Friends are Honest With Each Other
Part 2
Adrienne
The President looked over the members of his staff, mentally
shaking his head. Josh and CJ were sitting on one sofa, with Leo
on the other one. Sam was on the very end of Leo's sofa, as far
away from Toby as possible. Toby was standing behind the other
sofa, isolated from the rest of the group.
He felt an urge to order Toby to sit with the rest of the
children, but quelled it almost immediately. This was something
that had to be worked out without interference.
"State of the Union." Leo said, hurling the meeting into high
gear without preamble. The President caught the look exchanged
between Leo and Toby. Damn. It was starting. He looked at the
others, wondering if they had figured it out. The three others
were looking expectantly at Leo, without the telegraphing of
messages. Double damn.
"We need a kick ass speech." Josh replied. "The latest poll
numbers are softer than we'd like."
"Agreed. I've got the media polls and we need to address Social
Security, education and trade." CJ consulted her notes.
Leo groaned.
"Leo, please do not groan in the Oval Office."
"Social Security is the bane of my existence." Leo muttered.
"If we can't address the issue during a campaign, we really
should address it while in office." Josh replied.
"Yes, yes, I know." Leo nodded. "It needs to be in the first
part."
Sam nodded, making notes, not checking to see if Toby was doing
the same thing.
"Are we introducing any policy initiatives or are we clarifying
current positions?" Sam asked.
"Both." Leo said. "CJ, get what has to be in the speech to Toby
by the end of the week. Josh, set up meetings with Mahaffey and
Breslin and find out what has to be there from that angle. Toby,
pull together what CJ and Josh get, as well as what old business
has to be there."
"And me?" Sam asked quietly, when Leo didn't continue.
"You, Sam, will be far too busy reading up on issues and finding
a way to make it as clear and appealing as is humanly possible."
Leo told him. "Clear your schedule, Sam. This needs to be
perfect."
-----------------
"Toby, a moment." The President said, as the meeting broke up.
"Yes, sir."
The President waited until the room cleared, including Leo who
hovered until he realised that he wasn't welcome.
"Toby, did Leo have a little talk with you after the leadership
breakfast?"
"Yes, sir." Toby replied reluctantly.
"And has he talked to anyone else?"
"I... don't think so, sir."
"Okay." Bartlet relaxed and sat down. "You need to get Sam's
head out of his butt."
"I know."
"It would help if you got your head out of your butt." Bartlet
continued. "I need both of you working on this. Swallow your
pride and apologize to him."
"I'm not sure I can do that, sir."
"Toby, now is not a time for pigheadedness." Bartlet said
firmly. "Suck it up and do it. You've done it before, more
times than anyone except maybe Leo."
"It isn't that." Toby looked at his shoes.
"Then what is the problem?"
"I can't promise I won't do it again." Toby finally replied.
"To me, that's part of an apology."
"And you can't explain why." Bartlet said softly. Toby looked
up sharply.
"I'm not stupid, Toby. And I know how Leo's mind works."
Bartlet replied. "I know what you're doing. And you need Sam to
do it."
"Sir, are you telling me..."
"No." Bartlet cut him off. "No, I'm not. All I'm saying is you
and Leo can't do what you're doing alone. I don't know if what
he's doing is going to happen. But I do know it won't happen
without Sam."
"What about Josh and CJ?"
"They aren't writing the State of the Union." Bartlett said
quietly. "You and Sam are. I need your vision and I need Sam's
words. Do what you have to do to get them."
-----------------
"How long are you going to be mad at Toby?" Josh asked, as they
walked through the West Wing.
"How long is eternity?" Sam snapped, taking a file from Cathy
and walking into his office.
"Okay, I can see why you're pissed." Josh followed him in.
"But this is Toby, Sam. You know what he's like."
"Yes, I do." Sam stuffed the file into the filing cabinet and
slammed the drawer shut with unnecessary force. "I can't work
with someone who doesn't trust me."
Josh opened the filing cabinet and retrieved the file and handed
it back to Sam.
"Toby does trust you."
