servicemen and women who brought complaints about being harassed, blackmailed, emotionally, physically and mentally abused into revealing their sexuality by those highly placed individuals. Which, apparently, was somebody's idea of 'telling' under the Don't Ask Don't Tell system, since no inquiries were ever made into any of those complaints."

"That's because those complaints were entirely baseless," Hardcastle said sneeringly.

Sam nodded slowly. "Then I guess it won't matter if I go down the hall, put this list in the president's hand, and he announces on national TV that these complaints - and any others like them that come out of the woodwork - are going to be pursued exhaustively until the truth is discovered."

"The president won't launch an all-out attack on his own military support base," Major Whiting said with absolute confidence.

"This president will," Sam corrected him. "This president will, and he'll do it with the full support of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This president will do that and you know it, because if you didn't know it then your men would walk right into the Oval Office and say 'We're not accepting this'. You and I both know that if your opposition to this bill had a single leg to stand on, you would not be fighting this battle through Congress. So consider yourself warned. You want to fight this battle, then you do it on the record, and the American public can judge for itself whether your objections are anything more than stubborn adhesion to a code of behaviour as archaic as it is narrow-minded and self-defeating."

Both men were on their feet by now. "I don't think we have anything more to discuss here," said Whiting coldly.

"No, I don't think we do," Sam said, looking him in the eye and matching his tone. "Make no mistake, Major, that we will pursue this if you persist in trying to interfere with the democratic process." He folded his arms decisively as they got to their feet.

Major Hardcastle stopped in the doorway. "You have no concept of military discipline," he said tightly.

"If that's what you call it, then no, I guess I don't," Sam agreed. He smiled harshly. "But I have a grasp of legality, morality, and simple common sense that's just fine, and so does the man in the street. I might not be allowed to serve in your so called 'disciplined' military, but I do serve at the highest seat of government, and if you want to fight your fellow Americans' right to serve their country in whatever manner they desire, then I say bring it on."

Hardcastle purpled, but stalked out without saying anything. Sam stood and watched them leave.

"Good afternoon, Donna," Josh beamed.

"Die, Lyman," she growled, storming past him into the office.

He followed after her. "It's nice that we have these little chats," he noted dryly.

"This is all your fault," she scowled.

"It's my fault you're hung over?"

"You couldn't have stopped me?"

"At some stage in between you saying 'Josh, take me and CJ to the bar so we can get drunk' and the point where I you know, stopped you?"

She was about to say something scathing when her gaze fell past him and onto the TV set, currently showing the press briefing. "Is that live?" she demanded.

"No, we made a greatest hits tape," he said, amused.

Donna glared malevolently at the little image of CJ, cheerfully bantering with the press as if she'd got to bed bright and early the night before without a drop of alcohol in her system. "Okay, CJ's definitely signed a pact with some kind of dark, nefarious power."

"CJ's working for the Republicans?"

"Shut up, Josh."

He smirked after her. "I think somebody has a 'sensitive system'."

She paused in the doorway. "Joshua, out of curiosity... exactly how badly do you want to get through to the end of this day still alive?"

She held his gaze until he actually started to look scared, and then swept off.

With plans to hole up in a corner and hold her head, groaning, for maybe an hour or fifteen.

He sensed more than heard her come up behind him. "I'm not smoking," he said, without looking up.

"Good boy." Abbey sat down beside him.

"Do I get a pat on the head and a cookie?" he asked wryly.

"You're not allowed to eat cookies." She kissed the top of his head and pulled back to regard him concernedly. "Did CJ speak to you about the book?"

Jed nodded. "I read it." He looked up at the sky. He always came to sit outside when he needed to think. It was best when the weather was colder; then, it was easier to pretend he was sitting on the step back home in Manchester.

Abbey leaned her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around herself, uncharacteristically silent. This was one thing that she had always been uncertain of how to handle, a part of his life that had belonged to him since even before he'd belonged to her. And unlike most of his life, a part that he had no desire to share with the woman who meant everything to him.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him, after a few moments. And it seemed strange to him that there could ever be a time that she needed to ask.

"About the girls," he admitted.

"You miss them?" It was a question only so far as she expected it to draw a response.

"Always." He sighed heavily, and wished that he had a cigarette in his hand so that he could take the puff that would usually punctuate his thoughts. "Sometimes I think I... I wonder if I'm just not there enough. If I've been too far away, even when I'm..."

He trailed off, thinking of gaps that couldn't be bridged. Had he ever been that man to his daughters; unreachable, untouchable? Had they ever looked at him and wondered what he was thinking, wondered if they would ever be able to make him understand them?

Abbey sounded quietly distressed. "You're a wonderful father, Jed."

"Ellie's afraid of me," he confessed.

"Don't be stupid, Jed."

"I frighten her. She's intimidated by me."

Abbey frowned at him. "Who told you that?"

"Millicent Griffith."

She shook her head slowly. "Ellie's not frightened of you, Jed."

"She doesn't come to me with things like Zoey and Liz do."

"They're different people, Jed."

"Millie says it's because she's not my favourite," he continued relentlessly.

"You don't have a favourite."

"Millie-"

"Jed!" she snapped. "Much as I love Millie, she's talking out of her ass on this one. You think she knows you better than I do? She can only tell you what she thinks she sees, Jed, but I know. I know you, and I've seen you with the girls every day, and do you think for one single moment that there could possibly be any scenario where I saw you be something less than the perfect father and didn't kick your ass for it?"

The corners of his mouth crept up in reluctant amusement. "No."

"Well then." Abbey folded her arms with such a look of triumphant self-assurance that he just had to lean forward and kiss the expression off her face.

She smirked at him as he pulled back. "Better now?"

"Well, I don't know. I think it's gonna take more than that," he smiled.

"Not out here in front of God and the Secret Service, it isn't."

He laughed, and then grew sober again, looking down at the ground. Abbey touched his hand. "You're not your father, Jed," she said softly. "You're nothing like him. He-"

"Abbey-"

He could hear the anguish in his own voice. She looked saddened, and laid a gentle hand against his cheek, comfort without words.

"I-" He struggled to articulate the mass of boiling emotions that still raged within him, and couldn't quite do it. "Abbey, he was- he was my father. And... and he was my father." Jed shrugged, unable to get beyond the complicated simplicity of that description.

