Hello! I got inspired to take a crack at a West Wing fic. This will be a longer story, taking place a few years into the Santos Administration. This first chapter is something of a prologue (future chapters might not be quite so long).

A few things-a lot of the medical stuff is pretty much entirely made up to serve the plot as I imagined it. I tried to use realistic language but don't look too closely for scientific accuracy. Also, I've rated this "T" because I don't think anything I wrote it terrible graphic, but this intro chapter does mention sex a bit (I don't think any more than would be allowed on Network TV; I was going for the tone to match the actual show as much as possible). If anyone thinks "M" would be more appropriate, let me know and I'll consider it; I would hate to offend anyone.

Enjoy!

January 2010.

Donna took another discreet but ultimately unnecessary peak at her planner; she knew today was the last of the three she had diligently marked with a tiny letter "o". Late meetings about final prep for the State of the Union had kept Josh in the West Wing until one and two in the morning the last two nights, but today she made him promise to be ready to leave with her by six. Very capable people were handling what was shaping up to be an incredible speech for the president; Josh could spend this evening with his wife.

She was still in her grand East Wing office half-heartedly replying to some low priority emails by 6:45 when he appeared in the doorway looking contrite.

"You're late, Joshua," she said without looking up at him.

"We got our telling off from State about the language on Kazakhstan," Josh replied.

"It's ok," Donna replied, starting to pick up her things; she decided almost instantly that it wasn't worth arguing over. Forty-five minutes wasn't too bad, and an actual fight could wreck the evening and mean waiting yet another month. This was too important to fight over forty-five minutes. So she smiled at him, kissed him cheerfully and walked out the building hand in hand with him.

A few hours later, Josh sat at the kitchen table across from Donna and poured himself a third glass of wine. He'd finished his food and felt her give him a disapproving look.

"What?" he asked.

"Please don't get drunk," she said. He took a long sip of the expensive Cabernet and let out a frustrated sigh.

"Here it comes," he muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"I have a job to do, right?" he replied. "Reminding me not to get too drunk to get it up? You sure know how to make a guy feel good, Donna."

"It's the last day," she said quietly. "I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but we need to take this seriously."

"I do take it seriously!" Josh snapped. "I'm just not in love with the whole appointment sex thing and you know it."

"Appointment sex?" Donna raised her voice a bit. "Grow up."

Josh stood up silently and started clearing the dishes. He avoided looking at Donna because he knew she was right; he just wasn't ready to admit it yet. He petulantly made as much noise as possible as he carried the dishes over the sink and started filling it.

Donna was determined not to rise to it; she was extremely annoyed with him right now, but her agenda still came first. So she took a deep breath and said, perfectly calmly, "I'll be in the bedroom when you're finished with that."

"Barely domesticated" was a phrase Donna liked to mockingly use to describe Josh Lyman to her old college girlfriends and he lived up to it that night. It took him nearly a half an hour to finish washing the dishes of a single, very simply prepared meal. But that was plenty of time for him to thoroughly feel like a fool.

This was important to him; he often struggled to be able to articulate just how important it was to him. But he hated the idea that his physical relationship with Donna was quickly turning into a clinical and businesslike thing. He couldn't stand to view her like that. In his mind, she was a queen who deserved to be properly romanced every single time. A queen who deserved what she so desperately longed for, that he hadn't managed to be able to give her after months of trying.

He washed the smell of dishwater from his lower arms and walked slowly towards the bedroom, hoping he hadn't made her so mad that she wouldn't be in the mood anymore.

To his relief and delight, she was sitting cross-legged on the edge of their bed wearing nothing but the amorous expression on her face.

"Just because it's by appointment doesn't mean it can't be fun," she said.

"I love you Donnatella Moss-Lyman," he said and started towards her.

"JOSH!"

