Don't Tread on Me
Kasey
He wandered the hall aimlessly, passing by the office about a hundred
thousand times.
The empty office.
Well, not quite empty. There was still a desk and chairs and bookshelves
and-…
…and the blank wall, slightly two-tone from where the large flag had once
hung.
It wasn't different enough colour-wise to make anyone really notice. But he
noticed.
He noticed and felt instantly saddened again. Remorseful. Like he wanted to
go smash his hand through the office window and say "See? We need you here -
**I** need you here!"
But he didn't. He simply continued to wander through the halls until he
ended up at the empty office again.
Finally, not knowing what else to do, he entered the office and sat down in
the chair across the desk from where his best friend would have sat normally.
Where he had sat as Sam packed up his cartons of laptop accessories and
diplomas and law books and the flag and the Newton's Cradle that sat on his
desk because sometimes the clicking noise gave him some background noise to
write by.
Sam had explained it as best he could - he couldn't put the feeling he was
experiencing into words at all, really, it was…He was sick and tired and
wanted OUT.
As much as it pained him, he wanted out. He wanted out so desperately that
he couldn't fathom sticking around even another five DAYS, let alone five
YEARS.
It had gotten to be too much ostracization, too much…everything. Too much of
Leo and Toby going over his head, too much of not being acknowledged as a
true part of the staff, too much of not being allowed to voice an opinion
people cared about, too much work, too little time, too…
…Much.
And Josh listened patiently while Sam fumbled with words to convey these
thoughts, and when Sam had finished, he said "Why are you doing this?"
"Josh, I just told you-"
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"It's not personal, Josh-"
"Who's gonna keep my ego in check?"
"Donna does a better job than I do."
"Yeah, but who's gonna check my hamburgers? Donna doesn't care if they're
well-done or burnt or still ALIVE for cryin' out loud, Sam!"
"You could get the damn burger yourself." He was sick and tired of having to
be the protector --he was important enough to save the world, just not
important enough to be told about very important things.
"Yeah, but what about if-…if I start having the nightmares again, who'll I
tell them to?"
"You don't tell them to me as it is."
"I know, but I…I was about to start, Sam, don't go."
"Josh."
"Don't GO, dammit!"
Sam just stared at him. "You think this is about you, don't you?"
"I-"
"You're wrong." Josh opened his mouth to protest, but Sam was too fast.
"This is MY decision and that's the beauty of it - I am getting OUT, Josh,
I'm going my own way. It's been fun, but this…it's what I need to do."
"I thought you loved it."
"I used to."
"Not now?"
"Not now, not for the last year."
"Then why didn't you leave until now?"
"Because I never had anything else I wanted to do."
"And now all of a sudden, you come to a realization that-"
"An old friend of mine from Princeton wants me to run for my own seat. And I
told him I would think about it. It's not far from where I grew up, Josh,
I…" He gave a wry little laugh. "I…I honestly can't remember the last time
I was home. Or, for that matter, away from DC for something that wasn't
political. The last time I took a damn vacation? Hell - the last day I
wasn't at WORK?" He shook his head as he threw the top shelf's books into a
carton. "I can't do it anymore. I can't. I won't."
"Sam-!"
"My mind's made up, Josh, I've turned in my resignation."
"And the President accepted it?"
"I argued my case and he understood."
"He's letting you abandon us?"
"I'm not abandoning anyone."
"Like hell you aren't!"
"Josh-"
"Like hell you aren't!" Fire burned angrily in his dark eyes and, for an
instant, Sam saw the same kind of hurt in Josh's eyes that he had felt in his
own so many times in the past year. "You're walkin' out on us…you're walkin'
out on me and on the President and Leo and Toby and everything we've worked
so damn hard for-"
"I don't care anymore."
"Yeah, ya do." Josh gave a tiny sort of smile. "If you didn't care, it
wouldn't hurt you so much. It wouldn't hurt you so much you feel you've
gotta RUN from it-"
"I'm not running. I'm walking calmly and wondering why I didn't do it years
ago."
"Because you were happy."
"Yeah. Way back when." Sam checked his watch and grabbed his coat off the
rack for the last time. "I'm gonna miss my flight. Tell the new guy not to
be scared of Toby." Grabbing his box with both arms, he lifted it and
carried it with him as he started out of the Communications Bullpen.
"Go to hell!" Josh said in a near-scream, pounding his fist on the desk so
hard that a pen which had been left there bounced several inches into the air.
