Chapter 9: The Substance of Things Hoped For
"Everybody shut the hell up!"
The force of my voice surprises even me, but then again, I'm having a really bad day and it's not even seven o'clock. Between several delays and a couple of minor disasters, none of us got to bed before two, and, on checking in, Sam and I were discreetly gaped at by the hotel staff. We see very little point in continuing to check into separate rooms while simultaneously having our relationship plastered across almost every national newspaper in existence. Forty minutes ago, I fell out of bed answering the phone. Now there's nine of us in Toby's room, that's before we even consider trying to find room to shoehorn the President and Leo in here, and I can barely hear myself think. So, yeah, polite just isn't cutting it this morning.
There's a rumor starting to come through on the wires that could be the noose for this campaign to hang itself with.
"CJ, what the hell is going on?"
Leo enters the room, followed by President Bartlet, and, without preamble, turns on the woman who got him out of bed in the first place. We're all already on our feet; there wasn't anywhere near enough extra floor space for us to try sitting down, and, CJ, instead of trying to blend into the furnishings the way most people including me do when Leo McGarry gets that look on his face, looks down at him from a height that's frankly intimidating, stares him in the eye, and utters one flat sentence that makes him shut up.
"AP and Reuters are reporting that Ann Stark is Governor Ritchie's new Senior Political Director."
Leo's mouth opens and closes a couple of times. If I weren't suppressing such a burning desire to burn a hole in the carpet, I would find his unwitting impersonation of Gail funny.
"Is it…"
"True?" she asks. "I don't know. Simon got the wire reports an hour ago and he could hardly call Florida to confirm anything at the crack of dawn because, even laying aside everything else, it makes us look as though we're worried about it. CNN started running a feed twenty minutes ago. My gut's telling me that there's something behind this, I wouldn't be seeing reports all over the wires if there wasn't."
"Confirm it."
"I'm on it."
"And someone tell me why we're only just now finding out about this."
"Because…"
"Josh, isn't this the kind of thing we pay you for?"
Is it? To be honest, I've never been entirely sure what they pay me for, but I have a suspicion that now would maybe not be the best time to admit to that, so I construct a non-answer.
"We're just now finding out about this because there are ways and means of making this sort of a deal without anyone ever knowing before it's signed and sealed. If they've done it fast, if they've kept the circle of people involved to a bare minimum… 1998, right after the Iowa Caucus? I was the chief of staff to the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency, there were, you know, a few people in Beltway politics who had heard of me. How many people besides you three…" I wave my hand in the general direction of the President and Toby. "Knew that I was coming on board before I physically came back to the Hill and put my resignation on Hoynes's desk?"
"There were reasons," Leo mutters. "Your own innate stubbornness being one of them."
"Still."
"We have a bit more influence these days, Josh, or at least the United States Constitution likes to believe we do. So how is it possible that this wasn't leaked to us by someone before now is what I'm asking."
"We get blindsided by things. It happens."
"Ann Stark's a wartime consigliere, Leo."
I flatten my back against the wall and watch Toby with interest, wondering if the same guy who thought that Ann Stark was his friend and 'not as bad as you make her out to be' has finally gotten a clue. I get the feeling that they've had a conversation remarkably similar to this one before.
"I'm a wartime consigliere too, Toby."
"Yeah." He seems to consider this. "You're one of the good guys."
"Sometimes I am."
"Other times," I add, remembering all the tactics he employed to get me onto Bartlet for America, "Blackmail can be his middle name."
"Nonetheless, Ann Stark, as I believe is the point we've been trying to make for the last ten minutes is, would be unlikely to recognise a clean campaign if one jumped up and bit her on the ass," Sam says savagely.
"Okay." The President holds his hand up. "I'll accept it up to a point and it's not like we don't know that there are people out there – numerating something like half the country – who are going to throw a party the day I get out of office. But they exist and we know they exist and we've handled them before and won. When it's Ann, I sit in a room and listen to you all talk about her, and anyone would think she's Satan, dressed up in a woman's body and working for the GOP. So my question is this: how is this one different to any of the others?"
"Because the sole purpose of this one existing is to screw me over?" Toby suggests.
"Because she's going to pull a Lillienfield."
