Chapter Nine
In the early hours of the morning, Sam's temperature had dropped enough for the blanket to be replaced on his bed. The nurse came four times during the night. Each time, Josh and Toby were asleep.
"It's a good job your friends are here to keep you company," she whispered as she helped Sam sit further up. He smiled in response and although he could make out the shapes beside his bed it was too dark for him to see who was there.
When Toby woke, the first thing he noticed was the blanket back on the bed. He looked across at Josh's empty chair and then finally up at Sam. At first he thought Sam was asleep. He was lying on his side facing away from Toby. But then he saw that Sam's eyes were open and he was staring at the window. The room was too high for there to be anything to see but sky, but Sam stared fixedly at it anyway.
The room was quiet and Toby was afraid that if he spoke he would startle Sam. He had just decided to cough gently when Josh came into the room, shutting the door loudly behind him. Sam turned away from the window and Toby realised he needn't have worried; Sam looked too exhausted to be startled.
"I just tripped a nurse over," Josh announced, "she was carrying this tray and I turned the corner and bam! They should have road markings or something. Everybody running around…I'm going to lie low in here for a while."
Sam turned onto his back and closed his eyes. He managed a small smile though and Toby was pleased to see it.
"You should go," Sam said without opening his eyes. "Work," he added.
"We should," Toby agreed and stood and stretched.
A nurse entered and asked Sam how he was feeling. She told him to sit higher and rearranged the pillows. She began to take readings from the various machines while another nurse joined her and placed a heated pad on Sam's chest. "This will have to do until the doctor sees you."
Sam nodded in reply and clutched at the pad then turned and stared out of the window again.
"We're going to head off," Josh said as he moved closer to the bed.
"Thanks for staying…you stay all night?"
"Yeah," Josh looked down at his shirt and tried to remember if he had a change of clothes at work.
"Thought so," Sam closed his eyes again. "Thanks."
"Your mother's coming in an hour," Toby said as he finished putting on his shoes and followed Josh to the door. He resisted the urge to turn back when he heard Sam start to cough. Josh had the same idea but Toby pushed him forward. "The nurses are with him. Besides, if I don't get some fresh air soon-" Toby stopped talking at the sight of Sam's father who was heading down the corridor towards them. He walked past them and straight into Sam's room. Josh and Toby were both relieved that he had pretended not to see them. The last thing either of them wanted, after the night they'd had, was to have a discussion with Scott Seaborn.
When they reached the exit, Toby took a deep breath of air and then began to walk slowly in the opposite direction to the car park. "I'm walking," he called to Josh over his shoulder. Josh waiting for a few moments, looked longingly at the car park, and then hurried after Toby.
Toby was checking his messages when Ron appeared at the doorway. He greeted Toby and ignored his unusually dishevelled appearance. "I want to talk to Sam again. Is he up to it?"
"You'll have to phone the hospital, he spent the night…he had a bad night but he seemed better this morning."
"Mael is still refusing to confess that he knew Sam was in the house. As soon as we have a statement from Sam we can stop playing his stupid games and start making some progress."
Toby put down the last of the slips of paper and sat down. "Do you think he'll give up the others?"
"He might."
"That's all you've got?" Toby shook his head and sighed.
Ron walked over to the desk and leant on it. "I know this is hard Toby, and it seems like we're getting nowhere but it's the best we can do. Mael was caught for a reason. If the other two managed to disappear, there must be a reason why he didn't. Someone let him down, somewhere the plan went wrong and we can use that to our advantage." Ron was staring at Toby, forcing him to look up at him.
"Is Mael the one who broke Sam's hand?"
"No, I don't think he is." Ron was professional as always but Toby knew that not being able to find Sam had hit Ron hard.
"That's the bastard I want you to get."
"Me too," Ron straightened up and stepped away from the desk. "Me too."
Donna walked into Josh's office and read from her pad without looking up, "Your meeting with Burnfield has been pushed forward to ten and Leo wants to-" Donna glanced up at Josh and let the pad drop to her side. "Oh Josh! You slept in the office again!"
