MONDAY:
 

"Good morning Toby, good morning Sam, good morning CJ. Josh." Leo gave his deputy a look.

"I sense I'm being singled out," Josh observed to the room at large.

"Eight o'clock, Josh?"

Josh nodded. "Yeah. See, I thought I was on time, but it turned out my watch was right."

"Well, I can see how that would be confusing for you," said Leo dryly.

"It's been wrong for like, three years now?" he explained. "So I know what time it's supposed to be. Except that Donna set it right when I left it on my desk. So I was aiming to arrive here at the wrong time, and it turned out to be the right time, so I didn't get here." He blinked for a moment. "Possibly."

"You couldn't have, I don't know, changed it yourself sometime over those three years?" CJ suggested.

"But that would have wasted valuable seconds of government time," Josh pointed out.

"Imagine that," said Leo sarcastically. He turned to CJ. "You got the word on the Tavestock investigation?"

She nodded. "Completely cleared of all wrong-doing, which we will be telling the press in this morning's briefing. Also probably spitting mad that we didn't come out in support - which we will not be."

"We can't afford the association," Josh said quickly. "Even if he was cleared, there's still suspicion hanging over him. We can't have the president dragged into Congressman Tavestock's financial dealings."

"Agreed." Leo nodded. "CJ?"

"The White House has every faith in the competence of the investigating team," she replied promptly. "If they found nothing..."

"No reason to suspect there's anything to be found," completely Toby.

"Tavestock's not gonna like that," spoke up Sam for the first time. He was slumped down in his chair, wearing the stressed frown that had been his perpetual expression ever since the too-brief jubilation of re-election.

"Tavestock can bite me," said Josh cheerfully.

"Want me to keep attention focused on the dinner party?" CJ asked.

"Good idea," agreed Leo. "Zoey and the First Lady'll both be in attendance, and God knows a little positive attention couldn't hurt." The others nodded emphatically. Getting Bartlet elected to his second term had been a scrape even tighter than the first, and they hadn't been awarded half the honeymoon period before it was back to being under attack from all sides. Political victories had been thin on the ground, and everyone was painfully aware of their popularity waning.

Leo looked to the two speechwriters. "How's that dinner speech going?"

"It's done," said Sam, at the same time as Toby spoke.

"We're making some adjustments."

Sam straightened up and gave him a disbelieving look. "I thought this was the final draft?"

"I want to make a few changes," Toby insisted. Leo gave them both a look.

"The president's gotta read this thing Thursday, guys."

"It'll be done," said Toby shortly.

"It's already done," countered Sam.

"Whatever." Leo frowned. "I'm hearing some whispers on Friday's vote on the Healthcare Bill. I gotta say, I'm not optimistic."

"It'll go through, Leo," Josh insisted.

"I don't like it." Leo grimaced. "We're haemorrhaging support on all sides on this one, I don't see us getting those votes back."

"I can get 'em," Josh said firmly. Leo shrugged.

"The whip should be getting back to me later today, I'll see what we can rescue. We need this bill, and we need it bad, but I don't think it's gonna happen."

"It's a good bill, Leo," Josh emphasised, frustrated.

"And if we were running it by the Department of Common Sense, that might mean something," Leo shot back. "Unfortunately, we're trying to get it through the United States Congress, so let's not hold our breath, okay?"

"We need this victory, Leo," CJ reminded him.

"You think I don't know that?" he scowled. "The Republicans are scenting blood in the water, and they're coming after us with everything they've got. I want everybody's nose to the grindstone while we've still got a government to rescue. We lose our support this far in, the rest of our second term's so much fairy dust."

They all exchanged troubled glances. So much for any hope that things were going to be easier after re-election.

CJ stepped up to the podium with a practised stride. "Good morning, folks, how's it going? As I'm sure you're aware, the investigation into Congressman Alan Tavestock's financial affairs came to a conclusion yesterday. They found no evidence of any wrong-doing, and the Congressman has been cleared of any suspicion of fraud."

Predictably, the floor exploded with voices. "CJ! CJ!"

"Chris."

"What's the White House's opinion on the investigators' findings?"

Sometimes, CJ could shake her head over the things the press pool asked her. Were they desperately hoping for her to slip up, or did they honestly believe she would answer with anything other than the obvious party line?

"The White House has every confidence in the competence of the investigating team, Chris. If they found no evidence of wrong-doing, we have no reason to suspect there was anything to be found."

A party line which conspicuously failed to endorse the out-of-favour Congressman.

"CJ! CJ!"

Look for an old pro in the crowd, someone seasoned enough to not expect a real answer to the inevitable follow-up question.

"Derrick."

"Does the president have any comment on Congressman Tavestock's vindication?"

Yes, because what the president really wants to do when his popularity's at an all-time low is stand up in front of the American public and announce that Tavestock's rotten to the core, but too smart for us to catch.

"The president doesn't do Alan Tavestock's accounts for him, Derrick, so I'm not entirely sure what you're expecting him to bring to the table here. Although I'm sure if you asked nicely, he'd be willing to go over the numbers with you and explain it all in detail."

A rumble of amusement through the pressroom. Most of them had come face to face with the president's geekish love of all things connected to such thrilling fields as economics, finances and accountancy.

"So the president believes Congressman Tavestock is innocent of all the charges brought against him?" Erica, calling from the back.

Nice try.

"The president reads the same reports you do, Erica. If the investigating team found no evidence-" The rest of the repeated line was buried in exasperated groans.

Oh, come on, guys, what do you expect?

Moving on. "Just a reminder that Congressman Lewis's Healthcare Bill goes to the floor for a vote on Friday morning. The main focus of the bill is to improve the standard and availability of affordable healthcare for children and for families in tight financial situations, particularly in sparsely populated rural areas-"

"CJ! Is it true that the bill's facing stiff opposition in the house?"

Well, that was predictable.

"I think we can all agree that any rational, compassionate human being would find the terms of the bill more than reasonable. However, we're running it through Congress, so who knows?" CJ gave an exaggerated shrug, and quickly shifted topics again.

"Now, I can reveal that there's been a change to the guest list for Thursday's dinner party; Zoey Bartlet has been able to clear a gap in her very busy study schedule to attend."

That news drew a few genuine smiles from the crowd. The president's bright, perky youngest daughter had been a familiar figure during the administration's early years, but had been seen less and less frequently about the White House as she settled into the rhythms of college life and grew more independent.

From here on in, it was plain sailing; questions about dresses and main courses and seating arrangements. They might be an insult to her intelligence, but at least they were harmless, and in these days of near constant setbacks, CJ had learned to love nothing quite so much as a harmless question.

"The First Lady will also be returning for the party, and she and the president will be greeting the delegation at seven o'clock..."

"Ah, Leo." The president smiled amiably at his old friend's arrival. Then the expression curled into more of a smirk. "So - I hear Alan Tavestock is an upstanding example of humanity?"

"So I'm told," Leo agreed dryly.

"We're not making any comment?"

"We're letting his sterling record speak for itself."

"Oh, he'll love that," the president observed.

Leo grimaced. "The only good thing about the whole Tavestock affair is that it's taking the focus off Friday's Healthcare Bill."

"That bad?"

"That bad," he nodded.

The president sighed, and looked up at him sharply. "Any chance of a last minute rescue?"

Leo shook his head. "Josh is gonna twist some arms, but from where I'm standing, it looks like the fat lady's doing her vocal exercises."

"How many votes?"

"We'll have a nosecount later in the day, but I'm thinking we're down at least nine or ten, and I don't see us getting them back."

"People don't support a bill which does nothing but improve our country's standard of care for its children and the rural poor?" he asked, with a bitter twist to his mouth.

"Not when it's hunting season on the Bartlet administration, they don't."

"I won the election, Leo," the president insisted, with a near-childish pout of frustration. "The people voted me back in."

"The people have short memories, and they don't care about anything but the bills we pass."

"I'm trying to pass bills! It's Congress that frustrates them."

"Congress frustrates everybody. It's their main purpose in life."

His old friend gave him a baleful look. "Is it too late to push for a dictatorship?"

Leo gave an eloquent grin and changed the subject. "CJ's letting the press know Zoey'll be here for the thing on Thursday."

Predictably, the mention of his youngest daughter brightened the president's mood and brought a twinkle to his eye. "My baby girl's finishing college," he said, in tones of barely restrained amazement.

"Time flies when you're having fun," said Leo sardonically.

The president glared at him accusingly. "That was a moving moment of fatherly wonder you just trampled on, there."

"Sorry. I'm sure there'll be others."

"Yes, but you've spoiled them for me now. I'll never be able to savour another one in peace."

"I guess the weight of that knowledge is a pain I'll have to live with, sir."

"Get out."

Leo grinned and withdrew. For a moment his old friend's smile helped Jed's own to linger, but it soon faded.

Yes, time was flying, and all too quickly. He wasn't the young man he'd been when his eldest daughter had started college, or even the ageing but relatively robust governor who'd seen Ellie off to medical school. No, his age was ever-increasing, and these past few weeks it seemed to be all attacking him at once. Aches and pains and twinges and the terrible, crippling, ever-present fatigue.

Here he was, in his second term of government, and what had he accomplished? All too little, it felt sometimes, and the weight of his responsibility seemed to grow heavier by the day.

"Josh."

Josh looked up as his assistant appeared in the doorway. "Donna. We've got a nosecount?"

Donna pulled a face. "We're eleven votes down."

Josh ran a hand through his messy hair, but nodded slowly. "Eleven. Okay. I can get eleven."

Donna looked sceptical. "Leo says it's a write-off."

"We need this victory, Donna," Josh said seriously.

"I'm not saying you don't, I'm saying you can't get it."

"I can get it."

"Josh-"

"I can get it!"

Donna gave him a small, quizzical smile. "Really?"

"Yeah!" His fierce affirmation did more to make her nervous than reassure her. It meant he was psyching himself up for a course of action he wasn't totally sure would work. After a moment, he sighed, and said more quietly "We really need this, Donna."

"Yeah."

He smiled briefly, then straightened up. "I need you to get on the phone and take the temperature of about two hundred Congressmen."

She gave him a look. "Did I mention it's coming up to my birthday?"

"It's next Friday," Josh pointed out.

"Yeah, and by the sound of it I'm gonna be on the phone 'til way past then."

"Well no, 'cuz the vote's in four days, so-"

"You really think you can rescue this, Josh?" she asked softly.

"Of course!" he insisted. "For I am Joshua Lyman, master tactician."

She smirked. "Nice modesty there, Joshua." But it was true; this kind of close-to-the-wire battle was what Josh did best. If this bill could be rescued, he was the man to do it.

"Get on that phone, woman!" he ordered, pointing.

"Would you like a list of acceptable birthday gifts?" she offered brightly.

"We're out of the skiing season," he pointed out.

"But a tropical holiday is redeemable all the year round."

"See how you manage to ask me for a lavish gift and time off, all in one expensive package?"

"I'm economical like that," Donna nodded. "Or you could get me a new car. Fun and practical."

"Card, Donna," Josh corrected. "It's traditional to give your assistant a birthday card."

"You don't get to be a master tactician by following the ignorant masses, Joshua."

"I can't afford to buy you a car, Donna," he objected. "I can't even afford to buy me a car."

"I'm open to a variety of electrical goods," she offered. "Many of them available for under a thousand dollars."

"Get out."

"And you'd be surprised at the prices many state-of-the-art sound systems are going for these days-"

"Out."

She went to make the calls. And a list of possible birthday gifts.

Sam buried his face in the crook of his arm and wondered if he could get away with going to sleep. It was late, and it hardly seemed to matter if he was working or not - since everything he wrote, Toby immediately tore apart.

It was getting to the point where he couldn't be sure if it was him or Toby anymore. Was his boss hacking apart perfectly good drafts for no reason, or was he churning out complete and utter crap every time? He'd lost all ability to judge his own work.

He found it difficult to look at anything objectively, lately. It all seemed to blend together into one great big, sucking black hole of despair. Nothing ever went right, nothing they did served any purpose, and nothing ever changed. He was beginning to wonder why he bothered turning up to work at all.

To be ritually abused, apparently. Toby burst out of his office, eyes flashing as he brandished the latest draft on Thursday's after-dinner speech.

"What is it this time?" he groaned into the cloth of his shirt.

"Sam, this is not a speech!" Toby growled. "This is a collection of meaningless words jammed together."

"It's bad?" Sam surmised. He should probably care about that, shouldn't he? He was finding it surprisingly hard to.

"It's bad, Sam!" Toby agreed thunderously. "It's not even just bad - parts of it don't even make sense. There are actual parts of this speech which do not make sense! You are disregarding not just the rules of good writing, but the rules of grammar and sentence construction!"

