"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else;
and for everything you gain, you lose something."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

###

"Well, the last and most important item on the agenda has to be the question of where the hell we go from here," Leo said, placing the results of the latest poll in the center of the table in front of us.

I looked around the cramped room at the St. Louis campaign headquarters. Josh and C.J. were sitting on the couch, cringing, and Toby sat beside them in a chair, looking angry. Mandy, the consultant who'd been hired on a few weeks back to lend Josh some strategic support, gripped the back of the couch as if it might drift away from her if she didn't. Even Leo, who was usually so calmly professional, seemed tense. It was only 7:30, but it already felt like midnight. This was definitely not shaping up to be a good meeting.

"Nine points behind a week before the first debate and falling," he continued. "This doesn't look good, people."

"We've got to figure out what we're doing wrong," Toby said, looking sharply at Josh. It was clear from his tone that the 'we' was his only nod to sharing responsibility for our predicament, and I glared at him.

C.J. sighed. "I took a question today from a Times reporter asking whether this meant that the election was already more or less over."

"Well, we'll just have to show them that it isn't," Josh said vehemently, looking and sounding a lot more confident than I knew he felt.

"Good," Leo responded, nodding. "Let's talk strategy." Everyone looked expectantly at Josh -- even Mandy.

"Okay." Josh ran his fingers through his hair and stood. "We're going to be stressing two main points. First, we're going to go on the offensive against Armstrong during the debate and make it look like Bartlet is really the one in charge." He scribbled on the white board with a dry-erase marker. "In connection with that, we'll want to mention his record on one of the issues he's been attacking us on -- crime."

"Do we really want to be the ones to bring that up?" Toby sounded dubious. "It sounds like it'll leave us wide open for counterattacks."

"The rate of violent crime hasn't gone down since Armstrong took office -- in fact, it's risen more than eight percent. The best he can argue is that his policies haven't had an effect at all, and we can claim he's made things worse. Then we can tie that in to Bartlet's position on gun control."

"We're going to bring up gun control at the debate?" Leo asked incredulously.

"If we don't, Armstrong will, and we're better off putting our own spin on it first."

Toby shook his head. "We need to try to appeal to moderates in this debate. Is this really the time to bring up gun control?"

"The point won't be about gun control. We'll be showing them that Armstrong claims he's tough on crime, but really his crime legislation hasn't made one bit of difference." Josh sounded agitated.

"And we'll also be reminding the undecided moderates of Bartlet's position on gun control," Toby added flatly.

Josh's eyes flashed in anger, and my heart lurched. I hated to see him like this. Almost without thinking, I jumped in. "I think the point Josh is trying to make is that Armstrong is going to bring this up anyway, and we already know what he's going to say, so if we can take the first shot, we'll be in good shape. Maybe even catch him with his guard down."

Josh shot me a glare. Let me do this, his eyes said.

Toby pushed away his folder and crossed his arms. "It's bound to backfire."

"Do you have a better idea?" Josh snapped defensively. "This might be a good time for you to step in and take over, since you're so practiced at losing elections."

Mandy looked over at Toby, nodding. "Actually, Josh, Toby's right. It may be too much of a risk." Josh's eyes shot daggers at her in response, looking utterly betrayed by his supposed deputy.

Leo held up a hand in an attempt to calm things down. "What's the other main point?"

Josh let out his breath. "The other half of the strategy is to make sure that every time Bartlet brings up a specific issue in the debate, our message focuses on a single theme. Our problem all along has been that people still don't really know who Bartlet is, so Armstrong has been able to come in and paint any picture of us he wants. We've got to take control of that, focus the attention on the things we want them to know about our candidate."

"What's the theme?" Toby asked dubiously.

"Since the candidate connects so well with the people, especially when he gets to speak directly to them, the theme will be that Bartlet speaks for them. Bartlet is the voice of the people." Josh looked around, braced for conflict, but saw C.J. and Leo nodding. "In connection with that, we can counter Armstrong's argument that Bartlet isn't experienced enough to be President -- with the age-old suggestion that someone who hasn't been tainted by Washington can better connect with the people."

"I like it," Leo said, encouraging. "You'll sit down with the candidate on this?"

Josh nodded. "First thing tomorrow."

"Good," Leo responded. "The important thing here is that we need a boost, and we need it now. This poll has made us look weak going into the debate, and we've got to fix that before it gets out of hand. So if there's nothing else, let's call it a day."

We all stood, and Josh made a beeline for the tiny room the St. Louis staff had given him to use as an office for the two weeks we would be based there. I watched Toby walk down the hall, still feeling irritated that he had come down so hard on Josh. Especially now, where Josh was feeling so uncertain, I knew it must hurt to have his strategies questioned. I knew, too, that it must have cut all the deeper coming from someone he'd worked so closely with for over a year.

I walked tentatively over to Josh's office and stuck my head in the door. He was sitting at his desk, his forehead on his hands, looking at some notes. He looked exhausted. "Hey," I said quietly.

He looked up at me. "Hey."

"Sorry if I stepped on your toes there. I was trying to help."

He shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

I looked at him, concerned. "You okay?"

He sighed. "Been better."

I stepped into the office and closed the door behind me. The one advantage to the near-broom closet they'd put him in was that this office didn't have a window to the hallway outside, as it had been with the offices Josh had used in Manchester or Columbia. This gave us an opportunity to -- very occasionally -- have a quiet moment to ourselves without alerting the rest of the staff to the exact nature of our relationship.

I walked over to him and put my hands on his shoulders, and he relaxed visibly. "How about we duck out of here and go get some dinner, try to forget about all this for a couple of hours?" I kissed him on the top of the head.

Josh shook his head. "No, thanks. I want to finish this thing."

"It can wait until tomorrow," I encouraged, squeezing his shoulder.

He looked up at me, and I could see in his face how overwhelmed he was. "I really don't think I'm up to going out tonight, Sam."

"Okay," I conceded. "Why don't we just get room service, then, maybe watch a movie in my hotel room?" I motioned toward the door and tried to sound cheerful. "Come on, let's get out of here. It's been a long day."

Josh nodded and closed his eyes briefly. "Okay."

As we caught a taxi back to our hotel, I couldn't help but continue to dwell on the very problems I was trying to distract Josh from. The campaign had not been going well, and the difficulties could be traced back as far as just after the convention. It had proven to be even harder than we'd anticipated to unseat a popular Republican incumbent. President Armstrong had been successful in his attempts to convince the people that Bartlet was too liberal, too weak on crime, and too inexperienced to be President. We were perpetually behind in the polls, and at the moment we seemed to be in free fall.

I made sure the taxi driver had his eyes firmly planted on the road ahead of him, and then reached across the seat and put my hand around Josh's. He squeezed it in response, and I smiled.

As difficult as the past few months of the campaign had been for both of us, I knew that they would have been so much worse if we'd been apart. We'd been together for nearly a year at that point, and I think we were both surprised at just how well things had gone this time around, given just how disastrous our first attempt at a relationship had been. It was almost as if the campaign united us. We both cared about winning this election more than we cared about anything else, but instead of distracting us from each other, it had become a part of us. It was as if our devotion to Bartlet somehow emerged in a single voice that made our relationship even stronger.

We went back to my room that night, and Josh immediately collapsed onto the bed. I didn't want to disturb him with any additional decisions that day, so I simply ordered for him, allowing my eyes to question whether my choices were adequate as I spoke to the hotel staff on the phone. He just shrugged and closed his eyes, letting me take the reins on this one. I snapped through various television channels as we waited, carefully avoiding the news. The food arrived quickly, but we barely spoke as we ate. Josh seemed lost in his own world, and at the moment it didn't appear to be a particularly happy one. Afterward, he took off his tie and sank back further into the pillows.

"Maybe we should skip the movie?" I suggested.

Josh nodded silently and patted the bed next to him. "C'mere."

I curled up to him and put my arm across his chest. I listened to the faucet drip and the occasional snippet of conversation through the thin door as other hotel guests walked down the hall. I was so sure Josh would fall asleep if we continued to lie there, not talking, that I didn't dare say a word. But his eyes remained open, and the expression on his face indicated that his thoughts wouldn't let him rest.

"What do you think?" he said finally. "About the poll, I mean."

"I think Armstrong's had a really long lucky streak," I replied, stroking Josh's arm. "What do you think?"

"I think he's got some pretty decent strategists." His tone was flat. "In fact, I know he does -- I know a couple of them."

"I can't believe their bullshit about Bartlet being too inexperienced to be President," I said crossly. "Where is that coming from?"

"It's a pretty standard campaign strategy when you're trying to criticize a candidate who's never been to Washington. They can't attack a Nobel laureate on his economic credentials, so they had to come up with something."

I drew back from him, turning to lie flat on my back, and raised my voice. "I know, but why is everybody buying it? Bartlet's been in politics his entire life, he can think on his feet like nobody else, and his picture is next to the word 'statesmanship' in the dictionary."

"The people have already spent four years getting used to listening to Armstrong." Josh let out an angry sigh and sat up abruptly. In one movement, he turned his back to me and planted his feet on the floor. "It's not so much that *his* message is making so much sense to them, it's that I haven't been able to come up with a message that makes sense of *Bartlet*."

I propped myself up on my elbow and put my hand on his back. "You're not single-handedly responsible for this campaign, Josh. We're all in this together."

"But it's the strategy that's screwed up, Sam. The speeches have been great, the media is paying attention to us, we've finally raised enough money, the management is fine. It's me who's blowing it."

"Don't you think you're being a little hard on yourself? I mean, what did we hire Mandy for if not to work with us on strategy?"

Josh snorted. "Even Mandy hated my ideas today." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "No, Toby's right. No one can fix this but me at this point. This is exactly what they hired me for in the first place."

In all the years I had known this man, I had never seen him like this. When Josh was upset, it usually translated to anger, and a more typical response to this sort of stress would have been for him to get defensive. But I had never seen him so desperate, so defeated. I reached over and pulled him back down onto the bed, stroking his chest through his shirt, feeling a need to hold onto him and not let him drift too far into his fear.

"We're going into the first debate in a position where Armstrong looks pretty impossible to beat. I've set us up for a major fall." Josh's forehead was creased in worry.

"Or the debate could turn it around."

"There are too many factors we can't control in a debate," he said, shaking his head. "I'd feel a lot better if we didn't have to rely on all of them going our way."

"Bartlet is an incredible speaker."

"You know there's more to a debate than that."

I pulled him closer to me. "How about you and I set up another meeting with him for sometime this week? I can coach him on his closing statement, you can talk to him about what to be sure to say-"

"Yeah, maybe."

I leaned over and kissed him on the neck. I felt helpless, so completely unable to penetrate his despair.

"I just don't know what I'll do if we lose." Josh's voice was almost inaudible.

"Even if we lose this one, there are still two others. There'd still be time to catch up."

"Not the debate. The election."

I drew in a breath. C.J.'s mention of the reporter's question and Josh's angry volley at Toby today had been the closest any of us had ever come to lending voice to that possibility. There was an unspoken assumption among all of us that we would never discuss it at a single staff meeting, or even whisper about it over alcohol-laden late-night dinners. It was the worst kind of superstition, as if planning for that eventuality would be the only thing that would make it possible, and if we only had enough faith that we would someday make it to the White House, then we would. I knew, though, that the possibility of losing had secretly been on all of our minds more often these days than at any point in the past.

"I- I've lost elections before, but- this would be different." The words caught in his throat.

I knew what he meant. Losing the election would mean, essentially, losing our sense of hope. There was a lot more riding on the outcome of this election than just Bartlet's political career. "We're not going to lose," I said, trying to sound confident.

"Yeah. Thanks." Josh looked unconvinced. He closed his eyes again.

Still leaning over him, I watched him lying there, so vulnerable. Even with his eyes closed, his fear was entirely transparent, and he looked as if the entire weight of the outcome of this election had been definitively placed on his chest. My heart clenched. I knew I couldn't share the burden.

I reached over to touch his face. It hurt me to see him this upset, but at the same time I was so glad that he felt close enough to me to let me in and see his pain. Josh Lyman was everything I'd ever wanted in a lover -- everything I'd ever wanted in a partner. I even loved his faults. For the thousandth time that year, I felt filled with an incredible sense of luck to be sharing my life with him. I leaned down to kiss the sensitive hollow part of his throat right below his Adam's apple. As I breathed in the scent of him, I suddenly became very aware I was feeling far more than just concern for him at that particular moment.

Slowly, as if in a trance, I began unbuttoning his shirt. When my fingers reached his waist, I parted the shirt and reached my hand up under the T-shirt beneath, reaching up to the skin and soft hair of his chest.

"Sam?"

I began unbuckling his belt. "Hmm."

"What are you doing?"

"What does it feel like I'm doing?" I unbuttoned his pants.

"Sam, what are you doing?" Josh's voice sounded weary.

I placed a single kiss on his stomach. "Distracting you."

"Sam. I'm not in the mood." He tried to push me away.

