home

california - cont’d

part two – today’s mountains

josh

Josh had been in Dallas talking to the Ranchers and Cattlemen Action Association. Outside the heat was visible in hazy waves but the room they met in was air-conditioned to below zero. Josh wondered at his purple fingernails and a chill that seemed to penetrate his spine, radiating through every bone and organ.

The flight back to Washington arrived late afternoon and he had planned to go straight back to work. But he had not yet warmed up so he decided to go home for a shower and a change of clothes first. He made the mistake of lying down on his bed after the shower and woke confused to find ten hours had passed and night had fallen. He lay in the darkness of his bedroom wondering why no one had called to find out what had become of him.

He dressed and drove in the dark to work. He had five meetings today and had not prepared for any of them.

Donna would normally have pulled the files for each meeting. He expected to find them on his desk when he came in. Instead he found only a note from her.

‘See Leo first thing re today’s mountains.’

He gathered this translated to ‘meetings’. Evidently Leo had something else in mind for him. He was relieved, it absolved him from meeting prep.

It was not yet five-thirty and Leo would not be in so he went outside. There was a knot at the back of his throat, tightness in his chest. He often sought outdoors now as if walls and a roof could suffocate him. He walked out into the silvery dawn of one of the gardens. It was a cool morning, the air laced with recently fallen rain, a droplet glittering on each rose leaf.

“Josh.” Leo stood in the doorway, his coat still on and briefcase in hand. It did not seem to be the first time he had called.

“Oh hey, Leo.” He made his way along the stone path back inside. “I got a note to come and see you. Something up?”

They walked together through the sunshine yellow corridors and Leo did not answer his question.

“How did you get on in Dallas?”

“Okay. We got some concessions on subsidies. I’ll put something together this afternoon.”

“Were you all right during the meeting?”

Josh paused. He recognised this tone. “What’s going on?”

They reached Leo’s office where he switched on the lights and put down his briefcase. “I had Bill Scullard on the phone,” he said as he hung up his coat.

“What did he have to say?”

“He said that several times during the meeting yesterday you appeared to have difficulty concentrating.”

“Leo -“

“And several times during the meeting your eyes closed -.”

“That’s just not true.”

“And I have to say I’ve noticed this kind of thing too.”

“Okay, I might have been a bit tired.”

“Josh. You’re distant and disorganised. Your work isn’t up to standard and you look sick.” He paused. “I know we’re coming to the end of our term but that makes pushing through our agenda even more important.”

Josh gripped the back of a chair with one hand. “Are you firing me?” He asked and realised what he was feeling was hope.

“No, of course not. I want you to go and see your doctor. I want you to go today and I won’t have you back until he says you’re fit.”

“I’ll see a doctor. I will, but I’ve got things I need to work on.“

“I’m delegating everything. Today’s meetings have been reassigned to your staff and I’ll be passing on the rest of your projects. Your team is more than capable of covering for you.” Leo’s eyes found Josh’s before he said. “I don’t expect to see you back for a while. You’re not fit to be here at the moment.”

“Please Leo, this isn’t necessary. I’m sorry I screwed up –“

“Josh,” Leo said more gently. “You haven’t screwed up. You’re ill. Go and get better.”

Josh’s hand went through his hair. He could argue this point, negotiate to work from home for a while, negotiate a review of the position in two days. He could but he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of relief. If it was really true that for a week or perhaps two he was not needed to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders then why not hand it to others who believed themselves stronger. And in that thought he failed to recognise the man he once was.

A steady rain fell throughout the day and was tapping loud against the roof of his doctor’s office. The doctor listened to his symptoms, took his blood pressure and frowned. He listened to his heart for a long time, tutting occasionally. He wrote his notes and then advised he was arranging for Josh to be admitted to hospital without delay.

A combination of his medical history, his family history and the symptoms he had been experiencing all suggested significant irregularities in his heart rhythm. Josh did not dare ask what this might mean but agreed to go to hospital that afternoon.

While he packed a bag he called Donna, told her he was having tests but not that he was being admitted. He called his mother and told her he would be travelling for a few days. Then he sat on the bed and called Sam.

He wouldn’t have, except they called each other more now. Josh called or Sam called every night or every other night to chat and to make each other laugh. They gossiped about DC village life, they talked through the arguments in Sam’s book, page by page and Josh let Sam gently nag him about his health.

“Sam, its me.”

“Hey Josh. How are you doing?”

