Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I don't remember getting here. Well, I do, but I don't. Things keep flashing through my mind like one of those three frame flashback things they do on t.v. You know, the ones where it's long enough not to be subliminal (which is
illegal), but not long enough for you to really look at, process, understand.

I'm sitting in a waiting room surrounded by senior staff and a shitload of Secret Service. The chairs are wood and burlap and despite the padding, hard. And it reminds me of how hard the ground was where C.J. and I landed. She's okay, thank God. She didn't have a chance to get her hands up before hitting the concrete, and consequently banged her head. But she's okay. I remember hearing her asking if the President was dead. She was a little confused once the gunfire had died down, but then again, weren't we all?

It happened so fast.

So damn fast.

It was just luck. I heard the shots, I looked up… and I saw… him. Them. Something. A flash. I've been trying to sort it all out because I know Secret Service will eventually be taking our statements, but I don't know what to say other than it was instinct. I don't know a damn thing about guns other than way too many people own them, but when I looked up, it was like someone shone a beacon. I saw the light hit off the muzzle and I just moved. C.J. was two steps away. I took one, looked up, realized I didn't have time for the other and just leapt.

No one knows there's a hole in the back of my coat. And I'm going to keep it that way if I can. I felt the drag of the bullet through the fabric, the rush of air and heat, but I was too focused on getting C.J. all the way to the ground. I saw what was coming, she didn't. I had to do something or she'd be dead.

The way we went down was awkward. I tried to brace myself with a hand on either side of her head so my weight wouldn't land on her. In the process my watch caught on her necklace. Once we were down, I tried to roll away and the chain snagged. Then glass shattered over my head. I didn't have time to try and untangle my arm; I just pulled and covered my face to keep it from getting too scratched up and to keep the glass out of my eyes. And when I could look up again, the whole world had descended into chaos.

There were already paramedics there. One of them grabbed me and said something, but I couldn't hear over the commotion. He started running his hands over me, through my hair looking for any injuries, but as far as I could
tell I was fine. I shook him off and aimed him at C.J. In my head I could still hear the thump of her head on the ground, even as the sirens went off and secret service agents were shooting back and everyone started screaming and shoving.

I grabbed the first Secret Service Agent I could find and got an update. The President and Leo were headed back to the White House, so apparently was Zoey. No one knew anything else about anyone else, so I appointed myself head-counter. I made a mental list of everyone who had made the trip. The President, Leo, Josh, Toby, C.J., Me and Charlie. Oh, and Zoey. I saw the mental checklist in my head and checked off the President, Leo and Zoey, since Secret Service said they were already in cars. I saw C.J. first, checked her off and went to see if she was hurt. She was clearly scared. Which, I suppose is healthy. Not being scared after something like this would be a clear indication of some sort of mental instability, I suppose. She kept staring at the shot out windows of the police car and I found myself trying to pull on the back of my suit jacket surreptitiously to cover up the small piece that was missing in the bottom hem.

Once I knew she was okay, I started back into the crowd. Toby, Charlie, Josh… once I knew where those three were, I could calm down. I was still scanning the crowd when I heard Toby yelling from behind me. At first I thought he was hurt. His voice was weak and unsteady. But then I saw him catch Josh as he fell over and my stomach dropped.

Part of me knew the best thing to do was to grab a paramedic, a police man, Secret Service, someone and make sure they were coming to help, but after the briefest hesitation, I just ran for him myself. I don't remember the paramedics showing up to assess and treat him. I just remember that I was holding his hand and trying to talk to him, keep him awake and then an elbow in my ribs pushed me out of the way. And then it was happening again. I don't remember moving back to Josh's side. But after I got shoved back a second time, C.J. grabbed my elbow and pulled me away, keeping a hand on my arm to stop me from trying to move back again. In the mean time I checked off Toby and Josh, we knew
where they were and Josh was getting help.

I turned and looked at Toby, "Have you seen Charlie?"

Toby put a hand on my shoulder, "Yeah, he's fine. I saw Secret Service try and get a paramedic to check him out a second ago. But when I saw him he was up and talking to people, so he must be okay, right?"

I just nodded and looked back at Josh. Everyone was accounted for. Now I could have my own private little freak out about this all. I watched as they laid him on the ground, started taking vitals and tried to find an exit wound. I
couldn't for the life of me remember if no exit wound was good or bad. It meant the bullet was still in there, which of course was bad. But that meant it hadn't destroyed any tissue on the other side of his body. That was good right? I had no idea.