That's when he had begun to wander the halls aimlessly.
Donna brought him coffee, which she never did except in times of horrible
things, but he didn't drink it. He was too pissed off, too betrayed.
Finally, after much debating in his mind, he went to the President's office,
and Charlie simply nodded to tell him he could go in. He entered, closing
the door carefully behind him before he spoke.
"Sir, what were you thinking?"
The President looked up from his desk, where he'd been staring. "Josh?"
"How could you let him resign like that?"
"He hasn't been happy, Josh, it didn't take a genius to realize that. He
deserves better than the way he's been treated here and I think we all know
that."
"Then why'd it get so bad?"
"Because we didn't know that until we found out he was so unhappy," the
President said quietly.
"Sir…"
"I didn't want him to be miserable, Josh, I don't think you do either. Right
now you do, but you don't, deep down you want him to be happy. This wasn't
doing that for him."
"It used to."
"Yeah." A long pause. "I'm not sure when that changed. Who knows, it all
happened at once - between the environmental drop-in and his father and my MS
all hitting at once…and he never knew about it until very late."
"He's not gonna be happy out there, either."
"You don't know that, Josh, when's the last time he got to see his family?"
"Yeah, but he won't be…he won't be working, that drives him crazy."
"He told me a friend of his wants him to run for…State house, I believe it
was."
"He'll have to compromise his beliefs, that's why he hated Gage Whitney,
that's why he got tired of this."
"And in time he may realize he's not happy out there. Truth be told, I'm
hoping he realizes he wants to be here. But in the meantime, it's not my job
to force him to be unhappy."
"Yes, sir," Josh said quietly.
He looked like he was about to leave. "Josh."
"Yes, sir?"
"If this feeling…this sorrow and betrayal…that I'm feeling right now and
trying not to make public…if this is the way Sam's felt this year, and I
think it is…I don't blame him for resigning. This sucks." Josh gave a sad
nod and left, wandering once more by Sam's abandoned office before going to
his own office.
"You need anything?" Donna asked quietly from the doorway.
"I'm going home."
"You're…coming back tomorrow, right?" The idea of their close-knit family
dissolving before their eyes was too real a possibility for anyone's comfort.
"Yeah."
"Okay. You want company?"
"I wanna be alone."
"Okay."
"Unless the company would be Sam so I could convince him not to go."
"If I hear from him, I'll send him over."
"Yeah." Pause. "Okay." Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he headed
outside, wanting desperately to wake up from his nightmare.
~*~*~*~
The first week was glorious.
Catching up on four years worth of sleep deprivation (meaning sleeping for
more than four hours a night), seeing his mother who he hadn't seen in over
two years, visiting his sister and brother-in-law and nieces, making some
amends with his father…Who could ask for anything more?
He visited the beach for the first time in…in ages, he realized as he
stretched out on his tri-fold chair with his copy of A Thousand Days. He'd
begun to look pale, a little sickly and, well…like a New Englander.
Maybe sunshine and fresh air and sleep and eating right would do the trick.
He met several times with his friend, Jonathan, who wanted him to run for a
seat in the State Legislature. It sounded incredibly appealing - being able
to figure out his own platform, no Toby to work under, no one above him to
screw with his head…
Everything felt so new to him. So fresh, so…so different.
Who needed DC?
~*~*~*~
"E-Excuse me, CJ?"
"Yeah."
"If…if this is a bad time, I can-"
"No, c'min, Donna."
The willowy blond entered apprehensively and sat across from CJ, who set
aside her briefing book. "I'm worried about Josh."
"I don't know of anyone in this building who isn't right now, with the
exception of Toby who's too busy yelling at Roy to worry."
"He's in this funk…"
"His best friend abandoned him, of course he's in a funk."
"I..I'm just not sure if there's something I should be doing or trying to
accomplish with-"
"There's really nothing people can do, unless you can convince Sam to come
back."
"Yeah," Donna said quietly. "I suppose that would solve everything."
"Well, yeah, for the people who are here, but I know Sam had his reasons so
if it wouldn't solve things for Spanky…"
"Fair point."
"Thanks."
Donna sighed. "Can we try and solve things for Sam, y'know, as quickly as
humanly possible? I don't know how much more I can-"
They were interrupted by shouts. "This is supposed to be a SPEECH, not a
CARTOON SCRIPT! What the hell is-!"
