PART TWO
2023
Sam went back to the party, noting with amusement that Toby was dancing with Kathryn - or rather that he was carrying her while they pretended to dance. Seeing Ainsley smile as she spotted him, he made his way to her.
"Alex called," he said. "He wanted to know how the party was going."
"I wish he'd been able to come," she answered.
"That's what I told him. He said to come visit him when we're done here."
"How many people do we have to visit?" she asked teasingly, and he chuckled.
"Well, Abbey in New Hampshire, Alex in Texas, your family in Carolina, my family in California, and who did I forget?"
"The Secret Services are going to love that."
He shrugged briefly. "Tomorrow, someone else will have a target on his back," he retorted, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice.
They had gotten Charlie elected, but there was still an incredibly large number of people who didn't care for a black President. He hoped their friend would be able to govern anyway. He hoped he wouldn't spend his presidency dodging obstacles.
Sam still remembered the discussion he'd had with Senator Young, four years before. Back then, his own Vice President had become a liability - he was running his own agenda, which Sam could have accepted, if it hadn't meant that he had gone on TV and overtly criticized his administration for its stance on the death penalty shortly before the beginning of the campaign. It had caused a major drop in their numbers, their opponents claiming that it didn't bode well for them if their own VP dissed them.
Toby had exploded, and there had been lots of discussions between the staff, who wanted the VP dropped off the ticket, and Sam, who seriously wondered if they should fire him for stating his opinions.
Toby had come into the Oval one night, after a day spent arguing, and had asked him why the hell he wanted so much to keep the VP at his side.
"I'm not sure," he'd admitted. "I guess I'm trying to learn from past mistakes."
"Bartlet and Hoynes," Toby guessed.
"Bartlet who couldn't stand any criticism, always so sure he was right, and Hoynes... think whatever you want of him, but he was trying to do his job."
"He was campaigning for himself."
"We're all politicians, Toby. We're asking the VP to stay alive and shut the hell up for four to eight years, we only go to them when we need them. They're the ones with the rotten jobs, here."
"Mister President, you're the one who always said that you didn't want to be remembered as Bartlet's heir. If you don't want to enjoy the good sides, at least don't make your life even more difficult by acting against what he did, okay?"
"I, I don't know. Besides, if we drop him, who are we going to put in his place?" There had been something on Toby's face then, and he had understood. "You already thought of someone," he finished.
Toby nodded, a smile in his eyes.
"Who?"
"Charlie."
Sam had stared, then smiled. Of course. Former assistant of the President, brilliant lawyer, now a senator. An influential one.
"Think about it, sir. He could run in four years. And what's more, we could make sure he wins."
Sam had thought.
Toby was right, they could.
Two days later, he was asking Charlie to come. Convincing him to become VP had been another story. Charlie didn't want to go down in history as the first black President, he had explained. He wanted to be judged by his merits alone, not by his skin, not even for that. He had a chance to make a difference in Senate, and no one would ever say, "He was the first black senator." - "And what did he do?" - "I have no idea."
Sam had pleaded his case, knowing that Charlie, too, had known Hoynes, and had seen how easily you get stuck in a corner.
Toby had done it again the next day. Then Colleen had gone see Charlie, to insist.
"Are you going to bully me into doing it?" Charlie had asked, exasperated, as Sam was calling him again.
"Yes," had been Sam's answer, short and to the point.
Charlie had accepted two days after that.
He was now the President. He was also terrified, as his earlier phone call had proved.
"He'll be fine," Ainsley said, and Sam came back to the present, to the party.
"Yeah."
"Sam, he will."
"Okay," he said, still worried. People had tried to kill Charlie already, because he was dating a white girl. Now, he had been elected at the highest office of the country, and Sam was wondering.
Had he been right to push him?
Had he been right to encourage him to take that risk?
Ainsley's hand crept on his back. "Sam, the Secret Services will be here, and there were enough people in this country who voted for him to ensure that at least some of them were able to see the good he could do."
He nodded, "I know. I know." Extending his hand, he quipped, "And tonight, we can party. Will the First Lady allow me this dance?"
She laughed, putting her hand in his, and they walked onto the dance floor.
**********
After a few dances, Sam left the party again.
He wanted to take a walk down the halls again.
He lingered in the Communications bullpen, smiling at the thought of the number of times in the last years when he had gone into Toby's office to work on a speech he had to give, instead of having Toby come into his. He could then take the couch, his laptop on his knees, and pretend that nothing had changed.
