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    Sam sat in Josh's office for a minute, thinking about his
    conversation with CJ.  He felt like he had successfully
    put off her tirade about Kazakhstan, but that probably
    wouldn't hold forever.  But there was nothing he could
    do about that now; it was something the President-elect
    would have to work out. Glancing up, he remembered
    the pacing Muppet.  She was no longer outside the office
    door.  Quickly, he got up.  Once at the door, he didn't
    see the woman, but he did see Otto across the room--
    the lone person whose name he knew.

    Once Sam had crossed to him and had his attention, he
    asked, "The woman…"

    "Which one?"

    "Dark hair. Angry looking.  With the…" He drew a line
    across his eyebrows with his index finger so he wouldn't
    have to use words to demonstrate his meaning. "She
    was just pacing out here." He pointed to the area in
    front of Josh's office.

    With a bit of alarm in his eyes, Otto nodded reluctantly.

    "What do you know about her?" Sam questioned.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Can you tell me where to find her?"

    "Why are you asking me?" Otto was defensive about
    being singled out; there had to have been at least a
    dozen staffers Sam could have asked between Josh's
    office and where Otto had been working. "I have no
    reason to know where she is; at least, no more than
    anyone else. I barely know her.  Well, I know her, but
    not in any special way."

    "Okay…"  Sam watched him for a moment.  He was
    beginning to feel surprised that Josh had lasted as long
    as he had before blowing.  These people were…
    interesting.  "Can you just tell me her name or point me
    to where she sits?"

    "Oh… you just want to know where…" Sam would have
    sworn the younger man suddenly looked sheepish.
    "Okay, sure. Lou. Her name is Lou Thornton and her
    new office is three doors down that hall on the left."

    "Lou. Yes, of course that would have been Lou."  He
    turned in the direction that Otto had pointed before
    pausing.  "How long will it take you to pull some of your
    best work?"

    "My best work?"

    "Yes, your writing. Josh tells me you want to be a
    speechwriter."  

    He looked panicked for a moment, before the answer
    struck him and he relaxed slightly.  "Through the
    communications office, Donna has every remark the
    President-elect made in the campaign. If I can find her,
    I'll ask her to print some out."

    "Donna is on vacation. Can you pull something without
    her help?"

    "Sure. I have them all at home, but here… it'll just take
    a bit longer to find them on the various computers I
    worked on."

    "Good," Sam responded before asking intently, "Did Josh
    talk to you today after…"

    Otto looked at the floor and then nodded.  "He
    apologized."

    "Good. Don't take it personally.  He was just stressed to
    the breaking point. And unfortunately, you happened to
    be at ground zero when the point… broke, as it were.  
    He asked me to look at your writing and assess where
    you might fit in on the speechwriting staff."

    At that, Otto's eyes lit up.

    "So get them and we'll go from there."

    Otto nodded in agreement and hurried off to find his
    speeches.

    A moment later, Sam found himself in the doorway of
    the angry, pacing woman.  He wrapped his knuckles on
    the door frame. "Lou?"

    "That's me."

    "Hi, I'm Sam Seaborn." He continued standing in her
    door, but she didn't look up.

    "Good to know."

    "The new Deputy Chief of Staff. I thought we should
    meet," Sam prodded a moment later.

    "If you're waiting for an engraved invitation, it's never
    gonna happen."

    "Okay."  However, Sam took that as an invitation and
    entered her office.  "Was there a reason you were
    pacing outside my office a few minutes ago?"

    "I wasn't."

    "I'm pretty sure you were. You're very…"

    At that, her head shot up and she pinned him with her
    gaze. He repressed a desire to describe her as a
    Muppet.  He had to admit that seated in front of him
    without the angry pacing, she didn't look nearly as
    Muppet-like. Instead he finished, "…distinctive-looking."

    "Wow.  You use that line to pick up women in bars?"

    "Not as such, no."

    "What am I saying? Look at you. You're straight out of
    central casting.  Of course, I knew that about you, but
    still, in person, it's even… more. You probably leave a
    wake of women clawing each other's eyes out just to get
    to you."

