Chapter Twenty Six

Sam was eating pizza, watching football and drinking beer and he felt more normal than he had in weeks. Toby was doing likewise but his thoughts were focused on the phone call he'd just received from Leo. He knew something was about to happen and he knew it had to do with the attack on Sam but that was all he knew. Leo had phoned to warn him the news would probably break tonight about an arrest linked to the attack and that Harmon was involved.

"He picked a good night to move out," Leo said of Sam's return to his place. "You might want to give him a heads up."

Toby had said that he'd probably ring him and hoped Leo couldn't hear the sound of Sam whistling in the kitchen.

He didn't tell Sam about Leo's call. There was no need worrying him about something that may or may not happen or getting his hopes up that the people behind his attack might be about to be caught. Instead, he'd paid the pizza guy and set about clearing the coffee table and placing the beer and food onto it. Now he was sitting opposite Sam with one eye on CNN.

"Are you going to eat the crusts?" Toby asked of the remnants of pizza on Sam's plate.

"No, they're doughy." Sam reached for his beer.

"They're not doughy. Mine weren't doughy." Toby ignored Sam's puzzled frown. "You should eat your crusts, they make your hair curl...or something."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Because as sweet as your concern for my eating habits is, I think you're actually worrying about something else and hiding it behind phoney pizza crust concern." Toby shrugged as if indifferent to Sam's accusations. "Why do you keep glancing at the TV as if it's going to explode?"

Toby opened his mouth to protest but then glanced at Sam and realised that having him worry about what Toby might be hiding from him was worse than having him worry about what might happen. "Leo thinks Ron's onto whoever had you attacked. He thinks it's going to go down tonight and the story will break tonight as well."

"Who?"

"Leo said Ron was the-"

"No, who did it? Who was it?"

"I don't know, Leo didn't say."

Sam nodded slowly. "There's a game on," he announced as he reached for the remote and switched channels. Absently, he picked up a crust from his plate and took a bite.

It took exactly thirty-four minutes for Dennis Harmon to crack under the pressure of Ron's questions. He gave up Michael Berridge with a speed that surprised Ron. He told him everything, his part in the plan, how he didn't know who the men he had paid to attack Sam were, how he wouldn't be able to identify them and how, most of all, it was all Berridge's idea. He pleaded with Ron to understand that the men were not meant to really harm Seaborn, they were just meant to rough him up. He told how he had been desperately searching for a way to make things right ever since and been trying to convince Berridge to give himself up.

"And you thought you'd be able to do that from…" Ron glanced at the plane ticket, "Beijing better than you could from here in DC?"

"Yes, I thought that if I-" Harmon sank into his seat. "I want a lawyer."

"You bet." Ron stood, nodded at the policeman at the door and left the room.

The phone's shrill ring startled Toby who knocked it off the arm of the sofa, and skidding over the coffee table. He quickly retrieved it from the floor. "Hello…yes…yes…I see…okay…I'll tell him…CNN, who else? CJ's on it? Okay."

Sam was staring at him in expectation. Toby walked back to his seat placing the phone slowly in his pocket before speaking. "Dennis Harmon has been arrested. Ron's just finished interviewing him. He's involved and he's given up his accomplice, Michael Berridge."

Sam had shown no reaction to Harmon's name but the mention of Berridge made him shoot to his feet. "Michael Berridge! Are you sure?"

Toby nodded and frowned. "You know him?"

"Yes. Yes, I know him. He's played golf with my dad for the last ten years. I skippered his boat in the Pacific Northwest Championships. I spent, truly, the most awful Thanksgiving at his place in Sag Harbour. I know him, well, I should say I thought I knew him as during none of those occasions did I once think 'now here's a guy who, at some point in the future, will happily employ two thugs to beat the crap out of me'!"

"Well, no, because I'd imagine you'd have skipped that whole Thanksgiving at Sag Harbour thing if you had." The attempt at humour was enough to stop Sam from his dizzying parade around the coffee table and make him turn to face Toby.

