PART TWO
2006, Manchester
When Sam entered the room, Ainsley sat up and watched him make his way to the bathroom. He was limping, far more so than usual.
She knew what it meant - his leg was hurting, and if she knew him, he was going to deny it.
"Sam?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Do you need help?"
He came back in the room, and she could hear the water running in the bathtub. "I... Yes, if you don't mind," he admitted, and her worry escalated a notch.
"How bad is it?"
"It'll be fine," he said, but they both knew what it meant - 'No, I don't need the strong painkillers yet'.
He had told her once that he was terrified that one day, the painkillers he took would stop being effective. He had several brands of medicine, from light pain relievers to codeine ones. He tried not to take too many of the latter, but sometimes, after she had spent the night listening to him turning in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, she forced one on him. Neither of them liked the way it knocked him out, but when it was needed, Ainsley just insisted.
Most times, though, he was really fine. There was always a slight limp in the way he walked, but it usually wasn't noticeable. It only got worse when he was too tired, when he had spent the day on his feet, and of course, when it was cold or wet - like now. In these cases, he often had to take something. He refused to be under medication while doing his job, and she suspected that being elected Governor would reinforce this resolution, but when he came home, she bullied him into taking something. She had become quite adept at seeing through his reassurances. She knew how to interpret his tone, the lines on his face, and usually could tell what level of pain he was in just by observing him.
Today, if she read the signs correctly, it was a still-dull-but-going-to-be-worse kind of pain. If he was already hurting at eight in the morning, then it would definitely get worse during the day. It was a rule, and it suffered no exceptions.
She got up, and joined him in the bathroom. He had already taken his shirt off, and his back was to her, so she took this opportunity to enjoy the view.
"You know, I can tell when you're staring," he said, his tone slightly amused.
She smiled, relieved that he was feeling up to joking, even a little.
If only the tightness in his voice hadn't been present too...
"What, I can't profit being married to you?"
He turned then, trying to smile. "Oh, far be it from me to deny you that right," he teased, and she raised an eyebrow.
"I think the bathtub is as full as it'll ever be," she said, and he cut off the flow of water.
When he turned back to her, there was a pallor to his face that hadn't been there a few minutes ago, and she frowned a little. "Sam?"
"Fine," he repeated. "I'm sure water will help."
She nodded, then gestured to him. "Well, strip off then," she said, and the look he gave her made her blush.
Once he had taken his clothes off, she helped him to climb into the tub, then to lie down in the water. It took them a few minutes to get him settled; he was really stiff, she found out, and he tended to lean on her heavily when he was like that - scared of falling down and hurting himself, he had once told her.
He rested his back on the tub's edge, and closed his eyes, trying to relax. He was often too crisp for his own good, and it didn't help the muscles to relax. She sat down next to him, and stroked his hair gently. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"Thanks."
"Sam..." she said, rolling her eyes. "You know I don't mind, for God's sake. Why would I? We're married, remember?"
"I still marvel at that every morning actually," he confessed.
"Right - "
"And I'm sure it can't be fun to have a guy my size leaning on you for all he's worth."
That annoyed her. He seemed to be spending way too much time thanking her when she helped him through the pain, and she didn't want him to think that she did it out of duty - or worse, out of pity. If she could only find a way to make him understand that. Her reassurances hadn't seemed to work so far, and she decided to play dirty, for once. Maybe that kind of message would get through.
"There are upsides, you know," she said, letting her hand linger on his chest, then move down. And down.
At his gasp, she stopped and looked at him. Now he was the one blushing, and not because he was deep into hot water. Not only.
"Better not tire you out," she said regretfully. "Not yet."
He looked ready to protest, but in the end, he nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. Okay. I guess."
"Does it still hurt?"
"Not as much, amazingly," he said, his voice curiously high. "But I'm not sure it has to do with the water." She knew he was lying through his teeth, but at least, he had been distracted for a while.
Getting up, she smiled gently at him. "Try to relax some more, okay? I'd better go tell the others that we'll be late for breakfast."
He nodded, and she tried to ignore the way he was staring at her as she went.
**********
Half an hour later
Sam let Ainsley help him get up. The water was becoming colder now, and after half an hour sitting in it, he was more than ready to get out. He tried to move his leg, and realized that it was a little less stiff than it had been before. Not much, but it was still an improvement.
His back was still bothering him, though.
Ainsley must have seen him test his leg, and she asked, "You'll be able to get out of there?"
He thought about that, but he had to admit that he needed help.
Great.
He felt stupid for being embarrassed - He and Ainsley were married, she had seen him naked before for God's sake. He just couldn't help feeling in a position of inferiority. She was trying to turn it into a game, and he was thankful for the effort, but he didn't feel sexy when he was like that. He felt weak, self conscious, and too aware of the scars that were now running over his body.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, thanks."