Abbey smiled gently, and kissed his forehead. "I know, baby, I know."

He laid his head against her shoulder, and they sat together for a while in silence.

Josh pulled his best innocent face as he proffered the wine glass. "Drink?" Donna glowered malevolently at him and he bounced off, smirking. It was nice having somebody else be the hung-over one for a change.

He decided to go see if CJ could be similarly irritated. However, she seemed to be frustratingly composed for somebody who'd spent the night before calling him Joshy and expounding on some theorem he didn't quite understand which involved bridesmaids' dresses, sex, and cross-country hiking.

Of course, it was entirely possible that CJ would do those things sober. He just hoped she'd forgotten the 'Joshy'.

CJ gave him a nod, and he followed her gaze to where it rested on the president.

"He looks better," he observed thoughtfully.

"Hmm?"

"The president. Since he's been on this new diet thing. He looks better." They'd all been watching their leader extremely closely since the scare a few months ago when it had seemed terrifyingly possible that his MS would turn out to be progressing. The strict new health regimen the First Lady had ordered him onto, however, looked to be turning the trick despite his grumbles. He seemed to move less stiffly and act with greater energy, although Josh supposed the latter could be as easily attributable to having the Hate Crimes Bill to focus his attention on.

Josh smiled to himself, picturing Sam deliver the smackdown he'd described to the military lackeys earlier that morning, but CJ sighed.

"Yeah. I just... I feel guilty about bringing him stress, you know? He's been through all this stuff with everything going wrong all at once, and then Charlie..." She shook her head. "He doesn't need anything else laid on him right now."

Josh took in her melancholy expression, and remembered that CJ had been through just as much as any of them, and more. She hadn't spoken much about her father's death since she and Toby had flown out to Ohio for the funeral, but he knew it still weighed heavy on her mind. It had been five years for him, and yet still sometimes he caught himself folding down the corner of an article because his father would like to hear about it next time he called. Inside the Washington machine it was too easy to believe the outside world you never saw kept turning as it always had.

Josh squeezed her arm in a gesture of comfort. "Hey, we eat stress," he shrugged with bravado, "all of us. It's what we do."

It was what they did. It didn't matter what the world threw at them, because every time it gave them hell they bounced right back and kept going. None of them were the kind to cave under pressure. None of them knew the meaning of the word surrender.

So why, then, did his eyes become magnetically drawn to Leo, and his forehead feel compelled to crease in a frown of helpless worry?

"Hey."

"Hey."

Charlie smiled at his fiancée as she came to sit beside him. "You're sitting out," she noted a little concernedly, absently stroking his hair in a way he rather liked.

"I'm sorry, I'll get out my funky shoes and dance," he told her dryly. Zoey shoved him lightly, and then laid her head against his shoulder.

"Do your ribs hurt?" she asked softly.

"They're okay." There was still a band of dull pain across his chest that would sharpen into a twinge at unexpected moments, but compared to the white-hot agony when they were freshly broken, it barely seemed noticeable. The ribs were the last of his injuries to heal; his fractured wrist had finally recovered, although it would be a good long while before he dared try playing basketball with it.

"Well, good." She grinned playfully. "We want you in tip-top condition for the wedding, you know."

"Hey!" He was glad his face didn't clearly signpost a blush the way hers did. "Could I just remind you that your father's only just across the room?"

She giggled. "Charlie, do you know how many hundred people you could fit in this room?"

"Do you know how many of them could be spies for your father?" he shot back, eyeing the nearest party guests with suspicion.

"I don't care," she said, planting a swift kiss to his lips to prove it. She pulled back to smile at him. "In two months' time we're gonna be married, and my dad can't do a thing about it."

"He could change his mind and refuse to walk you down the aisle," Charlie pointed out. Zoey shrugged without removing her hands from his shoulders.

"My mom would do it." She smiled at him. "There's no stopping it now, Charlie. In fifty-six days' time, you're gonna be Mr. Zoey Bartlet."

"Bartlet-Young," he corrected, laying a chiding finger across her lips. She giggled again.

"I think it's sweet that you want to keep your own name," she smirked. "Next thing you know, you'll be suggesting you go out and work instead of stay at home cooking and looking after the kids."

"I'm a masculinist, I don't want to be just another house-husband," he quipped. And felt the borders of reality suddenly begin to swim away from him in a heady, scary way.

Kids?

His imagination conjured rows of little coffee-coloured children with big eyes like a cross between Deanna as a little girl and Zoey's baby pictures. Suddenly, he felt decidedly dizzy.

Zoey, her arms still around his neck, didn't seem to notice his moment of mind-expansion as something caught her eye. "Hey, it's Sam and Steve," she beamed. "I'm gonna go say hi."

"Okay," he nodded vaguely after her.

Kids?

Whoa.

"Gerald!"

Leo mentally groaned, and looked for an escape route in the crowd but was too slow to find one. He didn't need this right now. He really didn't.

This dinner party was killing him. He wanted desperately to sneak off back to the sanctuary of his office, but, ironically, it was Jed's concern for him that was keeping him in a bad position. The president had been hovering around him all evening, and he'd be sure to come after him if Leo left the party. And he didn't know if he could deal with another private moment of Jed giving him concerned and anguished looks without cracking entirely.

Which meant he had to stay. At a dinner party full of mingling people, every one of them holding a drink, and nothing to distract him but vapid, inane conversation.

And talking of that... The British Ambassador came threading his way through the crowd towards him, grinning expansively. At least the fates had seen fit to allow one small shred of mercy, and for once Marbury carried a glass of champagne instead of the stronger drinks he usually favoured. Leo was fairly sure that the combination of Marbury and the enticing scent of well-aged whiskey would not have gone well for anybody.

"Gerald!" he said again, patting Leo on the shoulder. "Enjoying the party?"

"It's a thrill a minute," he said dryly.

"Quite, quite," he agreed, seemingly oblivious to the tone. "And may I just say that the First Lady is looking radiant tonight?"

"You can say it, but that doesn't mean the president won't kick your ass."

Leo's eyes automatically sought her out, although it was difficult to think of any occasion when Abigail Bartlet had looked anything less than stunning. Bubblingly cheerful, angry, or even tired and resigned, she was always beautiful, and when there was the light in her eyes that her husband put there, she was more so. Leo felt a stab through his heart as he spied the couple, leaning together in the midst of some snatched moment of affection. There they were, his oldest and dearest friends, the people who had helped him, trusted him and put everything on the line for him. And how was he repaying them?