    Sam grimaced before responding, "Okay, I think we've
    taken a weird turn."

    Lou pushed her glasses farther onto her face.  "I was
    pacing in front of Josh's door, not yours."

    "Right. I'm using Josh's office until they get one cleared
    for me. I'm told it will be ready tomorrow or the next
    day. Why were you pacing?"

    "Sometimes when I'm trying to think, pacing helps."  
    Concentrating on him, she narrowed her eyes and
    asked, “Won't Josh need his office?"

    "No, I'm covering for Josh while he's on vacation for the
    next week."

    "Vacation?"  Lou snorted incredulously.

    "Yes."

    "That's impossible.  Josh doesn't take vacations."

    "I hear where you're coming from, but it's true."

    "Impossible."

    "You said that already."

    "That man eats, breathes and lives this job.  No way he
    takes a vacation right in the middle of transition."

    "He'll be back in a week," Sam said with a smile.

    "He hired me today. Why didn't he mention it if he was
    going away?"

    Sam decided to skip the ultimatum part.  "It was sort of
    a spur-of-the-moment thing." He decided to change the
    subject. "You know Otto?"

    "Uh… yeah… sure." Lou grimaced and suddenly found
    something very interesting that she needed to study on
    her desk.

    "What do you think about him?"

    "Me? I don’t think anything about him. I barely know
    him. I mean, I know him, but not in any sort of special
    way where I think things about him." Lou finished the
    sentence with a cough and a cringe.  

    Sam shook his head, feeling a little like he was in the
    twilight zone. These people were definitely odd.  Idly, he
    wondered if the people who had come in during Bartlet's
    transition had thought the same thing about Josh, CJ,
    Toby, Donna, and the rest of them that had formed the
    tight-knit campaign staff.  "Josh said he was a
    speechwriter on the campaign.  He told me to talk to you
    and get your impressions on where we might place him.  
    As the Communications Director, do you feel he's ready
    to start on some sections for the inaugural address?"

    "Oh?"  Lou's eyebrows shot up and she nodded several
    times. "Speechwriting.  Yes, of course, I have opinions
    on his speechwriting.  He's good."  She picked up her
    phone and dialed quickly, explaining, "Donna has copies
    of all the public remarks made on the campaign.  I can
    have her pull…" She trailed off as she listened to
    Donna's outgoing message.

    Lou hung up the phone. "Her voicemail just reminded
    me that she's on vacation. I had a message from her
    earlier saying she'd be gone..."  Suddenly Lou's eyes
    went wide. "…a week."

    "Yes."

    Now Lou smirked. "That's quite a coincidence."

    "Yes, it is."

    "You know what, Sam?"

    "What, Lou?" Sam cocked his head sideways as he
    watched her wheels turn.

    "I don’t believe in coincidences."

    "Hmm.  I do happen to believe in coincidence.  A
    sequence of events that, although accidental, seems to
    have been planned or arranged-- seems perfectly logical
    to me.  However, you're right; this sequence of events
    appears not to be all that accidental."

    "Really?" Lou hit her hand against the desk and said
    with grudging respect, "That son of a gun.  He let me sit
    in his office, waxing on about his complete inability to
    have a life outside this job, on the day he's leaving on
    vacation with Donna.  My staffer Donna."

    "Your staffer?"

    "Yeah, she's in Communications. You know, I hired her."

    "I did not know that."

    "After Josh refused to hire her.  He turned her down
    when she came looking for a job.  And then when I hired
    her, he put up a huge stink."

    "I didn't know that, either." Sam was surprised and a
    little disgusted.  Admittedly, he had been out of the loop
    and didn't know all the details, but it was a good thing
    Josh had finally taken his head out of the sand or Sam
    would have had to put him out of his misery once and
    for all.

    "I guess it all makes sense now."

    "What makes sense?"  Sam asked, because not a lot was
    making sense to him at the moment.

    "Why he didn't want to hire her.  At the time I couldn’t
    make sense of it.  She was qualified, experienced, and
    great at what she did.  And working for him took up a
    large chunk of space on her resume.  Not to mention we
    were desperate for competent people with experience. I
    assumed they'd had some sort of falling out, but I wasn't
    sold that it'd been romantic… see, this is why you should
    not date people you work with."