He wrapped a towel around his waist, leaned on Ainsley to get out of the tub, and let her guide him to the room. He went to their luggage and retrieved a small box, full of various painkillers. She watched him, and when she saw him take the lightest one, she offered hesitantly, "Massage?"
He hesitated. He knew the medication wouldn't be effective enough, and maybe it would help him relax.
He shot a look to the clock and pondered, trying to evaluate just how much they would be late.
"I told them we'd be a while," she said, catching his eyes.
"Did you, hum, phrase it like that?"
"Yes."
He looked, and she shrugged, "What, I'm not responsible for any erroneous interpretation they'd reach," she pointed out.
"Right," he said, skeptically, before heading to the bed and lying, face down, on the soft sheets.
She moved to his side without further comment, and he felt her hands begin to rub the small of his back. He knew there was a scar down there, a quite visible one. The torn ligaments had required surgery to repair, contrary to what the doctors had hoped.
There were awful scars on his leg too, and on his hand. The surgeon had recommended a plastic surgeon to him, but he didn't want to be operated on again, not even for something as trivial as removing these scars. He would have done it if Ainsley had asked him to, but she hadn't even tried to argue the issue - a rare occurrence.
They didn't bother him that much anymore. He just never dressed in shorts, nor took his shirt off, in front of anyone but Ainsley.
The only time they really bothered him was in moments such as this.
He could feel the muscles finally finish untying in his back, and he sighed. This was good.
"What did you do this morning?" Ainsley asked, and the non sequitur surprised him.
"When?" he asked drowsily.
"When you left before I woke up."
"I went for a walk. I thought maybe it would help," he said, chuckling at how well that plan had worked.
"It sometimes does," Ainsley pointed out.
"Sometimes," he allowed. "Can you go back... there, yes." Ainsley's hands moved softly, and he closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift off, first to the conversation he had had with the President, then to Josh's behavior the last days he had spent in DC, and to the day Josh had come visit him in California, three months after the accident.
**********
2004, California
Sam was home at his desk, typing an email to Toby, when the bell rang.
"Can you get it?" Ainsley asked. He groaned. It would take him hours to get to the door at the speed he was walking. Ainsley was busy feeding Alex, though, and he wasn't about to tell her to go open the door herself - he valued his life, and he truly didn't feel up to another debate on equal duties for the parents.
Besides, he knew what she was thinking. He needed to walk, even if it took time, even if it hurt, because it was the only way he would get better. So he limped to the door, leaning on his crutches, yelling that he was coming in case the person on the other side was of the impatient type.
When he opened the door, he found himself in front of Josh, who was grinning like an idiot, so much like he had in their first months on the Hill that Sam fleetingly wondered whether he had gone back in time.
"Hey, Leo ordered me to go on holiday before I drove him insane, and I thought, 'Why not go see how Sam's doing?' So I packed, and here I am."
Sam disregarded the few thousand questions that had automatically jumped to him, 'Leo sent you on holidays?', 'You came * here * when we haven't talked for months?', 'You're not with Amy?' and asked instead, "You packed? Yourself?"
"Well, Donna did," Josh admitted. "But, hey, I told her what I wanted to take."
It was stronger than him. "Even the underwear?"
"No, I did that all by myself," he said indignantly.
Sam smiled, and motioned for him to go in. "Don't mind the mess, we weren't expecting anyone," he apologized, fully conscious of all the baby toys dispersed all around the house - as well as quite a few of his own things, books, pens, floppy disks.
Josh looked at him.
"Do you remember my place?" he asked rhetorically, before scanning the room. "Where are the two wonderful creatures who share your life?" he asked, and Sam smiled and showed him the way to the kitchen, painfully aware of the time it took him to walk the few meters. Josh didn't seem to mind, though. He chatted non stop, about the latest adventures of Josh-the-master-politician. Sam wondered if he was talking that much to ease the tension, or to keep Sam's mind off the walking, then decided that it didn't really matter.
The situation was awkward anyway.
**********
Much later that day, the two men were sitting in two leather chairs, a beer in their hands, watching the sun set on the town - a view Sam cherished.
He was still wondering what his friend was doing here. Granted, he had come after the accident, but back then he was acting as a representative of the rest of the staff. He had come because they couldn't spare Toby or CJ. They hadn't talked much either. Sam was still groggy, and a little scared, after the embolism that had almost killed him.
Josh hadn't been able to stay long that time, and he hadn't come back since then. Toby had come, then CJ the next week, and after that, Sam had been released from the hospital, and the updates on his health had taken place by phone. Josh had called a few times, but they had never talked about the way Sam had left DC. They were busy updating each other on the current state their lives were in, and trying to ignore the fact that they stopped talking after five minutes, and hung up after ten, not finding anything to say.