“Fine.” Josh heard Sam putting aside some papers and going downstairs. He went outside as he always did when they spoke and Josh imagined he could hear the sea in the background. “How about you. Have you finished that book yet?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Sam, that’s fantastic. We’ve got to, you know, celebrate.”

“I think so. Are you at work?”

“Nope. Listen I just wanted to tell you. Don’t worry, but I’m going into hospital in a minute to have some tests done.”

There was a pause. “What kind of tests?”

“I’ve got an irregular heartbeat, apparently. Too slow mostly.”

“Oh, that’s – really? With you I would have said too fast. But I’m glad you’re finally getting checked.” Another pause. “Did something happen?”

“I guess I haven’t been my usual razor sharp self at work. Bill Scullard complained.”

“Buffalo Bill?”

“Exactly.”

“Did you not manage a minute on a bucking bronco?”

“Something like that. You know I swear he came to our meeting armed.”

“How long will you be in for?”

“A couple of days, unless they want to go straight for the transplant, of course.”

“Okay.” Pause. “Shall I come?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sam. I’m just going to lie there while they stick electrodes to me.”

“I know but I can still –“

“I’m only calling because you won’t be able to get hold of me if you tried tonight. I’m seriously fine.” Josh knew Sam was looking out to sea and frowning. “I mean there’s probably some medication they’ll prescribe. And Leo seems to think I should have a week off or something.”

“I know what you’re like with doctors. Promise me you’ll listen to what they tell you.”

“I will.” Sam was silent. He wasn’t buying this. “I didn’t phone you to make you worry.”

“I’m not worrying.”

“Why not? I’m tachycardic.”

Sam chuckled. “Bradycardic. Tachy is when its too fast.”

“I’ll remember that when they shout for the defibrillator.”

“Josh.”

“Look, I’m going to do anything they tell me to because I feel like shit all the time and I need to get back to work if I’m going to scrape back anything of my career.”

“That’s better. Where you gonna be?”

“Georgetown.”

“Okay. Take it easy there.”

The truth was that since Rosslyn Josh was deathly afraid of hospitals. But this was not something he had ever told anyone because he did not want to be considered more of a basket case than he already was. But he was fearful as he waited in his room, ominously filled with equipment and alarms.

He was immediately connected to an EKG machine for continuous monitoring and left alone. Oddly enough he found himself reassured. The screen’s dips and spikes proving there was a heart there, ropy though it apparently was, working away on his behalf. Lately he had felt he was drifting away from everything connecting him to life.

Evening came and turned into night and the rain fell hard against his window. As the hours passed he was only interrupted by the bright-uniformed efficiency of an occasional member of staff and his real world of work and home seemed something he knew in a dream. The strange disconnection increased, the people he had spoken to today, Leo and Donna, his Doctor, his mother and Sam became people remembered from another life.

He slept deeply and without interruption for 13 hours and woke more tired than before he went to sleep.

Then there were the tests. Blood, urine, monitors, scans, x rays, treadmills. No one told him the results and he did not ask. He had thought it was going quite well though, right up until the moment they put him on a medieval torture device called a tilt table.

This was a table which was tilted upwards in order to test his heart’s ability to cope with stress. He lay down on the table and was attached to monitors.



When Josh next opened his eyes he was back in his room, once again attached to the EKG but now with an IV in. He was confused to see Sam sitting by his bed.

For a moment he thought he was back in GW after the shooting. This was how he woke on many occasions through those times. As reality asserted itself he realised whole years had passed since then. And yet Sam was here.

When he spoke he was surprised at how weak his voice was. “You came anyway,” he said.

“How are you doing?” Sam spoke quietly, a nighttime in a hospital voice.

He looked around. “I, I don’t know. Something happened, I think. I don’t remember.”

His hand was lying on the blankets and Sam reached for it. Sam’s hand was warm and he realised his own was cold.

“Do you know what happened?” Josh asked.

“Your heart stopped on the tilt table,” Sam said. “You had to be resuscitated.”

“Right.” He wasn’t surprised. “That probably means I failed the test?”

Sam’s thumb stroked his hand. “The doctors are going to talk to you tomorrow.”

“Right,” he said again. Trying to remember how it had been to simply stop living.

“Nobody’s panicking,” Sam said. “They just had to find out what the problem was.”

Josh took in Sam’s tired but still lovely face, his warm, reassuring expression which was slowly chasing his fear away. “You’re here. Did someone call you?”

Sam shook his head. “I left after you called yesterday.”

