"So," Mark commented, "you've finally managed to join the club. It took you long enough."
"Yeah, well, these things take time," Noah replied glibly.
"You're just lucky that you managed to get a firm grasp of both punctuation and verb tenses," CJ noted.
"I had a good teacher," Noah answered a bit ruefully. "They weren't always the easiest lessons, but I had a good teacher."
"So, what's next?"
Noah shrugged. "Well, I thought about trying for a National Book Award," he started, grinning over at Mark, "but then I thought I should set my sights a little higher."
"You do know that there really isn't anything higher than a National Book Award, right?" Mark asked good-humouredly.
"There's one thing," CJ countered with a grin..
"Come on, CJ," Mark teased, "surely you can't mean a Pulitzer. They hand those things out like newspapers."
CJ raised her eyebrows. "I might not be able to hurt you the way I once could," she remarked. "But I've trained Sarah just about as well as Toby trained Noah."
Mark just laughed.
This book is dedicated to all of those who came before me in the Legacy. But a special thanks has to go out to Mark Goldstein. His book High Flight told the first part of the Legacy's story. His book is still in print, if you know where to look for it.
Oh, and I can't forget to mention Toby Ziegler. He was the voice of a president, even as he held his ear. He helped found a new political dynasty. But more than that, he inspired a nation. I hope that it's a fitting tribute for him to have inspired this volume as well.
"I don't know how you managed to make it through this waiting with your sanity still intact, CJ," Sarah complained, reaching up in another attempt to fix her already perfect hair. "I think I'm going to go out of my mind! My stomach is tied up in knots, but somehow there are still butterflies in it."
"Your hair is fine," CJ reassured her, reaching out to pull Sarah's hand away from the coiffed blonde locks. "Waiting for them to announce the winner is by far the worst part, but it's lmost over and then you'll know whether your updated résumé should read 'short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize' or 'Pulitzer Prize winner.'"
"Either one is something to be proud of," Donna added. "Now, we should really get back out there before Jeff starts wondering where his co-nominee disappeared to."
"Or before Josh and the others start doing something asinine, as they are all so fond of doing," CJ grumbled, putting her hands on Sarah's shoulders to steer her out of the washroom. "Besides, they just brought out the cheesecake."
"I'm too nervous to even think about eating," Sarah pointed out.
"They start making the presentations after the cheesecake," CJ told her.
"It wouldn't really be so bad if I just knew who'd won," Sarah responded, obediently allowing CJ to usher her back out the door into the crowded banquet hall. "Then at least I'd be able to enjoy the dessert."
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"You'll find out soon enough."
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"Toby Ziegler, if you've gone and done something stupid, I'll tell CJ," Alex threatened, reaching up to adjust the blindfold covering her eyes; the one that Toby had insisted she wear.
"She doesn't scare me," Toby asserted, swatting Alex's hands away. "Now keep your eyes covered," he ordered. "And preferably closed beneath that blindfold, too."
"They're closed," she assured him. "Not that it matters because I can't see through the blindfold anyway. I'm not sure what you're trying to hide. You were only gone for maybe seven minutes. You can't do much in seven minutes."
"Seven minutes is a lot of time," Toby told her. "You can do a lot in seven minutes." He guided her over to a chair, directing, "Sit."
"You could have at least let me keep my cell phone," Alex protested as she obeyed. "They're going to be starting the presentations soon. It wasn't enough that I couldn't go to the ceremony, but now I'm prevented from finding out what happened!"
"I did volunteer to stay back and help you with the twins," Toby reminded her, stepping forward to adjust something on the table in front of Alex. "I didn't even need to be coerced into doing it."
"And that scares me more than you know, Toby," she laughed. "It also makes me very glad that they're still with my parents for another hour."
"Yeah," he agreed. "That's probably a good thing." He did let a smile cross his face; he knew that she couldn't see him.
"Can I take the blindfold off yet?" she asked impatiently, hands already reaching up toward it.
"Fine," he ceded. "But keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them."
She untied the knots holding the fabric strip around her head, listening as Toby fussed with a few more things on the table. "Can I open them?" she inquired. When Toby didn't answer immediately, she asked again, "How about now? Or now?"
"Open your damn eyes," he growled.
She opened her eyes to behold a table spread with red, white, and blue campaign materials. It took her a moment to even figure out exactly what she was looking at. "Bartlet for America?" she read off one sign, confusion evident on her face. She had figured out what she was looking at, but she still didn't know why.
"Yeah," Toby replied, pulling out the chair next to her and sinking down into it. "All of this was in the Manchester house. After Abbey died, no one knew what to do with it, but no one wanted to throw it out. I said that I'd take them. Last week CJ was cleaning out the attic and made me go through boxes," he continued. "Anyway, I found some things I thought you'd be interested in."
"This is all wonderfully nostalgic," she told him, still puzzled. "But I still don't understand what all the secrecy was for."
