After Midnight
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Carol
Spoilers: Up to 100,000 Airplanes
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Why do we never have good thoughts after midnight? Why do they always have to be the paranoid ones?
Author's Note: Takes place on the same day as Conversations on a Relationship
Carol turned over in bed, her arm reaching out in sleep for the body beside her. When her hand instead encountered an empty pillow, she frowned slightly, the subconscious part of her brain that had reached out for him sending her a message that something was amiss, that he wasn't there. That subconscious message somehow made its way through her sleep, permeating her consciousness, and she opened her eyes, blinking away sleep, propping herself up on her elbow as she stared at the empty spot stupidly for a moment, as if the force of her gaze might make him reappear. Her hand ran along the bedclothes, and she realised that he must have been gone for quite some time; not a hint of his body warmth remained. The room was still dark, illuminated only by the fluorescent glare of the alarm clock, telling her that it was almost four in the morning, and gathering the bedclothes around her to ward off the chill of the room, she snapped on the bedside lamp, screwing her eyes up at the sudden light. "I'll kill him," she muttered to herself, knowing what had happened, knowing what she was going to find when she roused herself from the nice warm bed that wasn't her own.
His robe was hanging on the back of the bathroom door she knew, and when she gathered her courage enough to slip from bed and go and get it, she wrapped it around herself gratefully, inhaling the scent of him on it as she did so, and smiling despite herself. Barefoot, she made her way to the living room, finding him there as she'd known she would, sitting on the couch, yellow legal pad in hand, several balled up pieces of which were littering the floor, along with some sheets of computer printouts, which were resting both on the floor and on the coffee table. He didn't hear her approach, and he jumped when she spoke.
"Sam, what are you doing?" Her voice might have been exasperated, but instead it was just tired, and she knew what he was doing, knew what his answer was going to be.
"I woke up, and I had this idea for the thing, for the speech…I had to get it down before I forgot it."
He was looking up at her, his eyes all innocence behind his reading glasses, looking for all the world like a little boy caught up past his bedtime, an image aided and abetted by his rumpled sweatpants and Duke sweatshirt. While the bedroom may have been chilly, he'd thought to put the fire on, and the flames looked wonderfully real as they danced in the firelight, heat emanating around the room.
How could she be mad at him when he was looking at her like that?
Still, it didn't pay to let him know that. "What time was that?" she mock-grumbled.
"About an hour ago," he admitted sheepishly. "I just…I had…" He sighed. "I wanted to get it down on paper."
She came up beside him, squinting as she tried to read the pages on his lap. "That's the cancer thing."
"Yeah." The word was accompanied by another sigh.
"I thought you told the President that you couldn't do it?" she wondered, recalling how quiet he'd been in the car on the way back to his place that night last week, how she'd had to pry the information on the Oval Office meeting from him.
"I did. We can't. I just… I was reading…"
"I know." She grinned at him, knowing what an idealist he was, knowing from experience that he never quit working, not even if that did interrupt their precious few hours of sleep. Deciding to accept the inevitable, she settled herself down on the couch beside him, curling her legs up underneath her, resting her arm on the back of the couch and propping her head up on that hand. "I never did hear that you know," she said now. "Read it to me."
"There's no point…" he protested. "We're not going to do it…"
She shrugged. "Read it to me anyway." When he still seemed reticent, Carol smiled. "I like to hear what you write."
