Tooth and Nail

Kerry

---

        Leo looked on as Sam walked away. He let out a long, slow breath. "Poor kid," he muttered to himself. But it was more than that. He saw that Sam felt betrayed by his father. Hell, Sam was betrayed by his father-why shouldn't he feel like that? Leo wanted so badly to tell Sam that sleeping on the couch in the office and a clean shirt wouldn't make the problems go away. He wanted to tell him to call his father, talk it over, yell it out, do something. But that was the father in him. Because, watching Sam, Leo saw his betrayal to his own child all over again.

        Leo walked through the Communications bullpen and into his office. "Hold my calls for awhile, Margaret," he said, holding up a hand as he put down his briefcase. She could sense he was in no mood for chitchat, and left silently, closing the door behind her.

        Leo fell back into his chair and sighed. He had betrayed his family, too. His betrayal came back to haunt him each and every day. Every day he looked at the pictures on his desk, every time he spoke to his daughter, every time there was the slightest mention of drugs and treatment in the White House. He felt that in many ways his betrayal was far worse than the elder Seaborn's: at least Sam's father cheated with another human being. Leo McGarry risked everything for the love of the bottle, for the pleasure of the pills. Now, and only now that he was clean and sober, did he realize the hell he had put his family hrough. The pain he caused each and every day in Jenny's life, and the fear that Mallory must have had of her father, the drunk. The only thing he could regret more than hurting Jenny was hurting his baby.

        It was the look of fear in his daughter's eye that finally made him break free. He knew that he had lost everything. He was lucky, though. He got it back. Jenny took him back in with open and supportive arms, and Mallory slowly got over her fear of him. He remembered the first time she hugged him after he came home. It occurred to him that that was the first time she had voluntarily approached him in years, and the simple gesture of the hug moved him to tears. He remembered not ever wanting to let her go, for fear that it would be the only time she would ever hug him again.

        It wasn't though. The family came back together. Leo devoted every ounce of his being into his family and his job. Both got him through difficult times. But in those darkest moments, it was always Mallory's smiling face that brought him back to the light. The joy in her eyes when he told her he loved her, and the happy tears that streamed down her face when she told him she forgave him.

        Leo brought his hand up to rub his eyes. He looked at them in surprise when they came away moist. He didn't realize he had been crying. He looked at the clock. Seven a.m. Mallory didn't have to leave for school for another forty-five minutes. He picked up the phone and dialed her number.

        Mallory was just popping her Eggo waffles out of the toaster when the phone rang. She grabbed the phone and tried to open the fridge door with the other hand to get the syrup. "Yeah?" She asked. Damn tele-marketers… she really didn't want another Visa card, and her subscription to the Post didn't expire for another 2 months.

        "Mal?" Leo asked uncertainly. All of a sudden he remembered she wasn't a morning person.

        "Dad?" Mal asked in surprise. She managed to grab the syrup, but dropped the phone in the process. "Damn," she muttered under her breath. She quickly bent down to grab up the phone. "Sorry," she said, as soon as the phone was back at her ear. "I dropped the phone."

        "I thought you were just trying to give your old man a hint," he teased.

        Mallory laughed. "Dad, it's 7 in the morning. My hints are not nearly that subtle this early. My 'hint' would have been the dial tone."

        Leo laughed along with his daughter. It felt good to hear her voice. "Is this a bad time?"
        
        "Nah," Mal said, drowning her waffles in syrup. "I'm just having my Eggo's. What's up?"

        "I was wondering if you wanted to come down after school today."

        "Some father-daughter bonding time?" Mal grinned. She really did enjoy spending time with her father.

        "Actually, there's someone I'd like you to talk to. He's had a pretty bad week, and I know no one who makes me feel better when I'm down than my beautiful daughter."

        "What's wrong with Sam?" Mal sighed. Maybe had he called her… she shook her head. Not going down that road again. But she really couldn't see herself in a relationship with someone who wouldn't even bother to call.

        "I know how you're feeling about him right now, and God knows I think he deserves it. But he's had a rough week, Mal, and I think you could help him."

        "How could I help him? The almighty Sam Seaborn? Who's too good to call the woman he's dating when a picture appears in a newspaper with him and a ho-"

        "That's enough Mal," Leo told her, more sharply than he had intended. "I'm sorry. Just… it's not what he needs right now," he told her sadly. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe Mallory was the wrong person to call.

        "What happened?" She asked softly. If her father was sounding this concerned about Sam, when he had previously done everything he could to keep them apart, there must be something wrong. And no matter how angry she was at Sam, she could never deny that she cared for him deeply. She never wanted him to hurt… maybe just to suffer a little from the wrath of Mal. But… she really did have feelings for him.

