Disclaimer: Still all belongs to me...I mean, uh, those NBC or whoever people
who created West Wing...yeah, that's it...
A/N: Okay, not a lot to say...just uploaded chapter 4, no responses to reply to yet or anything... Other A/N: I really don't think anyone cares TOO much about what happened at Josh's moms house in Florida...at any rate, I don't so we're just kinda skipping over that part...believe me, nothing interesting happened.
*************************************~************************************** ***********
"I'm most definitely NOT an outdoorsman."
"Josh!"
"At least not in Florida."
"Josh- -," Donna pleaded.
"I'm burnt, Donna! Look at me! Do you see my sunburn?"
"Yes, Josh, I see your sunburn! Would you shut up now?"
"Well hey, I can't complain about switching in Atlanta this time, what else do I have to do?"
"Josh, who found you this straight, Palm Beach to D.C. flight, no stops, no switches in Atlanta?"
"The Easter Bunny?"
"No, me! So, for the sake of your lovely assistant who follows you around just to listen to you complain about her, just this once, shut up!"
"Hey, I let you come to Florida with me. You've been wanting a vacation, you got your all expense paid vacation. And thank you for the flight."
"Yeah, and there's another thing. I really need more- -what did you say? Did I just hear egotistical Joshua Lyman saying 'thank you' to someone?"
"Yeah, don't spread that around. We wouldn't want people on the Hill thinking I've gone soft, you know?"
"Yeah, that'd be a flat out tragedy, wouldn't it?"
************~~~~~~~~~~~***********~~~~~~~~~~************~~~~~~~~~~~~*******~ ~~~~~~~~
Toby walked quickly by his office and the one formerly occupied by Will Bailey, now empty, glancing into both as he passed. He made it about ten more feet, stopped suddenly and backtracked. He quietly opened the door to the latter office. There was someone sitting in the chair with a newspaper, feet stretched out onto the desk, facing away from the door.
"I'm thinking," Toby said, "that either they hired me a new deputy and forgot to tell me, or someone forgot to tell someone else that Will Bailey works for the Vice-President now. Or Ginger's forgotten which office is mine."
"Or," came the muffled voice, "someone's just messing with your head." The chair spun around to reveal one of the last people Toby expected.
"Sam." The surprise was barely evident on Toby's face but Sam knew it was there. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know. Wanted to check out the old office, see what you've done with the place. Seems to be vacant now though."
"So it would," agreed Toby. "Come on, you know what I mean. Why are you here?"
"I wanted to see Josh, when he comes back," Sam became suddenly serious.
"Ah, of course," said Toby. "He should be back in town tomorrow, but he has to check in with Leo before he can resume work. So when did he tell you?"
"What?"
"When did Josh tell you. About his thing?"
"He didn't," Sam said, slightly puzzled. "I just found out Monday."
"Oh. Oh," Toby struggled for words. "I'm sorry, I assumed he would have told you- -,"
"He didn't."
"I see," murmured Toby. "I see."
"Did you know?"
"No, I didn't. He did an amazingly good job of hiding it. I think it was just Donna, Leo and the President. Leo told C.J. about a week ago to ask her about the public reaction and she told Joey Lucas a couple hours before the story broke. He told me about three minutes before C.J. announced."
"Why Joey?"
"She did a bit of polling. C.J. thought it would be good of her to tell her what it was for before the story, with Josh's permission of course."
"You were upset?" Sam asked quietly, interpreting Toby's sullen mood.
"I was," he sighed. "I blew up at him. I'm still not entirely sure why either. Part of me was mad at him for keeping it hidden. But the other- -I think I was mad at myself."
"What do you mean?"
"After he told me, all the pieces fell into place. Everything was so blatantly obvious. But if it was so obvious, why did I never notice it? After everything that had happened I never even stopped to consider that it had had such an effect on Josh mentally. I saw his hand. I knew how the music bothered him. I just never put 2 and 2 together."