He shot a look into his old office, already empty. Jim had taken it when they had moved in. He had finished packing, contrary to most of the staff, who still had something in their offices - an excuse to come back.
Then his steps led him to Josh's office - former office. The room had been occupied by Peter for eight years, and by strangers for the eight years prior to that.
There was no sign of his friend left here, and yet Sam kept expecting to see him sneak up on him, a big smile on his face like that day in New York, calling him 'Mister President'.
That was probably why Peter sneaking up behind him, calling him 'Mister President' freaked Sam out.
"I'm sorry," Peter said, surprised to provoke such a reaction.
Sam shrugged. "No need to. I was just reminiscing."
Peter had a rueful smile. "I've always found it difficult, to be the substitute," he admitted, guessing who Sam was thinking about.
Sam would have liked to protest, to tell him that he wasn't. He genuinely liked him, and he hoped he'd convince his Deputy Chief of Staff to call him 'Sam' when they would officially be out of office, but he was not Josh. And the only reason everyone liked him so much, even the old guard, was because he had never tried to be.
"Not that anyone made it difficult for me to do my job," Peter added, "but you, and Toby and CJ tend to be pretty... I don't know, I guess you al fought a war we weren't part of."
A war. Rosslyn, Leo's alcoholism, MS, congressional investigation.
Not that Sam's two terms had been quiet, but what they had lived during the Bartlet administration was their trial by fire. It had created bonds that never disappeared.
"It was different, Peter, but - " He was suddenly unsure of what to say. Damnit, it had been thirteen years, shouldn't it become easier already? "Well, you and Colleen and Jim, you all tend to hang out, and I'm almost sure you'll always gravitate around each other." He chuckled to try to lift his spirits "I think that if someone had told me I'd still be working with Toby after all these years, I'd have screamed and run away. Or died."
Pete laughed with him, but there was something else in his laugh beside the obvious 'Toby's a bear' joke. Toby had acquired quite a reputation during the years. Most of the staff knew that he barked more often than he bit, but there were still people who were intimidated by him. Peter was one of those.
He left Sam, maybe to let him say goodbye in peace, and Sam turned back, staring at the darkened office. Sometimes, he could swear he could hear his voice.
"If I see the real thing in Nashua, should I come get you?"
"Who's the idiot who set the Mural Room on fire? - That would be Sam you're talking about Mr. President."
"Does she know who you are? - No, Josh, I didn't reveal my secret identity."
He smiled. Josh had been born to live in politics. How great he would have been...
How great he was until that damn phone call.
An agent coughed discreetly and he turned to him. "Sir, there's someone for you in the Oval," he said.
**********
Sam smiled warmly at Donna, who was standing a few feet away from the desk.
"Hey, how are you?" he asked cheerfully, hugging her.
"Good, I'm good," she answered, hugging him back.
"It's great to see you," he said, motioning for her to sit on the couch. "We all miss you."
She smiled shyly, "Thank you, Mister President."
He scowled at her. "Sam, please. I'm already out of here, remember?"
"You will be tomorrow," she corrected. "I haven't had enough opportunities to call you Mister President."
"Well, if you'd come to work for me," he said, only half joking.
She squirmed a little, and he immediately felt bad for having brought it up. She had helped on the first campaign, all these years ago, making it clear that she wouldn't go back to the White House if Sam was elected. She had too many memories there, she had explained, and when the others had protested that they had, too, she had shrugged them away. "It's not the same," she had explained, and no one had dared to contest that.
Back then, she had been led to work closely with an Illinois Senator, who had supported Sam almost from day one and had helped to raise funds a few times. Their calls hadn't stayed exclusively professional long, and at the end of the campaign, when Sam was trying to decide who would get which job, she had announced that she had dated the Senator several times already, that they appreciated each other, and that she would probably live in Washington to see him more often.
Sam had offered her a job again, she had turned him down again, and left the campaign in its last days.
She had dated the Senator for a few years, then broke up with him. They had got back together one year after that, broke up again, and the cycle had continued until now.
No one had dared to ask Donna what that was about. They all suspected that she didn't want things to be serious between them. Sam wondered if it wasn't too late for that already.
They didn't see her enough, he thought, seeing her in the dim light of the room, her hair still long and sunny, still slim, still beautiful. There had been phone calls, she had been invited to all the receptions they had given, had come to a few of them, but it wasn't enough.