Donna found herself in a state of panic. Josh had suddenly, right in the middle of the act, become very short of breath, and now was struggling to hold himself up in a sitting position gasping for air. She anxiously pulled a tangled bedsheet free of his chest and abdomen but realized almost right away that wasn't what was causing the problem. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot as she thought of what was probably happening.

"Donna," he panted breathlessly. "I'm sorry, I, I," he couldn't finish before a wave of nearly uncontrollable coughing set in. Donna tried to hold him steady until he caught some some of his breath, but the panting continued. "I ca- can't breathe."

"It's ok," she said quickly, reaching for the phone. "I'm going to call 9-1-1."

"No!" he snapped between labored gasps. "Please, don't."

Donna wanted to smack some sense into him. She didn't want to say this and panic him, but she was sure it was a heart attack. But she looked at his face and could tell immediately that he was already panicking.

It wasn't just the fear of this situation; it was that terrible spectre from the past that could never quite leave her Josh alone. It was Rosslyn. The thought of another ambulance ride to most likely the same exact hospital, with all those same horrible sights and sounds and smells was too much. It terrified him. It would send him right back to that night. Josh had made wonderful progress over the years, but living with him made her really appreciate that PTSD wasn't something he would ever simply "get over". Donna was very well attuned to this aspect of him, partly because she loved him so much and partly because she was a trauma survivor herself. She understood him now and knew she needed to make a plan that would spare him what he knew he wasn't able to handle.

"Ok," she said calmly, standing up. "I'm going to get dressed; I'm going to help you get dressed. We will slowly walk to the car and then I will drive you, faster than is legal, to the emergency room. We don't have to get an ambulance, but we are going right now."

He nodded breathlessly and she started dressing quickly. When she came back to the bed holding a set of his clothes, he had regained his breath a little more but looked at her with an expression of intense terror.

"Donna," he whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I'm scared."

A few hours later at the hospital, the couple breathed an enormous sigh of relief when the attending physician gave the good news that the EKG and blood work had not indicated a heart attack. Josh was being given oxygen and felt significantly better; now he was restless and frustrated with himself for making such a big deal out of the whole thing. Donna, who'd been holding his hand, pulled it to her face and kissed it.

"We need to figure out what's going on though," the doctor continued. Josh cut him off.

"Doc, it's not my finest hour, but I know well enough what happened," he said. "I'm an out of shape old man who couldn't keep up with his hot wife. I'm really feeling a lot better."

The doctor smiled awkwardly. "That's why you had the tests you did," he said dryly. "Respiratory distress in a forty-eight year old man during sex is a heart-attack until proven otherwise. It's not dignified, but it happens. That's not what happened here, but being cute about it doesn't change the fact that you've been struggling to breathe for several hours now."

"I'm not anymore!" Josh snapped.

"Don't argue, Josh," said Donna sternly.

"Ok," said the doctor. "Let's test that. Pull that tubing out of your nostrils for thirty seconds. If you aren't gasping like a fish out of water, you have my word as gentleman that I'll discharge you right now."

"Doctor, please," said Donna. "He's just showing off. This isn't neces-."

"I'm holding you to that," Josh cut her off and removed the cannula. Donna cringed as it took far less than thirty seconds for him to start struggling again. She stood up and slid it back into place herself, while Josh panted and glared at the doctor.

"Now that's out of our system," he began. "I've taken a thorough look at your chart, and my next major concern is the history of injury to your pulmonary artery. I'm ordering an angiogram of the area to go in there at the vascular level and find out what's going on. I think you're not getting decent blood flow to your lungs and that's what's causing the problem."

"How long will that take?" Donna asked. Josh had gotten quiet. "Is it safe?"

"It's very safe," said the doctor. "They'll take him down to the cath lab in a few minutes, then the procedure should take about an hour. He'll be mildly sedated."

"Thank you, doctor," said Donna and he left. She turned to Josh who had taken on a serious and thoughtful expression. She knew the look well; he eyes intently forward, his mouth slightly open.

