"Governor Seaborn, there's a telephone call for you."
"Line one?" he questioned, pushing the button once the aide had nodded and disappeared out of his office. "This is Governor Sam Seaborn."
"Have you read it?"
"Josh, you called me in the middle of the afternoon to ask me if I'd read the book?" Sam asked in disbelief. "I'm the governor of California. You don't think that I might have more important things to be doing in the middle of the afternoon?"
"You're reading it now, aren't you," he guessed excitedly.
Jed found her in the library, fingers trailing reverently along the spines of the books. "I thought that everyone had gone to bed hours ago," he said, sinking down into an armchair before the empty fireplace.
"I couldn't sleep," she told him honestly.
"Neither could I," he admitted. "I'm sure that I'll regret being down here in the morning; I always do when I sneak down in the middle of the night." He pointed with his cane to the chair across from him. "If the two of us are going to be up, we might as well be comfortable."
"Yes, sir," she answered, crossing the room to fold herself into the leather armchair.
"We're really going to have to work on that sir thing, Alex. The others had no problem dropping it. Even the people who used to work for me don't call me sir anymore."
She sighed, resting her curly head on her hands for a moment. "Is there something bothering you?" Jed asked, leaning forward to place a hand on her shoulder.
"I just don't know why I'm here," she confided, lifting her head to look at Jed. "I mean, I can see why you brought the others."
"Can you now?" he asked, leaning back into the overstuffed chair.
"They're kindred spirits with your staff: Sarah and CJ; Mark and Josh; Jack and Toby," she supplied, settling back further into her own leather recliner, wrapping her arms around the knees she had drawn up to her chest. "Am I right?"
"Not entirely correct," Jed answered, reverting back to his professor mode. "But kindly explain how you drew those conclusions."
"Sarah and CJ are movers and shakers, but the politics will always be secondary. They're just as concerned about the syntax and delivery as the message. I thought maybe Sam for a while, but Sarah's far too cynical and worldly for that." She checked, "How am I doing so far?"
"Well, I can't deny that. What's next?"
"I guess Mark and Josh, although Josh would probably just as soon die as admit he's kindred with a Republican," she noted with a laugh. Jed joined in. They both knew the statement wasn't all that far from the truth. "I feel sorry for Mark," she continued. "He's trying to repress his Republican leanings so hard for fear of the ravenous pack of wolves that your staff would become. In that way, he's very like Josh, always trying to put jus the right spin on something but never quite managing to make it past the superficialities without getting trapped in what he actually thinks."
"Two for two."
"You mean that Jack isn't for Toby?" she asked. Almost immediately she followed with, "That sentence sounded so unbelievably wrong."
"You know, I thought Jack and Toby for a while too," Jed admitted. "It wasn't until you all got here that I realized differently. The two of them are equally matched sparring partners, but there's something else to Jack, an essence that isn't Toby, could never be Toby."
"Then who, sir?" she asked. "It's not Donna or Margaret. It couldn't be Sam or your wife. Charlie?"
"Jack is gifted with the same ability to see the big picture and simultaneously focus on the essential details that you need in a good chief of staff," Jed explained. "I really didn't realize it until after he and Toby started in on the thing for the first time. But if there were to be anyone for him, it would have to be Leo."
"I guess that I can see that," she replied, stifling a yawn. "But that still doesn't explain why I'm here. I can't help but think about what Mark said earlier, even if he was only teasing."
"What? That you can't handle yourself with the big boys?" Jed repeated. Alex nodded, eyes downcast. "You can't tell me that you actually think that's true."
"I listen to their debates and mull them over, but by the time I realize the fallacies in their arguments or the flaws in their judgment, it's usually too late. They intimidate me, sir," she told him. "Normal kids have basketball players as their heroes."
"Am I to assume by that last statement that you never aspired to the NBA?" Jed inquired wryly, eyes sweeping over her petite frame.
"No, sir," she answered, smiling shyly back at him. "I was the weird kid who dreamed of being president but was scared to get up in front of a class to give a presentation."
"Did you know that I get to pick the grad students I take on?" Jed asked. "It's one of the perks of being a former president whose students have to be vetted.""