"Like hell he does." Sam threw the file onto his desk and ran
his hand through his hair. "You don't get it, Josh, do you?"
"No. How about you explain it to me?" Josh perched on the edge
of Sam's desk and looked at him expectantly.
"Look, I do a good job." Sam said tightly. "I took the speech
with the okay from the President himself. Who the hell does Toby
Ziegler think he is, to overrule the President of the United
States?"
"Sam..."
"So it wasn't the best idea politically." Sam continued. "I am
sick and tired of not being able to do what we were elected to do
because we're afraid that someone's going to get upset. I
thought we had more courage than that."
"Um..." Josh was about to respond, but then closed his mouth.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"The environmental lobby got upset because we had the courage to
point out that extremism is not acceptable." Josh said quietly.
"What's the real point?"
"The real point is..." Sam took a deep breath and started again.
"Toby is a brilliant writer."
"Yes."
"Josh, I've read stuff he wrote when he was my age. I'm good,
but he's better." Sam admitted. "I sometimes feel like a little
kid, compared to him."
"Toby was born middle aged, Sam." Josh tried to smile. "We're
all little kids, compared to him."
"I've worked hard to learn everything I can. I've earned my
place here." Sam said slowly. "If I can't be trusted to know
about something that affects my work, I should not be here."
"You are trusted, Sam."
"Not by Toby." Sam shook his head. "He did not trust me to tell
me about the drop-in. He didn't say a word about it. He just
went ahead and did it, as if cleaning up after a badly paper
trained puppy."
"At least he didn't spank you on the nose with a newspaper."
Josh replied, with another attempt at a smile.
"He did rub my nose in it." Sam retorted. "And I don't even
think the drop in was strictly necessary. We do the speech, we
set something up with the labour unions and everything is fine."
"Not fine, but yeah, I guess." Josh ran his hand through his
hair. "Look, Sam, Toby was wrong not to tell you. That's the
only thing he was wrong about and you know it. Maybe he just
didn't want the confrontation."
"Toby? Not want confrontation? Are we talking about the same
guy?"
"Look, I don't know what's going on in his head." Josh
straightened. "Frankly, I don't think I want to. If you want to
know why he didn't tell you, you're going to have to ask him."
"I don't want to be lied to again."
"You know, that attitude is going to be hard to get around for
the State of the Union."
"I won't be here for it."
"What?"
"I'm resigning." Sam said firmly. "I can't work with Toby
anymore. I can't be in the dark about things that affect my work
and if I can't do my job, I'm not staying."
"Shit." Josh slumped his shoulders. "Did you hand in your
resignation to Leo?"
"He wouldn't accept it. He told me to give it to Toby."
"And...?"
"Toby told me I had to give two weeks. In two weeks, he said
he'd accept it, if I still felt the same way."
-----------------
Sam dragged himself home at a reasonable hour. He had only seen
Toby in passing and hadn't spoken to him all day. He had
thought, at first, that Toby was avoiding him, but Ginger had
told him that Toby was in meetings all day with labour and
business leaders. He felt a slight twinge; the meetings were,
according to Ginger, acrimonious. They had not been happy about
the speech. Then again, his day had been busy, too.
The irony was too sharp for humour. Toby had spent all day
defending Sam's actions, which he hadn't agreed with, and Sam had
spent all morning defending the drop-in to the environmental
lobby. Sam wondered, as he put some food into the microwave to
heat, whether the environmental lobby was aware that he agreed
with them wholeheartedly.
The microwave had just pinged when the doorbell went off. Sam
sighed. This happened all the time, although it was usually his
cell that made three quarters of the meals he made at home go
cold.
-----------------
Toby was standing at the door when he answered the bell.
"What do you want?" Sam said ungraciously, not inviting his boss
in.
"The President ordered me to talk to you." Toby said bluntly.
"You could have done that at work."
"I need to talk to you without interruptions. May I come in?"
"Sure." Sam walked away from the door, going into the living
room and not bothering to see if Toby followed.
"I spoke to the President today." Toby began, without preamble
and without taking off his coat.
"You talk to him all the time." Sam inserted, a hard edge of
bitterness in his voice.