    "They weren't dating."

    "Now or then?" Lou asked with confusion.

    "Then.  As far as I know, they never crossed the line
    when she worked for him in the White House.  However,
    I think if they had crossed the line back then, they both
    would have been a lot happier."

    "So now they're… together… but three months ago he
    wouldn't consider giving her a job, even though she was
    one of the best candidates we had?  But you're saying
    their falling out wasn't romantic?"

    "I really don't know." Sam sighed, not entirely
    comfortable with the topic. "But with those two, I
    assume the falling out was entirely caused by their
    intense but repressed feelings for one another which
    manifested itself for years in a whole lot of misdirection,
    hurt and pining."

    "Oh…"  Lou looked at him disdainfully.  "You're one of
    those."

    "One of what?"

    "A touchy-feely, express-your-feelings kind of mushy
    guy. You know… sensitive."

    "I am not." Sam brought his hand to his chest in protest,
    but he was too bowled over to offer more of a rebuttal.

    "Well you just got too mushy for me and I have breasts,"
    Lou waved her hand at him dismissively and Sam
    watched her with a mixture of amusement and mild
    irritation. "Back to the matter at hand, Josh told me he
    was going to offer her Deputy Press Secretary.  This
    could be a problem.  Do you think this is a problem? Not
    that I necessarily have a problem with inter-staff
    romance. Do you have a problem with it? For instance,
    would you date someone you worked with, or who
    worked for you?"

    "I'm engaged," Sam explained with a frightened look in
    his eye. He scooted back in his chair, too distracted to
    mention that Donna’s working in the West Wing
    probably wasn't going to be an issue.

    If Lou noticed his reticence, she didn't show it. Instead,
    she shrugged. "You know, this is Josh's problem, not
    mine. I say live and let live.  A little office romance
    never hurt anybody. If the President-elect doesn’t have
    a problem with it, I sure don't."  She pinned him with
    her gaze once more. "Why were you here again?"

    "Uh… oh… right, the Inaugural Address-"

     Without warning, she interrupted him with a bellow.
    "OTTO!"  

    Her yell caused Sam to sit back in his chair even farther.
    They both sat in silence for several moments.  Lou
    looked him in the eye and Sam gave her a self-conscious
    half-smile.  She screamed the name a second time.
    "OTTO!!"

    A few seconds later he finally appeared in her door. "You
    called?"

    "Twice; did you not hear me the first time?"

    "Only dogs can hear your dulcet tones.  I had to wait
    until one came along and told me I was being
    summonsed."

    "Is that how you talk to your new boss?"

    "My new boss?"

    "Well, that depends on what the new Deputy Chief of
    Staff here thinks of your writing.  What's that in your
    hand?" She motioned to a packet of papers he was
    holding.

    "Samples of my writing that I was pulling for the new
    Deputy Chief of Staff."

    "Good, give it to him," Lou ordered; a nervous Otto
    complied.  

    "Great, I'll just go…" Sam motioned towards Josh's
    office. "Have a read." He looked between the two, gave a
    confused frown, and then hastily made his exit. Lou and
    Otto remained quiet for a moment after Sam left the
    room.

    Finally, Lou broke the silence.  "Did you know that Josh
    and Donna are on vacation together?"

    Otto quickly shook his head. "No, I did not know that."

    "But you don't seem surprised. Why aren't you more
    surprised?"

    "I don't know. I guess I knew they were together."

    "You knew?" she demanded.

    "I… uh… only know what pretty much everybody knows,"
    Otto stuttered quickly.

    "What does everybody know?"

    "Come on, you saw them with the…" he raised his
    eyebrows instead of finishing the sentence.

    "With the what?"

    "You know… the hug."

    "What hug?"

    "When they called Nevada for us, remember how
    everyone was celebrating and hugging? Well, they were
    just… hugging each other… only each other… for like a
    really long time."

    "Suddenly, I'm surrounded by 'em," Lou muttered
    shaking her head.

    "What?" Otto asked.