"How is this even possible?" he asked quietly. "That it's a Rosslyn thing; that was almost ten years ago."

"I'm sure they're just being thorough," she replied gently. The same question was racing through her mind as well.

"Do you have my cell phone?" he asked nervously.

"I have it, but I would prefer not to give it to you right now," she answered.

"I need to call Sam," Josh argued.

"It's 2:15 in the morning."

"He needs a heads-up on this," said Josh. "It might leak that I'm here; he'll be pissed if he gets it from the Huffington Post instead of me."

"What about the President?"

"No, that can wait," he replied. "He needs to be on top of his game for the speech next week; we don't need to be waking him up in the middle of the night for every little thing."

"Please don't refer to this as every little thing," Donna began. "It's terrifying to me."

"Sorry."

"Let me call Sam," she asked. "You just rest for a minute." Josh nodded.

Just then, a pair of orderlies arrived to bring Josh for his test. Donna kissed his forward and told him she loved him, and he squeezed her hand affectionately.

"We'll bring him back soon Mrs. Lyman."

"Donna?" Sam said, suppressing a mild yawn as he sat up in bed. He had snapped to nervous attention when he saw her name on his phone. The White House Deputy Chief of Staff was perfectly accustomed to phone calls in the middle of the night, but one from Donna's personal cell phone could almost certainly only be something bad.

"Sam, Josh is in the emergency room," she spat out. Sam immediately flipped the switch on his bedside lamp and put his glasses on.

"What happened?"

"He got very short of breath," Donna started. "I was afraid it was a heart attack; they've already done some tests and they don't think it was, thank God, but they still aren't completely sure what caused it."

"Damn, I'm on my way," said Sam, starting to stumble around in the semi-dark of the room to find a t-shirt to put on. "What hospital?"

"GW, but maybe don't come right now," she said. "He mostly just wanted to make sure you didn't find out some other way. Even if they discharge him soon, I'm forbidding him from going in to work tomorrow so your plate is going to be full."

"Can I talk to him?"

"They just took him for an angio," Donna explained.

"An angio? I thought you said this wasn't a heart attack?"

"They're looking at the vessels around the lungs," she explained slowly, then swallowed a lump in her throat. "There's concern about a problem with the repair of his pulmonary artery."

"Jesus," said Sam.

"This is so scary Sam," she whimpered.

"Are you sure you don't want me there?"

"I'll call you when he's done with the test," said Donna. "You can talk to him then too. Can you do me one favor though?"

"Anything."

"Tell the President," said Donna abruptly. "He told me not to, but I think he's wrong. I'm going to talk to Mrs. Santos in the morning, but I think he has to hear it first. Maybe don't wake him up, but tell him when you can."

"Of course," said Sam. He wasn't surprised to hear that Josh was taking an inappropriately cavalier attitude in this situation. It would be a difficult conversation if the doctors' concerns turned out to be true; Josh had a very close relationship with Matt Santos, but the shooting was never easy for him to talk about with someone who hadn't been in his life when it happened. "I'll make sure I speak to him before Senior Staff."

"Thank you Sam."

Two hours later, they had wheeled Josh into a more private room to recover. He was lightly sleeping off the sedative, and a nurse assured Donna that he was doing well. The on-call vascular specialist would be coming by shortly to talk to them together. Donna pulled her chair right up to his bedside and started gently running her fingers through his hair.

Josh opened his eyes slowly and smiled when he saw his wife.

"Good morning, love," she whispered.

"What'd they say?" Josh asked.

"Nothing yet; the specialist is going to talk to us together now that you're awake," she explained. She wondered if she should be nervous about that, but she tried her best not to let him see that. Josh noded, calmly.

"I'm so sorry about last night," he said.

"Please don't worry about that," Donna shot back quickly. Suddenly the most important thing on her mind had dropped to nearly the bottom of her list.

Josh, however, started to shake his head. "I was being an ass," he started. "And I've been wrong. About the whole thing."