"So I'm guessing it's a no on this draft, then?" Sam said sharply.

"Sam, what were you thinking when you wrote this? Were you thinking anything at all? Is your brain still connected to your writing hand?"

"Well, I don't know, Toby! Maybe I was thinking this is the fifth time this week you've made me rewrite a stupid after-dinner speech, and it's not even Tuesday!"

Toby blinked at this uncharacteristic aggression from his deputy, but it wasn't in his nature to take someone else's shouting without giving it right back. "Obviously, if I keep making you rewrite the speech, then there's something wrong with the ones you've written!"

"Fine!" Sam threw his hands up. "Clearly, you should be the one writing this speech, since it's obviously beyond my capabilities. Seeing as it's, you know, an after-dinner speech, and God knows those are the pinnacle of the speech-writing art."

Sam fell silent for a long moment, and then rubbed his suddenly tired eyes. "I'm going home," he said, shaking his head. He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and stomped out.

CJ or Josh might have stormed right after him, harangued him until they got some kind of response, but Toby just stared after him for a moment, then went back into his office.

"Gimme another beer."

Home, as it turned out, was a countertop in a dim but mercifully quiet bar. He was experimenting with the theory that getting drunk might make him feel better. So far, it wasn't working. Maybe something a little heavier than beer would turn the trick...

Somebody dropped onto the stool beside him. "Hey, can I get one of those too? Thanks."

He looked up to see a young blond man in a brown leather jacket smiling brightly at him. "Hey. You look like you need a friend."

Sam snorted into his beer. "Huh. Pity my friends can't see that."

"Oh boy." His new companion pulled a face. "I was thinking of buying you a drink, but it sounds like your problem might be out of my price range."

Sam smiled wryly and took a sip of his drink. "Unfortunately, I think it's out of mine as well."

"Got terminal cancer?"

"No."

"Going to jail?"

"Not so far as I know."

"Catch your other half in bed with multiple members of the New York Yankees baseball team?"

Sam couldn't help a small smile. "No."

"Then what's your problem, stranger?" asked the man beside him.

He shrugged. "Oh, you know. Generally contributing to the downfall of society and the destruction of a once great nation."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. That's quite an achievement."

"Well, you know. I'm a politician," he explained. "And before that, I was a lawyer."

The other man reared back in his seat and made a quick warding gesture. "My God! You don't look like the root of all evil."

"Looks can be deceptive."

"Mostly, you look like you're planning to get hammered."

"Well, okay, they're not always deceptive." Sam looked hopefully up at the bartender. "'Nother beer?"

"One here as well?" asked his companion. He looked sideways at Sam. "Mind if I keep you company while you're drowning your sorrows?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, hey, if you're into recreational depression. Sam Seaborn."

"Steven Radcliffe," offered the other guy, with a smile.

TUESDAY:
 

Leo looked around at the gathered senior staff. They all looked tired and rumpled, Sam in particular. Rumour had filtered down through the assistant chain that Sam had stormed off in a huff the previous night. Leo couldn't exactly blame him; Toby had a real bug up his ass about the upcoming after-dinner speech, for reasons past understanding. Probably it was just the same frustration all of them were feeling right now. By the dishevelled look of him, Sam had spent the previous evening trying to bury his at the bottom of a pint glass.

That option, alas, was no longer available to him, no matter how seductive it sometimes seemed.

Leo rubbed his face, and sighed. "Yesterday's nosecount on Healthcare says we're still eleven down. Eleven votes, three days? It's not happening."

"I can make it happen," Josh insisted quickly. Toby shook his head.

"You can't buy this one, Josh. Don't throw away the last of our leverage going after a bill that's not gonna happen."

Josh met his boss's eyes. "I can get this one, Leo," he said earnestly. Asking to be heard. Pleading for a chance to try.

Leo didn't believe it would work - but it was more than he could stomach to quash that light of determination in these days when it was so hard to come by. "Okay, Josh. Do a number on this one. But if it's not happening, ease off the gas, okay?"

"Okay," Josh nodded, though Leo knew the warning was in vain. You'd have better luck dragging a bone from a rabid Alsatian than getting Josh to let go of a political fight once he'd latched onto it. Still, who knew? Maybe he really could pull it out of the fire. Leo himself had won his influence the hard way; willing party members into line with effort, experience, and sometimes sheer force of personality. Secretly, he was almost slightly in awe of his deputy's instinctual grasp of how to push political buttons. Joshua Lyman, when let off the leash, was a political force of nature; a whirlwind cutting through anyone and everyone in his path.

The real trick lay in making sure that whirlwind was pointed in the right direction.

"What do I tell the press?" asked CJ. Ah, yes, the perpetual question. As if running the country wasn't difficult enough without having to get audience approval while they did it.

"We're confident it'll go through," shrugged Josh easily. Sam snorted harshly, but said nothing.

"Not confident," said Toby.

"Hopeful?" supplied CJ.

"It'll still be a hell of a bump if we fall on our faces with this," Leo warned.

"We've gotta say something," CJ pointed out.

"Okay," Leo nodded. "We're hopeful that Congress can..." He gestured vaguely with a hand. "...See past..."

"Partisan lines and vote on the issues at hand," completed Toby.

CJ made a note on her piece of paper. "So we're pre-emptively blaming the Republicans?"

"Always a good plan," smirked Josh.

"Okay." Leo gave a dismissive wave. "Get out there, get me those votes."

CJ stepped up to the podium, and frowned as she noticed a number of the reporters turning around to hold a muttered conversation amongst themselves. "Okay, you're all talking and none of you are looking at me. What's going on?"

After a moment, Katie offered "Rick Maskey."

"He's not here?" CJ glanced across at the empty seat and frowned. Rick was a rising young star who prided himself on knowing the ins and outs of bills other reporters found too boring to mention, and he always had a couple of informed questions up his sleeve. It wasn't like him to miss a briefing, and it seemed doubly strange that no one had shown up to cover for him. "Anybody know what's happened to Rick?"

There was a flurry of shrugs and blank looks, some of them fairly concerned. Although the public envisioned political reporting as a cutthroat business and weren't far wrong, there was a still a certain spirit of comradeship between the competing reporters and even with CJ and her staff. They might be on different sides, but they were all in the same business, and it was hard to spend all your days seeing the same faces without getting to know them a little.

But the show must go on. CJ gave a theatrical shrug, and pulled out her usual weapon; humour. "Well, okay then, one of you is gonna have to let him copy your notes after class."

A short round of giggles, and then the real briefing began.

"CJ, is it true that the administration isn't expecting the Healthcare Bill to pass?"

"Well, Chris, I wouldn't say that. Obviously this is a hotly contested issue, and it's going to be a close call. However, we remain hopeful that Congress will be able to look beyond narrow partisan lines, and see this bill in the context of all the good it can bring about and the lives that will be saved."

"So you still believe the bill can pass?"

CJ rolled her eyes. "Yes, Chris, otherwise we'd give the Congressmen the morning off to go play racquetball. Now, on to Thursday's dinner party..."

Later, on the way out of the press room, Toby intercepted her. "We shouldn't have come down so strongly behind the Healthcare Bill," he warned her.

"What was I supposed to say?" CJ demanded, exasperated. "Well, Chris, we've been pimping this bill for the whole of the time it's been in development, but now that it looks like it's in trouble, we're gonna pretend we don't care?"

"The 'pimping' was a particularly nice touch," Toby observed, navigating around a random aide in the corridor.

"Josh said the bill's gonna pass, Toby," she reminded him.

"Josh has been wrong before," Toby said glumly. "Often loudly."

"If he said he can pass it, he can pass it," CJ insisted. Yes, Josh had his share of screw-ups - and a healthy slice of everyone else's share of screw-ups on top of that - but this kind of political strategy was his game. And besides, they were due a victory after all the body-blows they'd taken lately.

Weren't they?

"If this doesn't pass..."

"I know what it means if this doesn't pass, Toby," she said irritably.

He spelt it out anyway. "If this doesn't pass, the president's gonna be embarrassed. He's gonna lose face. And we can probably kiss goodbye any chance we have of making the next three years count for anything."

Josh headed towards his office, and paused as he registered Donna, looking unusually flustered, arguing into the phone.

"Mom- Mom, I don't- Mom..." She looked up, and met Josh's eyes. "Okay, I'm hanging up now, mom," she informed the phone. "Goodbye."

Josh approached, grinning. "My powers of deduction inform me that you were talking to your mother."

"You amaze me," she said dryly.

"It's all part of my magic. What was all that about?"

Donna looked pained. "She wants me to come home for my birthday."

"Well, you can't."

She glared at him. "Yeah, and until four seconds ago, I didn't want to. Now, though, I'm beginning to see the delights of a four day weekend spent listening to all the reasons I should be married to Mike and Derek."

"Your mother wants you to be married to two guys?" Josh asked.

"They're my brothers-in-law," Donna clarified.

"Won't your sisters object?"

"Josh."

"I'm just sayin', I realise you're from backwater Wisconsin, but in civilised parts of the world-"

"My mother thinks I should marry a guy just like the ones my sisters married."

Josh smirked knowingly. "Wisconsin gomers?"

"Republican Wisconsin gomers," Donna nodded heavily.

"Ouch," he sympathised.

"Republican Wisconsin gomers who have nice steady jobs so their wives can stay at home and look after the kids. And cook." Donna curled her lip disgustedly.

"And bring people coffee?" he added.

"Exactly."

Josh frowned. "Are you sure you're not adopted?"

"I've given it some thought," Donna said wryly.

"Members of your family have married Republicans?" he queried worriedly.

"Members of my family are Republicans. In fact, they all are. They're very disappointed in me."

"Well, this is sobering news. You know, you never mentioned this when I hired you."

"Josh, it's not contagious."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. It has to spread somehow. There can't be that many crazy people in the world."

"Josh."

"What?" He shrugged innocently. "Donna, are your family Republicans?"

"Yes."

"And would you categorise them as crazy?"

"Well, yes," she admitted. "But it has nothing to do with their political affiliation."

"Okay, the theory has some gaps," Josh admitted. "After all, you're a Democrat. Maybe insanity is just hereditary in your family."

"It's good to know you're going to be your usual sweet and charming self for this upcoming birthday," she observed.

He grinned widely at her. "It's who I am."

"You can say that again." She rolled her eyes, then brightened. "Would you like to see my new, revised birthday list?"

"No, I'd like to see a new, revised list of all the Congressmen who owe me favours."

"Oh, that's easy," Donna shrugged. "Would you like them on individual index cards, or both on the same card?"

"Very funny."

"And accurate with it - the mark of a true stand-up comic."

"Well, it's good to know you'll have a second career lined up for when I fire you." Josh glared at her.

"Is that gonna be my birthday present? 'Cuz what with the being away from you and everything, I could definitely see how it's a good thing-"

"Donna. Congressmen."

"Okay." She headed out, and Josh's smile faded as he contemplated the huge pile of file folders set before him.

Donna stuck her head back in. "By the way, if my mother calls, I've moved to Zihuatanejo."

Josh blinked at her. "Isn't it your job to answer the phones?"

"Technically, yes," she allowed. "But today I will be hiding under the desk and whimpering quietly."

"Okay."

"Okay." She nodded and left.

"CJ." Leo looked up, but held up a finger to forestall the hovering press secretary as he listened to the phone cradled against his neck. "Okay. Okay, Jim. Thank you." He hung up.

"What's happening?" asked CJ, with an inquisitive eyebrow.

Leo grimaced. "Hostage situation."

"Where?"

"Downtown."

"Here downtown?" Her eyebrows shot up.

"Yeah. From what we can gather, it's a single gunman holed up in a gym."

"A gym?"

"Yeah. Apparently he's been there since quite early this morning. Odds are good he's got a couple of Congressmen in there."

CJ winced. "What's he after? Lower membership fees?"

Leo shrugged. "There's been no contact with the guy inside so far. No demands, and we're not too sure of the condition of the hostages."

CJ rubbed her forehead gingerly. "Leo, any chance this guy belongs to some kind of fringe group, or-?"

"Cops on the scene don't think this guy's a terrorist. He's operating alone, and if he's got pre-planned demands, he's taking his own sweet time issuing them. Until we hear different, we're working under the assumption that he's just-"

"Your average, everyday nut," CJ completed.

"Yeah."

"Strangely, I feel less than reassured."

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "Press have already got wind of it, so you might as well keep 'em informed. Carol should be getting the details through any minute."

"Okay. Thanks." CJ headed back to her office with a heavy sigh. So much for the morning she'd planned keeping a close eye on Josh's vote-grabbing machinations.

"Charlie, has he got a minute?" Charlie looked up at Leo's approach.