I can't believe I didn't figure it out before. This whole thing starts to slot into place and an overwhelming part of my bran starts to curse loudly before it registers that CJ's asking what the hell I mean by 'pull a Lillienfield'.
"Character attacks," I tell her abruptly. "On the staff. On the President, to a certain extent, but they would be inevitable no matter who was doing her job. She's going to campaign off the reasons America doesn't want *us* to be its senior staff."
*The days of the best and brightest are over, to be replaced by Ivy League liberals and Hollywood darlings.*
"Sam and Laurie." I've begun to pace before I realise that the entire step and a half I can take in any direction is actually more frustrating than just standing still. "Me and Sam. God and tax fraud and New York Jews, and yeah, fully accepting that that's my fault. Being relieved about potential wars." CJ beat herself up over that more than any of us could ever have done for her, and I would give anything to not have to drag it up again, but I'd rather the Republicans not be the first ones. "Leo and Sierra-Tucson. My mental health."
"Josh."
"No." I give Leo an apologetic look. "In this room with these people, we like to pretend that it doesn't matter, but this is a whole new thing. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and there are people – more people, in fact, than I'd like to imagine – who know that I do. If this campaign goes down the road I think it will, that could become a liability to us. She's going after votes by making the American people ask if we're the staff they want in the White House. You can't look at this objectively, but step back for a second from the part where you've known me for five years or more and you've seen me drunk off my ass and…" And *step back from the part where you're in love with me*, I want to say to Sam, but think better of it. "And you saw me go down. Imagine you're a taxpayer with no vested interest other than wanting your country to be governed as well as possible. Do you want a guy in the White House who, on his bad days, can snap when he hears a jazz musician in the street?!"
"That's a worst-case scenario."
"But it's not impossible."
"You have your condition under control."
"It can't be guaranteed that if I'm having a bad day, I won't hear something that sets it off."
"It can't be guaranteed that if I'm in the Situation Room, I won't lose control of my mental function," the President reminds me. "But we're all still here."
"With all due respect, Mr President…" Toby interrupts.
"I know. I got up at a podium all set to say that I wasn't running for re-election for that very reason."
"Yes."
"It was an example," I tell them. "Any of those other things I named could be the thing that comes crashing down around our ears, the fact that I elaborated on mine was… it was an example, that's all."
"I think Josh has a point," Leo says unexpectedly. Ten sets of eyes turn in his direction. "I think we have to put a new poll in the field and we have to ask them their opinion of the senior staff. Where they stand on the President's chief of staff being an alcoholic and a drug addict. Because my condition is no more guaranteed to remain under control than Josh's is or than MS is. What they would think if senior members of the White House were, from time to time, consulting with a therapist. Their opinion of two male staffers being involved."
"We already put that question in the field," Sam points out.
"With Ann Stark running spin for Ritchie," CJ counters reasonably, "The results of the poll Joey was doing this weekend could be moot already."
"I still want to see it."
"So do I." The President attempts to regain control of the meeting. "Where is Joey?"
"I'm here." Almost as soon as she arrived in Washington from California on Saturday, Joey had to turn right back around and fly to Salt Lake City before coming to the Convention without the employee benefits of Air Force One. Her plane, I recall from a schedule Donna handed to me as Sam and I walked in the door this morning, landed in Kennedy at six-thirty. As I turn around to where she and Kenny are standing just inside the door, I notice that the population of the room has gone up to thirteen and if anyone else tries to come in, we'll be spilling out of the window. Her hands form seven words. "What do you need me to do?"
______________________________________________________________________________________________
"How are you doing?"
"Absolutely terrific," I mumble sarcastically as Sam hands me a cup of coffee. "You?"
My bad day, to be frank, has been going from bad to worse to very much worse. To begin with, it didn't take too long to confirm that the rumors about Ann Stark were true, not that any of us had really doubted it. Then, the results of Joey's poll – the poll that CJ pointed out is probably going to be moot within the next forty-eight hours – told us… well, it was enlightening, to say the least, which isn't the same thing as saying it was encouraging. For example, there are actual people in America whom, on being asked the question 'would you consider yourself homophobic', will say yes. On top of that, just because the rest of the population wouldn't consider themselves homophobic, that doesn't mean they believe it's okay for two male White House 'senior advisors' to be in a relationship. The good news, I suppose, is that the percentage of votes it's actually lost us is minimal. It would seem that most of the people who intended to vote for us aren't going to change their mind because of Sam and I; it's just that a lot of them don't exactly support us.
