Chapter 4: The Ignorant Tightass Club
"It's not."
"Toby."
"It's not over."
"Nobody in the room disputed that, Toby, and my point, if you wouldn't mind shutting up long enough to let me make it…"
CJ and Toby are currently providing us with the regular Friday morning entertainment, going seven rounds in Leo's office and just barely restraining themselves from throwing things. Leo himself tuned them out long ago, now reading some random memo that's probably not important. The President is next door, having kicked us all out fifteen minutes ago. Sam has the good fortune to be at the other end of the Beltway, and Joey and Kenny have the good fortune to be at the other end of the country, doing… something. And I'm sitting here, quietly studying my shoes and hoping that neither the Press Secretary nor the Communications Director will choose to involve me in their little dispute. Just another day in the Bartlet White House, and this really is a very good example of why we get nothing done. Toby is now making ineffectual sounds and hand gestures while CJ talks over the top of him at an exceedingly high volume.
"My point is that this happened ten days ago and even the National Enquirer is getting sick to death of writing about it. My point is that it happened at all, at what was supposed to be our High Noon, but the Convention is in three days and we're still the nominee. My point is that Josh and Sam…"
"Hold on," I interrupt indignantly, rushing to my own defence and sputtering coffee all over Leo's carpet in the process. "You just leave Josh and Sam out of it, because to the best of my knowledge, we did nothing."
"If you call almost coming out to a reporter nothing, Josh, you really do need to take a look at a dictionary at some point," CJ comments, sounding far too amused.
"Your key word there was almost, and… whatever." I glare at her as best a person can glare at a six-foot tall secretary with smoke coming out of both her ears. "I was sitting here minding my own business and pretending to be invisible, so don't you drag me into this…" I wave my cup of coffee around a bit to indicate the space in between them. "Whatever the hell it is."
"Shut up," they snap simultaneously.
"Josh and Sam have been a non-story," I steamroller on. "The reporter kept us to himself. Maybe he didn't think he had enough evidence, maybe he's a closet gay rights advocate, maybe he thought that if he were wrong he would lose his job. I don't know and I don't particularly care, but my point is, there are now a maximum of twelve people who have found out in the last week and a half, so I can't see what either of you possibly have to complain about."
"My point was that Josh and Sam have, in fact, been a non-story." CJ doesn't miss a beat as her head swivels back to me. "Had you allowed me to finish my sentence."
"Could you kids take the elementary school bickering someplace else?" Leo requests without looking up. "So the rest of us can maybe get back to running the country?"
We don't even get as far as the door when Carol appears in it, holding a file and looking extremely uncomfortable. She seems unsure who to give it to, finally holding it out for a random person to take and addressing the room in general.
"Danny wanted to give you guys a heads-up," she announces. "That was just faxed over to him from North Carolina. It'll be appearing in the Raleigh Tribune tomorrow morning. He thought you'd want to know."
Toby, growing impatient, swipes it out of Carol's hand. He takes one look at it and the first words out of his mouth are,
"Call Sam. Do it now."
"Sam's at State."
"I honestly could care less." I can't decide whether he's being ornery or big brotherly, then he shoves the thing at me. "Get him back here. You two aren't going to be a non-story for very much longer."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Twenty-nine minutes later, when Sam has almost broken both his own neck and the land-speed record getting back from State, and has in the process managed to piss off several important Democrats while running out in the middle of a meeting, the five of us have gone into full damage control mode. My 'damage control' mode is presently bearing a remarkable resemblance to my 'panic' and 'belligerence toward Republicans' mode. Sam is rereading the article for the third time in five minutes, and the tops of his ears are rapidly turning a bright and interesting shade of red.
What it is, essentially, is an expose alleging the homosexual relationship between two White House senior staffers, and yes, before you ask, we are named. I'm pretty sure the words 'filthy' and 'an example of the falling standards in even the highest ranks of American government' were used. That second one was an actual quote from an actual person. This is more the kind of thing I'd expect to read in the National Enquirer than in the actual legitimate press. Then again, I'm not what you might call an expert on the legitimacy of the press in North Carolina.
