Bewildered by her boss's apparent lack of interest in the latest calamity Sam had visited upon himself, Donna raised her voice a little louder than the conspiratorial whisper she'd used a moment ago. "And he's not coming out. Josh, did you hear me?"

"Hm?" Wrenching his eyes away from the hypnotic lure of the water, Josh focused on his assistant. Glory be, couldn't she leave him alone for one blessed minute? "I heard you, Donna. What exactly did you want me to do about it? And please, be specific, 'cause I'll be damned if I have a clue what to say to him." He hadn't intended to sound so irritated, but he imagined there was nothing so frustrating as feeling this helpless about someone you cared so much about.

Get out of the damn chair and go see him, Josh's mind was screaming. Help him fix this, or bring him some coffee, or just stand there dumbly like you always end up doing. But let him know he's not alone. Because if you don't... he won't be alone tonight. And then....

"...didn't hear exactly what they were saying," Donna's voice worked back into his consciousness again. "But she says it was loud. And Charlie said the President poured a drink the minute Sam left the Oval, and told him he needed a minute alone with Leo." As the implications occurred to her, Donna gasped dramatically and reached a hand out to Josh's arm. "Oh my god, Josh! Do you think," and her voice dropped again to a marginally hysterical whisper. "They're going to fire him?!"

Shaking his head from side to side as though it would help clear the confusion he was swimming through, Josh groaned to his feet and strode to the door. "If I'm not back in 30 minutes, make sure they use a picture that shows off my dimples for my obituary."

**

"Do you still work here?" Josh's voice drifted across Sam's dark office, blinds closed on all fronts, one lamp weakly lighting the room. Josh stood in the fractured light coming from the partly opened door, cutting through the gloom.

"Oh yeah. And I'm finding that a little unfathomable." Sam's voice was hollow and humorless, and he sounded a galaxy away. "I would have fired my ass days ago. Maybe they're just keeping me around for entertainment purposes. Or because deep down, they're as curious as I am about what I can possibly do to top myself. What other possible reason...."

"Eye candy," Josh mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"What?" Sharp as a knife.

Shit. "I mean.... It was a joke. Or, it was *supposed* to be a joke. Sorry." Josh stood stock still now, his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Which was when he saw the bottle. And before he could finish forming the question in his head, it slipped out of his mouth. "Since when do you keep a bottle of whisky in your office?"

A snort from Sam knocked Josh back a little. A sound so bitter and alien, he almost thought they might not be alone in the room.

"Come here. I'm in the mood to share tonight."

That's exactly what Josh was afraid of, so he quickly pulled a chair up and sat on the edge of it, elbows on the desk. A glass slid over to him, the same glass that had been sitting next to the bottle, and Josh took a generous sip of the smoky liquid.

"Can you tell me what the hell happened?" Josh asked. Feeling the whisky burn a path down his throat, it amazed him how quickly he began to relax. Or maybe it was because he felt a loosening around Sam.

When he'd approached Sam's office, Josh had been nearly paralyzed with fear at what he might find. To say that Sam had been tightly wound lately was a gross understatement, so Josh had imagined he'd find any manner of hideous wreckage when he'd tapped on the closed door.

But Sam seemed almost relaxed there behind his desk, leaning back, head resting on the back of his chair. There was a glint in his eye, and from where he sat, Josh couldn't tell what was fueling it. Alcohol, possibly. Or something more feral. Josh drank again, then slid the glass back to Sam. Who raised it to his mouth and drained it before refilling it.

"It's embarrassing," Sam spoke quietly. It was beyond embarrassing. And he momentarily entertained the idea of embellishing a little, to make it all sound very dramatic and more in line with the consequences. But all his life, Sam could never imagine anything more humiliating than being caught in a lie. So he told Josh about how he thought there wasn't enough air left, and how he'd lost track of how many times he'd walked around the lobby, and how it all just got away from him. There was no great trauma, nothing existential that happened in that meeting. Just Sam fucking up.

They sat in Sam's dark office passing the glass back and forth for an hour. The phone never rang, and no one came to the door, and Sam allowed Josh to ramble on about everything and nothing and he even chimed in once in a while to make it feel like he was still in the room.

"Sunday," Josh was saying. "Let's... let's go sailing. You haven't done that all year, did you realize that? It'll be good for you." Josh allowed himself to feel hopeful, anyway.

"I have. Gone sailing." Nearly strangling on the words.