"None of us did, Toby. Don't beat yourself up over it. Josh tries to hide these things, he thinks they're weaknesses. It's not your fault that he's good at it."
"Yeah," said Toby, somewhat unconvinced still.
"By the way," said Sam suddenly, "what's this I hear about twins?"
"Ah yes," Toby smiled slightly, "Huck and Molly."
"Huck?" asked Sam skeptically.
"Yeah, I know. Old family name. He's definitely going to be made fun of at school."
"Oh yeah."
"Thanks for the support there."
"No prob."
"Molly's named after Zoey's secret service agent who was killed the night she was kidnapped. That's the night they were born."
Sam nodded. "That's nice," he murmured. "You have any pictures?"
"In my office. You do realize how strange it might look to a passer-by that we're standing here talking in a vacant office when my own is right next- -?"
"Toby! Sam! Senior staff in- -," C.J. paused. "Okay, I'm going to close my eyes for a few seconds and try to remember if I only imagined that Sam left for California after we won reelection- -No, don't think I imagined that, Sam, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I can't possibly imagine why I don't visit more often," Sam stated dryly.
"Tell me about it," C.J. said, "Toby, we have to go, Leo wants to talk to everybody together before the day gets going."
"Yeah, let's go."
"I'll come too," Sam announced.
They reached Leo's office where Leo was already inside talking to Will. Others present included Margaret, Ginger and Charlie.
"I thought you said senior staff?" inquired Toby quietly. C.J. shrugged.
"I'll just wait out here," Sam gestured to the hallway.
"C.J., Toby, Sam, come on in," Leo waved them in. There was a general chorus of 'Hey Sam!' from inside the room.
"Leo, you do remember that Sam doesn't work here anymore, right?" C.J. asked.
"Ah, don't worry. This isn't a matter of national security or anything. I think we'll give Sam the benefit of the doubt." Sam flashed a smile to C.J.
"What's going on, Leo?" asked Toby.
"C.J., shut the door," Leo gestured. "As you all know, Josh is going to be coming back within the next few days. Now I'm sure that all of you will be supportive of him, but I want to know if you hear of anyone- - I mean anyone- -who works in the West Wing who's blowing him shit about this. He'll have plenty enough of this as it is, he doesn't need people working with him being hostile. He needs to feel comfortable in his environment if he's going to completely recover from this."
"How's he ever going to go back to working on the Hill?" asked C.J. "If you're worried about hostility, sending him into a room full of Republicans who already want to rip him apart- -,"
"We'll deal with it when we deal with it. Angela's going to continue to cover the meetings for a bit, I'm hoping we'll get Josh back within a week or so of his coming back to work, if you take my meaning."
******~~~~~~~~~******~~~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~~******* *~~~~~~~
"No, Josh."
"Donna!"
"You're tired! You just came back late last night. You are not going into work, even for a little while!"
"I knew I shouldn't have called you first."
"Ah, you wouldn't have known what to do once you got there without me."
"That is not true! And besides, I won't actually want to do any work. I just want to talk to Leo and C.J. and pick up a few files to read over while I'm- -"
"And where are these files that you were wanting to read?"
"Well, that's where you come in."
"Ha!" Donna's voice was triumphant. "Told you, you wouldn't know what to do there without me!"
"You could just tell me, you know," Josh said scathingly. "Or I could find them myself."
"Josh, the day you actually find something at work on your own will be the day I bring you coffee."
"I'm holding you to that, you know," Josh muttered.
"I don't think I have too much to worry about," Donna replied coolly.
"Fine then. Can we go in to work now?" Josh changed the subject abruptly, back to the previous discussion.
"Fine!" snapped Donna, "I'll pick you up in ten minutes and go find your blasted files! You are spending no more than twenty minutes in that building, got it, bucko?"
"Ah, there's my lovely assistant, back to her normal self," Josh countered sweetly.
