VIII

FRIDAY:

Sometimes, Sam could curse his own efficiency. If only he could manage to have been desperately late for work - then he'd have an excuse not to make this call. But no, here he was all ready with a half hour to spare. His nervousness was conspiring against him, causing him to move too quickly.

Well, maybe he should leave early in a bid to escape the reporters. Yes, he could do that... He was halfway to the door when he realised that would mean he'd have to make the call from the office.

He really didn't want to make this call from the office.

Sam picked up the phone and then hesitated, on the verge of putting it back down again. No. No chickening out. He had to do this.

The number was second on his speed dial, right below the office and above the pizza place, but he dialled it the long way, delaying the inevitable. While it rang, he prayed there would be nobody there to answer.

No such luck.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Samuel?" There was a note in his mother's voice that he'd never heard her use on his name before. He didn't like it.

"It's me, mom." As if it would be anybody else.

There was a slightly painful silence, and he found himself suddenly gabbling to fill it. "Mom, I just had to call up and- About yesterday, I- I know it was a shock, I should have called you before..."

"Sam, I can't- Please, I don't want to fight with you..." His mother sounded distressed. The way she always did, folding in on herself as if she could get rid of things she didn't want to deal with by refusing to hear them.

And apparently, he was now classed as one of those things.

"Look, mom, I realise that I just completely dropped this on you, and I'm sorry. But Steve and I-"

"Samuel, please-"

"Mom! Will you just let me talk to you, please? I know you're upset, but-"

"This is about your father, isn't it?" she asked him suddenly.

He was silent for a moment, thrown off balance. "What?"

"He hasn't been a good father to you. I know it must have hit you hard to find out... Sam-"

"Mom- This isn't- Mom, I can't talk to you now. I just... I can't talk to you. Goodbye, mom."

He hung the phone up, feeling sick to his stomach.

His mother thought this was some kind of... what? Some kind of youthful rebellion? A way of running away from the kind of mistakes his father had made?

This wasn't that. He wasn't running away from himself, he was being himself. He was following what felt right, and no matter what else happened, that couldn't be taken away from him.

Somehow, with his mother's words still ringing in his ears and the knowledge that there was a pack of reporters waiting outside his door, that didn't feel like a lot of comfort.

Donna arrived in the office and quickly went through the phone messages. Most of them were reporters, looking for a comment on Sam; she shook her head and deleted them all.

Josh rolled in half an hour later, looking rumpled. He managed to greet her with a vague "Hey." His resolution to get less irritable with the people around him was still holding surprisingly well, but asking him to be a human being in the mornings was a bit more of an uphill struggle.

Still, making-an-effort Josh was much better than cranky Josh. He still shouted at her the exact same amount, but now he apologised afterwards. He still made her work the unreasonable hours he always had, only now he tried to find ways to bribe her into it instead of just assuming that she would.

Yes, a definite improvement there. And anyway, Donna had a suspicion she would be in his debt for the next billion years just for keeping her sane through a birthday visit from her mother.

She trailed him into his office. "Senior staff in fifteen."

"Yeah," he nodded, staring blankly at his desk. At this time in the morning, it could take a while for the coffee to kick in.

"Meeting with the Commerce Committee at eleven."

"Okay."

"Giant penguins invading the White House at two."

"Mmm-hmm."

Donna returned to her desk, and waited. A few minutes later, Josh appeared in his doorway, brow comically wrinkled. "What was I doing at two?"

She grinned. "Negotiating my raise?"

He leaned his elbows on her desk and smirked at her. "With the penguins?" he asked dryly.

"Penguins are fascinating birds, Josh."

"Renowned for their financial abilities, are they?"

"Did you know they can jump six feet in the air?"

"I imagine it comes in handy evading the taxman."

"And they only have sex twice a year."

"No wonder they take to accountancy."

The phone rang. Josh eyed it. "That'll be the chief penguin."

"Emperor Penguin, Josh."

"Remind me why I keep you employed?"

Donna gave an exaggerated shrug. "Desperation?"

"Sounds about right."

She gave him a look as she picked up the phone. "Josh Lyman's office."

"Good morning, Donnatella."

"Oh, hi, mom." Josh made a commiserating face and retreated into his office. "Josh says hello."

"Hmph." Her mother made a noncommittal noise. She was not Josh's biggest fan; the fact that he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House apparently went no way towards cancelling out the terrible crimes of being scruffy and disorganised.

