The Only Way I Know—Chapter 3

He shouldn't have done the morning shows. He knew it was a pretty bad idea; he was exhausted, more shaken than he'd like to admit, his head pounded with every beat of his heart, and he felt sick in more ways than one. The dizziness had gotten worse. He was able to walk in a straight line, sure, but he hoped people didn't ask him too. When CJ came into his darkened office as he scribbled notes he was fully prepared to say no, that he could not fill in, but her face and voice and tone, almost pleading, convinced him in an instant. That was close to four in the morning. He'd spent the next five and a half hours in the Mural Room, hooked up to a microphone and always on a camera, bright lights shining directly in his face and every time he blinked it was like someone was stabbing from inside his brain and trying to escape through his eyeballs.

It was worth doing. It had definitely taken his mind off everything and he was happy it wasn't CJ who needed to be there but he wished everyone would just leave him alone so he could curl up on Toby's couch and grab a few hours of sleep before Toby got back. Toby hadn't been back to the White House yet and Sam was mildly worried about him. He knew that Toby was tracking down the Secret Service memos and trying to find an answer for the press but it was unlike him not to go to his office and have the people he needed come to him.

Sam splashed some cold water on his face in the bathroom near the Oval Office. The junior communications aide who had been assigned to managing the morning shows had mentioned that he seemed a little pale and had the makeup women redo…whatever it was she did…between every few shows. He was sweating but also shaking and when he held his hands out in front of him to scoop more water from the tap he thought he was seeing double a bit. He closed his eyes and took off his glasses, blinking rapidly and, when he looked back at his hands again, they were fine…he was fine.

He couldn't really account for the next few hours. He tried to sleep on Toby's couch for a while but the pain plus the slight fear that Toby would come in and find him sleeping there kept him awake. He wandered the halls for a bit but found the struggle of running into people and needing to answer questions was too much. Eventually he ended back up in his office, the lights off, the computer off, anything that made noise or emitted light was firmly shut down.

CJ had mentioned that Josh was about going to be taken off the bypass soon when they had crossed paths in the hall a while ago and Sam thought he heard Toby rustling around in his office; he must have returned for a file or something because Sam saw him moving around near the window that separated their offices. He knew that he wanted to go back to the hospital and wanted to check on Toby and wanted to be near his friends, it was just so hard to move right now. He tried to push himself up from where he was, his head resting on his arm on the desk, but everything felt heavy. It almost felt like he was tying to move through Jello as he used his arms to lift his upper body from his desk. Toby was in his doorway…saying something…something about going back to the hospital…Sam wanted to come with him, he remembered. He forced himself to his feet but apparently too quickly as he reached out to the desk to steady himself, a rush of dizziness and nausea hitting him harder than the whole night.

"Sam?" Toby asked cautiously as he took a half step towards his deputy. Sam looked up and took another step towards the door but it seemed his legs gave out as he fell.

Toby was two steps too late to catch Sam or cushion his fall and by the time he was on his knees next to his fallen friend and had gotten Sam faced towards him he could finally see his deputy for what seemed to be the first time that whole, long, night. His body was coated in a layer of cold sweat and Toby could just now see how pale Sam looked. He tried calling out to him, trying to wake him, not really sure what to do and feeling a far too terrifying sense of dread that this was the second time in twenty four hours that he held one of his closest friends in his arms and was helpless.

"Matt!" Toby bellowed into the hallway as a secret service agent came running into the office. Though he had initially questioned if the secret service's resources really needed to be spent protecting him, he was glad now for the support. "Call an ambulance." Matt nodded before speaking into his radio and moving to Sam's other side. He checked Sam's pulse and relayed to whoever was on the other end that it was fast and irregular.

Toby wasn't sure how long it was that he sat in that office holding Sam but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before Mrs. Bartlett ran into the doorway trailed by her own, substantial, secret service detail.

"What happened?" She asked with a bit of urgency, looking at Toby as Matt moved out of her way.

"I…I don't know, ma'am." Toby spoke softly as she took Sam's shoulders and laid him on his side before checking his pulse and pupils. "I asked if he was going back to the hospital and he moved to get up and seemed…I don't know, unsteady and then he just passed out." Toby felt like there was more to say, felt like there had to be something else he had noticed. But he had been too stuck in his own head to care about anyone else. He had practically walked out of the Communications Bullpen without even checking on his deputy and if it wasn't for Ginger's glare that forced him to feel guilty…he didn't want to know what would have happened to Sam if he hadn't stopped in.