I remember the blood. I remember that no matter how much gauze they packed onto him, it didn't stop. They'd take off the blood soaked layers that weren't directly against his skin and throw them on the ambulance floor before replacing them with white cotton, soon to be stained red. They said one of us could ride with him. I didn't ask, didn't defer. The only person I felt might have had a better claim to going with him would be Leo, since he'd known Josh longer and was his boss. But Leo had been shoved in a car and I was still there, so I climbed in after they loaded the stretcher. I sat where they pointed and was relieved to notice that I could hold his hand.

I wrapped the fingers of my right hand around his fingers. His forearms were strapped down, but I was able to bend his arm at the elbow and hold his hand close to my heart. They kept trying to immobilize his head, but he'd panic whenever they brought the strap across his forehead, so they eventually quit trying after getting a vague promise to lie still voluntarily. I brushed my other hand over his hair as they loaded up their gear and started away from this unholy disaster area. Every once in a while, I'd get my hands pushed out of the way as they put an oxygen mask over him or some sort of monitor was run over his shoulder and down onto his chest. So I moved my left hand down to rest on his
wrist. On his pulse. His eyes were still open and every once in a while he'd say something, not usually something that made sense, but I still wanted that reassurance that his heart was, in fact, still beating.

He whimpered when they moved him or stuck another tube in him or shoved more bandages in the gaping hole in his chest. He called my name a few times. I wasn't sure if he was asking for me - that he didn't realize I was with him - or if he was asking for a little extra reassurance. That he wanted me to push his hair back and tell him he'd be okay, because that's what I did whenever he'd call for me.

Other than my name, not a whole lot of what he said made sense. I heard something about Illinois and I think that maybe he asked for his dad once. I didn't know what to say to that, since his dad had died when we were on the campaign trail. Belatedly I wondered if he wasn't asking if he was going to be joining his dad or something. I'm glad I didn't think that in the back of that ambulance, because I probably would have yelled at him for it. The last thing Josh needed was me yelling at him for anything, but the idea that he may have been resigning himself to die pissed me off like very little had in a long, long time. I heard him say something about Gage Whitney, which made me smile a little. Of all the times for him to finally remember where I was working when he came to get me.

Then there was more chaos. We stopped with a lurch and lights exploded in on us and Josh's hand was ripped from mine as they moved him into the hospital. I sat stunned for a second. By the time I was able to move again, Josh had been taken into the hospital and I was running to catch up. As I hit the door I heard him call my name again. I started swearing at myself for not being there, for letting him get more scared and confused than he already was. "I'm here, Josh!" I yelled from the back of the crowd I was getting swallowed in. C.J. and Toby had gotten in before I did, and they were in the car behind us.

My heart was working overtime. Like it thought it could pump enough blood for Josh and me both. It occurred to me that I should find out my blood type and donate if we were a match. Well, I should donate anyway, but especially if
we were a match.

I pushed past people - Leo had appeared from somewhere - it occurred to me that Leo should be back at the White House, what didn't I know? - and got back to Josh's side. He was trying to move, kept pulling his head up, which I knew he wasn't supposed to do, but apparently that didn't register for him. He was saying something about not going to a meeting. Something about… New Hampshire? Oh God. "We went to New Hampshire. We both did. You came and got
me." I went with you, because even a partnership at a remarkable law firm and an engagement to a 'society girl' wasn't enough to keep me from getting caught up in your infectious excitement.

And then he was gone. Whisked behind more doors and more lights and more people. And I was just another guy in the hall.

I stood at the door, trying to see in, but they'd gone around a corner and there was really nothing to watch, until Leo came up and mumbled something to me. I knew I needed to ask why Leo was at the hospital at all, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that someone had wrapped about nine wool scarves around my head. I couldn't hear well and my vision was fuzzy on the edges. I think one of those scarves had been shoved in through my ears and wrapped around my brain, because everything was fuzzy there too.

The look I gave Leo must have telegraphed exactly how confused I felt, because suddenly there was a nurse there and more hands going through my hair, looking for a bump or blood that my dark hair would cover. "No, no, I'm fine," I pushed the nurse back. "I just… where's the men's room?" I asked quickly, suddenly needing to know.

I followed a fuzzy, wavering finger across the hall as fast as I could move without falling flat on my face or my ass. I didn't even make it to a stall. I wrenched on a sink and threw up everything I'd even thought about eating for the past month.

There was a hand on my back after a while, but at the time I couldn't look up or say anything.

When I could look up and breathe again, Leo was there handing me a cool, damp hospital-issue washcloth.

"Shock's a bitch, isn't it?" he asked me kindly.

I nodded numbly, still not finding the words to find out why he was there. I hadn't called. Maybe C.J. or Toby had. But how had he gotten there so fast? I could only conclude that he was there when we arrived. But I couldn't find my voice long enough to whisper "why?"

"Better?" he asked.

I nodded again.