Josh sighed. “Sam, you don’t have to cross the continent every time I cut my finger.”

Sam shrugged as if to say, “Why not?”

Josh smiled. “But thanks.”

Their fingers tangled, met at the tips, interlaced and rested together.

Josh examined him more closely. “Your hairs got even longer. You big hippy.”

“You’re definitely balder,” Sam replied.

They found themselves looking at each other in silence.

“Who’s looking after your fat cat?” Josh asked eventually.

“In LA there are people who’s actual job it is to feed peoples’ cats.”

“I might go for that job when I get out of here.”

“You’re going right back to the White House, don’t worry about that.”

“Okay.”

“You should get some sleep, Josh. It’s after Midnight. The resuscitation probably took it out of you.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Here.”

“Don’t Sam. Go to my apartment. My keys are somewhere. My car’s outside.”

“It’s okay. I’d rather stay here.”

Josh didn’t try too hard to make him leave.

sam

earlier

Sam clicked save for the last time and closed the document. Then he shut down the computer and leaned back in his chair.

“Done,” he said.

The book was finished. He stretched his arms out behind him and whirled round on the chair. He went over to the armchair where a scruffy black and ginger ball had woken up and was blinking at him with startled eyes.

“Its done, cat,” said Sam. Toby objected mildly as Sam ruffled his fur. “No, its really finished. We can go have some fun now. What do you think? Lets break open the catnip and party.”

Toby was not impressed and soon laid his head on a languorously outstretched paw and closed his eyes.

“I really ought to get out more,” Sam said to himself sitting back on his heels.

He had a tendency, as Josh liked to point out, to be over-tidy. His new study, on its own at the top of the house was the one room in which he had allowed a little clutter of pictures, magazines and mismatch to build up. Clutter was a relative concept though. He gathered together some reference papers he had been using and throwing caution to the wind he did not file them straight away but put them on the shelf above his desk. In a filing tray.

There was one photograph on the shelf. It was a picture of CJ, Toby and Josh snapped at an event in their first year. He kept it there so that if he ever tried to get away with something lazy or pretentious in his writing he would hear one of their voices in his head expounding the opposing argument or simply teasing him about it. If that did not work he called Josh and Josh did it in person. Josh didn’t know but the book was dedicated to him.

He wondered if all this translated to a yearning to return to the White House, to the dark thrill of that world. It was something he thought about.

He left the study to go downstairs. Toby, now a terrestrial rather than underground creature, tapped after him, paws on the polished wood floor.

Downstairs the rooms were sparsely furnished, white painted but with bold splashes of colour in rugs or art on the walls. He had tried to give the rooms and hallways a Spanish feel in keeping with the style of the house and the need to keep them cool in the California Summer.

There was work still to be done. Most of the rooms needed one item of furniture or another and the front looked like a cleared out building site, which it was. But even so the house was pretty much finished now.

He had worked the hardest on the living room and it was beautiful. It was simple because the sea was a constant presence, which nothing should compete with. White painted over rough plaster. A Navajo rug in front of a wine coloured couch and the occasional piece of dark wood furniture.

He picked up a carefully placed coffee table book and practised throwing it casually on to the couch. But he couldn’t leave it there. There was no question about it, he was becoming obsessive compulsive. He was sure even Toby had stopped shedding his fur so as not to ruin the ambience.

He went out front to get the mail and today’s supply of dental floss samples. Then he went into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He took it outside to eat at the wrought iron dining set he had recently bought. He had decided the reclining sun chairs that used to belong to the dentist, in all their floral patterned glory, did not look right with the new décor and they were gone. He had stored them in the basement rather than throwing them out in case Kowalski minded.

His boat had been brought from Chesapeke a couple of months ago and it was moored at the end of the jetty leading from his house. He had been looking at it longingly ever since.

He had time now, since the book was finished and most of the work on the house was done. He needed to do a bit of maintenance work on her but then he planned to go sailing. As he mentally mapped his route the phone rang inside the house and he went to answer it.

The woman on the line was Rita Baker, the Chief Executive of a campaigning group called Educational Reform, America. Sam knew them from the Education Bill days in the first term. He had been impressed with ERA’s touching belief that the country owed every child an education of the highest standard no matter what their family’s income happened to be. They also gave practical help to schools in deprived areas and this warmed Sam’s feelings toward them even more.

“Sam, I hope you don’t mind me calling you out of the blue but I was talking to Toby Ziegler and he mentioned you were in California and expressed the opinion you probably weren’t working hard enough.”