I unzipped his pants and put my hand inside, feeling him through the cloth of his briefs. I was rewarded by a sudden hardness, and I began to stroke him.

"Sam, I'm not- mmm."

I grinned and looked up at him. "Not in the mood?"

For the first time that night, Josh smiled. "You're such a tease."

I blinked innocently. "Now, is that fair? You can only legitimately call me a tease if I don't follow through, and I have every intention of following through."

His slight smile became a grin. "Get up here," he growled, pulling me into an intense embrace. My last coherent thought was driven away by an overwhelming mixture of love, passion, and a wonderful certainty that, finally, Josh had other things on his mind than the campaign.

###

The next week flew by in a blur as September turned to October, and before we knew it, the day of the debate had arrived. Bartlet himself was the only one who seemed not to be even the slightest bit nervous, as he calmly and confidently discussed photo opportunities with C.J. and went over strategy with Josh one final time. The man's professionalism never ceased to amaze me. The rest of us, though, were clearly filled with varying degrees of terror. Toby shut himself away in an office and avoided everyone, Leo wandered around looking as if he hadn't slept in a month, Josh snapped at the St. Louis secretaries all morning and slammed doors, Donna flitted around with an incessant nervous chatter, Mandy was chain-smoking again, and C.J. took potshots at a reporter for asking the same inane question three different ways.

As for me, I babbled. I babbled at Bartlet about his closing statement until Leo rescued him and dragged him off to the debate site an hour early to get ready, and then I babbled at Josh and C.J. in a Starbucks up the street from the campaign headquarters after they had left.

"If he gets the first question, he'll be able to set the tone for the whole debate, loosen things up. On the other hand, if Armstrong gets the first question, Bartlet might make him look stiff in comparison. But if-"

Josh groaned, pushing himself back from the table and pressing his chair up against the window. "Now I remember what I forgot in my room this morning. My earplugs."

I ignored him, leaning across the table to make my point to C.J. for the fourth time. "If they start off by talking about domestic issues, then we'll be able to concentrate better on the 'Bartlet speaks for the people' strategy, but if foreign policy comes up first-"

"Sam, there's nothing any of us can do at this point," C.J. interrupted. "We've spent over a month getting ready for this, and now all we can do is watch tonight and hope for the best. It's out of your hands."

"All I wanted to say was-"

"Sam!" they both said at the same time.

I shut up.

"That's enough caffeine for you, I think," C.J. said dryly, grabbing my coffee cup and sliding it toward her.

"I can't deal with you when you're like this," Josh grumbled.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Would you rather I make poor, well-intentioned secretaries look like they're about to cry?"

"At least then you'd make *some* basic sense."

"Oh, yes, and you've been Mr. Common Sense today," I said sarcastically.

"You two are like an old married couple sometimes," C.J. mused. "How long have you known each other again?"

Josh looked panicked and made a sound like he was being strangled. "Um ..." he began, trailing off and shooting me a stricken look from across the table.

"Far too long," I said, leaping in quickly.

C.J. raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah, but five minutes can seem too long with Josh."

I grinned. "It was on a campaign. Silverstein for Senate in New York, '85."

"Oh, God, Silverstein," C.J. said, laughing. "Whatever happened to him, anyway?"

Josh cleared his throat and looked relieved that the uncannily perceptive press secretary's attention had been drawn away from our relationship. "I think he's working for the Progressive Policy Institute now," he said, recovering somewhat. "You know, that new think tank."

"Hmm. Good place for him," C.J. said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, he never was too good at winning elections," Josh responded.

"Speaking of winning elections," C.J. said, standing, "I should probably get over to the university. Some of us still have work to do this evening while you guys are relaxing in front of the television watching the debate."

"I don't know if *relaxing* would be the best way to describe it, with this stress puppy around," I smiled and gestured toward Josh.

C.J. grabbed her coat. "I'm sure Toby won't be a barrel of laughs tonight, either, but at least you won't have to face any idiotic reporters who have no business even *trying* to talk to anyone as smart as Bartlet." She grinned. "See you two tomorrow."

"Knock 'em dead tonight, you hear?" Josh yelled after her, and she gave us a thumbs-up sign as she left the coffee shop.

As soon as the door was closed behind, her, Josh and I looked at each other across the table and laughed aloud, half nervously and half from relief. "That was an interesting observation she made there," I said, smiling.

"Yeah." Josh shook his head. "I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it, but God."

"You can't jump every time someone makes an innocent little comment like that, you know? I mean, she could say the same thing about Leo and Bartlet, and no one would think a thing of it."

"I know, I know," Josh breathed. "It just caught me off-guard." He scowled suddenly, and his voice became gruff. "Hey, by the way, that thing you called me earlier? Don't."

I looked at him blankly. "What, 'Mr. Common Sense'?"

"'Stress puppy,'" he answered, mocking.

"What's wrong with 'stress puppy'?"

"That's what Lisa used to call you."

"That's what Lisa used to call everybody. Still does, in fact."

"Whatever. Just don't call me that, okay?" He stood and grabbed his coat.

"God, you're irritable today," I complained, but inside I was grateful that the old Josh was back. His sarcasm and aggravation were easier to take than the despair of a week ago.

"Is this yours?" Josh said, picking up a glasses case from the table and looking inside. "No, C.J. left her reading glasses in a restaurant again. Dammit!" He let out an exasperated sigh and pocketed them. "Remind me I've got these, okay? Last time this happened, I ended up carrying 'em around for almost a week."

"Okay." I looked at my watch. "We should be getting back. It's after 7:30." The debate wasn't due to start until 9:00 eastern time, but Missouri was on central time, and it would start an hour earlier for us.

"Okay."

We walked the few blocks to the HQ, and just as we reached the front door, Josh's cell phone rang. He rolled his eyes as he saw the number on the caller id. "C.J.," he mouthed to me as he answered the phone. "Yeah?"

He nodded at me, smirking. "Yeah, I grabbed 'em." There was a long pause, and his expression changed to one of annoyance. "Okay, okay, I'll leave 'em at the front desk at the hotel. No, I won't forget. Jeez! Go interrogate someone else! Bye." He stuffed the phone in his pocket and glowered at the ground.

"Josh." I reached out and touched his arm.

He looked up at me. "What!" he snapped.

"We're going to be okay tonight," I said softly.

Josh looked at me for a long moment, then sighed and closed his eyes, leaning up against the door. "I wish I could just believe you when you say things like that."

I wanted to hug him, but I was afraid someone would see us, so I squeezed his arm. "We're going to be okay," I repeated.

Josh took a deep breath, and nodded. "Thanks."

When we walked inside, we found the rest of the crew already huddled around the television set. The couch was full, with Toby and Donna claiming the prime real estate in the center and two of the St. Louis staff crowded in on either side of them. The other staff and the volunteers were sprawled on the floor and seated in folding chairs on either side of the couch. I grabbed a folding chair for myself and pulled it up behind them. Josh stood awkwardly off to the side of the group.

"Come on, it's about to start," I motioned to him. "Grab a chair."

"I don't think I can sit down," he whispered at me.

"Shh!" Donna shushed us.

"Good evening," intoned the voice of the moderator from the television. "On behalf of the Commission on Presidential Debates I am pleased to welcome you to this first presidential debate of the 1998 campaign. I'm Jim Lehrer of the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour. The debate will be conducted within a format agreed to by the two campaigns. We'll have the candidates at podiums. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes, and rebuttal is limited to one minute. The candidates are President Lawrence Armstrong, the Republican nominee, and Governor Josiah Bartlet, former governor of New Hampshire, the Democratic nominee."

Josh paced back and forth behind me. My heart was in my throat. All of our efforts were coming together in ninety minutes that could make or break us.

The camera focused in on Bartlet. He managed to make the black suit and red tie his wife and Mandy had fought to get him to wear look just short of regal, and I nodded in approval. "And now the first question, as determined by a flip of a coin, goes to Governor Bartlet." As Lehrer asked a question about Medicare, I studied our candidate's expression. He looked thoughtful, intelligent, and poised, which was unsurprising, but gratifying to see. I hoped he would impress the television audience as much as he'd impressed me the first time I'd heard him speak. Armstrong's rebuttal was articulate, but uninspired.

"Next question, for President Armstrong. Mr. President, you have questioned whether Governor Bartlet has the experience to be the President of the United States. Can you clarify what you meant by that?"

Everyone in the HQ drew in a single breath and held it. Obviously having anticipated this question, Armstrong launched into a two-minute monologue that was simultaneously a defense of himself for his negative campaign and a description of Bartlet's alleged shortcomings. I had to admit the man was good. My blood boiled, and I hoped people would be able to see how two-faced he sounded.

"Governor Bartlet, you have one minute for rebuttal."

Bartlet, at least, looked completely unfazed by Armstrong's words. "As the former governor of a small state, my experience is certainly somewhat different from President Armstrong's, and I have no argument with that. What I question, though, is whether this difference might not in fact be a positive change for the country. One in five Americans living in poverty are children. Twenty-two percent of the people of this great country have no health insurance. Even crime, which Larry promised to crush when he ran four years ago, is up more than eight percent. What has this fabled Washington experience brought us for the last four years? The people of New Hampshire can attest to the fact that I have always been a presence, and have in fact made the effort to personally meet as many of them as possible. As President, I will bring that same kind of personal focus to the White House. I won't rest on my laurels. I will be a President that speaks for the people."

"Way to go, Josh!" someone yelled from the front, and I turned and beamed at him. He had stopped pacing, and was now standing against the side of the couch, a slight smile on his face.

"He called him Larry!" one of the volunteers squealed.

"Ssh!" Donna shushed again.

Josh flashed me a grin and squeezed in among the others to take a seat on the floor in front of Toby.

I studied Armstrong's face. Bartlet's point about crime had obviously surprised him, and he was knocked off-guard. Bartlet had also managed to work the comment in during a rebuttal, which now meant that the three minutes total for that question were up, and Armstrong would have no chance to directly counterattack. In addition to all of that, the governor had also managed to turn the extremely formal debate format we'd agreed to only reluctantly into something much more informal with a single mention of Armstrong's first name. I couldn't imagine many politicians pulling that off without sounding cocky, but Bartlet had done it. It couldn't possibly have gotten off to a better start. I shifted excitedly in my chair and leaned closer to the television.

Armstrong never quite recovered from that moment. As the debate continued, Bartlet deftly warded off his attacks and spoke eloquently about the policies for change he wanted to implement. Adopting Josh's strategy like the consummate professional he was, Bartlet managed to make every point of his platform sound like it was an idea that had been drawn directly from the collective voice of the American people. Even the gun control issue rolled right off him.

The mood in the HQ quickly grew lighter and rowdier. Donna stopped even attempting to shush us about halfway in, and periodic cheers began to emerge from our group that grew louder and more frequent as the night wore on. When Bartlet managed to paint Armstrong as a president who was no longer in touch with what Americans wanted, while simultaneously employing Josh's strategy to make the point that only Bartlet could represent all Americans, Josh let out a shout of excitement. Toby slapped him on the back, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. Throughout the debate he came at "Bartlet speaks for the people" from so many angles that the point was clearly made -- and believed.

When Bartlet reached the closing statement I had prepared and rehearsed with him, the room grew suddenly quiet again. He turned to look directly into the camera, and the look on the man's face was so sincere, so real.

"I'd like to thank the people of St. Louis and Washington University, the Presidential Debate Commission and all of the other people who made this night possible. And most of all, I'd like to thank those of you who are watching tonight, because you folks and your fellow Americans are what this process is all about."

I glanced around the room. I saw Toby nodding, and every eye was fixed on Bartlet's face on the television.

"Mr. Armstrong has said some compelling things this evening, but his own record tells another story. I decided to run in this election because I saw a danger that my three daughters would become a part of the first generation of Americans to raise their families in a supremely wealthy nation that does not even bother to care for its own children. It wasn't until this year that Mr. Armstrong even attempted to put forth a plan to solve the health care crisis in this country, and that proposal is, as of today, still tied up in committees. Crime is up, the number of Americans living in poverty is up, the number of Americans with health coverage is down. I believe I speak for all Americans when I say that this country deserves better than that. We deserve a country where we take our prosperity and use it to benefit all American families, not just an elite few. We deserve a change."

Bartlet's expression changed from one of unyielding strength to one of sheer confidence. "In two years' time, this country will be poised to enter a new millennium. The road that will take us there is still being built. As a nation, we can make it sturdy enough for all of us to walk on together. Thank you, and God bless America."

As he finished, the room erupted in loud cheers and a standing ovation, and then all of a sudden everyone was hugging each other. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mandy hugging Josh. Donna turned around and leaned over the back of the couch to throw her arms around me, then turned and hugged Toby. One of the volunteers I didn't even know hugged me from behind, and I turned around to hug her back. By the time she had turned to someone else, Josh was next to me, his hand on my arm, looking at me with an expression of measureless love and elation. My heart soared.

