"Sam?"

He ground to a halt outside his boss's office and looked over. "Toby."

"What are you doing?"

"Gonna grab my spare suit and a shower."

"Yeah, what did you do, sleep in that?" Toby asked as he gestured to the rumpled suit the younger man was wearing.

"No, just didn't hang it up last night," Sam replied as he headed into his office.

Getting up to follow, Toby asked, "If you didn't hang it up, then why'd you put it back on this morning?"

The last words slowly came out as a thought came to him. "Josh was right to be worried. You went home with that lady in the bar last night, didn't you?"

He stood in the doorway of Sam's office and watched as his deputy grabbed his spare clothes. Sam avoided Toby's glare until he'd collected all his things and was ready to leave.

"Sam, how big of a scandal is this going to be? Who is she? Did anyone see you go to or leave her place?"

"You know what, Toby, give me some credit. I got this last night from Josh. I really don't need it from you."

"Got what from me?" Josh asked, appearing at Toby's side.

"Sam went home with that woman from the bar last night."

"Oh man. Did anyone see them together? Anyone see him leave her place?"

"He didn't say," Toby answered.

"Does he know what she does for a living? This isn't going to be another Laurie incident, is it?"

Sam stood there, the grandfather headaches of all headaches forming because of a hangover and his two co-workers talking about him like he wasn't even there. He had flashbacks to Leo and Bruno arguing over his abilities before the Victor Campos meeting. All this combined with his anger and resentment over the beef incident until he just had to speak up.

"You know, you could just ask `him,'" he said, frustration quite evident in his voice. "Reader's Digest version of the story. Her name is Kathleen, she's a lawyer, and she took me back to her place when I was too drunk to remember where I lived. I fell asleep; when I woke up and went to leave this morning she was asleep on the `couch.' Nobody saw me leave her place."

Sam shouldered his way past them out of his office and then turned around. His voice dipped dangerously low as he spoke, "You know why I was at a bar last night? Because yesterday I discovered that while you two, C.J. and Leo were advising the President on Mad Cow, I was running around like Chicken Little on the seatbelt lawsuit. Did it ever occur to you guys that I wasn't there? That as a member of Senior Staff and a Domestic Policy Advisor that I maybe `should' have been there? Or was it a conscious decision to once again keep me out of the loop?"

He turned and stalked off, passing by C.J. who stared at him and then Josh and Toby. She walked up to them, her eyebrows raised in question.

"What was that all about?"

"Who knows," Toby growled. "I think he's just mad Josh and I asked him if anyone saw him leave some lady's apartment. I mean the last thing we need is another scandal involving him and some woman he picked up in a bar. C.J., check the wires, make sure nothing's been picked up."

He turned and stormed into his office, slamming the door behind him. C.J. and Josh exchanged concerned looks, but then Josh shrugged his shoulders and walked off, leaving her behind.

************************

Sam sat in his office, desperately craving coffee, but not daring to even think about it. His stomach was churning this morning, aided in part by the alcohol from last night and his building anger and resentment. The door to his office was closed, so he pulled open his bottom desk drawer.

Late nights, too much caffeine, poor eating habits and stress caused everybody to have a vast assortment of antacids. The bottles in Sam's drawer were different though. He pulled out several bottles, shook out the various pills he needed and replaced the lids. He popped the pills into his mouth and took a drink from the bottle of water sitting on his desk.

"Hey there, Spanky," C.J. said, breezing into Sam's office.

Sam finished swallowing the pills and shot her a glare. She eyed the bottles on his desk and he quickly swept them into his desk and kicked the drawer shut.

"Doesn't anyone knock anymore?" he snapped under his breath.

"What?"

Sam smiled, and much more cheerfully than he felt said, "Nothing. What can I do for you, C.J.?"

Sitting down in one of his visitor's chairs, she replied, "I don't need anything. I came to see how you were doing. I saw that scene outside your office."