"Oh." Josh hadn't known that. And Sam was grateful when Josh let it drop.

Sam was so *incredibly* grateful. That he still had his job. That he had a friend like Josh who would still be here this late helping him get past the danger when he could be in his own apartment, decompressing from his own day. So he told Josh this, and he told him he was really going to get his shit together, that he just needed to figure a few things out.

"You haven't talked to Leo yet," Josh observed as he swallowed what surely had to be his last drink, if he was going to be driving home tonight.

"I'm trying to decide when to do it." Sam noticed the skeptical look on Josh's expressive face. "If I go to him early in the morning I'll have his full attention, but I'd probably ruin his day. If I wait till the end of the night he'll be tired and cranky."

"So do it in the middle."

"That's when he's busiest."

Josh shrugged his shoulders loosely. "Now you're just making excuses."

"Real lawyers call it 'making an argument.' " As much as Sam had been dreading going to the Chief of Staff asking for some time off, after today's impressive implosion, he figured he was actually in a better position than ever to approach him. Even Leo had to see, Sam really shouldn't be allowed to walk the halls of the White House right now. "You okay to drive?" he asked Josh.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yup."

**

Her gleaming red hair falling into her face as she leaned across Leo, Margaret flipped though the pages until she found the blank line for him to sign.

"That's it?" Leo asked abruptly. "So," turning his full attention back to Sam, sitting deathly still across the desk. "How much time?"

"I have no idea." Hadn't even occurred to Sam he'd get this far in the conversation. "Couple weeks?"

"You think you can untangle this in two weeks?"

"Probably not."

And that was pretty much it. He'd gotten three days instead, starting tomorrow, one of them a Sunday, and Sam walked out feeling damned thankful.

Sam had felt a little uncomfortable when Leo pointedly asked him if the drinking made him feel better. But he seemed to let it drop when Sam had answered "drinking makes me feel nothing." He felt he could at least be reassuring, even if he felt nowhere near assured himself. So when he returned to his office, he placed the half empty bottle he'd shared with Josh the night before in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and locked it.

**

"You scheduled your breakdown for over the weekend?" Toby sounded incredulous.

Well, that was plain ridiculous. He hadn't scheduled it; Leo had. And it wasn't a breakdown. It was an emotional time-out. Hadn't Sam just told Toby that? Moving around his office, sweeping files off various surfaces, distractedly trying to pull some sort of order out of the multiple half-finished projects he had on his desk. "I know it's on short notice...." Sam began.

"These things usually are...."

Sam glared in Toby's direction and handed off another folder. "But the only thing on a deadline is the Mental Health Services position paper, and I've gotten far enough along anyone can finish fleshing it out."

The bright blue of a file caught Sam's eye and he snatched it off the shelf. "Ah, shit... the Women's Leadership Forum. I'm sorry, I haven't gotten very far on that. But here," He shoved two binders in Toby's quickly filling arms, and then flung a yellow legal pad on top. "I have enough notes there to write two speeches."

Toby shifted his weight and peered at his clearly frazzled deputy over the top of his bounty. "Detroit...?"

"What?" Sam stopped in his tracks and looked at Toby as if he'd just started reciting a nursery rhyme. "It's weeks away. And nearly done. I'll be back Monday. What do you want from me?" All right, that came out a bit harsh. But really, knowing he was this close to getting the hell out of there was making it that much harder for Sam to focus in on the task at hand. "Let me just get this stuff together and I'll bring it in to you. Okay?" And when Toby didn't move. "*Okay?*"

Five hours later, the edginess he'd been experiencing earlier still dogging him, a visibly frayed Sam ambled towards CJ's office for a last minute impromptu meeting about a press conference gone wrong when Congressman Bailey declared that President Bartlet's list of judicial nominees "is weighted with conservatives."

Distracted by an imaginary clock ticking down the minutes until he was free to leave the White House, Sam ran smack into an equally disheveled CJ standing in her doorway, splashing some of her coffee to the floor.

"You're so fired," she declared, thinking momentarily that it might not be the best thing to say to Sam.

"And rightly so." With about as much enthusiasm as he felt.

"My goodness. You're just a bundle of insecurities, aren't you, Spanky?" And she couldn't be absolutely positive about it, but she'd give pretty good odds he said something like "go to hell," before he slithered inside.

**

"Three women, two blacks and a Hispanic. What's he talking about?" Toby, shrieking to the choir. He recalled how Himlen clerked for William Brennan, "one of the court's most revered liberal judges."

