V
Toby strode into the communications bullpen at speed. "Ginger! I need you to get Sam."
"He's in a meeting with-"
"I need you to get him now."
Ginger exchanged a worried glance with Bonnie and quickly hopped to her feet. "What shall I tell him?"
"Tell him he's about to make a technical writer very famous."
She gulped, and quickly scurried off to do Toby's bidding.
Steve had been... a surprise. Sam's sudden uplift in demeanour a week and a half ago had been quickly identified by the assistant corps as the result of, to use Bonnie's terminology, 'getting some', but still... when it came to predicting what kind of unsuitable potential partner Sam had picked himself out this time, nobody had guessed anywhere near Steven Radcliffe.
However, after the initial surprise, the pretty much universal reaction had been a shrugged 'cool'. They'd briefly encountered Sam's other half at Charlie and Zoey's impromptu engagement party, and general consensus was that the Deputy Communications Director had impeccable taste in men. Which certainly balanced out his rather troublesome talent for picking wildly unsuitable women.
A happy Sam was a joy to behold, and a cute boyfriend hanging about the place was an added bonus, so as far as the sisterhood of White House assistants were concerned, it was all good. And besides... hey, free country.
Unfortunately, the press and a disquieting percentage of the population were likely to see it differently. Ginger felt sorry for poor Steve - she wondered if he had any idea what he was about to get into. At least Sam had experienced a taste of this before after the thing with the call-girl - which was one-hundred percent certain to be dragged up and dissected in this media cycle...
And it had started out as such a good week.
Ginger peered through the glass doors to see Sam and Josh holding court in a room full of Congressmen. They both looked like they were enjoying the argument, something she hadn't seen in quite a long time. She hesitated before going in, and quickly scribbled on a slip of paper.
"Sam." She pressed the note into his hand, and he put his glasses on as he unfolded it. He looked up sharply as he read the single word printed there.
Steve.
Josh leaned over to read over his shoulder, and questioned Sam with a look. He shrugged it off, and asked "Can you take this from here?"
Josh grinned devilishly, enjoying the prospect of a good fight. "Sure."
Sam stood up. "Excuse me, gentlemen. Sorry. I'm going to have to leave you with Josh now."
He and Ginger hurried back to communications, where Toby, Bonnie and the others were already clustered around the TV. "CJ's gonna get the question in the briefing," Toby said shortly.
Sam took a few deep breaths. "Okay."
They waited for the briefing to begin.
It was never a good idea to take to the podium pissed. Just witness the legendary exploits of one Deputy Chief of Staff - hostility, thy name is Josh Lyman.
CJ was an expert at defusing her anger and tension with a light, airy attitude, deflecting the press with smiles and quips that made them instantly forgive the evasion. Today, though, she was feeling anything but airy. Her father was lying in a hospital bed across the country, the president was at this moment undergoing medical tests to find out whether his MS was progressing, and what did the press consider important?
Woe betide the first journalist who stepped over the line today.
Still, she nodded to Carol in passing as she usually did, and smartly took her place as if all was right with the world. "Good morning folks, I have some more details for you on-"
"CJ! CJ!"
Well, colour her surprised. "Keith." She abandoned her notes to take the barrage of questions she knew was coming. Nothing else she said today would get reported anyway.
"CJ, do you have any comment on a homosexual relationship between Deputy Director of Communications Sam Seaborn and a man called Steven Radcliffe?"
Nobody in the audience looked remotely surprised. She didn't think Katie had been the leak, but somebody had obviously tipped the press to be on the lookout. Sam and Steve had been deliberately not going out of their way to be secretive, and, inevitably, the press had got their photographic evidence.
Still, that was no reason to make it easy on them. "The White House doesn't comment on the personal lives of its employees, Keith, you know that."
He'd obviously been expecting the official line, because he quickly followed it up "CJ, do you have any comment?"
Before she had a chance to be appropriately scathing, somebody else called "Is Mr. Seaborn denying the rumours?"
