Chapter Two

"I'm sorry Josh," Sam said as the car neared his apartment. The two men had hardly spoken since they had left the White House.

"Don't be, it's not your fault."

"What are we going to do?"

"You're going to sleep. That's as far as I've got."

As soon as they entered the apartment Sam took off his jacket and flung it over the sofa. By the time he had crossed the living room his tie was hanging loose around his neck and both shoes were removed and scattered before he had entered the bedroom. Josh walked behind him and watched as he as good as collapsed onto the bed. Sam fell asleep almost immediately and Josh looked at his watch, determined that Sam would get at least four hours. He unplugged the phone, turned his and Sam's cell phones to vibrate, made some fresh coffee and settled on the sofa. For the first time in days it was Josh's turn to stay wide awake while his partner slept next door.

Josh swallowed the dregs of his third cup of coffee and glanced at his watch. Sam had been asleep for four hours and twenty minutes. Josh hated to wake him, but knew that they should go to the White House and face the music. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched Sam sleep. He had hardly moved from the position he had been in four hours ago. Josh lay down beside him and placed his hand on Sam's chest. He let it lay there for a while watching it rise and fall. Sighing, Josh shook Sam gently but in response he only groped for Josh's hand and tucked it, within his, under his chin. Josh closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillow. He pulled his hand out of Sam's grasp and laid it on his shoulder. "Sam." He continued to shake and call his name until Sam eventually opened his eyes.

Sam stared at the ceiling for a while and then closed them again. "I was dreaming about apples again. I was in the canteen at Junior high. All the other kids wanted a donut but I wanted an apple." Sam wiped his hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes.

"What happened?" Josh asked.

"They were all eating their donuts and making all these noises like they were the most delicious things they had ever eaten."

"And?"

"And nothing, I just ate my apple and watched them and I thought how tasty my apple was and how it was probably just as nice as their donuts."

The two men lay in silence. The curtains were pulled but the window was open and the traffic's conversation drifted into the room punctuated every so often by a car horn.

"Toby's pissed as hell," Josh murmured and he felt Sam's head move against him as he nodded. Josh patted Sam's chest and then sat up. "Come on."

Josh had already washed and changed so he threw a pizza in the microwave while he waited for Sam. When he heard the bathroom door open he turned the dial again so that Sam's would be ready. "You'll have to eat this in the car, Sam," Josh called and Sam appeared in the doorway just as the microwave bleeped its completion. Josh laughed as he placed the pizza back in its box.

"What's so funny?" Sam asked.

"Nothing it's just I called you and the microwave bleeped just as you…" Josh looked at Sam's tired frown, "Nothing, come on let's go."

When they reached the communication Bullpen Sam walked straight into his office but Josh went and stood in Toby's doorway. "Where are we-"

"Leo's office," Toby interrupted. "CJ and Leo are waiting." He pushed past Josh and out of his office.

Josh ran a hand through his hair, breathed out deeply and then went next door. Sam was sitting in his chair leaning over the waste bin. He took three deep breaths, nodded and then stood and walked over to Josh. "It's a good job I didn't puke, I just realised that waste bin is wire mesh," Sam carried on past Josh.

Josh grabbed Sam's arm. "Hold on, you can't go into Leo's office on the verge of throwing up."

"It's never stopped me before," Sam reasoned. Josh didn't return Sam's smile. "It's okay, it was just eating that pizza in the car and I still feel really tired which makes me nauseous…it's okay." Sam walked on and Josh reluctantly followed him.

When they reached Leo's office he came flying through the door. "Give me one second guys," he said before shouting for Margaret. Josh and Sam walked into the office and seated themselves on the sofa next to CJ. Toby stood in the corner of the room, his head bowed and hands in his pockets. Nobody spoke until Leo entered. He shut the door behind him and went over to his desk.

"Did you get some sleep?" he asked Sam as he sat down.

"Yeah, I feel much better now," Sam replied.

"Yeah," Josh agreed. "He was just nearly puking from exhaustion in his office, but don't worry because he feels much better."

