Sam passes the Bar three days before his twenty-first birthday, on a blustery march day, winds gusting strong enough to rattle the rickety windows in their frames so often he always finds it a minor miracle he passed at all.

He almost missed the whole thing. Not by accident either.

It has been nearly six years since he spoke to his parents. Not because there was a disagreement. Sam may have moved out at fifteen, but he was never emancipated. This fact will one day give Josh heart attacks-more because he only finds out when he's working to get Sam elected to the Oval Office, and not because he is the man's best friend-but there really is no way to slice the first three years of Sam's academic career without running into the inescapable fact that he was essentially living completely on his own from the age of fifteen(edit).

No, it wasn't that they had an argument. They didn't kick him out either. It was more that Sam left, and his parents confirmed his fears that they never cared enough to come after him by failing to call him for the next five and three-quarter years. Honestly, Sam will later wonder a lot about why they bothered to steal him in the first place, when he was such a clear disappointment.

All of which goes a way to explaining why when the phone rings the morning he is scheduled to sit the Bar exam and Sam picks it up to hear the gruff voice of Gerald Seaborn on the other end of the line, he promptly drops the phone hard enough to crack the plastic.

Staring at it like it might turn into a snake and bite him, Sam seriously considers simply leaving the thing there, squawking "Samuel?" like a demented parrot. He has a rather important test to get to after all.

To Sam's shame, but not to anyone's surprise, he picks it back up anyway. He blows out a steadying breath, and tries for neutral, "Hello Dad."

"Samuel, that is no way to address your father." Yeah, there went neutral.

It takes nearly twenty minutes for Sam to figure out the purpose of his father's call: What kind of law firm his father expects him to enter after he passes the Bar.

Sam briefly considers whether he should take this presumption as a backhanded complement. He glances at the clock, pales, and mentally writes the entire though away as wishful thinking.

He considers hanging up. Instead, he says "Yes Father" in all the right places, patiently waits for his father to finally ring off with a ground out, "I'll do that Sir," and runs for it.

Sam is three minutes late for the Bar. He gets in on a fluke, one of his professor's taking in his flustered appearance and glassy eyes and taking pity on him. He doesn't remember a single minute of the test, his father's voice refusing to leave his skull the entire time.

Somehow, he gets the top score of the entire cohort.

That same Professor, who turns out to be an old friend of future President Bartlett, will one day tell the entire odd tale to the Barletts over cocktails, Sam wondering at the bizarre coincidences of his life with every bitter sip of orange-tinted vermouth.

The President side eyes Sam for the entire story, pausing until Abbey has skillfully steered the Professor off to avoid a cricket-chirping silence following the chuckling end of the story, "And that's how your deputy-chief of staff here almost missed the Bar exam!"

Seriously, he knows he and Josh both have vaguely the same colour hair, if its dark and raining, but really? He'd taken the highest score of anyone that guy ever taught. Honestly, Toby had checked!

Jed still seems more interested in Sam's face than the story. "Want to fill in the blanks for the rest of the class Samuel?" Or maybe not.

Sam focuses on those eyes, so blue and gentle he sometimes feels he could happily drown in them. Across the dancefloor, Abbey is introducing his professor to Lionel Tribbey, who appears to have actually somehow gotten his cricket bat passed security again.

Sam feels something in his chest swell. He looks back at those oceans of blue, and lets the words just sort of slip out. "Gerald called me that morning. First time I'd heard from him in over half a decade. And, well, let's just say he didn't call to discuss the weather."

Jed's face takes on an interesting shade of puce, and Sam begins looking around frantically for Abbey, praying his unexpected attempt at more transparency in this whole newly found family thing didn't just kill his newly found dad.

It isn't until much later that it occurs to Sam that when he said all that, he didn't even think of calling Gerald his father.

00

It was a frustrating meeting at the end of a more frustrating week, and Sam is honestly considering letting them all go happily drown in that inevitable oil slick they're all so busy denying will one day soon be a definite thing.

Plus his boss is beginning to remind him unerringly of his father, despite looking absolutely nothing like him. Not listening to Sam seemed to be a trait they had in common.

Sam is considering asking the man whether he hated democrats and liked roast duck because honestly, he and dear old dad should get together and have a barbecue sometime when someone taps obnoxiously on the glass behind his boss' head.

Sam never walked out on his father, not once. Not while the man was in the same room anyway.