"I didn't," Josh protested.
"Well wherever you slept you slept in that suit."
"I didn't-" Josh began again but then looked at his rumpled jacket and gave up the fight. "I slept at the hospital. Sam's temperature was high and he was saying all this stuff and seeing things and I didn't want to go if…" Josh looked up at Donna. "I don't think he knew we were there but I didn't want to leave him like that."
Donna smiled and locked eyes with him. "You know what I'm going to do?" Josh shook his head. "I'm going to make you a cup of coffee!"
Josh smiled at Donna and slumped back in his seat. When she returned with the coffee he sat up and took it gratefully from her. "When I was in the hospital did I have hallucinations and mumble nonsense?"
"You did, but we didn't notice at first."
"Why!" Josh leaned forward, a concerned look on his face.
"Well, it was difficult to differentiate between your usual nonsense and your delirious nonsense," Donna answered and left his office.
"I bet I was forming great political strategies," Josh called after. "People should have written down what I said," he added to the empty office.
Josh and Toby both worked for a few hours and then went home and showered and changed before they had to start with the day's schedule of meetings, the first being in the Oval Office.
They arrived to find CJ sitting on Charlie's desk.
"Charlie's got more shoes than me," she announced as Josh glanced at the closed door and then at Charlie.
"More shoes that go with an outfit, not more shoes per se," Charlie explained.
"But I have more outfits," CJ said thoughtfully.
"Well I define an outfit as two matching garments and you include dresses so really, by my definition, you don't."
"Can we talk about something that an intelligent human being might find of interest?" Toby asked. He looked at the three people in front of him all mulling over whether they agreed a dress was an outfit. "Well, obviously we can't."
In the silence that followed Josh looked again at the closed door and then at his watch. Charlie ignored both actions.
"Do you have any waistcoats?" CJ asked.
"Yes, but they just complete the outfits I already have."
CJ was just about to point out that a lot of her dresses had matching scarves, when the sound of the President shouting stopped her.
"Don't you dare, don't you dare stand there and tell me that now!"
CJ slipped gracefully from the desk and glanced nervously at Toby.
"And don't you turn around how we dealt with this to suit your conscience!" they heard Leo shout back. There was silence, then the sound of a door slamming and then silence again.
After a few moments Charlie walked into the Oval, but found it empty.
"That didn't sound good," Toby said. "That sounded distinctly bad."
"Yeah," Josh agreed. "Think they were talking about the budget statement?"
Toby laughed sourly. "Yeah, that's exactly what I think they were talking about."
When Leo failed to emerge from his office, they all headed to Toby's. They discussed what they had heard, imagined worst-case scenarios and decided how they would deal with the situation if Leo and the President became an issue. They didn't think too deeply about Leo's comments about the President's conscience because that would inevitably lead into a discussion about their own and that was an area not one of them wanted to examine too closely.
Toby had planned to go home and eat before visiting Sam but, finding himself in the rare position of being able to finish early due to a cancelled meeting, he decided to go visit, collect his car and then come back to the office later. Jason, Sam's replacement, had been into his office four times to go over the same paragraph. Toby didn't have the patience or the inclination to help him and he waited until Jason was out of the office before sneaking out of his. He left a message for Josh that he was going to the hospital and would see him later.
He walked the short distance to the hospital and thought about Sam's father. He knew a conversation with him was likely and he planned what he would say as he walked. As he entered the corridor he could see that Sam had been moved to a different room. There had been an agent posted outside of Sam's room ever since he had been brought in and Toby couldn't see him.
The nurse who had been there the night Toby had stayed came hurrying up beside him. "We moved Sam to the high dependency unit this morning where they can keep a closer eye on him. I'm headed up there now. I can show you the way."
Toby followed her. "How is he?"
"Uncommunicative," she said and Toby stopped walking.
"He was talking this morning when I started my shift but then he had a visit from the police and his father and since then he hasn't said a lot."
