AN: Wrote this a bit ago when I was rewatching some WW and realized how much I love Sam/Mal. But this is my first time writing them, so any comments would be VERY MUCH appreciated!
Lockdown
"Sam – "
"Look, Mal. I'm sure I don't need to tell you – "
"Then don't. Don't you dare tell me off, Samuel Seaborn." Mallory O'Brien dropped her hands from where they had been propped on her hips and clenched her fists. Her jaw was tight as she glared at him, her eyes dark.
"I wasn't – did you think I was telling you off for dating a professional hockey player?" Sam paused in his search for a bagel and straightened, turning to face the angry redhead beside him. "Why on earth would you think I would do that?"
"I don't know, Sam," Mal spat. "You tell me. Because you've been condescending towards Richard since I first told you about him, and I honestly can't take it anymore."
Putting down the coffee mug he'd just picked up after the bagel refused to be found, Sam raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Maybe because you told me that the two of you were having lots of sex right after you told me you were dating Richard Andrewchuck the hockey player?"
"It's none of your business whom I date," Mallory replied haughtily, her chin tilted up. She crossed her arms over dark green sweater she was wearing. The color made her eyes look grey.
"You brought it up!"
"It doesn't matter, Sam! Whatever it was that we had, it didn't go anywhere. And that's that. I don't know why you're dragging this out."
"I'm not dragging it out, Mallory, you found me when you came to the White House today."
"I just wanted to say hi! Is that a crime?"
"You even followed me down to the mess on my quest to find a bagel at 10:30 at night." Sam tried to fight back his amusement with indignation, but he couldn't quite do it. She was just so damn adorable when she was fired up. That was probably half the reason he'd fought with her for so long unnecessarily over the school vouchers opposition paper; he just liked to see her impassioned. There was moonlight flooding in the little window near the ceiling - the mess was basically underground – and it was reflecting very distractingly off of Mallory's watch. And her pale skin. Distractions.
"Look," she said, smoothing back some of the red curls off her forehead. "I really didn't come here to fight with you, so let's drop it, alright? I'm going out with Richard and you're…going after that cute blonde girl in the Council's office, right?" There was a strange twist to her mouth as she said that last bit, as if the words tasted bad in her mouth.
"Ainsley? No, I am not – where did you hear that?"
"I have my ways."
"Who, Zoey? Your father? Oh, God."
At that, Mallory laughed. "No, it wasn't – "
There was a sound out the window that Sam almost dismissed as a car backfiring, but he paused and listened as it repeated itself two more times. Mal stopped short. "Sam?" She followed his gaze to the window. "Was that…"
Barely a minute after the sounds, the doors of the mess burst open and three armed secret service agents flew in. Sam and Mallory froze in shock and just stared.
"Are you the only two in here?" asked one of the agents.
"Yeah, it's just us. Were those gunshots?" Sam asked urgently.
"I'm not at liberty to say at this point, sir. We have to secure the area. You will have to wait here until we receive further notice, and please stay as far as you can from any doors or windows." They backed into the corner that was the kitchen.
"I'm Sam Seaborn, the Deputy Communications Director – is there a threat to the president?"
"Again, I'm not at liberty to say right now, Mr. Seaborn." The agent went to stand by one of the doors. Sam ran both his hands through his hair in frustration, walking away a little bit. Here he was, stuck in the least consequential place in the entire White House with a woman who might just hate him more than whoever was shooting at the White House.
"Sam?" Her voice was quiet, and when he turned he saw her leaning against the steel counter, her fingers gripping the edge with white knuckles. Something tugged at the bottom of his stomach.
"It'll be fine, Mal," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "We have lockdowns all the time. These guys know what they're doing."
She scoffed. "I wasn't asking for reassurance, Sam." There was a heavy pause after that as they both stared at each other. Mal opened her mouth, closed it and then opened it again, looking down. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that." He decided not to say anything and see how that worked out.
Mallory drummed her fingers on the edge of the counter once before falling back in to silence. Sam watched her, saw the worry in her face, the tightness in her shoulders, but didn't say anything. She heaved a sigh.
"I am nervous," she admitted. "I've never been in a lockdown, and my dad never tells me when people try to kill the president. Other than in Roslyn." She looked up at him. "I'm sorry I came here and yelled at you."
He smiled a little. "It's alright. I kind of enjoy it." She laughed a little, amused and disbelieving. Then she pushed herself away from the counter and walked towards him, their eyes locked. Sam felt a familiar, magnetic tug in the pit of his gut.
"Actually, I came here becau – "
Just then there was another gunshot and the agents' radios crackled so loudly that the two civilians could hear them. One of the agents ran out of the mess and up the stairs and the other two hoisted their guns a little higher.
"What's going on?" Mal asked loudly. "Why was there another gunshot? It sounded louder. Closer." There was fear tinting the edge of her voice.
Sam stepped toward one of the remaining agents. "Sir, please, I'm senior staff. I have to go – "
"I'm sorry, sir, but you can't leave this room for now."
Sam gritted his teeth. "Is there anything you can tell me, then? Like what that gunshot was just a second ago?"
The agent paused and looked at Sam, who blinked. This guy couldn't be older than him, and he was considered young in the White House. This was one of the guys expected to throw themselves in between the president and a bullet. He swallowed.
