Coping Universe II: To Seek

by Waldo

How a plastic cow, some yard flamingos, lots of therapy and Sam help Josh get past the events in Noel. Second Story in the Coping Universe a series of stories that are complete in themselves, but share a common background.

Coping Universe II: To Strive

By Waldo.

A post-Noel Sam/Josh story

"Sam?"

Leo held the door to his office open and I went in. Leo had his 'neither of us is gonna like this conversation' face on, so I had a pretty good clue what it was about. He gestured me into a chair and I sat slowly, declining the offer of coffee or tea. He really, really doesn't want to do this, I thought. I wasn't a visiting bureaucrat, Leo never offered the staff a drink, if we wanted something we hit one of eighty strategically placed coffee pots or went to the mess.

"I don't know how to start this conversation, Sam."

I took a deep breath and did it for him. We needed to do this, and it needed to be now. "Josh is… not doing so well," I said.

"Yeah, that's… that's an understatement," Leo sat down in the chair next to mine. "I told him that I'm bringing in someone from ATVA – American Trauma Victim's Association – to see him. Part of me thinks that maybe I failed everyone by not calling them in before. We've all been trying to do this on our own. When we hear about a shooting in private industry we get ahold of the governor or someone and see if they need federal aid for crisis counseling. Well, no one called to check on us and I think maybe Josh is a wake up call."

"Josh is… he's scared of something." I wasn't sure what to say other than that I concurred with Leo's action plan. We'd all freaked out a little after the shooting. Toby'd tried to repeal the second amendment. C.J. and I still had a rather weird, uncomfortable relationship, despite the fact that we'd agreed that we'd try not to. Everyone had hovered over Josh when he'd come back because he was the easy target for that sort of thing. We were all hurting inside, but you're not supposed to tell people about that stuff. When you bleed on the outside, it's hard to hide, so people hover whether you want them to or not. I'd tried hard not to. I'd been at the hospital and with his through some of the rehab. I'd been the one to take him home and I'd stayed that first night. So I tried to tell myself that I'd done my bit for checking up on him and that if others needed to do it, I should back off and let them. I felt better after Josh let me help, and I hoped they would too.

The only problem was that Josh wouldn't let them. He became irritable and snide with everyone who showed more than the most casual of concern for his well-being. And I had backed off. I wasn't sure if it would have helped if I'd been more… outwardly concerned, if I'd stopped by after work more often than I had or if I'd gone on a not-so-covert mission to check up on him after tough meetings. I could have gone fruit hunting or something.

I stopped kicking myself in the head and turned my attention back to Leo.

"I've called a guy. He's going to be here on Wednesday."

"That's not for … five days."

"Yeah, it's as soon as he could get here."

I took a deep breath trying to meet Leo's eyes, but finding something on the floor much more riveting. "Are you going to suspend him?"

"No," he whispered, toying with a water glass. "Not yet. I told him that we're going to be watching him and that if he has another little… episode like he did in there," Leo hiked a thumb at the Oval Office, "he'd be home for a few days, but I want to give him a chance to pull it together on his own first."

"We?" I asked.

"What?"

"You said 'we'd be watching him'. Who's we?" I didn't like the idea that the entire staff was going to get involved in Josh's problems.

'You, the President and me. I want to keep what happened in there between those of us who were there. I'm also going to mention to Donna in rather vague terms that some of us are concerned about Josh's mood swings lately and that she's to get one of us if she suspects there's a problem."

I nodded. "Okay."

"When he gets here, Sam, I'm going to have most of the senior staff see him. Mostly for Josh's sake, but a little for us too, you know?"

I knew. I'd started half a dozen conversations with people trying to see if they still had nightmares or if loud sounds scared them more than they should, but I'd always chickened out, afraid that I was the only one not handling things well.

It was a long five days. Josh knew he was on a probation of a sort and tried to be on his best behavior. By the Monday I started to really understand that he wasn't in control of some of the things he said or did. On Tuesday he proved my point. He blew up on me after a bad meeting with a group of House Reps. from Appropriations. It was supposed to be his meeting, but Leo made him take me. I think he expected me to sit there and just watch – be there because Leo told him I had to be – but not participate. Well, no one told me that. And when Millhouse got all high and mighty about the way Democrats spend money I took him down a few pegs. Any other time I wouldn't have had to, because Josh would have done it for me. And probably with a lot more four-letter words than I used. But afterwards, on the walk back to the White House, he stopped me and went on a tear. I just stood there and let him go. I don't know if he was more concerned over Millhouse's reaction or his own. It was like he had started thinking that if he didn't get to yell at anyone, no one else did either. Almost as if he believed that my outburst was going to get him in trouble. So I let him yell, apologized and started moving towards the White House again. He didn't follow right away, but I knew he was following and we needed a little space.

I got back to my office, wondering if I was expected to go rat him out to Leo now or if I was just supposed to be making mental notes for the ATVA guy. Before I could even sit down, Cathy was in my office assaulting me with a memo from C.J. that said I needed to see her 'now – sooner if possible'. I crumpled up the pink memo slip and slammed it into the trash and went looking for her.

It turned out to be nothing. Someone misunderstood something I said when I was talking to Didion at the Congressional Christmas party. I cleared it up and went back to my office.

Josh was pacing the small space between my desk and the guest chairs when I got there. "I am so sorry," he blurted before I even got into the room. I shut the door, but decided against moving behind my desk. I didn't want him to think I wanted distance between us or that I was going to make a thing of him coming to my office to apologize.

"I am so sorry, Sam," he repeated. "You have to tell Leo, don't you?" He seemed really distraught about the idea. "Look, the guy's gonna be here tomorrow. Please, please, just let this go and I'll go talk to the guy tomorrow. I'll stay in my office the rest of the day and see the guy tomorrow. I won't yell any more, I promise."

His hands were flying around as he spoke – begged – and I grabbed them and led him over to one of the leather chairs and got him to sit. I pulled the other chair around so I could face him, not that he'd look at me. "Listen to yourself," I said quietly.

"Please Sam, just let me get through today. I just… I just need to get some time to myself to get through the damn SPR notes and work on the IMF thing for Didion. If I can get those things done, I'll have a lot less on my mind and I'll be okay." He let his head fall into his hands.

I knew the SPR and IMF weren't the things Josh needed to get off his mind, but there was nothing to do for it until tomorrow. "Let me come over tonight. You're worried about what'll happen tomorrow, let me come over and keep you company." I'd asked every night since the Congressional Christmas Party, but he'd always said no. I felt shut out, but I knew it wasn't because of anything I'd done. I suspected he was crying himself to sleep each night and wasn't sure he wanted me to see that. Not if he suspected I was reporting everything I noticed back to Leo. Maybe in the spirit of making up to me for the blow up on the walk back he'd let me stay.

"What? This is a negotiation?" He shot up out of his seat and brushed by me, pacing the floor again. "I let you come over and babysit me tonight and you don't tell Leo I got pissed out there? I thought you were on my side! I thought I could trust you to let me do what I need to do this week! Donna's been hovering, Leo's been hovering, the damn President's been hovering, I thought I could trust you to treat me like I'm not nuts! I'm gonna go see the guy tomorrow so he can tell you guys that I'm okay, so you can just back offˆ!" He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Tomorrow couldn't come fast enough.

I didn't see him for the rest of the day. He didn't come back to try and spin his latest eruption and I left him alone. I checked in with Donna a few times, but she told me that he'd asked her to hold all his calls and clear his calendar. He was locked in his office with the SPR briefing book and, Donna admitted sheepishly, some information of ATVA. I told her not to worry about him looking up ATVA, he could hardly be expected to go in and bare his soul tomorrow if he didn't know what they were about. I asked her to call me whenever he eventually decided to go home.

It was nearly ten when she rang to say they were leaving. I waited a few minutes, so Josh wouldn't think I was following him, before I left. I had decided to go over anyway and see if he'd toss me out, but decided against it just as I was about to pull into a parking spot about a block away from his place. With any luck he'd get over whatever this hump was tomorrow and he'd let me stay then. He'd probably need me more then than tonight and I didn't want to have any more hostility and alienation between us than there was. And there would be if he had to toss me out. And I was pretty well convinced that he would do exactly that if I tried to stay with him.

So I went home, heated up some frozen lasagna and fell over in bed, where I stared at the ceiling for most of the night before I got up to go in see the ATVA guy myself. Donna had mentioned when she'd called on the way out that she was picking Josh up in the morning. Leo'd asked her to, presumably to keep Josh from pulling a runner and possibly because he wouldn't be in terribly great shape to drive himself home afterwards. This way he'd have to accept a ride from someone. Donna had also mentioned that Josh had been muttering about still being mad at me for being overprotective and he still had a mother thank you very much on his way out. I wasn't sure if he was directing that last comment at her or me but decided it really didn't matter.