Besides, at the time, Sam was busy dealing with the aftermath of his accident. The physical therapist who was working with him hadn't lied to him. He would walk again, and maybe, on good days, his limp wouldn't be too noticeable, but it would be there. His back was healing slowly - at least, Sam told himself ten times a day, at least the spine hadn't been hurt. His leg had required two more operations, that had left horrendous scars, and he needed to learn how to move without hurting himself. She had also insisted that he buy a cane, for the bad days - the days where he'd need support so he didn't overexert the leg. Sam had held back a grimace, thinking that it would still be better than the crutches.
He had been scared. He could easily have died from the blood clot. The surgeons had been able to stop it before it reached the heart but it had been a close call.
Ainsley hadn't really talked about it, but the way she looked at him was enough to make him understand just how close a call.
He had been lucky, he told himself, as he was being tortured by his physical therapist, for hours, repeating the same movements, again and again, gritting his teeth against the pain, blowing up at the woman when she ordered him to go on after he had fallen down for the third time of the day and he felt like crying.
He had been lucky.
Maybe if he said it often enough, he would be able to believe it.
He was alive.
Alex was fine, and hadn't been hurt.
He was 36 and would limp for the rest of his life.
He had been lucky.
Everyone said so. Except for Josh. Josh had never said that. Maybe he remembered that everyone had told him how lucky he had been after Rosslyn, maybe he hadn't forgotten how unfair this kind of trauma seems, even when you've been lucky.
He was glad to see Josh, but he was really wondering what he was doing here. "Josh, why did you come?" he asked, staring at the ocean.
"Donna would say that I came to grovel," Josh said, his serious tone belying the lightness of the words. Sam smiled, remembering a discussion they'd had on his last night in DC.
"But that's not the case?" Sam asked.
"No. I came because... I had an epiphany, Sam."
Sam finally turned to him, ready to laugh, but Josh looked serious enough so he held back and let him speak.
"Amy dumped me," Josh added, staring at the ocean.
"I'm sorry," he said. He had never really understood what those two saw in each other, but they had stayed together for three years, so he supposed they had to have been serious. It was, by far, the longest relationship Josh had ever been involved in, and that in itself spoke volumes.
"Are you?" Josh asked. "Cause the universal reaction seemed to be a big 'thank God', and I really - "
"Josh, I won't pretend I understood what you were doing together, but I figured after three years, you were... commited to each other."
Josh nodded. "Thanks, man. It... it was a blow. I mean... she said things to me, and I tried to disregard them, to pretend that it was just part of the break up scene she had played. But I got thinking, and now I'm wondering... Sam, am I a jerk?"
The question took Sam by surprise, and he began to laugh, a little at first, then uncontrollably.
"It's not that funny," Josh protested.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, when he was able to catch his breath. "It's just... Josh, tell me you didn't fly all the way from Washington to ask me... God, that's..."
"Okay," Josh said hesitantly, looking a little pained.
Sam had regained his composure, and he looked at Josh more attentively. He looked tired, more rumpled than his flight could have accounted for, and he had some gray hair now.
He was past forty, still single, he seemed older than his age and he definitely looked like he should put a halt on his beer consumption if he didn't want to turn fat.
Watching Josh more carefully, Sam wondered if it was defeatism he saw in the way his friend's shoulders were hunched over?
Josh didn't look very happy right now.
Sam was biting his lips, and he asked, just to make sure that Josh wanted the truth, "Josh, you know I never lied to you about my feelings?"
"Why do you think I came?" Josh asked
Sam nodded, his decision made.
Maybe he would hurt Josh by telling him that, but if he had really come all this way out of a sincere desire to change, he could give him the truth. In memory of the good days...
"You've been a jerk for some time now, Josh," he said, and Josh looked at him, but he wasn't able to read his face. "You've been arrogant, self involved, so sure you have all the answers - "
"I was self-involved?" Josh asked, sadly.
"Josh, how many times did I try to talk to you about something I found important, only to have you tell me that you had to meet Amy? How many times did you look me in the eyes while you were lying? How many times did you listen to what I wanted to talk about when I started dating Ainsley? Yes, there was the MS to deal with, but it was my life too, and I was scared to death because we were getting serious and I had been burned once. I was trying to ask for your advice, and you answered, 'Whatever, what are we going to do to spin the MS thing?' I know we were all busy dealing with our own feelings, but..."
Josh was staring at his shoes, and Sam softened his voice. "Look, it's great that you want to change, but you did ask, and yes, Josh, you were an ass. I thought I had gotten used to it within a few months of knowing you, but either I was wrong or you reached a whole new level of jackassness recently. Or maybe I'm the one who became less tolerant, go figure."
Josh smiled softly. "Maybe there's a little of all that."
"Maybe."
"I'm going to try to change, you know. I mean... God, I'm forty-three, and what do I have? What have I achieved so far?"
"We're all there, Josh. We all wonder what we could have done better."
"But you're married, you have a kid, you work to make things better - "
"So do you," Sam pointed out.