        "He found out this week that his father has been cheating on his mother for 28 years." Leo took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

        "Oh my God…" Mallory murmured. "How is he?"

        "Pretty bad. I think he's slept on Toby's couch since Tuesday."

        "I'll be right over," Mallory promised. She went to hang up the phone as she heard her father's voice.

        "Mallory, wait!"

        She brought the phone back up to her ear. "What?"

        "You have school first." He said with a wry smile. Guess that whole 'driving a wedge' thing didn't work too well. God, Sam had even tried to mess up his thing with Mal himself with that picture, and not even that is keeping her away.

        "Oh. Oh yeah," she mumbled, a little red in the face. She was glad her father wasn't there to see that. "Yeah. Ok. Well, I'll be over right after school, then."

        "Ok, baby. I'll have Margaret let Cathy know you are stopping by."

        "Yeah. Thanks Dad." She paused for a moment before speaking again. "And thanks for calling to tell me."

        "He needs someone who he cares about who understands what he's going through now," Leo told her softly.

        "But I don't-- oh" she said, as realization sunk in. How could she forget? But it wasn't that she forgot… just that she didn't equate what her father did to what Sam's has done. Both are bad, she thought. But they are different. "Dad?"

        "Yeah?"

        "I love you."

        "I love you too, baby. Stop by after you talk to Sam."

        "I will," she promised. "Bye."

        "Bye," he said softly. He hung up the phone and stared at it for a few minutes. "Margaret!" He yelled suddenly. She appeared in his doorway, regarding him. She knew he must have spoken to Mallory. He only looked that happy after talking her. After a few seconds, he spoke. "What's next?"

~*~*~*~*~

        The day seemed interminable for Mallory. Normally she enjoyed her days at Clearlake, but, truth be told, her good old Irish guilt was setting in. She had wanted so desperately to stay angry at Sam. It was a lot easier, and a lot safer, she had to admit to herself. Her feelings for the Deputy Communications Director ran much deeper than she cared to admit to anyone, including herself.

        Finally, after snapping at the kids one too many times, she gave them an assignment. She walked next door to the other fourth grade teacher's room. She knocked on the door and beckoned her outside. "Hey listen Ellen, I need a favor," Mal started out.

        "What's up?"

        "One of my friends really needs me right now. Would you mind terribly just watching the kids for the last 20 minutes of the day? I've got a TA in there, but I'm not sure she knows how to use the blackboard."

        Ellen grinned. "So you want me to make sure the kids don't kill themselves or each other in the last twenty minutes of school, while your TA is reading an instruction manual on writing with chalk, and you are going to make up with your boyfriend. Or maybe make 'up' isn't the right phrasing…." She raised an eyebrow at Mallory.

        "First of all, I never said it was my boyfriend I was going to help out. Second of all, Sam is not my boyfriend. And third of all… yeah. That's exactly what I need you to do. Can you?" Mallory looked at her pleadingly. She really wanted to get out of there to see Sam.

        "Well, will you go already?" Ellen pushed Mal towards the door with a smile. "And give Sam a kiss for me!"

        "Only if I decide to give him one from me, first!" Mal yelled with a grin as she headed out the door.

~*~*~*~*~

        Mallory looked at her watch and sighed. She had been sitting in Sam's office for two hours. Cathy said something about it being Cheese Day, and Mallory just shook her head and groaned. She made a mental to tell her father later that no one actually cared about a 2 ton block of cheese molding in the lobby of the White House. But more importantly, it meant that right now Sam was probably taking some meeting with the Specialized Group for the Protection of Northern Elk or something. 'Why in the world did that group pop into my head?' She murmured aloud.

        Just then, the door to Sam's office opened and in flew Sam, reading the file that was in one hand and trying to open his briefcase with the other. Mallory briefly wondered how long it would take him to notice her if she didn't say anything. Of course, she had already waited two hours for him to show up, she wasn't going to waste another two waiting for him to look up. "Hey, Skipper," she said, standing up.

        She watched in amusement as he jumped and the file in his hand flew over his shoulder. He put his hand to his heart, almost to make sure it was still beating.

        "Oh my God, Mallory," he said, breathing hard. "You *SCARED* me!" He looked at her. "How did you get in here? How long have you been waiting? Why are you here?" He racked his brain, trying to think of something he had done wrong recently that would involve Mallory getting upset enough to see him. He couldn't come up with anything.

        "Cathy, two hours, I heard you were having a bad week," she said softly, walking over to him.

        He went over the answers in his head. Cathy, two hours, heard I was having… he looked up. "You heard I was having a bad week?"

