21: Excruciating

Josh's knees threatened to buckle under him. Oh, God, no. Don't let it be what I think it is. Let it be... hell, let it be anything. Just not that.

Leo was doing that truly evil thing he did where he just looked at them neutrally and waited. Josh stared at somewhere beyond his left ear, and tried to decide whether the awkwardness of shuffling closer to Sam would be mitigated by the benefits of being within elbowing distance.

Finally, Leo said "Care to explain what's going on?"

"Sir?" blurted Sam, completely forgetting informality in his nervousness.

"Oh, cut the crap, guys," Leo said angrily. "I'm not completely blind."

Josh fought not to break down and confess all. If Leo had held off for a millisecond longer, he wouldn't have succeeded.

"Now, I don't know what's got into the pair of you, but it's pretty clear that neither one of you's got their mind on their work. So would one of you boys care to enlighten me to exactly what's going on here?"

Josh reluctantly decided that collapsing on the floor and crying "Oh, thank God!" would probably not be well received.

He doesn't know. God exists, the world still spins, and Leo doesn't know. All is right with the universe.

Fortunately, while Josh was busy giving thanks and wondering if he could rearrange his schedule to start attending Temple again, Sam was covering their asses.

"I'm sorry, Leo. It's me. I've- I've had a lot of stuff going on. Personal stuff. I- It's taken a while to sort it, but I've got it licked now." He nodded slowly and gave Leo his most sincere look. "I'm back on board."

Leo shuffled papers for a minute, then nodded in return. "You'd better be. Okay." CJ or the President might have pressed for him to open up, but Leo, like Toby, would rather not know.

As they were turning to go, Leo cleared his throat and said "Josh? Hang back a minute, would you?"

Josh wheeled around obligingly. "Leo?"

"We're putting some polls in the field about the gun thing."

"Okay."

"Your friend Joey Lucas is gonna be back in town."

Josh blinked, but nodded. "Okay." Right now, he'd take Donna throwing him at Joey Lucas if it meant an end to Donna throwing him at Sam.

Leo shuffled papers a little longer. Then, to Josh's surprise and nervousness, he got up from the desk and started to pace. He was silent for a long moment, looking at the floor.

"Leo?"

Leo stopped pacing, facing away from him. "Josh. Um... I've been hearing... Um. Is there anything...?" He broke off, and shot the younger man a somewhat helpless look.

Josh felt his entire body freeze up in panic and alarm.

This is not happening. Please, God, tell me this is not happening.

An agitated Sam was lurking outside, waiting for him. He took one look at the expression on Josh's face, and blanched.

Fortunately, Margaret was nowhere to be seen. Sam pulled Josh aside, and said with wide eyes "Josh, did he ask you about-?"

"Yeah," said Josh. He felt like his face had frozen into the sort of expression you got when your parents started talking about sex.

Sam kicked at the carpet awkwardly for a moment, and then blurted "How'd it go?"

"Besides being excruciatingly embarrassing for both of us?"

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him we were very happy together and considering buying a beach-house on the East Coast. What d'you think I told him?"

Snapping at Sam, however, brought no relief. The writer was wearing his kicked puppy expression, the one that made him look about four years old.

Josh sighed. "Look, I told him you were feeling really ill, you got shook up and you spilled coffee on yourself. I had to help you change your shirt because your hands were still shaking, and that's how the whole stupid rumour got started."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay."

"Yeah," said Josh, a little sickly.

Sam blinked. "Not okay?" he asked nervously.

"It's just... I'm not entirely sure he believed me."