Rating: PG
Pairing: Toby/Sam friendship; Implied Sam/Carol
Spoilers: One for SGTE, SGTJ
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: Toby and Sam have a heart to heart
Author's Note: Another Blame Sunny story, who issued the August Challenge on the Toby list - write a Toby and Sam fic, about anything you want, as long as it has the two of them in it.

"Whose bright idea was this?"

It's a question that's been running around in my head for most of the night, and only now has it been given form. Considering that I've been sitting here for the last couple of hours, trying to watch the Yankees game, only to have my view impeded every five seconds by Sam, pacing the room like a caged animal, with the commentary drowned out by his mutterings, I rather think that I've been the model of restraint.

My words seem to bring him back from whatever precipice of insanity he's hovering over, and he stops walking, blinking at me stupidly as if I've shone a searchlight into his eyes. "Excuse me? What was whose idea?"

"This!" I swing my legs down from the coffee table, waving my arms in illustration. "This preposterous exercise where you come to my house, sit on my couch, do not drink my beer and interrupt my enjoyment of the Yankees winning."

"The Yankees are winning?" He focuses on the game for the first time, his gaze going to the television set, squinting as he tries to see the score.

"Sam!" He looks back to me again after my shout. "Whose idea was this?"

He blinks again, considering. "Carol's," he finally decides. "Also, her mother's, and her sisters'. They had this whole 'not seeing the bride the night before the wedding' superstition going on, which is ridiculous, because honestly, we've been living together for months, and we've known each other for years and-"

"So why me?" I cut across his speech, because I've heard it before. Many times. I could quote it myself. "Why do I get the honour of shepherding you through your last night of freedom?"

"Carol said that if I went to Josh's, I'd end up being late tomorrow morning, because his watch sucks." I nod, reflecting that Carol must be spending too much time with Donna if that's her first line of defence. "Also, she was concerned that Josh might convince me to go out for the evening, and that there would be strippers and that Josh and his del-"

"Delicate system would lead you into disrepute," I conclude. They might not have been the exact words that Sam would have chosen, but they must convey the right meaning because he nods.

He still has one reason why he's here tonight though, and not elsewhere. "Besides," he concludes with a shrug. "You're my best man."

I nod, reaching for my bottle of beer, taking a long pull of it. "Why me?" I ask after a moment's consideration, because Lord knows, it's something that I've been wondering ever since he asked me. I mean, it's not like we're especially close, although we certainly work close to one another. He's known Josh for much longer than he's known me, and those two were thick as thieves through the first campaign. When Sam confided to the two of us that he was going to propose, not telling CJ for obvious reasons, I was sure that Josh would be the best man.

When he asked me the next month, surprised was too mild a word to describe my feelings, although it never crossed my mind to say no.

"Why you what?" Nerves, I must also point out, are frying Sam's brain tonight. Not that he has anything to be nervous about - the whole of the West Wing has had the two of them altar bound since their first date.

"Why me? Why am I your best man? I would have thought Josh-"

He shakes his head, sitting down beside me on the couch, reaching for his own bottle of beer, mostly untouched, on the coffee table. He smiles, beginning to pick at the edges of the label, not looking at me when he begins to talk. "I suppose telling you that it's because we're the Batman and Robin of the West Wing wouldn't get it done?"

I chuckle to myself, remembering his indignation when I first used that sobriquet. "It might," I tell him. "But that's not the real reason, is it?"

There's only the briefest of pauses before he admits it. "No."

A silence follows, and it might just be the quietest I've ever seen Sam Seaborn. "Well?" I eventually ask, spreading my hands, and he looks up in surprise, as if my question has shocked him. "Are you going to tell me the reason?"

He rolls his eyes. "You'll laugh…"

"Sam, when have you ever known me to laugh at anything?"

He considers it a moment. "Good point." His shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath, then he takes another pull of his beer. "I couldn't make up my mind for a long time," he finally says. "I've known Josh since I was a Congressional Aide; he was the one who brought me on to the campaign. I mean, if it wasn't for him, I'd never have even met Carol. Which I thought was a pretty good argument for him."

"Which is why I would have thought you'd ask him."

"But then I thought of you." Sam continues as if I hadn't spoken. "And before we go any further, can we agree that this is the beer talking and never mention this again?"

I think of pointing out that he's had maybe half a bottle and that not even Josh is that much of a lightweight, but something in his eyes, in his demeanour, stops me. "Done."

"I started thinking of what a best man's job is supposed to be. Someone who stands beside you, stands up for you on the biggest day of your life. And when I began to think of who I wanted standing up at that altar beside me tomorrow morning, I couldn't think of anyone but you. I know we fight, and I know we've had our disagreements, and that we don't always see eye to eye, but there's no-one that I'd rather have in my corner than you."

A gulp of beer washes down the lump in my throat. "I didn't know you felt like that."

He smiles sheepishly, holding up his bottle. "The beer," he reminds me, and I nod in understanding.

"So," I ask, looking at the television for a moment. "What made you settle on me?"

I hear him chuckle beside me, and look around to see that same sheepish smile on his face. "Carol," he admits, and that does make me laugh.

"Are you serious? Your fiancée decided who your best man would be?"

"In a manner of speaking." He doesn't look hurt that I laughed, in fact, I'm pretty sure from the look on his face that he finds it amusing as well. "We were talking about it one night, and I told her all the things that I just told you. And she had some of her own arguments in your favour."

"Which were?" Because these I'm very eager to hear. Despite the fact that I've been working with Carol since the first campaign, despite the fact that she's CJ's assistant, I didn't really begin to get to know her until she began to date Sam. The more I found out, the more I came to like her. She's intelligent, she can handle her own in a debate, as Josh has found out to his cost more than once, and most importantly of all, she can get through to Sam when no-one else can. She's perfect for him.

