Off the Mat

By Waldo.

Sam tapped his fingers on his knee, his cell phone was digging into his thig somewhat uncomfortably from his front pocket, where he'd shoved it after his last call. There had once been about a week and a half when everyone had teased C.J. for sayin that the president's numbers were 'less than yeasty'. And now he couldn't get that stupid line out of his head as he watched his own returns come in.

He knew that he was taking a huge gamble when he'd agreed to step in for a dead candidate, but he'd figured that if Will could get a dead man elected, he could do at least as well with a live one. He'd always wanted to run. He'd been filing away information on how to raise money, how to say unpopular things in popular ways, how to catch the press off guard; since Josh had dragged him, soaking wet, to the first Bartlet campaign.

He'd envisioned a great first campaign, a grassroots show of support that would get him into the House. A few terms there and then a move to the Senate. He had enough of an ego – and perhaps enough hero worship – to want to believe President Bartlet when he'd said that Sam would one day be the President of the United States.

Then Will had ended up with his office and he'd gotten that DNC lapdog, Scott. He sighed for the umpteenth time and shifted to cross his legs, making his cell-phone dig in again. He pulled the phone out and spun it between his fingers. "Screw it," he muttered before flipping it open and stabbing the memory button and the six.

"Will Bailey."

"Hey." He couldn't figure out what to say. He wasn't even sure why he'd called.

"Sam? That you?"

"Um. Yeah."

"Can I do something for you?"

Sam leaned back in his chair. "It's not looking good." He was sure Will kne that, but wasn't sure what else to say.

"It's Orange County. And you are the highest polling, closest running Democrati candidate they've seen in like… forever. Whatever happens after the polls close, you did something good there." Will began doodling on his legal pad as he realized that this was nothing more than a moral support call and one that probably wouldn't be short.

"Sure. For the next guy," Sam snorted.

"So be the next guy. If this doesn't work out, come back in two years and sho the forty-seventh why they screwed up this time."

Sam sighed. He realized he was doing that a lot and made a mental note to stop. "There isn't a next time, Will, and we both know it. I should have fought the DNC. I should have told them that I wanted to keep you. You got a dead man elected." His voice became melancholy and he was pretty sure he sounded as lonely as he felt. "Maybe with you, I would have stood a chance."

He understood, very suddenly, why the Bartlet campaign had worked so well. The president and Leo understood each other. Knew where each needed to give and take. It went beyond the politics of electing a Democrat. For Leo it was personal. He wantedto see Jed Bartlet in the White House.

Scott didn't give a damn about him. He was assigned by the DNC almost like substitute teacher gets assigned to the class that has all the problem children. He'd do as told for as long as necessary and then move on, not missing a single person he'd worked with.

Sam couldn't imagine Leo ever doing that to the president.

And, Sam realized, that if he had been more adamant, made his position more clear to both the DNC and to Will, that Will wouldn't have done it to him either. He could see now that Will had thought that he was being sent away – and maybe to an extent that was true. But he could see now what a mistake that had been.

For his part, Will was slightly stunned. He'd always assumed that Sam – and by extension Toby and C.J. and Josh - viewed his armchair quarterbacking as interference and jealousy. He hadn't fought terribly hard to stay on Sam's campaign because he'd thought Sam had wanted someone else. "Next time. When you get up off the mat – and you damn well better get off the mat – I'll be there next time."

"I know you will be," Sam said with conviction, deciding then and there that one doomed campaign didn't have to be the end of his political career. He could rebound from this. He could and he would. "And what about you? Are they finally getting used to seeing you around the West Wing?"

"Well, yesterday C.J. actually stuck her head and called me Will," he said, sounding a little chagrinned. He took a pencil out of the pencil mug and began doodling again.

Sam was mystified. "What else would she have called you?"

"Well, everyone was calling me Bill Bailey for a long time, like I'd never heard it before."

Sam felt himself blush a little, realizing he'd been amongst the millions who'd made that bad joke. And he'd been hired by Leo because he was supposedly witty.

"And with C.J.," Will continued, "Since I've gotten here, she's been barreling in yelling 'Sam' every time she stepped into my - your… office."

"It's your office now, Will. I've been thinking and I don't think I'm going to come back. I've been offered a job with a network – political commentary. And I think I'm going to take it. They like you, you've almost got them broken in, no sense in shaking things up again."

The pencil snapped in half. "I – um… are you sure? I mean, I was supposed to be the temporary replacement, just until you knew if you were coming back."

"Well, it's not actually up to me. The president has to like you. And it helps if Leo and Toby like you too, but my point is, I'm leaving the way open. Besides, if you're right, it'll be the end of the president's second term when I'll be ready to get off the mat and then you'll be looking for a job again."

Will threw the broken pencil in the trash and instead turned his nervous energy to the phone cord. "You know they put up a bunch of 'Seaborn for Congress' posters in here. I think they were trying to annoy me. They bicycles annoyed me. The goat just pissed me off, but the posters… I left a few of them up. I think idealism is good. And you're nothing if not all about idealism. When I write in here… it's not just that I want to impress the President or keep Toby from lobbing that damn rubber ball at me like so much cannon fire… I worked my ass off because I didn't want to let you down."

"You haven't yet," Sam answered seriously. "And you won't as long as you maintain your own idealism. That's one of the reason I've decided to leave, actually. I was always the one on the far, far, far left. The one who wanted to worry more about being good than looking good. I hated the politics in politics. And the President needed that. Still does. But I'm losing that edge. Everyone always wondered how Josh – the most political guy Washington has ever seen – and I could be best friends. Opposites attract I guess."

"He does worry about the numbers an awful lot. How much can you get while giving away as little as possible." Will conceded. He was still sorting Josh out. Trying to decide what really was personal, what was just Josh, and what was simply the fact that Will wasn't Sam.

Sam nodded into his phone, knowing he'd miss the roaming conferences in the halls, the debates in the Roosevelt room and the long plane rides on Air Force One where they kept working as if they were on the ground. But knowing also that the President needed someone whose veneer of ideology hadn't been tarnished by years in Washington.

And that he'd need someone who was a little softer on the edges – and Washington politics could blunt anyone's edges – when he ran again.

"You'll be okay. And when your term is up… I'll be waiting."

"I'm going to hold you to that," Will said firmly.

"I'm counting on it," Sam said before snapping shut his phone.