SINS OF THE FATHER

RATED R

SAM/DONNA ROMANCE

SPOILERS FOR 'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

This is the first installment of the HISTORY REPEATS series. Each installment will be posted in a multo-chapter form, probably three or four chapters apeice. History Repeats will also be posted on my website in what will probably be an easier format to follow. The link is in my profile.

The idea for History Repeats, and, later thesub-section I've decided to titleSotF, came to me after watching SGTESGTJ on DVD. I know that the vast majority of people are rooting for Donna and Josh (from time to time I'm one of them) but the dynamic between Sam and Donna intrigued me so much that I started writing out a free-flowing web of ideas and before I knew what was happening I had a whole series planned out.

This section moves fairly quickly but this isn't the main focus of the story. That will come in the next 'chapter' of SotF.

SotF is set sometime after SGTESGTJ.

Even though she had been meaning to go to his office since she got the note when she first got in that morning Donna hadn't been able to get away until almost eight o'clock that night. Josh was attending a dinner meeting with several influential people who the White House was wooing for support on several upcoming projects, which meant that she got a relatively early night because dinner meetings usually lasted until the wee hours of the morning after which Donna's only responsibility would be to deal with the fallout if Josh was stupid enough to drink.

The note, that was delivered by Ginger right after Senior Staff headed for Leo's office, was short and in code, which, while it had seemed like a bright idea at the time, was very fourth grade now that they had actually put it into practise.

There was no real urgency to the topic in the note, so Donna had waited until she got the time, because she knew that it wasn't going to be a brief conversation, and then she went to Sam's office.

"What did you need to talk about?" Donna asked, holding up the note that had started off over thirteen hours of panic that she hid behind layers of professionalism.

Sam looked up from his laptop, clearly distracted, and not by whatever he was working on. "You free for dinner?" he asked.

"Josh is at some suck-up dinner thing, so I'm free for the whole night," Donna said. She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "I'm done with work for the night. That's better. Sounds less like I'm propositioning you," she decided.

"I'm good either way," Sam said with a smile as he started packing up his laptop and a few files he needed for the speech he was writing. "So how about we do take-out at my place. You bring whatever cuisine you want and I'll bring my whole new set of emotional baggage. What do you say?"

"Give me an hour and I'll be there," Donna nodded. She took a step forward and reached up, cupping his cheek in the palm of her hand. "Whatever it is, I know you'll get through this, Sam. You're strong, and you're not alone. Remember that," she said softly.

Sam smiled and ran his hand up and down Donna's arm a few times, his touch so gentle that it made Donna shiver. "I know I'll get through this, and anything else that comes my way. As long as you've got my back."

"Always," Donna said softly. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged Sam tightly for a moment before letting go and heading for the door. "One hour," she called over her shoulder as she headed back to her desk.

"I'll be there," Sam called back as he finished packing up his belongings and headed for the door.

A little under an hour later Donna knocked on Sam's door with the toe of her shoe, her hands full of bags of take-out. She'd changed into a pair of jeans and a knit tank top, forgoing a jacket in deference to the summer heat that was, thankfully, not yet humid. Sam opened the door wearing jeans and a Duke tee shirt that had seen better days. "Smells good. What is that?" he asked as he took half the bags from Donna.

"A little bit of everything. I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted so there's Chinese, Moroccan, Italian, Mexican, and a couple of Cesar salads that I'm sure are more dressing than lettuce, but we can soak up the extra with the fresh pita bread my neighbour gave me as I was heading out to pick all this stuff up," Donna said.

"You realize there are only two of us eating all this, right? I mean, unless there's something you haven't told me…" he trailed off, glancing at her flat belly.

"I'm not pregnant, you idiot. That requires me having some kind of sex, which I haven't. In months," Donna said.

Sam nodded. "Good. Not that you haven't been having sex, 'cause I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed to have an opinion either way on that, but on the you not being pregnant thing? That's good."

"Are you implying I wouldn't be a good mother?" Donna asked, using her few months as a Drama Minor to really sell the emotion in her voice. She knew that that wasn't what Sam was saying but it was fun to see him flustered.

"No, I think you'll be a great mother. I just meant that if you were pregnant there's obviously a guy, and since I haven't heard anything about a guy, and if you were pregnant there would have to be a guy, which would lead me to assume that the guy either didn't last more than one night, in which case I'd have to track him down and make him change his life insurance policy so that everything goes to you and kill him, or that you've been seeing someone and he left you once he found out that you are pregnant, in which case I'd have to do the same thing as I would for the one night stand guy only I'd probably get the Secret Service involved to ensure maximum suffering on his part. Either way is disconcerting and would lead to many many years of jail time for me which is not really in keeping with my ten year plan. Plus I'd like to think that you'd tell me if you were pregnant, but, since you aren't, I'm left wondering how the hell we're going to eat all this food and still be able to move afterwards."