"Nobody's denying anything, Arthur."
"CJ, has Steven Radcliffe been to the White House?" Dammit, somebody had already connected the dots to the engagement party.
"Yes, but only in a social context."
"What kind of social context?"
She couldn't help a brief, tigerish smile at that. "As Mr. Seaborn's date. Next question." The beat of hesitation was so small a casual observer would never have noticed, but CJ was an expert in the tides and rhythms of the press, and she knew she'd momentarily thrown them. Let them chew on that little titbit awhile.
However, it didn't take them long to regroup.
"CJ!" called Chris. "In light of this administration's position on gay rights, any comment on why Mr. Seaborn felt the need to keep sexuality a secret?"
"He kissed the guy on his doorstep, Chris, exactly how non-secretive do you expect him to be?" CJ scowled. She was getting irritated now, and if she stayed up here, things would not go well. She swept an imperious gaze over the crowd. "Does anybody here want to talk about actual news? No? Okay then."
She left the room, cries of her name following her down the corridor.
"Hey." Josh appeared in the doorway to the communications bullpen just as the crowd around the monitor was breaking up.
"Josh?" Sam frowned. "Didn't I leave you babysitting a room full of Congressmen?"
"Yes, but as it turns out, something cropped up that required my attention," he said dryly. He, Sam and Toby gravitated towards Toby's office.
"How'd it go?" he asked.
Toby shrugged. "As well as can be expected."
"They've got photos?"
"Already online." He flipped up the screen on his laptop to reveal a candid shot of Sam and Steve embracing on his doorstep, the blond man placing a quick kiss on Sam's temple.
"Cute," Josh observed cheerfully.
"I'm thinking of getting it framed," Sam said dryly.
Josh turned back to Toby. "What's our next move?"
"Hey, hey, whoa!" Sam quickly stopped him. "Who says we're moving anywhere?"
The other two exchanged a glance. "Sam-" Toby began slowly.
"No. No, seriously." He folded his arms. "No spin on this. We're just gonna let it play, and let it fade away." The media might be interested in him and Steve now, but they were a one-hit wonder, and trying to play the game would only prolong it. Besides, this was his life, not the latest foreign policy. He didn't want to sit down and figure out the best way to sell his new relationship.
"It'll be-" Josh's warning tone was interrupted by the arrival of Bonnie in the doorway.
"Sam? You've got a call."
"He's not taking any calls," Toby said quickly, but the assistant still lingered.
"Sam? I think you should take this one." She hesitated. "It's your mom."
And suddenly, the media reaction was the least of his worries.
Jed could swear he heard the crack of his veins icing up as Dr. Keeble reentered the room. He and Abbey stood as one, linking hands without even thinking about it.
"Well?" he said, and was slightly amazed that his voice didn't seem to wobble at all.
Keeble was a jittery little man with thin, silver-rimmed glasses and a habit of coughing to cover his nervousness. He did so now, and Jed felt like shaking him to try and make him talk faster.
"Well, from looking at the results of uh, the MRI, my medical opinion is that your MS has not yet, uh, progressed beyond the relapsing-remitting phase."
His own gasp was shockingly loud in the small room, and he wasn't aware how tightly he was squeezing Abbey's hand until she pulled it away from him. He didn't look at her, couldn't bear to do so until this was sure it meant what he thought it did.
"Then the symptoms I've been experiencing-"
"Are MS-related, yes. But in order to make a diagnosis of uh, secondary-progressive multiple sclerosis we look for enlargement of the ventricles, which indicates-"
Jed quickly shook his head, waving away the medical details which wouldn't mean anything to him anyway. "I don't understand. If I'm still following the relapsing-remitting pattern, these symptoms I'm having now will fade away? I'll make a full recovery?"
Dr. Keeble coughed again, and looked down at the ground. "As, uh, as is usual with multiple sclerosis, I'm afraid that it's, uh, it's not quite that simple."