"I know," Donna was sighing now.
Sam hurried to add, "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. I just, * we * just miss you."
"Yeah. I've been busy."
That was no news. She was, after all, the chief of staff of a powerful Congressman.
But the light in her eyes was long gone, and her mouth which had always seemed ready to smile, was now drawn.
"Are you all right?" he asked again, and it didn't have the same sense this time. She understood, and smiled sadly.
"Oh, you know... same old."
"Donna, why don't you go ahead and marry him already?" he asked. "I'm sure he asked."
"Several times," she confirmed.
"Each time you broke up with him," Sam guessed.
She blushed. "I don't... I'm not sure I'm ready."
"Donna... Josh had a well proportioned ego. I'm sure that by now, he's aware that you miss him. There's really no need to..."
He gestured vaguely and she laughed briefly. "Make him more important than he was?" she asked.
"Something like that. God, he was my friend, and there are still days where I almost call him to ask him what he thinks of something I want to do, but Donna, thirteen years is enough to grieve someone."
"I know. I'm not... He was a jerk, you know?"
Sam laughed. "That's part of the reason I left this town in the first place," he admitted.
"What about not giving him too much importance?" she asked.
"Part of the reason," he repeated. "Seriously, I loved him, but I find the way people remember him a little, how shall I put it? Confusing. It's as if he was never a pain in their asses. Even congressmen who would have pushed him under a bus if it hadn't been illegal, now talk about him as if he was a saint. He was a jerk, self involved, arrogant, even after his self proclaimed epiphany."
"Did that make you love him less?"
"No. It made me question him. It made me wish he'd take his head out of his ass once in a while."
She laughed. "Me too. I just, Sam, it's not just loyalty to him. I just... "
She had been hurt when he had died, he knew. And he remembered the mix of elation and panic when Ainsley had told him she was pregnant again. On one hand, the joy of having someone else to love. On the other, fear that you're going to get involved, and that the person may die, leave you.
"Sometimes, you just have to take chances," he said.
"Easier said than done."
"I know. Believe me, I know."
She looked at him, gauging him, then nodded. "Kathryn," she said.
"Yeah. Look, you'll never know if you don't say yes. At least once."
"If he asks again," she said, looking miserable.
"He waited this long. And hey, twenty-first century. You can ask him."
"I'd never - "
"You should."
"Whatever."
"Whatever? I'm President, and you're giving me 'Whatever'?"
She laughed, the sound filling the room. For once, Sam thought, it sounded actually cheerful.
**********
Sam spotted Peter as soon as he entered the room again. He was talking animatedly with Toby, resorting to hand language, like he often did when he was speaking on a subject he loved. Ainsley was dancing with Jim - who seemed incredibly ill-at-ease, no matter how many times they had done that exercise together. Sam could dance when it was needed, but he couldn't do it for too long - his leg was rebelling more often than it had in the past, probably an effect of the long hours, the stress, and the years adding up. Jim, who didn't step on Ainsley's toes as often as the rest of the staff, was often asked to volunteer to make the First Lady dance, and he had never seemed comfortable doing it, even though he was a good dancer.
Sam motioned for Peter to come over, and the younger man asked immediately if Donna was around.
"She'll come back in a minute," Sam said. "She's in the West Wing."
Peter nodded, smiling softly. Donna was saying a last goodbye too. It seemed like the perfect night to do that.
"Sometimes, I have the feeling that I heard so much about him, it's like I knew him," Peter said looking at Sam, not too sure where the line was, or even if there was a line.
Sam walked to the bar and asked for a Jack Daniels, images of Josh in a yellow hip drawer flowing back. Peter had followed him, and he smiled to the younger man. "Then our job is done," he replied.
Peter seemed a little surprised, then smiled too. "Yes, sir."
"Go make my wife dance, before Jim has a heart attack, will you?" he ordered.
"Yes, sir."
Sam sat down at a nearby table. Somehow, he found it comforting that Josh's shadow would go on haunting the West Wing for at least four more years. Charlie would not let him be forgotten, he was sure of that. Josh was the one who had brought him on board, and he had never forgotten that.
He took a sip and the burn of the alcohol made him grimace slightly. Raising the glass, he whispered, "Shalom, my friend."
No one heard him in the ambient noise, but he didn't think it mattered anyway.