Somehow, following Josh out that door is the easiest thing he's ever done in a long time. It feels oddly liberating all the same.

Because Sam has never had the courage to say no to his father in his life. Not about a single thing. Still hasn't really. But he thinks maybe his boss is a good start.

00

It was a ridiculous way to meet someone. To meet anyone. Sam always blames the peanut butter. Or Josh.

Really though, he should probably be blaming the flight to the other end of the country, the raging rants masquerading as messages his newly former fiancé has been leaving for him by the machine memory load, and the sheer demonic nature of his new boss.

Whose name is escaping him nearly as much as the blasted jar of peanut butter's lid keeps stubbornly sticking. Sam growls under his breath, muttering a cut off curse.

It's three in the morning, he hasn't eaten in eighteen hours because Josh is a great planner in many areas but practicality rarely enters into those plans, and he is relatively sure his ex just committed tax fraud by running off with the entire contents of his bank account.

And the damned jar of peanut butter won't open. Sam isn't sure how this situation could get any worse. Although that may just be the exhaustion talking.

Sam is contemplating bashing the jar against the stove, glass shards in food be damned, when soft footfalls finally alert him to another presence in the darkened kitchen.

Sam only thought to flip the stove light on when he came in, but as this is an industrial strength kitchen, literally, the light is powerful enough to cast a stark, clinical glow over the entire room. And emerging from that glow, mussed hair and blue eyes and Notre Dame sweatshirt. Even without the oddly halo like quality cast on the man by the stove light, Sam Seaborn would recognize Josiah Bartlett anywhere. Although the halo didn't hurt.

The incumbent Governor of New Hampshire stops a few feet shy of Sam and his pool of light and regards the peanut butter jar on the counter with an almost predatory air.

"Do you by any chance need a hand with that son?" Sam will later remember that as an oddly appropriate thing for the man to have said the first time they laid eyes on each other.

At the time, he simply flushes deep red and silently curses Josh. Apparently he was wrong. This situation could get a whole lot worse.

Sam blames the exhaustion for what he says next. "No, thank you Governor." So far so good, "Although I'm also looking for apples, if you might have happened to spot any?" Internally, Sam groans. Did he seriously just ask a State Governor, ask Josiah Barlett himself, to help him find a piece of fruit?

For just a moment, something flickers in his companion's gaze, something Sam is too tired to identify before it is almost instantly replaced by a look of gentle amusement that Sam will eventually come to love. Now, it just makes him feel confused.

"Apples and peanut butter huh? My family all think that's a disgusting combination." And there's that look again. Sam feels he is missing something.

Normal manual dexterity, possibly, if the enviable ease with which the Governor has just liberated the peanut butter from both Sam's hand and its lid. He then proceeds to dip a finger into the open jar, bringing it up to his mouth and honest to goodness sucking on it.

Sam is starting to wonder if he's actually asleep. The sweatshirt wearing, peanut butter licking hero of his childhood chooses that moment to turn his intense blue eyes back to Sam.

"I'm sorry, it's been a long day so hopefully you'll forgive me-" There was an awkward pause. "What's your name again?" Sam suddenly wishes he truly was asleep.

He manages to squeak out a slightly not-awkward, "I'm Sam sir." Yeah, totally not awkward. Sure.

The Governor is looking amused again. And possibly slightly confused. And also strangely alert for this hour of the night. "Well I'm Sam, do you like peanut butter and apples?"

Sam feels a helpless little grin spread across his face because honestly? "Yes sir, I love them together. Particularly with chocolate milk." That last was either too much information, or too odd a combination for the Governor's stomach at three AM, because his companion's face pales from amused to oddly hollow in the span of mere moments.

He backs towards the kitchen door with hurried steps, miraculously missing backing into anything on the way. "Well, Sam, you have a good night now." And just like that, Jed Bartlett is gone as quickly as he appeared. Sam feels his eyes prickle once again, and blinks them rapidly. The heat in his face doesn't exactly help.

It isn't until Sam is turning to leave the kitchen himself, empty-handed and appleless, and the finally notices. "He stole my peanut butter." In the stillness of that industrial kitchen at nearly gone 4 AM, Sam can't help but laugh at that.

And that's how he met the next President of the United States.

It was a ridiculous way to meet someone. The kind of absurd anecdote you wouldn't even tell at a cocktail party for fear of asphyxiating on your drink from sheer embarrassment.

