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Sam sat in Josh's office for a minute, thinking about his conversation with CJ. He felt like he had successfully put off her tirade about Kazakhstan, but that probably wouldn't hold forever. But there was nothing he could do about that now; it was something the President-elect would have to work out. Glancing up, he remembered the pacing Muppet. She was no longer outside the office door. Quickly, he got up. Once at the door, he didn't see the woman, but he did see Otto across the room-- the lone person whose name he knew.
Once Sam had crossed to him and had his attention, he asked, "The woman…"
"Which one?"
"Dark hair. Angry looking. With the…" He drew a line across his eyebrows with his index finger so he wouldn't have to use words to demonstrate his meaning. "She was just pacing out here." He pointed to the area in front of Josh's office.
With a bit of alarm in his eyes, Otto nodded reluctantly.
"What do you know about her?" Sam questioned.
"What do you mean?"
"Can you tell me where to find her?"
"Why are you asking me?" Otto was defensive about being singled out; there had to have been at least a dozen staffers Sam could have asked between Josh's office and where Otto had been working. "I have no reason to know where she is; at least, no more than anyone else. I barely know her. Well, I know her, but not in any special way."
"Okay…" Sam watched him for a moment. He was beginning to feel surprised that Josh had lasted as long as he had before blowing. These people were… interesting. "Can you just tell me her name or point me to where she sits?"
"Oh… you just want to know where…" Sam would have sworn the younger man suddenly looked sheepish. "Okay, sure. Lou. Her name is Lou Thornton and her new office is three doors down that hall on the left."
"Lou. Yes, of course that would have been Lou." He turned in the direction that Otto had pointed before pausing. "How long will it take you to pull some of your best work?"
"My best work?"
"Yes, your writing. Josh tells me you want to be a speechwriter."
He looked panicked for a moment, before the answer struck him and he relaxed slightly. "Through the communications office, Donna has every remark the President-elect made in the campaign. If I can find her, I'll ask her to print some out."
"Donna is on vacation. Can you pull something without her help?"
"Sure. I have them all at home, but here… it'll just take a bit longer to find them on the various computers I worked on."
"Good," Sam responded before asking intently, "Did Josh talk to you today after…"
Otto looked at the floor and then nodded. "He apologized."
"Good. Don't take it personally. He was just stressed to the breaking point. And unfortunately, you happened to be at ground zero when the point… broke, as it were. He asked me to look at your writing and assess where you might fit in on the speechwriting staff."
At that, Otto's eyes lit up.
"So get them and we'll go from there."
Otto nodded in agreement and hurried off to find his speeches.
A moment later, Sam found himself in the doorway of the angry, pacing woman. He wrapped his knuckles on the door frame. "Lou?"
"That's me."
"Hi, I'm Sam Seaborn." He continued standing in her door, but she didn't look up.
"Good to know."
"The new Deputy Chief of Staff. I thought we should meet," Sam prodded a moment later.
"If you're waiting for an engraved invitation, it's never gonna happen."
"Okay." However, Sam took that as an invitation and entered her office. "Was there a reason you were pacing outside my office a few minutes ago?"
"I wasn't."
"I'm pretty sure you were. You're very…"
At that, her head shot up and she pinned him with her gaze. He repressed a desire to describe her as a Muppet. He had to admit that seated in front of him without the angry pacing, she didn't look nearly as Muppet-like. Instead he finished, "…distinctive-looking."
"Wow. You use that line to pick up women in bars?"
"Not as such, no."
"What am I saying? Look at you. You're straight out of central casting. Of course, I knew that about you, but still, in person, it's even… more. You probably leave a wake of women clawing each other's eyes out just to get to you."
Sam grimaced before responding, "Okay, I think we've taken a weird turn."
Lou pushed her glasses farther onto her face. "I was pacing in front of Josh's door, not yours."
"Right. I'm using Josh's office until they get one cleared for me. I'm told it will be ready tomorrow or the next day. Why were you pacing?"
"Sometimes when I'm trying to think, pacing helps." Concentrating on him, she narrowed her eyes and asked, “Won't Josh need his office?"
"No, I'm covering for Josh while he's on vacation for the next week."
"Vacation?" Lou snorted incredulously.
"Yes."
"That's impossible. Josh doesn't take vacations."
"I hear where you're coming from, but it's true."
"Impossible."
"You said that already."
"That man eats, breathes and lives this job. No way he takes a vacation right in the middle of transition."
"He'll be back in a week," Sam said with a smile.
"He hired me today. Why didn't he mention it if he was going away?"
Sam decided to skip the ultimatum part. "It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing." He decided to change the subject. "You know Otto?"
"Uh… yeah… sure." Lou grimaced and suddenly found something very interesting that she needed to study on her desk.
