A/N: Long absence, I know. But hey. My habit of randomly disappearing gives you something to look forward to. I say that as you all throw pineapples at me. But my LAPTOP died and I had absolutely no way to post for at least a week. Technology sucks. That is one conclusion that I have come to through the past weeks (I had to ship my PC off. I don't know what's happening with it. I am very sad.).

You guys always seem to like CJ's chapters. Perhaps I should write more of her. ;)

Disclaimer: I am on my way to becoming a lawyer, but I will never in my life be as cool as Josh, Sam, or Toby. Don't own it. Never have, never will. Deal with it.

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Sam Seaborn's POV

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I'm not going to write a lot about the shooting. Others have done that. My view wouldn't be much different from theirs. Nor do I really need to concentrate on what happened at the hospital. It would be repeating information, and what good would do that do? I was terrified. I remember being terrified out of my mind. I remember that I was frozen in fear and the only thing I could think of was to shove CJ to the ground. I reacted on instinct. It would sound nice to say that I moved because I wanted to save her life and to do something heroic, but I moved on pure impulse, nothing more.

After the shooting I wandered around, trying to find people. I saw Leo, Toby, and CJ. I did not see Charlie, but I knew that he was all right. Leo had made motions to show that he was all right. The only person I did not see in the immediate aftermath was Josh. I didn't think much other it at the time because we were all under enormous amounts of stress and the scene was huge. There were millions, or it seemed like millions, of people wandering around a rather small plaza. It would take hours to find one specific person. Josh was around somewhere. I would run into him eventually.

It was when Toby called out the first time that I started to become worried. "I need a doctor!" he called out to the entire crowd. "I need help!" from far away I could spy something happening. I saw a familiar brown head start to fall. With my heart in my mouth I ran forward. CJ followed me and eventually surpassed me.

"Josh!" she screamed, running and kneeling. She almost slid on the concrete but she managed to stop herself. We all kneeled around Josh, protecting him until the paramedics could come. They finally did come, though it took them longer than I thought it should have. The paramedics pushed us out of the way. We were forgotten for more important things. I watched them work and tried not to be sick. I eventually won the battle, though there was a minute where it was touch and go.

My real story begins the second that they push Josh in the ambulance. I volunteered to go with him. No one contested my claim to ride with him. Maybe it was because I looked desperate. Maybe it was because I had known him the longest and the best. But I think it was because no one felt like fighting that night. No one was in the mood or had the energy and will. So I got to ride in the ambulance.

One thing that they never show you on TV is just how crammed an ambulance is. The reason that you never see a lot of ambulances on TV is because they're so tiny. There is no earthly way that you could get a thumbtack in an ambulance when it has a full crew, let alone a camera, a director, and all of the other stuff you need to have for a TV show.

I watched as the EMT's worked on Josh. They were saying things that I had no hope of understanding in their doctor language. I'm not even sure that they were talking about Josh; the things that they said made so little sense. The main idea that I got was that Josh had been shot and the bullet was still in him. From what I could remember on ER, I gleamed that this was not a good scenario to have.

I stared intently at Josh. He was still unconscious from before. I wanted him to wake up but at the same time I was terrified of him waking up. He would have no idea where he was or what was going on...it would be traumatizing.

My wish came true or was thwarted, whichever you prefer, when Josh opened his eyes. For a moment he seemed to focus on me. "Josh?" I asked him, praying that he knew who I was. "Josh?" his eyes reflected confusion. My worst fears had come true. He didn't remember who I was. He was so delirious that he had forgotten me.

With a click of recognition he focused on me. I could tell that he was trying to say something but the bright yellow oxygen mask prevented him from saying much of anything. "Josh, we're in the ambulance; we're going to the hospital. You just need to relax. Toby and CJ are in the car behind us. You just need to relax." He seemed put out by these words. A paramedic accidentally kicked me as she rushed to check Josh's blood pressure. I was in the way of the people trying to save my best friend's life. They really should make those ambulances bigger.

I stared carefully at Josh. His eyes were rolling around in his head. It was obvious that he was only cognizant with a struggle. As I watched him, something became clear. His vision shifted and became blurry. An expression of panic came over his face as he fought to stay in the real world. "Josh, don't do this!" I yelled desperately at him. "Stay right here!" Josh's eyes rolled up in the back of his head as he lost his battle. "Josh!" I yelled again at him. One of the paramedics turned to me.

"Please don't shout at him," she said in a calm voice. "It's not going to do any good. The most you can do is just be here for him when he comes around again." She went back to her work, ignoring my open mouth and scandalized expression.

My best friend was dying and I couldn't yell at him? I'll do whatever the hell I want to lady! I work for the President of the United States. I'll yell in an ambulance if I damn well want! My anger faded as I looked at Josh. The paramedic was right: I was rather useless now. I don't even know why they let family and friends ride in the ambulance. They can't do any good and they just get in the way. It doesn't make sense.

Josh drifted in and out. I can't remember exactly what I said to him; I knew it had to be something rather comforting. Why weren't we at the hospital yet? I knew that it couldn't possibly take this long to get to the stupid hospital. Why weren't we there yet? What was taking so long? Was the driver going slowly on purpose? Time really is relative. When you're in the biggest hurry, time itself goes by fast, while the people and objects in your life almost seem to slow down in order to compensate for time speeding up. Needless to say this was happening right now and it was infuriating.

I noticed the paramedics becoming tenser. They were starting to pack things up like they were getting ready to exit. My heart began to beat faster. A machine started beeping insistently somewhere. The ambulance pulled into the driveway and then stopped abruptly. Almost immediately they threw the doors open and rushed Josh out of the ambulance. They were gone before I could move. I stayed in the ambulance, shocked, until I came to my senses. Toby and CJ would be there. I had to go be with Josh, Toby, and CJ. This was where I was needed. I was not needed sitting in the ambulance like a directionless boy.