"We don't have to talk about this now," Donna insisted.

"Please," he interrupted. "Let me finish."

She took a deep breath and nodded.

"I was wrong to make you drag me along on this," he said. "I got weirded out by the doctor's appointments and the ovulation calendars and all that. But tonight I realized that I could miss out on the chance to do this with you." A tear started to gather in his eye and she squeezed his hand. "And that is so much scarier than any of that other crap."

"Dr. Bonner thinks it's ok to stay with the conservative plan for a few more months," Donna reminded him gently. "You said that was all you were comfortable with for now, and I respected that. I still do."

"You know about my general distaste for all things conservative, don't you?" he said with a smile. Donna laughed. How much he loved the sound of her laugh.

"By all means, let's keep having lots of sex," Josh continued. "That part is perfectly delightful. But I'm gonna call her office tomorrow and get us another appointment a little sooner. Let's talk about the next steps. You call the shots about everything involving your body, but I'm telling you now that I'm ready to go all in with you."

A big smile washed over Donna's face. "I like the sound of all-in."

A few minutes later, the doctor came in.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Sondra Moore," she said, holding out a hand to shake both Josh's and Donna's. She then went straight into business mode. "Well, sir, I'm afraid there is definitely a problem with the site of the surgical repair in 2000."

"What kind of problem?" Josh asked, nervously.

"It's failing; the episode you had tonight was a warning, but this could get very serious very fast," she began. "We studied the notes from the trauma surgeons, your post-op exams and today's angiogram, and there is a weakness in one particular part of the closure in the pulmonary artery. It's not causing an arterial bleed from that site yet, but it's very taxing on the smaller vessels, causing small bleeds in and before the lung, and preventing blood from the heart from getting properly oxygenated. Your symptoms tonight weren't necessarily that you couldn't breathe, but that the breaths you were getting weren't adequate to get oxygen to your body."

Donna's heart sank. This sounded just as bad as a heart attack. "What can be done about it?"

"For now, we've reinforced the more problematic area with a device similar to a stent," Dr. Moore explained. "The blood flow will be stronger and that will help prevent more hypoxia issues. In fact, we can probably reduce your oxygen now and see how you do." She stepped over to the machine behind Josh's bed and adjusted the settings. He kept the cannula in place, but didn't notice any difference; that was a great relief. He did in fact feel much better, but he knew there was more.

"I suspect there's a 'but' coming up, isn't there?" he asked dryly. The doctor nodded.

"This is a temporary fix," she said. "The problem will get worse."

"Then what happens?" Donna asked, squeezing her husband's hand.

"This will eventually need to be repaired surgically again," she explained.

"Do I have to have my chest cut open every ten years for the rest of my life?!" Josh snapped anxiously.

"We're definitely not there yet," she said. "Vascular surgery has come a long way in the last decade, and when you had the initial procedure, it was under much more dire circumstances. In a trauma situation, surgeons have to adapt to unfolding elements. Keeping you alive, getting the bullet out before it did more damage, preventing infection. There was a graft procedure available at the time that they weren't able to try because you were too badly injured. This won't be like that."

"How soon can he have it?" Donna asked abruptly. "I'm going to call Abbey Bartlet first thing at seven a.m. and find out who she would recommend to do the surgery. How can I access his chart to send out? We'll fly to the other end of the country if we have to; wherever she says the best guy in the country is, that's where we go. Will he need an ambulance transport? If so, once you get that organized, I want him to have a sedative or something for anxiety if that's possible. Could I ride with him? And I'll call Stanley Keyworth. How long will he be in the hospital after the surgery? What kind of follow-"

"Donna," said Josh quietly. He watched her start to spin out racing through every detail, but she hadn't noticed that Dr. Moore clearly had something else to add; something she wasn't going to like.

"Mrs. Moss-Lyman," she said gently but firmly. "He can't have the surgery for a while."

"What?!"