"It's not the same," Josh sighed. "It's... I don't know, for a long time, we couldn't do what we wanted to do because we needed to think about re-election, and now it's almost like we're all thinking, 'What's the point?' I have the feeling that we're going to have to work to get Hoynes elected, and that we're going to have to make concessions..."
"Josh, all that is normal. It's governing, it's trying to make things better like you can - "
"Then why did you leave? You weren't happy with the way we did things back then, were you?"
Sam leaned back in his chair, surprised at how defensive Josh sounded all of a sudden. "I... Part of the reason I left was that, yes," he admitted. "Another part was that I thought you all needed better than someone who wasn't ready to give his best to the administration. I was mad about the MS, and yes, it's another reason, but not the only one. And most of all, I had the feeling I was becoming invisible. I know I should have reacted better to the disclosure, but I didn't, and that pretty much affected my relationship with all of you guys. You weren't listening to me anymore, and I didn't want to make an effort. I was way too tired for that."
He stopped, surprised himself by his rant, and Josh eyed him carefully.
"And now?" he asked after a while.
"Now I don't regret leaving. It was time for me to move on. But I do regret the way things ended between the two of us. And since we're into big confessions tonight, I'll admit that I'm more than ready to put the past behind us now. I've got other things to think about right now," he said.
Questions like, am I a good father? A good husband?
A good writer? A good chief of staff?
Why did this accident have to happen?
Josh nodded slowly, and took a sip of his beer. "So... Am I forgiven for being a jackass?" he asked.
Sam looked at him, and understood that it was that, more than his 'epiphany', that had made Josh come here.
"Sure," he said, surprised to discover that he meant it. "Just as long as we agree to disagree on quite a number of topics..."
"So we can coexist in peace..." Josh finished, and Sam arched an eyebrow.
"Have you been watching Star Trek again?" he asked.
"Why would I do something like that?"
"Because you're weird."
"Oh, look who's talking! Mister I-read-dictionaries-for-pleasure."
"Oh, that's weak, Josh!"
The two men were so busy arguing they didn't notice Ainsley, listening to them from inside the house, smiling softly.
**********
2006, Manchester
"You okay, buddy?" Josh asked as soon as Sam and Ainsley appeared in the kitchen.
"Fine," Sam said, not willing to dwell on the matter.
The rest of the gang had obviously finished eating a while ago, and Abbey, who was chatting with CJ, turned to them. "I'll have something fixed for you."
Sam was about to protest that he wasn't hungry when a glare from the First lady stopped him short. "You're not about to pretend that you don't need anything to eat, are you, Samuel?" she asked dangerously.
CJ and Josh looked at him, amused expressions on their faces, and Sam smiled sheepishly. "No?" he ventured.
"Damn right, you're not," she said, and motioned for him and Ainsley to sit. Josh and CJ took places at the kitchen table with them, and CJ explained softly that Leo and Toby were arguing on the goodbye address, and that the President was enjoying the show.
"Isn't... Steve going to help him with that?" Sam asked.
"Steve's gone," Abbey explained.
"You're kidding me, right!" Ainsley exclaimed. "It was the... how many people has he fired anyway?"
"Seven. Two of them were rehired, and were fired again soon after."
Sam laughed softly. His former boss's hiring/firing deputies habits had become something of a legend. He just hadn't seemed to find anyone else who was good enough for the job - he claimed all the writers of the town were either dead or already at work, but everyone suspected that it had a lot to do with his refusal to replace Sam.
"I sympathize with them," Ainsley said, and CJ rolled her eyes.
"Sympathize with us, would you! We're the ones who got stuck with Mister Grumpy there for three years."
"And God knows that man can be vocal when he wants to," Bartlet's voice said from the doorway. They all shot to their feet, and he waved them back, glaring at Sam. "You shouldn't be getting up anyway, Sam," he chastised. "Is it better?"
"Yes, thank you," he lied, and it obviously didn't come out convincingly.
They all stared, including Ainsley, not saying a word. He almost laughed. "I took a pill, it'll get better eventually. It's just the weather that's making it worse than it usually is."
"Well, I'm glad to see you both," Bartlet said, "but if I had known, I would have picked a better time of the year."
Sam shrugged. "I wasn't sure it would happen, but I had thought about it. I wanted to see you all anyway, and it's not for long," he said.
"Not long enough, no," Josh said wistfully.
"I'm barely here, and he already complains," Sam laughed, and all the others smiled softly. "Let's focus on the present, Josh, shall we?"
"Yes, Governor," Josh said, his tone sarcastic.
"Oh, will you stop with that?"
Bartlet smiled. "Now, you know how I feel each time someone calls me President."
"Yes, Mister President," Sam said seriously.
Bartlet sighed. "It will be a long battle, won't it?"
A chorus of "Yes, sir," answered him.
He shrugged good naturedly. "Fine, so be it. We have, after all, all the time in the world to break you all of that habit."