"I assumed that we had needed background checks," she admitted. "But I didn't know that we were handpicked. All I knew was that one of my other professors handed me an application one day and told me that he thought I'd enjoy the immense opportunities that the program offered. I didn't find out who the teacher was until we had our first meeting."
"That's why you almost wound up flat on your back on my office floor?"
"Yes, sir. I hadn't prepared myself for opening the door and finding President Bartlet sitting his shirtsleeves with my academic record in his hands."
"You remember what sort of questions were on that application?"
"The normal things: my GPA, my goals, write an essay detailing the influence of the early Puritan morals on the workings of the modern American government."
"You remember word for word what the essay topic was," Jed mused. She wasn't quite sure if it was meant as a question or a comment. "You wrote a thesis attacking the Puritan standards to which our social system is bound and the stifling restrictions to which our justice system is still subjected. You proposed discarding the better half of the legal precedent in this country on that basis alone."
"I did, sir," she answered.
"I believe that as a result of that essay you were called before the chancellor to further explain yourself," Jed continued, raising his eyebrows at her.
"I was, sir." Her face turned red and she ducked her head. "Some of the members of the board of governors wanted me expelled. I was surprised when I got an acceptance letter from your program after that."
"Not many people know this," Jed began conspiratorially, "but when I was twenty-six I was almost kicked out of the London School of Economics for writing a paper supporting the deregulation of Far East trade barriers. One paper shouldn't necessarily be enough to break a person. Especially considering I know that you were just trying to make some noise."
"How did you know that?" she asked, confused.
"I picked you out of the crowd. That application letter was a way for me to see what you were really made of and start the security checks. You were all but in before you put pen to paper."
"But how…"
"Your first year, you had Egarter tongue-tied in front of his class. Second year, you scored top marks on your Comparative Policy paper. Your last year, let's just say that I had recruiting agents out watching."
Her eyes were wide as she realised the implications that his words held. Jed continued, "All of the professors keep an eye out for me. I must admit that I've always tended to choose people who reminded me of the people you met today. But I don't think the similarities have ever been as striking as they are between the four of you."
"The four of us?"
"The four of you," he repeated firmly. "Now use your deductive powers. I know full well that they are not to be mocked."
"I guess that it's a process of elimination," she sighed. "Well, it's not CJ, Josh, or Leo because three of a kind would be a little too much. And Occam's Razor more or less precludes that sort of thing," she mused, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.
"You haven't eliminated very many people."
She shrugged. "I really don't know, sir."
"You're sitting in the man's library in the middle of the night with your pyjamas on," Leo stated, coming to fill the doorway. "I think that it's time you got rid of the sir."
"Were we keeping you up?" Alex asked, jumping up to offer Leo the chair. He accepted and she settled herself on the thick rug before the empty fireplace.
"I saw the light on my way back from the bathroom and couldn't help but investigate," Leo answered.
"She was trying to make the same matches you made at supper. She's stuck though."
"On who?"
Jed pushed himself upright, letting his cane take a good portion of his weight. "I think this is my cue to get myself back up to bed before my wife comes to investigate. Remember to turn out the lights before you two turn in for the night." He made his way out of the library and they could hear his cane tapping its way up the stairs.
"I never got the chance to tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you," she offered, moving on Leo's gestured urging to take the chair that Jed had vacated.
"Don't try to change the subject. I'm guessing that the one person you can't manage to fathom is yourself? The others really weren't that hard. I'm pretty sure that Josh is quite possibly the only one who's still clueless," Leo chuckled. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that he still hasn't figured out that Mark's one of the dreaded Republicans."
He crossed his arms across his chest and rested one slippered foot on the other flannel-covered knee. "You on the other hand, were more of a puzzle."
"Sir?" she questioned when he paused.
"I thought Sam at first," he said. "You're idealistic enough, but somehow that wasn't right. I've heard you speak; it's not the same poetic naivety. You're on the attack. So then I thought Donna. But you couldn't be her."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" she asked, a smile playing over her face.
"You are who you are," Leo told her, standing to leave. "And no pressure, but you've got some pretty big shoes to fill."
"I'm sorry…"
"You have a best friend?" She nodded. "Would you trust them with your life?" She nodded again. "That's your chief of staff."