"I think this has nothing to do with what happened in Illinois." Toby's voice pulls my thoughts back into Leo's office.
"Before Illinois," Sam disagrees, "Josh and I were the only people who knew that we were together, and I don't think this would have happened had we not told people, which we wouldn't have done had it not been for what happened in Illinois, so I don't think you actually get to make the two events mutually exclusive."
"Not mutually exclusive, no," I jump in, as Toby casts a painted look in Sam's direction, doubtless for the complete lack of grammar in his deputy's remarks. "But I think he's got a point. This isn't coming from the reporter, it's coming from us telling Babish."
"Josh, if you're accusing Babish of being behind this, I gotta tell you…"
"I am not accusing Babish of anything," I interrupt Leo loudly. "This is not Babish. It's his deputy."
"Ainsley?" Sam looks shocked.
And no, I'm not just casting about in search of the nearest blameable Republican. This thing, which I'm not even going to dignify by referring to as journalism, has a number of standard file quotes from Sam and I, and also cites 'anonymous White House sources'. These anonymous White House sources have what you might call distinctive speech patterns.
"Ainsley works for us," Sam protests again.
"This does not mean she wants us to win re-election," I point out. "The woman's a Republican. A Republican, I might add, who's spoken out publicly in favour of the Marriage Recognition Act and the concept that certain members of this administration are unfit to work in the White House, and who's denounced, equally publicly, homosexuality, gays in the military, extended gay rights, and Sam's sex life."
"You just described a part of the Republican platform on which 90 percent of the party agree," Leo reminds me warily.
"She's the only Republican who anyone in the building would have told, and she's the only human being I know who speaks in iambic pentameter."
"Also," Donna announces from the doorway with no warning. "Ainsley Hayes has a thing for Sam."
"We're getting you a bell." I squint at her. "What the hell do you mean?"
"I mean that Ainsley Hayes has a thing for Sam."
From the look on Sam's face, I'm getting the impression that it's not exactly what you would call news to him. This is absolutely something we're going to be talking about later. For the time being, Leo's still busy trying to pick holes in my theory.
"Be all that as it may, Ainsley doesn't have anything like enough clout to pull off something like this."
"Not in Washington," CJ agrees, joining the conversation for the first time. ""Which would explain why it's not yet on the front page of the Washington Post. In North Carolina, I'm not so sure. Her grandfather was state chairman in Raleigh. I don't think she's done it on her own, but Josh is right. She had a major part in leaking this."
"Fine." Leo gives up. "I'll brief the President, I'll talk to Babish. CJ, you'll keep this out of the press room for as long as possible. Put a leash on Danny if you have to. You don't think Ainsley did this on her own. Who do we think her co-conspirator is?"
"Someone from the Christian Right," Toby offers. "I have my suspicions as to whom, but I choose not to express them right now."
"Okay. Go. Spin. Deal with this."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
"Josh, would you, for the love of God, talk to Sam?"
"Donna…"
I've been brooding in my office for most of the day, and I think I've got Donna to the point where she's not sure whether to quit or tell Leo that I'm having another meltdown. I also think that playing the go-between for Sam and I is getting on her nerves.
"He's called you four times in the last three hours, you're both being outed in the North Carolina press in less than twenty-four, and it's starting to sound like you're avoiding him is all I'm saying."
"I am avoiding him, Donnatella. I just found out that the Republican Deputy White House Counsel has a thing for him."
"Sam's an attractive guy, Josh. It's not like you haven't noticed yourself." She sits down and helps herself to my fries. "Also, we all thought you knew."
"Sam didn't tell me that he knew, and I'm guessing from the look on his face when you made your little announcement that it wasn't exactly a surprise, so excuse me if…"
"My point there was that pretty much everyone in the building, from the President all the way down to the guy in the mailing room knows, so we all kind of assumed that you knew as well." She pauses to swallow a slice of tomato. "Yes, I appreciate that Sam didn't tell you, and yes… anyway, have you considered the possibility that when Sam didn't tell you he was, perhaps, trying to avoid, well, this?"