Marbury smiled, and sipped his champagne. "I'm sure the president has better things to do than, as you so melodramatically put it, 'kick my ass'." He didn't fake any approximation of an Americanised twang, and yet hearing his words parroted back in that flawlessly aristocratic accent made Leo feel incredibly vulgar and uncultured.

Leo considered himself a man of the world, educated well enough in what you might call art and literature and what made for a gourmet meal, but there was something about the sheer sense of... history... that the Brit wore like a cloak that felt as intimidating as his foppishness was annoying. Politics was a place you met plenty of people who had their own opinions on what constituted 'good breeding' - the main tenet of their philosophy generally being that they had it and other people didn't - but Marbury was irrefutably the genuine article. And something of the hardworking Catholic boy that remained at the core of Leo itched uncomfortably in the presence of a power that was bred instead of earned.

"I'm sure he does," Leo replied on auto-pilot, glancing around the room. He was jittering to be on the move, desperate to get away, and it was hard to maintain his usual laconic facade. This was like being stuck in hell; an endless parade of people he didn't want to talk to, and people he was too ashamed to talk to.

"You seem a little distracted, Leo," Marbury observed mildly.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, your Lordship, there really are some things I have to attend to," he lied.

"Then by all means, be on your way," the ambassador agreed with a wide shrug.

As he attempted to lose himself in the crowd, Leo fancied he could feel the British Ambassador's eyes on his back. But probably that was just his guilty conscience talking.

"Hey there, Charlie, you've been awfully quiet this evening." The president smiled kindly at his young aide, and allowed a little concern to peep through as he touched his shoulder. "Is it your ribs?"

"I'm fine," he replied quickly, and relatively sincerely. The pain in his chest was certainly less of a frustration than the incessant fussing of his boss and coworkers.

The president nodded, and settled down to sit beside him. For a moment they were both silent, watching the people go by.

"Sir, shouldn't you be... mingling?" he finally wondered aloud.

The president shrugged sharply. "Ah, what's the point? They won't even let me eat any of the food."

"You're allowed to eat the salad," Charlie reminded him.

"Yes, but not any of the food."

Charlie smirked quietly to himself.

"So if it's not your ribs, why are you doing an impression of a wallflower at this party the American taxpayer and I have so generously laid on?" the president inquired.

"I was... just thinking," Charlie admitted.

Probably having seen Zoey over at Charlie's side shortly earlier, the president narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "About what?"

"Having kids," he confessed without stopping to think about it.

The president pulled back and eyed him sharply. "Okay, Charlie, I'm warning you now that if Zoey's pregnant I expect to see a signed certificate from God to say it's a virgin birth."

"Zoey's not pregnant," he got out quickly, with an entirely irrationally nervous laugh.

The president remained unconvinced. "Is this leading up to a catalogue of disasters that you finally revoke and tell me that it's just a pregnancy after all? 'Cause, you know, that's pretty much how I ended up with a grandchild first time around."

"She's really not pregnant, Mr. President," Charlie repeated.

"Well, good."

"Yes, sir."

"Because having your ribs broken twice in three months would probably not be good for you."

"No, sir."

The president smiled and leaned back in his seat. "So you're thinking about parenthood?" he asked more gently.

"Yeah, I..." Charlie shook his head. "Zoey just said something, and I just... I mean, I never really thought about... kids." He'd spent too long being a big brother to Deanna to indulge any unrealistic dreams about fatherhood, and the idea of even being able to get engaged Zoey had seemed so remote as little as four months ago.

The president grinned. "Well, you're young yet - although, mind, Abbey and I already had Liz when we were your age- but things were very different then," he added sternly. "You're young people, you still have plenty of living to do, and you know it's really not too late to decide to push the wedding back for another, oh, ten or fifteen years."

"I don't think we'll be doing that," Charlie said dryly.

His prospective father-in-law scowled, and then smiled and squeezed his shoulder. "I won't lie to you, Charlie, it's scary as hell, but being a parent is the best thing I've ever done. All..." he shrugged at the opulence surrounding them "...this? It really doesn't... I couldn't imagine this world meaning anything without my children in it." He straightened up. "You'll make a great father, Charlie, I can tell you that without a shadow of a doubt. So by all means be in awe of it, be afraid of it, but don't ever be worried about it, because you're gonna do just fine."

"Thank you, sir," he said, blinking before the sudden wetness of his eyes could betray him.

The president stood up, and then shot him one final look. "Start on it too early and I really will break your ribs," he warned.

"Okay."

Probably only CJ would have been able to tell from his exterior that he was nervous - which was the main reason he'd been avoiding her all night. He was fairly sure he didn't want CJ's input on... whatever it was that he was doing. What was he doing?

Probably nothing that would end well.

Toby saw her across the room, and felt a stab of something that belied the way he'd told himself that this was just a courtesy. Seriously, what was he doing?

He and Andy were... he wanted to say 'friends', but the writer's instinct that kept him doggedly seeking out the right word wouldn't let him. They were... not what they once had been. And to treat his unexpected impulse to invite her this evening as anything other than a gesture of respect, an acknowledgement, a nod to the past...

Andy spotted him in the crowd and smiled at him. And, be it wise or stupid or indefinable, when he crossed to her side the invitation was automatic. "Would you like to dance?"

Her face was difficult to read, puzzled, pleased and melancholy all, but she took his offered hands. In dancing, at least, they both had some idea of what kind of steps they were making.

Since she and her husband had taken the first dance the floor had opened up to a number of waltzing couples, but Abbey found her eyes drawn to one pair in particular. It was easy to divide the others up by their body-language: true couples, gazing into each others' eyes with varying degrees of sappy romance; friends, laughing and cheerful together and probably more than a little drunk; political pairings, too careful in the formality of their posture and often not quite fully in step. But the unlikely duo of her husband's Communications Director and his ex-wife defied category.

She watched them surreptitiously while her husband shook hands and schmoozed people he'd rather not be talking to. The two of them moved together with the same kind of instincts she recognised from herself and Jed, but there was something... not off, precisely, but... muted.

And yet, they were dancing. She wasn't entirely sure what that signified, but it was... interesting.