"We need to get past this so we can do the State of the Union."
Toby continued as if Sam hadn't spoken. "He needs your words."
"You write as well or better than I do."
"Not in his voice."
"You do it. You're going to anyway."
"I will write the majority of it, yes." Toby allowed. "I need
you to make my words into President Bartlet's words. I can't do
this by myself."
"So you admit I have some uses."
Sam, get your head out of your ass." Toby ordered. "You're the
President's speech writer. I can't write the way you do."
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
"Will truth?"
Sam paused at the soft question.
"What?"
"Sam, the drop-in was necessary."
"Yeah. So Josh has been saying all day. The politics..."
"That's not what I meant." Toby sighed and sat down. "Sam, it
isn't the politics that I'm worried about. We've fixed worse
problems in more elegant ways. The problem is time."
"Time?"
"We didn't have time to fix this any other way." Toby ran his
hand across his head. "We need labour and business support and
we need it now."
"We have another year to get them on board." Sam pointed out.
"They won't remember this next year."
"We don't have another year, Sam." Toby said quietly.
"We do not need their votes yet." Sam said stubbornly.
"No, we don't. We need their money."
"Money? The drop in was a damned fundraising exercise?"
"Yes. We are going to need a massive influx of cash soon to
start the re-election campaign."
"That's a year away."
"No, it's not. It's already started, Sam." Toby said softly.
"It started with Ann Stark and her ambush."
"What?"
"In all but name, her guy announced his candidacy for President."
Toby replied. "We're in an election, Sam. And right now, we
need to get the financial support in place as soon as possible."
"Back up here, Toby." Sam waved a hand, then ran it through his
hair. "Josh didn't say anything about that."
"Josh doesn't know."
"Wait a minute. You're holding out on Josh?"
"Leo approached me after the leadership breakfast. Only me."
"Why?"
"Because I've fought more ugly campaigns than either you or Josh
have ever seen. And this one is going to be very ugly."
"Leo is holding out on Josh?"
"No. Leo's holding out on the President."
"Bartlet doesn't know he's running?"
"Not officially, no." Toby said, very seriously. "Sam, you
remember what it was like when Bartlet was running for the
nomination. It took him a long time to decide he really wanted
it. Leo doesn't want to force the decision on the President yet,
but he needs to have the pieces in place when the President does
decide."
"But Josh isn't part of that."
"Josh's skills are in persuading support on the hill. He can get
the political support when we need it. We don't need that yet.
Right now, we can't look like we're campaigning, but we need
money and we need it soon."
"Why did Leo tap you?"
"Experience." Toby shrugged. "Leo and I have the most
experience in this sort of backroom campaigning. Leo doesn't
want this discussed in case it puts the President in an awkward
position."
"I have less experience than Josh." Sam said thoughtfully. "Why
are you telling me this?"
"Because I need you to understand what the drop-in was about."
Toby said quietly. "It wasn't about ambushing you. It wasn't
about personal revenge. It wasn't a lack of trust."
"So it wasn't about Ann, then."
"Yes, it was." Toby admitted, with a wry smile. "It had
everything to do with Ann and her ambush. And about the meeting
I had in Kansas City."
"Kansas City? What were you doing in Kansas City that affected
this?"
"Other than not be there to tell you and the President that the
speech was a bad idea?" Toby lifted a brow. "Picking up three
million dollars of contributions for the DNC."
"From....?" Sam looked slightly ill.
"The very people who the President declined to meet with because
of the South American trip." Toby finished.
"Did we lose that?" Sam asked quietly.
"No." Toby shook his head. "It's fine, Sam. We moved fast
enough to keep it. All things considered, Sam, I couldn't give
you a heads up on the drop-in."
"Why not? You're telling me now. Why not yesterday?"
"I was afraid you'd convince me."
"What?"
"Normally, the drop-in wouldn't have been necessary. We could
have let it go and do something else to make labour and business
happy. A decent photo op and a small tax break would have done
it." Toby admitted. "But not when we're facing campaign level
financing. I didn't have any other argument to use and I didn't
have Leo's permission to bring you in."