When I got to my office at about six-thirty, Leo was there waiting for me. "You're gonna be first," he said as I hung up my coat.

"Okay."

"I talked to the guy when I first called and then last night I picked him up at the airport and we talked for a while back at the hotel. His name is Stanley Keyworth and he's a good guy. He's going to want to talk to you about how the past week has gone, maybe some stuff about the shooting itself. He's gonna see you and Donna and then decide if he wants to see C.J. or Toby or anyone else. I'll probably meet with him before he sees Josh."

I nodded, going around my desk to flip through a small stack of overnight messages. None of them were important. "Leo… is there anything I shouldn't say?"

"It's a closed therapy session. Even if he asked about the political stuff – and I don't think he will – he couldn't say anything to anyone about it. And he can't tell any of the rest of us anything you say unless he specifically clears it with you."

I wondered about that last comment. If maybe Leo knew about Josh and me, but I wasn't up to the dance of finding out without divulging anything. "Okay."

Leo stood there like there was something else he wanted to say, but remained silent. When the silence got awkward I asked, "So you met with him last night?"
"Yeah, he's a good guy. He won't take any of Josh's shit."

I smiled briefly. "You know… Josh knows his way around a shrink's office." I didn't want him being handed off to some rank amateur who'd think he could score some media points by working with a high-profile member of the White House Staff. Josh would eat the guy alive in that case.

"I know," Leo told me. "Who do you think convinced his dad that going to therapy, or having a kid in therapy, didn't mean institutionalization was next?"

"After Joanie?" I clarified.

"Yep."

"Okay."

"He's a good guy, Sam. I wouldn't let any one screw with him. He's had enough of that this year."

I nodded. I should have known that Leo would have vetted the guy up one side and down the other. Josh was the son he never had and his right hand all rolled into one. Josh couldn't ask for someone better to look out for him.

Leo took a deep breath. "He says we shouldn't leave Josh alone this morning. I don't know what they're afraid he'll do, though I think it may have something to do with his hand, but we need to keep someone with him."

"Okay."

"Donna's gonna be there for most of the day; it's pretty unobtrusive to have his assistant around." Leo leaned on the doorframe.

"What about when Donna goes to see the guy?" I realized I was trying to straighten my desk, but it had already been cleaned to within an inch of its life with all the tension of the past week.

"I'll tell Josh that he can either hang out in my office – it's Christmas Eve, I'm just getting caught up on some reading – or that he can hang out with you, get some lunch in the mess or something. I think we both know what he'll pick."

"Yeah," I finally fell into my chair, toying with a pen.

"Don't let him ditch you," Leo warned.

"I won't. I don't think he'll try, honestly," I told him, tossing the pen back on my desk. "He's spinning this whole thing as fast as he can Leo. He thinks he can take this appointment today, have the guy tell us he's okay and go back to life-abnormal. He's gonna do whatever we ask him to do today in order to try and achieve that."

"Maybe," Leo conceded, "But this is what they want us to do, so we just cooperate, okay?"

"Yeah." I wondered if he'd yell at me again. I was trying pretty hard not to internalize much of anything he'd said lately, but my patience was wearing thin, and knowing he needed help – knowing he knew deep down inside somewhere that he needed help – might not be enough to keep me from yelling back for much longer. And I knew Josh was incapable of not internalizing right now, so I prayed for a quiet, relaxed lunch. I decided to have Cathy go down and pick up some lunch for us from the Italian place he likes so much and we'd eat in. I'd had lasagna the night before, but it didn't matter much to me at that point. We'd eat on my office or his and relax. He wanted to keep away from people and I was willing to help if it meant he'd be calm when he walked in that room. I knew he wanted to go in there talk to the guy for ten minutes, get certified okay and come back out and tell us all to back off; but I knew him well enough to know that he was terrified that he'd go in there and find out that there really was something wrong with him. I knew he was fearful for his job and had been ever since his blow up in the Oval Office and that what this guy told Leo would determine whether or not he was done here.

"Hey Leo," I said as he turned to leave. "What did he tell you when you asked what happened to his hand?" The fact that the ATVA guys were worried about his hand worried me. I knew from the outset that he was lying to people about what had happened, but I wondered if he was convincing anyone else.

"He said a knife slipped when he was washing dishes," Leo studied the ground.

I just nodded sadly. For a politician, Josh couldn't lie worth shit, at least not to his friends. "He has a dishwasher." And Leo and I both knew Josh well enough to know that he wouldn't be washing dishes by hand if he didn't absolutely have to.

"I know, so I asked Donna, he told her something about breaking a glass. Stanley'll get to the bottom of it." He glared at me for playing amateur shrink. "Leave this to the pros, Sam. Just keep him company until they're ready for him."

I nodded solemnly as Leo left.

It was about eight-thirty when Leo called and said that I could meet the guy in a conference room on the second floor. Cathy wasn't coming in, so I asked Bonnie to grab my phone if it rang and tell anyone who couldn't wait until the twenty-sixth that I'd get in touch with them at lunch, and no I couldn't be interrupted. She looked like she wanted to ask what I was up to, but I must have had a look on my face, because she didn't.

When I got up there a gentleman named Stanley Keyworth introduced himself and his intern, Kaytha Trask. He indicated a place at the table and I sat, Kaytha moved to the couch by the window and Stanley sat across from me where his notes had been spread out.

"You probably know that Leo McGarry asked me to come and talk to the people affected by the shooting in Virginia last August."

"Yeah." I wasn't sure what else to say.

"Can you tell me what happened then?" His voice was kind, but there was a steel to it that made me feel like he could see right though me. I felt like he'd know the instant I hedged on even the slightest detail. I noticed the Secret Service file in front of him. "Is that my report from that night?" He nodded. "Are you asking me for more information than the report has or are you just asking me to recount the incident?" I wondered if psychologists hated interviewing lawyers, who by nature, sought out the purpose behind a question before answering it.

"I'd like you to tell me, in your words, what happened."

I sighed, pushing my fingers through my hair. "It's been almost four months and some of it is still… vague… fuzzy…" I started.

"That's okay. It had to be a very confusing night," he reassured me.

"We had a town hall meeting. President Bartlet likes to meet with people; this one was focused on young voters. He even drafted his nineteen-year-old daughter into coming with. It wasn't… a thing… a big deal. It was a question and answer and we weren't expecting a lot of trouble from anyone. On a policy side, not a… not the kind of trouble we got. Anyway, I remembered some of us were arguing over whether or not the President should take off his jacket on stage. That was the level of… unconcern we had about the whole thing."

"Tell me about what happened after you left," Stanley pushed me along.

I poured myself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and toyed with it. "Everything went to hell," I muttered. "I know it's cliché, but it did." Even after all this time I hated talking about that night. I took my glasses off and played with the temple. "Gina Toscano – Zoey's bodyguard – saw him – them – whatever – first. She yelled 'gun.' I saw a flash, looked up to where it came from and I could see… I could see a reflection of something. C.J. was in front of me and looking through the crowd. I realized she didn't know where it was coming from so I pushed her down behind a police car."

"Was she hurt?"

I laughed a little, I knew he knew this story; this was a stupid, pointless line of questioning. "No, it all happened so fast that she didn't get her hands up in time, so she hit her head on the ground. But given that the window of the police car she'd been standing in front of was shot out, it could have been a lot worse."

"So she was all right?"

"Yeah, they said she had a mild concussion, but that was all."

"And you?" he pressed.

"What about me?"

"You were okay?"

"Sure. I had a bruise on my knee, but I didn't even feel it for like two days."

"Then what?"

"Then… I got up… started looking for everyone. We do Secret Service drills – anyone who rides in the motorcade more than occasionally has to do them, but… I don't know, it didn't go like the drills. It was chaos. So I just wanted to round everyone up. I went looking for them all."

"Josh?" he asked

"No," I bit out crisply, feeling pissy at answering stupid questions, when Josh needed some real help. "Josh wasn't up to looking for anyone. Josh was lucky to be able to get a breath in."

Stanley held a hand up. "No, I meant were you looking for Josh?"

I ducked my head, ashamed. "Oh. Sorry." I hated feeling defensive in front of this guy. I knew he was there to help Josh and if possible, if I needed it, me too, but I felt like I needed to protect myself. And Josh. I didn't want him to come back with some kind of diagnosis that would mean he'd have to resign. And I felt guilty, which wasn't helping. Secret Service had tried to make a thing out of how I'd tried to round everyone up, but the truth was – four months later, I could finally admit the truth to myself – I was really looking for Josh. Knowing where C.J. and Toby and Charlie and Leo and even the President were secondary to finding Josh. I explained all this to Stanley Keyworth, traumatologist, and hoped it didn't say anything too awful about me.

