ATUHTOR'S NOTES: Hehehehehe. I've had this in my head all day and all last night and have several chapters planned ahead... I'm liking this story. New characters to create (a first for me) and new places to take our old friends.
Thanks to those who gave the start a good review and sorry for some of the typos... never have been terribly good at proof-reading.
Mad props to my friends slimwhistler and outtabreath and all the gang over on the fanfic pages of TWoP for those who don't know). The gang on the Gilmore Girls and WW pages are, without a doubt, some of the most supportive I have ever encountered.
Barrie – Feel free to make an icon... I'd love to know how, but it's a talent beyond my means...
And now, on with the show.
xxx
"So, Spanky, what's the plan?" C.J. looked over the edge of her wine glass at Sam, standing at the counter in the kitchen. Suzanna was busy at the island cutting tomatoes for the salad and silently glanced at her husband out from under her lashes.
Sam took a swig of his beer, pondered for a minute, and said, "We need to send him out there."
C.J.'s mouth dropped and she gasped, "What! I thought you said you wanted her to join the campaign, not the nearest convent. Do you really think if you sent him out there she'd have anything to do with this? Jesus Christ, Samuel, for a politician you're pretty fucking dense sometimes.
Sam looked up at her, with those incredibly intense eyes that most of the women in Washington found irresistible and replied, "It has to be him, C.J. Otherwise, when she gets here and finds out he's running the campaign, she'll turn around and go back home. I want her here. I want her as our face out in front of the press and he has to be the one to go get her. If they don't clear this shit up, they'll never be able to work together."
Sitting back in her chair at the small kitchen table, C.J. took another sip of wine and studied the man in front of her. The years had been kind to Sam Seaborn and marriage and a family had been even kinder. Always young for his years, Sam had matured into a man you would want to guide your country. His more fiery tendencies had been tempered by his experience on the Hill and his tenure as a father to a rather adorable, yet demanding infant. No grey tinged the dark hair and the blue eyes were as intense as ever.
"God, Sam, I don't know. I'm not sure it will work."
Suzanna, a newer member of this unique and golden group, stopped chopping the vegetables and looked at the two in front of her. "You know, no one has ever really explained to me what the hell happened with those two. Sam has tried, but it's never really been a coherent explanation..."
C.J. laughed and said, "This surprises you? You married the man!"
Suzanna smiled and replied, "Yes, this I know. But seriously, what happened?"
Sam and C.J. looked intently at each other over the tops of their drinks and were silent for a moment. Each was a confidant of one of the two parties involved and good friend to the other and the years of standing in between the two had been stressful and unhappy. But their personal loyalties had been drawn at the same time.
"He screwed her," was C.J.'s response.
"She left him," said Sam at the same time.
"Whoa! That's unfair!" "Hey, wait a minute!" The words came out quickly of both of them and overlapped in a furious defense of their friends.
Suzanna stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled to cut through the furious fight that had erupted in her kitchen, "Knock it off!"
C.J. and Sam suddenly went silent and looked at the floor like guilty children caught fighting over a cookie.
"I didn't ask who was wrong and who was at fault. I simply asked what happened. I know she worked for Russell and he worked for Santos and that it was a huge 'thing'."
Taking another sip of wine, C.J. took a deep breath. Where do you start telling a story that has its roots in an encounter in a campaign office eleven years ago?
"Sam told you about Gaza, right?"
Suzanna looked at her husband and said, "The CODEL, right? The one with the explosion?"
Sam nodded silently and drank from his beer.
"Well, when Donna got back from Germany, after, the thing, everything was different between them. She told me that he had been amazing when she was recovering... You know he flew over there to be with her? Well, when she got back it was the same old shit He was good old 'Josh' again. An insensitive prick. She got tired of it. She got tired of being held back, of being his hand-holder and sock washer and go-to girl, so she left."
"He was afraid, C.J." Sam said quietly, still studying his shoes. "He was terrified."
"Of what, Sam? Of losing a good assistant? Well he did a bang-up job of keeping her, didn't he? God. He's such an idiot sometimes."
"No. That's not it." Sam walked over and picked up one of the tomatoes that Suzanna had forgotten on the cutting board. "He nearly lost her, C.J. He couldn't bring himself to get any closer to her or to do anything because she nearly died and he thought it was his fault. He felt guilty and terrified and it just paralyzed him."
C.J. sat with her mouth open, "He told you this?"
"Yeah. He told me."
"Well, did he ever tell her?"
Sam shook his head, "She was gone and working for Russell before he knew what happened. After she left, things were so bad he couldn't talk to her. That's why he went to her apartment that day after the election. You heard about that, didn't you?"
She nodded sadly, knowing the devastation that had been on Josh's face when he told her Donna had returned to the Midwest.
"He meant to tell her that day. But she was gone."
Suzanna took a deep breath, "You mean they haven't spoken at all since?"
C.J. shook her head, "No. They're both incredibly stubborn, if you haven't noticed."
Sam chuckled quietly, "Jesus, that's an understatement."
"God, that's so sad." Suzanna scooped up the tomatoes and added them to the large salad bowl beside her, "Eleven years of being in love and never acting on it. I can't imagine."
C.J. and Sam looked at one another, each remembering the years of quiet devotion they had witnessed between Josh and Donna before fate played such a remarkably bad joke on both of them.
"When she went to Russell, it hurt," Sam offered.
"When he ignored her, it hurt," C.J. responded, "She tried, Sam. She tried time and time again to talk to him and he blew her off."
"Yeah, I know. Don't think he doesn't know it, too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, C.J. He's not a total douche. He gets it. He just thinks it's too late to do anything about it." Sam replied angrily.
C.J. sighed, "I'm not sure he isn't right, Sam."
The three were quiet, each deep in thought. Suzanna quietly finished preparing the salad and went to check on the baby, who was waking up from a nap.
C.J. stood up and walked over to the counter to fill her wine glass. Sam, leaning up against the counter, finished his beer and set the empty bottle down with a heavy "clank".
"So... what are we going to do?" C.J. shoved the cork back down into the bottle and sighed heavily.
"He has to go, C.J. It can't be one of us." Sam was once again pondering his shoes.
"I know. I just don't know what she's going to do. She left because of what happened with Russell, you know... she felt... God, I don't know, I think she felt it was her fault. You know Donna."
Sam nodded, "Yeah. But if anyone can convince her it wasn't, it'll be Josh."
Smiling, C.J. nodded, "That's true. The man can be quite convincing."
"So, we'll send him out there. I'm serious, C.J. I want her handling the press for us. Anyone who can shout down a 6-foot chicken is our gal."
C.J. studied him for a moment and then burst into a gale of laughter. Sam smiled and then started laughing as well. When Suzanna returned to the kitchen with the baby, the two were laughing so hard tears were rolling down their cheeks.
"So, I guess things are good? There's a plan?" she said, putting the baby in a high chair.
"Things are good," Sam said, wiping his cheeks and reaching over to smooth down Abbie's fine baby hair. "Now. We have to decide what to do about Toby."
"Oh, don't worry about Toby," C.J. replied sitting back down in her chair and slowly crossing her legs, "I'll handle him."
"Well then," Sam said, reaching into the fridge for another beer, "Sounds like we've got ourselves a campaign."
C.J. snorted into her wine glass, "Yup. Watch out America. We're back."
