Three
By Redtoes
Author's note: Here's another segment in this little story of mine. The time line is a little confusing, in case you hadn't noticed it yet.
The "present" is based in or around the 1st season episode "He shall from time to time", that also includes Sam and Mallory's first kiss. The "past" storyline, is moving forward, after the meeting in a Georgetown bar that brought Josh and Mallory back into each others lives.
Disclaimer - not mine, at all, just the idea is. Please don't sue, I barely make rent as it is.
"Don't go for the geniuses. They never want to sleep."
I mean, man. There are just some things I never want to hear. Ever. And Abbey Bartlet dropping hints about her and the President's sex life. Suddenly there's a teenager shrieking "Euw!" somewhere inside my head.
There are some things I just don't want to hear.
"You've got an itch for Sam Seabourn."
I do not. I just..
I appreciate him, or something about him. I appreciate him. I appreciate the things he's done. Like writing a statement defending my father. Like putting the love and support and friendship that one man feels for another and putting it into words. Words the president will use in my father's defence.
I appreciate that. I really do.
******
"Well now I'm even more confused," Sam splutters. There's more that comes out of his mouth. Something about loving being a writer, but I just don't register it. I'm too caught up in watching Mallory cross the room to kiss him.
I'm watching it right now, right this second. My mind replaying the moment, stretching those seconds into minutes, into hours.
Mallory kissed Sam.
Twice.
Once as a Thank you, and once as. something else.
Mallory kissed Sam.
It's oddly painful.
It shouldn't be really. He's my best friend, and I've known her since she was born and if there are two people in the world who deserve happiness more than these two, well I don't know them. Sam could love her. She could love him. I'm staying out of this.
But I keep replaying the memory in my head.
She kisses him, as a thank you. Then there's this pause, this realization before she kisses him again, and this time it has nothing to do with thanks, this time it's about something deeper, something heavier.
Something else.
God I can almost taste her perfume. She still wears the same scent and I can remember walking into her apartment, her flat-share, her place, stumbling over boxes as I carry Chinese take-out across a cluttered carpet in the dark and -
*******
CRASH!
"Aaarrgghh!"
"Josh?"
"Aaarrrgghh!!!"
Suddenly the light flicks on and I'm visible in the middle of the floor, covered in take out.
And Mallory can't stop laughing, her petite frame contorting with her guffaws. She's holding her stomach with one hand and pointing at me with the other. It's like a still life, "woman laughs at man on floor wearing Chinese food".
It's really not funny.
And I tell her that.
"Oh it is Josh," she gasps between giggles. "It really is."
And she's grinning. And it's wonderful. I can't remember the last time I saw her smile like this, laugh like this. Of course I haven't ever worn take out for her benefit before but still. To see this woman, this girl I've known for years that's always been so somber. To see her laugh like this, it lifts my heart.
"Okay Red," I've let her laugh herself out, now she's collapsed against a wall making those weird little half whimpers-half giggles what women make, and I think my time as object of amusement is over. "You gonna help me up or what?"
"Maybe," she replies, her face still split in that grin. "But not until I find my camera!" And with that she scampers, and I mean scampers, she moves like some small hyperactive mammal on a sugar high, off to her bedroom, leaving me on the floor.
I know I sighed. I suspect I cursed a little.
But I waited. Mostly because I wanted to see that smile again. I loved the idea that I, so socially inept at times, had been able to make the solemn, serious character that she was smile so easily. Well maybe not easily on my part, wearing kung pow chicken at this point, but she smiled. She smiled.
And she looked beautiful when she smiled.
******
She still looks beautiful when she smiles, but it's so rare these days. Donna told me that Margaret worries about Leo and Mallory. This is the closest they've been in years and so much of it is because Jenny left him and Mallory's afraid he'll start drinking if he's left alone. I disagree but I've learned to listen to the assistant grapevine on those rare moments that Donna shares it with me - they're usually onto something.
They're wrong this time though. Leo doesn't drink because he's alone, and be driven to a bottle on the basis of where Mallory is. He goes of his own free will and drags himself away by his determination and damn stubbornness. I've never met a more stubborn man.
But then Mallory ran away when he hit his worst. I don't think she's ever forgiven herself for that, and so she's here now. Rebuilding her bridges. Shepherding her father in his time of need.
Defending him to the hilt.
Kissing Sam.
As a thank you.
God I need to get that image out of my head.
"DONNA?!"
I need a distraction. Any distraction.
"Bring me that info on grazing rights."
But still the memories come.
******
"Tell me a story," she says one night as I walk her home along the banks of the Potomac.
"A story?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Humor me Josh, or one day when you're rich and famous... the ghost of the Kung Pow chicken might make it to the Washington Post." She's still grinning, but she's tucked under my arm and my coat, trying to keep warm in this December wind.