And then, of course, I've been stewing over the impact me having PTSD could have on this election.
Because when I told them that I'd been using that as an example? There was the bigger picture and it wasn't the best time for me to have a fight with Leo about my mental instability. But I keep on remembering how I cracked over Cano, and how I lost it in the Oval Office, and how I very nearly lost it in front of that reporter at the Illinois primary when the President had his mild episode, and between me being outed from the closet and my post-traumatic stress and the inescapable fact that one day when I screw up it's going to be one screw-up too many, I'm not exactly batting for Employee of the Year, here. I blurt out the sentence that's been resting on my subconscious all morning.
"Maybe I should just resign. Make things simpler for everyone."
"Which everyone?" Sam raises an eyebrow in incredulity and I realise from his non-reaction that he's probably been expecting that for some time. "Josh, if you quit, this administration would go down the tubes tomorrow and you know it. Nobody can have an ego the size of yours and not be aware of something as fundamental as that. We've all made our fair share of cock-ups. Columbia. Laurie. Haiti. MS, for God's sake. You were shot and you almost died, and none of us can detach ourselves from that. I think we can cut you some slack on what you went through afterwards. Now, the only way you can help us is by sticking around to fight this battle because I swear to God, if we haven't got you, then we don't stand a chance in hell."
"Sometimes you have too much faith in me. You know that, right?"
"I'm just saying maybe it's time you had a little more faith in yourself."
"I don't…"
"It's the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. The belief that you're tactless and egotistic and on occasion unbelievably dumb, but even given all that, that you're gunning for the right side and you would sooner die than let us down. That goes both ways, you know."
"I don't know if I deserve that."
"Start knowing. Because I have no plans to let you go anytime soon."
I nod.
"Josh." He sounds hesitant as he sits on the edge of the table and starts tracing the palm of my hand. "Before. When you told us to step back from having seen you be shot. That wasn't what you were going to say."
"No." Sometimes Sam knows me far too well. "How did you know?"
"You weren't talking to everyone, to start with. You were going to tell me to take a step back from being the person who's in love with you."
"Yes."
"I can't do that."
"Sometimes you have to."
"It isn't for you to decide."
"It's…"
"Hey. Head's up for you. I *am* the person who's in love with you, and asking me to step back from that is going to prove about as fruitful as asking me to register with the Republican Party." I shudder and he gives me a wry smile. "As of yet, records of your sessions with Stanley – either Stanley – have yet to find their way into the Washington Times. Leo's records from Sierra-Tucson did, and I stood by him, and you stood by him, and we got tailed and then screamed at for our trouble. So what really makes you think that any of us wouldn't do the same for you as we did for Leo?"
"I screwed up."
"You spent three months recuperating from a pretty damn severe gunshot wound. If anyone screwed up it was the rest of us for not realising sooner that nobody could come through something like that without there being some emotional scars."
"I should have asked for help sooner."
"Yes," he agrees easily. "You should have."
"Before it got to the point that I yelled at my boss."
"He got over it."
"I know."
"You know, you can blame yourself to the ends of the earth and back for… well, for whatever it is you're blaming yourself for, so I'll go with for not wanting help, but you can't blame yourself for that any more than we can blame ourselves for not forcing help onto you."
"Wasn't your fault."
"It wasn't yours, either."
I choose not to dispute that before Sam gets even more worked up than he already is. We've had more conversations than I can count about how he – he personally, I should clarify, not 'he' as a collective term for the staff – should have noticed that something was up, and how it took me blowing up in the Oval Office and Donna pointing it out before he paid any real attention beyond avoiding me. Sam Seaborn can beat himself up over things better than any of the rest of us would ever do it for him. Even when there was nothing he could have done to avoid the inevitable. Like this.
"Okay. It was just something that happened."
"Okay."
"Did you…" I cough awkwardly and try to steer us away from the baring of souls moment that just occurred. "Were you looking for me for a reason?"
