I stayed outside his office, watching him. The door was open, and I stayed standing there for a minute to study him. He didn't realize I was there, and if he did, I guess he did a good job ignoring me. After a couple of minutes I knocked on the door and waited for his response. He didn't give any.

"Sam" I called his name, expecting him to turn around and look at me. He didn't. "Sam" I said again, this time a little louder so he could hear me. He didn't. I walked through the office to cut the distance between us and touched his shoulder. He looked up at me, his face screamed how tired he was.
"Sam? Are you okay?" I asked, worried this time.
"Yes, Josh, I'm fine, why?" he answer me like he didn't know what I was talking about.
"You didn't hear me calling your name?" it was obvious he didn't.
"I'm sorry, I must be distracted." He said with a fake smile on his face.
"Distracted by what?" I asked almost losing the last bit of patience I had left " you were staring through the window"

" Josh, I was just trying to relax a little. I'm so tired and I thought that if maybe I put my mind away from the work for a while, I could think clearly". He knew I was worried about him, and he knew so damn well how to evade me. "Whatddya want?" he asked, trying to change the subject I knew what he was doing and I also knew he would persuade me not to keep on interrogating him. I wouldn't push back, I was so busy to keep up with the pep talk.

" I need the transcripts of the president's speech" I said going with the flow. He let go a chuckle and looked to his desk.
"Everyone in the west wing has a transcript, even the interns." I was staring to get annoyed by the tone of his voice, but then again I was too busy to discuss that.
" I lost mine, gimme a break would ya?" I knew he wasn't going to shoot back, he's Sam for God's sake, he always swallows everything and wait for more. Maybe we should talk about that.

He looked in his drawer for the speech and gave it to me, then turned his back to me and stared blankly through the window, again.

I left the communications bullpen and started to think about our little chat there. I wasn't nice. I can't remember the last time anyone of us was nice to him, but he's Sam. I came back to my office and sat in my chair, trying to read the transcripts, but the only thing I could think of is Sam staring through the window. What was he thinking? What is he thinking right now? The truth must be told even if the sky fall down: right now, I can't afford to care, I have so many things in the top of my head and I can't only focus on Sam, right now he's not that important.

The next weeks were like hell. Everyone was working on the State of the Union; everyone knew this one was really important; an EVERYONE had something to say. I stopped a couple of times in the bullpen, but never saw Sam out of his office. He was always sitting at his desk reading every piece of paper given to him for the State of the Union. I wanted to tell him about Amy Gardner, but the time hadn't been the right time. I ran to Toby and he said something to me, I wasn't really paying too much attention because he was probably pissed at someone and he was trying to discharge all his energy on getting involved in a new argument. I just saw Sam on his desk, he was so tired, so silent and so quiet that it scared me, but I needed to get away from Toby, so I ran looking for Donna.

We were in the oval office having a meeting with the president late at night. He wanted to put the cancer thing on the speech, and asked everyone about it. After Toby, C.J., Joey and myself gave our thoughts about the subject, the president waited for Sam to give his answer, but it never came. The president had to ask Sam about it, Sam didn't say what he thought after hearing everyone else, it was obvious his turn to talk, but he waited for the president to ask him, when was the last time Sam waited to say what was on his mind?. This topic was so perfect to make Sam explode with a idealistic answer, it was so perfect to make Sam concentrate in something that really mattered to him, we all expected him to display his "geek bravado". I must give Laurie credit, that was a funny thing to say, I remember when Sam told me about it. We used to talk about almost everything, we used to talk, that's too bad, I haven't told him about Amy, we don't talk like that anymore.

But returning to the Sam topic, I was stunned when I saw his reaction in the oval office. The old Sam would have talked without an ending about how good this cancer cure would be, and how important it would be for the campaign, but no, he waited to be asked, that's not the old Sam. I don't think anyone else noticed, but I did, I know Sam, I know him better than anyone else in the room and in that very moment I realized that something was wrong. This was not our Sam.

