XII

It had reached the point in the evening when they ordered drinks on the basis of interesting they sounded. The bar had started to become pleasantly blurry, and so had the conversation.

Donna raised her glass, proposing a toast. They'd started toasting fairly random things a few rounds of drinks ago. The glass stayed in the air for a while until one sprang to mind.

"Always the bridesmaids, never the bride," she finally declared, slurring the word 'bridesmaids'. Difficult word. Difficult job, dammit. But someone had to do it, and that was her, Donnatella Moss, bridesmaid extraordinaire. She'd done the deed for both her sisters and an old college roommate, now she was doing it for the daughter of the leader of the free world. She was going up in the world. Or possibly in some other direction. She was definitely going somewhere, because the room sure as hell wasn't staying still.

CJ clinked her glass and took a long sip from her own before asking of nobody in particular; "Why would anybody want to be a bride?"

Donna gave that a few moments of drunken contemplation. "Better dresses."

"True."

"Also, the whole husband thing," she added, waving her glass emphatically.

CJ pulled her face. "Ah, they're overrated."

Donna was still listing. "And the post-wedding sex."

"Which is ought to be good sex, dammit," CJ said firmly, thumping the tabletop.

"Well, if you're marrying the guy, one would hope. Post-wedding sex for bridesmaids, on the other hand-"

"Oh, no no no no no."

"There's always some guy in a powder-blue tuxedo-"

"And a little bit too much champagne-"

"And wham, blam, you wake up the next morning with a date to go long-distance hiking in the next county over."

Josh arrived at the table, her wandering boss returning from... wherever he'd been. Donna thought he might have told her, but she couldn't quite remember. The White House? No. Florida? No. Possibly the men's room.

He sat down at their table, setting his glass of water between their far more interesting alcoholic drinks. "What are you guys talking about?" There was a hint of amusement in his voice, although she wasn't sure why.

"Sex," CJ supplied.

"And cross-country hiking," she added helpfully.

Josh paused for a moment. "Strangely, in my daydreams, that seldom features as a follow-up."

"That's because you've never been a bridesmaid," CJ explained.

"Although you would look good in one of those little dresses," she informed him.

"Donna." He gave her a look.

"You've got the calves for it." Anybody would look better in one of those dresses than she did.

Except possibly Toby.

Hmm. That was a mental image she should probably try to divest herself of before she became completely sobered up.

Josh leaned back in his seat. "I think I should probably get you two home."

CJ and Donna exchanged glances. "We're not drunk yet," Donna objected. Josh smiled.

"I don't think you'd like to see the results of a straw poll on that one. Come on, ladies. The best man says it's time to get moving."

"Does he?" CJ looked around. Donna found that so funny she ended up with her face pressed against the table, unable to stop laughing.

A pair of gentle hands that presumably belonged to Josh helped her up and steered her out of the bar. The back of Josh's car suddenly seemed very inviting, and when he opened the door she pretty much collapsed inside. She was asleep before he finished carefully buckling the seatbelt around her.

Steve locked his car and adjusted the box against his shoulder as he headed up the path towards his future home.

His and Sam's future home. A smile spread across his features, until he remembered what he'd learned the night before.

President. His boyfriend could have run for president. And apparently, he didn't consider this anything that needed to be discussed before embarking on a very non-discreet relationship and openly admitting to being bisexual.

It was strange, but... he would have felt better about it if Sam was actually gay. If becoming Joe-Average-All-American-Guy-Next-Door would have been betraying his true self and making him desperately unhappy. But he hadn't had to know Sam five minutes to realise that he could fall in love with somebody for who they were, without so much blinking over their gender. Sam could have been happy marrying some equally sweet girl and settling down. He could have had his chance at the presidency. And instead he'd picked Steve.

And he didn't know how to feel about it. Weren't you supposed to go all weak at the knees when your other half made some kind of dramatic gesture for you? Well, okay, maybe there was a little bit of a knee-tremble going on there, but mostly he just felt... confused. And surprisingly angry.

How could Sam just, just casually throw all that away for him? Was he supposed to live up to that? Be 'The Guy Who Was Good Enough to Give Up the Presidency For'?

And Sam hadn't even thought to mention it. Not one little 'Oh, by the way, I could've run for leader of the free world but I'm picking you instead, no pressure'. He didn't even seem to realise that in turning away from being president he'd given anything up.

And that, of course, was why he would have been so goddamn good at it.

Steve had been blown away meeting President Bartlet; not just because he was star-struck - or because of the tiny tiny little fragment of a crush that he was not going to be telling Sam about ever - but because of the sheer presence of the man. He just had... something. Something special, and Sam had it too.