Toby shifted a few of the signs aside, revealing a crumpled napkin that had been placed neatly within a frame. "This is what started it all," he commented, ignoring the question. He held the frame out to her. Printed on the napkin were the same three words that were repeated on the rest of the campaign materials. "Three words written on a napkin were what launched a president," Toby said, awe creeping into even his voice. "These three words are what launched an era."
"Everyone knows the story of that napkin," Alex reminded him, still plainly wondering the reasons behind Toby's strange actions. "Jed kept that frame on his desk at Dartmouth."
"Yeah, but did he ever show you this?" Toby asked, moving aside tattered copies of stump speeches so that he could reach for another stapled sheaf of paper. He passed it on to Alex without another word.
"Why would he show me this?" she inquired, glancing briefly over the title page. "I was the one who wrote it. An essay detailing the continuing effects of Puritan morals on contemporary American society was part of the application requirements for his master's program," she explained, handing the paper back to Toby.
Instead of responding, Toby flipped to the last page and handed the booklet back to her. In the midst of all his other scrawled comments, Jed had circled three words.
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"Read that."
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"Sarah," Jeff replied exultantly, "I don't need to read it. The two of us were the ones who wrote it!"
"Just read it," she directed firmly.
"Unsubstantiated rumours of political scandal have been circulation throughout Washington since CNN broke a story last night about several Republican representatives allegedly accepting bribes from an as-yet unnamed corporation," Jeff dutifully read. "However, these allegations are just that, allegations. The facts point to something else entirely. The facts point to a scandal of a scale never seen before in American political history."
"That's enough," Sarah said, cutting him off. "Do you remember the night we wrote those words?"
"Of course I do!" he told her. "We only had like half an hour left until the print deadline, you were on the phone, desperately trying to get a source on some information that we couldn't get confirmed and shouting suggestions to me between questions. Had we had the time, I would have wondered if you were even listening to the answers," Jeff laughed.
"It's hard to believe that we managed to pull a Pulitzer out of that crazy mess," Sarah commented nonchalantly, trying to look as though winning a Pulitzer Prize was an everyday occurrence. If she wanted to jump up and down with glee, she hid it very well. Only her ear-to-ear grin betrayed her.
"It's hard to believe that we managed to pull a coherent sentence out of that mess," Jeff corrected. "I never did get to really thank you properly for bringing me in. I know for a fact that you were the one who mentioned my name to Danny that night."
"What makes you so sure that I was the one who mentioned your name?" she asked coyly, trying unsuccessfully to tone down her grin a little.
"You were probably the only one there who knew that I had the political background to handle a story like this. Danny would maybe have known that I had the investigative skills, but that's why I had been kept on that kind of story. He wouldn't have known about my dad, or about my degree, or that I watch CSPAN just as religiously as you do," Jeff explained. "It would have had to have been you."
"Well, maybe I mentioned your name," she said evasively. "And maybe I didn't."
"Come on, Sarah," he whined. "I know that it was you. I just want to finally be able to thank you properly."
"You don't think that the Pulitzer Prize is thanks enough?" she answered. "I couldn't done it without you. Now, the two of us have to go and have our pictures taken a million times. How's my hair?"
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"It's perfect."
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"Are you sure?" Ted asked. "I still think the phrasing in the second paragraph is a little awkward."
"Of course it's perfect," Alex assured Ted, trying not to roll her eyes. "You've been writing this speech for almost three months. And this is our fourth set of elections. You could always just recycle one of your speeches from the first three times; I'm sure no one would notice."
"It might be our fourth set of elections, but it's our first set following a big scandal. We've also never had elections after acting as floor leaders for nearly two years." Ted paused for a second, adding, "I just want this speech to be perfect because this time we've got a real chance at legitimately being elected floor leaders."
"You mean that one of us has a chance to be elected floor leader," Alex corrected gently. "It's back to the regular drill with this one, Ted."
"We're back to hating the Republicans and the Republicans hating us," he agreed. "But there's a floor leader position and there's a Whip position," he reminded her.
Alex thought back to the table spread with Bartlet for America memorabilia. She thought of the napkin that Jed had treasured and the paper with its hastily scrawled note; both had been carefully tucked away in the same box.
"Ted," she started hesitantly, not quite sure why she was starting this and not quite sure how she was gong to finish it.
"Yeah?"
"Where do you want to be in six years?"
"What do you mean?" he questioned. "Six years is quite a while from now."
"Where do you want your life to be?" she said seriously.
He shrugged. "Hopefully happily married with a couple of kids, maybe still in the House. Maybe I'll switch to the Senate. I really don't know." He furrowed his brow, asking, "Why?"
She chose her words carefully as she answered. "In six years, hopefully I'll be on the campaign trail."
"If we stick with it, we all will be. Six years from now we'll be setting ourselves up for another general election."
"I want to be campaigning for the Democratic nomination," Alex clarified.
"The Democratic nomination for what?" he questioned in shock.
"THE Democratic nomination," she said. "For president."