"Just a moment ago," the agent said, "the target slipped through a hole in our security perimeter and is still at large." Sam heard Mallory's soft intake of breath behind him.
"Is the president safe?" Sam asked, feeling his heart start beating a little faster. "What part of the building was shot at?"
The agent shifted on his feet, looking at the hallway and back. It occurred to Sam that he might not supposed to be telling them this. "The president is secure and the target shot at the communications bullpen."
At that, Sam stopped short and swallowed. "Oh. The communications…is Toby alright? Toby Zeigler?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you any more at this point, Mr. Seaborn. We should have more information soon."
Sam backed off, quickly. Mal came and took his arm, leading him back to the corner that served as the kitchen. "Hey," she said softly, brushing his hair back unnecessarily from his forehead. "You okay?" He nodded a little numbly. What if Toby was shot? Toby, his mentor, his extremely prickly older brother, Toby. For a weird moment, the only thing Sam could think of was that if Toby died, he'd have to write everything for the president and the panic at that thought was so immense that he almost started laughing. "Sam?"
He blinked and looked up at Mal, who had sat him down in a chair. Her pale face was pinched with concern, the red of her hair dark in the moonlight still somehow filtering through the little window. It didn't seem fair for her to be so extraordinarily beautiful at a time like this. "Yeah, I'm okay," he replied quietly, still gazing at her. "You know, if you hadn't come and started fighting with me, I would have still been in my office. Which is apparently being shot at."
A smile tipped up the corners of her mouth and for a moment Sam was completely mesmerized. "Well, it's a good thing I'm argumentative and stubborn, isn't it?" He smiled back at her and stood.
"Yeah." There was a lengthy pause where they just stared at each other in the semi-dark of the room and Sam realized that he missed her, desperately.
"I miss you," Mal blurted out all of a sudden. "That's what I was going to say, earlier." She swallowed and held his gaze, but he could see the vulnerability in her eyes and the set of her shoulders.
A tender smile crept onto his face. "Funny."
The moment snapped and Mal frowned. "What?" she replied in disbelief. "I put myself out there and say that I miss you, and you – "
He held up his hand an inch away from her mouth, and she fell silent immediately, suddenly aware of his closeness. "Mal, calm down. I meant it was funny because I had just been thinking that I missed you."
There was another short, heavy pause. A slow smile spread across Mal's face as she stared up at him, her eyes crinkling at the edges. "You do?"
"Terribly," he replied and dropped his hand.
"Oh. Well, that changes things." Her voice got very soft.
"Yeah."
Mal took a step closer to him, just barely, and tilted her chin up, her hand drifting up to touch his jacket. Sam swallowed, his heart pounding, and his eyes flickered down to her lips, red against her impossibly fair skin. His arms rose, seemingly against his will, and settled around her waist, his hands on her back. Tilting his head down just a little, he paused an instant from her lips.
He was about to kiss her, he really was, when all hell broke loose in his head. This was Mallory O'Brien, the woman he'd been dreaming about for the past year, the woman he'd argued with for hours just to be with her, the woman who'd kissed him for defending her father. Mallory. Mal.
But she wasn't his. She was Richard fucking Andrewchuck's, and Sam hated the man. That stupid hockey player had this incredible, intelligent, fiery woman who he completely and utterly did not deserve.
Letting out a regretful breath, Sam pulled his head back, loosening his hands from around her waist. Mal opened her eyes, having closed them in anticipation, and blinked up at him.
"I can't," he said quietly, swallowing and taking a step back. Mal's eyebrows rose and her mouth dropped a little, and Sam felt like cad for making a train wreck of that moment, but he couldn't let himself do it. "I'm sorry, Mal, I just…can't."
She tried valiantly to cover the hurt in her face, but Sam caught it. "Oh," she said, staring heatedly at the floor. "Sorry."
"No, God, don't be sorry." Sam swiped a hand across his face. "Mal, I want to kiss you more than just about anything right now, but I just can't."
She looked up then, and held his gaze for a long moment. Then she looked away.
After four minutes of excruciating silence – with Sam wondering every moment if he should say something and Mal remaining frozen in her place – the agent at the door said something into his ear piece and opened the door.
"Alright, the target is in custody. You're free to leave the room now."
"Was anyone wounded?" Mal asked quickly, before Sam could even open his mouth.
"No, ma'am. There are a few broken windows upstairs and I would bet we're all about to get a scolding for letting someone slip past our perimeter, but everything is under control now." Sam almost smiled at the kid. He liked this one.
"Do you know why the…person shot at the White House?"
"No, sir, sorry. I'm not privy to that level of information."
"Alright," Sam said with a smile. "Thank you, agent…"
"Walker, sir. Agent Walker." The kid – well, he was younger than Sam so that meant he could relish calling someone else the kid instead of being called it himself – smiled and nodded to him.
"Thanks, agent Walker."
Mallory walked out of the room quickly, silently, and without looking back.
Sam watched her go. "That…didn't go particularly well."
"No, not especially," said agent Walker. "You should have kissed her."
"I…" Sam trailed off with an indignant mumble and walked out of the mess, taking the stairs two at a time. "Mallory!"
Upstairs, there were people everywhere. "Mal!" There were CJ, Josh and Toby, huddled in a corner discussing something heatedly. The incessant ringing of the telephones hurt his ears. But wherever he looked, he couldn't find the one tall, slim redhead he was looking for.