"What do you think about him?"
"Me? I don’t think anything about him. I barely know him. I mean, I know him, but not in any sort of special way where I think things about him." Lou finished the sentence with a cough and a cringe.
Sam shook his head, feeling a little like he was in the twilight zone. These people were definitely odd. Idly, he wondered if the people who had come in during Bartlet's transition had thought the same thing about Josh, CJ, Toby, Donna, and the rest of them that had formed the tight-knit campaign staff. "Josh said he was a speechwriter on the campaign. He told me to talk to you and get your impressions on where we might place him. As the Communications Director, do you feel he's ready to start on some sections for the inaugural address?"
"Oh?" Lou's eyebrows shot up and she nodded several times. "Speechwriting. Yes, of course, I have opinions on his speechwriting. He's good." She picked up her phone and dialed quickly, explaining, "Donna has copies of all the public remarks made on the campaign. I can have her pull…" She trailed off as she listened to Donna's outgoing message.
Lou hung up the phone. "Her voicemail just reminded me that she's on vacation. I had a message from her earlier saying she'd be gone..." Suddenly Lou's eyes went wide. "…a week."
"Yes."
Now Lou smirked. "That's quite a coincidence."
"Yes, it is."
"You know what, Sam?"
"What, Lou?" Sam cocked his head sideways as he watched her wheels turn.
"I don’t believe in coincidences."
"Hmm. I do happen to believe in coincidence. A sequence of events that, although accidental, seems to have been planned or arranged-- seems perfectly logical to me. However, you're right; this sequence of events appears not to be all that accidental."
"Really?" Lou hit her hand against the desk and said with grudging respect, "That son of a gun. He let me sit in his office, waxing on about his complete inability to have a life outside this job, on the day he's leaving on vacation with Donna. My staffer Donna."
"Your staffer?"
"Yeah, she's in Communications. You know, I hired her."
"I did not know that."
"After Josh refused to hire her. He turned her down when she came looking for a job. And then when I hired her, he put up a huge stink."
"I didn't know that, either." Sam was surprised and a little disgusted. Admittedly, he had been out of the loop and didn't know all the details, but it was a good thing Josh had finally taken his head out of the sand or Sam would have had to put him out of his misery once and for all.
"I guess it all makes sense now."
"What makes sense?" Sam asked, because not a lot was making sense to him at the moment.
"Why he didn't want to hire her. At the time I couldn’t make sense of it. She was qualified, experienced, and great at what she did. And working for him took up a large chunk of space on her resume. Not to mention we were desperate for competent people with experience. I assumed they'd had some sort of falling out, but I wasn't sold that it'd been romantic… see, this is why you should not date people you work with."
"They weren't dating."
"Now or then?" Lou asked with confusion.
"Then. As far as I know, they never crossed the line when she worked for him in the White House. However, I think if they had crossed the line back then, they both would have been a lot happier."
"So now they're… together… but three months ago he wouldn't consider giving her a job, even though she was one of the best candidates we had? But you're saying their falling out wasn't romantic?"
"I really don't know." Sam sighed, not entirely comfortable with the topic. "But with those two, I assume the falling out was entirely caused by their intense but repressed feelings for one another which manifested itself for years in a whole lot of misdirection, hurt and pining."
"Oh…" Lou looked at him disdainfully. "You're one of those."
"One of what?"
"A touchy-feely, express-your-feelings kind of mushy guy. You know… sensitive."
"I am not." Sam brought his hand to his chest in protest, but he was too bowled over to offer more of a rebuttal.
"Well you just got too mushy for me and I have breasts," Lou waved her hand at him dismissively and Sam watched her with a mixture of amusement and mild irritation. "Back to the matter at hand, Josh told me he was going to offer her Deputy Press Secretary. This could be a problem. Do you think this is a problem? Not that I necessarily have a problem with inter-staff romance. Do you have a problem with it? For instance, would you date someone you worked with, or who worked for you?"
"I'm engaged," Sam explained with a frightened look in his eye. He scooted back in his chair, too distracted to mention that Donna’s working in the West Wing probably wasn't going to be an issue.
If Lou noticed his reticence, she didn't show it. Instead, she shrugged. "You know, this is Josh's problem, not mine. I say live and let live. A little office romance never hurt anybody. If the President-elect doesn’t have a problem with it, I sure don't." She pinned him with her gaze once more. "Why were you here again?"
"Uh… oh… right, the Inaugural Address-"
Without warning, she interrupted him with a bellow. "OTTO!"
Her yell caused Sam to sit back in his chair even farther. They both sat in silence for several moments. Lou looked him in the eye and Sam gave her a self-conscious half-smile. She screamed the name a second time. "OTTO!!"