The only reply was the slamming of a receiver at the other end and the dial tone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~~~~************~~~~~~~~~~~~***********~~~~~~~~ ~~******
For all her whining, Josh didn't think Donna was really in as bad a mood as she had sounded. Sure, she honked incessantly, while waiting for him to get in the car, and drove just a little too fast, and slammed on the breaks just a little harder than need be. And sure, she glared at Josh more evilly than anyone had ever before, when he suggested they go for pancakes when they were done. But she really didn't seem that mad.
Once they parked, Donna grabbed her purse and got out of the car, and Josh did the same. For good measure, Donna slammed her car door, though Josh could tell she was just trying to make him feel guilty. She turned to walk away, but then stopped suddenly. She turned back to the door at started at it for a few moments, and then looked up at Josh. Josh was startled to see an almost frightened expression on her face.
"Are you all right?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yeah," Donna seemed to snap out of whatever trance she had been in, "yeah, let's go."
She calmed down after that, and didn't say much of anything as they passed through security and into the hallways of the West Wing. Josh ran off a list of the files he wanted and she disappeared to go find them. Josh made his way to Leo's office. Margaret smiled at him as he approached.
"Hey, Margaret. Is he free?" Josh asked.
She shook her head. "He's on an important call from Russia. He should be done soon though, if you'd like to- -"
"Margaret!"
"There we go." Margaret stuck her head in the office and exchanged a few, quick words with her boss. She motioned to Josh when she came back out that he could go on in.
"Hi, Leo. Got a minute?"
"Sure, Josh! How's your mother?"
"Not bad, not bad. Still thinks I should just come home 'not deal with all that political nonsense my father got me involved in'. She says 'hi', by the way."
Leo laughed. "Sounds like her alright. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I'm feeling great!" Josh exclaimed. "Except maybe for this sunburn I seemed to have picked up down in Florida. Hurts like hell. Ah well."
"Okay. Well I've got a thing here in a couple minutes. I imagine Donna's keeping you to a strict schedule while here?"
"Oh yes: 'not a minute over twenty', or something to that effect."
"Right. Why don't you just come in tomorrow morning, whenever, and we'll discuss getting you back on track for work?"
"Sounds like a plan. I think I'll go off and bug C.J. now, if you'll excuse me- -"
Josh shut the door and wound his way towards the communications department. He realized C.J. was in the middle of her noon briefing, as he passed by the press room. She seemed to be wrapping it up though. She called on one final reporter for a question.
"C.J., can you confirm or deny any of the rumors about Sam Seaborn's presence in town again?"
Josh stared. He was sure there must have been some mistake. Sam wasn't in town. Was he?
"I can confirm that Mr. Seaborn is, in fact, in town. And in fact, if you all turn around very quickly, you can see him grinning stupidly and waving like an idiot from the back window," C.J. said wryly.
"But no comment as to why- -"
"The White House does not comment on the personal lives- -"C.J. cut herself off, realizing what she was about to say. "I can't comment on why a person chooses to visit Washington," she finished lamely. "That's it for now, everyone."
C.J. left the podium. Sam came in from the other side of the room and caught up with her as she was on her way out.
"You know, C.J., if I didn't know better, I would say you were about to say 'the White House does not comment on the personal lives of staffers.' Which would be the second time in two days that you mistakenly called me a staffer again."
"Stuff it, Sam."
"You know," Josh spoke up from his corner, "the reporter had a fair question. Why are you back in town?"
C.J. and Sam turned in surprise.
"Josh! I didn't know you were- -"Sam began, unsure of what to say. Josh just looked at him for several moments before busting out laughing. The two embraced each other briefly.
"How've you been?" exclaimed Josh. "California treating you well?"
"Joshua Lyman!" another voice exclaimed, "What did I say? Twenty minutes! We were supposed to leave- -"
Donna's voice cut off, seeing Sam. "Oh."
"I see some things haven't changed around here at all," Sam said. Donna hit him. "Ouch."
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A/N: Well there we go--yet another chapter! Go me, I'm just typing away! ;p
It's time to- - - - REVIEW!!!!!! I know you all want to- - -
Cheers!