"Why Josh," he asked me casually.

"He's my best friend." That was a no-brainer.

"He's important to you?" he asked.

I shrugged, not sure what he was driving at. "He's my best friend," I repeated.

"Leo seemed to indicate that you two have been friends a long time. That you knew each other before the Bartlet administration?"

I wondered what else Leo had 'indicated', but I was trying to curtail my smartass remarks, so I just said, "Yes," and then sighed. Okay, so I wasn't being a smartass, but I was being a lawyer instead. I recognized the question as an opportunity to talk about how Josh and I met, but I answered the question exactly as stated.

"So it makes sense that at a time of crisis – of chaos, as you put it – that if you had to pick one person to be concerned about, it would be Josh, right?"

I shrugged. "Shouldn't I have been more concerned for the President?" I asked him.

"Are you in the Secret Service?" he asked me back.

"No, I'm the Deputy Director of Communications," I snapped back, wondering why we were covering such basic ground.

"So it's not your job to worry about the President. You didn't know where your best friend was and you didn't have any other set responsibilities, so what's wrong with looking for him?"

I shrugged again.

"So you found him?" Stanley rerouted the conversation.

"No." And I hated myself for it and I didn't want to talk about it and wasn't I in here to help Josh?

"No?" he repeated.

"No, Toby found him. I heard him yelling and I ran… Josh was behind a big cement planter on the stairs. I was running for Toby and I saw him fall." My left thumbnail was suddenly fascinating.

"Sam," he said kindly. "I've read every report there is on this incident, everything I've seen, everything you've said points towards the idea that you did what you could. You rode with Josh to the hospital; you were there when he woke up. Right?"

All I could think to say was, "He's my best friend."

"You were with him right after the shooting, right?" he pressed.

"Yeah."

"What was he like?" he asked, smoothly turning the conversation to Josh.

"He was…" it was on the tip of my tongue to say 'unconscious', but I really was trying to help and not be a smartass. I coughed and started over. "He was in a lot of pain. Pretty confused… I don't think he remembered the shooting itself." Come to think of it, I don't know that he's ever indicated remembering the actual shooting. I decided to keep that to myself. Traumatic amnesia or whatever Stanley would call it would make itself known when Josh came in, I didn't need to help things along in that direction.

"What were your first conversations like?"

"Short," I snarked before realizing it. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "The first time I saw him after the surgery he was still on a ventilator, so he couldn't talk. I just… I just let him know I was there. Leo had had to go back to the White House and his mom couldn't be reached. I wanted to be sure he knew he wasn't alone."

"After that?" Stanley continued.

"He was in a lot of pain, especially those first few days. He slept a lot and when he'd wake up he just wanted to rest and… listen. I'd just talk about… whatever… I just… held his hand and talked to him about… stuff."

"About the shooting?"

"No. Not at first. I didn't want to tell him anything that would… become upsetting. He asked me once why the President was in the hospital and I told him that he'd been winged, but that he was okay. I guess I expected him to make the connection, but he didn't. And he didn't ask for more information, so I let it go."

"When did he find out what happened?"

"About… four days after it happened."

"Who told him?"
"I did." I went back to studying my thumbnail. Stanley waited and when I glanced up he had this expectant face like he knew if he sat there long enough I'd explain myself. "I got there after work one day and Donna was there and she was all flustered. That was pretty standard for Donna then, so I didn't pay a lot of attention, but when I opened the door she tried to push me back out."

"Who's Donna?" Stanley interrupted.

"Josh's assistant. And surrogate little sister, mother and pain his ass. He loves her dearly, but she can make us nuts."

"Us?"

"Hm?"

"You said 'Donna can make us nuts.' You don't like her?"

"I like Donna fine. She keeps an eye on Josh. Makes him eat when he gets too busy, stuff like that." I couldn't understand what this had to do with anything.

"But that day?"

"That day she pissed me off. She wasn't going to let me in the room. Like she had some sort of authority or something. She wasn't there. She didn't know anything other than what we told her. And, yes, Donna's an adult, but sometimes she gets a little… she can be a little naïve and there's a certain understanding among the Senior Staff to let her stay that way sometimes. She…" I stopped and took a sip of water. "This isn't about Donna."

"True," Stanley agreed. "But she tried to keep you out of Josh's hospital room."

"Yeah," I said, drawing in the condensation on my water glass. "She said he was tired and that he wasn't ready for visitors. Herself excepted, of course. But Josh was trying to talk – trying to tell her to let me in, and she was so busy yelling at me she couldn't hear him."

"What did you do?"

"I pushed past her. He wanted to see me and I wasn't letting Donnatella Moss tell me

I couldn't." I stopped and took a breath. "Maybe she felt guilty. You know, for not being there when he was shot and this was her way of making up to him for it. But it was just making things worse. He finally told her to go get some coffee and leave him alone for a few minutes. Which was… odd, looking back on it. Josh was as gracious as he could be about people looking after him after the shooting. Which, for Josh, is pretty amazing. He never admits to needing help with anything, but after the shooting he was pretty good about not bitching too much, you know?"

Stanley nodded.

"Anyway, once she'd left for a bit he asked me what the hell he was doing in the hospital."

'Did you tell him?"

"Josh and I all but met in a hospital after he'd been hurt." At Stanley's raised eyebrow I quickly told him about the theater and the car and ride in the ambulance. "I couldn't lie to him. Hell, when he woke up enough to put on CNN he was going to see his face all over it."

"What did you say?"

"He asked what happened. I told him that he'd been shot, that the bullet had gotten into his lung, but that they'd gotten it out and that he was going to be a little miserable for a while, but he'd be fine."

Stanley nodded, something like approval on his face. I wasn't sure what test I'd just passed, but I was glad I'd passed it regardless.

"Did he ask for more information at any time?"

"I don't think we waited for him to ask. Once he was feeling better we kept him in the loop as new information came in. He was never excluded, if that's what you mean."

Stanley fiddled with his pen and leaned back in his chair. "When you gave him new information, how did he take it?"

I thought back. We'd had a few conversations in the hospital – about why those idiots were shooting at us in the first place – and as the FBI/Secret Service investigation went forward I kept him up to date. "Usually he took it pretty well. I mean, he was angry and confused by the whole thing, but he kept saying, 'yeah, well, we showed 'em – none of us died.' I mean, that's healthy, isn't it?"

Stanley shrugged and made some non-committal noise that made me nervous. "Tell me about the past few weeks."

"Starting when?" I wondered.

"When did you notice that Josh wasn't completely on his game?"

I kept thinking further and further back. God, before the party was the thing with… "The pilot," I whispered.

"I'm sorry," Stanley said.

"There was this thing with a pilot. Josh was bothered by the fact that an Air Force pilot with his birthday killed himself. I mean, he was working on the guy's… mental history when he died and I understood when it bothered him at first that the guy died. He wanted to help, to find something that they could use to talk him down, but it was over way too fast. But… a couple weeks after it was over he was still harping about finding out why it happened. He wanted information no one had and got really angry when no one had it."

"Does Josh usually get personally involved in the work he does?"

"Josh is… Josh is probably the most political person in the White House. I've actually tried to develop the sense of detachment he has about things. He cares. He cares a lot, but I've never seen him get this personal about someone he never even met."

Stanley nodded and made a few quick notes on one of his papers. "Was that all? Was it just the ongoing concern over the pilot that made people worry?"

"That and his hand. And his temper. I mean, Josh yells a lot. But so does Toby and Leo and… it's just a thing around here. We're under a lot of pressure, and sometimes we yell."

"You don't yell?"

'Not often. I try not to, but yeah, sometimes."

"At Josh?"

"I usually don't have to. Usually we're on the same side of whatever it is we're yelling over."

Stanley nodded, toying with his pen again. "He was yelling a lot?"

"The West Wing is loud. Over one thousand three hundred people work in the White House. The vast majority of them in the West Wing. We don't have time to just sit and chat with people, so a lot of times we're having briefings and meetings about stuff when we run into people in the halls. So, it's always a little loud. Not deafening or anything, but there's always a level of white noise around here. And Toby, for reasons beyond my comprehension, decided to get various bands to play in the lobby. Well, Josh's office opens up to the main hall to the lobby. Every once in a while he'd open his door – which he generally doesn't close unless he's in an important meeting – and just yell about the noise level. He didn't like even one of the bands Toby brought in. In fact, Toby mentioned something odd that he said – he didn't like the bagpipers and he said something about being able to hear the sirens all over the building. I'm guessing that probably means something, huh?"

"Probably," he allowed.

"Anyway, the stuff that would generally lead to teasing horsing around lately has led to him yelling. I think Donna's gonna be a little jumpy for the next few months."