I was confused by his response. Yes, it was very Sam-ish, but not good enough. He wasn't trying to make a point, he wasn't trying to convince everybody else that he was right, he just said what was crossing his mind, but all the conviction , the passion which were present every time Sam was excited about something were long gone. Where did they go? Why would Sam leave the utopian world he lived in?

Definitely not our Sam.

I was stuck with work and Amy and other zillion things, that I couldn't keep an eye on Sam, but it doesn't mean I wasn't watching. I wanted to talk to him, I knew he wasn't the Sam we all knew, this one was a different one, I've been recalling the last months, searching for a clue that could tell me what was wrong or when all this began. But I couldn't remember any. Maybe it was because I was too busy with my own business that I didn't see this coming, maybe I didn't want to see it coming.

I didn't want him to go through the same stuff I went through after the shooting, I know it's not like he was shot at or something but I know what it feels when your head start to play games and you almost lose it. I didn't want him to be down and sad and sorrow, I wanted him to be the same naïve, optimistic, idealistic, and happy guy I met a long ago.

The night of the State of the Union address everyone was in the communications bullpen waiting for the wonder duo. But everyone knew that most of the success of the night was thanks to Sam. We were all waiting. Not even Amy could distract me from congratulating Sam. He entered in the room. With Lisa, I don't know if she has something to do with Sam being out of everything, but I know I blame her anyway. Sam said that crappy and almost stupid line about the HaHa in Cleveland, and tried to put his best face. I literally ran through the whole room and hugged him. I felt him a little distance, but he hugged back, and congratulated me too. He put on the best "happy face" he could muster and smile at everyone, but he seemed so nervous to me. He was asking Joey about the numbers every ten minutes.

I told him I will see him later. Actually I said I'll see you later, trying to involved Lisa, but I really meant Sam. So I did it. I went to look for him, because I couldn't find him in the party. I looked every where inside of the white house, but he wasn't there. I was going to look outside when I saw him in one of the balconies hiding.
It was supposed to be his party and yet he spent most of the time out of it. He could have shown Lisa how important he was, and how great his job was, but he didn't he tried to hide from everything.

"Hey" I said.
"Hey" he said without turning back to look at me. It was getting to be an usual thing.
"You weren't at the party" I said trying to break the ice.
"No, I wasn't" he said coldly.
"What are you doing here?" I asked
"Watching the stars" He answered me, but it seemed like something he had already said.
"Why don't you come inside?" I said almost pleading.
"Later"
That was the driest statement ever. How he could do that? Definitely not our Sam

"Come on, buddy, this is your night, you should enjoy it" I tried to laughed, but I couldn't find the joke in there. And he's still not looking at me.
"Later" he said again.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked, 'please talk to me' I said to myself.
"No"
"Sam..."
"I'm just tired" he finally said
"Let's go inside. Lisa's gone so we can have all the bad jokes to our own."
I started to wonder at that point if he didn't want to see me.
"Sam, come on..." I was going to beg, but he cut me off.
"In a minute" He turned his eyes to me, begging to be left alone. But I didn't want to, it was as if he didn't have the strength to move a foot. Nor wanted to.
"Okay, I'll wait"

I went to the door, and waited there. Almost hiding to see what he was going to do next. Every movement was like he was asking his body to make it, it was like he was so tired of everything and wanted to go away, maybe disappear. He sighed, like he was holding his breath for a long time and on purpose. He closed his eyes and sighed again, this was the first time in a long time I saw that expression; you could see frustration emanating from his body. He shook his head, like he was trying to take all the crap out of him. Then sighed again. Opened his eyes, and went to the party.

Outside of the party, Sam closed his eyes again and sighed, the fourth time in less than five minutes. Took a deep breath and smiled, and walked straight to the room, shook hands, and started joking. I knew then the celebration a few hours before was just a show. The celebration act. He should win an Oscar.

