Josh asks a question, Ryan makes a promise.

Washington D.C.

November 2037

Ryan Pierce speed-walked past desks, flipped through papers, and managed to avoid crashing into any of the support staff that zipped by.

Ryan had news for the President-elect on the people they had been vetting for Senior Staff positions. The majority of them had worked for the campaign and had made it through a round of vetting for their campaign jobs so it hadn't taken long to make sure there weren't any skeletons deeper in the closets of people who were going to be working in the White House.

"Mrs. Esposito, is the President-elect-" Ryan finally looked up from the file he'd been looking at only to realize that there was no one at the desk he had stopped in front of.

Ryan looked past the desk and noticed that the door to the President-elect's office was partially open. He decided to see for himself if the President-elect was in his office, and if he wasn't, Ryan decided he might as well wait there for a few minutes before starting to make calls to locate the President-elect, it would be easier to go over the files in his hands while in a sitting position instead of while dashing from point A to point B, after all.

"Can't even keep track of my own guy. I'm going to have to put a locator chip in his neck," Ryan muttered to himself as he knocked then slowly pushed the door open.

As Ryan suspected, the President-elect wasn't in his office, he was however surprised to find that the office wasn't completely unoccupied. Josh was sitting on the couch by the door.

"Oh, Josh. I didn't see Mrs. Esposito out there and I'm looking for the President-Elect," Ryan explained as Josh looked up from what he was reading. "I've got news on some of the vetting."

"He had to step out for a few minutes, he should be back soon," Josh replied.

"Mind if I wait in here?"

There had been a time quite a few years ago when Ryan Pierce wouldn't have even bothered to ask Josh something like that, he would have strolled in and planted himself wherever he chose, despite any protests from Josh; but the young Pierce that had been Josh Lyman's intern had undergone a few changes.

"Nah, go ahead," Josh answered.

Ryan sat in a chair across from Josh.

It only took Josh a few seconds to break the silence.

"You know your uncle warned me about you. I should've listened, but I never thought you were this ambitious; gunning for my job the entire time," Josh teased, but the smile faded quickly and Josh looked directly into Ryan's eyes. "You'll look after him won't you?"

Ryan gave Josh a lopsided grin. He was certain Josh had wanted to corner him and ask him that question since the day Josh's son had won the Democratic Primary, when the now President-elect had made it clear that he wanted Ryan as his Chief-of-Staff if he won again in November. But the old Ryan hadn't disappeared, not completely, and he had avoided any serious conversations with Josh for months. If it wasn't political it wasn't a conversation Ryan wanted to have with Josh, but there was no running away now.

"If he wants to go scream at national monuments I'll have the Secret Service clear whatever he wants to yell at, if he ever needs me to play mind games with the opposition while they're watching from the Roosevelt Room I'll do it, he ever gets stood up by anyone and I'll be there for him, especially now that I have moved up in the world; dinner at Morton's is nice, but this is the White House."

The expression on Ryan's face changed and mirrored Josh's more serious one before he continued, he needed Josh to know that he really meant what he was about to say.

"I'll advise him and I'll support him, I'll do my job to the best of my ability so he can do his, and I will always have his back, Josh."

Josh couldn't help but feel moved by the sincerity in his former intern's voice. And with that Josh knew that having _ by his side, and Ryan in the office next door, _ would have the support he would need to get through four years of the grueling task he'd been elected to perform, and maybe even four more years after that.

"Don't get too cheeky about finally getting to move into one of my old offices in January. By the time I was your age I already had several years as Chief of Staff under my belt," Josh said, returning to the lighthearted tone that their conversation had started with.

"Yeah, well, I had to wait for the right guy to come along didn't I?" said Ryan with a smile before they both looked back down at what they'd been reading, both of them pretending that they hadn't been feeling at all emotional just moments before.

A/N: I know this is a little odd but I left two names blank because I don't want to spoil a few things. I know I could publish the stuff that explains the "_"s before publishing stuff with spoilers but the manic part of The Depression has dictated that I HAVE to publish something NOW and this little vignette was the only thing that was close to being ready for publication. I'll eventually put names in those blank spaces when I've published more vignettes for this anthology.