We walk like lovers, or family along the path. Every homeless person she sees she gives a dollar to. The benefits of a rich youth; she always carries money for those who have none, and spends so little on herself.
"A story," I think, wandering through the archives of my memory, trying to find something appropriate, "Any preferences?"
"No, just something true."
I look at her huddled beside me. We really should be walking faster but I savor these moments. They make me feel human and loved. Though to walk with a girl under your arm at two in the morning may be a romantic image to some, the bitter wind of a Washington winter says we really should be moving faster.
"Okay," I concede, "A true story." I pause, considering. "Once upon a time there was a young and foolish boy."
"Called Josh?" She asks.
"Shh, it's my story," I chastise, "And he was lonely. He'd lost his best friend when he was very young and he didn't know how to make any others. And then one day he met this angel, this red-haired freckled angel."
"I do not have freckles."
"Deal with it. And this angel took him away from the bad people who made him feel like a freak and made him feel safe. She made him smile, and made him happy, and later, much later he realized she was beautiful and that made him happy too."
I have no idea where I was going with this, except that I was gonna make it funny, but somehow I'm here, paused on the banks of the river, with my red- haired angel staring up at me.
"Josh," she starts, but is cut off when I place a finger against her lips.
"Let me finish the story Mal."
She nods her agreement.
"So this boy, he realized that sometimes the angel wasn't all that happy as he thought she was." She's not, I come round unexpected and find her with tear tracks down her cheeks and an unwillingness to discuss it. She hasn't mentioned her father the entire time I've been here, and he's barely two miles across town. She's not happy, not happy at all.
"And he decided that now he had to be the angel, and make the girl smile. And so he did, quite spectacularly, by tripping over her mess and landing on the floor covered in Chinese food. And she laughed and he was happy. Though he was damp, and realized that some of this stuff stains and he hates doing laundry."
She giggles softly, the tension of a minute before lost as she settles herself back under my arm and walks with me towards home.
"Do I get to call you Angel now?" She teases.
"No"
"How about kung pow boy?"
"Sounds like I should be in a comic strip somewhere saving metropolis."
"And wearing mutli-colored tights," she adds with grin.
And together we walk, but I could have kissed her back then. Do I want to? She's practically family, her father would kill me. If he ever found out, which seems unlikely the amount they've been talking recently.
But do I want to kiss her?
I don't know.
By Redtoes
Author's note: Here's another segment in this little story of mine. The time line is a little confusing, in case you hadn't noticed it yet.
The "present" is based in or around the 1st season episode "He shall from time to time", that also includes Sam and Mallory's first kiss. The "past" storyline, is moving forward, after the meeting in a Georgetown bar that brought Josh and Mallory back into each others lives.
Disclaimer - not mine, at all, just the idea is. Please don't sue, I barely make rent as it is.
"Don't go for the geniuses. They never want to sleep."
I mean, man. There are just some things I never want to hear. Ever. And Abbey Bartlet dropping hints about her and the President's sex life. Suddenly there's a teenager shrieking "Euw!" somewhere inside my head.
There are some things I just don't want to hear.
"You've got an itch for Sam Seabourn."
I do not. I just..
I appreciate him, or something about him. I appreciate him. I appreciate the things he's done. Like writing a statement defending my father. Like putting the love and support and friendship that one man feels for another and putting it into words. Words the president will use in my father's defence.
I appreciate that. I really do.
******
"Well now I'm even more confused," Sam splutters. There's more that comes out of his mouth. Something about loving being a writer, but I just don't register it. I'm too caught up in watching Mallory cross the room to kiss him.
I'm watching it right now, right this second. My mind replaying the moment, stretching those seconds into minutes, into hours.
Mallory kissed Sam.
Twice.
Once as a Thank you, and once as. something else.
Mallory kissed Sam.
It's oddly painful.
It shouldn't be really. He's my best friend, and I've known her since she was born and if there are two people in the world who deserve happiness more than these two, well I don't know them. Sam could love her. She could love him. I'm staying out of this.
But I keep replaying the memory in my head.
She kisses him, as a thank you. Then there's this pause, this realization before she kisses him again, and this time it has nothing to do with thanks, this time it's about something deeper, something heavier.
Something else.
God I can almost taste her perfume. She still wears the same scent and I can remember walking into her apartment, her flat-share, her place, stumbling over boxes as I carry Chinese take-out across a cluttered carpet in the dark and -
*******
CRASH!
"Aaarrgghh!"
"Josh?"
"Aaarrrgghh!!!"
Suddenly the light flicks on and I'm visible in the middle of the floor, covered in take out.
And Mallory can't stop laughing, her petite frame contorting with her guffaws. She's holding her stomach with one hand and pointing at me with the other. It's like a still life, "woman laughs at man on floor wearing Chinese food".