"I just found out that the Republican Deputy White House Counsel has a thing for him!" Yes, I do seem to be somewhat stuck on that point. "What the hell am I supposed to say to him?"
"I am not your marriage guidance counsellor, nor am I your mother." Donna stands up. "However, it would be an idea if you two were at least speaking by the time this thing breaks, you do need to read the agriculture report at some point, and Margaret asked me to remind you that Leo wants you to look over the…"
"Commercial industry stats by tomorrow morning, yeah."
I ignore Donna's advice completely. I also ignore the somewhat compelling need to call my mother and tell her that I am, in fact, involved in a sexual relationship with my best friend before she reads about it on the front page of the Washington Post, before she sees the story on CNN, and before she hears about it from her neighbour. Instead, I spend the rest of the day in my office. I read the agriculture report; I look over the commercial industry statistics for Leo, and the only time I see Sam is when the President calls us both into the Oval Office. I manage to avoid looking at or addressing him directly, I manage to be civil, and I hope that the President puts the tension between us during the five minutes and thirty-seven seconds we're in the same room down to stress. I'm out of the room before he is, and I make it back to the Operations bullpen in record time. By ten-thirty, when I'm ready to leave the White House, I realize that I've let the tension reach breaking point, and that once I go home, I can no longer avoid him. The only solution seems to be that I should avoid going home, so I find my spare key to Sam's old apartment, pull out of the parking lot, and, fifteen minutes later, pull onto the curb in front of the apartment building.
I don't even stop to lock the door behind me, and I'm still wearing my jacket and shoes when I bend down to open the fridge. I need a drink right now like a hole in the head, but a large part of my body is crying out for alcohol, so I put a temporary gag on my delicate system and my inner-Donna, and I look for a beer. Unfortunately, in some part of my reptilian brain-stem, I haven't actually considered the fact that neither Sam nor I have spent longer than ten minutes here in the better part of a year, with the sole exception of that one drunken night after the Iowa Caucus when neither of us could actually remember where we lived. My point is that when I open the fridge, I gag. There's a block of cheese with things growing on it that are no longer from this planet, there are two fluffy strawberries, there's a bottle of French dressing with a 2001 expiry date, and there's a chocolate bar. It needs defrosting so badly there's a block of actual ice in the back, encasing a slice of what looks to be lemon but which could equally well be a new life form alien even to Mulder and Scully. I sniff the chocolate dubiously and decide that it's better than nothing. I'm trying to remember exactly why Sam and I didn't clean out his fridge when he moved in with me, when Sam himself opens the kitchen door and I almost pass out right there on the floor.
"What in the name of God are you doing here?" he asks, taking a swing of orange juice straight from the carton and making a face.
"What are you doing here?" I stand up and close the fridge. "And you didn't hear me come in?"
"Actually no." Sam loosens his tie and rubs his left hand across the day old stubble on his chin. "And I got the impression from the way you haven't spoken to me all day that you weren't exactly desperate to see me."
"I wasn't."
"And now?"
"Well, I came here in order to avoid seeing you." I have the vague impression that this isn't perhaps the best thing I could say, but keep talking anyway. "So, I guess I'm still not."
"Is it because of tomorrow?" Sam sounds concerned. "Because you have every right to be scared out of your mind…"
"I'm scared shitless," I mutter. "But then again, I'm sure I'm not the only one, and it's not that that's bothering me so much as the Ainsley thing?"
"The Ainsley thing?" Sam repeats. "This is an issue other than that she's busy outing us in the press and that you don't like her?"
"I don't like her!"
"So the Ainsley thing is that you don't like Ainsley." He looks more and more confused. "Joshua, I'm sorry, but I don't understand. You've been avoiding me all day because you don't like Ainsley? 'Cause I gotta tell you, that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
"Ainsley Hayes has a thing for you, Sam, or did you miss that part of the conversation this morning?"
"I heard that part of the conversation fine. I'm just failing to see what your issue is with it, because… it's not like I have a thing for her." His eyes widen. "You think I have a thing for her."
"I think it's not outside of the realm of possibility that you and Ainsley reciprocate each other's feelings."