Toby coughed and shifted restlessly on his feet. Leo glanced at him and realised he was impatient to start. "Did you get something to eat, Sam?"

Toby sighed loudly and turned away to face the window.

"Yeah, Josh made me eat some pizza in the car on the way over, hence the retching," Sam explained and silence descended once more.

"Okay." Leo sat back and waited until Toby had turned around before continuing. "After you went home I talked to Toby, I talked to CJ and I talked to the President. And then I came back here and had an idea and it's got everything to do with apples."

Josh and Sam exchanged puzzled looks but Josh was feeling increasingly relaxed. Leo wasn't mad, he actually sounded quite cheerful. He'd been plotting and he had a plan.

"When we were in the Oval Office, Toby, you said that if this had got out before, it would have been a matter of Josh and Sam having lied to us but if it gets out now it's a matter of the administration deciding to keep it secret."

Now it was Toby's turn to look confused. "Yes, I did and I still think-"

"What exactly is the 'it' that we are talking about here?" Leo asked. When he had talked with Toby earlier Toby had used his extensive vocabulary to avoid using the words gay, homosexual or even relationship and Leo was counting on him doing so now.

"The 'it' is the fact that Sam and Josh are more than just friends," Toby stated, obviously uncomfortable. It wasn't the fact that Sam and Josh were gay he found difficult, it was the fact that he was discussing it in front of them, CJ and Leo.

"No, Toby," Leo stood up and walked over to Toby, "the 'it' is whatever we want it to be." Toby, Sam and Josh looked nonplussed at Leo's words, but CJ was smiling.

"CJ," Leo prompted.

She sat up and turned to face Sam and Josh. "I don't know what happened in the Oval office earlier, but I know that Toby thinks you have a secret and if you told us what it was we would have to decide how to deal with the ramifications of it for this administration." CJ paused, Josh was smiling too now, "Now I don't know what the secret is, Toby thinks it has something to do with your friendship, but I think it has something to do with apples."

Josh was smiling broadly now. Sam looked just as confused as before. Leo was looking at Josh with a wry smile on his face. Toby was pacing.

"Nobody actually said..." Toby stood still. "Hold on," he carried on his path to the window and then turned around, "In the Oval office, nobody actually said what the secret was. Nobody, so far, has actually used any of the words that we are all thinking to explain what we are now thinking about Sam and Josh." He returned to his original position and slowly added his smile to the collection. "For all we know, Josh and Sam's secret could well be about apples."

"Couldn't it just," Leo agreed.

"We don't have to worry about keeping anything from anybody, because as far as we know there's nothing to hide." Toby rubbed a hand absently over his forehead. "I can live with that, I'm worried about what the apple-secret is, but…I can live with that."

Leo nodded at Toby, an almost indecipherable look was exchanged between the two men, and then Leo walked over to where Josh and Sam sat. "We won't talk about this again and if we do it won't be anywhere near the White House. You have kept this secret all this time, keep it secret. If it comes out through another source we'll support you but as far as I'm concerned Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn have never disclosed the nature of their relationship to any of the senior staff."

Josh tried not to show just how relieved he was by what had been said. Leo's plan was almost childlike in its simplicity, but extremely effective. He relaxed his hands that had been clenched, and then looked at Sam. "Are you okay with this?"

Sam flashed a look that made Josh realise that Sam had failed to keep up with what was being said. Josh knew that when he was fully alert, Sam would have understood every nuance of the conversation and then explained it all to Josh. But Sam was not fully alert, he was barely awake. "Josh, to be honest-" Sam stopped talking and swallowed. "I really think I am going to throw up this time."

"Not on my carpet," Leo exclaimed and he dived behind his desk for the waste bin.

After a while, the dry heaves stopped, and realizing he hadn't answered Josh, Sam leant back against the sofa and said, "I'm not sure I really caught the finer points of the conversation, but there seemed to be quite a lot of smiling going on so I'll take it that things are working out well."

Josh smiled. "We're the upside down frown gang." He started to hoist Sam up.