I ran into the hospital, pushing the doors open with my shoulder. I saw Toby, CJ, Charlie, and to my surprise, Leo. Why was he here? My mind vaguely wondered before I concentrated on Josh. He had pulled his yellow oxygen mask off with his bloody hands. He looked directly at me and once again he did not know me. This broke my heart but I ran with the stretcher. "Josh, I'm here!" I yelled at him as I came closer. I pushed my way through until I was at his side.

"I shouldn't be at this meeting," he said groggily. Trust Josh to think of work at a time like this. "I shouldn't be at this meeting," he said again in a weaker voice. He was slipping. We were losing him. I could sense it, the doctor's could sense it, and everyone around us could sense it. Josh was dying and unless we did something fast, we would lose him within the hour. "I need to get to New Hampshire!" he suddenly called, trying to rise from his stretcher.

I slightly relaxed as I realized I knew what he was talking about. He was talking about how he started to work for Jed Bartlet. "You did," I said, leaning beside his stretcher and trying to push him back down. "We both did. You came and got me, remember?" I said other comforting things to him, not that it mattered, Josh was long past understanding whatever we were trying to tell him.

I was unceremoniously pushed back as the doctors lifted him up on an operating table. "Josh a bullet collapsed your lung, I'm going to put in a tube to re-expand it," a doctor informed him. We were gently pushed out of the room and then Leo took us into the private room.

When I heard that President Bartlet was shot it felt like my world had just been taken out from under me. I could barely cope with Josh being shot and now President Bartlet was shot? Not only were they going to take my best friend away, they were going to take my leader away? They were going to take the leader of the free world away? They were going to take Zoey's father away?

As Leo was telling us what he knew, Zoey was standing beside him. She was so brave. Her father might be dying. A lesser person would have been crying and screaming and saying that life wasn't fair. A lesser person would have been begging everyone to feel sorry for her. Zoey merely stood there and listened to Leo talk. Despite her father's danger, she still grieved for Josh being shot. I'm not sure how many other people could have even thought of the other people in the crowd when their father was on the operating table.

Guilt surged through me as Leo asked what happened. If I had only gone with Josh. He was walking right beside me as we left the meeting. If I had only turned around and gone with him, none of this would be happening. I could have pulled him down when the shooting started and prevented this horrible nightmare from ever taking place. It was all my fault. I hadn't even asked him where he was going. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen him leave and I had not even bothered to ask where he was going.

Leo was finishing up saying something. "We'll just wait," he told us. Wait? That was stupid. There had to be something other than waiting we could do. Unfortunately, I had no ideas. Someone else must have some ideas.

"Is that all we can do?" I asked. I sat down in one of the sickly green chairs they had. The chair was uncomfortable. Its cushions were stuffed too tightly. It was too hard. It was a hospital chair. Of course it was uncomfortable. They don't provide comfort in hospitals.

"If you want to add praying to waiting, then be my guest," Toby said sardonically. He was right. We were politicians. What could we do in a life or death struggle? Not a hell of a lot. I bent my head and gently rubbed my temples. On a whim I stood up.

"Where are you going?" CJ asked me faintly. I motioned towards the door.

"I'm...I'm just going to go out for a while," I said vaguely. "Get some fresh air." I stumbled towards the door and it opened. I stepped out in the carefully sanitized hallway. I needed to get away from that room and away from all the sober faces. I walked down the hall and almost ran into someone. I stepped back as I realized that I knew that face. I knew that face very well. "Mallory?" I asked in disbelief. She stepped back and regarded me with an expression of dislike and sardonic enjoyment at my situation. "What...what are you doing here?" I asked again, feeling that I must be polite.

An expression of disbelief came on her face. "My father was shot at Sam," she brought up. "I thought it would be polite if I went to see him." her face clouded over. "Is there word on the President?" I shook my head.

"He's in surgery. He's been in surgery. That's all we know." She nodded and then looked at me.

"What else is there?" I started and looked at her warily. "You've just got a look around you. The President isn't all. Sam, what else happened?"

I regarded her carefully before divulging the newest of the night's surprises. "Josh was shot," I said grudgingly. I watched her face go from disbelief to denial, to grief. She seemed to implode in herself. Something occurred to me. "How did you know about the President?" I asked her. "The staff just found out a little while ago, how'd you know about it?"

"I saw it on the TV," she whispered, her face white. "That's how I knew to come here. It said that the President had been shot and that they were taking him to GW. I managed to get through by telling them that my father was here. Oh god, Sam..." her voice trailed off.

"Dammit," I muttered to myself. The news had already gotten out to the press. CJ would have to leave to do a briefing soon. How did the TV stations find out? There had been news media there for the meeting; that must have been how they knew. It just went to show that you could never relax. Every single time you thought that you had reached rock bottom this job, there was someplace lower.

"Sam, where's my father?" Mallory asked me suddenly. I pointed back at the Private Room. She thanked me and turned to go. "I know this isn't the place or the time, but we need to talk," she hesitantly said.

"Mallory, this is neither the time nor the place to talk about that," I said firmly. She nodded like she knew that was what I was going to say. The last time I saw her that night was when she turned to go into the Private Room. I walked away, further on down the hall.

I couldn't think about tonight. The man I regarded as my father figure and my best friend could be dying. I couldn't think about that. I couldn't think of the large PR disaster that awaited me back in the real world. I couldn't think of any of the events of the cursed night. Instead I thought about a sunny day in New York several years ago, when my best friend had helped me turn the course of my life around.