She was conscious of a presence at her shoulder as Lord Marbury slunk through the crowd to join her. "Abigail," he nodded quietly. He could be quiet and subtle when it suited him, although he was careful who he showed that side to.

Abbey shot him a knowing look and tilted her eyebrows towards Andy and Toby. "And what exactly have you been up to there, John?" she asked pointedly. She had been puzzled when the British aristocrat had failed to get the diplomatic snafu sorted in the fingerclick he was easily capable of, but now she wondered if he hadn't been amusing himself with some ulterior project. Pushing for foreign aid funding was certainly something he didn't need a personal presence to weigh in on - which raised the question of what else he might have been carefully shepherding along.

He remained smilingly enigmatic. "Just the fine art of diplomacy and compromise, my dear; diplomacy and compromise." He bowed low, in a way that only he could get away with not making sarcastic.

Abbey couldn't help smiling in reply. It was something in the character of Lord John's charm that even if you knew damn well you were being manipulated, you had to smile. However sharp a mind it might be concealing, the exuberantly over-the-top exterior was so much an ingrained part of him that you couldn't believe it was entirely false.

As he straightened up, something distracted him, and for a moment she glimpsed that rare sight, Marbury caught in sharp-eyed contemplation. She followed his gaze, but saw only Leo, threading his way through the crowd on his way out of the party. No doubt to return to his office and work the night away, she thought with an internal sigh.

"Something wrong, John?" she asked.

"Not at all, not at all," he assured her quickly. "But if you will pardon the inexcusable rudeness of departing your exquisite company in pursuit of less worthy endeavours..."

"Oh, give it a rest, charmer," she commanded, giving him a gentle shove on his way.

"I live for nothing but the sunshine of your favour," he said, with another elaborate bow. Abbey shook her head as he moved off.

She looked around, and miracle of miracles spotted a momentary gap in the surge of hangers-on around her husband. Their eyes met and his smile widened in a way that still made her heart skip a beat after nearly four decades of marriage.

She made her way through the crowd towards him, and he extended his hands. Without needing to say a word, they made their way out amongst the other couples, and began to dance.

"See, I don't see how you can possibly claim I have a sensitive system-"

"Cram it, Josh," Donna ordered, mostly good-naturedly. Despite the playful needling, he had given her the morning off, and her admittedly slightly fuzzy memory of the evening before was telling her that her boss had been remarkably sweet and non-Josh-like. Her hangover had finally begun to depart, possibly coinciding with the point when she'd conceded defeat on the 'never ever ever touch alcohol again' policy and procured herself a glass of champagne. In fact, she was more than half way to convincing herself to have another.

Lord Marbury appeared through the crowd and made his way to Josh's side. "Ah, Joshua! Might I have a moment of your time?"

"Lord Marbury," Josh nodded politely, the automatic smile he pasted on only slightly fixed.

"I'll get more drinks," Donna said brightly, and went off to snag a waiter.

When she returned with two flutes of champagne, Marbury was alone. "Where did Josh go?" she frowned.

"I'm afraid he had to leave." She automatically relinquished one of the glasses as he lifted it from her fingers and took an appreciative sip. "Excellent."

"Uh... okay," said Donna vaguely, with a shrug.

One teasing boss for one British aristocrat, complete with dreamy accent?

That was a trade-off she could totally live with.

"Party's breaking up," Steve observed.

"Yeah, we pretty much kick people out when the president wants to leave." Sam spotted said individual slinking out even as he spoke. "Give me a minute?" Better to chase the president now than to leave it a few moments and run the risk of letting the First Lady catch up with him first. That tended to make him a great deal less amenable to interruptions.

"Sure," Steve shrugged. He pointed with his wineglass. "I'll go bug CJ for some more embarrassing stories."

"She doesn't know any," he said confidently.

"That's what you think, Spanky." Sam stared at him in alarm, and Steve grinned widely. "CJ is my new best friend," he said, and headed over to join her.

Sam decided that maybe he'd try to be even quicker than he'd been planning to.

He caught up with the president down the corridor, and the Secret Service fell back automatically to give them some privacy. "Ah, Sam," said the president warmly. "Josh told me you met with the military on Hate Crimes this morning?"

"Yes sir," he nodded, unable to stop a little bit of a grin creeping through. Oh, that was one smackdown he'd never expected to get the chance to deliver.

The president stopped walking and turned to look up at him. "Did you make it perfectly clear to them that we're not moving an inch on this?"

"Yes, sir."

He smirked. "And did you kick some ass?"

Sam grinned back. "Yes sir, I did that too."

They walked along together for a moment, and Sam hesitated before broaching the subject that he'd come here to take up.

"Sir... do you remember once you said that I could run for president one day?"

"I didn't say you could, Sam, I said you would," the president corrected him firmly. He nodded to himself. "You're doing fine, son. Go for Congress when we leave here, Governor of California... trust me, everything you need to do the job you've already got."

Sam came to a complete halt and stared at him in disbelief. "Sir, I..." He shook his head. "Maybe Congress, I suppose, but... you can't seriously think that I would run for office now?"

The president gave him a sharp look. "Well, what in the world would be stopping you?"

"Um, the fact that I won't win?" he pointed out.

"Well, that's a stupid reason," the president shrugged.

"I suppose."

"That was the reason I did run, and look what happened with that."

"True."

The president smiled, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Sam... as I'm sure you'll recall having advised me many times, the winning the battle is the very least of it. I didn't let Leo talk me into running for president because I ever believed I'd end up here. We didn't run for reelection because we expected to get back in. And I didn't propose the Hate Crimes Bill because it would be an easy sell." He looked Sam in the eye. "We don't do these things because we expect them to be easy, or even because we think we have a hope of getting them accomplished. We do these things because these are the right things, and because we believe that this is the time for people to do them."

Sam straightened up. "Yes, sir," he said, quietly but firmly.

The president nodded slowly. "The American people can surprise you, Sam, in ways you can't begin to imagine. Maybe you think they could never accept you as a president, but the truth is the only way you could cast-iron guarantee that is to never give them the option. And that," he smiled, "would be a very great crime." He pointed at Sam cheerfully. "And I'm fairly sure I have the authority to throw people in jail for committing very great crimes."

Sam had to smile back. "Okay, sir, then we'll make a deal; you don't throw me in jail while you're president, and I won't throw you in jail when I'm president."