"Which is better than being the 'we've all perpetrated a lie again' gang," Toby said.

Josh started to walk out of the room but Sam stopped and turned towards Toby. There was a pause as both men looked at each other. Josh turned back; he knew that Sam would want some sort of assurance from Toby that things were okay between them.

The silence seemed to stretch on unbearably, Sam looked at Toby waiting for him to speak, while Toby returned the stare, his face giving no hint of what he was about to say.

"Go get some sleep, Sam, you look ready to drop."

Josh visibly relaxed as he once more took hold of Sam's arm and steered him out of the room. CJ followed them out but Toby lingered.

"You're okay with this, aren't you?" Leo asked him.

"What, the secret apple ruse?" Toby asked.

"No, the other thing."

"Ah, the apple that dare not speak its name," Toby replied and paused before continuing. "I think it's going to be weird for a while…I think it will take a while. But I think it will be okay…after a while." Toby sat down on the sofa and Leo joined him. "What made you change your mind? When you spoke to me earlier you were talking about how to control it, how to spin it, you weren't talking about apples."

"I spoke to the President. I asked him why he thought Sam and Josh were together." Leo got up and shut the door before continuing. "It was after the President had announced he was going to run again. We all stayed late that night and I left after the President had gone back to the Residence but he came back down again. It must have been early in the morning because I didn't get away until two. Anyway, the President decided to take a stroll through the West Wing. Everyone had gone home, or so he thought."

Toby leant back as he listened to Leo. He could remember coming into work the morning after the President's announcement to find Sam asleep on his sofa. Josh had appeared a few moments later and had picked up his jacket from it. He had told Toby that he had just got in, but now the more he thought about it, Toby remembered thinking that Josh looked as if he had spent the night sleeping on a sofa as well. He now realised that he probably had.

"The communications Bullpen was in darkness," Leo continued, "and he was just about to return to the residence when he heard a voice coming from your office. He was going to go in, he was glad to find someone still around, but then he heard what was being discussed.

"I was hoping he was going to say he wasn't going to run again," Sam admitted to Josh.

"What? We talked about this, you never said that before."

"No, well, we talked about it as colleagues. I told you what I thought as a member of the senior staff but I just thought… A part of me hoped that he would say that and then we would be able to stop living a lie."

"We're not living a lie," Josh said but Sam didn't answer. "Sam, we're not living a lie." Josh sounded like he was trying to convince Sam and himself.

"I don't think I can keep doing this. We say goodnight here in front of everyone and then half an hour later you pull up outside my apartment. I let Ginger and Bonnie joke about when I'm going to stop being Washington's most eligible bachelor, and I already have. If I see you in the Mess I have to think how many times we've sat together that week before I go over. I walk all the way to-"

"We're not living a lie, Sam, we're living in a hypocritical, judgmental often homophobic world. We agreed that if anyone ever asked us, or if someone found out, we would tell them the truth. But we both know that nothing good would come of coming out now. We've left it too late to start thinking about that now."

"I know," Sam mumbled. And then more definitely, "I know, I just allowed myself to think about what it would be like if we weren't hiding 'us' and it was…it seemed more real than the life we are living at the moment."

"We're real Sam, it's just that our reality is a parallel reality."

"That's good, you should be a speech writer," Sam mumbled as he finally allowed himself to be pulled into Josh's embrace. They fell asleep, Sam next to Josh, and Josh on top of his rumpled jacket.

Leo had been sitting forward when he was telling Toby what the President had overheard, but now he had finished he turned to face him. "He told me today that if he had found out about Sam and Josh before he had overheard them that night, he would have let one of them go and it probably would have been Sam. One sex scandal is bad enough but two…"

"But he doesn't think it's a scandal now," Toby stated.

"No," Leo paused. "He doesn't."

Toby thanked Leo for telling him what the President had said and then walked back to his office. He switched off the light and replaced it with the lamp. He thought about how he felt about Sam and Josh, how he feared their revelation might change his relationship with them. He walked down to the Mess and thought about how difficult it must be for Josh and Sam to have to live their secret life. He tried to imagine being in love with someone but not being able to share it with anyone. He didn't think he would be able to do that. He stood with his hands in his pockets looking at the cakes and pastries on display but thinking of other things.