"Good we need to talk."

Leo led me out of the bathroom and into one of the smaller family counseling rooms. As he shut the door he said, "First off all, the President is going to be fine."

I looked up sharply and Leo's eyes went wide for a second and then softened. "He's going to be fine. He was hit in the side, but he never lost consciousness and he didn't lose a whole lot of blood from what I can see. In fact, he faked it so well, we were on our way back to the White House until Secret Service realized something was wrong about half way back. He's going into surgery and should be out in just a few hours."

I nodded again. It seemed to be all I was capable of all of a sudden. I felt as useless as one of those stupid little wobble-head dogs that people put in their back windshield.

"Sam," Leo was saying quietly. "I have to get back to the White House. I have to meet with half the planet. You've known Josh a long time, right?"

Another nod. I was a speechwriter for the goddamn President of the United States and I couldn't find a single word to express myself.

"I knew Josh's dad, so I've probably known him longer than you have, but I really think you know him better."

My gut clenched. I knew where this was going and the vice around my head was turned another few degrees. Don't make me do this, don't put this on me, don't make me do this was all I could think.

"I'm going to call his mom as soon as I get back to the White House. If she hasn't heard by now, it won't be long, but with the airports being closed, it's going to take a while for her to find a way to get here. Sam, someone needs to be here to make decisions for Josh until he can do it for himself."

I hung my head. Neither of us would say the words. Neither of us would actually articulate that if it came down to making decisions for Josh it would be because we needed to decide if he lived or died. If he became an organ donor or not. I slouched in my chair.

"Sam, I don't know anyone he'd trust more."

The damn wobble dog struck again. I didn't want the job. God, I didn't want the job. But Leo was right. Josh trusted me.

I must have looked as gray and ashen as I felt, because Leo grabbed my arm again. When I surfaced from the downward spiral my thoughts had been on, Leo was saying my name in a way that told me that he'd said it more than once already.
I shook myself back to the moment. Josh was going into surgery. He'd be okay. It wouldn't come to this. He'd be okay.

Leo nodded. "I'll talk to the hospital staff on my way out. Why don't you go rinse your face off again and join everyone in the other room."

Damn wobble-dog. At this point even I was starting to worry about where my voice had gone. I knew that I'd eventually have to leave the secret service perimeter and that as soon as I did, there'd be press. And I'd have to be able to say something to them. I'm the goddamn deputy director of communications. I needed to communicate dammit!

I felt so useless.

I stood up and headed back to the bathroom. As I dragged myself down the hall, I shoved my hands in my pockets. C.J.'s necklace was still there. I'd pulled it off my watch and shoved it there so I could give it back. Then Toby started yelling and C.J. and I started running…

I fingered the cool metal links.

Maybe not entirely useless.

I wandered around for a while after I washed my face. When I started looking around again, I noticed that Leo had left. I assumed he'd talked to the charge nurse or whoever about me signing papers for Josh, so I didn't ask. I
went up and down halls, found the cafeteria. Found the idea of eating or drinking anything utterly revolting. I did get a pack of gum to try and get the taste of bile out of the back of my mouth.

Eventually one of the Secret Service guys found me and kindly herded me back up to where C.J., Charlie, Toby and everyone were waiting. Apparently Mrs.… Dr. Bartlett had come in and explained that the President was going to be fine. She then explained what had happened to Josh and how long he'd be in surgery. When I came in the room, C.J. grabbed me by the elbow and steered me into a corner and caught me up on everything. I nodded a lot, but still hadn't
found my voice. As shaken as she was, C.J. was still trying to be strong for me. I guess how much this was affecting me was pretty apparent. She hugged me and told me everything would be okay before leading me over to sit on a chair
near her.

Dr. Bartlett asked me if I had any questions and I just shook my head. Still no words, but at least the wobble-dog had learned a new trick.

Leo sent some junior staffer whose name I didn't know and still don't know over with a clean shirt for me and my briefcase. I think he brought Toby some stuff too, but I wasn't really looking.

I hadn't noticed the blood on my shirt or my jacket. Between the bullet hole and the blood, the jacket was a total write off, so I took it and the shirt and balled them up and stuffed them in one of those big hospital hampers
after I changed. I put my tie back on so I'd be somewhat passable when the press caught me, but that was mostly just functioning on instinct. When you worked at the White House, you weren't afforded 'bad hair days.'

I grabbed my briefcase and went back into the waiting room. I was drawing little abstract patterns on a note pad for a while when C.J. came over and sat next to me. She told me that Josh was strong and he'd pull through. I smiled at
the encouragement, but still couldn't make my voice work. Besides C.J. didn't know Josh the way I knew Josh. C.J. didn't know how Josh and I met.

