"I haven't made any decisions, Jeff. Right now, I'm exploring some options... Well, that's certainly generous but —"

Hearing Sam's voice, David paused as he walked into the house. He was home earlier than expected, the result of another canceled conference call. The client, a Greek entrepreneur, had signed the contracts, made the initial payments and then halted work on the project. David was more annoyed than worried. Callahan, Seaborn & Brown had worked with this particular client before under similar circumstances. The man's concept of time was fluid, and until he was ready to move forward, it would be a case of hurry-up and wait.

The door to the library was slightly open, and poking his head in, David saw his son sitting at the desk, jotting notes on a legal pad as he talked.

"Well, that's good to hear. I'm looking forward to meeting them as well..."

Realizing he was eavesdropping on a conversation Sam might prefer to keep private, David turned toward the back of the house.

Kate sat on the couch in the family room, working on her crossword puzzle. She set it aside as he came in, returning his kiss, and pulling him down beside her.

"Sam still on the phone?" she asked.

"Yeah, but it sounded like he was wrapping up."

"Good, it's been almost an hour. Are you two still planning to go sailing?"

David wrapped his arms around her. "We've got plenty of time. Stavros canceled again, so I headed out early and ran a couple of errands."

"I've packed the little cooler, so make sure you take it with you. I'll have dinner ready when you get home."

"I wish you'd come along."

Kate shook her head. "David, try to get Sam to talk. He needs to vent."

"I'll do my best."

"Good, now go upstairs and change so you're ready when he gets off the phone."

"Yes, ma'am!" Laughing, he kissed her and then rose to his feet. He started for the stairs and then detoured, thinking he should tell his son he was home.

As he reached the door of the library, he realized that Sam was off the phone and staring at the notes he had made. After a minute, he dropped the pad onto the polished wood desk and sighed. Leaning back in the chair, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

David knocked on the door, pushing it open. "Everything all right?"

Sam looked up, startled. "You're home? I can be ready to go in a couple of minutes."

"I've still got to change so there's no need for you to rush."

He turned to go, thinking Sam was a step behind him. Instead, he heard his son's quiet question.

"Dad, why was this so much easier in Washington?"

"What's that?"

Sam waved at the pad. "This. I finally called Jeff Malloy this afternoon. He's a partner in one of the top environmental firms in Washington. They've pretty much offered me carte blanche — I'd handle only the cases I want."

David sat down in the leather armchair across from his son. "And?"

Sam ran his hands through his hair. "When I was in Washington, I was absolutely certain it was the right choice for me. Now that I'm here, I'm not so sure. I keep thinking about other things I'm interested in, and…" His voice trailed off, and he shrugged.

"Maybe you're not ready to make a decision."

"I've got to decide on something soon, Dad."

"Why?"

Sam picked up his pen and studied the tip. "Because I can't stay here with you and Mom forever."

"That's ridiculous. You've been here for a week — and you slept through the first two days! Why are you rushing?"

"I, uh…" Sam's eyes met his and darted away.

David waited.

"I've, ah, I've always gone straight from one thing to the next."

"I thought you'd decided to take your time and weigh your options."

"I have!"

"You haven't, Sam! You just said you aren't sure this firm is the right choice for you. Don't take that job just because it is a job. There are a million law firms out there; there's no reason you have to go with the first one that offers. You're a good lawyer with an incredible resume. Once word gets out that you're on the market, a lot of firms are going to come knocking at your door."

"Suppose they don't?" Sam asked. "Suppose this is the only offer I get?"

"That's not going to happen."

"But if it does, I may be squandering my one chance."

"If this firm is serious, they won't withdraw their offer."

Sam stood up and walked to the window. "I don't know what to do, Dad," he admitted, gazing out toward the ocean.

"Give it some time." David paused, weighing his words. "Sam, are you running toward something or away from something else?"

Sam stiffened. "I'm — I'm not running away from anything."

"Are you sure? It hasn't even been two weeks since you resigned."