He threw his arms around me, and we held each other in an embrace far too long for a simple congratulatory hug, but there was too much commotion in the room for anyone to notice. He finally pulled back, then leaned forward again. "God, I want to kiss you right now," he whispered in my ear. His breath felt warm against my face, and my skin tingled where it had touched me.

"I love you," I whispered back.

Josh hugged me again. "I love you, too," he said, his cheek pressed to mine. "We did it. You and me, we did it."

He let go of me, but still held me in his gaze. "What a team!" he yelled, throwing his arms up in the air in a cheer of pure, unadulterated joy.

Time stood still for me in that moment. I'm sure the cheering and hugging continued around me, but I could neither hear nor see it. It was as if Josh and I had so completely filled the room with love that everything else had been squeezed out.

###

"... and Peter Jennings called him erudite." Josh rolled over onto his back, gesturing wildly, barely able to contain his excitement. He had been like this ever since we'd left the HQ. Like a child on Christmas morning.

"I don't think most of Peter Jennings' audience even knows what that word means," I mused.

He propped himself up on his elbow, and the covers fell down, exposing his chest. "Yeah, but it sounds good, doesn't it? Maybe they'll look it up."

"I think he must have been referring to the closing statement," I said insolently.

Josh growled and rolled over until he was lying on top of me, his bare skin pressing against mine. "Oh, so *you're* going to take credit for this, now?"

"Lehrer sure sounded impressed in the post-debate commentary on PBS."

Josh's eyes shone. "Didn't he? 'A clearly successful first debate for Governor Jed Bartlet of New Hampshire.' C.J. must be having a hard time not making some of those idiots from the press eat their words. Especially the one who asked if the election was already over!"

I played with the hair at the back of his neck, smiling. "I told you we'd be okay tonight."

His expression grew thoughtful, and he reached down to touch my face. "Yeah, you did, didn't you?"

I turned my head to kiss the palm of his hand. "One of these days you're going to start listening to me," I said playfully.

Josh grinned. "Don't count on it."

"I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow's staff meeting. Going over the press commentary will be a little different this time."

"I can't wait to see the next set of numbers."

Josh lay his head down on my chest, and I felt a deep-seated sense of contentment. It had been a long time since he'd been excited to see the latest poll -- and a long time since either of us had felt so unabashedly happy. "You were so right when you called us a good team."

"In more ways than one," he said suggestively, reaching under the covers to the inside of my thigh and kissing my neck.

I groaned. "Again? God, you're energetic tonight."

"Mmm-hmm," he responded, moving up to my earlobe.

"Don't you think we should get some sl-" He cut off my words with a kiss, and I felt my body respond to him, almost against my will.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Startled, Josh rolled off me and sat bolt upright in bed.

"It's probably someone who's got the wrong room. They'll go away," I said, trying to pull him back down toward me. I knew it wasn't likely to be anyone from our group. We had an unwritten rule among the staff that what little space we had to ourselves was sacred, that retiring to our hotel rooms meant that we wouldn't be disturbed for anything short of an emergency. It was one of the only things that kept us all from killing each other -- not to mention the only way Josh and I had managed to pull off the secrecy of our relationship for so long.

The knock came again, sounding somehow more insistent this time. "Josh?" It was C.J.'s voice.

Josh threw the covers off and leaped out of bed. "Shit. Shit!"

"What?"

"I forgot to leave her glasses at the front desk." His eyes darted around the room, looking for something to throw on. He ran over to the closet and rummaged through his clothes. "Doesn't this cheapass hotel provide a robe, at the prices we're paying?" he hissed.

There were shuffling sounds as Josh quickly got dressed, and then I heard the creak of the door as he pulled it open. It stopped at the chain lock with a clang. "What do you want?" he barked.

"My glasses, Joshua? Which you were supposed to leave at the front desk? Which you promised you wouldn't forget this time?"

"Couldn't this have waited until morning?"

"Josh, I still have work to do tonight. I heard you had the television on, so I figured you were still awake."

Josh groaned, and I knew he was thinking about how it wasn't the television she had managed to overhear. "Just a sec."

I heard the door close, and he flew back into the room, wearing navy blue sweatpants and his Harvard sweatshirt on inside out and backwards. He groped first at the piles on his dresser and then started frantically rummaging through his bag.

"They're in your coat pocket," I reminded.

"Shh!" His eyes were wide, flashing panic, and I felt my heart start to pound. Not because of C.J. standing in the hall, however, but because this scenario was beginning to feel frighteningly familiar. I knew that look -- that terrified, "hiding this is the only important thing" look -- from back when we'd been together the first time. I had hated the feeling that he was so ashamed of me, and eventually the relationship had exploded in such a spectacular fashion that it had taken more than ten years for us to find each other again.

But Josh had gotten over that, hadn't he? The decision to keep things under wraps had been a mutual one, this time, to protect Bartlet during a difficult campaign. He'd even seemed willing to go public, at the beginning, and I had been the one to talk him out of it. Which is why I couldn't understand why he looked so terrified at the thought that C.J. might figure things out. It wasn't as if she of all people wouldn't have enough reasons to help us be discreet.

Josh ran over to the chair where he had draped his coat and retrieved the glasses from the pocket. As quickly as he could, he rushed over to the door and opened it again.

"Here," I heard him say.

"Have you got someone in there with you?" C.J. sounded intrigued.

"Of course not!" Josh's voice was a little too insistent.

"I dunno, Josh, you're so agitated that I'm starting to wonder if I should find out whether Mandy managed to make it back to her own room for the night."

"Go to bed, Claudia Jean," Josh snarled.

"I think you'd better get back to bed, too," C.J. teased in an artificially light, singsongy voice.

"Good night, Claudia Jean." He closed the door.

"Good night, Mandy," she called from the hall.

It felt like an eternity before Josh came back in to the part of the room where I could see him. He didn't look over at me at all, just sat down at the edge of the bed, his back to me. He rubbed his forehead nervously.

I sat up and crawled over to the end of the bed. "Are you okay?"

He didn't respond.

I put my hand on his back. "Josh, she doesn't know."

"She could tell." His voice was shaking. "She could see it on my face. After what happened tonight in the coffee shop-"

I let loose an exasperated sigh and drew my hand away. Why was he so hypersensitive about this? "Josh, she was just teasing you. And not about me -- about *Mandy*."

"And she was standing in the hall- she heard-"

"She thought you had the television on!"

"She's going to figure it out, Sam."

I narrowed my eyes in irritation. "So why don't we just tell her?"

He spun his head around and looked at me incredulously. "Are you crazy?"

I shook my head. "C.J. is our press secretary, Josh. We probably should have told her a long time ago."

Josh's eyes were wide with fear. "I thought we had decided to keep this to ourselves!"

I shrugged. "We need to make sure the press doesn't find anything to hold against Bartlet, and what better way to prevent that than letting the press secretary in on the secret?"

"We're not going to tell her, Sam." His voice was adamant.

"You were ready to tell *everyone* last fall, what's wrong now with just telling C.J.?"

He turned away from me again and put his head in his hands. "I must have been temporarily insane."

I felt like I had been slapped, or at least slapped down, and I reacted by standing and grabbing my pants from the nightstand. My cheeks burned with anger as I put them on and picked up my shirt to throw it around my shoulders.

Josh whirled around at me. "What are you doing?"

"I think I should go back to my own room," I said coldly.

"No! I mean- not right now. What if C.J. is still out there, and she sees you?"

I stopped dressing. "So I should stay."

Josh looked back down at the floor. "Don't go out in the hall, Sam. Please."

Uncertain what I should do, I removed all but my underwear and got back under the covers. Josh continued sitting at the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, his forehead resting on his hands.

"Are you going to sit there all night?" I snapped at him.

Josh stood and walked, zombie-like, over to the side of the bed. Still wearing his sweats, he climbed under the covers, flipped the switch on the alarm clock, and turned off the light. I reached for him, but he turned his back to me. I turned abruptly away and huddled over to the other side of the bed near the wall, hurt and angry.

At around two A.M., I finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

###

I awoke the next morning before the alarm went off and slipped out of bed to take a shower. I always tried to be up and dressed and out of Josh's room early when I stayed with him, as he did when he stayed with me, and I knew that today would hardly be the best day to change that pattern. As I stood under the hot water, I reflected on the night before. It had been alarming how quickly both of us had gone from being so happy to our old pattern of fear. And just as before, we were afraid of very different things -- Josh that C.J. would find out about us, and me, well, I was afraid that Josh wouldn't be able to deal with this relationship for much longer. I hadn't felt this way since the first time we had been together, and I didn't like reliving the memory. I turned the water up as hot as I could stand it, trying to steam away the feeling that the unthinkable was about to happen.

After a long fifteen minutes, I finally stepped out of the shower, toweling off and getting dressed again in the clothes I'd worn the day before. I was planning to slip out of Josh's room and head back to mine to get dressed for real, but when I opened the door to the bathroom, Josh was standing on the other side.

"Hi," he said. He was still wearing the sweats he'd thrown on last night. The tag on his sweatshirt protruded comically from his throat. He ran his fingers through his rumpled hair and looked at me sheepishly.

"You need to get in here? I was just leaving."

"No- yeah- don't leave yet, okay?"

"Okay."

Josh went into the bathroom, and I walked back out into the room and sat down on the corner of the bed, feeling apprehensive. I grabbed the remote from the nightstand and flicked on the TV. For the next fifteen minutes I tried to watch the morning news and their commentary on the debate, but I was completely unable to concentrate on anything except the worrisome thoughts and images in my head.

Josh emerged from the bathroom in a clean shirt and pants and came over to sit next to me on the bed. I flicked off the TV set and waited. His still-wet hair formed pools along the edge of his jaw and dripped onto his lap as we sat there, Josh looking at the floor while I was looking everywhere but at him. My heart was pounding in fear of what he would say to me. Afraid that he'd tell me, now, that this was it, that he couldn't do this anymore.

"I freaked out last night," he said finally.

"Yes." How else was I supposed to respond to that?

"I- I'm sorry."

I closed my eyes in relief. Well, at least the worst wasn't happening. With the fear gone, though, the anger welled up in me again, and I looked over at him, not even trying to hide it.

"I know it must have reminded you of- oh, fuck." He let his breath out in a whoosh. "I'm sorry."

"She doesn't know, Josh."

He sighed. "I know. I'll just tell her that she woke me up when I was trying to get some sleep, finally, and caught me at a bad time."

I nodded.

"Can- can we be happy today? I mean- last night was such a great night, and we should be able to ride that all day today. I don't want to spoil it. Any more than I already did, I mean."

I nodded again.

Josh put his hand on my leg and squeezed, his eyes intense. "I love you, Sam. I love you." His voice was insistent.

I smiled weakly. "I love you, too, you jerk."

At that, he closed his eyes, leaned over, and kissed me gently.

"You know there is going to be at least *some* fallout from last night," I said when he pulled back from the kiss, nudging him with my elbow.

"What's that?"

"C.J. is going to tease you mercilessly about your alleged night of passion with Mandy."

Josh groaned and leaned back on his arm. "Don't remind me."

"You want to go get some breakfast? I've just got to stop by my room and change. Then maybe we can come back here and pack." We were flying to Los Angeles that night to prepare for the second debate at UCLA, and we had to be out of the hotel by noon.

"Yeah, okay. Just let me put some socks on and grab a tie." He stood, pulling me close to him one last time before taking the few steps over to the dresser.

I brightened immeasurably after that. I draped the tie I had worn the previous day over my arm on my way out the door, and was smiling when I followed Josh out into the hall. I had already turned my thoughts to the long day ahead of us by the time we ran into C.J. and Toby passing by Josh's room just as the two of us were emerging from it.

"Good morning," C.J. said, coming to a standstill in front of us and flashing us both a stunned look. I watched the blood drain from Josh's face as my own heart clenched.

"Hey," I managed to say.

"Sam- Sam just stopped by this morning to go over s- some things we want to talk about at the meeting today," Josh stammered, looking anything but innocent.

C.J. scrutinized me from top to bottom, evidently noticing that I was wearing yesterday's shirt and carrying yesterday's tie. I fought -- hard -- with a blush.

"You two need a ride over to the office?" Toby asked, not picking up on what was happening.

"Uh, yeah," Josh said, following them, evidently forgetting about having breakfast together. Or changing his mind about it. All of the fears of earlier that morning came crashing back, triple strength, and I flinched visibly.

I stopped in front of my room as they passed it, remembering that I still needed to change. "I'll see you guys over there -- I've got some things to pick up in my room."

"Okay," C.J. called as the three of them walked off. Josh didn't even look back at me.

###

The St. Louis office was a zoo that morning as the core campaign staff packed up their temporary offices in preparation for the trip. The local office workers were all charged with helping us sort what was absolutely necessary for us to take along from what could be left behind, and carrying bags and boxes out to the cars waiting outside. I could hardly walk through the hall without running into either our people or theirs, rushing around, carrying huge armloads of paraphernalia. But Josh remained shut away in his office all morning, despite everyone's expectation that he would be running around gloating about last night's debate. Last night. It seemed like a month ago, now.