Sam laughed. “It’s good to speak with you Rita. How’s DC?”

“Raining, Sam.”

“That’s what I’d hoped you were going to say.”

“Look, I won’t keep you. I’ll just get to why I’m calling. We’re looking to open an office in Los Angeles. We need to expand the work we’re doing on the West coast and be a little less Washington focussed.”

“That’s good news.”

“We’ve got one or two ideas I think you’d be interested in and I’d be happy to talk to you about them when I’m next in LA.”

“Well, it’d be great to see you again but I don’t -”

“I’ll get to the point. There are two senior positions in the new office a Campaigns Director, in charge of operations and a Director of Communications. We’ve got the Campaigns Director in post already and I was wondering if you’d be interested in the Communications post. Its not the White House and you might just laugh at the money we can offer but it would be a high profile position keeping in touch with what’s going on in education and communicating our message to those in positions of power and the media.”

“Rita, I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, all I’m asking you to do is think about it. I’ve got some details about the job and the work we’re doing which I can email to you. In fact I’m going to do it now if you just give me your address. But I tell you Sam, if we could snap you up we’d consider ourselves pretty lucky.”

“Well, flattery will get you pretty much anywhere. Let me have the details and I’ll give it some serious thought.”

But even as he was speaking to her, he began to feel the familiar thrill of a new challenge and he was smiling as he went back upstairs to his study to wait for the email.

He had printed the pages Rita sent him when the phone rang again. This time it was Josh, telling him he was going into hospital.

When he finished this call he turned the phone over in his hands. He was definitely glad Leo had forced the situation. Josh had been sounding worse each time they spoke lately, as if he scarcely had energy to continue the conversation. And probably nothing other than Leo stopping him from working would have induced him to do something about it. But Sam knew how scared Josh was of ill health after his last long recovery. Knowing him, he would be facing this alone, telling few people, if any, what was happening.

Without ever having put the phone down he called to arrange a seat on a flight to DC to leave the next morning.



A nurse named Sandy at Georgetown University Hospital directed him to Josh’s room telling him he was probably asleep still, since he was recovering from the resuscitation. Sam stopped and turned to her, his eyes widening.

“The what?”

“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Mr Lyman was undergoing a stress test called the Tilt Table. Unfortunately he lost consciousness and his heart stopped.”

“Do you know what the problem is?”

“I don’t. The doctor will speak to him in the morning.”

Josh was asleep when Sam came into his room. The equipment around his bed brought Sam back to those terrible days after Rosslyn when he had had to watch Josh hanging on to life.

Josh did not look much better now. The room was in semi-darkness but Sam could see how pale he was, how thin his face had become. How old he looked. And now his heart had actually stopped. Sam settled himself in the chair next to the bed and waited, intending to stay awake. Just in case it should happen again.

Josh woke once during the night but went to sleep soon after. Sam stayed awake attentive to the lights and pulses of the machines in the room and Josh’s slightly laboured breathing. The following morning he stepped out after Josh woke to get breakfast and to give him time alone with his doctor. When he returned he found Josh out of bed.

He had detached himself from the IV and monitors and was getting dressed. He was clearly furious.

“What’s going on?”

Josh pulled his sweater over his jeans and started looking for his overnight bag. “Don’t say anything Sam, I’m leaving.”

“Calm down for a minute, tell me what happened.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he snapped throwing the bag on the bed.

Sam put a hand on Josh’s arm. “Josh.”

Josh shook the hand off and then realising what he had done he turned to Sam and just stared at him. Sam saw that his eyes were smarting.

“Tell me. What did the doctor say?”

Josh was so upset he could scarcely speak. “Sam, they want me to have a pacemaker.”

Sam’s first instinct was to laugh but then he realised Josh was serious. “No. Why?”

Josh shook his head. He couldn’t speak anymore.

“Wait. Just wait here. I’m going to talk to the doctor. Okay?”

Josh nodded slightly.

Sam had passed a cluster of doctors and nurses at the end of the corridor. They all wore the hunted look of people who had been thrown out by Josh Lyman. He found the doctor among them and asked him to explain what Josh had just tried to tell him.

“Mr Seaborn, if you care about your friend you’ll convince him to take our advice. He was shot, he seems to have forgotten that. It’s a miracle he’s alive and yet he thinks he can go on as if nothing had happened.”

Sam nodded. This was a fair summary.