"Then let's clear up a couple of things. I do not nor have I ever had a thing for Ainsley Hayes. I used to think of her as a friend and I used to think she was an okay person despite her somewhat dubious political leanings but the only feelings I have toward her right now are hatred and anger."
"Yeah, now!"
"Josh." Sam's eyes have gone hard. "Stop talking."
"Are you honestly telling me that you've never thought about…"
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know that I've crossed a line. I have the good sense to duck as soon as I see the lamp flying through the air, but I can't get out of the way of Sam's fist. Thirty seconds ago, we were both yelling. Now he suggests in a cold hiss that I should go. I don't argue with him. I stop long enough to grab my car keys and my backpack, and within a minute I'm downstairs, slamming the car door, and turning the key in the ignition. Sam this angry terrifies me, mostly because I've never seen him like that in my life. Then the full force of what I just did hits me, and my hands are shaking as I switch off the engine and dial Donna's home number from my cellphone. She answers on the first ring.
"Donna? It's me. I think I just did something monumentally stupid."
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you, firstly to my fridge for being such a disgusting mess last week that I was actually inspired to write about it, which I know is really sad. Secondly to Rhiannon, for providing me with the first half of this plot, and then, when the first three drafts had died a painful death and my frustration was reaching unseen limits, for adding the second half of the plot to it. Thirdly, I don't own Mulder or Scully, they belong to Chris Carter and various alien life forms, but if they're interested in Sam's fridge…
I'm also compelled to add how much I will miss Rob Lowe when he leaves, and to say that for the first time I'm so happy I'm 'across the pond', because we're so damn behind I have a year and a half of Sam left rather than half a season. I really do hope that one of the scenarios on Bartlet4America is fulfilled and that Sam is either moved to White House Counsel or he runs for a Congressional seat in November, but in this universe, he'll be the Deputy Communications Director for as long as Jed stays in office.
Chapter 5 - Of Past Regrets and Future Fears
This is partially written and it has an actual plot, so I absolutely promise it will by no means take as long as this one has, but in the meantime, keep reviewing.
"It's not."
"Toby."
"It's not over."
"Nobody in the room disputed that, Toby, and my point, if you wouldn't mind shutting up long enough to let me make it…"
CJ and Toby are currently providing us with the regular Friday morning entertainment, going seven rounds in Leo's office and just barely restraining themselves from throwing things. Leo himself tuned them out long ago, now reading some random memo that's probably not important. The President is next door, having kicked us all out fifteen minutes ago. Sam has the good fortune to be at the other end of the Beltway, and Joey and Kenny have the good fortune to be at the other end of the country, doing… something. And I'm sitting here, quietly studying my shoes and hoping that neither the Press Secretary nor the Communications Director will choose to involve me in their little dispute. Just another day in the Bartlet White House, and this really is a very good example of why we get nothing done. Toby is now making ineffectual sounds and hand gestures while CJ talks over the top of him at an exceedingly high volume.
"My point is that this happened ten days ago and even the National Enquirer is getting sick to death of writing about it. My point is that it happened at all, at what was supposed to be our High Noon, but the Convention is in three days and we're still the nominee. My point is that Josh and Sam…"
"Hold on," I interrupt indignantly, rushing to my own defence and sputtering coffee all over Leo's carpet in the process. "You just leave Josh and Sam out of it, because to the best of my knowledge, we did nothing."
"If you call almost coming out to a reporter nothing, Josh, you really do need to take a look at a dictionary at some point," CJ comments, sounding far too amused.
"Your key word there was almost, and… whatever." I glare at her as best a person can glare at a six-foot tall secretary with smoke coming out of both her ears. "I was sitting here minding my own business and pretending to be invisible, so don't you drag me into this…" I wave my cup of coffee around a bit to indicate the space in between them. "Whatever the hell it is."
"Shut up," they snap simultaneously.
"Josh and Sam have been a non-story," I steamroller on. "The reporter kept us to himself. Maybe he didn't think he had enough evidence, maybe he's a closet gay rights advocate, maybe he thought that if he were wrong he would lose his job. I don't know and I don't particularly care, but my point is, there are now a maximum of twelve people who have found out in the last week and a half, so I can't see what either of you possibly have to complain about."