"We're not, but that's half the fun. Plus, leftovers," Donna said.

"Gotcha," Sam smiled.

They opened everything up and started filling their plates with their eclectic meal. Once they ran out of space they recovered everything and made themselves comfortable in the living room. "So… okay, first of all, you're okay, right? I mean, you're not sick or anything, are you?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm fine. But I got a call early this morning—early meaning about an hour after I got to bed which would have made it about three-thirty or so—from my father's attorney in California. The personal lawyer, not the corporate lawyer… or, legal team, really. Anyway, it was about three thirty here, which would make it half past twelve there, assuming I'm remembering time zones correctly—and I may not be because I got less than forty minutes of sleep last night and I spent most of my day going over a proposal that I swear is leftover from one of Leo's 'Cheese' days."

"What happened in California? Is your dad alright?" Donna pressed. She knew that Sam had been working on a strange proposal all day—Josh had mentioned something while they were working through lunch—but she really didn't care what happened at work because the way Sam was rambling on was really starting to scare her.

"My father and his mistress were in a car accident last night… or this morning… either way, it was bad. The car's a write off, they both broke limbs, she cracked two ribs, he's got a major concussion. They'll heal; they've got maids and can hire in-home nurses if they really need the extra help. That's not the big surprise that I got. The big surprise was that, not only did my father have a mistress stashed in Santa Monica, but he also had a daughter with her—with Theresa. That's the mistress' name, by the way. I'm not sure if I ever told you that. I'm not entirely sure I knew that myself before this morning. Anyway, I have a sister. She's twenty seven, and I'm pretty sure she's the reason that the affair lasted for as long as it has."

"Wow," Donna said, shocked not only by the information she had just been hit with, but also with how fast it had come out.

"Yeah, do that for a couple more hours and you'll be halfway to where I am right now," Sam said.

"This is… you have… how did… wow…"

Sam nodded. "Shayla—that's my… my sister's name—Shayla was driving and she got the worst of it. She's in and out of consciousness, her pelvis is cracked, multiple broken bones, and the doctors aren't ruling out brain damage."

"Oh my god. Sam, you have to go see your family."

"I've got a flight tomorrow evening."

Donna nodded, taking that information down for further notice. "How are they all doing, other than medically?" she asked.

"I dunno. When I talked to Petie he didn't know much and I haven't had a chance to call back today."

"Petie?" Donna smirked.

"My father's attorney."

Donna smirked. "Your father's attorney is named Petie?"

"Peter, really, but I've never called him that. We've known each other since we were diapers. What's wrong with 'Petie'?"

"Well, for one, it's the name of a third of the pet birds in the world," Donna said.

"The other two thirds being what? I mean, since you seem to be so up on the names given to domesticated birds," Sam said.

"One third 'Petie', one third 'Polly', and one third of names that actually take some originality on the part of the owner," Donna said.

Sam rolled his eyes. "That's quite the generalization," he said. "So… actually, there's one more thing that I need to tell you, and also that I'm going to need you to help me with because I'm completely out of my depth here."

"Hit me."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath. "It turns out that there was one other person in the car. Who is genetically not entirely dissimilar to me."

Donna frowned. She knew that Sam's family wasn't large—his father, his mother, and apparently a half-sister—and he would have said something if his mother was in the car as well, though, considering how she had forbidden Mr. Seaborn to ever come anywhere near her ever again, Donna couldn't really see why she would be in a car with 'the other woman' and the child that had resulted from the affair. "Run that one by me one more time."

"Yeah, this is the part that I'm having trouble with, too. I always knew that there was the possibility that my father had another kid out there. Not just since the affair, but before that, I knew it was always a possibility because he was… well, a man-slut, for lack of a better term, in his college years," Sam said. Donna smiled weakly. "So I always sort of assumed that somewhere along the line a kid would show up, somewhere."

"O…kay…" Donna said slowly.

"See, the thing is... I want kids. You know that. That's why I was with Lisa for so long. I thought that if we could stay together long enough to have kids the rest of the whole marriage thing would come together," Sam said. Donna nodded. They had spent more than a few nights on the campaign trail talking about Patrick Trenton who was better known by the Senior Staff and their assistants under the moniker of 'Dr. Freeride' and Lisa Sherborne who would never be 'Sherborne Seaborn'. "And then I find out that I have a little sister, and I guess I always assumed that the kids that my dad had would be older than me, and that if I ever had a younger sibling I would be around to watch them grow up and, you know, be a part of all that."

