XXI

"Donna!" Sam rushed towards her through the bullpen. "Where's Josh? Is he okay? Is he-?"

"He's fine, Sam. I mean, he's, I-" Donna fumbled for words, and then shook her head. "He's okay," she said finally. "He had a PTSD attack at the thing last night, but he's all right now." She frowned slightly. "I tried to call you and talk to you last night, but your phone was switched off."

"Oh!" Sam jumped guiltily. Jesus, there he'd been, enjoying an evening for the first time in God only knew how many months, and all the while Josh had been... "I was, um, I was at in a movie theatre."

"Oh, right," Donna nodded, and then smiled and gave him a curious look. "Sam, did you have a date last night?"

He was saved from answering that minefield of a question by the sudden arrival of CJ and Toby.

"Donna, where is he?" asked CJ.

"He went home."

"Is he okay?" she demanded worriedly.

"He..." she trailed off. "The PTSD, I mean, yeah." Sam noticed that nobody jumped or looked around furtively at the mention of what had gone unspoken for so long. The cat had pretty much blasted out of the bag at orbital velocity after last night. "The fireworks, I think, and the stress... He had an episode, but he was okay after. I stayed with him last night."

She probably never even stopped to consider how that statement could sound a lot less innocent than it was, but not even CJ so much as twitched. They all remembered the Rules, and how Donna had appointed herself Josh's personal guardian angel during his recovery from the shooting. If anybody could help him, it was Donna.

Sam felt a spike of helplessness twist through his gut, flavoured with just a little guilt. Was this something he ought to have been able to prevent, or at least to predict? Should he have sought Josh out as soon as he'd found out about the vote?

It had never even occurred to him. Not just because he'd been wallowing in his own depression, though it was more than real enough, but because he and Josh didn't... they just didn't really talk anymore. They'd somehow just drifted apart since... hell, he couldn't even pinpoint a time. They'd all drawn into themselves as times grew harder, pulled back their bridges to lick their wounds in peace, and somehow those bridges had never built themselves back.

"Where is he now?" asked CJ.

Donna still seemed a little shaken. "He, went, uh, Leo sent him home. To get some rest. And, um, stop trying to resign."

"He was talking about quitting?" Sam demanded. He was almost taken aback by how shocked that idea made him, considering how close he'd been skating to wanting to do the same. But Josh... Josh lived for politics. He needed to bury himself in it in the exact way Sam had only just realised was poison to his own system.

"He's not resigning," said Toby brusquely, neither question or denial but a statement of how the future was going to be in the universe according to Toby. Nobody in the room was fooled into believing he was unconcerned.

"That's what Leo said," Donna nodded.

"But he's determined to be a martyr?" CJ surmised. She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I swear I don't know what I'm going to do with you boys some days." She turned to Toby and Sam. "The press are gonna need a statement. There's no way this isn't gonna be a story, so let's make sure they're at least printing something approaching the truth. The last thing we need is somebody getting inventive."

Sam looked between Toby and CJ warily. "Can we say 'post-traumatic stress'?"

CJ winced. "We've gotta say something."

Toby nodded. "The press have had all last night to think about it. Chances are, somebody's already connected the dots."

"What happens to Josh?" Donna demanded as she listened to them debate.

"They're gonna draw parallels," CJ said, and she didn't need to nod towards the Oval Office to indicate with whom. Toby shrugged.

"Let them. The American public showed they were willing to re-elect him."

"Big difference between the president and the Deputy Chief of Staff, Toby."

Sam leaned forward. "We can't run away from the shooting, so we have to put it front and centre," he said forcefully. "Remind them how and why he got injured in the first place."

Toby shot him a slightly surprised look, as if startled to see him actually ready to throw himself into the discussion. He gave a brisk nod. "He was shot in the line of duty in somebody else's hate crime, and he's still here. Let's remind the public of that."

"Josh is gonna hate that," Donna observed.

"That would be his problem," Toby shrugged indifferently. He glanced at his deputy. "Come on, Sam."

Sam followed. And maybe it was the weight lifted off his shoulders by the promise of a life away from the office, or the righteous indignation of knowing Josh would be ripped apart for nothing more than having the misfortune to be the victim of a crime three years ago... maybe it was both, he didn't know. He only knew that somehow, his fire felt like it was coming back, and the words were once again bubbling away in the back of his brain.

He was ready to write.

"Hey, Charlie."

"Hey, Zoey." Charlie was powerless to prevent the grin that split his face as he settled into the seat opposite his girlfriend - no, he corrected himself, his fiancée. It had been way too long since their last attempt at a romantic dinner, and even that had been curtailed when a last-minute change to the president's schedule had sent him dashing back to the White House.

Zoey smiled at him over the menu, and surreptitiously touched her hand to her chest, where only the slightest wrinkle in the material of her blouse hinted at the ring that lay beneath. Charlie silently echoed the gesture, and wished again that he could wear his own ring on his finger instead of a chain, so the whole world could see he was a taken man.