"What are you calling about, mom?" Her mother usually called her outside work; the more convenient for long and dispiriting rants.

"I saw your friend Sam Seaborn on the news last night." Oh God. "Really Donna, I wish you would have told me about him before."

"Mom, I, um-" She wondered with a sick dread in the pit of her stomach what her oh-so-prim-and-proper mother would possibly think of Sam's new relationship.

"Honestly, you couldn't have just told me he was gay? You let me make such a fool of myself suggesting you should date him."

Well, that was unexpected. Donna scrambled for a reply, rejecting 'well, at the time I had no idea' and 'actually he's bisexual' as only complicating matters. "Well, um, uh... I didn't know if he wanted me telling people. What with all this..." She sought for a word to describe the media explosion and couldn't find one.

Her mother sniffed. "Biggest fuss over nothing I ever saw. Honestly, in my day, journalists reported news. It's a disgrace; ripping up perfectly ordinary people's lives and printing them all over the front page for people to gawk over."

Donna found herself grinning goofily into the phone. Well, wouldja listen to that? Maybe there was hope for her mother after all.

"But anyway, Donnatella, I called to talk about that dreadful rat-trap of an apartment of yours. I've been looking into properties in the area - preposterous prices they charge, but since you won't let your father and I help you pay for it... Really, this would be easier if you could find yourself a nice young man to set up with..."

Or, then again, maybe not.

Abbey straightened her husband's tie, not needing to look up at his face to read the nervousness boiling off him. And she almost resented it. Why did everything have to be so complicated?

He was scared. How was she supposed to be as mad at him as she wanted to when he was scared?

She wanted to cuddle him close as much as she wanted to pick him up and shake him, and in doing neither she felt like she was farther away from him than ever.

Abbey wanted to rage at him for refusing to believe in his own mortality, but how could she do that when she looked him in the eye and saw the fear that lay behind his stubbornness? It wasn't arrogance fuelling his denial, but desperation.

She'd told him. She'd told him, but this was not a time that she could ever say 'I told you so'.

They'd had a deal. A deal that was supposed to have stopped this from ever happening. But he'd broken the deal, and she couldn't hit him with that, either. She couldn't hit him with anything, because she loved him so much it hurt and he was scared and so was she and this wasn't supposed to happen.

Jed always knew what she was thinking. He smiled at her comfortingly. Not that there was any way that she could possibly take comfort from it right now.

She did, anyway.

"It's-"

"Jed." Abbey cut him off, because if she heard him say it would be fine, she might actually scream, and First Ladies of the United States did not scream, especially not when standing in the Oval Office waiting for her husband to address his senior staff.

At least, none of them had so far. Maybe she should consider starting a trend.

"I have to talk to the staff," he said softly, sensibly. An obvious truth. And an excuse.

They hadn't talked since they'd spoken with Dr. Keeble the previous day. Or rather, they'd talked, but without saying anything.

The sensation of time ticking away second by second was ludicrous, but it wouldn't leave her. Every bit of the scientist and doctor rebelled at the superstition - the damages of MS were not measured in minutes; the mere proximity of the Oval Office was not some kind of radioactivity, poisoning him for as long as he wore his job title.

And yet she could still hear the clock ticking.

She knew that even if she could gather every physician in the world together and every one of them delivered the verdict 'your job is killing you' he wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't let himself believe it. This job was his life and his dream, and the source of a righteous fire in his eyes that made him almost painfully beautiful to look at. She didn't want him to lose that.

But more, far more than that, she didn't want to lose him.

"You can't lie to them, Jed," she said, hearing the ragged edge of distress to her own voice. "You can't just pretend that you're as fine as you ever were. You can't pretend that none of this was ever said."

"But I can tell them it's not bad news," he said earnestly, gripping her shoulders. And she wanted to laugh and cry at that, refuting it as much as she believed it. "It's not the worst news."

"Jed-"

"Abbey, I-"

The door behind him opened, and Leo hesitated there, looking concerned. Jed turned to him, and Leo gave him a slow nod. He turned back to her. "I have to go."

"Okay." She kissed his cheek and prayed he would admit to his staff - and to himself - at least something approaching the truth.

She watched him walk through, Leo at his side, and tried to pretend she couldn't hear the clock ticking.