Title: Half Of Him
Author:S A Martin
Synopsis: CJ makes a discovery about Sam.
Characters: CJ, Sam and Josh
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Set in an a/u so nothing specific, but I guess anything up to S5 is fair game.

"Good afternoon, mi amour," CJ greeted Josh when she joined him for lunch.

"Where have you been all morning?"

"I had no meetings and you didn't need me, so I went to the gym and then for a sauna and a spa."

Josh grinned, "Well it's alright for some."

CJ dug into her bag. "Have you seen the papers this morning?"

"Yeah, nothing much in them, but it is Sunday."

"You haven't seen the local paper then. Page 2," CJ frowned and handed the paper over to Josh, watching for his reaction.

Josh scanned down the page until he reached the article. "Oh what?" he muttered.

"Did he say anything to you last night?"

"No."

"Me either, so he obviously didn't know then."

"I'd say not," Josh sighed. "Shit!"

CJ tried to decide which Josh was annoyed about, the article or it's content. "We could see him after your meeting with O'Brien's people."

"Yeah." Josh looked unsure though, "Actually, can you go and see him while I'm meeting them. Make sure he's alright?"

CJ nodded. "You are going to come along later though?"

"Of course I am, I just don't know how long I'll be."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CJ cursed as she parked down the street from Sam's house; there were at least three reporters waiting outside. 'Why the hell do they care?' she wondered angrily. 'He doesn't work with the president anymore. He didn't win Orange County. He's a lawyer, and even if he wasn't, even if he did still work in the White House, why the hell do people care? Why is it their business?'

She took out her cell phone and dialed his number.

"Hey, CJ."

"Spankey. Where are you?"

"At my sister's house, I'll give you the address. I'm not hiding by the way, I was here to start with."

"I didn't think you would be hiding," CJ assured him. "I'll see you in twenty minutes."

Thirty minutes later Sam showed CJ into the den of his elder sister's home. "Josh not with you?"

"He's meeting with O'Brien and his merry men." CJ suspected that may have been a bad choice of words.

"Right. Has he seen the story?"

"Yeah. He's going to come by later. He's not deserted you, Sam."

"I know. I won't be here later though. I'm going down to San Diego to see my father. Which should be a lot of fun." Sam sat down and looked across at his friend. "You still like me then?" he asked, only half in jest.

"Sam," CJ scolded. "Of course I do, so does Josh. He really couldn't get out of the meeting, it's why we're still here on a Sunday."

Sam nodded. "He phoned me just before you did. Then Toby called me, then Donna, Will and Charlie, and Zoey would you believe."

"See, no one cares."

"You want to ask the question though. You want to know how long?"

"I was curious about that."

"Always, as long as I can remember."

"What about Mallory and the call girl, Laurie. Come to think of it, what about Lisa?"

"I never said I don't like women, I just happen to like men as well, possibly more."

CJ tried to take that in. "So the guy in the paper?"

"We met at work. He's a receptionist, or he was until last week when Wesley fired him for his crap time keeping. We went out a few times, it was never going to be serious though."

"Why?"

"Not the man for me," Sam smiled.

"I know that feeling."

"Yeah, I guess you do. You do know how it feels not to be able to have the man you want."

CJ grinned, "Danny's gone away again. I don't know why he does that, when he's not working in the gaggle he goes and does this roving reporter thing. I don't why he can't stay in town, or at least the country, when he leaves the press corp." She looked at Sam and smiled. "Anyway, we're here to talk about you not me."

Sam grinned, "No, it's fine. I'd much rather talk about someone else's private life for a while."

CJ wasn't easily distracted though. "Did your family know before the article?"

"Julie and my other sister, Katie, knew. My parents didn't. My mom was a bit shocked, but since she found out about my dad, she's had this whole 'as long as your happy' thing going on, so she's OK. My dad said I should go and see him, so I thought I may as well. He can hardly lecture me on sexual ethics can he."

"I guess not," CJ half heartedly agreed, she suspected most fathers would be shocked at the very least to find their only son was gay. "Who is he then, your ideal man?"

"He isn't gay, so it doesn't matter," Sam shrugged. "And if he knew how I felt..." he trails off and looks suddenly upset. "Of course now he knows I'm gay, he might realize and then..."

"You think you'll loose his friendship?"

"I think he may be a little freaked out to know that a guy, who's suppose to be his best friend, has feelings that run deeper than that, yes," Sam replied and then looked horrified as he realized what he had just said.