“The injury he sustained, the subsequent surgery and recovery weakened a pre-existing genetic heart condition which he inherited from his father. His lifestyle, diet and stress levels have exacerbated the problem. As a consequence his heart rate has become unreliable. Sometimes his heart doesn’t pump enough oxygen to his brain. This is why he’s been feeling light-headed and not coping as he usually would.

“A pacemaker will take a couple of hours to implant, will hardly need any care on his part and will mean he will never have this problem again.”

“But a pacemaker, at his age. Isn’t there anything else you can do? He’s really upset by the idea. What about medication?”

“There are no medications that can reliably speed up a slow rate. If he decides not to accept a pacemaker he’ll continue to feel weak and unwell and will probably have to give up working. I also wouldn’t like to guarantee that his heart wouldn’t just stop at some point.”

Sam stared at him, it was worse than he had expected. He bit his lip. “And if he got a second opinion?”

“He’d get the same advice. This is standard treatment. Many people of every age use pacemakers. It is an extremely efficient treatment and the right one for Josh.”

Sam questioned the doctor for a while longer and then went back to Josh’s room.

Josh was standing by the window his arms crossed protectively over his chest. He was looking out on to the hospital parking lot as if preparing for flight via the fire escape. Sam noticed he had his jacket on and had finished packing not only his own overnight bag but also Sam’s. Josh immediately read his expression and shook his head rapidly.

“No Sam,” he said as Sam started to speak.

“Josh, can I just tell you what the doctor told me.”

“You know what,” he said. “Not now. I can’t do this now.”

“Josh, don’t -.”

Josh grabbed his bag from the bed. “I’m just going to go. Are you ready, because -?”

“Josh wait.”

Josh was moving fast, as if Sam would try and physically stop him leaving.

“I’ll be in the car.”

“Come on, just listen for a - minute,” he said to the empty air.

Sam threw on his jacket, slung his overnight bag over his shoulder and hurried after him.

He caught up with Josh at the elevator where he was impatiently jabbing at the call button.

He knew there was no point saying anything so he waited with him, just hoping Josh would allow him to drive them home. He could, he decided, talk to him later when he was less agitated.

Josh stopped pressing the button at last and looked down at the floor. He stood very still and after a moment Sam heard him gasp in a breath. As Sam started to ask him if he was okay Josh’s hand shot out and gripped his wrist. He turned to Sam and, as he turned, the life drained out of him. His eyes closed and he crumpled forward.

Afterwards Sam could not remember the following minutes with any clarity. He remembered catching Josh before he fell. He remembered seeing Sandy, the nurse he had spoken to the evening before who had been walking toward them, break into a run and shout for help.

He must have lowered Josh to the floor because he remembered kneeling and cradling him. He remembered the sure and certain conviction Josh was dead.

Sandy must have pulled Josh out of his arms and laid him flat. He remembered her putting her ear to his mouth and then to his heart.

“He’s breathing,” she said, putting out her hand to warn the resuscitation team who were already approaching.

The words echoed in Sam’s mind until he understood their meaning and after what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds Josh’s eyes flickered open. His gaze darted about until he found Sam. Then a doctor talking to him drew his attention away.

Josh was taken in a chair back to his room and Sam was left alone trying to shake the conviction that Josh had just died in his arms.

Later Sandy found him, still standing by the elevator with both their bags at his feet.

“Josh is fine,” she said. “You can go in and see him.”

He must have stared back at her in incomprehension because she picked up a bag, handed it to him and took the other one herself. “Come on, Sam. I’m not going to have to put you to bed as well, am I?”

The joke made him smile and come back to earth. “I thought he’d died.”

“I know,” she said, guiding him along the corridor. “He was unconscious for a few seconds, that’s all. He’s asking for you.”

Josh had been undressed and put back to bed, attached again to an IV and an EKG and his legs slightly elevated. His eyes were closed but he opened them as Sam and Sandy came in. She put down the bag she was carrying and went to him, checking the reading on the EKG.

“What happened?” Josh asked, his voice faded and resigned.

“You passed out for a few seconds. You need to rest now but no harm done.”

She took Josh’ pulse and blood pressure, made some notes on his chart and left, closing the door behind her.

Sam sat on the chair next to Josh’s bed, took his hand, brought it up to kiss it and then held it firmly.

“Well,” said Josh lightly. “I’m quite the Victorian heroine today aren’t I.”

Sam clasped his hand even tighter, too shocked still to respond. Josh must have felt him shaking.

“Hey,” he said gently. “I’m okay.”

Sam lowered their hands. “You’re not. Josh. You’re not okay.”