That was all the encouragement Sam needed, and taking a deep breath, he began to speak
"Over the past half century, we've split the atom, we've spliced the gene and we've roamed Tranquillity Base. We've reached for the stars and never have we been closer to having them in our grasp. New science, new technology is making the difference between life and death, and so we need a national commitment equal to this unparalleled moment of possibility. And so I announce to you tonight that I will bring the full resources of the Federal Government and the full reach of my office to this fundamental goal: We will cure cancer by the end of this decade." While he was speaking, Carol left her arm where it was and closed her eyes, just listening to the words, to Sam's voice. She hadn't been kidding when she'd told him that she liked to hear what he wrote; hadn't been trying to boost his ego or make him feel less guilty. She really did like it, liked to hear him get passionate over something that he believed in. It was a common consensus among many of the assistants in the West Wing that they could listen to Sam for hours when he got going on one of his passions, even if Bonnie and Ginger, who worked most closely with him, sometimes wanted to kill him when he just wouldn't let go of a topic. Carol however, was reasonably certain that she could listen to him forever.
When he finished, he paused for a long moment, looking at her. The silence made her open her eyes, and she smiled up at him. "Nice to see it held your attention," he joked.
"I loved it," she told him, injecting as much sincerity into the phrase as possible, not having to try too hard.
Sam sighed, throwing the pen and pad down on the table, moving closer to her and leaning back on the couch at the same time. "You're tired," he observed.
"Well," Carol adjusted herself as he slipped his arm around her shoulders. "If my boyfriend didn't keep on sneaking out of bed to write speeches…"
"I'm sorry." Her head was resting on his shoulder, and he rested his on top of it, brushing a kiss across her hair as he did so.
"It's the State of the Union Sam," she told him, a grin on her face at his obvious chagrin. "I do understand you know."
"There's so much riding on this speech Carol…after this summer, after the announcement, and the hearings…we need this one."
"And we'll get it," she assured him. "I've seen some of it Sam, and it's incredible. You and Toby have never been better."
He sighed. "I just…I wonder sometimes. If what we're doing…if what I'm doing has any value. If it matters."
Carol pulled away from him then, leaving her arms around his waist, but moving back so that she could see his face. "Sam, it matters," she told him, and she could hear the disbelief in her own voice at what he was saying. "You matter."
He smiled, but there was no joy in it. "Sometimes I wonder. I was the last to hear about the MS. The only one to speak up in favour of this… even knowing that we couldn't do it. Sometimes I feel as if they're not listening to me…as if my opinions don't carry any weight."
"Oh Sam," Carol sighed, one hand going up to his cheek. "That's not how it is. You have such a good heart…we depend on you to see the bright side…to help us get through things. And the President values your opinion. You know that."
"Yeah, I do." He moved his head to the side, placing a kiss on the palm of her hand before lowering their joined hands to his lap. "It's just…I don't know…why do we never have good thoughts after midnight? Why do they always have to be paranoid ones?"
Carol chuckled at that, enjoying the way that his eyes had brightened with the last thought. "Speaking of paranoid," she asked. "Did Toby by any chance talk to you today?"
Sam tilted his head, looking at her oddly. "He did…" he said slowly. "Why?"
She looked down, focusing on a non-existent speck of lint on his sweatshirt. "Something that CJ said…that Toby was worried about the two of us."
Sam blew out a steady stream of air through his teeth. "Yeah. He talked to me."
Carol looked up at him from under her lashes, observing the set of his jaw, feeling the tension that had come into his shoulders. "What did he say?" she wondered.
"Much the same things I imagine that CJ said to you. That the press might have a problem with a member of Senior Staff dating one of the assistants."
"Yeah. That's what CJ said too."
"I told him that what we did on our free time was no-one's business but ours. That I didn't give a damn what the press said about the two of us. That I wasn't going to let that come between us."
She blinked. "You did?"
"Of course I did. What else would I do?"
"You spoke like that? To Toby? For me?"
"For us," he told her, and she had to blink back sudden tears, remembering what CJ had told her earlier that day, about how Sam would get this big grin on his face when he talked about her, the implication being that he was as crazy about her as she was about him. She hadn't been sure whether or not to believe CJ on the matter, although she wanted to more than anything. But hearing what Sam had told Toby had her changing her mind somewhat.
She was looking at him, trying to come up with a reply to that when he blinked, as if something that she'd said had just struck him. "Wait a minute…CJ talked to you? About the two of us?"