*~Lexi Lupin~*
A/N: Okay, not a lot to say...just uploaded chapter 4, no responses to reply to yet or anything... Other A/N: I really don't think anyone cares TOO much about what happened at Josh's moms house in Florida...at any rate, I don't so we're just kinda skipping over that part...believe me, nothing interesting happened.
*************************************~************************************** ***********
"I'm most definitely NOT an outdoorsman."
"Josh!"
"At least not in Florida."
"Josh- -," Donna pleaded.
"I'm burnt, Donna! Look at me! Do you see my sunburn?"
"Yes, Josh, I see your sunburn! Would you shut up now?"
"Well hey, I can't complain about switching in Atlanta this time, what else do I have to do?"
"Josh, who found you this straight, Palm Beach to D.C. flight, no stops, no switches in Atlanta?"
"The Easter Bunny?"
"No, me! So, for the sake of your lovely assistant who follows you around just to listen to you complain about her, just this once, shut up!"
"Hey, I let you come to Florida with me. You've been wanting a vacation, you got your all expense paid vacation. And thank you for the flight."
"Yeah, and there's another thing. I really need more- -what did you say? Did I just hear egotistical Joshua Lyman saying 'thank you' to someone?"
"Yeah, don't spread that around. We wouldn't want people on the Hill thinking I've gone soft, you know?"
"Yeah, that'd be a flat out tragedy, wouldn't it?"
************~~~~~~~~~~~***********~~~~~~~~~~************~~~~~~~~~~~~*******~ ~~~~~~~~
Toby walked quickly by his office and the one formerly occupied by Will Bailey, now empty, glancing into both as he passed. He made it about ten more feet, stopped suddenly and backtracked. He quietly opened the door to the latter office. There was someone sitting in the chair with a newspaper, feet stretched out onto the desk, facing away from the door.
"I'm thinking," Toby said, "that either they hired me a new deputy and forgot to tell me, or someone forgot to tell someone else that Will Bailey works for the Vice-President now. Or Ginger's forgotten which office is mine."
"Or," came the muffled voice, "someone's just messing with your head." The chair spun around to reveal one of the last people Toby expected.
"Sam." The surprise was barely evident on Toby's face but Sam knew it was there. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, you know. Wanted to check out the old office, see what you've done with the place. Seems to be vacant now though."
"So it would," agreed Toby. "Come on, you know what I mean. Why are you here?"
"I wanted to see Josh, when he comes back," Sam became suddenly serious.
"Ah, of course," said Toby. "He should be back in town tomorrow, but he has to check in with Leo before he can resume work. So when did he tell you?"
"What?"
"When did Josh tell you. About his thing?"
"He didn't," Sam said, slightly puzzled. "I just found out Monday."
"Oh. Oh," Toby struggled for words. "I'm sorry, I assumed he would have told you- -,"
"He didn't."
"I see," murmured Toby. "I see."
"Did you know?"
"No, I didn't. He did an amazingly good job of hiding it. I think it was just Donna, Leo and the President. Leo told C.J. about a week ago to ask her about the public reaction and she told Joey Lucas a couple hours before the story broke. He told me about three minutes before C.J. announced."
"Why Joey?"
"She did a bit of polling. C.J. thought it would be good of her to tell her what it was for before the story, with Josh's permission of course."
"You were upset?" Sam asked quietly, interpreting Toby's sullen mood.
"I was," he sighed. "I blew up at him. I'm still not entirely sure why either. Part of me was mad at him for keeping it hidden. But the other- -I think I was mad at myself."
"What do you mean?"
"After he told me, all the pieces fell into place. Everything was so blatantly obvious. But if it was so obvious, why did I never notice it? After everything that had happened I never even stopped to consider that it had had such an effect on Josh mentally. I saw his hand. I knew how the music bothered him. I just never put 2 and 2 together."
"None of us did, Toby. Don't beat yourself up over it. Josh tries to hide these things, he thinks they're weaknesses. It's not your fault that he's good at it."