"Were they in uniform?" Toby asked. It was possible the police had called but he suspected it was Ron.
"No, actually they seemed to know the Man from Uncle so I suppose they were agents."
Toby smiled at the nickname the nurses had given to the blonde-haired agent who stood outside of Sam's room. He saw the agent and nodded at him while he waited for the nurse to check that it was okay for him to go in.
The new room was less welcoming than the last one. Only a few of Sam's cards had been put up and no flowers were allowed. There was more equipment than in the last room too. Toby ignored it and looked instead at the equipment attached to Sam that he was used to. There was no window although the two walls that joined the corridor were more than half made up of glass. The blinds were open and Sam was in full view of anyone who passed through the ward. The helium balloon had been tied to a chair but the other gifts lay in a pile still waiting to be displayed. The change of room seemed to make little difference to Sam who lay staring at the wall in almost the same spot as the window had been in the other room.
Toby pulled a chair up to the bed and said hello. Sam didn't reply and so Toby called his name. Sam slowly turned towards him. He was glad when Sam turned away again as having Sam look at him but not reply to his greeting was unsettling.
"I had a free hour so I thought I'd come see how you are after last night." Toby rubbed at his forehead and cleared his throat before continuing. "The nurse said your dad came this morning."
Sam's only response was to close his eyes.
"They told you why you've been moved here? They just want to keep a closer eye on you that's all, nothing to worry about." Toby glanced at the array of machines surrounding the bed and wondered if any of them were designed to make patients talk.
"Shall I put some of your cards up? Make it look a little more…" Toby waved his hand in the air before settling for the adjective 'homely'.
Sam's eyes followed Toby as he rose from the chair and walked over to the cards. He picked up some of the gifts and arranged them on a shelf in the far corner of the room. On the rest of the shelf he put a few of the cards and when there was no space left he stood holding a pile in his hand. He made a show of looking for another place to put them even though he knew there was nowhere before he reluctantly returned to Sam's bedside.
Sam had turned onto his back and sat propped up by the pillows. His attention was now focused on the rail at the foot of the bed. Occasionally a cough accompanied his constant raspy breaths but apart from that he made no sound.
"Did Ron come and see you this morning?" At the mention of Ron, Sam frowned. A confused expression crossed his face as he turned to Toby.
"The nurse said the police came," Toby explained. "I know Ron wants to talk to you again." Sam's frown returned and he looked away. A nurse passed and looked in at him and smiled. He didn't return it.
"I'm going to get a drink or…something," Toby said as he stood. He looked down at Sam for a few moments and realising it was pointless saying anything else, left the room.
Danny was the real name of the agent who the nurses called the Man from Uncle. Toby remembered him vaguely from Rosslyn. He had taken a statement from him and Sam at the hospital. Toby walked out of Sam's view and gestured for Danny to follow him.
"Has Ron been here this morning?" Toby asked.
"No, but Agents Myers and Brannon have. They took a statement from Mr Seaborn."
"How long were they here?"
Even though he was talking to Toby, Danny kept his gaze on the door to Sam's room, "Quite a while, but then Mr Seaborn's father turned up."
"And..." Toby prompted, aware that Danny felt uncomfortable about what he was saying.
"And…there was a bit of a scene. I don't know what was said but it was pretty clear that his father wasn't too happy with the agents being in the room." Danny walked back to the door and carried on his silent observation of the corridor. Toby thanked him and followed the sign to the exit.
"When did he go?" Josh asked Donna, a look of pure panic on his face.
Donna sighed. "A while ago. He said to say he will meet you later. If something had happened he would have told you."
Josh turned away and walked towards his office pivoting at the door and returning to Donna's desk. "Something's wrong. They must have phoned. Toby had a meeting this afternoon; he wouldn't just shoot off to the hospital for no reason." Josh retraced his steps to his office and back again. "There's something wrong. I can feel it."
