PART THREE

ER 12.00 PM

It's the beeping that made him open his eyes.

It was quick, and loud, and he wanted it to stop. It was keeping him from sleeping.

He opened his eyes to ask if someone could keep the noise down.

He closed them again when the bright light assaulted his vision.

"Ben?" he heard a voice say near his head.

"Lizzie?" he asked, hopefully. Lizzie was nice, Lizzie had tried to help him before.

"Sam, can you hear me?" A male voice this time, on his right. He opened his eyes again and tried to focus.

He nodded weakly, and his eyes finally made out the man, in scrubs, leaning over him.

Where the hell was he now? He wasn't so cold anymore, which was a good thing. He hoped he'd never feel that kind of bone deep cold ever again.

And he was on his back, too.

And there were lots of people around him.

"Good," the doctor said, seemingly oblivious to the thousand questions Sam would have loved to ask, had he had the energy to actually talk. "Do you remember what happened?"

Sam tried to think, but he was too tired to think much more than "I'm tired" - not very helpful, under the circumstances.

"Sam?" the male voice said again.

"Tired," he said.

"You'll be able to sleep soon, but I need to ask you questions before."

"'kay," he sighed.

"Do you have allergies?"

"No."

"Do you have a condition we should know about? Diabetes, epilepsy, ."

Sam tried to concentrate on the questions, but everything was becoming blurry again.

"What happened?" he suddenly wondered aloud.

How had he ended up in a hospital? He was going to eat some pizza, what could have turned wrong?

He saw the doctor look at the woman who was on the other side of him, then focus on him again. "You've been shot. In the back."

Shot? Josh was shot, too. He almost died. Was he going to die?

"No, you're not going to die," the doctor said, but Sam didn't miss the look he shot to the woman, and it frightened him. Were they lying because that's a charitable thing to do when someone is dying in front of you? Were they just trying to keep him calm?

"Do you have someone we can contact?" the woman asked.

He pondered that a moment. CJ had always said she was his first call, but that was when he had done something wrong, wasn't it? Had he done something wrong?

"No, you haven't done anything wrong," the doctor said again, and Sam frowned. Had he said that out loud? "Who do you want us to call?" the doctor insisted.

"Toby?" Sam wondered.

Yes, Toby. Toby would come, he knew.

"Toby Who?"

Toby Who? What kind of a question was that? And how could they not know Toby? Toby was well known.

"Sam, do you have his number?"

"My phone," he said.

"We didn't find it."

That was odd, he always had his phone on him.

Never mind, Toby was still at the office. He was always at the office after Sam had left, these days.

"Sam, the number," he heard.

He gave it quickly and everything went black. The last thing that he heard was the beeping of the machine next to him, so loud it seemed to invade his entire universe, not leaving space for anything else.

* * * * *

Hospital 2.30 AM

"Did you hear something new?" CJ asked as soon as she entered the room again.

"Not yet," Toby said.

She collapsed on the seat next to his. "What happened?" she asked, for the fourth time since she'd arrived.

He was saved from telling her once more that he had absolutely no idea when Leo entered the room.

"No news," Toby said before he could ask.

"You spoke to the police?"

"Not yet."

"I saw the agents who were on the scene, they're coming up to talk to us. And the secret services are locking the hospital up"

"He's coming?" CJ asked.

"What the hell did you think I was going to do?" an angry voice answered from the doorway.

Everyone in the room jumped to his feet as the President entered.

"What happened?" he asked, waving them back into their seats.

"We don't know yet, sir," Leo said. "The police will be here soon," he added to Ron, who nodded.

Bartlet made a quick scan of the room and asked "Where's Josh?"

"He had found a quieter place to . think," CJ said. "I've gone to get him, he'll be here soon."

As if on cue, Josh appeared, along with two police officers, one middle aged man and a young woman who wouldn't possibly be more than 25, who stood nervously in front of the President.

"Sir, I'm Mike Sanderson, and this is Julie McFee," the man said.

"Jed Bartlet, and these people are my staff," the President summarized. "What do you have for us?"

The man sighed. "Not much, I'm afraid. Mr Seaborn briefly regained consciousness in the ER, but he wasn't coherent enough to give us anything. We questioned the people at the scene, but it seems there's no witness, no one heard anything, .. Mr Seaborn's car wasn't on the parking lot anymore, so we assume it was a car jacking, but we'll know more when he wakes up."

"Why was he shot?" Toby asked.

"We honestly have no idea, sir," the woman said. "Three people took care of him on the parking lot. They were coming in to buy pizza and then go to the girl's place to study. They're all law students. They saw him when they got out of their car, and tried to help me as well as they could, but they arrived after the fact, so they weren't able to tell us anything. Apparently, no one from the pizzeria heard anything, but according to the girl's statement, that's not surprising. When they arrived, the music was so loud they could hear it from across the street."

So Sam had spent some time there, on his own, bleeding on the ground, Toby filled in, and his stomach contorted violently.

Everyone in the room seemed mad, and he understood he hadn't been the only one to draw this conclusion.

The President and the policemen talked for a while longer, but he wasn't listening anymore. He gestured to Leo that he was going outside for a while and the chief of staff nodded, his eyes sympathetic.

Toby went out quickly. He didn't want sympathy. He wanted to catch the man who had done that and shoot him, then leave him on the ground, losing blood, alone, scared, in the dark. Barring that, he wanted to scream his lungs out.

* * * * *

CJ joined him a few minutes after the two policemen had gone. She sat on the bench next to him, and he marveled once again at her strength. He could almost believe that she was the one who handled this the best, if he hadn't heard her on the phone earlier. Sam and her had been friend from day one - but then it was hard not to be friends with Sam. Their bond had tightened after Rosslyn, although he'd never known why. He had thought that it was due to the fact that they were together that night, but something in the way they had looked at each other for a while after that made him think that there was more to it that just the consciousness of a shared tense situation.

Josh worried him even more. Sam and him hadn't been close for a while, but it didn't negate years of friendship, a campaign, and four years of working together day in and day out. He was dead worried, not in spite of the state of his relationship with Sam, but because of it. Besides, the situation could only wake demons he hadn't slain yet, demons he probably would never get rid of. They were going to have to keep an eye on him.

Donna arrived then, supporting Ginger. They smiled bravely, and they sat down, holding hands. "What would we do without them?" Toby wondered, not for the first time.

"Josh says I hover," Donna explained. "He wanted me to leave him alone."

"And I wanted to see how you were doing," Ginger added, looking at Toby, and the image of her face after Rosslyn came back to his mind.

"Besides, it was becoming crowded in there," Donna smiled.

"Josh?" CJ asked

"Leo and the President are keeping an eye on him," Ginger smiled.

"And who's keeping an eye on Leo and the President?" Toby wondered, and he grimaced when the women turned to him, a slightly amused expression on their faces.

"They keep an eye on each other," Donna said. "And the First Lady is on her way."

"That's the first good news of the evening," CJ muttered and Toby agreed with her. Abbey Bartlet was a force to reckon with. Once she was here, everything would get better.

Or not.

He looked at his watch, shocked to realize that only an hour and a half had passed since he had forced a receptionist to answer him.

Ninety minutes, and he felt like he was going to explode .

The night was going to be long.