A few seconds later he finally appeared in her door. "You called?"
"Twice; did you not hear me the first time?"
"Only dogs can hear your dulcet tones. I had to wait until one came along and told me I was being summonsed."
"Is that how you talk to your new boss?"
"My new boss?"
"Well, that depends on what the new Deputy Chief of Staff here thinks of your writing. What's that in your hand?" She motioned to a packet of papers he was holding.
"Samples of my writing that I was pulling for the new Deputy Chief of Staff."
"Good, give it to him," Lou ordered; a nervous Otto complied.
"Great, I'll just go…" Sam motioned towards Josh's office. "Have a read." He looked between the two, gave a confused frown, and then hastily made his exit. Lou and Otto remained quiet for a moment after Sam left the room.
Finally, Lou broke the silence. "Did you know that Josh and Donna are on vacation together?"
Otto quickly shook his head. "No, I did not know that."
"But you don't seem surprised. Why aren't you more surprised?"
"I don't know. I guess I knew they were together."
"You knew?" she demanded.
"I… uh… only know what pretty much everybody knows," Otto stuttered quickly.
"What does everybody know?"
"Come on, you saw them with the…" he raised his eyebrows instead of finishing the sentence.
"With the what?"
"You know… the hug."
"What hug?"
"When they called Nevada for us, remember how everyone was celebrating and hugging? Well, they were just… hugging each other… only each other… for like a really long time."
"Suddenly, I'm surrounded by 'em," Lou muttered shaking her head.
"What?" Otto asked.
Lou frowned at him incredulously, before snorting. "You are such a girl."
"I am not."
"Seriously, next thing I know you're gonna be prancing around here in a pink pinafore, inviting me to your fake tea party and wanting to braid my hair."
"Well…" He shrugged, wearing a bit of a smirk.
"What?" She asked with a slight sneer.
"Your hair could use… something."
"Girl," she charged again, but brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear as she did it.
"Not."
"Seriously, you're the only one who noticed any… hugging. Because you're a girl. How do people really know?"
"I'm not the only one who noticed the hugging. Trust me. But everyone pretty much knows that Ronna and Edie caught them in bed together, midday, on Election Day."
"Caught them?" Lou looked at him with incredulous indignation. "Why did I not know this?"
"Because Election Day wasn't exactly the time for gossip and you haven't been around since… well, Election Day," he replied matter-of-factly.
"For gossip like this, someone should have called me."
"Maybe someone did, and you didn't return any of his phone calls," Otto rejoined, but tried to keep a casual tone.
"Your messages were to tell me that Josh and Donna were doin' it?"
"So you did get them?"
"I've been busy."
"Well if you hadn't been too busy to take the calls, then you would have known." Otto shrugged at her and walked out of the room, feeling for once that he had the upper hand. He figured it would last for at least five minutes.
***
Sam put down the packet of Otto's speeches that he'd been reading. Josh and Lou were right; the kid was good. Really good. He would make a fine addition to the speechwriting staff, perhaps even a senior position. But an Inaugural Address called for something more than really good.
Sam picked up the business card he'd retrieved from his pocket. Bob. Who in the hell was Bob? Could there be someone who Josh would feel was capable of polishing an Inaugural Address that Sam didn't know? With a shrug, he dialed.
A gruff voice answered. "Hello."
"Hello, may I speak to Bob?" Sam asked in his polished professional tone.
"Who's calling?"
"This is Sam Seaborn with the Santos transition team. I was given your number by Josh Lyman."
Silence. Sam waited, but Bob didn't answer. He crinkled his brow in confusion. What kind of nutjob was Josh setting him up with? Finally, Sam prodded, "Hello?"
"Sam?"
"Yes…"
"Don't say my name."
"Okay."
"Recognize my voice, but don't say my name." The words were drawn out slowly.
"Oh my God." Sam gulped a minute later when realization dawned.
"Yeah."
After a long pause, Sam asked quietly, "How are you?"
"Okay," Toby replied before asking, "You're calling for Josh?"
"Yeah, he gave me your number today. But he didn't tell me it was you."
"So you're back."
"Josh asked me to be his Deputy Chief of Staff."
Toby felt a twinge of regret at the thought of them reassembling without him. He brushed the emotion aside and asked gruffly, "You really want to come back?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure. But it's not easy to say no to Josh."
Now Toby chuckled. "True story."
"So… you and Josh talk?" Sam asked carefully. He'd had no idea that they were in touch. Of course he had barely spoken to Josh through the hectic months of the campaign.
"Yeah."
"A lot?" Sam was curious. If Josh had been in regular communication with Toby-- a scandalously indicted man-- it did make his own absence from both their lives a bit more egregious.