The president nodded, and shook his hand not entirely un-seriously. Then he slipped his hands into his pockets. "And now, if you'll excuse me, the First Lady has been waiting all evening for a chance to be alone with her man. As, no doubt, have you."

Sam grinned in reply. "Yes, sir," he agreed brightly.

He headed back to the main room to find Steve.

Leo stumbled back to his hotel room, precious package clasped tightly in his hand. Every time he purchased alcohol there was a mixture of terror, trepidation and hope that he would be recognised, that someone would point a finger and say 'Hey, wait! You're Leo McGarry! You're an alcoholic! Somebody stop this guy.'

But either nobody recognised him, or nobody remembered the humiliatingly public revelations of three years ago, or nobody cared. To the washed-out, tired students working the midnight shift, he was just a short, sandy-haired guy with a smart suit and a bottle in his hand, next in a long, long line of faceless customers. Even in a town as political as Washington, it was easy to lose himself in the anonymity of a supermarket at midnight. Too easy.

It had been only days since he'd last drunk himself into oblivion, but the urgency was crippling. How long before he couldn't go without a drink for a single night? How long before he couldn't do without one in the morning and more when he came home? How long before he couldn't get through the hours of the working day?

That, he had decided with a kind of clinical determination born of desperation, would be the cut-off point. He could collapse into depravity and self-destruct on his own time - at least he didn't have a family to destroy anymore - but the day it spilled over into his work was the day the buck stopped.

He'd taken to dwelling, in a way he hadn't for a long time, of his father. The raised voices, the single dull hollow boom, and the mingled smells of blood and whiskey and gun smoke.

Yes, one way or another, the buck would stop.

When he'd first begun the inexorable slide off the wagon, he would buy himself a bottle and leave it by the bed while he got changed or showered or sorted through his notes - a laughable exercise in pretending self-control. Now, he couldn't even muster that much. He practically tore the bag open, and drank directly from the bottle. One swig, two, three...

But of course, there was no such thing as enough.

Toby walked her home from the party that night, although he wasn't sure he could have said why. They were quiet under the darkness of the sky for a long time; it was a long walk.

It was strange to be walking together like this, on the streets of somewhere other than New York city. Oh, they'd travelled from place to place at the beginning of the campaign, but that had also been the beginning of the dissolution of their marriage, and while many things had featured in that turbulent period, silence had not been a major one of them.

In an odd way, there was almost more intimacy in the space that lay between them than there would have been in contact. Handholding and arms around the shoulders were for dates, people in the process of growing closer. Silently walking in parallel spoke of a deeper, older connection.

The quiet between them was neither precisely comfortable or uncomfortable; a situation that seemed to fit them rather aptly. Neither of them said a word until they were outside Andy's home.

She stopped and turned to face him, tilting her head in a quizzical, familiar way. Asking him where they were going with this.

If only he knew.

He slipped his hands into his pockets, and looked back. After a moment she snorted a brief laugh, and stepped forwards to capture him in a warm hug.

This close up, it seemed easier. He kissed her. Softly, gently, the way he had kissed her once a long long time ago when he hadn't been quite sure he dared to do it. Not a lover's kiss, precisely, but infinitely more than being friends.

They parted, but her hands were still warm on the back of his neck, and her eyes were dark with the reflection of the night. She laughed, very gently, and sighed against his cheek.

"Toby..." she breathed sadly. "Being in love with you... was never the problem."

"I know."

He knew.

He kissed her forehead, then stepped back, slowly turned, and walked away.

Josh jogged through the hotel, trying to strike some kind of decent balance between not getting thrown out and the sense of urgency that was nipping at his heels. Marbury hadn't said much to him, just a vague suggestion that he keep an eye on Leo, but it had plugged straight into the sense of something very wrong that had been building for weeks and weeks.

The woman in reception had recognised him as 'a friend of Mr. McGarry's' and let him right in. She hadn't said anything beyond the usual plastic greetings of her profession, and yet he'd seen something in her eyes that looked a little like gratitude... Leo had lived in this hotel a long time now. These people knew him.

Josh didn't like the directions his mind was taking him in.

He hurried through the corridors and found his way to Leo's room. His heart was beating a great deal faster than the rhythm of the knock he pounded out on Leo's door.

He kept knocking for a long time, but Leo never answered.

SUNDAY:

Ah, hangovers. Funny how it all came back to you. Still, this was only a small one in the scheme of things. One surreptitiously purchased bottle couldn't bring you all the fun of a night on the town and a raided mini-bar.

It was seductively easy to tell himself that it wasn't that bad, wasn't completely out of control, but he wouldn't allow himself the luxury of that illusion. No, he might not be able to rescue himself from this, but he was going to damn well suffer every moment of guilt and self-loathing he deserved for it. It was the least he could do.

Yeah. The real least.

He spent a long time in the shower, but it didn't feel as if he was scrubbing himself clean so much as layering something on; his false personality, the Leo McGarry everybody thought they knew. The latex skin that covered an increasingly hollow shell.

Toothpaste and coffee covered the tell-tale smell of whiskey. The familiar ritual of precisely smoothing and straightening his suit was like brushing the last wrinkles out of his fake persona.

He should have been an actor. After all, he had the drinking problem for it.

One last glance in the mirror, to see if the word 'Traitor' had been branded across his forehead yet. Still nothing. Apparently the powers of cosmic justice were moving a little slowly these days.

He opened the door of his hotel room.

Josh was sitting on the floor outside it, waiting for him.

"Charlie! Go away!"

"Good morning, Mr. President," he said dryly. The president made a shoo-ing hand gesture.

"Go on, scat! Go home, it's a Sunday. It's a day of rest! We don't want you here!"

Charlie smirked. "Sir, could you just, you know, let me get back into the old routine without trying to be my mom all the time?"

The president narrowed his eyes, and then laughed. "You know in two months time it's gonna be a whole new routine," he reminded him.

"And I'm looking forward to it with roughly equal parts delight and terror, Mr. President," he admitted frankly.

"That would be how I continue to face my wife every day," the president grinned.

Charlie straightened out the paperwork on his desk. "I'm just going down to get breakfast from the mess, Mr. President," he explained. The president frowned.

"I thought you ate at Cosmo's at the weekends?"