"Uh, yeah, sure, he's got a ten-minute gap before his next meeting." He stuck his head in the Oval Office door, and frowned a little as he saw the president slumped down in his chair. He looked tired; not at all uncommon these days. Still, attempting to suggest he get more rest wouldn't get him anything more than a presidential sulking session. "Mr. President? Leo."

"Thank you, Charlie." It was impossible to miss the way the president winced as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He waved his young aide's concern away, even as he absent-mindedly rubbed his back. "Just a little stiff."

"Would you like me to get your back pills for you, sir, or-?"

"I'm fine, Charlie," he insisted a little more firmly. Largely unconvinced, Charlie withdrew, and Leo took his place in the doorway.

"Ah, Leo. What's up?" It didn't take a Nobel Prize winner to read the lines of concern in the Chief of Staff's face - not that Leo ever exhibited much else.

"We got a hostage situation in a gym downtown. Kid with a pistol's got the place sealed off - we think he's got a couple of Congressmen in there with him."

"Ah, hell." The president rubbed his face. "Politically motivated?"

Leo could only shrug. "He hasn't released any demands so far. Doesn't look like he's affiliated with any kind of terrorist group, but-"

"That doesn't mean he doesn't have a grudge against - who knows? The latest tax hike on tobacco sales," the president completed.

"Yeah."

"The press?"

Leo pulled a face. "Odds are they already know. CJ's gonna put it out in the briefing - better that than get a question out of left-field."

"Okay." The president nodded. "What about Healthcare? We're putting our weight behind it?"

Leo shrugged. "Josh says he can drag it through. We're playing it 'cautiously optimistic', not beating the drums, but still..."

"We'll take a hit if it doesn't go through." It wasn't really a question; the Healthcare Bill was the latest in a depressingly long line of political manoeuvres that had just refused to go right for them. Ever since the frighteningly narrow margins of reelection, getting any legislation passed had been a political nightmare.

"We're bleeding credibility, and there are a hell of a lot of sharks circling right now," Leo agreed. The president shot him a look.

"Well, thanks for comparing me to a harpooned whale, there, Leo."

Leo said nothing, but managed to flavour the ensuing silence with a well-placed smirk. The president pointed a warning finger at him. "And don't think I can't see you trying to find a way to work the word 'blubber' into the conversation."

Leo's grin widened. "Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. President."

"Get out."

"Yes, sir."

"Donna!"

Donna spun around in her chair, and launched a file folder through the open office door into Josh's lap before swivelling back to the computer.

"Ow." There was a blessed moment of silence while Josh rifled through its pages, then- "Donna! I need-"

Another folder zipped through the air the way of the first. Donna extended her feet to brake the spinning chair, barely missing a beat in her typing.

The phone suddenly started to bleat. Josh leapt to his feet and stuck his head through the doorway urgently. "Wooden, Zantowsky, Reeseman, I'll take. O'Bannon, LeBrandt, Burns, I'll call back. If it's Tavestock, I've left the country."

Donna gave him a distracted nod and cradled the telephone against her cheek. "Josh Lyman's office. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Mmm-hmm. Yes, I'll tell him." She spun to give Josh a quiet thumbs up, and he pumped his fists in a ridiculously macho victory pose. "Thank you." Donna put the phone down.

"Zantowsky?" he asked hopefully.

"Kendall."

"Kendall? I didn't even call Kendall. That's seven!" He battered the back of her chair with his hands in a quick victory tattoo. "We're gonna get this, Donna. Get on the phone to Brays, Bradley, Peterson, Hendricks, Gaveney, Juliard- oh, and I'm gonna need the file on 704, and the Heathers farming subsidies initiative." He clicked his fingers. "Oh, and-"

Donna stood up, and glared at him. "Okay, that's it. I'm declaring lunch."

He blinked at her. "You're what?"

"Declaring lunch." She pointed at the floor, and drew an invisible circle around herself in the air. "See this? This section of the room is now on lunch break."

"You can't take lunch," Josh objected, pouting.

"Actually, I can. You're legally obligated to provide me with it."

"I have to make you lunch?"

"No, 'cuz that would probably kill me. You're just not allowed to prevent me from getting it."

"It's not your lunch hour."

"Oh, that's right." Donna put her hands on her hips. "I do believe my lunch hour is, in fact, two and a half hours ago."

"Donna." He tried it on with the 'look at me, I'm overworking myself' puppy-dog eyes. "We really don't have much time on this."

Donna softened, but refused to give in. "I know that, Josh. But trust me, this is more efficient."

"How?" he demanded.

"From a point of view of; if I kill you, the chances of you talking anybody else into voting our way are pretty slim."

"You know, I'm fairly sure we can have you taken out and shot for threatening the life of a superior."

"Josh, we're not in the navy."

"No, 'cuz if we were in the navy, you'd have to do what I say. Plus, you'd be wearing a uniform, and one of those cute little hats."

Donna snorted. "Hats, Josh?"

He waved a hand vaguely. "You know. Those hats. That navy people wear. Unless they're army people."

She gave him a look. "I'm going, Josh." She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair and turned away.

"Twelve minutes!" he called after her.

"It's my birthday!" she objected.

"Your birthday period extends over the two weeks before the anniversary of your birth?"

"And two weeks after. 'Cuz I'm special like that."

Josh grinned. "And does this period of celebration have a name? Donnataleia, perhaps?"

She pointed an accusing finger at him. "Don't mock the birthday, Josh."

He looked innocent. "Wouldn't dream of it. So tell me, is there anything special I should be doing to mark this period of festivity?"

"You could bow down and worship me every morning and evening," Donna suggested.

Josh gave her his best dazzling smile. "I do that already."

It was impossible not to grin back - but she was nobody's fool. "I'm still taking a half hour, Josh."

"Dammit." He pouted, then went back into his office.

"Hey, Sam." Donna slid into the seat across from the speechwriter, balancing her lunch tray with a practised grace. Sam barely looked up from the draft he was scribbling over.

"Hey, Donna."

She noted with both sympathy and amusement that there seemed to be more penned amendments to the text than there was actual text. "Writer's block?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders, as much a tired stretching-exercise as a statement. "It's the speech for the thing on Thursday," he elaborated.

"Still?" Donna frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

Sam looked up to meet her eyes, and shrugged again. He pulled a face as if he didn't know whether to laugh or jump off the nearest high building. "I honestly have no idea."

"It's one of those, is it?" Donna sympathised, taking a bite of her sandwich.

He shook his head helplessly. "I don't know what it is. I didn't see anything wrong with it, but Toby kept tweaking things, and I edited it, and then I edited it some more, and now I think somewhere along the line I've lost my ability to read."

"Relax, Sam," she reassured him. "It's only an after-dinner speech."

"Toby thinks it's the Gettysburg address." Sam sighed, and ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. "I honestly don't know why he's got such a bug up his ass about this."

"Because he's Toby?" she suggested, not entirely joking.

"It's just..." Sam waved his hands helplessly. "It's so pointless. He's getting so worked up about this, and all I can think is it's not even important! It doesn't matter how good the speech is, because it's not gonna make anything happen. It's not gonna change anything." He sighed, and his voice dropped. "I sometimes wonder if we're ever gonna change anything."

Donna put her sandwich down, and patted him gently on the arm. "We change things, Sam," she insisted, with a tentative smile. "I mean, look at this Healthcare Bill. Josh's running round like Godzilla on a rampage, stomping Congressmen into shape... we change things."

"Yeah." Sam leaned back in his chair, and sighed again. "Josh is out there, making things happen. What am I doing? Sitting in the mess-hall, drafting and redrafting a completely inconsequential speech."

Donna offered him a smile of commiseration, and hurriedly finished up the rest of her sandwich before Josh could come charging down the hallways looking for her.

"Hey, Toby." CJ had known the Communications Director for long enough that she didn't need to look up to recognise his silent presence in the doorway.

"We've got word back on the hostage situation."

CJ looked up and slid her glasses off. "They resolved it?" she guessed optimistically. Toby shook his head.

"No. But they ID'd the guy. He's a political aide who used to work for Congressman Whittaker. I'm guessing he had some sort of issue with his severance package."

"Whittaker's one of the hostages?" CJ surmised, and Toby nodded. "How many others? Do we know who they are?"

Toby shrugged. "They're working on that now."

"Great." CJ grimaced, but tried to look on the bright side. "At least we know he's not a terrorist."

"At least this'll stop the Healthcare Bill dominating the news cycle," Toby said gloomily.

"We should trust Josh," CJ insisted, "he knows what he's doing." Toby only shrugged grumpily. The Communication Director's demeanour, never very far above morose at the best of times, had been completely unreasonable of late. Ginger had taken to issuing the bullpen a daily Toby Report, warning them whether to expect to be thundered at, given the cold shoulder, or have their parade rained on.

"You should stop riding Sam about this speech on Thursday," CJ advised. Toby glowered.

"Sam's a grown-up."

"So you should start treating him like one. He doesn't get paid to have you shouting at him every four seconds, Toby."

"He gets paid to write speeches," Toby said. "Which he is doing, if only in the sense that he is putting words onto paper which could, theoretically, be read out loud."

CJ sighed and rubbed her neck. "Toby..." She trailed off. "We're all under pressure, okay? Don't take it out on Sam."

Toby looked as if he wanted to say more, but just nodded and walked out.

"Hey, baby." Jed felt his mood lighten even as he lifted the phone. His wife's throaty laugh echoed down the telephone line, and he ached from wishing she could be with him.

"Do you always answer your phone that way?" she teased.

"Always," he rumbled, unable to keep the longing from soaking into his voice.

"I could have been delayed," she laughed. "It might have been Senator Rogers, calling about the assault weapons thing."

"Ah, he'd let me call him anything I liked if he thought I'd be willing to relax the restrictions," he shrugged it off. Listening to Abbey's laugh over the phone line was a poor substitute for the real thing, but it still raised the same thrill of gooseflesh he'd got the first time ever he heard it. "I miss you," he said quietly.

"I miss you too," she admitted, the laughter fading.

"I'm counting the days," Jed told her.

That made her laugh again. "Two days, Jed. I bet that's a real challenge to all that math you took in college."

"The days are longer when you're not here."

"Josiah Bartlet, did you just use a line on me?"

Busted. He hedged "Maybe. But I meant it."

"Thursday night, Jed. It's only Thursday night."

"That's forever away," he sighed.

"I know, I know." He could picture her smile as she changed the subject. "Zoey'll be there."

"Yeah." He started to smile himself. "Our little girl - who, I might add, despite living barely a hairsbreadth away, might as well have disappeared off the face of the planet."

"College girls, Jed," Abbey chided him. "She's growing up, she doesn't have time to come running every time her daddy claps his hands anymore."

"Studying, ha," Jed shrugged. "She doesn't need to study, she'll get As. All my girls get As."

"Not just the studying," Abbey jibed gently. "She's got to fit in the raves, the orgies, the all-night-keggers..." She dissolved into giggles at his disgruntled huff of air. "You can't keep them in a box forever, Jed."

"On the contrary, I know of several good nunneries in the DC area-"

"Seriously, though-"

"Oh, you think I'm not serious?" he interjected.

"Seriously, Jed, has she spoken to you about what she wants to do after college?"

"No," he said, a little sombrely. All joking aside, it pained him how little he saw of his youngest daughter these days. He adored all his daughters, but Zoey had always been the one who was most like him, and she'd been a tiny shadow following his footsteps since the day she was old enough to toddle after him. "I haven't really spoken to her at all lately. She's always rushing off, or I'm always rushing off."

Abbey sighed. "Well, we'll see her Thursday. All three of us together, think of that."

"It'll be like Christmas," he said, but it came out as something deeper than the light-hearted quip he'd intended. It really did seem like they only gathered the family together during the holiday season.

Of course, his wife read his mood as easily as she always did. "Everybody's kids grow up, Jed," she said gently.

"Yes, but not everybody's the President of the United States while they're doing it." He winced at the way the words slurred together; he had trouble with his sibilants when he was exhausted.

Naturally, Abbey picked that up, too. "You're slurring your words, Jed," she said worriedly.

"I'm very tired," he admitted, a yawn escaping to accent the words.

"Get some rest," she ordered.

"Not much chance of that," he told her wryly. "We've got a hostage situation in a gym downtown, Josh is setting the building on fire to roast a couple of Congressmen..."

"Nevertheless, you're going to get some rest." She had her doctor voice on, one he knew better than to argue with even if she didn't have the licence to back it up anymore. A few years ago he'd have called her Dr. Bartlet and teased her about it, but though that sore spot was no longer fresh, it was still a bad idea to poke at it.

"I'll try," he promised.

"Okay. I've got to go now."

"Yeah. So have I."

But they both held on, like teenagers reluctant to give up the family phone even though their parents were pointedly tapping the phone bill and glaring.