"Was he abusive towards her?"
"Abusive?" I seriously disliked that word being used in association with Josh. "No. He really wasn't. He was just… loud. You could tell he was trying to hold it in, but wasn't always successful. Donna was really patient with him and tried to stay on top of things so he wouldn't go off, but… you know… We never knew what would set him off."

Stanley leaned forward, clearly thinking about what I'd said. He straightened up and asked me, "You said he did something to his hand."

"Yeah, he cut it."

"How'd he do that?"

"I'm not sure," I said, not willing to repeat Josh's lie since I knew it was one.

"You didn't ask?"

"I asked. He lied." I tamped down on the hostility rising in me. I wasn't sure who I was angry with and regardless, it wasn't going to help Josh.

"You're sure he lied?"
"Pretty much, yeah. He told me he cut it washing dishes, but Josh has a dishwasher and he's not the sort who uses cleaning as a way to blow off steam, you know? So I suspected right off, but I asked Leo later and he said Josh told him the same story, but when Leo asked Donna what had happened it turned off that Josh had told Donna a different story – something about breaking a glass."

"Are you mad at him for lying?"

I shrugged. I knew I was mad about something, but I wasn't sure what it was. "I don't know. Maybe. Actually, no. Actually, I think I'm… disappointed. We've never had to lie to each other about anything before. I don't like that he thinks he needs to lie to me about this stuff."

"It sounds like he's trying to hold it together as best he can. And that might mean doing damage control after an incident where he feels like he's lost control."

I nodded, having come to the same conclusion a while back.

"I'm going to meet with Donna and Leo McGarry before I see Josh. If you think of anything else you'd like to share with me before I see Josh, ask the guy outside to come get me." He began gathering up his notes.

'That's it?" It seemed like an abrupt end to the meeting.

"I'm going to give you a card," he dug around in his briefcase for a second before finding and handing me a light blue business card. "This is the number for trauma victims to call when they feel a little overwhelmed. If you need to talk to someone, about the shooting, about Josh and his reactions, any of it, call that number. You'll talk to someone there who'll decide if you should be linked up with a therapist in your area or if you can just call the hotline when you need to get a few things off your chest."

I stuck the card in my shirt pocket. "Okay."

"Okay then. If you could ask Donna to come up when you go back down, that would be very helpful."

I stood when he did, still feeling like the meeting had ended quickly. I hoped I'd given him what he needed to go on. I knew Donna would be better able to explain about his moods and temper and that Leo had given the bigger picture already. "Thank you," I said, shaking his proffered hand.

"Thank you. We're going to help Josh. He's got a lot of people who care about him." I nodded, noticing that he didn't make any empty promises about being sure Josh would be okay.

"I hope so," I whispered as I turned and left.

Lunch went okay. Cathy got me some spaghetti and Josh some ravioli and we managed to just sit and eat quietly. I tried to start a couple of inane conversations, but Josh eventually asked me to quit trying to force a conversation. He knew he was being watched and that he was in with me because Donna was in with Stanley. He asked me how my conversation with him went and I told him it was fine and that he gave me number in case I needed to talk to someone. He thought I meant about him at first, but I clarified that I was referring to the shooting, since none of us had gotten any help afterwards, and he let it drop. I guess all the time he's done with psychologists in the past paid off. He knew better than to ask me what the guy had asked me, since he knew I wouldn't tell him.

After lunch we just sat quietly, I eventually started playing solitaire on my computer just because I couldn't sit and do nothing, but I didn't want Josh to try and make excuses about leaving since I had work to do. He sat in the chair by the door instead and leaned his head back against the window and closed his eyes. I couldn't help but think that he looked relieved that this would be over soon. At about twelve-thirty, Leo knocked on the door and took Josh with him.

I knocked softly, not wanting to disturb him if, by some miracle, he was asleep. He must have been in the living room for him to hear it and get to the door so fast. He seemed… almost frail when he opened the door. Nervous and uncertain. For a minute, he stood blinking in the bright hallway light, then it was like a dam broke when he saw me. He stood aside to let me in and closed the door behind me. I'd managed to get my gloves and coat off before he enveloped me in a remarkably strong hug. I hugged him back, whispering, "Shh…"

"I'm sorry," we both said at once.

"Shh, it's okay," I told him.

He shifted a little, but didn't let go of me. "Why are you sorry?" You didn't do anything," he told me quietly, his face still buried in my shoulder.

'Exactly." I squeezed him tight before breaking the panicked hug and leading him over to the couch by the hand. "I knew you were hurting. I should have… I should have come here long before tonight." I reached over and slid my hand under his bandaged one and held it as lightly as I could. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you needed me."

Josh slid towards me and I put my free arm around his shoulders and he leaned over and rested his head on mine. "I'm thinking a little clearer now, you know," he told me.

"Good." I turned my head and placed a gentle kiss on his temple.

"Yeah, I'm thinking clearer now and one of the things I can see now is how… confused and I don't know… overwhelmed I was before."

I started to say something about it being a little tough to notice when your own thinking is off and that's what your friends are supposed to be fore, but he cut me off.

"No, Sam… don't. I… I saw the guy… you know…"

He sat up and pulled away. I wasn't sure if he really needed the space to talk about this or if he was afraid I wouldn't want him so close after he told me about his visit with the ATVA therapist. I let him go for a second and then shifted back to the corner of the couch. Once I was situated, I tugged gently on his arm and he leaned down to rest his head on my lap. It was late; the apartment was dark and quiet and it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Josh sighed and snuggled into my lap. I sighed too, in relief. He was going to let me help.

"I couldn't let anyone help me when I was too busy insisting I was fine. I knew… I knew something wasn't right, but I couldn't even admit to myself that I was loosing it, there was no way I was going to be able to admit it to someone else. I actually believed, for a while, that I'd cut my hand on a glass." He turned his head and I looked up to see what he was looking at – the window had been boarded up, but there were still shards of glass hanging in the frame and on the floor. My stomach clenched when I realized what he'd done. "I know now. I mean, I couldn't figure out why no one else was worried about Cano, I couldn't understand why the SPR was important when it would just alienate Didion, the damn bands in the lobby… god…" He choked. "The music was so loud and I couldn't hear over it. I… I needed to be able to hear everyone and I couldn't over the damn music."

He'd started off calmly enough. Too calmly, I'd thought. I almost asked him what they'd sedated him with at the hospital. But as he spoke, the words, the feelings, caught up with him and by the end he was curled up crying in my lap, struggling to breathe again.

"Easy, easy, shh…" I started crooning quietly, still holding his bandaged hand in one of mine and running my fingers through his hair with the other. "Shh… take some slow, easy breaths, Josh. Do you still have that inhaler?" He'd been on half a dozen different things when he'd been released from the hospital and I wasn't sure what he still took.

He shook his head, but still seemed to be having trouble getting air in. It occurred to me then what a difficult, painful recovery this was going to be for him if he couldn't even cry properly. He needed to be angry and sad and scared and all the things he couldn't afford to be back in August when he was just trying to get enough air in to stay alive. Now he needed to be all those things just to stay sane, or … get back to sane?… and it hurt him too much to really cry properly.

"Sit up," I whispered, "Sit up and lean on me," I encouraged with my hands and voice. I got him up and shifted us so that he could lean his head on my shoulder and wrapped my arms around him. I rubbed his back gently through his soft t-shirt and he wrapped his good hand around my shirt back and hung on for dear life. "Shh… shh…"

"I was finally scared today, Sam." He calmed his breathing, but didn't relax his hold on me. "I was scared of stupid shit, like people knocking on the door, and there was nothing to be scared of, but…" He had to stop to breathe again. "There was nothing to be scared of there. It was just music… not sirens, but it all… it all came back to… to the shooting." He was carefully holding himself in check, trying not to hyperventilate.

It occurred to me what he was saying. "PTSD?" I asked gently.

He nodded against me.

"It's okay. It's okay, now that you know what's going on you can handle it. You can," I promised softly. "And I'll help. You know that." I tightened my arms around him, using one hand to cradle his hand against my shoulder. "Anything you need."

He didn't say anything else; he just hugged me tighter. He was still struggling to cry the way he needed top without getting short of breath, but the release was there. We held each other and I rubbed his back and ran my fingers through the curls at his neck. In actuality, the sound he made when he cried was awful and it took me a few minutes to get used to it. I was starting to wonder if he'd ever breathe normally or easily again and I had to ruthlessly quash a whole new wave of hate for those who did this to him.