"Uh-huh, and I usually play basketball, too," he pointed out dryly. "Besides, the Secret Service don't like me having a regular routine," he added a little bitterly.

"Yeah, they don't like me wandering down to Cosmo's either," the president noted sardonically. "You're going to the mess?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get me some real food?" he asked hopefully.

"No way, Mr. President."

"Okay," he sighed. "Oh, Charlie?" he called him back as he was about to leave.

"I'm really not getting you anything that's not on your diet list, Mr. President," Charlie said firmly.

"Yeah, okay," he accepted resignedly. "Is CJ in the building?"

"Uh, I think she just got here."

"Could you tell her to come see me when she's got a moment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hey, Sam."

"Hey." Sam lay stretched on his belly on the newly-delivered bed, still in its plastic dust-cover, gazing out of the window. Steve came over and sat beside him, causing the plastic to crinkle up noisily under his weight.

"Whatcha thinking about?" he asked gently, brushing a curl of hair from Sam's neck.

Sam pushed himself up into a sitting position and smiled at him. "Thinking about running for Congress," he confessed.

"What, now?"

He grinned. "Well, okay. I guess it is a little early in the morning for starting a political campaign. I mean, I haven't even had my pancakes. Maybe I'll just leave it until... oh, after we've left the White House would probably do it."

"Thinking about getting back in the White House?" Steve asked pointedly.

"I don't know," he admitted. He smiled to himself. "Maybe."

"You fancy being America's first bisexual president?"

"How do you know I'd be the first?" he demanded playfully. Steve gave him a wry look.

"Sam. Is there something about President Bartlet you're not telling me?"

They both spluttered into laughter, and Steve let himself fall backwards onto the bed to stare at the ceiling. "What would that make me?" he wondered aloud. "First Gentleman?"

"First Boyfriend?" Sam teased. "First Significant Other? First Cute Gay Guy?"

Steve spread his arms expansively. "The original and best, baby."

Sam grinned, and gave him a quick kiss. He stood up. "But that's for the future. Right now? I'm going to work."

"Okay." Steve smirked. "See you later... Mr. President."

"Keep that up, and I am so calling you the First Lady," Sam threatened. He ducked a suddenly airborne double-pack of pillows, and headed out of the house with a smile on his face.

Suddenly, the future was seeming a lot like something to look forward to.

Leo wouldn't look at him.

They sat down in the hotel restaurant, drinking coffee. The burst of caffeine was a welcome relief after the night he'd spent sitting on the floor opposite Leo's room. The hotel staff hadn't even tried to hustle him out of there; he wondered if they'd had any inkling of what was going on.

Looking back, it should have been obvious; should have been, but wasn't, in the same way that the president's poor health a few months ago hadn't been obvious. Your mind didn't want to settle there, kept sliding off in a rejection born of hope more than evidence.

Leo was drinking again.

That, in Josh's mind, was not the crux of the problem. Leo's own reaction to the fact that he was drinking again... that was the problem.

He stirred his coffee. "Leo..."

"I'll have my resignation on his desk before the end of the day," he said, without looking up. "I don't know how you'll be able to spin it, whether the administration can take the controversy right now... but that should be the president's decision. It should have been all along."

"Dammit, Leo!" He thumped the desk in frustration.

Leo finally met his gaze, eyes burning with an anger that was wholly turned inwards. "This is not a negotiation, Josh."

"The president won't let you resign. I won't let you resign."

"Well, that's too bad, because neither one of you's getting a say in the matter," he said caustically.

Josh's tone and face softened. "Leo... Let us help you. This is- this isn't about- nobody gives a damn about blame or punishment, okay? We care about you. We've all-"

"Let's not talk about guys in holes, okay?" Leo snapped sharply.

Josh stood up, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Okay. Leo, let's not... Let's just, let's forget about all this crap, okay? Just come with me, come back to the White House, and talk to the president. And then we can take it from there."

"Yeah," said Leo quietly, briefly closing his eyes. "Yeah."

He stood up, and Josh followed protectively close to his shoulder as they walked out of the restaurant.

"Leo!" the president roared cheerfully. Leo barely controlled a flinch. God, a boisterous president wasn't going to make this any easier.

But then, this wasn't supposed to be easy.

"Sir, I..." He hesitated. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure thing, Leo." The president smiled and folded away his papers, blue eyes bright and attentive. His stomach roiled in a way that had nothing to do with coffee on an empty stomach and hangovers. He couldn't do this.

He had to do this.

That faint, affectionate, trusting smile turned up at him made him want to cry. Oh, Jed, how can I do this to you? How could he admit to the greatest man he'd ever known that his faith had been misplaced? Jed Bartlet had always had such an astonishing faith in the spirit of humanity. How much would it crush him to learn that his own best friend had proved unworthy of that trust?

His mouth dried up, and so did the words. "I..."

There was a knock on the door, and Charlie entered. "Mr. President? CJ."

"Okay. Just give me a minute, Charlie?" the president nodded.

But the moment had already flown. Leo straightened up. "It's okay, Mr. President. It can wait."

The president's gaze was both piercing and concerned. "Sure?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

He walked at as dignified a pace as ever, but that didn't make it any less like running away.

Josh had to fight the urge to leap across and restrain Charlie as CJ arrived and he headed for the Oval Office door. A few moments later, Leo emerged, and when Josh gave him a quizzical look he quickly turned away.

Josh headed back to his own office. "Donna? Could you just keep an eye on things for a little while? I need to go home and pick something up."

"Forgotten your brain again?" she asked dryly.

"I thought you were supposed to keep hold of that?" he smiled back.

"I think it got lost in the shuffle somewhere."

"Explains a lot," he allowed. As he headed out of the building, he flipped open his cell phone.

"Mom? Hi, it's me. Yeah, okay, no, I don't know who else might be calling you mom. Anyway, I just- I can't just be making a social call? Okay. Yeah. You remember that big box of stuff I came to collect when you moved out to Florida...? What exactly did I do with that?"

"Mr. President?" CJ spoke briskly, but her body-language was hesitant.

"I read it," he said, with a slow nod.

"Sir, if you want me to-"

"Let them print it," he told her.

"Sir?"

"Let them print it, CJ." He stood up and sighed heavily. "This is... this is me, CJ." He shrugged. "This is my past, this is... where I came from. For better or worse, it's where I came from."