It took until the morning was almost over for me to work up the courage to go talk to him. I kept hoping that he would come out, catch my eye, give me some sign that he wasn't shutting down completely, but he didn't. It wasn't clear whether C.J. knew about us at this point or just suspected, but what was completely clear was that Josh was assuming the worst. For the hundredth time since last night, I longed to convince Josh that we should just tell C.J. the whole truth and get it over with. I knew this would all be so much easier with a strong ally on our side. I knew equally, though, that Josh would never even consider it. I felt frightened, and very much alone.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore, and I peeked my head in through Josh's office door. He was sitting at his desk, staring at the computer screen, piles of papers stacked around him, ready to be tucked into a briefcase. "Hi."

"Hey," he answered, not looking up from the screen. No happy "it's nice to see you in the middle of the day" smile, no explanation for the missed breakfast date.

"Don't you have to be out of your hotel room by noon?" I prodded.

"I had Donna call and ask for a later checkout time. I'm going to stop by and pack up my stuff on the way to the airport."

I stood there awkwardly for a few moments, watching him. He didn't look up.

"I missed you at breakfast," I finally said.

"Yeah, well. There's been so much to do this morning. The staff meeting's in an hour and a half, and I have to have the latest numbers ready." His eyes were still fixed on the computer screen.

"Josh, I think maybe we should-"

"Sam, I'm really busy right now," he said, cutting me off.

Suddenly it was 1986 again. Josh's tiny office transformed into a larger, slightly more cluttered, much less professional-looking campaign office in Manhattan. The computer became a typewriter at a tiny desk in the main office lobby. "Silverstein for Senate" signs replaced the "Bartlet for America" signs on the walls. I had just been accepted to Yale law school, and had handed Josh a folder with a promise inside, a promise that represented the only way we could spend the next two years curled up next to each other every night. And he took it and threw it back in my face. Sam, I said I don't have time for your asinine little memo right now! So scared someone -- anyone at all -- would find out he loved me. So ashamed.

"Oh. Okay, I'll leave you alone, then." I didn't even recognize my own voice; it sounded like it belonged to a frightened child.

Josh looked up at me, and his face went pale with recognition. "Oh, God, Sam."

"No, it's okay -- I've got enough to do, myself, right now." I backed out the door, shaking.

"Sam!" he called after me, and I stopped. I looked back in through Josh's office door, and saw him sitting with his face in his hands. "Come back," he whispered. I could barely hear him.

Still trembling, I stepped back into his office.

"Could you close the door?" Josh said, his words muffled by his hands.

I complied, keeping my hand fixed on the doorknob.

"If- if you sat down, it wouldn't feel so much like you were going to run out on me any second."

I extracted my fingers from the deathgrip I had on the knob, but remained standing near the door.

Josh finally looked up. The expression on his face made him look like he'd been through a war. "I couldn't be screwing this up much worse if I tried, could I?"

I didn't -- couldn't -- respond. My heart was beating too quickly, choking out any chance of anything coherent emerging from my mouth.

"I don't know what to do, Sam. She didn't even mention what happened this morning. No teasing about Mandy from last night. She just sat there while Toby drove us over here this morning. I don't think I've ever seen her so quiet."

A knock at the door interrupted us, and we both jumped. Without waiting for a response, C.J. opened the door, walked in, and closed it behind her. As soon as the door closed and I saw the expression on her face, I was absolutely certain she knew everything. Suddenly feeling lightheaded, I walked over to the chair next to Josh's desk and sat down. I was afraid to look at Josh, but I sneaked a peek and saw that the vulnerability of a moment before had been replaced with anger. Josh was spoiling for a fight.

C.J. leaned up against the door. I wasn't sure if she was bracing herself or trying to make sure neither of us could escape. "I've been wondering whether the two of you have something you need to tell me."

"What are you suggesting, C.J.?" Josh's face set in a look of indignance.

"I have to think like a reporter, Josh. I get paid to put two and two together. So let me tell you what I know. I come by your room in the middle of the night -- you're harried, you're nervous, you look a little ravished. I think it's Mandy. Then I see Mandy in the bar, and she hasn't seen you since the debate. You rode back to the hotel with Sam, she tells me. So I think, okay, maybe they both picked up some nice girls."

I finally turned my eyes fully to Josh, whose face was burning with an untapped rage that only just hid his embarrassment.

"Then, this morning, I see you-" she pointed at me, "walk out of your room," she said, pointing at Josh.

"So?" he sneered.

"So he was wearing the same clothes that he had on yesterday, Joshua."

There was an awkward pause as C.J.'s eyes questioned us, and neither of us dared answer.

"If I'm from the Enquirer, this is my front page piece, today. If I'm from the Reliable Source, I have my best gossip so far this year. They pay me to read between the lines, here, boys, and I want to know if I'm right."

"About *what*, C.J.? You want to know if I was fucking Sam last night?"

C.J. shook her head slowly. "Oh, bravo, Josh. You get big points for sensitivity on that one."

Josh raised his voice. "You don't have any wiggle room on the sensitivity front yourself, Claudia Jean -- I'm not the one bursting into *your* office and asking who *you've* been sleeping with!"

"I'm not- Jesus, I'm not gossiping, Josh! I shouldn't have to tell a strategist that if there *is* something going on here, the press secretary needs to know about it!" C.J. yelled back.

Josh rolled his eyes. "C.J., I'm not sleeping with Sam. I'm not sleeping with Mandy. I'm not sleeping with anyone, in fact. So you can go back to keeping your lurid little fantasies to yourself."

I shifted uncomfortably and looked at the floor.

"Sam." C.J.'s voice was firm.

I looked up at her.

"I've seen your file."

My eyes burned with anger as I realized what she must be referring to. She was legally bound not to say anything about my confidential intake questionnaire in front of Josh -- not that it contained any information he wasn't already completely aware of, but C.J. didn't know that for sure yet -- so she was walking on thin ice here.

I glared at her. I'd be damned if I was going to let her manipulate me into telling her about our relationship this way. "That was between me and Leo, C.J. Keep your nose out of it."

Josh looked from me to the press secretary, visibly confused, but said nothing.

"Fine." C.J. looked completely fed up. "Let's just suppose. If there *were* something I needed to know, you two would tell me, right?"

"Of course we would," Josh answered crossly.

She threw up her hands in frustration. "Okay." She took one last look at us. We all knew she knew. I looked back down at the floor, and heard the door slam as C.J. left.

"What was that thing with your file?" Josh still sounded angry.

"The intake questionnaire," I mumbled. "When they asked about sexual orientation, I told them I was bisexual."

I looked up at Josh and saw his eyes fly open.

"It didn't stop them from hiring me."

"Are you completely out of your mind? What the hell were you thinking?"

My voice grew stronger, and my eyes met his in a determined stare. "When we signed onto this campaign, they asked us about that -- at the same time they asked us about our family backgrounds and whether or not we'd ever used drugs and everything else that could possibly be politically damaging. I wasn't going to lie about it. Any of it."

"But did you have to tell them you were ... ?" His voice trailed off. He couldn't say the word.

"I am, Josh." And so are you, I wanted to say, but I bit back the words. This definitely wasn't the best time to get into a discussion about that -- a discussion that would almost certainly turn into a fight at the best of times. "Besides, at the time I had no idea you and I would ever end up together again, so I didn't realize I could end up tipping them off to something I didn't want them to know about."

Josh looked miserable. "So she knows."

"Yeah."

"And she knows we don't want her to know."

She knows *you* don't want her to know. "Yeah."

Josh leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Well. The world didn't end."

I smiled despite myself. "No."

He leaned forward again and reached out to me across the desk, tentatively, with his hand. I took it in mine. He sighed again, pressed my fingers to his cheek, and kissed the palm of my hand.

###

The incident with C.J. continued to trouble us. She didn't bring it up again, but it took weeks before the three of us got back anything resembling the light banter that had become commonplace between us over the past year. Things were somewhat better than that between me and Josh, but it was clear that he felt trapped between two diametrically opposed needs: a need to show me that things weren't going to go back to the way they had been during our first ill-fated attempt at a relationship on one hand, and a need to withdraw from me in order to prevent anyone else from finding out about us on the other. We both slept alone for the next three weeks because Josh didn't want to risk getting caught again, and although I missed him terribly, I knew better than to push him.

Eventually, though, my worries about both the tension between me and Josh and about what C.J. knew needed to be pushed to the back of my mind, because the campaign was going badly again. The polls after the first debate had shown us even with or even ahead of Armstrong, and that had buoyed us for a short time afterward, and the other two debates had also gone well, though not as clearly in our favor as the first. Yet the debate numbers proved to be soft, and we took a serious dip again three weeks before the election.

It was clear that the problems were concentrated in certain key states, mainly in the Midwest, so we spent most of the last month before the election bouncing back and forth between Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri. Although the debates seemed to have allayed voters' fears that Bartlet wasn't ready to be President, our support was still weak there among moderate voters with no party affiliation. Josh and Mandy were spearheading the effort to make our voice heard in those quarters, and for the most part I managed to stay out of it. I hated this part of politics -- the part that required us to manipulate our message in order to appeal to various groups of people our candidate may or may not actually be aligned with. It seemed very close to deceitful, and definitely beneath Bartlet. But even I could see it was necessary.

It was while we were in Michigan that Josh came up with the strategy that eventually ended up working for us. It was late on a Tuesday night, and I had been out all day with the Governor as he gave speeches to various auto workers' groups throughout the Detroit metropolitan area. Josh had spent the day hammering out a strategy with Mandy in the Detroit HQ, and when I got back, weary from the constant travel, they were still sitting in the office Josh had temporarily adopted as his own, working.

As I walked over to Josh's office, I could see him and Mandy through the open door, and I stopped about three feet away from the doorway for a moment to watch them. Mandy was sitting in a chair next to Josh's desk, which in and of itself wasn't unusual, but for some reason, the *way* she was sitting -- leaning over so that she was just the tiniest bit too close -- made it obvious that she was flirting. My stomach quivered as I watched her reach over and touch his arm in a gesture that went one step beyond friendly. And yet the way Josh was looking back at her, collegially and dispassionately, reassured me that he, at least, didn't return her obvious affections.

"Knock knock," I said aloud when I reached the doorway.

Josh looked up at me with a big smile. "Hey, how did it go today?"

I nodded. "Great. He's got union support, that's for sure."

"Yeah, well, let's hope they all vote," Mandy said doubtfully, scooting her chair back to stand. "I'd better get going. See you tomorrow, Josh," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She slipped past me on her way out the door. "See you, Sam."

"How was your day?" I asked softly, after she had left.

"Good." His voice was cheerful. "I think we may have something. Mandy's smart, Sam -- really smart."

"She was flirting with you." It was a statement, not an accusation.

Josh shrugged. "Yeah."

"So what did you come up with?" I asked, changing the subject and sitting down in the seat Mandy had vacated.

He hesitated. "I- I really want to know what you think of it."

I was taken aback, but flattered. Josh always told me about his ideas, but had never asked me what I thought of them. "Sure."

"Okay. You know the fight right now is for the center. Armstrong's major strategy so far has been to portray us as too liberal, too outside of the mainstream, and himself as the only moderate candidate in the race. So far he's managed to make that point in speeches that then got quoted in the press. He's avoided attacking us directly in campaign advertising." Josh paused and fixed his eyes on me. "So if we take the first shot, we'll catch him unaware."

"What do you mean, take the first shot?" I started to feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Josh set a small stack of paper down in front of me. "This is a transcript of a speech Armstrong gave last week at a dinner -- sponsored in part by the Catholic Alliance."

"Jesus," I breathed. The Catholic Alliance was an organization dedicated to fundamentally altering the political process to reflect conservative Catholic values. Extremely traditional definitions of family, strong stances against abortion under any circumstances, charter schools, they epitomized all of the views of the religious right. I thumbed through the transcript, and I didn't have to read very far to see that Armstrong had expressed some opinions that were very much outside of the moderate views he had been otherwise trying to say were his own.

"What would you think if we were to use some of this in a couple of television spots? You know -- juxtapose Armstrong talking about how moderate he is with some of the things he says here? They could be targeted in particular states-"

"Attack ads, Josh?" I interrupted. "That's your new strategy?"

"You don't like it." He looked disappointed.

"You expected me to like it?" I was incredulous. "Attack ads aren't what Bartlet is about."

Josh's eyes flashed and his voice grew intense. "Armstrong has been talking out of both sides of his mouth for a long time. I want to nail him for it."

I shook my head. "Not- not like this, Josh. Bartlet's better than that. *You're* better than that."

He picked up a graph that he'd obviously been going over with Mandy and waved it in front of me. "The voters aren't paying attention. That makes it really hard to run a decent campaign. Only twenty percent of the people say that they're following the election at all closely, and that gives a huge advantage to the incumbent! People don't respond to a positive campaign when things are like this -- we need to get their attention, and *then* we can focus on the issues."