"Yeah, that was really no big deal. I was tired, hung over and didn't really mean it. I'll talk to them later."

Sam hoped his smile and casual tone would be enough to calm C.J.'s worries. He really didn't want to get into this, and besides, they probably had good reasons for not bringing him on Mad Cow. And the whole thing with the lady from the bar – no, Kathleen. She had a name and he wasn't going to let them do what they did with Laurie, never use her actual name. He didn't do anything wrong last night and he refused to let them make him feel like he did. He was mad that they'd treated him like a child that they couldn't trust and then had to scold, but he didn't want to rock the boat.

"I'm fine, C.J., really."

"You sure?" she asked. Sam nodded.

"Alright, you wanna grab a bite to eat? You probably didn't get breakfast."

"When do any of us ever really get breakfast?" he asked with a shrug. "I'm not really hungry right now, but I'll probably grab something later."

"Sam, you sure you're alright?" she asked again. He seemed to be saying all the right things, but there was something just `off' about him. Maybe the blow up outside his office really just was from being tired and hung over. He really seemed to be back to normal now, especially with him leaning casually back in his chair.

"Yeah, I'm fine, really. Just, you know - the stress of the hearings coming up, and now we're gearing up for the State of the Union. I actually have some meetings later, so I better get ready for them."

He picked up his glasses and put them on before turning to a large stack of papers on his desk. C.J. almost had the feeling she was being dismissed, but brushed it aside. Sam and Toby were always incredibly busy in January, and now it seemed to be creeping into December. It was a huge speech with a lot of different groups clamoring for their agendas to be addressed.

"Okay," she said, getting up. "I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah," he replied, his head already buried in the work on his desk.

As she pulled the door mostly closed behind her, Sam glanced up and then took off his glasses. His stomach was really churning now, and a sharp pain stabbed at his insides. He didn't have time to wait for the pills to kick in, he needed relief now. If he was going to get through the rest of the day; meetings with people over the State of the Union, working on the address itself, and most of all dealing with Josh and Toby, he had to be on top of his game. He couldn't do that with this burning pain in his stomach, so he grabbed the bottle of Pepto off the bookshelf and unscrewed the cap. Taking a quick swig, he put the cap back on and returned to his desk.

He just had to convince Josh and Toby he was all right and that he hadn't really meant what he'd said earlier. The best way to convince them would be to just throw himself into his work, do his job, anticipate their questions and be prepared for them. Sure, he'd apologize, just to convince them there were no hard feelings on his part, and things would return to status quo. It was what he was expected to do, just take their abuse in silence and quickly apologize for the occasional outburst.

Things ran so much easier when everyone stuck to their prescribed roles. He stood up for idealism and the little people while everyone else pretended to listen to him and indulged his flights of fancy. Only now, it appeared he was the only one sticking to the script. The others were covering their annoyance less, and he was slowly being edged out of the inner circle. Apparently they were fine with the changing roles, so it was up to him to dutifully play catch up.

It really worked better for everyone this way. If Sam just went with the flow and didn't rock the boat too often, things just went smoother. Smoother for everyone except Sam, but he really figured that was his own fault. Nobody else was complaining so he really shouldn't either.

In the meantime, he would just have to hope he didn't need to go back to the doctor until the end of January since he couldn't take the time out of his schedule. He hoped that this time the triple therapy would do the job. Last time his doctor recommended he try the quadruple therapy, but he didn't have time to spend in the doctor's office right now for the necessary tests for the new regimen. He'd barely managed to convince Dr. McCloud to call in the prescriptions without him needing to go in for tests this time. The only way he'd pulled it off was by telling the doctor he was going out of the country and the symptoms were the same as the last time.

He noted with satisfaction that the sharp pain seemed to finally be subsiding, fading into the dull ache he'd learned he could live with. As long as the pain didn't remain severe he could cope. Writing a little note to himself to remember to eat lunch since his appetite had fallen off lately, he flipped open his laptop and made a few notes to have with him for his 9:30 meeting.