Title : The treasure
Author : Geraldine
Category : Drama/angst
Rating : G
Summary : Years after the end of the Bartlet administration, the staff gets together for Zoey's wedding.
Spoilers : First four seasons.
Disclaimer : They belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, NBC, Warner Brothers, and I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. So obviously, they don't belong to me. I'm not making money from this story, I just have too much free time on my hands. So I'm begging : don't sue.
Feed back appreciated.
Acknowledgements : Many, many thanks to my beta reader, Emily.
The treasure
Geraldine
He hears her yell his name mere seconds before she grabs his arm and spins him around. She hasn't changed a bit, he thinks. Nothing, it seems, will ever change Donatella Moss, and everyone who knows her is thankful for that.
She still wears the same perfume as she did almost every day in the West Wing. The smell is comforting, helps him gather his courage as she hugs him and whispers that he looks great before releasing him.
"Thanks, Donna," he says. "So do you," he adds sincerely.
Josh is with her, of course. They never go anywhere without each other.
Sam shakes Josh's hand, the two men awkward. They don't see each other all that much anymore, and the easy camaraderie they shared in their thirties is long gone.
Then Sam smiles, asking how their kids are, and Donna links her arm through his own and guides him through the crowd, chatting happily.
Josh hasn't said much yet, but it always takes some time for him to begin to speak now. Sam and Donna both know enough to leave him in peace, he'll pipe in when he feels like it. Josh never found another job like the one he had during the Bartlet administration, never found any other politician who could make him feel quite as good, quite as motivated as Bartlet did. He hasn't taken the loss well.
CJ finds them next to the bar.
"I was sure you'd come," she tells Donna, before rushing to Sam.
She's still stunning. She's gained some weight, but Sam's wife often complains that she would kill to look that great at her age.
He's sure she will look that way, if not even better, anyway.
He often feels like he's always been surrounded by gorgeous women - powerful, smart, funny, confident. Not that he's complaining.
"How's Helen doing?" CJ asks.
"She's fine. She has a headache, she didn't want to be in a room full of people, she's back at the hotel. She'll come tomorrow, though."
His wife has always been plagued by migraines - she rarely takes a plane, for flying makes them worse.
"Are you staying long?" Donna asks.
No, he's not. He only came because Zoey is getting married, and Jed Bartlet almost begged him to come. "It's been so long," the former president said. Sam couldn't deny it.
Tonight, he'll go congratulate the future bride and her family.
Tomorrow, he and Helen will go to the church for the first time since their own wedding. Then they'll go eat something at the farm. Then they'll catch a plane to California again, and he'll begin to work on the corrections for his new book - fresh out of the presses just in time for Christmas.
"Let's go see the Bartlets," Josh says, his first words since he greeted Sam.
He can almost see the look CJ and Donna share above his head - another thing about the women in his life, they're all taller than he is. It's the heels, he pretends, and they share a knowing look when he says so, but never contradict him.
He follows them to the bride's family, wondering if it'll be cheerful or awkward - it's always one or the other in these reunions.
Three hours later, they're all walking to Sam's hotel, to drink 'one last drink, for the road' before they all go rest. Sam called his room, and Helen told him her headache was gone, and she wouldn't mind the company.
"I thought Charlie would come," Sam says.
"He was busy with the new vote they're going to pass," CJ explains. Charlie - now Senator Young - leads a busy life, and there are whispers that he may very well be elected President in the next elections.
"It's Toby I don't get," Josh says suddenly, stopping on the sidewalk. "The Pres-I mean, Jed, told me he had been invited, so why the hell…"
He trails off, maybe realizing just how vindictive his voice sounded just then.
Hostility, thy name is Josh Lyman, Donna used to joke. No one jokes about Josh's temper anymore.
"Sam?" CJ asks.
As if, just because he's the only one Toby keeps in touch with, he should know.
As if he ever had a clue what his boss was thinking, even when they could talk face to face instead of on the phone.
He shrugs and begins to walk again, the others following.
Toby, it turns out, is waiting for Sam in the lobby of the hotel.
CJ squeezes Sam's arm slightly, she and Donna hug Toby and they drag Josh to Sam's room, leaving the two men alone.