"…Toby's on the warpath…" CJ mouthed and Donna giggled slightly. "So maybe,
in the interest of saving other Deputy Communications Director, we'd better
get Sam back quick."
~*~*~*~
"Sam, ya can't say this."
"Why not?"
"Because it's incendiary."
"It's true."
"Yeah, but I'm saying-"
"Crime IS a problem in LA, especially in South Central, so what-"
"South Central isn't your jurisdiction, plus it's gonna make you sound
racist."
"What? Jonathan, you've gotta be kidding me."
"No."
"It's the truth, it's basically nationally acknowledged that it's the truth,
why can't I say it?"
"Because then your opponent runs an ad suggesting that you consider
predominantly African-American areas to be more crime-ridden."
"I didn't say anything about race or-"
"You didn't have-"
"Excuse me. Please. I said nothing about race, I said nothing suggesting
it's a race-related issue, I said nothing that would make people think-"
"You can't say it, Sam."
Sam sighed. It was like being under Communist regime.
Or maybe just the regime of One Toby Ziegler.
~*~*~*~
By the third week, there had been seven.
The longest was a week, the shortest was two hours and ten minutes.
They knew because the secretaries had a pool going.
Toby screamed almost non-stop at the new people who came and went in the
seemingly endless cycle of Sam-Replacements.
They couldn't write. Not at ALL.
And he couldn't figure out how each of them managed to get through interview
with Leo and do fairly well.
Or maybe they were scraping together anyone they could find. Maybe the
reason the new guys couldn't write was that they were actually on the
janitorial staff.
Josh was doing no better than Toby, only he was screaming at EVERYONE. At
Donna, at CJ, at Toby, at Leo, and he was snapping at the President which
wasn't smart.
But he never got yelled at. No one screamed back.
They knew he was more hurt by Sam's resignation than anyone else, that he
loved Sam like a brother, and that he was so angry and betrayed that he
couldn't think straight.
He wanted Sam back. Whatever it took, whatever groveling, whatever changes
it took…he wanted Sam back.
Whatever the cost.
~*~*~*~
He felt incredibly stupid, calling everyone together in the main room of
headquarters.
He gave an apology first - an apology worthy of the President of the United
States Himself - then broke the news.
There was a mix of anger and disappointment, but that wasn't his problem. He
was done.
Heading back to his office, he drew the carton out from under his desk and
began to pack into it - his laptop, his diplomas, his law books, and his flag.
"Don't Tread on Me," it said. He liked to think he lived up to that motto
sometimes - most of the time, even. But he knew, deep down, he did not. He
let people tread all over him.
And he felt like a fool.
~*~*~*~
He had made it his daily habit of passing by the office often, to see who was
in there, if it was the same person as had been there the last time he'd
passed by, or if Toby had kicked out yet another new Deputy Communications
Director.
He saw a flash of dark hair and tanned skin and a perfectly pressed black
suit with a white shirt unpacking a carton. "Don't unpack too much - you may
not last long," he called as a joke, albeit a true one.
The guy did not look up. "If I'm unwelcome, then I won't stay."
And Josh froze.
For all of about two seconds. Then he barreled into Sam so hard it almost
knocked them both to the ground.
"I missed you, too, Josh," Sam said in a joking voice but meaning every word.
"What made you come back?"
"Realizing no where's any better than this."
"That doesn't sound so great."
"Maybe it's not. I don't know anymore…I was confused, and I thought back to
where it was that I'm not usually confused. And y'know what I came up with?"
"Here?"
"Yeah - which in turn confused me more, but…here I am."
"For good this time?"
"Until President Bartlet's no longer in the Oval Office. And maybe then
some." Josh positively BEAMED at that thought. "I half expected Leo not to
take me back…"
"Sam, you have no idea the sorts of problems we've had the month with Deputy
Communications Directors."
"Yeah, I heard there wasn't a replacement or anything…"
"There were actually no less than nine replacements."
"Nine? In a month?"
"You know Toby."
"Ah." Sam laughed.
God, Josh thought, it sounded good to hear Sam laugh again.
It sounded good just to hear SAM again.
"Help me unpack?" Sam asked with a smile, and Josh immediately obliged. Onto
the shelf went the law books, the diplomas hung on their original nails, the
Newton's Cradle went on the front of his desk.
Each standing on a chair and fearing falling off, they together hung the flag.
"Don't Tread on Me." Words to live by.
Only maybe a better motto would be "Don't Tread on Others."
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