XV
"CJ."
The press secretary looked up as Sam appeared in her doorway. "You've spoken to Leo?"
"Yeah. I've been..." He shrugged. "Telling people."
"Okay." Best to track the progress of that, though she somehow suspected that if the news of Sam's romantic entanglement was going to spread from anywhere, it wouldn't be the West Wing. "Who?"
"You. Toby. Leo. Donna."
She frowned. "You haven't spoken to Josh yet?"
Sam looked awkward. "No," he said to his shoes.
CJ set aside the paperwork she was looking at. "Sam. You don't seriously think he's gonna be-?"
"No," Sam cut her off quickly. "No," he repeated, running a hand though his hair. "It's not that- I just... It's gonna be weird. I've known him forever, and it's gonna be... weird."
She offered him a sympathetic smile. "Josh'll be fine. You know he will."
"Yeah." Sam sighed, and leaned back against the wall. "It's just that I... I feel like we don't know each other very well anymore. It seems like we barely... There was this whole time when we didn't, we didn't talk, and there wasn't even any reason for it."
CJ nodded slowly and sighed. "Yeah."
He flashed a quiet smile. "But things are better now." He snorted sudden laughter at his own words. "Which is... really stupid, what with... everything... but I think it's true."
"It is," she agreed. They were still in the middle of a season in hell but somehow, after all this time, they'd managed to all link up and start facing the same direction. Suddenly it felt like they were back in the days when 'bring it on' was more than just a bitter joke.
"Yeah," said Sam softly, and for a moment they were both silent. Then CJ straightened up the papers on her desk with a brisk movement.
"Okay." She looked up at him. "Sam, you need to tell Josh. And the president."
"I know," he said, with a marked lack of enthusiasm, and CJ felt a twang of sympathy. Of course the president wouldn't react badly, but still... Talking to Leo and then the president had to be like coming out to your parents twice... and so far as she knew, Sam hadn't even spoken to his real parents yet.
"I'm just saying, one day that phone right there is gonna ring, and-"
That phone right there suddenly started ringing. They exchanged a look.
"Let me just get that." She picked up the receiver. "CJ Cregg." A few moments later, as the news on the other end sank in, her eyes grew immeasurably wider. "Okay, you know what? I'm gonna have to get back to you on that."
"What is it?" asked Sam nervously, as she carefully set the phone back down as if it was a poisonous viper.
CJ met his eyes. "I just got asked if the White House is prepared to comment on the news that Charlie Young and Zoey Bartlet have been hiding the fact that they're engaged."
Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Okay. Um." He cleared his throat. "You know what?"
"What?"
"I think talking to the president about my thing can probably stand to wait a little while."
"You think?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Is this for real?" Leo demanded.
"Looks like it," said CJ tightly.
"Is this for real?" he repeated furiously.
"Carol's got the wire piece," she nodded. "Whether it's true or not, the story's definitely out there."
Leo took a deep breath. "Okay. Where are Charlie and Zoey?"
"At a basketball game."
"Basketball?" he said disbelievingly.
"Charlie's kid sister's playing," Sam supplied.
"Can we get 'em out of there?" Josh wanted to know.
"Not without making a thing of it," CJ shook her head.
Josh rubbed his forehead. "Okay, I don't... why would they keep getting engaged a secret?"
"Several billion good reasons," Toby pointed out dryly. "Most of them named Jed Bartlet."
They all looked at Leo. "What's he doing now?" CJ asked.
Leo pulled a face. "Trying to convince the Secret Service to let him invade the game."
Everybody winced.
"Oh, it gets better," he added. "The First Lady's plane is practically on the tarmac. She'll be touching down in a matter of minutes."
"Does she know?" asked CJ warily.
"No, and you're about to tell her." CJ looked less than thrilled, and Leo gave her a sharp look. "You'd rather have the president do it?"
Point taken.
"How bad is this?" Sam asked.
"If the press thinks she's hiding from her father, we're in a whole heap of trouble," CJ answered.
"Is she?" Josh wondered aloud.
"I think they're both hiding from a whole lot of people who wouldn't like it for no good reason," Sam said quietly. They were all silent and sober for a moment, remembering all too well the events of several years ago.
Sam met Leo's eyes. "We've gotta give them our full support, Leo. Nothing less."
Leo shrugged at him. "It's the president we've got to worry about," he reminded them.
"Rick Weston married Liz, and he's still alive," Josh pointed out. Leo gave him a sharp look.
"Rick Weston didn't work in the same state as the president, Josh, let alone the same office."
"What's our first move?" CJ asked him.
Leo hesitated for a long moment, then made a decision. "We alert Zoey's detail." He cracked a smile, without much amusement. "If nothing else, it'll give Charlie a chance to flee the country."
"Abbey." Leo met the First Lady as she came powering through the White House corridors, at speed.
"Leo," she nodded briskly in acknowledgement.
"CJ spoke to you on the phone?"
"She did." Abbey came to a stop, and turned to face him. "I don't need to ask you what the president's doing, because I know exactly what he's doing."
"Can you make him calm down?" Leo asked, not particularly optimistically. She shot him a wry look.
"Not soon enough to help Charlie."
"You gotta make him sleep on it," Leo told her, and she nodded slowly.
"I can do that."
"In the morning..."
"Oh, he'll still be mad."
"Yeah," Leo agreed. "But hopefully, a little less homicidal."
"I'll see what I can do," she nodded. Abbey started walking again, and then abruptly turned, and gave him a bright smile. "I think it's about damn time," she added as an afterthought.
Political complications be damned, Leo grinned right back. "Yeah."