Josh hasn't said anything, which isn't a big surprise.
Sam has never been told what happened between those two. Once upon a time, he tried to learn what happened, tried to make them reconcile. Now, he's not sure he wants to know any more. Anything that could cause these two men to ignore each other for years is inevitably messy.
He sits at the table in front of Toby, and orders a beer. They're all going to get plastered anyway, it always ends up like that.
"How are you doing?" Toby asks.
"Fine." He takes a sip. "You?"
"Fine."
They're both writers, they're both paid to express themselves.
They've never needed many words to understand each other. They've always been able to go months without seeing each other and pick up their relationship where they had left it - even when the rest of their lives was a wreck.
"So, Zoey's getting married."
That was lame, and Sam smirks when Toby ducks his head into his glass. Toby trying to do small talk was rare, and always enjoyable.
"Yeah. The Bartlets looked really happy."
"I'd bet. I thought you were all going to stay there longer than that," Toby adds.
"Too many people," Sam explains. "Most of whom wanted to know what it was like to work for the President."
They all go through that, all the time. Maybe it's Rosslyn, maybe it's the MS, or Shareef, or the fact that they all stayed in the spotlight, one way or the other, after the end of the administration.
Maybe it's all that.
Whatever the reason, people remember them. People know them better than the staffers who now run the country.
There isn't a single conference he gives that doesn't end with, "Are you ever going to write another book on the Bartlet administration?"
Jed asked him to write his memoirs once. Then he asked Toby. Then Will.
Sam didn't want to write about the administration anymore, Toby didn't want to write period, so Will wrote the book.
Sam read it, and didn't like it, even if he never said so, not publicly. Helen is the only one he ever told. The others might have guessed, but then, maybe it was just because they felt the same way.
Will had come on board at the beginning of the second term. He had only known Bartlet as the President, not as a bad tempered governor who was terrified of winning, not as a man confessing a lie to a stricken staff. He had written about a symbol, not a man with his faults and his strengths. He had written about someone he barely knew, and it had been obvious in the book.
Sam takes a long gulp of his beer, and Toby chuckles. "I know what you're thinking."
"Probably."
They can almost always guess what the other is thinking. Sometimes, it's even funny. When it's not, it's scary, or inconvenient.
"Let's go to your room," Toby says.
Two hours later, they're all drunk - except Josh, who avoided it by saying he had to stay sober to guide Donna back to their own hotel.
"And you'll never believe what he did," CJ chokes, tears streaming down her face.
Helen comes to sit on the bed next to Sam and gives his hand a small squeeze.
Toby hasn't said much, neither has Josh, but CJ and Donna are regaling Helen with stories of their White House days, and they're having a good time.
"What did he do?"
"He turned on his heels, all ready to make a grand exit, you know. Dignified. Self righteous. And he tripped on his own feet, and sprawled on the floor, his nose inches from the wall. Almost broke it."
The three women are laughing, and it's a beautiful sound.
Toby gets up then. "On that note, I better take CJ back to her hotel," he says to no one in particular.
"Sure."
It takes some struggle to get her to her feet, and quite some time to find her shoes, which slipped under the bed at some point.
Then Josh grumbles that he and Donna should go, and Sam blinks in surprise, because he sounded like Toby.
When they're all gone, Helen comes to him and wraps her arms around his waist. "Everything went well?" she asks.
Damn, she must have noticed his nervousness. It's stupid, he knows. They're his friends, they never stopped being his friends, not even during those months of 2003 when he was wondering if he would ever feel happy again, and snapped at whoever tried to approach him.
Yet each time he has to see them, he wonders what they think. He feels so different from the man he was when they met.
"It was fine," he tells his wife.
Half an hour later, still damp and a little breathless from the shower, they slip under the covers, holding on to each other.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"And so, Zoey carefully decided to wait until I had no authority left on the Secret Services to get married, and I'm sure her husband is grateful for that." A pause, during which Sam realizes that he can still 'feel' the rhythm of Jed Bartlet's speech, then, "I'm sure pissed."
There are a few laughs, and CJ asks softly if someone has a handkerchief. Sam digs his hands in his pocket, finds one, and hands it to CJ, carefully folded.