"Can't you get their attention by bringing up issues they care about? The auto workers we talked to tonight-"

"Sam," he said, beginning to sound exasperated, "the electorate isn't full of union people. Most of the voters don't care, this time. We've got to get the attention of the general public, and we've got to get it fast. We don't have a lot of time."

I fidgeted in my chair.

"This is what works. Something negative to get their attention, then once we have their attention, we can really convince them that we represent them. We've got to make people care enough to want to vote -- and vote for our candidate. Or at least against Armstrong."

I was at a loss. "Couldn't that backfire on us? People hate attack ads, Josh. It'll knock the whole tone of the campaign down several pegs. And they'll be completely justified in blaming Bartlet for it."

"If we don't put the ad together, and if we don't pay for it, then we're not the ones responsible." Josh spoke in a low, quiet tone.

"So who's going to run the ad, then?"

"Mandy knows a group. They're interested in doing the ad themselves. It wouldn't be ours, Sam, it'd be theirs."

I was shocked. "But that's not legal! Don't you have to credit it as a donation if you coordinate with them?"

Josh shrugged. "We didn't coordinate with them. Mandy talked to them, and they arrived at the idea on their own."

I gulped. That took care of the legalities -- barely -- but- "But it was your idea."

"It'll be their money. Their byline. We get to lambaste Armstrong, and Bartlet gets to keep the moral high ground. Still don't like it?"

"I think it stinks to high heaven, Josh. It's dishonest. This is so far beneath Bartlet it's- he'll never go for it."

Josh sighed. "He's already approved it."

I was certain I'd misheard him. "You've already run this by Bartlet? When did you talk to him? He was gone all day!"

"We had the governor and Leo in here just before you came by."

I raised my voice. "Why did you ask me what I thought if you already had your mind made up?"

"I guess I was hoping to convince you." He looked wounded.

I drew in a breath and held my irritation at the attack ads in check. I didn't like the idea -- not at all. But I didn't want to fight with Josh, either, especially not with the way things had been between us lately. "I guess if Bartlet thinks it's okay ..." my voice trailed off. I didn't know what to say.

"You still don't like it."

"No," I admitted.

"Bartlet's said plenty of negative things about Armstrong in *your* speeches," Josh said, defensive.

"It's not just the fact of saying negative things, Josh, it's the whole tone. Attack ads turn a clean campaign into a dirty one. Political scientists will write about the negative tone of the endgame of this campaign for years. Do you really want to be responsible for that?"

"If it helps us win, don't you think it's worth it?"

I sighed. We only had three weeks, and we were behind. He had a point; it *was* time for some sort of radical move.

"I'm sorry I brought this up." Josh sounded sad. "I don't- I don't want to fight with you."

"I don't want to fight, either," I mumbled.

He blinked a couple of times, and swallowed visibly. "You and me -- are we okay?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper. He sounded so uncertain.

My heart lurched, and I resisted the urge to reach out to him. "We're better than okay," I said, trying to sound reassuring.

Josh looked over at the open office door, and then back at me. "I want to kiss you."

"You can do more than kiss me tonight if you stay with me," I said impulsively.

Josh hesitated. He looked around involuntarily to see whether anyone might have overheard us, despite being well out of hearing distance of anyone else in the HQ. Then his brown eyes locked on mine. "Okay."

I grinned. "Now *I* want to kiss *you*."

He smiled back, and I felt the connection between us, strained by the distance of the past few weeks, begin to restore itself. Attack ads or no attack ads, I was crazy about this man.

"I'm not interested in Mandy, Sam."

I nodded, still smiling. "I know."

###

The next week was glorious -- even despite the still-discouraging polls and the fact that we hardly had a moment to breathe. It seemed we were in a different state every night. Certainly we were in a different hotel every night, as the pace of the campaign grew more frantic and Bartlet tried to cover as much ground as possible in the short time he had left before the election. But in retrospect, moments from that single week are what I remember most vividly when I look back on the entire campaign. Josh and I hardly slept, exhausting ourselves by day on the campaign trail and by making love in countless different ways at night. In our sleep-deprived state, there were many moments that week that we got careless, allowed the expressions on our faces to betray a hint of our feelings for each other when we were out in public. I know Josh irrationally blames that week for what happened next, but I can't feel the same, because it's that week I cherish more than anything. The week before we watched it all slip away from us.

The letter was already in my box when we ducked into the head campaign office in Manchester on a detour on our way from New York to Florida. I wondered afterward just how long it had been sitting there, under a whole stack of unopened mail. Any number of people could have grabbed it and read it. At around 3:30 on that awful Sunday afternoon I finally picked it up and opened it, still standing in front of the inboxes in the mailroom. There was no return address, but the postmark indicated that it had been sent from Washington.

October 4, 1998

Dear Mr. Seaborn and Mr. Lyman,

Out!Now represents the interests of the gay and lesbian communities by staging a war against homophobia, and outing is a weapon in our struggle.

Journalist Randy Shilts wrote that "the greatest impediments to homosexuals' progress are not heterosexuals, but closeted homosexuals." The two of you hold enough power to manipulate popular opinion of the entire nation, and, should your candidate win the election, you will likely both be poised to both assume high positions in the new administration. Out queers are normally deemed morally unfit for such positions, and it is essential to point out for the sake of the common good that such assumptions are seriously misguided. Outing the people who occupy these positions shatters stereotypes and compels the public to reconsider its attitude, while being complicit in their closetedness allows prejudice to flourish.

Since neither of you has worked against queer causes, we wish you no ill will. However, we consider remaining closeted when so many of your queer brothers and sisters are facing daily discrimination to be an act of cowardice, and it will not be tolerated. We urge both of you to publically address the issue of your sexuality immediately. If you choose to disregard this letter, we will turn your case over to the media.

The Out!Now Coalition for Honesty

cc: C.J. Cregg, Press Secretary, Bartlet Campaign

You know how they say that in the moments before death, your life flashes before your eyes? In that moment, the entire history of my relationship with Josh flashed before mine. Images appeared and reappeared, fading from one into the other until they were nothing but an incoherent blur. The beginning, when Josh put a tentative arm around an excited, 21-year old version of me on a beach in West Haven, Connecticut. The first time we made love, clumsily and inexpertly, on an old mattress on the floor of Josh's Manhattan apartment. The excruciating pain at hiding our relationship so thoroughly, leading to our ultimate breakup in that same apartment several months later. A heartwrenching sendoff to Duke in my house in Yonkers a month after that, as he gave me a shell that had belonged to his dead sister, for luck. For the next ten years, regular phone calls in which we both tried to keep our voices light, each pretending that we had long since gotten over the other. Josh, like some sort of strange, sweet savior, appearing at the window during a meeting at my New York law firm and luring me away from the life I hated. Telling me in countless ways that he loved me, taking what to him were immeasurable risks, just to get me back. Crying uncontrollably in my arms after his father died on the night of the Illinois primary. Hugging me like a lover in front of everyone on the night of the first debate. And then, finally, image upon image from the past frantic week: whispered confessions of love under thin hotel bedsheets, a secret smile exchanged during a stolen moment in Pennsylvania, falling asleep with my head on Josh's shoulder in a taxi, rubbing my shoulders after a particularly exhausting day and being too exhausted himself to move away when Donna walked in on us. All the while hiding our fear from both ourselves and each other that now that someone knew, that the relationship -- this wonderous thing that we were to each other -- couldn't last.

And now this. What would happen now -- what could possibly happen now? My brain shut down at that point, as if any answer to that question was simply too terrible to contemplate. The room began to spin, and I closed my eyes and leaned against a table to support myself.

"Sam? Sam!" I heard a woman's voice, as if from a long distance away, saying my name, and then I felt myself being pushed into a chair. "Put your head down. Come on."

I leaned over, my head bent down toward my lap, and the world slowly drifted back into focus. As I opened my eyes, I saw that the awful letter had fallen to the floor, face up, staring at me as if to remind me that this was all real. I groaned involuntarily.

"Hey, you're not allowed to get sick on us now! We've got another two weeks to go." I looked up, bleary-eyed, and saw Donna standing there, looking half-concerned, half-amused. "Let me get you some water. Don't move."

I didn't. I simply sat there, my eyes fixed on the white piece of paper on the floor, the words taunting me. If you choose to disregard this letter, we will turn your case over to the media. And then, at the bottom, an indication that C.J., too, had received a copy. I rubbed my eyes and groaned again.

"Here." Donna handed me a cup of water. "Just don't ever tell Josh I went and got that for you, okay? I'd never hear the end of it."

"Thanks," I said finally. "I- I guess the lack of sleep is catching up to me."

She snorted. "You and Josh both. He's locked himself in his office for the past hour, and screams at me if I even try to come in. We're all supposed to be on a plane to Tampa in four hours -- I sure hope his mood improves."

I closed my eyes again, and my heart began to beat faster. He'd already seen it. Oh, God. I drew in a breath, grabbed the letter along with my other already-opened mail, and stood shakily.

"You going to be okay?" Donna asked again. "I've got to get back to-"

"No, no. I'm fine," I lied. "Thanks again."

Filled to the core with dread, I followed Donna out of the mailroom and over to Josh's office. As she reached her desk, she realized where I was headed. "You *really* don't want to go in there right now," she warned.

I almost laughed in spite of myself. You have no idea how *much* I don't want to go in there right now, I thought at her. If Josh had panicked so much at the idea of C.J. finding out about us, then this -- oh, God. I gulped. "Actually, I really have to talk to him about something."

Donna gestured to the door. "Be my guest."

I knocked quietly on the closed door, and when there was no response, I opened it. "Hi," I said tentatively, stepping inside.

"Close the door," Josh growled, not looking up from his computer screen. "No, no, wait, wait -- you'd better leave it open. No, clo- oh, fuck, I don't know."

I closed the door and sat down in a chair across from Josh's desk, trembling.

"We're going to sue the bastards." His voice held a barely-contained fury, and for a moment I was almost relieved. Josh's anger was far preferable to the uncontrolled sense of panic I had feared. "We're going to sue the pants off of them."

"Josh-"

He clicked through his web browser. "Thirty-eight states, and most importantly, the District of Columbia, recognize the public disclosure of private facts tort. I'm sure there's been a case-"

"Josh."

He stopped clicking and looked up at me. "What? We can't just lie down and take this!" He was near-hysterical.

"We can't sue them for sending us a letter."

"It's a threat-"

"We can't sue them until they actually carry out the threat," I said, trying to sound gentle, calming. "At which point the damage has been done, of course."

Josh removed his hand from the mouse and propped his head up with it, covering the right half of his face.

"Who *are* these people?" I asked.

"They seem to be a splinter group of Queer Nation, from what I could find out on the Internet," Josh said into the palm of his hand.

I blinked. "Queer Nation has splinter groups?"

He slammed his arms down abruptly onto the desk. "How do they know?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea."

"Don't people usually- because some vindictive ex-lover tries to get revenge? And we don't have any ex-lovers that-" Josh's face went pale, and he swallowed hard. "Unless you- sometime while-"

"I never cheated on Lisa, Josh."

He stood, looking like he couldn't sit still any longer. "Then how the hell do they know?"

I didn't have an answer.

Josh began pacing back and forth behind his desk. "I thought they only did this to hypocrites. Like that one Republican Congressman from Maryland, back in the eighties- what was his name?"

"Bauman?"

"Yeah, him. Doesn't it even *matter* to these people that this could ruin Bartlet's chances, and if that happens, they've just got four more years of being screwed over by Armstrong? I mean, what the *hell* are they thinking?"

I sighed. "I think they probably think it's worth it in the short term for what they can accomplish in the long term."

Josh snorted.

"Josh, we're going to have to go public. We have no other choice, here. And the first thing we need to do is talk to C.J."

He shook his head. "We're lucky you're a speechwriter and not a strategist. Don't you realize that it's not just the religious right we have to worry about with something like this? Bartlet is incredibly popular with gay voters. Do you have any idea how it looks for him to speak about gay rights and then have two of his main campaign staffers hiding their own relationship?"

I gulped. I hadn't thought of that.

"It would look like Bartlet had asked us to hide this, so that we could appeal to the moderates, which it's no secret that we're trying to do -- and the only reason we were willing to talk about it publically was this letter. That could lose us the election right there."

I felt the walls of Josh's office closing in on me, and I suddenly had to gasp for air. I coughed. God. "So basically you're saying that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't."

"How the *fuck* did anyone find out?" he screamed.

"Josh-"

"Maybe it was just a lucky guess." His pacing grew more frantic. "Maybe someone saw us together, talking or something, and thought 'oh, those two look like they must be lovers'. Maybe it had something to do with how *stupid* we've been this past week. I can't believe I let you put your head on my shoulder in that taxi back in Columbus. Fuck. Maybe the driver- or maybe Donna, when I was rubbing your shoulders-"

"The letter was written in early October, Josh. Whoever it is knew back then."

He ignored me. "Who else knows? I've never told anyone. Anyone!" He was shouting, and gesturing wildly with his hands.

