CJ called a full lid and let out a sigh of relief as she left the podium. They had managed to get through the day without a leak. Of course, only the senior staff and a few assistants knew Sam had resigned. Knowing that, however, had not prevented her from bracing herself every time someone raised a hand, her carefully worded reply ready.

"Josh is looking for you. Toby, too," Carol announced as they walked from the Press Room to CJ's office, "and —"

CJ froze in her doorway, and Carol stopped just short of running into her. Danny sat on the couch, arms stretched along the top. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked.

"Get here before I do."

"Oh, that! Sit in the back, and slip out before you finish."

"Carol, lock my door from now on, will you?"

Her assistant nodded. "Gotcha. We can go over everything else later."

"Thanks." Dropping her pad on the desk, CJ began leafing through her messages. "What do you want, Danny?"

"I wanted to check on Gail and find out when you're planning to announce who's replacing Sam."

The feeling was akin to being punched. She stifled a gasp but knew Danny had seen her reaction. Still, there were rules to this game. "Replace Sam? Taking a day off is hardly cause for dismissal and certainly not newsworthy. I'm having my nails done tomorrow. Are you going to print that?"

Danny nodded, acknowledging the point, and she breathed a little easier. "As fascinated as I am with your personal life, I think my editor and my readers would be a lot more interested in a change in the senior staff. This is the first major one since you guys took office, right?"

"I don't know where you picked up this little gem, but —"

"Sam."

"Sam what?"

"Sam told me."

"You talked to —" Stopping herself mid-sentence, CJ grabbed the phone and dialed. "Find Toby and get in here. What? It's CJ, you idiot!" Slamming down the receiver, she glared at Danny. "You waited until now to talk to me about this? When's the piece going to run?"

Danny stretched, thoroughly enjoying the moment. "There's no article, at least for now. Everything he said was off the record."

"Thank god for small favors."

"What is it?" Josh demanded, sliding into the room with Toby a step behind him. "What's so important?"

Seeing Danny, Toby rubbed his forehead. "This isn't good, is it? This is one more bad thing in a day of bad things."

"Close the door," she ordered him and waited until it was shut before turning to Danny. "Ask them. Go ahead, ask them what you asked me."

"Technically I didn't ask you anything," Danny told her before turning to Josh and Toby. "I was wondering when you're going to announce Sam's replacement. You've had most of the day to come up with some names."

"Damn!" Josh smashed a fist against the doorjamb. "Where did you hear that?"

"Sam," CJ supplied.

"You talked to Sam?" Josh shouted. "How? We've been trying to get a hold of him all day. I even went over to his apartment."

CJ's jaw dropped. "You went to see Sam?"

"Yeah, I thought I could maybe... you know."

"Do what?" she demanded. "Yell at him until his ears bleed?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of talking some sense into him, but yeah, that works."

"We agreed you weren't the best choice for that!"

"You, Leo and Toby agreed. I've known him a lot longer than any of you have and —"

"It's a miracle he still speaks to you," Toby finished. "Not that that's true for any of us right now." He turned to Danny. "I take it Sam didn't call you."

"No, I ran into him at the bookstore on 14th."

"Danny isn't filing a story," CJ supplied. "Sam told him their conversation was off the record."

"Thank god he's finally learned that at least," Toby muttered.

Danny held up a hand. "Look, I'm not running the story, but I am going to persuade him to give me an interview." He winked at CJ. "And you know how persuasive I can be."

Toby sat down on the arm of the couch as Josh paced in front of the desk. "So you're here as a what? A friend?"

"Sam's friend."

"Did he…" Toby gestured.

"Spill his guts to me in the middle of Popular Fiction? No. He told me he'd resigned."

"That's all he said?" Toby persisted. "Because I don't think Sam's capable of two-word sentences."

"He might go back to practicing law."

"Where?" CJ asked.

"He didn't say where, just that he'd talk to a friend of his who's in environmental law."

"Did he say who?" Josh demanded.

"No, he said he'd talked to a friend," Danny repeated slowly, emphasizing each word.

Josh glared at him. "And you didn't grill him? I don't buy it. C'mon, Danny, he must have mentioned a name."

Danny rose to his feet. "Listen, as entertaining as this has been, this was a heads-up, nothing more. You know as well as I do how fast news travels in this town. You won't be able to keep this under wraps for long, so you'd better be ready when it breaks." He smiled at CJ as he opened the door. "Have a good weekend."

When he had gone, Josh slammed the door shut and dropped into an armchair. "Okay, I'll look into who this friend is, go through Sam's phone logs for the last couple of weeks. What do we do now that Danny knows?"

Toby shook his head. "What we were planning to do. Nothing's changed."

"But —"

"No one can tell him any more than he already knows, given that he's actually talked to Sam," CJ assured him. "Toby met with Bonnie, Ginger and Cathy; Leo told Margaret to keep an ear out for rumors; and the President has Charlie in the loop. As far as everyone else is concerned, Sam took the day off."

"Yeah, because that certainly isn't out of character," Josh scoffed.

CJ dropped her head into her hands. He had complained when they had settled on that explanation and every time it had come up since. It was not perfect, but it was the best they had. "Josh..."

"I know, I'm sorry. What do we say if he's not back on Monday?"

Toby grunted. "He's working from home. Since I've been on him all this week about distractions, he's decided to work at home on some policy stuff for the President. Cathy will tell anybody who needs him to talk to me."

"That'll stop 'em," Josh observed.

CJ opened a bottle of water and took a long swallow. "Where do we stand on tracking down Sam's new cell number?"

"I checked with Charlie an hour ago, and nothing's shown up yet," Josh said. "I know Sam, though, and he won't last a day without a cell. He'll be going through withdrawal by now."

"I don't know if we should rely on what we know about Sam because none of us saw this coming."

"We can straighten everything out; we just need to talk to him," Josh insisted for the umpteenth time. He turned to Toby for support. "Right?"

Leaning forward, Toby rested his forearms on his thighs and clasped his hands together. His eyes focused on the rug at his feet, and his voice was quiet. "I've been, ah, thinking about that."

"Thinking about what? Toby, we've had this discussion." Josh's eyebrows rose as a thought occurred to him. "Wait, you can't mean we shouldn't talk to him!"

CJ leaned forward, silently urging Toby to continue. Outside her office, a phone rang, the sound muffled by the closed door. Gail took a sudden frantic turn around her bowl, fast enough to cause a splash.

Toby looked up at the sound, startled from his thoughts. "I don't think we should talk to Sam," he admitted slowly.

Josh's mouth opened, but CJ held up a staying hand. "You don't," she prodded. "What do you think?"

"I can't believe I'm actually saying this out loud." Toby frowned, then met her gaze. "I think we should listen."