Josh nodded and his eyes closed again. “I know it.”

Sandy brought Sam a cup of tea and he sat outside Josh’s room with her while he slept, talking and regaining his composure. It turned out Sandy had volunteered for Bartlet during both the campaigns and appeared to be harbouring a long held belief that he and Josh were a couple.

When Josh woke he was feeling better. Sandy took his vital signs and gave him a hot sweet drink to take as well. Then she left them alone again.

Neither of them mentioned the word ‘pacemaker’ but Josh read Sam’s expression.

“You know what this means,” he said. “A lifetime of being a patient, of doctors and check ups and special questions on health forms and Christ’s knows what.”

Sam sat again in the chair next to his bed. “To me that’s better than a lifetime of not being able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting breathless, of not being able to work, of not knowing if your heart isn’t just going to stop one day.”

“Sam, I’m not even 45. This can’t be happening.”

“I want to know I can celebrate your forty fifth birthday with you. And your forty sixth and your ninety sixth. This isn’t your fault Josh. You were shot and all you’ve ever wanted to do was walk away from it, but this time you can’t. Not this time.”

“No,” Josh admitted. “I couldn’t even get as far as the elevator, could I?”




By the following afternoon, having read all the Pacemaker literature Josh had been given Sam was finding it hard to contain his fascination with the procedure he was about to undergo.

An incision would be made just below his collar bone and the generator containing computer chip and battery would be implanted just under the skin, leads threaded through his veins and attached to a chamber of his heart.

“This is amazing Josh, the whole things over in two hours and you don’t even have to have a general anaesthetic.”

Josh went pale and Donna, who he had finally called, gave a sympathetic squeak. “You’re kidding,” Josh said. “They’re going to do open heart surgery on me with a local anaesthetic?”

“Its not open-heart surgery and they can give you mild sedation. If you’d actually listened when the doctor talked to you you’d know this. It’s a minor procedure.”

“It may be minor to you,” Josh said sulkily.

“My uncle had a pacemaker,” Donna said. “And he used to interfere with the TV signal.

Josh gazed at her in increasing horror.

“That,” said Sam. “That is just not true.” He found the relevant leaflet. “Outside electrical sources do not interfere with a modern pacemaker and can be safely used. There’s this whole thing with metal detectors though which you need to know but apart from that you’re fine. And you shouldn’t lean over a running engine. But, why would you?”

“Sam, can you just shut up.” Josh said.

“Right,” he turned the page. “Do you know the batteries last 7 to 10 years?”

“Really?” Donna was impressed. “I wish I had those in my walkman.”

“Any chance at all you could both pack it in.” Josh said hopelessly.

Donna and Sam waited in the minor surgical waiting area as the surgical team started to work on a very fearful and unwilling Josh. CJ and Toby arrived shortly afterwards.

They talked for a while about how Josh had been these last few months. How they had been trying to get him to see a doctor but he just kept insisting there was nothing wrong. Sam got the impression they thought he was holding them responsible and he wondered what they knew or thought they knew.

“Hey Toby,” Sam said, to change the subject. “Thanks for recommending me to Rita Baker.”

CJ stared at Toby accusingly. “You gave Sam away to someone else?”

“I did not. I told her you’d become a Gen X Slacker and not to touch you with a barge pole, unless she wanted a surfer on her senior team writing beat poetry.”

“Beat poetry?”

“You should totally come back to the White House, Sam,” CJ said, flinging herself into the chair next to him and linking arms with him. Donna, who was in the seat on his other side, put her arm around him and squeezed his shoulders.

“Yes, come back. Josh is all lost without you and none of its any fun anymore.”

CJ said. “And Toby can’t manage at all.”

“I absolutely can.”

“Shut up Toby. He can’t. He’s impossible to put up with. That’s why no one stays in your job. You’re, like, the only one in the world who can deal with him.”

Toby puffed up with outrage. “I am sitting here you know. I can hear you.”

“Well tell him to come back. Now’s your chance while he’s vulnerable and remembering how charming we all are.”

Sam laughed and he was remembering the old camaraderie. It was hard to keep reminding himself to look forward and not back. It was a mantra he had had to repeat a lot these couple of days.

“If it would guarantee that the pair of you would only shut up. I’ll gladly reemploy him.” From Toby, this was as good as a contract.

When they had been waiting for a while longer Toby said. “By the way, Sam, I hear you’ve got a cat.”



josh

later

Josh was discharged from hospital the following morning. This came as a surprise. His one previous hospital admission had lasted two months and he had half expected this one to as well.