"My point was that Josh and Sam have, in fact, been a non-story." CJ doesn't miss a beat as her head swivels back to me. "Had you allowed me to finish my sentence."
"Could you kids take the elementary school bickering someplace else?" Leo requests without looking up. "So the rest of us can maybe get back to running the country?"
We don't even get as far as the door when Carol appears in it, holding a file and looking extremely uncomfortable. She seems unsure who to give it to, finally holding it out for a random person to take and addressing the room in general.
"Danny wanted to give you guys a heads-up," she announces. "That was just faxed over to him from North Carolina. It'll be appearing in the Raleigh Tribune tomorrow morning. He thought you'd want to know."
Toby, growing impatient, swipes it out of Carol's hand. He takes one look at it and the first words out of his mouth are,
"Call Sam. Do it now."
"Sam's at State."
"I honestly could care less." I can't decide whether he's being ornery or big brotherly, then he shoves the thing at me. "Get him back here. You two aren't going to be a non-story for very much longer."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Twenty-nine minutes later, when Sam has almost broken both his own neck and the land-speed record getting back from State, and has in the process managed to piss off several important Democrats while running out in the middle of a meeting, the five of us have gone into full damage control mode. My 'damage control' mode is presently bearing a remarkable resemblance to my 'panic' and 'belligerence toward Republicans' mode. Sam is rereading the article for the third time in five minutes, and the tops of his ears are rapidly turning a bright and interesting shade of red.
What it is, essentially, is an expose alleging the homosexual relationship between two White House senior staffers, and yes, before you ask, we are named. I'm pretty sure the words 'filthy' and 'an example of the falling standards in even the highest ranks of American government' were used. That second one was an actual quote from an actual person. This is more the kind of thing I'd expect to read in the National Enquirer than in the actual legitimate press. Then again, I'm not what you might call an expert on the legitimacy of the press in North Carolina.
"I think this has nothing to do with what happened in Illinois." Toby's voice pulls my thoughts back into Leo's office.
"Before Illinois," Sam disagrees, "Josh and I were the only people who knew that we were together, and I don't think this would have happened had we not told people, which we wouldn't have done had it not been for what happened in Illinois, so I don't think you actually get to make the two events mutually exclusive."
"Not mutually exclusive, no," I jump in, as Toby casts a painted look in Sam's direction, doubtless for the complete lack of grammar in his deputy's remarks. "But I think he's got a point. This isn't coming from the reporter, it's coming from us telling Babish."
"Josh, if you're accusing Babish of being behind this, I gotta tell you…"
"I am not accusing Babish of anything," I interrupt Leo loudly. "This is not Babish. It's his deputy."
"Ainsley?" Sam looks shocked.
And no, I'm not just casting about in search of the nearest blameable Republican. This thing, which I'm not even going to dignify by referring to as journalism, has a number of standard file quotes from Sam and I, and also cites 'anonymous White House sources'. These anonymous White House sources have what you might call distinctive speech patterns.
"Ainsley works for us," Sam protests again.
"This does not mean she wants us to win re-election," I point out. "The woman's a Republican. A Republican, I might add, who's spoken out publicly in favour of the Marriage Recognition Act and the concept that certain members of this administration are unfit to work in the White House, and who's denounced, equally publicly, homosexuality, gays in the military, extended gay rights, and Sam's sex life."
"You just described a part of the Republican platform on which 90 percent of the party agree," Leo reminds me warily.
"She's the only Republican who anyone in the building would have told, and she's the only human being I know who speaks in iambic pentameter."
"Also," Donna announces from the doorway with no warning. "Ainsley Hayes has a thing for Sam."
"We're getting you a bell." I squint at her. "What the hell do you mean?"
"I mean that Ainsley Hayes has a thing for Sam."
From the look on Sam's face, I'm getting the impression that it's not exactly what you would call news to him. This is absolutely something we're going to be talking about later. For the time being, Leo's still busy trying to pick holes in my theory.