"For that. And for this." He kisses me and I grin. "And mostly 'cause Toby wanted me to remind you that you've got, you know, a national Convention to attend and so you should quit wallowing in self-pity."
"Yeah. We should…"
"And Donna says that your phone hasn't stopped ringing all morning and to let you know you've got lunch with Senator Casey, and she's scheduled you to meet tomorrow with Senator Russell's chief of staff. She seems to be operating under the illusion that I'm her new secretary."
"I'm going."
"Motorcade's due to arrive in five minutes. Tell Toby I'm on my way up."
As I leave the basement room, which is even smaller, smellier, and less functional than the one at the White House that we launched the Sagittarius operation in over a year ago, I feel in my jacket pocket for the messy sheet of paper that I've spent the morning, on and off, drafting a letter of resignation. I suppose in my head, I didn't need Sam to tell me that quitting wouldn't solve any of our problems and truthfully, it would only make them worse, adding a 'left the White House under scandalous circumstances' spin to the whole situation, but sometimes he has to bring me back from the edge of doing something monumentally stupid.
Before I get into the elevator, I tear the letter up into six pieces and toss them into the nearest trash can. It's not the first time I've done that, and it probably won't be the last, but for today at least, Ann Stark won't get rid of me that easily.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Jesus, three months. I had a much better footnote than this one written, but managed to lose the floppy disc which had the file and notes of this chapter saved on it. To that end, I'm unendingly grateful to Krista for e-mailing me a copy less than twelve hours after I frantically requested one. Right. My point. I apologise for the massive gap that seems to have occurred between Chapter 8 and Chapter 9, but real life got sort of aggressively in the way. Read: A-levels. The exams are over, though, and hopefully for at least the summer, I'll be able to update with some sort of regularity. I'm not going to give a deadline for the next part, mostly because I never seem able to stick to them, but I'll say that it shouldn't be *too* long, as it is semi-written in my head, and parts of it at least seem to have made it onto paper already. Plus, in ten days, I'll be six hours away from getting Season 4 over here in what seems to be Amish country in terms of television scheduling.
Chapter 10: In Order To Form A More Perfect Union... coming *really* soon, I hope.
"Everybody shut the hell up!"
The force of my voice surprises even me, but then again, I'm having a really bad day and it's not even seven o'clock. Between several delays and a couple of minor disasters, none of us got to bed before two, and, on checking in, Sam and I were discreetly gaped at by the hotel staff. We see very little point in continuing to check into separate rooms while simultaneously having our relationship plastered across almost every national newspaper in existence. Forty minutes ago, I fell out of bed answering the phone. Now there's nine of us in Toby's room, that's before we even consider trying to find room to shoehorn the President and Leo in here, and I can barely hear myself think. So, yeah, polite just isn't cutting it this morning.
There's a rumor starting to come through on the wires that could be the noose for this campaign to hang itself with.
"CJ, what the hell is going on?"
Leo enters the room, followed by President Bartlet, and, without preamble, turns on the woman who got him out of bed in the first place. We're all already on our feet; there wasn't anywhere near enough extra floor space for us to try sitting down, and, CJ, instead of trying to blend into the furnishings the way most people including me do when Leo McGarry gets that look on his face, looks down at him from a height that's frankly intimidating, stares him in the eye, and utters one flat sentence that makes him shut up.
"AP and Reuters are reporting that Ann Stark is Governor Ritchie's new Senior Political Director."
Leo's mouth opens and closes a couple of times. If I weren't suppressing such a burning desire to burn a hole in the carpet, I would find his unwitting impersonation of Gail funny.
"Is it…"
"True?" she asks. "I don't know. Simon got the wire reports an hour ago and he could hardly call Florida to confirm anything at the crack of dawn because, even laying aside everything else, it makes us look as though we're worried about it. CNN started running a feed twenty minutes ago. My gut's telling me that there's something behind this, I wouldn't be seeing reports all over the wires if there wasn't."
"Confirm it."
"I'm on it."
"And someone tell me why we're only just now finding out about this."
"Because…"
"Josh, isn't this the kind of thing we pay you for?"
Is it? To be honest, I've never been entirely sure what they pay me for, but I have a suspicion that now would maybe not be the best time to admit to that, so I construct a non-answer.