He had been told he would need a couple of weeks at home to recover and then he would be able to resume all normal activities. As his normal activities these days mostly consisted of looking for somewhere to sit down and wondering when he could lie down he did not find this advice encouraging.

He certainly felt lousy now. The incision site was tender, he was itching like godknows where they had shaved his chest for surgery, his left arm hurt and he was completely punch drunk exhausted despite a deep sleep with Sam at his side.

He was grateful to Sam now for carrying his bag up the steps to his apartment and for supporting him by his right arm. He was even too tired to complain and this seemed to be bothering Sam the most.

“Its probably the affect of the pain killers that’s wiping you out,” he said. “And all this happened really quickly. You haven’t had a chance to get used to the idea yet.”

“I’m fine,” Josh said, looking around his apartment and wondering if Sam would let him just curl up by the front door because this seemed to be the easiest option. When he realised this was probably out of the question he started to make his way to the bedroom. “I’m just going to lie down for a while.”

He started to undress and his ‘ow, ow, dammit, ow,” soon brought Sam in to help. He wasn’t supposed to lift his left arm for fear of dislodging the wires during the healing process. This complicated the business of taking off his sweater no end. Sam sorted this out without Josh noticing and he also helped with his shoes, which seemed a long way away.

Sam remained kneeling by the side of the bed while he got in. He looked almost as tired as Josh following his nights of disrupted sleep.

“Do you want anything?” he asked absently straightening the blankets.

“Nah. Thanks Sam. Are you going to get some sleep now?”

Sam nodded but didn’t show any sign of leaving. He smiled when Josh reached to stroke his hair.

“Can I ask you something, Sam?”

“Sure.”

“Donna told me Toby offered you your job back.”

“Yes. I think there was a job offer beneath the character assassination.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“You know what I think.”

“I’d made up my mind to stay in California. But now I’m here again it doesn’t seem so straightforward.” Whether here meant Washington or Josh’s bedroom wasn’t clear.

“We’ve got a year and a half left,” Josh said. “After that you could go back to your own personal ocean.”

Sam shook his head. “If I come back now I don’t think I’d ever leave.”

Josh grinned. “I don’t think you would either.”

But the thought evidently did not make Sam as happy as it made him.

“The truth is, Josh. I’ve been offered a job in LA as well. Or as near as dammit. With ERA. They’re opening up on the West Coast and they’re looking for a Director of Communications.”

Josh absorbed the information. “I’ve got a lot of time for ERA.”

“But you think I should be more high profile.”

“I don’t think there’s any limit to what you’re capable of, if that’s what you mean.”

Silence fell between them.

“Can you feel it there?” Sam asked eventually, nodding at the pacemaker site under Josh’s pyjama top.

“This thing? Yeah, kind of, just a sense of it. But it doesn’t hurt, with all the painkillers they’ve given me.”

Sam lifted the pyjama with his finger to look at the dressing. “It must be so tiny. It’s a miracle really.”

“It’ll be visible though. Just under the skin.” He did not say any more, he did not want Sam to know he felt his life had effectively ended. Sam had evidently figured this out though.

“You’ll be okay. I hate that you have to go through this but you will be okay.”

Sam dropped his head a little, letting his hair fall across his face. Sometimes Josh could be completely overwhelmed by Sam. Even now when he was more than usually self-obsessed he could hardly take his eyes from him. The physical beauty, which just got more astonishing as the years progressed. The beautiful mind and heart and soul which shone through all of what made up the surface.

It was hard to believe he had let Sam slip away from him for reasons that now seemed so trivial. He wanted more than anything for Sam to stay and he knew he was closer than he had been in a couple of years to actually agreeing to. A little persuasion from Josh and he probably would.

But looking now into his troubled eyes Josh also realised coming back to Washington was possibly the worst thing that could happen to Sam. Hard as it was to admit, Washington had been the only thing that had ever been able to dent Sam’s soul. Even the law firms he hated had not managed that.

And the town would bring him down again. Josh understood this clearly for the first time. He understood it was not right for him to keep dragging Sam into his own damaged orbit.

“You should work for ERA,” he said and Sam looked up at the sudden change of subject. “That’s what you should do. That’s where you belong. With them. In California. That’s what, that’s-“

Sam lifted his head slightly and kissed Josh’s lips. When he drew away, blinking he looked like he had just woken up.

“What was that for?” Josh asked.