"Be all that as it may, Ainsley doesn't have anything like enough clout to pull off something like this."
"Not in Washington," CJ agrees, joining the conversation for the first time. ""Which would explain why it's not yet on the front page of the Washington Post. In North Carolina, I'm not so sure. Her grandfather was state chairman in Raleigh. I don't think she's done it on her own, but Josh is right. She had a major part in leaking this."
"Fine." Leo gives up. "I'll brief the President, I'll talk to Babish. CJ, you'll keep this out of the press room for as long as possible. Put a leash on Danny if you have to. You don't think Ainsley did this on her own. Who do we think her co-conspirator is?"
"Someone from the Christian Right," Toby offers. "I have my suspicions as to whom, but I choose not to express them right now."
"Okay. Go. Spin. Deal with this."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
"Josh, would you, for the love of God, talk to Sam?"
"Donna…"
I've been brooding in my office for most of the day, and I think I've got Donna to the point where she's not sure whether to quit or tell Leo that I'm having another meltdown. I also think that playing the go-between for Sam and I is getting on her nerves.
"He's called you four times in the last three hours, you're both being outed in the North Carolina press in less than twenty-four, and it's starting to sound like you're avoiding him is all I'm saying."
"I am avoiding him, Donnatella. I just found out that the Republican Deputy White House Counsel has a thing for him."
"Sam's an attractive guy, Josh. It's not like you haven't noticed yourself." She sits down and helps herself to my fries. "Also, we all thought you knew."
"Sam didn't tell me that he knew, and I'm guessing from the look on his face when you made your little announcement that it wasn't exactly a surprise, so excuse me if…"
"My point there was that pretty much everyone in the building, from the President all the way down to the guy in the mailing room knows, so we all kind of assumed that you knew as well." She pauses to swallow a slice of tomato. "Yes, I appreciate that Sam didn't tell you, and yes… anyway, have you considered the possibility that when Sam didn't tell you he was, perhaps, trying to avoid, well, this?"
"I just found out that the Republican Deputy White House Counsel has a thing for him!" Yes, I do seem to be somewhat stuck on that point. "What the hell am I supposed to say to him?"
"I am not your marriage guidance counsellor, nor am I your mother." Donna stands up. "However, it would be an idea if you two were at least speaking by the time this thing breaks, you do need to read the agriculture report at some point, and Margaret asked me to remind you that Leo wants you to look over the…"
"Commercial industry stats by tomorrow morning, yeah."
I ignore Donna's advice completely. I also ignore the somewhat compelling need to call my mother and tell her that I am, in fact, involved in a sexual relationship with my best friend before she reads about it on the front page of the Washington Post, before she sees the story on CNN, and before she hears about it from her neighbour. Instead, I spend the rest of the day in my office. I read the agriculture report; I look over the commercial industry statistics for Leo, and the only time I see Sam is when the President calls us both into the Oval Office. I manage to avoid looking at or addressing him directly, I manage to be civil, and I hope that the President puts the tension between us during the five minutes and thirty-seven seconds we're in the same room down to stress. I'm out of the room before he is, and I make it back to the Operations bullpen in record time. By ten-thirty, when I'm ready to leave the White House, I realize that I've let the tension reach breaking point, and that once I go home, I can no longer avoid him. The only solution seems to be that I should avoid going home, so I find my spare key to Sam's old apartment, pull out of the parking lot, and, fifteen minutes later, pull onto the curb in front of the apartment building.
I don't even stop to lock the door behind me, and I'm still wearing my jacket and shoes when I bend down to open the fridge. I need a drink right now like a hole in the head, but a large part of my body is crying out for alcohol, so I put a temporary gag on my delicate system and my inner-Donna, and I look for a beer. Unfortunately, in some part of my reptilian brain-stem, I haven't actually considered the fact that neither Sam nor I have spent longer than ten minutes here in the better part of a year, with the sole exception of that one drunken night after the Iowa Caucus when neither of us could actually remember where we lived. My point is that when I open the fridge, I gag. There's a block of cheese with things growing on it that are no longer from this planet, there are two fluffy strawberries, there's a bottle of French dressing with a 2001 expiry date, and there's a chocolate bar. It needs defrosting so badly there's a block of actual ice in the back, encasing a slice of what looks to be lemon but which could equally well be a new life form alien even to Mulder and Scully. I sniff the chocolate dubiously and decide that it's better than nothing. I'm trying to remember exactly why Sam and I didn't clean out his fridge when he moved in with me, when Sam himself opens the kitchen door and I almost pass out right there on the floor.