"We're just now finding out about this because there are ways and means of making this sort of a deal without anyone ever knowing before it's signed and sealed. If they've done it fast, if they've kept the circle of people involved to a bare minimum… 1998, right after the Iowa Caucus? I was the chief of staff to the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency, there were, you know, a few people in Beltway politics who had heard of me. How many people besides you three…" I wave my hand in the general direction of the President and Toby. "Knew that I was coming on board before I physically came back to the Hill and put my resignation on Hoynes's desk?"
"There were reasons," Leo mutters. "Your own innate stubbornness being one of them."
"Still."
"We have a bit more influence these days, Josh, or at least the United States Constitution likes to believe we do. So how is it possible that this wasn't leaked to us by someone before now is what I'm asking."
"We get blindsided by things. It happens."
"Ann Stark's a wartime consigliere, Leo."
I flatten my back against the wall and watch Toby with interest, wondering if the same guy who thought that Ann Stark was his friend and 'not as bad as you make her out to be' has finally gotten a clue. I get the feeling that they've had a conversation remarkably similar to this one before.
"I'm a wartime consigliere too, Toby."
"Yeah." He seems to consider this. "You're one of the good guys."
"Sometimes I am."
"Other times," I add, remembering all the tactics he employed to get me onto Bartlet for America, "Blackmail can be his middle name."
"Nonetheless, Ann Stark, as I believe is the point we've been trying to make for the last ten minutes is, would be unlikely to recognise a clean campaign if one jumped up and bit her on the ass," Sam says savagely.
"Okay." The President holds his hand up. "I'll accept it up to a point and it's not like we don't know that there are people out there – numerating something like half the country – who are going to throw a party the day I get out of office. But they exist and we know they exist and we've handled them before and won. When it's Ann, I sit in a room and listen to you all talk about her, and anyone would think she's Satan, dressed up in a woman's body and working for the GOP. So my question is this: how is this one different to any of the others?"
"Because the sole purpose of this one existing is to screw me over?" Toby suggests.
"Because she's going to pull a Lillienfield."
I can't believe I didn't figure it out before. This whole thing starts to slot into place and an overwhelming part of my bran starts to curse loudly before it registers that CJ's asking what the hell I mean by 'pull a Lillienfield'.
"Character attacks," I tell her abruptly. "On the staff. On the President, to a certain extent, but they would be inevitable no matter who was doing her job. She's going to campaign off the reasons America doesn't want *us* to be its senior staff."
*The days of the best and brightest are over, to be replaced by Ivy League liberals and Hollywood darlings.*
"Sam and Laurie." I've begun to pace before I realise that the entire step and a half I can take in any direction is actually more frustrating than just standing still. "Me and Sam. God and tax fraud and New York Jews, and yeah, fully accepting that that's my fault. Being relieved about potential wars." CJ beat herself up over that more than any of us could ever have done for her, and I would give anything to not have to drag it up again, but I'd rather the Republicans not be the first ones. "Leo and Sierra-Tucson. My mental health."
"Josh."
"No." I give Leo an apologetic look. "In this room with these people, we like to pretend that it doesn't matter, but this is a whole new thing. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and there are people – more people, in fact, than I'd like to imagine – who know that I do. If this campaign goes down the road I think it will, that could become a liability to us. She's going after votes by making the American people ask if we're the staff they want in the White House. You can't look at this objectively, but step back for a second from the part where you've known me for five years or more and you've seen me drunk off my ass and…" And *step back from the part where you're in love with me*, I want to say to Sam, but think better of it. "And you saw me go down. Imagine you're a taxpayer with no vested interest other than wanting your country to be governed as well as possible. Do you want a guy in the White House who, on his bad days, can snap when he hears a jazz musician in the street?!"
"That's a worst-case scenario."
"But it's not impossible."
"You have your condition under control."
"It can't be guaranteed that if I'm having a bad day, I won't hear something that sets it off."
"It can't be guaranteed that if I'm in the Situation Room, I won't lose control of my mental function," the President reminds me. "But we're all still here."
"With all due respect, Mr President…" Toby interrupts.
"I know. I got up at a podium all set to say that I wasn't running for re-election for that very reason."
"Yes."
