I Have Not Dreamed

It would be untrue to say that the members of the Legacy didn't have their own ambitions before they encountered Jed Bartlet. And it would be even more untrue to say that their ambitions emerged unchanged from their connection to this one man. Those two ideas appear to stand in opposition but the reality is that they are in the most perfect harmony.

It wasn't necessarily the connection only to Jed Bartlet that made these often sweeping changes in someone's dreams; it was the combination of the interaction with so many other extraordinary people and his expectations. The standards to which he held those closest to him were nothing short of the stars. And yet, somehow he managed to never be fully disappointed if those expectations were not met so long as your best effort was made, so long as you were willing to hit the walls running at full speed.

"What's bothering you, Alex?" Leo asked, turning the corner to see her standing in the library, running her fingers over the spines of the leather-bound volumes that filled the room. The hospital bed had been cleared out, and, except for a few small things, the room had been returned to how it had been.

"I couldn't sleep," she answered quietly, locking eyes with Leo. "There are too many things going on inside my head."

Leo sank down into one of the leather armchairs, staring for a moment at the other one, the one that Jed had always preferred although the two were identical. "I don't suppose any of them would have to do with another conversation that the two of us had one night in this room, would it?" He motioned for her to take the empty chair.

She hesitated, removing a volume from the shelf before crossing the room to lower herself down to the soft leather. She glanced down at the book she had chosen. "Browning," she said simply. Leo waited for her to explain further.

She flipped to a page, ran her finger down it for a moment, and then read, "Jove strikes the Titans down not when they set about their mountain-piling, but when another rock would crown the work."

"Aw, hell," Leo said, "Toby's better at this sort of thing than I am."

"Speak of the devil," Alex laughed, gesturing to the hall with the book. Toby stood in the hall, still in his suit pants and now-wrinkled white shirt. "Come on in," she invited, offering him her chair and settling down on the rug before the empty hearth.

Toby looked more than a little confused, but he accepted the invitation. "I thought I heard Paracelsus," he mused, rubbing at his beard.

"Not Paracelsus," Leo said knowledgeably, but with no clue what he was talking about, "Browning."

"The fourth section," Alex told Toby, bypassing Leo. "The Titans and the rocks." Toby nodded.

"Okay, enough of Browning. Are you going to answer my question?" Leo interrupted.

Alex sighed. "It has to do with half a dozen conversations, most of which have taken place in this room, and one of which is the one that you're referring to."

"You want me to leave or something?" Toby asked irritably. "'cause you could have picked someone else to be a better decoration."

"She doesn't want to be President," Leo stated flatly.

"I never said that," she protested softly.

"You didn't not say it."

She sighed again. "I haven't said either."

"You know, he was wrong sometimes," Toby said. "He said that Sam would run."

"He was wrong a lot," Leo added. "But that didn't mean that he stopped trying."

"Why didn't Sam run?" she asked thoughtfully, looking from one man to the other. "I always wondered. I thought that he'd make a good president."

"He never ran because his state was in a lot more trouble than his country," Leo explained. "He did federal politics. He could have done it all. He got elected as a Democrat in the California forty-seventh twice. He won Orange County. He considered doing the whole thing, but California's economy was in a major recession and he didn't see any serious candidates stepping up to the plate. So he did it."

"He gave up his dreams of running the nation to try and pull one state out of the hole that it had dug itself into," Toby continued. "He ran a damn good campaign and he got elected because he was the best. Now he's just got to prove it. Jed was wrong, but you've got to look at the whole board."

"He can be wrong again," Leo told her. "He wouldn't care so long as you felt you were doing something worthwhile with your life. And if that happens to be teaching at some university, then so be it. I know that you've been offered an associate position at Bryant."

"And another one at Notre Dame," Toby mentioned when she didn't seem inclined to. Leo raised his eyebrows at them. "Abbey accidentally let that one slip last week."

Alex cast her eyes downward, intent on studying the pattern of the rug. "I didn't take them," she whispered.

"I'm sorry?" Leo probed.

"I turned them down," she repeated, louder this time.

"Why the hell would you do something like that?" Leo burst out.

"Because I got a position with the UN Department of Political Affairs, working with the Security Council Division."

"Okay," Toby said. It looked like he wanted to say more but he didn't.

"I've gotta ask," Leo commented. "Why are you still awake then?"

"Because I don't know where to go from there."

"You could easily make that your whole career," Leo answered, a little perplexed. "Or get a job at State. And it's still not too late to get a university position."

"That's not what she meant," Toby responded, looking at them both seriously. "She meant the House or the Senate."

"I actually didn't mean either," she corrected, looking down at the rug again. "I meant, do I take having to make Leo's choices or Toby's?"

"My wife's going to be wondering where I am," Leo said softly. "And just know that Jed was never disappointed with Sam for not running." He pushed himself to a standing position, looking down at the young woman sitting on the rug with a strange expression on his face. "Whatever decision you make, we'll all be behind you."

He walked slowly out into the hall, his shoulders stooped. Alex stared out after him in silence. For a few minutes after he had vanished from sight, the two left in the library sat in the stillness of the sleeping house.

"I've got more Browning for you," Toby told her, interrupting the silence. "When the fight begins within himself, a man's worth something."