"Yes, sir." She looked at the carpet, awkward. He was silent for a long moment.

"Do you miss your father, CJ?" he asked her suddenly.

"Yes, sir. I... he..." She found herself shrugging too. "I mean, I didn't even really see him that much towards... the end... but... I miss him. A lot."

A billion images and sensations flickered through her brain, without any particular rhyme or reason to the order. The lingering scent of aftershave, and the sensation of being lifted high into the air by hands too strong to ever let her fall. Graduation, and the first day ever that he'd walked her to school. Late nights kicking a soccer ball around the back yard with her brothers, and Thanksgiving dinners when she'd closed her eyes and listened to him say grace.

The president nodded slowly, and wandered away from her towards the windows. He slid his hands into his pockets and stood looking out, for long enough that she wondered if he even remembered she was there.

"I miss him," he said finally, so softly it was a moment before she realised he'd spoken. He turned towards her, and his quiet smile was heartbreaking. "He hated me my whole life... I miss him so much."

She wanted to embrace him, but although she'd done so before when the emotional walls were down, today it felt like there was too much distance in the room. He wasn't truly with her in the Oval Office, he was somewhere forty, fifty years away, communing with the ghost of a sad and lonely little boy that she wasn't sure she really knew.

"I wish..."

He never completed what he wished, just looked up at her and banished the shadows of the past with a gentle smile. "Let them print the book, CJ. Some people won't believe it, some people will feel sorry for me, some people will try to tell you why it makes me unfit to be the president, and some people just plain won't care." He shrugged. "But none of those people are ever going to know the truth of it, and neither will anybody else. That's between my father and me. It always was."

She nodded in understanding, and briefly clasped his wrist. He smiled, and patted her arm. "Thank you, CJ," he said quietly. She left.

"Hey." Sam gave his boss a cautious smile.

"You're late," Toby noted, fairly neutrally. He shrugged.

"It's Sunday. I have a life."

"Took you long enough."

Sam would have shot back a quick 'look who's talking', but he remembered seeing Toby dancing with his ex-wife the night before, and refrained. "You walked Andy home last night?" he asked instead.

"Yes."

"She okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he nodded slowly. It was clear Toby had no intention of allowing any greater glimpse into his private life, but that was not an enormous surprise. Sam knew, although his boss would never admit it, that Toby still very much carried some kind of hidden torch for his ex-wife. He suspected that Andy held one of her own; it was a sad and vaguely disquieting thought that maybe there were times and places where that just wasn't enough.

Donna appeared in doorway. "Hey, Sam. Hey, Toby."

"Donna," he smiled. "What's up?"

Her forehead crinkled and she shrugged. "I don't know. Josh just said he's gonna need you guys in a couple of minutes."

He exchanged a glance with Toby, but got no illumination. "Uh, okay," he shrugged. "Whenever he wants us."

"Okay," she nodded, and headed off.

Leo sat in his chair, looking up at the office ceiling. The door creaked open, and Margaret hesitated, plainly worried. "Leo? Josh."

"Yeah," he said quietly, not looking her way. He pictured the eloquent gaze that must be being exchanged between his secretary and deputy. Then the door closed, and it was just him and Josh.

"I chickened out," he admitted to the ceiling. Josh came over to stand beside him.

"This isn't the SATs, Leo," he said plaintively. "They're not gonna fail you if you step outside the time limit."

"I can't tell him," he said, shaking his head. He looked across at Josh. "I'm a coward."

"You're not a coward," he refuted. "You're Leo McGarry. You're one of the bravest men I know."

He laughed bitterly at that, and Josh came across to sit on the edge of his desk. He produced a small slip of paper from his inner pocket and fiddled with absently. "It took me a long time to find this," he said, almost to himself. "I'd almost forgotten I had it. It was a bit like... a bit like Dumbo. You remember Dumbo? They gave him the feather to make him believe he could fly, but he didn't really need it." He looked wryly across at Leo. "You probably didn't see Dumbo."

"I know Disney," Leo shrugged quietly, and Josh smiled at him.

He flattened the scrap of paper out on the desk, and Leo could see in long-faded ink the words 'Badge of Courage'. The handwriting he knew for Noah Lyman's.

"My dad... my dad gave this to me when, when Joanie died," Josh said quietly, near dreamily. "I was... I was so afraid of everything, and I didn't see how I could ever stop being afraid. But my dad..." He took a long breath. "He told me that I was always gonna be just as brave as I needed to be, because all I had to do was remember that I could. And he... And he wrote it down for me, like this." He folded the piece of paper in two along ancient crease-lines.

"And then he slipped it in my pocket, right here, over my heart." He touched the breast pocket of his shirt. "So if ever... If ever there was a time I didn't feel like I was brave, I'd have my badge of courage to remind me. And that way I could..." He sighed softly. "I could always do anything I wanted to."

Josh stood up, and quietly slid the paper into Leo's pocket. He patted it there, and then pressed a gentle kiss to Leo's forehead.

"Go see the president, Leo," he said softly.

He hesitated before the Oval Office; Josh smiled encouragingly, and made a quick gesture laying his hand over his breast pocket. Leo gave him a brisk nod, and stepped forward.

"Charlie? Can you make sure we don't get disturbed?"

The young man gave him a slightly concerned look, but nodded. "Sure, Leo."

"Thanks." He walked in.

Jed was sitting in his chair, not reading but obviously locked in contemplation. He looked up at Leo's entry, and found a smile. "Ah, Leo!" he said, in a pleased tone that suggested he hadn't expected the Chief of Staff to come back.

"Mr. President." He crossed the room to sit opposite him on the couch, and found himself studying the carpet instead of his old friend's face.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes, sir." He stayed looking at the floor, and after a moment Jed reached out and snagged his sleeve. When Leo looked up, there was nothing but compassion in his eyes.

"Tell me, Leo," he urged.

He hesitated for a long beat. "I've been lying to you, Jed," he admitted, not allowing himself the distance that presidential titles supplied. "I've been... lying to a lot of people."

At another time, such words might have engendered a quip, but Jed had always been able to read him far too well. "The truth will set you free," he reminded him softly, and it was a mark of the power and presence of Jed Bartlet that the platitude rang neither unimaginative nor insincere.

Leo looked him in the eye, and spoke simply. "I'm drinking again."