"Of course."

"But, obviously, I wasn't, which sucks on so many levels I can't even count them all," Sam said, letting Donna know how upset he really was. Sam Seaborn was not the type of person to use the word 'sucks'. It just wasn't in his nature. "But there's nothing I can do about that. And there's not really anything I can do about the fact that I'm almost forty and I don't even have a girlfriend. But, and this is the thing that's really got me flummoxed, it turns out that Shayla, my little sister, has a daughter."

"You're an uncle," Donna smiled.

"I'm an uncle. She's eight, obviously not a planned pregnancy since Shayla would have been eighteen or nineteen when she had her, but that's not the point. The point is that my niece was in the car, too, and her mother can't take care of her while she's not even able to hold onto consciousness and, according to Shayla's written and legally binding instructions, if anything were to happen to her, like what's happened to her already, Meredith, my niece, is supposed to come and stay with me until such time that her mother is able to raise her again."

Donna was stunned silent.

"Yeah, pretty much my reaction. After I got past the 'why can't I breathe?' thing I realized that there's this little girl whose mother is unable to stay conscious long enough to give her a hug and as much as I'm wondering why the hell Shayla decided to go with me instead of, I don't know, someone she actually knows for care of her daughter, but it's family and I never got to do all the big brother things I thought I'd be able to do if I ever got the chance."

"You would have been a great big brother. I doubt any guy would mess with your sister after meeting you," Donna said with a soft smile. Sam smiled as well, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "So… how is this going to work? You taking care of… Meredith, was it?" Sam nodded. "That's a pretty name."

"It was my paternal grandmother's name," Sam said with a soft smile. "And I don't know how it's going to work. I mean, I have a general overview, but when it comes to the details I'm completely lost. I know that I have to fly out and pick her up. She's being released from the hospital the day after tomorrow. It's the middle of the school year so I'll have to do something about schooling… maybe a private tutor since I don't have a stable timetable for how long she'll be here. I have to set up a bedroom for her, which means I have to clear out my office and do something with all that stuff. And I'm sure there's more, but I'm still so thrown by everything that I can't think beyond education and a place to sleep."

Donna nodded. "Okay. This is doable. Start packing up your office tonight—do you have boxes you can use or should we make a run for them now before it gets too late?"

"I'm gonna need boxes," Sam said after a minute.

"Okay. You go start taking things off the walls, unhooking your computer, all that stuff, and I'll go get some boxes. You can store the stuff you don't use and anything you do use you can set up somewhere else in here or bring to work. While I'm out I want you to call the guys and beg until they get their asses over here. If any of them give you any trouble remind them that I know everything, and that I have a lot of pull with the other assistants. Got it?" Donna said. Sam nodded. "Okay. Now, you should also call Leo; let him know that you're going to be taking some time off after you get back."

"I don't need to take time off," Sam said.

"Until you get some kind of schooling situation sorted out for Meredith you're gonna have to because, as understanding as I'm sure everyone would be, I seriously doubt that an eight year old wants to spend the day at the White House," Donna said.

Sam hung his head. "Toby's gonna kill me."

"If this was your kid that suddenly showed up after eight years, maybe, but this is your niece and you can write from home, send things in by e-mail or courier; make periodic stops at the office to keep things going. Toby will understand, though. He'll yell, and he'll probably resent the hell out of you, but a lot of that is because of everything with him and Congressman Wyatt."

"What everything?" Sam frowned.

Donna smirked. "See. I know everything. Now go get started on sorting out that office. I'll be back in half an hour, okay?"

Sam nodded and stood up. They hadn't eaten much, and he didn't want all the food to go to waste, so he put all the take-out in the fridge before heading to his office. It was a mess. He rarely worked from home, and if he did he did it in the living room because he had always felt that working from home wasn't really working from home if you did it at a desk. So the office had become a catch-all for everything and anything that he didn't want, need, use, or have room for anywhere else.

By the time Donna returned CJ was there and Toby was pulling up in a cab. "Bringing my ex-wife into this charade was low, Donna," Toby said as they walked up the steps to Sam's townhouse.

"I simply told Sam to tell you that I know everything. If he chose to give an example, which he didn't even have the full story on, it wasn't my doing," Donna said innocently.

"I loathe you," Toby growled.

"You love me and you know it," Donna shot back before pushing the door open. "Thanks for helping me bring the boxes in, by the way," she added sarcastically.

Toby shot her a glare but reached out and took the majority of the flattened cardboard boxes from the stack Donna was carrying. "How the hell did you find out anything about Andie and me?"