Whether he realised it or not, Sam really could have been president.

Steve unlocked the door and stepped inside. The lights were off, and he flipped the switch. He walked into the next room, and nearly fell over from shock.

"Jesus, Sam! You scared me." He laid a hand over his pounding heart.

Sam grinned angelically up at him. He was sitting on the floor, next to a cardboard box, on top of which was arranged the chess set.

"What's all this?" Steve wondered, placing the box in his hands on top of a pile of others. Nothing in the room was unpacked but for the chess set.

"It's a chess game. Sit down," Sam commanded.

Bemused, he found himself actually following orders. "What makes you think I can play?" he demanded contrarily.

"Oh, please. You work for a computer company. Your bookshelves are all Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov. You have a big plastic jar full of dice from games you used to play, and none of them are six-sided. You have played chess before, and played it many times, my friend, because you? Are a classic geek."

"Takes one to know one," he conceded.

"Now play."

"Why?"

"So we can finish our argument from last night." Steve opened his mouth, and Sam quieted him with a finger. He made the opening move on the chess board. Steve counter-moved. They played in silence for a few moments, until Sam took a one of his pawns.

"I never wanted to be president," he said.

Steve made to speak again, but Sam shushed him. Getting it, he quickly took one of Sam's pieces in return.

"You never even told me it was an option," he said.

They played some more. Sam took a knight. "I never saw it as one."

Steve reigned in the frustrated explosion until he had the opportunity to take a knight in return, and found it had cooled off a little in the meantime.

"It was one, Sam. You could have got up there and changed the world."

Sam took another of his pawns. "I can do that right where I already am." He got in another move before Steve could offer a rebuttal. "I could never live with the compromise that goes on at that level. I'd go crazy."

Steve counter-moved. "You've got the vision, Sam. You'd make a great president."

White knight takes black rook. "I've seen the toll it takes on President Bartlet."

Black knight takes white pawn. "So do you think he shouldn't have done it?"

White pawn takes black knight. "I'm not him."

He put Sam in check, and took one of his rooks when he was forced to move out of it. "You really are, Sam," he said sincerely. If Sam couldn't see how much he was like his mentor, he was being wilfully blind.

They moved and counter-moved in intense silence, neither easily conceding pieces now. Sam put Steve in check with a bishop, and Steve had no choice but to move the king back. Sam effortlessly slid his queen up the board, pinning the black king behind his own pieces. Checkmate.

He stood up and leaned across the board, touching his lips gently to Steve's. "I'd rather be me," he said, and smiled.

A few moments later, chess was the furthest thing from either of their minds.

Josh let CJ out of the car outside her place. "Thanks, Papa Bear. Now look after Goldilocks," she advised him. She was swaying slightly, but already it would have been hard for the casual observer to tell she was drunk.

"Goodnight, CJ."

"Night, Joshy."

He refrained from commenting on that, mostly in the hope that it would immediately pass out of her less-than-sober memory and never surface again. He hesitated, and then had to ask something that been had bugging him all the way back from the bar.

"Do you think it's true that I have nice calves?"

She gave him a CJ look that was no less blunt for the alcohol. "Josh. Would you like to borrow the dress?"

"I'll go now," he decided.

"Goodnight, Mi Amor!" She blew him a kiss, and he smiled in return. He got into the front seat of the car, and sat and watched until he was sure she was safely inside. Then he craned around in his seat to look at Donna.

"You alive back there?" he asked softly. She mumbled to herself in her sleep, and he grinned.

It felt like a shame to tip her out when they got to her apartment. Donna, he knew from experience, was considerably less steady on her feet than CJ after a few drinks, so he helped her up the steps and into her apartment. She collapsed onto her sofa and gave a world-weary sigh.

"I'm doomed," she mumbled to herself.

"You're what?"

"Doomed."

He knelt beside the sofa and smiled gently up at her. "Why are you doomed, Donna?" he asked tolerantly.

Donna waved a hand irritably at him. "I'm cursed. This is my fourth time as a bridesmaid. It's too late." Her face fell. "I'll never find anybody who's right for me."

Josh hesitated for a long moment. "No, maybe you won't," he agreed.

She gave him a drunkenly indignant look. "Gee, thanks."

"No, see, 'cause that would involve you finding somebody who deserves you." He paused for a beat. "And I don't see you ever doing that."

Donna made an incoherent noise somewhere between a squeal and a sob, and squeezed him in a tight hug. He smiled, and lightly pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Goodnight, Donnatella."

He got up and walked towards the door. Halfway there, she called him back.

"Josh." When he looked at her, she seemed almost sober. "You really are the best man, you know," she said softly.

He walked back out to his car with a smile on his face.