Sam sighed and looked immensely sad. “I’m supposed to be looking forward you know, Josh, not back. You make that so hard.”

“Stay here tonight,” Josh said, mustering all he had to sound healthy and remotely competent. “And then go back home. Sort out your job. Don’t miss this chance.”

“Josh, are you sending me away?” Sam said, so quietly.

“Yes. Its for the best.” If his heart hadn’t been newly rewired it would have broken into a thousand pieces there and then.

“I don’t know if I can go.”

“Go tomorrow. Just you know, I can’t keep saying it.”

Sam nodded slightly and dropped his head again. Josh lifted it with a finger under Sam’s chin.

“But stay tonight.”

Sam came in with Josh and slept next to him. Not daring to touch him and disturb any newly sensitive area but for a kiss lingering on lips and hair and neck and a light caressing hand.

The next day, which was Saturday. Sam stayed until Donna arrived and then, at Josh’s continued quiet insistence, left.

“Why did you just let him go?” Donna asked. “He would have stayed. I’m sure he would.”


The next two or three days were terrible. Josh felt old and ill and sad and he missed Sam dreadfully. His whole body ached and the presence of the thing in his chest took on the proportions in his mind of a giant lead weight pinning him down or sometimes a croaking toad pressing down on his heart. Sam called a couple of times a day but he could barely talk to him. Donna came and went, all bossy kindness but he hardly noticed her in all his contemplation of how easy it would be now to just give up.

Then on the fourth day something strange happened. He woke up and felt better.

For the first time in months the thought of getting out of bed did not seem more trouble than it was worth. He got himself breakfast and opened the mail that had been piling up. He switched on the news channels to see what had been happening in the world and wiled away the morning in a state of surprise at how easy this all was compared to how hard it had been for so long.

He had literature about the pacemaker, which until then he had not been able to face but suddenly became curious about. Sam had emailed him some bits and pieces as well and he sat down and read through it all.

He came to the surprising conclusion that perhaps this was not the end of the world. The little device monitored his heart and fired into life when the beat faltered or slowed. It did nothing when his heartbeat was normal. It didn’t prevent him doing anything except keeping his cell phone in his breast pocket and of course leaning over a running engine. Sam was right it was a small miracle.

Over the next few days he continued to recover at an astonishing rate. He had never been one to wallow in his misfortune, he never wanted to be a victim and he began to realise he had a chance now to reclaim his life.


Josh strode into work with something of his old swagger two weeks after surgery, with the blessing of his doctor and the doubtful approval of Leo.

At first he didn’t have much to do. He had been physically away for little more than a fortnight but had really been away for a lot longer. His team in the Deputy Chief of Staff’s office had learned to manage projects and keep things going in his absence. So, far from walking into a scene of bush fires that he was required to put out, his office had been running embarrassingly well in his absence. Leo was also deliberately keeping the myriad of unplanned situations away from him until he was sure he could deal with them which meant he had to watch the big things happening from the sidelines as well.

He could not sit and do nothing though. He began to revive projects which had been allowed to slip for lack of time. With a little diplomacy and negotiation bills which had been stuck in committee came unstuck, funding became freed up for Bartlet’s programs, even Big Tobacco got cranked up a gear. He spent time with his deputies. Something he had never done before. Listening to what they had been doing and offering guidance and encouragement where necessary, giving more responsibility to those ready for it.

In the times when he was quietly alone in his office, aware of the heavy presence above his heart, he began to think seriously about what he would do after he left the White House. He had never been able to put things in perspective, he just didn’t have that gene. Still, he tried.

He had been back two months when Leo found him, and in his usual straightforward way, asked.

“Are you okay to fly with that thing in?”

Josh shrugged “Sure. I mean I might set off the metal detectors and get designated a weapon of mass destruction but apart from that its fine. What’s going on?”

“I want you to go back to Dallas and have that meeting again.”

“You’re sure? Bill Scullard wants me humanely destroyed.”

“You’re ready.” Leo’s eyes wandered over him as if he was assessing and reassessing this opinion. “We need to take some concessions on farming subsidies to Oslo next month and I don’t want Scullard turning every farmer in the country against us.”

“So they think that their market is going to be flooded from Argentina and Brazil.”

“Give them an agreement to clearly label US product. Give them access to Canada and other markets that currently have trade tariffs. Tell them we’ll be saving the whole damn developing world from poverty.”

Josh grinned. “Got it.”

september 2004

to part three

to west wing

back home