"It was two weeks yesterday," Sam corrected him softly, "and it was the right thing to do."

David leaned forward, watching the reflection of Sam's face in the glass. "That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

Sam leaned his forehead against the window. "Let's not have this conversation."

"I know you're angry; I know you're upset. But don't you think it's time to get some of it out of your system?"

"Dad, please..."

"You asked me why things were easier in Washington, and I'll tell you. Because there, you didn't have any perspective. All you had was pain. Now you've got some distance, and you don't know what to do with the rest of it."

"The rest of what?" Sam demanded, turning from the window.

"The memories: things that were good, things that you're proud of. You haven't let yourself think about them, let alone mourn them, have you? My god, Sam, you're thirty-six years old, and you helped get a man elected President. You helped another man become this country's first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice."

"I also wrote a birthday greeting for the Assistant Secretary of Transportation," Sam told him, his tone flat and unforgiving. "That one the President and Leo let me handle all by myself."

David blinked. "What?"

"Yeah, they decided to have a little fun with me because I had a date — well, not really a date, she was pretty insistent on that, but we were going out — with Leo's daughter."

"They had you write a birthday card?" David asked, trying to wrap his mind around both Sam's syntax and the idea of the President's speechwriter turning out the White House equivalent of Hallmark Cards.

"Hilarious, isn't it?" He turned back to the window, but not before his father saw the hurt in his eyes. "What makes it even funnier is that it took me four drafts to nail it."

"Four?"

"Yeah, I choked, completely choked on it."

David smiled gently. When Sam had been in high school, he and Kate had often found him asleep at his desk in the middle of the night, having dozed off as he rewrote a paper for the third time. They had become remarkably adept at guiding him to bed without fully waking him. He had always been a gifted writer, but that — for Sam, at least — included the burden of making sure every word, every phrase was perfect.

"Did the President know how many drafts you wrote?"

Sam shook his head. "He didn't bother reading it after the first one."

"And your evening out?"

"Mallory — that's Leo's daughter — ended up going out for coffee with her father. They invited me, but..." Sam's voice trailed off, and he finished the sentence with a shrug.

"You wanted to get the birthday thing right."

Sam glanced over his shoulder, a little embarrassed. "Yeah."

"I wouldn't expect any less from you, son. You do everything with your whole heart, and I thank god you do."

Sitting down on the wide windowsill, Sam crossed his arms at his waist. "I don't know what happened, Dad. I did something wrong, but I still can't figure out what it was."

"What makes you think it was you?"

Sam worried the fringed edge of the carpet with his foot. "It must have been me. What else could it have been?"

"Them."

"All of them? I don't think so." Sam looked up as Kate came in, weighed down with a tray. Jumping to his feet, he took it from her and set it on the desk. On it were cheese, crackers, a hot dip and a variety of crudités.

"I thought you two might like something to eat since it's getting a little late to go out on the boat," she explained.

Sam gave her a hug. "Thanks, Mom."

As she slipped out, David went to the liquor cabinet and poured them each a scotch. He handed one to Sam and clinked his glass against it. "Cheers."

Sam nodded before taking a sip. He walked back to his seat on the windowsill and settled there, studying the glass in his hand. "This is good. Where did you find it?"

Nice try, son, but we're going to finish this.

"When you called, you said you'd tried to fix things but you hadn't succeeded," David persisted. "What did you do?"

Sam slouched, resting the glass on his thigh. "I tried harder. I read everything I could, I researched, and god knows I wrote, but everything I did just pissed them off more."

"'Them' being who?"

"Josh and Toby for the most part. They took turns shouting me down, except when they were both yelling at the same time." Sam took a swallow of scotch. "Josh tried telling me that it was because everyone was so amazed I had a grasp on things." He snorted. "What a crock! They never listened to a word I said."

"You talked to Josh?" David asked, popping a piece of cheese into his mouth.

"He was waiting when I got home from meeting with the President. He wanted to know why I hadn't talk things over with him."

"And why hadn't you?"