2006, Manchester
When Sam entered the room, Ainsley sat up and watched him make his way to the bathroom. He was limping, far more so than usual.
She knew what it meant - his leg was hurting, and if she knew him, he was going to deny it.
"Sam?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Do you need help?"
He came back in the room, and she could hear the water running in the bathtub. "I... Yes, if you don't mind," he admitted, and her worry escalated a notch.
"How bad is it?"
"It'll be fine," he said, but they both knew what it meant - 'No, I don't need the strong painkillers yet'.
He had told her once that he was terrified that one day, the painkillers he took would stop being effective. He had several brands of medicine, from light pain relievers to codeine ones. He tried not to take too many of the latter, but sometimes, after she had spent the night listening to him turning in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, she forced one on him. Neither of them liked the way it knocked him out, but when it was needed, Ainsley just insisted.
Most times, though, he was really fine. There was always a slight limp in the way he walked, but it usually wasn't noticeable. It only got worse when he was too tired, when he had spent the day on his feet, and of course, when it was cold or wet - like now. In these cases, he often had to take something. He refused to be under medication while doing his job, and she suspected that being elected Governor would reinforce this resolution, but when he came home, she bullied him into taking something. She had become quite adept at seeing through his reassurances. She knew how to interpret his tone, the lines on his face, and usually could tell what level of pain he was in just by observing him.
Today, if she read the signs correctly, it was a still-dull-but-going-to-be-worse kind of pain. If he was already hurting at eight in the morning, then it would definitely get worse during the day. It was a rule, and it suffered no exceptions.
She got up, and joined him in the bathroom. He had already taken his shirt off, and his back was to her, so she took this opportunity to enjoy the view.
"You know, I can tell when you're staring," he said, his tone slightly amused.
She smiled, relieved that he was feeling up to joking, even a little.
If only the tightness in his voice hadn't been present too...
"What, I can't profit being married to you?"
He turned then, trying to smile. "Oh, far be it from me to deny you that right," he teased, and she raised an eyebrow.
"I think the bathtub is as full as it'll ever be," she said, and he cut off the flow of water.
When he turned back to her, there was a pallor to his face that hadn't been there a few minutes ago, and she frowned a little. "Sam?"
"Fine," he repeated. "I'm sure water will help."
She nodded, then gestured to him. "Well, strip off then," she said, and the look he gave her made her blush.
Once he had taken his clothes off, she helped him to climb into the tub, then to lie down in the water. It took them a few minutes to get him settled; he was really stiff, she found out, and he tended to lean on her heavily when he was like that - scared of falling down and hurting himself, he had once told her.
He rested his back on the tub's edge, and closed his eyes, trying to relax. He was often too crisp for his own good, and it didn't help the muscles to relax. She sat down next to him, and stroked his hair gently. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"Thanks."
"Sam..." she said, rolling her eyes. "You know I don't mind, for God's sake. Why would I? We're married, remember?"
"I still marvel at that every morning actually," he confessed.
"Right - "
"And I'm sure it can't be fun to have a guy my size leaning on you for all he's worth."
That annoyed her. He seemed to be spending way too much time thanking her when she helped him through the pain, and she didn't want him to think that she did it out of duty - or worse, out of pity. If she could only find a way to make him understand that. Her reassurances hadn't seemed to work so far, and she decided to play dirty, for once. Maybe that kind of message would get through.
"There are upsides, you know," she said, letting her hand linger on his chest, then move down. And down.
At his gasp, she stopped and looked at him. Now he was the one blushing, and not because he was deep into hot water. Not only.
"Better not tire you out," she said regretfully. "Not yet."
He looked ready to protest, but in the end, he nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. Okay. I guess."
"Does it still hurt?"
"Not as much, amazingly," he said, his voice curiously high. "But I'm not sure it has to do with the water." She knew he was lying through his teeth, but at least, he had been distracted for a while.
Getting up, she smiled gently at him. "Try to relax some more, okay? I'd better go tell the others that we'll be late for breakfast."
He nodded, and she tried to ignore the way he was staring at her as she went.
**********
Half an hour later
Sam let Ainsley help him get up. The water was becoming colder now, and after half an hour sitting in it, he was more than ready to get out. He tried to move his leg, and realized that it was a little less stiff than it had been before. Not much, but it was still an improvement.
His back was still bothering him, though.
Ainsley must have seen him test his leg, and she asked, "You'll be able to get out of there?"
He thought about that, but he had to admit that he needed help.
Great.
He felt stupid for being embarrassed - He and Ainsley were married, she had seen him naked before for God's sake. He just couldn't help feeling in a position of inferiority. She was trying to turn it into a game, and he was thankful for the effort, but he didn't feel sexy when he was like that. He felt weak, self conscious, and too aware of the scars that were now running over his body.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, thanks."