At that moment a look of recognition crossed Josh's face, and he stopped pacing. His hands dropped to his sides, and he stared at me. I saw what was coming from a mile away, and anger began to form in a small place in the center of my chest. *He* had never told anyone, but *I* had. He was going to try and pin this on Lisa.

"Lisa knows," he finally said in a low voice, confirming my suspicion.

"She would never do that to me." It came out even more vehemently than I'd intended.

"But she's always hated *me*. And she's got this mean streak, Sam-"

I cut him off. "You *really* don't want to be having this conversation with me."

"You don't know-"

"No. You listen." I leaned over his desk and I felt my fist clench involuntarily. Lisa had never been anything but good to me, even when it came to Josh -- which was far more than I deserved after the way I'd treated her. "I don't really understand what your problem is with Lisa, but she's an amazing person who I spent ten years of my life with and still care about very much. And if you keep trashing her like this to me, you're really going to regret it."

Josh's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped open. He looked utterly dumbfounded at what I had said, as if shock had left him completely speechless.

I was instantly sorry for my words, and I backed off and forced myself to adopt a calmer tone. "Look. Maybe they're just guessing. Maybe they don't have any real evidence. If they had any evidence, they'd say so explicitly in the letter, right?"

Josh drew in a breath, and began to nod slowly. "It *was* sent way back in October, and nothing's happened yet."

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Donna burst into the room. "Josh, C.J. said she needs to talk to you right away." She looked over at me. "Oh, and you, too." My heart skipped a beat.

"Tell her I'm busy, Donna," he answered abruptly, buying us some time. "I'll have to talk to her later."

"Remember we're flying to Tampa in about three hours."

"Yes, Donnatella, I'm aware of that," he said through gritted teeth.

"This was supposed to be a quick pit stop, not an opportunity to catch up on a week's worth of work. Come on, Sam, you can talk to him later, too," she said, trying to shoo me out.

I looked at Josh helplessly. "So we'll finish this conversation some other time?"

"Yeah." Josh sat down and turned his attention back to the computer screen. I followed Donna out.

It wasn't until I had left Josh's office, though, that I realized that we'd already covered nearly every possible topic: what to do next, how this could affect Bartlet, and how the activist group might have found out. There was only one thing that hadn't been mentioned -- we hadn't said one word about what would now happen to the two of us.

###

In the commotion on the way to Tampa, we both managed to dodge C.J. for the rest of the day. It helped that we spent most of our time in public places -- as eager as she seemed to discuss this with us, I knew she had more sense than to corner us on an airplane.

As soon as we arrived, Josh headed straight for his hotel room without saying a word to me, and in order to avoid having to talk to C.J. by myself, I ended up hiding in my own room as well. I tried to get some work done at first, but couldn't concentrate, and so I turned on CNN and tried to at least follow the campaign coverage so the evening wouldn't totally be wasted. I picked up the phone on my nightstand a dozen times to dial the number of Josh's room, but each time I hung up again without calling. I didn't know what to say, didn't know what could possibly be said at this point.

My schedule the next day was brutal. It began at five AM with a meeting with the governor about the policy speech in Orlando at 10:00, and then we went on the road, with no time even for breakfast. After the morning in Orlando, we drove back to Tampa, stopping in three locations throughout Lake County to speak with seniors there on the way. I was uncharacteristically quiet throughout the day, spending most of my time in the car looking out the window, but everyone else seemed too exhausted to question why, for which I was grateful. I didn't see either Josh or C.J. until the evening, when we finally arrived back in Tampa for a campaign rally that night in Lykes Gaslight Park downtown.

After we were all certain the details of the rally would proceed smoothly, C.J. finally grabbed the two of us and pulled us away from the crowd. I felt as if my heart was in my throat as I saw the way she was looking at us with a deadly combination of anger and worry. We could hear Bartlet speaking from the loudspeakers behind us, and there were loud cheers from the crowd, but none of us could afford to allow ourselves to get caught up in it tonight.

A tent had been set up for the staff to use for storage and preparation, vacant now that the rally was on, and she led us over to it and sat us down at a card table, well out of sight and hearing distance from anyone. "Okay. Let's cut through the crap and pretend we've already had the beginning of this conversation. I've asked you both -- again -- if there's anything going on between the two of you, and Josh has denied it. I've insulted him, he's insulted me, and now we're all finally ready to speak about this frankly and openly."

I shivered despite the warm Florida evening.

"C.J.," Josh said wearily.

She held up a hand to cut him off. "I got a question this morning. A reporter from the Washington Post asked me to confirm or deny the rumor that two of our core campaign staff are secretly in a homosexual relationship. No names, yet, but it's been leaked."

I felt my breath begin to come more quickly, and I looked away from them. It was starting. I gripped the flimsy metal table in a desperate attempt to hold onto something real. I wanted just to blurt out the whole story, get C.J.'s help in dealing with all of this, but I couldn't do that without Josh agreeing to it.

"I'm not gay, C.J." I heard Josh insist.

"Sam?" she prompted.

I looked up to find her staring at me expectantly. "Well, I'm not gay, either," I answered truthfully, feeling like an idiot. She glared at me.

"What, C.J.?" Josh yelled. "What are we supposed to say here? It's a big ugly lie, I'll say that much!"

I flinched at his crass characterization of our relationship, and looked away from them again. Tears burned in my eyes, and I bit the insides of my cheeks to make them go away.

"So you want me to deny this." C.J.'s tone was flat.

"Of course we want you to deny it! It's not true!"

I looked back up at Josh, trying not to let the betrayal I felt show on my face, but he was too busy ranting to even see me.

"Why the hell is it that whenever people see two men who are close friends, they always assume they're screwing each other?" Josh shouted, channelling his panic into denying the accusation, denying what we were to each other. "It's not enough for me to say that I've known Sam practically since we were kids and love him like a brother -- no, nobody's gonna believe *that*."

C.J. focused intensely on Josh. "You know that you two being publically outed wouldn't just lose us the social moderates. It would also lose us the gay vote. The gay community doesn't take well to closeted politicians, and especially coming from the Bartlet campaign, I think some of them would feel so betrayed that they'd probably declare an all-out war on us."

"There's nothing to out us over!"

"Good. Because the relationship wouldn't be the story. Okay, that would be exciting for a day in a twisted, Hollywood-style sort of way. And it would definitely make a lot of people squeamish whose votes you're still trying to win over. But the real political story is the secretive part."

"There *is* no secretive part, C.J. There's no story! There's- there's no relationship!"

C.J. reached across the table and put a firm hand on Josh's arm. "Okay. But if this were true, and it were about to come out *now* of all times, we'd have to discuss strategy *quickly*. Do you understand that?"

"It's not true! Just- just leave us the hell alone!" Josh's voice broke on the last word, and he grabbed his arm away from C.J. He looked like his world was ending. My tears returned, and I closed my eyes to keep them from falling.

There was a long silence. I struggled to keep from crying, not daring to look at either of them.

"Okay," the press secretary said finally, backing off. "If that's how you want me to handle this, that's how I'll handle it. By all indications, this is a bluff, anyway. If they really had anything on you, they'd have mentioned that explicitly in the letter. So we're taking a chance in not addressing it, but it's a slim chance."

C.J. stood, and I finally looked up at her. For just one moment our eyes met, and hers seemed to be asking me why we were doing this, why we wouldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't help but wonder why, myself.

"So we should be okay," she repeated. "I just hope- I just hope you two know what you're doing." And with that last comment, she walked back to the rally. As she left, another loud cheer emerged from the crowd, mocking us.

"Shit," Josh said, covering his face with his hands. Although I couldn't see for sure, I knew he was crying.

I think it was then that I realized that it was too late, or at least it was then that I finally consciously admitted it to myself. It was too late to stage some elaborate public coming-out, too late to do anything at all anymore besides make sure these activists never found out anything more about us than they already knew. C.J. was right -- they almost certainly couldn't actually hurt us with what they had, but they'd watch us like hawks from now on. The lump in my throat grew bigger as I thought about what that inevitably meant.

"I hate them," Josh said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "Just give me ten minutes alone in a room with one of them," he said, but he sounded more sad than fierce.

I sighed. "They do have a point."

"Who does?"

"These people from 'Out!Now'. They have a point about there being huge problems with keeping our relationship a secret."

Josh looked at me incredulously. "What, you're siding with them, now?"

"No, but I can see their point."

"You can see their *point*? This is nothing but terrorism, Sam. It's an assault on our lives. We have every right to decide for ourselves whether to talk about our relationship with the public. That's not their decision to make -- it's a total invasion of privacy! There are huge gaping ethical problems with it, and it's probably not legal, either!"

I searched for a way to explain to him what I meant. "Do you remember when we had that conversation about your attack ads? I didn't like the idea because it just felt sleazy, but you told me that sometimes you have to go on the offensive in order to accomplish anything. And you were *right* on that one. We're going up in the polls. We have a good chance of winning this now, and it's because of you."

Josh's eyes were wide in disbelief. "And you think this is the same thing?"

"People *shouldn't* have to sneak around. And the only way to make sure things will ever change is for people like you and me to actually stop sneaking around."

"Sam, are you listening to yourself? I'm not talking about ideology, here. I'm talking about our lives!"

"So am I, Josh," I insisted, with a powerful sense of urgency. "Don't tell me you don't feel isolated by this. Like it's you and me against the world. It shouldn't have to be like that!"

Josh looked at me forlornly. "Is it so awful for it to be you and me against the world?" It came out barely above a whisper.

"It means that it will feel pretty damn lonely if anything happens to you and me."

Josh shuddered, drawing in a sharp breath, and ignored how ominous that had sounded.

"I don't understand why you're so dead-set against telling C.J., Josh. She could only help us."

He shook his head vehemently while gripping the table, causing it to wobble precariously. "It wouldn't just be telling C.J., Sam. Telling C.J. would mean telling Leo, and Toby, and Mandy, and eventually the whole world. Or at least *my* world. And there's no need for that. It's none of their business."

I pressed my lips together in disagreement. "I've just never understood why that would be such a big deal to you," I said, lending voice to the issue that had dogged us in this relationship from day one.

"So- so what you're saying is that you think we should tell everyone, go public?"

"No," I responded flatly. "I think we could have probably still done that around this time last year, when we first got back together. But it's too late now."

We gazed at each other across the table, both trying to communicate with our eyes what we could no longer say with our hands and lips and bodies. Not now, in a public park where someone might walk in at any moment -- and not later, either, in the no-longer-so-private space of our hotel rooms. Not ever.

"I only see one way out of this," I finally said.

"I- I hope it's a different way than the one I see."

"Bartlet has to take precedence over us. We both agreed to that from the beginning." My voice shook.

Josh gulped. "So okay. We'll stay away from each other until the election is over."

"And after-"

"If we lose, it won't be an issue anymore, and we'll- we'll figure something out. If we win-"

A huge surge of applause and a loud cheer from the crowd behind us erupted and cut Josh off. If we did win, then this would be it. It would become our lives, to an even greater extent than it already was. We would almost certainly get jobs somewhere in the White House at that point -- Bartlet valued us both too much not to ask, and neither of us was prepared to turn that down. Not even for the sake of our relationship. What we were to each other was so intimately connected to the reasons why we were both a part of the whole Bartlet phenomenon that we knew deliberately sacrificing one for the other would ultimately sour whichever one had remained.

"A year ago I wouldn't have thought it was even possible for me to feel ambivalent about the idea of winning this election," I choked, tears now finally running freely down my cheeks.

###

I hardly saw Josh over the next two weeks. It wasn't difficult to avoid him during the day, since the difference in our jobs meant that Josh spent a lot of time in offices while I was out actively traveling with the candidate. When he wasn't around, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of the last days of the campaign, and I was almost -- not quite, but almost -- able to forget about everything that had happened. At night, though, it was different. It was easier to simply head straight to my hotel room after a day of campaigning rather than watch him go off to his own room by himself, so I spent a lot of time there, by myself, feeling as if my heart was being ripped right out of my chest from loneliness. I longed to call Lisa, talk to her at least on the phone, let her comfort me in the way only she could, but I knew she thought about as much of Josh as he did of her, and I didn't want to open any of her old wounds. She had told me she couldn't pick up the pieces if my relationship with Josh ended again, anyway, so I was determined not to fall apart this time.

Sooner than any of us had imagined, then, Election Day was upon us. We spent the final day campaigning in Philadelphia, then headed from there back to New Hampshire, driving straight from the airport to the the Manchester HQ without even checking into our hotel first. The stale air grew thick with both tension and the smoke from Mandy's cigarettes, which she failed to confine to her office, despite keeping the door closed. Margaret had already begun decorating the room, but she continued to hang streamers and signs in an attempt to make the exhausted staff more festive.

Leo held up a stack of papers at our final staff meeting about an hour before the election coverage was due to start. "Has everyone seen the latest polls? We wouldn't want to go into a night like this with our eyes closed."