"I love you," said Abbey, finally.

"I love you. Bye."

"Bye."

He replaced the phone in its cradle and straightened up, revitalised and filled with the energy that came from contact with his better half. But, as always, the boost faded away all too quickly.

CJ strode confidently up to the podium. "Okay, folks, I've got a little more for you on the situation downtown. I can now tell you that the gunman is a former aide to Congressman Whittaker. He's believed to be holding the Congressman and approximately half a dozen others hostage in the back room of Sharkley's Gym. No shots have yet been fired, and we're holding out hopes for-" She broke off as she noticed that a number of reporters were holding a hushed conversation amongst themselves. "Folks, I could use a little love here. If you've got something to say, put up your hand and wait for the teacher to call on you."

She was puzzled and a little disconcerted by the worried eyes that snapped up to meet hers. CJ hesitated. "Is there something I should know about here, guys?"

After a slightly uncomfortable pause, Katie cautiously raised a hand. "Um, CJ? Sharkley's Gym? You're sure?"

She blinked. "Well, I'm in the business of reporting the news for you guys to spread to the world, so... one would hope." She frowned. "What's at Sharkley's?"

Katie glanced around at the faces of her fellow reporters. "That's Rick's gym," she offered tentatively.

"Rick- our Rick?" CJ's eyes, like everyone else's, were drawn to the still-empty chair where Rick Maskey usually sat.

"He goes to the gym most mornings before work," Katie confirmed. CJ was aware of a new buzz of discomfort rippling through the press pool. These were seasoned journalists, well used to confronting doom and destruction, and some of them had probably been in no little danger themselves reporting from the middle of war zones as foreign correspondents. But none of them had expected one of their own to come to any harm on the DC streets.

CJ found herself completely disconcerted - as much by the press corps' sudden uncertainty as by the news. "Okay. Uh, okay, well-" She made a snap decision. "You know what? There are people who should probably know that. Excuse me."

She quickly descended from the podium, and for once there was no chorus of catcalls begging her to linger a moment longer.

"CJ?"

CJ slowed her walk momentarily to let Donna Moss catch up with her.

"Is it true one of the hostages downtown is a White House reporter?" Donna asked, obviously concerned.

CJ grimaced. "Looks like it," she admitted.

"Who?"

"Rick Maskey."

Donna looked upset. "I know Rick. He's nice."

"Yes, he is," CJ agreed grimly. One of her reporters, dammit. Bad enough to be unable to help when they were at the mercy of mercenary guerrillas somewhere halfway across the globe, but this...

She changed mental gears. "The police are negotiating with the guy - Rick'll be fine," she insisted firmly, as if confidence could guarantee it. "So what can I do for you, Donna? Do you need anything?"

"Uh, no." Donna pulled a slightly sheepish face. "I'm sort of avoiding answering the phones."

CJ raised an eyebrow. "Josh stepping on Congressional toes?"

"What? Oh, no. No." Donna gave a tentative smile. "He's got nine of the votes we need on Healthcare," she offered brightly.

CJ came to a stop. "Nine?" she asked ecstatically.

"Yeah."

"As in nine of the desired eleven? As in- some percentage that's a little bit more than eighty, which if I was the president I would probably work out in my head, but since I'm not I won't bother to do the math?"

She grinned and nodded. "Yeah."

"We're really gonna pass this thing?" CJ said delightedly.

Donna's smile became a little more wobbly. "Hopefully," she hedged.

"Ten and eleven's the bummer," CJ surmised.

"Boy howdy."

"So who are you ducking, if you're not ducking angry Congressmen?"

Donna pulled a face. "Okay, CJ, I know this is totally, totally the wrong time for this, but you wouldn't happen to have any advice for putting off well-meaning parents?"

"Your parents?"

"My mother. It's my birthday next Friday, and she's been calling up to give me... encouraging chats." Donna wrinkled her nose at the thought.

CJ shot her a look. "Not the 'We're Very Proud, You've Got a Marvellous Career, and By the Way Why Aren't You Married Yet?' talk?"

"The very same." Donna nodded emphatically.

CJ sighed. "I know it well."

"So what would you suggest I do?"

"Change your telephone number," she said briskly. "Get a fake passport. Move to Mexico."

"Thanks for that," Donna said dryly.

"No problem."

They split off and went their separate ways.

"Leo." CJ ducked into his office, and he held up a finger as he listened to somebody on the other end of the phone.

"Okay, thanks." He looked up at her, cradling the phone against his shoulder. "CJ."

"Leo, it looks like one of our hostages might be-"

"A member of the press pool," he nodded. "I saw the briefing."

"Leo-"

"Hold on a second." He grabbed a small pad and scribbled something down as he listened.

"Leo, losing a reporter is something I'd really rather not do," she said warningly.

"The FBI are negotiating," he told her. "We're gonna see if this guy's willing to let your reporter be a go-between."

"Is this gonna put him in more danger?" she asked sharply.

Leo shook his head. "This guy's out to get the government. So far as he's concerned, the press are his friends."

"How sure are you of that?" CJ demanded. Leo grimaced, then shrugged.

"Relatively."

She sighed. "Leo..."

"It's a better shot than anything else we've got," he told her. She made to speak and he cut her off with a quick gesture. "Okay," he said into the phone. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll hold. We've got a guy on the scene," he told CJ. "I'm finding out what's going on."

"Okay." She hovered hesitantly. "You mind if I wait?"

He tipped his head towards the chair in invitation. "Could be a while," he warned. "This guy's pretty much setting his own timeframe."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a few moments.

CJ looked at Leo. "Some guy just walks into a downtown gym and whips out a gun?"

"Yeah."

She shook her head slowly. More gun crime. And yet, as they all knew from experience by now, no matter how this turned out Americans would be no more inclined to equate gun crimes with regulating gun ownership than before.

Crazy way to run a country.

After a moment, she said "Donna says we've got nine of the votes on Healthcare."

"Yeah, it's the other two that are gonna hurt," Leo nodded.

"Yeah."

They continued to wait.

"Hey, Donna."

"Oh, hi, Sam." She smiled up at him, fingers still flying over the keyboard at a million miles a minute. "Do you need Josh? 'Cuz he's still-"

"No, it's okay." He held up a hand to forestall her. "Just wondered if he needed anything."

"I don't think so. He's kicking Congressional ass right now, he's pretty much happy as a clam."

"Yeah." Sam sighed, and perched on the edge of her desk. It was late, but Josh's bullpen was still bustling, staffers running about compiling information on just about every Congressman Josh had ever met.

"Looking for something to do?" Donna asked.

"Toby's got his teeth in another of my drafts," Sam explained. "I figured the best way to preserve my sanity was to just stop watching."

"I think Toby's got a problem," Donna sympathised.

"Maybe." Sam looked unconvinced. He sighed again. "Maybe it's me. Maybe I've lost my... something."

"Well, if you get your something back, could you maybe write me a position paper?" asked Donna hopefully.

Sam wrinkled his forehead in a frown. "What kind of a position paper?"

"The kind that lays out for my mother that my job is actually quite important, I'm not gonna get infected by all the politics flying around and become evil, and I'm nearly positive that I'll still be able to find someone to marry by the time I'm a ripe old maid of thirty-five."

"Yeah." Sam smiled softly. "Yeah, I don't think I can help you there." He rubbed his forehead and stood up. "I need a drink."

"Sam." Donna gave him a concerned look. "You shouldn't go out drinking on your own."

"Why not?" he demanded, a little more aggressively than he'd intended.

"'Cause you're-" She hesitated, and amended whatever she'd been planning to say. "'Cause you've lost your something." She offered him a tentative smile.

"And I won't find it at the bottom of a pint glass?" he completed wryly.

"Well, I can't speak for speechwriting, but I gotta say being drunk plays hell with my typing."

"Typing under the influence?" He smirked, but there was a desperately weary edge even to his amusement.

"Hell, I type in my sleep." Donna smiled at him. "I woke up one morning and found I'd typed six pages of briefing notes on the GDC. I wouldn't even have minded, if I hadn't done the exact same work the day before when I was awake."

"Yeah." Sam smiled wryly. "I don't suppose it matters. We're going round in circles anyway."

"CJ and Leo are trying to get the hostages freed using the reporter as a go-between," Donna offered, because she wasn't quite sure what to do with this new, resigned, tired-looking Sam.

He smiled harshly. "Yeah. Yet another thing I can't do anything to help with." He sighed once more, and got up to go. Donna had to call out after him.

"Sam." He turned back, and she gave him a taste of one of her guilt-faces that always worked so well on Josh. "Don't go out and get drunk on your own, okay?"

He hesitated, and then smiled tiredly. "Okay," he promised.

She stared worriedly after him for a long time once he'd gone.

Sam strolled back into the bar, and smiled as he recognised a familiar blond head at a corner table. He dropped into the seat across from his drinking buddy of the previous night.

Steve blinked in surprise, and then smiled. "Hey, it's the prodigal politician," he said brightly. "Still contributing to the downfall of society?"

Sam couldn't help grinning back. Steve seemed completely cheerful and carefree; something neither he, nor any of his coworkers had been for a long, long time. "Oh, I'm doing my best."

"Cool." The young man sipped his beer, and Sam eyed it for a moment.

"I promised a friend I wouldn't go out on my own and get drunk," he admitted. Steve shrugged fluidly.

"Well, what am I, chopped liver?"

Sam's heart already felt lighter. "Yeah," he grinned, and gestured towards the bar. "I'm gonna go get a beer."

Beer, peace and quiet, and the company of somebody who wasn't run into ground by terminal depression and didn't give a damn what the nosecount was on Friday's Healthcare Bill. Just what the doctor ordered.

"Hey, Carol."

"Oh, hey, Bonnie!" Carol slowed her walk and gave the Communications assistant a curious smile. "You're still here? I thought all you guys had gone home."

"Ain't nobody in the office but me and Toby. And I am out of here." Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Sam bailed about three hours ago, for which I totally do not blame him, and I drew the short straw to babysit His Grumpiness in his place."

"Toby's still working?" Carol asked, surprised. CJ was still in her office, of course, waiting for news on poor Rick, but so far as she knew there was nothing particularly big going down in Communications. "Is he waiting for news on the hostages?"

"No." Bonnie contradicted herself with a shrug. "Well, I don't know. He could be. But he's been like this all week. It wouldn't be so bad that he's practically living in his office, if it wasn't for the fact that he's also actively trying to kill everybody who comes within shouting distance."

Carol winced. "Any idea what's eating him?"

Bonnie could only shrug. "He's Toby. We'll probably never know."

"Yeah." She grimaced nervously. "Think he knows something we don't?"

"I hope not," said Bonnie fervently, and Carol nodded in agreement. They were all aware of Toby's semi-legendary ability to pick up when something enormously bad was on the horizon. Carol wasn't sure whether it meant he was super-smart or just the only one pessimistic enough to believe all these awful things could happen to them.

But surely they were due a little break from bad news right at the moment. It seemed like there hadn't been a single thing gone right for them since reelection. The chain had to break sometime - didn't it?

As she waved off her friend and returned faithfully to CJ's side, Carol only hoped that Toby's psychic disaster sensors weren't pointing to anything happening to Rick Maskey.

Leo McGarry studied his president with an affection that would have embarrassed him if his old friend had glanced up and seen it in his face. Small chance of that; for all that his glasses were perched on his nose and a briefing book lay open on his lap, Jed Bartlet's head was nodding against his chest in the first stages of a much-needed doze.

When did we become old men? Leo wondered to himself. Surely there had been a time when they had both been young and fiery and ready to take on the world? Or had he just imagined that? Truth to tell, he hadn't felt young in a long, long time.

But Jed... Leo had always been quietly envious of the way his friend could get caught up in something, wrap himself in a dream so that his eyes lit up and the years fell away. He would be talking about something, and suddenly you would see through the distinguished looks of his later years to the bright-eyed boy as he'd first met as his old friend Abbey's new fiancé.

That look, that sudden sense of boyish wonder, had been sorely lacking in Jed Bartlet's face of late, and Leo missed it. The president looked tired all the time, and he feared the relentless stream of political defeats were taking their toll. They badly needed a victory to recharge their leader's batteries.

Leo wondered with a quiet smirk what the American people would think if they saw their leader now. Head dipping ever-closer to the pages of his briefing book, he looked more like everybody's favourite grandpa than the leader of the free world.

He looked up at the quiet sound of the door, and Charlie padded in with a glance at the sleeping president that mirrored Leo's amused affection. He decided to take the safer route, and came over to Leo.

"We've got the call," he said quietly, and Leo sat upright.

"They got the hostages out? Was anybody hurt?"

"They had to shoot the hostage-taker," Charlie told him, and Leo squeezed his eyes shut in dismay. "One of the hostages has a head-wound, and Rick Maskey was shot."