"Hey , Sam, nice job!!!" Someone told him.
"Yeah, I know." He smiled and everyone around him laughed.
"You want something to drink?" another guy asked him.
"Only if you pay for it, I guess I deserve at least that." He joked. joked. joked. joked. %b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆ%b.àƾˆí¦íæé„í¦íæmost was when I talked to C.J the next morning. She asked me if I knew what was wrong with Sam. Boy, I wish I had. She told me about their little encounter in her office and how depressed he seemed to her after the speech. She told me he looked so bad. And he was not happy about that speech. How could he be not happy about it? It was a master piece.

I frowned at every word of hers and when she told me that she thought Sam maybe needed help, I almost laughed. She'd figured it out before I did, and she didn't know him as much as well I did. Maybe she wasn't being selfish, maybe she noticed Sam more than I do, maybe she wasn't too damned busy. Excuses. I shouldn't be looking for lame excuses to set myself free from the guilt of under looking my friend. And I realized that just then? God, I must be one of the stupidest guys over the face of the earth.

I went to his office to talk to him, but to my surprise he wasn't there. 7 pm. And Sam Seaborn wasn't in his office. That must be a mad day. He always works past 2 am. He couldn't be home by now. I asked Toby if he knew about Sam, and he said he didn't realize he was gone. His office is next to Sam's, how could he not notice when he left? Maybe I wasn't the only one. Maybe all of us forgot about Sam. What kind of friends does it make us?

I went to Leo and asked him if I could take the rest of the night off, as I expected he asked me for an explanation. I told him about my suspicious about Sam and he let me leave early.

I drove to his department and in my way to Sam's, I was trying to recollect all my memories, trying to find a signal of this over the past few months. What came to my mind was the day he learned about his father. That was the first clue. He was trying to make us think that he was ok, but we knew he wasn't. Then, the day he found out about the president's disease. He focused on his job and tried to hide his disappointment, but we all saw him blow up in Leo's office. And no one paid attention to that. After that episode, all that Sam was doing seemed meaningless. Were we trying to exclude him from the big issues? Were we doing this on purpose?

Pennies, seatbelts, poverty index, soft money, stopping a book, while the rest of us were dealing with mad cow disease, extraditions, and all kind of big stuff. Maybe he was trying so hard to focus on the things he could fix, because if he worked on something he couldn't resolve he would think he was useless. But the real issue was did we think he was useless?
The look on his face when I came to his office and found him staring through that window and the look on his face the night of the State of the union was an indication of his fall.

Why didn't we include him into the real issues? Why did we leave him out? He also works for the White House, right?

I made my way to his apartment and rang the doorbell, but I had no answer. I took the key he gave me in case of emergency and open the door. That was a case of emergency. I couldn't help it. I got into his place and looked for him inside, he wasn't. So, I made myself comfortable, and waited for him.

One forty five a.m. He came back. He opened the door, kept the lights off , took his coat off of him and threw himself to the couch. He didn't notice I was there. I was sitting in the chair close to the door, and he didn't see me.

"Don't you have a bed?" I said, trying to make him notice me.
He spooked, and almost jumped from the couch.
"How did you get in here?" he asked finally realizing the voice owner.
"Way to say hi..." was my answer.
"Hi,.... How did you get in here?" He was persistent.
"You gave me the key, remember?" I showed him the keys on my hand.
He let go of a sigh go and stretched out again on the couch. "In case of emergency, if I knew you were going to sneak in my house in the middle of the night I wouldn't have"
"Don't you have a bed?" I asked again.
"You came all the way here to ask me about my furniture?" His voice was almost a whisper.
" I mean you were going to sleep on the couch, I guess the most reasonable thing is going bed to sleep"
He growled. "I sleep on the couch when I'm too tired to make it to the bedroom, it's easier."
He didn't ask me what I was doing there. He just closed his eyes. I wasn't going to let him get away with this, I mean I know I haven't been the best of friends for a while, but that wasn't going to happen that night.
"Sam..."
"Hmmm..."
"We need to talk" .
"Something happened?" he asked but still his eyes were closed and his body resting over the couch.
"You."
"What did I do this time?" I could barely hear his voice.
"The thing is you didn't" I guess he was falling asleep, because he didn't say anything.
"Sam...."
"What?"
"We need to talk"
"I'm too tired to talk"
"Sam, I know something is not right with you..."
"Josh, everything is fine, I'm just tired, can we leave this conversation for tomorrow? I'm too tired to talk". He cut me off.
"It is tomorrow" I said . Why couldn't I make him talk?
"Josh..."
"Yeah?"
"Too tired...." And with that he fell asleep.