    Lou frowned at him incredulously, before snorting. "You
    are such a girl."

    "I am not."

    "Seriously, next thing I know you're gonna be prancing
    around here in a pink pinafore, inviting me to your fake
    tea party and wanting to braid my hair."

    "Well…"  He shrugged, wearing a bit of a smirk.

    "What?" She asked with a slight sneer.

    "Your hair could use… something."

    "Girl," she charged again, but brushed an errant strand
    of hair behind her ear as she did it.

    "Not."

    "Seriously, you're the only one who noticed any…
    hugging.  Because you're a girl. How do people really
    know?"

    "I'm not the only one who noticed the hugging. Trust
    me.  But everyone pretty much knows that Ronna and
    Edie caught them in bed together, midday, on Election
    Day."

    "Caught them?"  Lou looked at him with incredulous
    indignation. "Why did I not know this?"

    "Because Election Day wasn't exactly the time for gossip
    and you haven't been around since… well, Election Day,"
    he replied matter-of-factly.

    "For gossip like this, someone should have called me."

    "Maybe someone did, and you didn't return any of his
    phone calls," Otto rejoined, but tried to keep a casual
    tone.
      
    "Your messages were to tell me that Josh and Donna
    were doin' it?"

    "So you did get them?"

    "I've been busy."

    "Well if you hadn't been too busy to take the calls, then
    you would have known." Otto shrugged at her and
    walked out of the room, feeling for once that he had the
    upper hand. He figured it would last for at least five
    minutes.

    ***

    Sam put down the packet of Otto's speeches that he'd
    been reading.  Josh and Lou were right; the kid was
    good.  Really good.  He would make a fine addition to
    the speechwriting staff, perhaps even a senior position.  
    But an Inaugural Address called for something more
    than really good.  

    Sam picked up the business card he'd retrieved from his
    pocket.  Bob.  Who in the hell was Bob?  Could there be
    someone who Josh would feel was capable of polishing
    an Inaugural Address that Sam didn't know? With a
    shrug, he dialed.

    A gruff voice answered. "Hello."

    "Hello, may I speak to Bob?" Sam asked in his polished
    professional tone.

    "Who's calling?"  

    "This is Sam Seaborn with the Santos transition team. I
    was given your number by Josh Lyman."

    Silence.  Sam waited, but Bob didn't answer.  He
    crinkled his brow in confusion. What kind of nutjob was
    Josh setting him up with? Finally, Sam prodded, "Hello?"

    "Sam?"

    "Yes…"

    "Don't say my name."

    "Okay."  

    "Recognize my voice, but don't say my name." The
    words were drawn out slowly.

    "Oh my God."  Sam gulped a minute later when
    realization dawned.

    "Yeah."

    After a long pause, Sam asked quietly, "How are you?"

    "Okay," Toby replied before asking, "You're calling for
    Josh?"

    "Yeah, he gave me your number today.  But he didn't
    tell me it was you."  

    "So you're back."

    "Josh asked me to be his Deputy Chief of Staff."

    Toby felt a twinge of regret at the thought of them
    reassembling without him.  He brushed the emotion
    aside and asked gruffly, "You really want to come back?"

    "To be honest, I'm not sure. But it's not easy to say no
    to Josh."

    Now Toby chuckled. "True story."

    "So… you and Josh talk?" Sam asked carefully. He'd had
    no idea that they were in touch. Of course he had barely
    spoken to Josh through the hectic months of the
    campaign.

    "Yeah."

    "A lot?" Sam was curious. If Josh had been in regular
    communication with Toby-- a scandalously indicted
    man-- it did make his own absence from both their lives
    a bit more egregious.

    "Enough. He would bounce election strategy off of me
    from time to time.  I think he liked the objective
    perspective from outside the campaign."

    "Sure." Sam nodded, but didn't say anything further.  He
    wasn't sure what he should say.

    Toby cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably.  "So… uh…
    why did he have you call me?"

    "I'm checking out the speechwriters we already have on
    staff, trying to suss out who can tackle the inaugural
    address. He gave me your name as someone who might
    be able to help… polish."