        She nodded as she finally made her way to the spot directly in front of him. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

        He shrugged. "Well, there's really nothing you can do about it, I suppose. I mean, stupid is as stupid does. Josh tells me that's a quote from a movie. Something about forests, I think he said. I really don't know. I haven't had time to see a movie in years. The last movie I saw was-" he was stopped when Mallory put her finger on his lips.

        "Talk to me," she whispered. When she saw that he was just going to keep going with his rambling about the movie, she shook her head. "It was Forest Gump," she sighed. "Talk to me about your father."

        He looked at her for a moment. "I dunno, Mal. It's nothing, really." He let his gaze drop to the floor. "It's stupid, really," he said quietly.

        She took his hands in hers. "What's stupid? What your father did? Yeah, that was stupid. How you feel about it? That's not stupid. That's called being human. Welcome to the world of us mere mortals, Sam," she told him with a small smile on her face.

        "It hurts so bad, Mal," he whispered.

        "I know it does, believe me I know," she whispered back to him.

        He lifted his gaze to her eyes. He could see that she really did feel his pain. Everything suddenly became clear to him. Leo called Mallory, because she knew exactly what Sam was going through, because Leo had once betrayed Mallory. "What was it like? I mean, you always knew your father was an alcoholic…he never really deceived you."

        She led him around his desk and sat him in his chair. She slid onto the desk herself, and then sighed. "No, he never deceived us like that. I mean, he always told us that he was at work late, when he was really at the bar, or that he tripped and broke the antique clock. But we always knew he broke it in a drunken rage. He didn't deceive us so much as he… I guess betrayed is the word I'm looking for. My mother and I expected him to be there for us… to be a good father and a good husband. But he wasn't. Just like your dad wasn't," she added softly.

        "I thought I knew him. I mean, I thought that there were things you could count on… like a father who loved you," Sam said, choking up on the last few words.

        "Listen to me, Sam. Your father does love you. Just because he's screwed up royally doesn't mean he doesn't."

        Sam laughed bitterly. "Yeah. Y'know it'd be nice if he loved me almost as much as he did his little mistress," he said, venom coming out on the last word.

        "He does love you Sam. Please believe that."

        He looked up at Mallory. "Oh, so now that I believe that everything is supposed to be…. Dorey-honkey?"

        Mallory slid off the desk, and hesitated a moment before sitting gently in his lap. To her surprise he put his arms around her immediately. "That's honkey-dorey, Skipper, and no. That's not quite how it works either. First, you cry, preferably on the shoulder of someone who cares for you deeply, and can understand what you are going through. Then, you call him up, and yell at him for a few hours. Get it out of your system. You might want to call him and yell at him once a day for an hour or so, until you don't have anything left to yell. Then you go around hating his guts for awhile. And after that, you come to terms with what he's done. *Then, * you can finally start to rebuild your relationship."

        "Sounds like a long, hard process," Sam replied sadly, pulling her closer.

        "It is. But that's why you have friends… and… others who care about you." 'Which category does this fall into?' Mallory wondered.

        "I just… I just can't believe he would risk it. Risk everything he had with his family, just for sex…" Sam stopped as the tears welled up in his eyes. He willed them back down. He didn't want to cry in front of Mallory. But when he looked at her with his big blue eyes, she saw the pain mixed with the tears.

        "I promise you I won't think any less of you if you cry," Mallory said softly. She leaned over to his desk and grabbed some tissues.

        That seemed to be all the encouragement Sam needed. The tears started sliding down his face. He cried for about ten minutes, just holding her close to him, while he finally released all the emotions that had been pent up inside him since he found out on Tuesday.

        After awhile the crying subsided. Mallory just continued to hold him close, knowing he would speak when he was ready.

        "Mallory?"

        "Yeah?"

        "Thank you."

        "Any time, Skipper." She held him tighter. "Any time."

        He slowly released her and leaned back in the chair, just looking at her. His eyes were red and puffy, and there were a few stray tears still working themselves down his face. Mallory thought he had never looked so vulnerable, or so beautiful. She took a tissue and gently wiped away his tears. He caught her hand in his.

        "Why did you come down here tonight?"

        "Well, it was actually this afternoon when I came down," she said with a smile.

        "I'm sorry… I wouldn't have kept you waiting if I had known…" he drifted off when he saw her shake her head. "So why did you come down?"

        "My father said that someone I care very much about needed someone to talk to. It sounded like my kind of job."

        "I'm glad you came."

        "Me too," she told him sincerely. She looked in his eyes, somehow getting lost in those eyes so full of pain right now. She wanted so badly to alleviate that pain. She found herself leaning in closer and closer to him. Sam leaned forward and closed the distance, making contact with her lips. She kissed him softly and gently, and the kiss was almost as reassuring as her voice had been to him earlier. But there was something more, something much more passionate. He deepened the kiss and she responded to his advances, but a moment later she ended the kiss. "I'm sorry," she told him, looking truly apologetic.

