AN:  Sorry for the shortness of this chapter.  More to come!

         ~Len

                                                                                             Chapter 4:  The Morning After

    I squint against the morning sunlight that glares off the sidewalk leading from the street.  It's making it hard to see the faces of the people who walk down it, but I don't really need to see faces.  After a few more minutes of not seeing a familiar perky stride, I return to my desk.  It's piled high with stuff and the light on my phone is flashing like crazy.  On a whim, I retrieve my voice mail.

   "You have twenty three new messages," it tells me.

   I hang up again and go back to perfecting the drum track for 'We Will Rock You', played by Josh Lyman on antique office furniture.

   Donna's not here yet.

   Ho, hum.  Thunk, thunk, thud.

   Nope, not here at all.

   Thunk thunk thud.

   There isn't the faintest trace of Donna.  Nothing at all.

   Hmm. Thud.

   Maybe she's stuck in traffic.  Curse that Monday morning traffic.

   Thunk.

  And while we're at it, let's just curse the entire day right across.  Because this is the day that all the weekend's troubles catch up with us.  The collapse of the Mexican economy.  The latest stupid-ass thing some Republican senator said to get his fifteen second sound-byte.  Or, as is the case on this particular bright shining morning, the fact that we're all going to die from radiation poisoning.

   Oh.  That's right.  I'm supposed to stop saying things like that.  Sometimes people misunderstand my acerbic wit, and this inevitably leads to things like…a secret plan to fight inflation.  Just so we're completely clear about this – I was joking.  We are not going to die.

   But according to the newspaper clipping left on my desk this morning, we've solved the California black-out problem.

   Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to make Nevada glow in the dark.  And they think that the Nuclear Waste Repository in Yucca Mountain will be detrimental to the environment.  Not as detrimental as drilling the Alaskan wilderness for oil, right?  The glow the repository will give off should be bright enough for a San Francisco resident to comfortably read a newspaper by.

   There.  See?  I just did it again!  It's seven in the morning and I already know today is going to be a disaster.  I can read the signs. 

   I think the most obvious sign that things are shaping up to be one of those, "Why couldn't they have just blown up the planet?" type of days is the state of the files on top of my bookshelf.  They have moods.  There is a certain way they look when the days is going to turn out really great – all the corners of all the papers are nice and crisp, and they all stay in nice, perky stacks.

   This is not one of those days.

   This is a limp, yellowing, sliding file kind of day.  The big binders have somehow worked their way precariously to the top of the piles, and are teetering dangerously over the edge.

   Today is going to completely suck.

   Before you start to question my sanity here, let me assure you that I am not basing my prediction solely on my paperwork barometer.  Let's not forget the rather conspicuous absence of Donna.  Days tend to suck when she's not around.

   "Josh."

   I stop banging on my desk – which is really too bad because I have moved onto a percussion rendition of 'Hold The Line' and it really sounds quite…okay, so the song is totally unrecognizable.  The whole beating on inanimate objects thing is very therapeutic, though.  I look up at Sam.

   "Yeah?"

   "You heard about the thing?"

   He looks a little perturbed.  But then, our Sam's a big environmentalist and this latest crisis is a Greenie's nightmare.  "I got the report – part of it – right here," I say, trying to locate the folder.  To my upper left I hear the paperwork on my bookshelf slide a little further towards 'Hellish and Horrible'.

   "They think they can just build whatever they want because it's Nevada?  To hell with the native endangered desert wildlife, to hell with future generations, and for that matter, to hell with Vegas?  Where do these guys get off?"

   "It's a repository, Sam.  It's not like they're testing atom bombs out there."

   He glares, but it's not directed at me.  "No, they've done that already."

   I shrug and smirk.  "It's Area 51, Sam.  They have to do something that will piss the public off every twenty years or so or it will lose the mystique."

   Sam loses the outraged tree-hugger face and looks interested.  "Really?  That's seriously Area 51?"

   Oh, I love my job.  I grin.  "Hell if I know.  They don't tell me that stuff.  I don't know if they even tell the President that stuff."

   "Oh."  He sighs in disappointment and turns to leave, and then pauses as he notices something.  "Hey, where's Donna?"

   Ah, yes.  The question on everyone's mind.  "Donnatella Moss has apparently chosen today – a day which will probably end with the unshaven masses picketing the Capitol Building and disrupting traffic city-wide – to be tardy for exactly the fourth time in her employment."