Carol nodded. "She said pretty much the same thing Toby said."
"And what did you say?"
She was silent for a moment, looking down at their joined hands. "Basically that I didn't care what anyone thought. That I was happy. That you made me happy. And when she heard that, she went through the door like a bat out of hell. I don't know where she ended up."
For some reason that she couldn't fathom, Sam found that hilarious. "Straight to Toby's office," he told her. "She told him that it was no-one's business but ours what we did, and that whatever it was between us, we deserved a chance to work at it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. She also threatened me with bodily harm if I ever hurt you in any way shape or form."
Carol smiled at that, relaxing against Sam's shoulder once more. "Remind me to thank her." She frowned suddenly as a thought occurred to her. "Why do you think Toby cares so much?"
She felt Sam shake his head. "I don't know for sure. Although I have some ideas about why he'd be worried about the press finding out about relationships between Senior Staff and assistants."
"You're talking about New Year's Eve."
"Among other things." Carol knew from the tone of Sam's voice that there was something that he wasn't telling her, but she knew that it was important that she'd hear it from him eventually, so she changed the subject.
"CJ really threatened you?"
"Yep." There was a smile in Sam's voice. "Right after she told us that you were crazy about me."
A blush flooded Carol's cheeks and she looked up at him. "I'll have to have a word with her about the concept of girl talk."
"I never imagined you and CJ girl-talking somehow."
"If those office walls could talk…"
"I don't want to know," he told her hurriedly. He was silent for a moment before he pushed up the sleeve of the robe she was wearing, his fingers tracing the white lines on her wrist. It was a measure of how much she trusted him, how comfortable she was with him, that she let him; that she didn't snatch her arm away. "Does she know about…?"
Carol nodded. "I told her when she asked me to stay on as her assistant permanently." She had been one in a long line of assistants that had come and gone in the early days of the campaign, but she had stayed. She'd loved working with CJ, and had been thrilled when she'd asked her to work for her in the White House, and knew that the truth would have come out when they vetted her. She'd told CJ, unsure of how she'd react, and her warmth, and the hug that she'd given Carol had moved her to tears, and she'd told her that it was all in the past and that it wouldn't matter. Carol wasn't sure if that was true or not, but she knew that CJ had pushed hard for her, and in the end, Leo had signed off on it. "I don't know who else knows…Leo maybe, if he read my file. But I don't go around telling people."
"You told me." Sam's voice was very low.
So was Carol's when she replied, "You're different."
She looked up at him when she spoke, and he took the invitation for what it was, lowering his head to hers, kissing her gently, one hand moving from around her shoulders to cup the back of her head, the other remaining joined with hers on his lap. He rested his forehead against hers when he pulled away. "I'm sorry about waking you tonight," he told her. "I just…I forget sometimes, that there's someone else to consider."
"I don't mind," she told him. She placed small kisses on his cheek, moving down to his neck before coming to rest on his shoulder. "This is nice."
"It is you know," he agreed, letting go of her hand to finger the tie around her waist. "You didn't have to get up though."
She didn't look at him, hearing the teasing note entering his voice, concentrating instead on his hand near her waist. "I wanted to check if you were all right." Although that had been a genuine factor, even to her own ears, it didn't sound genuine any more.
"You mean you didn’t mean to tempt me back to bed by showing up here, wearing my robe and nothing else?"
"Never entered my mind," she told him, and he laughed, because that sounded even less convincing.
"Well, I’m done here," he told her, standing and helping her up. "Let's go to bed."
She affected a pout. "I'm not tired now."
He was at the fire, shutting it off when she spoke, and there was a devilish glint in his eyes when he spoke. "Who said anything about sleeping?"
"Oh well in that case…" she laughed as he kissed her cheek before slipping an arm around her waist and leading her into the bedroom. The speech lay forgotten on the table behind them.