Unfortunately, there was a tiny tiny chance that the president might suspect something if he came into work wearing an engagement ring.

After all, they hadn't given him that Nobel Prize for nothing.

"Did you speak to Josh?" Zoey asked after they'd ordered, smile fading a little.

"I saw him briefly this morning." Not that there had been any speaking involved. "Your father sent him home early to get some rest."

"Good. I hope he's okay." She bit her lip, and Charlie knew she was thinking again of Josh's shooting, and how she felt she'd played a part in it. He'd tell her she was crazy to feel guilty, except she'd only turn the tables and send the same right back at him.

No matter how many people might tell him he couldn't blame himself for the actions of a few crazy teenage Neo-Nazis, in some part of himself Charlie still did. But he'd found some perspective, or at least the ability to live with himself, in one simple fact; he wasn't prepared to give up Zoey.

Oh, he wasn't about to be stupid, and risk his, her, or the president's life by a reckless act like making their engagement public knowledge... but nothing, and no one, was going to take Zoey Bartlet away from him.

It had been hard getting even this far; the inevitable complications of their schedules and their places and Zoey's family ties. Not to mention the prickly temper Zoey had inherited in healthy doses from both parents, and his own frustration when she sometimes couldn't seem to see the trouble he had juggling too many commitments. Things were seldom smooth... but even when they were bad, they felt right. They fought and they argued enough for any couple, but there was never a time when they felt like they were out of love with each other.

It had been purely spur-of-the-moment to declare his intention to be a part of Zoey's life forever, but he meant every word. Whenever he pictured his future, she was there... and, though he probably wouldn't have admitted it to the president, it was always Jed and Abbey Bartlet that he thought of when he tried to imagine how he and Zoey would be in thirty years time.

The chance of having a love like that... That wasn't something you walked away from, no matter how difficult the road might be.

He'd been silent too long, and Zoey reached across to playfully prod him with her fork. "Hey. What're you thinking about?"

"You," he said truthfully, and she gave him a smile that made the room feel about ten degrees warmer.

So what if they couldn't announce their engagement? They still had each other, and right now that felt like more than enough.

Sam let himself into the apartment and dropped into his chair, smiling at the ceiling. Was it wrong for him to feel so... contented... knowing that Josh must be going through hell? Possibly, but the feeling had been missing for so long he found it hard to feel any guilt for it.

In the past few months he'd forgotten this, and the realisation frightened him. He'd lost this feeling of... rightness, satisfaction, of knowing that you'd done a good thing, and that even if you were bone weary it was the tiredness of the just.

Today, there had been no ambiguity, no lies, no politicking; only the truth. In a way, it felt like a chance to step back in time, a way to rerun the MS revelation how he would have chosen to have done it.

He'd crafted a statement even Toby had to admit sizzled. Confronting the issue of post-traumatic stress without running away from it, seeking to hide it, or trying to pretend it was less than it was. Instead of sniping back at those who would use the revelation for political gain, it focused on Josh himself; who he was, what he'd been through, and what it had taken for him to overcome the struggles he had.

Josh, he was positive, would absolutely hate it. He didn't want to be made a hero for things he considered flaws in himself, and he'd rather be a martyr than see his friends close ranks and go into battle for him.

Well, Sam wasn't about to let that happen.

The lines of communication between him and Josh, he realised, had been closed for far too long. He'd had a minor epiphany of sorts - if he waited around for Josh to have one of his own, he could be in for a long, long wait.

He picked up the phone, and called Josh's number. It was still on speed-dial; of course it was. Their friendship had never been terminated, it had just... faded. Withered away, because neither of them had taken the time to notice that they weren't tending to it.

The phone on the other end rang. And rang. And rang.

He tried twice more, and then he tried Josh's cell. It was switched off. Josh didn't want to talk.

For a moment he was tempted to just grab his coat and head on over to Josh's, but something held him back. This gap between them had been growing for too long, and he was horribly afraid that if he tried to step across it now, he'd find he was unable to. He might come face to face with the best friend he barely seemed to talk to anymore, and find he had nothing to say.

Suddenly feeling a good deal less contented, Sam stared at the silent phone, undecided. His gaze was drawn to the number scrawled on the pad beside it, in a neat, clean hand that was not his own.

It would be a bad idea to call.

It would be a very bad idea to call.

He should break this all off now, now while it was still safe and nobody had a clue anything had gone on. They had more than enough on their plates with Josh and everything else, without him adding to the trouble. This was just about the worst time in the world to start cooking up a story which every political hack in Washington would love to get their hands on.

He listed reason upon reason in his head why he shouldn't call. It was quite a convincing list.

While he was making it, his hand snaked out of its own accord and dialled the number.

"Hello, Steve? It's Sam."