CJ, shoes off, feet planted on the top of her desk. "He's one of our guys. Does anyone know why our own people hate us so much?"

"I'm sorry, I still don't see why this has turned into a thing...." Sam had been asking this for half an hour. An ineffective congressman from a marginally important district, he just couldn't fathom why they were still sitting here talking about it, why Toby and CJ were *still* talking about it.

"He's an asshole," CJ scoffed.

"Certifiable."

"How exactly does one certify an asshole? 'Cause I don't imagine there are people lining up for the job."

"I'm just saying...." Sam tried again. It suddenly occurred to Sam that perhaps he wasn't really there in the room with them. He thought he was, he could see *them* after all. But they didn't seem to see Sam. Or hear him. And now he wasn't even too sure he could hear himself. He felt his chest expand as he formed the words, thought his mouth was expelling them in the proper order. But he couldn't hear them. And now he was quite sure they didn't either.

Except Josh. Who was stealing glances at him, was watching him carefully as Sam climbed out of his seat and slipped out the door.

"He can't keep doing that!" CJ, screeching like a gull.

"I know, I know! I'll - give me a minute." Josh pulled himself off the sofa.

Catching up to Sam hadn't been difficult. He didn't seem in a huge hurry to get very far. In fact, Sam didn't look like he knew *where* he was going. Which was of more than a little concern to Josh.

"Sam. What was that all about? You can't just - you know you're making a habit out of just leaving the room in the middle of things. That's...." Did he really have to tell Sam this? "Not what people do."

But Sam's done it. He had walked out of his life easily enough, once before. Maybe he could do it again. Was there anything left Sam was willing to stand up for? Anything he felt was worth the effort?

"C'mere." Taking Sam's arm, drawing him towards an unoccupied hallway. Josh, standing there, striving to take an inventory of his friend. Not letting go of his arm. Sam could feel the heat through the fabric of his shirt as the moment drew out, Josh's hand still firmly grasping him.

Josh was clutching at straws, as well as Sam's arm, trying to hold on tightly in the wake of all the uncertainty he saw in Sam's eyes.

"You're doing this all wrong, Sam," Josh began simply enough. "You've got it so backwards, that's why nothing is making sense to you right now."

Eyes squeezed tight for a moment to regain his bearings, Sam focused back on Josh. "What are you - I don't understand what you're saying."

Josh relaxed his hand a little, but maintained his grip on Sam's arm. "Look, you feel out of control. But instead of confronting that and wrestling it back, you remove yourself. Physically, emotionally. We just look up and you're gone! You may think that puts you back in control, Sam, but believe me, it's all wrong."

Sam's head fell a little, eyes sad and resigned. "Thing is, Josh." A whisper barely carried across the 10 inches that separated their faces. "I don't particularly *want* to have that control right now. I'd rather someone who knows what they're doing be in charge for awhile." Throw him against a wall. Slap him around a little.

Josh felt Sam's breath against his cheek as he listened to the soft words of defeat. "Okay. Okay. Then... I need you to do something, Sam. For me." And Sam knew there was no room here, when Josh put it in those words, using that voice. "Saturday night. You, me, my apartment. And I don't want to argue about this. Please don't make me fight with you. Trust me enough to give me a tiny bit of control this one night, and I think.... I'll feed you, we'll watch some awful videos. You can even break some stuff, if you want. Just... show up."

Sam stared dumbly, and Josh added pressure to the grip again. "I'm not arguing about this, Sam." But Sam wasn't arguing. "I just want you to show up. Whatever happens after that is up to you." And it looked like Sam might be getting this, his eyes were coming into focus and he blinked at Josh a few times in quick succession. "Promise me."

"Yeah." And Sam weakly attempted to pull his arm free from Josh.

But Josh wasn't letting go. "Promise me."

"I promise," Sam croaked. The contact was beginning to ignite Sam's arm now, and he distantly thought that if Josh had asked him to 'swear' he would have been embarrassed, and that would have made him twelve. But he'd asked him to make a promise, and Sam felt a sudden surge of courage, a transfer of courage from Josh's fingers burning into his own arm. Traveling through his body, licking into life the dead space that had gradually been filling him.

Because after all the dead ends he'd taken, looking for the way out, Josh had been here all along. Had waited for Sam to catch up, knew the way home, and had been biding his time until Sam was ready to let him lead the way back.