When most people figure out that Josh and I have a history, we tell them we met at school. Which is true enough. What we don't tell them is that we met in… in a hospital, not too unlike this one.

I went to a special corporate law program for pre-law students at Yale the summer after my sophomore year at Princeton. Josh had just started law school and had stayed the summer to get ahead in his classes so he could take a few more electives. We were waiting for a movie at the theater near campus. Something big was coming out that Friday night - I've asked Josh, he can't remember the title either. Anyway, we were in line waiting for it. Not together, we didn't know each other then. I was with Lisa and he was with some buddies of his. We all leaned against the building as we waited for them to open for ticket sales and chatted with the people we were with and the people around us.

Then a girl, one of about eight in the giggling pack in front of Lisa and me screamed. The next thing I saw was the blinding headlights of a car jumping the curb and plowing into the crowd.

Josh got hit from behind and went up onto the hood and into the windshield. Two of the guys he was with were pinned against the building and crushed. I pushed Lisa out of the way and she escaped unharmed, but I had hit the ground hard, earning me a little road rash and a few shallow cuts on my arm and face.

I sent Lisa to call the paramedics while I ran up to check on Josh and the driver. The driver turned out to be completely shit faced and only had a bruise from his airbag deploying. Josh had cuts from the windshield and a clearly
broken leg.

Not knowing what else to do, I made him stay still until the paramedics could assess him for spinal injuries. I stayed there, with one hand on his shoulder, introducing myself and talking about all kinds if inane shit like classes and how well the Dodgers were doing that year just to keep him still.

God, what a place to meet someone. At a freak car accident. When the paramedics got there, they pressed me into service, asking me what happened, handing me the I.V. bag to hold and getting me to help lift the backboard onto the stretcher. There were about seven injuries all told from that incident, and the school only had two ambulances. They took Josh and me and one of the giggling girls who got hit with a sign that fell when the car hit the building in the
first ambulance.

They braced his leg in the ambulance. Gave him some kind of pain shot, warned him it would hurt like hell and jerked and jammed it around. I don't know what possessed me, but I took his hand. Held his hand while they did it. Just so he wouldn't be alone I guess.

His leg was a mess. They had to put pins in it and stuff for a while. I remember that I'd go visit him in the hospital every other day or so. I was never sure why I couldn't just walk away from him, but I couldn't. When he was finally released from the hospital he had this huge metal brace and crutches and the whole nine yards. It turned out that he lived about three blocks from me in one of the apartment complexes not far from my building. So I started giving him a ride to and from campus each day. He felt bad, of course, so he insisted on making it up to me. I told him not to be silly, but Josh will be… Josh. So I let him buy lunch each Friday, since we both finished classes at one.

Hell of a way to start a friendship.

Hell of a way to end one too.

I derailed that train of thought as fast as I could. He survived that; he'll survive this. When we'd been in the emergency room that first time, they'd put us in the same room. He was on more morphine than most of the critical
ward and finally feeling no pain of his own.

They poured what they insisted was betadine, but felt more like citric acid on my cuts and cleaned them out, and he called me names. Made me laugh. I should have been pissed at some guy I didn't know making fun of me as they cleaned small rocks and bits of glass out of my skin, but I couldn't be. I just kept laughing. His leg ended up
being broken in three places, but he was making me laugh to get over a few little cuts, only one
of which even left a scar.

I didn't know I loved him back then. But I did. It was different. It wasn't at all sexual. I had Lisa and I was happy with her. I loved being with Lisa in every sense of the word. But the time I spent eating cold pizza and
drinking beer with Josh while we poured over our textbooks or threw popcorn at the t.v. screen (we gave up on the theater) were really great too. I missed him horribly when I headed back to Princeton in August.

I never realized that it was more than just missing a good friend. I had friends. Lots of them. But I still found myself picking up the phone on the weekends Lisa went home to New York to see what he was up to, if he could get away or if I should jump on a train to New Haven and later D.C. Which was great for a while. We saw each other every few months, but then I was getting ready for the Bar and he was getting more involved in things on Capital Hill.

We kept in touch. E-mails almost every day, birthday cards and Christmas presents. We didn't see each other much though and I missed him. I was floored when I heard he was standing in my office at Gage Whitney. It had been almost
two years since I'd seen him last. And that time was because he drafted me into some damn bike ride across the state of Iowa. He'd taken up bike riding as part of his physical therapy and decided this Ragbride thing was a good idea for
both of us. I've almost forgiven him for the way I limped and creaked for the three weeks following that ride.

Josh was strong. He'd beat this. He had to. I needed him too much.