"He can't have it right now," she said. "He's not stable enough. His blood pressure needs to be much better controlled. His blood sugar is on the high-side for not having eaten in almost ten hours; if he's even just prediabetic, that needs to be identified and addressed because it can be very dangerous with vascular problems. He'll need a complete work-up on the state of his heart; it wasn't an MI tonight, but he definitely has risk factors. This is a major operation, and he needs to go into it as healthy as possible, or there is a very real chance he won't survive it. But we bought time with the angioplasty tonight. If we can get some improvement on those fronts, I'm very optimistic that he'll do very well. He's a little older and a little less healthy, but he's come through worse before."

Donna started to cry so Josh reached over and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to his chest. "It's ok," he whispered.

She took a deep breath, but couldn't quite stop crying. Josh stroked her back softly. The worst part of this was seeing her suffer.

"We're going to keep you a few hours for observation," Dr. Moore began. "I want to contact your primary care doctor and have a follow-up appointment set up before you leave, but as long as you're doing ok, we'll get you discharged by early afternoon. You'll want to make some decisions about where you want to have the surgery. I'll have Dr. Singh's office call you later this week; he's chief of our vascular surgery department."

"His office will call later this week!?" Donna snapped indignantly. "I'm sorry, did anyone forget to mention that my husband is the White House Chief of Staff?!"

"Donna," Josh tried to interrupt, but she persisted.

"No, this is ridiculous! You had a major operation in this hospital and now they tell you all these years later it didn't work, but their surgeon who could help you now can't be bothered to see you right away!" She turned to the doctor. "Do you realize that this man is the closest advisor to the Matthew Santos? He's in the room when decisions about everything from the budget, to US troops in Central Asia, to healthcare and education are made! Those two well dressed and heavily armed men hanging out outside the door are his Secret Service detail! So please do a little better than his office will call later in the week!"

"I'll see what I can do," said Dr. Moore calmly.

"Thank you, Doctor," said Josh. He was embarrassed. The idea that he was more deserving of decent care than anyone else because of his position sickened him. "Please excuse my wife; it's been a long night."

"Get some rest, Mr. Lyman," she said and exited. Donna gave him a glare and pulled away from him.

"I don't appreciate you apologizing for me."

"That wasn't like you, Donna," he replied. She averted her eyes in shame because she knew he was right.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "What do we do? What happens now, Josh?"

"We'll figure it out together," he responded and pulled himself up into a sitting position. "Let me give Sam a call; I'll let him know I won't be there today and fill him in on what's going on. I'll leave it until a little later, then I'll talk to the President. You shouldn't go in either; you've had less sleep than I have."

"I've already left a message for Mrs. Santos' new personal aide," said Donna. "I know she'll call me when she wakes up; she'll be worried about you."

"Maybe you should go home and try to sleep a little," Josh offered.

"No, I wanna stay with you," she replied. "We're going to have to make a few more calls once it's a decent hour."

"Who do you have in mind?" said Josh. "I don't know that I want to tell everyone we know about this just yet."

"Your mother and the Bartlets," Donna replied. "I meant what I said about getting her opinion on who should do this; I'm not trusting you to just anyone."

"He'll take this badly," said Josh. "But no matter what, he'll be calm and serene compared to Mom."

"We'll worry about it a little later; just get some sleep now."

"I'm still calling Bonner's office about moving that appointment up," said Josh resolutely.

"Honey, it's ok, we don't have to worry about that now," Donna started to half-heartedly protest.

"I don't want our lives to go on hold," said Josh. His face got serious. "Donna, we missed out on a lot of time we could have had together because I was a coward for so long, and I hate myself for that. I almost allowed myself to be a coward about this, but I can't do that. We're not going to miss out on having a family, not for anything in the world. I won't let it happen."

Donna took a deep breath in a futile attempt to save her composure. "Josh, you know how badly I want a baby," she started. "But I don't think I could stand to have one without you."