"Yeah," said Toby, somewhat unconvinced still.
"By the way," said Sam suddenly, "what's this I hear about twins?"
"Ah yes," Toby smiled slightly, "Huck and Molly."
"Huck?" asked Sam skeptically.
"Yeah, I know. Old family name. He's definitely going to be made fun of at school."
"Oh yeah."
"Thanks for the support there."
"No prob."
"Molly's named after Zoey's secret service agent who was killed the night she was kidnapped. That's the night they were born."
Sam nodded. "That's nice," he murmured. "You have any pictures?"
"In my office. You do realize how strange it might look to a passer-by that we're standing here talking in a vacant office when my own is right next- -?"
"Toby! Sam! Senior staff in- -," C.J. paused. "Okay, I'm going to close my eyes for a few seconds and try to remember if I only imagined that Sam left for California after we won reelection- -No, don't think I imagined that, Sam, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I can't possibly imagine why I don't visit more often," Sam stated dryly.
"Tell me about it," C.J. said, "Toby, we have to go, Leo wants to talk to everybody together before the day gets going."
"Yeah, let's go."
"I'll come too," Sam announced.
They reached Leo's office where Leo was already inside talking to Will. Others present included Margaret, Ginger and Charlie.
"I thought you said senior staff?" inquired Toby quietly. C.J. shrugged.
"I'll just wait out here," Sam gestured to the hallway.
"C.J., Toby, Sam, come on in," Leo waved them in. There was a general chorus of 'Hey Sam!' from inside the room.
"Leo, you do remember that Sam doesn't work here anymore, right?" C.J. asked.
"Ah, don't worry. This isn't a matter of national security or anything. I think we'll give Sam the benefit of the doubt." Sam flashed a smile to C.J.
"What's going on, Leo?" asked Toby.
"C.J., shut the door," Leo gestured. "As you all know, Josh is going to be coming back within the next few days. Now I'm sure that all of you will be supportive of him, but I want to know if you hear of anyone- - I mean anyone- -who works in the West Wing who's blowing him shit about this. He'll have plenty enough of this as it is, he doesn't need people working with him being hostile. He needs to feel comfortable in his environment if he's going to completely recover from this."
"How's he ever going to go back to working on the Hill?" asked C.J. "If you're worried about hostility, sending him into a room full of Republicans who already want to rip him apart- -,"
"We'll deal with it when we deal with it. Angela's going to continue to cover the meetings for a bit, I'm hoping we'll get Josh back within a week or so of his coming back to work, if you take my meaning."
******~~~~~~~~~******~~~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~~******* *~~~~~~~
"No, Josh."
"Donna!"
"You're tired! You just came back late last night. You are not going into work, even for a little while!"
"I knew I shouldn't have called you first."
"Ah, you wouldn't have known what to do once you got there without me."
"That is not true! And besides, I won't actually want to do any work. I just want to talk to Leo and C.J. and pick up a few files to read over while I'm- -"
"And where are these files that you were wanting to read?"
"Well, that's where you come in."
"Ha!" Donna's voice was triumphant. "Told you, you wouldn't know what to do there without me!"
"You could just tell me, you know," Josh said scathingly. "Or I could find them myself."
"Josh, the day you actually find something at work on your own will be the day I bring you coffee."
"I'm holding you to that, you know," Josh muttered.
"I don't think I have too much to worry about," Donna replied coolly.
"Fine then. Can we go in to work now?" Josh changed the subject abruptly, back to the previous discussion.
"Fine!" snapped Donna, "I'll pick you up in ten minutes and go find your blasted files! You are spending no more than twenty minutes in that building, got it, bucko?"
"Ah, there's my lovely assistant, back to her normal self," Josh countered sweetly.