"Should have figured," Leo mutters, and Sam has a brief smile.
So, he always has a handkerchief handy. So, he almost never uses it. Sometimes, it can be useful, as today demonstrates.
Now isn't the moment to debate the point, however, so he just shrugs and whispers to CJ to keep it when she wants to give it back to him.
Jed seems to have decided to talk for as long as possible, and Sam settles back in his chair.
"In case you haven't noticed, he misses the front stage," Leo mutters to Sam.
"How's Mallory?"
"Fine."
"I hear you're going to be a grandfather again."
"Who told you?"
"We kept in touch," he says.
"Yeah, in about six months."
"Congratulations."
Jed Bartlet's voice cuts through their whispering. "Guys, am I boring you?"
They both shoot up in their seats, and Sam suddenly feels like a six year old. And he doesn't want to tell the former President that he's been talking for 45 minutes, and that it should have been enough to tell everyone that he was proud of his daughter, and glad she had found someone to love.
Leo has no such qualms. "For God's sake, Jed. Don't you ever get thirsty?"
A few laughs are heard, and Abbey chimes in. "You know he's right, honey. These people want to dance, and have fun, so stop it with the reminiscing," she says gently but firmly.
Sam is suddenly reminded of Helen's voice when she tries to make him shut up, and he turns to her, raising an eyebrow. He hears her laugh softly. "Yes, honey, you're quite talkative too. But you know, we all love you anyway."
Sam is sitting next to Leo, drinking a soda, to keep the older man company.
"Your wife's cavalier is being … overeager," he warns.
Sam has his back turned on the dance floor, but he doesn't need to see Helen to know what's going to happen. "Tell me when she steps on his foot."
"You think she'll - Ouch, that has to hurt. These heels they all wear, I swear…"
Sam smirks. "It does," he says.
"Don't tell me you hit on her by - "
"No, of course not." Since they met at the marina, he would have had a hard time. "But when we began being serious, she made it clear that she wasn't a prize, and that if I thought my feet were valuable, I should be… you know."
"A gentleman?"
"Something like that. Why didn't Will come? I thought…"
The abrupt change of subject doesn't seem to faze Leo. "He's been asked. He said he was too busy."
Sam doesn't add anything. He doesn't have anything against the man, but he has never truly forgiven him for leaving him fight a campaign that was doomed from the start. He has been convinced for a long time that he would have won if Will had stayed. He knew the land, the people, he could have made a difference.
Now he's not so sure. Maybe he would have lost anyway.
Probably.
Still, for someone who was so eager to debate issues, Will sure had been quick to flee the scene.
Sam shakes himself. He didn't hold grudges back then, he reflects.
But then, he was younger back then.
"He never really… fit in," Leo says, interrupting his thoughts.
He knows that. Toby used to complain enough about that. Not that he cared all that much back then. He was too busy distancing himself from the administration, hating his job, hating himself, craving some change.
Then one day, he decided that it was time to do something - he was thirty-five, single, in a job he hated, and it was time to move on.
"Not that he was bad," Leo goes on, "the President liked him, but Toby, CJ, they never really accepted him."
He knows that too. He shouldn't feel pleased by that, but he does anyway.
So, he's still a little bitter.
So, he's still mad at Will.
He can live with that.
It's only two hours and three margaritas later that Sam asks the ritual question.
"What happened between Josh and Toby?"
CJ is sitting next to him, her feet in his lap, her high heels discarded on the side.
Most of the time, Sam doesn't want to know. Besides, after all, he has asked before, and never been answered. But he sat at this table for hours during the meal, and he's tired of the silence these two settled in.
She sighs and puts a bottle in his hand. "No one ever knew."
"CJ…"
"I'm serious. There were a few screams one day, then nothing but - "
"Silence, yeah. I noticed that."
"You did, hey," she says gently.
"I'm not oblivious." That came out harsher than he intended, and she rubs his arm comfortingly. "And the vibes were hard to miss."
She doesn't answer, and she's avoiding his gaze.
"I'm not sure even Donna and Andi know," she says after a while.
He takes a sip from the bottle she gave him.
"Don't try to play the peace maker in this again, Spanky," she says gently.
"Sure."
She doesn't seem convinced by his tone.