"And I'm your friend." Jed held his gaze for an infinitely long time, and then let out a sigh that was no parts disappointment to all parts sympathy and crossed the floor to wrap his arms around his old friend. Although Leo had never been comfortable with tactile expression, for a moment he just clung to him.

Finally Jed pulled back, although he stayed sitting close and his hand rested on Leo's shoulder. "Oh, Leo... why didn't you tell me?" he sighed sadly.

"Sir, I..." He choked on trying to find emotion, and pulled back into more familiar and comfortable things. "I know this is inexcusable, and I'll have my resignation-"

"The hell you will!" Jed bellowed right next to his ear. His face was livid with the anger that had been missing at Leo's revelation.

Of course, he'd been prepared for this reaction. "Mr. President," he said forcefully, "You cannot-"

"I don't give a crap."

"You cannot-"

"I, Leo," he said coldly, "am the President of the United States of America, and I can do exactly as I please."

"Not keep a man with a drinking problem this close to the Oval Office," he refuted. "Congress won't stand for it. Hell, I won't stand for it. I can't stay here, Jed."

"You think I'm gonna let you go?"

"You're going to have to," he said firmly.

"You drank before, and you got on the wagon and you saved yourself," Jed reminded him.

"I drank before, and I destroyed my life," he said fiercely.

"And I'm not gonna stand by and let you do it again."

"It's a little late for that," he said caustically. Jed gripped him by the shoulders.

"It's never too late," he insisted forcefully.

"Jesus Christ, man, did you swallow a fortune-cookie factory?" he demanded, frustration unleashing the temper he always kept reigned within these oval walls. "This isn't a nineteen-fifties black-and-white sitcom! You can't make it all better with a couple of words of wisdom and a big smile!"

"Do I look like I'm smiling?" he demanded.

"Well, I don't know, 'cause it's a little hard to see you past that enormous pair of rose-tinted glasses you're wearing!"

"You're full of crap, Mr. McGarry," the president scowled. "You think I don't know what it's cost you to come in here? You think I don't know what it's gonna cost you to fix this? I'm not a simpleton, Leo, so don't treat me like one. I know what this means, and I'm telling you now, I don't care!"

"I screwed up, Jed," Leo said, looking him in the eye. "You can't fix it. I screwed up."

"Well, whoo-hoo for you, now welcome back to the real world! 'Cause I don't know how long you've been living in a world where everybody's perfect and no one ever falls, but it sure is news to the rest of us!"

"I didn't trip over and hit my head, Jed, I went out, I bought the damn bottle, I took it home and I drank it!" he spat out.

"And I ran for this job even though I know I have MS," the president said quietly. He raised an eyebrow challengingly. "Guess they should crucify us both."

Leo shook his head. "It's not the same thing-"

"Oh, it's not the same thing, because you have a disease and I have a disease, and when it strikes then we can't do our jobs." He scowled. "So if you're not telling me that I can't do my job, then stop telling me that you can't do your job, because you can't have it both ways!"

"It's not the same," he repeated firmly.

The president sighed heavily, and rubbed his forehead. "Leo... I'm not letting you leave over this. I'm not letting you abandon me, right when I need you most."

"You don't need me," Leo said confidently, shaking his head.

The president laughed softly, and started Leo by wrapping his arms closely around his neck. "Oh, Leo," he murmured. "What are we going to do with you?"

The president didn't pull back, and Leo found himself somewhat at a loss as to what to do with his arms. "I can't stay," he repeated softly. Jed drew away and looked him in the eye.

"You can. You will. Whatever it takes, we're gonna make it. We've come this far together, and I'm not letting you jump ship now." He smiled softly. "You call me at four a.m., I'll talk to you. You need to take some time, you need to get some help, then you take it. You do whatever you need for as long as you need, and your job is going nowhere while you do it. You want me to walk you home after work every night and sleep on your bedroom floor to keep you company? I'll do it."

"I don't think the Secret Service would let you do that, Mr. President," he said dryly.

"You seriously think they could stop me?" Jed demanded.

"Sir... I can't let you do this for me," he pleaded.

"Okay, Leo, note the position of the word 'sir' in that sentence, and ask yourself who here is the boss of us." Jed shook his head. "Leo, do you seriously think that a single person in this whole damn building is gonna walk away from you? Do you think we're gonna let you walk away from us? If you leave, we're coming after you. And if you try to quit, I'm just gonna sit on you until you change your mind."

"Well, that'd be a fate worse than death," he said sardonically.

"Hey! I'll have you know that I've lost a lot of weight these past few months." The president pretended to be offended.

Leo shook his head one last futile time. "Sir... Jed... you're making a big mistake."

"Shoot me," he shrugged. "I make fifteen huge mistakes before breakfast, and none of them have killed me yet. Now, I can't tell you whether it's a mistake for me to keep you on; I only know it would be a far, far worse one to let you go." He stood up. "No, I don't think it's gonna be easy. But I don't care about that." He shrugged. "Yeah, you're gonna take some crap. There's gonna be a lot of pain, a lot of struggle... possibly some revenge for that 'fortune-cookie factory' remark..."

And Leo couldn't help but smile. "Oh please, have you listened to yourself lately? Dye yourself green and you could be Yoda."

"You know Star Wars?"

"Shut up."

"You know Star Wars?"

"I have a daughter!"

"You're telling me you know Yoda, but you don't know Charlie Brown?"

"He's the one with the dog, right?"

Jed clapped him on the shoulder. "Okay, Leo, all that stuff I just said? I take it back. There is such a thing as a hopeless case, and you, my friend, are it." His smirk faded into a more mellow smile. "You're among friends here, Leo. We're not gonna let you down, and you could never let us down. Now come on." He slipped an arm around Leo's shoulder, and led him out of the Oval Office.

They were all waiting for him outside. Margaret clutched Donna's arm, and gave him a look as only she could, equal parts exasperation, hope, concern and affection. Donna gave him a gentle smile, and beside them Charlie folded his arms and nodded.

The senior staff stood before him in a line. Sam smiled warmly, and Toby gave him a single, firm nod. CJ stepped forward to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek, and then Josh embraced him.

"It's okay, Leo," he said, hand resting over the breast pocket where he'd placed the badge of courage his father had given him. "It's all gonna be okay."

And for the first time in months, Leo believed it.