"Enough. He would bounce election strategy off of me from time to time. I think he liked the objective perspective from outside the campaign."
"Sure." Sam nodded, but didn't say anything further. He wasn't sure what he should say.
Toby cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. "So… uh… why did he have you call me?"
"I'm checking out the speechwriters we already have on staff, trying to suss out who can tackle the inaugural address. He gave me your name as someone who might be able to help… polish."
"Oh. Why didn't he call me himself? I haven't heard from him in a couple of days."
"He's been a bit… busy."
"I'm sure." Toby sighed with understanding and a bit of jealousy. He would have really liked to have been busy, too.
"Actually," Sam sat back in the chair and smiled for the first time in the conversation. "I sent him on vacation."
"What?" Shock rang though the phone from Toby.
"Seriously, I told him he had to take a vacation. I have never seen him like he was today. He was completely strung out. Had a bit of a meltdown at one of the kids on staff."
"Oh, boy."
"I know. The stress was really eating him up. It reminded me of…" Sam's voice trailed off.
"After the shooting?" Toby finally asked.
"Yeah… it was scary."
Toby rubbed his beard as he thought. He knew the kind of stress Josh was under and the kind of stress he put himself through. "I guess it makes sense, with Leo on top of everything else."
"Yeah… I'm, uh… sorry I couldn't be here for the funeral," Sam said as a stab of guilt ran itself through his gut.
"Josh told me that you had an IPO going public that day."
"Yeah, any other day, any other thing I would have missed. But I had to be there, or it wouldn't have gone. I felt… I feel horrible that I wasn't there. Leo… he really meant a lot to me."
"I know." Toby was silent for a moment. "I was just glad I could go; I was afraid it might be a problem. It wasn't, but still I wasn't exactly the most popular guy at the dance."
At that, Sam chuckled.
Toby turned his mind back to Josh. "Where’s Donna?"
"What?"
"Donna, where was she when Josh… She's usually the one…"
"Who looks out for him?" Sam finished.
"Yeah."
"She might've been a little close this time."
"Close?"
"Yeah, as it turns out, Josh didn't end up going on vacation alone."
"So you were serious about him going on vacation?" Toby questioned incredulously.
"As we speak, the two of them are on a plane headed to some romantic, tropical paradise or the other."
"Oh, well, if he's with Donna he'll be fine." Toby sighed with relief.
"Yeah, I'm sure she'll take care of him."
"She will at that. So they're finally..."
"Yeah, they're finally."
"That's kind of great." Toby actually smiled.
"Yeah, it is." Sam smiled as well.
"They waited long enough."
"Probably about nine years too long," Sam agreed, before confiding, "You know, I always thought it would have been some PR disaster if they'd… well, if something had happened between them while we were in office."
"I know."
"Remember what he used to say if anyone questioned him about their… thing?"
Toby smiled ruefully. "He responded to most inquiries by explaining that she was his assistant."
"Yes, he did. And I just let him. I never really pushed it, even though I knew it was more than that. I can't help but think that was a colossal mistake, and if I'd really been his friend I would have slapped some sense into him years ago and told him, consequences be damned, he should go for it."
Toby grimaced thoughtfully before speaking. "They're adults; they had to figure it out on their own. But I know where you're coming from. We all… uh… have regrets."
"Yes, we do." Sam took a deep, fortifying breath. "Speaking of… I'm sor-"
"Sam, don't worry-" Toby tried to interrupt, but Sam wasn't having it.
"No, I'm sorry I wasn't around. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch. I should have called; I should have done something. How's your lawyer?"
"Good. She's good."
"Why didn't you call me? I'm a helluva good attorney."
"You're a helluva good attorney when it comes to merging corporations. I needed a helluva good attorney with more of a… criminal bent."
"Still…"
"The last thing I would ever do is drag you into this mess and I don't blame you for not calling. Nobody's calling. In fact, the only people I really talk to besides lawyers—both those trying to put me in and those trying to keep me out of jail-- are Andi and Josh. "
Sam swallowed hard. "So you're doing okay."
"I'm as okay as can be expected."
"So, you feel like polishing some language?" Sam asked hopefully.
"I don't know how long I'll be… available…" Toby trailed off.
Well, until then, do you feel like polishing some language?"
Toby really wanted to be a part of it. With the advice he'd given Josh, he had felt he was somehow involved. He really wanted to write, but he shook his head. It was a dumb idea. "If anyone got wind that I was writing for you guys… that's really not the way to start an administration."
"The only people who know are Josh, me… and Bob. Besides, it's just some polish. These kids are young. There's one that's really good, but he's young. We could really use your help."
Toby smiled into the phone, feeling for the first time in a long time that he might still find a way to be useful.