"It was an example," I tell them. "Any of those other things I named could be the thing that comes crashing down around our ears, the fact that I elaborated on mine was… it was an example, that's all."
"I think Josh has a point," Leo says unexpectedly. Ten sets of eyes turn in his direction. "I think we have to put a new poll in the field and we have to ask them their opinion of the senior staff. Where they stand on the President's chief of staff being an alcoholic and a drug addict. Because my condition is no more guaranteed to remain under control than Josh's is or than MS is. What they would think if senior members of the White House were, from time to time, consulting with a therapist. Their opinion of two male staffers being involved."
"We already put that question in the field," Sam points out.
"With Ann Stark running spin for Ritchie," CJ counters reasonably, "The results of the poll Joey was doing this weekend could be moot already."
"I still want to see it."
"So do I." The President attempts to regain control of the meeting. "Where is Joey?"
"I'm here." Almost as soon as she arrived in Washington from California on Saturday, Joey had to turn right back around and fly to Salt Lake City before coming to the Convention without the employee benefits of Air Force One. Her plane, I recall from a schedule Donna handed to me as Sam and I walked in the door this morning, landed in Kennedy at six-thirty. As I turn around to where she and Kenny are standing just inside the door, I notice that the population of the room has gone up to thirteen and if anyone else tries to come in, we'll be spilling out of the window. Her hands form seven words. "What do you need me to do?"
______________________________________________________________________________________________
"How are you doing?"
"Absolutely terrific," I mumble sarcastically as Sam hands me a cup of coffee. "You?"
My bad day, to be frank, has been going from bad to worse to very much worse. To begin with, it didn't take too long to confirm that the rumors about Ann Stark were true, not that any of us had really doubted it. Then, the results of Joey's poll – the poll that CJ pointed out is probably going to be moot within the next forty-eight hours – told us… well, it was enlightening, to say the least, which isn't the same thing as saying it was encouraging. For example, there are actual people in America whom, on being asked the question 'would you consider yourself homophobic', will say yes. On top of that, just because the rest of the population wouldn't consider themselves homophobic, that doesn't mean they believe it's okay for two male White House 'senior advisors' to be in a relationship. The good news, I suppose, is that the percentage of votes it's actually lost us is minimal. It would seem that most of the people who intended to vote for us aren't going to change their mind because of Sam and I; it's just that a lot of them don't exactly support us.
And then, of course, I've been stewing over the impact me having PTSD could have on this election.
Because when I told them that I'd been using that as an example? There was the bigger picture and it wasn't the best time for me to have a fight with Leo about my mental instability. But I keep on remembering how I cracked over Cano, and how I lost it in the Oval Office, and how I very nearly lost it in front of that reporter at the Illinois primary when the President had his mild episode, and between me being outed from the closet and my post-traumatic stress and the inescapable fact that one day when I screw up it's going to be one screw-up too many, I'm not exactly batting for Employee of the Year, here. I blurt out the sentence that's been resting on my subconscious all morning.
"Maybe I should just resign. Make things simpler for everyone."
"Which everyone?" Sam raises an eyebrow in incredulity and I realise from his non-reaction that he's probably been expecting that for some time. "Josh, if you quit, this administration would go down the tubes tomorrow and you know it. Nobody can have an ego the size of yours and not be aware of something as fundamental as that. We've all made our fair share of cock-ups. Columbia. Laurie. Haiti. MS, for God's sake. You were shot and you almost died, and none of us can detach ourselves from that. I think we can cut you some slack on what you went through afterwards. Now, the only way you can help us is by sticking around to fight this battle because I swear to God, if we haven't got you, then we don't stand a chance in hell."
"Sometimes you have too much faith in me. You know that, right?"
"I'm just saying maybe it's time you had a little more faith in yourself."
"I don't…"
"It's the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. The belief that you're tactless and egotistic and on occasion unbelievably dumb, but even given all that, that you're gunning for the right side and you would sooner die than let us down. That goes both ways, you know."
"I don't know if I deserve that."
"Start knowing. Because I have no plans to let you go anytime soon."
I nod.
"Josh." He sounds hesitant as he sits on the edge of the table and starts tracing the palm of my hand. "Before. When you told us to step back from having seen you be shot. That wasn't what you were going to say."