"Do you have it now?"
"No, but a direct Presidential order trumps Leo's any day."
"I thought you said the President isn't in on this."
"The President knows Leo as well as Leo knows him. He knows what
Leo's doing. He told me that when he told me to do what I had to
do to get you to write the State of the Union."
"He said that?"
"Yes."
"So none of this is a trust issue." Sam said slowly.
"It's all a trust issue." Toby shook his head. "Josh is going
to find out that Leo's holding out on him. CJ is going to be
madder than a wet hen to find out she's out of the loop. And
Leo's not going to be pleased to know that Bartlet can see right
through him. We have to trust each other to do what has to be
done, even when we can't talk about it."
"So much for friends being honest with each other." Sam said,
without rancour.
"You're expecting honesty in politics?" Toby snorted. Sam
looked at him, startled at the bitterness in his tone.
"Toby..." Sam said, after a moment. "CJ said something to me
today..."
"What?" Now the soft voice held nothing but weariness.
"She said you were trying to apologise to me." Sam stated. Toby
didn't answer. "You were, weren't you?"
"Yeah." Toby answered finally. "And I couldn't."
"Yeah, I know it's hard for you to ..." Sam began, softly.
"I won't apologise for something when I can't promise I won't do
it again." Toby cut in. "I couldn't promise that. So do I look
for a new deputy? I need to know soon, Sam."
"I'll... think about it. You did give me two weeks." Sam
replied. His anger was pretty much gone, his natural tendency to
forgive urging him to let it go. Yet, he hesitated, wanting to
think about what he had learned.
"Want to think about it over dinner?" Toby asked suddenly. "I
haven't eaten yet and I doubt you have, either."
"Sure."
-----------------
"Oh, damn." Sam swore softly as he was served his pasta.
"What?" Toby looked up from his own plate.
"I forgot to congratulate CJ on her award."
"Don't worry about it. I sent flowers and congratulations from
all of us. She'll get them on Saturday."
"Why Saturday?"
"It's the only day she'll be home to recieve them." Toby
shrugged.
"You sent flowers?" Sam's mind was boggling at this
unprecidented thoughtfulness on Toby's part.
"I've learned my lesson where CJ is concerned." Toby said
cryptically.
It was on the tip of Sam's tongue to ask for details, but he saw
the look in Toby's eyes. He recalled CJ's reference to an
apology; and Leo's assertion that Toby could reprimand himself
better than anyone else.
He ate silently for a while, thinking. He opened his mouth once
or twice to tell Toby to forget about the resignation, to pretend
that their conflict never happened. Yet, the words remained
stillborn on his tongue.
He was no longer angry, nor did he believe that Toby's trust was
not his. He would not resign in a fit of piqued pride.
He might resign in a sudden understanding of what politics did to
men. He looked across the table at Toby. Toby was looking
particularly tired tonight. Tired and sad and disillusioned.
Sam wondered if he, too, would look like that; whether the energy
and fire he brought to politics would be crushed out as it seemed
to have been for Toby. Did he really want to stay in a job that
did that to a person?
"Sam?" Toby's voice brought him out of his thoughts. Toby was
no longer looking pensive, merely weary after a long day.
"Friends are honest with each other, aren't they?" Sam asled
quietly.
"In so far as they can, yes."
"Do you ever regret going into politics?"
"No." The denial was swift and sincere.
"Why not?"
"Because it's what I am." Toby did not misunderstand the
question. "I regret many things, Sam, but getting into politics
isn't among of them."
"It's taken a lot from you."
"Yes. And it's given me the opportunity to make a difference."
Toby allowed. "Besides, I can't think of any other job that
allows me to yell at very powerful people with impunity."
Sam grinned at that.
"So when do we let the world in on the fact that Josiah Bartlet
will be President in 2002?" He asked offhandedly.
"The State of the Union will be the wake up call." Toby replied.
"You in?"
"Considering that somebody has to translate the grumpy brilliance
of Toby Ziegler into the charming brilliance of Josiah Bartlet, I
guess I am."
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