I heard the door open and someone was starting to drone on about how long Josh would be in surgery and how we could go home. Like hell. Twelve hours. They were going to be cutting into him and sewing up and reconstructing for twelve
hours. I knew I couldn't possibly stay the whole time, no matter how much I wanted to. This was a press magnet. They'd eventually need Toby and me to go back and write all the magic words for C.J. And as much as I didn't want to go do my job, I would have wanted to go do her job even less. I could look like I hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours - which incidentally, I hadn't - and still do the best I could do under the circumstances. I didn't have that added layer of crap to deal with. If I started crying while writing, no one would know. If I needed to back up and rewrite, rephrase I could; no one would know if I slipped up. I could pass anything I wrote to someone else for a read-through to make sure I didn't have any glaring errors or anything. C.J. had to go in front of flashbulbs and news cameras for the entire world and if she made a mistake, the whole world would know.

Donna came in then. I couldn't look at her. Donna and I bicker a lot, but we truly like each other. I should have thought to call. I should have told Leo to grab her if she was still at work. She shouldn't have had to hear about
any of it on the news. I couldn't look at her. When she smiled at hearing that the President would be okay, I almost started crying, because that's when I realized that she had no idea. That it was possible that the news hadn't picked
up on what happened with Josh yet. C.J. hadn't done her first press briefing and they were probably just running with what made bigger news. What had more lights and sirens. More pomp and circumstance.

It didn't seem fair that Josh would be in surgery for a total of something like fourteen hours and he would be a footnote to the President's two or three hour exploratory. He'd be in recovery for weeks if not months, I
assumed. But I was willing to bet he'd fade out of the media spotlight in about two weeks. If the President got indigestion that started anywhere near the sight of his injury for the next year it would be front-page news.

I tried to swallow my rising anger. This wouldn't help anyone. I knew that no one out there chose to get shot. No one chose to be hurt less or more than anyone else. It wasn't the president's fault that he wasn't hurt as badly as Josh, but that he was more high profile. C.J. and I exchanged looks. She was waiting for me to say something, but must have seen something in my eyes that told her that I couldn't. Toby finally stepped in. I took deep breaths and tried to meet Donna's eyes as he and C.J. filled her in. I watched while she collapsed into a chair and C.J. rubbed her back reassuringly.

I hated myself for not being there for her. Donna and I have had this very bizarre subliminal competition for Josh's attention going on for years. It was never a… romantic thing… but I couldn't help feel slightly discarded when he spent a lot of time with her or when they were at their usual bantering and bickering. And I knew from the looks I sometimes got, that she felt the same way. Donna came on board the election not long after I had, so I've known her for a while, so I felt like shit for not being able to be strong for her.

I thought about the somewhat odd relationship I had with Donna. The competition. It wasn't… well, I didn't think we were competing over Josh, but over time I started to wonder.

I'd gone all the way through grade school and high school assuming I was straight. I liked girls, ergo I was straight. Then I ended up meeting this guy, Alex, on-line who was an open bisexual. He didn't push a lifestyle on anyone; he just wasn't shy about how he lived. And it made me think. I'd always put people in two boxes - gay or straight. You were one or the other. And since I liked girls, I assumed I fit in the straight box.

But then I thought about being bisexual. I'd never joined in the other kids when they'd pick on an effeminate guy at school. I didn't freak out when there was some sort of homosexual overtone in a movie or a book. I just figured I was even more of a bleeding heart liberal than most folks.

Then one night I was thinking about Josh. He'd called, saying he was going to work as a staffer for some Congressman. I wasn't even sure what state the guy was from, but I didn't think it was Connecticut. Anyway, hearing from Josh
and getting email from Alex in the same night got me thinking. What if I was bi? I thought about all the time I spent with Josh when we'd both been in school. How much I missed him when he'd gone on. Was it possible that I had a crush on him and didn't realize it because he was another guy? I rolled the question around in my head for a while, but for a few months all I could come up with was 'well, maybe, and if so, so what?'. I knew that the idea that it might have been a crush didn't bother me. Okay, so maybe I was bi, but I was with Lisa and I liked that too.

When Josh came to get me for the campaign, my excitement at being with him was more to do with getting myself out of a job that I was starting to hate, because it worked against every principle I had and an engagement I felt cornered into. Late at night, my first day with the campaign, in a hotel room I was sharing with Josh, because the hotel was full by the time I came on board, I could admit that I'd gotten engaged to Lisa to get my mom off my back. I
love my mom to death, but if I had had to hear, "So when are you going to set a date?" one more time, there would have been problems. So in the end, little-old-non-confrontational Sam just decided that Lisa wasn't so bad and just did it.

What was I thinking?

Lisa deserved better than 'getting married to you beats a kick in the teeth' and frankly, so did I.