"His pupils are different sizes and sluggish," Mrs. Bartlett said to no one in particular before glancing at Toby. "did he hit his head when he fell?" Toby immediately knew the answer was no. Sam's arm and shoulder had taken the brunt of the impact from his fall, his glasses hadn't even fallen off his face until Mrs. Bartlett removed them. But something was sticking in his head.

"No…no, not here but…he complained of a headache at the hospital earlier and when I came in the lights were off and he seemed to be moving slowly." Mrs. Bartlett understood where Toby was going and started moving her hands around Sam's head looking for bumps.

"Ahhhhh!" Sam let out a gulping moan of pain as he shot up and away from Mrs. Bartlett's probing fingers but Toby's hand on his shoulder kept him from sitting fully up.

"Sam! Sam," Toby tried to get his attention and calm him down but saw him flinching. He lowered his voice before trying again. "Sam, you with us, buddy?" Sam groaned again in response and tried to raise his hand to his head but Mrs. Bartlett held it this time.

"Samuel." She said in an authoritative tone that made him squint his eyes open slightly. "Did you hit your head tonight during the shooting?" She asked very directly. There was some movement in the hallway as the medics arrived and the Secret Service cleared some furniture out of the room so they could get in.

"Y's ma'm" Sam mumbled and closed his eyes again.

"Sam, keep your eye open for me." Mrs. Bartlett said with some urgency, enough that Sam opened them just to slits. "What have you been feeling since you hit your head?" It took a moment before Sam said anything.

"Crappy, ma'am." He had the slightest ghost of a smile on his face as he said it and Toby felt himself relaxing ever so slightly. Mrs. Bartlett also smiled.

"I'm sure you have." She looked at the medics who seemed ready to transport him. "Sam, we're going to get you to the hospital and take a scan of your head. I think you have a rather serious concussion but nothing we can't fix." Abby assured him (and Toby, he looked like he needed a little assurance).

"I was heading there anyways." Sam mumbled again as a backboard was slid underneath his body and the Secret Service helped lift him onto a gurney. When Toby finally rose and got himself closer to Sam around the gaggle of medics and secret service agents, his friend's eyes were closed and he had passed out again.

"Does he have any allergies or medical conditions?" A voice rose from the group, a medic with a clipboard. Toby tried to respond but suddenly his throat was dry, the sound of his heart beat reverberating in his ears so loudly that everything else was a buzz. Did he really almost lose another young co-worker, another friend from the same senseless violence that had impacted so many lives not a day ago? Mrs. Bartlett was speaking now, medical terminology being thrown around but Toby found that he couldn't tune out that voice.

"…his BP is low and I'm pretty sure he's dehydrated to top it all off. Start a drip, I'm riding along." She grabbed Toby's arm firmly as they came to the front drive of the White House. "Toby." She said gently but with a degree of authority. "He's going to be fine. It's a bad concussion but it only got this bad because he didn't say anything." Her face softened a bit and her voice dropped, almost to a whisper, "This is nothing like what happened with Josh or Jed." Toby nodded, glad that he wasn't the only one thinking it.

He took a few deep breathes before nodding again, more finality in this one. The edges of his mouth moved into a nearly imperceptible but half-hearted smile. His voice wasn't filled with the normal volume or rage that usually accompanied his declarations, there was still doubt as he saw Abbey climb into the back of the ambulance and fear still gripped at his heart.

"When he wakes up, I'm going to kill him."

The first thing he noticed was the god forsaken beeping every second. It felt like every high pitched beat was penetrating his soul, stabbing through his eyes, gouging out his brain. He wanted nothing more than to make the noise stop so he could continue to sleep. He had been so exhausted, he still was. He didn't quite remember why though, or where he was, or what the beeping could be. He groaned as he tried to lift his left arm to swat at the sounds, hoping it would do something, even if he knew it was a fruitless effort.

"Shut up…" He mumbled at nothing in particular as he moved to roll over. That was when things got confusing. The pain hit first, or at least it hit the hardest as even moving his head a millimeter sent shockwaves through the rest of his body. He also noticed that his right arm was strapped to the bed, of which he realized was not his own and was not Toby's couch, the last thing he remembered sleeping on. He started to panic, but only for a moment because when he opened his eyes even the dimmed lights sent a wave of nausea through him that he thought might finally win out (though the fact that he couldn't remember his last meal probably helped in this case).