It's really not funny.
And I tell her that.
"Oh it is Josh," she gasps between giggles. "It really is."
And she's grinning. And it's wonderful. I can't remember the last time I saw her smile like this, laugh like this. Of course I haven't ever worn take out for her benefit before but still. To see this woman, this girl I've known for years that's always been so somber. To see her laugh like this, it lifts my heart.
"Okay Red," I've let her laugh herself out, now she's collapsed against a wall making those weird little half whimpers-half giggles what women make, and I think my time as object of amusement is over. "You gonna help me up or what?"
"Maybe," she replies, her face still split in that grin. "But not until I find my camera!" And with that she scampers, and I mean scampers, she moves like some small hyperactive mammal on a sugar high, off to her bedroom, leaving me on the floor.
I know I sighed. I suspect I cursed a little.
But I waited. Mostly because I wanted to see that smile again. I loved the idea that I, so socially inept at times, had been able to make the solemn, serious character that she was smile so easily. Well maybe not easily on my part, wearing kung pow chicken at this point, but she smiled. She smiled.
And she looked beautiful when she smiled.
******
She still looks beautiful when she smiles, but it's so rare these days. Donna told me that Margaret worries about Leo and Mallory. This is the closest they've been in years and so much of it is because Jenny left him and Mallory's afraid he'll start drinking if he's left alone. I disagree but I've learned to listen to the assistant grapevine on those rare moments that Donna shares it with me - they're usually onto something.
They're wrong this time though. Leo doesn't drink because he's alone, and be driven to a bottle on the basis of where Mallory is. He goes of his own free will and drags himself away by his determination and damn stubbornness. I've never met a more stubborn man.
But then Mallory ran away when he hit his worst. I don't think she's ever forgiven herself for that, and so she's here now. Rebuilding her bridges. Shepherding her father in his time of need.
Defending him to the hilt.
Kissing Sam.
As a thank you.
God I need to get that image out of my head.
"DONNA?!"
I need a distraction. Any distraction.
"Bring me that info on grazing rights."
But still the memories come.
******
"Tell me a story," she says one night as I walk her home along the banks of the Potomac.
"A story?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Humor me Josh, or one day when you're rich and famous... the ghost of the Kung Pow chicken might make it to the Washington Post." She's still grinning, but she's tucked under my arm and my coat, trying to keep warm in this December wind.
We walk like lovers, or family along the path. Every homeless person she sees she gives a dollar to. The benefits of a rich youth; she always carries money for those who have none, and spends so little on herself.
"A story," I think, wandering through the archives of my memory, trying to find something appropriate, "Any preferences?"
"No, just something true."
I look at her huddled beside me. We really should be walking faster but I savor these moments. They make me feel human and loved. Though to walk with a girl under your arm at two in the morning may be a romantic image to some, the bitter wind of a Washington winter says we really should be moving faster.
"Okay," I concede, "A true story." I pause, considering. "Once upon a time there was a young and foolish boy."
"Called Josh?" She asks.
"Shh, it's my story," I chastise, "And he was lonely. He'd lost his best friend when he was very young and he didn't know how to make any others. And then one day he met this angel, this red-haired freckled angel."
"I do not have freckles."
"Deal with it. And this angel took him away from the bad people who made him feel like a freak and made him feel safe. She made him smile, and made him happy, and later, much later he realized she was beautiful and that made him happy too."
I have no idea where I was going with this, except that I was gonna make it funny, but somehow I'm here, paused on the banks of the river, with my red- haired angel staring up at me.
"Josh," she starts, but is cut off when I place a finger against her lips.
"Let me finish the story Mal."
She nods her agreement.
"So this boy, he realized that sometimes the angel wasn't all that happy as he thought she was." She's not, I come round unexpected and find her with tear tracks down her cheeks and an unwillingness to discuss it. She hasn't mentioned her father the entire time I've been here, and he's barely two miles across town. She's not happy, not happy at all.
"And he decided that now he had to be the angel, and make the girl smile. And so he did, quite spectacularly, by tripping over her mess and landing on the floor covered in Chinese food. And she laughed and he was happy. Though he was damp, and realized that some of this stuff stains and he hates doing laundry."
She giggles softly, the tension of a minute before lost as she settles herself back under my arm and walks with me towards home.
"Do I get to call you Angel now?" She teases.
"No"
"How about kung pow boy?"
"Sounds like I should be in a comic strip somewhere saving metropolis."
"And wearing mutli-colored tights," she adds with grin.
And together we walk, but I could have kissed her back then. Do I want to? She's practically family, her father would kill me. If he ever found out, which seems unlikely the amount they've been talking recently.
But do I want to kiss her?
I don't know.