A collective groan emanated from the room, and C.J. tossed a paper airplane at Leo. We'd already gone over the numbers with a fine-toothed comb, and we were all sick of them. Every one of today's polls showed us neck-in-neck with Armstrong, within the margin of error. There was nothing more we could do at this point, so going over them one more time seemed beyond pointless.

"Josh, you want to give us a rundown on the latest state-by-state predictions?" Bartlet asked, a hint of nervousness beginning to show in his voice.

Josh looked up from the paperwork he had buried himself in. He looked like he hadn't slept for a month. "Well, we've got the Northeast sewn up. Hoynes will help some in the South, but it'll still be a battle. Unless something goes drastically wrong, we should take California and the Pacific Northwest. It's really the Midwest we don't know about."

Toby nodded. "And there we'll be watching Illinois, Michigan-"

"Ohio and Missouri," Josh finished. "And Pennsylvania is also a swing state. We just have no idea about them right now."

The governor swallowed hard and leaned forward onto his arms, which were resting on his lap. Dr. Abbey Bartlet, his wife, reached over and grabbed his hand, and he smiled at her. I couldn't help but glance over at Josh at that gesture of intimacy, but he was looking back down at his paperwork.

"Okay, that's it, folks," Leo said, slapping his hands down on his knees. "We've got a little less than an hour before the networks start broadcasting election night coverage, so meet back here. Unless you're not interested, that is." He forced himself to smile at all of us, but it just made him look haggard and old. I knew that whatever the outcome, the man would need to spend the next week sleeping this off.

From across the room I noticed that Margaret had covered the window seat in multicolored pillows during one of her decorating rampages, and so I walked over to the window and sat down on it. The seat was soft and comfortable and big enough to stretch out on as I looked outside. Winter had arrived early, as it always seemed to in New Hampshire, and the first flakes of snow were already falling in the sky. The ground was probably still too warm for it to stay, yet, but the late fall humidity made the flakes big and fat, and the air was thick with them. I stood and watched them fall, almost mesmerized, and wished I could just get lost in them and forget about the election, Josh, everything. I reflected on the way the governor's wife had reached out to grab the governor's hand, a gesture that had seemed so normal between the two of them, but which Josh and I would never be able to share -- certainly not in public, but now, not even in private. I clenched my teeth in irrational anger at them, at what we were giving up for him.

"Sam, have a beer."

I whipped my head around to find Toby standing there, holding two bottles of Samuel Adams Boston lager, one of which was already half empty. "Getting drunk is the only sensible way to deal with a night like this," he added.

I smiled slightly and took the unopened bottle from him, shifting enough to make room for him on the window seat. "Thanks."

"So this is it," he said.

In more ways than you know. "Yeah." I unscrewed the bottle cap and took a big gulp of the beer. It coated the inside of my throat.

"You're a lot quieter than you were the night of the first debate."

I shrugged. "I've got a lot to think about."

Toby nodded. "Either way, we're all unemployed after tonight."

I chuckled. "That's one way of looking at it."

The older man took a sip of his beer and looked over at me. "It's been really good to work with you. No matter what happens tonight."

I was taken aback. Compliments from Toby were few and far between. "Thanks. That means a lot."

"I wasn't so sure about you at first -- no experience, big corporate lawyer -- but Josh was right to bring you on board. You're a good speechwriter."

For just a moment I thought of Josh coming to get me in New York back then, and I felt a sharp pain in my chest at the memory. But I knew Toby only meant to pay me a rare compliment, and it did feel good to hear him say it, after all this time. "So are you," I responded.

The older man pressed his lips together in what passed as a smile and sank further into the pillows. I knew this was a difficult night for him, as well, since he'd gotten this far with a candidate many times, but never quite seen any of them all the way through. We sat there together, each lost in our own thoughts and trying to numb ourselves to them with the alcohol, until Donna interrupted us by snapping on the TV and rounding everyone up.

The governor and his wife had decided to watch the returns from their home and left right after the staff meeting, so that left Toby, myself, Leo, C.J., Josh, Donna, Mandy, Margaret, the other office staff, and a horde of volunteers. At around 6:00 they all began crowding in around the television, and Toby stood to join them.

"You coming?" he asked.

I sighed. The thought of sitting over in the middle of things, both right in front of the television and closer to Josh, seemed just a bit too intense. I felt torn between two mutually exclusive fears, the Election Night worries that everything we had worked so hard for could be over after tonight, and come to nothing -- and the equally sizeable concern that we might actually win this thing, and in the process I'd lose Josh for good. But I was a part of this, as much as any of them were, and I couldn't justify sitting off to the side and pretending I wasn't.

"Sure." I grabbed one of the pillows from the window seat and carried it over to sit on the floor in front of the armchair C.J. was sitting on. I was almost painfully conscious of Josh sitting next to Mandy at a table behind me only a few feet away, but I didn't look back at him.

The room grew quiet and one of the volunteers turned up the television as the coverage began. Josh took charge of the remote and flipped back and forth between the networks, primarily CNN and NBC. It was funny how we could be watching the same old faces, hearing them essentially saying the same old things that they'd been saying for a year and a half, but since it was Election Night, we all felt compelled to listen with rapt attention.

"And the results are in on the first state, the state of New Hampshire, and it goes to Governor Josiah Bartlet of that same state-" Tom Brokaw's voice was cut off by the loud cheers that erupted. I didn't let myself get excited at the completely predictable result.

"Have another beer. You look like you need it." Toby reached over to my side and held out the remainder of the carton of bottles to me.

"Thanks." I grabbed a bottle and unscrewed it.

The positive start to the evening held out for a long time. After New Hampshire came the rest of New England, and then Georgia, which elicited a "Yes!" from Josh. By 8:00 we'd also picked up much of the rest of the east, including New York's 33 electoral votes -- not unexpected, but a huge boon -- and the tally stood a whopping 121 in our favor to 29 in Armstrong's. The mood in the HQ was exuberant. I felt simultaneously caught up in it and detached, as if I had actually stayed off to the side and was now watching myself, sitting straight up and leaning toward the television to make sure not to miss a single word. It was almost absurd, and I would have laughed if it hadn't been so tragic. I took a long drink of my beer.

"Even Tennessee! We're creaming him!" one of the office staff I didn't recognize yelled, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Toby cringe. "Can we hold off on that kind of judgement until we see some results from the Midwest?" he said quietly, but forcefully.

As if on cue, Brokaw broke in. "We're ready to call a series of other states now. That's Virginia, which goes to President Armstrong; Ohio, also to Armstrong; Michigan, to Armstrong as well; and Florida and North Carolina, also to Armstrong, with Maine's two remaining electoral votes going to Governor Bartlet. In what looks like a stunning turn of events, this brings the total to 123 for Bartlet and 120 for Armstrong."

The room grew silent and we all stared at the screen as the outlines of the states he had mentioned filled with blue. The South, and the Midwest. The South we could lose, arguably, but if we didn't take at least a good portion of the Midwest, we couldn't possibly win. I swallowed hard, and turned around to Josh, whose face had turned pale. He rubbed his eyes, as if the result would change if he only could focus better on the television, and Leo walked over to the table where he was sitting as if to steady him. Mandy tried to lay a reassuring hand on his arm, but she looked nervous enough herself. My heart clenched. I drained half of my beer in one gulp, trying to fight off the feeling that I should have been the one trying to reassure him tonight.

"We're still ahead," Donna said hopefully.

"The race is still too close to call in Pennsylvania," Brokaw intoned, "but the polls have now closed in many of the states in the central time zone, so we should have some results for you on that front shortly."

"Missouri's still out," Toby mumbled to no one in particular. "Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Pennsylvania ..."

"We need Pennsylvania. And Texas. And California," I heard Josh say, his voice shaking. "If we can take those, we've got it." I looked back at Josh, and though he didn't look directly at me, I could still see the barely disguised fear in his eyes, fear that he hid well from the others, but which I knew him well enough to recognize.

For the next hour our lead over Armstrong was maintained and then grew, and we all seemed to relax again as we saw Armstrong take his own home state of Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin, while we took the more competitive states of Illinois and Missouri. Backs sitting straight in attention began to slouch, volunteers sitting on the floor stretched their legs. I got up to use the bathroom and realized for the first time that the desired dulling of my senses from the alcohol was beginning to take effect. I splashed cold water on my face at the sink. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. Dark circles had formed under my eyes, and I saw a hint of gray forming at my temples. Always taken for younger than I actually was, I seemed to have aged a decade in only a year.

When I emerged from the bathroom, the tally stood at 184 for us and 147 for Armstrong. Less than a hundred to go, I thought, trying to think positively. I grabbed another beer and opened it.

The excitement continued to build. When we took Louisiana, which surprised us all, even Toby smiled. We'd spent almost no time in Louisiana, and Armstrong's approval ratings had always been quite high there! I felt my heart begin to race as I realized how close we were to winning. All we had to do was take Texas, and we'd be home free.

"If we've got Louisiana, we can take Texas," I heard Josh say, confidently and excitedly.

"We can now announce the winners in Texas and Oklahoma as well," Tom Brokaw said only a moment later, prompting a hush across the room. "All 32 of Texas's electoral votes will go to President Armstrong, as well as the 8 for the state of Oklahoma. This brings the total to 184 for Governor Bartlet, and 187 for President Armstrong."

Someone groaned in the front, and I prayed the sound wasn't as prophetic as it seemed. I looked back at Josh, and he was rubbing his face anxiously. My own nervousness grew like a foreign body in the pit of my stomach, gnawing at me. We had lost Hoynes' home state, and now we were behind. That did not bode well. Leo rushed over to confer with Josh, and the two of them spoke in furious, hushed tones.

Over the course of the next 45 minutes, Armstrong took several additional states throughout the West and the Southwest. None of them were unexpected, nor were they particularly large in terms of electoral votes, but on top of the loss of Texas each one was still painful as we watched the map fill even further with blue. At this point it was 184 for us to 213 for Armstrong, and looking worse all the time. I looked back at one point and saw that Mandy had left the room, probably to go smoke. Josh was pacing, harried. I wondered what Bartlet was thinking at this moment, or for that matter, Hoynes. It had to hurt not to take your own home state. And if that was what would cost us the election ... oh God. I shivered and took a sip of my beer as Josh flipped the station back to CNN.

I looked at my watch. God, it was late. Election returns didn't usually go on this long, did they? With our hopes for Texas dashed, we were now aiming mainly at Pennsylvania, which they were still saying was too close to call. I found myself thinking back on the campaigning we had done that day on Philadelphia, second-guessing everything. Maybe we should have made another stop in central Pennsylvania. What if the union people in the western part of the state had decided to stay home today? I wondered what the weather was like in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, whether it had prevented people from going to the polls. I shifted uncomfortably against the pillow beneath me, kicking myself for worrying over things I couldn't control.

"The polls have now been closed in Pennsylvania for over three hours, and it sure is a close one," the CNN announcer finally said. "But it looks like we're finally ready to call it for Governor Josiah Bartlet of New-" His voice was drowned out as the room erupted in cheers. Donna leapt to her feet, and several of the volunteers followed suit.

"Two oh seven!" Josh cried out enthusiastically, gesturing victoriously with his arms. "Yes!"

I grinned. We were still behind, but not by much, and the roller-coaster we were all on together began to climb again. Someone changed the station back to NBC, who had also just called Pennsylvania for Bartlet, somehow making the result even firmer, more reassuring.

"Come on, California." It was Leo's quiet, yet strong voice, which could somehow be heard over the cheers and excited chatter of the crowd.

The results were coming fast and furious now. "We can now call Arizona, whose eight electoral votes go to its own President Armstrong, as well as Colorado's eight, bringing his total to 227," Brokaw said from the television. "And the six electoral votes for Kansas will go to Governor Bartlet, bringing him to 213."

"We took Kansas?" Leo said incredulously. "We hardly even campaigned in Kansas!"

Josh ran over to the whiteboard and began scribbling some numbers. "All we need is California and one other state. California and Oregon would do it, or California and Washington." He turned around, and I could see his eyes sparkling. "We've got it. We've won it." He was breathless.

"Damn it, Josh, don't do this," Toby snapped.

"And the results from the Pacific time zone states are beginning to trickle in," Brokaw said, hesitating slightly.

"Come on, California," Leo repeated, even quieter this time. It sounded almost like a prayer.

It did not go unanswered. Who would have ever thought that an angel could look and sound like Tom Brokaw? "And so we can now call the state of Washington for Bartlet, as well as the state of California, bringing his total to two seventy eight. Governor Josiah Bartlet, then, will be the next President of the Uni-"

I had heard a lot of cheering crowds over the past year and a half, but nothing quite like the jubilation I witnessed at that moment. Brokaw was drowned out in a collective shout of raw emotion as everything we'd worked for was suddenly achieved. I jumped to my feet and let out a whoop of joy. President. President Bartlet. The real thing, in the White House. I closed my eyes and thought of everything that would mean, all of the dreams that could now be realized. And I would be a part of it.