"Well, she did mention the thing about his timekeeping. Also the fact that she wouldn't trust him not to lose the rings if he was the last man on earth."

"Good points."

"But she also pointed out that I might get…" He waggles his head from side to side, trying to come up with the appropriate word.

"Psychotically terrified?" I suggest.

He gives me wearied look. "Nervous," he rather pointedly settles on. "The night before the wedding. Or in the morning. She asked me who would be more of a calming influence, you or Josh." I don't imagine that Sam had to think too hard about that particular conundrum, and his next words bear me out. "Once she said that, there didn't seem to be too much of a choice."

I nod again, draining the last of my bottle, standing up and going to the kitchen. When I come back, I have two bottles in my hands, one for me and one for him. If we're going to have this conversation, we need alcohol. "Why would you be nervous?" I ask without preamble. "If there's any couple in the West Wing who are right for each other, it's you and Carol."

"It's just…" He starts, then stops before standing up and resuming his pacing. "Fifty per cent of all marriages end in divorce Toby. Think of that! Fifty per cent. That's half of all marriages."

"I can convert from percentages to fractions," I point out to him. "What does that have to do with you and Carol?"

"I was engaged to Lisa. I was sure that I wanted to marry her, to spend the rest of my life with her. But that didn't work out," he continues. "You were married to Andi, you must have felt that way, right?"

It takes a second for me to realise that that was a genuine question, and I nod belatedly. "Yeah."

"My parents got married feeling that way. Toby, my father had a mistress for twenty eight years." He stops pacing, looking up at the ceiling. "How can anyone be sure of anything? How do I know that I'm doing the right thing? How do I know that we're going to be part of the good fifty per cent?"

I take a deep breath. "You don't Sam." He looks crestfallen at my words. "You don't. But you can't go into marriage thinking that you're going to fail. Because if you do, you will." A blast of applause from the television set interrupts me, and I fumble for the remote and mute the sound. "You think that tomorrow, you're going to go into that church, and you're going to stand there with all your friends and family around you, and take those vows, and that's it? That's a wedding Sam, but a wedding isn't the same as a marriage. Marriage is work. It's communication, it's compromise. It's putting the needs of another person ahead of your own. It's about not forgetting that there's two of you, that it's not just all about you anymore."

"Is that what happened between you and Andi?"

"Partly," I sigh, the spectre of my failed marriage still a thorn in my side, even after all these years. "We would have these fights about silly things, and our way of dealing with them was not to bring up that topic again. We never found any common ground, a way to deal with our differences. Soon, it became easier just not to bring up anything that might be controversial. And that's no way to live."

"I think that's what happened to me and Lisa," he admits. "I went and joined the campaign; didn't even discuss it with her. Then our lives just moved in different directions." He sighs. "How do I know that that won't happen with me and Carol too?"

I look up at him for a long moment. "Sam," I ask. "If you've got a problem, who's the first person you want to talk to about it?"

There's not even the merest hint of a pause. "Carol."

"When something good happens, who's the first person that you want to tell about it?"

Once again, he answers promptly. "Carol."

"Who's the person you'd trust above anybody else?"

"Carol."

"Who's the one whose interests you'd put ahead of your own? The one who, if you were set on doing something, that if they said stop, you'd stop without thinking about it, without asking why?"

"Carol."

I pause before asking my next question, because it's the most important one. "At the end of the second term, you're going to be walking away from all the people that you'll have spent eight years with," I tell him, taking a beat before I continue. "Can you imagine walking away from Carol? Can you imagine your life without her in it?"

There's a long pause this time, where he looks down at the ground, and then a whisper. "No."

His eyes meet mine, and I smile at him. After a second, a smile comes to his face too. "That's how you know Sam," I tell him. "You remember that, and you remember that when you walk out of that church tomorrow that it's only just beginning for you two. There is no-one - Sam, no-one - that has a better chance of making it than the two of you."

He lifts an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

I fix him with my best glare, the one that sends junior staffers scurrying away from me as fast as their legs can carry them. "Sam, the morning after your first date, there was a damn book started on when you two would make it official." His face goes slack with surprise. "Why do you think the President was pressing you to propose just before you did?"

I almost wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face. "The President was-"

I nod. "You waited a week too long." I wait for that to sink in before I continue. "You're pretty lucky; Leo talked him out of exiling you to Siberia for that."

There's a grain of truth in there somewhere, but the delivery makes Sam laugh, as it was supposed to, and he comes back to the couch, dropping down on it, still laughing. "I am pretty lucky," he says once he's calmed down to the occasional chuckle.

I take a long gulp of beer. "You two are going to be fine Sam," I tell him. "Any time I worry about couples - which never happens by the way, I just want to be clear-" He nods, holding up his bottle of beer to remind me of our earlier agreement. "You're never the ones that cross my mind. You're gonna be fine."

He grins. "Carol was right about you."

"Well, she's a pretty smart girl."

"I know."

"Doesn't explain what she's doing with you though," I deadpan, and he turns quickly.

"Hey!" he protests, before he laughs again.

"Just doing my job," I tell him.

He nods, sober now. "Thank you," he says quietly. "For everything."

I clear my throat, trying to dislodge the pesky lump that's come back again. "You're welcome," I reply, just as quietly, and we sit in silence for a long moment. "You gonna let me watch the game in peace now?"

He laughs, leaning back against the couch, propping his legs up on the coffee table. "Go for it."

"Great." I turn up the sound on the television. "And get your feet off my coffee table."

"You did it."

"It's my house."

"Point taken." He does as he's told, and I keep my feet off the coffee table, and that's how we sit for the rest of the night, watching the game in silence, both of us able to relax now that my job is done.