    "Oh.  Why didn't he call me himself?  I haven't heard
    from him in a couple of days."

    "He's been a bit… busy."

    "I'm sure." Toby sighed with understanding and a bit of
    jealousy.  He would have really liked to have been busy,
    too.

    "Actually," Sam sat back in the chair and smiled for the
    first time in the conversation. "I sent him on vacation."

    "What?" Shock rang though the phone from Toby.

    "Seriously, I told him he had to take a vacation.  I have
    never seen him like he was today.  He was completely
    strung out.  Had a bit of a meltdown at one of the kids
    on staff."

    "Oh, boy."

    "I know.  The stress was really eating him up.  It
    reminded me of…" Sam's voice trailed off.

    "After the shooting?" Toby finally asked.

    "Yeah… it was scary."

    Toby rubbed his beard as he thought. He knew the kind
    of stress Josh was under and the kind of stress he put
    himself through.  "I guess it makes sense, with Leo on
    top of everything else."

    "Yeah… I'm, uh… sorry I couldn't be here for the
    funeral," Sam said as a stab of guilt ran itself through
    his gut.

    "Josh told me that you had an IPO going public that day."

    "Yeah, any other day, any other thing I would have
    missed. But I had to be there, or it wouldn't have gone.  
    I felt… I feel horrible that I wasn't there.  Leo… he really
    meant a lot to me."

    "I know." Toby was silent for a moment.  "I was just glad
    I could go; I was afraid it might be a problem.  It wasn't,
    but still I wasn't exactly the most popular guy at the
    dance."

    At that, Sam chuckled.

    Toby turned his mind back to Josh. "Where’s Donna?"

    "What?"

    "Donna, where was she when Josh…  She's usually the
    one…"

    "Who looks out for him?" Sam finished.

    "Yeah."

    "She might've been a little close this time."

    "Close?"

    "Yeah, as it turns out, Josh didn't end up going on
    vacation alone."

    "So you were serious about him going on vacation?"
    Toby questioned incredulously.

    "As we speak, the two of them are on a plane headed to
    some romantic, tropical paradise or the other."

    "Oh, well, if he's with Donna he'll be fine." Toby sighed
    with relief.

    "Yeah, I'm sure she'll take care of him."

    "She will at that. So they're finally..."

    "Yeah, they're finally."

    "That's kind of great." Toby actually smiled.

    "Yeah, it is." Sam smiled as well.

    "They waited long enough."

    "Probably about nine years too long," Sam agreed,
    before confiding, "You know, I always thought it would
    have been some PR disaster if they'd… well, if something
    had happened between them while we were in office."

    "I know."

    "Remember what he used to say if anyone questioned
    him about their… thing?"

    Toby smiled ruefully. "He responded to most inquiries by
    explaining that she was his assistant."

    "Yes, he did.  And I just let him. I never really pushed it,
    even though I knew it was more than that.  I can't help
    but think that was a colossal mistake, and if I'd really
    been his friend I would have slapped some sense into
    him years ago and told him, consequences be damned,
    he should go for it."

    Toby grimaced thoughtfully before speaking.  "They're
    adults; they had to figure it out on their own.  But I
    know where you're coming from.  We all… uh… have
    regrets."

    "Yes, we do." Sam took a deep, fortifying breath.
    "Speaking of… I'm sor-"

    "Sam, don't worry-" Toby tried to interrupt, but Sam
    wasn't having it.

    "No, I'm sorry I wasn't around. I'm sorry I haven't been
    in touch.  I should have called; I should have done
    something.  How's your lawyer?"

    "Good. She's good."

    "Why didn't you call me? I'm a helluva good attorney."

    "You're a helluva good attorney when it comes to
    merging corporations.  I needed a helluva good attorney
    with more of a… criminal bent."

    "Still…"

    "The last thing I would ever do is drag you into this
    mess and I don't blame you for not calling.  Nobody's
    calling. In fact, the only people I really talk to besides
    lawyers—both those trying to put me in and those trying
    to keep me out of jail-- are Andi and Josh. "

    Sam swallowed hard. "So you're doing okay."

    "I'm as okay as can be expected."