"Calm down, Sam." It took a moment for him to recognize that someone else was in the room with him, took a moment for the blood to stop pounding in his ears long enough for him to realize who the voice belonged to.

"Toby…" He asked softly, opening his eyes barely a sliver just to see the silhouette of his boss. "What's going on?" He found a slightly more comfortable position and stayed as still as possible.

"You passed out in your office, Sam." Toby said with considerable softness that Sam didn't think he'd ever heard. He figured that he was keeping his voice down for Sam's benefit but there was something else in his voice, and edge of something he couldn't identify. Fear? Guilt? Sam was confused about it but there were a lot of questions to come first as the rest of the day came back to him.

"Josh?" His eyes shot open but he quickly closed them again and brought his free hand to his temples immediately.

"Calm down." Toby said a bit sternly as he moved his chair closer to Sam. "He's as good as can be expected right now. They removed the bullet, sutured the artery and his lung. He's gonna be in the hospital for a long time and he's gonna be out of commission for a while but Mrs. Bartlett says it's looking astoundingly good considering." Sam nodded almost imperceptible and he visibly relaxed.

"Don't you nod off on me, you idiot." Toby said sternly, raising his voice slightly. Sam opened his eyes again even though he didn't want to. "That's better, you've got a long line of people who both need to assure themselves you're okay and tell you how dumb you are." Sam groaned as Toby continued. "I would normally say that you're thick skulled and that's why you're so stubborn but the doctors might disagree so I'll just say you're thick." His voice was growing louder as he went, mostly out of habit but also out of anger. "What makes you think you can just walk around the White House with a serious concussion? We were sitting in a hospital for…I don't know, what? Eight hours? You couldn't just pull aside a nurse and tell her you hit your brain on the ground and you might need to be checked?"

"Toby…" Sam mumbled weakly, his eyes scrunched up in pain and his hand rubbing his temples again. "Please, keep going, but can you please just lower your voice?" He was being smart again, Toby thought, but he knew he was also in pain.

"Sam…" He didn't know when he had stood during his rant but he sat again and began to rub his own eyes. "Abbey said that your brain could have swelled, that there could have been some pretty serious damage, you could have needed surgery. Instead you get to stay here for a few days but…still, what made you act so idiotically that you didn't decide to give someone a call when you realized you weren't exactly at the top of your game?" Toby may have meant it rhetorically but Sam wanted to get his part in before the exhaustion overtook him again and he didn't have a say in the matter.

"I might not have been at the top of my game, but which one of us was?" He opened his eyes fully for the first time of the night and looked directly at Toby. "I was doing things the only way I knew how to. I was making sure that things were running, I was making sure that you and CJ and Donna didn't need to think about it, just for a few hours…it was worth it. I know I'm not always trusted to lead on senior staff, I'm the youngest, least experienced, all of that…but I've always been a great pinch hitter. You deserved to have a few hours tonight…last night, I guess…without having to think about a statement to the press." Sam's leaned back slightly into the pillow, happy to have said his piece and overjoyed at the prospect of some more sleep but he didn't seem so lucky.

"That wasn't your choice to make, Sam. I might have been a little caught up in it but if you had said that we needed to draft a statement I would have helped. CJ would have done the morning shows, someone else could have met with Nancy. You could have taken care of yourself before the need for the First Lady's medical intervention and an ambulance that scared the crap out of everyone."

" 'm sorry, Toby." Sam said weakly, almost taken again by sleep. He was sorry, he didn't mean to scare people and he didn't mean to let it go on this long but things got out of hand, as they often did at the White House.

"Nah, Sam…I'm sorry. I should have noticed twelve hours ago that there was something wrong with you. I should have asked you and CJ and Charlie directly if you were okay but…I couldn't…I wasn't all there in that moment and I appreciate that you took the initiative to help keep things running." There was a pause as a small smile fell onto Toby's face. "Do me a favor though, never do that again."

"Deal."

That's it. Not super happy with this one, think I made Toby too sappy at the end but working on the characters and would love feedback. I have some other ideas but working out if I have the time/energy to write them right now. Thanks for reading and, if you like what I've written or have feedback, please leave a comment, they keep me going!