    "Really?"

   "Well, don't sound so happy about it.  I think we can all guess why she's not here at seven-thirty on a Monday morning."

   Sam grins and leans against the door.  "Why would that be?"

   Why is he making me say it?  I don't even like thinking it.  I've directed most of my energies since the moment I woke up towards _not_ thinking of it.  "Lawyers.  I think she's keeping lawyer's time today."  Ow.  There goes that dull throbbing around my ribs again.

   "Lawyer's time?  Don't you mean Banker's time?  You're a lawyer."

   I should just say it.  Just say it, get it out of my head, and get over it.  "She went home with Dave, Sam.  You connect the dots."  The words bounce hollowly around the room, and I rub my temples.  Saying them out loud didn't seem to help very much.

  My best friend doesn't appear to commiserate with me.  Instead he rolls his eyes.  "CJ's right, Josh."

   "What?"

   "You _are_ an idiot.  Have you even tried calling her this morning?  There's probably a perfectly good reason."

   I lean back in my chair and stare at the pencil marks on the ceiling.  "No… I don't want her to think that I'm…trying to break anything up."

   "But you have been.  You're the one who admitted to sabotaging her dates, Josh."

   "That's not quite – it's not like that, Sam. I haven't been stalking her, for God's sake.  I just sort of…end up there.  Like that time I ran into her at the Putt-Putt Golf Course…oh, that was a great idea, by the way.  Totally made up for the whole…you know, yelling at the reporters.  CJ said I was "not a total idiot" after I let her win a couple nine games, and Donna actually agreed, after I bought her and that gomer Luis an ice-cream…where was I?" I break off.  As Donna would say, I just really don't know where I'm going with this.

   Sam's eyes are darting back and fourth, and he is absently riffling the pages of his legal pad.  Pages which, coincidentally, are torn and yellowing.  The day's suckiness goes up another notch.  I follow his eyes, but can't see anything out in the bullpen but busy staffers.  "What?  Is it Leo?"

   "Hm?" he starts, "What?  What are you talking about?  What _were_ you talking about?  I lost you after the stalking part…"

   "Sam!  There was no stalking involved.  Stalking suggests that I actually had prior knowledge of her whereabouts and that is just blatantly untrue.  And you of all people should believe me, because let's not forget that more often than not, _you_ are the one who….who…" I break off, open-mouthed.

   Wait.  Wait just one second.  Sam.  Set-up.  Sabotage.  Stalker.  They all…kinda…rhyme. Coincidence?  I think not.

    I launch myself up out my chair and advance stealthily toward him.  The pieces are falling into place, everything's starting to make sense, and I don't mind telling you – I'm about three seconds from ramming Sam's annoying little automatic pencil into his left ear.  "You!" I grind out.  "You're the one who 'suggested' I take CJ to Putt-Putt.  You're the one who said a side-walk café was a good place to unwind.  You're the one who dragged me off to that stupid-assed French Wine Bistro.  You told me you liked the waitress," I accuse.

   He smiles nervously.  "I lied?" he asks, and takes a step backwards into the bullpen.

   "Is that the best you can do?" I say loudly.  "How about, 'I'm sorry, Josh, for ruining any hopes you had of future happiness with the most amazing woman on the face of the planet!'  How about that, huh Sam?!" I continue.

   I'm slowly driving him back, and he has a look on his face that I've seen before.  It's the 'I'm going to run away like a little girl' face.  Probably smart, because friend or no friend, I'm about ready to knock him over.  And I'm stronger and heavier than he is.

   But he is faster.  He spins around, bumps into one of the staffers, apologizes, and sprints off down the hall.

   Coward.

   I am too dignified to chase after him.  I settle for glaring at all the staring staff members and going back to my office to machinate.  Revenge will be mine.  I'll get him – oh yes.  And his little Republican, too.  

   Evil laugh, cackle, cackle. 

   For now I'll just watch for Donna out the window.  She'll be coming back to work today.  I know she will.  Because she's only missed three days before in almost four years of work, and never without a good reason.  And the fact that she probably believes I am an obsessed stalker isn't a good enough reason.  Even if – as I discovered – I actually had very little to do with the stalking other than being the…you know, physical stalker.

   I sigh and let my head fall against the window glass.  Thud.  I honestly can't believe my best friend did this to me.