Too Marvelous for Words:
Part 2


Cara


C.J. sat at her desk, trying to stifle a chill. Maybe the snowball
fight hadn't been such a good idea after all. Not if it meant she'd
get sick. Still, she smiled to herself, she *had* kicked Donna's ass.
And she would have kicked Sam's had he stayed out there longer.

Life was good. She'd enjoyed a snowball fight outside like a grade
school child. She'd just seen Danny Concannon and he'd been
relatively friendly - not standoffish like before. Carol said that
Sam or no Sam, he was still carrying the torch for her. C.J. hoped he
was getting past that. It wasn't good for her ego to think she'd had
that sort of effect on Danny. And on top of everything else, someone
had surprised her with a tin of coffee - her favourite blend - and
the only work she had involved Sam.

Whistling softly, C.J. grabbed the file and left her office. She
skipped down the hall, nodding a hello to Carol. The halls were very
full. People were running everywhere. C.J. couldn't have been
happier. Rush hour in the West Wing was a time she reveled in.

"Hi, C.J.!" Cathy, Sam's assistant, always had a kind word for her.
Perhaps it was because in the time he'd been dating C.J., Sam had
been considerably less inclined to overwork himself, and thus less
inclined to snap at her.

"Hey, Cathy. Your boss in?" C.J. couldn't keep the smile off her
face. The day was too damn good.

Cathy checked the calendar sitting on her desk. "Yeah, the meeting
should have been over ten minutes ago. He should be back in a sec, if
you'd care to wait."

"Sure." C.J. walked into Sam's office and sat down.

It wasn't long before she heard his voice. "Man, she is going to be
*so* surprised!"

"Yeah," a female voice, probably Donna, responded. "I honestly don't
know how C.J. will take it."

"I think she'll be all right." She heard Sam stop at the doorway to
his office and turn the key. "But come in for a minute, and we can
work out the details."

To say C.J. was curious would have put it mildly. But she couldn't
exactly get out of the office. So she did the next best thing and sat
on Sam's couch nonchalantly. She would make her excuses and then wait
until he finished whatever he had to do.

Sam jumped a mile and a half! "C.J.!"

She was on her feet in an instant. "Are you okay, Sam?" This didn't
look like an ordinary fright. Sam wasn't usually excitable. What had
she done?

Sam caught his breath and stilled his pulse beat, at the same time
mentally kicking himself. Why the hell had he reacted like that? She
hadn't scared him *that* much. Now she knew something was going on.

He had to try to save it. "I'm fine, C.J. You just scared me; I
didn't expect anyone to be here."

She didn't buy it; he knew that look. Still, Sam knew that she
wouldn't talk about it in front of Donna, who had walked into the
office behind Sam. "Fine," C.J. said slowly. Still, she wouldn't let
it go completely. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yes. Fine. You can go now, C.J." Sam spoke far too quickly and
betrayed far too much nervousness.

It showed. "I'll wait outside." C.J. walked through the door,
radiating anxiety as much as Sam.

He closed the door behind her and swore. "I handled that completely
wrong, didn't I?"

"Completely," Donna agreed. "Now she knows there's something going
on."

"Shit." Sam dropped into his chair. He hadn't made the decision too
long ago and already he was experiencing this degree of fear. Maybe
this wasn't the right way to go. Maybe he wasn't ready.

"You're ready, Sam; don't doubt yourself." Donna sat down in the
chair opposite him. "It's natural to be scared. I would be if I were
you."

"Was I talking out loud?" Sam wondered.

"Yeah, you were." Donna flipped open a file. "Now, come on, Sam. We
have to finish this. Let's get the gun package stats for Josh so we
can both go home before the ice storm hits."

Sam blinked. "What ice storm?"

Donna gave him one of her where-have-you-been looks. "There's
supposed to be a gigantic ice storm tonight. One of the worst on
record."

"Fabulous," Sam muttered under his breath. To Donna he said, "All
right, let me call Joey and get the stats."

As Sam made the call, Donna sat and reflected on her own
relationship. Why couldn't *her* boyfriend be more like Sam? Well,
not in clumsiness or naivete. She'd had enough of that. But why
couldn't Josh know instinctively what she wanted? Sam looked
positively adorable, trying to forget his plan to woo C.J. as he
struggled to focus on work. She still found it amusing that C.J. had
thought *she* had loved Sam, while C.J. had been struggling with her
own crush.

She came back to the present as Sam turned on the television. "Let's
see what CNN has to say on this."

The two of them stared at the television as the newscast came back
from commercial. "Today the White House begins hearings on a proposed
gun package. This bill would propose five-day waiting periods and
background checks on gun users." Sam nodded. So far, so good.

But then the announcer dropped his bomb. "However, some Washington
insiders are saying that this bill may quickly get rougher." The
network jumped to a shot of Josh, while the voice-over continued. "A
source inside the White House has told this network that the
president's senior staff have vowed to press for very strict gun
control, especially in the wake of the attempted assassination of
President Bartlet and Joshua Lyman, the White House Deputy Chief of
Staff."

Sam stared at the TV, while Donna spoke, horror-stricken. "This can't
be happening."

Still it went on. "Our same source inside the White House quotes a
senior official as saying, `We won't rest until there's some stricter
gun control laws in place. This kind of thing can't happen again.
Free expression be damned.'" The announcer continued with what Sam
saw as grim triumph. "Needless to say," he persisted, "the
Republicans in Congress are crying foul already. In other news ."

"Shit!" Sam couldn't stop it. Numbly he said, "Who the hell was their
source!"

Donna, ever the tranquil one, addressed the situation logically.
"Well, who said that, first and foremost?"

"Me." Sam's voice was almost non-existent, even though he elaborated.
"It wasn't to a reporter or anything!" He gestured helplessly. "I
remember saying it. It was in the hall. I was talking to Josh."

"Fine." Donna mentally eliminated Josh as the leak. He'd worked too
hard on this. "Well, who was there when you said it?"

Sam tried to remember. "Um . Well, Josh obviously. Cathy. Carol, she
was getting my notes on the Hawkinson memo. Congresswoman Jarrard's
aide. Danny Concannon. And Amanda York, the new reporter from the
Guardian."

Their eyes lit up at the same moment. "York!" Donna said, with savage
triumph.

Sam still entertained doubts. "I don't know, Donna. Danny looks like
a pretty good bet right now."

"Sam!" Evidently Donna disagreed. "Danny would never leak about this.
He was *there,* for God's sake. York doesn't owe us anything. Danny
owes C.J. everything, really."

"True," Sam mused. Truth be told he didn't want to tell Donna about
the personal motives clogging his head. Would Danny go so far as to
leak something to ruin Sam? According to Carol, Sam was the A-number
one on Danny's shit list. And, Sam admitted, for a good reason. But
it wasn't his fault, really. C.J. had done the dumping.

Trying to forget those thoughts, Sam progressed to far worse ones.
"Um, Donna, let's forget about collating right now, huh? I need you
to go tell Josh what's going on." He paled, thinking of his own fate.
"I'll go tell Leo."

"All right." Donna turned to go, then faced him again, thinking of
something. "Sam, I know this isn't the time, but I have to ask: did
you make reservations tonight with C.J.?"

Sam made a gesture of annoyance. "I will as soon as I finish this
off." For a moment the old boyish smile was back. "I could never
concentrate on that right now."

"I guess not." The two went off to their respective duties.

Too Marvelous For Words: Part 3

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