"What in the name of God are you doing here?" he asks, taking a swing of orange juice straight from the carton and making a face.
"What are you doing here?" I stand up and close the fridge. "And you didn't hear me come in?"
"Actually no." Sam loosens his tie and rubs his left hand across the day old stubble on his chin. "And I got the impression from the way you haven't spoken to me all day that you weren't exactly desperate to see me."
"I wasn't."
"And now?"
"Well, I came here in order to avoid seeing you." I have the vague impression that this isn't perhaps the best thing I could say, but keep talking anyway. "So, I guess I'm still not."
"Is it because of tomorrow?" Sam sounds concerned. "Because you have every right to be scared out of your mind…"
"I'm scared shitless," I mutter. "But then again, I'm sure I'm not the only one, and it's not that that's bothering me so much as the Ainsley thing?"
"The Ainsley thing?" Sam repeats. "This is an issue other than that she's busy outing us in the press and that you don't like her?"
"I don't like her!"
"So the Ainsley thing is that you don't like Ainsley." He looks more and more confused. "Joshua, I'm sorry, but I don't understand. You've been avoiding me all day because you don't like Ainsley? 'Cause I gotta tell you, that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
"Ainsley Hayes has a thing for you, Sam, or did you miss that part of the conversation this morning?"
"I heard that part of the conversation fine. I'm just failing to see what your issue is with it, because… it's not like I have a thing for her." His eyes widen. "You think I have a thing for her."
"I think it's not outside of the realm of possibility that you and Ainsley reciprocate each other's feelings."
"Then let's clear up a couple of things. I do not nor have I ever had a thing for Ainsley Hayes. I used to think of her as a friend and I used to think she was an okay person despite her somewhat dubious political leanings but the only feelings I have toward her right now are hatred and anger."
"Yeah, now!"
"Josh." Sam's eyes have gone hard. "Stop talking."
"Are you honestly telling me that you've never thought about…"
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know that I've crossed a line. I have the good sense to duck as soon as I see the lamp flying through the air, but I can't get out of the way of Sam's fist. Thirty seconds ago, we were both yelling. Now he suggests in a cold hiss that I should go. I don't argue with him. I stop long enough to grab my car keys and my backpack, and within a minute I'm downstairs, slamming the car door, and turning the key in the ignition. Sam this angry terrifies me, mostly because I've never seen him like that in my life. Then the full force of what I just did hits me, and my hands are shaking as I switch off the engine and dial Donna's home number from my cellphone. She answers on the first ring.
"Donna? It's me. I think I just did something monumentally stupid."
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Thank you, firstly to my fridge for being such a disgusting mess last week that I was actually inspired to write about it, which I know is really sad. Secondly to Rhiannon, for providing me with the first half of this plot, and then, when the first three drafts had died a painful death and my frustration was reaching unseen limits, for adding the second half of the plot to it. Thirdly, I don't own Mulder or Scully, they belong to Chris Carter and various alien life forms, but if they're interested in Sam's fridge…
I'm also compelled to add how much I will miss Rob Lowe when he leaves, and to say that for the first time I'm so happy I'm 'across the pond', because we're so damn behind I have a year and a half of Sam left rather than half a season. I really do hope that one of the scenarios on Bartlet4America is fulfilled and that Sam is either moved to White House Counsel or he runs for a Congressional seat in November, but in this universe, he'll be the Deputy Communications Director for as long as Jed stays in office.
Chapter 5 - Of Past Regrets and Future Fears
This is partially written and it has an actual plot, so I absolutely promise it will by no means take as long as this one has, but in the meantime, keep reviewing.