"Because he hadn't listened to me in months. Every time I started saying something, he talked right through me. I gave up trying to have conversations with him and just let him lecture me on whatever we were talking about."

David fought down a rising tide of anger. "Why, Sam? Why did you let him? You've always stood up for yourself."

Sam's answer was too quick, too pat. "Josh has a world-class political mind — Toby too. I've learned a tremendous amount from just being with them. A lot of people would give their right arms to trade places with me."

"You're not a lot of people."

"Believe me, when you spend your days being told in excruciating detail exactly what you've done wrong, you'd give anything to be someone else." Sam rested his head against the window and looked up at the ceiling. "After a while, I forgot what I wanted to do, I just wished the yelling, the lectures, the dismissals — all of it — would end."

"What did you want to do?"

Sam's answer came without hesitation. "Stand on my own two feet and make my own mistakes. Show them that, although I might have joined the campaign on Josh's coat tails, I'd outgrown that. Make them understand there were issues I was interested in pursuing on my own, things I didn't think should be lost."

"Did you say this to anyone — Leo, the President?"

"I tried for days to get some time with the President and was told no. As for Leo…" Sam sighed. "I'm not stupid, Dad, I know how these things work. Josh is his protégé. Leo brought him on board, groomed him throughout the campaign to be his deputy if we won, his successor in the national party no matter what. That's where his allegiance lies. And since the State of the Union, I'm pretty sure he would've happily throttled me on any given day and had the Secret Service bury my body in the Rose Garden."

"Because you dated his daughter?"

"No, because I showed initiative." Sam waved away the question before David formed the words. "I wrote something he didn't want me to, and things went downhill from there."

"And Toby?"

Sam wandered over to the desk and dropped into the chair. He dunked a carrot into the dip and popped it into his mouth, then ate another. David reached for another piece of cheese and waited.

"You've got to understand that we always argued, right from the start. It was part of what worked for us. Sometimes it gave us some perspective on what we were working on, other times it helped us both blow off some steam so we could get to work. But then I realized they weren't discussions anymore, they were full-blown arguments, and I was usually on the losing end. Even when I won, Toby told me to shut up and write. When I finished, he'd rip it to shreds, and I'd do it again." Sam shrugged. "Two weeks ago, I realized I couldn't do it one more time. That's when I resigned."

"And have you spoken to him since?"

"Yeah, he said the same thing Leo did. That they want me back when I'm ready. That the White House is where I should be." Sam lifted his glass to the light, watching it play with the faceted crystal. "I keep going back to that, Dad. If they honestly believe that, why did they work so hard to get rid of me?"

"Sam, I can't honestly tell you. When I talked to Jed —"

"The President," Sam corrected him.

"No, it was Jed Bartlet, not the President, who called me. He said he hadn't realized how much he had come to depend on you. And you've never been one to blow your own horn."

"It's not what a writer does," Sam told him, setting down his glass on the desk.

"Maybe this one should have."

Sam looked at him and then away. After a moment of awkward silence, he asked, "Do you think it would've made a difference?"

"I think it would have made one to you, and that's all I'm concerned with."

Sam nodded and rose to his feet. "I think — I think I'll go out for a while. Please tell Mom not to hold dinner for me."

David nodded, even as his son turned away. A minute later, he heard Sam taking the stairs by twos.

"Well?" Kate asked from the door.

He reached out his hand, and she took it. "He fought, Katie. He was alone, but he kept fighting until he was too tired to fight anymore. The problem now is that he's not sure how to go forward."

"That's why he came home. To figure it out, to find his way. And we'll be here to help him, to listen to him."

Standing up, he pulled Kate into his arms and held her as he looked out at the night. He believed that, hidden deep within Sam's heart, one small brave flame still flickered. It was what remained of Sam's pride in his accomplishments, his excitement at serving both his country and his president. David had seen its light in his son's eyes when he had talked about his desire to fight for the issues that concerned him. Sam might not acknowledge it, might not even recognize it, but it was there, burning defiantly against the darkness.