Instead I held him tighter and whispered every reassurance I could think of. "It's okay now. You're getting better. This is all part of getting better. I'll be here. I'll always be here, whenever you need me. There are so many people who care about you and want to help. It's gonna be okay now…"

I must have talked for hours. Josh just clung to me and cried. I wondered briefly if he'd been waiting for me to come to him so he could get all this out without having to face it alone. That idea touched me in a way I've never felt before. I'd always defined friendship as a measure of who I could count on in my own moments of weakness. But that night I started to wonder if it wasn't better measured by who could come to me in theirs. I hugged Josh even closer. "I love you. You know that. I love you so much."

He did know too. We didn't have those epiphanal moments that most people have where they suddenly realize they're in love. In fact, I'd told Josh that I was in love with him almost four years before he returned the sentiment. And then I hadn't believed him. We'd just won the campaign and I thought it was just the adrenaline or something. He convinced me, but we agreed that with a Republican Congress, we needed to be even more careful than most other guys. We've never made love, but we have shared a few really remarkable kisses.

So, for now, we love each other in every way that matters, at least until we aren't being scrutinized by everyone and anyone who would want to hurt the President.

We've gotten each other drunk on a few occasions, taken each other home and poured each other into bed. Those are the nights we usually feel safe staying together. Despite what the movies and television would have you believe, no one is stupid enough to actually bug someone's apartment just to blackmail them. And from the outside, photos of someone taking a drunk friend home and staying to be sure he's okay isn't worth paper and ink to print it. So those nights, we don't worry about curling up around each other and sleeping in each other's arms. Those nights are the nights we need to be together the most. If we're out getting drunk, we're either celebrating something or trying to forget something pretty significant.

We're a little too paranoid to risk just spending the night together just because we feel like it. We have an unspoken agreement about keeping our hands to ourselves, because we're both too possessive, too easily hurt to let go when we have to. And we have to. We have to date women on occasion to avoid any speculation that would be damaging to the administration. We both know that it's easier to do what's expected when we don't feel like we're out and out cheating on each other.

Though sometimes I have to wonder if the smoke-screen is a total waste of time. It hasn't escaped either of our notices that when something about hate-crimes or gay legislation comes down, one of us is almost always put on it to some degree or another. I had to go several rounds with the military advisors over Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Josh had to meet with Skinner over the federal definition of marriage (and got more upset with the idea that it disallowed gay marriages than the openly gay Congressman did). We've both had several go-'rounds with Mary Marsh and her merry men. In fact, between the two of us, I'm surprised that we haven't crated her up and sent her to Rome, where she'd be happier.

Maybe Josh mentioned something to Leo. It occurred to me that if I'd had that thought before all of … this, I would have been angry. Today it just seems petty. If he felt even the slightest bit better having someone to talk to, someone to, in Toby's terms, kvetch to, then who was I to bitch? It could have been for personal reasons. Maybe he needed to gripe to someone about the unfairness of our situation to someone who understood keeping a secret. It could have been political too. Spin control. If Leo knew then if anyone tried to out us we could slap them down by saying that those who needed to know our private business did. And since it was his judgement as to whether or not anything was interfering with our ability to do our job and he didn't see any interference, then just what the hell was there to make a fuss over? I'm sure Mary Marsh and her cohorts would say there was plenty to make a fuss over, but since she's not the Chief of Staff we don't have to listen to her. Besides, we're careful.

While I was musing, Josh quieted. I could hear his labored breathing in my ear, but the sobs had stopped and his hold on me relaxed fractionally. "It's okay now. You feel any better?"

When I tried to draw back to look at him, he moved with me. I put my hands on either side of his head and held him still while I shifted to where I could see him.

His eyes were drifting closed and it had clearly become too much effort to hold his head up.

"I've been afraid to sleep. And when I get so tired that I have to… it's been hard."

I nodded, hold him back against me. "Yeah. I think tonight will be easier."

Josh pulled back from me this time. "You'll stay?"

"Of course." I had assumed he'd assume, but I guess that given his current state of mind, I shouldn't be assuming anything. "Of course," I whispered again.

We held each other for another minute before I slipped my hands up his back and into his hair. I leaned in and kissed his lips very gently. "I will always be here for you. How about you let me tuck you into bed?"

Josh leaned his forehead against mine. "Okay."

His voice was soft and scratchy and I found myself fighting tears of my own. I have always loved Josh's voice. It was always so smooth and the slightest New England accent changed how he said certain words. Since the shooting, and the tube they had to shove down his throat to help him breathe, his voice gets scratchy and raw when he's tired or upset. It wasn't so much that I hated the sound itself, but I hated that the way it made me think of why he sounded that way now. All that he'd been through. How stupid and pointless it was.

I was just about to help him stand and tuck him in when he started talking again. "You want to know how screwed up I was for a while?"

I leaned us back into the couch. "What do you mean?" I started gently rubbing his head again and he burrowed into me as he spoke.

"I actually managed to convince myself that I was at fault. That I was… supposed to have been shot."

"Josh –"

"I know now that I was just… justifying, trying to find any reason at all, but I did come up with one."

'What?" I asked, not really wanting to know, but knowing he needed to talk about it.

"If I hadn't hired Charlie to work with the President, then Charlie would have never met Zoey and those racist assholes wouldn't have had a reason to be shooting at him. If I hadn't put Charlie in the position he's in, then none of this would have happened."

"Oh, Josh…" I was at a loss for a minute, but before I could say anything he was at it again.

"I man, Charlie was right next to the President. If he was the target, and they were off by a little it makes sense that they'd hit the President. I was… I was pretty far away from them all, Sam. I don't understand how I ended up being the one shot when I was so far away from their target."

I shifted a little and kissed his temple. "I asked Secret Service about that, you know." Josh sat up and looked at me, shocked. "They don't really know either Josh. They're best guess is that when they took down the guy with the gun, that his hand tightened on the trigger one last time. It must have thrown his aim off…just enough…" I could have sworn I'd told him this when I'd learned it. When I'd chased down Ron Butterfield almost a week after the shooting, still looking for answer to a question I'd had when I gave my original deposition. "Josh, didn't I tell you that before?"

"I don't know. I don't remember." He hid his face against me.

'It's okay. It's all right. If I didn't, I'm really, really sorry. If I did, and you forgot, it's okay. If there's anything else you still don't know, or don't remember, tell me. I'll tell you anything I can. Okay?"

"I was having flashbacks. I was trying so hard, for so long to remember the shooting, but I couldn't. And then I did. But… I wasn't just remembering, I was reliving it and it was making me sick and I couldn't stop it."

He was working himself up again, so I held him close and rubbed his back. "Easy. Easy, it's okay now. Can you remember now?" I asked quietly.

He nodded against me. "I hate it."

"I know. I don't like thinking about it either, but it hurts a little less each time," I told him. We sat and held each other for a while, but before the moment could be lost, I pressed him gently to talk about the last week. "Did you have a flashback at the party?"

"You knew?" he asked, even more color rising in his face.

"I was sitting right behind you. You seemed… pale… shaky… and afterwards, you seemed to just want to get out of there as soon as you could. Were you… sick… after the performance?" I knew he'd run straight for the bathroom after the music ended, but I'd gotten cornered by Didion and couldn't follow.

'Yeah. Leo saw me… sent me home."

"Yeah?" I whispered. "Good. You needed to rest way more than you needed to hobnob with Senators and whoever."

"'Hobnob'?" he repeated, smiling a little.

"Yeah," I said mock-defensively. "What's wrong with 'hobnob'?" I teased.

Josh snuggled into my shoulder, still smiling, "Nothing. Nothing at all," he conceded.

I took a deep breath and got to the last point I really wanted to ask him about that night. "Is that when you broke the window?"

His smile faded instantly and I gripped him tightly to keep him from trying to run off. "Yeah," he whispered. He took a deep breath and then another before speaking again. "At first, when the flashbacks started, they were… not so often you know. When something spooked me or… I remember one night my neighbors burned something and the smell of burnt meat just turned my stomach… I think maybe that was the first time. But then they started getting closer and closer together. I'd had one at the party and I was terrified I was going to have one driving home. But I made it home and I took my jacket off and hung it up in the bedroom. When I came back into the living room there was an ambulance going by. The siren scared the hell out of me. I … I needed it to stop. I couldn't listen to the siren… I tried to smash it…"

His breathing was all uneven again, and he was shaking, like maybe he was having another flashback as he spoke about it. I pulled him back to the moment. "You had a flashback because you heard the siren outside?" I clarified. Anything to get him listening to me and not whatever was happening in his head.

He nodded against me. "The cut… the pain wasn't so bad. It… it gave me something else, something real to focus on, you know?"

I nodded. I'd heard of things like that before. Using physical pain to distract from psychological pain. I hated thinking about Josh feeling like he'd fallen so far that he had to resort to that. "You aren't going to do stuff like that any more are you?"

"No. I have five stitches in a cut that's over four days old, it's gonna scar something awful… I don't think I want to go through that again." He hugged me tight.