"Toby's meeting was cancelled." Donna picked up her message pad. "Josh, I am going to the hospital now and will see you later." She looked up at Josh in alarm. "God you're right! How could I not have read the hidden meaning in it?"
"Exactly!" Josh said triumphantly and then seeing the sarcastic expression on Donna's face, slumped against her desk. "Okay, read it to me again."
Donna started to read in a slow monotone, "Josh, I-am-going-to-the-hospital-now-and-will-"
"Okay, okay, stop doing that."
Donna returned to her typing and Josh returned to his office. Under her breath she started to count. She only got to eleven before Josh emerged from his office.
"I think I might go over there anyway," he announced nonchalantly. "If Toby's coming back here later I may as well do the same. I mean, I know he's going to want to talk to me about the budget statement so I may as well visit now and work later."
"Bye, Josh," Donna said without looking up from the screen.
Happy that he made his point that he was going strictly for work reasons, Josh headed out of the office leaving a smiling Donna shaking her head.
Toby wasn't sure whether to go back or not. The way Sam had stared blankly at him had unsettled him. It reminded him of the painful hour he had spent in the bar after the drop-in. Sam and he had sat in silence, drinking their beer until Toby had finally started a conversation that Sam, albeit stiltedly, had joined in with.
He didn't see Josh walking towards the entrance and his sudden voice made him jump. "Hey, Toby. I got your message and thought I'd come now and get some work done later…" Josh stopped talking as he looked at Toby's face and realised that his paranoia may not have been unfounded after all. "What's wrong?"
Toby let out a sound that was half sigh, half nervous laugh. "Sam doesn't seem to want to talk."
"What, about what happened? Well you can hardly expect him to be ready to-"
"No, I mean at all. I have just spent fifteen excruciating minutes, trying to get a response from him and he's just sitting there staring at the wall. Well, that's not true, a couple times he looked at me but believe me, I preferred it when he was looking at the wall."
"What did the nurses say?" Despite his concern Josh made a mental note to tell Donna never to doubt his instincts again.
"I haven't really spoken to…look, I'm probably overreacting." Toby didn't think he was though. Apart from the silence, it was the expression on Sam's face that had unnerved him the most. "You go up, maybe he'll talk to you, I'm going to get something to drink and then I'll join you."
"Yeah, okay." Josh started towards the entrance.
"Don't push him," Toby called after him. Josh nodded and then disappeared behind the automatic doors.
Toby had forgotten to mention that Sam had been moved and so, finding Sam's room empty and being redirected to the HD unit did little to calm Josh's rising anxiety. He stopped and chatted to Danny briefly in an attempt to calm down before going in. He looked through the window as he spoke but Sam was lying with his back to him. Josh took a few deep breaths before opening the door and walking over to the seat by the bed.
"Hey buddy." Josh waited but there was no response although Sam did turn his head to look at him. Josh immediately realised why Toby had looked so agitated. Sam's expression was a mixture of confusion and anger. Josh couldn't even begin to imagine what thoughts were running through his head. He was just as relieved as Toby had been when Sam slowly turned his head away.
"I met with Ryan Parker today. Do you remember him?" Josh waited for Sam to react. Ryan had worked at the White House for a year. He had worked in the Counsels' Office but Sam and Josh knew him better from when he had made up the numbers on the basketball team. Sam continued to stare at the wall but Josh carried on regardless. "He's thinking of you and said to give him a call when you're feeling better because he needs someone to be a sub for his firm's baseball team." Sam's only response was to close his eyes.
Josh pulled his chair closer to the bed. "Sam, don't shut us out. I'm not going to sit here trying to make you talk, but I am going to sit here, I'm not going away. So you can carry on ignoring me but I'm not going anywhere." Pleased with his speech, Josh leant back and waited for Sam to reply. He was sure he would and that, knowing Sam, he would apologise and Josh would have to spend the rest of the visit assuring him that he didn't need to. That is why, when Sam did speak, his words rendered Josh speechless.