He wrapped a towel around his waist, leaned on Ainsley to get out of the tub, and let her guide him to the room. He went to their luggage and retrieved a small box, full of various painkillers. She watched him, and when she saw him take the lightest one, she offered hesitantly, "Massage?"
He hesitated. He knew the medication wouldn't be effective enough, and maybe it would help him relax.
He shot a look to the clock and pondered, trying to evaluate just how much they would be late.
"I told them we'd be a while," she said, catching his eyes.
"Did you, hum, phrase it like that?"
"Yes."
He looked, and she shrugged, "What, I'm not responsible for any erroneous interpretation they'd reach," she pointed out.
"Right," he said, skeptically, before heading to the bed and lying, face down, on the soft sheets.
She moved to his side without further comment, and he felt her hands begin to rub the small of his back. He knew there was a scar down there, a quite visible one. The torn ligaments had required surgery to repair, contrary to what the doctors had hoped.
There were awful scars on his leg too, and on his hand. The surgeon had recommended a plastic surgeon to him, but he didn't want to be operated on again, not even for something as trivial as removing these scars. He would have done it if Ainsley had asked him to, but she hadn't even tried to argue the issue - a rare occurrence.
They didn't bother him that much anymore. He just never dressed in shorts, nor took his shirt off, in front of anyone but Ainsley.
The only time they really bothered him was in moments such as this.
He could feel the muscles finally finish untying in his back, and he sighed. This was good.
"What did you do this morning?" Ainsley asked, and the non sequitur surprised him.
"When?" he asked drowsily.
"When you left before I woke up."
"I went for a walk. I thought maybe it would help," he said, chuckling at how well that plan had worked.
"It sometimes does," Ainsley pointed out.
"Sometimes," he allowed. "Can you go back... there, yes." Ainsley's hands moved softly, and he closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift off, first to the conversation he had had with the President, then to Josh's behavior the last days he had spent in DC, and to the day Josh had come visit him in California, three months after the accident.
**********
2004, California
Sam was home at his desk, typing an email to Toby, when the bell rang.
"Can you get it?" Ainsley asked. He groaned. It would take him hours to get to the door at the speed he was walking. Ainsley was busy feeding Alex, though, and he wasn't about to tell her to go open the door herself - he valued his life, and he truly didn't feel up to another debate on equal duties for the parents.
Besides, he knew what she was thinking. He needed to walk, even if it took time, even if it hurt, because it was the only way he would get better. So he limped to the door, leaning on his crutches, yelling that he was coming in case the person on the other side was of the impatient type.
When he opened the door, he found himself in front of Josh, who was grinning like an idiot, so much like he had in their first months on the Hill that Sam fleetingly wondered whether he had gone back in time.
"Hey, Leo ordered me to go on holiday before I drove him insane, and I thought, 'Why not go see how Sam's doing?' So I packed, and here I am."
Sam disregarded the few thousand questions that had automatically jumped to him, 'Leo sent you on holidays?', 'You came * here * when we haven't talked for months?', 'You're not with Amy?' and asked instead, "You packed? Yourself?"
"Well, Donna did," Josh admitted. "But, hey, I told her what I wanted to take."
It was stronger than him. "Even the underwear?"
"No, I did that all by myself," he said indignantly.
Sam smiled, and motioned for him to go in. "Don't mind the mess, we weren't expecting anyone," he apologized, fully conscious of all the baby toys dispersed all around the house - as well as quite a few of his own things, books, pens, floppy disks.
Josh looked at him.
"Do you remember my place?" he asked rhetorically, before scanning the room. "Where are the two wonderful creatures who share your life?" he asked, and Sam smiled and showed him the way to the kitchen, painfully aware of the time it took him to walk the few meters. Josh didn't seem to mind, though. He chatted non stop, about the latest adventures of Josh-the-master-politician. Sam wondered if he was talking that much to ease the tension, or to keep Sam's mind off the walking, then decided that it didn't really matter.
The situation was awkward anyway.
**********
Much later that day, the two men were sitting in two leather chairs, a beer in their hands, watching the sun set on the town - a view Sam cherished.
He was still wondering what his friend was doing here. Granted, he had come after the accident, but back then he was acting as a representative of the rest of the staff. He had come because they couldn't spare Toby or CJ. They hadn't talked much either. Sam was still groggy, and a little scared, after the embolism that had almost killed him.
Josh hadn't been able to stay long that time, and he hadn't come back since then. Toby had come, then CJ the next week, and after that, Sam had been released from the hospital, and the updates on his health had taken place by phone. Josh had called a few times, but they had never talked about the way Sam had left DC. They were busy updating each other on the current state their lives were in, and trying to ignore the fact that they stopped talking after five minutes, and hung up after ten, not finding anything to say.