"Michael Berridge?"

Again Toby nodded, and waited. He wasn't sure if Sam would continue ranting, trash the room or go back to sullenly eating cold pizza crusts. Sam did none of those. He returned to his seat and slumped down onto it. "Michael Berridge," he repeated in disbelief. He turned to Toby and sighed. "Where's Josh?"

The question threw Toby who muttered that he didn't have the faintest idea where Josh was.

"He's responsible for this isn't he?" Sam asked. "I mean, he's been burrowed away somewhere doing something. It's been to do with this hasn't it."

Toby nodded. He was surprised Sam hadn't asked about Josh's absence before this. "He's been speaking to people, trying to find out who's responsible."

"I'd imagine he's feeling pretty pleased with himself."

"I'd imagine he is."

Silence fell over the two men. Sam rested his head back and stared at the ceiling. "I still blame him." The admission made Toby lean forward and turn to Sam even though Sam's gaze remained on the ceiling. "I don't want to and I know it's not fair but I do." Sam shrugged. "I can't forget what he said to me either even though I know he said those things in anger, frustration, whatever, he still said them and he meant them." Sam rubbed at his face wearily and then shook his head. "So, there you have it."

"Do you tell George this stuff?"

"I'm building up to it." Sam stood and stretched the tension from his back. "I think I'll call it a day." He looked down at Toby who gestured to the coffee table and half empty bottle. His car keys were lying beside it.

"Maybe I should…"

"Yeah," Sam agreed and he led the way to the spare room to check that the bed was made.

Toby started to take his suit jacket off as Sam plugged in the bedside lamp. "You know, someone is going to have to move out of somewhere soon or we'll have to get married."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Sam answered. He knew that he should order Toby to get a cab, should insist that he was fine but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. The sudden, inexplicable fear of being alone had grabbed him and he was relieved beyond words that Toby had drunk too much to drive home.

For his part, Toby was just as relieved that Sam wasn't putting up a fight about him staying. He'd put a lot of thought and energy into getting Sam back on track and he wasn't quite ready yet to let his charge go. Four hours later, when he heard the shout and saw the light spill into the corridor from Sam's room, he knew he'd made the right decision.

"Sam?"

"It's okay."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay."

The light stayed on though and Toby waited another half hour before it was switched off and he too finally fell back to sleep.

"How long has he been in there?" Josh walked the short distance from Leo's sofa to the closed door to the Oval Office and back to the sofa. "I've been here for ten minutes-"

"Feels like sixty," Leo mumbled under his breath.

"It must be good news if the debriefing's taking this long. Then again it could be bad news and he's just string-"

"Josh!" Leo watched in satisfaction as Josh jumped, turned away from the door and faced him. "Will you just sit down and shut up and give my carpet a rest!"

Josh complied with all three orders and Leo returned to the report he was studying.

"How long has he been in there?" This time it was Toby who asked the question as he entered Leo's office and took a seat next to Josh.

"Don't ask him that. I asked him that and he shouted at me," Josh said as the sofa dipped as Toby leant back into it.

"Has he been in there long?" Unaware of what had followed previously CJ asked the question in all innocence and was surprised by the giant huff of a sigh that Leo expelled on hearing it.

"I don't know how long he's been in there. I don't know what he's telling the President and I don't know how much longer he's going to be."

"Well, okay then. That told me." CJ replied as she took a seat on the other side of Josh. A few more moments passed in silence broken only by the occasional rustle of paper as Leo turned a page of the hefty report.

"In Alaska it's considered an offence to push a live moose out of an aeroplane." Sam announced as he entered the room

"I have no idea why you're telling us that but you're not asking me how long Ron's going to be with the President so I don't care."

Sam walked over to the sofa and stood behind it. "I'm just saying." Sam shrugged, "However, I don't know what the State of Alaska's stance is on a dead moose being thrown from a plane."