CJ's reporter. Aw, hell. "How bad?" he asked urgently.

"Not so bad," Charlie said, with a tentative smile. "He was hit in the arm, and they think he's gonna be okay."

"Well, thank God for that at least." There would have probably have been grave publicity-related repercussions to the death of a White House reporter in a gun crime, but dealing with that would have paled against facing an angry CJ. It had been partly his idea that Maskey would be safer if the hostage-taker knew he wasn't a politician. Had he been wrong? Had their plan saved the hostages from worse injury, or caused the ones that had already happened?

He stood up to take the call. Charlie hovered, glancing at the figure in the other chair, still oblivious to their exchange. "Should I tell the president?" he asked, obviously all too eager to put the responsibility for waking the sleeping bear on somebody else's shoulders.

Leo looked across at the snoozing president, and smiled. Injuries or not, everybody but the shooter had got out alive. This was good news. Good news could wait.

"Let him sleep a little," he advised, and they both crept out and left the president to his slumber.

CJ was bone tired, but her exhaustion disappeared the moment Leo appeared in the doorway. She leapt to her feet. "Leo, did we-?" He waved her back into her seat.

"It's done."

"The hostages?" she demanded quickly.

"One guy got whacked on the head with something," Leo told her. "It's quite a nasty head wound, but they're expecting him to pull through."

"Not the Congressman?"

He shook his head. "We'll have his details through before your next briefing." Leo grimaced. "Rick Maskey got shot."

CJ jolted straight back to her feet, and Leo quickly raised a hand to quiet her. "He was shot in the arm. He's receiving medical attention right now, he's gonna be fine."

Some of the panic bled out of her features, but a wary dismay replaced it. "Leo, did we-?"

"CJ-" He was already shaking his head warningly.

"Did we do this?" she completed, relentless.

Leo let out a heavy sigh. "CJ, it's a hostage situation. We don't know what's going through his head, we don't know what's gonna set him off... He didn't shoot Rick because we told him he was a reporter. He shot Rick because he panicked, and we don't know if that... We got the hostages out alive, CJ."

"Yeah." There was a moment of silence, and then she asked "The shooter?"

"Dead," Leo said heavily. CJ just nodded. Should they be glad? Sorry? Relieved? It was never that easy to separate the emotions into neat little boxes.

"Rick's gonna be okay?" she asked instead.

"He'll be fine." Leo smiled. "Might have a little trouble typing-"

"We should give him an exclusive," CJ said impulsively.

"On what?"

"On whatever."

"For getting shot?"

CJ shrugged. "Seems like a damn good reason to me."

"You think nobody's gonna notice that we gave the guy an exclusive for getting shot?" Leo pointed out.

"Hey, they wanna go get themselves shot, they can get in line," CJ said sharply.

Leo hesitated, then smiled. "The president's gonna want to talk to this guy anyway."

"Yeah."

"Give the guy his time in the spotlight," he nodded. "He's earned it." Leo turned to go, and CJ jerked a thumb towards the briefing room.

"I'll go tell the press."

Leo frowned. "They're still here?"

"He's one of their own," she reminded him softly.

"Yeah."

They were both silent, remembering all the good and bad news they'd waited up for on far too many occasions. CJ finally let loose a fragile smile. "This could have gone down a lot worse," she admitted.

"Yeah." Leo nodded. "Yeah, it could." He straightened up, and turned to leave. "Goodnight."

"It is," she called back, and grabbed her glasses as she headed for the press room. Rick Maskey had been shot, but he was alive, and he would recover.

It was a good night.

WEDNESDAY:
 

Donna arrived at her desk and dropped her bag in its usual place. She shrugged off her coat, picked up the post - and paused. Her new position afforded her a view through the door of her boss's office. Josh was sitting at his desk, working.

She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and took another look. Josh was still sitting at his desk, working. Donna stepped up to the doorframe and rapped upon it sharply. "Paging the Twilight Zone."

Josh looked up and granted her a brief smile. "Hey, Donna. Can you get me the stats on the Hendricks thing?"

Professional instinct had her reaching for the right set of files even as her brain attempted to process the unexpected information. It was not unheard of for Josh to be found in his office this early in the morning; however, said discovery usually involved a rumpled suit, a scruffy-haired head slumped against the desk, and much poking, shaking and even a little subtle kicking. Josh not only present but conscious, alert and already working was definitely a novelty.

"You're here," she noted, in tones of quiet disbelief. She might have thought he'd worked all night, except that was a fresh suit. The odds of Josh spontaneously deciding he'd worn a suit for too long and had to change it...

Nah.

"Well observed." He opened the files she handed him and ran a finger quickly down a list of figures.

"You did, in fact, leave the office last night?" she confirmed.

"Yes."

"You didn't like, double back or anything?"

"No. I left, I went home, I came back." He shrugged, as if it was perfectly normal for him to get up at this time in the morning, and reached for his phone. Donna blinked.

"Who can you possibly be calling at this time in the morning?"

"Very pissed Congressmen?" he hazarded.

"Way to win the vote, Josh."

He gave her a wry smile. "I got ten."

The fact that he was here and doing this persuaded her that now was not the time for a victory dance. "And eleven?" she asked.

"Yeah." He sighed heavily, and the illusion of a bright and breezy, up-and-at-'em Josh momentarily wavered. He looked exhausted. Then he painted it over with a smirk. "Say, these Republican Wisconsin gomers your mother's trying to get you to marry. Are any of them-?"

"I'm not marrying anybody from Congress to get you your last vote, Josh."

"Yeah, okay. I think I would," he admitted, and Donna smiled.

"So tell me, Josh, who's on the list of possible future Mr. Lymans?"

He shot her a look, then snorted and shrugged. "Right now, we're trying absolutely everybody we can get." He considered. "Except Tavestock. The wounds are still too fresh. There's no way we're going to Tavestock."

Donna nodded, and made a mental note to look up the telephone number for Alan Tavestock.

Leo looked up as Josh, CJ and Toby filed into his office. He waited a few moments, but Sam didn't follow. He shot a look at CJ, who shrugged subtly.

With a frown, he started the meeting. "Josh. Tomorrow's bill."

Josh grinned, although Leo could tell from the signs of strain in his face that he wasn't as blasé as he pretended. "We're ten for eleven, Leo! It's going through."

"Not until we've got number eleven," Leo reminded him. "Who did you tap for the last three?"

"Meyers, Reeseman, and Zantowsky," Josh supplied, and Leo nodded slowly. The earlier votes Josh had bought with a little well-applied pressure and arm-twisting, but those three must have cost a number of weighty concessions. They couldn't really afford to give anything else away on this, and right now he could only think of one Congressman who wasn't in any position to demand favours. But Josh wasn't going to like it.

"Tavestock," Toby said for him.

"Oh, no way!" his deputy burst out.

"It's gotta be," Leo overruled him. "He's not in any position to duck the party line, not with this finance thing still hanging over him."

"Yeah, and he thinks I put it there!" Josh objected. It was the Deputy Chief of Staff who'd counselled, wisely enough, that the last thing the president needed to do was throw his weight behind the integrity of Alan Tavestock. The Congressman had been cleared of any wrongdoing - mostly through lack of evidence - but he was less than happy that the president hadn't been there for him, even after the fact. "It's gonna be a hell of a hard sell, Leo."

He didn't doubt that, but they needed this bill. "You said you could get us this bill; go out there and sell it."

Josh grimaced, but nodded in resignation.

The door suddenly opened, and Sam stepped in. Or rather, slouched in. Instead of being his bouncy self of old, the Communications Deputy looked bleary-eyed and tired. His clothes were as immaculate as ever, but nonetheless he exuded an aura of being considerably less neatly-pressed than usual. Leo wasn't sure if he would have needed his expert eye to diagnose a hangover.

If it had been Josh, he would have made some sarcastic remark and got on with it - but if it had been Josh, it wouldn't have been so worryingly out-of-character. It wasn't like Sam to get drunk enough to suffer from it the next morning, especially when Leo knew none of the others could have been out with him the previous night.

He wasn't the only one to notice, either; Toby's gaze lingered on his deputy, and CJ looked concerned. Josh's crinkled forehead was far from difficult to read, but if Sam noticed the attention he was getting, he chose not to acknowledge it. He slumped into his chair and barely succeeded in disguising his squint against the lights.

Something was clearly going on there - but it sure as hell wasn't Leo's place to take issue with it. "Sam," he said with a neutral nod, and quickly shifted gears. "Toby. Tomorrow's speech; it's done, right?"

"It's still being polished." Leo shot him a disbelieving frown. This was an after-dinner speech, for an audience who would be undemanding and probably already under the influence of alcohol. It was the sort of thing Toby and Sam could casually toss off in a matter of hours. What the hell was going on over in Communications these days?

Echoing his thoughts, CJ shot Toby a look. "Still? What the hell is there left to polish?"

"It could be better," he pronounced moodily. Leo couldn't tell if that was some kind of dig at Sam or not, since the younger man failed to look up from his examination of the carpeting, and Toby could play poker for a living.

He suspected that nothing more productive was coming out of this staff meeting. "Okay, whatever. Go, work. CJ, could you hang back a minute?"

The press secretary obligingly lingered. "You want to talk about Rick Maskey?" she guessed.

"No, actually." Leo drummed his fingers awkwardly. Damn, he hated this sort of thing. "I was wondering if you could maybe have a quick word with Sam."

CJ was quick to realise that he didn't mean about the latest policy initiative. "Any idea what's wrong?" she asked softly, and Leo recognised the big sister vibe that always seemed to come out when any of her 'boys' was in trouble. Provided said trouble didn't involve explanations to the press, anyway.

In answer to her question, he could only shrug. "No. But he's been leaving early and coming in hung-over, and now it's been two days in a row."

CJ nodded, then shrugged expansively. "Could be Toby," she suggested. "He's been in a hell of mood lately, over I know not what..." She shook her head.

"Yeah, question is, is Sam out of sorts because he's moody, or is Toby moody because Sam's out of sorts?" A pretty knotty question, when dealing with two individuals who were equally repressed in very different ways. Leo sighed. "Have a quiet word with him, okay?"

"Why me?" CJ frowned.

He gave her his sharpest look. "You think I should pull one of my staff aside and ask him if he's drinking too much?"

As he expected, CJ was unable to hold his gaze for very long. "I'll talk to him," she promised.

"Thank you."

"Hey, Donna." Josh stuck his head around the door. "I need-"

"Everyone but Tavestock, I know."

"Yeah. Incidentally..."

"What?"

"I need you to set me up a meeting with Tavestock."

Donna didn't blink. "Ten-thirty suit you?" she asked.

"I... uh, yeah," he shrugged, caught off balance. She picked up the phone and pressed a button.

"Becky, still there? Yeah, he'll take the ten-thirty slot. Thanks."

She replaced the receiver, and gave Josh a smug look.

"Sam."

Sam looked up with a mental groan as CJ approached his desk. He was in no mood to speak to anybody this morning, not even people who weren't Toby. "What do you need?" he asked, unable to totally contain a heavy sigh.

"A word," she said, and closed the door behind her. She leaned against it, looking at him expectantly.

Great. It was 'let's cool off crazy Sam' time.

"Whatever it is, I'm fine," he said shortly.

As a pre-emptive tactic, it was resoundingly unsuccessful. "Are you hung over, Sparky?" she asked him, coming over to sit on the edge of his desk.

He shrugged and snorted. "A little. Is that an offence now?"

CJ regarded his face searchingly, but he doubted she'd find anything when he himself couldn't find any one root to his general malaise. "You're not usually late."

"I walked to work. It took longer than I thought." Mainly because he'd been planning to drive, and hadn't realised what a bad idea that was until he got behind the wheel and spent several minutes trying to remember what sequence of controls would let him pull out of the parking space.

"You've been out drinking a lot, lately," she observed, keeping her voice carefully neutral. He snorted again, a sound of harsh amusement.

"Believe me, CJ, alcohol is not my problem." Truth to tell, those nights hanging out at the bar, downing beers and trading pointless conversation, were the only time he felt okay. And not because he was obliterating his memory with alcohol, either; it was being out, away from his job, not thinking about it, not drowning in it...

CJ leaned forward pointedly. "Then what is your problem?"

Sam could only shrug, and shake his head. She sighed, and rubbed her forehead.

"I'm worried about you, Sam," she told him softly, and he resented the fact that he couldn't doubt her sincerity. "You seem..." She waved a hand, casting for a word, not finding it. "Depressed," she finished lamely.

"Ah. Because circumstances are such that it's hard to believe I'm not bursting with joy," he noted dryly.

Now she nodded in reluctant agreement. CJ swung her legs for a moment, letting the silence linger. "It'll get better," she told him.