But it was never about having a crush on Josh, which I still hadn't decided if I did or didn't, though dropping my entire life the way I did and running away to New Hampshire should have been a big hint. I just liked hanging around the guy. He was fun. He was there for me when I needed someone. For anything. He reminded me why I'd given up the partnership and told me, several times, that I could do better than Lisa. She'd always been a little too manequinesque for Josh, too society for his quiet New England ways. He was always very polite to her and we'd double dated often when he was still in school, but I knew he'd never be truly upset for me if things didn't work out. Not that I thought he'd be upset if they did, just that he'd be the pick-me-up-dust-me-off-send-me-back-out-there sort if something did happen, long before he'd offer to go try and patch things up between us.

Then Donna happened. I never in a million years wanted to date Donna. She's pretty and she's… cute, but she was needy in a similar way to Lisa. When Josh told me how she came to the campaign I mentally painted a big 'don't go there' sign on her forehead. I was jumping in to do speechwriting for a possible future President of the United States. I didn't need any other complications. And when Donna heard that I'd recently ended a very long relationship and engagement, she gave me a big sisterly hug and told me that it was okay if I needed some time to get over her. Nice of her to hand me an out.

I don't think Josh ever wanted to date her either, though I jumped in with everyone else when it came to teasing them about it. It was all in fun though. Josh adopted her. She was down on her luck and needed a place to go. I knew Josh had lost a sister when he was younger and had, in some pretty subliminal ways, been looking for someone to take her place. Joanie had been his older sister, and he treated Donna more like a little sister, but there it was.

And then this odd rivalry started between us. We picked on each other more to get Josh's attention and see whom he'd side with than because we didn't like each other. The three of us spent a lot of time together on the campaign trail, sharing cars, meals or drinks. I knew Donna pretty well. Almost as well as Josh did.

And right now I couldn't even get up to give her a hug or tell her it'd be okay. I've never been able to lie well. A terrible failing in a politician, I know, but I couldn't stand the idea of going over and telling Donna - who would almost certainly believe me - that Josh would be okay when I didn't know that for sure for myself.

The guy who'd been briefing us tried to kick us out again. We sat there silently for a moment and I pulled my pad out again and scribbled a quick note to C.J. "I'm staying." She just nodded and gathered up her things to go prepare for the first press briefing.

God, how I didn't want her job.

Two and a half hours later Dr. Bartlet was called out of the room by a nurse. Half an hour after that she came back in, smiling and telling us that outside of a dozen stitches or so, the President was just fine. A little groggy
from the anesthesia, but awake and already trying to get a situation report.

She looked right at me when she said, "I haven't told him about Josh yet. He's resting now and when he wakes up he may ask to see some of you. If he does, please don't mention anything yet. If he asks directly, come get me."

She couldn't look at me when she added, "Josh is in a surgical theater with an observation room. If anyone wants to go see him, you can. But I need to warn you, it's not easy seeing a friend's chest open in front of you."

I stood up. I needed to see his face. I needed to see if he looked any more calm asleep than he had when they'd rolled him out of the trauma room.

"You want to go see him?" Dr. Bartlet asked me quietly. Yet again, all I could do was nod. Charlie had returned from the residence and rose to accompany us. I looked at Donna, but she shook her head and sniffled. I tried to smile
reassuringly as I left.

Dr. Bartlet explained the idea of bypass to us as we walked. That a machine was pumping his blood and oxygenating it for him, so that his heart and lungs could take a time out for repairs.

I found that I didn't like the idea of by-pass on a philosophical level. On an intellectual level I knew it was his only chance to survive, but on a … philosophical or spiritual level the idea that Josh's heart and lungs
weren't doing their assigned jobs meant that he was technically dead.

I found my voice for the first time in hours. The question seemed ludicrous, I was sure there was a plan, but I needed to know. "What happens if the power goes out?"

Dr. Bartlet smiled at me. From anyone else it would have been a patronizing smile, but from her it let me know that she understood where I was coming from, that at some point she'd had that question or a similar one herself. "The
hospital has a generator. And a back up generator. It kicks in in about fifteen seconds."

"Fifteen seconds? But if Josh -"

"Can you hold your breath for fifteen seconds?" she cut me off.

I nodded. I'd been a swimmer in high school and college. I could - at least back in those days - hold my breath for over a minute. "But what about his heart?"

"The human brain can go for up to four minutes without oxygen before damage begins. "

"Right. Thanks."

We reached a door and a Secret Service agent opened it for us. Dr. Bartlet stepped in front of Charlie and me. "I meant what I said before. This is a teaching hospital, so we'll have a good view of the operating field when we
go in there. If that's a little more of Josh than you really need to see, just step back out. There's no shame in that."