Josh squeezed her hand tightly. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

They both knew that was a blatantly ridiculous thing to say; Josh almost regretted saying it because it probably insulted her intelligence, but it seemed to reassure her enough in that moment. She smiled and squeezed his hand back. Maybe it wasn't the sort of thing that he could know was true, but it was what she needed to hear, and that counted for something.

Sam was sick with worry about Josh as he went through the day. He'd spoken to him in the morning, but that conversation wasn't reassuring. His mind started spinning back to the shooting and its aftermath; the terrifying hours of waiting for word, as his dear friend fought for his life on the operating table, how he crafted a plan to drag the KKK through the courts to pay for what they'd done to him, how months later, he blew up at Ainsley Hayes for so much as mentioning her opinion on guns, how frightening it was to see Josh shouting at President Bartlet in the Oval Office and later appearing with a mysterious cut on his hand. Those were memories he hadn't spent a great deal of time focusing on in years.

He was in his office reading a long memo about appropriations when his desk phone rang; it was Ronna.

"Yeah," he greeted.

"Hi Sam," she started. "The president wants you in the Oval for a meeting with Congressman Preston and two Evangelical pastors at 1:30. Josh was supposed to sit in."

"I'll be right over, thanks," he said and hung up. It was difficult to keep up with all of his work and Josh's, but that didn't matter. This meeting didn't exactly sound like a treat; a freshman Republican Congressman from rural Texas and a pair of Bible-thumpers. He put his jacket back on and walked to the Oval Office.

"How's Josh doing?" Ronna asked when he reached her desk.

"Haven't talk to him since this morning," Sam explained. "He might be home by now. I'll try calling when we're done here."

"He's been working so hard," Ronna mused. "Sometimes I worry he'll end up like Leo."

Sam cringed at that thought. He constantly worried that Josh would end up like Leo. "Can I go in?" he was eager not to continue talking about it.

"Oh, yes of course," said Ronna. "The president is expecting you." Sam smiled and proceeded into the Office.

President Santos was leaning on his desk and looking out the window.

"Sam," he turned and greeted his advisor. "Thanks for finding time for this."

"Of course, Mr. President," Sam replied. Santos came out from behind the desk and took a seat, motioning for Sam to do the same.

"Helen talked to Donna a little while ago," he started. "They discharged him; I don't want him to come back to work tomorrow, but I don't suppose I can do much about that short of an executive order."

"I'll help draft one, sir," Sam offered. The president laughed.

"So it is this issue with the gunshot wound?" he asked.

Sam nodded. "They fixed it for now, but he's eventually going to have to have surgery."

"When I talked to him, he made it sound like he'd sprained an ankle," the president explained. "I need to go through my wife to get straight information. Thank God for Donna."

"Yes."

"This meeting," Santos started, changing the subject. "I know it seems like an odd thing for me to take, but I was intrigued. Preston is a darling with the religious right, but one of his pet projects is sentencing reform."

"Seems like an odd combination," Sam mused.

"Well, he's young and idealistic," Santos continued. "He wanted to talk to me about some pardons and clemencies. I'd be interested in being more proactive about that. There are a lot of people in this country, many of them black and Hispanic, doing hard time for nonviolent offences and it's a disgrace. I don't think that's exactly what the meeting today is about. This Reverend Jaymes coming with him today has a big ministry in the South about reformed white supremacists. It's not a group of people I'm terribly sympathetic towards, but it might be a good start for some bipartisan action on rehabilitation."

"Well, it should be interesting," said Sam. There was a knock on the door, then Ronna appeared.

"Mr. President," she began. "Congressman Preston, Reverend Jaymes and Pastor Schmidt."

"Send them in, thank you." The three men filed in and exchanged handshakes with Sam and the president.

"Welcome, gentlemen," said Santos, motioning for them to sit.

"Mr. President," began the Congressman. "As a fellow Texan, I can't tell you what an honor it would be to work with you on this important issue."