2023
Sam went back to the party, noting with amusement that Toby was dancing with Kathryn - or rather that he was carrying her while they pretended to dance. Seeing Ainsley smile as she spotted him, he made his way to her.
"Alex called," he said. "He wanted to know how the party was going."
"I wish he'd been able to come," she answered.
"That's what I told him. He said to come visit him when we're done here."
"How many people do we have to visit?" she asked teasingly, and he chuckled.
"Well, Abbey in New Hampshire, Alex in Texas, your family in Carolina, my family in California, and who did I forget?"
"The Secret Services are going to love that."
He shrugged briefly. "Tomorrow, someone else will have a target on his back," he retorted, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice.
They had gotten Charlie elected, but there was still an incredibly large number of people who didn't care for a black President. He hoped their friend would be able to govern anyway. He hoped he wouldn't spend his presidency dodging obstacles.
Sam still remembered the discussion he'd had with Senator Young, four years before. Back then, his own Vice President had become a liability - he was running his own agenda, which Sam could have accepted, if it hadn't meant that he had gone on TV and overtly criticized his administration for its stance on the death penalty shortly before the beginning of the campaign. It had caused a major drop in their numbers, their opponents claiming that it didn't bode well for them if their own VP dissed them.
Toby had exploded, and there had been lots of discussions between the staff, who wanted the VP dropped off the ticket, and Sam, who seriously wondered if they should fire him for stating his opinions.
Toby had come into the Oval one night, after a day spent arguing, and had asked him why the hell he wanted so much to keep the VP at his side.
"I'm not sure," he'd admitted. "I guess I'm trying to learn from past mistakes."
"Bartlet and Hoynes," Toby guessed.
"Bartlet who couldn't stand any criticism, always so sure he was right, and Hoynes... think whatever you want of him, but he was trying to do his job."
"He was campaigning for himself."
"We're all politicians, Toby. We're asking the VP to stay alive and shut the hell up for four to eight years, we only go to them when we need them. They're the ones with the rotten jobs, here."
"Mister President, you're the one who always said that you didn't want to be remembered as Bartlet's heir. If you don't want to enjoy the good sides, at least don't make your life even more difficult by acting against what he did, okay?"
"I, I don't know. Besides, if we drop him, who are we going to put in his place?" There had been something on Toby's face then, and he had understood. "You already thought of someone," he finished.
Toby nodded, a smile in his eyes.
"Who?"
"Charlie."
Sam had stared, then smiled. Of course. Former assistant of the President, brilliant lawyer, now a senator. An influential one.
"Think about it, sir. He could run in four years. And what's more, we could make sure he wins."
Sam had thought.
Toby was right, they could.
Two days later, he was asking Charlie to come. Convincing him to become VP had been another story. Charlie didn't want to go down in history as the first black President, he had explained. He wanted to be judged by his merits alone, not by his skin, not even for that. He had a chance to make a difference in Senate, and no one would ever say, "He was the first black senator." - "And what did he do?" - "I have no idea."
Sam had pleaded his case, knowing that Charlie, too, had known Hoynes, and had seen how easily you get stuck in a corner.
Toby had done it again the next day. Then Colleen had gone see Charlie, to insist.
"Are you going to bully me into doing it?" Charlie had asked, exasperated, as Sam was calling him again.
"Yes," had been Sam's answer, short and to the point.
Charlie had accepted two days after that.
He was now the President. He was also terrified, as his earlier phone call had proved.
"He'll be fine," Ainsley said, and Sam came back to the present, to the party.
"Yeah."
"Sam, he will."
"Okay," he said, still worried. People had tried to kill Charlie already, because he was dating a white girl. Now, he had been elected at the highest office of the country, and Sam was wondering.
Had he been right to push him?
Had he been right to encourage him to take that risk?
Ainsley's hand crept on his back. "Sam, the Secret Services will be here, and there were enough people in this country who voted for him to ensure that at least some of them were able to see the good he could do."
He nodded, "I know. I know." Extending his hand, he quipped, "And tonight, we can party. Will the First Lady allow me this dance?"
She laughed, putting her hand in his, and they walked onto the dance floor.
**********
After a few dances, Sam left the party again.
He wanted to take a walk down the halls again.
He lingered in the Communications bullpen, smiling at the thought of the number of times in the last years when he had gone into Toby's office to work on a speech he had to give, instead of having Toby come into his. He could then take the couch, his laptop on his knees, and pretend that nothing had changed.