"Why did you let them take me?" Sam was staring at Josh and it was Josh's turn to look away. Sam tried to push himself further up the bed, and Josh watched the cushion that he was supposed to hold to his chest when he coughed, fall to the floor. Josh looked back up and saw Sam was still staring at him. The anger that Josh had sensed earlier was all too apparent now. "Why did-" Sam stopped and breathed as deeply as he could, "why did you-" This time Sam stopped to cough and the noise of it ended Josh's stupor.
"I did try to stop them, but there were too many of them and they had guns." As Josh spoke he could hear the words that Toby had said to him when he himself had questioned why he didn't help Sam.
Sam continued to cough but was shaking his head, impatient to answer Josh. Josh knew that if he could calm Sam down he would be able to explain what had happened. He knew the effects of the drugs they had given Sam had been almost immediate and that his memories of being taken would be confused. But before Josh could do that, Sam had stopped coughing and moved on to a subject that Josh knew it wouldn't be quite so easy to explain.
"You let them…then you…you…" Sam closed his eyes and took another raspy breath, "you didn't do a fucking thing to get me back."
Josh reached forward and grabbed Sam's arm. "That's not true. That's not how it was. You have to listen, Sam." Josh wasn't aware of how hard he was gripping Sam's arm until Sam tried to pull away from him. Josh stood and placed his hands on Sam's shoulders. "We did everything we could, you have to believe that. The seven days you were gone were a living hell and there wasn't a moment that I-"
"No…didn't do anything." Sam tried to lean forward but Josh's hands held him in place.
"Sam, please calm down and then we'll talk."
"Talk?" Sam started to laugh caustically. "Talk? Fuck…you have…no…idea."
"Okay, okay, you don't have to talk, Sam. You don't have to do anything, but please calm down," Josh urged.
Toby, had had a drink, something to eat and a walk around the block and was making his way towards Sam's room. He hoped he had given Josh enough time to get Sam talking or at the very least, acknowledging that he was there. He quickened his pace when he heard Josh's raised voice. When he saw Danny beckoning he started to run. A nurse who had also heard the commotion came from the opposite direction and they entered the room together.
"Get off me," Sam shouted although the effort was obviously distressing him, "Get…fucking hands off me!"
Josh didn't want to let go. He needed Sam to listen and if he held onto him and waited then Sam would calm down. He just wanted him to listen.
"Josh!" Toby shouted, and his voice broke through to Josh as he reluctantly released his grip.
The nurse hurried over to Sam, who was still trying to sit up, and immediately placed her hands where Josh's had been. Her voice was calming though, reassuring.
Josh walked backwards until Toby's hand on his back stopped him. They watched as the nurse continued to try to pacify Sam. The nurse glanced at the readings on a couple of the machines and called out some instructions to another nurse who had only got as far as the doorway before she went rushing off to carry out her task.
Sam raised his head and when he saw that Toby and Josh were still there he moaned, "Make them…I want them to go…want…out of my room!"
"Please leave," the nurse said. When they didn't move immediately she shouted, "Leave!" and Toby grabbed hold of Josh's arm and began to pull him from the room.
Before they reached the door the other nurse returned carrying a tray, a doctor hurried after her. Toby knew what was on the tray and he knew Sam would fight against being sedated. He didn't let go of Josh's arm until they were in the elevator. Neither man spoke. At the next floor a crowd of well-wishers got on. Josh and Toby moved to either corner as the happy crowd squeezed in. 'Congratulations! It's a girl!' was the writing on the balloon that bobbed above them. The man picked up the boy who held it and laughed when he repeated, "It a girl, it a girl, it a girl," over and over again.
Toby had a strong desire to grab the balloon and burst it. When the elevator reached the next floor he heard Josh call him and even though it wasn't the floor they wanted he followed Josh out.
"Can we take the stairs?" Josh asked.
Toby thought Josh looked like he was about to throw up.
"Yeah, come on," Toby said as he headed for the stairwell, the elevator door closing, and the cries of 'it a girl' fading behind them.