"No." Sometimes Sam knows me far too well. "How did you know?"
"You weren't talking to everyone, to start with. You were going to tell me to take a step back from being the person who's in love with you."
"Yes."
"I can't do that."
"Sometimes you have to."
"It isn't for you to decide."
"It's…"
"Hey. Head's up for you. I *am* the person who's in love with you, and asking me to step back from that is going to prove about as fruitful as asking me to register with the Republican Party." I shudder and he gives me a wry smile. "As of yet, records of your sessions with Stanley – either Stanley – have yet to find their way into the Washington Times. Leo's records from Sierra-Tucson did, and I stood by him, and you stood by him, and we got tailed and then screamed at for our trouble. So what really makes you think that any of us wouldn't do the same for you as we did for Leo?"
"I screwed up."
"You spent three months recuperating from a pretty damn severe gunshot wound. If anyone screwed up it was the rest of us for not realising sooner that nobody could come through something like that without there being some emotional scars."
"I should have asked for help sooner."
"Yes," he agrees easily. "You should have."
"Before it got to the point that I yelled at my boss."
"He got over it."
"I know."
"You know, you can blame yourself to the ends of the earth and back for… well, for whatever it is you're blaming yourself for, so I'll go with for not wanting help, but you can't blame yourself for that any more than we can blame ourselves for not forcing help onto you."
"Wasn't your fault."
"It wasn't yours, either."
I choose not to dispute that before Sam gets even more worked up than he already is. We've had more conversations than I can count about how he – he personally, I should clarify, not 'he' as a collective term for the staff – should have noticed that something was up, and how it took me blowing up in the Oval Office and Donna pointing it out before he paid any real attention beyond avoiding me. Sam Seaborn can beat himself up over things better than any of the rest of us would ever do it for him. Even when there was nothing he could have done to avoid the inevitable. Like this.
"Okay. It was just something that happened."
"Okay."
"Did you…" I cough awkwardly and try to steer us away from the baring of souls moment that just occurred. "Were you looking for me for a reason?"
"For that. And for this." He kisses me and I grin. "And mostly 'cause Toby wanted me to remind you that you've got, you know, a national Convention to attend and so you should quit wallowing in self-pity."
"Yeah. We should…"
"And Donna says that your phone hasn't stopped ringing all morning and to let you know you've got lunch with Senator Casey, and she's scheduled you to meet tomorrow with Senator Russell's chief of staff. She seems to be operating under the illusion that I'm her new secretary."
"I'm going."
"Motorcade's due to arrive in five minutes. Tell Toby I'm on my way up."
As I leave the basement room, which is even smaller, smellier, and less functional than the one at the White House that we launched the Sagittarius operation in over a year ago, I feel in my jacket pocket for the messy sheet of paper that I've spent the morning, on and off, drafting a letter of resignation. I suppose in my head, I didn't need Sam to tell me that quitting wouldn't solve any of our problems and truthfully, it would only make them worse, adding a 'left the White House under scandalous circumstances' spin to the whole situation, but sometimes he has to bring me back from the edge of doing something monumentally stupid.
Before I get into the elevator, I tear the letter up into six pieces and toss them into the nearest trash can. It's not the first time I've done that, and it probably won't be the last, but for today at least, Ann Stark won't get rid of me that easily.
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Jesus, three months. I had a much better footnote than this one written, but managed to lose the floppy disc which had the file and notes of this chapter saved on it. To that end, I'm unendingly grateful to Krista for e-mailing me a copy less than twelve hours after I frantically requested one. Right. My point. I apologise for the massive gap that seems to have occurred between Chapter 8 and Chapter 9, but real life got sort of aggressively in the way. Read: A-levels. The exams are over, though, and hopefully for at least the summer, I'll be able to update with some sort of regularity. I'm not going to give a deadline for the next part, mostly because I never seem able to stick to them, but I'll say that it shouldn't be *too* long, as it is semi-written in my head, and parts of it at least seem to have made it onto paper already. Plus, in ten days, I'll be six hours away from getting Season 4 over here in what seems to be Amish country in terms of television scheduling.
Chapter 10: In Order To Form A More Perfect Union... coming *really* soon, I hope.