It was a truly mortifying way to meet the future president of the united states.

Sam will one day look back on that moment and think that it was a ridiculous was to meet anyone.

But it was also, somehow, the perfect way to meet Jed Bartlett.

The perfect way to meet his father.

00

Leo McGarry is a giant in the Democratic party, a force behind the scenes that holds more power than most at the forefront of the action will ever know. Sam knows this long before he ever claps eyes on the man. His political acumen may not be up to Josh's level of devious manipulation, but he is far from a slouch.

Meeting the man is anticlimactic in a way, the knowledge that Leo hand-picked Josh and Josh then hand-picked Sam sitting easily in his stomach up till the moment when Leo calls him Josh.

Sam feels more insulted for Josh's sake than his own. Although really, do they actually look that similar?

Sam is in hesitant, breathless process of explaining why telling him to wrangle the big-wig investors and Josh to write the next copy for Toby's approval is a really had idea to an understandably but still insultingly distracted Leo McGarry when an intern with a fresh pot of coffee backs into a tall woman who he's pretty sure was just introduced to them all as C-something, who proceeds to tilt alarmingly, flail, and flounder smack into Sam.

The stumble breaks her fall beautifully, and sends Sam's head plowing straight into the nearest metal doorframe. Leo appears to be contemplating whether to catch Sam or laugh out loud when the floor rushes up to meet him a moment later.

Wonderful first impression he made there.

00

Sam comes to with a jolt, his head jerk restrained by a firm, practiced hand. There is the muted scent of perfume in the air, and the figure that slowly swims into focus appears to be wearing a functional but elegant mauve skirt-suit. Sam blinks again.

Yes, that is in fact the Governor's wife holding a wad of gauze to the wet, throbbing mass at his temple. A first aid kit is open beside them, supplies arranged with professional economy.

It is the first and only time Sam will ever think of Abigail Barlett as a politician's wife first, and a doctor second.

"Can you hear me? Don't try to get up. I need you to follow this for me, alright?" Sam lets his eyes follow the pen for a moment before attempting to rise once again. Dr. Bartlett is having none of this turn of events.

"And just where do you think you're going young man? You will lie there quietly and wait for the paramedics." However, Sam is having none of it either. He doesn't need a mother-hen in his life, Josh is bad enough.

Nor does he need the future first-lady kneeling at his side, tending to his every scrape and bruise. Sam learned how to survive on his own a long time ago, thank you very much.

"Listen, Dr. Bartlett, thank you very much for your concern, and the excellent first-aid, but I have no double vision or nausea, I was unconscious for less than a minute, I have no memory gaps, my pupils are even and reactive, and I am completely cognizant and alert." Sam takes in her implacable expression, and recalculates.

"Also my new boss would rather hate it if I had to be carted off to the hospital for my own clumsiness on my first day. And frankly Ma'am, I would really like the chance to help your husband become the next President of the United States." He plasters on his best mega-watt smile, extra innocence and charm. For a moment, something infinitely sad and anguished crosses Dr. Bartlett's eyes. Sam doesn't even have a chance to furrow his brow before it's gone, replaced with an exaggerated eye-roll and an equally exasperated laugh.

She glances up at Leo McGarry, lurking in the office doorway. Josh must still be out, wrangling that Senator. "Well frankly, I don't know what you were worried about Leo. Josh here certainly has a hard-enough head. I'm sure he'll fit right in."

Sam appreciates the vote of confidence, but really? Again? Maybe he should give up and start wearing a name-tag.

The Governor interrupts their conversation before either of them get a chance to respond to that comment, announcing his presence by lobbing an apple at Sam's head.

He fumbles the catch somewhat, needs both hands, but he does catch it, before the other occupants of the room have finished turning to glare at their latest addition.

"Hey Sam, I found those apples we were looking for the other night." It's a casual toss of a comment, but apparently Sam won't be needing that nametag.

"Well, he looks fine to me, but I'm not the one with the shiny medical degree, so Sam, you're going to be a good little speech writer and do what the nice doctor tells you and go get checked out to make sure you're not going to start bleeding profusely all over my apples." None of that was phrased as a question.

Sam gazes at the faces surrounding him, ranging from implacable to stern, all with an undeniable component of concerned built into their expressions.

He groans out a quiet "Yes Sir" and stares morosely at his apple.

Frankly he thinks the name-tag idea would have been preferable.