I hugged him back, debating whether or not I should bring up my most recent deduction. "That's why you didn't want me to come over, isn't it? I'd see the window and get really worried; tell Leo…"

Josh shrugged still holding me tight. "I knew you were worried, Sam. I've known all along that people were worried and I hated that you were all wasting your energy on me. I didn't want anyone's…" he petered off.

"Pity?" I guessed.

"I don't know that you guys really pitied me. I knew you were worried. I knew that if it was one of you, I'd be the same way, but for some reason being the object of everyone's… concern… I couldn't stand that. I was afraid it'd just get that much worse if you knew I was smashing windows. I wanted you here so badly. I came so close last night to asking if I could stay with you… It seemed like the perfect solution, you'd be there, but you wouldn't see the window. Then I lost it about Millhouse and I didn't think you'd want anything to so with me. I was so busy being 'fine' that I couldn't do it. I wanted to so badly, but I just couldn't."

"Okay," I said difinitively. That was good enough for me. I just needed to know if that was his main reason for keeping me away. I was a little pissed at myself for not stopping up last night, for driving away without even seeing how he felt, but that was in the past and we both needed to get on with life. It was gratifying to know that even when he was as distraught as he'd been this past week he still thought of me first when he needed comfort. "I'm here now. And I'm staying. And you can ask me any time you need some company. Even if you're afraid I'm mad. For what it's worth, I would have loved to have had you stay over last night. God knows I didn't sleep much, I would have liked the company. I wasn't mad about you being upset. I was worried, but not mad. I would never send you away because one of us got a little hot under the collar. It happens. Okay? Next time, ask, all right?"

He nodded, his head drooping heavily on my shoulder. It seemed the more we talked, the more he explained and shared, the more exhaustion was creeping up on him. "Come on," I whispered. "Bed time."

I slid out from under him and pulled him up and into another hug. With one arm around him, I led him down the hall. He was exhausted and lethargic and it seemed easier, in fact kinder, to just do for him instead of trying to get him to move under his own initiative. When we got to his room, I sat him on the edge of the bed, and he just sat there complacently, silently.

It occurred to me that maybe that was part of the problem. Josh was taking phone calls from work while he was still in the hospital. We'd been so pleased to see him recover and he'd been so anxious to show us that he was okay that we let him. Maybe expected him to be too strong too soon. Maybe he needed to be coddled a little bit more. Of course he wanted to work. He griped routinely about how much of his work still had to be staffed out. He wanted us to see that he was okay and that we didn't need to worry or baby him. But just maybe, he did. Maybe he needed us to hover just a little bit more. Push back when he pushed us way, made us show that we did care and we did love him, even when he was cranky and tired and not up to snuff. I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying not to let my thoughts show on my face.

I pulled open his top dresser drawer with a huff. We should have spent more time showing him that we valued him as a person, and not just as White Hose Deputy Chief of Staff. I pulled out a clean, soft "Bartlet for America" t-shirt and the bottoms to some faded flannel pyjamas.

I tossed the clothes onto the bed, next to him. Standing in front of him, I reached for the hem of his white t-shirt. "Come on, let's get you in bed."

As I started tugging his shirt up, his hands shot up and he yanked it back down. "Don't!" He took some breaths and then looked up at me, his eyes wet again. "I'm… I can do it. I'll just go in the bathroom…"

He started to move, but I put a hand on his hsoulder to hold him there. "Josh… Josh, it's okay, let me see it." I'd never seen Josh's scars. I knew there were three of them – one from the bullet, one from the sternal incision and one from the chest tube, but that was because the First Lady had told me about them when Josh was still in surgery. I'd taken him home from the hospital and helped him through the shower that first night, but he'd had gauze over the scars that we'd had to cover with plastic wrap and he'd been pretty insistent on changing his own bandages from the time he'd gotten home.

He squeezed his eyes closed and hung his head. I knelt in front of him, so that even with his head down he'd be able to see me when he opened his eyes. "Come on."

"It's… They're… they're ugly, Sam, please…" he was fighting tears again.

I took a deep breath and a chance. I put my index finger against his collarbone, lightly running it down, over his t-shirt, feeling the smooth ridge of the scar under the fabric. "Only a living, healing body can form scar tissue," I said as gently as I could.

He blinked a few times before focusing on me. He didn't say anything, so I continued. "I know you still hurt sometimes. I know that now you're starting to feel the fear and anger that started with this." I traced the scar gently again. "But as much as it reminds you of how much you've suffered, it's also a symbol of healing. You were in surgery a long time, Josh and we – I – was scared. I…" I had never told him about how all of this had affected me, but it seemed that the more I spoke the more the tense muscles under my hands began to relax little by little, so I kept on. "I saw you in surgery. There was… there was a lot of blood. And I saw parts of you that I never really needed to see," I smiled softly to reduce the sting, and traced the long scar yet again. "But you're okay now. You are. And this is what holds you together. I'd rather see the scars than the inside of your chest again, believe me."

I hadn't meant for that last comment to come out flippantly, but when Josh smiled just a little, I decided that it didn't matter if it had. "Okay?" I asked, tugging just a little on his t-shirt again, letting him stop me if he was still uncomfortable. He still had the tiny smile and wet eyes when he nodded.

"Okay," I affirmed and let me pull his shirt over his head. I tossed it in the general vicinity of the hamper in the corner and turned back to him.

The smile was gone and one tear clung stubbornly to his eyelashes. "It's okay," I whispered and pressed a feather light kiss to the center of the long scar. "Just remember, only a living, healing body can develop scar tissue." I grabbed the old campaign t-shirt and helped him pull it on. We worked together to get the pyjama bottoms up over the boxers he'd been wandering around in all night.

I pulled the rumpled blankets from the end of the bed. I started shaking them out and surveying the room. It was a wreck, even for Josh. I took some folded laundry off the chair in the corner and put it on the dresser. Then I tugged on Josh's arms and got him seated in it.

"What're you doing?" he asked softly, a wonderful look of amusement growing in his eyes.

"Putting clean sheets on the bed. You'll sleep better." And so saying, I went to work. Josh watched as I stripped the linens and shoved them in the hamper, stopping to collect what looked like at least a week's worth of shirts and boxers that hadn't quite made it that far.

I then rummaged through his closet until I found a set of flannel sheets, that no doubt his mother had sent him, still in the plastic wrap. Without asking, I opened the package and put the fitted sheet down and recovered the pillows. I shook out the gray thermal blanket and draped it over the bed before going over to the hall closet and grabbing out the down comforter I knew he had but rarely used.

Steering him over to the freshly made bed, I made small talk and tucked him under the blanket and comforter. "It's going to be about twenty below with the windchill," I told him.

Josh just nodded as he hiked the blankets up under his chin and turned on his side. I tucked him in more securely before kissing him on the temple and standing.

"Sam?" He sounded lost and scared again. "I… I thought you were staying."

I squeezed his shoulder. "I am. I just wanted to get you settled first."

"Okay."

I was touched by the relief in his voice, but I hated it too. I never wanted Josh to need me . Not like this at any rate. "I'm going to find something to sleep in, duck into the bathroom and I'll be right back." I kissed him again for good measure.

I dug through his dresser until I found a pair of draw-string sweats that wouldn't fall off and an old, soft, gray t-shirt.

I went into the bathroom, only partially shitting the door behind me. I changed and rinsed my face off. It had been a remarkably long day. I checked my watch as I took it off and tucked it into my shirt pocket. Almost four. I'd been up almost twenty-four hours. I scratched at my chin, what would almost pass for a beard was starting to itch, so I plugged in Josh's razor and ran it over my face. A short search of the medicine cabinet turned up a wrapped toothbrush and I was glad to scrub off some of the fuzz that was starting to take up residence.

I checked the locks on the front and back doors and made sure that the stove and coffee pot were both off.

I was hoping Josh would be asleep by the time I got back, but when I started rustling through the laundry I'd moved to the dresser he said, "Socks are in the basket over there." He pointed to a laundry basket near the closet.

I smiled. "How'd you know?"

"Because you have that horribly thing California blood. One look at my bed tonight will attest to that." He had that soft smile from before and I felt a weight lift off of me. Josh would be okay. We'd be okay.

I found some white gym socks in the basket and pulled them on before sliding in next to him. "Come here."

Josh hesitated.

"Come on." I shifted to gather him close, his ear resting over my heart. "It'll be okay. I'll be here for you as long as you need me. As long as you want me. I love you." I kissed the top of his head.

"I love you too. Thank you. For all of it, Sam. I don't think I could do this alone."

I shifted us until we were comfortable and pulled the blankets up and got us settled. "You'll never have to find out," I promised as we closed our eyes.