Besides, at the time, Sam was busy dealing with the aftermath of his accident. The physical therapist who was working with him hadn't lied to him. He would walk again, and maybe, on good days, his limp wouldn't be too noticeable, but it would be there. His back was healing slowly - at least, Sam told himself ten times a day, at least the spine hadn't been hurt. His leg had required two more operations, that had left horrendous scars, and he needed to learn how to move without hurting himself. She had also insisted that he buy a cane, for the bad days - the days where he'd need support so he didn't overexert the leg. Sam had held back a grimace, thinking that it would still be better than the crutches.
He had been scared. He could easily have died from the blood clot. The surgeons had been able to stop it before it reached the heart but it had been a close call.
Ainsley hadn't really talked about it, but the way she looked at him was enough to make him understand just how close a call.
He had been lucky, he told himself, as he was being tortured by his physical therapist, for hours, repeating the same movements, again and again, gritting his teeth against the pain, blowing up at the woman when she ordered him to go on after he had fallen down for the third time of the day and he felt like crying.
He had been lucky.
Maybe if he said it often enough, he would be able to believe it.
He was alive.
Alex was fine, and hadn't been hurt.
He was 36 and would limp for the rest of his life.
He had been lucky.
Everyone said so. Except for Josh. Josh had never said that. Maybe he remembered that everyone had told him how lucky he had been after Rosslyn, maybe he hadn't forgotten how unfair this kind of trauma seems, even when you've been lucky.
He was glad to see Josh, but he was really wondering what he was doing here. "Josh, why did you come?" he asked, staring at the ocean.
"Donna would say that I came to grovel," Josh said, his serious tone belying the lightness of the words. Sam smiled, remembering a discussion they'd had on his last night in DC.
"But that's not the case?" Sam asked.
"No. I came because... I had an epiphany, Sam."
Sam finally turned to him, ready to laugh, but Josh looked serious enough so he held back and let him speak.
"Amy dumped me," Josh added, staring at the ocean.
"I'm sorry," he said. He had never really understood what those two saw in each other, but they had stayed together for three years, so he supposed they had to have been serious. It was, by far, the longest relationship Josh had ever been involved in, and that in itself spoke volumes.
"Are you?" Josh asked. "Cause the universal reaction seemed to be a big 'thank God', and I really - "
"Josh, I won't pretend I understood what you were doing together, but I figured after three years, you were... commited to each other."
Josh nodded. "Thanks, man. It... it was a blow. I mean... she said things to me, and I tried to disregard them, to pretend that it was just part of the break up scene she had played. But I got thinking, and now I'm wondering... Sam, am I a jerk?"
The question took Sam by surprise, and he began to laugh, a little at first, then uncontrollably.
"It's not that funny," Josh protested.
"I'm sorry," Sam said, when he was able to catch his breath. "It's just... Josh, tell me you didn't fly all the way from Washington to ask me... God, that's..."
"Okay," Josh said hesitantly, looking a little pained.
Sam had regained his composure, and he looked at Josh more attentively. He looked tired, more rumpled than his flight could have accounted for, and he had some gray hair now.
He was past forty, still single, he seemed older than his age and he definitely looked like he should put a halt on his beer consumption if he didn't want to turn fat.
Watching Josh more carefully, Sam wondered if it was defeatism he saw in the way his friend's shoulders were hunched over?
Josh didn't look very happy right now.
Sam was biting his lips, and he asked, just to make sure that Josh wanted the truth, "Josh, you know I never lied to you about my feelings?"
"Why do you think I came?" Josh asked
Sam nodded, his decision made.
Maybe he would hurt Josh by telling him that, but if he had really come all this way out of a sincere desire to change, he could give him the truth. In memory of the good days...
"You've been a jerk for some time now, Josh," he said, and Josh looked at him, but he wasn't able to read his face. "You've been arrogant, self involved, so sure you have all the answers - "
"I was self-involved?" Josh asked, sadly.
"Josh, how many times did I try to talk to you about something I found important, only to have you tell me that you had to meet Amy? How many times did you look me in the eyes while you were lying? How many times did you listen to what I wanted to talk about when I started dating Ainsley? Yes, there was the MS to deal with, but it was my life too, and I was scared to death because we were getting serious and I had been burned once. I was trying to ask for your advice, and you answered, 'Whatever, what are we going to do to spin the MS thing?' I know we were all busy dealing with our own feelings, but..."
Josh was staring at his shoes, and Sam softened his voice. "Look, it's great that you want to change, but you did ask, and yes, Josh, you were an ass. I thought I had gotten used to it within a few months of knowing you, but either I was wrong or you reached a whole new level of jackassness recently. Or maybe I'm the one who became less tolerant, go figure."
Josh smiled softly. "Maybe there's a little of all that."
"Maybe."
"I'm going to try to change, you know. I mean... God, I'm forty-three, and what do I have? What have I achieved so far?"
"We're all there, Josh. We all wonder what we could have done better."
"But you're married, you have a kid, you work to make things better - "
"So do you," Sam pointed out.
