Josh finished reading the report he had brought with him and dropped it on the floor by his side. With a sigh, he tipped his head back against Sam's door and stared up at the ceiling. There were at least two more hours of work in his backpack, but he had no interest in doing any of it.

He had hoped to slip out of the White House early, but the President had asked him to stay for a meeting with the Commerce Secretary. Resigning himself to an hours-long post-meeting lecture on macroeconomics, he had been surprised when the President dismissed him saying he had another meeting, one he did not need Josh to attend. Pausing barely long enough to say good night, he hurried to his office and grabbed his backpack and coat before heading for Sam's apartment. He was determined that they would sit down tonight and talk.

Sam, however, was not cooperating. He had not answered the buzzer when Josh arrived, nor had he come to the door when one of his neighbors had recognized Josh and let him in. That had been, he checked his watch and sighed, eighty-seven minutes ago. It's Wednesday night. Where the hell is he?

The sound of footsteps drew his attention toward the stairs. He was almost startled when Sam came around the corner, his eyes on the keys in his hand. Josh climbed to his feet, his back protesting as he bent to retrieve his things.

"Hey."

Sam's head snapped up, his eyes narrowing. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Not tonight."

"But..." Josh looked at him then, registering the dark suit under the open coat, the loosened tie. "Did you have an interview or something?"

"Yeah, an exit interview."

"'An ex...'" Realization hit. The President, a meeting. "Oh god, he called you in! You met with the President!"

Shoving his key into the lock, Sam turned it with more force than Josh felt necessary. "Yeah."

"No! He wasn't supposed to do that! We told him not to do that!"

Sam glanced at him over his shoulder, clearly unimpressed. "Well, guess what. He did."

Josh remained in the doorway as Sam hung up his coat and paced the length of the room. A week before, he would not have hesitated before following him into the apartment. Tonight he did not assume he still had that privilege.

"Honest, we told him not to," he offered, taking a step forward. "None of us thought it was a good idea."

Sam turned to face him, his arms crossed. "So the President ignored your advice. Welcome to the club; we meet on Tuesdays."

"Hey, it's not like that." Josh took another careful step and closed the door.

"It's exactly like that," Sam returned sharply. "Although, in my case, everyone else ignores me as well. You don't have much experience with that, though, do you?"

"People listen to you — I listen to you."

"Oh c'mon, Josh! You don't listen to me. You dismiss me without even considering that what I have to say might have merit."

"I do not!" Josh protested, dropping his backpack onto a chair.

"Bull! You do it all the time! In the last three months, you've shot down almost everything I've said."

"I haven't!" Even as he objected, a part of Josh smiled. 'Almost everything...' Even angry, Sam was still fair.

"Remember that meeting we had two weeks ago on the education initiative? You didn't accept any of the stats I brought in until Toby vouched for them." He ran a hand through his hair. "Then you took them!"

Josh gripped the back of the chair, recalling the look of what? shock? disappointment? on Sam's face. "Hey, I might challenge you —"

"You treat me like I'm your stupid little brother! Well, I have news for you. I'm not stupid, and I sure as hell am not your little brother."

"I never thought you were stupid! For god's sake, you're a senior advisor to the President of the United States!"

Sam walked over to the desk and picked up a glass paperweight. Tossing it from hand to hand, he shook his head. "Josh, you think I'm naïve and idealistic."

"Which are both things the rest of us don't have!"

"And you don't want because they get in the way," Sam added. "Don't you think I notice when you take your corrections to Toby when it's something I've written? Don't you think I notice what those corrections are? Anything that even hints at idealism never makes it past the first draft."

Josh rubbed his eyes. This was an old argument. "There are things we'd love to say, but we can't."

"Then come to me, and we'll discuss it!"

"We shouldn't have to discuss anything! I go to Toby because I don't want to have the same fight over and over with you. Why can't you just —" He pulled himself up short. Don't say it, don't even think it.

Sam's voice was dangerously quiet. "Grow up? Is that what you were going to say, Josh? Why can't I just grow up and be like you?"

"Why can't you just let these things go?" Josh asked, relieved he had come up with something so fast. Clearly, the money his parents had spent on Harvard and Yale had not been wasted.