I took a deep breath and stepped in.

All I could see of him was his face and well… his heart and lungs. Everything else was covered in blue surgical drapes.

Part of my brain detached from the rest. Suddenly the heart and lungs I was looking at weren't attached to Josh. I'd always found the human body fascinating, and had as a kid, entertained the idea of being a surgeon. But now, I couldn't associate all the blood and tissue exposed to me as a part of Josh. Josh was too vital for that. Too alive and spirited to be reduced to a set of organs held together by tissue as thin as skin. Maybe it's movies and television… they show so much now, cable specials on open-heart surgery, dramas about emergency rooms and horror movies where the fake blood budget is higher than the Craft Services budget. I didn't see those organs as being his. I mean, I was never meant to be looking at the inside of Josh's chest. I had to remind myself that it was real and not some really good special effects job. That if they didn't get his heart and lungs repaired and restarted, there wouldn't be a take two.

One of the surgeons was pulling a pair of long forceps from Josh's chest as we watched silently. He held it up to the light and examined it from all angles. A nurse brought a small metal tray and the doctor dropped it into
the tray. It hit the metal and rolled to one side. It didn't squish or slide. It rolled.

Dr. Bartlet was smiling.

"What was that?" Charlie asked.

"The bullet."

"So that's good, right? I mean, all they have to do is close everything up?"

"Well, yes," Mrs. Bartlet said, "But that's the tricky part."

"Where are his ribs?" I asked suddenly. It seemed odd that I could stare straight at his heart.

There was a teaching skeleton in the corner and Mrs. Bartlet dragged it over. "They did what's call a sternal incision. They sawed his sternum in half," she drew a line with her finger down the middle of his breastbone on the
skeleton.

"They cut it in half?!" I'd fractured a rib once when my seatbelt locked when my car had slid off a snowy upper New York road and into a ditch. I'd developed a cough from walking the four miles in wet snow to get to a service
station and I had thought I was going to die. Lisa ended up driving me to the hospital at something like four in the morning to get me some codeine so I could sleep, since taking a deep breath shifted the cracked rib and coughing shot
a pain through me unlike anything I'd experienced up to that point.

And that was just one rib with a bruise and a hairline fracture in it. They cut his breastbone in half.

"They'll wire it back in place when they're done. It's certainly not comfortable, but it's actually less painful than broken ribs," Dr. Bartlet explained. "They have to get in there to repair the damage," she added softly.

"It's just that… I cracked a rib once… thought it was going to kill me." I quickly told her about the snowstorm on my way up to see Lisa at her parents.

Dr. Bartlet moved to sit in one of the chairs in the observation room and motioned me into another. "Sam, Josh will have a long and … fairly painful recovery in front of him. When he first wakes up they'll give him something for the pain, probably something to help him breath, some antibiotics… But it is going to be a while before he's up and moving again."

Despite the bad news I was mentally latching on to her tone, her word choices. 'Josh will have…' He will… Not an 'if' statement. A 'will' statement. "So they're sure he'll make it out of this?"

She looked at the ground and was silent. I regretted asking immediately. I liked it better the way I had worked it out in my head. "Not for sure, no," she answered softly. "But things look good. I can't really see the monitors too well from here, but the O.R. staff seems very calm. They're moving slowly and carefully, like they're following a game plan, not rushing around and trying to keep everything going. It looks good, Sam, but I won't make promises he," she pointed to Josh, "may not let me keep. It's going to be a long operation and a long recovery. But it looks very promising right now."

I nodded. I wanted desperately to be with him. To hold his hand. To stroke his hair or his cheek. Josh is strong and he's brave, but even the strong and the brave get scared. And although I know he wouldn't have been conscious of my presence, I wanted to do something. I wanted to call him names to make him forget the pain. I wanted to just sit and talk quietly to him, tell him he'd be okay and that I was there, to say again all the things I'm not sure he heard
me say in the ambulance.

I listened half-heartedly as she explained about what would happen during and after the surgery, about the chest tube that would suck out blood and air and anything else that got in the way of his lung re-expanding. About the wire they'd put him back together with. It occurred to me to ask if he'd have to have that removed or if he'd be setting off metal
detectors for the rest of his life, but it seemed petty, so I didn't.

I understood, optimistically, half of what she said. It sounded like the worst worry was the damage to the artery taking blood into his lung. For whatever reason they couldn't use a synthetic or do some sort of transplant. They had to fix what was left in there. I didn't follow a lot of that conversation, but I didn't really care. I knew just enough to know that it would be hours of pulling pieces of him out of places they didn't belong and even more hours of
trying to put together the pieces that were left.

After a while, Charlie started distracting himself by asking Dr. Bartlet to explain, well… everything. When she was going over the difference between internal and external stitches I slipped out.

