XVIII
"Party's breaking up," Steve observed.
"Yeah, we pretty much kick people out when the president wants to leave." Sam spotted said individual slinking out even as he spoke. "Give me a minute?" Better to chase the president now than to leave it a few moments and run the risk of letting the First Lady catch up with him first. That tended to make him a great deal less amenable to interruptions.
"Sure," Steve shrugged. He pointed with his wineglass. "I'll go bug CJ for some more embarrassing stories."
"She doesn't know any," he said confidently.
"That's what you think, Spanky." Sam stared at him in alarm, and Steve grinned widely. "CJ is my new best friend," he said, and headed over to join her.
Sam decided that maybe he'd try to be even quicker than he'd been planning to.
He caught up with the president down the corridor, and the Secret Service fell back automatically to give them some privacy. "Ah, Sam," said the president warmly. "Josh told me you met with the military on Hate Crimes this morning?"
"Yes sir," he nodded, unable to stop a little bit of a grin creeping through. Oh, that was one smackdown he'd never expected to get the chance to deliver.
The president stopped walking and turned to look up at him. "Did you make it perfectly clear to them that we're not moving an inch on this?"
"Yes, sir."
He smirked. "And did you kick some ass?"
Sam grinned back. "Yes sir, I did that too."
They walked along together for a moment, and Sam hesitated before broaching the subject that he'd come here to take up.
"Sir... do you remember once you said that I could run for president one day?"
"I didn't say you could, Sam, I said you would," the president corrected him firmly. He nodded to himself. "You're doing fine, son. Go for Congress when we leave here, Governor of California... trust me, everything you need to do the job you've already got."
Sam came to a complete halt and stared at him in disbelief. "Sir, I..." He shook his head. "Maybe Congress, I suppose, but... you can't seriously think that I would run for office now?"
The president gave him a sharp look. "Well, what in the world would be stopping you?"
"Um, the fact that I won't win?" he pointed out.
"Well, that's a stupid reason," the president shrugged.
"I suppose."
"That was the reason I did run, and look what happened with that."
"True."
The president smiled, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Sam... as I'm sure you'll recall having advised me many times, the winning the battle is the very least of it. I didn't let Leo talk me into running for president because I ever believed I'd end up here. We didn't run for reelection because we expected to get back in. And I didn't propose the Hate Crimes Bill because it would be an easy sell." He looked Sam in the eye. "We don't do these things because we expect them to be easy, or even because we think we have a hope of getting them accomplished. We do these things because these are the right things, and because we believe that this is the time for people to do them."
Sam straightened up. "Yes, sir," he said, quietly but firmly.
The president nodded slowly. "The American people can surprise you, Sam, in ways you can't begin to imagine. Maybe you think they could never accept you as a president, but the truth is the only way you could cast-iron guarantee that is to never give them the option. And that," he smiled, "would be a very great crime." He pointed at Sam cheerfully. "And I'm fairly sure I have the authority to throw people in jail for committing very great crimes."
Sam had to smile back. "Okay, sir, then we'll make a deal; you don't throw me in jail while you're president, and I won't throw you in jail when I'm president."
The president nodded, and shook his hand not entirely un-seriously. Then he slipped his hands into his pockets. "And now, if you'll excuse me, the First Lady has been waiting all evening for a chance to be alone with her man. As, no doubt, have you."
Sam grinned in reply. "Yes, sir," he agreed brightly.
He headed back to the main room to find Steve.
Leo stumbled back to his hotel room, precious package clasped tightly in his hand. Every time he purchased alcohol there was a mixture of terror, trepidation and hope that he would be recognised, that someone would point a finger and say 'Hey, wait! You're Leo McGarry! You're an alcoholic! Somebody stop this guy.'
But either nobody recognised him, or nobody remembered the humiliatingly public revelations of three years ago, or nobody cared. To the washed-out, tired students working the midnight shift, he was just a short, sandy-haired guy with a smart suit and a bottle in his hand, next in a long, long line of faceless customers. Even in a town as political as Washington, it was easy to lose himself in the anonymity of a supermarket at midnight. Too easy.
It had been only days since he'd last drunk himself into oblivion, but the urgency was crippling. How long before he couldn't go without a drink for a single night? How long before he couldn't do without one in the morning and more when he came home? How long before he couldn't get through the hours of the working day?
That, he had decided with a kind of clinical determination born of desperation, would be the cut-off point. He could collapse into depravity and self-destruct on his own time - at least he didn't have a family to destroy anymore - but the day it spilled over into his work was the day the buck stopped.
He'd taken to dwelling, in a way he hadn't for a long time, of his father. The raised voices, the single dull hollow boom, and the mingled smells of blood and whiskey and gun smoke.
Yes, one way or another, the buck would stop.
When he'd first begun the inexorable slide off the wagon, he would buy himself a bottle and leave it by the bed while he got changed or showered or sorted through his notes - a laughable exercise in pretending self-control. Now, he couldn't even muster that much. He practically tore the bag open, and drank directly from the bottle. One swig, two, three...
But of course, there was no such thing as enough.
Toby walked her home from the party that night, although he wasn't sure he could have said why. They were quiet under the darkness of the sky for a long time; it was a long walk.
It was strange to be walking together like this, on the streets of somewhere other than New York city. Oh, they'd travelled from place to place at the beginning of the campaign, but that had also been the beginning of the dissolution of their marriage, and while many things had featured in that turbulent period, silence had not been a major one of them.
In an odd way, there was almost more intimacy in the space that lay between them than there would have been in contact. Handholding and arms around the shoulders were for dates, people in the process of growing closer. Silently walking in parallel spoke of a deeper, older connection.
The quiet between them was neither precisely comfortable or uncomfortable; a situation that seemed to fit them rather aptly. Neither of them said a word until they were outside Andy's home.
She stopped and turned to face him, tilting her head in a quizzical, familiar way. Asking him where they were going with this.
If only he knew.
He slipped his hands into his pockets, and looked back. After a moment she snorted a brief laugh, and stepped forwards to capture him in a warm hug.
This close up, it seemed easier. He kissed her. Softly, gently, the way he had kissed her once a long long time ago when he hadn't been quite sure he dared to do it. Not a lover's kiss, precisely, but infinitely more than being friends.
They parted, but her hands were still warm on the back of his neck, and her eyes were dark with the reflection of the night. She laughed, very gently, and sighed against his cheek.
"Toby..." she breathed sadly. "Being in love with you... was never the problem."
"I know."
He knew.
He kissed her forehead, then stepped back, slowly turned, and walked away.
Josh jogged through the hotel, trying to strike some kind of decent balance between not getting thrown out and the sense of urgency that was nipping at his heels. Marbury hadn't said much to him, just a vague suggestion that he keep an eye on Leo, but it had plugged straight into the sense of something very wrong that had been building for weeks and weeks.
The woman in reception had recognised him as 'a friend of Mr. McGarry's' and let him right in. She hadn't said anything beyond the usual plastic greetings of her profession, and yet he'd seen something in her eyes that looked a little like gratitude... Leo had lived in this hotel a long time now. These people knew him.
Josh didn't like the directions his mind was taking him in.
He hurried through the corridors and found his way to Leo's room. His heart was beating a great deal faster than the rhythm of the knock he pounded out on Leo's door.
He kept knocking for a long time, but Leo never answered.