"Why can't I? Because when you're idealistic —" Sam spat the word as if it were a curse. "— It's difficult to walk away from what you believe in."

"That's obviously not true, considering the fact you just quit!"

The hit was direct, breathtaking in its accuracy. Sam paled, nearly dropping the paperweight before carefully setting it down. Bracing his fists on the desk, he stared at the polished wood surface, his shoulders stiff with tension.

"You don't know how difficult it was to —"

"Quit?" Josh demanded, knowing how much his friend hated the word and its connotation. "Because that's what you did, Sam. You quit."

"I resigned."

"No, you quit. You walked away from the White House, the President and all of us without even trying to fix what was wrong." Josh paced in a circle, his hands on his hips. "You know, it's pretty funny. Last Friday, I told everybody you never quit anything in your life."

"Well then, you were wrong, weren't you?"

He moved toward Sam, stopping when he was a little more than an arm's length away. "Why the hell didn't you talk to me? That's what I really need to know."

Turning to face him, Sam took a step to close the remaining distance. "Because you wouldn't have listened. You would've shelved my concerns and told me I was wrong, that I had misread the situation...again. That I'd better get with the program because this is the way the White House works!"

"And maybe I would've been right!"

"Of course you would've been right! You're always right!"

"Then why the hell won't you listen to me?"

"Because I want to think for myself. I don't want your opinion of what I should or shouldn't do."

Josh drew in a harsh breath, trying to calm his temper. "Sam, I have a lot more experience —"

"No! That doesn't wash any more. It may have been true in the beginning, but not now."

"You've done your homework. I get that, I really do. But there are still a lot of things you don't know, that you can't understand."

"Why? Because I'm naïve and idealistic?"

"Because you're not on the inside."

"And you are."

"And I am." Josh grabbed Sam's shoulder when he would have walked away. "Leo and the President have nothing but respect for the work you do. Do you know how huge that is? They've watched how much you've grown since we came into office."

"But they don't trust me to do any more than I was a year ago. None of you do." Shaking off Josh's hand, he gestured toward the door. "Please, just go." His voice was infinitely weary.

"No, we're going to finish this."

"This is finished, Josh."

"No, it's not. You're going home in a couple of days to think? Good, 'cause I'm going to give you some stuff to think about."

Sam dropped onto the couch, rubbing his temples as Josh paced back and forth.

"Do you remember the conversation we had when you were at Duke? About practicing law and —"

"Being in politics? Yeah."

"I gave you an ultimatum, didn't I? You could either accept the job at Dewey Ballantine or come to Washington —"

"But I couldn't do both."

"Stop interrupting and let me finish," Josh ordered. "I honestly believed that you could only do one well, and I wanted you to choose politics. You, however, didn't listen."

"And you didn't speak to me for something like three months after I moved to Manhattan."

"Yeah, well, I was busy," Josh mumbled. "But my point here is that you've proven me wrong, Sam. You walked away from a partnership at the third largest —"

"Second largest," Sam corrected.

Josh rolled his eyes. "All right, the second largest law firm in New York. You left all that and joined the campaign. And since then, you've just blown me away with everything you've learned and how fast you've learned it."

"But?"

Josh sat down on the armchair and leaned forward, his arms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped. "But you've got to give the rest of us time to adjust, Sam. You say things in meetings, and people are stunned half the time because you shouldn't be the one saying them. Hell, there have been times when I was still wrapping my head around a problem, and you were already coming up with ways to clean it up. I've seen the President look at you with this... wonder in his eyes."

"So what should I do until the rest of you catch up? Sit quietly and not say anything?"

"No, you should stand up and yell until we listen to you."

Sam sighed and dropped his head onto the back of the couch. "I can't. I tried that, and it didn't work. Now I'm just too tired."

Josh stood up and grabbed his backpack. "Then go home and rest. Mess around in boats and think. When you're ready, we'll be here."

"And if I never am?"

He walked to the door. "I came to get you once before, Sam. Don't think that I won't do it again."

"That was different," Sam objected.

"You're right. Now we're playing for keeps.