let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together
1.
5 November 2026
Sam is elected President, as they knew he would be; and wins by a landslide, which they also knew. Even the American public has learned to recognize the real thing by now. And he is the real thing, his idealism emerging almost unscathed, barely checked by time and disappointments.
They call him Mr. President Elect now, remembering other men, and the man who they had served for all those years – the man who brought them together. They don't call him Sam anymore, they can't call him by name – because he is inot/i their Sam any longer – he belongs to the world, not to them.
But then again, they are different too. Andy is gone and she and Danny are back in D.C., an editor now at the Washington Post. Their daughter is in high school and everything is upside-down. She remembers earlier times, better times, with the wind in their hair and everything ahead of them.
2.
4 July 2022
'When did you decide to run?' A warm beer is propped between her thighs and her feet are dangling in the lake. They are sitting on the old wooden pier, worn down by the passage of so many feet over the years.
He takes a swig of his drink before answering. 'The night I lost the election in California. I knew I never wanted to lose again, and I knew I wanted to make a difference.'
She looks down into the water, smiles. 'You know, Toby and I bet the night you announced you were going to run that you were going to be President.'
'Really?' It is a trace of the old Sam again, so young.
'Really. You're the real thing, Sam.'
'I thought he was,' nodding at the man sitting on the porch across the lake.
'He was, but it's your turn, Spanky.'
His smile is just as it was during all those years together, and she feels her heart flip over. If only he could see him like this, here, with the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up and his beer in his hand, smiling as though he hadn't a care in the world.
She sets the beer aside and rests her hand on his cheek, smiling at him.
He kisses her palm, saying, 'I wish he was here.'
'I know. I wish he was too.'
3.
8 July 2022
'When is he going to run?'
Beer again (she is getting used to this routine again, with her boys, her boys), and cold pizza, she is sprawled back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling.
'Next election. He's ready. He is, you know.'
'I know.'
'It's the end of us, the three of us.'
'Yes.' He stands, nudging aside her hip with his as he sits down next to her.
She caresses his upper arm. 'I'll miss him.'
He doesn't look at her. 'The country needs him, C.J.'
'I know that. That doesn't mean I'm not going to miss him. I'm allowed to be selfish sometimes. And you... you'll miss him more.' It's not a question, simply a statement of fact.
He doesn't respond, but pulls her up. Her lips taste of pizza and beer, and, for a moment, he believes that they are back in his office, on his couch, during one of their late nights at work.
She fights back tears as she holds him close. With Toby, there is none of the easy levity that there is with Sam, not anymore, not when part of their triangle is missing.
She just wants to go back to the start.
4.
7 September 1998
It had been Sam-and-Toby and C.J.-and-Toby long before it was C.J.-and-Sam-and-Toby. Two separate entities for so long, and then they slipped into its natural progression during their stop in Manhattan, Kansas. Drunk, and stumbling, and exhausted, they fall into bed together and woke up together too. Still drunk, how can she resist? And how can they resist either?
For her, though, it's not just the booze and the exhaustion and the stresses of campaigning that pushes her to them – it is the shock of seeing Mrs. – Dr., she corrects herself – Bartlet injecting the Governor. With what, she does not know, and knows even less that she actually saw anything at all. Whatever it was, it's not her place to say.
And after all, what happens on the campaign stays on the campaign, they whisper to each other in the morning, C.J.'s voice higher and more treacherous as she tries desperately to convince herself that this, whatever this is, is simply a matter of practicality, is not ilove/i. Not love.
5.
10 July 2022
When she returns home to Danny she always thinks she sees a knowing glint in his eyes, but she ignores it and it goes away in time. She is foolish if she believes her ever-investigative husband does not have at least an inkling of her relationship with her boys. He knows, of course, he must know – but he doesn't care and neither does she. How can she? She loves Danny, but Toby and Sam... they are a part of her in a way Danny never can be. Danny was not there with them.