"That's great to hear, Congressman," Santos replied. "I know there's not a lot we see eye to eye on, but moving our criminal justice system in the direction of rehabilitation is a worthy cause."

"Legislation takes time," started Preston. "As I'm learning quickly. But you can make a great start with pardons and commutations."

"You know there's a process for this, Congressman," Sam interjected. "Applications go through the pardon attorney's office."

"We understand that Mr. Seaborn," began Jaymes. "There is a specific case we wanted to speak with the President about."

"Reverend," began the president. "I hope we can speak candidly. And by 'I hope we can', I of course mean, I'm going to speak candidly and you're going to like it, because of who you're talking to."

"Of course, sir."

"Good," he began again. "I'm familiar with your organization, Reverend, and I have to say, I really think there are better uses of my pardon power than neo-nazis who changed their minds about it."

"'I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent,'" recited the other clergyman.

"Luke 15:7," replied Santos. "Well, you won't hear me arguing with that."

"Many of the men Reverend Jaymes and Pastor Schmidt have helped through their ministries in Texas and Georgia have rebuilt their lives and helped teach others to turn away from hate Mr. President," said the Congressman. "My wife and I were very moved when a young man who bravely broke away from a prison skinhead gang witnessed at our church."

"That's lovely," Sam began, a bit defensively. He didn't want to hear about repentant white supremacists, especially not today when Rosslyn was so heavily on his mind. "But you need to understand that the president's agenda on this matter is far more concerned with helping non-violent offenders who were treated unfairly from the start, people who've largely been victims of systemic racism."

"Of course," replied the Congressman. "But we think there's a great opportunity here to come together, political differences and all and live Jesus' compassion."

"You're not talking to America's Pastor, you're talking to the Commander in Chief," Sam rebuked.

"We know you're a man of faith, sir," said Pastor Schmidt. "Just like your predecessor."

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we?" said Santos. He didn't like the tone of the conversation. He could tell Sam was on edge and he was annoyed that his Catholicism was being treated like a political weakness to be manipulated. "I assume there are specific pardon applications you have in mind? Tell me about them."

"It's just one case," began Reverend Jaymes. "Two years ago, a young man serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Virginia wrote to my church. He wasn't asking for anything except for us to pray for him; his soul was burdened by the terrible thing he'd done."

"Which was?" Santos asked. All three men hesitated, then the Congressman spoke in a very carefully and well practiced tone.

"He was an accomplice and co-conspirator of an attempted murder of a black man some years back," he explained. Sam bit his lower lip.

"He wrote to me because the Holy Spirit had changed his heart," the Reverend continued.

"What's his name?!" Sam barked.

"Sam," Santos tried to calm the waters.

"What is his name?" Sam knew it was a mistake of decorum to ignore the president like that, but he would deal with any fallout from that later. The Reverend looked him straight in the face.

"Carl LeRoy."

Sam took a deep, fury suppressing breath, then stood up from the couch and removed himself from the immediate vicinity.

Matt Santos knew it wasn't very presidential of him not to immediately seize back control of the room, but he couldn't find it in his heart to tell Sam off about this, especially not amidst what was happening to Josh.

"Is it too much to hope for that it's some other guy also called Carl LeRoy?" he said quietly. Jaymes smiled sadly.

"Mr. Seaborn," he began. "I understand your anger."

"You have some nerve, do you know that?" Sam snapped, turning back to face them. "You come into the Oval Office to beg mercy for a man who helped shoot the president? Who nearly killed the current White House Chief of Staff? Who tried to murder President Bartlet's son-in-law?"

"Sam," the president said firmly. "Sit down." He took a deep breath and complied.

"Carl is not the same man who committed that terrible crime," Jaymes continued. "Since his conversion, he has devoted his life to the Lord and to stopping the cycle of hatred that led him to ruin his life. He's been a model prisoner; he broke off gang affiliations inside at great risk to his own safety and he now leads an inmate Bible-study group."