I went home with the thought that I'd failed failure to help my friend yet again. But I decided I would talk to him in the morning. But as usual, things go the way you don't want them to go. We had a staff meeting with the president early in the morning, I saw Sam sitting in one of the couches. Listening, but not saying anything. The president wasn't in the best of his moods, and he forgot completely the great speech Sam wrote for him. We were discussing a new bill, and it wasn't supposed to be a problem, but as I said, the president wasn't in the best of his moods.

He asked everyone to do their things, we left the oval and Sam was asked to craft a message from the president about the bill. Sam did what he was told. He gave it to Leo, and Leo made him change it for political reasons. Sam wrote it again, and then Leo gave him thumbs up and they took it to the president. They president was grumpy to say the least, he was the SOB he was early the first campaign. The president didn't like what Sam had written, and I wasn't because it was bad writing or anything, I guess it was because the president was furious and needed to let go his anger.

"This is stupid!" We heard the president screaming in the oval office.
"It's what Sam said we should...." Leo tried to calm him down.
"I don't give a damn what Sam has to say..."

Sam who was waiting outside , just look through the open door, and lowered his eyes, turned around and walked away.

The president knew he'd screw up and sighed. "Great!" he exclaimed. Leo was running behind Sam trying to catch him and talk to him, and I did that too. We couldn't, he was going so fast. I don't think I'd NEVER seen him move like that. We heard him slamming the door of his office. A minute later Leo and I got in there. Sam grabbed his coffee mug, stared at it for a moment then threw it to the flag on his wall.
"Stupid flag!!!!" Crash...
Leo and I watched the scene stunned. This was not Sam, definitely not our Sam. Or maybe he was, just we didn't pay too much attention to what he was or who he had become, maybe we didn't pay enough much attention to what we had turned him into.
"Sam..."Leo said opening the door.
"Leave me alone"
"Sam, you can't do that in here...." Leo continued.
"I don't care." He was picking his wallet and his car keys from his desk and then, he was going to leave the office.
"He didn't mean it , Sam" Leo tried to stop Sam.
"Not now, Leo" he said.
"Sam he's in a bad mood since the thing with..."
"Not now Leo!!!" His voice was extremely loud.
"We do have to discuss this now, you're mad, you can't be that mad to the president."
"I said not now." He was coming to the door, I stopped him. "Let me go".
"You're not going anywhere" Leo told him, almost losing his temper.
"Oh, yes I am." He tried to pass through me, but I didn't let him do it.
"Why?" Leo yell.
"Because if I stayed here one more minute I'm going to lose the little faith I have left in this place, and because if I talk with you right now I know I'm going to say things I'm going to regret tomorrow" he yelled.

Leo didn't said anything, he let Sam go, and so did I.

Sam didn't come back to the office that day, and neither of us say anything about it. Everyone knew Sam had to calm down and that we were not doing any good staying around him. So we gave him a little space.

The president was too proud to say 'I'm sorry', but he wasn't too proud to recognize what he did was wrong. He tried to talk to Sam, but Leo told him not to do it. The next day Sam didn't show up in the office, so C.J, Toby and myself went to his home after work.