CJ just stared at him, "Josh?" When Sam didn't answer, CJ smiled, "Definitely not gay. Mind you having said that I never thought you were."

"No, he definitely isn't," Sam smiled sadly. "CJ, you can't tell him."

"Of course I won't tell him. You really think he'd care."

"I don't know."

"How do you know he hasn't already guessed about you being gay?"

"We use to live together, CJ. I brought a lot more girls back than he did. In fact he joked about getting a spare apartment so he'd have somewhere to stay, I kicked him out that often. I really don't think he knows. He'd have said something."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Still he don't think he has a problem with it."

"I really hope not."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Josh spent all afternoon meeting with O'Brien, by which time Sam had left to see his father and Josh went straight to the airport. "You want to get something to eat while we wait?" he asked.

CJ nodded and followed Josh across the concourse and into the restaurant.

"I wish I'd seen him," Josh complained, once they were sat in a quiet, or as quiet as you can hope for in a busy airport, corner with their food.

"He seemed alright, a bit pissed off that this guy went to the papers, and a little surprised that anyone really cared. But alright."

"Yeah, but now he's gone to see his father."

"He wasn't looking forward to that too much. I can't believe he hid so well from all of us." She saw the look that passed over Josh's face. "Oh my God, you knew already."

"No, well not really, I just suspected. When I first met him, he was 21 and I was sure he was gay. But he dated women, more than me in fact," Josh smiled, "so I thought I was wrong. But it was always there, in the back of my mind."

"How did you two meet?"

"We were introduced by my roommate, he was working with Sam. Andy was moving away, Sam needed somewhere to stay for the summer and I needed help with the rent. Andy was gay and he was sure Sam was too, I think he fancied him a little," Josh smiled.

"Why did you think Sam was gay?"

"I don't know. Partly what Andy had said, and things Sam said and did. But like I said, he dated women, though usually they were one or two night stands and then he'd move on."

"Until Lisa."

"Yeah, that was when I really decided I was wrong. That wasn't a one night stand, they were together for over three years."

"They were planning to get married," CJ added.

Josh nodded. "Lisa never liked me, I thought it was a clash of personalities. Mandy joked that Lisa was jealous because Sam preferred to go and watch baseball or spend the night playing pool with me than go out with her. I thought she was mad, until one night when it all fell into place."

CJ waited for him to continue, but he started eating the garlic bread instead. "What happened?" she prompted.

Josh stopped ripping the garlic bread to shreds. "We were all at some high flying New York thing. It was Lisa who wanted to go and Sam talked me into going along, Mandy thought it was a great idea. Anyway the photographer took a picture of Sam and Lisa, Mandy commented that it'd be nice for Sam to have by his bedside when Lisa was away. When we were alone, a bit later, Lisa laid into me, she said Sam would probably prefer a picture of me to her."

"She knew he was gay?"

"Apparently."

"They were about to get married."

"I couldn't believe he was going to marry her. He must have wondered what the hell was wrong with me when he told me, because I know I didn't look enthusiastic, but he took me by surprise, all I could think was 'wow, you must be mad'."

"But if she knew, why was she with him?"

"Honestly? I think she really loved him."

"And you took him away," CJ commented.

"Yeah. Her worst fear," Josh smiled ruefully. "She said Sam would be very disappointed to find I definitely wasn't interested."

CJ suddenly realized that Josh had known about Sam's crush all along. "You don't care do you?"

"That he's gay?"

"I was thinking more of how he feels..." CJ trailed off, unsure whether to ask or not.

"About me?" Josh asked and then shook his head. "We've been friends a long time and I don't believe that's why he's my friend, he's knows I'm straight." Josh could see CJ wanted more. "Would you care if, and I don't believe I'm about to say this, if Donna was gay and was secretly in love with you?"

CJ considered that and decided that she probably wouldn't. "No. You would though," she laughed.

"I have no idea what you mean," Josh grinned. "Donna and Sam get on really well."

"Yeah."

"I know me and Donna aren't together."

"To your lasting disappointment."

"I still don't know what you're talking about." Josh smiled. "Sam's been nagging me for five years to ask Donna out on a date."

"He has a point."

"He's always hated anyone I dated, or even thought about dating."

"Except Donna," CJ commented. "Perhaps that should tell you something?"

"He's over me?"

"She's the one," CJ corrected him. "Josh, you have to phone Sam. He's terrified that now you know he's gay you'll realize the rest and won't want to know him anymore. You've got to tell him you've always known."