He shot a look into his old office, already empty. Jim had taken it when they had moved in. He had finished packing, contrary to most of the staff, who still had something in their offices - an excuse to come back.
Then his steps led him to Josh's office - former office. The room had been occupied by Peter for eight years, and by strangers for the eight years prior to that.
There was no sign of his friend left here, and yet Sam kept expecting to see him sneak up on him, a big smile on his face like that day in New York, calling him 'Mister President'.
That was probably why Peter sneaking up behind him, calling him 'Mister President' freaked Sam out.
"I'm sorry," Peter said, surprised to provoke such a reaction.
Sam shrugged. "No need to. I was just reminiscing."
Peter had a rueful smile. "I've always found it difficult, to be the substitute," he admitted, guessing who Sam was thinking about.
Sam would have liked to protest, to tell him that he wasn't. He genuinely liked him, and he hoped he'd convince his Deputy Chief of Staff to call him 'Sam' when they would officially be out of office, but he was not Josh. And the only reason everyone liked him so much, even the old guard, was because he had never tried to be.
"Not that anyone made it difficult for me to do my job," Peter added, "but you, and Toby and CJ tend to be pretty... I don't know, I guess you al fought a war we weren't part of."
A war. Rosslyn, Leo's alcoholism, MS, congressional investigation.
Not that Sam's two terms had been quiet, but what they had lived during the Bartlet administration was their trial by fire. It had created bonds that never disappeared.
"It was different, Peter, but - " He was suddenly unsure of what to say. Damnit, it had been thirteen years, shouldn't it become easier already? "Well, you and Colleen and Jim, you all tend to hang out, and I'm almost sure you'll always gravitate around each other." He chuckled to try to lift his spirits "I think that if someone had told me I'd still be working with Toby after all these years, I'd have screamed and run away. Or died."
Pete laughed with him, but there was something else in his laugh beside the obvious 'Toby's a bear' joke. Toby had acquired quite a reputation during the years. Most of the staff knew that he barked more often than he bit, but there were still people who were intimidated by him. Peter was one of those.
He left Sam, maybe to let him say goodbye in peace, and Sam turned back, staring at the darkened office. Sometimes, he could swear he could hear his voice.
"If I see the real thing in Nashua, should I come get you?"
"Who's the idiot who set the Mural Room on fire? - That would be Sam you're talking about Mr. President."
"Does she know who you are? - No, Josh, I didn't reveal my secret identity."
He smiled. Josh had been born to live in politics. How great he would have been...
How great he was until that damn phone call.
An agent coughed discreetly and he turned to him. "Sir, there's someone for you in the Oval," he said.
**********
Sam smiled warmly at Donna, who was standing a few feet away from the desk.
"Hey, how are you?" he asked cheerfully, hugging her.
"Good, I'm good," she answered, hugging him back.
"It's great to see you," he said, motioning for her to sit on the couch. "We all miss you."
She smiled shyly, "Thank you, Mister President."
He scowled at her. "Sam, please. I'm already out of here, remember?"
"You will be tomorrow," she corrected. "I haven't had enough opportunities to call you Mister President."
"Well, if you'd come to work for me," he said, only half joking.
She squirmed a little, and he immediately felt bad for having brought it up. She had helped on the first campaign, all these years ago, making it clear that she wouldn't go back to the White House if Sam was elected. She had too many memories there, she had explained, and when the others had protested that they had, too, she had shrugged them away. "It's not the same," she had explained, and no one had dared to contest that.
Back then, she had been led to work closely with an Illinois Senator, who had supported Sam almost from day one and had helped to raise funds a few times. Their calls hadn't stayed exclusively professional long, and at the end of the campaign, when Sam was trying to decide who would get which job, she had announced that she had dated the Senator several times already, that they appreciated each other, and that she would probably live in Washington to see him more often.
Sam had offered her a job again, she had turned him down again, and left the campaign in its last days.
She had dated the Senator for a few years, then broke up with him. They had got back together one year after that, broke up again, and the cycle had continued until now.
No one had dared to ask Donna what that was about. They all suspected that she didn't want things to be serious between them. Sam wondered if it wasn't too late for that already.
They didn't see her enough, he thought, seeing her in the dim light of the room, her hair still long and sunny, still slim, still beautiful. There had been phone calls, she had been invited to all the receptions they had given, had come to a few of them, but it wasn't enough.