"The night after the first State of the Union I found you sobbing in your office after everyone else had gone home. You were drunk, I asked what was wrong… and you told me," Donna said. "I didn't tell Sam, I swear. I didn't tell anyone. It's not my thing. And I'm not going to tell you that I'm here if you ever need to talk, 'cause you and I both know that that's never gonna happen, but I need you to know that I never told anyone and, unless you say otherwise, I'm not going to say a word. All Sam knows is that I know something that happened between you and the Congressman."

"It's not a big secret, Donna. We fought the fertility battle and lost. It was too much of a strain. We divorced. The reasons are a matter of public record. Just don't go blackmailing me because I apparently spilled my life story to you while drunk and coming down off an adrenaline high."

Donna nodded.

"But… thank you… for not telling anyone," Toby said.

Donna nodded again and that was the last thing they said before they stumbled—Toby literally, Donna only figuratively—upon CJ who was sprawled out on the living room rug sorting through stacks of books.

"Damnit, Toby!" CJ cried out, curling up to protect her ribs from Toby's bumbling feet.

"What happened?" Sam asked, poking his head out of the main floor bedroom that he had turned into an office and would be returning to its rightful state in short order.

"Toby was channelling you for a minute there, Sammy-boy, and my ribs were the casualty," CJ said as she gracefully rose from her spot on the floor and moved to a safer position on the couch. "You have too many damned books, by the way. What do you need four copies of every book for?"

"I don't have four copies of all of them. Two copies, max. One translation and one in the original text," Sam said, coming out to see what CJ had done with the books she had grabbed from the office upon her arrival.

Donna glanced at the titles that lay at her feet. True classic authors like Tolstoy, Twain, Dostoevsky, Dickens, all the Brontë sisters, Shakespeare, Melville, Gogol, and Homer lay among law texts, poli-sci books, stacks of novels by more contemporary authors, and tomes on world history. And, as CJ had said, there were multiple copies of several of many of the books.

"You're a geek, Seaborn," CJ declared before standing up and heading for the office to get another load of books to box up until Sam could figure out what he was going to do with everything.

"Since when do you know Russian?" Toby asked.

"When I was going through school it was the language to know if you were going into politics. No one anticipated having to deal with genuine enemies anywhere other than Russia," Sam said offhandedly as he headed back toward the office. "There's food in the fridge if anyone's hungry," he called before disappearing around the corner.

Josh showed up twenty minutes later and he, Sam, and Toby started working on the filing cabinets that Sam kept in the office—mostly old speeches and copies of bills that they were keeping in a drawer until a more opportune moment—while Donna and CJ dealt with the desk that the boys had lugged out into the living room to give everyone more space to work.

"What do you know about this whole situation?" CJ asked as she moved items from the desk drawers into boxes since it had been decided that Sam would be using the storage space under Josh's brownstone for a while.

"Probably as much as Sam does," Donna replied. "I'm not too sure why his sister wouldn't leave Meredith with Mr. Seaborn, though. You'd think she would want her daughter to stay with someone that the girl has, you know, met."

"There's probably a reason that Shayla didn't want to share in a legal document," CJ said logically. "Sam knows that this is going to be a thing, right?" she asked, always looking out for the good of the President and his staff.

Donna shrugged. "I think the thought has occurred to him, but I doubt he's focused on it too hard. All this… it's hit him hard, and all at once. His dad's hurt, he's got a sister that he's never met, and not only is he an uncle but he's also going to be responsible for an eight year old girl for an unknown amount of time. Once that actually settles in his mind and he's done processing it all he'll start to worry about how it'll look for the administration. Until then you're probably going to have to take the reigns."

"As usual," CJ said with a sigh. She and Donna shared a smile before going back to work.

At one AM they finally called it a night. Sam was already snoring softly on the couch when the other four filed out. Toby set the alarm, knowing it from the many nights he had woken Sam about a problem with a speech, and they all headed off in their own directions with halfhearted goodnights called over their shoulders. Toby was anticipating being without his deputy for at least the rest of the week—as much as he complained about Sam everyone knew that Toby would get bogged under without him to take care of things. CJ was worried about the press and how someone might spin the White House's playboy living with a little girl. Josh was worried about Mr. Seaborn who had been a good friend ever since Sam had introduced them so many years ago, and he was worried about Sam who was clearly not dealing with everything as well as he tried to make them believe. And Donna was thinking about the things she was going to do the next day and how she was going to be able to fit the new additions into her already busy schedule.

This is the first West Wing fiction that I have posted thus far. I know I've got some tweaking to do before I get the characters just right, but, please, stay with me.

M