We rang the bell a thousand times, 'cause we knew he was there. I didn't use the keys, because if he didn't open the door that meant he wanted to be left alone.

After ten minutes of 'Ding, Dong's Sam opened.

He didn't say a word. He just let the door opened so the rest of us could get in. He had a beer on his hand. After everyone was sit down, he closed the door behind him.

"Do you guys want something to drink?" He asked us, wanting to be polite.
"We're fine" Toby said.
"There wasn't anything on the fridge anyway" He rose his beer so we could see he was drinking.

"You didn't show up this morning" C.J was trying to break the ice.
"I know" 'I know' ? What was that?
"We were worried." She continued.
He let go a big laugh. He laughed so hard that tears were coming of his eyes.
"That's a good one" He said after he caught his breath.
"What do you mean?" C.J asked surprised.
"Nothing" He said realizing he said something that showed us a little what he was feeling.
"How many of those have you had?" I asked. I was trying to figure out if he was drunk or just bitter.
"Who cares?" he shrugged
"We do" I said. He chuckled. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked desperation in my voice.
He went to the kitchen. "What could be possibly wrong?" Bitterness in his words.

"Sam, we don't think you're ok, we saw you in the oval, C.J says you've been depressed, that scene in your office... it says it all about a person's condition." I wanted him to talk to us, anyone of us.

Silence.

"Come on, Sam. It's us. Whatever is bugging you, you can tell us." C.J managed to say.
"Yeah, right" Why he was been so stubborn? If I were one of those guys in a bar, I would kick his ass.
"Sam..." Toby was about to say something, but Sam exploded there.
"Get out". He was starting to lose his temper.
"Sam.." I said..
"GET OUT I SAID!!!".. Okay, that was not good.
"Sam we're not going anywhere!!!" If that was going to make him let out all the things he had inside, I was willing to play the game.
"You've been not you lately, you've been so distant and you look like crap, you're tired all the time, and we want to know why.!"
"Why are you doing this? Who cares?" His voice was even louder
"We do care, because WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS!" Ok. I'm good shouting, that's for sure.
"Friends? Friends?" There was the laughter again. "What kind of friends ambush you?, What kind of friends let you down everyday?, What kind of friends shut you down every time you have something to say?, What kind of friends ignore you?, What kind of friends make you think you're not good at what you do, what kind of friends decide to hide things from you because they don't want to hear your thoughts about it?" Sam sighed. Then continued. "Yeah, friends. Friends are honest with each other, right?. Friends who are with you when you do the things they want you to do right, and who are against you when you think different of what they think. Friends."

I was going to reply, but after he finished I forgot what I was going to say. He really felt that way about us? We had done to much damage to our friendship that Sam, a guy who swallows all the bad things and keeps the good ones was starting to hate us?. He couldn't hate us. Sam couldn't feel hate, that word wasn't on his vocabulary. Maybe we just let him down, big time.

No one said anything, no one did anything, we just sat there watching him with disbelief. What had we done?

"I don't need this, I had a life before coming here" His voice came from nowhere. "I had a life. A job, maybe not the best one, but at least I was good at. I was getting married, even though not with the best woman. I had a plan, by this time I would be married, with two kids, a great house, a van to take them to the ball games and enough money to give them everything they want. And dogs, two dogs." He sighed. "Nothing of that happened. I'm stuck in a job which is not fun anymore, no wife, no kids, no house, no life. People say I'm good at what I do, but it seems to me I'm always good at what I don't want to be, and I'm bad at what I want to be good at" he took a sip of his beer.

"You're leaving us?" Toby said after a big silence.
"Not now" Sam answered him.
"Why?" C.J asked also surprised for everything Sam just said.
"I can do a lot of things in a deliberate way, being stupid is not one of them"

We looked at him, trying to catch his sight, but he avoided us. We never met his eyes. He asked us to leave, we did it so. He wanted to be alone.

I read somewhere "The only thing you can't fix is death", but would we be able to fix this?