He still hasn't become a better liar.
He doesn't think it would be a good idea to ask Josh, so he goes to Toby, remembering a time when his boss intimidated him and he ran to Josh for reassurances.
He should probably think about those times as 'the good old days', but he doesn't.
"No," Toby says before he can even begin to ask.
"Toby - "
"No," he says, more forcefully. "You'll try to make us get along better, and we won't, and you'll be disappointed, and for all our failings, we still hate to disappoint you."
He sits down.
Toby growls slightly, to Sam's amusement. "Sam…"
"Nice wedding," he says conversationally.
"You're going to annoy me until I cave, aren't you?"
That's the plan, yes.
"Instead of annoying me, why don't you tell me about the book you said you were working on?"
The diversion technique is obvious, but Sam is only too happy to answer. He'll come back to the matter later.
Toby was the first to read the very first book Sam wrote. Sam sent it to him, on a hunch, and spent the next few days wondering what had gotten into him. After all, he didn't speak to his former boss much anymore. They were both busy with their jobs, and they hadn't parted on such good terms.
The book was a peace offering. Sam was hoping that Toby would understand how much it meant to him, to send a piece of himself for someone else to read.
It was a book about the administration.
Sam hadn't talked about 'behind the scenes' maneuvers, he hadn't talked about the President that much.
He had talked about the love that had united them - love of politics, love of their country, love of each other.
He had talked about the sleepless nights, the laughter, the tears.
About friendship. And pranks. And solidarity.
About a journalist who had refused to publish a picture of Rosslyn where Sam was looking at Toby, above Josh's body, begging his mentor to do something.
About a talk show host who had come to him after the show, hugged him, whispered that her prayers were with him.
About the Secret Services, and Simon, and heroism.
Small things. The things that had kept them going after they had learned that the real thing wasn't so real after all.
Sam had begun to write it soon after he had left the White House, before the end of the administration. The book had been finished after his wedding, as he and Helen were expecting their first child - two years after the end of the Bartlet White House. It had stayed in a drawer for months, until he had finally gathered the guts to send it to Toby. It was the real test; if his boss liked it, the thing would be published. If he didn't, the thing would be burned, in his backyard, and all the disks copies would be mercilessly destroyed.
Toby had loved it. He hadn't said it in so many words, but Sam had known, because his boss had sent thirty pages of criticisms, of points that needed to be developed, of things that needed a rewrite, of 'suggestions'.
Then, Sam had spent weeks trying to find an publisher - he had expected to meet difficulties, this book wasn't a 'scandal in Washington' book. It was more of a love letter to the people who had shared his life for years.
It had become a best seller in three weeks.
Toby had sent him a quick note, saying that he should have followed his advice on the second chapter. Sam had taken the note as the blessing it was. CJ had called after having read it, tears in her voice. Josh hadn't said much - that he was honored to be in the book, as if Sam would forget him. Yet, there had been pride in Josh's voice, for the first time in too long.
Toby is still reading his books, and correcting them now - between two university conferences and two obligations.
"I've been asked to give a series of lectures," Sam announces suddenly. "On, you know, speechwriting."
He knows Toby is going to laugh, and he doesn't mind.
After Toby is done enumerating the reasons why Sam is unfit to tell others how to write, Sam shoots him a look. "So, you think I should do it?"
"Definitely."
He's not surprised - but he's happy Toby thinks so.
The subject of Josh gets dropped, for the time being.
"Don't be a stranger," Bartlet tells him as he prepares to go. He always tells them that. "That's an order."
"Yes sir," he smiles, steps back so Helen can hug the Bartlets and takes a last look around, thinking that his two sons will be waiting for them, along with his mother, at the airport of Los Angeles.
He's eager to see them again.
The secret services are still around, although their presence is less noticeable than it was… then.
He misses it sometimes. The buzz, the feeling of doing important things, of making people's lives better.
He doesn't miss the friendship, though. He didn't lose it.
There have been a few bumps on the road in his relationship with Josh, because they both have strong personalities, and vastly different ways of looking at life and of getting things done, but they got past it. Sam has gotten better at accepting the fact that Josh can be egoist, and a jackass. Josh doesn't seem to resent Sam's idealism anymore.