"It's not the same," Josh sighed. "It's... I don't know, for a long time, we couldn't do what we wanted to do because we needed to think about re-election, and now it's almost like we're all thinking, 'What's the point?' I have the feeling that we're going to have to work to get Hoynes elected, and that we're going to have to make concessions..."
"Josh, all that is normal. It's governing, it's trying to make things better like you can - "
"Then why did you leave? You weren't happy with the way we did things back then, were you?"
Sam leaned back in his chair, surprised at how defensive Josh sounded all of a sudden. "I... Part of the reason I left was that, yes," he admitted. "Another part was that I thought you all needed better than someone who wasn't ready to give his best to the administration. I was mad about the MS, and yes, it's another reason, but not the only one. And most of all, I had the feeling I was becoming invisible. I know I should have reacted better to the disclosure, but I didn't, and that pretty much affected my relationship with all of you guys. You weren't listening to me anymore, and I didn't want to make an effort. I was way too tired for that."
He stopped, surprised himself by his rant, and Josh eyed him carefully.
"And now?" he asked after a while.
"Now I don't regret leaving. It was time for me to move on. But I do regret the way things ended between the two of us. And since we're into big confessions tonight, I'll admit that I'm more than ready to put the past behind us now. I've got other things to think about right now," he said.
Questions like, am I a good father? A good husband?
A good writer? A good chief of staff?
Why did this accident have to happen?
Josh nodded slowly, and took a sip of his beer. "So... Am I forgiven for being a jackass?" he asked.
Sam looked at him, and understood that it was that, more than his 'epiphany', that had made Josh come here.
"Sure," he said, surprised to discover that he meant it. "Just as long as we agree to disagree on quite a number of topics..."
"So we can coexist in peace..." Josh finished, and Sam arched an eyebrow.
"Have you been watching Star Trek again?" he asked.
"Why would I do something like that?"
"Because you're weird."
"Oh, look who's talking! Mister I-read-dictionaries-for-pleasure."
"Oh, that's weak, Josh!"
The two men were so busy arguing they didn't notice Ainsley, listening to them from inside the house, smiling softly.
**********
2006, Manchester
"You okay, buddy?" Josh asked as soon as Sam and Ainsley appeared in the kitchen.
"Fine," Sam said, not willing to dwell on the matter.
The rest of the gang had obviously finished eating a while ago, and Abbey, who was chatting with CJ, turned to them. "I'll have something fixed for you."
Sam was about to protest that he wasn't hungry when a glare from the First lady stopped him short. "You're not about to pretend that you don't need anything to eat, are you, Samuel?" she asked dangerously.
CJ and Josh looked at him, amused expressions on their faces, and Sam smiled sheepishly. "No?" he ventured.
"Damn right, you're not," she said, and motioned for him and Ainsley to sit. Josh and CJ took places at the kitchen table with them, and CJ explained softly that Leo and Toby were arguing on the goodbye address, and that the President was enjoying the show.
"Isn't... Steve going to help him with that?" Sam asked.
"Steve's gone," Abbey explained.
"You're kidding me, right!" Ainsley exclaimed. "It was the... how many people has he fired anyway?"
"Seven. Two of them were rehired, and were fired again soon after."
Sam laughed softly. His former boss's hiring/firing deputies habits had become something of a legend. He just hadn't seemed to find anyone else who was good enough for the job - he claimed all the writers of the town were either dead or already at work, but everyone suspected that it had a lot to do with his refusal to replace Sam.
"I sympathize with them," Ainsley said, and CJ rolled her eyes.
"Sympathize with us, would you! We're the ones who got stuck with Mister Grumpy there for three years."
"And God knows that man can be vocal when he wants to," Bartlet's voice said from the doorway. They all shot to their feet, and he waved them back, glaring at Sam. "You shouldn't be getting up anyway, Sam," he chastised. "Is it better?"
"Yes, thank you," he lied, and it obviously didn't come out convincingly.
They all stared, including Ainsley, not saying a word. He almost laughed. "I took a pill, it'll get better eventually. It's just the weather that's making it worse than it usually is."
"Well, I'm glad to see you both," Bartlet said, "but if I had known, I would have picked a better time of the year."
Sam shrugged. "I wasn't sure it would happen, but I had thought about it. I wanted to see you all anyway, and it's not for long," he said.
"Not long enough, no," Josh said wistfully.
"I'm barely here, and he already complains," Sam laughed, and all the others smiled softly. "Let's focus on the present, Josh, shall we?"
"Yes, Governor," Josh said, his tone sarcastic.
"Oh, will you stop with that?"
Bartlet smiled. "Now, you know how I feel each time someone calls me President."
"Yes, Mister President," Sam said seriously.
Bartlet sighed. "It will be a long battle, won't it?"
A chorus of "Yes, sir," answered him.
He shrugged good naturedly. "Fine, so be it. We have, after all, all the time in the world to break you all of that habit."