I wandered around for a while, showing my credentials when needed to move in and out of the secret service perimeter. I had a vague sense of wishing I smoked so I'd have an excuse for why I was standing in a blindingly bright ambulance bay in my shirt sleeves. I wondered if I looked as bad as I felt.

I'd gone into the waiting room earlier and the only people in there were Zoey and Toby and some more secret service guys. Leo was back meeting with the Security Advisors and the Cabinet and C.J had headed back to the West Wing to start preparing initial briefing notes. Even the various assistants who'd been there were gone. Charlie was still with Dr. Bartlet, Mrs. Landingham had gone back with to the White House to clear the president's calendar. Margaret left with Leo and Donna had gone to see Josh. I wished I'd been around when she decided to do that. I hadn't seen her in the halls, but I'd wandered around for a while, so I was fairly sure that it was too late to go chase her down and
warn her off. In some ways I was regretting seeing Josh like that and I really didn't think Donna was going to handle it well if… Well, if. I'd heard no end of shit from my father when I refused to go to my grandmother's open casket wake when I was fourteen. I couldn't convince him that I wouldn't go because I loved her too much to see her like that. My last memory of her was of me sitting on the floor of her apartment working on an English report and explaining the pros and cons of mandatory drug testing in sports to her while she made dinner. That was the
memory I wanted to keep. I didn't want to think of her cold and pale and still in a coffin each time her name came up.

And though I was wishing, hoping and praying with everything in my soul that I'd see Josh up and talking and walking again, I knew there was a chance. And I knew the last memory I'd have of him would be one of his chest split open before me. I didn't want Donna to share that memory with me. I kicked at a cigarette butt on the ground. Nothing to be done for it now.

After a little while I saw Toby leave through the emergency room door and get into a waiting motorcade car. Probably going back to work with C.J. on the press release.

I was grateful that they'd let me stay. It wasn't that I couldn't write about what had happened. It wasn't a particularly difficult thing to explain. Leo would tell us what we could release and we'd release it. It wasn't a
campaign speech or the State of the Union or some policy announcement we needed to curry favor for. What had happened was ugly. It was raw and ugly and cruel and the words to explain it could be too.

Just to be doing something, I mentally wrote C.J.'s next press briefing in my head. 'The president's surgery was completed at 12:30 a.m. He's resting comfortably in the company of his wife and youngest daughter, Zoey. The
surgeons reported that the bullet caused only minor damage, and laproscopic examination revealed no serious tissue or organ damage. Josh Lyman is still in surgery to repair a collapsed lung and lacerated artery -' or was it the vein. I couldn't remember if they'd said it was the blood vessel going into or out of his heart. I reworded it. 'Josh Lyman is still undergoing surgery to repair a collapsed lung and lacerated blood vessel between his heart and lung.' I
mentally erased the sentence. That would just leave the press asking if it was the vein or artery, which I didn't know, so I tried to find a better way to say it. Maybe C.J. knew. She probably had notes. So maybe I could leave it that way.

I shook my head. No wonder Toby was writing this. 'Surgery is progressing well, but it's still to early to predict an outcome.' I concluded.

"Sam?"

I jumped. "Geez!" I had no idea Mrs. Landingham had come back, let alone that she was standing right next to me. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." I fought down the adrenaline surge. There was so much
adrenaline in my system from everything that had happened that night already that I could feel the knots forming in my muscles. I knew I wouldn't sleep for days and that I'd be cranky as hell as it started to wear off.

"I don't think you'd have heard the Marine Band if they'd been standing on top of that ambulance right there," she said, smiling at me.

I sighed and tried to smile back. "I was just writing C.J.'s next press briefing in my head."

"Really?" she asked disbelieving.

"Honest," I said, putting my right hand over my heart.

"You and Josh Lyman have a long history," she stated.

"Yep." I supposed I was supposed to elaborate, but I had no idea where to start.

"It's getting a bit chilly, isn't it?" she let me off the hook.

"Yep." Great, I had my voice back, but I literally couldn't string two words together. I realized that perhaps Mrs. Landingham was trying to talk to me. She and the president have a long history too. I knew she was his secretary when he was Governor of New Hampshire and I was pretty sure she was with him when he was in the House. If it went further back than that, I didn't know about it, but something about the way she took him to task over what he ate, how he spoke and his sense of humor (or lack of it in her estimation) spoke of an incredibly long acquaintance.

Before I could say anything, she lay her hand on my arm. "Why don't you come inside?"

"Yeah, sure." It was easier to let other people make decisions for me, tell me what to do and when to do it.

I followed her back into the waiting room and fell into the same chair I'd been in earlier.