"I thought he knew I knew."

"No. When you didn't come with me today, he thought that was the reason."

"Shit! And now he's in San Diego."

"Yeah."

"I'll call his cell before we leave. He can come and stay for a weekend. It's about time we all caught up."

Something suddenly made enormous sense to CJ. "You remember when you were first in the hospital?"

"Vaguely."

"When you were brought in. You were surrounded by doctors and nurses and paramedics. We couldn't get close, but Sam pushed his way through them all, and through the Secret Service, to grab your hand and talk to you. I thought it was a brotherly thing, but......"

"Let's just say it was a brotherly thing," Josh told her. "Don't start re-analyzing our friendship. Don't start looking for signs of him, you know."

"Don't you though? I mean, when Donna fusses and makes sure you eat properly and take your medication and look after yourself. When she imposed the rules. When she looked out for you after Carrick. We all knew, in the backs of our minds, why. You know you did too."

"Yeah," Josh agreed. "But it's different. Maybe one day Donna and I could date and maybe it'll work."

"But you do love her?"

"CJ!" Josh complained. "Yeah of course I do. And I love Sam, but not in the same way. Maybe if I'd known from the start that he was definitely gay and how he felt, then we'd never have stayed friends. But by the time I realized, he was already like a brother and I figured we'd been close for so long that why should it matter. I'm not saying I wasn't a little freaked at first, but he's the best friend I've ever had. I don't manage to keep many close friends. Seems I have this habit of pushing people away and shutting them out."

CJ just smiled.

"Have you spoken to anyone at home?" Josh asked.

"Toby, Will, Charlie, Donna and Zoey have all phoned him. I spoke to Toby, he's livid. Took me ten minutes to stop him coming out here and defending Sam's right to be anything he damn well pleases - Toby's words."

Josh smiled, "Good. I suppose at least now he can have an open relationship with some guy."

CJ didn't comment. Sam needed to find someone he liked more than Josh before that could happen. God this could have been a mess. Half of her was glad that Sam wasn't still working with them, the press would have been a nightmare. The other half felt guilty that she could possibly think like that.

"As long as he's alright. I'll have to see if I can remember all the 'keep you chin up', 'don't let 'em grind you down' clichés I got after Carrick," he smiled.

CJ though had just remembered something. "You were never happy about him dating Mallory."

"No," Josh agreed. "Normally he'd date a girl and it'd be like with Laurie. It wouldn't last and I didn't know her anyway. I felt a bit bad for Lisa, until I realized she'd known all along. Mallory was different though. I've known her most of her life, I didn't want her getting hurt."

CJ smiled, "It wasn't 'cos you liked her yourself then?"

"Mal?" Josh asked, his voice becoming a little high pitched. "No."

"Okay."

"Seriously, CJ. I've known Mal since she was a kid. She's like a little sister. I just didn't want her falling for Sam and then finding out."

"Leo would have killed him."

"Leo," Josh sighed. "I know it doesn't really matter anymore, but what do you think he's going to say?"

"You know him better... yeah forget I said that. I think he'll say he doesn't care."

"He said he didn't care about Amy's little article in the Post."

"That was Amy?"

"She gave the quotes. It was her birthday gift to me."

"That was nice," CJ replied dryly. "You think he cared then?"

"Don't you?"

"Abbey does," CJ told him, noting his surprise. "We talked when I was in Manchester. But yes, I do think it annoyed him."

"So will Sam being outed."

"Because he dated Mallory?"

"Yeah. He's a very protective father, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I had. What's she going to think?"

"He called her this morning, seemed he learnt his lesson after Laurie and the photograph. She actually thinks it's quite amusing. She's going love it if when she finds out who her rival in Sam's affections was."

CJ laughed, "Her big brother."

"I wouldn't let Leo hear you say that."

"I thought you two were OK now."

Josh shrugged, "We reached a mutual understanding so that we could carry on working together."

"You fought?"

"Oh yeah. We both said things, but we kind of sorted it. I don't know that we'll ever be friends, but I guess colleagues will do."

CJ doubted that was true. "Do you trust him?"

"I have to."

"That's not an answer."

"I know, but I don't actually know the answer. Nothing's happened since to test my trust, so until it does," Josh shrugged. "That's our flight."

They paid the check and walked to the departure gate. "You think he'll come and visit then?"

"'Course he will. He misses us."

"Toby would have him back in an instant, so would the president."

"He misses us, not the job. That he grew to hate."

"I know."

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That's All I Have