I turned around and hugged the first person standing there, who happened to be Margaret. "We did it!" I yelled, and she squeezed me tight, laughing delightedly.

Over Margaret's shoulder I saw Josh hugging Mandy, and across the room my eyes met and locked on his. It was as if I could read stories of our past in them, flashes of happiness together, memories of how hard we had worked poring over this campaign. As if with one mind, we remembered how much we had invested in this single night, and how that investment had given focus to our love and power to our relationship. Only a few months ago, in an office much like this one in St. Louis, on a strangely similar night, Josh had cried out to the world what a great team we were. We were, truly, such a great team, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn. Second to none.

Then, as quickly as it had formed, the brilliant smile left his face, and I felt my own vanish as well. We had won, but at what cost? Soon Josh and I would work in the White House, and be even more in the public eye than ever before. And now there would be no chance for us, no way for our relationship to continue, as the permanence of the ties we'd severed in Tampa set in. We wouldn't be able to piece it back together. The realization was like feeling half of myself being torn away, without warning. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, and I let go of Margaret abruptly.

Josh let go of Mandy as well, and he stared at me for a long moment, looking terribly lost. And when she reached up for him again, leading him away, I knew for sure he wasn't going to resist her advances any longer. Another dizzying wave of almost physical pain overwhelmed me, and I staggered over to the window to get away. I wondered if I'd ever be able to see her touch him, if I'd ever be able to get my footing around him.

"Whoa there. I know you like to trip over things, but isn't stumbling on your own shadow a bit much?" It was C.J. She grabbed my elbow.

"I think I'm a little bit drunk." I wasn't lying.

"No, really?" Her tone was sarcastic, but her smile betrayed her giddiness.

I smiled back, half-forced, half-genuine. "We won." I still couldn't believe it.

"Hard to fathom, isn't it?"

I shook my head, and all at once the room seemed to lurch. I couldn't tell whether it was from the beer or the sudden wave of emotion that had swept over me, but I found myself almost unable to stand. I plunked myself down on the window seat.

C.J. sat down beside me, and there was a long silence. I hadn't really spoken to her since the rally in Tampa, and there was a definite sense of discomfort between us covered up only slightly by her elation at the win. "I know we're supposed to be celebrating right now," she began awkwardly, "but I just want to say one thing. You don't have to respond -- I just want to say it. Indulge me."

I swallowed. "Okay."

"That letter we all got. It was true." It wasn't a question.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the cushions. Oh, what the hell does it matter now, I thought, and nodded slightly.

"You know we're all going to have to talk about this very soon if you two want jobs in this administration."

I opened my eyes again and looked straight at her. "It *was* true, C.J. It isn't anymore."

"Oh."

C.J. looked over at Josh, who was now talking intensely to Mandy at the table by the television, and my eyes followed the press secretary's. We both watched Mandy laugh flirtatiously and put her hand on Josh's arm, and we both saw him respond to her. He cocked his head in that way I knew so well and grinned at her, then reached out to touch her elbow and run his fingers all the way to her wrist. It reminded me of how he had first flirted with me, years ago, and I felt nauseated and had to look away. I was overwhelmed by jealousy -- but even more than that I was just terribly sad. Sad that this was how Josh was choosing to cope with what had happened to the two of us. And sad that it would almost certainly drive a wedge between us that didn't have to be there, on top of all of the ones that did.

C.J. turned back to me. "Are you okay?"

I didn't respond other than to look at her honestly, not even trying to disguise the almost unbearable mixture of emotions I was feeling. The look she shot back at me was full of concern, and she reached her arms around me in a spontaneous and somewhat clumsy hug. Simultaneously touched and more than a little embarrassed, I felt tears come unbidden to my eyes. I willed them not to fall.

At that moment my cell phone rang, and I was grateful for the interruption. I drew back from C.J., took the phone out of my pocket, and held it up to my ear. "Sam Seaborn." My voice came out thick with layer upon layer of emotion, and I cleared my throat. I tried again. "Yes, hello?"

"Sam, is that you?" It was Lisa, her voice unusually high-pitched with enthusiasm. "I know it's late, but I just had to call. I knew you wouldn't be sleeping on a night like this, anyway! I don't believe this! You did it!"

"Just a second." I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. "I need to take this," I said to C.J.

"Sam-"

"I'll be okay." I stood, and backed up a little from the window seat. I shot C.J. a look of desperation, knowing that if I got any more sympathy from her, I would just lose it in front of everyone. "Please, just forget I said anything. Just- forget about it."

I almost tripped over Donna carrying a bottle of champagne as I stumbled down the hall to the first free office I arrived in, which happened to be Leo's. "Isn't it incredible?" I said into the receiver to Lisa, a little too brightly, and sat down at Leo's desk.

"I'm so excited for you. I thought of you when I voted today. I've been frantic all evening, so I know you must have felt a thousand times worse. I bet you're just so relieved."

Relieved. No, that's probably the only thing I don't feel right now. "Yeah," I lied. "It's pretty amazing to be here right now." My voice sounded as dead as I felt inside.

"You sound so exhausted. Just think, now you can finally get some sleep!"

"Yeah, that will be good."

"Sam, I know I didn't want you to go off and do this. But right now I'm just so incredibly proud of you." Her voice was so overflowing with warmth that I thought it would break my heart.

"Lisa," I whispered, putting my face in my hands. "I miss you right now. I miss you so much."

She laughed giddily. "Now isn't that sweet. I sure wish I were up in New Hampshire with you right now, myself. It must be pretty fantastic to be a part of all-"

I didn't hear what she said next, because when I looked up, I saw Josh standing in the doorway. The look on his face echoed my own emotions: scared, vulnerable, jealous, and oh, so hurt. And then he was gone.

"Josh!" I cried out hoarsely, stumbling to the door, but he was already out with the rest of the group, watching everyone jump into cars to head off to the victory celebration, and I couldn't go back out there. Not like this.

I closed the door to Leo's office just as my tears started to fall, holding the phone up to my ear again. "I'm sorry, Lisa, it's- I-"

"Sam, are you okay?" Her voice was suddenly full of concern. "What happened?"

I leaned up against the door and slid down it until I was sitting on the ground, sobbing. "Oh, God, I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Just start at the beginning," Lisa soothed, and suddenly I no longer felt quite so alone.

###

I went back to my hotel room and slept for nearly 48 hours straight after that night. I was so dead to the world that by the time I woke up, I wasn't even hung over. And then, in an almost eerie reversal of the night I had first joined the campaign, I drove all the way from Manchester to New York to be with Lisa.

I felt so guilty, running to her again, but she was there with open arms, just ... caring about me. Unconditionally. I didn't know what I'd ever done to deserve that, but I wasn't going to question it. With the state I was in, I'm sure she could have had a lot more of me than just my tears and pain if she'd made any sort of effort, but she never tried anything. It felt so safe to be back in her arms again, in the condo and even in the bed we had shared for all of those years. For a short time I almost thought I could fall back into that whole life again. It hadn't been *such* a bad life, with Lisa. But I had now experienced the real thing, and I knew I couldn't really look back. I did love her, so much -- just not in the way she needed me to love her.

The expected call from Bartlet came in mid-November, along with the offer of a job I couldn't possibly have turned down. I'd expected something, some token job in the White House, but not this -- Deputy Communications Director, second in command only to Toby. I would be able to write presidential speeches for a living, for Bartlet. I was elated, despite the still-gaping wounds from Election Day, and I took only ten seconds to consider it before saying yes.

I stayed with Lisa until early December, and she never made me feel unwelcome, but eventually it simply came time to move on. I arranged for a cozy apartment in a building convenient to the metro, with only a twenty-minute commute to the White House, and moved to Washington. I'd only been there for two days and was frantically unpacking, trying to make some semblance of order out of the chaos surrounding me, when I heard the strange sound indicating that someone was downstairs, ringing my bell. I fumbled with the still-unfamiliar controls of the intercom, and when I couldn't make it work, I just buzzed the person in. Opening the door to my apartment and stepped out into the hall, I heard the door open downstairs and light footsteps coming up the stairs. I had no idea who it would be -- maybe someone who'd actually just wanted to go see someone else.

Somehow, though, the last person I expected to see at my new apartment was Josh.

"Hey." He stopped at the top of the stairs.

"Hey." I was so shocked to see him that it wasn't even painful. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I thought I'd welcome you to Washington."

It sounded so ridiculous that I almost laughed. "Well, welcome yourself."

He grinned. "I figured it was my only chance to see your apartment this messy."

I shook my head in disbelief. "How the hell did you find me? I don't even have a land line yet, so you couldn't have found the address in the phone book."

Josh looked sheepishly down at the floor. "I called Lisa."

He had to be kidding. "You called Lisa."

"Yeah."

"And she told you where I lived."

Josh smirked, and then shrugged. "Well, she hung up on me twice first, but I kept calling back, and I eventually got it out of her."

I laughed out loud -- I could easily imagine that conversation. "You could have just called my cell, you know. The number didn't change."

"Yeah, well." He shifted his weight and shuffled his feet a little, looking uncomfortable. "I wasn't sure you'd want to see me."

There was that. I looked around. "Are you sure it's a good idea for you to be here? I mean, someone might-"

He suddenly looked irritated, and it was reflected in his voice. "No, I'm not sure, damn it, but I have things I want to say to you, Sam, and I'm not going to wait until January to bring them up."

I sighed. I knew I would never understand why Josh did this sort of thing, but there was something about him that made him obsessed with continuously picking at scabs. "Okay, come on in. Watch out for the boxes."

I think we both felt uneasy as we stepped into the apartment and I closed the door. It was the first time we'd been alone in a non-public space since we'd received the letter, and the tension between us was palpable. "We'll have to sit at the dining room table -- it's the only furniture I have so far."

"Okay." He grabbed a chair and sat down.

I wandered into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. "Can I get you anything? I've got coffee-"

"No, no, just- just sit with me."

My heart beating faster, I walked back into the dining area and sat down next to Josh.

"So. We're going to be working together."

So that was what this was about. I forced a cheerful tone. "Yeah, I heard. Deputy Chief of Staff. That's great, Josh. Especially at your age."

"Yeah, whatever." He dismissed my words with a wave of his hand. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay with that. With us working together."

I snorted. What was the point of this? "How am I supposed to answer that question, Josh? Let's just imagine I say no, here. No, Josh, it's not okay for us to work together. What then?"

He looked taken aback. "I don't know. I guess- I guess I'd want to know about it if you felt that way. So- you do?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "No, no -- of course it's okay for us to work together. We're both adults. I think we can handle seeing each other in the office without having daily heart attacks."

"Okay. But what about us?"

Us? I felt toyed with, and my eyes narrowed. "Josh-"

"I mean- shit. That's not what I mean. I mean- what about us- being friends?"

I shrugged. "What about it?"

"*Can* we be friends?"

"We've always been friends. Since we were practically teenagers. That's not going to change."

"No- not like before, where we talked to each other every now and then, but never actually ended up saying anything. This time I want to try really being friends. Are you willing to do that?"

I didn't respond. Damn it, why did he always do this? It was the same as last time -- we had gone through the excruciating motions of breaking up, but he had never ended up actually completely letting go. It had made things immeasurably harder on both of us, and I was determined not to let that happen again.

"Sam, I can handle not being with you if we can still be close. I don't think I can handle it otherwise. I can't lose you completely." He was looking right at me, his voice full of emotion, yet strong, intense.

I was stunned at his candor, and my resolve weakened. "Of course we can be friends."

He let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

"So," I said, grasping for a new topic of conversation, filling what threatened to turn into an awkward pause. "Have you been in for the tour yet? Seen your new office?"

Josh relaxed visibly, obviously grateful for the change of subject. "Nah. I actually just came into town myself. I'm not in such a hurry, with Armstrong's people still there."

"It's exciting, though. The idea of working in the White House. It's what you've always wanted, but you know, I never even let myself think that far."

"Well, believe it. We've certainly arrived. It's not Gage Whitney, but-"

"Thank God." I smiled at him, trying to let him know that it had been the right choice to follow him, despite everything. "So where's your place?"

"I'm still looking, actually. Staying with a friend at the moment."

A friend. I drew in a breath, holding my feelings in check. Did he really think I wouldn't know who he meant? "How's Mandy doing?" I risked.

"Mandy?" He feigned ignorance.

"I thought we were going to be friends, Josh. Friends ask each other about their girlfriends."

He sighed. "Mandy's doing okay."

"Good." That was all I wanted to know about that.

"Are you back with Lisa?" he blurted.

I opened my mouth to respond, but he stopped me. "No, no, don't answer that."

"I'm n-"

"No, don't. I have no right to ask you that."

"I'm not back with Lisa."

He smiled. "Good."

I smirked in response.

"This is the right thing to do," Josh said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. "I know."

I figured that was all, but Josh remained sitting there, like he had something else to say. He fidgeted and ran his hands through his hair nervously. "There's one other thing- shit. I don't know how to tell you this." He rubbed his eyes. "You remember- uh- that question?"

"Wha