It was like a war, and indeed it actually iwas/i a war. They were fighting against the Republicans, against the press, against everybody and, like soldiers in the trenches, they were drawn to each other to stay alive. How could anyone on the outside ever understand that? They can't, and it's that thin barrier that keeps her, even after all these years, separated from Danny.
He was once the enemy – still is, when it comes down to it. And even during the armistice, she cannot forget it.
6.
October 2000
She had learned French, a little at least, from John Hoynes, when he was "wooing her" (his words, all those years ago) – and she whispers those words to Sam and Toby at night, the sibilant, sinuous sounds of the language softening her tongue. Toby speaks Hebrew and Sam speaks WASP and she speaks French, the language of love, more than half-forgotten in the intervening years.
She hardly knows what she's saying, or where these quotes that slide off her tongue are from. She whispers things like ion n'aime que ce qu'on ne possède pas tout entier/i and iil y a longtemps que je t'aime/i with only the slightest idea of what she is saying – something about love, certainly, but she only remembers the words and not the meanings.
This language may be a relic from him, from the biggest mistake of her life, but those few words she remembers are too valuable a skill to confine to the shadows. She keeps them in the light, dusts them off, polishes and cleans them until they shine with integrity. Then, only then, can she speak them to her boys.
She does not look them up, or ask someone who does speak French, because for her the words are part of ithem/i now and to know what they mean would be almost sacrilegious. Much in the same way she refuses to let Toby translate anything he may say, or Sam, she keeps her French to herself and practices those nights she is alone.
They are magic words, to her, though she does not know why, though, when she goes back far enough in her memory, they do not recall happy times. But she has reappropriated them, somehow – they are hers, they are theirs, they have nothing to do with anyone else, least of all John Hoynes.
And so she speaks the words as she lies between her two men, telling of her love for them the only way she can.
7.
12 July 2022
She misses the feel of being surrounded by her boys, of the cramped beds, of struggling to get enough legroom. Of their legs covering hers, of Toby's thumb running along the curve of her hip.
Danny can't give her this sort of comfort. He never could. Yes, he loves her, but not like they love her. Not like them.
8.
December 2000
Toby was always good at keeping words in his head – on a mental notebook, she believes, and sometimes she can isee/i him writing when he is with her – but Sam is not, clever as he is. He is not practiced enough, and though he tries hard, he is not Toby.
So it is Sam who writes the words on her skin, using a felt-tipped pen (why she has one on her nightstand that first time, she does not know, but she keeps one there just in case now), lines of words more beautiful than music flowing out of him and onto her body. She feels them there, burning with promise and hope, and when she hears the President speak them aloud she cannot help but run her fingers along her stomach where they once rested. She cannot help but catch Sam's eye and smile.
9.
March 2003
It is Mallory who he thinks of, and Andy for Toby, and sometimes Danny or Simon or even John Hoynes for her. They all use each other, but are they really being used? There is love at the bottom of it all, beneath the surface. They do love each other.
And if sometimes, in bed with them, she closes her eyes and imagines someone else, she knows they are too. It is all right, as long as Sam continues composing speeches on her skin and Toby's thumb caresses the curve of her hip.
'Ameliorate', part of Sam's speech about the importance of disarmament, burns into her hip like a tattoo. Toby's fingers smear the ink.
10.
20 January 2026
Toby is not invited to the inauguration – despite his pardon, he is too politically unstable, even after all these years, to attend, especially at the express invitation of the President. C.J. is invited, of course, and Danny. Her daughter wants to go too and she takes her out of school for the day, making sure she bundles up. It's cold outside and for a moment, she remembers her first inauguration, remembers the President's inauguration address – the first time she had really heard Sam's words aloud.
She hears his words in this speech too, echoes of what has been and what will be.
A line, too, is the same – 'This is a time for American heroes, and we reach for the stars' – and this, more than anything else, breaks her heart. A tear steals down her cheek, and she brushes it away with an impatient hand – though not before her daughter and husband see and take note.
10.
22 January 2026
She has faith in them, the three of them, despite it all. The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.