`From the moment you were born,' she said, `I thought I couldn't possibly deserve something so perfect - ten tiny fingers, toes to match - I couldn't take my eyes off you - waiting for the moment when God realized that he had made a mistake and took you Back to Him.'

I was going to be named Elliot, or Michael, but when I was first placed in my mother's arms, her fear that I was going to disappear was so overwhelming that she chose Samuel instead. She said she wanted a name that could reach up into the sky and pull a soul back down to the loamy grasp of the earth. A name that spoke in shades of brown and dark green, that when you said it, you could see the hard working, practical men of the world lining up behind it. The very name, she hoped, had the power to ground me to her and keep me safe.

But still she was not convinced - and there were nights when she would wake up from a deep sleep with a feeling that there just might, just may be, something wrong with me. And without hesitation, never with even a pause, she would get out of bed and come to check on me. The nightlight in my nursery was too dim to see clearly by, and she would cross to my crib and gently rest her hand on my back, waiting to feel my tiny rib cage expand and contract through my soft cotton sleeper. Only then could she go back to sleep.

*****

It was ridiculous. It really was. I told myself this even as I lay there awake. I knew Josh was fine - had I not talked to Donna just a few hours ago? She had said he was fine, tired, but fine.

But I had a feeling, an unshakeable sense of something not right that started behind my teeth and had since spread into my stomach. Soon, I knew, soon it would be under my skin, crawling towards my thoughts, and then I would have to do something.

I twisted and pushed the covers away, as if they too were some how contaminated with this feeling of unease, sitting up in the darkness. It didn't help. My hands were refusing to keep still, scuttling across my nightstand, until almost before I knew it my phone was in my hands.

Just call. Just call and check.

You'll wake him. You really shouldn't.

I forced my hands to return the phone, but the feeling was spreading. Was this what a junkie felt like when they were craving the next hit, the next line? This feeling of unease that insidiously starts shifting to panic, that starts as a whisper you can't silence and grows into a scream?

I'm pacing now. My feet are pounding out in rhythm to the thoughts in my head and I know it's useless. I have to know. Once I've given in to the feeling, everything is easy. Without allowing myself to even think I pick up the phone and dial his number.

I let out a shuddering breath as I hear the ringing, like a heroin addict who has just spotted their next fix. It isn't in me yet but it is so close that I can feed off that for a while. Just long enough to last.

I'm counting the rings, and I know even before the recorded message starts that Josh hasn't answered. He's sleeping, I reason, and try again. That he needs his rest, that by waking him up I'm probably not helping him, these reasons are inconsequential in the face of this overwhelming need to know.

I hang up as the voice mail clicks on; the the feeling is coming back again, clamoring for my attention. I throw on a pair of discarded sweat pants over my boxers, grab my keys and before I know it I'm in my car.

Josh is fine, he's tired, but fine. I replay Donna's words in my mind.

That night - when I heard Toby yell, when I stopped and stared at the incomprehensible sight of Josh bleeding onto the cold Rosslyn cement- turning him grey even as it slowly turned red - I only knew he was alive because I could hear the gasping of his breath.

The harsh in-and-out rattling terrified me, and as I clung onto his clammy hand, as his eyes rolled back in his head, all I could do was breath with him. Trying to share the burden that his drowning lungs were struggling to sustain, trying to guarantee that no matter how horrendous each breath sounded, that there would still be one more. Just one more breath for each one before. Each time, just one more. It was the prayer I was saying with my traitorously healthy body, for Josh, because he couldn't.

Later in the hospital, I did not need to worry about his breathing. If he stopped, he had 5,000$ worth of equipment waiting to beep at him, to beep at the nurses, and even if his lungs wouldn't work, there were machines that would breath for him, just like I had tried to do. No, I did not need to worry - but if for some reason I were to wake up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling hovering, it was easy enough to call the hospital to ask about visiting hours again, while confirming that Josh Lyman was still there and still breathing.

Josh is fine, he's tired, but fine.

I'm pulling up to his place before I realize that I had forgotten his spare house key. I keep it on the other set of car keys, the ones in my briefcase, but that little piece of knowledge won't help me now. There's nothing to do but buzz up.

There is an interminable amount of time before I finally hear Josh's voice - croaking out a `hello?'

And I'm done. I know. The relief has hit my bloodstream and the memory of the overwhelming need that brought me to his door has already faded. I'm utterly relaxed. I'm done.

"Hello?"

It's his voice again, questioning, and I realize that I was wrong, that like my mother, it's not quite enough.

"Hey Josh" I reply, just loud enough " - it's me, Sam?"

"Sam?"

But my name is cut off even as he buzzes the door open for me.

I'm moving pretty slow now, in direct contrast to earlier, but even then I reach his apartment door before he does. I can hear his soft footfalls on the hardwood floors, and then his hand on the tumblers as he draws back the locks.

"Sam?"

He sounds even more confused then he did a few moments ago. The door is open now, and I can see him clutching it as it swings unsteadily under the force of his weight.

"Hey Josh."

"Is there" he swallows even as his eyes close in concentration, at the effort of gathering his doped up thoughts to form a coherent sentence at three in the morning "is there something wrong?"

And then I do it. I reach out and touch him. I touch his shoulder, stabilizing him, giving him something to lean into, even as it centers me. He's real. He's there.

"Sam?" His eyes are open again. He's still wondering.

"No" I say. "No - There's nothing wrong."