I opened my eyes to find Josh watching me. The only light in the room was coming in from the street lamps and headlights outside, but I could see well enough. "You okay?" I asked quietly.

Josh nodded against the pillow. "Yeah," he whispered.

I shifted to get a better look at Josh's face. "What'cha thinking about?" I asked as I reached over to gently stroke the hair at Josh's temple with the back of my fingers.

Josh closed his eyes and shook his head a little. I kept running my fingers through Josh's hair and waited while he collected his thoughts. "Just trying to put the last few days in… perspective, I guess."

"Can I help?"

Josh snuggled into the gentle stroking and carefully and seemed to struggle with his words before finally saying, "Can you answer a question for me?"

"Sure. If I know the answer." I shifted onto my back and pulled Josh over until his head rested on my chest, my fingers still gently sifting through his hair.

"Why'd you come over tonight?" Josh spoke in a rush, like he was afraid he'd get hit for the question.

"Josh, I knew where you were all day. I was in there for a while too, you know. I wasn't going to leave you alone tonight."

Josh was quiet for a minute, seemingly weighing my answer. "How'd you know when I got home?"

I studied him in the dim light. "What are you trying to get me to tell you?" I asked.

Josh sighed. "I'm not mad, I'm really not, but…" he stopped and sighed before plowing on. "This may be an incredibly self-involved question, but, if you were worried about me being alone tonight, why didn't you wait for me?"

"Oh, that's what this is about." I found myself smiling slightly.

Josh ducked his head, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, I figured Donna would tell you. Donna's big on sharing, as I'm sure you've noticed." I hugged him tight as I talked.

Josh chuckled. "Yeah, some days I swear every thought that goes through her head comes out her mouth. So what didn't she tell me?"

"I got in Leo's face tonight."

"You didn't," Josh gasped, straining to look up at me.

"Yeah, I wanted to wait, I actually fell asleep at my desk waiting, and Leo wanted me to go home. He said he was waiting and Donna had already gone to him about making sure you went to the doctor's for your hand and he said that was enough people waiting around. I didn't like that at all. I told him that."

"Let me guess – loudly?" Josh asked.

"Yeah. Josh… we all told that guy today that we've been worried for a little while. And you know how I get when I get worried about something; I don't sleep. Once… once I knew you were getting some help, I felt a lot better. I had no idea how it'd go for you in there, but I was really starting to feel that it couldn't get much worse," I ran my fingers through Josh's hair again to mitigate the sting of my words, "So, by about ten-thirty I started nodding off over agriculture reports. You want to talk about a good cure for insomnia, try reading about the corn yields in various parts of Nebraska for a while. So anyway, Leo said I had to go home. Before I left I made it very clear to Donna that if you didn't let her stay that she would call me when she left or there'd be serious hell to pay. I may have to apologize for… well, how clear I made it."

"You threatened Donna?" Josh sounded both awed and worried.

"No… that would be too strong a word, I think. More like… painted a very clear picture of what would happen if she didn't call." I kissed the top of Josh's head. "Go figure, while you were still in with the ATVA guy, I could sleep. At my desk, in a suit and an office that is never nearly as warm as the thermostat would like me to believe, I could sleep. When I wasn't sure where you were or how you were, it didn't matter how comfortable I was. I wasn't even close to sleeping. And I couldn't read… well, I could but I couldn't remember a damn thing for more than about eight seconds. I finally decided that if I didn't hear from Donna by one, I was coming over anyway."

"What if she'd been here still?"

"I would have told her to go home."

"D'ya think she would have gone?"

"D'ya think I would have cared?" I shifted us so that Josh was on his stomach and I could rub his back.

"She's not dumb, you know. She would have started asking questions," Josh mumbled into the pillow.

"I know she's not dumb. Occasionally annoying, but not dumb. And I would have just told her that she needs to mind her own business. She's not going to say anything to anyone. In fact I'd honestly be surprised if she hasn't at least started to question."

Josh was drifting, nodding just a little into his pillow. I kissed his cheek. "Good night," I whispered. Josh just snuggled in closer to me.

We lazed around Josh's house the next day. He tried to get me to go and find someone to "have Christmas" with, but I told him I was with the person I wanted to be with. And besides, personally, I was just grateful for a day off, the holiday behind it wasn't important to me. At about two, I looked through Josh's videos and stuck in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I knew I was being over protective, but I figured a pre-industrial era comedy would be 'safe'. There was no way in hell I was going to put in a movie with any kind of gun in it.

Josh was drifting on the sofa, opening his eyes every few minutes to watch the good parts and then drifting back off. He laughed out loud at the cow on the catapult. I turned and glared at him, it was funny, but not that funny.

"It is that funny… from where I'm sitting right now, that is really funny," he told me.

I just raised an eyebrow. He'd explain if he wanted to. Otherwise I didn't want to know.

"I mean, just imagine the weird reactions I'd have if someone threw a cow at me instead of shooting me. I'd be freaking out at leather chairs and hamburgers. I'd have flashbacks from Donna's black and white cow-looking address book."

And then we were both laughing hysterically. I wasn't sure if it was healthy or not, but the tension had been so unbearable for the last few weeks that we needed to laugh about something. And Josh laughing about his own PTSD was about as good as anything. Laughter had to be healthy, I was sure of that. I couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed about anything. When we finally got control of ourselves again, his eyes were wet and he was holding his stomach and complaining that sometimes it still hurt to laugh.

Josh fell asleep before the movie ended, so I got up and turned off the t.v. I brought the thermal blanket from his room out and lay it over him. I thought for a minute he was going to wake up, but he didn't, he just grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it up to his chin and turned in towards the back of the couch.

I stood watching him for a minute trying to decide what to do with myself. I'd come over for the night without the foresight to bring a spare pair of shorts, so I certainly hadn't bothered with my computer or anything else.

His window had been boarded up from the outside, but there were still a few glass shards on the floor, so I started picking them up. I wondered briefly if there was some sort of psychological thing I was disrupting by doing this for him, if he should do it to, I don't know, have some closure on what happened, but it was bugging me. We were both walking around in our socks, and someone was going to get a splinter. And with my track record, it was probably going to be me. I grabbed a two-week-old newspaper from the unread pile near the front door and piled all the glass pieces I could see onto it and dumped it in the trash. I'd vacuum when he woke up.

I was looking through his bookshelves when I heard it. At first, I heard it, acknowledged it and ignored it. But as it got louder I started swearing, because it was too late to do anything about it.

"No!" Josh shot up from the couch, panting and sweating. He saw me coming in from the dining room, "What was that?"

I sat on the edge of the couch with him, pushing his hair back. "It was an ambulance. Outside. It's gone now, it's okay."

He fell back against the couch arm, still trying to get his breathing under control. He dropped his head, his eyes closed. "I can still hear it."

I couldn't. It had sped off down the street and was long gone, but I knew that wasn't what Josh meant anyway. "It's gone. It's okay." I tugged on his arm until he sat up and leaned on my shoulder. "It's okay." I rubbed his back until he relaxed a little. Finally, he hugged me and leaned back.

"Were you here?" he asked quietly.

"What?" I wasn't sure what he was asking.

"When the ambulance went by, were you here?"

It seemed like an odd question, since I'd gotten to him as soon as I realized that if he heard that in his sleep, he wasn't going to react well. Where else could I have been? "Yeah, I was looking for a book."

Josh glanced behind him to where the bookshelves were, almost as if gauging how far away I'd been. "I couldn't hear you," he whispered.

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just squeezed his hand.

"In the ambulance. I couldn't hear you over the sirens. Sometime it wasn't so bad, so damn loud, and I could hear you talking to me. But sometimes it was so loud. I couldn't feel my hands… it was off and on, you know? I … sometimes I could see you, but the sirens were so loud and I couldn't hear…"

He pulled his knees up and hid his face. I moved around behind him, my hand always on him, so he wouldn't think I was leaving. I pulled him back so that he could lean against my chest and petted his hair while quiet tears flowed onto my shirt. "I was there," I told him. "I was with you all the way to the hospital."

He nodded. "I couldn't hear you."

"It's okay now," I soothed. "You weren't alone then and you aren't alone now. And as much as you feel really awful right now, you are getting better." I didn't know what else to say, so I just whispered, "I love you," and kissed his temple.

It took him a few minutes to calm down, and when he did, he showed no signs of moving off my lap. Which was fine with me. I rubbed his back and let him just relax in the quiet. A long time later he started fidgeting and I could tell he was gearing himself up to say something. "What?" I encouraged.

"I… I have to start going to see someone. You know… so I don't keep freaking out."

"I know."

"You do?" he seemed bothered by that.

"Well, I surmised. I mean, it helps knowing what's upsetting you, but it's going to take some time to learn what to do about it, right?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to start next week, when we get back from the break."

