Grievances


Kasey


He went back to his office only to get his coat, originally. But then he saw his deputy, sitting in his own office and staring at the laptop screen in the dimly-lit room.

Having heard from CJ who was around that night and thus feeling a little sympathetic, he knocked on the door jamb. "Sam?"

The younger man looked up in shock. "Hey."

"Whatcha still doing here? You should…y'know…go home. It's late."

"Yeah, I was just…Nothing. I was just…"

"It was a good speech tonight."

"Yeah, it-…it was good."

"You wrote well it was a bad time for me to get writers block."

"Happens to all of us."

"Yeah." He gave a faint sort of smile. "So how's she doing now?"

"Lisa?"

"Yeah."

"She's doing great."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Sam looked remorsefully at his computer screen, pondering something Toby wasn't sure what.

"'Cause I've been there, y'know, so I understand these things…"

"Yeah. I mean I…I know, just…not now, okay?"

"Sure." He paused a moment, waiting for his deputy to say something more, and surely enough, Sam did.

"There are just times I wonder if this was worth what I gave up for it. Times when-…Like with the cancer thing. Or the drop-in." Toby thought to himself that it had been a year…and for Sam to hold onto something so long it had to have been incredibly painful for him and more so than he'd made known. "Or the MS or…I dunno. Seatbelts and pennies and books and…things people don't care about, that's what's on my desk."

"It's not intentional."

"Sure it is." Sam gave a sort of twisted smile. "Sure it's intentional - I'm on Senior Staff and my name carries enough weight to throw around when it wants to be conveyed that we're really considering something when we AREN'T really considering it." He looked down at his desk. "And I'm informed of changes in the statuses of things as my position warrants."

"It sounds like you're pretty sure about that so I'm not gonna…I'm not gonna try and convince you otherwise I just think I should say I think you're wrong, I think it's not an intentional thing-"

"That's bull, Toby! Josh told me about the MS thing about-…About why I was kept in the dark! You wanted me to be able to finish the Chicago draft before I knew - but you had to have known we wouldn't be even giving a comparable draft because we'd have to expose all the MS stuff before we were GOING to Chicago!"

It wasn't like Sam to explode, especially not to Toby - sometimes with Josh, but even that was getting rarer and rarer. "Yeah."

"You figured it out so you knew first, that's fine, then Josh found out that makes sense then a WEEK went by and CJ was told then JOEY LUCAS and THEN me! As in someone outside staff."

"She had to do some polling, we needed the numbers as soon as we could get them…"

"And did the poll tell us ANYTHING? Of course not and you knew it wouldn't!" Sam was looking very angry and very bitter and that unnerved Toby a little. Sam didn't get mad and bitter…that was his job.

"It was a mistake."

"Yes!"

There was silence for a minute as Toby pondered what to say. "Sam."

"What?" There was still an edge to Sam's voice.

"I…I know this has been a bad night for you, I know you're going through the classic 'was it worth it?' arguments in your head and you look around and you see the things that have gone wrong…" He paused, his mouth twitching a little. "You're a good deputy, Sam. Sometimes I think you should have my job instead of me. You're the moral guy. The one who's not jaded yet."

"The cancer thing-"

"The cancer thing was an overzealous guy feeling helpless and powerless about being censured-"

"Toby, please." He looked up at his boss. "It's not an 'overzealous guy', it's President Bartlet."

"…Yeah," Toby said quietly after a moment. "Go home and sleep, okay?"

"Toby, it's time for us to be in again in an hour, by the time I'd get home I'd have like a half hour."

"Take the morning off. You've earned it. Besides, I think CJ's a little drunk and won't be in 'til mid-morning at best. So…y'know…go home."

Toby left and Sam stared after him for a little bit, slightly puzzled, before gathering up his coat and briefcase and going home.



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