"I know," Donna was sighing now.
Sam hurried to add, "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. I just, * we * just miss you."
"Yeah. I've been busy."
That was no news. She was, after all, the chief of staff of a powerful Congressman.
But the light in her eyes was long gone, and her mouth which had always seemed ready to smile, was now drawn.
"Are you all right?" he asked again, and it didn't have the same sense this time. She understood, and smiled sadly.
"Oh, you know... same old."
"Donna, why don't you go ahead and marry him already?" he asked. "I'm sure he asked."
"Several times," she confirmed.
"Each time you broke up with him," Sam guessed.
She blushed. "I don't... I'm not sure I'm ready."
"Donna... Josh had a well proportioned ego. I'm sure that by now, he's aware that you miss him. There's really no need to..."
He gestured vaguely and she laughed briefly. "Make him more important than he was?" she asked.
"Something like that. God, he was my friend, and there are still days where I almost call him to ask him what he thinks of something I want to do, but Donna, thirteen years is enough to grieve someone."
"I know. I'm not... He was a jerk, you know?"
Sam laughed. "That's part of the reason I left this town in the first place," he admitted.
"What about not giving him too much importance?" she asked.
"Part of the reason," he repeated. "Seriously, I loved him, but I find the way people remember him a little, how shall I put it? Confusing. It's as if he was never a pain in their asses. Even congressmen who would have pushed him under a bus if it hadn't been illegal, now talk about him as if he was a saint. He was a jerk, self involved, arrogant, even after his self proclaimed epiphany."
"Did that make you love him less?"
"No. It made me question him. It made me wish he'd take his head out of his ass once in a while."
She laughed. "Me too. I just, Sam, it's not just loyalty to him. I just... "
She had been hurt when he had died, he knew. And he remembered the mix of elation and panic when Ainsley had told him she was pregnant again. On one hand, the joy of having someone else to love. On the other, fear that you're going to get involved, and that the person may die, leave you.
"Sometimes, you just have to take chances," he said.
"Easier said than done."
"I know. Believe me, I know."
She looked at him, gauging him, then nodded. "Kathryn," she said.
"Yeah. Look, you'll never know if you don't say yes. At least once."
"If he asks again," she said, looking miserable.
"He waited this long. And hey, twenty-first century. You can ask him."
"I'd never - "
"You should."
"Whatever."
"Whatever? I'm President, and you're giving me 'Whatever'?"
She laughed, the sound filling the room. For once, Sam thought, it sounded actually cheerful.
**********
Sam spotted Peter as soon as he entered the room again. He was talking animatedly with Toby, resorting to hand language, like he often did when he was speaking on a subject he loved. Ainsley was dancing with Jim - who seemed incredibly ill-at-ease, no matter how many times they had done that exercise together. Sam could dance when it was needed, but he couldn't do it for too long - his leg was rebelling more often than it had in the past, probably an effect of the long hours, the stress, and the years adding up. Jim, who didn't step on Ainsley's toes as often as the rest of the staff, was often asked to volunteer to make the First Lady dance, and he had never seemed comfortable doing it, even though he was a good dancer.
Sam motioned for Peter to come over, and the younger man asked immediately if Donna was around.
"She'll come back in a minute," Sam said. "She's in the West Wing."
Peter nodded, smiling softly. Donna was saying a last goodbye too. It seemed like the perfect night to do that.
"Sometimes, I have the feeling that I heard so much about him, it's like I knew him," Peter said looking at Sam, not too sure where the line was, or even if there was a line.
Sam walked to the bar and asked for a Jack Daniels, images of Josh in a yellow hip drawer flowing back. Peter had followed him, and he smiled to the younger man. "Then our job is done," he replied.
Peter seemed a little surprised, then smiled too. "Yes, sir."
"Go make my wife dance, before Jim has a heart attack, will you?" he ordered.
"Yes, sir."
Sam sat down at a nearby table. Somehow, he found it comforting that Josh's shadow would go on haunting the West Wing for at least four more years. Charlie would not let him be forgotten, he was sure of that. Josh was the one who had brought him on board, and he had never forgotten that.
He took a sip and the burn of the alcohol made him grimace slightly. Raising the glass, he whispered, "Shalom, my friend."
No one heard him in the ambient noise, but he didn't think it mattered anyway.