        "Whatever for?"

        "I shouldn't have kissed you."

        "Well, I kissed you, and why not?"

        "Because it was a… a… grief kiss."

        "A what?"

        "Y'know… a grief kiss."

        "And what, exactly, is a grief kiss?" Sam asked, curious.

        "Y'know… when you're upset about something, and then you kiss someone… and passions escalate… one thing leads to another… it's a pre-cursor to grief sex."

        "So, you think that because I'm upset about my father and I kissed you that now I want you to have pity sex with me?" Sam asked, looking decidedly amused.

        "I, uh…you don't?"

        "Don't get me wrong… but no, I don't." He held her close to him. "Not for that reason, at least. When we make love, I want it to be because we are madly in love with each other, and because that is one way to express our love."

        "Pretty cocky there, don't you think, Skipper?" Mallory asked with a grin.

        "What do you mean?" He looked at her, wide-eyed and innocent.

        "You said 'when', not 'if'." She said as she leaned back to settle her head on his shoulder.

        "I did, didn't I…" Sam's arms drew her even closer.

        "Yeah, you did."

        "Oh. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see if I'm right."

        "I guess we will."

        They sat there in silence for a few minutes, content to be in each other's arms, yet alone with their thoughts. Their peace was interrupted by Josh banging on the door. "Open up!"

        "Sometimes I have to wonder why he's my best friend," Sam said with a grin to Mal. She smiled back and reluctantly slid off his lap. She took his hand again as soon as he stood up, and he led her to the door. He threw open the door, and Sam and Mallory watched the look on Josh's face change from impatience to shock to a smirk.

        "So that's why the door was closed." Sam groaned and blushed, and Mal simply hit Josh upside the head. "Is she coming?" Josh asked, jerking his thumb in Mallory's direction.

        "*She * wasn't invited," Mal replied before Sam could. She turned back to him. "Call me if you need me, ok?" she asked him softly.

        "Wait-come with us tonight?" Sam asked quietly.

        "Where are you going?"

        "We're going to get Sam drunk and then put him to bed," Josh interjected. His eyes lit up. "Well, at least now we know who gets to put him to bed." Mal turned her attention to glaring at him while Sam once again turned red.

        "As *lovely * as that sounds," Mal started, shooting Josh a withering look, "I think I'll just go home."

        "No, Mal… please?" Sam asked, almost pleading

        Mallory took one look at those big, blue, hurt eyes, and knew she couldn't refuse him anything. "Yeah, ok… but just cause I don't trust Josh to get you home."

        "Hey!" Josh exclaimed. He glanced at his watch. "I need to go get Donna, and Toby and I will be back in a few."

        Sam and Mal nodded absently, but their focus was on each other. As soon as the door closed, Sam put his arms around Mal and held her tight.

        "Thank you," he whispered. "I'm sorry… I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do… it's just… I don't want to let go of you right now," he admitted.

        "If you find somebody to love in this world, you better hang on tooth and nail," Mal recited from a song she heard recently, her eyes closed and her head on Sam's shoulder. She could hardly remember a time when what she wanted seemed more clear. She wanted to be with Sam, no matter the cost. "You can bet I'll be hanging on to you, tooth and nail."

        "Thank you," Sam whispered again, though it hardly seemed the right thing to say. Suddenly Mallory pulled back. "What is it?" Sam asked, fearful he had done something wrong… again.

        "I just remembered… I have to go check in with my father."
She looked up at him. "But I'll be right back, I promise. Or wait.
How 'bout I meet you guys there?"

        Sam nodded. "As long as you come…"

        "I wouldn't miss it for the world," she smiled reassuringly at him.

        "Ok…" He watched as she turned and left his office. He leaned back against his desk and sighed.

        A few minutes later Josh came bounding in, still reliving Toby's performance that afternoon. "He blew the doors down!" Josh exclaimed, as Toby came up behind him.

        "Let's go," Toby ordered.

        "You, my friend, are old school."

        "Let's go."

        Sam watched them banter in amusement for a few minutes, as Toby finally managed to convince Josh to actually leave. Josh suddenly noticed they were missing someone. "Where did Mallory go?"

        "She had to go check in with Leo. She's going to meet us there."

        Josh nodded. "Ok. Well, let's go."

        "Y'know, I'm going to meet you guys there, too." Josh studied his friend for a moment before nodding slightly.

        "Yeah. Ok," he said. He considered Sam carefully for another moment and then turned to leave.

        Sam walked around to his desk, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. Looking at it for a moment, he dialed the number that was on it. "Hey Dad? It's me." Mallory was right. You've gotta hang on, tooth and nail.

---

HOME | TITLE | AUTHOR | CATEGORY