The only reply was the slamming of a receiver at the other end and the dial tone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~*********~~~~~~~~~~~~************~~~~~~~~~~~~***********~~~~~~~~ ~~******
For all her whining, Josh didn't think Donna was really in as bad a mood as she had sounded. Sure, she honked incessantly, while waiting for him to get in the car, and drove just a little too fast, and slammed on the breaks just a little harder than need be. And sure, she glared at Josh more evilly than anyone had ever before, when he suggested they go for pancakes when they were done. But she really didn't seem that mad.
Once they parked, Donna grabbed her purse and got out of the car, and Josh did the same. For good measure, Donna slammed her car door, though Josh could tell she was just trying to make him feel guilty. She turned to walk away, but then stopped suddenly. She turned back to the door at started at it for a few moments, and then looked up at Josh. Josh was startled to see an almost frightened expression on her face.
"Are you all right?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yeah," Donna seemed to snap out of whatever trance she had been in, "yeah, let's go."
She calmed down after that, and didn't say much of anything as they passed through security and into the hallways of the West Wing. Josh ran off a list of the files he wanted and she disappeared to go find them. Josh made his way to Leo's office. Margaret smiled at him as he approached.
"Hey, Margaret. Is he free?" Josh asked.
She shook her head. "He's on an important call from Russia. He should be done soon though, if you'd like to- -"
"Margaret!"
"There we go." Margaret stuck her head in the office and exchanged a few, quick words with her boss. She motioned to Josh when she came back out that he could go on in.
"Hi, Leo. Got a minute?"
"Sure, Josh! How's your mother?"
"Not bad, not bad. Still thinks I should just come home 'not deal with all that political nonsense my father got me involved in'. She says 'hi', by the way."
Leo laughed. "Sounds like her alright. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I'm feeling great!" Josh exclaimed. "Except maybe for this sunburn I seemed to have picked up down in Florida. Hurts like hell. Ah well."
"Okay. Well I've got a thing here in a couple minutes. I imagine Donna's keeping you to a strict schedule while here?"
"Oh yes: 'not a minute over twenty', or something to that effect."
"Right. Why don't you just come in tomorrow morning, whenever, and we'll discuss getting you back on track for work?"
"Sounds like a plan. I think I'll go off and bug C.J. now, if you'll excuse me- -"
Josh shut the door and wound his way towards the communications department. He realized C.J. was in the middle of her noon briefing, as he passed by the press room. She seemed to be wrapping it up though. She called on one final reporter for a question.
"C.J., can you confirm or deny any of the rumors about Sam Seaborn's presence in town again?"
Josh stared. He was sure there must have been some mistake. Sam wasn't in town. Was he?
"I can confirm that Mr. Seaborn is, in fact, in town. And in fact, if you all turn around very quickly, you can see him grinning stupidly and waving like an idiot from the back window," C.J. said wryly.
"But no comment as to why- -"
"The White House does not comment on the personal lives- -"C.J. cut herself off, realizing what she was about to say. "I can't comment on why a person chooses to visit Washington," she finished lamely. "That's it for now, everyone."
C.J. left the podium. Sam came in from the other side of the room and caught up with her as she was on her way out.
"You know, C.J., if I didn't know better, I would say you were about to say 'the White House does not comment on the personal lives of staffers.' Which would be the second time in two days that you mistakenly called me a staffer again."
"Stuff it, Sam."
"You know," Josh spoke up from his corner, "the reporter had a fair question. Why are you back in town?"
C.J. and Sam turned in surprise.
"Josh! I didn't know you were- -"Sam began, unsure of what to say. Josh just looked at him for several moments before busting out laughing. The two embraced each other briefly.
"How've you been?" exclaimed Josh. "California treating you well?"
"Joshua Lyman!" another voice exclaimed, "What did I say? Twenty minutes! We were supposed to leave- -"
Donna's voice cut off, seeing Sam. "Oh."
"I see some things haven't changed around here at all," Sam said. Donna hit him. "Ouch."
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A/N: Well there we go--yet another chapter! Go me, I'm just typing away! ;p
It's time to- - - - REVIEW!!!!!! I know you all want to- - -
Cheers!
*~Lexi Lupin~*