He's a lot closer to Toby now than he ever was before. It doesn't change the way Toby looks at him, a mixture of annoyance and resignation, and sometimes, a little affection creeps into the mix. But it's Toby, and he never expected grand declarations. He knows that his mentor would come in a heartbeat if he asked him to - he proved it when his youngest son was hit by a car, and Sam called New York in the middle of the night, completely panicked.
He starts when Helen slips her arms around his neck. "Where are you?" she asks.
He shrugs. "Here with you?"
Her look tells him she's not falling for it, but she doesn't push. "Let's go."
"Don't you ever miss politics?" CJ asks.
She's waiting for her flight, along with Toby, Sam and Helen. The Lymans are gone already, to Connecticut, to visit Josh's mother. There was a group hug in the hall of the airport, under the amused glances of the bystanders.
"Not really," Sam says, a little too light heartedly.
Toby raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything.
"You've never thought of, maybe, coming back?"
"To DC? I like the Californian weather better," he says. He often deflects the inquiries that way.
CJ seems exasperated all of a sudden. "You know what I'm talking about, Spanky."
He does, of course he does. He's been approached once or twice by the DNC, in the years following the end of the Bartlet administration. They gave up, at long last.
"I've never really stopped," Sam tells CJ. "I still ghost for… people, from time to time."
And he donates for their campaigns, and he uses his notoriety to publicly support them if they ask him to.
"Charlie?" she asks.
He's a little surprised she noticed, and she adds, "I thought some of his speeches had a familiar ring to them."
"Charlie, and some others I won't name. A few movie stars, here and there. A few local politicians."
"A lot of local politicians," Helen pipes in.
He acknowledges her with a nod, and turns back to CJ. "But I don't want to commit to someone specific. I write when I'm asked to and I have something to say."
"Okay. I was just, you know, wondering."
Everyone seems to wonder why he and Toby retired from politics. As if it was the only place they could make their voices heard, he thinks.
When CJ's flight is announced, they all go with her at her gate, and hug her tightly. She's going back to Washington, fight journalists in the name of the majority leader. She's still excellent at her job, but she announced that she'd retire in a few years.
Then the three go back in the airport lounge, and sit in front of their drinks.
"You'll give my regards to Andi and the kids, okay?" Sam says suddenly.
"Sure."
As silence stretches, Sam opens his mouth and Toby rolls his eyes. "For God's sake," he growls, "give it up, would you."
"How did you know I was going to - "
"I've know you for fifteen years, Sam. I know you."
There's no arguing that.
"Look, what happened between Josh and me is our business. We never asked you to take part, we never asked anything. We just said things to each other what we had thought for a long while, but shouldn't have said, and we found out that there was no way to take them back. That's it."
"Okay, fine. But you're both my friends, and I just wish we could see each other without witnessing the cold war all over again."
"We're civil to each other," Toby points out.
"Barely."
"But we are."
Yes, they are polite. They don't fight. Nor do they talk, or look at each other.
But if Toby says it's none of his business, Sam knows that pushing it will be useless.
"Give it up," Toby says now.
Sam shrugs slightly. If that's what Toby wants, fine, he'll drop it.
For now.
At long last, the passengers of the flight to Los Angeles are asked to embark.
"You okay?" Helen asks when Sam sighs.
"Impatient to see the kids," he answers truthfully.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. You're always a little blue when you see your friends."
He shrugs. "That's because we don't see each other that much. When we do, we'd like for it to last longer."
"I know," she says. She bites her lower lip for a moment. "You really don't want to go back to politics?"
Sam sighs. He's told her he doesn't several times, but she still needs to hear it sometimes. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the way it was in the first years," he says.
"But not what happened later?"
He shakes his head. "No, not that."
She puts her arm around his waist. "Good."
"Yeah."
"When do you think we'll see them again?"
"Thanksgiving, possibly," he says. "Assuming I'm done with the book."
Later, when they've taken their seats, he allows himself to enjoy the knowledge that their friendship will live on, no matter what. That's, perhaps, the most precious thing the Bartlet administration gave him.
Friendship, the will and the ability to write.
A real treasure, he thinks, smiling, as the plane takes off.
END