"Okay." I wasn't sure what he was driving towards, but there was a goal in this discussion. I just needed to wait him out until he got us there.

"What can I tell him? I mean… about us. I don't want to… I don't want you mad at me for saying something, you know…" He was mumbling into my shirt and I had to strain to hear him.

"Tell him anything you want, Josh. He's your doctor and it would probably help a whole lot if you didn't keep anything from him. He can't tell anyone anything you say in therapy – doctor/patient confidentiality won't let him. And I'm not ashamed."

He looked up at me then, a little stricken. "That's not what I meant –" he tried to clarify.

"I know. But I want to be sure you understand. If, somehow, it were to get out that I spent the night here last night, holding you and helping you, that wouldn't really bother me. I'm sure there would be those who would insist that it's more than it is right now, but we know they're wrong. And yeah, in a different place and a different time we probably would be sleeping together in the euphemistic way, but we aren't now, so there isn't much to tell. You know?" I was a little bothered by the idea that he expected me to want him to lie to his therapist, but I took a deep breath and let it go. The guy who came to see Josh yesterday asked me if I'd characterize some of Josh's behavior as 'damage control.' I'd told him that most of his behavior was damage control. He was even worse with the 'talk first, think later' than he usually was. And I realized that he was still in that mode. With everyone. Including me. In this case it was pre-emptive, but it was damage control all the same. "I love you. And if part of getting better means telling your doctor that, then do it. Hell, if you need me to go with you sometimes, I will. You can tell him that too."

Josh smiled against me. "Thanks. I think they're going to have to add 'paranoid' to my diagnosis."

"Maybe just a little," I teased and felt worlds better when he laughed at the barb.

He sobered, "Thanks."

"You're welcome." I wasn't sure what he was thanking me for – being there when the ambulance scared him, being in the ambulance with him, telling him that he could talk to his shrink about me or telling him I'd go with him – but it didn't matter. "You going to try and get a little more sleep?"

He shrugged. "I feel like a total slug. I just want to lay here and do nothing."

"We can do that," I began stroking his back, stopping when I felt a knot in his shoulder and working it out with my thumbs. He purred. Josh is the biggest pushover in the world when it comes to back rubs. "If you want to sit on the floor in front of me, I'll do your back," I offered.

He slipped down between the couch and the coffee table. I sat up behind him, pulling him back between my knees and started on his neck. I wanted to put on a CD, but Josh was none too keen on music at that point. I grabbed the t.v. remote and flipped the set back on, surfing around until I found some inane comedy and turned the volume down a little lower than we'd need it to actually listen to the dialogue.

Josh glanced up at the screen. "You watch this stuff?"

"No, but it's noise." I went back to working on the knots.

"Huh?"

"I was just looking for something that would make a little white noise, drown out the sounds from outside." I hoped he wouldn't get pissed. He's the only person I know who gets more protective of the people he cares about than I do, but he really hates it when the tables get turned on him.

"Oh. Okay."

I sighed, glad he wasn't angry.

The next day I braved the chaos that is the retail world on December twenty-sixth to get Josh a present. Things had been so hectic recently that I hadn't gotten him a Christmas present yet. It wasn't until I was trying to make my way through the throngs at a department store that I realized I wasn't even sure when Hanukkah was this year. At any rate, I finally found what I was looking for and headed for the check out counter. While in line, I spotted something that would have him in stitches, even if he did have to talk to that really weird Senator from Illinois today.

When I got back to work, I had Cathy dig up something to use for wrapping paper and made… well a total butcher job of wrapping the big box, and put the other things in my pocket.

He was rubbing his temples as he frowned at his computer when I found him. He didn't see me, so I backed up to Donna's desk. "He talk to Martinsen yet?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she was trying to surreptitiously look around me to see into Josh's office to check on him.

"Went that well, huh?"

Donna just glared at me.

"Wanna see him laugh?" I asked her. I knew she wouldn't get the joke, but it would do her some good to see Josh get it.

I put the box on her desk, "Leave this here a minute," I said and reached into my pocket, feeling for the one of the two objects I wanted. I moved into the doorway and knocked lightly, "Hey."

He looked up wearily from his pasta salad and what looked like a computer manual, "Hey,"

I tried to keep the smile off my face. "Catch." In a clumsy overhand throw I tossed my prize to him.

He caught it easily between his hands and opened them to look at it. Donna came running when she heard him laughing. He was leaning on his desk, holding his ribs and I was propped up in the doorway. "What happened?"

Josh could barely answer. "Sam threw a cow at me." We both went into a whole new round of hysterics.

I calmed just long enough to hold up the other thing in my pocket. "It gets better… this was in the same bag of zoo toys." I held up a two-inch plastic flamingo and he doubled over again.

"You know, they changed the code names again," he told me.

"Yeah, which is why I can get away with this without like… breaching national security or something." I moved into his office and fell into a chair, spotting Donna out of the corner of my eye, smiling as she shuffled papers.

"Get away with what?" he asked me.

"I'm going to glue it to her podium before her next briefing. Four networks, CNN, CNBC, Fox News… and she'll face all their cameras with a flamingo glued to her podium."

It was so good to see him laughing so much.

"You know what we need to do?" he asked me when he could breathe again. "We need to flamingo her office on her next birthday. Hey Donna!" he called out.

She came to the door, "Yeah?"

"When's C.J.'s birthday?" he asked.

"I'm not sure…" she looked at us both, worried. "What are you two planning?"

"We're going to get a bunch of those yard flamingos and flamingo her office," I explained. Donna just blinked. "Her secret service code name used to be Flamingo. She hated it with a passion," I told her.

"Ah. I'll find out when that is…" she looked at us both trying to hide the fact that she was glad things were back to abnormal, but probably wondering about the sudden mood shift.

I knew things weren't going to be all sunshine and roses. That music would still be a… thing for Josh for a while and sirens. That reminded me… I jumped up and grabbed the box off Donna's desk. When I came back in I shut the door. "I totally forgot to see when Hanukkah was this year, but… um… here." I sucked at stuff like that.

He took it from me. "You know, I have Donna wrap stuff for me. I'm sure Kathy'd do yours if you asked nicely enough."

"Yeah, because you're one of those meticulous people who carefully unwraps and keeps the wrapping -," I started as he savagely tore the shiny green paper off. "I rest my case."

"A white noise machine?"

"Yeah," I suddenly felt nervous, like maybe I'd overstepped a line. "You know, so you can sleep. It's the smallest one I could find, that way I figure you could take it with you when… you know on trips and stuff. It has like seven different noises: the ocean, rain, wind –"

"Yeah, Sam I can read the box," he cut me off. I stared at my shoes. When I looked up again he had a slight smile on his face. "If I use this, I won't be able to hear you."

I smiled back. "So don't use it when I'm there." I shrugged not sure what else to say. I knew what I wanted to say but it was incredibly corny, so I kept it to myself.

"What?" Josh prodded gently.

"Nothing. It's… it's nothing." I was looking at my shoes again. I needed to get them polished sometime soon.

"It is not. What?" he persisted.

"It's corny."

"So?"

"I was just thinking that…" I took a deep breath and plowed on, knowing he'd call me a sentimental girl when I was done, "I was thinking that on the nights I'm not there you could listen to that and… I don't know, think of me being there for you." I knew I was blushing and I wanted to loosen my tie.

"Hey,"

I glanced up at him. He was getting up and coming around his desk. He grabbed my hand and pulled me back towards him, away from the windows and behind the door should it open. He hugged me tight. "Thank you."

I hugged him back. "You're welcome."

Breaking the hug was awkward, neither of us wanting to, but knowing we were pushing it. Josh went back around and fell into his chair, poking at his pasta salad again. "You eat?" he asked me.

"Yeah, when I went out earlier. We were just looking at each other now. He didn't want to tell me to go away so he could work and I didn't want to just walk out, even though we both knew that's what needed to happen.

"So I'll see you later," I said and opened the door.

"Yep." I had just cleared the doorway when he called my name again. I turned around just in time to see him pound his good hand against his fork and get my hands up to try and catch the catapulted cow. Unfortunately, as the entire senior staff loves to remind me, I'm not the most coordinated person in the West Wing. I missed the cow.

Even more unfortunate was the fact that Leo had just come around the corner to check on Josh (he'd never admit that was what he was doing, but how often does the Chief of Staff get up to deliver his own memos?). He saw it coming and got a hand up in time to deflect it to the floor.

"Joshua? What the hell is this?" he asked, bending over to pick it up.

Josh and I laughed hysterically again as Leo threw it back at him. I knew things were going to take time, that a lot of things might never be the same. But a flying plastic cow and plans for a few dozen lawn flamingos went a long way towards making me believe we were going to be okay.