"It won't," he said, shaking his head. He was chilled to hear that he didn't even sound bitter. He'd gone beyond that now, into cold certainty. "It never does."

"We do good things," CJ said firmly, and he wondered if she'd been comparing notes with Donna, or had just taken a stab at the source of his frustration. It wasn't as if it was difficult to guess.

"Like what?" he wanted to know. Genuinely wanted to know, because it seemed to him he really couldn't think of any.

"We rescued the hostages."

"We got a guy shot," Sam reminded her.

"We've got the Healthcare Bill. It'll save a lot of lives."

"It won't pass."

"Sam, are you thinking about quitting?"

The question, though it had been hovering on the edge of conversation for some time, still caught him by surprise when spoken out loud. He stared at her for a long moment, then lowered his gaze.

"No," he said quickly.

He wasn't sure if he was lying.

"And tomorrow's dinner will be held in the-" The press briefing came to an abrupt halt as everybody craned around to see the object of CJ's sudden bright grin.

The young reporter leaned somewhat sheepishly against the wall, bandaged right arm held across his chest in a sling. He seemed a little taken aback by the sudden attention, and even more so when the room burst into spontaneous applause.

"Well, looky here, it's our neighbourhood action hero," CJ smiled. "Take a seat, Rick, and I hope your paper gave you a cassette recorder."

"Oh, they went one better." He nodded towards an even younger-looking girl, who blushed furiously. "I got an intern with a pencil."

"Boy, you know you're in the big leagues now," CJ quipped. "Okay folks, let's get this briefing back on track..."

As she professionally rattled off the rest of the day's information, she kept an eye on the unfortunate reporter. Back in his usual seat, he was the picture of professionalism, but she couldn't miss the way his skin was several shades paler than usual or the hesitant, slightly shaky nature to his movements. He probably shouldn't be back at work, but she and the rest of the workaholics in the West Wing were certainly in no position to judge.

As the rest of the press filed out, she called "Hey, Rick, you got a minute?" He hung back, obviously expecting it.

"Morning, CJ," he nodded, a little of the colour returning to his face now the room wasn't so cramped and crowded.

She allowed the professional press secretary exterior to collapse into a more concerned look. "Hey. How're you doing?"

Rick shrugged, then winced as his injured arm followed the movement. "I'm, I'm... okay, I guess." He looked down at the sling. "They told me the bullet barely grazed my arm, but, you know, I think they were lying."

"They probably heard you were a reporter." CJ smiled, to take any hint of a sting out of it. "Hey, you wanna come through, sit down?"

"No, I'm okay," Rick protested quickly, but CJ was insistent.

"CJ, really, I'm fine," he continued to argue as Carol offered him a chair. "I don't need-"

"Well, hello there, Mr. Maskey." Rick blinked and struggled to get to his feet as he recognised the president's voice. "No, don't do that," the president urged him quickly. He smiled. "I'm not gonna try and make you shake my hand, either."

The reporter looked at him blankly as he casually pulled up a chair next to him, as if it was perfectly normal thing for him to be doing. "Uh, Mr. President, shouldn't you... be somewhere?"

"Yes, I should! I do believe I should be talking to a young man who was the hero of a hostage situation last night. Do we know anybody around here who answers to that description?"

Despite the fact that he felt decidedly uncomfortable with that take on his actions, Rick couldn't help responding to the president's playful grin. Though he prided himself on being a professional reporter, it was difficult not to be caught up in President Bartlet's aura of charm; not just the awe of the office, but the man's own personal magnetism.

"I'd hardly call it heroic, Mr. President," Rick said, wishing he felt less like a shy fourth-grader on a trip to the White House. "I only got shot because I was stupid and I panicked."

"You got shot because you were willing to act as a go-between and try and settle things peacefully," Bartlet corrected him, turning more serious.

"Thank you, Mr. President," he said, mostly to the floor. He was taken aback when the man clapped him on the shoulder.

"No, Rick, thank you." The president's face was momentarily grave. "If you hadn't been willing to do what you did, there could have been more lives lost than just the gunman's... and I wouldn't like to have to be dealing with that this morning."

And for all that he was a cynical newsman, Rick didn't for a second believe he meant just the negative publicity it would have brought.

The president pushed himself up, and Rick noticed the way he grimaced as he did so. "Sir, are you okay?" he asked, momentarily forgetting the lines of protocol that no doubt forbade him from making that kind of remark. The president smiled tiredly, and brushed his hair back from his forehead.

"I'm fairly sure it should be me asking you that," he chided gently.

"I guess you must have had a long night," Rick realised. Certainly, had it been any normal day, he might have spent the night sniffing around the press room or even the site itself, eagerly awaiting the thrilling scoop and the casualty list. Funny how actually being trapped in a room with the man with the gun could change your whole perspective...

"I think yours must have been longer than mine." Despite his earlier promise, the president briefly took Rick's left hand in a slightly awkward handshake. "It's an honour, Mr. Maskey, and I assure you we're all very grateful for your bravery."

Rick had, in his career, faced all manner of politicians; some guilty, some not, and nearly all filled with pompous self-righteousness. Whatever the situation, whatever the facts, he'd always gone above and beyond the call of duty to face them down with his questions.

This was probably the first time any public figure had ever left him speechless.

Neutrality of the press or not, Rick was extremely glad as his president smiled and walked away that he had, in fact, voted for Bartlet.

Josh hesitated in the doorway to Tavestock's office, then steeled himself and went in. The secretary looked up at him, spared him a distasteful look, and touched the intercom. "Sir? Mr. Lyman's here to see you."

There was an indecipherable mumble from the speaker, and she motioned Josh inside with a pointed eyebrow. He rather got the impression that he wasn't the flavour of the month around here.

Not that it was really news.

"Congressman Tavestock," he said, with a respectful nod. Or at least one that looked that way, despite the fact that respect was not something he found himself full of in Tavestock's presence. The man might have escaped any legal repercussions for his financial dodgy dealings, but everybody knew damn well he was guilty.

"Josh Lyman," he said coldly. Alan Tavestock was a large, flabby man, with small dark eyes that gave him a decidedly piggish look.

"I'm here to-"

"Try and bully me into voting your way, yes, I'm well aware." He leaned across the desk and glared at Josh. "Don't talk to me as if I'm stupid, Mr. Lyman. You advised the president not to speak in my defence."

Josh kept his back straight and his expression level. "Yes, I did. And anybody else in my position would have done the same, and you know it.".

"I was innocent!" the Congressman protested fiercely.

Josh shrugged. "And the investigation proved it."

"The investigation was nothing without the president's backing! If he'd been behind me, I would be vindicated, but instead I'm the guy they didn't find anything on - but hey, if there was nothing going on, then why did the president refuse to come out in support? You hung me out to dry!"

Fair point. "Yes, we did," Josh agreed. "It's harsh, it's cruel, it's blatantly unfair and it sucks - but it's not personal. Sometimes the cards come down against you, and you have to take a hit. It's the way the game is played, Congressman."

There was a long pause. "You're right," he admitted darkly.

"I know." He looked the Congressman in the eye. "We'll have your vote?"

"I'll vote." The look Tavestock levelled at him was one hundred percent pure malevolence.

"Thank you."

In the name of decorum, he left the victory leap until he was safely outside the front of the building.

Charlie stuck his head around the Oval Office door. "Mr. President? Josh."

"Send him in." The president stood up expectantly, and beside him Leo did the same, the dry reports they'd been going over completely forgotten.

One look at Josh's face told the story.

"Josh?" asked Leo, beginning to grin. Josh's smirk threatened to take over his whole face.

"It's in the bag," he said emphatically.

"We got Tavestock?"

"We got Tavestock," he nodded, still grinning. Leo looked across at the president, who looked delighted. He pulled his glasses off and blinked at Josh.

"I can tell everybody the Healthcare Bill is going through?"

"You can."

"Well done, both of you," the president smiled at them. "Very well done."

Leo was fairly sure the credit for this one didn't belong on his shoulders. He stepped forward and laid a hand on Josh's arm. "You did good, Josh," he said quietly. At this point, he discovered he'd been wrong in believing his deputy's grin couldn't get any wider.

"Well, go on," the president urged. "Go tell CJ!"

Josh went to do his bidding, but paused in the doorway. "I think she already knows."

"Let me guess. There was shouting?" Leo raised an eyebrow.

"Also hugging. Possibly some tap-dancing."

"Get out," he advised. Josh positively bounced out of the room.

The president turned back to his old friend. "We should seriously consider giving Donna a pay raise," he said dryly.

"I'll say." Leo rolled his eyes. "He's gonna be unbearable for the rest of the week."

"He's earned it."

"He has." They exchanged a smile.

"The hostages are alive, the Healthcare Bill is going through, and my wife and youngest daughter will both be home tomorrow." The president savoured the words, as if half surprised to find them true.

Things were beginning to look up.

Sam read the final draft over a few more times. Every I dotted, every T crossed? Every typo caught, and every possible point of contention changed and changed and changed again?

He couldn't see one single tiny thing wrong with it. Every sentence had been tweaked to the point of perfection; every syllable rang with exactly the right sound. He couldn't see one single thing Toby could possibly take issue with.

Of course, he hadn't been able to see any of the other ones, either.

There should probably have been some kind of trepidation as he picked up the draft of the speech and approached Toby's office, but he was beginning to discover that he just didn't care anymore. Maybe Toby would rip his hard work to shreds. So what? It didn't mean anything anyway. It was just words on a page. Words that didn't do anything to change the world.

Why should anybody care what words came out of the president's mouth? Everybody knew they were carefully calculated, put there by scheming politicians and spin-doctors. Presidential speeches weren't about truth, they were about scoring points, carefully shaped and sculpted to strike exactly the right balance between all the sections of society you needed to court today.

Once he would have leapt up and struck out against such a cynical definition of his profession. Now it seemed about right to him.

When had all the hope bled out of him? Maybe it had happened a long time ago. Maybe even as long ago as that day he'd discovered that the president had lied to them, that the Real Thing might be real, but he was still as human as the rest of them. There had seemed to be brighter times in between - but maybe that had just been the false thrill of battling for reelection.

Why had they even fought that fight? It wasn't as if they were doing anything with their time in power. It was more like they were babysitting the country, keeping it safe from the likes of Ritchie until somebody who would make it better came along.

If such people existed. Maybe they didn't. He'd thought he could be one of those people, but looking back that belief seemed pathetically naïve. He didn't change the world, he just wrote speeches.

And, apparently, not even good speeches.

He handed the paper over to Toby, and looked at the floor; not out of any particular deference or embarrassment, but because it seemed to take too much energy to bother to do anything else.

Toby seemed to take an inordinately long time to read through the speech. Sam used it to think of all the other things he could have done with his life. Depressingly, he couldn't really think of much at all, except to have stayed at Gage-Whitney and married Lisa. And maybe that would have been a soulless, thankless existence, but hey, at least he would have known to expect that right from the beginning. Instead of building himself a nice tower of high hopes, and hitting the ground that much harder.

Toby rustled the papers as he slid them back into the folder, and cleared his throat. He gave Sam a slight nod. "It's fine."

To Toby, apparently, this was more than sufficient response. He'd slaved over about twenty drafts in the past week, making changes he didn't even understand the reasons for, and now it was 'fine'. Not, he noted, 'great' or even 'good', but 'fine'.

Glutton for punishment that he was, he had to say something. "You don't want me to-?"

"It's fine."

Toby casually shoved the folder on top of a pile on his desk, and seemed vaguely surprised to find that Sam hadn't gone anywhere. Because he of course existed only when it was convenient for Toby.

"So we're done?" He really wasn't after any effusive praise here. Even a quick 'you've nailed it', couched in biting Toby-sarcasm about how long it taken him, might have given him some clue. It would be nice to at least know whether he'd at last turned in an acceptable speech, or his boss had just given up all hope of making him do so.

But Toby, being Toby, just nodded. "I need a summary of the Peterson Report," he said, and went back to his work. Sam stared at him for a few moments, then walked out.

He didn't bother to stomp or slam the door. Toby probably wouldn't have noticed.

Bonnie and Ginger exchanged glances as Sam emerged from the lion's den. Should they ask? His face didn't betray the near-broken frustration he'd shown the last couple of times he'd spoken with Toby, but he didn't look happy, either.

Anybody who'd met both Sam and Toby for more than, oh, thirty seconds, would have no trouble picking which one to label inscrutable. Well, Toby certainly was impossible to read, but it was a mistake to assume that Sam's wide baby blues betrayed his every mood. When there was something wrong, a pneumatic drill and an FBI forensics team wouldn't get it out of him.

Still, there hadn't been any shouting... Bonnie took a chance.

"Did he like this one?"