"He hasn't been in prison ten years," Santos argued. "Now, I'm not exactly one for laying down the hammer on long prison terms, but the man shot the president! He seriously injured several people! And he did it because the thought of an interracial couple sickened him!"

"He didn't do the shooting," said Pastor Schmidt.

"He took part in it! He gave the signal and made it possible, that he didn't pull the trigger is a minor detail at best and you know it," the president shot back, raising his voice slightly. "You know, people like that have a problem with my marriage too. Do you know how many threatening letters to Mrs. Santos and even our children about precisely that the Secret Service intercepts every month?"

There was silence.

"Dozens," said Santos soberly. "Sometimes hundreds."

"That's despicable, Mr. President," said the Congressman.

"Yes it is," he replied harshly.

"And Carl knows that too now," began Jaymes again. Sam visibly rolled his eyes. "He wants to devote whatever time he has to serving the Lord and his brothers and sisters."

"Whatever time he has?" Sam asked, increasingly annoyed. "The guy can't be older than his mid-thirties"

"Carl was diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer last month," said the reverend. "He's receiving treatment but the prognosis isn't good. We're bringing this to you now so that he can go home to his family before he goes home to the Lord."

Sam felt like leaping out of his skin.

"Do you know what he said at his sentencing?" Sam started. "About my friend, Josh Lyman? The judge asked him if he had any regrets, and do you know what his answer was?"

The room was quiet.

"Mr. Seaborn, you have to understand-"

"Do you know what he said!?" Sam yelled. "Because I do!"

"He answered, 'Yeah, I regret that the dirty Jew we hit didn't die'." said the reverend quietly.

"Do you know why Josh Lyman himself isn't in this meeting right now?" asked the president, much more calmly.

"We had hoped to speak to him," said the Congressman sheepishly.

"That's not possible because he spent the night in the hospital," said Santos. "Because of a complication from the gunshot wound that Carl LeRoy made possible. I'm sorry gentlemen, but your timing probably couldn't have been worse. I think we've said all that needs to be said." He stood, giving the others the unsubtle message that the meeting was over.

"Thank you Mr. President," they began in chorus as they began to exit the Oval Office. As the other two men left, Reverend Jaymes lingered.

"Sir," he began. Santos glared at him. "Carl has a lot of supporters, in my church, in the Evangelical community. Out of respect for Charlie Young, President Bartlet and Mr. Lyman, I've asked a lot of people to hold off making a big public push about this until I spoke to you privately first. Now that we have spoken, you may start hearing a great deal more about it."

"So it's on me to tell the former president and my chief of staff about this?"

"I'll be praying for Mr. Lyman."

"So will I," said Santos. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be late for my next meeting, Reverend."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

When they had the room to themselves, Sam and the president exchanged looks of frustration.

"I'm sorry you got blindsided with that, Sam," said Santos. "I'd like to see you keep your head a little better, but I would never have made you go into that meeting blindly if I knew. I don't think I would even have taken it, except maybe for the satisfaction of telling them no to their faces."

"I appreciate that, sir," Sam replied.

"I've gotta talk to Josh about this as soon as possible; he doesn't deserve to learn about it from the news," Santos began. Sam nodded.

"It was every bit as terrible as you'd think it was," said Sam, very suddenly. The president looked up at him with sympathy in his eyes. "He'd been my friend for a long time and I really thought we were gonna lose him."

"It's not that I have no pity for this guy," the president began. "But these people are delusional about what he did. We're gonna call this meeting a one-off favor to a newbie Texas rep for nostalgia on my part. We've got better things to worry about."

"Thank you Mr. President," said Sam as he started towards the door.

"Sam," he called back once more. "I didn't go through Rosslyn with all of you, but I owe a hell of a lot to Josh Lyman. More important than that, he's my friend too. We're going to help him through this." Sam smiled and nodded.