"Sam," Toby said quietly, a warning note in his voice.

"You're dismissing it now, Toby, but don't come running to me when a moose comes hurtling from the skies and we're expected to have a position on it." Sam cocked his head to one side, "Not a position on the actual moose, I mean a position on the ramifi-"

"Sam!" Toby's harsh cry stopped Sam in his tracks. He moved over to a chair and sat down. Silence returned to the room but was soon broken by the sound of the door to the Oval Office opening. A silent message was conveyed by a look and Leo walked towards his friend who stood in the doorway. Josh stood and walked around the sofa. He stopped by Leo's desk, studied the carving along its edge and then walked back round the sofa.

The Oval Office door opened again and Leo walked back into the room followed by Bartlet. Leo returned to his desk and stood in front of it. The President perched on the front next to him. "Ron is happy and when Ron is happy I'm usually happy too. Conspiring to assault and conspiring to obstruct the course of justice are two terms that Michael Berridge and Denis Harmon are going to be sick of the sound of pretty soon. Berridge was arrested an hour ago. He seemed to have developed the same sudden love of airports as Harmon. The police got to him just as he was boarding a flight at National."

Bartlet looked to Leo who turned his gaze towards Sam. Who, aware that he should at least acknowledge the work that had been done and its successful conclusion, spoke up. "Well that's…good."

"Good. Yes, Sam, you could say good," Bartlet agreed. "You could go so far as to say very good."

"It is," Sam agreed. "It's very good."

"Well I'm glad we've decided on the appropriate vocabulary now let's decide on how we're going to handle it." Leo looked first to CJ who immediately set about making briefing arrangements while Toby started scribbling notes. Bartlet turned his attention to Josh, who was studying the carpet, and waited for him to look up. When he did the message he received from the President was clear. Josh waited for a pause in the conversation.

"We should go for a drink, celebrate, tonight. We should go for a drink tonight."

"You should," Bartlet agreed. "Sam, does that sound like a good idea to you?"

Sam thought it sounded like a terrible idea but he nodded, forced a smile and heard himself agree to a night out with Josh, CJ and Toby. He followed Toby back to their offices wondering if making a bad job of the press release CJ needed them to write would mean having to stay late and being able to avoid the impromptu evening out.

An hour later, despite Sam's best efforts, Toby had the first draft completed. Sam sat swivelling in his chair as he dictated to him. "Mr Seaborn is relieved that this matter can finally be brought to a close. He'd like to thank his friends and colleagues for their support. He'd-" Sam stilled the chair and sat forward, "Is that a Prada tie?"

"Sam!"

"No, really, that's a nice necktie."

"He'd like to thank his friends and colleagues..." Toby prompted, adding under his breath, "for not throttling him I should think."

"For their support. He'd also like to extend his thanks to the law enforcement agencies responsible for their blah blah blah." Sam waved his hand in the air as if to indicate Toby knew what he should write.

"Oh, I see, it's just one of those everyday press releases we write when a member of the senior staff gets beaten to a pulp and left to die in an alleyway."

"You know what to put, Toby, just say I'm grateful to the people I should be grateful to, thank my shrink in advance of what I'm sure will prove to be hours of fun filled therapy and put something in there about how I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for the encouragement of my mother."

Toby put his pad down and sat back in his chair. "Why are you being so blasé about this?"

"Because it's crap."

Toby raised his eyebrows. "You want to maybe expand on that?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, it is. You're writing what you want me to say so that everyone can go to bed happy that the bad men have been caught, peace reigns in the White House and it will take more than an act of mindless violence to destroy the Bartlet administration." Sam stood and picked up his coat. "You can stay here and finish up without me. I'm going to meet my friend, you know, the one who I officially don't blame at all for me nearly dying. So…" he shrugged on his coat, "that should be fun."

Toby didn't try to stop him. He turned back to his work and started furiously scribbling down the statement so that he could hurry after Sam and avert whatever disaster was sure to be waiting at the bar.