"I'm glad you came down today, I've got something you'll like."

The voice of the canteen supervisor interrupted Toby's thoughts and he looked up at her and raised his eyebrows.

"Here you go Mr Ziegler, I know how you like a nice pie," she reached over and pointed to a display of neatly cut slices. "Apple pie!" she exclaimed. She watched as Toby smiled, and then much to her dismay, begin to laugh.

As they drove home, Josh told Sam again that everything was alright, but he knew that he was now well past understanding or even caring about what Josh was telling him. At a set of lights, Josh pulled up level to a hotdog stand. The smell drifted into the car and Sam dived out of it and threw-up over the sidewalk. As Josh ran around the front of the car, he was suddenly aware of how successful they had been at presenting themselves as just two friends, the reaction of Toby and Leo had told him just how successful. They had been living a secret life for so long that it had become second nature to them. He stood by the car and waited for Sam to finish, when what he really wanted to do was go over to him, rub his back, place a hand on his forehead, comfort him. He pulled the seatbelt around Sam and, in defiance of all their strict rules, sneaked a kiss as he reached over to fasten the belt.

Once inside the apartment, and after the curtains had been pulled, Josh pulled Sam towards him. He soon realised he was actually keeping him upright and so began the short journey to the bedroom. Sam collapsed onto the bed and Josh rid him of his shoes, pants and shirt and pulled back the comforter.

"I'm going to sleep in the other room," he whispered as he kissed Sam good night. A mumble came in reply.

Josh went over to the curtains to make sure that no light could sneak in later. He unplugged the alarm clock and phone and took Sam's cell phone and pager from his coat, switched off the cell and took the pager with him.

Josh had slept for eight hours and been awake for six by the time he heard a clatter followed by an 'Ow!' from the bedroom. He looked at the door expectantly and couldn't hide a grin when Sam appeared looking completely disheveled but decidedly better than he had the day before.

"You unplugged the lamp," Sam complained. "I tripped." Sam rubbed his ankle and then came and sat next to Josh. "What time is it?"

"Twelve o'clock. You've been asleep for fourteen hours."

"Wow, that's-" Sam yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"That's what?"

"Sorry?"

"Doesn't matter."

Josh put the newspaper on the floor and Sam moved to lie against him and closed his eyes. For a moment Josh thought he was falling asleep again but then Sam's eyes opened and he looked up at Josh.

"You're the apple in my dream," he said.

"Okay…you're the cream in my coffee," Josh countered.

"What?"

Josh stared down at Sam's perplexed expression. "Oh, sorry, I thought we were doing the song lyric thing."

Sam smiled and shook his head. "No, I meant in my dream…the apple that I want in my dream- it's you. I finally figured it out. All the other boys wanted a donut but I wanted an apple."

"Forbidden fruit," Josh said.

"I'm happy with the apple. I never told you the end of the dream." Sam shifted and made himself more comfortable against Josh. "When the other boys finish their donuts they come over to me and ask me what my apple was like but I don't tell them. I always just say that I had a donut."

"Always? You've dreamt this a lot?" Josh asked.

"Two years," Sam confessed, "but here's the thing- this time it was different. I told them that I didn't like donuts, I liked apples. I then explained to them, in quite specific detail, why I liked apples."

Sam closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Josh's chin rested on Sam's head and he was staring into space. The two men lay quietly for a while and Sam began to fall asleep again.

"Sam," Josh whispered.

"Hmm,"

"Am I a Golden Delicious?"

Sam snorted, "No, you're a Coxes Pippen."

"Mmm, I love it when you talk dirty," Josh kissed the top of Sam's head and wrapped his arms tighter around him He would explain what had happened in Leo's office later and then they would go into work, and Sam would smile just like Josh would when they arrived in their offices to find a large slice of apple pie on their desks.