Sam snorted bitterly, a sound that really didn't sit well with her mental image of Sam Seaborn. "Apparently, it's 'fine'," he said harshly.

Under normal circumstances, such lacklustre praise from Toby was about all you would expect. But the number of times he'd sent Sam out with alterations the entire bullpen couldn't see the point of...

Which was not to say Toby's amendments didn't make the speech better, because they did. What was baffling everybody, however, was just what the hell had been wrong with it in the first place. It was just an after-dinner speech, but he was polishing it like it was the State of the Union, and he was irrationally mad at everybody else for not doing the same.

She and Ginger had taken their share of the shouting, and every junior staffer in the place had learned to cringe at the sound of Toby's office door, but it was Sam she worried about.

Sam was depressed, and everyone could see it. It was stupid to say that they didn't know why, because really it was pretty obvious, but none of them really knew what to do with a depressed Sam. Toby's moods they were all accustomed to dealing with, but in his once bright and cheerful deputy it was unsettling.

They both watched him surreptitiously as he scowled at his desk, pushing bits of paper about and gripping a pen as if he wanted to stab somebody with it. He tried to read something, and then pushed back his hair as if that could be the reason the words weren't penetrating.

It wasn't as if they themselves weren't swamped with work, but all the same... Ginger hovered in his office doorway and gave him a cautious smile. "Need me to do anything?"

Sam blinked at her, then stood up abruptly. "Actually, yeah." He handed her a thick report. "Toby wants this summarised." He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and walked out. "I think I'm gonna leave."

The two assistants looked at each other, then at the clock. It was half past seven; way late by any normal office standards, early for the White House.

"Does he, like, work here part-time now or something?" Bonnie wondered aloud, and Ginger shrugged.

Leaving early, coming in late... how long before Sam stopped bothering to turn up at all?

"Hey, you're early." Sam was on either beer six or beer seven when Steve took a seat beside him at the bar. He supposed he was a regular now. A regular drinker, and why not? It was probably about time his job drove him to drink.

"Yeah, well. My boss was doing a remarkable impression of a-" He waved his hands helplessly, and took another sip of his beer to avoid having to come up with a suitable finish.

"That's Toby, right?" Steve asked, signalling the bartender. Sam blinked at him.

"I told you about him?"

"He was the main focus of your semi-drunken rambling, yes," he agreed. "Thanks," he said, accepting his beer from the bartender.

"Yeah, but... you listened." He hoped the note of plaintive surprise in his voice was mostly to do with being drunk.

"I got ears, don't I?" Steve shrugged.

"Nobody listens to me," Sam told his beer. Yup, he was definitely drunk.

"I like listening to you. You're an interesting guy." Steve smiled at him, and Sam couldn't help smiling back.

After a moment, he turned back to the bartender. "Hey. 'Nother beer?"

Why not be drunk? It was a hell of a lot easier than being sober.

THURSDAY:
 

Leo surveyed his troops. Sam didn't look any less hungover than the day before, but at least he was actually there on time. Toby was dour as ever, but CJ was grinning and so was he. Things really were beginning to look up.

Josh positively bounced into the room, taking bows left and right. "It's done! I did it! The vote it ours. I am the man. The man is me."

Even Sam managed to muster a smile for him. Yes, Josh was ridiculously over the top - but he was also right. Nobody had expected him to rescue Friday's vote, least of all Leo, but somehow he'd managed it.

"Guys, this is exactly the victory we needed," Leo nodded. "This is our chance to turn things around. CJ, how are things going with the press?"

She grinned back. "Right now? We're groovy. Clearly, we should shoot reporters more often." It would take somebody who knew CJ as well as the rest of the senior staff did to realise exactly how much relief and delight that casual quip actually masked.

"What's next, Leo?" Josh asked brightly. Buoyed up by his success, he was ready to take on the world. This was definitely exactly what Josh had needed to put the wind back in his sails.

Leo glanced at his notes, more out of habit than from any need to remind himself. "CJ, I need you to make sure tomorrow's vote doesn't get completely buried in the fuss over tonight's dinner party. We've got some good news; let's get it out there."

Josh grinned smugly.

"What time's the First Lady coming in?" CJ asked.

"Her plane touches down late afternoon, so she probably won't have much time before the party starts," Leo told her. "Zoey'll be here earlier, which should put the president in a better mood for the rest of the day." Not that he needed it; the president had been decidedly cranky over the past few weeks, but the good news about the Healthcare Bill had given him a new lease of life. Leo was very relieved to see him smiling again. Maybe they really were coming out of the slump they'd been in since reelection.

He checked his mental agenda. "Okay, at the party, I want you to take some temperatures about the Peterson single-parent families thing. Toby, have you got that summary?"

Toby looked across at Sam, who straightened up in his seat. "Ginger was on it last night," he supplied.

"Okay." Leo nodded, and decided to ignore the slightly challenging look Sam shot his superior. What did he care who actually summarised it, as long as it got done? "I'll read it over, but I already know there're a few things in there the Republicans aren't gonna want to swallow, so let's do a little unofficial polling and find out where we're going with this."

What else? Ah yes, his least favourite item on the agenda. "We've got some recommendations through on a new Sex-Ed initiative, so we'll be revisiting that fairly soon. That's gonna go down like a lead balloon." The last set of recommendations had been shelved until after the Midterms, and somehow never got un-shelved. There never was a right time to tackle sex education in schools; anything that approached a safe middle ground got you jumped from both sides simultaneously.

"Unfortunate choice of words, 'go down'," Josh smirked. Leo gave him a look.

"You think we can get somewhere with this?" asked Toby, a little sceptically.

He shrugged. "Maybe. Tomorrow's vote should put a little power back in our corner, but..." Leo sighed. Scraping through a Healthcare Bill that a lot of people wanted was a long way different from throwing their weight behind an initiative everybody wanted to get as far away from as humanly possible. "Still," he cracked a grin, "I want you all to read through the briefing notes carefully. You never know, you might learn something."

CJ rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well. As long as we're working here, it's all academic anyway."

Smiling, Leo dismissed the group. Things weren't quite bright and cheerful yet, but a little bit of the old camaraderie was beginning to creep back. And with Abbey and Zoey in the house that evening, it might just start to feel a bit like old times.

The president bounded out eagerly at the sound of voices in reception, although his smile fell a little when he saw that it was Leo. "Damn. I was hoping that you'd be my wife."

"You know, there's probably a joke in there somewhere, but we're not gonna go there," Leo observed.

"Good idea," he agreed, shooting a suspicious sideways glance at Charlie. His young aide was keeping a remarkably straight face, but then he usually did.

The two men casually fell into step as they walked. "My wife and daughter are going to be here for tonight's dinner, Leo," he said excitedly. Not that there was any possible way Leo could not know as much, but it was hard to stop the cheerfulness from bubbling over.

"Is Zoey here already?" Leo asked.

"Yes. She's up in the Residence, getting ready for the party."

Leo gave him a look. "We still have about five hours until it starts, right?"

"Yes."

"What the hell is she doing up there?"

"I decided it was safer not to ask."

"Yeah."

Jed quickly waved down the staffers jumping out of their seats as they passed through. Why couldn't he ever train people not to do that? No matter how long he'd already been president, he still found it disconcerting.

"How long is the First Lady staying?" Leo asked him.

He pulled a face. "Not very long, unfortunately. She's got a thing in... California? Monday."

"Oh, man," Leo groaned. Jed gave him a sharp look.

"What was that 'oh man' about?" he demanded. "Why did you just 'oh man' me?"

"I can't commiserate with you about being apart from your wife?" his Chief of Staff said innocently. Jed continued to glare. "That and the fact you get totally cranky when she's not here."

He was scandalised. "I do not get cranky!"

"Sure you don't."

"I am bright and cheerful and a joy to be around."

"Yeah, you're a real treasure," said Leo dryly.

They were quiet for a moment as they walked. Jed sighed. "It's just that I don't sleep," he admitted quietly.

"What's that, Mr. President?"

"I can't sleep! I'm not a man who's accustomed to being in bed on his own. It isn't right."

"Sir, whatever you're asking me to do about that, the answer's no."

He gave Leo another look. "Remind me why I keep you employed?"

"Oh, you are definitely cranky." Leo smirked and peeled away before he had time to think of a suitable parting shot.

"What are you looking at?" he asked Charlie, who was definitely smirking on the inside even if he was doing a damn good job of not showing it.

"Excuse me, Mr. President?" asked his young aide innocently. Jed wasn't fooled. His body man wasn't nearly so meek and guileless as he seemed - something that troubled him more than a little, considering said body man was also his youngest daughter's boyfriend.

"Excited about spending an evening with Zoey?" he asked instead.

Charlie hesitated for a fraction of an instant. "Yes, sir."

Jed pounced. "What was that hesitation about?"

"Sir?"

"Don't 'sir' me, you hesitated. I heard you do it. Are you telling me you're not excited about spending the evening with my daughter?"

"No, sir. I mean... I am excited, sir, yes."

"Oh, so you're excited, are you? How excited?" he demanded suspiciously.

Charlie blinked. "Is there any safe way out of this conversation?"

"Not a chance, it's a one of the delightful side effects of dating one of my daughters." Jed wagged a finger at him. "I expect at least one of you to be within my line of sight at all times this evening," he ordered. "If both of you disappear for more than fifteen seconds, I'm sending the Secret Service."

He was joking. Mostly.

"I don't think Zoey would appreciate that very much, Mr. President."

No, probably not. Zoey might've always been a daddy's girl, but she'd also inherited her father's stubbornly independent streak. If she made her mind up to do something, then she was going ahead and doing it, to hell with the consequences.

He just had to make sure that getting her hands on Charlie wasn't one of those things. With Zoey away at college, they didn't get to see each other as much as they liked, and he had a niggling suspicion that if he turned his back for a few moments, they'd be all over each other.

Well, he'd soon put a stop to that. The most foolproof method would be to tail the young couple himself, but there was that minor little inconvenience of being the president to get in the way of that. Maybe if he enlisted Abbey...

CJ surreptitiously adjusted the straps of her dress as she watched the party guests mill about. Stunning she might look, but considering there was nobody special on hand to look it for, dressing up was definite pain in the ass. The boys had to have a much easier time of it in their tuxes. And mighty fine they looked in them too - even Josh, who managed to look like he'd been wearing his for a week even though Donna hadn't let him touch it until five minutes before the party began.

The simple pale blue dress Donna herself wore couldn't be half as expensive as CJ's ensemble, but she managed to make it gorgeous anyway. It looked comfortable too, dammit.

CJ fidgeted, waiting for the speech to begin. The president was ready to make it, or would be, just as soon as he could be persuaded to let go of his wife. CJ was pleased on more than her professional account to see the First Couple looking very cosy this evening. Things had been strained for far too long ever since the president had decided to run for reelection, but now that he'd actually achieved it, the bridges had started to mend.

Charlie and Zoey were being incredibly cute, too. CJ smirked at the way they quietly held hands under the table, Charlie shooting occasional slightly nervous glances the president's way. They made an adorable couple, and the complications of working around Zoey's college commitments and Charlie's nightmare schedule didn't seem to have dented the relationship any.

She couldn't see Leo, but that was hardly a surprise - the Chief of Staff would take any excuse to work rather than party. Another absence, however, was more puzzling.

She nudged Josh. "Have you seen Toby?"

He shrugged expansively, still bouncy from his victory with the votes. CJ made a mental note to have Donna make sure he didn't touch any alcohol this evening. "Maybe he's talking to people about the Peterson thing."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have thought he'd want to miss this. Not after all the effort he's put into rewriting it." God only knew why. "Unless there's a thing." She turned to Sam. "Is there a thing?"

Sam's shrug was much more subdued, and considerably less cheerful. "Not so far as I know. Not that he tells me anything."

Clearly, Sam's depression had not improved a great deal. But, dammit, this was her evening off. Personal problems could wait. She went back to contemplating Toby.

"Maybe he's been abducted by aliens," she mused.

Sam snorted, a little more bitterly than he might have done at one time. "Boy, that's gonna mess up their impressions of humanity."

"I just wondered why he was making such a big deal out of this speech. I mean who's in the audience, the Queen of England?" CJ couldn't even begin to guess who Toby was trying to impress; not least because Toby wasn't the kind to care about impressing anybody.

She caught the president out of the corner of her eye as he made to stand up, and nodded at him. "He's not gonna like, break into song or something, is he?"

"Maybe he'll do a couple verses of 'Happy Days Are Here Again'," suggested Josh. He opened his mouth, and CJ pointed at him warningly.

"Start singing, Joshua, and you'll discover some creative new uses for that bowtie of yours."

He closed his mouth.

"I'm just a little jittery, I guess," she admitted. "I mean, the vote turned out okay and the hostages got out alive... something's gotta go wrong."

They all watched the president as he slipped on his glasses and quickly skimmed over his cue cards.

"Well, he hasn't fallen over yet," Josh observed.

"Yeah. I guess we're doing well."

Toby stood with his back against the wall, watching cigar smoke curl up into the night. He registered the sound of the door beside him, but didn't turn.

"Toby Ziegler." The voice, slightly cracked with age but still strong, was familiar even though he hadn't heard it for years. It had rung perfectly clearly in his mind the instant he'd seen the name on the guest list.

"Dr. Wilson," he nodded.

The frail, white-haired man who came to lean on the rail beside him wasn't quite the striding giant he remembered from his university days, but the intensity in his eyes was the same.

"I heard your speech," he observed.

"It was the president's speech," Toby corrected.

"You wrote it; most of it. I recognised you, you always did have a distinctive voice."

"So you always told me. As I recall, you also told me I'd never amount to anything if I didn't learn to use imagery to reinforce, not confuse." Toby took another puff of his cigar.

"Yes, you seem to have cured yourself of that. Mostly." The acerbic addition was as perfectly timed as it had been in all those lectures decades ago. Dr. Wilson had always been a master of scathing, no-holds-barred criticism, unprepared to cut either the worst or the best of his students any slack. Toby had always greatly admired that quality.

"Yes, it was a very fine speech, full of stirring words and grand sweeping ideas. You've found yourself a good orator in that president of yours, he knows how to use his material. It's a pity you didn't give him anything more meaningful to say."

Toby turned to meet his old mentor's steely gaze. Dr. Wilson shook his head sadly. "You used to be a revolutionary, Toby. What happened?"

"We're doing good things here," Toby told him quietly.

"You're running on the spot without moving."

He shrugged and half-smiled. "That's... the nature of government."

Wilson was unimpressed. "Well, change it."

"It's not that simple."

"You've got the ear of the president - make it that simple."

Toby smiled to himself, and looked at the ground. "I may have his ear, but the president has a mind of his own."

"Then make him use it." Wilson glared at him. "Your government is doing nothing, Toby, just sitting and spinning its wheels. I can't believe you fought your way through two incredibly tight elections just to preserve the status quo."

Toby had always greatly admired the man who'd played a part in shaping both his writing and his ideals - but, as with all the figures he respected, that wouldn't for a minute stop him from leaping into a full-throated argument. No, the reason that stopped him refuting his old mentor's words was much simpler.

He knew they had the ring of truth to them.

Charlie had to admit, this wasn't the worst evening he'd ever had. A fairly relaxed day, a cheerful president, a fancy dinner, and now he was dancing with Zoey Bartlet.

Admittedly, he was doing it under the threat of occasional glares from her father, and he'd probably be in trouble if tempted to close up the formal gap between their bodies if they danced, but still... dancing. And Zoey. They spoke all the time on the phone and they got together when they could, but what with his schedule and her security detail, they almost never got to spend a proper evening out like any normal couple.

Yes, this would have been a perfect evening... if not for the aforementioned glaring president.

"Your parents are watching us," he warned Zoey as they danced. She giggled.

"That's okay. My mom thinks we're cute."

"Yeah, and your father's thinking up good excuses to send me back to work."

"That's all right, I'll go with you," Zoey told him. She smirked. "All those empty offices..."

"Yeah, that's exactly why he hasn't done it yet," Charlie agreed.

Despite her watching parents, not to mention the watching press, Zoey tugged him a bit closer as they danced. It felt very comfortable and easy to let her head rest against his shoulder.

After a moment, he asked "Is your mother still bugging you about what you're gonna do after college?"

"Oh, is she ever," Zoey groaned. "I keep telling her, it's not like- I mean, I'm not like my sisters. Liz already had Annie by the time she was my age, and Ellie went to Medical School, so she already knew what she was gonna do... And it's not like I can just go out and get a job, you know? Because of dad and the Secret Service and everything..."

Charlie nodded sympathetically. "So, did you decide-?"

"No," she said fiercely. "No, no decisions. I don't want to talk about this now. Can we just dance, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed, and risked a quick kiss to the top of her head. The president couldn't be watching them all the time, after all.

They just danced.

"Look at them. Aren't they cute?" Abbey smiled against her husband's shoulder.

Jed preferred to scowl. "Cute? Look at the way they're dancing! Why, when we were their age-"

"When we were their age, we were married and had Liz," she reminded him.

"Okay, bad example," he conceded. "But we always were advanced."

"Very advanced," she agreed, and gave him a quick kiss. Fairly chaste; she wasn't positive, but she thought there was possibly a rule against First Ladies jumping their husbands in front of witnesses. Unfortunately.

Not that her husband was necessarily in any condition to be jumped. Abbey was concerned to see how tired he seemed - he obviously hadn't paid a blind bit of notice when she ordered him to get some rest. He'd never have won any awards, but he'd always been a light-footed, fairly graceful dancer; surprising in a man so klutzy in other ways. Today, though, he was noticeably slow to react.

"Jed, you're dragging your feet," she observed worriedly.

He smiled faintly. "I'm doing the soft shoe shuffle."

Damn the man. Abbey had to smile back. "I'm fairly sure you're not."

"I could be," he shrugged.

"This is a waltz, Jed."

"I've always been adaptable."

"Are you tired, honey?" she prodded gently.

"I haven't been sleeping well," he admitted. "I miss you," he sighed.

It was hard to be mad at him for working too hard when he was being so adorable. "Well, I'm back now."

"I wish you didn't have to go away."

"Should've thought of that before you decided to run for president," Abbey reminded him lightly.

"Should've thought of a lot of things."

The softly sad statement unnerved her a little, but then his sober mood lifted and he smiled warmly at her. Her spine tingled, the same way it always had. Right the way back to the first time they'd ever danced, when they'd been younger even than Charlie and Zoey.

She was dancing with her husband, the man she still loved as fiercely as she had all those years ago. What else mattered?

"Donnatella! Dance with me!" A very bright-eyed and hyperactive Josh Lyman bounced over to his assistant. Donna put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

"Joshua, have you been drinking?"

"Not yet!" he said cheerfully. "C'mon, Donna, dance with me!"

"Oh my God." Even as he dragged her towards the dance floor, she turned to look at CJ and pulled a face. "Can you imagine what he's gonna be like after the bill's been passed?"

"Good luck," CJ called after her, sincerely. "Boy are you gonna need it," she muttered into her wine glass, as an afterthought. She had a suspicion she was now a little tipsy, but what the hell, it was a party, wasn't it? She turned to Sam beside her. "Hey, Sparkles, wanna dance?"

"Uh, no, I think I'll pass," he said hastily, managing to summon the ghost of a smile from whatever morose place he was currently inhabiting. He glanced at his watch. "We've been here a while now, I think I'm gonna go home."

"Suit yourself," she shrugged, the sudden movement setting her to wobbling just a little. Damn heels. "Guess I'll have to go find Toby."

That did make Sam laugh, though it was more a snort of amused disbelief than anything else. "You expect to get Toby to dance with you in front of people?" he asked.

"No, but I'm gonna ask and watch him squirm."

"Okay." Apparently Sam didn't see the beauty in this form of entertainment. But then, when it came to making Toby squirm, there were very few people who could master it well enough to call it an art form. And since Andy Wyatt wasn't here and the First Lady was busy with her husband, she considered it pretty much her sacred duty.

With a quick nod her way, Sam set his glass down on a nearby table and left, threading his way through the crowd. CJ watched, wishing she knew how to fix what was wrong with him. She would have thought that a political victory would help, remind him that sometimes they really could accomplish something - but he still seemed as depressed as ever, and...

And she was way too drunk to think about this now. She finished the rest of her wine in a quick gulp, and started looking for Toby.

Despite the lateness of the hour and the not inconsiderable amount of alcohol swirling around his system, Sam found himself somehow drawn to back to the bar. It was dim and nearly empty, although the bartender gave him a nod of recognition. The only other people in the place were a young black woman sadly contemplating her martini, and an old man in the corner nursing a pint.

Sam settled at the bar and drank a single beer, alone.

When it was done, he stood up and left, feeling obscurely disappointed.

The brief stroll across the college campus to her room was the perfect moonlit walk. Dizzy memories of dancing and a wonderful meal, stars in the deep black sky above, and her boyfriend at her side, his fingers entwined with hers.

And, of course, her Secret Service escort shadowing at a discreet distance.

Admittedly, they doing their best not to be too obvious, but it wasn't as if she could forget they were there. After all, she was Zoey Bartlet, and they were always there. She and Charlie had been together for four years now, if it still counted as together when you had to fight so hard to find a few minutes where you could both be in the same place. But in all that time, they'd never been able to have what she would consider a real date.

They could go to dinner - if the Secret Service had checked the place out fully and their table was kept under careful observation. They could watch movies - provided they either watched them on video, or at the White House cinema under the watchful eye of her father. They could walk along the street holding hands - provided her escort were there every step of the way to watch for any Neo-Nazis who might take objection to the sight.

Zoey sighed.

Charlie, attuned to her in way that she still found almost startling, picked up on it and squeezed her hand. She smiled up at him, and tried to pretend that it was just the two of them, that nobody was shadowing them, that they didn't need anybody to shadow them. That they were just a normal couple.

She managed to keep up the pretence until they were up in her dorm room, snatching a few precious moments alone. Just a few moments, because after all she was the president's daughter, and it wouldn't do to give anybody the wrong impression, because you always had to worry about appearances...

She'd had enough.

"It's all so, so... I don't know!" Zoey burst out angrily. She buried her face against the pillow.

"Well, I don't know either if you won't tell me," Charlie pointed out. She looked up at him where he stood by the door.

"You could actually, you know, sit on the bed next to me," she told him pointedly.

"No I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because if I do, your father's leaping in the nearest helicopter and coming here especially to kick my ass."

Zoey couldn't help grinning at that - probably not exaggerated - mental picture. "Yeah. You think they could land it on top of the building? That would be pretty cool." She ought to be able to come to college in a helicopter. Hey, if she had to put up with all the trappings of being a First Daughter, she should at least be getting some fun out of them.

Charlie quirked an eyebrow. "It's nice to know that you value my ass so highly."

"Hey, it's a very nice ass," she told him, enjoying the embarrassed way he looked down at the floor.

Charlie compromised, and came over to crouch beside her where she lay slumped on the bed. "What's wrong, Zoey?" he asked gently.

"I just, I just... I don't know," she said, frustrated. "I just feel like, you know... what am I doing here? What am I even doing here?"

"You're going to college and getting your degree," Charlie pointed out sensibly.

"I know! But what for? What am I gonna do with it when I get it?"

"Whatever you want," he shrugged.

"I don't know what I want!" She looked at him. "What about you? What are you gonna do when dad's not the president anymore?"

He could only shrug again. "I don't know," he admitted.

"Well, there you go!" said Zoey. "There's all this... all this future out there, and what happens next? Where do we go, what do we do? Aren't you worried?"

Charlie considered that for a moment. "No," he said finally.

"Why not?" she demanded, pushing up into a sitting position.

He looked at her earnestly. "Because wherever I go and whatever I end up doing, I know I'm gonna be with you."

"Charlie." She couldn't resist flinging her arms around him and giving him a squeeze, he was so adorable.

"No, I mean it," he said, next to her ear. "Zoey Patricia Bartlet, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want us to be together forever. I want us to be married, I want us to live together, I want..."

Zoey froze suddenly, and pulled back to give him a suspicious look. "Charlie... is it me, or did you just propose?"

Charlie blinked, and looked surprised. "You know what? I think I just did."

Zoey couldn't help it. She burst into gales of laughter, and hugged him again.

"You know, hysterical laughter is the exact reaction that every boy dreams of to that suggestion," he said wryly.

"No, Charlie!" She sat back, wiping her eyes. "It's just... God, I love you so much." She flung her arms around him again.

"I love you too, Zoey," he said quietly, and for a moment they just stayed that way, in the shelter of their shared embrace.

Finally, though, far too soon, she had to pull back and let reality filter in. "We can't get married, Charlie."

"I know," he admitted seriously. They both knew the harsh realities of how it would be if the two of them sealed their relationship in the glare of the media spotlight. Her father's overprotectiveness would be the least of their worries.

They both knew it... but that didn't make it any less heartbreaking.

"But we could get engaged," she said, to wipe the sad look from his eyes. She realised. "We are engaged! Charlie, you just asked me to marry you."

"You didn't say yes yet," he pointed out.

Zoey rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"I ask you to marry me, all you can say is 'fine'?"

She grinned. "Okay?"

"Zoey."

"All right? Sure? Yep?"

"See, and now you're just downplaying the gravity of the situation,